Louis René Beres
Resurrecting Trump: Reason and anti-reason in American politics
Even today, even after so much accumulated evidence of Donald J. Trump’s incapacity and malfeasance, millions of Americans regard his presidency as exemplary. This cannot be explained in terms of any inherent liabilities of...
Building Global Civilization: Humankind’s Core Obligation
“Everyone knows that the world situation in which we live is not a final one.”
Karl Jaspers, Man in the Modern Age (1951)
For the most part, human beings regard any global or planetary civilization as a naïve...
When International Legal Obligations Are Contradictory: America’s Dilemma in Ukraine
Ongoing Russian crimes against Ukraine are egregious and overlapping. Most conspicuous of these crimes are Vladimir Putin’s acts of aggression and of genocide. Jurisprudentially, even if Putin lacks any confirmable “intent to destroy” specific Ukrainian populations, Russia’s law-breaking behavior...
US legal obligation: Balancing risks of nuclear war, genocide
Vladimir Putin’s most flagrant crime against Ukraine is aggression. Certain coinciding and overlapping acts of Russian criminality, however, also evidence genocide. Even if Russian military doctrine lacks an intent to destroy specific Ukrainian populations...
America and the World: A Vital Connection
The egocentric ideal of a future reserved for those who have managed to attain egoistically the extremity of `everyone for himself’ is false and against nature.”-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man
Human “oneness” represents...
Time in Israel’s National Security
Despite Israel’s conspicuous successes on the technological side of national security, there is little evidence of any meaningful philosophical underpinnings. For the most part, the small country’s defense policies and infrastructures, though impressively complex,...
Israel, Counter-Terrorism and International Law: Challenges of Systemic Analysis
“The existence of `system’ in the world is obvious to every observer of nature, no matter whom.”-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (1959)
Whether conspicuous or obscure, terrorism presents itself as a systemic challenge. This means, inter alia,...
Viva la Muerte!: Gun Violence And America’s Culture Of Death
It’s grimly ironic. Though analyzed endlessly, America’s epidemic mass shootings remain difficult to explain. To be sure, the heinous killings are the work of starkly disturbed individuals. But this fact is true by definition. Ipso...
Could Israel Safely Deter a Nuclear Iran?
By Louis René Beres and John T. Chain
Iran's new medium range missile, Shehab-3, is shown in public for the first time at a military parade in Tehran last September. (Reuters)
Whatever their current disagreements on the reasonableness of...
Putin’s Nuremberg-Level Crimes: A Deeper Look Behind the News
n world politics and international law, meaningful explanation must always begin with the solitary human being, with the microcosm. This generalized individual, regardless of nationality, seeks to maximize one form of power above all others. In...