Reflections on the Israel-Hamas Conflict in Gaza and Stray Voltage on Genocide, Proportionality, Apartheid, Collective Punishment, and the Impact of the (Demise of) the Right of Conquest  

November 7, 2023 Human Rights & Conflict, Intl Law, Prevent/Contain Intl. Conflicts No comments

Disclaimer: The posts, views and opinions expressed on this site are completely my own and do not represent the views or opinions of my employer, the Department of Defense (DoD), the Armed Services, nor any part of the Defense Industrial Base.

It has been a long time since I posted anything to Kapok Tree. But there is just so much going on in the world with the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the Israel-Hamas conflict, rising antisemitism, flagrant violations of international law, rising national debt, etc.  I thought this might be a good time to lay a couple things on the table that might get us thinking.  I do want to talk about the conflict in Gaza and clarify a couple things on proportionality, apartheid, collective punishment and genocide, as well as do something unique by looking at the right of conquest, but I’m not going to get into an analysis of U.S. policy or what the U.S. should or shouldn’t do.  I will aim to keep my discussion confined to the topic of international law.  Let’s get into it.

The Permanence of Warfare (well, until Jesus comes back) 

What is happening with Israel and Hamas is really nothing new considering biblical truth.  Warfare and violent conflict have always been a sign of spiritual failure. 

James 4:1-3 says: 

“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures” (Bible Gateway, NKJV, 1982).  Jesus added, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52, NKJV).  This principle of ‘violence begetting violence’ applies even if the cause is just.  There’s no way around it. 

Moreover, there is no justification in international law or the Bible for an indiscriminate use of violence to deal with injustice, no matter how bad the injustice.  Warfare is not a tool to be taken lightly and used for dubious reasons when other methods of conflict resolution might prove successful.  It is important to note that God wants man to live in peace. “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:19, NKJV).   Jesus said to, “Love your enemies, and bless those who curse you” (Mt. 5:44, NIV).  It’s good to be a peacemaker. 

Having said all of that, warfare is not going away, at least not anytime soon.  Both the Council on Foreign Relations and Crisis Watch put out Global Conflict Trackers.  The CFR map reveals numerous conflicts ongoing in Africa and the Middle East, not to mention that a genuine threat of genocide exists in the Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Darfur and Nigeria.  Genocide, though, is one of those words that get tossed around and applied to all sorts of conflicts without much thought to the actual definition, often depriving genocide of its true meaning and impact thereof.   

What is Genocide? 

According to Article 2 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the term is defined as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:  

  • killing members of the group;  
  • causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;  
  • deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;  
  • imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group 
  • {and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group 

Based upon that strict definition, I do Not believe that genocide is occurring in Gaza, or in Ukraine, or to Native American Indians in the 1800’s for that matter, where disease claimed 75-90% of the dead.  I should add that motives are an integral part of proving genocidal intent, and that the convention fails to address what percentage of a group must be impacted to qualify as genocide. Genuine examples of genocide include (but are not limited to) the Holocaust and genocides in Armenia (1915-1917), Rwanda (1994), and Cambodia (1975-1979).   In the international laws of armed conflict (LOAC), Intent and Context are everything. 

Read more

Availability of Articles for Download

December 20, 2018 Uncategorized No comments

Many of the articles on this website have been available for quite some time via purchase links powered by the Ganxy e-book distribution and monetization platform. The Ganxy links have enabled me to essentially recoup the cost of a cup of coffee for each download, and many of you have taken advantage of this service. Thank you. Unfortunately, this option will no longer be possible after today (20 December).

Stop drinking all my egg nog!

Ganxy has issued a thirty (30) day notice of termination of services. As of December 29, 2018, all of their operations will shut down and will no longer be available. Thus, I am removing the Ganxy links to download many of these products effective today, as today is when I have time to do this. I could switch over to the Amazon KDP tool and effectively buy into the “de facto oligopolies in eBook and music distribution,” but I don’t have time to set that up this month. I have made a couple of these particular articles available for free temporarily. The time I have available to update this site has dwindled significantly. Thanks again for your patronage of the Kapok Tree Diplomacy site.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy

March 13, 2015 Free Content, Global Security, International Relations, IR Theories, U.S. Natl. Security No comments

What are the competing visions for a U.S. grand strategy, their objectives, premises and preferred instruments?

U.S. Grand Strategy

U.S. Grand Strategy

Robert J. Art lays out eight possible grand strategies for consideration: Dominion, Global Collective Security; Regional Collective Security; Cooperative Security; Containment; Isolationism; Offshore Balancing; and, Selective Engagement (2003, 82). These strategies are derived from national interests. I will tackle each strategy one-by-one and describe their objectives, premises and preferred instruments.

Dominion – The objective of dominion is imperial world dominance in that America acquires as much power for itself as it can, primarily through the instruments of military force and capabilities, and attempts to refashion the world in its image (Art 2003, 87-88). Art adds another view, Primacy, which is merely “superior influence” rather than total domination (2003, 90).

Christopher Layne essentially calls dominion and primacy by the term of “Preponderance,” and adds that the strategy seeks a “U.S.-led world order based on preeminent U.S. political, military and economic power, and on American values” (1997, 101). Layne explains that practicing extended deterrence and maximizing economic interdependence deal with threats to that order and will prevent the rise of a rival power (1997, 101). Read more

China’s Assertion of Sovereign Authority in the Global Commons and the Escalation of Legal Warfare in the Arctic

October 2, 2013 Global Security, International Relations, Intl Law, Intl. Political Economy, Paid Content No comments

“China’s Assertion of Sovereign Authority in the Global Commons and the Escalation of Legal Warfare in the Arctic” by Jeff Dwiggins

© Kapok Tree Diplomacy. June 2013. All rights reserved. Jeff Dwiggins.   PREVIEW

“After the Northwest Passage is opened up …  the sea route between Europe, Asia, and North America will be shortened by 5,200 to 7,000 nautical miles. Whoever controls the Arctic sea route will control the world economy and a new internationally strategic corridor.”[1]  Li Zhenfu

Topic

Competition among Arctic states is heating up over access to the Arctic’s undiscovered but potentially vast deposits of oil, natural gas and rare earth minerals.[2]  Moreover, the diminishing thickness and range of sea ice that could eventually make the Northern Sea Route significantly more accessible for cheaper and faster transoceanic shipping has also attracted the geopolitical interest of several non-Arctic states, most notably China.[3] The undeveloped resources are located almost exclusively in the legal territorial waters of Arctic states like Russia, Denmark, the United States and Canada.[4] These states have already made credible territorial claims to the United Nations and are prepared to protect their interests militarily if necessary.[5] So how will China assert its rights and interests in the Arctic without getting into a military conflict?

This essay will examine how China will redefine the Clausewitzian battlefield and utilize legal warfare (sometimes called lawfare) as an “offensive weapon” to “seize the political initiative” and shape international public opinion about the Arctic and sovereign territorial claims through non-military means, negotiations, diplomacy and international law to project power and accomplish its core national strategic objectives.[6]   It will examine China’s use of legal warfare as a preferred strategy for addressing critical challenges to China’s assertion of rights and interests in the Arctic, including the competing sovereignty and territorial claims by Arctic states and the risks, costs and uncertainty of harvesting the resources themselves.[7] Read more

Theodore Roosevelt “Citizenship in a Republic” Speech

May 9, 2013 Free Content, International Relations No comments

Roosevelt“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt “Citizenship in a Republic” speech 

The Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

We are the Stars of a Brave, New Digital World

March 4, 2013 Christian Perspective, Culture & Entertainment, Free Content No comments

(C) Kapok Tree Diplomacy. Mar 2012. All rights reserved. Jeff Dwiggins. Free Content

forget-generation-y-18-to-34-year-olds-are-now-generation-c--b32ec78adcLike the morning fog that settles across San Francisco Bay, the technological haze that permeates our society is clearly palpable during my morning commute to the Pentagon. About 50 human ‘techno drones’ stare into their smart phones and various personal technology devices for nearly the entire 75 minute bus commute, relationally disconnected and seemingly oblivious to their fellow travelers or anything else for that matter. And who can blame them? They have a job to do. And so do I. We are stars of our own personal Truman Show, watching a version of real life unfold before our very eyes while thousands of online marketers, friends, employers, government agencies and total strangers curiously watch our every move.

            Of course, each individual Truman Show is just a little bit different. Exactly how are all of us spending our time online?  Simon Kemp of Social Media Today notes that the global online population of over two billion users spends 22% of their time social networking, 21% doing searches, 20% reading content, 19% reading emails or communication, 13% on multi-media sites, and 5% doing online shopping.[1]  Kemp says the average person in the U.S. spends 32 hours per month online including eight hours per month on Facebook alone.[2] Based on what I see every day, I think those numbers are extraordinarily low. Read more

Welcome to the Kapok Tree Open House

March 2, 2013 Free Content, Kapok Tree Introduction No comments

Open HouseThanks for stopping by the Kapok Tree Open House.

I came to get down

So get out your seats and Click Around.

Click around,

Click up, click up and click down!

Just Click Around!

I know, I know, a little cheesy for a foreign affairs blog, but you get the picture. EXPLORE your world. Leave me some feedback, and I am very happy that you stopped by. God bless.

Jeff

 

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