As part of my long term plans (conquer world, enslave humanity, buy milk, etc), once I'm done with my stint of teaching in Korea I intend to return to the UK to continue my academic endeavours. Basically, I intend to put off joining the real world as long as possible.
I'm going to continue in the field of Politics as I've done before, since I aim to get started on working towards my PhD. The brilliant thing about politics is that it can cover so many different areas, but I wanted to choose an area to research that'd be not only interesting to myself, but one that I hope would be enlightening/appealling for other people to gain the results of once I'm done. So, I've narrowed it to three main areas I'm keen on looking at...
1) Modern piracy; its causes, and the lack of power other states have to prevent it
2) Total war; whether conflicts such as World War 2 are even possible in the modern context, and the most likely places for them to occur today
3) The growing trend towards federalism; why bodies like the EU, NAFTA, AU, Arab League etc are springing up, the powers that people are comfortable with them possessing, and the likelihood that international politics are likely to be conducted in such a context in the future as a norm.
So, you, as a normal person - which of the three would interest you the most?
1.
2
3. Definately.
They're all pretty interesting, though I think the answer to 1. with respect to at least Somalia is pretty obvious (poverty/lack of jobs, no functioning government, history of armed conflict - so access to weapons and people who know how and are willing to use them, nearby shipping lanes transporting vast wealth...), and I wouldn't start from the assumption that other states are powerless to prevent it.
4
Spoiler
Yay, I can count to four!
5 :D
But seriously, number 2 sounds pretty cool.
Quote from: Snarky on Sat 24/04/2010 18:09:34
They're all pretty interesting, though I think the answer to 1. with respect to at least Somalia is pretty obvious (poverty/lack of jobs, no functioning government, history of armed conflict - so access to weapons and people who know how and are willing to use them, nearby shipping lanes transporting vast wealth...), and I wouldn't start from the assumption that other states are powerless to prevent it.
Well, it's not so much an assumption that states are powerless - they keep putting more and more naval forces into the region, but to limited success. They haven't been pursuing a particularly effective course of action, and there seems a need for further study into what makes piracy bloom in Somalia, and alternative courses of action to "throw ships at it".
3. With all the 'new world order' propaganda being vomited out by Obama, Gordon Brown and their toady pals, it's best to be as aware as possible about their plans.