An Engineered Shipwreck

During the summer of 1848, a 24-year-old seaman drifted into the waters near the island of Rishiri in an open boat, by himself, off the shore of what would become the Japanese prefecture of Hokkaido. This man was named Ranald MacDonald, and he had orchestrated the whole process. Japan was a country closed to most of the world at this point due to its sakoku policy, and landing without permission meant either imprisonment or death for any foreigners who did so. MacDonald made it look like he had shipwrecked himself, and he was taken in by nearby Ainu locals and then turned over to Japanese officials in Nagasaki.

A Different Lineage

Macdonald did not fit the mold of an American who desired to explore out of pure curiosity. MacDonald came from a lineage in which his father was a Scottish fur trader, while his mother was Chinook, named Koale’xoa. His mother was a daughter of Comcomly, a notable Chinook from the lower Columbia River with diplomatic skills who had a talent for trading with the early Americans and Europeans.

Biographers claimed for decades that MacDonald’s interest in Japan began when he was a kid at Fort Vancouver, where he encountered three Japanese sailors stranded on the Pacific coast and rescued them with other soldiers from Fort Vancouver. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to support this claim; in fact, recent research shows that the Japanese sailors reached Fort Vancouver in July 1834, when MacDonald, then around 10 years old, left for another place in Canada.

The Nagasaki Classroom

Faced with an increasing number of American and British ships heading towards their waters and a shortage of Japanese speakers fluent in English, the Japanese government decided to take an extraordinary step. Far from considering him as a direct threat, they employed fourteen samurai interpreters, who had been taught only Dutch before, to study English under him. Classes took place in the place of his incarceration, a branch temple in Nagasaki, where he spent roughly seven months. There is one student in particular who distinguished himself with his ability to master English quickly. According to one historian, he was a real “language genius”: Moriyama Einosuke.

The Black Ships Arrive

Five years later, in 1853, an American fleet led by Commodore Matthew Perry appeared at the entrance of Edo Bay, demanding that Japan open up its ports for trading or else face the consequences. Moriyama, MacDonald’s student, became the main interpreter of the shogunate during negotiations with Perry and, later, with Russian and British delegations as well. The English language, which MacDonald had taught Moriyama in the guarded room in Nagasaki, became the language that kept Japan from the war, which it had no chance to win anyway.

The role of the interpreters does not include setting the political course, and Japan’s decision to negotiate rather than fight must be attributed to many other political processes at the top of the shogunate. It is, however, interesting to reflect on the fact that Japan could actually conduct such negotiations, that it could comprehend the demands of Perry and reply accordingly because of the sequence of events triggered by one foreigner who decided to use his imprisonment productively.

Though Perry was not the first American to visit Japan or communicate with the representatives of the Japanese government, he was the first American to approach the country with such a great level of firepower that Japan had to react to it. In 1846, Commander James Biddle approached Edo Bay with two ships and a trade request but without any success. The thing that distinguished MacDonald from other sailors was not his being the first. His uniqueness was in the fact that he not only visited the country but stayed here for quite a long time to teach, leaving behind one of his students who would become central in the future encounter everyone remembers.

A Legacy Forgotten and Remembered

Japan managed to avoid the process of colonization, which destroyed many Asian countries in the nineteenth century, while it faced the threat of Perry’s visit and made necessary institutional changes soon afterward. However, the translator who played a crucial role in this process learned the English language from a person who showed his interest in a “closed” country rather than his fear of it, in a time when being interested in such a country could have cost him dearly.

MacDonald himself received little gratitude for anything he did. He wrote his book regarding this incident shortly after coming back home, yet no publisher agreed to publish it, and it was printed only in 1923, twenty-nine years after MacDonald’s death. He died in 1894 in a town in the east of Washington state, forgotten, trying for years to get some official recognition for his teaching, without getting any. Japan remembered MacDonald much longer than his own homeland.

Lessons for a Modern Era

However, this story shows us that deterrence will tell you how to avoid defeat in a conflict situation. It will not teach you how to avoid the conflict itself and how to exit from it without worsening it further.

As long as we live in the era of mistrust between great nations and of the online discourse dominated by stereotypical representations of “the other side,” the lesson of the story is obvious. The bridge that was of critical importance in 1853 was not constructed by the country possessing a powerful navy. It was built many years ago by two men who could have had reasons to consider each other foreigners and foes, but decided instead to devote their scarce time to studying and teaching each other.

Many people ask, is democracy in crisis?

The question is self-diagnosing. It assumes democracy is an ideal form of government that has somehow begun to fail, and asks only to what extent and how to repair it. But this framing depends on three claims that must first be questioned: that democracy previously produced ideal results, that crisis means deviation from the ideal, and that present instability is an accident rather than a systemic feature. This essay contends that all three are, at best, conditional.

What we are observing is not so much a crisis of democracy, but as a working-out of tendencies internal to it. By democracy, I mean existing Western constitutional liberal democracies, rather than an idealized conception of rule by the people. This essay is interested in the ways that the institutionalized operation of a democracy can, or cannot, accommodate the tendencies it generates. These institutions of the liberal state are designed not to enable the operation of the will of the people, but rather to limit it. What distinguishes constitutional liberal democracy from other governmental systems is precisely its restraint upon its own mechanisms of popular rule; it is the presence of constraints upon majorities: a constitution and a bill of rights, separation of powers, independent judges, and federalism. My argument is that democratic politics now tends to create outcomes that erode the liberal framework which previously stabilized its effects. Democracy is not in crisis, but fulfillment.

The pattern is not entirely new. When the Athenian Assembly voted to invade Sicily, against Nicias’ warning that if it passed all was lost, Nicias demanded an impossible troop deployment; the Assembly granted it, and he was voted commander. The expedition was a disaster; it crippled Athens’ military might and led to a massive loss of life. Athens in many ways does not resemble modern liberal democracy, but its appetite for flattering delusion rather than stark reality clearly has not disappeared. Plato did not merely fear democracy’s potential for error, but also the way its own excesses might produce its self-destruction.

Acemoglu and Robinson rightly acknowledge the achievements of democratic states -- famine avoidance, economic growth, and inclusive institutions. However, though Acemoglu and Robinson stress democratic accountability as itself essential, these triumphs depended critically on the liberal part of the regime. Rule of law, property rights, and fair courts, which democracy once, rather fortuitously, seemed to bolster. Liberal institutions matter because they prevent momentary majorities from exhausting the future for the sake of the present. They slow politics down, fragment power, and make some things hard to do even when they are popular. In that sense, they are not democratic outputs so much as democratic restraints. The relevant issue now is whether the democratic mechanics begin to consume the liberal infrastructure they once appeared to reinforce.

None of this should be taken to mean that democracy will not or cannot persevere. When the liberal scaffolding has been already degraded; by a level of economic inequality which causes people to possess insufficient shared stakes, by fragmentation of media which causes people to lack a common epistemic basis required of liberal norms, and by spatial and cultural segregation causing the electorate to lack competing perspectives; democracy has a tendency toward outcomes which are not self-correcting, but work in a circular mutually beneficial way, exploiting epistemic and emotional deficits of the electorate and electoral strategies of politicians. If so, then the current period is not so much a crisis, in the traditional sense, as a system’s predicted outcome given the state of its institutional underpinnings.

The epistemic problems are already apparent in the act of voting itself. Bryan Caplan, in The Myth of the Rational Voter, argues that an individual voter’s decision to become informed about politics is rarely rational: a single vote is unlikely to sway any outcome, and the cost of political education outweighs the benefit for an isolated voter. This means that voters often make decisions not because of facts, but on things that feel good or carry partisan benefits. While a bad market decision directly harms the chooser, a voter’s bad choice imposes only a very small cost on that voter and can be borne only across millions, making a bad decision politically cheap to endorse. What democracy uniquely adds here is not ignorance by itself, but collective choice under conditions of radically diluted responsibility. Democratic voting processes are thus inherently suited to disseminating poor choices rather than rational ones.

By a different path, Achen and Bartels in Democracy for Realists arrive at a similar conclusion, contending that actual voter decisions are driven by partisan identity and group affiliation, not reasoned calculation over policy. The cause -- economic in Caplan’s view, sociological in Achen and Bartels’ -- may differ, but the conclusion is the same: democratic choices are structurally alienated from facts and outcomes. What voters lack is not necessarily the means to attain information, but the incentive to employ accurate information rather than the heuristic benefits offered by loyalty and affiliation.

A more complex view, developed through Dan Kahan’s work on identity-protective cognition, suggests that people are not simply ignorant, but rather “in a state of conscious opposition to anyone who would provide them with information that contradicts their deeply held loyalties or prejudices; their very intelligence can be put to work devising ever more elaborate ways to protect their desired, emotionally comfortable illusions.” In such cases, democracy might not only fail to compensate for our biases but actually reward them.

One counterargument to this criticism is that democracy inherently possesses the capacity to correct its own mistakes through the power of the ballot box. The idealized version, as articulated by Condorcet’s Jury Theorem, predicts that aggregation will be superior to any individual judgment, though this assumes an unbiased, independent electorate, precisely what we lack. Deliberative democrats such as Hélène Landemore and James Fishkin argue that deliberation is the solution to our aggregation problem. Yet real politics mostly occurs through mass election campaigns, not deliberative assemblies. Friedrich Hayek, meanwhile, relies on the idea that decentralized knowledge is superior because individuals pay a cost for ignoring information contrary to their beliefs. But with the internet and algorithms designed to filter information and push people toward content that supports their existing biases, individuals are rarely forced to confront inconvenient truths. Instead, we live in informational bubbles, where voters are not simply unaware of the truth but are rewarded for continuing to support the political system they prefer.

Secondly, there is the idea that the government in a democracy exploits both our knowledge and our lack of concern for it. The traditional Schumpeterian model of politics sees elections as contests among entrepreneurs-politicians who use ideas as advertising, while Mancur Olson posits that diffuse majorities lack the necessary incentives to address costs as effectively as motivated minorities, who bear relatively low costs to gain concentrated benefits. Combining these two visions of politics reveals an incentive structure not designed for efficiency of choice, but for distributing losses and collecting concentrated benefits. Once accuracy is no longer rewarded among the electorate, leaders are not punished for selling soothing lies; they are often rewarded for it.

Thus, the overall nature of democracy is that while voters are offered diffuse benefits, losses tend to be concentrated in certain groups that bear the high cost of policy failures, or are simply postponed until a later date. An obvious example is the Greek sovereign debt crisis, where political pledges led to the accumulation of sovereign debt that the public was later forced to cover through future taxes. Canada in the 1990s and Germany in the 2000s both had to correct their economies at a painful rate, only to find their reforms punished by the electorate.

As Bastiat famously described, the state has become “the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.” La Boétie had warned earlier that dependence on power is an addictive process; in a democracy, once people accept and receive its gifts of protection, benefits, and services, they acquire a vested interest in its continuation. Many people’s moral claims may therefore be little more than an astute perception of how to satisfy their material interests under democracy. Even when this is dressed up in the language of justice, it may still amount to a demand that present voters be permitted to consume resources whose true costs will be borne by somebody else.

Finally, structural decay complements all of these factors. Tocqueville argued that democracy’s capacity for excess could be tempered by civil society: intermediary associations and local participation can limit centralized state power. Now, these moderating forces have largely dissipated. Putnam and Skocpol document how interest groups and professional lobbyists have crowded out intermediary civic institutions, and federal power continues to rise at the expense of local government. Rather than being active, self-directed citizens, people now view politics as a consumer service. The state becomes more intimate, but citizenship becomes thinner.

Levitsky and Ziblatt point out in How Democracies Die that while voters’ ignorance helps make this possible, there is also a distinct mechanism by which elected politicians use their victories to take over the umpire class: the judiciary, election commissions, and the mass media. Hungary, under Orbán, is the prime example: without ever abandoning democratic procedure outright, the prime minister has dismantled checks and balances from within. This case is certainly an extreme and exceptional one, but it demonstrates that democratic mechanics themselves may offer no protection when elected officials are adept at using them to erode existing liberal constraints.

However, one must also acknowledge important counterexamples: the 2023 elections in Poland and Brazil’s struggle with the Bolsonaro presidency attest that even where institutions are weakened, a capacity for correction may persist, often at high social cost. This essay’s claim must therefore be modified from inevitable self-destruction to a conditional argument. Where liberal infrastructure is strong enough, and where individuals still bear significant enough personal cost from bad political outcomes to motivate information acquisition, democracy can still operate as a self-correcting mechanism. Poland suggests that correction remains possible where civic mobilization, backed by residual judicial independence, survives long institutional erosion. Brazil suggests that institutions can hold, though precariously, when courts and electoral bodies retain enough autonomy to resist populist pressure. The point is not that democracy never recovers, but that recovery becomes harder and costlier once liberal restraints have already been weakened.

Historians generally agree that democracy’s rivals have often been more catastrophic in their effects, but that is not itself an argument that the democracy that replaces them will be sustainable. Brennan may well be correct to call for more reasoned decision-making; he is wrong to assume that those removed from the popular will and installed in a technocracy would not themselves be prone to epistemic error, or that the threat of electoral removal is not itself a key check on political power. The problem may not be who governs, but what governing, under modern conditions, incentivizes.

Is democracy in crisis, then? Not in the way the question implies. What we are witnessing may be closer to normal functioning without the liberal constraints that once disguised its tendencies. Democracy is not failing to do what democracy does; it is doing what democracy does, in the absence of the institutional order that previously made its outcomes tolerable. When Plato saw Athens broken after the Sicilian disaster and the rule of the Thirty, he saw in the city’s defeat a consequence of its own appetite for delusion over restraint. If that parallel holds at all, then the answer to the question is no, democracy is not in crisis. It’s producing predictable results.

Works Cited:

Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. pp. 73–87, 372–376.

Achen, Christopher H., and Larry M. Bartels. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. pp. 1–20, 213–231, 267–296.

Bastiat, Frédéric. “The State.” In The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, vol. 2: The Law, The State, and Other Political Writings, 1843–1850. Edited by Jacques de Guenin. Translated by Jane and Michel Willems. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2012. pp. 105–106.

Brennan, Jason. Against Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. pp. 1–53, 140–230.

Caplan, Bryan. The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. pp. 1–4, 23–49, 94–141.

Condorcet, Nicolas de. Essai sur l’application de l’analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix. Paris, 1785. [See also: List, Christian, and Robert E. Goodin. “Epistemic Democracy: Generalizing the Condorcet Jury Theorem.” Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 9, no. 3, 2001, pp. 277–306.]

Fishkin, James S. Democracy When the People Are Thinking: Revitalizing Our Politics Through Public Deliberation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. pp. 1–65.

Hayek, Friedrich A. “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” American Economic Review, vol. 35, no. 4, 1945, pp. 519–530.

Kahan, Dan M. “Misconceptions, Misinformation, and the Logic of Identity-Protective Cognition.” Cultural Cognition Project Working Paper Series No. 164, Yale Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 605, 2017. pp. 1–9.

Kahan, Dan M. “Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government.” Behavioural Public Policy, vol. 1, no. 1, 2017, pp. 54–86.

La Boétie, Étienne de. The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude. Translated by Harry Kurz. New York: Free Life Editions, 1975. pp. 60–70.

Landemore, Hélène. Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. pp. 89–143.

Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown Publishing, 2018. pp. 23–24, 77–117.

Olson, Mancur. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965. pp. 1–16, 28–36, 53–65.

Plato. The Republic. Translated by G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1992. pp. 236–250.

Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. pp. 31–92.

Schumpeter, Joseph A. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. 3rd ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1950. pp. 269–283.

Skocpol, Theda. Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. pp. 127–220.

Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Rex Warner. London: Penguin Classics, 1972. Book VI, Chapters 8–26 (pp. 417–441); Book VII, Chapters 84–87 (pp. 536–538).

Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. pp. 239–250, 489–500, 661–665.

This is a guest essay from a new page called “The World of Geopolitics.” If you are interested in geopolitics and international relations, please consider subscribing.

“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

As rubble covered the grounds of Europe and Japan after WWII, a new global order emerged in which the overwhelming power of the United States and the Soviet Union prevailed over all other powers. In such a system, the two superpowers conducted their conflicts through proxy warfare, rather than direct conflict. The most notable of which took place in Indochina, when Vietnamese Communists, led by Ho Chi Minh and funded by the USSR rose to power in North Vietnam. By the 1960s, the domino had fallen in the Viet Cong. As a response, the US deployed troops to the region, without ever declaring war. But even though America joined this conflict on the basis of containing Communism, its failures led to just the opposite - a Communist Soviet proxy defeating the beacon of democracy and capitalism in direct military conflict. In retrospect, politicians and constituents alike tend to blame realist thought for the failures in Indochina. But even though realism is often judged as the perpetrator for the Vietnam War, US-Indochina policy is the antithesis of realism because of its blind optimism, failure to accept realities of guerilla warfare, and overplaying the US’s hand.

Realist foreign policy tends to reject ideological or moral considerations in favor of pragmatic national interests. As an example, realists often criticize the Iraq War because the costs of such a war don’t nearly equate to even the best possible outcome, much less the real outcome. And yet, realism is consistently framed as the perpetrator of the failures in Vietnam. As the Crimson Historical Review puts it, “Those who associate [realism] with Kissinger may see it as a hyper—militaristic school of thought.” But this accusation is misplaced. Political realism, though lacking a concrete definition, can be understood as a school of thought which sees the world through a Hobbesian lens - international actors are merely unchecked kings on a chess board who direct their pawns on the basis of national interest, not moral obligation. Thus, realists often argue that conflict is justified if a threat is perceived, even if it is not yet fully realized. It is easy, therefore, to see how people so often frame political realism as the perpetrator of the Vietnam War. But that accusation rests upon the misconception that realists are, at the core, military hawks. Realists would use force when there is a clear threat; a clear means by which the state can achieve its goal; and a clear exit strategy if success is not achieved. None of the aforementioned criteria were established in the Vietnam War. There was not a clear, credible, and powerful threat that Ho Chi Minh posed to the United States; there was not a cogent military strategy to combat Vietnamese guerilla warfare, and there was no solid exit strategy, other than carpetbombing Southeast Asia. Thus, it is clear that the Vietnam War was not an example of political realism used in practice.

When assessing whether military action is warranted or not, a political realist would not only only consider the justifications for action, but also the chances of success. As Hans Morgenthau argues in his acclaimed book, Politics Among Nations, “A rational foreign policy minimizes risks and maximizes benefits and, hence, complies both with the moral precept of prudence and the political requirement of success.” Hans Morgenthau, one of the founders of classical realism, is explaining that to take action without favorability of success is generally counter-productive. In Vietnam, though on the surface it may have appeared that the might of the American military would surely overcome Communist guerillas, American policymakers failed to take into account the mindset and the tactics of the Viet Minh. The North Vietnamese Communists saw this fight as an existential battle between Western powers and national sovereignty. Death was not an end to be avoided, but a means to achieve a goal. As a Viet Minh leader stated, “You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.” This idea was fundamental to the way that the Viet Minh fought the Americans. But American policymakers consistently overlooked these harsh realities due to a blind sense of optimism, based on feeling rather than reality. As a former Secretary of State during the war stated, “I refuse to believe that a little fourth-rate power like North Vietnam doesn’t have a breaking point.” When in reality, it turned out to be the Americans who reached their breaking point before the Viet Minh. US policy failures in Vietnam are plentiful, and many of them stem from a false preconceived notion that simply because America has a stronger military than any other civilization in human history, it can, therefore, win every war. After roughly 58,000 American deaths and $120 billion dollars, The United States learned that even if you win every battle, you may not win every war.

A realist would argue that if a war is begun, the states involved ought to have the necessary means to finish it; otherwise defeat or stalemate is inevitable. When the United States gradually began the war on Viet Minh, the ideals were not necessarily unjustifyable. Containment theory was, in fact, constructed mostly by realists such as George Kennan. What branches away from the foundations of classical realism can be understood through former President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, “we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to ensure the survival and the success of liberty.” Though a rhetorical and emotional masterclass, it was proved inaccurate that the US would be willing or able to truly “bear any burden” for the pursuit of liberty in the Viet Cong. The most important principle of international affairs is to avoid committing the state to ends which exceed the available means. In short, there are three main pillars that must all stand strong for a democracy to sustain itself in a military intervention; the state must have the necessary funds to continue the war, it must have enough skilled manpower to accomplish its goal, and it must have domestic support from its constituency. As the Vietnam War dragged on, domestic support was the first of those pillars that began to teeter. By the mid-1960s, nation-wide protests against the war raged on across college campuses. Once the domestic support fell apart, US policymakers had to make an impossible choice: either be the administration that loses the war to the Communists, or continue to aimlessly send young Americans and billions of dollars to a warzone, about which the people do not care. President Lyndon Johnson made his decision fairly clearly in his inaugural address: “I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the president who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.” But even while this decision was made, intelligence assessments proved that sending more troops and money to the region would not end the war, in fact, it may even weaken the US’s position: “I think humiliation would be more likely than the achievement of our objectives--even after we have paid terrible costs.” Essentially, countless American policymakers valued their own legacy over both the position of the United States on the global stage and the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Such a decision, though not uncommon in geopolitics, opposes realist thought because it does not value the state’s national interests at the forefront.

The Vietnam war is widely considered one of, if not the, greatest foreign policy failures in the history of the United States. But even though political realism is constantly blamed as the perpetrator for such a failure, the mistakes of US policy in Indochina actively oppose realist principles because of the US’s blind confidence, failure to understand the realities of guerilla warfare, and overestimating the might of the US military. When an unchecked king doesn’t move his pawns on the basis of national interests, it shouldn’t be a surprise when those pawns fall to another king who does.

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Zeus hurled lightning. Poseidon shook the earth. Dionysus drove men mad. The Olympians terrified humankind not because they were monsters, but because they were forces of extraordinary power operating under a different, non-human playbook.

Mythos, the name Anthropic chose for its latest AI model, is presumably not accidental.

Anthropic has released a preview of it to a limited number of tech companies, but not the public. The reason: the model has already found thousands of vulnerabilities in “every major operating system and web browser.” (the Economist) In the hands of hackers or rogue states, that capability is a weapon.

Then there is the sandbox escape. Mythos broke out of the isolated environment designed to prevent it accessing the outside world, contacted a researcher via email and made a series of public posts, without any instruction to do so. According to Anthropic, this is not just a bug. This is goal-directed behavior operating without adequate constraints, and the fix is not merely patching a bug. (The Next Web)

In this light, Anthropic’s decision to gate access to Mythos is the right call. Luckily, for now, their plan is a restricted-access program called Project Glasswing, in which partners such as Apple, Google, and the Linux Foundation will work to shore up cyber defences before public release. (The Economist)

Yet, one careful release is not enough. The next breakthrough in AI might not come from an organization as responsible as Anthropic is right now. Furthermore, there are great incentives to push forward with rapid AI adoption without concern for the risks, just one being the geopolitical competition between the USA and China. (Council on Foreign Relations)

The pressure to strip safety guardrails is not abstract. When Anthropic refused to let Claude be used for mass domestic surveillance of American citizens or to power fully autonomous weapons systems, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave the company a deadline: comply or lose its $200 million Pentagon contract. (CNN) When Anthropic held firm, Hegseth declared the company a “supply chain risk to national security,” barring Pentagon contractors from doing any business with Anthropic. He also called Anthropic’s position “fundamentally incompatible with American principles.” (CBS News) When the world’s leading superpower punishes safety-conscious behavior, that is not a good sign.

What happens when there is no one left to say no?

The Hegseth-Anthropic standoff is not just a procurement dispute. It is a preview of what happens when the incentives of national security and AI safety collide head-on, and it has direct implications for the conflicts shaping the world right now.

Consider Ukraine. Both sides already use AI for drone targeting, battlefield logistics, and signal intelligence. The question of whether a human must approve a strike before a drone executes it is not theoretical; it is being answered in real time on the front lines of the Donbas. If the norm shifts from “human in the loop” to “AI decides,” the decision to kill becomes faster, cheaper, and harder to hold anyone accountable for. A government that punishes companies for insisting on human oversight accelerates that shift.

The same logic applies to the South China Sea, where the US and China are locked in an escalating contest of military posturing. Autonomous naval systems, AI-driven surveillance, and algorithmic threat assessment are already being deployed or tested by both sides. An AI arms race in which neither power is willing to accept safety constraints for fear of falling behind the other is not a hypothetical scenario; it is the stated strategic posture of both governments. The Council on Foreign Relations has warned that 2026 may be the year in which the trajectory of AI governance is decided, and that the window for establishing shared norms is closing. (Council on Foreign Relations)

In the Middle East, AI-assisted targeting systems have already drawn international scrutiny. When an algorithm selects targets at a rate no human analyst can meaningfully review, the label “human in the loop” becomes a legal fiction. The downstream consequence is not just more civilian casualties, but the erosion of the principle that someone, somewhere, is responsible for the decision to use force. Strip that principle away, and the laws of armed conflict lose their teeth.

The pattern across all of these theaters is the same: AI makes military operations faster and cheaper, which makes restraint more costly, which makes the actors who insist on restraint look like obstacles. Anthropic’s refusal, and the punishment it received, is the civilian version of that dynamic. If no company is willing to absorb the cost of saying no, and no government is willing to protect those that do, then the safety constraints disappear not because they were technically impossible, but because they were economically and politically inconvenient.

So is AI actually controllable?

Partly. According to the 2026 International AI Safety Report, risk management in AI has improved. Many AI developers have published Frontier Safety Reports, which describe plans for the evaluation and control of AI models. Governments have created new instruments of regulation for AI, such as the European Union’s General-Purpose AI Code of Practice. Yet significant risks remain. For example, the rate of success of prompt injection attacks, where attackers give AI malicious prompts such as jailbreaking an AI, remains high. (International AI Safety Report)

But “partly” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The 2026 Safety Report also notes that the institutions responsible for AI governance are underfunded and often lack the technical capacity to evaluate the systems they are supposed to oversee. The EU’s Code of Practice is voluntary. The US has no federal AI safety legislation. China’s AI regulations are extensive on paper but designed primarily to maintain state control, not to protect populations from misuse. The gap between what the current regulatory infrastructure can do and what it needs to do is wide, and it is growing faster than the institutions are.

Mythos will not be the last model too dangerous to release publicly, and the next one may not come from a lab as careful as Anthropic. The institutions being built are imperfect, underfunded, and too slow. They are also the only real leverage we have.

Unlike the Greeks with their Olympians, we built these gods ourselves. We still have some say in the rules they operate by. The question is whether we use it in time.

Bibliography

CBS News. “Hegseth declares Anthropic ‘supply chain risk to national security.’” CBS News, 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-declares-anthropic-supply-chain-risk/

CNN. “Hegseth gives Anthropic deadline over AI military use.” CNN, February 24, 2026. https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/24/tech/hegseth-anthropic-ai-military-amodei

Council on Foreign Relations. “How 2026 Could Decide the Future of Artificial Intelligence.” CFR, 2026. https://www.cfr.org/articles/how-2026-could-decide-future-artificial-intelligence

International AI Safety Report. “2026 Report: Extended Summary for Policymakers.” International AI Safety Report, 2026. https://internationalaisafetyreport.org/publication/2026-report-extended-summary-policymakers

The Economist. “How dangerous is Mythos, Anthropic’s new AI model?” The Economist, April 8, 2026. https://www.economist.com/business/2026/04/08/how-dangerous-is-mythos-anthropics-new-ai-model

The Next Web. “Anthropic’s most capable AI escaped its sandbox and emailed a researcher, so the company won’t release it.” The Next Web, 2026.https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropics-most-capable-ai-escaped-its-sandbox-and-emailed-a-researcher-so-the-company-wont-release-it

According to Bertrand Russell, “Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau; Roosevelt and Churchill of Locke.” To what extent was he correct?

Bertrand Russell once suggested that Adolf Hitler’s ideas stem from the philosophy of Rousseau, while those of Roosevelt and Churchill are rooted in the thinking of Locke.¹ In this essay, I argue that Russell’s statement is only partially true. What does it mean to be an ‘outcome’ of a philosopher? While Hitler, Churchill, and Roosevelt’s policies show intellectual connections to Rousseau and Locke respectively, they are not direct outcomes. Instead, they are fundamental transformations of the original ideas. An ‘outcome’ of philosophical thought can manifest through direct adoption, adapted influence, or distortion, where concepts are reshaped for different purposes. Russell’s claim assumes continuity, but history reveals a disruption of ideas.

This complexity appears in both philosophical lineages. When later thinkers transform original concepts to serve different purposes, are these authentic developments, or a perversion of their ideas? Russell’s claim assumes that ideas retain their original meaning over time, rather than becoming fundamentally altered through reinterpretation and historical application. I further argue that these ideas were reshaped not because of loyalty to the philosopher’s intent but to serve a deeper tribal impulse: The desire to secure power and influence, to stay loyal to one’s own group and dominate others. This instinct to prioritize one’s own people acted as the unseen hand that transforms these abstract ideals into instruments of political purpose.

Both philosophers created vulnerabilities that enabled this distortion. Rousseau’s general will assumes moral absolutism, one collective right that all must follow, which allows later thinkers to brand dissent as immoral, going far past the ethical boundaries that he set. ² Locke established broad principles without guidance on how to concretely implement them, creating space for selective interpretation. ³

Rousseau’s philosophy centers on human nature and social corruption. Humans are inherently good but become corrupted by society’s desires. This corruption arises from private property and social institutions, creating inequality and lost freedom. As Rousseau argued, “The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society”–marking humanity’s departure from natural equality.⁴

His works ‘The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality’ and ‘The Social Contract’ explain how civilization introduced artificial inequalities. Individuals become subjugated to the general will, a collective force defining freedom not as personal choice, but as unity with the people’s will. “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains,” he famously declared, capturing the central paradox of human existence under social institutions. ⁵

Furthermore, Rousseau’s general will also established ethical boundaries that Russell’s supposed ‘outcome’ violated, requiring civic equality for all people, deliberative democracy, and universal inclusion. Rousseau envisioned true freedom through collective lawmaking. Freedom comes from obedience to laws individuals have prescribed for themselves, achieved through participating in the general will representing collective interest. Society should allow individuals to collectively determine laws, ensuring equality and freedom for all kinds of people.

However, Rousseau’s core assumptions created interpretive vulnerabilities. The moral authority of the general will and his anti-pluralist views left room for misinterpretation as ideas diffused. Originally grounded in democratic ideals, these concepts were reinterpreted to legitimize state dominance and suppress individual freedom through moral unity. By defining freedom as obedience to collective will while rejecting pluralism, Rousseau created a framework easily used to justify repression. This absolutism excluded moral compromise, positioning opposition as attacks on truth itself.

As the ideas of Rousseau diffused throughout history, they were reinterpreted in ways that diverged from his original democratic intent. His ‘general will’ was intended for democratic unity, however its abstraction and moral absolutism created an ideological rigidity that left room for distortion.

Philosopher Johann Fichte built upon this idea, redefining it in ethnonationalist terms by introducing the concept of ‘Volksgeist,’ or national spirit, positioning the state as the ultimate moral authority. Hegel further reinforced this idea, elevating the state to the position of the highest expression of ethical life, where one’s life only becomes meaningful through subordination and dedication to national unity. Other thinkers like Treitschke, Wagner, Gobineau, and Chamberlain deepened this shift, blending state absolutism with racial myth further glorifying the German people, culminating in Hitler’s fascist vision.⁶

What began as Rousseau’s theory of civic unity and democratic liberty was fundamentally repurposed. These ideas, once tied to Rousseau, were entirely reoriented to serve nationalism and racial purity. This was not a logical extension of his philosophy, but rather a radical distortion, enabled by the ambiguity and absolutism within Rousseau’s original framework.

Hitler’s Nazi regime enforced unity through race and violence. Hitler’s version of the general will replaced civic unity for all with racial conformity and state violence. The general will in Rousseau’s hands was a democratic ideal, but Hitler turned it into a mechanism for authoritarian control and ethnic exclusion.

This was evident in policies like the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews of citizenship, and ‘Gleichschaltung,’ which removed pluralism in favor of ideological conformity. As Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “The state is a means to end… [of] a community of physically and psychically homogeneous creatures,”⁷ which reveals a vision rooted not in Rousseau’s inclusive civic unity, but in an exclusionary racial ideology that defined political legitimacy by ethnic sameness and vilified so-called ‘degenerate’ elements of society presented by the diversity of peoples, portraying them as unworthy of belonging.

Thus, while Rousseau’s absolutism aimed at moral clarity, it laid a philosophical groundwork exploitable by malevolent actors to reframe it into a justification for domination. Hitler co-opted the concept of collective will, not to promote civic unity, but to elevate a racially defined ‘people,’ the so-called Aryans, while systematically dehumanizing and persecuting those deemed decadent or alien, most notably, the Jews.

This transformation was not an accident–but a purposeful repurposing over time–driven not by philosophical allegiance, but by the will to power. As the ideas of Rousseau diffused, they instrumentalized Rousseau’s language to legitimize and increase the influence of their own peoples–a political project rooted in domination, conquest, and the elevation of a singular group, their own tribe. The moral vocabulary was Rousseau’s, but the underlying motive? The pursuit of total influence and exclusionary supremacy.

John Locke’s philosophy is based on ideas of empiricism. Central to his philosophy was his belief in the concept of ‘tabula rasa.’ Where all knowledge is acquired through experience and observation and not divine revelation or innate ideas. Additionally, Locke believed that every person is born with inalienable, natural rights: life, liberty, and property. These are the foundations of a legitimate government system, formed by the consent of those being governed to protect these rights. ⁸

However, Locke’s philosophy, while morally powerful, is philosophically broad and underspecified. His concepts of natural rights and government by consent are overly abstract and flexible due to the fact that he gave very little guidance on how these principles should be applied in different situations, leaving significant room for interpretation.

For example, his idea of ‘consent of the governed’ is ambiguous as he did not concretely define how such consent is obtained, measured, or maintained over time. His faith in just principles leading to just institutions underestimated how those same principles could be selectively applied or manipulated depending on political necessity or ideological intent.

This malleability of ideas is evident in the political ideas and actions of both Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. While both were important advocates for liberal democracy, they also enacted policies that conflicted with and contradicted Locke’s original principles.

For instance, Churchill authorized the suspension of habeas corpus during WWII through Defense Regulation 18B, which allowed for the internment of individuals without trial.⁹ This directly contradicts Locke’s emphasis on due process and the sanctity of individual rights. Furthermore, Churchill’s defense of the British Empire and opposition to Indian self-rule violates Locke’s foundational idea that legitimate government must be based on the consent of the governed.

Domestically, Churchill upheld ideas of liberty, yet abroad, he maintained colonial dominance, showing a selective application of Locke’s supposedly universal principles. This demonstrates how Locke’s broad framework could be interpreted to justify contradictory positions depending on political context and necessity. Churchill’s selective application of Lockean shows how he is impacted by a desire to elevate his own group of people, his tribe. His vision of liberty was not universal but bounded by what he saw as civilizational hierarchy. He extended sovereignty to those he deemed capable of self-governance while maintaining a tight grip over those he considered racially or culturally inferior. Like Hitler’s exploitation of the collective will to elevate the Aryans, Churchill elevated the English civilization as the natural bearer of liberty, treating Indian independence not as a right, but as a threat to the natural rights Locke proposed.

Roosevelt also diverged from Locke’s philosophy through his actions and policies, though in different ways. In his Four Freedoms speech, Roosevelt introduced concepts like ‘freedom from want,’ expanding the meaning of liberty to include economic security. This shifts from Locke’s idea of liberty as freedom from government interference to a more proactive role of the state in ensuring welfare. Moreover, his most stark violation of Lockean principles emerged through actions such as Executive Order 9066, forcibly evacuating over 120,000 Japanese-Americans from the West Coast. It was enacted without explicit public consent, challenging Locke’s principle that governmental power must protect the natural rights of all individuals and is justified through the consent of the governed. ¹⁰ This clearly reveals the selective nature of Roosevelt’s commitment to the natural rights of all people: while championing freedom and democracy for white Americans, he systematically denied life, liberty, and property to those he deemed outside the national tribe.

Thus, Roosevelt’s departure from Lockean limitations stemmed not just from economic necessity but from a tribal understanding of American exceptionalism. The New Deal represented a desire for power of a particular version of American identity. One that expanded federal authority to protect his group of people against economic forces. Japanese-American internment camps serve as the clearest example of how tribal impulses could override the very Lockean principles he claimed to defend. The Four Freedoms speech reveals this tribal aspect: freedom was to be secured for Americans and their allies, where economic nationalism and wartime policies showcase how quickly universal principles could be subordinated in order to prioritize group survival and dominance.

Both leaders, despite operating within Lockean frameworks, ultimately deviated from his ideas by subordinating abstract principles to tribal loyalties. Churchill to imperial civilization, Roosevelt to American nationalism. This tribal desire for power manifested not as philosophical consistency, but as the pragmatic use of ideas to advance their respective peoples’ interests.

Therefore, the core flaw in Russell’s statement lies in its assumption of direct outcome, rather than acknowledging the multifaceted process of reinterpretation. Rousseau’s belief in a singular moral general will, a form of moral absolutism, enabled later authoritarian thinkers to suppress dissent in the name of virtue. Locke offered a highly abstract conception of natural rights and government by consent, but his failure to specify implementation allowed vastly different interpretations to emerge.

Ultimately, Russell’s assertion that Hitler stems from Rousseau, and Roosevelt and Churchill from Locke, captures a partial glimpse of the truth, but oversimplifies the relationship between philosophy and historical action. While the ideas of Rousseau and Locke influenced later political developments, the transformations they underwent through time and context mean that Russell’s statement should reflect correlation rather than direct philosophical causation, leaving him only partially correct.

They diverged from these philosophical principles not merely out of misunderstanding, but because of a deeper, more fundamental desire for control, legitimacy, and historical influence. In this light, Rousseau and Locke provided lofty ideas as tools to be used as pretext for the return to something far more primal.

Beneath the surface of enlightenment and reason lay the ancient impulse to dominate, to reassert the tribe over the individual, and to bend ideology to serve ambition.

References:

1. Russell, Bertrand. History of Western Philosophy. Simon & Schuster, 1945.

2. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract. Translated by Jonathan Bennett, Early Modern Texts, 1762, pp. 6-54. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/rousseau1762.pdf.

3. Griffith, Mark F. “John Locke’s Influence on American Government and Public Administration.” Journal of Management History, vol. 3, no. 3, 1997, pp. 224–237. https://doi.org/10.1108/13552529710181578.

4. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men. Translated by Ian Johnston, ETH Zurich, 2009, pp. 11–31. www.files.ethz.ch/isn/125494/5019_Rousseau_Discourse_on_the_Origin_of_Inequality.pdf.

5. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract. Translated by Jonathan Bennett, Early Modern Texts, 1762, pp. 6–54, https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/rousseau1762.pdf.

6. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Simon & Schuster, 1960, pp. 97–113.

7. Bengtsson, Staffan. “The Nation’s Body: Disability and Deviance in the Writings of Adolf Hitler.” Disability & Society, vol. 33, no. 3, 15 Jan. 2018, p. 9, https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2018.1423955.

8. Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Edited by Rod Hay, vol. V in The Works of John Locke. A New Edition, Corrected, printed for Thomas Tegg et al., 1823. York University, 2025. PDF, pp. 105–167, https://www.yorku.ca/comninel/courses/3025pdf/Locke.pdf. Accessed 9 June 2025.

9. Hansard, UK Parliament. “Defence Regulation 18B (Re-Consideration).” 16 June 1944. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1944-06-16/debates/863d990b-64d6-47cd-a24b-2db8b12b37f0/DefenceRegulation18B.

10. Schumacher, Luke J. “Franklin D. Roosevelt, World War II, and the Reality of Constitutional Statesmanship.” Texas National Security Review, 9 May 2024. https://tnsr.org/2024/05/franklin-d-roosevelt-world-war-ii-and-the-reality-of-constitutional-statesmanship/.

This is a guest essay from a new page called “The World of Geopolitics.” If you are interested in geopolitics and international relations, please consider subscribing.

Once the dust settled in Europe and Japan after the Second World War, a new world order began to emerge, in which the United States and the Soviet Union stood as the only two global superpowers. The bipolarity between the Soviet Union and the United States was dangerous but peaceful. For the most part, middle powers sided with either pole, on the basis of morals and shared ideology (at least theoretically). But when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the United States stood as the unipolar power in the international system. This new development ushered in a world in which great powers faced few international threats compared to those faced by the behemoths of the prior century.

Today, the world order is experiencing another transition. China, Europe, Russia, and others hold great power, rivalling that of the United States. But even after years of this transition, the uncertainty of this new order remains vast. The new international system is complicated, and not yet defined. But to understand what it might look like - and the role of middle powers within it - the contemporary Middle East and Napoleon-era Europe are perfect places to examine

This essay presents three different, yet connected theses about our new world order:

1) The perception of a grave threat guarantees a fluid and transactional system of alliances.

2) Pragmatic (or realist) foreign policy exists as a reaction to geopolitical threats, hence it is less prominent in times of peace, like the post-Cold War era.

3) Recent geopolitical tensions and actions can be easily understood through the lens of points 1 and 2, using historical (Napoleon-era Europe) and contemporary (the contemporary Middle East) examples.

The first and most prevalent pattern, which seems to repeat throughout all multipolar systems, is that alliances are transactional, fluid, and pragmatic rather than ideological and constraining. In the early 19th century, the European balance of power consisted of a multipolar system in which Napoleon’s power was countered by a large rival alliance which was made up of Russia, the United Kingdom, and Austria, while the French alliance included Bavaria, and to some extent, Spain. The point of this information is not to educate you about 1805, but rather to show that in this multipolar system, Russia was not aligned with Austria and the United Kingdom because they supported the same football club or political philosopher; But because France posed such a grave threat that a pragmatic transactional alliance was much more strategically sound than an ideological one. Bavaria, similarly, was not aligned with France because it fancied the same style of croissant as Napoleon, but rather because they sought common strategic national interests that worked hand in hand. Compare this form of international relations with that of the ‘rules based international order’, a unipolar system in which ideology was fundamental to the ways in which foreign affairs were conducted. The United Kingdom and France, for example, were aligned with the United States for many reasons, but especially because they were ideologically compatible, all placing an emphasis on enlightenment ideas such as liberty and democracy.

The contemporary Middle East, another multipolar system (albeit a regional one), is the latest example of what alliances might look like in the future of the international system. States in the Middle East have lived under a multipolar regional system for decades, and they understand what that means better than most other states. For example, in September of 2025, Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense deal with Pakistan, indirectly abandoning the United States as its indispensable defense partner - not because the Saudis shared similar styles of governance with Pakistan, but because Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), the Saudi Arabian ruler, saw in Pakistan a better opportunity for security in a time of rising regional threats. This was a strategic transactional shift based on a rising threat, rather than an ideological shift. Similarly, the UAE has covertly been funding and arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan. But is Mohammad bin-Zayed (the Emirati ruler) doing this because he likes the colors of the RSF flag? Or because he sees a strategic national interest in countering Saudi influence in the Horn of Africa, during a time when regional influence in the Horn is highly prioritized? In a multipolar order, states feel that their international counterparts could grow into powerful and malevolent competitors, if not existential threats. This fear causes states to act as powerfully and as pragmatically as possible.

The second pattern in the contemporary Middle East that can help predict the role of the middle powers in our emerging global multipolar system is its ‘free market’ of alliances, as opposed to the locked coalitions of the old system. The first and most obvious example is the growing schism between the UAE and Saudi Arabia (for an in-depth analysis of this shift, see my previous essay, here). Until December of 2025, the UAE and Saudi Arabia were aligned as a Sunni counter to the great regional influence of Iran, a Shiite power. But since October 7th, 2023, Iranian regional power has been vastly degraded by U.S. and Israeli military operations, and by internal strife. Without a powerful common enemy, the foreign policies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE began to diverge and, in many cases, to conflict. Without the necessity of an alliance with the UAE, Saudi Arabia swiftly and effectively shifted to other regional counterparts such as Turkey, Pakistan, and Qatar. Simultaneously, the UAE shifted its alignment towards India and Israel. These free-flowing alliances are more potent in the Middle East than anywhere else in the world because Middle Eastern states understand multipolarity. In such a system, they know, the safest and most effective form of alliances are transactional and fluid, rather than ideological and constraining.

These patterns in the Middle East do more than help us predict the future of global multipolarity. They also cast Donald Trump’s foreign policy, with its extreme shifts, in a new light. Trump’s conduct of foreign affairs has often been criticized as hawkishly pragmatic, to the point of amorality. While subject to valid critiques, such as foreign policy is not entirely unexpected. Rather, it is an extreme form of an approach that a leader in a shifting multipolar system would naturally take. For example, compare MBS’s regional shifts with Trump’s: Saudi Arabia partially replaced its reliance on the United States for defense because MBS saw greater benefit to the Kingdom through a Pakistani defense deal than solely an American one. Saudi Arabia did not change its policy because of an ideological divergence from the US; rather, MBS saw an opportunity for greater security in an inherently insecure multipolar system. Trump, similarly, has recently shown great hostility towards America’s NATO allies. But Trump is not rewriting US-NATO relations because the US is no longer ideologically compatible with Europe; rather, his approach reflects the belief that if an alliance isn’t producing enough results, it should face major reform or complete dissolution. Alliances are always questioned for effectiveness, of course, but in a multipolar system of fluid and transactional alliances, leaders like MBS or Trump feel more at liberty to reform their alliances - or even dissolve them altogether.

But European relations are not the only setting in which these parallels are clear. In January, 2026, the United States launched a military operation to capture the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and remove him from authority. To many, this seemed like an irrational and irresponsible policy on the part of the United States. You do not have to agree with the intervention, but to understand the strategic justification and the broader logic behind such an operation, one must understand the reality of multipolarity, in which all states are in a constant state of fear that an international counterpart will grow into a malevolent behemoth which seeks to destroy them. This great fear causes states to act as powerfully and pragmatically as possible. In other words, pragmatism is a reaction to “the fear of (or the desire for) the shifting of the balances of power.” (Forging the Modern World, James Carter and Richard Warren) Hezbollah, Iran, China, and Russia have all been involved in Venezuela, and the United States has perceived this as a direct threat to American interests. With great fear often comes a great showcase of power. The United States conducted such a showcase on January 3rd, 2026, capturing Maduro and his wife. From the perspective of the previous international system – based on rules and ideological alliances – this military operation was an immoral, unjust, and chaotic show of power. But this outlook disregards a fundamental pattern of multipolar systems: that multipolarity demands a more pragmatic and strategic approach to foreign affairs.

To be sure, a pragmatic foreign policy is not isolated to multipolar systems. For example, the United States armed and funded the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to help counter Soviet aggression (during a famously bipolar international order). The US and the Mujahideen were, by no definition, ideologically aligned. But they shared a common goal of impeding Soviet military control. Pragmatism is a principle based on fear. When fear is isolated to one other great power, as in the Soviet Union to the United States, pragmatism is still present, but mainly isolated to confrontation with the opposing great power. Multipolar systems, on the other hand, guarantee that almost every other state either is an existential threat, or could quickly become one. This forces a sense of pragmatism on the highest scale in which all states feel existentially threatened - and from all directions. The new world order is not yet fully developed, and its alliances are not yet fully shaped, but to better understand how it may look, one must understand the realities of a world with more threats.

This is a guest essay from a new page called “The World of Geopolitics.” If you are interested in geopolitics and international relations, please consider subscribing.

As the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union both began to crumble, the United States stood as the unipolar power in the international system. Since then, American policymakers have based their foreign policies on the expansion of democracy. In some cases, this idea worked beautifully, as in Cambodia and (to some extent) Liberia. But in other cases, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, American foreign policy, which was centered on the fundamental principle of the expansion of democracy, failed miserably. Since those failures, Americans on both the left and right of the political spectrum have questioned this policy’s validity and effectiveness. So what should American interventions really be based on? Should the United States focus its foreign policy on the expansion of democracy - or on something else entirely?

Sprouting from the rubble of Cambodia at the end of the Vietnam War, a Communist movement (the Khmer Rouge) swept through the country and established itself as the governing body. For years, the Khmer Rouge executed one of the deadliest mass-killings in the 20th century. It slaughtered around 2 million Cambodians, mostly Khmer Buddhists, because of their class, education, and perceived disloyalty to the state. Buddhist Monks and other religious leaders were also killed because the concept of religion was banned - the Khmer Rouge believed that loyalty should be to the state above all else. In the late 1970s, Vietnamese forces toppled the Khmer Rouge as the governing entity in Cambodia, but what was, at first, a controlled genocide turned into armed chaos. This instability continued until the early 1990s, when the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) sought to bring democratic reforms to the state. By the end of 1993, UNTAC established a relatively functioning democratic system and popular elections were legitimized. Though not a Western liberal democracy, Cambodia functioned as a constitutional monarchy with democratic reforms. The UN’s success in establishing a constitutional electoral system in such an unstable region brought hope across the West of a multilateral system in which freedom could sing the same song abroad that it did in Washington. In the case of Cambodia, the use of democracy as a foreign policy of Western states was an incredibly effective and moral approach to international relations. It was thought that a new era was being ushered in, in which great powers would have the ability to bring a liberal enlightenment to non-Western societies. After Cambodia, the Western multilateral force focused its foreign policy on other unstable regions, with the intention of bringing about liberal democracy; the first of these was Somalia.

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In the 1990s, Somalia was undergoing a violent civil war in which food was used as a weapon. Starvation and famine ensued after supplies were cut off to certain civilian populations. President George H.W. Bush saw this instability as an opportunity to showcase American power as a force for good throughout the world. The U.S. led the U.N. in Operation Restore Hope, in which the U.N. would provide food relief through airdrops and take control of certain shipping lanes. This started as a very successful intervention - the famine, which was at one point fatal, became much more manageable. But quickly American and international intervention shifted from simply food relief, to impeding the ongoing civil war, in which Mohammad Farah Aidid sought to overthrow the dictator in control of the country. Aidid’s militia was furious at the Americans for preventing his regime from taking power. So, on October 3rd, 1993, Aidid’s militia shot down four Black Hawk helicopters – and killed 18 Americans. In the first year of the Clinton presidency, the United States evacuated its forces out of Somalia. This concluded the first failure of the so-called “New World Order”. What started with good intentions resulted in further chaos in Somalia and 18 dead Americans. Democracy was, by no definition, achieved from US intervention. This started the period of American history when intervention was seen as an obstacle, not an opportunity. American foreign policy, which was initially focused on spreading freedom and food, became focused on limiting intervention to avoid another failure like Somalia.

In the beginning of this essay, I posed a question: Should America focus its foreign policy on the expansion of democracy? Over the last 30 years, there have been two main narratives seeking to answer this question. The first is that America should solely value its strategic national interests, even if that means overlooking humanitarian crises. From this perspective, democracy in Somalia or Cambodia has no importance for an American mother who struggles to pay for her healthcare, or a father who can’t pay his mortgage. According to this narrative, America should intervene only when there is a clear strategic justification. Intervention for the sake of democracy or morals is a misinterpretation of how a state should be governed.

From the alternative perspective, democracy and human rights should be at the forefront of all foreign policy. If any injustices are happening abroad, it is the United States’ duty, as a global superpower, to bring freedom and justice to those who are oppressed. This perspective also advocates for democracy-based intervention on the basis that it is in the U.S.’s best interests for as many states to function as democracies as possible - trade is increased, intelligence is sometimes shared, and new alliances can be created. Morality and U.S. interests are held at a similar level of importance, from this perspective, but human rights should generally guide foreign policy.

Both of these perspectives misinterpret a key idea that leads to many foreign policy failures: there is no one answer to foreign affairs. The expansion of democracy is a worthy goal, but that doesn’t mean that Somalia in 1993 could suddenly democratize simply because there were American boots on the ground. Strategic interests are fundamentally important to foreign policy, but non-intervention in a genocidal crisis like Rwanda in 1994 was a moral failure, and a burden to America. There is validity to the idea that the United States benefits when more states are democratic, but that didn’t amount to a strategic justification for the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan.

If American policymakers can find the balance between these two schools of thought, the United States will be able to prioritize the needs of Americans - while also expanding influence and moral ideals, when necessary and possible.

In the decades following the Second World War, liberal democracy appeared to have resolved one of its oldest dilemmas: how to govern complex societies without descending into chaos or authoritarianism. The answer, increasingly, was management. As states expanded their welfare systems, regulated globalizing economies, and confronted technological change, political decision-making was gradually transferred from elected representatives to experts—economists, planners, administrators, and consultants—who claimed neutrality, efficiency, and scientific authority.

Today, this managerial logic dominates governance across much of the world. Central banks operate independently of voters. Policy decisions are outsourced to consultants and advisory firms. International institutions prescribe “best practices” to sovereign states. While elections still occur, many of the most consequential decisions affecting daily life are made far from public scrutiny. This raises a fundamental question: how did expertise come to replace democratic participation as the primary source of political legitimacy?

This essay examines the rise of managerial power as a historical process rather than a sudden takeover. Drawing on James Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution and Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality, I argue that technocratic rule emerged not because democracy collapsed, but because it was deemed insufficient for governing modern complexity. Yet in solving one problem, managerial governance created another: a growing distance between those who rule and those who are ruled.

Burnham and the Managerial Class

Writing during World War II, James Burnham argued that neither capitalism nor socialism would define the future political order. Instead, he predicted the rise of a “managerial class”—technical experts who controlled production, administration, and organization regardless of formal ownership. Power, Burnham suggested, would no longer rest with capitalists or elected officials, but with those who possessed specialized knowledge and operational control.

Burnham’s insight proved prescient. Throughout the twentieth century, governments increasingly relied on economists to manage inflation, engineers to plan infrastructure, and administrators to run expanding bureaucracies. In this system, legitimacy derived not from popular consent, but from competence. Decisions were justified as “necessary,” “evidence-based,” or “without alternative,” insulating them from democratic debate.

Crucially, Burnham did not portray managerial power as overtly authoritarian. On the contrary, it often presented itself as apolitical. By framing decisions as technical rather than ideological, managers reduced political conflict while simultaneously narrowing the space for public participation. Democracy remained intact in form, but diminished in substance.

Foucault and the Governance of Populations

Where Burnham focused on class and control, Michel Foucault approached managerial power through the lens of knowledge. In his lectures on governmentality, Foucault argued that modern states govern less through coercion and more through administration—by measuring, categorizing, and optimizing populations. From public health systems to economic forecasting models, expertise became a tool for shaping behavior. Citizens were no longer simply ruled; they were managed. Risk assessments, cost-benefit analyses, and performance indicators transformed political questions into technical problems with seemingly objective solutions. This shift had profound implications. When governance is framed as optimization rather than choice, disagreement becomes irrational. Opposition is dismissed as uninformed. Politics gives way to administration, and democratic deliberation is replaced by expert consensus. In this sense, managerial power does not eliminate democracy outright—it renders it increasingly irrelevant.

Crisis, Complexity, and the Appeal of Technocracy

The expansion of managerial governance was not accidental. It accelerated during moments of crisis: economic depressions, wars, decolonization, and globalization. Faced with instability, governments turned to experts who promised order and predictability. The rise of international financial institutions, development agencies, and global consulting firms reflected this demand for technical solutions to political problems. Yet this reliance on expertise came at a cost. As decision-making moved further from voters, public trust eroded. Citizens were told that policies were unavoidable, even when they produced inequality or social dislocation. The result has been a paradox: technocracy was meant to stabilize democracy, but has instead contributed to its delegitimization. Populist movements across the world can be understood, in part, as reactions against managerial rule. They do not merely reject specific policies; they challenge the authority of experts themselves. Whether this backlash strengthens democracy or accelerates authoritarianism remains an open question.

Conclusion

The rise of managerial power is not a conspiracy, nor is it a historical accident. It is the product of modern states grappling with complexity through expertise. Burnham helps us see how control shifted to managers; Foucault reveals how knowledge became a mechanism of governance. Together, they illuminate a central tension of the modern world: can democracy survive when expertise becomes the primary source of authority? History offers no easy answer. What is clear, however, is that when politics is reduced to management, citizens are reduced to variables. The challenge for the future is not to reject expertise, but to reintegrate it into democratic life—before governance becomes something that happens to people rather than with them.

References:

Burnham, James. The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World. Martino Publishing, 1941.

Foucault, Michel. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–78. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Weber, Max. Economy and Society. University of California Press, 1978.

Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, 1998.

Fukuyama, Francis. Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

This essay was written by Regina Balbalosa

Popular revolutions are often remembered as moments when history breaks open. Images of crowds filling public squares, regimes collapsing overnight, and long-entrenched leaders fleeing into exile have come to symbolize democratic renewal. From Paris in 1789 to Eastern Europe in 1989 and the Middle East in 2011, mass mobilization has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to remove rulers once thought immovable. Yet beneath these moments of apparent rupture lies a recurring historical puzzle. Revolutions frequently succeed in toppling leaders, but they rarely dismantle the political elites and institutional structures that sustained those regimes in the first place. Power changes hands faster than it changes form.

This essay argues that popular revolutions tend to transform leadership more readily than they transform institutions. While mass protest can delegitimize rulers and force political openings, entrenched elites—embedded in electoral systems, bureaucracies, economic structures, and social networks—often adapt to new conditions and reassert dominance. As a result, revolutionary moments are frequently followed not by structural transformation, but by continuity beneath the surface of change.

Revolutions and the Illusion of Rupture

Revolutions are commonly understood as moments of political rupture. They disrupt existing orders, undermine claims to authority, and redefine the language of legitimacy. Popular mobilization can compel concessions that would otherwise be unthinkable, including the resignation of authoritarian leaders or the collapse of long-standing regimes.

These moments generate optimism that entrenched inequalities and abuses of power will finally be addressed. In revolutionary narratives, the removal of a ruler often stands in for the dismantling of the system itself.

Historically, however, revolutionary outcomes have been uneven. Leadership change is often swift and visible, while structural transformation proves slower and far more elusive. Political elites—whether aristocrats, military officers, landed families, or economic oligarchs—possess resources that allow them to survive regime transitions. Revolutions challenge who governs, but they less frequently alter how power is organized, reproduced, and protected.

What Revolutions Change and What They Leave Intact

Mass mobilization is particularly effective at delegitimizing individual rulers. Charismatic authority collapses once public loyalty evaporates, and regimes dependent on coercion struggle when security forces hesitate to act. Revolutions also reshape political discourse, introducing new ideals of citizenship, rights, and accountability.

What revolutions often fail to change are the institutional foundations of elite power. Electoral systems frequently continue to favor wealthy or well-connected candidates. Bureaucracies remain staffed by officials trained and socialized under previous regimes. Economic structures—particularly patterns of land ownership, capital concentration, and access to credit—rarely shift during moments of political upheaval. Without institutional reform, old elites are well positioned to adapt. Revolutionary rhetoric may change, but the mechanisms through which power operates often remain intact.

Elite Persistence in Comparative Perspective

The persistence of elites following revolutionary moments is not confined to any single region or historical period. The French Revolution abolished aristocratic privilege in law, yet many former elites regained influence under Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration, adapting to new political frameworks while preserving social and economic power.

In Southeast Asia, the overthrow of authoritarian regimes has frequently been followed by the reassertion of pre-existing elites. In the Philippines, the 1986 People Power Revolution removed Ferdinand Marcos and restored formal democratic institutions. Yet political dynasties—many of which predated Marcos—quickly re-established dominance. Electoral politics rewarded families with name recognition, local networks, and financial resources, allowing elite continuity despite regime change.

A similar pattern emerged in Egypt following the 2011 Arab Spring. Mass protests forced the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, but the military establishment—long embedded within the state’s political and economic life—retained decisive influence. Leadership changed, but the underlying distribution of power did not.

These cases point to a recurring historical pattern: revolutions often succeed during moments of mobilization, but falter during moments of consolidation. Elites who control institutions, capital, and coercive power are typically better equipped to navigate political transitions than protest movements themselves.

Why Elites Outlast Protest Movements

One explanation for elite persistence lies in asymmetries of capacity. Political elites tend to possess legal expertise, organizational experience, and access to financial resources. They are embedded within institutions designed to survive political change—courts, legislatures, ministries, and security apparatuses.

Protest movements, by contrast, are often coalitions united by opposition rather than a shared blueprint for institutional redesign. While highly effective at disrupting legitimacy, they are less equipped to govern, legislate, or administer once revolutionary momentum fades.

Moreover, revolutions frequently prioritize symbolic victories over structural transformation. Removing a ruler satisfies immediate demands for justice and accountability, but restructuring institutions requires sustained coordination, technical expertise, and political compromise. In the absence of these conditions, elites can rebrand themselves as reformers, allies of democracy, or guardians of stability—re-entering power through new doors.

Protest, Power, and Historical Continuity

The persistence of elites does not render protest meaningless. Revolutionary moments expand political imagination, create openings for reform, and establish precedents for civic participation. Anti-corruption institutions, expanded civil liberties, and greater public engagement often emerge from these struggles, even if imperfectly implemented.

Yet history suggests that protest alone is insufficient to dismantle entrenched power. Lasting transformation depends on institutional redesign: electoral reform, redistribution of economic power, bureaucratic accountability, and sustained civic participation. Without these changes, revolutions risk becoming moments of elite circulation rather than structural change.

Conclusion

Popular revolutions remain among the most powerful expressions of collective political action. They demonstrate the capacity of ordinary citizens to challenge authority and reshape political trajectories. However, history cautions against equating regime change with the dismantling of elite power. From revolutionary France to Southeast Asia and the Middle East, political elites have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to survive upheaval by adapting to new institutional environments. Revolutions may transform rhetoric and leadership, but they often leave deeper structures of power intact. Understanding this pattern does not diminish the importance of protest. Rather, it clarifies its limits. Democracy is not secured at the moment a ruler falls, but in the slower, less visible process of institutional reform. Revolutions can open doors—but institutions determine who ultimately walks through them.

References:

Alfred W. McCoy, An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines

Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions

Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution

Comparative analyses of post-revolutionary transitions in France, Egypt, and Southeast Asia

Few objects better capture the ambitions and contradictions of East German socialism than the Trabant. For decades, this small, boxy car dominated the streets of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), becoming both a symbol of socialist achievement and a quiet reminder of its limitations. To its designers and political sponsors, the Trabant represented the triumph of planned industry and egalitarian access. To many of its drivers, it was simply the only car they could reasonably hope to own. In this tension between ideology and everyday life, the Trabant emerged as the defining automotive icon of East Germany.

The Trabant’s origins lie directly in the postwar political settlement of Germany. After 1949, the newly formed GDR fell under the control of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), which sought to reorganize the economy along socialist lines. Heavy industry broadly, and transportation specifically, were all brought under state planning, guided by Five-Year Plans modeled loosely on the Soviet system. Within this framework, automobiles were not luxury consumer goods but rather national social goods. The SED envisioned a vehicle that could be produced in massive numbers cheaply and be accessible to the average teacher. In the mid-1950s, this vision materialized in the Sachsenring works in Zwickau, where engineers were tasked with designing a “people’s car” for socialism.

The result was the Trabant, first introduced in 1957. From the beginning, its development was shaped less by market competition than by political priorities. Scarcity of steel and foreign currency pushed engineers to innovate with unconventional materials, leading to the use of Duroplast, a plastic composite reinforced with cotton waste. The engine was a modest two-cylinder, two-stroke, chosen for its simplicity and low production cost rather than performance or refinement.

The Trabant’s timeline closely mirrors the trajectory of the GDR itself. Through the 1960s and 1970s, production steadily increased as the state invested in expanding output without fundamentally redesigning the vehicle. While Western automakers introduced new models every few years, the Trabant remained largely unchanged for decades, although additional models such as a station wagon were introduced in the 60s. In a system that prized stability and predictability, radical redesigns were risky and expensive. As long as the car fulfilled its basic function, planners saw little incentive to innovate. The Trabant thus became a frozen artifact of an earlier industrial moment, rolling unchanged into the late Cold War.

Ideologically, the Trabant was deeply connected to socialism’s promise of equality. Official propaganda portrayed it as a car “for everyone,” a tangible demonstration that modern mobility was not reserved for the wealthy. In theory, any East German worker could apply for a Trabant and eventually receive one at a fixed, state-controlled price. Ownership was not meant to signal status but participation in a collective standard of living. This egalitarian framing distinguished the Trabant sharply from Western automobiles, which were openly marketed as expressions of individuality, success, and taste.

In reality, however, access was far from immediate. Waiting lists for a new Trabant often stretched a decade or more, making the actual accessibility of the vehicle far more limited than the SED would have liked. Yet even this delay reinforced certain socialist values. Since prices were low and resale markets tightly controlled, speculation and luxury consumption were minimized. The car one received was almost always the same as everyone else’s, reinforcing the sense of standardization that defined everyday life in the GDR. Streets filled with near-identical Trabants, differentiated only by age and minor repairs.

The comparison with Western cars, particularly brands like BMW, demonstrates the ideological divide of the Cold War. While BMW emphasized engineering performance and prestige, the Trabant rejected these values outright. It was slower, louder, and technologically outdated, yet it was also cheaper and more widely distributed within its own system. Western observers often mocked the Trabant as a symbol of socialist backwardness, but such comparisons missed the point. The Trabant was never intended to “win” against BMW on performance. Its purpose was social rather than competitive, to demonstrate that socialism could provide basic modern goods without reproducing class distinctions.

By the late 1980s, however, the gap between ideology and reality became increasingly difficult to ignore. East Germans were acutely aware of Western automotive advances, visible on television and, for some, through travel. The Trabant’s obsolescence became a quiet source of dissatisfaction, emblematic of a system unable to advance. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, images of Trabants crossing into West Germany became iconic, representing decades of constrained choice suddenly giving way to abundance.

Ultimately, the Trabant stands as a powerful symbol of East German socialism. It succeeded on its own terms by providing mass mobility and reinforcing ideals of equality and standardization. At the same time, its limitations exposed the costs of insulating production from competition and consumer feedback. Like the GDR itself, the Trabant was functional and orderly, yet increasingly out of step with a changing world. Its legacy is not simply one of failure or ridicule, but also of a distinct social and economic experiment than existed in Central Europe for four decades of the 20th century.

Works Cited

DDR Museum. “The Trabant.” ddr-museum.de. DDR Museum, May 2, 2017.

https://www.ddr-museum.de/en/blog/2017/thema-verkehr-der-trabant.

Eli Rubin, The Trabant: Consumption, Eigen-Sinn, and Movement, History Workshop Journal, Volume 68, Issue 1, Autumn 2009, Pages 27–44, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbp016

Hamer, Tony, and Michele Hamer. “The Historical Significance of the Trabant Classic German Automobile.” liveabout.com. LiveAbout, April 19, 2018.

https://www.liveabout.com/trabant-built-of-plastic-and-socialism-726030.

Koscs, Jim. “Maligned and Misunderstood, East Germany’s Tiny Trabant Left an Outsized Legacy.” hagerty.com. Hagerty Media, October 4, 2021.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/maligned-and-misunderstood-east-germanys-tiny-tra bant-left-an-outsized-legacy/.

T Mills, Kelly. “The Trabant.” Rrchnm.org. Making the History of 1989, May 28, 2021. https://1989.rrchnm.org/items/show/672.html.

This essay was written by Adarsh Yadav: a WHT Journalist

Introduction

Crisis moments have had a profound influence on the history of politics. Governments in various societies and throughout history have resorted to using emergency powers to deal with war, domestic upheavals, economic instability, or perceived internal threats to society. The conferred powers were often introduced as temporary and necessitating, wherein the authorities can act rapidly where the normal process of doing things apparently fails. The principle of security tended to override legal and institutional limitations in such situations.

However, history does not always follow this pattern, as the application of emergency powers has not often been limited to the short durations for which the power was created. Extraordinary measures that were instituted in cases of crisis, in most instances, continued to affect political systems even years after the crisis had been overcome. The recurrence of the emergency authority indicates a long-term conflict between the power of the state and individual freedom. This essay examines the patterns that emerge upon the exercise of emergency powers by reviewing their exercise and looking at what these patterns may provide to the situations of the present-day democratic society.

The History of Emergency Powers

Emergency powers are a relatively ancient idea. In ancient politics, the extraordinary power was likely to be conferred on extraordinary occasions of extraordinary jeopardy. One of the best examples is the Roman Republic, where an interim dictator could be introduced in times of acute crisis. This position was supposed to save the state by adopting decisive action to suspend regular political processes over a brief period of time.

The same practices were used in subsequent times. The special powers were often taken by medieval rulers, early modern monarchies when rebellions took place, invasions were made or there was instability. These were the suspension of laws, imposition of taxes without consent or movement reduction. This could be done by justifying that what was needed was a flexibility that was not a normal matter in how the state was run to survive.

With the development of political systems, emergency powers were formalized in legal systems to an even greater extent. Constitutions and laws tried to stipulate the time and manner in which extraordinary power was to be acquired. Regardless of the above development, the rationale underpinning such development was unchanged: emergencies were also considered eventualities where regular rules could be shelved in favor of stability. History indicates that in the few cases where there was a legal definition of emergency powers, their implications usually stretched further than the crises that their inception was created to address.

Emergency Powers and Emergency Authority Building

Although the emergency powers were a topic mainly presented as a measure of protection, they were usually followed by a substantial growth of state power in most cases. As soon as the governments were endowed with extraordinary authorities, the equilibrium between executive action and institutions was disrupted. Policies in which approval is required by law or legislation were made independently due to a sense of necessity.

Another historical trend may be seen through the history of progressive normalisation of exceptional power. Policies that started in a transitional mode to contain situations have, in other cases, become part of the government. The loss of civil liberties, increased surveillance, and the widening of police powers that were created in times of emergencies did not necessarily entirely revert to their previous conditions once they were stabilized. As time passed by, these practices transformed political institutions and changed the expectations of both the rulers and the citizens.

Another impact on the operations of accountability orders was the emergency powers. Courts and legislatures were often marginalized; debate and deliberation were depicted as barriers in the way of taking quick action. This marginalisation undermined institutional checks and reduced the chances of challenging the law. In others, the authority to suppress dissent or silence opposition was applied through emergency powers and it becomes difficult to differentiate between actual threats and political disagreement.

There was a historical trend that emergency powers were not reactionary to crisis, they had a neutral or reflexive aspect. Even though they worked on short-term issues, they have also prepared a situation where power might be concentrated. Such consolidation usually had long term effects that were usually felt after the emergency had calmed.

Past Recollections and Present-day Democratic Issues

Emergency powers are an experience that is still pertinent to democratic initiatives in the contemporary world. The modern states still rely on extraordinary power in time of crisis, armed conflict, a sudden epidemic, and a threat to security. Although the democratic form of government is not similar to other types of pre-democratic governments, history does provide handy insights into the dangers of such a government.

Among other things, it can be understood that legal authorization is not a solution to the risks created by emergency powers. Although extraordinary measures may be introduced by extraordinary means, whether constitutional or statutory, weakening of the democratic norms may still take place when supervision of such extraordinary measures is going little. Past experience shows that the destruction of the safeguards may take place most of the time through a gradual process rather than sudden shifts.

The other lesson is that it is not easy to establish the termination of an emergency. Crises that occurred in history have hardly straight edges, and it is easier to continue making transitory actions. Here, the significance of meaningful time and scope limits is emphasized. In the absence of such limits, the alternative political systems can be transformed by emergency governance in unintended ways.

Lastly, history shows how fear on the part of the population was used to increase the power of the state. Uncertainty has tended to make societies open to making compromises through restrictions to get security. The awareness of this trend leads to a more careful attitude to the powers of emergency, which appreciates thoughtfulness as well as necessity.

Conclusion

According to history, the emergency powers always took a precarious position between kindness and control. They have been introduced in reaction to extraordinary situations and, in many cases, made themselves indelible in the political and legal institutions. The demand to act swiftly and decisively was real in the case of emergencies, although it posed a chance of expansion of authority far more than usual.

Analyzing the way in which the emergency powers have worked historically, one is able to see the patterns and consequences common to them. These historical lessons do not imply the avoidance of emergency powers, they highlight the lessons of care, control and caution. To contemporary democracies, these lessons can assist them in making sure that the answers to the crisis would not hamper the very values that they are trying to protect.

Each year, millions of students take the SAT, with studies showing that a good proportion of students are experiencing significant increases in their stress and anxiety: “On average, students had 15 percent more cortisol in their systems the homeroom period before a standardized test than on days with no high-stakes testing.” When created, the SAT was intended to create a standardized method of identifying talented students from across the country and was seen as a large step towards educational equity. However, as its influence grew, the SAT shifted from a means of opportunity to a defining restrictor in higher education. The implementation of the SAT dramatically reshaped the college admissions process by pressuring institutions to prioritize specific student archetypes, often at the expense of equal—if not more valuable—forms of intelligence.

Before the creation of the SAT, admissions officers relied on a more holistic approach when reviewing applications. Written essays highlighted students’ voices and individual experiences, allowing schools to focus on the character of the individual applicant rather than standardized comparisons between applicants. In addition, professors often looked at a student’s performance in subjects such as Latin and Greek to evaluate their academic abilities. However, this began to change during World War 1. At the time, psychologist Robert Yerkes used an IQ test to recruit members of the Army. By 1923, Carl Brigham started working with Yerkes in hopes of transforming this IQ test into a test that could be easily administered to students. On June 23, 1926, the first official SAT was launched by the College Board to 8,000 highschool student test-takers, with the goal of implementing a nationwide standardized exam. By 1935, Harvard required all of its applicants to submit an SAT score, signifying a shift in admissions practices. What was the rationale for the SAT? Well, at the time, “​​Proponents of admissions tests argued that using the SAT made admissions more progressive and fair. One president of Harvard … saw the SAT as a great equalizer, a test that would allow Ivy League universities to diversify their student bodies based on intelligence rather than family connections.” Initially intended to create a more equal admissions process, the SAT quickly gained momentum. This marked a broader transformation in educational values, as colleges started to shift away from assessing well-rounded students through personal character, and instead favored numerical metrics that claimed to quantify intelligence and academic potential.

The national implementation of the SAT created an artificially narrow archetype of the “ideal” student. The SAT led colleges to focus on students who excelled in analytical rather than creative intelligence, specifically within verbal reasoning and math. As a result, the educational system became more test-centric, creating learning environments shaped around the demands of standardized testing rather than the pursuit of intellectual curiosity. A current example of this is the rise of SAT prep centers, emphasizing performance over genuine academic enrichment. A local prep center in Closter, NJ, reveals their narrow success strategies: “Prestige provides the best SAT prep courses that help students learn just what they need to achieve competitive scores fast.” These institutions focus on pattern recognition and test-taking strategies instead of valuing actual mastery of the material. Specifically, features like the Desmos calculator on the math section incentivize students to use calculator shortcuts instead of conceptual problem-solving. This shift has disproportionately benefited students of a higher socioeconomic status, as they can afford extensive test preparation, deepening existing class disparities in college admissions.

The SAT has marginalized students from less privileged backgrounds, reinforcing a biased definition of merit. Originally named the “Scholastic Aptitude Test,” the test was renamed simply to the “SAT” to avoid the implication that the test measured innate intelligence rather than learned skill. This switch showed that the outcome of a given student was not a representation of their intelligence; however, the SAT continued to be treated as a meritocratic benchmark. Additionally, students from less fortunate backgrounds are prone to increased levels of stress when completing these tests: “Students from the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, with both the highest rate of poverty and crime, saw the largest changes in cortisol in advance of testing, suggesting that their scores were the most affected — and therefore the least valid measures of what they actually knew.” This suggests that the SAT may not be a good assessment of academic ability, as it can be heavily influenced by alternative factors, such as stress, that disproportionately affect underprivileged students. This further undermines the credibility of using the SAT as a national measurement of merit.

The rise of the SAT has led to a more reductive approach when evaluating applicants. Admissions officers, under pressure to process increasing numbers of applications while maintaining a competitive ranking, have come to rely heavily on SAT scores as a quick method of filtering through applications. This leads officers to skim over more holistic methods of admission, such as personal essays, extracurricular activities, interviews, and letters of recommendation. These elements add unique aspects of personality to applications, which standardized testing ultimately undermines. As a result, students face immense pressure to exceed a school’s average SAT score, leading students to retake the test multiple times to fit in a school’s desired range. Additionally, the College Board has allowed students to start “super-scoring” their SAT: “Another reason to take the SAT a second time is that many schools use a process called “superscoring.” Superscoring is when a college combines a student’s highest Math section score with their highest Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section score, even if those scores are from different test dates, to come up with the student’s total SAT score.” This test-centric strategy turns the admissions process into a numbers game, pushing students to focus on score optimization rather than meaningful personal intellectual growth.

In recent years, the SAT has faced growing backlash, leading to the rise of the test-optional movement. This resistance was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, when many students were not able to access open testing centers. As a result, colleges suspended standardized testing requirements due to this lack of accessibility. “As of Monday, 183,000 September-registered students and 154,000 October-registered students are unable to take the test due to closures or COVID safety precautions, the College Board said in a statement.” While originally intended as a temporary measure, a number of institutions chose to permanently adopt test-optional policies after growing backlash, and seeing a more diverse applicant pool. These policies have helped even out the playing field for students from underrepresented racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, who often lack access to expensive, well-resourced, test-preparatory programs. However, this test-optional policy has inadvertently inflated scores, instilling a mindset in students that they must achieve a higher threshold of score in order to boost their application, or they might as well not submit any testing. This stark comparison highlights how standardized testing can reinforce inequality, while test-optional policies offer a more inclusive and equitable approach to admissions.

The SAT has fundamentally changed the college admissions process by promoting a narrower ideal, defined by numerical performance rather than holistic forms of intelligence. This reliance on standardized testing has led to the exclusion of countless talented individuals whose strengths lie beyond verbal and mathematical reasoning, potentially furthering socioeconomic and racial inequalities. Interestingly, there is an alternative argument: colleges have recently identified that high SAT scores are the most directly correlated indicator of a high college GPA, resulting in the re-implementation of “test-required” universities. This presents the ongoing tension in admissions, with balancing objective predictors of academic success and the need for an equitable evaluation of student potential. Ultimately, the goal should be to foster an admissions process that can measure multiple forms of intelligence, ensuring that all students, regardless of background, are given a fair opportunity to succeed in college.

Bibliography:

1. Education Writers Association. “History and Background: College Access and Admissions.” Education Writers Association. Accessed April 27, 2025. https://ewa.org/issues/higher-ed/history-and-background-college-access-admissions.

2. Prestige Institute. “SAT/ACT Classes.” Prestige Institute. Accessed April 27, 2025. https://www.prestigei.com/sat-act-classes.

3. Tatter, Grace. “Tests and Stress Bias.” Usable Knowledge. Harvard Graduate School of Education. February 12, 2019. Accessed April 27, 2025. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/19/02/tests-and-stress-bias.

4. Broderick, Thomas. “A Brief History of the SAT.” BestColleges. Accessed April 27, 2025. https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/history-of-sat/.​

5. Mariana Viera, “The History of the SAT Is Mired in Racism and Elitism,” Teen Vogue, October 1, 2018, https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-history-of-the-sat-is-mired-in-racism-and-elitism

6. College Board. “How Many Times Can a Student Take the SAT, and When Should They Take It?” SAT Suite of Assessments. Accessed April 27, 2025. https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/help-center/how-many-times-can-student-take-sat-and-when-should-they-take-it.​

7. Tillman, Rachel. “Hundreds of SAT and ACT Testing Centers Have Closed Due to COVID-19, Wildfires, or Both.” NY1, September 23, 2020. Accessed April 27, 2025. https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/09/23/hundreds-of-sat-act-testing-centers-closed.

8. PBS. “Where Did The Test Come From? – History of the SAT.” FRONTLINE. Accessed April 27, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/timeline.html.

9. Jacobsen, Erik. “A (Mostly) Brief History of the SAT and ACT Tests.” Erik the Red. Last updated February 20, 2025. Accessed April 27, 2025. https://www.erikthered.com/tutor/sat-act-history.html.​

10. Johnson, David. “Can You Answer These Questions From the Original SAT?” TIME, June 20, 2016. Accessed April 27, 2025. https://time.com/4372031/sat-anniversary-original-questions-quiz/.

The 10th Mountain Division is one of World War II’s most famed military units. During the war, America’s experiment with mountain troops was portrayed as a rugged group of men, training to fight the forces of fascism in the most difficult conditions and terrain, prepared to fight for glory on the highest peaks and steepest slopes. Such an idea is even encapsulated in the Division’s motto, “Climb to Glory.” As the years passed, however, the historians began to look back, wondering if the impacts of the 10th Mountain Division were really as profound as the American public remembers. While some attack the Division’s inefficiencies and others call out what they believe to be failures in their training, an examination of the entire story of the Division is necessary to truly examine if the 10th Mountain Division lives up to its reputation as an elite mountain force.

The year is 1940 and Russia is four months into their invasion of Finland. Despite being a much smaller force, the Finnish war strategy gave them the upper hand on a Russian force that vastly outnumbered them. These tactics took advantage of the Finnish winter landscape, such as snowy forests and frozen canals. The Russians stayed on the main roads making them easy targets for the Finns who would swiftly escape on cross-country skis or ice skates after a surprise attack on the enemy. Superior training and tactics allowed the Finns to overwhelm their enemy, however, at the time such a unit had never existed in the United States Army throughout its 189-year existence.

Although skiing was a relatively new sport in America, as recreational skiing began to gain traction during the interwar period, Europe had long traditions of skiing and mountaineering. Furthermore, European countries had centuries of experience fighting in one another’s mountains and the likely enemy of the Americans, Germany, already had three mountain divisions. Winter warfare was not unknown to North America, however, as during the French and Indian Wars colonial troops used snowshoes in the Champlain Valley to fight Native Americans. Despite this history, the United States had never truly fought a winter war because while some wars did happen during the winter, the U.S. Army never created a full military unit dedicated to winter combat.

One man who took notice of America’s negligence in creating mountain troops was Minnie Dole, the head of the National Ski Patrol (NSP), later known as the National Ski Patrol System (NSPS). The NSP was a civilian organization that certified ski patrollers to patrol mountains throughout the country, but mostly the East Coast at its inception. Dole initially approached members of NSP in the spring of 1940, asking them if they would like to offer their services to the War Department. At this time the United States was not directly involved in the European or Pacific theater, however, they were indirectly involved as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced the Land Lease Policy in which the United States would supply Great Britain with necessary supplies, indirectly fighting Hitler and the Nazis. The members responded with a resounding 90% in favor of helping the War Department. Dole then wrote to Secretary of War Henry Stimson to inform him of the NSP’s offer. When the Army Chief of Staff wrote back to Dole he “thanked the ski club for its ‘patriotic motive’’ and said that the Army would appreciate “informal advice and assistance in the technique and skiing and the purchase of equipment.” As historian McKay Jenkins put it in his 2003 book The Last Ridge, the Army seemed to hope that the “Eccentrics from New England would go away.”

Dole was not deterred, however, and continued to barrage the military with letters, attempting to convince them that they were unprepared for mountain warfare, as Generals were adamant about taking their troops to the South for the winter. He gathered information about European ski troops, such as the German Alpenkorps, active during World War I, the French Chasseurs Alpin, formed in 1888, or the Italian Alpini troops, the oldest mountain division in the world, founded in 1872. However, when Dole finally landed a meeting with Army Chief of Staff, George Marshal, he decided to focus on the possible necessity for a mountain division for national defense, instead of the successes of troops abroad. He argued that if the Germans ever launched an attack on the United States they easily could move down the Saint Lawrence River, and through the Champlain Valley. The best way to stop the advancing Germans would come through an occupation of the high ground in the Adirondacks, but without mountain troops, it would be near impossible for the Army to pull off such a defensive maneuver.

Minnie Dole and the National Ski Patrol System was not the only organization that recognized the military’s inadequacies in regard to mountain warfare. The American Alpine Club (AAC), a mountaineering club, met in December of 1940 to discuss ways in which they could help the army test gear for mountain warfare. The AAC quickly realized, as Jenkins states, “the American military establishment was profoundly ignorant about mountain warfare.” Understanding the inherent danger of ignorance in the mountains, the AAC quickly set about remedying this situation by translating many European mountaineering manuals, cataloging equipment, and training techniques, while also pointing out the differences in how the Americans and Europeans would defend their mountains.

The AAC also knew that the proper equipment could mean the difference between life and death in the mountains, so the Club put extensive time and effort into researching proper gear for a military mountain unit. They found that multiple layers preserved body heat better than one large layer, and that standard GI sleeping bags and winter clothing were almost dangerous to be wearing in the high mountains. The Alpine Club also found new standards for boots, sleeping bags, tents, gas cooking sets, and sunscreen. They also discovered that crampons, toothy cleats that attach to the bottom of boots, would be necessary for crossing ice, while ice axes were useful for cutting steps, serving as walking sticks, and belaying climbers. The new equipment was then put to the test on an expedition to Alaska, led by Bob Bates and Walter Wood. Army officials even agreed to drop supplies from B-15 bombers, as they were eager to see the equipment in action.

Now that the Army had the necessary equipment, the AAC and the NSP continued the argument that it would be useless if the new equipment was given to a group of soldiers who had never skied before. They believed that they needed a group of men already highly trained and skilled in the field of skiing, mountaineering, and surviving in the hostile environment of the mountains.

Despite the arguments of both organizations, one man was standing in the way of the creation of a mountain unit, Lieutenant General Leslie James McNair. He believed that Army resources had already been stretched thin and a unit relying on mules for transportation would have no effect on a highly mechanized German military. As Justin J. Chabalko quoted in his work, The Art of War Papers, McNair believed “that in general, [specialized troops’] priority is below both expansion and sound general training and that such special training should be minimized”. He further claimed that “a unit that relied on mules for transportation seemed almost quaint in an era of highly mechanized German units.” Later word came from the US military attaché in Italy that the Italian army had been driven back by a Greek counterattack because the Italians were not ready for either winter or fighting in the mountains, and the result was twenty-five thousand soldiers killed, ten thousand of which mearly froze to death. After hearing this information, Dole intensified his lobbying efforts, but the military continued to believe that what they needed was troops that could fight anywhere, not specialized troops to fight in a specific mode of terrain. Dole eventually defeated this ideology after he sent letters to the President, the Secretary of War, and the Army Chief of Staff, informing them that Germany had created some of the best mountain soldiers over the past four years, while American troops were trained largely in the Deep South and had no exposure to any mountainous or wintery terrain. Finally, Dole’s argument won over the military establishment and on November 15, 1941, the 87th Mountain Infantry would be activated at Fort Lewis, Washington. At the time of the creation of the 87th, the Germans controlled approximately one million, nine-hundred thousand square kilometers, and another eight-hundred and one thousand square kilometers were controlled by Germany’s European allies. To the east the Japanese were in control of China and had invaded British Malaysia and the Dutch East Indies, however, the United States still had not entered the war.

The first step for creating mountain troops was finding men to fill its ranks. For the first time in the history of the United States of America, the Army relied on a civilian organization to recruit men. This job fell to Minnie Dole and the NSP as they scoured the country for men fit to fill the ranks of the new mountain division. Eventually, Dole and his assistants recruited 7,000 men to enlist in the ski troops, many of whom were European and American skiing celebrities. The Army also called for the help of the AAC to recruit mountainers because there were not many experienced mountaineers throughout the country.

As new recruits flooded into Camp Lewis, it became clear that the officers had little to no idea about anything related to the mountains, much less how to train men in the high country. The Army appointed Lieutenant Colonel Onslow Rolfe to command the 87th, but the best that the military could do to justify this appointment to the post was that he had hiked in Central America during summer leave. Later, Rolfe was found to be unfit to run a mountain division as he was relieved of his position in 1943. Despite officer inadequacies, the Mountain Troops learned everything from basic ski turns to advanced rope techniques during their time at Camp Lewis. Ski school lasted for eight weeks during the winter, six days a week and six hours a day. When the snow melted the men went through a five-day mountaineering school to prepare them for the mountains they would have to climb in combat. Because of their long and arduous training, the 87th Mountain Infantry began to wonder by September 1942 when the training would stop and the fighting would begin. Despite their lowering morale as there seemed to be no end in sight of the endless “idiotic” day-long hikes, the 87th was preparing to move to Colorado for further training.

During the summer of 1942, a small troop of the 87th was also sent to the Canadian Rockies for a secret mission to test over-snow vehicles for a group of paratroopers to use in a mission to blow up a Norwegian heavy water plant that the Allies suspected the Germans were using to create atomic weapons. The 87th eventually settled on a model that would fit the specifications necessary, but they were not slated to take part in the Norwegian operation, leading to further frustrations because they were taking part in more and more training but that training was not being put to use on the front lines. Before the over-snow vehicles could be used, however, commandos from the Norwegian resistance snuck into the plant and detonated a series of explosives that destroyed its usefulness to the enemy.

Finally, in the summer of 1942, the entire 87th Mountain Infantry moved to Camp Hale, Colorado near the tiny town of Pando and what would one day become the famous resort of Vail. The mountains around the camp were ideal for ski training, complete with a tow rope on the primary training hill for the most efficient training. Recruits such as Herbert Schneider, who was a famous instructor who had taught thousands in Austria, or former Austrian junior champion Toni Matt continued piling into Camp Hale attracting even more media attention towards the Division which certainly helped with Minnie Dole’s new assignment, finding 2,500 new mountain troopers. It was also at Camp Hale that the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment was redesignated the 10th Mountain Division.

Throughout their time at Camp Hale and especially during the winter of 1943, the troops were subjected to various tests of their gear and own ability. Some were sent to live for two weeks at 13,000 feet while eating only dried cacao powder and pemmican, a high-calorie mixture of tallow, dried meat, and sometimes dried berries. Another test of the men’s skills and endurance was the Homestake Maneuvers. The men were not sure what the purpose of the maneuver was, but it was assumed that their superiors were only trying to see how much bad weather the troops could take. These maneuvers went terribly as many men were not acclimated to the altitude and found that the pace that officers tried to have the troops keep, 106 steps per minute, was impossible to maintain at such an altitude. Furthermore, many troops were not trained in basic winter survival, such as the use of outdoor stoves or protecting themselves from the elements. As a result of these failures, the commanding officer, Colonel Rolfe, was fired and the position of commanding officer was given to Brigadier General Lloyd Jones.

As word spread of the Division’s hardships and tests in the high country, they became media darlings resulting in many articles being written about them. They began to be called the toughest of all men. Even a Warner Brothers movie was made about them, called Mountain Fighters, which came out on August 7th, 1943. The movie showcased a fictitious ending where they fight and defeat a much larger German force. Through it all, however, some members of the mountain troops hated the media attention as much of it was “bunk”. They wondered if the Army actually wanted them to fight or just be stooges for Hollywood while American troops were being pushed all over the African Continent during Operation Torch. Despite the soldiers’ complaints about their spot in the public eye, the publicity was undeniably working as troops continued to pile into Camp Hale.

As the fighting in Italy began to ramp up the War Department transferred members of the original 87th Infantry out of Camp Hale to flatland dutty while bringing in new troops from the Deep South and Hawaii, most of whom had never seen snow. The morale of the 10th was plummeting as they were stuck on the sidelines as General Mark Clark and the U.S. 5th Army were fighting in the Italian mountains near the town of Cassino, Italy, making a push to Rome during the winter of 1944. Jenkins claims that the men of the 10th were wondering why they were not taking part in the Italian campaign when they had been specially trained for the kind of combat the 5th Army was engaging in. Furthermore, the Allies suffered fifty-two thousand casualties compared to the Germans’ thirty-eight thousand. General Marshal later claimed that the war in Italy could have been advanced in Cassino if the Mountain Troops had been there. As a result of these increasing casualties, Jenkins claims, the opposition to the Italian campaign began to grow.

Then in March and April of 1944, the D-Series took place which was one of the most grueling training exercises in American military history. Troops were ordered to carry 90-pound packs to 13,000 feet through temperatures that stayed well below zero throughout the D-Series, while storms dumped eight feet of snow. To make sure the failures of the Homestake Maneuvers were not repeated, however, all men were properly outfitted and it was required for men to change their socks and insoles each night. During the D-Series, the men were pushed to their absolute limits as officers pushed them to unsustainable rates. Finally when the dust settled the D-Series was labeled as a failure by none other than Minnie Dole himself because of the number of men that acquired a sickness as a result of the D-Series and the fact that only forty percent of personnel that took part in the D-Series were qualified for such training.

Then on June 20, 1944, the Army made a surprising change to the 10th’s training, shipping them off to Camp Swift, Texas to prepare for swamp maneuvers in Louisiana, which the Army deemed necessary. “Alpine” was even removed from the Division’s name. Jenkins states in The Last Ridge that the men were infuriated, especially because of the misery that the Allies were facing in the mountains of Italy as they worked to push the Germans back up the Italian Peninsula. Camp Swift was hot and miserable for these mountain men and while the 10th was in Texas, the Army decided to add heavy weapons, drastically altering the Division from its original state of a light division to include large, water-cooled machine guns. Men were also told to send their families home and were issued new gear, an indication that they were soon going to finally be shipped overseas. The Division also received a new commanding officer in November. The man who got the job was General George P. Hays who served in World War I as an artillery lieutenant, an artillery commander at Cassino during the Italian Campaign of World War II, and landed at Omaha Beach. On November 29, 1944, the troops boarded a train bound for Newport News, Virginia and although they didn’t know it, they were headed for Italy, arriving not as the 10th Light Division but as the 10th Mountain Division.

This essay was written by Miles Dinger: a student from New York, USA

On a sunny day in October 1962, American boots hit the bright sunny beaches of Cuba. This is their first step towards disabling the Medium Range Ballistic Missiles and the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles that the Soviet Union placed on the island. Then suddenly, a missile launches. Within minutes, Washington D.C. is vaporized. To retaliate, the United States launches hundreds of missiles at the Soviet Union, sparking all out nuclear war.

Thankfully, President John F. Kennedy was able to navigate the United States and the Soviet Union away from the brink of potential nuclear armageddon, but in the decades following the crisis, historians have constantly reevaluated Kennedy’s actions in the face of clear and present danger. James A. Nathan, a professor of International Policy at Auburn University, criticized the decisions of Kennedy and his administration in his 1975 article, “The Missile Crisis: His Finest Hour Now.” Conversely, Graham T. Allison, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans for the Clinton Administration and the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government praises Kennedy’s actions during the missile crisis in his 1971 book Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, while Barton J. Bernstein, a Professor emeritus of History at Stanford University believes that Kennedy mishandled the crisis by placing Jupiter Missiles in Turkey.

According to Max Frankel, former executive editor of The New York Times and Pulitzer prize winner, the Cuban Missile Crisis all started when Nikita Khrushchev was strolling the banks of the Black Sea as defense minister Rodin Malinovsky lamented over the American nuclear bases in Turkey. Khrushchev thought that he could gain a strategic advantage over the United States by secretly deploying Medium Range Ballistic Missiles and Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles to Cuba both quickly and inexpensively, believing that the Americans would initially object to the missiles and then accept a new reality. Therefore, with this goal in mind, the Soviet regime outfitted a fleet of eighty-five vessels to make multiple trips between the Soviet Union and Cuba to assemble a brand new nuclear army.

In May 1960, during the Eisenhower Administration, a U-2 Spy Plane had been shot down over Soviet airspace, greatly inflaming relations between the two powers. As a result of the “U-2 Affair,” once the United States noted the presence of Soviet SAMs in late August, the White House stopped all flights over Cuba to avoid increasing tensions with the Soviets. The question on everyone in the Kennedy Administration’s mind in the early fall of 1961 was if the shipments they had been monitoring from the Soviet Union to Cuba facilitating a military buildup on the island would result in the deployment of nuclear missiles as well. Finally, on October 14th the Administration reversed its previous restraint on the U-2s. The first flight over Cuba found two to three medium range missile launch sites under construction.

After obtaining the evidence of the presence of nuclear missiles in Cuba, the Pentagon began to flex its muscles through amphibious exercises in the Caribbean, leading Cuba to think that the United States was preparing for invasion, however, Kennedy’s top aides claim that it was never the intention of the Administration to invade Cuba. Kennedy also ordered rigorous surveillance of the new missile sites, ensuring that the United States would know exactly how many missiles were present in Cuba, but he required that the discovery be kept a secret.

To advise him during the Crisis, Kennedy assembled a group of his top advisors, cabinet officials, and experts into what was known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or ExCom. From the first deliberations of this group, two policy proposals came forth. An airstrike of all Soviet and Cuban planes, airfields, guns, and missile sites followed by an invasion of Cuba either without warning, or with warning so that the Soviets had time to negotiate was one option. The other was simply conducting only an airstrike on the missile sites. As the days passed, U-2 flights continued to uncover rapid progress on the Medium Range Ballistic Missiles sites and the presence of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles in Cuba. In light of these new developments, ExCom began to shift their preferred action away from a direct military strike towards a blockade of Cuba. Because a blockade is considered an act of war, however, Kennedy had to choose his words carefully, classifying the blockade as a quarantine and obtaining approval for this action from the Organization of American States to go forward with the quarantine.

On October 21, 1962, in a televised speech to the world, Kennedy announced the presence of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba as well as the United States’ quarantine of the island. After the announcement of the quarantine, five Soviet ships bound for Cuba suspected of carrying weapons turned back towards the Soviet Union. After several days of tense negotiations between the two superpowers, Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed that the Soviet Union would dismantle their missiles and bring them home as long as the United States pledged to not invade Cuba and secretly dismantle their missile bases in Turkey.

Despite titling his 1975 article detailing the Cuban Missile Crisis, “The Missile Crisis: His Finest Hour Now,” James A. Nathan thoroughly critiques the actions of Kennedy and his administration during the fateful October of 1962. Nathan fully questions why the Kennedy Administration decided to act in order to force the removal of the missiles from Cuba. He quotes Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as saying, “A missile is a missile. It makes no great difference whether you are killed by a missile from the Soviet Union or from Cuba.” Nathan claims that there was no change to the balance of global power as a result of the Soviet Union’s actions, because it does not matter where a nuclear missile is launched from, the result, a vaporized city, will be the same. Furthermore, Nathan quotes Henry Kissinger as stating that “the bases were of only marginal use in a defensive war. In an offensive war their effectiveness was reduced by the enormous difficulty of coordinating a first strike between the Soviet Union and Cuba.” Nathan believes that the actions of the Soviet Union were only to gain the appearance of nuclear parity with the United States, and that the missiles placed in Cuba were merely symbolic, holding no strategic value.

Graham T. Allison in his book Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, however, argues that these missiles held more than simply symbolic value. Allison states that as a result of the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba, the U.S.’s warning of a nuclear attack would be cut from fifteen minutes to only three, much of the American bomber force would become vulnerable to an attack, and the first strike capability of the Soviet Union would be doubled. While Henry Kissinger did say that the difficulty of coordinating a first strike between the Soviet Union and Cuba was tremendous, it does not mean that such an attack was impossible, and thus the missiles posed at least some strategic risk to the United States.

Allison also argues that these missiles did more than simply pose a new threat to America. The placement of missiles on a launch platform ninety miles from Florida allowed the Soviets, who were falling behind in a missile race, to position their medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles that could only reach Alaska from Soviet territory in a way that they could now strike practically all of the continental United States, all without having to develop any new missiles. Allison believes that throughout the 1950s the development of rockets to directly target the United States from the Soviet Union was not a key goal of the Kremlin, leading to the overproduction of unnecessary Soviet Medium Range Ballistic Missiles and Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles. When Soviet leadership began to realize their growing disadvantage in missile capabilities, however, the strategic placement of their existing missiles in Cuba allowed them to repurpose the missiles to threaten the United States.

As a result of these new strategic challenges facing Kennedy and his administration, Allison justifies Kennedy’s forceful response, stating that such a response to the discovery of nuclear missiles in Cuba was necessary in order to maintain the trust of the American people. Nathan, on the other hand, quotes President Kennedy as stating that he knew the Soviet Union was not “intending to fire [the missiles in Cuba], because if [the United States and the Soviet Union] were going to get into a nuclear struggle, they [had] their own missiles in the Soviet Union.” While this assertion from President Kennedy can be taken as fact at the time, Soviet information released after the Crisis shows that the Soviet Union possessed between twenty and forty-four Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles capable of striking the continental United States from the Soviet Union, much less then the seventy-five that the United States believed the Soviets possessed, according to an article written by Barton Bernstien for the Arms Control Association. As a result of the inflated metrics Kennedy was given, the President did not have a full understanding of the Soviet’s situation, as they most likely would resort to using the missiles stationed in Cuba to supplement their lack of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, as Allison asserts, discrediting Nathan’s claim.

Because of the inaccuracy of Kennedy’s information, however, Nathan critiques Kennedy's response. He states that the President risked escalating the situation on account of the American people's frustration over Cuba, while acting in opposition to his intelligence reports, and his own notion that Russia would not invade. Nathan further critiques Kennedy citing a Gallup Poll as evidence that ninety percent of Americans were opposed to an armed intervention in Cuba. Supported by the statistics of the Gallup Poll, Nathan is promulgating the idea that the American people were opposed to any escalation to conflict with the Soviets over Cuba, and therefore were prepared to leave the missile sites alone. While the poll suggests that Americans did not want to send troops into Cuba, it does not prove that they were willing to live their lives with nuclear weapons only ninety miles from Florida, ready to vaporize practically every American city. This belief was confirmed in an interview with my grandfather, Henry Smith, who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis. He claims that after President Kennedy’s announcement of the missile installations, the fears of nuclear war grew even further, and the American people felt that there was a true threat of the Soviet Union launching a nuclear missile at the United States. Nathan’s implied claim that Americans were prepared to live with nuclear missiles pointed directly at them is inherently false. Since the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine, America has held dominance over the Western Hemisphere. Furthermore, America’s location in North America, isolated from the other great world powers provided the American people with a sense of safety. Never, during two deadliest wars in human history, did the conflict spill into the continental United States. Therefore, the placement of nuclear missiles right in America’s backyard frightened the public as they had never been so close to enemy weapons in recent memory. Even if the missile build-up in Cuba did not present a real challenge to American nuclear superiority, as Nathan claims, there certainly was a psychological impact of Cuban missiles, forcing Americans to feel the heat of nuclear weapons that could strike them in minutes, thus warenting Kennedy’s energetic demands for their complete removal.

In his article “The Cuban Missile Crisis: Trading the Jupiters in Turkey?” published in 1980, Barton J. Bernstein meticulously assesses John F. Kennedy’s actions through the lens of the American Jupiter Missiles stationed in Turkey, providing a nuanced analysis of Kenndy’s decisions.

Prior to the discovery of missiles in Cuba, Bernstein points to a National Security Council memo that identified the possibility of equating possible missile sites in Cuba with the American nuclear missiles pointed at the Soviet Union from Turkey. These missiles, Bernstein argues, were completely useless because they were liquid-fueled Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles, meaning they took hours to fire and were quite inaccurate. The United States also openly deployed these missiles, thus making them extremely vulnerable to Soviet attacks, so they were only useful militarily in a first strike operation, only serving to further provoke the Soviet Union. Nathan concurs with Berstien’s assessment of the missiles’s uselessness, claiming that a Soviet marksman with a high powered rifle could take out the Jupiters. Furthermore these missiles obtained their launch orders via a cumbersome dual-veto system, blurring the lines of which nation, America or Turkey, really controlled the missiles. The weaknesses and provocative nature of the Jupiters only served to antagonize the Soviets, and increased their incentive to render the Jupiters inoperable. These missiles, simply put, were more likely to draw a Soviet attack than effectively participate in a nuclear attack launched by NATO.

In light of the Jupiters’ shortcomings, a quick fix option was available. The United States could withdraw the provocative missiles and replace them by deploying Polaris submarines to the area, as suggested by the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy. These submarines would be completely under U.S. control, were capable of holding sixteen nuclear missiles, and would be concealed beneath the waves, serving to better protect Turkey, the United States, and NATO at large. Furthermore, the submarines could be deployed to Turkish waters at approximately the same time that the construction of the Jupiters would be completed. As a result, the submarines would serve as a much stronger retaliatory force in the event of a nuclear war than the Jupiters.

Allison claims that Kennedy ordered the removal of the Jupiter missiles twice prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, but those in his administration, notably high ranking officials of the State Department, were never able to get it done. Robert F. Kennedy, the President’s brother and Attorney General recounts the same sequence of events in his 1969 book 13 Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, highlighting the inability of the State Department to come to an agreement with the Turkish Government on the deactivation of the Jupiters. Allison attempts to let Kennedy off the hook, claiming that it was not his fault that the machinery of government below him was failing to carry out the orders of the Commander-in-Chief.

While Allison makes a fair point, as Kennedy cannot be expected to possess an in-depth understanding of every action that his government takes, Bernstein argues that Kennedy still should be blamed for their presence, namely because his administration deployed the missiles. He states that while the Eisenhower Administration came to an agreement with the Turkish Government to deploy nuclear missiles on Turkish soil, it was Kennedy’s administration that fulfilled this promise. The Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy urged on February 11, 1961, after Kennedy had taken office, that the construction of Jupiters in Turkey should not commence, and on March 29th, in a National Security Council meeting, the President created a special committee to review the question of the deployment of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles to Turkey. This committee then produced a report that suggests that missiles had not yet been deployed by early summer. On June 22, 1961 an official from the State Department urged McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy’s special assistant for national security, that no action should be taken to delay the projected deployment of missiles to Turkey. The President's poor performance at the summit with Khrushchev in Vienna a few weeks earlier meant that a delay or cancellation of the missile shipment to Turkey could be seen as a sign of American weakness. The President obviously headed the advice of the State Department, authorizing the installation of missiles in Turkey to prevent offending a key ally, ignoring the Department of Defense’s reservations that missiles in Turkey would only serve to provoke the Soviets

Despite his criticism of Kennedy’s actions, Bernstein does provide a possible explanation for the President’s decision to send the missiles to Turkey. Because the missiles were visible they provided Turkey with a tangible prestige. Had the United States cancelled the missile program, Turkey would have lost that prestige, an event that many feared could lead to a coup to overturn the present government, staged by one of Turkey’s many powerful generals. In this context, Kennedy’s actions make sense. What if the cancellation of the missile deployment antagonized a Turkish general to stage a coup and join the Warsaw Pact, providing the Soviets with easy access to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus Strait? Although government organizations such as the National Security Council had warned of the possibility of the Soviets retaliating against the Jupiters with missiles of their own in Cuba, maintaining the political stability of a key ally in the short term was more important than a possible crisis in the future. While John F. Kennedy could have averted the Cuban Missile Crisis by preventing the deployment of Jupiter Missiles to Turkey, when looked at through the global situation of the time, his actions are justifiable.

Nathan further critiques Kennedy’s administration’s lack of diplomacy as he and ExCom instead pursued a resolution to the crisis, through military channels. Nathan claims that ninety percent of ExCom meetings were spent debating various uses for troops, bombers, and warships to bring an end to the crisis while the idea of straightforward diplomatic negotiation was barely floated and economic pressures were never discussed. Nathan believes that Kennedy and his advisors only devised military solutions because they believed that Khrushchev’s actions were a test of America's resolve. Therefore, he critiques Kennedy’s statements that he would not consider compromises or concessions until the end of the crisis to prevent showing any evidence of American weakness, while escalating the situation.

Nathan further criticizes Kennedy because of his response to the discovery of missiles. Kennedy decided to reveal to the Soviets that the missiles had been discovered only hours before Kennedy appeared on television, informing all of America and the world of the destructive capability that had been placed in Cuba. Nathan claims that this address was counterproductive because now that the administration had made the discovery of the missiles public information, their withdrawal also had to be a public event, humiliating the Soviets in the process. In all fairness to Kennedy, however, there was not much he could have done to avoid this situation. The Washington Post and The New York Times had already deduced that there was some issue stemming from Cuba because of the actions of various officials in Washington. The President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of State had cancelled public engagements, while lower level officials fled their own birthday parties in order to get back to the office. It took the pleading of the President himself to prevent these newspapers from publishing stories revealing the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba until after his televised address on October 22nd, according to Frankel. While Kennedy was able to delay the papers from breaking the news temporarily, it would have been nearly impossible to prevent The Post, The Times, and every other national newspaper from suppressing the news for days until Kennedy and Khrushchev could negotiate a diplomatic agreement for the removal of the missiles. Therefore, even if Kennedy had not addressed the nation, the same Soviet humiliation would still have been necessary, because American newspapers would simply report their presence of the missiles to the public.

While ExCom’s decision to move forward with a quarantine was not a direct attack on Cuba, they were unable to stray from military based actions, as the implementation of a “quarantine” was technically a blockade, and therefore an act of war in all aspects but name. Nathan criticizes Kennedy’s necessity to prevent concessions from taking place immediately in order to display the strength and resolve of both himself and the United States. Bernstein agrees with Nathan’s criticism. He claims that since the Medium Range Ballistic Missiles sites had been operational and able to vaporize Washington D.C. or any other Southeastern American city since the quarantine was announced, President Kennedy should have been going through all possible channels to remove the missiles, even if that meant trading away the useless Jupiters, in order to preserve American security.

Conversely, Allison actually praises Kennedy’s actions during the beginning stages of the crisis. Prior to his announcement revealing the missiles in Cuba, Congressional leaders were briefed on the situation and the actions ExCom had decided on to address the issue. Almost every single one of these leaders desired the United States to forcefully respond with either an airstrike or an invasion, opposing Kennedy’s decision of a quarantine. According to Allison, Kennedy and the rest of ExCom had initially considered a “surgical” airstrike, which they envisioned to be a few American planes flying over Cuba and dropping conventional bombs, swiftly disabling the missile sites. What the Air Force had in mind was completely different, however, consisting of over 500 individual flights, resulting in immense collateral damage in order to remove any unacceptable risk to American success. Allison claims that political leaders do not usually thoroughly examine the details of war plans, and thus praises Kennedy because he probed the proposal of the Air Force, discovering that approval of such a plan would only serve to escalate the conflict further. Therefore, Allison is praising Kennedy for not caving to the leaders in Congress, going down the route he believed was the least likely to escalate the crisis to all out nuclear war, despite the shaky position of the Democratic Party with the midterm elections quickly approaching. If Kennedy had resorted to negotiation tactics that Congress would have viewed as even weaker than a quarantine, such as offering Khrushchev a missile trade, as Nathan and Bernstein suggested, Robert F. Kennedy believed that his brother could have been impeached. Allison further supports Kennedy’s choice to move forward with a quarantine because it forced Khrushchev and the Soviets to make the next move. By flexing the muscles of their conventional weapons, the United States was able strike a middle ground between protecting its interests, by preventing any more missile equipment from entering Cuba, and escalating the situation, as the quarantine was not a direct military attack. Allison’s praises of Kennedy’s decisions during the crisis seem to be warranted. While Kennedy did not end the crisis immediately by requesting to trade the Jupiters for the Cuban missiles, as Nathan and Bernstien claimed he should have, Kennedy was able to prevent the crisis from becoming a conflict by having the strength not to cave to Congressional leaders and his own advisors.

Despite Allison’s claims that a quarantine was Kennedy’s best option to diffuse the missile crisis, he criticized Kennedy and his Administration for not having full control over the Navy as they carried out the operations of the quarantine. The President had ordered that he hold direct oversight over the quarantine to prevent reckless subordinates or needless incidents to escalate the crisis further, but Allison claims that this was not the case. He states that once Kennedy had given the order to carry out the quarantine, the British Ambassador to the United States recommended that the Navy position its ships closer to Cuba providing the Soviet ships more time to turn around. Kennedy agreed, according to Allison, and told Secretary of Defense McNamara to direct the Navy accordingly, but the Navy did not listen. The first Soviet ship to be stopped and boarded as a result of the quarantine was stopped along the originally established quarantine line. Nathan also criticizes Kennedy as his control over the quarantine was far from complete. Nathan agrees with Allison as he claims the ships remained at the original 800 mile quarantine line, in opposition to the orders of the President. Both Allison and Nathan also agree that when Secretary McNamara confronted the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral George Anderson in the Naval Operations Center, Anderson was unable to answer McNamara’s questions regarding the placement of ships, only saying that he trusted his officers to effectively run the blockade. Nathan uses McNamara’s conversation with Anderson to criticize Kennedy for his lack of control over his only visible response to the missiles, the Navy, to prove that Kennedy was not the master of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but rather a beneficiary of pure luck. Because the Navy lacked a total understanding of the negotiations the President was undergoing, they easily could have escalated the situation into World War III. For example, the Navy had begun to force Soviet submarines to the surface, prior to Presidential authorization. Nathan asserts that if one submarine refused to surface, the situation could have escalated out of the President’s control.

Furthermore, Nathan also argues that as a result of the Kennedy Administration’s lack of control over the rest of the Armed Forces, they risked escalating the crisis even further. He claims that aside from McNamara’s failure to regain the Administration's control over the Navy, the Air Force sent U-2 Spy Plane flights near the Soviet Union to “excite” the Soviet radar systems at the height of the crisis. On tarmacs across the nation, American fighter jets and bombers were positioned wing to wing against the President’s orders, almost inviting a preemptive Soviet strike. Nathan states that the President needed to take total organizational control over the Department of Defense at the height of the crisis, to prevent escalation.

Allison agrees with Nathan that the Department of Defense along with the rest of the Executive Branch were making it difficult for Kennedy and ExCom to de-escalate the crisis, but he does not place the blame on Kennedy. Both Nathan and Allison claim that the fragility of the situation required Kennedy to have had direct control over the operations of the Navy, but unlike Nathan, Allison states that the actions of the Department of Defense were outside of the Kennedy’s control, dragging the country towards nuclear apocalypse, in spite of the efforts of the President.

Although Nathan critiques the American military buildup in the form of stationing jets and bombers wing to wing, Allison praises these actions. He believes that because no attempt was made to disguise the movement of squadrons of fighters to airports within striking distance of Cuba and the 200,000 man invasion force amassing in Florida, Khrushchev was forced to see that the quarantine was simply an initial step. The quarantine gave the Soviets time to realize that the Americans were intent on ensuring the missiles were withdrawn, and the buildup of an invasion force explicitly warned both Cuba and the Soviet Union that the American military was intent on military action, should the missiles fail to be withdrawn. While Alison makes an interesting point, one is left to wonder if Americans would view the Cuban Missile Crisis as the same triumph of the Kennedy Administration if Kennedy escalated it to the point of all out war with an air strike or invasion.

While Allison’s 1971 work paints a generally praiseworthy view of Kennedy’s actions throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis, as historians began to look back, such as Nathan in 1975 and Bernstein in 1980, they found various shortcomings in the manner in which Kennedy and his advisors handled the Crisis. Contrary to the claims of Nathan, Kennedy was justified to find a way to remove the missiles, because of the military implication of the presence of the missiles, as argued by Allison, and the physiological impact that the missiles had on the American public. While Bernstein argued against the installation of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, Kennedy had to prioritize the short term political stability of a key NATO ally over the distant possibility of Soviet missiles being positioned in Cuba, as Allison stated. Bernstein does, however, make a fair assertion that Kennedy should have worked with the Turkish government to implement submarines in place of the Jupiters to better support the security of NATO. While Bernstien and Nathan criticize Kennedy for not considering diplomatic options to gain the removal of the missiles from Cuba, Allison’s praises Kennedy for keeping his advisors and Congressional leaders in check and not caving to their radical demands for an all out invasion, instead slowly ramping up American military operations to coax Khrushchev towards the missile’s removal. Despite their disagreements, all three historians criticize the same development in their writings, Kennedy’s lack of control over the actions of the Executive Branch. From the Navy’s unresponsiveness to the orders of the President during the quarantine, to the positioning of bombers and fighter jets, to the failure of withdrawing the missiles from Turkey, all three historians critique Kennedy’s lack of control over the actions of the United States Government.

While President Kennedy can be criticized for his decisions in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, with the benefit of hindsight, the world can clearly see that Kennedy's actions steered the world from the brink of Nuclear War. Despite many shortcomings along the way, Kennedy and ExCom were eventually able to push the Soviet Union to withdraw their missiles from Cuba, maintaining American security in the Western Hemisphere. Furthermore, the Cuban Missile Crisis led to the development of a direct “hotline” between Moscow and Washington to improve communications, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, and the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, the idea that neither superpower would risk starting a nuclear war because they knew they would also be destroyed. While the actions of President John F. Kennedy in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world closer than ever to nuclear armageddon, the direct results of this standoff brought about new global developments that undoubtedly made the world safer.

Bibliography

"Address during the Cuban Missile Crisis." Audio, 17:46. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Accessed April 12, 2025. https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/address-during-the-cuban-missile-crisis.

Allison, Graham T. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Boston, United States of America: Little, Brown and Company, 1971. Accessed April 11, 2025. https://archive.org/details/essenceofdecisio0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up.

Bernstein, Barton J. "The Cuban Missile Crisis: Trading the Jupiters in Turkey?" Political Science Quarterly 95, no. 1 (1980): 97-125. https://doi.org/10.2307/2149587.

———. "Reconsidering the Perilous Cuban Missile Crisis 50 Years Later." Arms Control Association. Accessed April 11, 2025. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2012-10/reconsidering-perilous-cuban-missile-crisis-50-years-later#:~:text=At%20the%20time%20of%20the%20crisis%2C%20the%20United%20States%20assumed,%2Dcounterforce%20capability.%5B8%5D.

Frankel, Max. High Noon in the Cold War : Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.

Kennedy, Robert F. Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York, United States of America: W.W. Norton & Company, 1969.

Nathan, James A. "The Missile Crisis: His Finest Hour Now." World Politics 27, no. 2 (1975): 256-81. https://doi.org/10.2307/2009883.

Smith, Henry O., III. Interview by the author. Rye, New York, United States of America. February 25, 2024.

"To the Brink: JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Accessed February 23, 2025. https://www.jfklibrary.org/visit-museum/exhibits/past-exhibits/to-the-brink-jfk-and-the-cuban-missile-crisis#:~:text=Earlier%20that%20fall%2C%20the%20Soviet,in%20less%20than%20five%20minutes.

This essay was written by Ifsah Mutayyab: a student from Pakistan

Echoes of Past Plagues: From the Black Death to COVID-19

Pandemics have always reshaped societies. From medieval Europe to the modern digital world, outbreaks reveal as much about human behavior as they do about disease.

Introduction: History’s Repeating Shadows

In June 1348, a ship arrived on the Dorset coast of England. Hidden among its cargo were rats carrying fleas, and within those fleas lived a deadly bacterium—Yersinia pestis. It was the beginning of one of history’s darkest chapters: the Black Death. Within a year, villages were emptied, families shattered, and nearly half of Europe’s population was gone (BBC, 2024).

Seven centuries later, another invisible killer swept across the globe. COVID-19 forced cities into lockdown, shut borders, and filled hospitals. The disease was new, but the experience felt strangely familiar. From fear and misinformation to economic turmoil and social change, history seemed to echo across time.

The Black Death of the 14th century, the Spanish flu of 1918, and COVID-19 are separated by centuries. Yet, when placed side by side, they show how pandemics not only devastate populations but also reshape economies, societies, and the way humans see the world.

The Black Death: When Half of Europe Collapsed

The Black Death struck Europe between 1348 and 1349, carried along medieval trade routes that connected Asia and Europe. Fleas on rats thrived in the dirty streets of towns where raw sewage was often dumped openly. When an infected flea bit a human, the plague spread (BBC, 2024).

At the time, people didn’t know what caused it. Some believed in “miasma,” or bad air. Others thought God was punishing humanity for its sins. In London, fines were introduced for dumping waste to reduce smells. New jobs, like muckrakers and gong farmers, were created to clean streets. These efforts helped little. Bubonic plague killed about half its victims; pneumonic plague, which spread through coughs and sneezes, killed almost everyone it touched.

The symptoms were terrifying: swellings called buboes under the arms or in the groin, high fever, vomiting, and skin turning black. Death often came within days.

The toll was unimaginable. Historians estimate that between one-third and half of England’s six million people died. That meant up to three million deaths in just a year (BBC, 2024). Across Europe, the death toll reshaped the society.

Labor shortages gave surviving farm workers a strong voice. Wages rose quickly, but landowners resisted. In 1351, the English crown passed a law forcing wages back to pre-plague levels. This anger boiled over into the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381: a health crisis had become a social and political one.

The Black Death also changed culture. Art and literature became obsessed with death, seen in the rise of “danse macabre” imagery and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In short, the plague left scars not only on bodies but also on Europe’s imagination.

1918: The Spanish Flu and a World at War

Almost six centuries later, the world was engulfed in another deadly pandemic: the Spanish flu of 1918.

It struck in the final months of World War I. Soldiers lived in crowded camps and trenches, perfect places for a virus to spread. Troop movements, ships, and railways carried the disease across the globe.

The numbers were staggering. Around 500 million people—about one-third of the world’s population—were infected. Between 50 and 100 million people died, more than were killed in the war itself (Cleveland Clinic, 2024).

Unlike seasonal flu, which usually harms the very young and the elderly, the 1918 strain killed many healthy young adults. Scientists now believe their strong immune systems overreacted to the virus, causing what is called a “cytokine storm” that damaged their lungs.

Governments made the situation worse. To keep people’s spirits high, many censored information about the disease. In the United States, officials downplayed the danger. In Italy, newspapers were banned from printing daily death counts. As a result, people lost trust in authorities. Public anger grew as the reality of mass death clashed with official silence.

People also tried questionable cures: wearing camphor bags, gargling saltwater, or drinking odd mixtures. At the same time, some resisted health rules such as mask-wearing. In San Francisco, groups even formed ‘Anti-Mask Leagues’ to protest (PMC, 2021).

By 1920, the Spanish flu had faded, but its lessons remained. It reshaped public health systems, pushed scientists to study influenza more closely, and showed how dangerous secrecy can be in a crisis.

COVID-19: A Pandemic in the Age of Social Media

In late 2019, the world faced its next great pandemic: COVID-19, caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

First detected in China, the virus spread rapidly to every continent except Antarctica. By March 2020, the World Health Organization had declared a global pandemic. Borders closed, schools shut down, and cities went silent. According to the UN Development Programme, COVID-19 became the greatest global challenge since World War II (UNDP, 2020).

Science had advanced enormously since 1918. Within a year, vaccines were developed. But human behavior proved harder to control. Misinformation spread through social media, conspiracy theories flourished, and people argued bitterly about lockdowns and masks.

By May 2023, WHO announced that COVID-19 was no longer a global health emergency (WHO, 2023). Yet the scars remained: more than two million deaths in Europe alone, massive economic losses, and deep political divisions.

Experts believe COVID-19 will not disappear completely. Like influenza, it may become endemic—managed with vaccines and surveillance rather than eliminated (PMC, 2021).

The Common Threads Across Centuries

Despite the centuries between them, the Black Death, the Spanish flu, and COVID-19 share striking similarities:

Global connections spread disease. Medieval trade, world wars, and modern flights all turned local outbreaks into global crises.

Public trust is fragile. Secrecy during the Spanish flu and misinformation during COVID-19 show how trust can collapse quickly.

Pandemics trigger social change. Labor revolts after the Black Death, reforms after the Spanish flu, and economic shifts after COVID-19 all prove that pandemics reshape societies long after the microbes fade.

As historian Frank Snowden has said: “Epidemics are not random events. Every society produces its own vulnerabilities.” (PMC, 2021).

Conclusion: Living With Plagues

From medieval peasants to 21st-century citizens, pandemics have been part of the human story. They destroy lives, but they also force societies to adapt.

The Black Death reshaped Europe’s economy and culture. The Spanish flu showed the cost of censorship and the need for public health systems. COVID-19 highlighted the power, and the danger of a globally connected, digital world.

The question for our time is this: will COVID-19 be remembered only for its scars, or for the changes it inspired in how we prepare for the next great health crisis as well?

History suggests one thing clearly: plagues do not just kill. They transform.

References

BBC Bitesize. (2024). The Black Death. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zdkssk7#zxxjjsg

Cleveland Clinic. (2023). Spanish Flu (1918 Influenza Pandemic).

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21777-spanish-flu

NCBI / PubMed Central. (2021). COVID-19 Pandemic and Human Behavior. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8072022/

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2023). COVID-19 Pandemic in Pakistan. https://www.undp.org/pakistan/covid-19-pandemic

World Health Organization (WHO). (2023). COVID-19 Situation in Europe. https://www.who.int/europe/emergencies/situations/covid-19

Democrats lost the 2024 Presidential Election. By all margins, they lost support, and by all standards, Trump performed better than he did in 2016, where he lost the popular vote by 2.8 million. In 2024, he won the overall tally by 2.3 million with significant gains in major Democratic strongholds. His victory is by no means a landslide, but it shows that he gained consistent support among Americans.

The Democratic Party is facing a reckoning that has been years in the making, arguably beginning with the party’s first loss to Trump in 2016. Trump’s win came despite a popular vote loss and alleged Russian election interference. This reality, along with Trump’s inflammatory speech, helped rally progressives against his administration and allowed the Democratic Party to paint Trump as an accidental anomaly. Perhaps that perspective was reasonable eight years ago, but now there is no evading the truth that the American electorate favors Donald Trump’s platform over a usual Democratic ticket. So what are the Democrats going to do now?

Upend the System
Since arriving at the American political scene in 2015, Trump has promised to upend the status quo. He has spoken about draining the swamp and putting officials in charge who care about the American people. This populist rhetoric worked and attracted a new base of disgruntled working-class Americans who were unwilling to put up with an untenable status quo for any longer. This culminated in the 2024 election when, for the first time ever, Democrats received a higher share of votes from high- compared to low-income Americans. Indeed, Kamala Harris saw her only gains in the election compared to 2020 from college-educated white voters.

Voters yearning for change are attracted to Trump because Democrats are not ambitious or aggressive enough with their agenda. Harris was the underdog candidate coming into the election. Instead of adopting a risky strategy to potentially increase her chances, which is what game theory suggests, her campaign played it safe, relying on issues that Democrats had an edge on, including abortion and democracy, while downplaying pocketbook issues and affirming that the economy was good because of low unemployment, wage growth, and a booming stock market. However, there were limited discussions of how Harris planned to improve the average American’s life.

Harris could not escape inflation or Americans’ inability to feed their families. She was too tied to Biden, and instead of presenting a bold, progressive plan that was noticeably different from her president, she mainly stayed on course with him, allowing her to be deemed the candidate for the bad economy, which is always a losing strategy.

Democrats bet that catering to moderate, college-educated voters would win more support than it would lose in working-class desertions. Time and time again, this gamble has backfired, and Democrats need to change their strategy to become the party of bold, progressive ideas that truly appeal to the working class. In order to achieve widespread, consistent electoral success, the Democrats must become the party willing to upend a system not working for the vast majority of Americans instead of allowing Trump and Republicans to claim that label.

Party Elite
The 2016 election of Trump shifted the Democratic Party away from its Obama working-class roots to a party headed by a highly educated elite. These leaders brought with them arrogance, disregard for voter grievances, and confusion about the Democrats’ key policy points. In 2020, Biden was able to avoid these failures by using his working-class roots and folksy speaking to secure the presidency. However, Harris failed to replicate these results.

Democrats must move away from their elite, high-class leaders and return to the party’s working-class roots. The party needs to drop the culture wars and issues that mainly college-educated people care about. Instead, they must reinvigorate their mass appeal to the American people, understanding that discussing specific issues less does not mean they plan to do nothing about them. You can forgive student loans without making that a central campaign issue. The party has to look at polls and focus on what is popular, such as lowering medical costs, rent caps, or reforming the Supreme Court. If they continue to focus on high-class issues while putting the economy on the back burner, it will be no surprise when they lose elections.

Anti-Trump Party
For almost a decade, the Democratic Party has been defined by its defiance of anything that Donald Trump supports. This is not a healthy way to build a party identity and cement a base based on core issues. By defining themselves as the anti-Trump Party, the Democrats have made it difficult for Americans to see what they truly stand for, and the original reasons for opposing the Trump administration have long been lost.

The 2024 election loss presents the party with an opportunity to redefine itself based on its stances on issues and reintroduce itself to the American people. They have four long years to decide how they wish to do so, but making the mistake of basing their entire platform on the other party’s candidate has not been a winning strategy.

Looking Forward
The Democratic Party must redefine itself on its own terms. They must appeal to the American people by promising to upend a system that is not working for the average American, changing up party leadership to reflect the needs of the working class better, and taking back the party’s identity instead of letting Trump and the GOP decide who they are. If the party wants any chance of removing the Republican trifecta in 2026 and taking back the White House in 2028, then they must follow these steps and figure out what they really stand for.

From 1978 to 1991, cosmonauts from over a dozen countries in Europe and Asia completed spaceflight missions wearing a patch that featured a red star over the world. It was the symbol of the Soviet Interkosmos program, a tool of Soviet-led cooperation in space. Formally launched in April 1967, Interkosmos was designed to promote cooperation among socialist countries in space exploration and research. Soviet leaders tied it to Marxist ideals of internationalism. For example, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev declared that space conquest served the “interests of men of labor” and “the interests of peace on Earth,” making Interkosmos part of a propaganda drive for peaceful socialist science. The program was explicitly advertised as a way to display solidarity with other socialist nations, especially those in the Warsaw Pact. Indeed, Interkosmos was the result of several Cold War firsts in the context of space. A Czech cosmonaut became the first person neither American nor Soviet in space, and the program included the first astronauts from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

As a concrete example, in March 1978, Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Gubarev and Czechoslovakian pilot Vladimír Remek flew aboard Soyuz 28 to the Salyut 4 space station. Soviet and Czech media quickly published the story, praising it as a triumph of socialist internationalism; Brezhnev later delivered a statement with similar ideas. Remek himself later recalled, “I instantly became a celebrity in Czechoslovakia…it was impossible to just walk down the street without being recognized.” His enthusiastic homecoming showed how Interkosmos could generate pride across the Eastern Bloc. This success encouraged the Soviet Union to invite more allied cosmonauts.

Soon, other Warsaw Pact countries joined, with their cosmonauts becoming the first citizens of the respective nations in space. In June 1978, Polish pilot Mirosław Hermaszewski flew on Soyuz 30 to Salyut 6. In August 1978, East German pilot Sigmund Jähn flew on Soyuz 31. Similar to Remek’s flight, the flights became political spectacles in each country. After the East German press published the story, Jähn was celebrated as a hero, later being awarded the GDR’s Hero of Labour and even having schools named after him. Poland similarly celebrated Hermaszewski with posters and ceremonies. These events were used to reinforce the idea that the socialist allies were one international family exploring space together.

After additional spaceflights within the Warsaw Pact, the scope of Interkosmos then broadened beyond Europe. In July 1980, Vietnam’s pilot Phạm Tuân flew on Soyuz 37, becoming the first Asian and the first person from a developing country in space. In September 1980, Cuba’s Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez flew Soyuz 38, becoming the first person of African descent and the first Hispanic in space. Both countries’ media framed these flights as anti-colonial solidarity with the USSR. Even a Western nation was eventually included when French Air Force pilot Jean-Loup Chrétien flew on Soyuz T-6 in 1982 (and again in 1988), and was honored by the Soviets with the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Chrétien later said he and the Soviet crew felt “like a real family, with an atmosphere of brotherhood.” By 1988 Interkosmos had flown fourteen non-Soviet cosmonauts from thirteen countries, each mission accompanied by parades, medals, and media coverage that proclaimed the unity of the socialist camp.

However, behind the scenes, Interkosmos was also tightly managed. All missions and equipment were ultimately Soviet. Guest cosmonauts flew on Soviet rockets and stations under Soviet control. The foreign participants carried out only basic experiments and routine maneuvers, meaning tasks the Soviet crew could have easily handled on their own. Thus, these flights were largely symbolic, making Interkosmos “a highly publicized program that rapidly became a significant propaganda tool” for the USSR. Even inside the bloc, selection of who flew first could be political, with a former KGB General admitting that the selected teams were often based on ideology and influence. Thus, while the rhetoric was internationalist, the reality was that these missions primarily served Soviet prestige.

By the late 1980s, Interkosmos waned. Under Gorbachev, the USSR shifted toward market-style reforms, and in 1987 it created a new agency (Glavkosmos) to contract commercial missions, with a profit motive in mind. No new allied states were added after this point, and the Soviet-led program gradually wound down. Interkosmos officially ended with the Soviet collapse in 1991. Ultimately, it had arranged missions for thirteen non-Soviet countries, but for most of those nations those flights remain their only human spaceflights. When the Cold War ended the political meaning of these flights essentially evaporated. Western astronauts began flying alongside Russians in a more conventional international framework (e.g. the Shuttle–Mir and ISS programs). Once Soviet hegemony was gone, so was the special “socialist brotherhood” in space

Overall, Interkosmos illustrates both the reach and the limits of the Soviet vision of international socialism. It did forge real links. Dozens of cosmonauts and crew worked together and returned home decorated as heroes, fulfilling the propaganda ideal of an internationalist and socialist spaceflight program. But those links rested on Soviet dominance. All the rockets and stations belonged to Moscow, while allied cosmonauts were guests. Thus, when the USSR lost its power, the program could not survive. Its legacy is therefore mixed. To some extent, it was indeed a high-profile symbol of socialist fraternity, but ultimately it serves as a reminder of the practical limits of those ideals.

Works Cited

Burgess, Colin, and Bert Vis. Interkosmos. Springer EBooks, Springer Nature, 19 Nov. 2015, www.researchgate.net/publication/316391508_Interkosmos. Accessed 2 Sept. 2025. Egorov, Boris. “Why Did the USSR Send Foreign Cosmonauts into Space?” Russia Beyond, 4 May 2025, www.rbth.com/history/328941-soviet-interkosmos-space.

Meleady, Sean. “How Cold War Socialist Space Cooperation Broke New Ground.” Challenge Magazine, 17 July 2020,

challenge-magazine.org/2020/07/17/how-cold-war-socialist-space-cooperation-broke-ne w-ground. Accessed 2 Sept. 2025.

“Reaching for the Stars: The Interkosmos Programme of the Eastern Bloc.” DDR Museum, 24 Aug. 2021,

www.ddr-museum.de/en/blog/2016/reaching-for-the-stars-the-interkosmos-programme-of -the-eastern-bloc.

Sasges, Gerard. “Symbolizing (In)Dependence: Vietnam, Intercosmos, and the Strategic Ambiguity of Late Socialist Ritual.” The Russian Journal of Vietnamese Studies, vol. 3, no. 4, 2019, pp. 48–56, vietnamjournal.ru/2618-9453/article/view/87023, https://doi.org/10.24411/2618-9453-2019-10039. Accessed 3 Sept. 2025.

INTRODUCTION

Leopold von Ranke was a German historian who studied and understood history not as a lame subject but as a scientific inquiry, modern scholars consider him as the “Father of Modern History,” but I don’t prefer the word Father as how can a subject’s scope can be limited to a one person’s contribution. I prefer the term ‘Progenitor.’ Nevertheless, he is credited to establish history as a rigorous and scientific discipline distinct from literature, philosophy and political propaganda. Before Ranke, history writing in Europe often focused on moral lessons, glorifying kings and philosophical speculation. He rejected these tendencies as corrupt forms of history writing, and focused on empirical source-based approach, laying the foundation of modern historiography.

RANKEAN METHODS

Primary Sources

The most important method he used was the usage and importance of Primary Source, he insisted that historians must rely primarily on original documents such as governmental records, private papers, diplomatic dispatches, chronicles and eye witness accounts.

He was also the pioneer of source criticism which he called in his language as ‘Quellenkritik’, which means that it is the rightful duty of a historian to evaluate, authenticate the sources.

His emphasis on primary sources draws upon the contemporary historians who documented what they saw. He challenged the prevalent history writing not merely as record keeping, but as truth writing. In the preface to “Histories of the Latin and Germanic Nations (1824)”, he emphasized that history should be constructed from the most immediate documents (die unmittelbarsten Urkunden).

The Principle Of How It Actually Happened?

He rejected the idea of history as a moral lesson or a tool of ideology. Instead, he preached that the historian’s task was to reconstruct the past on its own terms, free from teleological frameworks. His famous phrase “wie es eigentlich gewesen”, translates “as it actually was”.

He argued against the speculative philosophies of history such as those of Hegel which believed that history as a manifestation of universal spirit or inevitable progress.

In his work “Zur Kritik Neuerer Geschichtsschreiber (1824)”, he wrote that historians should refrain from judging the past and should seek to understand it as it actually was.

Every Age is Unique and Equal Before God

He was an ardent believer of Historicism, which in his words was the backbone of historiography. Historicism means that all human actions and ideas have to be explained historically according to their specific historical causes and context, not to be judged from contemporary practices and ideas.

His main emphasis was that no age should be judged as superior or inferior, every age is equal before God. For e.g., when we study about the middle ages in Europe, we often criticised the people as god fearing or superstitious, but if we analyse the prevalent norm in that age, it was a common practice to follow the religion extremely, and believing in many things that are now considered as superstitious.

Another example is the controversial and outdated “Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT)” of the Indian subcontinent, it was given by the imperial historians of Britain, who couldn’t digest the fact that oriental civilizations were far more diverse and less barbaric than they once thought. To satisfy their political and religious zeal, they came up with the AIT, to support the British conquest and White Man’s Burden to develop the other inferior race.

Writing Political History

His methods were deeply rooted in political history, in which he regarded the state as the central unit of historical development, famously calling it a manifestation of the idea of God in history. His work, “History of the Reformation in Germany (1839-47)”, illustrates how he analysed events primarily through the lens of state and diplomatic actions rather than social or economic forces. His lectures and writings reveal his conviction that the state was the highest form of human organization and thus the proper subject of historiography.

The main argument here is that his era of history writing coincided with the era of growing nationalism in Europe, especially in Germany and Italy, his emphasis on political historiography can be understood as writing history of the German nation, which was disorganised and divided among smaller principalities, his main focus was on writing history of a great, undivided German nations and his people.

SOME QUESTIONS OF UNDERSTANDING RANKEAN HISTORY

1) Does History Repeat Itself?

He did not believe in a mechanical or cyclical view of history, unlike some classical historians such as Polybius or Thucydides, who saw history revolving in a cycle. His main argument was that each age is unique and must be understood on its own terms. Rankean historians did not believe in a repetitive pattern of rise and fall, but a series of distinctive epochs, each shaped by its own conditions, ideas and circumstances.

For e.g., when studying about the French Revolution of 1789 and 1848, we often cite that revolutions repeats when anarchy and disorder happens and it will happen again, but this is not the case, according to Ranke, they are not repetitions, but are unique events that are shaped by their own contexts. The 1789 revolution occurred from the tyrannous regime of Louis XVI, financial crisis and growing Enlightenment ideas, whereas the 1848 revolution was driven by industrialization and growing nationalism in French society.

2) Is History A Dialogue Between The Present And The Past?

E.H. Carr in his seminal work “What is History? (1961)”, have presented the famous dictum that history is an "unending dialogue between the present and the past”, but he is wrong in the context of Rankean historiography.

Carr believed in the interpretation and context of history, which is shaped by the historians’ contemporary beliefs but the main question here remains that how can we measure a past event based on contemporary beliefs. For e.g., it would be a grave mistake to say that people of the 14^th century were inferior to those of the 21^st century because they did not have smartphones, cars, laptops or AI etc.

In short, history is not a dialogue between the past and present, but an attempt to reconstruct the past in its own truth, free from presentist judgements and biasness.

3) Should History Be Free From Speculative Philosophies?

Rankean historiography has always been an opponent of philosophical ideas in history, as Ranke has argued that historians must avoid imposing philosophical systems, moral lessons and ideological interpretations onto the past. Their duty was to carefully reconstruct the events from the authentic sources and present them as it actually happened.

Philosophy in history has imposed abstract frameworks that distort the uniqueness of each age and its facts. For e.g., non Rankean historians have presented the period of Reformation in Germany as an inevitable stage in humanity’s progress towards modern freedom, reducing it to a part of a universal law of development. But Ranke’s interpretation was that it should be studied through its own sources such as Luther’s writings, papal decrees, imperial diets and diplomatic correspondences. He believed that it was not a stage in a grand philosophical story but a unique historical event shaped by the 16^th century religious, political and cultural context.

4) Is There Causation In History?

The question of causation in history is the study of why events happened, exploring the relationship between events that led to a particular outcome, and understanding how past developments influence the present and future. For Ranke, causation was real, but it was not to be explained through abstract laws or deterministic philosophies. Instead, it had to be established through empirical evidence drawn from authentic sources. He sought to reconstruct how one event flowed into another within the framework of its own time, always respecting the uniqueness in every age. His main emphasis was that the historical events were linked by causes and consequences but he rejected the idea of universal laws of history as Hegel and Marx proposed.

He held that historians must derive causes in their own context, not applying modern categories, as he had warned against judging the past with present day values or reducing it to lessons for the present.

For e.g., a Rankean study on the decline of the Mughal Empire in the 18^th century India demonstrates his ideas of causation such as political, military and economic factors that must be studied within the Mughal context of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, not as a mechanical repetition of earlier imperial declines.

5) Why Does Historicism Matter In Writing History?

Historicism can be understood as a belief that each age in history must be understood in its own terms, without imposing the value or judgements of later times. Ranke gave classic shape to this doctrine in the 19^th century, believing that historicism prevents historians from distorting the past by applying modern categories such as democracy, nationalism or human rights to societies that never thought in those terms. It ensures fairness to historical actors by allowing them to be judged in their own context.

Karl Popper in his seminal work “The Poverty of Historicism(1944)” attacked historicism on the grounds that is unscientific and dangerously deterministic, his main argument centred on the belief that history unfolds according to discoverable “laws” that can predict the future and such thinking paves the way for totalitarian ideologies. While his caution against over generalization is valid, his criticism rests on a misunderstanding of what most historians meant by the term.

Historicism does not seek to predict the future or identify universal laws of development, Rather it argues that each epoch must be understood in its own context. By equating it with fatalistic prophecy, Popper created a straw man fallacy, as he ignored that fact that historians rarely claim to forecast the future, their task is to reconstruct and interpret the past.

Moreover, his emphasis on falsifiability and piecemeal social engineering works well for scientific inquiry but it is not suited to historical understanding. History does not function like an experimental science, its actors do not behave in ways that can be reduced to fixed laws, no humans can be controlled by laws, we all know. Historicism remains valuable precisely because it affixes the past within its own intellectual and cultural contexts, allowing us to appreciate it without distortions.

CONCLUSION

To conclude my argument, Ranke emerges as a true progenitor of modern historiography, not for grand philosophical claims, but for his rigorous firmness on truth grounded in authentic sources. His principle of writing history “as it actually happened”, rejected the speculative philosophies, cyclical patterns and moral lessons, demanding instead that each age must be understood on its own terms. While he recognized causation, he refused to reduce history to deterministic laws, preserving its complexity within empirical frameworks. The debates on his works provoke causation, dialogue between past and present and the role of historicism remains alive precisely because he established history as a discipline of evidence rather than ideology. In doing so, he laid the enduring foundations of critical modern historical practice.

His principles continue to hold implication in an age where history is often misused to judge or punish the past through the lens of the present. His visualization insists that the past must be understood on its own terms, free from falsifications, distortions or moral preachings. What happened in the past belongs to the past, just as the present and future must be seen within their own realities. History is more than a collection of facts or dates, it is a dynamic and lively subject of inquiry, debate and interpretation. Just mugging up facts and dates, won’t make one a historian.

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Author Bios:

Adil Nawaz is a final-year LLB student at Islamia Law College, University of Peshawar. He is the General Secretary of the Law Society and an active researcher in constitutional and environmental law.

Manahil Irfan is a legal researcher and aspiring policy analyst with a focus on AI ethics, gender justice, and international law. She is passionate about promoting responsible technology use in South Asia.

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to revolutionize every facet of society—from governance and healthcare to national security and education—Pakistan stands at a critical juncture. The country is witnessing a rapid technological transformation without a corresponding evolution in legal and regulatory frameworks. The absence of a robust, rights-based, and enforceable AI policy has left individuals, institutions, and national interests vulnerable to ethical violations, privacy intrusions, cyber threats, and social manipulation.

Both international examples and domestic incidents underscore the urgency for Pakistan to develop a comprehensive legal architecture to govern AI deployment. This article combines ethical, legal, and strategic perspectives to propose a framework that ensures responsible AI governance in Pakistan—balancing innovation with accountability and security with civil liberties.

The Case for Comprehensive AI Legislation

Pakistan’s current legal infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle the nuanced threats of AI. The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016 primarily addresses traditional forms of cybercrime but falls short when it comes to AI-generated deepfakes, algorithmic discrimination, or voice cloning (Government of Pakistan, 2016). Over 11,000 AI-related complaints were registered with the FIA in 2023 alone, involving cases ranging from identity theft and political misinformation to gender-based harassment (Digital Rights Foundation, 2023).

High-profile incidents involving AI-generated audios of politicians and public figures have gone viral, misleading the public and eroding trust in democratic institutions (Bandial, 2024). Global parallels exist: U.S. President Joe Biden and actress Emma Watson have both been victims of AI-generated deepfakes (The White House, 2023; Mesa, 2023). However, unlike countries such as the U.S., EU, and China, Pakistan lacks a structured policy framework to prevent such misuse.

Furthermore, the State Bank of Pakistan (2023) has reported rising financial fraud incidents using voice cloning technology. These developments indicate that AI is no longer a futuristic concern but a present-day threat demanding swift legislative response.

Human Rights and Ethical Implications of AI

AI systems, while efficient, can perpetuate social biases, undermine privacy, and threaten human dignity. Article 14 of Pakistan’s Constitution and Article 17 of the ICCPR guarantee the right to privacy and dignity. However, these constitutional protections are increasingly insufficient when AI tools are used for political manipulation, predictive policing, or generating non-consensual explicit content, especially targeting women (Gezgin et al., 2021; Ferguson, 2017).

Deepfake pornography, often targeting female public figures, has become an alarming global trend. Nearly 98% of deepfakes are pornographic in nature, and 99% of those target women (Digital Rights Foundation, 2023). In Pakistan’s conservative society, such misuse of AI technology can have devastating reputational, psychological, and even physical consequences for victims.

The ethical dilemma extends to automated decision-making in sectors like hiring, healthcare, and banking. Biased algorithms—trained on discriminatory datasets—can deny individuals opportunities based on race, gender, or socio-economic status (Plečko & Bareinboim, 2024). AI must therefore be aligned with human-centric values, and ethical guidelines should be legally enforceable, not voluntary.

Global Regulatory Frameworks: Models to Emulate

Internationally, the regulation of AI has become a priority. The European Union’s AI Act (2024) sets a precedent by classifying AI systems into risk categories—unacceptable, high-risk, and low-risk—and prescribing corresponding legal obligations (Madiega, 2024). The U.S. has adopted a more sectoral approach, issuing executive orders and soft regulations like the AI Bill of Rights that focus on algorithmic accountability and public transparency (White House, 2022, 2023).

China’s model, while heavily state-controlled, shows how strategic regulation of AI can align with national security interests (Ruan et al., 2021). These examples present different paths that Pakistan can adapt to its unique legal, cultural, and political context.

Pakistan’s draft Personal Data Protection Bill (2023) and National AI Policy are initial steps in the right direction (Ministry of Information Technology & Telecommunication, 2023). However, they remain vague on implementation mechanisms and enforcement. Critical issues such as data localization, biometric surveillance, algorithmic bias, and the liability of AI developers are left largely unaddressed.

Security Threats and Hybrid Warfare

AI is increasingly deployed as a tool of hybrid warfare—ranging from psychological operations and misinformation to cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. Pakistan currently faces over 900,000 cyberattacks daily, many using AI-driven malware and social engineering tools (Express Tribune, 2023). The Cyber Crime Wing of the FIA, while active, lacks the technical capacity and financial resources to tackle these sophisticated threats (Azad, 2022).

Pakistan must recognize AI as both a technological asset and a security liability. Drawing inspiration from institutions like the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) could help establish a specialized cyber-defense body tailored to AI risks (The White House, 2023).

On the military front, integrating AI into surveillance, drone warfare, and command systems raises significant ethical and security questions. Without clear international norms on military AI, the risks of accidental escalation or autonomous system malfunction increase dramatically (Galaz et al., 2021; Buzan & Wæver, 2003). Pakistan must engage in regional and global dialogues on responsible military use of AI while developing its own ethical doctrines.

Institutional and Technical Capacity Building

Effective AI regulation cannot be achieved through law alone. It demands institutional reform, technical capacity, and public awareness. Government departments currently lack the expertise to monitor AI tools, assess their risks, or audit algorithms for bias (Mathur, 2022). Moreover, judges, police officers, and regulators are often unfamiliar with the mechanics of machine learning, neural networks, or natural language processing.

To address this, Pakistan must:

• Partner with universities to establish AI Law and Ethics Labs;

• Train judiciary and law enforcement in AI forensics and regulation;

• Launch public campaigns on AI awareness, particularly focused on marginalized communities and women (Lexalytics, 2022);

• Develop multilingual educational content to ensure AI literacy across Pakistan’s diverse population.

The Way Forward: Legal and Policy Recommendations

1. Legislate a Comprehensive AI Law: Pakistan needs a stand-alone AI law that defines key concepts, rights, responsibilities, and penalties. The law must be aligned with constitutional guarantees and international treaties.

2. Amend PECA 2016: Incorporate AI-specific crimes, definitions for deepfakes, algorithmic decision-making, and cyber-psychological manipulation.

3. Operationalize the Data Protection Bill: Equip the Personal Data Protection Authority with enforcement powers and mandate data impact assessments for AI systems.

4. Establish an AI Governance Body: Create a National Commission on AI Ethics and Safety comprising legal experts, technologists, ethicists, and civil society actors.

5. Invest in AI Research and Public Sector Innovation: Support home-grown AI solutions that address Pakistan’s development challenges—from healthcare to agriculture—while embedding human rights safeguards from the design stage (Dong & McIntyre, 2014).

6. Engage Globally: Pakistan should participate in OECD, UNESCO, and UN initiatives on AI governance to ensure its frameworks are globally interoperable and diplomatically aligned.

Conclusion: Balancing Innovation with Accountability

AI holds immense promise for Pakistan. It can revolutionize governance, democratize access to services, and enhance national competitiveness. But without a thoughtful and enforceable legal framework, it also threatens privacy, social equity, and security.

Pakistan has a unique opportunity to shape its AI governance in ways that respect its cultural values, legal traditions, and development goals. It must act now—before the pace of innovation overtakes the rule of law.

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This essay was written by Elias Castro: a student from New York

In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco devoted his life to a deeply conservative vision of Spain. He joined a military coup, fought immensely, and emerged as the dictator of Spain. General Francisco Franco set out to create a unified, nationalist Spain by aligning his regime with catholicism. In return, the church approved his reign and contributed to the development of the official ideology, which gave his dictatorship the appearance of moral legitimacy. The Franco Dictatorship in various ways shows how the Franco Regime used Catholic iconography, institutions, and propaganda- backed by censorship and repression. The result was to stifle dissent, repress women and give the impression of moral unity.

Franco’s government purposefully combined Catholic imagery with nationalist beliefs in order to sanctify political power and emotionally unite the Spanish Populace. Similar to how festivals function as occasions for symbolic exaltation and communal identification, religious art during the Spanish Civil war functioned in a similar emotional register, transforming religious devotion into political loyalty. His ideology- often Called nacionalcatolicismo (National Catholicism)- Politicized and elevated religious tradition to the center of national Identity. Franco Portrayed himself as God’s chosen leader fighting a “National Crusade.” As one commentator points out, “Paintings of the crucifixion, of the Virgin Mary, of Saint Teresa de Avila, or any saint imaginable can go far beyond the field of religious devotion; they are pillars of a regime itself.” Franco glorified and associated religious leaders with the nationalist cause turning Symbols of Catholic faith into symbols of state authority. Franco’s power was established in a divine and historical heritage, this sacralization did more than just elevate it to a merely visual level. As another scholar explains, “For Franco, the solution was to utilize the history of the Spanish Catholic Monarchy, specifically the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, as a common cultural unifier that all Spanish citizens could identify with. By utilizing the actions of the Catholic Monarchy as a precedent on which to base his policies, Franco created a sense of legitimacy around his regime and was able to garner the support of the disunified Spanish populace. “ Franco positioned himself as the spiritual heir to the Catholic monarchs, using religious iconography and ritual to disguise dictator authority in the language of national salvation. The catholic monarchs were praised for uniting Spain under both monarchy and the Church. Franco used Catholic imagery to cleanse Spain rather than just adorning it. As Scholars, Claudio Hernández Burgos and César Rina argue, “Festivities are moments of emotional exaltation and identity, which have the capacity to symbolize and sacralize political ideas in popular contexts, not strictly institutional ones.” In these emotionally charged settings - paintings, parades, and religious processions - Franco-ist ideology became honored. This was symbolic; thus legitimizing Franco’s reign by tying it to the tradition of the Spanish Catholic Monarchy. This Franco presented his reign as a supernatural continuation of Spain’s holy history. Thus continuing religious ceremony and Catholic imagery, this not only supported, but also legitimzed Franco’s power.

National Catholicism was Spain’s Ideological backbone during Franco’s reign, merging the catholic Church and the state into a single dictator's power. This merger provided the Church with unmatched power over Spanish culture, as Franco presented his rule as a spiritual “reconquista.” This reconquista was aimed to restore catholic dominance and moral order after the perceived chaos of the Republic. The privileged status of the Church was granted immediately following the Civil War. A little later –in June 1941– its rights were outlined in an Agreement between the Vatican and the Franco government, and finally formalised in a Concordat signed in August, 1953.

Amongst the provisions were:

1. recognition of Catholicism as the official religion of the country;
2. mandatory religious instruction at all educational levels in conformity with Catholic dogma;
3. financial support of the church by the state (paying the salary of priests and contributing to the (re)construction of church buildings);
4. guaranteed representation in both press and radio. To ensure that the Church hierarchy consisted of supportive members, Franco was granted the right to participate in the selection of bishops. The Concordat remained in effect until December 1979, a year following the implementation of a new democratic Constitution whose provisions rendered the Concordat anachronistic.

This highlights that under Franco, the union of Church and State was not symbolic, but institutionalized through legal and financial systems that ingrained catholicism in every layer of Spanish society. By declaring Catholicism the official state religion and mandating its teachings in school, the regime goal was the continuation of promoting catholicism not only domestically but internationally, thereby eradicating secular or dissident viewpoints. The church's cultural domination was strengthened by state funding and media control, which allowed religious dogma to impact both public opinion and private belief. From 1939 until 1975, Spain was a Catholic state under the dictator Gen. Francisco Franco. The Catholic Herald, one of Britain’s main Catholic news outlets, wrote, “Under General Franco’s 40-year dictatorship, church and state were intimately linked. Life was so strictly regimented that missing mass was frowned upon, while the dictatorship was openly supported by the church, which held a uniquely privileged position” (June 2, 2006). This evidence shows how Franco’s administration combined religious devotion with political obedience, making catholicism a tool for state control. Participation in religious life was required and socially enforced, transforming spiritual ritual into political action. The Church, being in a position of cultural and institutional domination, became critical to a justifying dictatorship. Through this integration, Franco created a culture in which religious compliance strengthened authoritarian control, and deviating from catholic ideals became synonymous with hostility to the country.

Franco’s usage of propaganda backed by censorship and repression enabled Franco to stifle dissent and promote catholic morality throughout the spanish nation. “Allied with Benito Mussolini of Italy and Adolf Hitler of Germany (among others), Franco quickly made the Kingdom of Spain his own toy to manipulate, exploit, and censor. His atrocities are numerous, including orders of mass executions and assassinations, repressing regional cultures and languages, and maintaining a tight grip on the press and cultural media for his propaganda.” This highlights Franco’s violent repression and how he manipulated his position of power in order to control the Spanish nation, through media, concentration camps, and repressing regional cultures and language to influence his agenda of catholic nationalism. “Censorship under Franco was imposed on literature, radio, film and television, music and public performances. The great majority of books submitted to the censor for approval were banned. The Falange and the Church had direct control of the process, acceptance being subject to conformity with Franco’s political ideology and with Catholic morality. At the end of the Civil War, most of the intellectuals and artists who had defended the Republic – those who had not been imprisoned or killed – had gone into exile.” Franco’s agenda along with the impact of the catholic church eliminated diversity in thought and religion working towards establishing a nation-state of citizens that conformed with the ideals and morals of Franco catholic promotion and practices; being backed by the catholic church. Lastly, “Francoism professed a strong devotion to militarism, hyper-masculinity, and the traditional role of women in society. A woman was to be loving to her parents and brothers and faithful to her husband, and reside with her family. Official propaganda confined women’s roles to family care and motherhood. Most progressive laws passed by the Second Republic were declared void. Women could not become judges, testify in trial, or become university professors.” Franco’s use of repression was not only used to create a nation-state but also to purify Spain and hyper emphasize masculinity to establish gender roles and not putting women in a place of power. Further, propaganda was used to force that narrative of traditional gender roles and illusion the women that were a part of the Spanish nation.

Franco’s dictatorship demonstrates how religion, particularly catholicism, can be weaponized to legitimize dictatorial rule, stile resistance, and create a unified national identity. Franco’s idea of national Catholicism united church and state, elevating religious tradition to the level of political responsibility. Catholic rituals, images and instruction were converted into tools for moral discipline and social control, resulting in a political culture in which loyalty to the Caudillo became synonymous with religious devotion. Franco’s disguised dictatorship used moral restoration by portraying himself as the spiritual successor of Spain's catholic kings and instilling supernatural purpose in his rule. The Church, in turn, garnered institutional benefits while contributing to the regime's moral exterior, stifling opposition in favor of a religious and controlled society. Propaganda and censorship, combined with brutality and persecution, ensure that catholic morality dominates all aspects of public and private life, from cultural expression to gender norms. The Franco administration not only desired unity, but also required uniformity, elimination of regional, ideological, and gender variation in favor of a sanitized, catholic-nationalist vision of Spain. Finally, the dictatorship was a theological endeavor, utilizing the holy to sanctify authority and create a society in which defying Franco meant defying faith itself.

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