Big Questions

What is the best thing the world can do in this decade?

Best Things First by Bjorn Lomborg

Our focus should not be on policies that cost a lot, deliver little, and in the end likely don’t even work. Rather, we should focus our efforts on developing new technology and encouraging innovation that will lead to the production of affordable and dependable green energy.

Bjorn Lomborg

Is protecting humanity’s future from existential risks the central challenge of our time?

• getting people to act: Existential Does Not Touch Us (sp)
• global cooperation:
  • Global Catastrophic Risk Institute
  • Uniting the Techno-Democracies to Build Digital Cooperation
• nuclear war:
  • Iran Nuclear Deal: Losing an Enemy by Trita Parsi
  • The Bomb by Fred Kaplan
• on the edge of the burning platform: The Precipice by Toby Ord
• leadership during crisis: The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
• middle east unraveling: Black Wave by Kim Ghattas

  
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet by Jeff Goodell
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells

Should nations (e.g., Ukraine) be able to securely control its own borders and governments, or should larger countries (e.g., Russia) be allowed to absorb a country they deem within their “sphere of influence,” more or less upon the whim of one man (Putin)?

At the end, did the U.S. “forever war” in Afghanistan do more harm than good?

• What are the Lessons of History?

By returning and renegotiating the Nuclear Deal with Iran, can we

• avert the threat of war with Iran, and
• prevent the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb?

top

Big Picture

Big Picture / History / World Since 1920

Intl. Movements, Diplomacy, War Since 1920

• Period between World Wars 1920-39
• World War II, 1939-1945
• International Relations
• Economic developments from 1940
  • World Economic Forum (Davos)
• Geopolitics

Europe Since 1920

• Western Europe
• Eastern Europe
  • Soviet Union > Russia
  • Ukraine
  • Belarus
  • Transcaucasia: Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia
• Central Europe

United States since 1920

Canada Since 1920

Latin-American & Caribbean Nations

• Mexico since 1920
  • By its willful ignorance of the drug cartels, is Mexico on a path to becoming a narco-state?
• Central America and the Caribbean since 1920
• Venezuela and Columbia since 1930
• Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia since 1930
• Chile since 1920
• Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay since 1930
• Brazil since 1930
• Latin American culture in the 20th century

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

East Asia in the 20th century

• China since 1912
• Japan since 1910
  • 2021 Tokyo: everyday stories (documentary films)
• Korea since 1910
  • North Korea
  • South Korea

The Liberators by E. J. Koh

S. & S.E. Asia since 1920

• India:
  • love story: A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
  • quirky romance: Photograph
• Pakistan
  • blasphemy: rule by the muslim mob
• Bangladesh
• Ceylon
• Tibet
• Nepal
• Mainland Southeast Asia
• Indonesia
• Philippines

Australia and Oceania Since 1920

Southwest Asia and Africa since 1920

After 20 years in Afghanistan, “Americans should admit that today’s terrorists do not need physical sanctuary, so trying to control every isolated patch of territory on earth is not worth the cost even if it could be done.”

Steven Metz

• Turkey
• Cyprus
• Arab states
• Israel
• Iran
• Afghanistan
  • The American War in Afghanistan by Carter Malkasian
  • What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction
  • Chronicle of a Defeat Foretold: Why America Failed in Afghanistan By Christina Lamb
• Central Asia
• North Africa
• European colonial system & nationalist movements in Sub-Saharan Africa

top

Russians, Rise Up Against Putin, and Stop the Madness!

When President Biden said that Putin should no longer remain in power in Russia, officials responded angrily saying it is none of Biden (and America’s) business about what Putin should or should not do.

Really?

So if a crazy asshole breaks into your house and rapes, tortures and then kills your family and dog and destroys all your furniture and then sets your house and car on fire, you have no say in that? You are not going to make the crazy asshole accountable? You’re not going to press charges so he can be sent to prison for his crimes (against humanity)?

Putin has no authority whatsoever to invade a country unprovoked, destroy buildings and critical infrastructure, kill thousands of Ukrainians, and displace millions of men, women and children who have become refugees from his terror. As of December, 2022, Putin’s War has displaced approximately 14 million people, caused nearly 42,000 deaths and more than $350 billion in property damage.

So what did Putin think the world would say? When a tyrant invades a country and kills and destroys with impunity, he must be made accountable and it is his citizens who should make him accountable. Otherwise, you’ve lost control of your “ruler,” lost control of your country, and most importantly, lost control of your HUMANITY!

In 1998, the French jurist Louis Joinet laid out four principles for preventing impunity: (1) the right to know about crimes and abuses; (2) the right to justice; (3) the right to reparations; and (4) the right to non-recurrence of those crimes or abuses.

Louis Joinet

So what about it, Russians?

Are you going to let your authoritarian leader invade free and democratic countries at will and in the process, watch the global backlash ruin Russia’s economy and standing in the world? As it stands today, the free world has no trust in and respect for Russia. And that’s not going to change anytime soon until Putin is removed.

Putin is an evil and dangerous and destructive thug and the whole world knows it, and the whole world should not stand for it anymore.

Is America (with NATO) Ready to Accept the Nuclear Risk to STOP PUTIN?

sp

    
From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp
Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America by Rebekah Koffler
All the Kremlin’s Men by Mikhail Zygar

top