Learning to Live with Guns | The Next Front Line | Balance-of-Power for the 21st Century, and more
Recovering a Balance-of-Power Principle for the 21st Century (Andrew Ehrhardt, War on the Rocks)
Writing in Foreign Affairs at the start of 2021, Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi, now senior American officials in charge of policy towards China, argued that a balance-of-power framework was needed for the region of East Asia. Using Henry Kissinger’s study of the 1814–15 Congress of Vienna as a guide, they described such a balance as potentially serving as the foundation of “an order that the region’s states recognize as legitimate.” From what I could discern, the article received surprisingly little attention, and the extent to which this thinking now drives America’s China policy remains hidden to those outside the White House. Nonetheless, the mention of such an approach to diplomacy, particularly at a time when a consensus considers the international order to be in a moment of systemic transition, is an idea worthy of investigation.
The term “balance of power” is one of the more overused and misunderstood in the modern English lexicon. It is invoked across a range of disciplines and industries, usually to describe the arrangement of certain subjects or phenomena in relation to one another. The journalist Brian Windhorst, for example, recently described the playoff series between the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks as one in which the “balance of power [was] constantly shifting” between the teams over the course of seven games. In an entirely different context, Rae Hart writes in the Jacobin that the “balance of power in the economy” must move “away from capital and toward working people.” Such variances in meaning seem to confirm the historian Albert Pollard’s view — one nearly 100 years-old — that the term “may mean almost anything; and it is used not only in different senses by different people, or in difference senses by the same people at different times, but in different senses by the same person at the same time.”
Senate Republicans Block Domestic Terrorism Bill (Lindsay Wise, Wall Street Journal)
Senate Republicans blocked debate Thursday on a bill that would establish new domestic terrorism offices in the wake of a shooting that killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket this month, saying the legislation could let the government target conservatives for their political views. The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act failed to reach the 60 votes need to advance under the threshold set by Senate filibuster rules, with 47 in favor and 47 opposed. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) called the bill “a necessary and timely step to honor the memories of the dead in Buffalo, and to make sure mass shootings motivated by race don’t happen again.” The bill would have created new offices within the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, and would have required coordination between the agencies, as well as regular reporting on domestic terrorism threats. The bill doesn’t contain any expansion of domestic surveillance authority or add criminal offenses, and some of its backers called it a limited measure. But the effort, which previously enjoyed GOP support, couldn’t overcome fresh opposition from Republicans who voiced concerns about backing any legislation that they allege could be subjectively applied to conservative causes.
Clear Pattern of Israel-related Antisemitism Evident on Some Midwestern Campuses (ADL)
In recent years, several college campuses across the Midwest have seen a troubling pattern of antisemitic anti-Israel activity. Recent examples have included: the targeting of Hillel, the premier center for Jewish student life on college campuses, with graffiti reading “Free Palestine” and an object thrown during an anti-Israel protest; the dissemination of a pamphlet depicting Israeli Jews as pigs; a call to “LEAVE [Israel] if you are Jewish” and a meme posted on social media encouraging others to “start shaming Zionists” to “go back to Brooklyn.”
Similar developments have involved the vilification and ostracization of any Israel- or Zionism-related study or activity, including a call for a boycott of Chicago-area Israeli restaurants and an accompanying declaration that patronizing them “directly funds genocide” and a social media post discouraging students from taking “sh*tty Zionist classes.” Most Jews worldwide, regardless of their political views, consider a connection to Israel, and support for its right to exist, to be a part of their Jewish identity.
How ‘Great Replacement’ Theory Led to the Buffalo Mass Shooting (Michael Feola, Washington Post)
Last weekend, a man identified by law enforcement authorities as an avowed racist extremist killed 10 people at a Buffalo grocery store. Police say the suspect intentionally targeted Black Americans on the basis of their race. As with other recent mass shooters in El Paso and Christchurch, New Zealand, authorities say the suspect explained his actions in a screed that draws heavily from the “great replacement” narrative — a racist theory that maintains native-born Whites are being intentionally displaced as ethnic majorities in their nations.
This narrative has spread well beyond the forums of the far right. And France’s recent presidential election included several right-leaning candidates who openly referred to the theory to exploit xenophobic fears. Since the Buffalo attack, commentators and politicians from the right have attempted to divert attention from the theory and instead focus on the shooter’s shaky mental health. But ignoring this narrative would obscure how it feeds and amplifies networks of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.
