blog questions

Here are the promised nine blog questions. Please answer as many as you need to, as specified on the syllabus; please also remember to post each answer as a separate blog post, so that others can reply as appropriate.

1. Would the world be a more peaceful place if everyone spoke the same language? Think here specifically about issues of communication and diplomacy.

2. Short of war, how might a state and its authorized diplomatic representatives work to achieve some broadly desirable goal, like the promotion of human rights or democracy?

3. Should states care about the performance of their national team at a global sporting competition, such as the Olympics or the World Cup? Why or why not?

4. Are there issues in world politics that cannot, even in principle, be resolved through diplomatic means? In other words, are there limits to diplomacy?

5. Think back on our game of Diplomatic Risk. What resources or opportunities would you have needed in order to fulfill your objectives? What difference would those resources or opportunities have made?

6. What might it mean to "win" in actual world politics (as opposed to in a board game simulating some aspects of world politics)?

7. Do powerful countries have any particular obligations towards less powerful countries? How about rich countries in relation to poorer ones?

8. As a diplomat, should you focus on advancing the interests of your home country, or should you focus on getting the best outcome for the world as a whole? What if these two goals conflict -- which should predominate?

9. Rosenblum notes on p. 245 of the paperback edition: "The only way to keep them [the space-residing humans, who are phenotypically different even though they are genetically the same] safe is to be separate. A nation with the power to protect its own." Hence, sovereignty protects difference, in this way of thinking about things. Do you agree?