Politics

Nuclear weapons were invented out of fear. The United States was afraid that Hitler was developing an atomic weapon, and they had to get one to deter him from ever using it. When the U.S. Manhattan Project that built the bomb began, no-one ever thought we would use a weapon like this; it was considered beyond the pale—a weapon that would indiscriminately kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

Nuclear weapons expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund.

At its core lies a universal crisis of legitimacy of the state, and that crisis means many countries will evolve Fourth Generation war on their soil. America, with a closed political system and a poisonous ideology of multiculturalism, is a prime candidate for the home-grown variety of Fourth Generation war.

As two adversaries accumulate a longer history of conflict, their rivalry relationship tends to become 'locked-in' or entrenched, with future conflict becoming increasingly difficult to avoid; characteristics of their past confrontations can hasten or reverse this movement toward rivalry.

In the Fourth Generation war, the state loses its monopoly on war. All over the world, state militaries find themselves fighting non-state opponents such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Almost everywhere, the state is losing.

We must act now, before we reach economic checkmate.

Every nation is dependent on every other to shore up the system, and there are few (if any) instances where a country is fully shielded against the default of another.

The last quarter century of globalisation has utterly transformed how our markets and nations do business. With that in mind, we have to appreciate that our economies not only provide profound benefits and wealth-creation opportunities, but also hold very real (and untended) existential threats to the livelihoods of billions of citizens.

We can see, therefore, that sovereign debt has a systemically important role in the stability of the global economy, the economies of individual states and even the very peace of a country. To be able to then treat this as a market instrument- while appropriate at a time when capital flows were gentile and considered- is clearly not when we can write $2 trillion or more from an entire economy in a matter of seconds.

Increasingly heavy-handed purges of crime will simply move perpetrators into different industries, increase the severity of crime, or create extremist groups. There is very little more dangerous in the world than individuals with nothing to lose.

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The absolute focus must be on reducing inequality. This means creating strategies which provide economic opportunity - investing in industries that provide employment rather than profit, investing in education, and providing a fairer deal for those who form the labour force.

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First and foremost was the consolidation of democracy. Second was the stabilisation of the economy. Thirdly- and probably most importantly- was the ability of Brazil to deal with a problem we inherited from colonial times- inequality.

Brazilian Diplomat & Foreign Minister under Lula's Presidency

One thing that really helped us was NOT following the IMF prescription, and hence I think the fact that we insisted on having growth (alongside stability) was something that made for a big change in Brazil.

Brazilian Diplomat & Foreign Minister under Lula's Presidency

The way the police treat black people is like we're nothing.

Probably most importantly was the ability of Brazil to deal with a problem we inherited from colonial times- inequality.

Brazilian Diplomat & Foreign Minister under Lula's Presidency

The police never talk to us, they ignore us, they don't think we're human in this area.

All conflicts are different with their particular history and reasons. I think that inequality within societies and between regions has become a key cause for conflict, exacerbated by rapid information dissemination, as people are now more aware of inequalities.

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