Tag Archives: international relations

A New Map for Relationships: Chapter 1

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Martin Hellman

My last blog post announced that my wife Dorothie and I will be using my half of the $1 million ACM Turing Award to further our work on building a more peaceful, sustainable world. Our initial thrust will be to bring attention to a new approach described in our forthcoming book, A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home and Peace on the Planet. That approach combines a concern for global issues with improving one’s marriage or other intimate relationship. It worked wonders for us, while nothing else had dented our cycle of seemingly endless fights. We also found that working on both the personal and global dimensions simultaneously accelerated our progress on each of them. We hope to have the book ready in time for the formal conferral of the ACM Turing Award in June, and in the meantime hope to excite interest by posting some chapters of the book here. Chapter 1 is immediately below, and watch here for additional installments. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dorothie Hellman, international relations, marriage, martin hellman, needless wars, new map, nuclear deterrence, nuclear risk, nuclear weapons, stanford, war and peace | 7 Comments

Five Things America Needs to Learn

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Martin Hellman

Harvard Prof. Stephen Walt has an excellent article in Foreign Policy that I highly recommend you read in its entirety. Although its title is “The Top 5 Things the Next American President Needs to Know About Foreign Policy,” ordinary Americans need to learn these as well because, until enough of us do, the president will be unable to act on them out of fear of the political consequences. Here are Prof. Walt’s key points, excerpted from his article: Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged american foreign policy, critical thinking, international relations, martin hellman, needless wars, nuclear risk, stanford, Stephen M. Walt, ukraine, war and peace | Leave a comment

A Voice of Caution Not Heard in the West

Posted on February 6, 2015 by Martin Hellman

My last three posts have been about the risk of the Ukrainian crisis escalating out of control, and the lack of coverage of that possibility in the West. Today, as I went through a slew of articles about Ukraine, a number echoed my concern, but none of them received coverage in our mainstream media. (I did web searches on The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post.) One article, “Arming Ukraine will put the West in danger,” on the Reuters web site stood out for its clarity of thought and fairness. It says in part: Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged critical thinking, international relations, martin hellman, needless wars, nuclear risk, nuclear war, russia, stanford, war and peace | 4 Comments

Henry Kissinger’s Perspective on the Ukrainian Crisis

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Martin Hellman

Former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger had an OpEd last week in the Washington Post which just came to my attention, and which presents yet another, interesting perspective on the Ukrainian crisis. I’ve excerpted some key parts. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged critical thinking, foreign policy, henry kissinger, international relations, martin hellman, NATO, nuclear risk, OpEd, putin, russia, Tymoshenko, ukraine, war and peace, Washington Post, Yanukovych | 2 Comments

Should We Be Encouraging Israel to Attack Iran?

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Martin Hellman

I was surprised to find both of my senators cosponsoring Senator Lindsey Graham’s Senate Resolution 65, which “urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action [against Iran] in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel.” The problem isn’t if Israel attacks Iran in actual self-defense. But many nations, my own included, have sometimes attacked in the belief they were acting in self-defense, but were later found to be mistaken. Given its birth soon after the Holocaust and the history of Arab enmity, Israel is more likely than most to make such a mistake, and it concerned me that one of my senators was emboldening Israel in ways to make that even more likely. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged critical thinking, international relations, iran, martin hellman, nuclear proliferation, nuclear risk, nuclear weapons, Senate Resolution 65, Senator Barbara Boxer, stanford, war and peace | 3 Comments

Are We Encouraging a Japanese Nuclear Weapons Program?

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Martin Hellman

One of the last things we should do is empower those in Japan who would like to develop their own nuclear weapons. Yet, we are doing that because we have not thought through the long term consequences of our actions. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged china, critical thinking, deterrence, Diaoyu, international relations, japan, martin hellman, nuclear deterrence, nuclear posture, nuclear proliferation, nuclear risk, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, Senkaku, Shintaro Ishihara, Shinzo Abe, stanford, war and peace | 1 Comment

Poking the Russian Bear, An Update

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Martin Hellman

As noted in my November 25 posting, “Poking the Russian Bear — Again,” the Jackson-Vanik Amendment has been a needless, major irritant in Russian-American relations for decades, but also became an economic burden to America when Russia acceded to the World Trade Organization this summer. Rather than just repeal Jackson-Vanik as an outdated relic of the Cold War, both houses of Congress have now merged that action with passage of the so-called Magnitsky Bill – trading one poke in Russia’s eye for another. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged deterrence, international relations, Jackson-Vanik, Magnitsky Bill, martin hellman, nuclear deterrence, nuclear risk, russia, stanford | 2 Comments

Poking the Russian Bear – Again

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Martin Hellman

There have been some important new developments on the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which has an impact on nuclear risk. Most Americans don’t even know that this 1974 relic of the Cold War even exists, but it is frequently cited in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cold war, deterrence, international relations, Jackson-Vanik, Magnitsky, martin hellman, nuclear deterrence, nuclear risk, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, russia, stanford | 2 Comments

War Games and Nuclear Risk

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Martin Hellman

One way to apply risk analysis to a potential failure of nuclear deterrence is to decompose a catastrophic failure into four steps and estimate the risk of each step: Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Caspar Weinberger, deterrence, international relations, martin hellman, nuclear deterrence, nuclear proliferation, nuclear risk, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, Paul Bracken, proud prophet, stanford, The Second Nuclear Age, war games | 1 Comment

Another Early Warning Sign

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Martin Hellman

My post of two days ago showed that, if you are watching for them, early warning signs of potential nuclear disasters often can be seen, and catastrophe averted. As a current day example, I noted the dispute between Japan and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged china, critical thinking, deterrence, Diaoyu, international relations, japan, martin hellman, nuclear risk, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, Senkaku, stanford, war and peace | 2 Comments