The American just war theory in the 21st century: continuity or renewal?

Evaluations of the American war against Iraq are split into two irreconcilable camps among just war theorists. Michael Walzer, on the one hand, is basically critical of the war, saying that the threat of Saddam’s regime did not then constitute the right of self-defense of the U.S. or any other country. Jean Bethke Elshtain, on the other, believes that it is the obligation of the U.S. to defend universal values like freedom and democracy on the world-wide scale, and argues for the justification of the Iraq war. Why and how are such opposite standpoints found in the same idea of "just war"? This paper aims to answer this question by subdividing the kinds and traditions of just war theory. In fact, the doctrine of just war, which goes back more than 1,600 years to the era of St. Augustine, is the gathering of particular ideas that are joined together in their family resemblance yet still different in fundamental ways. Especially, the difference between the modern just war theory and the premodern one is substantial and significant. Historically, the doctrine of just war was born far earlier than the emergence of the modern sovereign state system, and has not always been suitable for it in some crucial respects. In my analysis, Walzer belongs to the modern just war tradition since Grotius, while Elshtain blongs to the premodern one since Augustine. This paper first makes clear in what way the modern and premodern just war traditions are different with a brief, historical overview. Secondly, it develops the distinction further by presenting a detailed analysis of the conflicting evaluations of Walzer and Elshtain over the Iraq war. Finally, this paper points out that the American just war doctrine in this century has been steadily drifting from the former to the latter

Chiral Ordering in Supercooled Liquid Water and Amorphous Ice

The emergence of homochiral domains in supercooled liquid water is presented using molecular dynamics simulations. An individual water molecule possesses neither a chiral center nor a twisted conformation that can cause spontaneous chiral resolution. However, an aggregation of water molecules will naturally give rise to a collective chirality. Such homochiral domains possess obvious topological and geometrical orders and are energetically more stable than the average. However, homochiral domains cannot grow into macroscopic homogeneous structures due to geometrical frustrations arising from their icosahedral local order. Homochiral domains are the major constituent of supercooled liquid water and the origin of heterogeneity in that substance, and are expected to be enhanced in low-density amorphous ice at lower temperatures

On the Occurrence of Clathrate Hydrates in Extreme Conditions: Dissociation Pressures and Occupancies at Cryogenic Temperatures with Application to Planetary Systems

We investigate the thermodynamic stability of clathrate hydrates at cryogenic temperatures from the 0 K limit to 200 K in a wide range of pressures, covering the thermodynamic conditions of interstellar space and the surface of the hydrosphere in satellites. Our evaluation of the phase behaviors is performed by setting up quantum partition functions with variable pressures on the basis of a rigorous statistical mechanics theory that requires only the intermolecular interactions as input. Noble gases, hydrocarbons, nitrogen, and oxygen are chosen as the guest species, which are key components of the volatiles in such satellites. We explore the hydrate/water two-phase boundary of those clathrate hydrates in water-rich conditions and the hydrate/guest two-phase boundary in guest-rich conditions, either of which occurs on the surface or subsurface of icy satellites. The obtained phase diagrams indicate that clathrate hydrates can be in equilibrium with either water or the guest species over a wide range far distant from the three-phase coexistence condition and that the stable pressure zone of each clathrate hydrate expands significantly on intense cooling. The implication of our findings for the stable form of water in Titan is that water on the surface exists only as clathrate hydrate with the atmosphere down to a shallow region of the crust, but clathrate hydrate in the remaining part of the crust can coexist with water ice. This is in sharp contrast to the surfaces of Europa and Ganymede, where the thin oxygen air coexists exclusively with pure ice

Lennard-Jones Parameters Determined to Reproduce the Solubility of NaCl and KCl in SPC/E, TIP3P, and TIP4P/2005 Water

Most classical nonpolarizable ion potential models underestimate the solubility values of NaCl and KCl in water significantly. We determine Lennard-Jones parameters of Na+, K+, and Cl– that reproduce the solubility as well as the hydration free energy in dilute aqueous solutions for three water potential models, SPC/E, TIP3P, and TIP4P/2005. The ion–oxygen distance in the solution and the cation–anion distance in salt are also considered in the parametrization. In addition to the target properties, the hydration enthalpy, hydration entropy, self-diffusion coefficient, coordination number, lattice energy, enthalpy of solution, density, viscosity, and number of contact ion pairs are calculated for comparison with 17 frequently used or recently developed ion potential models. The overall performance of each ion model is represented by a global score using a scheme that was originally developed for comparison of water potential models. The global score is better for our models than for the other 17 models not only because of the quite good prediction for the solubility but also because of the relatively small deviation from the experimental value for many of the other properties