Kentucky Quilts: Roots & Wings

1998 Kentucky Folk Art Center exhibition catalog depicting Kentucky quilts.https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kfac_exhibition_catalogs/1016/thumbnail.jp

Intelligence Studies, Universities and Security

This article offers a critical assessment of academic intelligence studies in higher education. It argues that universities (and academics) should value this subject far more highly than they currently do. Doing so will enhance better public understanding of an increasingly important and unique device in modern governance. It will also improve the quality of intelligence activity by raising awareness of both good and bad practice, encourage lawfulness by means of public understanding and so defending a vital public service from ill-informed attacks in today’s conflicted world. This, rather than training potential officers, should be the primary purpose of intelligence studies

The lawyers' war: states and human rights in a transnational field

While torture and assassination have not infrequently been used by states, the post 9/11 "war on terror" waged by the U.S. has been distinguished by the open acknowledgement of, and political and legal justifications put forward in support of, these practices. This is surprising insofar as the primary theories that have been mobilized by sociologists and political scientists to understand the relation between the spread of human rights norms and state action presume that states will increasingly adhere to such norms in their rhetoric, if not always in practice. Thus, while it is not inconceivable that the U.S. would engage in torture and assassination, we would expect these acts would be conducted under a cloak of deniability. Yet rather than pure hypocrisy, the U.S. war on terror has been characterized by the development of a legal infrastructure to support the use of "forbidden" practices such as torture and assassination, along with varying degrees of open defense of such tactics. Drawing on first-order accounts presented in published memoirs, this paper argues that the Bush administration developed such openness as a purposeful strategy, in response to the rise of a legal, technological, and institutional transnational human rights infrastructure which had turned deniability into a less sustainable option. It concludes by suggesting that a more robust theory of state action, drawing on sociological field theory, can help better explain the ways that transnational norms and institutions affect states

Private-Sector Cyberweapons: An Adequate Response to the Sovereignty Gap?

The cyber domain exhibits a sovereignty gap: the government cannot protect the private sector against all relevant threats. The challenge of cybersecurity, therefore, is essentially one of civil defense: how to equip the private sector to protect its own computer systems in the absence of decisive government involvement. Ordinarily, civil defense has involved passive measures such as resilience and redundancy. These measures, however, will not redress the sovereignty gap unless they are complemented by a proactive approach – especially the techniques of “active defense,” which attempt to neutralize threats before they are carried out. Yet presently the authority to implement active defense belongs exclusively to the government. Top officials in the United States and other countries have called for changes in law and policy that would bolster private sector active defense, such the insertion of web beacons in hostile machines. This paper explores the possible strategic and other consequences of arming the civilian quarters of cyberspace with active defense capabilities. It argues that while the potential defensive and other benefits of private-sector arms are significant, the risks to defenders, innocent third parties, and international conflict stability are notably greater. Cyber civil defense should remain a reactive enterprise. </p