Critique of Foreign Policy

The oft-invoked unity of theory and practice is something that Goethe realised in his public work as a minister in Weimar. And throughout his whole life – which, it must be noted, spanned the major transformations in Europe and beyond – he reflected upon contemporary issues and on politics more broadly. The politics of his time and contemplations on topics such as domination, war, and power...

Despite the dramatic experiences of two world wars and the use of nuclear weapons in the second of these, we have still not emerged from ceaseless cycle of the arms race, which is supposedly the only way to ensure peace. Sartre described the classic adage si vis pacem para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war) as the great stupidity of the ages. But there is a method, and above...

In this book, Ekkehart Krippendorf seeks to make targeted interventions in the public discourse on the role of the military. Or perhaps more accurately, to agitate for the emergence of such a discourse, since public debate on the role of the military within society is still caught in an embryonic phase.