AUTHOR'S BIO
Jonathan Schell
Jonathan Schell is a Fellow at The Nation Institute and is a visiting fellow at Yale University. He is the author of The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger.
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The Fall of the House of Murdoch
Jonathan Schell Series: The World in Words 2011-07-11The uncomfortable reality underlying the British phone-hacking scandal and its penumbra of corruption and appalling cruelty is that too many people want what Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is offering. And that means that what too many people want is dangerous to a civilized, law-based society.... read Comments: 7 Recommended: 0 Read: 26438
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The Protocols of Rupert Murdoch
Jonathan Schell Series: The World in Words 2010-12-20
The American right – the party of Fox News, the Tea Party, and, increasingly, of the Republican Party itself – are no longer conservatives, but radicals. Nothing illustrates this more starkly than the recent anti-Semitic attack on the financier and philanthropist George Soros by Fox News conspiracy-monger Glenn Beck.... read Comments: 6 Recommended: 2 Read: 21328
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Obama’s Vietnam Syndrome
Jonathan Schell Series: The World in Words 
2009-11-16What is uncanny about the current US debate about Afghanistan is the degree to which it displays continuity with the debate about the Vietnam war, and the Obama administration knows it. Lyndon Johnson knew that the Vietnam war could not be won even before his administration escalated it, but he also feared, rightly, that American presidents who lose wars also lose elections.... read Comments: 2 Recommended: 0 Read: 15439
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Remembering Robert McNamara
Jonathan Schell Series: The World in Words 2009-07-11Many of Robert McNamara’s critics argue that, despite his belated admission that the Vietnam War was wrong, he stopped short of full understanding, that he sought to hold fast to claims of noble intentions that the record could not sustain. That is true, but how many public figures of his importance have ever expressed any regret for their mistakes and follies and crimes?... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 14050
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Iran’s Less-is-More Nuclear Policy
Jonathan Schell Series: The World in Words 2007-12-06The recent US intelligence estimate on Iran's nuclear weapons program reduces the risk that America will attempt military intervention. But, with Iran having already mastered the hardest part of building a bomb while suspending only the final, easy steps, the Bush administration's aggressive proclivities have been headed off at the cost of leaving a gaping policy vacuum.... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 12946
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Kosovo's Constitutional Fiction
Jonathan Schell Series: The World in Words 2000-05-18PRISTINA, KOSOVO: One year after NATO's war over Kosovo, renewal is to be seen everywhere: in reconstructed houses; in the many shops opened in the ground floors of ruined buildings; in the budding cultural, intellectual, and journalistic life of Pristina. In only one area – politics – do these energies face a serious obstacle. Kosovo's political logjam is due, in part, to the inexperience of Kosovo's political parties, but it is mostly the result of a contradiction in UN Resolution 1244 which serves, for now, as a kind of constitution for Kosovo. ... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 8125
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The Nuclear Beast Reborn
Jonathan Schell Series: The World in Words 1999-10-15NEW YORK: Rejection by the US Senate of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was a torpedo aimed at the fragile global nuclear arms control regime built in the final decades of the Cold War. It comes after a series of recent blows to that regime, including: reports that China may be planning to expand and modernize its strategic nuclear arsenal by using information obtained through spying on America; second, the successful test by the US a few weeks ago of a prototype national missile defense (NMD) system; third, reports that India and Pakistan are proceeding to "weaponize" their nuclear arsenals (meaning that the intend to mate their bombs with delivery vehicles); fourth, the recommendation to the Indian government that it create forces to sustain a policy of nuclear deterrence; and, fifth, the takeover of Pakistan by armed forces favoring a hardline with India. Taken together, these events have the potential to sweep aside today's nuclear arms control regime -- something that the Republican majority in America's Senate would not be sorry to see. ... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 6782
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The Fallout from India’s Nuclear Tests
Jonathan Schell Series: The World in Words 1998-05-27NEW YORK: India’s test of five nuclear bombs in two days (setting off three in a day is something new in history) is one of those rare events that redraws the map of the world. A terrifying nuclear arms race in South Asia is likely, with the distinct danger of "nuclear battle" between India and Pakistan. The world now awaits Pakistan's decision whether or not to test the bombs already reported to be in its possession. North Korea is reneging on agreements to yield key nuclear materials. China is contemplating a full nuclear security guarantee to Pakistan, creating a complex, unstable four-sided nuclear stand-off in Asia between India, Pakistan, China, and, of course, Russia. Nuclear war, many regional experts say, is more likely now than it ever was in the Cold War. ... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 5142
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The Age of Distraction
Jonathan Schell Series: The World in Words 1996-02-14In the US election year now beginning, more than government is at stake. Everywhere politics is changing beyond recognition by the communications revolution. ... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 2459
