The Talmud admonishes: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” That mantra has driven Israel’s national security doctrine since its 1948 founding, including its long-standing use of targeted killings by its spy services against individuals found to be responsible for terrorist attacks and other crimes against its citizens. On 7th June, 1981, Israeli fighter pilots destroyed the Osiraq nuclear reactor and made a profound statement about global nuclear proliferation. In light of the recent preventive regime change in Iraq, a review of this strike reveals timely lessons for future counter-proliferation actions. Preventive strikes are valuable primarily for two purposes: buying time and gaining international attention. Second, the strike provided a one-time benefit for Israel. Subsequent strikes will be less effective due to dispersed/hardened nuclear targets and limited intelligence. Have Israel’s targeted killings, shrouded in secrecy and deniability, come to do Israel more strategic harm than good? And do such killings conflict with the basic democratic and moral values of a state founded as a haven for a people victimized by genocide? This talk introduces the special issue’s question of whether and how the current transformation of targeted killing is transforming the global international order and provides the conceptual ground for the individual contributions to the special issue. It develops a two-dimensional concept of political order and introduces a theoretical framework that conceives the maintenance and transformation of international order as a dynamic interplay between its behavioral dimension in the form of violence and discursive processes and its institutional dimension in the form of ideas, norms, and rules. The talk also conceptualizes targeted killing and introduces a typology of targeted-killing acts on the basis of their legal and moral legitimacy.
Dr. S. Krishnan is an Associate Professor in Seedling School of Law and Governance, Jaipur National University, Jaipur, Rajasthan. He has worked as an Assistant Professor in History in Apex Professional University, Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh. He has 5 years teaching experience. He has also worked as a Journalist for about 7 years in esteemed newspapers like Indian Express and Daily News Analysis, online news portals and a magazine in Gujarat. And he worked as a Liaison Officer in Indian Society of International Law, New Delhi in 2013. The speaker has 86 articles (42 National + 44 International) in the journals and 481 Journalist Reports. Recently, he received the “Golden Social Scientist award for the Year 2020” for his excellence and rich contribution to the field of research.
He did his Ph.D from Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, Gujarat. His Ph.D Thesis was on “U.S.-NATO Relations: A Study of Changing U.S. Security Perceptions Since 1949”. His areas of specialization include: Modern Indian History, History of the United States and U.S. Foreign Policy, Strategic Studies, International Relations, History of Europe, History of China and Japan and Mass Media and Journalism.
Date: 20th July 2020
Time: 3:00 PM
Time: 3:00 PM
Registration: bit.ly/