By Munroe Smith. Introduction by Colin Heston.

When Munroe Smith, the American jurist and scholar of comparative constitutional law, published Militarism and Statecraft in the early twentieth century, the world stood at a threshold. The balance of power in Europe was faltering, national ambitions clashed violently with the ideals of peace and progress, and the question of whether nations could master the destructive temptations of militarism was no longer abstract. It was a pressing reality. Smith’s concern was not simply with armies and weapons, but with the deeper political psychology that drives nations toward war. He sought to expose how the logic of militarism—discipline, hierarchy, and force—could infiltrate civil government, undermining the very statecraft that was supposed to serve reason, justice, and stability.

At the time of its writing, Smith was addressing the dangers of an era when Prussian militarism, the rivalries of empires, and the failure of diplomacy threatened the international order. His work can be read as both analysis and warning: a sober reflection on how the pursuit of military superiority can distort the priorities of states, drawing them away from long-term peace toward short-term domination. For Smith, the central challenge was not only to prepare adequately for defense but also to ensure that the military ethos did not overwhelm civil society and political judgment.

The value of these reflections is not confined to Smith’s age. In 2025, more than a century later, the tension between militarism and statecraft persists, albeit in new forms. The end of the Cold War did not usher in an era of lasting peace, but rather revealed the fragility of international institutions and the persistence of rival nationalisms. Today, the global order is marked by renewed great-power competition, particularly between the United States and China, alongside Russia’s continuing assertiveness in Europe. The conflicts in Ukraine, the South China Sea, and the Middle East remind us that the balance of deterrence and diplomacy remains unstable.

Moreover, the rise of advanced technologies—autonomous weapons systems, cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence in military planning, and the militarization of outer space—has created new arenas where Smith’s questions echo with urgency. If he warned against the creeping influence of military logic on the political state, how much more should we be concerned when the logic of algorithms and machine efficiency begins to shape the most consequential decisions of war and peace? The issue is no longer only about armies marching across borders but about invisible lines of code and satellites in orbit—yet the fundamental danger is the same: that the tools of defense become ends in themselves, driving state policy rather than serving it.

Smith also recognized that militarism poses a danger to the vitality of democratic institutions. In times of insecurity, citizens may surrender too readily to centralized authority, trading liberties for promises of safety. In 2025, as societies grapple with disinformation campaigns, rising authoritarianism, and deep political polarization, Smith’s warning acquires a renewed resonance. The militarization of politics—whether through expanded security states, the rhetoric of perpetual conflict, or the invocation of national emergency—remains a challenge to civic freedom.

What Smith offers, therefore, is not a simple rejection of military power but a call for balance. Statecraft requires prudence, restraint, and a recognition of the limits of force. True security, he suggests, cannot rest on militarism alone, for unchecked military logic corrodes the very foundations of peace. In 2025, as nations navigate the double-edged sword of military innovation and the uncertainty of a multipolar world, his insights invite us to reflect on the perennial dilemma: how can we cultivate security without letting the instruments of war dominate our political imagination?

To read Militarism and Statecraft today is to encounter a voice from another century that speaks to our own. It reminds us that the dilemmas of power, security, and diplomacy are not new, even as the technologies and actors change. Smith’s work urges us to see beyond immediate crises and to measure the costs of militarism not only in battles fought, but in the subtle ways it reshapes our societies, our freedoms, and our possibilities for peace. If the twenty-first century is to avoid the mistakes of the twentieth, it will be by heeding the balance that Smith demanded: a statecraft that governs militarism, rather than a militarism that governs the state.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 151p.

UNITED STATES. CYBERSECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY; UNITED STATES. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION;

From the document: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) prepared this overview to help partners defend against insider threat concerns that could materialize during the 2024 election cycle. For years, federal, state, local, and private sector partners nationwide have worked closely together to support state and local officials in safeguarding election infrastructure from cyber, physical, and insider threats. Because of these efforts, there is no evidence that malicious actors changed, altered, or deleted votes or had any impact on the outcome of elections. Over the past several years, the election infrastructure community has experienced multiple instances of election system access control compromises conducted by insider threats. While there is no evidence that malicious actors impacted election outcomes, it is important that election stakeholders at all levels are aware of the risks posed by insider threats and the steps that they can take to identify and mitigate these threats. This document outlines several recent examples of election security-related insider threats, discusses potential scenarios that could arise during the 2024 election cycle, and provides recommendations for how to mitigate the risk posed by insider threats."

UNITED STATES. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION; UNITED STATES. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY. 2024. 9p.

By Timothy Cubitt, Anthony Morgan and Isabella Voce

Recent protest activity in Australia has related to a range of political and social causes, including climate change, women’s rights, pandemic-related government policies, and a range of ideological movements. While peaceful protests were held in parts of the country, some resulted in arrests, fines and violence (ABC News 2021; Bavas & Nguyen 2021). Over time, fringe and conspiratorial rhetoric increased across social media (De Coninck 2021) and began featuring more prominently in anti-authority ‘freedom’ protests (Khalil & Roose 2023). While the public health measures have ceased, these freedom protests—and related social movements—have persisted. Conspiratorial and far-right actors have become increasingly prominent among anti-government or anti-authority protests

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 693. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2024. 16p.

By Carl Gutierrez-Jones

The beating of Rodney King, the killing of Amadou Diallo, and the LAPD Rampart Scandal: these events have been interpreted by the courts, the media and the public in dramatically conflicting ways. Critical Race Narratives examines what is at stake in these conflicts and, in so doing, rethinks racial strife in the United States as a highly-charged struggle over different methods of reading and writing. Focusing in particular on the practice and theorization of narrative strategies, Gutiérrez-Jones engages many of the most influential texts in the recent race debates including The Bell Curve, America in Black and White, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, and The Mismeasure of Man. In the process, Critical Race Narratives pursues key questions posed by the texts as they work within, or against, disciplinary expectations: can critical engagements with narrative enable a more democratic dialogue regarding race? what promise does such experimentation hold for working through the traumatic legacy of racism in the United States? Throughout, Critical Race Narratives initiates a timely dialogue between race-focused narrative experiment in scholarly writing and similar work in literary texts and popular culture.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2001.

By John Tehranian

Middle Easterners: Sometimes White, Sometimes Not - an article by John Tehranian
The Middle Eastern question lies at the heart of the most pressing issues of our time: the war in Iraq and on terrorism, the growing tension between preservation of our national security and protection of our civil rights, and the debate over immigration, assimilation, and our national identity. Yet paradoxically, little attention is focused on our domestic Middle Eastern population and its place in American society. Unlike many other racial minorities in our country, Middle Eastern Americans have faced rising, rather than diminishing, degrees of discrimination over time; a fact highlighted by recent targeted immigration policies, racial profiling, a war on terrorism with a decided racialist bent, and growing rates of job discrimination and hate crime. Oddly enough, however, Middle Eastern Americans are not even considered a minority in official government data. Instead, they are deemed white by law.
In Whitewashed, John Tehranian combines his own personal experiences as an Iranian American with an expert’s analysis of current events, legal trends, and critical theory to analyze this bizarre Catch-22 of Middle Eastern racial classification. He explains how American constructions of Middle Eastern racial identity have changed over the last two centuries, paying particular attention to the shift in perceptions of the Middle Easterner from friendly foreigner to enemy alien, a trend accelerated by the tragic events of 9/11. Focusing on the contemporary immigration debate, the war on terrorism, media portrayals of Middle Easterners, and the processes of creating racial stereotypes, Tehranian argues that, despite its many successes, the modern civil rights movement has not done enough to protect the liberties of Middle Eastern Americans.
By following how concepts of whiteness have transformed over time, Whitewashed forces readers to rethink and question some of their most deeply held assumptions about race in American society.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2008. 250p.

By Michael German and Emmanuel Mauleón

On April 27, 2019, a white supremacist armed with a high-powered rifle walked into a San Diego synagogue and shot four people, one fatally, before fleeing and finally surrendering to police. A letter the gunman allegedly posted online shortly before the shooting claimed credit for a previous arson attack on an Escondido mosque, spewed racist “white genocide” conspiracy theories, cited earlier white supremacist attacks against a synagogue in Pittsburgh and mosques in New Zealand, and urged like-minded white Christians to commit further acts of violence.

 Was this crime an act of terrorism, a hate crime, or just another homicide? Under current Justice Department policies, how far-right violence targeting people based on race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability gets categorized is often arbitrary. But it has significant consequences for how federal officials label these crimes in public statements, how they prioritize and track them, and whether they will investigate and prosecute them. As a result, the Justice Department doesn’t know how many people far-right militants attack each year in the United States, which leaves intelligence analysts and policy makers in the dark about the impact this violence inflicts on our society and how to best address it. More importantly, the failure to properly label and respond to far-right violence deprives victimized communities of basic human dignity and equal protection of the law.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice. 2019, 51pg