The article asserts that globalization has made the world a more dangerous and less orderly place. The authors argue that since the emergence and expansion of globalization in the 1990s, the world has experienced more problems such as increasing terrorist activity, widening gaps between religious and cultural ideologies, unstable global financial systems, expanding dangers of pandemic disease, and the growing threat of global climate change.

International terrorism carried out by nonstate actors and the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to dangerous states have emerged in recent years as the most significant security threats to the international order. Although the nature of the threats has changed dramatically, the legal regime governing the international use of force has not undergone a comparable transformation. Many commentators and strategists see a growing disconnect between states' security needs and the international law security architecture. Contending that the international law rules and international institutions established by the U.N. Charter are ill-suited to meeting contemporary security threats, these commentators and policymakers advance new doctrines to expand the entitlement of states to use force unilaterally in self-defense.

This article rejects this perspective and the associated prescriptions for new legal rules to regulate the international use of force. It demonstrates that the U.N. Charter created a two-tiered system of rules and standards to govern the use of force. With respect to unilateral uses of force by states, the Charter employs a bright-line rule: to guard against erroneous and bad-faith invocations of the right of self-defense, force may be used unilaterally only in the event of an armed attack. The Charter employs a more flexible standards-based approach, subject to the procedural safeguards of collective decision-making by the Security Council, to authorize force to confront threats to international peace and security.

The article challenges the widely held assumption that the competing interests of the Permanent Members will inevitably produce gridlock in the Security Council with respect to collective action against the new security threats. To the contrary, there is an underlying affinity of interests among the Permanent Members with respect to these threats. The Permanent Members all face major international terrorist threats, and they all seek to preserve their near-monopoly over WMD. Accordingly, the Permanent Members share an interest in confronting international terrorism and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Because these contemporary security threats--unlike the rivalries of the Cold War era--do not implicate competing interests of the Permanent Members, the Security Council's security architecture is actually better suited to addressing today's threats than it was to countering the state-versus-state conflicts for which it was designed. The recent behavior of the Permanent Members reflects their increasing cooperation on the basis of this affinity of interests.

The article further argues that the use of force pursuant to the Charter's collective security provisions carries with it greater legitimacy, greater prospect for success, and less danger of destabilizing error or abuse than would force exercised pursuant to doctrines that expand the right of states to use force unilaterally. The Article also identifies pragmatic policy and diplomatic steps the Permanent Members should take to build upon their underlying affinity of interests regarding international terrorism and WMD proliferation so as to strengthen the capacity of the collective security architecture to confront these threats.

Since 2000, the Modesto City school district in Modesto, Calif., has been engaged in one of the nation's most direct experiments in using the public school curriculum to promote respect for religious freedoms and diversity. While other school districts include discussions of world religions in subject matters such as history or English or provide independent elective courses on world religions, Modesto requires that all 9th grade students take an extended, independent course on world religions. Unlike many other school districts' treatments of world religions, the teaching of respect for religious freedom is an explicit and central purpose of Modesto's world religions course. Modesto's course is part of a "safe schools" policy intended to create a comfortable school environment for all students, and the first two weeks of the course deal with the United States' tradition of religious liberty.

While studying the educational effects of Modesto's course on students' views addresses the question of whether world religions courses should be implemented in public schools, an examination of Modesto's religious landscape yields valuable insight into the question of whether world religions courses can be implemented and in which communities. Modesto is home to a large evangelical Christian population, an active group of politically and culturally liberal residents, and adherents of a wide range of religions including Sikhs, Jews, Hindus, Muslims and animists. The Modesto community's reaction to the required world religions course not only provides evidence about the possibility of successfully implementing required world religions courses in communities around the nation, but allows us to assess whether our nation's ability to deal with the issue of teaching about religion in schools is as bleak as the Kansas, Dover and Odessa disputes seem to suggest.

The Iraq Study Group, convened at the urging of Congress with White House agreement, made a forward-looking, independent assessment of the current and prospective situation on the ground in Iraq and how it affects the surrounding region as well as U.S. interests. The study group examined four broad topics:

• the strategic environment in and around Iraq;
• the security of Iraq and key challenges to enhancing security within the country;
• political developments within Iraq following the elections and formation of the new government;
• and the economy and reconstruction.

The group issued this final report to Congress, the White House, and the public on December 6, 2006. James A. Baker III, former secretary of state and honorary chairman of the Baker Institute, and Lee H. Hamilton, former congressman and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, co-chaired the bipartisan group. The balance of the group was comprised of Americans who have distinguished themselves in service to their nation: Robert M. Gates, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Edwin Meese III, Sandra Day O'Connor, Leon E. Panetta, William J. Perry, Charles S. Robb, and Alan K. Simpson. The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) facilitated the study, with support from three other organizations: the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Center for the Study of the Presidency (CSP), and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

Does diversity endanger democracy? Ethnic composition is often thought to affect democracy by means of its influence on the probability of violent civil conflict. According to such thinking, more diverse societies are more prone to conflict, which in turn makes them less hospitable to democracy.

How sound is this idea? This article tests it, performing quantitative analysis on data from the post-communist region. The study finds that conflict is negatively associated with democracy, but finds no empirical evidence that social fractionalization influences civil conflict or democratization. In fact, a concluding case study on Bulgaria suggests that diversity may actually "impose" certain opportunities for--not just obstacles to--the emergence of practices and institutions that promote open politics.

How has the threat of catastrophic terrorism reshaped the strategic environment? This chapter argues that in fact the threat is not dramatically new; what is new is the salience of this threat to the public in some states, particularly the United States. However, the secretive nature of counter-terrorism actions necessarily means that the public is ill-informed about the potential efficacy of government's activities and so cannot assess if their rhetoric matches their actions. Thus public statements can easily be tailored to what decision-makers think the public wants to hear, rather than to what decision-makers genuinely believe. We consequently rely on an examination of how the United States budgets and exercises for the war on terrorism to illuminate what American decision-makers believe to be the links between domestic counter-terror operations and strategy. Along the way we look at the tools states have to prepare for counter-terrorism, and the challenges of doing so.We find strong evidence that the United States remains strategically focused on relationships between states, and argue this is probably an appropriate focus.

The second edition of this successful textbook has been completely revised and updated in light of 9/11. In the aftermath of the attacks, there has been an increased need to address issues of war and peace, particularly terrorism, irregular warfare, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the revolution in military affairs.

The new edition contains a mature set of reflections on the role of military power in the contemporary world. It analyzes recent conflicts from Afghanistan to the Iraq War and looks at the ongoing debates about the lessons that can be learned from these wars. Particular attention is given to the debates about whether there has been a revolution in military affairs given the phenomenal pace of innovation in electronics and computer systems.