Okay. Hi everybody. Welcome to Tufts 8th annual civil military relations conference. Nation building and peacekeeping in the 21st century. My name is Jackson Lofty and I'm one of the co-directors for CMRC this year. We are very excited to see the discussion and remarks on modern day state building efforts and peacekeeping. While the issue of nation building is not a new one, it is a particularly important one in the modern day as our nation and the international community continues to discuss the necessity of international military interventions and peacekeeping. As we've seen from regions such as Afghanistan, the Balkans, even back to post-World War II Germany and Japan, nation building has been an important international objective and hot topic for both the USA and the world. It's difficult to overstate the impact that these efforts have had both on the American people and the residents of these regions. We'd like to once again thank both the students from all across the United States for attending, as well as the distinguished experts who have agreed to share their insights with us and the security schedules. Thus, without further ado, Simon will introduce our keynote speaker. Good morning everyone. I'm Simon and it's my pleasure to introduce you to Dr. Susan L Woodward, a professor of political science at the Graduate Center of the City of the University of New York. On the first list on the Balkans, her current research focuses on the transition from civil war to peace, international security and state failure, and post-war state building. She has additionally worked with the United Nations with the United Protection Forces in Croatia in 1994 and as a consultant to many groups such as the organization for security and cooperation in Europe and the Department of Defense. Today she will be presenting on nation building and its importance today. So without further ado, Susan L Woodward. Thank you Simon. It's lovely to be here everyone. I wish I could see you. My first encounter with a term nation building as applied to contemporary international politics was in Beijing, China in June 2006, when I was giving a seminar to the American Studies Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. I was there to discuss the concept of failed states as what was then called the preeminent threat to American security by the US National Security Strategy of 2002, and I quote, the United States today is threatened less by conquering states than we are by week and failing states, unquote. Also in 2005, the new president of the World Bank identified what he called failed states as the preeminent threat to the international financial system. This concept of failed states, later called fragile states to be a bit more diplomatic, became the justification and definition for international intervention in the domestic affairs of a country at the time. Some of you may know that I wrote an entire book criticizing that concept and its ideology. But one of the Chinese scholars at this seminar asked me about this term nation building, because he said President George W Bush was now using it to define American policy toward Iraq. I had to admit that that was not at all the goal or even the policy of that American intervention in Iraq. And that I was actually sure that President Bush and his administration had no idea what nation building meant, but they probably meant state building. In 1994 interview with Mac George Bundy, the former special assistant on National Security Affairs to President Kennedy and Johnson in the Brown Journal of World Affairs, the author Peter Skoblik identified quote, nation building as a promotion of economic and political institutions in the country. He then added that students of the Cold War often cite nation building as a method that was used to bring countries into the US camp. Thus, searching for a historical precedent for American policies. Immediately after the Cold War he asked Bundy. Was the nation building fit into the framework of Kennedy's goals. Was it, for example, a concept that evolved out of Walt Rustaus theories of economic development. Bundy's answer, and I quote, let me first say that the phrase nation building is new to me. I don't remember the phrase. I don't think you'll find it in Kennedy's words, unquote. And then George W. Bush himself refused to characterize the US intervention in Iraq as a nation building until developments on the ground were not going as the US hope. The election campaign platform in 2000 of both Bush and his foreign policy advisor, soon to become national security advisor and later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a skating criticism of the idea of nation building. In discussing our invasion in Afghanistan, Donald Trump, Rumsfeld declared quote, Our job is about killing bad guys. So we're not going to get involved in nation building, unquote. Yet after eight years of American foreign policy focused primarily on the Iraq invasion. Condoleezza Rice made a total reversal, arguing that what she called as and now I quote her, the changed international environment where globalization strengthens some states and exposes and exacerbates the failings of others. It was now vital to our, she said, national security to do just that to ensure states are willing and able to meet the full range of their sovereign responsibilities, both beyond their borders and within them. Notice the difference in what she calls nation building. By 2008 she even rice even announced a plan for civilian response core of the US agency for international development and seven other executive departments of state state agriculture commerce, health and human services, homeland security, justice and industry, plus American engineers, city planners and judges, professionals who have the skills that the governments need to do the work of quote her again, saving states the US classifies as failing, and to complement and assist our military forces, In 2009, after President Obama agreed to a surge of US troop numbers to Afghanistan. The general behind that policy David Petraeus was asked by the House Armed Services Committee, whether the US was engaged in nation building. He replied, we are indeed For political scientists, the history of nation building is very richly studied. It focuses primarily on national integration, or the agendas of anti colonial emancipation, and the creation of post colonial independent political orders. It is worth noting that this process, especially in the West in the 19th century was extremely violent. Eugene Weber is very celebrated book on the homogenizing policies in France called from peasants into Frenchman, or the policies of Italian unification as a process of royal conquest and brutal military campaign, governed by northern administrators to use the term that Sydney tarot gave, you'll notice his reference to reconstruction after the Civil War in the United States with military rule resistance to reintegration and eventually Jim Crow laws and practices and the Ku Klux Klan In post colonial African states beginning in the late 1950s, until the wars of national liberation that only end in the early 1990s. The result was almost the uniformly one party, or one party dominant systems, take two such examples Uganda and South Africa. They are still going through the violent processes. We can add Ethiopia this month. The processes were domestically driven. Most often a result of a military victory for one side, or what Jeremy Weinstein at Stanford University calls for the 1990s autonomous recovery. That is no external intervention. The category to which the Chinese scholar was referring is that of international interventions since the early 1990s, that is in a post Cold War era. In this post 1990s case, I would argue that there are two main actors united the United Nations to authorize such interventions, and the United States as a soul surviving superpower as it was called at the time of unipolarity. I have already spoken about the United States at the time. The United Nations would never call it nation building and even rejected the more common term of state building. It insisted and still insists on the term peace building. But as we stand today, both actors the US and UN are facing the consequences of failure. The United States the current conditions in Afghanistan on top of Iraq, Libya and Somalia cannot be called a success. The celebrated Irish writer Fintan O'Toole in a recent review of a book called the Afghanistan papers by the Washington Post team, and Carter Malkasian's book The American War in Afghanistan. So far as to propose that the problem was not whether Afghans were fit for democracy, but whether the democratic values were strong enough in the United States to do such nation building in Afghanistan. He goes on and I quote, critics of the war argued that the US could not create a polity in its own image on the far side of the world. The tragic truth is that in many ways it did exactly that unquote. Nonetheless the headline of an article in the Christian Science Monitor on September 16 this year was quote, why end of Afghan war is not end of US led nation building. This writer Howard LaFranci explains and I quote, the impetus to export democracy and social norms is in Americans DNA. It will be back experts predict unquote. One clue he proposes is the naming of Samantha power as the head of the US agency for international development USA ID, and even giving her a position on the National Security Council. LaFranci goes on to cite former diplomat James Dobbins, who had vast experience in American interventions in the last 30 years you probably all know that saying and I quote again from Dobbins, highly negative assessment of nation building should be reserved for the regime change versions and forced entry operations that require heavy boots on the ground on quote in hostile environments. But Dobbins goes on and I quote there's another version that has often involved peacekeeping in the aftermath of conflict and is more about assisting a country in moving on. Satisfying basic needs and developing the institutions that enable people to build better lives. As he adds the Balkans Panama, I don't know why Panama and Sierra Leone. That Dobbins goes on to say is a form of nation building with a pretty good batting average on quote. I have written an entire book to demonstrate how wrong that conclusion is, and I can add a great deal of detail about the Bosnian case. It is worth noting that these are peacekeeping operations under the mandate and organization of the United Nations, not the United States. These peacekeeping operations are almost a mirror opposite to American interventions, because they begin with a negotiated ceasefire among warring parties at the very least and more often with a negotiated end to the fighting with a peace agreement. The UN mission is then established to help the parties implement that agreement. These successes in El Salvador and Mozambique illustrate well that mission to demilitarize politics as Terence Lyons argues, including military observers, unarmed by the way, to ensure the party's credible commitments to their agreement. In addition to the form of disarmament demobilization and reintegration DDR and assistance to the warring parties to transform into political parties and participate in electoral politics. But over time, expectations for such international missions became ever larger. Not only continuing humanitarian aid, but also refugee repatriation return of the internally displaced human rights, rule of law, security sector reform of the military and the police transitional justice, post conflict reconstruction, economic reform, and creating or strengthening a market economy, the administrative apparatus of a liberal democracy, support to civil society, overall what we now call state building. These complex multi dimensional operations are not only functionally functionally complex, but organizationally so as well. Each of these tasks is done by a separate organization and each organization has its own ideology standing operating procedures and insistence on autonomy. Repeated calls for coordination, then what we're called integrated missions reflect that reality. Research literature on these missions, particularly when described as state building operations, and commonly, commonly by scholars liberal internationalism is almost uniformly critical, demonstrating that their results actually undermine the state. And certainly do not provide the justice human rights guarantees economic development and employment promised. There is some dispute about the numbers, a resumption of war and the need for a new peacekeeping intervention reoccurs in between 30 to 50% of the peace peace building cases. And thus for the United Nations the last 10 years since 2015 have been agonizing efforts to admit the failures of more than three decades of peacekeeping operations, and to infuse new life with a series of reform commissions and proposals. While the United Nations and the organizations involved are better at admitting these failings than is the United States. As I discuss and analyze at length in my book, the ideology of failed states are always to call for more resources and greater organizational capacity for the many intervening organizations involved, not to change what they're doing, or especially to find a way to put local actors in charge and play only a supportive role. There was an international actor on these matters than Lahtar Bahimi, whose commission wrote the first review for reform of peacekeeping peacekeeping operations in 2000, who negotiated the bond agreement for Afghanistan in 2001 that enabled that international intervention, and who was the first head of the UN mission to Afghanistan to implement that agreement. Despite its additional burden of a simultaneous American counterinsurgency war against the Taliban, alongside the UN's international security assistance force that was composed almost entirely of NATO forces, each with their own provincial reconstruction agreement and area is quite deliberate, even in the brahimi is quite deliberate, even in an interview last month in criticizing both us and UN interventions for ignoring national actors for importing personnel with high salaries and low accountability, importing even materials that could more easily and cheaply be provided locally, and especially for dismissing the capacity of local local actors instead. As former Liberian President Amos Sawyer has long criticized, not assessing first what capacities are already available locally. He has made assistance missions run by the World Bank and the UN to design their development plan for each country being intervene. Identify what outsiders say they need, not what locals can already do, and should be utilized. Both the UN and US operations are roundly criticized with no positive results for target for treating the target country as a tabula rasa an empty space with no capacity, no local institutions, no history at all. The World Bank even refers to these interventions as a golden opportunity to implant its preferred institutions and policies. And now you may be saying so what happened to nation building. In part the answer is what I told the Chinese scholar that George W Bush did not know what that was, and that I do not know why he chose that term, except that people inside the beltway, that is the Washington military and diplomatic such as the ran corporation that's James Dobbins Francis Fukuyama in his book, and even the legal scholar at Harvard Noah Feldman, based on his role in the Iraq invasion. They all use that term. For Jason Brownlee, who's 2007 review of a series of books on American interventions that he calls respond by the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Those can America nation build the universe of these cases, as Jackson has already mentioned, of nation building by the US include not only Iraq and Afghanistan, but Germany and Japan, more than 30 military expeditions in Latin America. The Philippines, Iran in 1953 Guatemala in 1954 than Korea, the Dominican Republic Vietnam El Salvador Guatemala Nicaragua Somalia Haiti. Brownlee's answer to the question can American nation building the build, aside from noting that these studies of us interventions and our own public knowledge for most focus almost entirely on Germany and Japan after World War two. Thus ignoring the most frequent ones which were in Latin America. As Greg Grandin has shown in his book empires workshop, and including renewed counterinsurgency in Central America in the 1990s, plus as I've already mentioned the covert ones in Iran and Guatemala. Then the Philippines Korea Dominican Republic and South Vietnam by France in the United States for 10 years before our invasion. Brownlee's answer is that the US has done best where it has done least refurbishing existing local institutions, rather than attempting to construct new ones. Taking this local focus from Brahimi and Brownlee, I would like to argue that we need to understand what nation building is and why nation building after war time, especially after an internal civil war, but also after a national independence struggle is actually extremely important. The issue of who does it is also critical. There is a review of two new books by two distinguished scholars on the American Revolution and early state Joseph Ellis and Gordon Wood. The reviewer Richard Stengel summarizes their arguments as follows, and I quote, there was nothing inevitable about the creation of the United States. The United States singular that is a continental nation state with a central government, rather than these United States plural, a collection of small quarrel some quasi republics connected by a weak treaty of friendship. In fact, the path to the nation as we know it was highly implausible. For the 13 states at the time of the revolution, the quest for independence was not just freedom from an imperial Britain, but independence from one another, and end quote. A commenter on these two studies then added but it took a civil war to turn the US from a union to a nation. In his science literature on democratization. Dankwart Rustau's contribution in 1971 remains essential reading. Before he analyzes the three stages toward creating democracy from a non democratic regime. Rustau argues that there is a precondition of the move toward democracy, a sense of national unity taken for granted. There are physical boundaries of the community but also consciousness of being a political community, a nation. Nationhood must precede democratic development. In my research in in peace building missions. I repeatedly repeatedly heard from my interviewees. One of the most important nation building was for them, including its bases in the domestic legitimacy for a new state that is critical to its stability and effectiveness. Yet they raised this because of their frustration with the international mission. And here the two actors the UN mission leadership and the United States both prevented this task. I give you three examples from Timor-Leste, Haiti and Liberia, and then go on to identify what I see the obstacles to this path. In Timor-Leste, Amelia Perez, a long time activist for Timorese independence in Portugal and then in Australia. At the time of this comment I'm giving you minute was Minister of Finance for an independent Timor-Leste, 2007 2015 describes what she thought they needed once they had won the goal of a 24 years struggle for independence from Indonesia. And I quote, to know where we are going, unquote. That next step was nation building. She continues, led by the World Bank and the United States insisted she continues that they had to have a national development plan first and fast, so that a donor's conference could be held and pledges received. The Timor-Leste plan, which they, the Timoris themselves had drawn up even before the referendum on independence and entry of the UN mission was to survey the entire country first and create what she called vision 2020, which they would then print in Tétum, not in Portuguese, and distribute to the population before the donor's conference. They had already obtained funding, I think it was from the Irish to print this survey and get it delivered from Australia. But this would take too long the World Bank and US authorities insisted. Instead the externally designed and organized joint assessment mission for again this externally defined development plan was done immediately. Three months total but only two weeks spent in the country itself. And then Paris continues, we were only given like seven months for the development plan, because the donor said that if we do not have a plan, then they would not give us money for the next three years to finance our budget. We still insisted the first of all we needed to know where we were going. Instead we never had time to come together as a nation and say, this is what we want to do. We have pushed and pulled into state building building institutions. Without a vision. How can you do this, because you do not have a common goal. But they thought that was a bit of a waste of time. I add from Timorese civil society activist with Teriano Nicolao Neves of the Timoreleste NGO, Laos, Hamoutou, wonderful NGO. And this way in July 2006 and I quote, our nationalist spirit, which was very high during the resistance has been eroded by the nation building process, because of a lack of our participation. And in the end, our sense of ownership of our state has been whittled away little by little. So the aid did not enforce our independence, but sometimes destroyed our hopes, unquote. In Haiti Sabine money guy a highly distinguished Haitian journalist had the same complaint that the country needed a national dialogue before the international community pressured for quick elections. What the late head of political affairs in the UN mission calls hit and run democracies. What the international show no interest. Liberian experts at a brainstorming at the United Nations in New York in the spring of 2005, including Amos Sawyer, President of the interim government of national unity from November 1990 to March 1994. He also argued strongly on the necessity of a country wide dialogue to develop a sense of what he calls, I quote, a shared community in Liberia, prior to the first post war elections scheduled by the UN mission on mill for that. October several months later 2005 to interrupt a 25 year cyclical pattern producing repeated violence and governmental breakdown in Liberia Sawyer argued. It was also essential to reduce the powers of the presidency, particularly in the economy but unchanged since the late 19th century. And this could only be achieved by a national conference and reform Commission before the next president was chosen. His plea fell on deaf ears at the UN mission in Monrovia, which insisted elections had to go ahead on their schedule. In these three stories. I see three obstacles to real nation building that I want to highlight. First and most easily remedied if the negative consequences for long term peace and stability are recognized is the UN missions insistence on early elections before such a night national dialogue among the local population locally that my main explanation for this insistence is that the principle of national sovereignty in the UN Charter requires local invitation, local request and consent before you and mission can be man mandated and deployed. Who can provide that consent. A legitimately elected government. Rush to early elections in other words has nothing to do with democracy. Indeed the research shows such early elections to be counterproductive to the democratization process in the first year or so after war. Largely because it rewards those who control the means of violence and have not yet transformed into political parties appropriate to an end to the war. It legitimizes the wartime leaders. And which has been seen to be truly damaging from Bosnia to Burundi. The sole reason for elections I propose is to enable the United Nations mission to deploy and operate. To have politicians considered by elections legitimate to work with to have their needed interlocutors, those seen by outsiders as sovereign representatives of their people's will. The second obstacle to genuine support for a domestic process of nation building, and to me the most serious and damaging is the primary goal of the United States in these cases. The Bank and the International Monetary Fund, their goal the United States goal is not to do nation building or state building at all, but to create externally oriented market economies. Although the bank calls this good governance, the actual policies and criteria reflect a doctrine of a minimal state whose only functions are those considered by neoliberal economists to be necessary for markets to work. And along the way to be able to repay World Bank and IMF loans. Thus, institutional capacities for macroeconomic stabilization liberalization of foreign economic relations, especially trade and export promotion. Good financial management protections for foreign investors and independent central bank. Not surprisingly, their main interlocutor in the new government is the Minister of Finance. So important that the IMF ensures that the government to that the IMF choose the Minister of Finance, so that the IMF's economic and political ideology is already accepted by that person. The goal to their mentality is the perception of these countries as in crisis, for which their actions the bank, the IMF in the United States, these external actors in other words require speed. Now, Amelia Perez is Timore's study, Timore's study illustrates best a local emphasis on nation building and national dialogue first gets in their way. The Timore's also held multiple pre referendum meetings, including more than 100 doctors intellectuals, academics, NGOs to design the structure of their post independence public service. Which the UN mission then simply ignored, and the World Bank then designed its own government for for Timor Leste, according to the sectoral organization of the government based on the World Bank's assessment mission and doctrine. I think it is worth considering what market radicalism has done to the social structure in the US alone, and the resulting political polarization, the opposite of nation building or integration. The third obstacle I propose is an American obsession with seeing all of these internal conflicts as ethnic. In the case of Afghanistan there will even use the word tribal. Well, I can tell you at length why this is wrong. And a vast literature on the causes of civil war to support my argument that that's wrong. What matters today is the consequences. Nations in Iraq and Afghanistan both complained bitterly about the American interpretation of their situation. Adam and the day Iraqis and Afghanis were self consciously proud and loyal nations knew who they were as a nation and criticize the American perception of their conflict as ethnically based and sectarian. And the intervention as splintering them in Iraq, an op-ed by Leslie Gelb the journalist and at the time president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and then Senator Joe Biden proposed that Iraq should be reorganized around three ethno religious identities, along the lines they argued of the date and the chord for Bosnia Herzegovina, as if that was successful. The US intervention also paid particular attention to the Kurdish population and a decentralized state in Iraq to accommodate them, even though we know that the Kurds themselves are internally divided politically. In Afghanistan the US directed bond agreement in 2001 insisted on not including the Taliban, and then most postions. And in December that year, when the Taliban asked to sign a ceasefire and be included in the bond agreement that was being signed at the time. And thus, the formation of the post invasion permanent government. Donald Trump spelled simply refused. We are now facing the consequences. Nicholas some bonus also demonstrates the US counter insurgency policies in that virtually activate ethnic or sectarian cleavages. By reifying these social divisions, undermine the integrative institutions that cultivate a common national identity. Institutions that he argues are critical to the stability of post war transitions. Bosnia Herzegovina the Clinton administration took the side of one of the three parties to the war. The Bosnian Muslims, who at that time in August 1993 changed their name to Bosniaks. For reasons I can explain. But without defending Bosnia Herzegovina as a whole. And doing so they deprived the Bosniaks of their only basis for political survival that of Bosnia. And the American negotiations to the end its civil war under Richard Holbrook, designed a constitutional system based on power sharing among the three so called ethno national groups, claiming sovereignty, and thereby excluded all those Bosnians who had a mixed heritage. And the other pro served nor Bosnia. Often for many generations in fact, excluded all those who identified as Yugoslavia. And excluded many minorities starting with Jews, despite their historically critical role in Sarajevo, since Spain, they left Spain. And this is an ethnically developed ethnically defined constitution, which has created a total stalemate for almost 30 years. At the same time, all the efforts by the US government since the date and accord was signed in 1995 have been to reverse the extensive decentralization of the state in that peace agreement with pressures over and over for centralizing reforms. Still to support the political position of that one Bosnian group the Bosniaks. So that centralizing pressure was intensely disliked by the two others in the Dayton agreement, and thus provoking their political reaction against the centralized government. And the large number of socioeconomic activities supported by external actors, and their monies, especially American ever since 1995, such as in media, media education NGOs have all attempted to force multi ethnic activity, mainly by what they support financially but also rhetorically. The pressure to be to work together as ethnic groups in multi ethnic activity has provoked reaction by many Bosnians of all identities, especially the younger generation, because it presumes ethno national identity to be the only one that matters, and is not pro Bosnian regardless of ethno national identity. In the centralizing project, the result is to keep the war alive. Even if it is not violent currently, rather than to move beyond it and find a path to pragmatic national integration and sovereignty. In conclusion, in political science, our terms what we call concepts matter. We cannot build any new knowledge, let alone useful knowledge without precise, carefully defined concepts and distinctions about what the concept includes or excludes and what it means. The problem arises, however, when the term is commonly used in public discourse, everyday discussions, policy worlds, when it is as the term nation building is a political term. And worse, when it actually means nothing to those who say they are doing it diplomats, policymakers and external interveners in the cases of contemporary interventions. The world of scholarship on nation building is about the breakup of colonial empires and the assertion of national independence and national sovereignty against outsiders. Whereas this policy world is about the reverse outsiders intervening to bring peace, or at least stability so they say, where the conflict is internal. The outsiders think they can repair this domestic conflict somehow. Of course peace and stability are like nation building to slogans without concrete definition and projects that have not proven successful in achieving those goals. Everything we know about externally imposed goals, such as democracy or even so called reconciliation have been counterproductive. We're continually creating even more divisions than outsiders found when they arrive, and often provoking a nationalist reaction against the outsiders, but not in a way that will heal internal divisions, as we see currently in Afghanistan. The comment made this September 28 by retired General Austin now Secretary of Defense to a congressional hearing about the disaster unfolding in Afghanistan and revealed by the US withdrawal quote, we built a state, but we could not build a nation. We have a clearer understanding of what nation building means and might be. And why it is important. Perhaps we might have more success with our interventions. This example might be the research by Nicholas Sambanis and Moses Shio on parochialism. For example that shows very clearly why quote, nation building is important for avoiding internal conflict, because national identification always discourages fighting. Page Fortness work on why classic chapter six UN peacekeeping operations. In contrast to the newer complex multi dimensional and often even peace enforcement operations. In fact work best, and I think they should be revisited. All such new knowledge would still require adjustment in the actual objectives and programs of an immense number of organizations and their staff who now live off these interventions and are highly institutionalized. I find that highly unlikely, and even more my proposal for putting local actors in charge, appreciating local capacities, and outsiders playing a supportive supportive, not leading role, rather than ignoring local ideas and initiatives. I am pessimistic about that possibility to. But I can be a bit more optimistic about scholarship. I think that this concept of nation building in the contemporary period, focus mainly on countries emerging from civil war has real meaning. Then we might get research focused on empirical cases variation among them in practice and outcome. Why it matters to ending civil wars and building peace, and how international interventions harm or help those processes. That could be a start. Thank you. Thank you, Dr Woodward for your wonderful presentation. It was really interesting and I'm sure everyone here learned a lot. So, everyone in the audience we're going to now move into our Q&A session. So if you have any questions, please use the Q&A function in the chat to ask them and we'll spend a bit of time going through that. And while we give you a minute to do that, I'll ask you just a question of my own that I had throughout your talk, which is just that. How do you see, I understand that your outlook is very pessimistic, but how do you see the situation in Afghanistan changing President Biden's outlook on nation building into the future and how that might impact US foreign policy going forward for the rest of his administration. Well, I haven't heard President Biden say anything about nation building. I do think he's been fairly clear that it's time for the US, if not to stop entirely these kinds of interventions to do a lot more thinking beforehand. So in that case, I think that what's going on in Afghanistan is only going to reinforce that view of his. Although as I said, by putting Samantha Power, who's very much an interventionist, and she argues for human rights but of course what have I said about the consequences for human rights of these interventions. You can't do just human rights alone, it comes with a lot of other things. Putting her as the head of USAID and on the National Security Council is as that article in the Christian Science Monitor says is sort of a contradictory impulse. So, what do you think actually you want to give me your view. I'm not sure I have as much knowledge base to do it off of as much as you but I took a class on this last year and I guess I take a maybe slightly more optimistic viewpoint and that I remember reading about I guess I think that Biden will hopefully are the policymakers will see the sort of failures in Afghanistan as a sort of wake up call in so far that their actions and that the actions of donor states and particularly the US does in these fragile and failed states has consequences for their ability to have government and sustainable government in the future and that you know you can't build a politically legitimate government in a world where the US controls everything about its economy, and it's, and it's society and so I, you know, I'm not sure if anything will change but I do think that the forefront in the and the sort of contemporary understanding of the failures in Afghanistan bring bring these ideas into more contemporary understanding. Excellent, excellent. Okay, our first question is from the chat, which is, what do you believe the current role of us is in Afghanistan and is there. And if there is any role for the US in situations like Afghanistan going forward. Well I think the second part of that question is already what you, Simon and I have been talking about. I think for the US role in Afghanistan. I think there's no role. I mean it is true that non governmental organizations that do humanitarian aid work and education. They will continue to be on the ground and many of them are American, but they're not government sponsored. To the extent I think the US, there's just no way. I mean, I, who knows politics is unpredictable is based on uncertainty and contingencies of who would be the next president. But I don't see the US doing anything in Afghanistan the issue right now is is doing something in Afghanistan by withholding on monies that the IMF has and the US has and then. The question is what are we going to do are we going to assist the Taliban are going we going to wait till the war between Taliban and the ISS plays out which is going to be many years. So we still in fact are going to be called on for a role in that sense of what kind of recognition of the Taliban government and economic assistance going forward is going to be and I can foresee what's going to happen there. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I think it would be very unlikely that the US would at least politically would be able to support the Taliban and really any capacity. But I'll take the next question while we wait for some more questions to pop up in the chat. But I think, how do you see like, you know, from your talk like clearly the sort of concept of nation building has become back to us and really lost a lot of its, its important meaning. Do you think that this is sort of a result of ignorance by policymakers or more of a sort of actual perverse, you know incentive for for policymakers to use a term like nation building which is back to us. In order to further some political end and if you think that it's not just a result of ignorance. How do you see that like occurring and why. That's an extremely interesting question and I wish I had a good answer for you it said, it's sort of like democracy and, you know, motherhood and apple pie the sort of words that are pulled out I don't think I think is ignorance. The next step would be so why would they choose that word, rather than something else.  So I'm not quite sure what bush and rice thought they were saying when they said nation nation building and I think they thought of it as a very positive supportive thing and indeed supportive of the local actors, even though that's not at all what was going on. I'd love to hear more discussion on your part in the with your other students about why you think they, they, you know, chose that term. Yeah, I'm not sure I have a great answer that it's something that I have definitely asked myself a lot last year when I when I took a class class on this. But if anyone has any specific comments, we have free to say that in the chat and I can read it out. But I will move on to the next question because you have another one in the chat, which is that sometimes in the case of post intervention, foreign aid flows into failing states and often dwarfs any other source of revenue. However, this aid often circumvents local government institution and often has different goals than the local government officials. Does this mean that foreign aid is counterproductive to nation building and state building efforts. Well, first of all, the person who asked that question use the term failed states and they have to know that they're talking to Susan Woodward, who wrote a whole book saying there is no such thing as failed states. And that it's a term used by outsiders to say that country doesn't have the institutions or capacities that we need to do our work, including foreign aid. It doesn't have anything to do with what is necessary for those people to govern themselves and have prosperity and so forth. So please don't use the term failed states. I think it's that the literature is pretty critical also you know I'm, I'm pessimistic because I'm not just because of what I've seen, but the scholarship I read so I'm talking about real results of what doesn't work and why it's critical. I'm on foreign aid, it's highly critical. I think that there's, there's no question that we live in a world of global capitalism that the international financial system is at its basis, and therefore the World Bank and the IMF are not going to go away in their lending capacity and their role. It would be nice if we could get them to change the kinds of conditionalities that they they insist on, which we know are counterproductive and only make countries more indebted, but I don't think we're going to get away from a world where there's at least foreign loans to states, but there are heterodox economists who have extremely good ideas about how one can give aid that will actually help develop a country. So the aim would still be coming from the outside, but it would be for different kinds of policies and it would be nice if people paid more attention to those. So we used to used to be the development economists were very important in the field of economics, but that's no longer true now we call them heterodox. Yeah, great. Just to remind you everyone if you want to ask a question, any and all questions are appreciated, please use the Q&A function. I guess I'll take the next one will be wait for some more questions to come in. I remember reading a lot about, well, reading Charles Tilly is very influential work on understanding nation building and in the context of war making and sort of how sort of war making is essential component of state building. Do you see that to be the case in sort of nation building I guess maybe not nation building efforts but in the nations which have successfully or you know and successfully been able to produce the fragility or sort of create better forms of governments do you see the Charles Tilly is like ideas of war making and state building come to the forefront, or do you think that it's not necessarily like an empirical fact of this. You know it's so interesting because of course Tilly's work was on early modern Europe. And in that case war was of two kinds. It was territorial warfare between let's say between pressure and France, you know between countries. So the state building capacity to mount armies to get to tax people to get soldiers, all of that so that's what he meant was in order to fight war as you had to build states. It was it was an outcome it wasn't a goal to build states it was an outcome of war fighting. And the second kind of war was internal rivals. So that kind of that aspect of war is still what's going on look at what's going on in Ethiopia as we speak. Right. And so to a certain extent, I think that's more likely to continue. Not because that's what nation building needs but that will be probably will be the outcome. Although, as I said with Uganda and South Africa we still don't don't have an outcome. So the violence is continuing. On the other hand, the, the kind of wars that Tilly was analyzing are not what we see elsewhere. And so there's a very rich literature saying well the Tilly argument applies to early modern Europe but not let's say to the Middle East, in the Middle East all of the war is is external intervention largely by the US. We can see that that's certainly look at Iraq, look at Syria, we don't, you know, that's certainly not Lebanon. It's not leading to national integration. And then the literature Miguel Centeno's work on Latin America is really interesting where he says the Tilly argument doesn't apply there because all wars were really small wars. So the state building process was quite different. But it is interesting because except for what we're going through now in with indigenous politics saying wait a minute we haven't been heard we want autonomy that we haven't had the kind of divisive internal Civil War politics and most of Latin America. On the other hand, you know if you go back to Greg Grandin's work on Latin America I mentioned Empire's workshop. There's again like the Middle East a question of well is this really because the United States kept intervening over and over again with military and counterinsurgency. So I don't know. I don't. Yeah. That's an interesting question I guess my follow up that would be just a little bit more specifically like, you know, under the way that I understand it, you know, if, if it's a question of sort of, you know, sort of the way I understand external interventions and sort of the nation building capacity is that the first and foremost goal is to end hostilities, and then sort of engage in these sort of, you know, externally focused.  Do you think that this is due to charlots really argument counterproductive because it doesn't allow the conflict to sort of take its role in the purpose of purpose of nation building or do you see sort of the goal of. Or do you see like external interventions as as, you know, despite, you know, perhaps undermining undermining certain political forces within the country as sort of necessary. Well, I don't see it. I don't have a single example of where the nation building and the way I've been talking about it today, where national integration and a sense of who we are results from an external intervention, I see none. The reason I mentioned Jason Brownlee's article is they're saying, okay, may everyone says Germany and Japan were success, but they were already nations. And all we did was build on the institution the political institutions they already had. So I, I don't think it's, I think it's an empirical question. Is it possible, but I have not seen one single case that the outcomes are all highly divisive. You know, it's interesting if if Donald Rumsfeld had allowed the Taliban, when it was very weak small groups of people in the south around Kandahar to be allowed to be a part of the bond agreement. And it would be, they really could have had Brahimi's notion of a light footprint that was what he called to have mainly locals in charge of the UN mission we would not have had a UN counterinsurgency military campaign. Imagine a summer, a huge scenario where the US intervention in the sense of the bond agreement that ended the Taliban regime of the 90s. It might well have been one, I wouldn't say a nation building but a restoring a nation in Afghanistan. The history is the opposite. As Barnett Rubin writes that decision by Donald Rumsfeld was the was the moment of which the US lost Afghanistan December 2001. For sure. All right, well, that's all the time that we have today. Thank you so much for coming and speaking with us today. Dr Woodward, our next panel is on the role of the private sector in supporting international stability operations and it starts at 1130. In the chat, there will be links to the next panel and the idea website for all of the conference information and we'll see you out there. And there's one more time. Thanks you to Dr Woodward for being our keynote speaker today and we hope to see you all later today or tomorrow for the sim. Thank you, Summer.


And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. By myself, because Veronica's parents are in town, so she wants to spend some time with her. But I decided I'd skip over here, check out all the nifty new stuff, and give you guys some pointers and some tips to prepare you if you decide to come to Food & Wine because it is crazy. Food & Wine is absolutely one of the most popular events at Disney World. So a couple pointers definitely won't hurt you. So let's go do this. And my first stop every single year is actually Food & Wine Festival Center because I absolutely love this building and it's very often that I get to come in here and see it. And there's so much going on, cooking shows, food sampling, free chocolate. That's right. Free chocolate. Definitely a lot to take in. This may not be a tip, but you should always grab a Food & Wine Festival guide just so you can plan out where you're going to go and also so you don't miss anything because not everything is in World Showcase. They're all over the place. Even in Future World, there's some stands. So make sure you pick up one of these nifty little things and look at that. There's a cooking show happening right now with some tasting. Looks like it's pretty good there yum yum yum yum yum. Let's get some free stuff. I mean, I already got my Walt Disney World annual pass holder magnet that's probably going to get stolen off my car. But you know, I guess that's the risk I take for putting it on my car. And now, a little pit of Ghirardelli chocolate. Oh yes. Oh yes, yes, yes. Thank you. No problem. Yum yum yum yum yum yum. My another big tip here is always get a gift card. It is so much easier just to buy one of these, load it up with money, and then instead of going throughout World Showcase with a water money or your credit card and pulling your wallet in and out and swiping it, it attaches to your wrist, swipe, and then bottom in. Much easier. Well, now that I showed you the tip about the gift card, let's show you some things you can buy with that gift card, like exclusive food and wine merchandise and they have a lot of nifty awesome stuff. I'm already feeling like I need to purchase something and that's very rare. Very very rare.  Look at this. Taste your way around the world 2018 and these prints are actually only $24.99 but that is pretty awesome. Also these brews around the world signs are pretty awesome too and look, I don't know if you can or you can't, it is $39.99 but wouldn't it be cool to put little bottle caps inside here? I think you can. I think that's what it's made for. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, it is. Look, they even have a little thing there. Wow, I like it. I like it a lot. Of course, we got some hats, some bags, some shirts, a little bit of slender man and it's amazing. I like this shirt a lot but those new Epcot food and wine ears, uh-huh. I bet your yip's going to be eyeing those out. Here's a breakdown of the daily events happening at the festival center. 15 AM, a beverage seminar, a culinary demonstration, another beverage seminar and then mix it, make it, celebrate it. That sounds pretty fun. Mix it, make it, celebrate it. That's $39. I'm definitely going to say this is going to be very popular this year on Mamosa Bar. That is pretty awesome. Mamosa's all the way around. Not really. Look at this, tropical Mamosa, key lime Mamosa, blood orange Mamosa, frozen Mamosa, all $6 and a frozen apple pie. There we go. Thank you. Pretty nifty. I'm going to make my way back out into the sun just so I can get a little start on World Showcase because they got nifty stuff there. This is something also cool to point out. They put out this little playground on fruit and wine. So it's a little bit funner for the kids. Isn't it nifty though? Yip would definitely be in there, playing around, hopping around, rolling around in the mulch. Okay, one more thing before we head into World Showcase itself. Before you get in there, try to use the bathroom somewhere in the future world because some of the bathrooms in the World Showcase actually are very small. It gets very crowded, lines back up. I've noticed some of the restrooms have a longer line than some of the kiosks. I've seen it before, trust me. So try to stop before you get in there. It'll save you a lot of time. I'm telling you, trust me. And here we are, the start. This is a very important choice. Either start that way or start that way. To go that way towards Mexico, I noticed that the boots or kiosks are a little bit less at the start, like there's space in between them. But if you start that way, the kiosks and the boots are kind of glumped up together a little bit more. You know what I mean? Like immediately as soon as you take that turn, you've got one sitting right there and then another one right there. So if you're looking for a very fast start, go that way. If you want to take it slow and steady and then speed up at the end, go that way.  I'm not going to show you all the food. I might stop and get a couple of things. But I kind of just wanted to check it all out today. I don't think I have time or the resources actually on me without Yip here to actually be able to stop and go through the menu. That will happen eventually. But today, it's kind of a just a walk-through overview. Scope things out a little bit. Look at Daisy all decked out in her food and wine costume. Oh, I love Daisy actually. One of my favorite things about food and wine is literally the smells. Everywhere you go, just beautiful smells, smells amazing, makes you hungry. Right now I'm standing outside the Thailand kiosk and all I'm going to do is stay in here and just sniff the air for a little bit. I'm not going to buy anything or maybe I might get the marinated chicken. I don't know. But the smells are just good enough for me. I'll tell you what though, for opening day, the lines are not that bad. I know there was a little rain earlier and that might have deteriorated a couple of people away. But I've seen the first three kiosks on the way over to Mexico and there was been less than 15 to 20 people in line, which is actually very good for food and wine. Another cool thing is don't be afraid to try new things.  But since I've been coming to food and wine a lot, I'll give everything a shot. You never know, you might love it. Fun fact, in fact, I actually tried salmon for the first time at food and wine. Never had salmon my whole life and I tried it at food and wine for the first time. There you go. Another big pro tip, stay hydrated people. It gets very hot. A lot of alcohol can be consumed here. So don't forget to stop at some of these outposts. Get yourself a free cup of water and, you know, stay hydrated. You don't want anybody passing out and everyone getting too intoxicated and climbing Mexico. And don't forget not only food and wine happening at the Food and Wine Festival, lots of awesome art. One of Yip's favorite is whiskers and wine. We have two of these paintings. Actually one of them, they made for a little Rita and the lady actually colored out the eye because Rita's blind in one eye. But lots of good artwork here at Food and Wine. You have to make sure you check out those boots. You'll definitely come home with something. Another cool little thing I like to point out is always stake out a nice quiet pace to get away from the crowds. And this is one of my favorite spots. I don't know why, a lot of people don't come over here. But every time I come here, it's beautiful, it's quiet, and there's hardly anybody ever over here. Isn't it amazing? Look at those views. Breathtaking, huh? I have to say, even though I'm alone and I don't have Veronica or my better half with me today, I ran into so many people. It makes me feel like I'm not alone. I feel like I'm with a group of friends. Even though it's only for brief moments and then I keep walking on, it's just great to know that there's people out there that I know or that know me and that, you know, get stopped and talk and hang out for a little bit. Awesome. I have to block out thoughts of you so I don't lose my mind. That's right guys, Blue October, Eat to the Beat concert series. They have all these, all year or all festival long, some awesome people, Blue October, the Baja Men. I don't know why I put that in that order, but they do have some awesome people. Awesome concerts, free, doesn't cost anything. Just gotta get here early to get some good seats. They do have some dinner packages and they do three shows a night. I always like the latest one at eight o'clock because the lights are pretty. And then right afterwards, you can head on over and watch illuminations. Another thing I like to do when I'm actually a food of mine is I like to take a break and I feel like the American Pavilion is the perfect center mark to take a break. And usually I sit down, watch American Adventure or actually just go into American Adventure because the AC is banging in there. Like it is hitting you right in the face and it's a good way to cool, relax, reset, recharge and just keep on going. And I have personally seen somebody bathing in here one time. Well, I mean, they weren't bathing, but they were all the way in, head and everything. Man, I wish they invented something like smell vision on YouTube because it would be so great to capture the smells. I mean, we can capture the sights, the sounds, the colors, but we haven't been able to get the smells in there.  It would be unbelievable. Well, I figured I'd give you a little bit of a crowd shout of like how busy the crowds actually are. And I guess I'll do like a time lapse and me walking through one of the busiest corridors actually. And that'll start right about I'd say now. Belgium always seems like it is so very popular. I don't know if it's the waffles or the flights of beer. I can't decide because I like them both actually, but that is the longest line I've actually seen all day long here at Food and Wine. And it's not even that long. That's the best part of it. Out of all the things I have tried at Food and Wine, the croissant Alk's Escargot probably was the worst for me personally. I remember I tried it last year and at first I thought it was good. All I did was taste croissant, but Escargot is just not for me. That clip was hilarious though. I seen this awesome display right here and I noticed I didn't have any PhotoPass people here, but there's a guest starring PhotoPass person. Look at Jenna, she's taking all the photos for everybody. She even took my photo. No, let's see, what do you think? It looks good, way to go Jenna. And always be on the lookout for character Palooza can happen at any time. Wait till you see all these awesome character meet and greets. I'm excited, I'm so excited. Look at this, Winnie the Pooh out in Epcot, awesome. Rafiki, yes, oh man, King Louis.  What? Donald and Mickey on about here, that's pretty amazing. So we're gonna get a little meet and greet with Rafiki here. Look at him, look at King Louis shaking it over there. Rafiki, can you show me the way? Rafiki, I'll show you the way. Oh, you know it's true, we have the same hairstyle. Same hairstyle, look at that. So the only thing about this surprise character Palooza, no photopass, no photopass. It's a Winnie the Pooh surprise. And check this out, ran into some friends here, oh hey, I have some more friends. And they are doing Remy's Ratatouille hide and squeak and they're almost done, almost done. And they get that cool souvenir glass they said. Really cool, there's four different ones you can pick from. And how much is a $7.99 for the map? And then past orders it's like $5.20. That's not too bad, how did I know that it was $7.99? I didn't even read that anywhere. It's like muscle memory. It's a really common price at Disney. I guess you're right. I can't believe I made it a whole lap around already. And you know, fun fact, I really didn't show any food or try any food. I'm going to save that for when Veronica's with me because it's something I think I want to do together, you know? That's something me and her, we always look forward to. Whenever we vacation, we always came down food and wine. And I don't know, something I want to keep as a tradition. So I will wait. Look at all this. This is a cool area to hang out. If you're going to start going towards the front side, this is awesome as a good starter spot. They have wine and dine. They have a whole bunch of different cheese studio. The chocolate one. Very cool, very fancy. And it's not too bad to enjoy a snack. Well, I wish that was covered, but it's not. So I was going to say shade, but there's absolutely no shade here at all. Not a single drop of shade. Someone's eating some chocolates. I waited for this monorail shot. Yep. Beautiful. I think they're doing an ending. I think that's what's happening right here. Over there, you've got some next-generation eats. Next-gen eats. And then right over there, you can see we've got some next-gen roller coasters. Guardians of the Galaxy building peeking over the top of mouse gears. Very interesting. Well, I think it is time to head home. Just did a quick walk around Epcot World Showcase. Checked out the food and wine. I hope some of the things I gave you were helpful. You never know. So love the life you live. Live the life you love. That was creepy. I didn't even know that was happening. Not even lying. Toodaloo! I'm racing a monorail. I am racing a monorail. The monorail's winning. The monorail's winning. Oh, man.


Students of the Bible are trying to understand what the Bible says, what the text says and what the text means. That's the focus of what we do when we study scripture. We're really trying to understand what is the meaning and the message of the text. But one of the things that's important to focus on is what the text does not say, what is not being said. And that's significant especially when it comes to understanding the differences between Christianity and Judaism. One of the major problems that Christianity faces is that none of its major doctrines are expressed directly and clearly in the Hebrew Scriptures. And that's a significant problem because they insist that everything that they believe, all of their major doctrines are firmly based in the Hebrew Bible. And so when we study the Hebrew Bible carefully in context, organically reading the entire scope of scripture, we'll find that none of these Christian doctrines are articulated or expressed directly and clearly. For example, Christianity insists that the Messiah will be God in the flesh, one third of the Holy Trinity. Now, you will not find anything in the Hebrew Scriptures that clearly states that the Messiah should be understood or seen as divine, as God. As a matter of fact, when the Bible does speak about the Messiah, it tells us that he will be someone who fears God. That's in the 11th chapter of Isaiah, the prophet could have simply said that he will be God. And that would have made it very clear, or he will be the Son of God, or he'll be some part of the Trinity. But Isaiah simply speaks of a descendant of David who will be a man, a human being who will fear God. And so we don't see any hint of this Christian idea that we should view and understand the Messiah to be God himself. Secondly, Christianity insists that the whole purpose of the Messiah is to die as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. That's also a doctrine that is simply not to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. You will not find any passage in the Hebrew Bible which says directly and explicitly that when the Messiah comes, he will die as a sacrifice to atone for sin. And thirdly, Christianity insists that it is vital, it's critical to believe in this Messiah, because if you don't believe in him, you will perish eternally. Your soul will be cut off from God. And again, this is a teaching, a doctrine that is simply not found in the Hebrew Bible. And so what happens is Christian scholars and Christian apologists are forced to try to shoehorn these beliefs back into the Jewish Bible by misreading the Hebrew Scriptures, quoting passages out of context, mistranslating passages, but when we look at the Hebrew Scriptures on their own terms, clearly translated in context, we don't see a hint for any of the major teachings and doctrines of Christianity.


After a few months of intensive work, the KDE community is pleased to announce Plasma 5.10, which brings many improvements and features to your desktop. Due to the popular demand, we've changed a folder view as the default desktop, which allows users to put whatever files or folders they want on their desktop. Spring loading and folder view makes Dragon drop files powerful and quick. When you search in KRunner, it can now list non-installed applications in the Software Center. The icon size in the Vertical Task Manager is now configurable to support more and more popular vertical panel usage cases. Speaking of the Task Manager, it's gained options for middle mouse click, so you can group and ungroup applications. Places jumpless actions are available to the File Manager launchers, so Dolphin and Task Manager gives you quick access to locations, like your downloads and your pictures. The Audio Volume Applet has a handy menu on each device, which you can use to set the default or switch the output to a different port. Interactive notifications now support a context menu on previews, giving you access to actions, such as open the containing folder, copy, and open with. It is now possible to resize widgets on the desktop by dragging on their edges and moving them with alt-left click, just like a regular window. Plasma menu launchers gained a new category for often used documents and applications. Lock screen has gained support for media controls, so you can switch between your favorite songs without the need to unlock your desktop. Discover Software Center has gained provisional backends for flatpacks and snap packages. It's now possible to use the virtual keyboard on the login and lock screen. If you enjoy using Plasma, please consider donating to KDE, so we can work together to continue to make the best free software possible.


This study examined the use of private general practitioners, GPS, in five rural district hospitals in the western Cape province, South Africa. It found that the use of private GPS varied widely between hospitals, with some relying heavily on them while others had few or no private GPS. The study also found that the proportion of caesarean deliveries performed by private GPS was inversely related to the size of the hospital and the number of monthly deliveries. Additionally, the study found that private GPS contributed positively to the provision of quality care in the hospitals, but that the contracting model did not incentivize over-servicing. This suggests that different approaches to accessing safe caesarean delivery should be considered depending on the context. This article was authored by Tanya Doherty, Emanuel Davio, Sue Fawcus, and others.


Heralded by many as one of the few auteurs in our medium, Hideo Kojima has transformed the way we think of games as interactive entertainment. He pioneered and popularized the stealth genre, imbued his games with a cinematic flair that has inspired many others to do the same, and is one of the few designers who has tried to push the medium when it comes to exploring themes integral to the human condition. Kojima has acquired an almost cult-like devotion from his loyal fanbase, and his notoriety has extended well past video games, cementing himself as a global icon. His most famous work, the Metal Gear Solid series, exemplifies all his design sensibilities, and has gone on to sell millions of copies worldwide. However, despite his visibility and fame, Kojima has very rarely spoken about his design philosophy, and how he goes about the business of crafting games. Being initially motivated by a desire to become either a filmmaker or author, his game stands out as uniquely expressive in how they blend mediums to craft experiences that are more than the sum of their parts. This background has given him a somewhat unique approach to designing games, with the medium of interactivity becomes a stage for artistic communication. Kojima also blends mechanics and themes in powerful ways, and often uses the language of interactivity to criticize the medium itself, drawing parallels between his work and postmodern meta-fiction. To properly understand Kojima's ambitions as a designer though, we need a firmer grasp of his inspirations, goals, and design philosophy when creating games. As we will explore, this enigmatic auteur's guiding principle of pushing past the impossible has a lot to contribute to our ongoing discussion about the future of game design. After completing Metal Gear Solid 4, seemingly ending the series, Kojima gave a talk at GDC 2009 where he explicitly outlined his design philosophy. Fundamentally, it is about making the impossible possible, by discarding our preconceived notions of design and attempting to scale a so-called barrier of impossibility. This barrier represents any design goal you may have, and the way to overcome it is by using either the hardware, software, or design sensibilities you have at your disposal as tools to ascend this insurmountable peak. However, as we attempt to realize our ambitions, hardware constraints, software limitations, and inefficiencies in design can inhibit us from realizing our dreams. The trick, according to Kojima, is to work within these limitations, shifting our priorities and goals, until we find an alternative way of scaling the barrier of impossibility. For example, when Kojima was tasked with creating a combat game for the MSX2, he realized that the limited number of sprites on screen would make it difficult to craft truly engaging gameplay, given you could only have a few enemies on screen at a time. Instead of an action game, he shifted it to one of avoidance, escape, and infiltration. The hardware limitation shifted the goalpost, and he conceived of a design program that could accommodate this. The themes of avoidance and infiltration were inspired by movies like The Great Escape and the Guns of Navarone, and even at this early stage, we see his love for cinema shine through. This new brand of game required new design heuristics, and so he added dynamic AI that shifted when you were spotted, and enemy range of sight mechanics to realize this fantasy of infiltration. Although Castle Wolfenstein predates Metal Gear as the first stealth game, Kojima and his team's well thought out design popularized the genre, which was functionally akin to a puzzle game of hide and seek. Ultimately, what Kojima did was to shift the mission to one that was more manageable given the hardware limitations at the time, but fortunately, these constraints actually functioned as a catalyst for creativity, generating a new genre in the process. With the second game in the series, Kojima focused on maximizing the return on the stealth concept of the first game by crafting a more robust set of systems that take place over multiple screens with multiple enemy states. The field of view of the guards was expanded to a cone, a radar system was implemented for the first time, and there was now an evasion phase between the binary of being seen and not seen that carried across multiple screens. With the lessons he learned from the first game, Kojima was able to more thoroughly explore the ideas he conceived of in the initial game to craft a more dynamic and immersive game world. The design space of a 2D stealth game was mostly solved with MG2, and the peak he reached was one he thought higher than his initial goal of a robust action game. Here we get a sense of how we climb mountain probable by alternative means. This idea of exploring the space of design is shared by many other scholars. Climbing mountain probable was a book written by Richard Dawkins, arguing for how natural selection can by virtue of its dynamic selection process, craft solutions to evolutionary problems over time without the intention of a designer. The possibility space of design, often called an adaptive landscape, is eventually surmounted by trial and error. However, the irony with games is that there is intentionality with design, there is intelligent design as we navigate our possibility space. The difference is that trial and error happens not across generations, but during the design process of a designer and their team. In his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett expands this idea further by suggesting that there is little difference between the naturally generated products of evolution and the man-made artifacts of human creativity and culture. We are forever conducting search algorithms to find the most adaptive solutions to problems. Kojima is one of the most prolific explorers in this wide field of possibility and the tools we have at our disposal are technology and design engineering. Kojima's next ambition was to craft a 3D stealth game, but he quickly realized that the MSX-2 was ill-equipped to realize this mission. However, when a new piece of hardware came to market, the PlayStation, suddenly this new peak of design was within reach and so Metal Gear Solid 1 was born. With a new dimension came new possibilities for crafting-engaging gameplay, which he explored by examining what the implication of 3D design meant for stealth gameplay. Conceits like going into walls and ducts, dynamic camera angles and a first-person view were suddenly made possible by this new dimension. Metal Gear Solid 1 was also the first game to feel truly cinematic by incorporating cutscenes, pacing techniques and more explicit homages to cinematic properties. Once again though, when it came to expanding the possibility space of design in the 3D realm, the PlayStation 1's hardware proved limited and so Kojima awaited the arrival of a new piece of technology that was rumored to be unprecedented in pure computational power. However, when the PlayStation 2 released, it was far from what Kojima and many others had anticipated and so Kojima had to adjust accordingly. Initially driven by the idea of crafting a realistic game, Kojima shifted his priorities once more to that of a more immersive one. The goal with Metal Gear Solid 2 was to craft a more grounded sense of place, so there were higher fidelity graphics, shadows, weather effects and interactive objects embedded in the world, all of which could be used in the gameplay as well. He used motion capture for the first time and also added many more actions to the mechanical repertoire, whether hanging off ledges or holding up enemies. Everything in the game was devised with the intent of fully immersing players in the tanker or big shell environments. So with Metal Gear Solid 1, Kojima had to wait for new technology to realize his vision, whereas with Metal Gear Solid 2, he shifted his design priorities after realizing the hardware wasn't powerful enough to accommodate his prior vision. With Metal Gear Solid 3 though, Kojima created a new game engine on an existing hardware to realize a new design goal, crafting a natural environment. The idea for Metal Gear Solid 3 came from mapping out the possibility space of the series on a 2D axis, one axis designating open world vs. closed games and the other artificial or natural environments. MGS 1 and 2 were mostly varying degrees of man-made and so with Metal Gear Solid 3, Kojima located a new area of possibility space to explore, a jungle environment. With this constraint in mind, Kojima came up with the survival mechanics of the game, where you have to consume flora and fauna to maintain your stamina. The game's natural environments would serve as the preliminary infiltration phase of a more standard Metal Gear game, as you make your way through dangerous natural environments on your way to an enemy base. Shifting to this brand of gameplay didn't come without its problems though, amongst them being a now antiquated camera system and a less fluid framerate. Regardless, Metal Gear Solid 3 was still a technical achievement and quite a departure from previous games. Kojima thought he was done with the Metal Gear series at this point, but fan demand for a conclusion to the drama brought him back once more for Metal Gear Solid 4. Again though, much like with Metal Gear Solid 2, he waited for a new console which he anticipated to be much more powerful than it actually was. His ambition was to craft the ultimate stealth experience, harnessing what he assumed to be the practically limitless power of the PlayStation 3. Again though, the reality was quite different, and so this ambition was thwarted in a way Kojima illustrates quite comically here. Once more, Kojima shifted his priorities to create a different kind of stealth experience, one where you had to sneak through a battlefield as two opposing sides fought one another. Not only could you use enemies against each other, but refined versions of prior mechanics including the Octocam system and enemy alignment mechanics were introduced. With a more refined combat system too, a pure action-oriented playstyle was now possible. Metal Gear Solid 4 was completed and was framed as the culmination of the series in the GDC talk he gave, but we all know what happened after that. Kojima went on to create the portable adventure Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker, which created small, adjustable chunks of gameplay suited for a handheld device, and then started work on Metal Gear Solid 5, The Phantom Pain. Given the design of the game was not covered in his talk, it's hard to tell how it fits in our understanding of the series, but we can make some assumptions. It can be seen as a more open-world version of the natural environments in Metal Gear Solid 3, with systemic and emergent gameplay mechanics at its core. Day-night cycles, a robust metagame, and an assortment of viable strategies to tackle different missions were all a part of its possibility space, bringing Metal Gear in alignment with the genres of immersive sims and open-world games. Controversy surrounding the game's production and conflict between Kojima and Konamiya's side, the game was still a success. With the history of the design progression of the Metal Gear series, we see how Kojima has explored the possibility space of the stealth action genre, by working within the constraints of the hardware and adapting the game engine and design sensibilities he brought to bear on each project to climb the mountain of impossibility. As exceptional as his expertise at crafting unique and engaging gameplays, what makes Kojima's games as popular as they are are the themes that they explore through their fiction. The Metal Gear series is fundamentally an anti-war series, one that emphasizes our capacity to break free of the systems of control that permeate our reality and forge a unique identity independent of these fetters. The themes of the game are also intertwined with their mechanics, suggesting there is more to the possibility space Kojima was exploring than just its system. In a discussion he had at the Smithsonian Art Museum, Kojima reaffirmed his idea that games, although they contain art in them, cannot be considered art in the conventional sense, as they are interactive and beholden to user input to bring them to reality. However, he seems less interested in the question of legitimizing games as an art form than he is in using the medium to craft interactive versions of other experiences. On the subject of why his games have anti-war themes, he stresses how his parents live through the horrors of the Second World War, an event that paralyzed the subconscious of the Japanese as a people and turned them away from warfare since. In any case, Kojima's artistic inspiration, historical background, and ambitions all come to bear in the Metal Gear Solid series. The themes of each of the Metal Gear games after the first solid game are gene, meme, scene, sense, peace, and pain respectively. Each of these themes are explored using the game's fiction and their mechanics. For example, Metal Gear Solid 1's gene speaks to how our genes can control our actions, robbing us of agency when acting in the world. This theme is explored through the rivalry between Solid Snake and Liquid Snake, twin brothers who are clones of the legendary hero Big Boss. Liquid Snake mistakenly thinks himself to be the recipient of recessive genes and is clearly haunted by the insecurity of being constrained by his genetic legacy. By pitting you, Solid Snake, against the antagonist, the game deconstructs the idea that we are beholden to our genes and leaves us with the message that we are more than our rigid inheritance. What's brilliant about Kojima's thematic design is he integrates it with the mechanics and narrative of the game. Aside from the obvious anti-war theme of having nonviolent stealth gameplay, scenarios through the game illustrate the theme quite clearly. The much heralded boss fight with Psycho Mantis in Battle Gear Solid 1 demonstrates this well. Mantis is a psychic who can read your moves suggesting we are determined by prior actions and all that we do is predictable. To defeat him, you have to switch controller slots mid-battle so he can no longer read your actions to defeat him. Apart from the sheer ingenuity of this battle, it reinforces the core theme of the game. It shows us how even though we are constrained by our heritage, actions, and lineage, we can break free of it as well. Each of his games explores the theme in a similar way by reinforcing it at multiple levels of resolution. Metal Gear Solid 2's meme is in reference to not just being genetically determined but determined by our culture as well. The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene and is in reference to a hypothesized standard as unit of information that can be transferred from person to person. Metal Gear Solid 2 uses everything at its disposal to show you how easily we are manipulated by the information that permeates our reality.  Kojima uses both the narrative of the game as well as the context surrounding it to craft meaning. The S3 plan at the heart of the game also proves to be a lie as the entire facade of the big shell itself turns into a facade, one where artificial intelligence is attempting to control us by manipulating information. The themes of Metal Gear Solid 2 were inspired by the postmodern ethos of movies like The Matrix and the deconstructive language of movies like 2001's Space Odyssey. Metal Gear Solid 2 is very often considered as one of the first postmodern games, one that uses interactivity to critique the idea of truth and how we define our purpose therein. Metal Gear Solid 3's scene refers to how context changes what is right and wrong, and so the game takes a standard macho action hero and deconstructs him to the point where he's left a cynical mess by the end. It plays its themes in a much more conventional way than its predecessor, but is still equally subversive in how it deconstructs militarism, warfare, and the line dividing good and evil. All the characters in the game are affected by the scene, much like all the characters in 2 are affected by meme, and the characters in 1 are influenced by gene, highlighting through each persona the nuance of the idea. The boss, a female super-soldier credited as a traitor, turns out to actually be a hero who saved the world. Metal Gear Solid 4 is about sense or will and how we go about interpreting the desires of others and what it means in the context of reality. People's will is lost when they die, and others often tend to misinterpret things in light of their own ambitions. Sense also refers to the loss of one's senses, the desensitization that accompanies being in war, and this theme was infused into the game's narrative mechanics and social commentary. By the end of the series, Kojima starts to dwell more on the cost of war for both nations and individuals, and this bleeds into Kojima's final game of the series. Metal Gear Solid 5's pain applies in many different ways in that game. There is the pain of soldiers when they return from battle. There is the pain that comes from warfare, colonization, and mayhem, perpetrated by all of us, and there is pain in the cycle of violence that transmits through history, whether by gene, meme, scene, or sense. The game speaks to the anxieties of post-colonialism, much like Metal Gear Solid 4, speaks to those embedded in the mechanization and privatization of warfare, and punctuates many of the anti-nuclear themes that pervade the series. By the end of Metal Gear Solid 5, the game breaks the fourth wall and incorporates us into its fiction, asking us to question our role in perpetuating violence and how we might take responsibility for overcoming it. When trying to understand the source of the themes of his games, one can only look to his inspirations as a designer, and in keeping with our understanding of Kojima's integrated approach to design, they seemingly come from other mediums. His cinematic influences include the great escape, the guns of Navarone, the Matrix, Akira, James Bond, and Escape from New York, which express themselves in the espionage mechanics, the character design, and the overarching subversive plots of the game. Less well-documented are some of Kojima's literary influences, including the post-modern meta-fiction of Kobo Abe, and the anti-authoritarian writing of Yukio Mishima. In any case, my treatment of the themes in each of his games has been superficial and reductive, but my point is how the themes of each game drives much of its aesthetics, mechanics, and narrative. Kojima is clearly exploring a possibility space with each of his games, but unlike what he claimed in his GDC talk, it is one that extends well beyond the idea of a game as a mechanical object. Games are a medium for communicating ideas, and Kojima is one of the best exponents of this craft. Whether the mechanics or the themes of his games serve as the driving force of his design is less relevant than the fact that they are mutually reinforcing and intertwined, suggesting an integrated approach to design. This is much like how he conceptualized hardware, software, and design as collaborative mechanisms in the mission to transcend the impossible. Kojima's design ethos is ultimately integrated, interdisciplinary, and rooted in communicating ideas with exacting clarity, which is my sense of why his games are so enduring. At the end of his GDC talk, Kojima spoke about the broader context of his design philosophy, as well as the future of our medium. He suggests that there exists two broad umbrellas of design, one which is designer-driven and another which is technology-based. He claimed that Japanese devs tend to be more design-oriented, and Western devs more technology-based, giving them different tools to overcome barriers of impossibility. This explains the different pathways both cultures have taken and the kinds of games they make as well. In general, I do tend to agree with him, but the generalization cannot be applied too rigorously. There are plenty of Western devs who are design-oriented, and there are certainly Japanese studios that are technology-oriented first. This divide, in my estimation, is much broader than this, though. Not simply dichotomized along regional lines, but existing in every country, studio, and person. Regardless, what is this relationship between technology and design, and how does it impact our medium? Our medium started out as an extension of a computational paradigm, and so much of the foundational work in video games is rooted in technology. Only recently have we conceptualized design along both the thematic and design dimensions, other axes in the possibility space of games. However, as Chris Crawford argues in his book on game design, game development, that being the skills required to create games, whether programming, animation, or sound design, is not what game design is, which is the abstract process of creating a game conceptually. There are still many scholars who write about the need for a game design vocabulary, the most famous being Greg Kostakian's paper, I Have No Words And I Must Design, and we are still searching for a common language to understand the foundations of good game design. In a talk given at IGS in 2007, Kyle Gabler asked the audience to envision a future where there are no more limitations to design, a world where anything we imagine is possible. Presuming we create this future, a possible state of affairs given the growth of technology, game design and artistic expression will be the only barriers to exploring new creative possibilities. In some sense, technology can be seen as a hindrance in realizing our ambitions. However, in the same session, Jonathan Blow cautions us against thinking in these idealistic terms. Blow conceptualizes design space as one that contains all possible games. Our job as designers is to explore this infinite space and bring them to reality. Blow, as a proponent of investigating truth and beauty in game design, suggests we can't simply be creative for the sake of being creative or think of creativity along one dimension. But we must also think of deepening our conception of design and explore the areas we already have with more discerning eyes. This idea aligns more deeply with Kojima's view on the topic, which is an integrated approach. Yes, mechanics, themes, hardware, software and design are all distinct branches of our medium, but they are all intertwined in fundamental ways. Technology is the language of creativity we currently have, whether we like it or not, and true mastery at game design requires an understanding of many other disciplines as well. In a more recent talk he gave entitled Preventing the Collapse of Civilization, Jonathan Blow outlines how much of our technical language and design is mired by vestigial elements that no one fully understands. Given enough time, he thinks mastery at programming and interfacing directly with computers will dissolve, much like how knowledge at building aqueducts and pyramids disappeared in the great civilizations of the past. If we do get rid of technical limitations to design, it will be pure abstraction, but somewhat disconnected from what's actually happening as we design. Furthermore, our programming languages, game engines and design heuristics can all be thought of as our medium's equivalent of tools and tools constrain and inform how we actually go about being creative. Ultimately, it is important we actually understand how and why we are doing the things we are doing as we go about designing. Why do I bring this all up? Well, it is essential to understand Kojima's parting words on the subject of the future of design. Kojima implores us to entertain a more collaborative paradigm between the technical and the artistic aspects of our medium where the synergies activated between the two can propel us towards new heights in design space. This requires people across disciplines, across studios and across cultures work together in harmony, leveraging their strengths and nullifying their weaknesses. There is certainly some precedent for this in the indie sector. For example, Thumper was designed by a two-man team, one of whom was a programmer and another a musician. Similarly, FTL had a very similar configuration between its two designers, showing the power of tight collaboration between technical skill and the craft of design. With someone like Blow, you have a designer who is both an artist and adept at programming, which is possibly why he has been inspired to craft his own programming language to change the rules by which he designs. For those who think this reeks of idealism, a development during the design of Death Stranding, Kojima's latest game, vindicated his thesis all those years ago. After he left Konami on bad terms, Kojima had to relinquish control of the Metal Gear series and was effectively left out to dry. First, he announced a partnership with a company he was on good terms with, Sony, and signed an exclusivity deal to start developing a new IP. However, he had to assemble a team of his own, come up with a new game engine and go about the arduous task of the logistics of his new studio. Fortunately, another studio stepped in to lend a hand in this process, Gorilla Games, who effectively gave Kojima open access to their game engine. As Kojima explains in this interview, this act of kindness moved him to tears, saving him perhaps years from his next project. This modified version of the engine was called the Decima Engine, named after the port of Dejima. The Dutch were moved to Dejima, and during most of the Edo period, the island was the single place of direct trade and exchange between Japan and the outside world. Gorilla Games, incidentally, is a Dutch studio, and so the engine was named to commemorate the union between the two studios. Gorilla Games is a great studio in its own right, but is best known for their ability to push PlayStation hardware to its limits, and hence the union between the West and the East, between technology and design, comes full circle. Kojima even cites how this unity between publisher, technology, and designer inspired the themes of Death Stranding, but how that impacts the game is yet to be seen. Regardless, this story exemplifies much of what has driven Kojima's design ethos. It's about pushing past the impossible by integrating technology, design, theme, and mechanics to push towards new frontiers of understanding. We are all a part of this distributed process, and all of us play a role in pushing the medium forward. Ultimately, nothing is impossible if we work collaboratively, a message that extends well outside the medium of games. I suspect Hideo Kojima wouldn't have it any other way.