Norwich University News Edition: Voices from The Hill
This is the place for Norwich faculty, students, and alumni to contribute their stories on and off The Hill. You’ll read the stories and see the images from the projects, connections and successes that make Norwich’s community vibrant and vital.
SPECIAL EDITION: 
Everyone is adapting to new realities as we learn to work remotely, educate students and serve people in need and this transition has stimulated intellectual curiosities. Norwich has a series of interdisciplinary essays featuring faculty members’ perspectives on the coronavirus to help us all think through the consequences our nation is facing.
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year has passed since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. When will it end? Allow me to frustrate you by predicting that nothing will be over in 2023. It might take five to eight years of slow-motion tug-of-war. Analysts were wrong in their estimates of potential support of the war inside Russia, and also in their predicted consequences to the Kremlin for mobilization measures. The first was underestimated, and the second was overestimated.
- By Dmitri Beliakov
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
Read more: A Case of Do or Die: Russian Penal Battalions in Ukraine
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n January 6, 1941, in his eighth State of the Union address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered his interpretation of the basic liberties that should be part of any true democratic nation-state: freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech, and freedom of worship. The Four Freedoms, as they became known, were FDR’s creation, but their true entry into the public consciousness came by way of another individual: Norman Rockwell. This week we recognize the 80th anniversary of the first publication of Norman Rockwell’s The Four Freedoms paintings at the height of the Second World War. Rockwell’s art sought to capture visually the concepts behind FDR’s freedoms. His paintings transcended the mere words of FDR’s speech and provided a medium through which Americans could truly understand that for which their country was fighting.
- By Dr. Steven Sodergren
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
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At the close of the 19th century, America had run out of room. With the fever dreams of Manifest Destiny still in the country’s mind, the people realized that there was no one left to feasibly expand civilization to on the continent. If they wanted to expand their political and religious beliefs further, they would have to cross the oceans1. But this would not come cheaply.
- By Blake Rothberg
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
Read more: Revisiting Spanish American War from a Just War Perspective
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n 2015, the United Nations announced Sustainable Development Goal 6, an initiative for "[the] availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all" to be achieved worldwide by 2030. Seven years later, the water situation in Jordan has worsened, with water availability decreasing by at least 30% over the past ten years. Internationally, a water availability level lower than 500m3 per capita faces extreme water scarcity; however, Jordan is far below this figure, maintaining a water availability level of just 100m3 per capita. A limited yet growing amount of literature has been written on Jordan's situation, but authors rarely attempt to identify the causes of the crisis.
- By Matthew Kolb
- Parent Category: News
- Category: Voices from The Hill
Read more: Water Scarcity in Jordan: An Examination of the Causes behind the Crisis
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ensions between the United States and China increased after American bombers flew a freedom of navigation operation over contested waters in the South China Sea. Beijing responded by declaring that it would continue its island ‘reclamation’ program, sending tensions to a critical level.
- By Thomas Ambrosio and Jonathan Ross
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
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he devastating 1990s war that ravaged Bosnia also ruined its economy and infrastructure throughout almost four years of the war. Bosnia is one of the most vulnerable countries in the Western Balkans, brought on by the failed Dayton Peace Agreement signed on December 14, 1995, ending the war but putting the country under conservatorship making international community take charge of its functioning. It created two entities: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina for Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, and Republika Srpska (RS) that was created out of genocide committed in Bosnia. The RS, under the leadership of Milorad Dodik has kept Bosnia hostage, refusing to pass reforms that would help the country join NATO and the EU.
- By Nadina Ronc
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
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ust war theory is a philosophy about when it is morally permissible for states to use force/violence and then how to use force/violence in a morally proper way. There is no one way to approach just war theory, but I apply Christian realism, which combines secular and religious philosophies, and can offer explanatory power and practical guidance to cases such as the Ukrainian war.
- By Isaac Ruse
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
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ince February 2022, Russian citizens have been trained around the clock by Russian authorities to be proud of the war against Ukraine. Vulgar militarism has been turned into an official aesthetic despite tens of thousands of dead people, millions of refugees, Russia’s international isolation, and Ukrainian cities being largely destroyed or deprived of heating and electricity. Nevertheless, things must be bad for Putin: he has to recruit legionnaires from prisons for his idiotic war and threaten the world with an untested nuclear missile.
- By Dmitri Beliakov
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
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he constructivist view on international relations suggests that perceptions of how states should act shape a particular cultural environment or social arrangements (Wendt, 1992, 1999; Frederking, 2003). The violent and anarchic society where states are fighting for survival is described by English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and is thus called the Hobbesian model. Another model suggests that the states interact as reasonable opponents: they observe the rules of the game and try to compromise with one another to balance their interests. This view has its roots in the philosophy of English Enlightenment thinker John Locke (1632–1704) and is called the Lockean model. Some states may see the world as driven by fundamental norms of ethics, based on recognition of the rights of others and a genuine desire to preserve international peace, which is the Kantian model, named after German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804).
- By Holger Mölder
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
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any diaspora communities care about their ancestral homelands. Diaspora engagement with an ancestral homeland also ebbs and flows, often becoming more intense during times of crisis. But history has shown that the global Ukrainian diaspora can be counted on to support Ukraine not only during the current crisis of its war with Russia, but also as it embarks on its path of reconstruction when the war ends.
- By Victor Satzewich
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
Read more: The Ukrainian Diaspora: Caring About the Homeland
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n April 2022, the world was shocked by photographs of the victims of the massacre in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, which had been under Russian occupation for a month and a half. During the investigation of numerous war crimes committed by Russian forces, UN human-rights monitors in Ukraine documented and confirmed reports of nearly 5,000 extrajudicial executions and mass murders of civilians in more than 30 locations in Kiev, Kharkiv, and the Sumy and Chernihiv regions. The Russian military held people in inhumane conditions, tortured them, and killed them. In my opinion, the brutality experienced and learned by Russian soldiers and police in prior Putin-involved wars, especially in Chechnya, increased Russian society’s tolerance for governmental violations of human rights, both at home and abroad, as these personnel returned home with their sense of humanity diminished. This in turn impacted daily life within Russia, including in law enforcement, and contributed to Russian military behavior in Ukraine.
- By Dmitri Beliakov
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
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aturally, the primary emphasis in any discussion of military support for Ukraine is that provided by NATO member states. However, one non-NATO Western country that has provided substantial assistance to Ukraine is Australia. The latter’s help and solidarity has been framed within the wider context of values, with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese having stated that “This is not just about Ukraine’s sovereignty; the brave people of Ukraine are defending international law, rules and norms”.[1] Additionally, Australia’s support is also connected to issues regarding the country’s security concerns, such as in the Indo-Pacific region,[2] and it has also been noted that such aid is vital to Australia’s position as a middle power.[3]
- By Daniel Haitas, Ph.D.
- Parent Category: Voices from The Hill
- Category: Voices on Peace and War
