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The U.S. Department of the Navy released A Strategic Blueprint for the Arctic on 5 January 2021. The Navy is focused on preparing for an Alaskan and "Blue" Arctic. Recognizing the changing landscape of the Arctic, the US Navy seeks to maintain a competitive edge, freedom of the seas, and deterrent effect. For the Marine Corps, both the 2021 document and the previous Advantage at Sea: Prevailing with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power, highlight the Marines' mission to assist the Navy in sea control and sea denial. These strategic documents reflect the direction both the Navy and Marine Corps are taking to better engage in the Arctic, and, therefore on NATO's northern flank and elsewhere in the world. The Marine Corps' new concept for warfighting, represented in The Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) presumes that Marines are a "stand-in" force, i.e., they are already in areas within an adversary's weapon's engagement zone (WEZ). However, this is not the case on NATO's northern flank, where Marines conduct training with NATO and under bilateral agreements. In order to better understand how these new concepts and strategic documents influence the USMC's engagement on NATO's northern flank, it is important to relate them to the overall strategic context in this region, as well as the possible gaps that exist down to include operational and some tactical levels implications.

According to Alfred Nobel's original intent the Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded to the person or group who has 'done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses'. The peace prize committee has since its original distribution expanded the definition of peace to include righteous social, economic or environmental action that has brought the committee its share of criticism. Even worse the peace price has previously been distributed to controversial laureates such as Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root and Hendry Kissing, and the infamous dictators Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin have received a nomination. L. Pitkaniemi

It is well established in International Relations that the modem state & the state system originated at the Peace of Westphalia (1648). In this article, the author argues that there is little evidence to support such an understanding, neither in the texts of the treaties nor in the political situation before or in the wake of 1648. Rather, the Peace of Westphalia can in many ways be understood to be a step backwards from a modem understanding of sovereignty (cuius regio, eius religio: whose region it is, his religion it is), which to some extent was represented in the Peace of Augsburg (1555). International Relations' understanding of the Peace of Westphalia is based on a mythical understanding of historical processes. Furthermore, the author argues, International Relations should abandon the mythical watershed which 1648 represents. However, instead of searching for another myth to explain the origin of its main object of study, one should instead re-conceptualise the discipline in a new & more dynamic way, taking into account the heterogeneous character of the international system. 60 References. Adapted from the source document.

A review essay on books by (1) Mai'a K. Davis Cross, The European Diplomatic Corps. Diplomats and International Cooperation from Westphalia to Maastricht (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); (2) Carne Ross, Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unnaccountable Elite (London: Hurst & Co., 2007); (3) Brian Hocking and David Spence [Eds], Foreign Ministries in the European Union: Integrating Diplomats (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) & (4) Graham Ziegner [Ed], British Diplomacy: Foreign Secretaries Reflect (London: Politico's, 2007).