For four decades, my research into the geopolitical and geophysical transformation of the circumpolar north has challenged the persistent misconception of an inevitable, apocalyptic impending Arctic doom. In my books and articles examining the region s security, governance, and environmental transformation—well illustrated in my third book, Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom: The Geopolitics of Climate…
In my previous post on the Hansai of Nagasaki—the cleansing fire that consumed the historic heartland of Japanese Catholicism in the Urakami Valley—I explored how the chaotic interplay of weather, military friction, and contingency converged to rewrite a nation’s spiritual geography. It was a tragedy born of tactical redirection; a secondary target obliterated because the Continue reading The Dual…
How the Center of Japan’s Christian Community Became the Unintended Target for America’s Second Atomic Strike. Eighty-one years ago today, the course of military history and the geography of faith collided in a flash of light brighter than a thousand suns. When the second atomic bomb detonated over Japan at 11:02 a.m. on August 9, Continue reading Hansai, or the Cleansing Fire.
Across my many books, I have dedicated my four-decade IR theoretical quest to a singular goal: rescuing International Relations from the sterile, structural fatalism of traditional neorealism. Traditional theorists trap us in Kenneth Waltz’s three state-centric “images” (the individual, the state, and the international system). But my macro-theory, Constructive Realism, and its companion…
My Fourth Image theory (as developed in my books on the Arctic, and later applied to my books on IR) and Constructive Realism theory converge to form a unified, bottom-up revision of traditional International Relations (IR) theory. Together, they break down the rigid, top-down fatalism of classical neorealism by restoring agency to substate actors and Continue reading My Arctic Journey, Part 6:…
My Arctic Exceptionalism: Cooperation in a Contested World (2024) serves as a recent update to my earlier trilogy of Arctic literature (Breaking the Ice, On Thin Ice, and Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom). Writing in the wake of severe international disruptions—specifically the war in Ukraine and the resulting 2022–2024 freeze/boycott of the Arctic Council by its Continue reading My Arctic Journey, Part…
Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom: The Geopolitics of Climate Change in the Arctic (2009) rounds out my three-part historical and theoretical exploration of the Arctic region by looking directly at the macro-level polarities of environmental crisis and economic opportunity. While my previous books explored how Indigenous land claims and governance altered internal state politics, this book Continue reading…
On Thin Ice: The Inuit, the State, and the Challenge of Arctic Sovereignty (2009) was conceived as part two of a three-part series on Arctic geopolitics, international relations (IR) theory, and Indigenous security studies, and directly follows Breaking the Ice. Published on the 50th anniversary of Kenneth Waltz’s foundational neorealist text, Man, the State and Continue reading My Arctic Journey,…
My 2008 book, Breaking the Ice: From Land Claims to Tribal Sovereignty in the Arctic, is a comprehensive study of indigenous rights, land claims, and governance in the Western Arctic and Alaska. Drawing from my decade of field research and residency in the region, it explores how native populations transformed from marginalized groups into powerful, Continue reading My Arctic Journey, Part 2:…
Two decades ago, the first of what has evolved into a full baker’s dozen of my published books went under contract, marking a shift from my prolific writing of articles and book chapters to much longer-winded and more in-depth and nuanced format for theoretical reflection. While I started out my life of scholarship as an Continue reading My Arctic Journey, Part 1: A Northern Perspective on World…