Director, Ethics, Society, and Law program, Trinity College, University of Toronto
John Duncan is director of the Ethics, Society, and Law program at Trinity College in the University of Toronto. He is a founder of the Humanities for Humanity program, and he is faculty advisor for Victoria College's Ideas for the World program. He is the founder of the society for the study of Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture, and co-founder of its journal, PhaenEx. He writes on the history of philosophy, continental philosophy, and politics. His feature article on close air support and civilian casualties in Afghanistan, “Death from Above” was published in The Best Canadian Essays: 2011. He is currently working on a book on the war in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has been notoriously
easy to seize but difficult to hold. John Duncan explains why the country’s
lack of centralized government has kept effective and ongoing occupation out of
reach for one great power after another.
If we want to make R2P’s hope of “never again” a reality, we need to turn away from the critique of sovereignty and the example of Libya, argues John Duncan.
