Martin Danahay – The Conversation

A screengrab from a video posted by the U.S. government on social media of the latest boat strike by the U.S. military. (U.S. Southern Command/X)

November 18, 2025

Trump’s aggression in the Caribbean could violate a Victorian‑era court ruling on cannibalism at sea

Martin Danahay, Brock University

A landmark 1884 court ruling essentially outlawed ‘murder by necessity’ on the high seas. Is Donald Trump running afoul of the law with his boat strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific?

A screenshot of a video reportedly showing a U.S. airstrike on a boat off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea. (Donald Trump/Truth Social)

September 24, 2025

Not enemies, but people: Why the world needs to rethink the language of war

Martin Danahay, Brock University

Using the term ‘war’ when fighting alleged drug traffickers or terrorists serves to justify killing them without proof they’ve committed any crimes.

Dr. Rahul Gupta, head of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (left) shakes hands with the Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong in Beijing in June 2024. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, Pool)

January 20, 2025

What the Opium Wars can tell us about China, the U.S. and fentanyl

Martin Danahay, Brock University

While synthetic opiods are a relatively new class of drugs, opium has a long destructive history in trade wars and warfare, beginning with the First Opium War.

A British publisher commissioned photographs of the army in the Crimean War to be used as the basis for oil paintings. Cornet Wilkin, 11th Hussars, by Roger Fenton. (Roger Fenton/Library of Congress)

September 24, 2024

‘Russians at War’ documentary: From the Crimean to the Iraq War, soldier images pose questions about propaganda

Martin Danahay, Brock University

A study of images of soldiers from the Crimean to the Iraq War examined how images may be just as significant for what they leave out as for what they reveal about soldiers as individuals.

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