From Leviathan:From this equality of ability ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end (which is principally...
Today's New York Times reports the results of a current Pew Forum poll:The poll found that 42 percent of respondents held strict creationist views, agreeing that "living things have existed in their...
News from the deep south just gets worse and worse. The good news is that the Federal Government is mobilizing its resources, with some possible caveats, along with other groups and organizations...
Sally Jenkins, sports columnist for the Washington Post, weighs in with a rather silly opinion piece about "intelligent design" as it might relate to athletics. "Athletes do things that seem...
I'm back... at least until my DSL service cuts out again. Or I leave for APSA. Whichever comes first.I've been able to get online long enough to read, among other things, Timothy Garton Ashs' essay, "Stagger on, weary Titan" (via Anne-Marie Slaughter).In the American case, it's a result of the unexpectedly protracted, bloody and costly Iraq war, in which a small group of foreign insurgents defies the mightiest military the world has seen; concern about the rising economic power of China and India; and a combination of imperial overstretch with socio-economic problems at home.Ash's essay is...
On my own blog, I have occasionally written about the legitimacy of American foreign policy. Moreover, I have often discussed new Ambassador to the UN John Bolton -- and his hawkish unilateralism.Only recently, however, did I discover this speech by Bolton to the Federalist Society, Washington, DC, November 13, 2003: "Legitimacy" in International Affairs: The American Perspective in Theory and Operation." At the time, Bolton was serving as Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security.Bolton began by acknowledging that "many voices question the legitimacy of our policies." His...
George W. Bush is a graduate of the Harvard Business School (MBA, 1975). I wonder if they taught him about sunk costs? Sunk costs are unrecoverable past expenditures. These should not normally be taken into account when determining whether to continue a project or abandon it, because they cannot be recovered either way. It is a common instinct to count them, however.There's certainly good evidence to believe that Bush does not understand the concept.President Bush, August 22, 2005: We have lost 1,864 members of our Armed Forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and 223 in Operation Enduring...
Soon, the cost of the Iraq war in dollars is going to exceed 200 billion.With debate about the future of Iraq heating up, this might be a good time to point out that this cost to America is directly attributable to the Bush administration's unilateralism. Moreover, though it is difficult to know with certainty, much greater global backing might have facilitated the difficult jobs of rebuilding post-war and post-occupation Iraq.The first Persian Gulf War, by way of comparison, was very cheap for the US because is was largely financed by allied states -- who agreed with the war and the UN...
My university started classes Monday and I teach two classes on Tuesday.As I've mentioned before, I'm teaching American Foreign Policy and International Security this term. Note: those course descriptions pre-date my arrival (1991).I don't have any links to the syllabi (yet), but they should eventually appear here. Then again, my university uses Blackboard, which is easy to use and requires a password; thus, I may not bother to post the syllabi on the web.In any case, those interested in some non-textbook readings in these areas might want to check out these two blogs I've created for the...
Iraq is not Vietnam. However, the political debate about Vietnam presents a number of valuable lessons that war opponents should be learning. Fast, as in before the 2008 presidential election process starts in earnest. Since candidates are already coming forward to fill what will almost certainly be an open seat (unless Dick Cheney has filled it for some reason), this means war opponents need to act now. Anti-war activists have great difficulty convincing the majority of Americans that the US should simply abandon Iraq. Even those who opposed the March 2003 invasion of Iraq are now reluctant...
The University of Pittsburgh's Ridgway Center for International Security Studies has just published a Working Paper that purports to answer the question that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence did not: Was the pre-war intelligence about Iraq WMD willfully distorted by the Bush administration? "Yes," says the author of the new report, which focuses on the pre-war claims about Iraq's nuclear program.Obviously, I agree with this conclusion, as anyone who has read my blog for the past two years knows. And in fact, I am the author of the Working paper: "Deliberating Preventative War: The...
Last night, I viewed the disturbing documentary about Fox News, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism." If you haven't seen it, I recommend that you do. Indeed, watch it as part of a double feature with "Control Room," the documentary about Arabic network, al-Jazeera. Frankly, after seeing both films, I'd rather my cable company carry al-Jazeera than Fox News Channel.This week, I'm hard at work on my syllabi for this fall's classes, which begin for me next Tuesday. While viewing "Outfoxed," I kept wondering if it would be acceptable to show it during classtime for the section on...