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There’s Treasure Everywhere
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The Iraqi people have suffered tremendously this decade -- and are apparently suffering even more this summer. The LA Times is reporting today that Iraq's latest calamity is an "environmental...
I have mentioned the outstanding blog Cheap Talk several times in my Twitter feed, but have yet to promote it in a blog post. If you are not familiar with the blog, the authors present excellent...
The question of state capacity might be one of, if not the, most important question that academics and policy makers can tackle. When we talk about local, regional, and international stability,...
According to the latest data from the Pew Global Attitudes Project, "the image of the United States has improved markedly in most parts of the world reflecting global confidence in Barack Obama."Follow the Pew survey link to find data charting some dramatic American improvements throughout the world. The biggest upswings seem to have occurred in Western Europe, parts of Latin America, India, and in Indonesia and Nigeria. Note that in some of these states the U.S. image was already on the upswing the past year or so following lows achieved earlier this decade.Data from Eastern Europe, Russia,...
A recent paper from Brookings, Georgetown and Hoover discusses the international legal aspects of targeted killing. As you would expect, American policy isn't in sync with the emerging global norm. An idealist might argue that the US is in the wrong (and they have a very strong case under the International Convention on Human Rights); a Realist might argue that the US needs the latitude to kill because it (or somebody--and nobody else is available) has the responsibility to combat enemies of the legal regime that everyone else assumes. The point that I hadn't thought of before is the...
During my self-inflicted hiatus, I've been traveling a lot by road with two children, so I've had less reading time. But I've also been staying in a lot of people's houses along the way, and that has allowed me to accumulate vast (and vastly more diverse than usual) amount of reading material.We turned around and headed east yesterday, and I should be back to blogging regularly in a couple of weeks. Until then, I thought I'd post tell of a few literary nuggets worth the late-summer beach-goer's attention, especially if you're looking to get out of your foreign policy head-space. Each one has...
..or much of any other government-related position. Stephen Walt gives a list of the 10 Commandments--the 10 "thou shalt not hold or even consider" positions that are considered outside of "acceptable" foreign policy discourse. I've given serious consideration to ALL of them at one time or another. Probably about half of them are things I believe today. This reminds me of when I was a very young research analyst, and after handing in a report I had out a lot of work into, my boss (for whom I had and still have the greatest respect) returned it with the comment "Well thought out. Almost...
For reasons I noted when I introduced our new bloggers, I will be suspending blogging activities for about a year. I just signed the forms that indicate my agreement to take a one-year position with the powers-that-be, so it seems like the right time to cease blogging. Before I go, I'd like to thank our readers and my co-bloggers for making writing here so much fun. I don't have anything profound or insightful to impart, but I feel like I should write a few more words before I go on (hopefully) long-term hiatus.I started the Duck of Minerva in May of 2005. I'd been blogging anonymously,...
In an article in The Age, Jimmy Carter recently renounced his membership in the Southern Baptist Church, arguing that "women and girls have been discriminated against for too long using a twisted interpretation of the word of God." Particularly, Carter objected to statements by the Southern Baptist Convention "claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service." Carter links this sort of belief to justificatory logic...
Today the Senate voted to cap the Air Force's purchases of the F-22 at 187 planes by stripping the funding for further purchases of the plane from the Defense budget. This is a very significant vote for several reasons:1. Its a big political win for the President. Obama threatened to veto a defense bill. That just Does Not Happen--no one vetoes money for DoD.2. This is the first major cut to a major weapons system in recent memory. The military industrial complex is mighty powerful, and a vast range of interests lined up to defend the F-22, led by its manufacturer and the congressional...
Andrew Sullivan Conor Friedersdorf thinks that Mark Levin "offers a serious response" to Peter Berkowitz's criticisms of his recent book. I disagree.Here's Berkowitz:Indeed, one could scarcely devise a better example of the imprudence that Burke dedicated his Reflections on the Revolution in France to exposing and combating than Levin's direct appeal to abstract notions of natural right to justify a radical reversal of today's commonly held convictions about the federal government's basic responsibilities.Levin's response?Edmund Burke, who Berkowitz misunderstands and, therefore, wrongly...