In 1963, JFK predicted that there would be as many 25 nuclear powers by the 1970s.  Yet here we are, some 70 years later, and the number of states believed to possess nuclear weapons has grown from 4 to 9.  Why haven't more states joined the club? A variety of factors...
Topics covered: Process arguments about Libyan attack; Obama likes to kill Islamic terrorists; Energy independence is good, because... jobs; and Romney wants to start a massive trade war with China,...
Yes, it’s partisan, but it’s a somewhat useful deconstruction First, I included the above video to reference a point I tried to make earlier – that Romney flip-flopped so much in the first debate...
A few weeks ago we saw a nasty eruption of the should "progressives vote for Obama" debate--prompted, ironically enough, by a libertarian columnist. My reaction at the time was rather short. But I...
tl;dr notice: 1200 words. Zack Beauchamp points us to Douglas Feith's latest broadside against the administration with the tweet: LOL Feith cites @slaughteram and Sam Power's jobs as evidence that Obama wanted to limit American use of military force It turns out that the absurdity runs far deeper in Feith's piece. I know that Obama's fecklessness in the face of the Russian threat is an article of faith among neo-conservatives. As I've mentioned on numerous occasions, I think there's a case for the administration overestimating the willingness of Moscow to accomodate US policy priorities. But...
George W Bush practically built his re-election effort against John Kerry on the idea that even if you disagreed with him, you consistently knew where he stood on stuff. That commercial above is famous. And the US right in general loves that sort of macho grandstanding on behalf of American will in the face of wimpy, carping detractors - usually Europeans, academics, and liberals, ideally combined. Remember ‘freedom fries’? Palin and McCain struck the same pose in 2008 (‘I would much rather lose a campaign than a war’), and so did lots of Tea Party candidates in 2010 and in the 2012 GOP...
Democrats are struggling to explain the math behind the Romney-Ryan tax cut proposal. Such forest-for-the-trees stuff isn't really helping. They need to make the big argument: Romney's policies are the same failed policies offered during the Bush Administration, and   here's why Obama's proposals will work better. Mark Bowden chronicles the operation that killed Bin Laden. Juan Cole discusses estimates of drone causalities. Marc Lynch on Tunisian instability. James Joyner makes the case for NATO getting the Nobel Peace Prize. Andrew Kydd riffs on the discussion of timetables in the VP...
(Here and here is the previous Duck debate on this.) The EU? Over a guy regularly facing down death-threats, bullying, and intimidation from one of the worst dictators on earth? Boo to the Nobel Committee for missing this obvious choice. If they can give the prize to the drone-warrior with a kill-list (Obama) and an institution run by wealthy, comfortable lawyers, bankers, and white collar professionals, then surely they can give it to someone who every day is making a far more direct, personal, bodily commitment to peace and social betterment. In fact, why Tsvangirai hasn’t won yet is...