In this, the first of a sequence of posts addressing Brexit in one way or another, I want to take a look at the shifting systems of authority in the current political climate and comment on how they might impact international relations into the future. At the time of...
It's always exciting to see articles on pop culture gracing the pages of mainstream political science journals. And it's always good to see international relations scholars being encouraged to...
The publication of the long-awaited Chilcot Report on Britain’s role in the Iraq War last week produced a flurry of activity, with journalists desperately skimming through the 2.6m words within the...
A common argument made in favor of the use of robotics to deliver (lethal) force is that the violence used is mediated in such a way that it naturally de-escalates a situation. In some versions,...
Tomorrow, the NATO summit in Warsaw starts.  What do we expect, other than jet-lagged Steve being more incoherent than usual? Lots of decisions to be announced, none to be made. These summits are akin to academic conferences--events that force folks to do the work. So, all of the work to come to agreements, make commitments, draft talking points has been done. Now, it is about announcing them. The big decision--a persistent presence. Two years ago, many allies were reluctant to provoke Russia with a long-lasting deployment of troops to the Baltics and Poland. The old agreement was...
I have one more Trump post I have to write. My first bemoaned how Trump could possibly be competitive in the presidential race and the second lambasted Trump's positions on domestic and foreign policy. I have no illusions that I'm convincing anyone who isn't already convinced he is a danger to the republic. However, should you read this and have friends in your orbit who are flirting with supporting Trump, here is some ammunition for your Facebook feed, dinner conversation, passenger pigeon, what have you. Basically, my hunch is that people will listen to you because they know you, but they...
In my last post, I lamented that Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, despite his outrageous series of slurs against different groups, his lies, and unscrupulous business practices. Before exploring what arguments might persuade Republicans and undecideds to vote against Trump, what other substantive objections are there to Trump? Trump has policy stances and utterances, based on some gut check about what outrageous thing might rile a receptive audience and keep him in the news so that he doesn't have to pay for TV ads. His style is based on improvisation and pandering, so he...
Is there such a thing as blogger's block? I suppose there must be. I've found the whole Donald Trump saga to be emotionally exhausting. It's hard to write more than 140 characters about this presidential race. How is it possible that he could or will be the nominee of a major party? Which groups has he not offended? This weekend it was the Jewish community's turn after Trump retweeted an anti-Hillary picture that featured a six-sided star and a background of dollars. A news organization tracked down the origins of the image on a neo-Nazi thread on a message board.  This is not the first...