What's been quacking at the blog? The Duck of Minerva opened for business in 2005, so it’s had a lot of time to accumulate duck-puns and stupid duck references. Over the years, contributors embraced the Duckness of the Duck to different degrees. I can’t say for...
Jarrod talks with Lisel Hintz of Johns Hopkins University and Sibel Oktay of the University of Illinois, Springfield and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs about the complex history of Turkey in...
By now it’s clear that the attack on a Buffalo, NY supermarket was a case of right-wing terrorism. An individual targeted the store because many of its customers were black, and hoped to use the...
I am not supposed to be worried about nuclear war with Russia. With North Korea maybe. I am told Kim Jong Un isn’t rational and can’t be trusted, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Or...
Professor Duncan Bell joins The Hayseed Scholar podcast. Duncan grew up in the Midlands in a rural area of England. He was interested in international politics from a fairly young age. Duncan chose to pursue a degree in war studies at King's College London, and considered joining the military thereafter. But the transition to London from a quieter area, and the experiences he had there, changed his plans. He tells Brent about getting his Master's and then PhD at Cambridge, and a momentous year he spent in the US at Columbia during his studies and changing his PhD topic that led to several of...
Our next Bridging the Gap Book Nook features Tom Long of the University of Warwick. He discusses his new Oxford University Press book, A Small State's Guide to Influence in World Politics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glKAammexM8
On February 24, just hours after Russia launched its assault on Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted a simple message: “Today we are waking up in a different Europe. In a different world.” Three days later, the same could be said for waking up in a different Germany. For 70 years, Germany maintained an explicit and unyielding policy of not shipping weapons to conflict areas. This position was reversed with a single speech by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Bundestag. Amongst policy circles in Germany, Scholz’s February 27th speech is dubbed...
The US needs a more restrained approach to its national security, but not all arguments for restraint – and not all policies of restraint – rest on solid foundations.
Jarrod talks with Georg Löfflmann (University of Warwick) and Frank Stengel (Kiel University) about the changes in German foreign policy in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, in particular, about the idea that Germany is experiencing …
Jarrod talks with Georg Löfflmann (University of Warwick) and Frank Stengel (Kiel University) about the changes in German foreign policy in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, in particular, about the idea that Germany is experiencing a watershed moment. https://duckofminerva.podbean.com/e/duck-events-podcast-zeitenwende-german-foreign-policy-after-ukraine/
I wrapped the 2022 edition of my undergraduate “Grand Strategy” seminar this past Tuesday. This must have the eight or ninth iteration of the class. I like teaching it. I really do. But I have significant reservations about “grand strategy” as a classroom subject. I’m not at all convinced that grand strategy is a thing. Yes, plenty of people advocate for a preferred “grand strategies.” Not a few of them would love to become the ‘next George F. Kennan,’ which leads to some truly eyeroll-worthy titles. It’s one thing to point to a proposal, such...
We've got a newsletter! Yeah, sure, the large front-page button labelled "newsletter" might've been a clue. But still, the Duck of Minerva is (kinda) on Substack. We're not alone. The old academic and academic-adjacent blogosphere is, apparently, in the process of reconstituting itself over there. There's Abu Aardvark, Brad DeLong, Tim Burke, and many others. It reminds me, albeit only slightly, of how my old usenet group reemerged as a Facebook page. But with paywalls. It's probably obvious that – at least until a few days ago – I've only read individual posts on the platform. These did...