The Duck of Minerva

Josh Busby

Joshua Busby is a Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2021-2023, he served as a Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense. His most recent book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge, 2023). He is also the author of Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2010) and the co-author, with Ethan Kapstein, of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013). His main research interests include transnational advocacy and social movements, international security and climate change, global public health and HIV/ AIDS, energy and environmental policy, and U.S. foreign policy.

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Recent Posts

Open Thread on Surveillance, Snowden, and John Oliver

Open Thread on Surveillance, Snowden, and John Oliver

by | 6 April, 2015 | ,

Last night, John Oliver (the comedian no less!) had a terrific interview with Edward Snowden, which was much more introspective and challenging than the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour. Oliver sought to grapple with the necessity for secrecy in intelligence and  the moral responsibility Snowden faces for trusting journalists to properly vet what materials to release and subsequent errant release of sensitive material (like anti-ISIS operations in Iraq): He continued, “So The New York Timestook a slide, didn’t redact it properly, and in the end it was possible for people to see that...

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Open Thread – Iran Deal – Pros and cons

Open Thread – Iran Deal – Pros and cons

by | 3 April, 2015 |

I've been reading some interesting exchanges on Facebook about the pros and cons of the Iran deal, and though I've been snowed under by grading to have much bandwidth for blogging of late, I thought I would start an open thread here. Fareed Zakaria laid out the case for a deal before it happened in this post, seeing a deal (but presumably not just any deal) as better than the alternatives, continued sanctions and airstrikes, which to him had too many disadvantages and could lead to catastrophic outcomes in the region. David Ignatius had a quick take that suggested the deal was better than...

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Comments Restored

Comments Restored

by | 17 March, 2015 |

Loyal, even devout, readers of the Duck may have noted somewhere along the way that comment streams of yore seemingly disappeared. That could be frustrating if you wanted to go back to an exchange you had with Duck contributors and enthusiasts. I'm happy to report that with the help of our web designer support extraordinaire Lori Lacy of mod.girl.designs that our comments history is restored. For example, here is a post that had lost comments that are now back. Let us know if you see any missing ones on other posts. We hope you are enjoying the functionality of the new and improved Duck, and...

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A Hip-Hop Artist in Burkina Faso Fights Female Genital Mutilation

A Hip-Hop Artist in Burkina Faso Fights Female Genital Mutilation

by | 14 March, 2015 | ,

Each time her sex is butchered with the pretext of purity...three million of our sisters face this violence each year... In his new song "Tomber la Lame" or "Drop the Blade," Burkina Faso hip-hop artist Smockey has an amazing call to end the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), a procedure that remains widespread in parts of Africa and the Middle East that removes a piece of a girl's genitals with a knife so that she won't experience sexual pleasure as an adult and, so the logic goes, be less likely to stray from her husband. It's a horrifying practice, but one that foreign groups...

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World Wildlife Day is Today: A Poaching Crisis Threatens Iconic Wildlife with Extinction

World Wildlife Day is Today: A Poaching Crisis Threatens Iconic Wildlife with Extinction

by | 3 March, 2015 |

Today is World Wildlife Day, and species we think of as part of the fundamental awesome creatures of the natural world - elephants, rhinos, and sharks - face unprecedented risks of extinction, particularly as a result of rising demand from Asia and China in particular.  I'm currently teaching a year-long class on Global Wildlife Conservation for which my students have been writing some excellent posts on the poaching crisis and what can be done. If you are not familiar with this problem, this brief post provides a bit of background. Over the past couple of years, news of the global poaching...

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Tiny Ecuador – Two Videos to Make You Laugh And Cry

by | 26 February, 2015 | ,

From 1997 to 1999, I served in the Peace Corps in the Andean country of Ecuador. Ecuador is rich with contrasts. With the Galapagos, the Andes, and parts of the Amazon, the country possesses stunning natural beauty. The people have an incredible generosity of spirit, yet the country is riven by racial and regional differences. Until recently, high oil prices papered over some of these differences, but the president, Rafael Correa, is a left wing populist in the tradition of Hugo Chavez. He has taken to castigating his domestic on-line critics through television naming and shaming efforts...

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The Duckies: Tonight 7:30 Feb. 19

The Duckies: Tonight 7:30 Feb. 19

by | 19 February, 2015 |

We hope to see you all at the Duckies this evening, the annual blogging awards with the reception this evening sponsored by Sage. It will be held at 7:30 in Quarterdeck A&B Ballroom at the Hilton. The nominees are here. We hope to see you there!            

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ISA Linkage Edition

ISA Linkage Edition

by | 18 February, 2015 |

Welcome to sunny and warm New Orleans (or at least sunnier and warmer than wherever most of us have come from!). If you are stepping away from conferencing for a bit, here are a few good reads on the security front. I'll likely come back in the new few days with one on energy/environment and health. Here I link to work from Alan Kuperman, Jay Ulfelder, Phil Hazlewood, Paul Staniland, and Graeme Wood, covering Libya, body counts, insurgencies, and ISIS. Enjoy. LIBYA In the wake of ISIS's emergence in Libya, my colleague Alan Kuperman weighs in on the debacle that is Libya in Foreign Affairs:...

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What is a terrorist group? Concepts and measurement

What is a terrorist group? Concepts and measurement

by | 16 February, 2015 |

This is a guest post from Brian J. Phillips who is a research professor at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City. A number of studies in recent years have systematically examined terrorist groups, exploring lethality, longevity, and other outcomes. However, much of this research does not explicitly indicate what it means by a “terrorist group.” When definitions are offered, they differ considerably. These differences have empirical implications and matter for how we think about terrorism. There are a number of types of definitions of terrorist groups, and...

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ISA Linkage Edition

Morning Linkage

by | 10 February, 2015 |

After a hiatus, we will be back with some regular Morning Linkage. Look for the icon and the application of the new topic. I'm going to be brief here with some links. And it's not even morning! Blogging Andrew Sullivan ends his blogging on the Dish Professor loses tenure after blogging gone wrong Ukraine Steve Walt weighs in on Ukraine, suggests spiral model more appropriate than deterrence model and therefore arming risks escalation Mearsheimer (he of one name now) makes a similar case and calls for Ukraine to become a buffer state like Austria to which Dan Drezner and Steve Saideman note...

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