The Duck of Minerva

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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.

Recent Posts

Addendum: The Use of History in IR and the Causes of World War II

by | 5 January, 2012 |

So, in my last post, I critiqued Rosasto and Schuessler's realist take on the causes of World War II, repeating the IR conventional wisdom of liberal internationalism (that it was reparations and beggar-thy-neighbor policies that worsened the Depression and created the conditions for the rise of Hitler). I ran that interpretation by one of my colleagues at the LBJ School, Frank Gavin, a historian who knows this literature much better than me but also one who has engaged the IR literature quite extensively.I wanted to quote his email to me at length about how historians now understand WWII,...

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Really Real: Take II on the Chicago IR Guys

by | 4 January, 2012 |

In my last post, I offered a friendly critique of Nuno Monteiro's piece on how unipolarity has been less peaceful than other periods (debatable) and that U.S. power alone explains why minor states feel insecure and trigger conflicts with the unipole (same - the domestic politics of the U.S. and minor states are important in my view).   In this post, I want to provide a similar albeit friendlier critique to Rosato and Schuessler's article (not least because Sebastian introduced me and my wife!). Rosato and Schuessler (R&S) make the case that realism can and should be taken as a prescriptive...

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Get Real! Chicago IR guys out in force

by | 3 January, 2012 |

In light of the recent exchange on the Duck about Matthew Kroenig's work on Iran and policy-relevant research, I thought I'd flag a couple of articles from three University of Chicago alums from International Security (where Nuno Monteiro has a piece on unipolarity) and Perspectives on Politics (where Sebastian Rosato and John Schuessler have an article [Ed: behind paywall] prescribing a realist foreign policy for the United States).While I disagree with a number of their conclusions and theoretical observations, these are the kind of pieces that I think will generate a lot of healthy...

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An AIDS-Free Generation?

by | 2 December, 2011 |

Three weeks ago, Hillary Clinton gave a speech at the National Institutes of Health suggesting that because of recent advances in scientific understanding we could finally envision an AIDS-free generation. Wow, fantastic, the beginning of the end! Could it be? A week ago, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria announced that because of insufficient donor funding, it was canceling its next funding round for new projects and that it would likely struggle to maintain some of its existing commitments. On the Huffington Post, Jeffrey Sachs groused that President Obama hadn’t done enough...

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Isn’t there a global climate conference in Durban?

by | 30 November, 2011 |

Durban SkylineWhy aren't you there? You love South Africa. New baby. 'Nuff said.What, there is more? Low expectations. Hard to justify traveling all that way (let alone burn all those hydrocarbons) for a meeting that is likely to be unproductive.*I take it you are not a big fan of big global conferences? Not really. Hard to see how thousands of delegates and NGOs can converge in a single place and actually produce meaningful results.Jealous much? A little.Ok, low expectations aside, what would constitute a "success" and what would be a failure?Here are some headlines coming out of Durban...

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International Security and the Twitterati

by | 22 November, 2011 |

I'm just back from the Halifax International Security Forum where I had the good fortune to meet fellow Duck blogger Jon Western. The Atlantic's Steve Clemons described the gathering as Davos for the security set, which certainly is a nice ego-boost, whether or not it's true. The forum is in its third year and is backed by the Canadian government among other sponsors. The forum of 200 plus draws mightily on traditional transatlantic security elites, but the smattering of Brazilians, Syrians, Yemenis, Serbians, Indians etc. gave it a decidedly more cosmopolitan flair. On the U.S. side,...

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Is Occupy Wall Street a Flash in the Pan?

by | 16 November, 2011 |

Occupy AustinSource: Austin American StatesmanWith New York City police and cities around the country cracking down on Occupy Wall Street encampments, it seems like the nascent movement might dissipate even before winter sets in. While a full assessment is obviously premature, it is fair to ask whether or not OWS possesses characteristics that have made past movements successful. At this point, will OWS' legacy be more significant than getting Bank of America to waive its $5 fee on its debit card?One of the main criticisms of OWS that emerged quickly, perhaps too quickly, is that it was...

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Testing “Go Right” Messaging on Global Warming

by | 23 October, 2011 |

On Friday, I gave some remarks in Dallas, Texas to a group of young leaders from different professions as part of the Next Generation Project organized by the Strauss Center for International Security and Law. For this diverse  audience, I tested what I described in my last post a "Go Right" messaging strategy on global warming, designed to appeal to partisans and nonpartisans alike.  You be the judge if this effort was successful. I've added some hyperlinks of sources I drew upon to write the speech.It’s great to be here with all of you and to have the opportunity to participate in another...

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Get Angry or Go Right: What’s the Best Strategy on Global Warming?

by | 16 October, 2011 |

Supporters of action on climate change are under siege in Washington. House Republicans are attempting to cut appropriations on all things related to climate change. Even Democrats appear to want to downplay talk of the issue. The "green jobs" agenda, in light of Solyndra solar's woes, is now mired in controversy. Despite Al Gore's recent effort to refocus attention on the problem with his new Climate Reality campaign, an economy wide legislative effort like cap-and-trade appears dead in the United States for the foreseeable future (That didn't stop Australia's House of Representatives from...

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The World Is Waiting: U.S. Public Opinion and Climate Change

by | 27 September, 2011 |

So, we're almost in October, and it's still 100 hundred degrees here in Texas.  We have just endured the hottest summer on record for any state in the United States.  Just last month, thousands of acres burned in a series of wildfires just outside Austin.September 2011 Texas FiresOur governor Rick Perry is running for the Republican nomination for president, and though climate change is not high on the agenda, he took time out of his busy schedule to deny that climate change was real and to claim his perspective was akin to being a modern day Galileo. These remarks prompted President Obama...

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