The Duck of Minerva

Steve Saideman

Steve Saideman is Professor and the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. He has written The Ties That Divide: Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy and International Conflict; For Kin or Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism and War (with R. William Ayres); and NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone (with David Auerswald), and elsewhere on nationalism, ethnic conflict, civil war, and civil-military relations.

Recent Posts

The Door is Over There

by Steve Saideman | 19 May, 2011 |

I took part in a panel on Peacebuilding yesterday at the Center for International Governance Innovation [CIGI], which was part of the larger Canadian Political Science Association annual meeting.  My panel was on Afghanistan, and it was most striking how most of the folks were already using the word "failure" to describe the mission.  I was uncomfortable with that, not because I am a wild-eyed optimist about the international effort to help Afghanistan become a semi-stable semi-self sustaining state, but because I am reluctant to call it a day quite yet. I have been arguing for a while that...

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Canadian Spring

by Steve Saideman | 3 May, 2011 |

If Stephanie can blog about Canadian politics as an ex-pat who cannot vote because residing in the UK, why cannot I comment on the election as an American ex-pat who cannot vote despite residing in Quebec?  I am not an expert on Canadian politics, but, as my blog testifies, a lack of expertise has never stopped me before.  So, here are my thoughts on the second night of surprises this week.  I will explain the title later, but first consider the parties in turn and the historic outcome.The Tories failed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  This was most out of character.  I guess...

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First Reactions to the Big News, Steve’s turn

by Steve Saideman | 2 May, 2011 |

There will be a lot of time to think about Bin Laden's death, but I thought I would add a few quick thoughts while I catch up on the coverage online.  There are a bunch of surprises and non-surprises.First, in retrospect, the non-surprises are:Seal Team 6 (the super-special operations forces) did the job, not a drone.  This is not a surprise, because the US always wanted to have complete proof that it was Bin Laden and that he was dead.  A drone cannot do that.... yet.That the US took the shot.  Yes, there are tradeoffs involved, especially backlash against the US and within Pakistan, but...

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Holy Degrees of Freedom Problem, Batman!

by Steve Saideman | 30 April, 2011 |

Or, how do we compare the not so nearly like?  There is an obvious temptation to compare Libya to Syria and ponder why the US has not jumped into the fray now that Syria has started killing lots of people (to be fair, the piece does show how different the cases are).  Now, I am not a Middle East expert (and I avoid playing one on TV), but this is a handy opportunity to think about how we do comparisons and then maybe we can figure out what is relevant here.In the first week of my big intro to International Relations class, I spend a bit of time explaining that there are few perfect...

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Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice

by Steve Saideman | 26 April, 2011 |

I would like to be as snarky as Brian, but paying attention to Afghanistan is pretty darned depressing.  In the aftermath of the second (yes, second) prison break at the Saraposa prison, what hope is there for the counter-insurgency effort?  I posted initially on my blog about what the breakdown at the prison says about the effort: the feeble Afghan government, the limited ability of the international community to make progress, and the Taliban's ability to organize a big event.But I was reminded of the bigger picture by a Canadian reporter, Graeme Smith, who reminds us that the real failure...

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Whither NATO?

by Steve Saideman | 15 April, 2011 |

Steve Metz concludes a sharp piece on NATO thusly:It is time for this debate over NATO’s viability to take place. While NATO may serve as an institutional reminder of the shared democratic values of the Atlantic community (and NATO’s not-so-Atlantic new members) and help with interoperability between its members’ military forces, the Alliance, in its current form, has proven it cannot lead and execute complex, sustained operations in today’s world. Three strikes in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and now Libya may not be enough to put NATO out of business, but it certainly should be enough to...

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Social Science and Bush Policy Towards Iraq

by Steve Saideman | 6 April, 2011 |

 I have already posted at the Duck and also at my blog on the spat between Tom Ricks and Peter Feaver.  Today, Feaver responded to Ricks.  I don't want to get into the he said/he said debate.  I just want to raise one point and then develop it a bit:Feaver is not really doing social science here.  He is seeking to explain why a particular decision happened, but he is missing a huge opportunity to develop a general understanding of Presidential behavior about the deployment of troops.  He is only focused on the surge, and his narrative suggests that Bush was making some good, tough decisions...

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Civ-Mil Relations in the 21st Century–Back to the Past

by Steve Saideman | 1 April, 2011 |

2011 has already energized much thought and scholarship about contentious politics, R2P, the efficacy of force, and, zombies. Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya (and the other countries in the region) are also bringing civil-military relations back into fashion.  When we speak of civ-mil relations, we can think of: The most classic question: who guards the guardians (Janowitz, Huntington, Finer) ?  Will the army support the government and perhaps shoot at the citizens?  Will the army join the revolt? Or will it splinter?  How do governments coup-proof (Quinlivan)?This developed into a second stream...

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