ess than a year after the appearance of "The False Promise of International Institutions," the journal International Security published replies from Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin, John Ruggie, Clifford and Charles Kupchan, and Alexander Wendt....
We’re not so different, you and I. We both dislike Hillary. It doesn’t really matter that she was among key players in the Russian reset policy back in 2009, we really don’t trust her – just like...
We're happy to announce some new guest Ducks, some old guests staying on, and additions to our permanent contributors. In reverse order, Jarrod Hayes and Heather Roff-Perkins have joined us as...
The following is a guest post by Nives Dolšak, Professor, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Aseem Prakash, Professor, Department of Political...
The nature of cyber discourse concerns me, and this is a point I have written about extensively with Ryan Maness (Valeriano and Maness 2012a, Valeriano and Maness 2012b, Valeriano and Maness 2014). The idea is that threats we see materialize from cyberspace seem to vastly outweigh any other threats we have faced, ever. Some argue this cyber threat is different, faster, and bigger. I question this conventional wisdom. Is the cyber threat really any different than any other threat we have faced? To this point, I have generally avoided writing about cyber-crime, but the logic suggesting...
Did you see the photos like the one above out of Shanghai? For the first time ever, Shanghai's air pollution, like Beijing's before it, exceeded the scale for particulate matter. For the past seven days, the air quality has been so bad that schools and flights were cancelled, cars were forced off the roads, industries were shut down (Though a marathon last Monday went on as planned. Runners complained that their lungs hurt. Go figure!). This post follows up my previous one a couple of weeks ago on whether China can gets its air quality problems under control. That was essentially the text...
Have yourself a gender-neutral Christmas, let your toys be yellow. From now on our princess costumes and toy guns will be out of sight.... Well, you try to rhyme with this material. The Daily Mail asked yesterday "how to shop for gender neutral toys" noting the sea of blue and pink dividing stores like Toys R Us. But when Toys R Us introduced a gender-neutral toy catalog, in Sweden, France, Finland, Norway, Germany, Denmark and France- featuring Spider-Man pushing a pink pram and a young girl wielding a gun- conservatives bucked, calling the images brainwashing and 'male hatred.' Play...
We're a few weeks into the call for nominations for the 2014 OAIS Awards. It's time to get serious. We've had a number of impressive nominations, but given the excellent content out there, we're looking for a much larger pool of nominees. We want to hear your suggestions. Post your nominations in the comments section below -- you may also email us a nomination directly. Please specify the award in the body of the text, provide the name of the blog, and a URL. Nominations close on 1 January 2014. Remember, finalists will be selected by popular vote, which will run from 5 January-31 January...
The effort to develop a single 5th generation fighter plane has been a challenge for the US and its allies. The F-35 is very expensive and may underperform. The quality of debate about this plane has varied. So, we turn to the experts for a reasoned discussion of the F-35 and an alternative: Does that help make up some minds? Ok, so a Boeing subcontractor made it, but I find it convincing... do you? H/T to @drfarls for the suggestion
With the assumption of an ongoing global cyber arms race, Western governments signed an agreement to limit the sharing and selling of dangerous cyber technologies. David Livingstone notes, “[Cyber security technology] is a lot like the arms race. What you want to do is slow down how fast your foe develops equivalent technologies.” This is an important and needed step in the cyber discourse and I look forward to reading the details of how exactly these governments plan to limit the transfer of cyber technologies. The process might not be as difficult as one would expect given that computer...
In 1987, I was a high school sophomore and somehow, no doubt through rock music, became aware of the anti-apartheid struggle. As it was for President Obama, the movement to end apartheid was my political baptism. It's what got me engaged and interested in global politics. I remember going to the Texas A&M campus and participating in meetings of Students Against Apartheid. I joined rallies to encourage the university to divest from any investments in U.S. companies doing business in South Africa. Hearing of Nelson Mandela's death today brought all those memories back and prompted me to...
One of the recurring subjects among folks using data is: why does person x not share their data with me? Mostly because they are fearful and ignorant. Fearful? That their work will get scooped and/or their data might be found to be problematic. Ignorant? That they don't know that they are obligated to share their data once they publish off of it and that it is in their interest to share their data. There is apparently a belief out there that data should be shared only after the big project is published, not after the initial work has been published. I will address this as well as the...