How a shift in tactical orientation by activists opposing the border camps might make all the difference.
The Enemy’s Gate is Down
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Second Thoughts About the West's (Weak) Opposition to the Putin Doctrine
 Russia may have agreed to a ceasefire with Ukraine the week before last, but in addition to regular violations of it by both Russian forces and pro-Russian rebels, it is important to understand...
Thursday Linkage: #Climate2014 Edition
On Tuesday September 23, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is hosting a meeting of world leaders to discuss the issue of climate change. The aim is to build pressure and support for...
Britain’s Role in the World and Scottish Independence
[Note: This is a guest post by David M. McCourt, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California-Davis. His book, Britain and World Power Since 1945:...
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Nation’s international relations reference librarians despondent as Game of Thrones returns
The Canard "All the fake news that's fit to print" The long awaited return of HBO’s wildly popular fantasy series, the Game of Thrones, has not generated enthusiasm on the part of at least one group. The nation’s international relations reference librarians, those who help students and members of the public research the complicated dynamics of world politics, are sighing collectively as they anticipate the coming months of boredom. During the airing of the show, they have noticed a marked decline in visits to the reference desk, as the nation’s public draws inferences about the intricacies...
Small Modular Reactors and US Military Bases
Bear with me, because this post has a long backstory. As many of you know, I'm a former policy debater. Indeed, so are a number of guest and permanent bloggers at the Duck of Minerva. And not a few other international-relations scholars. Well, this weekend is the National Debate Tournament (NDT), which is like the NCAA basketball tournament for fast-talking nerds, misfits, and future legal power players. In fact, the two aforelinked Ducks are former NDT champions. Last year something odd happened. I was at a GDS debate reunion talking to some current college debaters. One of them stopped and...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Globalization Edition
Why show a trailer for an Indian zombie movie? Two reasons: it has the word globalization in it; and it helped me make it to the Final Four of Twitter Fight Club 2013. To newbies, the first rule of #TFC13 is to talk about it. So, check out the competition of the international security wonks, and then vote for me on Monday. That way, I can be utterly distracted at the ISA for the finale is Wednesday. Enjoy your weekend.
Jeffrey C. Isaac on the NSF and Political Science
In a piece that's bound to generate controversy among political scientists, Isaac looks at the "big picture" of the defunding of (many forms of) political science via the Coburn Amendment. What's likely controversial about the piece? First, Isaac argues that the defunding of political science is simply a wedge in the broader conservative "war on science." It seems very clear that the move to defund political science is linked to a broader conservative political agenda targeting many aspects of science and the humanities, and rooted in a hostility toward intellectuals; that it hypocritically...
Debating the Benefits of Nuclear Superiority for Crisis Bargaining, Part IV
Editor's Note: Back in February I riffed on a post by Erik Voeten in which Erik discussed two articles in International Organization (IO). One, by our colleague Matt Kroenig, argued that nuclear superiority gives states advantages in crisis bargaining (PDF). Another, by Todd Sechser and Matthew Fuhrmann, rejects this claim (PDF). After the two posts sparked some interesting discussion--both on- and offline--I approached all three about doing a mini-symposium at the Duck of Minerva. They agreed. Kroenig kicked us off with objections to Sechser and Fuhrmann, and soon...
Did You Know that WMD is DMW Spelled Backwards?
Herbert Marcuse had some interesting things to say about certain political acronyms.  The meaning is fixed, doctored, loaded. Once it has become an official vocable, constantly repeated in general usage, "sanctioned" by the intellectuals, it has lost all cognitive value and serves merely for recognition of an unquestionable fact. This style is of overwhelming concreteness. The "thing identified with its function" is more real than the thing distinguished from its function and the linguistic expression of this identification (in the functional noun, and in the many forms of syntactical...
Friday Morning Linkage
Joshua Goldstein and I look at R2P After Syria. But, what will Syria look like after Syria? And, what exactly is the Obama administration doing there?  Training and arming the rebels covertly but not with non-lethal military aid -- body armor and night vision. UN arms treaty blocked by Iran, North Korea, and Syria.  Go figure. Title is misleading, but this is comprehensive look at Afghanistan -- will likely be at war long after 2014. Current Intelligence has a nice feature from Clive Schofield dissecting the myths and realities of Arctic competition. Bringing sabermetrics and moneyball to...
Guest Post by Tom Nichols — Iraq War Debate too Driven by Bush Resentment: A Response to Bob Kelly’s Iraq Posts”
I am happy to invite my friend Tom Nichols to guest-post about the continuing Iraq War debate. Tom responded so substantially to my original post series on the war (one, two, three), that I invited him to provide a longer write-up. Tom is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct professor in the Harvard Extension School. His blog can be found here, his twitter here. His opinions of course are his own, so whenever he says I’m wrong, you probably shouldn’t listen… REK I’ve been reading Bob’s thoughts – cogent as always – on the tenth anniversary of...