Alongside research and teaching, most tenure-track jobs come with some expectation of service.
Strategic Service on the Tenure Track
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Featured
We Urgently Need to Support Girls’ Education in Afghanistan
Since the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan in August 2021, there have been growing calls by many Afghans, along with the international community, to protect the rights of women and girls....
Playing the Waiting Game: The Harsh Truth of Academic Timelines
Academics depend on slow processes subject to unfortunate slowdowns. And, unfortunately, academic timelines can make or break careers.
Business Meetings are part of the “hidden curriculum””
Business meetings are part of the “hidden curriculum,” academia’s unwritten set of rules They’re also important to attend, especially for those scholars most likely to be unfamiliar with those rules. This post explains why – and what more senior scholars can do to get junior ones involved.
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What Daenerys’ Error Teaches Us About American Tolerance for War Crimes
Alex Montgomery I have a new post up at Foreign Policy arguing that "The Bells" - and audience reactions to it - tell us something about American attitudes toward just war theory. A relevant topic with rising tensions w/ Iran, a debate over whether to pardon war criminals, and the stated willingness of our own rulers to violate war law. The underlying reason for the outcry went unspoken: The deliberate targeting of civilians from the air, using incendiary weapons that are impossible to escape, is rightly recognized by Americans as a terrible crime—something good actors just don’t do. Our...
What Game of Thrones Got Wrong About Firebombing
Much ink has been spilled since last Sunday about the massacre at King’s Landing. Why did Dany carpet-bomb a civilian population after a city had surrendered? Was this a sign of her growing madness? Or a rational strategy to cement the legitimacy of her claim? Why didn’t the showrunners build it up better? Did they compromise Dany’s story arc as a civilian-protection advocate or were her actions always foreshadowed by her worst “fire and blood” tantrums? In the handwringing over what Daenerys did, scant analysis has focused on how she did it. This is important since audiences draw inferences...
Plato and teaching Foreign Policy
I assigned Plato’s Theaetetus this semester in my foreign policy class. It was the very first thing we read in a course that included more standard text’s like Walter Russel Mead’s Special Providence, Tom Schelling’s Arms and Influence, and selections from Andrew Bacevich’s edited volume of primary sources, Ideas and American Foreign Policy. On first glance, reading a work of political philosophy—and one which is widely considered one of the more difficult texts in the Western canon—might seem like a poor fit. But, my experiment paid off and I may continue assigning the Theaetetus or similar...
A Holiday “With Tears in Your Eyes”
One thing that Trump hasn't done today yet (which he should have if he wants to stay in Putin's good graces) was to congratulate Russians with Victory day. It's an incredibly important holiday in contemporary Russia and its commemoration dynamic can help understand a large chunk of Russian foreign policy. The specificity of Russian collective memory of the Great Patriotic War has been a key factor shaping society’s response to the “fascism” media frame, especially when it comes to the "Near Abroad". For a number of reasons, the memory of the war is especially immediate and emotionally...
Ukraine’s New PreZE!dent
"Servant of the People" The history of the Next President Cue in the Twitter hot-takes in which Ukrainians elected themselves “a TV show star” with “no political experience”. Relax, not all TV stars are racist ignoramuses who want wall and try to spoon state flags. Despite winning the elections with a whopping 73% (and beating his own onscreen presidential score in his hit TV show), this one is different. If you grew up in post-Soviet Russia you already know Ukraine’s incoming president – Volodymir Zelensky. He was a regular on the Soviet Union's stand-up comedy show KVN (Club of Funny and...
Game of Thrones and Alliance Politics
I saw this tweet and could not help but respond: I enjoyed @mchorowitz on GoT Dragon airpower, but it’s time for @RyanGrauer to give the people what they want- an analysis of how Westerosi alliance politics will affect military command structure and battlefield effectiveness. — Jon Askonas (@JonAskonas) April 15, 2019 Given that I have written about both Game of Thrones and alliance politics, I have to enter this discussion. Spoilers dwell below as we get into this: Alliances are always fraught with suspicion and doubt. Glenn Snyder wrote about the alliance dilemma--that allies will...
Failed National Military Strategy Analogies
by Anonymous US National Security expert, as part of a new series of posts providing insights into the policy-making process Sir:Per your request at the 0500 stand-up, I have compiled the full set of analogies developed to wrap around the pending National Military Strategy. Staff were told to supply a framework analogy appropriate for supporting the following: Because we cannot be certain when, where, or under what conditions the next fight will occur, the Joint Force must maintain an [insert analogy] stance—with the strength, agility, endurance, resilience, flexibility, and awareness to...
Citation Conversation Continued
My post on citation got far more engagement than nearly all of the things I have posted over the years, so I thought I would return to the scene of the crime/post. While many academics agreed whole heartily with my take, more than a few did not including folks I respect a great deal. What were their perspectives? Citations are a lousy measure, one with much bias, of academic relevance/achievement, etc.People would rather be contacted so that they can provide the latest version of the paper, rather than something that might be half-baked, wrong, or incomplete.People worry about being...