Maybe the problem isn’t that scholars don’t know how to speak to U.S. foreign-policy makers, but rather that U.S foreign-policy makers don’t know how to engage with scholarship?
Bridging the Gap to Nowhere?
read more
Featured
The Politics of “Defeat”
We’re in the middle of a political struggle to define “defeat” in Afghanistan. What does that mean?
Disentangling the Disaster in Afghanistan
This is a tragedy, but not for the reasons some think. The day after the Taliban seized Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, I received a few media inquiries. I said it's horrible that the Taliban have...
Episode 8 : Marwa Daoudy discusses Syria and Climate Change
Jarrod talks with Professor Marwa Daoudy about her new book, The Origins of The Syrian Conflict: Climate Change and Human Security (Cambridge, 2020).
More Featured Posts
A solid investment if you know what you’re getting: Why continued support for UN peacekeeping is good policy for the US
The following is a guest post by Jay Benson and Eric Keels. Jay Benson is a Researcher at One Earth Future (OEF), with research focusing on issues of peacekeeping, civilian protection and intrastate conflict. Eric Keels is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Global Security at the Howard H. Baker Center and a Contractor with the OEF Research. His research focuses on international conflict management and democracy in post-war countries. During the first year of the Trump administration, the United States government has initiated numerous changes to the United States’ foreign policy. Since...
Re-Branded and Expanded: Visual Politics and the Implications of Guantanamo’s Make-Over
There is a certain theatre to the Global War on Terror (GWoT). From the opening sequence of 9/11 to the shock and awe campaign’s projection of American sovereign power through the broadcast of the initial ariel bombardment of Iraq, to the dramatic headline declarations that ‘we got him!’ after an elderly and disheveled Saddam Hussein was ‘caught like a rat...in the bottom of a hole’ in Iraq in December 2003, the GWoT has played out as a highly dramatic production. As a part of the GWoT, Guantanamo Bay's Camp Delta has featured too - making both dramatic appearances and disappearances from...
Crimea River
One of the most predictable elections is just around the corner: even Google has already proclaimed Putin the winner of the presidential race of March 18th 2018 in Russia. The only marginal hiccup for the authorities might be a low turnout, but a couple of viral videos are already scaring the bejesus out of the electorate: if they don’t show up and vote for you-know-who, somebody else will be elected and they will make each family house a gay man in pink pajamas in their apartment! Surprisingly enough, Putin will have a wee bit of competition on the ballot after all. Pavel Grudinin [I am...
Women Also Know, International Relations Edition
Layna Mosley is Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research investigates the politics of sovereign debt, and the effects of global supply chains on worker rights. She joined the WAKS Editorial Board in November 2017. Website: laynamosley.web.unc.edu/ or find her on Twitter at @thwillow. Duck of Minerva readers may have noticed Max Fisher’s recent New York Times Interpreter piece, addressing Taliban attacks against Afghan civilians. On Twitter, Fischer reported that he “made an effort to quote only women in this.” Six of the seven experts...
NATO and the Classic Problem of Measuring Inputs vs. Outcomes
I tend to complain a lot about the NATO 2% expectation--that members are supposed to spend 2% of their GDP on defense stuff, which probably makes more more Canadian than anything else I do (I don't skate or watch hockey much). This is aspirational and countries are supposed to reach it by 2024. I have written much about why this is problematic (it tends to make Greece look good, which is a clue; doing is more important than spending, etc), but today I want to focus on the heart of the matter: 2% is a measure of input and nothing else. The basic idea is if we all spend a significant hunk of...
Donald Trump is trying to refute my new book before it’s even come out.
The past week has not been a good one for global health. What gives? I can only come up with one explanation: the Trump Administration is doing its darnedest to disprove the argument in my new book. In Global Health Governance and International Society (out on the 8th! Perfect for Valentine’s Day!), I argue that the emergence, growth, and ‘stickiness’ of global health politics reflects a shift in an international consensus about our collective obligations to address health concerns in other countries. We’re moving from a largely state-based system that only sporadically considers health...
Has Sunshine Returned to the Korean Peninsula?
Ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics, the media has become fascinated with a common narrative that the erstwhile “bitter enemies,” North and South Korea, will march under one flag. The identity and political relations of the Koreas are more complicated than the “enemy” rhetoric conveys. Emblematic of this complexity are the families that are separated by the border, with living siblings that pre-date the division of the peninsula. The current thaw in inter-Korean relations is rooted in the late 1990’s “Sunshine Policy” of the former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. Yet, the question remains...
Size Doesn’t Matter
Any woman would tell you that. What matters is what you do with it and whether you know how to use it. Whatever Brobdingnagian thing you’ve got going on there, it’s way more important to have a game plan and understand the sweet spots you need to target. Otherwise, both parties may come away less than satisfied from the encounter. I am talking, of course, about the nuclear arsenal size and the ever-lasting dick-measuring contest that is international politics. After the ridiculous Trump tweet that Kim John Un’s nuclear button is smaller and less powerful than that of #45, IR Twitter was...