Patrick and Dan talk about the newest feature of the podcast: a series in which they combine thei…
Episode 29: Introducing: Whiskey & IR Theory… in Space!
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Featured
Dealing with the Digital Mob
Academics are increasingly becoming targets of online harassment, but too many universities and colleges are unprepared to support and protect their faculty. What steps should they take?
Counterfactual Thinking and NATO Expansion
The counterfactual analysis used in debates about NATO expansion is far too limited. It makes the untenable assumption that the world would like mostly the same. This piece offers an alternative.
6+1 QUESTIONS ABOUT Resowing the Seeds of War: Presidential Peace Rhetoric Since 1945
What if how presidents talk about ending wars contributes to the cycle of U.S. military intervention? Stephen J. Heidt answers 6+1 questions about his new book.
More Featured Posts
Are Potential Peer Reviewers Overwhelmed Altruists or Free-Riders? New data reveal great inequality in peer reviewing in the social sciences.
This is a guest post submitted by Paul A. Djupe, Denison University Political Science, who is an affiliated scholar with PRRI ; Amy Erica Smith, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Iowa State University; and Anand Edward Sokhey, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, as well as the associate director of the American Politics Research Lab and the incoming director of the LeRoy Keller Center for the Study of the First Amendment. Google “peer review crisis,” and you will find dozens of pieces — some dating back to the 1990s —lamenting the...
The Politics of Grief and the Forever War: Who Speaks for the Fallen?
Dead American soldiers became the objects of highly visible and ongoing contest this week - over the ways and means of grieving America's fallen. In fact, the events discussed in this short post mark only the latest phase and an escalation in tensions between dominant and challenging bodies over the (in)visibility of suffering and dead American soldiers that have featured throughout the Global War on Terror (GWoT). Such tensions demonstrate not only the competing logics and agendas leading to the blacking out of American repatriations via the 2003 Dover Ban (a DoD Directive prohibiting the...
New Girl
Today’s headlines in several international newspapers had to struggle with too many possessive male noun forms: Putin’s mentor’s daughter Ksenia Sobchak announced that she would run for Russian Presidency next year. Russia's Got Talent! Not that the Kremlin thought that the upcoming ‘Putin referendum’ is in Jeopardy! The main contender Navalny is currently contemplating whether orange is the new black and will probably not get on the ballot anyway. The usual suspects (such as Zyuganov and Yavlinsky) have been trying to get that rose from the Russian population for too many seasons. Given...
#MeToo
“The women who accused Harvey Weinstein did not act as women. Because sexual harassment - well, that's great, honestly. And if you have a role, what difference does it make how you got it. […] In general, how can a man be accused of sexual harassment, is it not what he exists in this world for? If he has the power that he uses in this way, that's good. It's wonderful when a man who has so much power is sexually harassing you, isn’t it?” No, it isn’t. But that is what a relatively famous Russian actress Lyubov Tolkalina had to say about the Hollywood scandal. Even though in the same article...
Americans Don’t Think Much of Trump’s “America First.” That’s Good, But …
This post comes from Bridging the Gap co-director Bruce W. Jentleson[*], Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Duke University. “Not much” and “less and less” is What Americans Think About America First, as documented in the latest Chicago Council on Global Affairs public opinion report.[†] That’s somewhat reassuring. But only somewhat. On one America First issue after another, the data show limited and declining support. On the general issue of maintaining alliances, 49% support compared to 38% who oppose. On NATO, 69% see it as essential to American security and 53% say it...
National Security Generalists and Learning the Lessons From Lost Wars
A friend posted this piece on facebook: "Why Nerds Should Not Be In Charge of War." It draws from the new PBS Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick to argue that it happened because of the prominent role played by "generalists." Yes, Robert McNamara and his gang of Whiz Kids are mighty arrogant, and they have much blame to share for the war. Indeed, McNamara, unlike certain other arrogant former SecDefs, has spent the time since trying to grapple with what he had wrought. There is something to the idea that we need folks involved who are regional experts. Indeed, there...
The Rise of the Trauma State: Afghanistan and America’s Unwinnable War
This is a guest post by Erik Goepner, a visiting research fellow at the Cato Institute. During his earlier military career, he commanded units in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is currently a doctoral candidate at George Mason University, and his main research interests include civil war, trauma, and terrorism. Post-traumatic stress disorder afflicts 11 to 20 percent of U.S. military members after they serve in Afghanistan or Iraq. The military expends significant effort to provide them with needed care. Commanders move the psychologically injured out of the combat zone. Medical and mental health...
Magic Lines and Escalate Ladders
A colleague asked me if there will be war between the US and North Korea. I said maybe, which is pretty damned scary, given the likely consequences. Why am I worried? Basically for two reasons that intersect in bad ways, besides the Trumpiness and KJU-ness factors: the US seems awfully confident that they knew where the line is between what North Korea will perceive as an exercise and what NK will perceive as the start of an attack Escalation Ladders are finite. This weekend, the US sent some bombers and fighters to fly near North Korea but not over it. How do they know the North Koreans...