This is a guest post by Justin Schon, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University Bloomington. He studies information diffusion within conflict zones, as well as how civilians make decisions regarding their migration during conflict,...
Human Rights Watch has a new report on the killing of 190 civilians in early August by members of five Islamist rebel groups:  Ahrar al-Sham, Islamic State of Iraq and Sham,  Jabhat al-Nusra,  Jaish...
[Note: This is a guest post by Ardeshir Pezeshk, PhD candidate at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, in collaboration with Charli Carpenter.] For a brief moment a few weeks back, law and policy...
The U.S. had two dramatic efforts to capture high priority terrorist targets, one in Libya and another in Somalia. The snatch and grab operation in Libya was a seeming success (though I'm wondering...
The Washington Post:The Senate voted this afternoon to cut some of the money President Bush has requested for the Iraq war and use it instead to increase border patrols against illegal immigrants and buy new boats and helicopters for the Coast Guard.Who voted for it?Mr. Gregg angrily rejected as "pure poppycock" any suggestion that his measure would deprive front-line troops in Iraq and Afghanistan of what they need. Fifty-two Republicans and seven Democrats voted for Mr. Gregg's measure. Three Republicans voted against it.The Democratic proposal, which failed:Another measure, to add the...
Rob mentions the provocative article in the recent issue of Foreign Affairs by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press on the possible achievement of nuclear primacy by the United States. In the article (as well as a more detailed analysis forthcoming in International Security), the authors claim that[t]oday, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power...
Ruth Marcus writes about Ted Kennedy as people on the Hill know him: a Senator who pursues bipartisan compromise in the spirit of actually legislating for the common good.Look, there's Ted Kennedy, shoulder-to-shoulder with John McCain, Republican presidential front-runner, just after the collapse of the immigration deal the pair had brokered. And there he is, again, right behind a beaming Mitt Romney -- Kennedy's '94 Senate opponent, Massachusetts governor and, yes, 2008 Republican presidential wannabe -- as Romney signs a health care bill.What, you may ask, is wrong with these pictures?...
One of the (many) flaws in the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq stemmed from Hussein's history as a vector of proliferation. There wasn't any. In the worst-case scenario, in which Hussein somehow acquired nuclear weapons, we would have little reason to be concerned that he might transfer weapons or weapons technology to anyone else--nasty regimes, terrorists, or whomever. That didn't mean it would be hugs and puppies if Hussein developed nuclear weapons; one of the legitimate fears of the pro-invasion crowd was that possession of nukes would embolden Hussein to revive his...
Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-N.C.) decides to take a 'principled stand' and is holding up $10 million dollars necessary to buy the land where a monument to the passengers and crew members of United Flight 93 is to be built.Why is Taylor, chairman of the House Interior Appropriations subcommittee, holding up the funds?For Taylor, a large landowner in the mountains of western North Carolina, the issue comes down to principle: The federal government is already the largest landowner in the country, and he believes that no additional tax dollars should go to more land buying for this or any other...
G. John Ikenberry has a post up at TPMCafe on what he terms the "security trap". The piece argues that a number of major changes (American Unipolarity, a 'revolution' in the concept of state sovereignty, lack of common threat as in the Cold War, and the rise of a more democratic international community) have produced conditions such that......as the Bush administration tries to solve the nation'Â’s security problems by exercising its power or using force, it tends to produce resistance and backlash that leaves the country more isolated, bereft of authority, and, ultimately, insecure.Those who...
The BBC (via FP Passport, my new favorite 'msm' blog) is reporting that Iran and Russia may have yet again reached a deal to shift the enrichment of Iranian uranium to Russia.Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told Iranian radio he had struck a basic agreement...Mr Soltanieh said the joint enrichment company would operate on Russian soilThis is almost exactly the same thing Iran said in February. It is an attempt to revive an old Russian compromise plan which proposed moving all Tehran's sensitive nuclear work to Russia.If true this may...
Yesterday, Kevin Drum had an interesting piece on the failure of the Bush administration to take Iran up on an offer to talk about its weapons program and support for anti-Israeli terrorists shortly after the President declared the end of 'major hostilities' in Iraq. The story goes that Tehran exchanged messages with the US through the Swiss in which they offered...to resolve bilateral differences. The document acknowledged that Iran would have to address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. It was presented as having support from all...