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.
Trump is not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or even a wolf in wolf’s clothing. Trump is a wolf in no clothing. His campaign, transition, and inaugural weekend lay naked the two driving forces of his...
The following is a guest post by Sidra Hamidi, a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University, specializing in global nuclear politics and state identity. She has published...
One of the most poignant moments of Barack Obama’s presidency was his eulogy for those murdered in the massacre at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. In the pulpit of that...
I don't have an answer for this, as I'm not sure how globally integrated Russia is in to the world economy at this juncture or vulnerable given its fossil fuel resources, but I, along with anyone who knows how to buy shares see that the Russian stockmarket declined this morning as has the value of the ruble. I know Russia experienced significant economic crises in the 1990s after the breakup of the Soviet Union that made it dependent on IMF support, but my sense is that the resurgence of the country's petro economy bolstered its international economic position. That said, I wonder if the...
*The following post is written by Ryan Maness and myself. Events are in motion that many thought were past us, part of a bygone era where conventional war still had a prominent place in deciding the course of nations. Having done a great amount of work on Russia’s strategic behavior and use of power (we have a book on the topic under review), we were a bit caught off guard too. Not by the course of events, but that our vision was focused on cyber conflict and thus were distracted from the real world developments. The events in Ukraine fit a recent pattern of Russia’s coercive diplomacy...
[Note: This is a guest post by Sean Kay, Robson Professor of Politics at Ohio Wesleyan University and Mershon Associate at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University. He has long-researched and written on NATO policy and worked in the US Department of Defense during the first round of NATO enlargement planning. His forthcoming book is America’s Search for Security: The Triumph of Idealism and the Return of Realism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014).] Russia’s incursion into Ukraine presents the United States with a dilemma. The cries to “do something” are...
Tyler Cowen discovers John Mearsheimer's seminal 1993 Foreign Affairs article "The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent". Since I know I won't be alone in teaching this piece the next time I put together an Intro to IR reading list, let's take a moment to see whether, as Cowen wrote earlier, "the expected rate of return from denuclearization has fallen". International relations scholars disagree about a lot when it comes to nuclear weapons, and the belief, which I mostly share, that nuclear weapons mitigate the outbreak of interstate wars is not the only view. Even Mearsheimer in his...
Lots of folks are speculating about what Ukraine/Crimea/Russia is like, including not Abkhazia. Right now, the analogies that come to mind for me are: coups d'etat and poker. Coup? Yes, because in a coup, the anti-incumbents (for want of a better term), move first, trying to create facts on the ground that are hard to reverse. If this fait accompli is successful, the incumbents are then put in a position where they are the ones with the pressure to use force. The onus is on them. Which is why Putin would be smart to stick to Crimea. Other deployments in Ukraine might mean trying to...
Over at the Monkey Cage, Henry Farrell suggests that President Obama is using the OSCE to give Putin an exit strategy. Farrell writes: Obama’s “phone call with Putin on Saturday suggests that the United States wants to invoke the old-style OSCE. It notes that Russia’s armed intervention is inconsistent with Russia’s commitments under the Helsinki Final Act (the agreement that established the OSCE), calls for “the dispatch of international observers under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)... If Putin wants an...
For some smart commentary on what's going down in the Ukraine and how (not) to cover it, I point you to former Duck Dan Nexon on his personal blog (*and also cross-posted below). Dan knows a thing or two about the region having served in the Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia regional office in the Office of the Secretary Defense as a CFR International Affairs Fellow in 2009-2010. Here, Dan bemoaned the coverage in the WaPo of the Ukraine crisis by one Scott Wilson. Wilson lambasted the Obama administration's strategy in the Ukraine writing that: The signal Obama has sent — popular among his domestic...
This is a guest post by former Duck of Minerva blogger Dan Nexon. It is cross-posted at his personal blog, Hylaean Flow. One of the ongoing rationales for The Monkey Cage is that journalists do a poor job of covering US electoral politics. They focus on personality and style. They downplay the role of fundamentals, such as economic forces and the nature of the electoral system. The same is too often true in foreign-affairs reporting. Consider a recent piece by multi-award-winning reporter, Scott Wilson: "Ukraine crisis tests Obama’s foreign policy focus on diplomacy over military force."...