This is the third and final part of a three part interview between Adam B. Lerner (ABL) and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson (PTJ). It is the first instalment of a new series of interviews on Duck of Minerva entitled Quack-and-Forths.
I hinted at some politics when discussing the longest recorded sniper shot in history. That the Canadian government might not love this news because it would remind folks that there are Canadians...
The Trump Administration's proclamation of "alternative facts" to suit the arguments they wish to make, and the branding of journalistic outlets that demonstrate the inaccuracy of the President's...
In 2013, Bannon is reported to have told Ron Radosh of the Daily Beast that he was a Leninist. He is quoted as saying “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring...
Earlier this year, all eyes were focused on Iceland in a very negative way for the second time in 18 months. First their banks collapsed in 2008 which caused many in Europe who had savings accounts there to take a rather substantial financial hit. For example, in the UK local councils were estimated to be at risk for up to £840 million in cash. And secondly, as is pretty well known, the Icelandic ash cloud basically paralysed Europe for the better part of April. (There's the whole "whaling" thing too - but that's relatively long-standing.)The Icelanders, for their part, couldn’t do much....
I wanted to write/post something about the Israeli-Turkish ship incident but this post here on Information Dissemination pretty much sums up everything I wanted to say: the attack was legal… but this doesn’t mean it was in any way intelligent or a clever thing to do. (Hat tip to LGM's Robert Farley's Twitter for pointing out the post.)Drezner also has a post on this last point (ie: that it wasn’t really clever) at FP and brings up the the North Korean angle: Indeed, the parallels between Israel and -- gulp -- North Korea are becoming pretty eerie. True, Israel's economy is thriving and North...
The coalition government here in the UK has announced that there will be an inquiry into torture and rendition alleged to have been carried out since 9/11. This was a major item platform for the LibDems and some Tories, the latter group while conservative, committed to a deep sense of eroding “British values”.It’s early days, and we do not know what such a commission would look like, but if this Guardian article is correct, individuals will be named and shamed:The judicial inquiry announced by the foreign secretary into Britain's role in torture and rendition since September 2001 is poised...
I’m trying to finish up a paper on the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). But that of course it not the treaty’s full name. No – instead it is: The Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects Has there ever been a treaty with a worse or more awkward name? Apparently there was some issue as to the name during negotiations on weapons in the 1970s. A Canadian Delegate, William J. Fenwick, suggested an alternate name/acronym: “Causes Unnecessary Suffering [or]...
Well, the entire UK General election and transition came and went in less time than it took to do a US Presidential transition. While the ending was a little bumpy with the “hung parliament” result but a full, formal coalition government has been formed and it is no longer ‘anarchy in the UK’. (Bad pun, yes. Could I stop myself? No.) So today the UK has a new Prime Minister and a coalition government. What can we say in the last JFGTUKE post? Cleggmania… not so muchThis I stating the obvious now, but the surge in popularity for the LibDems did not work in their favour. Certainly they...
I will be writing more on the outcome of the British election soon, but for now I thought that I would post in recognition of the fact that it’s the 65th anniversary of V.E. Day. (You know, in that whole World War II thing that pretty much allows Britain - and most of Europe - to have elections in the first place.)Today there was a ceremony marking the occasion in central London. Interestingly, the focus on the event seems to be on the average ordinary people that were on the home front, celebrating the news that the war, in Europe at least, was over.Happy pictures of dancing Brits aside,...
I’ve been getting surprisingly decent feedback on these posts. Some of my colleagues at work (who know more about democracy and elections than I do) have said that they felt that they were not entirely wrong or embarrassing so I’ve decided to stick with it until it’s all over next week – and then get back to blowy-uppy-thingies after 6 May.So what did we see and/or learn in the last leader’s debate on foreign policy last week?My first observation was that it was stupid to try and find a pub in central London that was showing the debate. In the struggle between a Liverpool football/soccer...
I was alerted this morning to the death of Professor Fred Halliday. Halliday, who specialized in the Middle East and was very much a legend around the London School of Economics. I was fortunate enough to be in one of the last classes of MSc students who sat through his IR theory lectures. These classes were a very strange tour de force – mixed with anecdotes of Professor Halliday’s meeting foreign leaders, intellectuals and peppered with outbursts in Arabic, Persian and other assorted languages. Unsurprisingly, the lectures were always packed. The Guardian has a very nice obituary as does...