Intra-elite, state-centric society is a strategic front, and ought to be defended and put to use in the continued development of a global and decolonial turn in IR.
Intra-elite, state-centric society is a strategic front, and ought to be defended and put to use in the continued development of a global and decolonial turn in IR.
Even when Latin Americans are allowed to speak, IR scholars and practitioners do not listen to them due to the language in which they produce knowledge, epistemic violence and access barriers.
On February 21, the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq ruled on a set of cases pertaining to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) electoral law. The Court declared that the 11 parliamentary reserved...
I recently submitted the below letter to Foreign Affairs in response to their latest issue's set of essays on Israel-Palestine peace. They decided not to run it, and I assume that's because of all...
126 countries now publish a national security strategy or defense document, and 45 of these feature
a leaders’ preambles. How these talk about the world, or not, is surprisingly revealing of historical
global strategic hierarchies.
Scotland's independence drive won't disappear anytime soon. In "Scots Wha Hae," (from which the title of this post comes) Robert Burns calls on Scots to remember their victory over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn, and never lose their desire for independence. Observers of UK politics, who assume Scottish independence is dead, would be well-served to re-read this poem. Why some are writing off Scottish independence In a recent article on Scottish politics, The Economist mocked a statement by Humza Yousaf--Scotland's First Minister--that an industrial policy modeled on US President...
A controversy broke out the weekend before Christmas, when Fr. Edward Beck, a Roman Catholic priest, claimed Jesus was a "Palestinian Jew" while discussing the current war between Israel and Hamas. Some may dismiss this as a disingenuous conservative freak-out; for example, the article I linked to was in the New York Post and figures such as Stephen Miller and Erick Erickson were among the outraged. This would be a mistake. Fr. Beck was inaccurate, and such inaccuracies actually make it harder to build peace in the region. History and Christmas Americans are used to fights over the "true...
As if there was not enough trouble around the world as it is, Nicolas Maduro, the autocratic president of Venezuela, has kept us at the edge of our seats for the last couple of weeks after calling for a referendum to incorporate Guayana Esequiba—two-thirds of neighboring Guyana—into Venezuelan territory, issuing new maps, announcing plans to drill oil from the territory, and exercising a fiery rhetoric. The reactivation of this territorial dispute is particularly puzzling in a region with a strong territorial integrity norm. Pessimists raised some alarm about the influence of new...
The Blue Pacific is far from monolithic—diverse in its politics, regime types, degrees of sovereignty, and ways of thinking about strategy. Given its bigger-than-continental scale, it could hardly be otherwise. And there are problematic sub-regional cleavages among Micronesia, Polynesia, and Melanesia. But there’s a stronger imprint here of what I recognize as an organically progressive strategic culture than elsewhere in the world. It’s not that everyone here is progressive or espouses a coherent strategic-cultural perspective—not even close. And patriarchy is a huge problem in some Pacific...
On the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum, Australia and Tuvalu just signed a new, major agreement—the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty. It binds Australia and Tuvalu much closer together in ways that appear to be win-win. And nobody was coerced into signing it (not directly anyway). But it’s not great, Bob! The new treaty actually expands the Pacific’s ongoing sphere-of-influence problem—the only problem nobody seems willing to name yet undermines almost every good news story that comes out of the Pacific. If the region cannot find an alternative to...
Ongoing instability in the Sahel – involving worsening insurgent violence, deepening great power competition, and frequent coups – is exposing weaknesses in U.S. Africa policy. In fact, three years into what U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called an “epidemic” of coups, the United States and its closest allies in the region still lack a coherent and coordinated strategy to defend democracy in Africa without sacrificing security interests and geopolitical influence. The 2020s have been a very bad decade for democracy in much of Africa. As the Economist recently noted, “You can now...
When I was in middle school I loved history: ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, the Middle Ages always fascinated me. Often during the summer vacation, I would read the history books in advance to prepare for the upcoming history classes (big surprise, I am a nerd). Old habits die hard, so this summer I picked up - actually, clicked on - the updated version of the Russian history book for high-schoolers "Russian history 1945 - beginning of 21st century". This version is co-written by the former culture minister and current aide to President Putin Vladimir Medinsky and the rector of...