Robert Cox’s landmark article, “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Rela…
Episode 32: Social Forces, States, and Clydeside Whisky
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Recent Posts
Episode 18: Name Your Discord Server “and Collaboration”
Arnold Wolfers is one of the most important figures of “mainstream” mid-20th century internationa…
Getting Counterinsurgency Wrong
I just published a piece in Foreign Affairs, which draws on my new book, Bullets Not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare. After two decades, the United States is finally leaving...
Centering George W. Bush in the Etiology of the Iraq War
The second- and third-most downloaded articles at the journal Security Studies both tackle the causes of the Iraq War. This might reflect an imbalance of supply and demand: there aren't that many...
More Recent Posts
Bad Advice on Making Academic Babies: opting in and out of heteronormative panic
What I remember most about my post-grad Gender and Politics seminar were the extensive discussions we had about having babies. It was 2004, and debates about babies vs careers, and whether women should 'opt out' to raise families, were heated and divisive. Women were told in the 1980s and 1990s...
Belated Friday Nerd Blogging: Scottish Secession Edition
I am not a fan of Scottish independence, so I thought we should get equal time from the Yes/Aye side:
Tweets of the Week
Though I've been blogging at the Duck of Minerva for more than 9 years, I haven't posted much content for several years. My last post here was in mid-February. You can find maybe half a dozen posts in 2013 and 2014. It's a terrible record. Embarrassingly, I had to look up my username just to log...
Military Officers on Women in the Infantry: Five For, One Against
Contenders for the Marine Corps Association's Major General Harold W. Chase Prize, ($3000, publication, and a plaque) are supposed to "propose and argue for a new and better way of “doing business” in the Marine Corps. Authors must have strength in their convictions and be prepared for criticism...
Obama’s ISIS Strategy: A Clausewitzian Perspective
Much ink has been spilled over the last few days concerning President Obama’s speech on Wednesday evening regarding ISIS, as well as how his strategy will face many challenges going forward. Some cite that he does not go far enough, others that he has not fully laid out what to do in Syria when he...
Thursday Linkage
Well, this semester is off to a brisk start, and I can't say I'm fully recovered yet from #APSAOnFire, though the subsequent events near AU added considerable intrigue to what transpired. I watched the president's speech on ISIS tonight, and I think my wife summed it up best, he looked like he...
The First Year on the Tenure-Track: Wanting to Give the White Whale Back
As a grad student, I used to the think longingly about the day when I would finally hold a tenure-track job. I could almost taste the thrill of the teaching and the joy of faculty resources. You mean, someone will pay for my copy of [insert software you’d like to use legally]? And, textbooks...
NATO Puts Credible Deterrence Back in Place
The evidence that President Putin has lost Ukraine in the most important senses has been around for months--Ukrainians want to be western even more now, eastern Ukrainians in majority terms continue to want this as well, Ukrainians elected a pro-western President, the EU trade deal is going...
Doubts on Doubts: Part Two
In part one, I shared my views on whether international law is really law. As promised, this post cuts into the conversation on whether international law matters. Violations of international law lead many to question its effectiveness. Non-compliance especially by powerful states reinforces the...
Saturday Nerd Blogging: The Skynet Factor and the Killer Robot Campaign
A day late, but not a penny short: at the Monkey Cage this week I look at the interplay between science fiction references and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots: The media might be forgiven for using such terms and images as click-bait. But...
Friday Nerd Blogging: NATO Week!
I have been lax in my Friday Nerd Blogging duties lately. Partly because I have been so obsessed with NATO and its summit. Now that the communiques are launched, it is time to relax and embrace that fave NATO song:
Human Rights Research and Researchers in IR: Are We REALLY that Odd?
Before APSA last week, I had the privilege of attending a small conference put on the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) Project at William and Mary. The conference was a chance for researchers in different research areas to write about the policy-relevance of their issue area...