The security dilemma plays a central role in Walt and Mearsheimer’s reading of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But what if they get the security dilemma wrong?
What Walt and Mearsheimer Get Wrong About the Security Dilemma
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Recent Posts
Climate change and the mission of higher education
On October 2, I sat in the audience of the first of six public events in what appears to be MIT’s semester of climate change. Introducing the great and good of climate science, MIT president Rafael...
Want to fix peer review? Standardize appeals
It's happened to all of us. You get that email "Decision on Manuscript...," open it with a bit of trepidation, just to find a (hopefully) politely worded rejection from the editor. Sometimes this is...
A rabbit hole of links on Impeachment
This post will be quick for me to write, but may suck up the rest of your morning. caveat lector. Rachel Navarre—my friend from grad school, who works at Bridgewater State—compiled what was then an...
More Recent Posts
Beyond Reading the Tea Leaves: Using Data to Understand Partisanship and Foreign Policy
My frequent collaborator Jon Monten and I have a guest post on the new Chicago Council on Global Affairs blog Running Numbers. As our readers likely know, the Chicago Council runs periodic surveys about public attitudes towards foreign affairs and has historically run a number of important surveys...
Wednesday Morning Link Dump
It's that time of year in the Georgetown Government Department... when we juggle financial aid offers and admissions in an attempt to lock down a strong incoming class of PhD students. This takes up lots of my mental energy, leaving little for the Duck of Minerva. The current DAG-3QD Peace and...
Belated/Early Friday Nerd Blogging: Ultimate Mashup
Ok, this is late for Friday but we didn't have an entry, so here we go:
Tuesday Morning Linkage Club Lite
There's a lot going on in the world, but there's also a lot going on in my world, so here's your abbreviated linkage: Jay Ulfelder explains why big data won't kill theory (or as Dan would write, I can haz quant theory?) [Dart-Throwing Chimp] Seth Masket >yearns for a Neil DeGrasse Tyson of...
The Syrian Conflict: to Internationalize or not to Internationalize
Earlier this month, The Guardian reported that the Obama administration blocked a Pentagon supported plan to provide arms to Syrian opposition forces. For civilians in Syria hoping for meaningful intervention to stop the conflict, this must have been difficult news to absorb. I was reminded of...
Time to Redefine the Term “soft power”?
The broad goal of this blog, to the credit of its founders, is to bridge the gap between foreign policy practitioners and foreign policy scholars. Prior to joining it recently, I have known its reputation for doing just that. While in government I kept a mental note every time I came across a...
Monday Linkage
Mornin' ducks... In anticipation of the P5+1 talks in Kazakhstan this week, let's start the week in... Iran Yousaf Butt, a nuclear physicist, urges the West to make Iran a serious offer. But Patrick Clawson argues that the Islamic Republic is just too dysfunctional to cut a nuclear deal....
Can IR Theory Free this Student?
Omid Kokabee is a University of Texas PhD student from the Department of Physics who was arrested in 2011 when he returned home to Iran over the winter break to visit his family. Though he is by all accounts apolitical, Omid was sentenced to 10 years for conspiring with foreign governments and...
On the Word ‘Global’
The word 'global' has become so frequently used in Western strategic debate that is has almost become background music. On one level, overuse robs it of resonance. But on another, it might be contributing to the conceptual and rhetorical overstretch that has led the US to overextend itself....
Torture as War Victory: My Hugely Unpopular Thesis about the ‘Real’ Agenda of Zero Dark Thirty
"This is what winning looks like" I have to confess, I was late to watch "Zero Dark Thirty" (ODT). I read a handful of reviews and blogs about the movie, had arguments with friends about its message, and even wrote it off completely--all weeks before I bothered to watch it. I wasn't interested in...
Academic Freedom and the Challenges of Going Global: LSE Cancels Conference in UAE.
Apparently, the Arab Spring will not come to the UAE this weekend. Planners of an LSE conference on the implications of the Arab Spring set for this weekend in UAE have cancelled the event after efforts by senior UAE officials to control the content. From the BBC: A senior LSE academic told the...
Note to Bahrain: Release Prisoners and Provide More Social Services
Thanks to a very awesome grad student of mine, I just realized that last week marked the second anniversary of the start of the Bahrain uprising. Fueled by protests in Tunisia and Egypt, citizens of this small and very beautiful island state took to the streets to demand political changes. For...