Why did some states successfully avoid conquest by European empires? Logan Cochrane’s new, co-edited volume tackles this puzzle.
6+1 Questions about Resilient Statehood
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Recent Posts
Is there a strategy behind Rubio’s State Department cuts?
The foreign policy world is still making sense of the Trump Administration's massive cuts to the US State Department last week. Under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, nearly 1500 employees--most of...
After Anarchy? On Hierarchy, Heterarchy, and Multiplicity
Kenneth Waltz famously claimed that anarchy—i.e., the absence of a global sovereign—is the ordering principle of world politics, and much International Relations (IR) scholarship since then has...
Why have so many Muslim communities embraced radicalism?
Over two decades have passed since the horrifying 9/11 attacks. Do we have a consensus understanding of the radicalization process in communities that supported or filled the ranks of jihadist...
More Recent Posts
Duck of Minerva Roundup*
What's been quacking at the blog? The Duck of Minerva opened for business in 2005, so it’s had a lot of time to accumulate duck-puns and stupid duck references. Over the years, contributors embraced the Duckness of the Duck to different degrees. I can’t say for sure, but my impression is...
Stop the party: Turkey as an obstacle to Finnish and Swedish accession to NATO
Jarrod talks with Lisel Hintz of Johns Hopkins University and Sibel Oktay of the University of Illinois, Springfield and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs about the complex history of Turkey in NATO as well as the domestic and intralliance sources of Turkey's current resistance to Finnish and...
Will there be a bin Laden of right-wing extremism?
By now it’s clear that the attack on a Buffalo, NY supermarket was a case of right-wing terrorism. An individual targeted the store because many of its customers were black, and hoped to use the attack to make a broader political statement. Unfortunately, such attacks are growing in intensity, and...
Patriots Eat Nuclear War for Breakfast
I am not supposed to be worried about nuclear war with Russia. With North Korea maybe. I am told Kim Jong Un isn’t rational and can’t be trusted, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Or perhaps China. It’s ten feet tall, after all. Never mind that our nuclear arsenal...
Duncan Bell
Professor Duncan Bell joins The Hayseed Scholar podcast. Duncan grew up in the Midlands in a rural area of England. He was interested in international politics from a fairly young age. Duncan chose to pursue a degree in war studies at King's College London, and considered joining the military...
Book Nook: A Small State’s Guide to Influence in World Politics
Our next Bridging the Gap Book Nook features Tom Long of the University of Warwick. He discusses his new Oxford University Press book, A Small State's Guide to Influence in World Politics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glKAammexM8
Zeitenwende: Scholz Turns Back Time to Make Room for Action on Ukraine
On February 24, just hours after Russia launched its assault on Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted a simple message: “Today we are waking up in a different Europe. In a different world.” Three days later, the same could be said for waking up in a different...
Ukraine, Progressive Internationalism, and the Restraint Coalition
The US needs a more restrained approach to its national security, but not all arguments for restraint – and not all policies of restraint – rest on solid foundations.
Duck Events Podcast: Zeitenwende? German foreign policy after Ukraine
Jarrod talks with Georg Löfflmann (University of Warwick) and Frank Stengel (Kiel University) about the changes in German foreign policy in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, in particular, about the idea that Germany is experiencing …
Duckcalls podcast: Zeitenwende? German foreign policy after Ukraine
Jarrod talks with Georg Löfflmann (University of Warwick) and Frank Stengel (Kiel University) about the changes in German foreign policy in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, in particular, about the idea that Germany is experiencing a watershed moment....
Strategies of Unusual Size
I wrapped the 2022 edition of my undergraduate “Grand Strategy” seminar this past Tuesday. This must have the eight or ninth iteration of the class. I like teaching it. I really do. But I have significant reservations about “grand strategy” as a classroom subject. I’m not at all convinced...
The Duck of Minerva Newsletter is Live
We've got a newsletter! Yeah, sure, the large front-page button labelled "newsletter" might've been a clue. But still, the Duck of Minerva is (kinda) on Substack. We're not alone. The old academic and academic-adjacent blogosphere is, apparently, in the process of reconstituting itself over there....