Christopher Clary on his new book, which looks at why international rivalry is a hard habit to break.
6+1 Questions about The Difficult Policies of Peace: Rivalry in Modern South Asia
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Recent Posts
What Daenerys’ Error Teaches Us About American Tolerance for War Crimes
Alex Montgomery I have a new post up at Foreign Policy arguing that "The Bells" - and audience reactions to it - tell us something about American attitudes toward just war theory. A relevant topic...
Will the Dominos Fall in Westeros: When Secession Spreads (or Not)
Folks have been picking on the last Game of Thrones episode for a variety of unrealistic or unearned developments. Here's my take on the secessionist element. Folks have been picking on the last...
What Game of Thrones Got Wrong About Firebombing
Much ink has been spilled since last Sunday about the massacre at King’s Landing. Why did Dany carpet-bomb a civilian population after a city had surrendered? Was this a sign of her growing madness?...
More Recent Posts
Are Sandy and Climate Change Related? Part I
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, there is much discussion about whether climate change was responsible for the storm. I'm not sure this is the right question we need to be asking, unless we think that whether we respond to climate change hinges on an affirmative answer. Let's suspend disbelief...
All Hallows’ Eve Linkage
The impact (so far) of the Syrian civil war on Hizballah (via Andrew Exum). UK conservatives want to export (further) austerity to the EU budget. Steve Saideman's take on the "future of Star Wars." John Scalzi thinks Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm is a good thing for the franchise. PTJ agrees....
Regional Variation in the Explanatory Power of War and Reason
Many conversations about the empirical relevance of game-theoretic models of war begin and end with Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman's War and Reason. That's unfortunate, but it's not exactly surprising. Most game-theoretic studies of war do not include any empirical analysis, whereas War and Reason...
I find your lack of faith…disturbing
Full disclosure: I am incapable of being completely, or even mainly, a detached observer or commentator when discussing either Star Wars or Disney, having grown up largely surrounded by both enterprises in equal measure. Anyone who walks into my office sees, hanging over my computer, two posters:...
ISA-NE Proceeding as Normal
The ISA-NE conference scheduled for 2-3 November in Baltimore, Maryland will take place as scheduled. Official emails are going out. Hope to see attendees there.
ISA-NE Status Report and Other Tuesday Morning Stuff
The ISA-NE leadership hopes to make a decision by 1200 EDT concerning the status of the conference. While the DC area looks like it should be navigable by Thursday, we don't have good information about Baltimore or about what the state of east-coast travel will be like. The Baltimore Sun is pretty...
Australia Embraces the “Asian Century”
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stated last Sunday that every Australian child should learn Mandarin, Hindi, or other regional languages as part of Australia's embrace of the Asian Century. While her new agenda set out in a 300 page report has received its share of harsh criticism and...
A New Era
A cultural milestone has been passed: Political science is now science-y enough that XKCD pays attention.
Joss Whedon on Romney and Zombies
What?? It was too good to resist...
Should College Costs Reflect Benefits to Society?
Florida Governor Rick Scott is considering changing the cost of different college majors at Florida's public colleges to influence students' choices. The reasoning is standard rightist dirigisme: STEM degrees would cost less, and artsy ones would cost more, because STEM = jerbs and, presumably,...
A Note on Newspaper Endorsements
Last year Nate Silver posted numbers going back to 1972. Bottom line: for Obama and Romney to be running roughly even at this point tracks with 2004--and represents an improvement for the Democrat over most pre-2004 cycles. Obama picked up a number of normally Republican-endorsing pages in 2008,...
Monday Morning Linkage
Follow Mitt Romney's storm tips on twitter. Remember that Sandy has already killed over 60 people in the Caribbean, and that many of those deaths are tied (in one way or another) to the unequal distribution of global wealth. Star Wars pork, or how to alienate the Jedi voting bloc? Over at The...