If you’ve spent any amount of time in Washington, there’s a good chance you’ve internalized a rosier narrative of the Cold War than the actual history warrants (I certainly had). To correct that, I have an essay out in Foreign Affairs with...
The following is a guest post by Carla Martinez Machain, Michael Allen, Michael E. Flynn, and Andrew Stravers. One week ago, National Security Adviser John Bolton appeared at a White House briefing...
I know, democracy dies in darkness (sorry, WashPo put it better) and we need good journalism, but what you publish in the Opinion Section often does not qualify as journalism, like, at all. I am not...
This is a guest post from Elsy Gonzalez, a PhD candidate from the University of Chicago in the Department of Political Science. Last Wednesday, January 23, President Trump recognized Venezuelan...
Does this cat think that he's a duck?Photo: Dan NexonAsian maritime disputes roundup: background on Diaoyu/Senkaku and on the Southern Kuril Islands; what happened when Chinese ships sailed into the waters around Dioayu/Senkaku. Dan Trombly: "Benghazi and Diplomacy's Hard Power."Peter Rutland...
An interesting observation I took away from this meeting is the frequency with which I heard practitioners talking about the need to "reverse the burden of proof" from advocates (to prove that a particular weapon causes significant humanitarian harm) to governments (to prove that it doesn't). As...
You never know what you'll learn when conducting field research. Refer playfully to a powerful and influential person in the humanitarian disarmament network as the "Jedi Master of arms advocacy" over dinner and drinks? Discover unexpectedly that this individual (who shall remain unnamed) has...
Richard Grenell was pushed out as Mitt Romney's national-security spokesman. In The Daily Beast, he attempts to defend his former boss.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got it right. The Middle East desk at the State Department got it right, too. And so did Mitt Romney. All three correctly...
This is a guest post by Peter S. Henne. Peter is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University. He formerly worked as a national security consultant. His research focuses on terrorism and religious conflict; he has also written on the role of faith in US foreign policy. During 2012-2013 he will be...
I don't really want to pile on, but the question for me is: how does a major presidential candidate in the 21st century (and a guy who has been running for office now for seven straight years) screw this up so badly? As a resident of Massachusetts, I watched Romney as governor, he wasn't a...
This is actually a pretty good checklist.I'm busy with other projects--dissertating, researching, and watching Breaking Bad, in ascending order--but I wanted to point out that the problem with Mitt Romney's statement about the attacks on Americans in Libya and Egypt is not what it tells us about...
Erik Erikson's full-throated attack on the US media and Obama is getting bounced around the right-wing twitter-verse today. For those of us who aren't part of that universe, it provides an interesting glimpse inside the bubble. It begins thus: Yesterday, as the American consulate in Libya was...
South African miners call for general strike.Paul Rogers at the Agonist on "The Jihadist Element in Syria and its Implications."Karim Mezran & Danya Greenfield: "picking up the pieces and honoring Ambassador Stevens."Wow. As Josh wrote about, the backlash against Romney's comments on the consulate...
A heavily attended side-event today was the Norwegian Red Cross' panel discussion "Looking Back to Look Forward: The Cluster Munitions Convention and What it Means for Limiting the Impact of Other Weapons Systems."Richard Moyes, coordinator of the International Network Against Explosive...
U.S. Consulate in Benghazi 9/12/2012I heard Dan Drezner in the car on NPR yesterday talking about whether foreign policy might matter in this election. And, last night and today, with the events in Egypt and Libya, he may be more right than even he anticipated.We may have an incident, in the wake...
One of my daughter's favorite videos. I love that this song has evolved into a theme for general tolerance and... respect.