that I actually conceived of the idea for this post last week but was only able to force myself to write it today by promising myself a variety of self-care rewards like naps and whiskey.
As one of the new Ducks, I will from now on be posting diversely on a range of topics including political violence, the status of critique in IR, and professional issues that will be of particular...
Last night, I tried to dig in and understand whether and how the response to Hurricane Maria was delayed. I wrote a Tweetstorm that I Storify-ed below. I wanted to see what evidence if any supported...
This Bridging the Gap post is by BTG co-director Naazneen H. Barma, who also serves as Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. Hun Sen, the longtime leader...
Rajiv Chandrasekaran's report on how the Bush administration staffed the CPA raises an interesting counterfactual: What if the Bush administration had, in fact, bothered to develop a post-war plan for Iraq? Would it have made any difference given whom they chose to run the show?O'Beirne's staff...
These are the opening paragraphs of today's BBC story about the IAEA's reaction to a much-discussed August 23 congressional report, which played up Iran's alleged nuclear "threat": The UN nuclear watchdog has protested to the US government over a report on Iran's nuclear programme, calling it...
Seriously, its like shooting Fish in a Barrel.Today, we're "safer, but we are not yet safe." In fact, "The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad." Its an important struggle, "In truth, it is a struggle for civilization."To paraphrase Jon Stewart, If the...
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I drove my wife to the Nanuet train station. We said goodbye and she got on the train to begin her commute into Manhattan. I went home and took a shower.Sometime later that morning I went downstairs to the basement of our townhouse, which doubled as my office....
How many ways is Sept 10, 2006 different from Sept 10, 2001? Five years ago, there was a football game on in Prime Time, the Yankees heading for the post season, a Bush presidency struggling a bit to find its legs in the world of international affairs, and a general sense that tomorow would be...
Does anyone else find Jennifer Medina's New York Times story either inadvertently misleading or downright disingenuous? The report, "Lieberman Points Out a Turnabout by Lamont," claims that:Ned Lamont, who this week chastised Senator Joseph I. Lieberman for his public rebuke of President Clinton...
The Senate today released portions of their official inquiry into pre-Iraq intelligence, an inquiry that compared pre-war estimates with post-war findings. Specifically, the declassified documents focused on purported links between Hussein and al-Qaeda as well as the impact of the Iraqi National...
New Poll: 43% Still Believe Saddam Had Something To Do With 9/11I wonder what percentage of American's lack basic critical thinking skills. Me thinks the numbers would look eerily similar...Filed as: 9/11
The Prisoner's Dilemma. A Political Science classic. You can, quite honestly, make an entire career of using it to explain just about everything that goes on in the world.Despite that fact, it still teaches us many, many interesting things, one of which is the importance of the "shadow of the...
It's nice to know the White House is just now accepting the fact that most of us have been fully aware of since at least the Madrid train bombings in 2004. Our own Dan Nexon has been discussing this topic for quite some time. From today's WaPo:A new counterterrorism strategy released yesterday by...
Classes started last week so I'm running a bit behind the news (and way behind in blogging in reaction to any of it) but Rumsfeld's recent (and oft-repeated) henny-penny arguments (thanks, Bill!) equating violent Islamist groups with Nazi Germany and invoking the world's most hackneyed foreign...
I took this excerpt about the new Pentagon Iraq report from the LA Times, September 2, but the news was widely circulated. However, you might have missed it because not only did the administration wait until a Friday to release bad news -- it was a Friday before a three day weekend in the midst of...