Some thoughts that I want to throw on the table. I do not necessarily endorse the following proposal, but I think it is worth considering.1. Hezbollah is a greater threat to Israel than the Palestinians. Hezbollah is a more effective fighting force than Hamas and other Palestinian militants....

My unscientific observation is that historians tend to be much snarkier than political scientists. Or, at least, they're better at it.These were the words of the arch-royalist Pierre de Belloy, whose Conferences des edicts de pacification (1600) has the distinction of being the longest and perhaps...

I wrote too soon.Taylor Owen points my attention to Dershowitz's latest, um, foray into social science.The oft-reported mantra that "occupation causes terrorism" is false. Occupations, like Israel's presence in the West Bank, are often the necessary result of attacks by insurgent groups and...

Wondering why I've been eerily silent? Why my email turnaround time has dropped from near instantaneous to days?My days are spent a-writing, my nights a-packing.Want some empire-goodness? Go read Rob Farley's tirade against Niall Ferguson for inflicting Colossus upon him.

I'm currently reading a counterinsurgency classic, David Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. Published in 1964, its a how-to manual for fighting a counterinsurgency war against a revolutionary insurgent based on the author's direct observations and experiences in Algeria,...

Just when you thought the Corner couldn't become any more of refuse pile than it already is, J-Pod brings forth a defense of his "kill them all and let g-d sort them out" approach to counter-insurgency. Turns out, he's a courageous intellectual posing the tough questions.Interesting. Seems to me...

Via Arms and Influence:Everyone remaining in southern Lebanon will be regarded as a terrorist, Israel's justice minister said yesterday as the military prepared to employ "huge firepower" from the air in its campaign to crush Hizbollah.Besides the fact that this is empirically false it's just...

Last week, my email inbox received a post from a listserv with this subject line: "Opportunity: Social Sciences/ Iraq." I don't know that the list is confidential, but I suppose one has to be a member of a particular scholarly organization to receive postings. In any event, I don't have to violate...

From this issue of Politics and Society, I offer two keywords we will probably never see next to one another again:The Strength of Weekly Ties: Relations of Material and Symbolic Exchange in the Conservative MovementThomas MedvetzUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe current Republican ascendancy...

Sad news in the Israeli-Hizbollah conflict. As most of you already know, or will know soon, an Israeli air strike killed at least 34 children.The raid on the southern village of Qana -- the bloodiest single attack in Israel's 19-day-old war on Hizbollah -- aborted U.S. Secretary of State...

Here's my State Capacity post of the week (just to continue the trend.)From Today's Washington Post:Some in Congo Long for the Order Of Late DictatorYes, folks, we're talking Mobuto Sese Seko. Who ever thought you would long for the man who invented the kleptocratic state and his leopard-skinned...

Steven Cook (who holds a PhD from my department I might add) argues in the Washington Post this morning that the current problems in the Middle East are not to be blames on President Bush's democratization strategy. It isn't that there has been too much democratization to-date, but rather too...