Coup d’états are less likely to succeed against rulers who “counterbalance” their militaries with presidential guards, militarized police, and other security forces outside of military command. But there may be downsides.
This is a guest post by Manjana Milkoreit, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Purdue University. Her research integrates international relations scholarship and cognitive...
The Financial Times just announced guidance that there will no longer be all male panels -- manels -- at any FT or partner events. It made me think whether APSA or ISA should adopt a similar policy....
Trump's speech has something for everyone ... to criticize. I will not focus here on how icky the first part on loyalty was. Instead, I focus on the rules of US Civil-Military Relations: the US...
[UPDATED]I've been critical of the strategic wisdom of the IDF attacks in Lebanon, but some new developments suggest that it might work after all. Haagi at American Footprints:The Lebanese government appears to be throwing in its lot against Hezbollah, appealing for international help to change...
Courtesy of Coming Anarchy's Curzon. Someday we'll get around to implementing a nice design for the Duck.
My daughter's sick and I'm pretty tired - from writing and reading - so here's what's catching my eye...In the "Crisis in the Middle East" department, things seem to be getting worse with the death of eight Israeli civilians in Haifa. The IDF is also resuming strikes in Gaza. Mubarak claims he...
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hizbollah's chief pledged open war on Israel on Friday after it bombed his home, saying "look at it burn" when an Israeli warship that had earlier rocketed Lebanon was attacked and set ablaze."You wanted open war. We are going to (wage) open war," Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in...
For an administration that likes to keep things secret they sure do pick some funny things to make public--like our military's operational weakness. This was accomplished in large part by partaking in a strategically questionable operation that begins with the letters I-R-A and ends in Q. This has...
Given how the US reacted to the traumatic 9/11 attacks -- wars against Afghanistan and Iraq that are still ongoing and adoption of a dangerous public doctrine of "preemptive" action that openly embraces preventive war -- security scholars ought to be thinking seriously about India's possible...
Foreign Affairs magazine has been running both a print and on-line forum on the future of US policy towards Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, get yourself over there and take a look.In my second experiment in videoblogging, I take issue with Chaim Kaufmann's contribution to the original forum. To...
Israel's graduated "massive retaliation" against the Lebanese government continues.Israel intensified its attacks against Lebanon on Thursday, blasting Beirut's airport in its heaviest air campaign against its neighbor in 24 years. Four dozen civilians had died in the violence following the...
My commentary on the unfolding Israeli-Hezbollah crisis. This is a bit rough and a bit long.One of the problems with doing this without a script is that it can be easier to make factual errors. For example, I mention Israeli military capacity in the 1970s even though the invasion of southern...
I saw two movies recently: Superman Returns and An Inconvenient TruthSuperman was good, summer super-hero action fun, though probably just a bit too long. My favorite part-- the music. They were loyal to the original John Williams score, and really, nothing beats heroic John Williams music.Al...
Breaking news (via Chirol), and it isn't good:"At least 20 people have been killed in at least seven blasts on trains in the Indian financial capital, Mumbai (Bombay), police say."If confirmed, these strikes are reminiscent of the Madrid and London bombings. But, as Chirol notes, the added danger...
In the comments section to Peter’s latest post about the after-effects of North Korea’s missile test I noted that I was puzzled as to why China has not done more to compel Kim Jong-Il. Given the steps suggested in Japan recently to shift their defensive posture to one that would operationally and...