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.
The former Wall Street Journal writer Bret Stephens has a column today to kick off his new digs at the New York Times that meanders into climate change territory and has raised some hackles. In the...
A dilute alcoholic solution of Brilliant Green (Viridis nitentis spirituosa) is a topical antiseptic, effective against gram-positive bacteria, also known under a Russian colloquial name zelyonka....
This is a guest post by Amelia Hoover Green, Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Politics at Drexel University. Will Moore's death was a tragedy. To state the hopefully obvious:...
[Hat tip here to Dan Nexon and the discussion going on at Crooked Timber]Does projecting the image that one is irrational actually confer that person with an advantage in bargaining situations, specifically when nuclear weapons are involved? This seems to be the question taken up by Lee Harris...
I'm in Tampere, Finland, at a conference on the idea of a 'post-Western West' sponsored by some European colleagues. I must admit that it's extremely refreshing to be the only American -- and in particular the only American academic -- in the room, both because among Americans there's a shared...
I can't believe it, but I'm actually linking to a post from Daily Kos. One of their regular posters, georgia10, calls attention to something that's been bugging me ever since information about the illegal NSA wiretapping program began to surface. At first glance, doesn't it seem a bit like the...
Hamas offers Israel an olive branch shaped like a scimitar.We will never recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist state that was established on our land," Meshaal, the Damascus-based head of the political and military wings of the militant Islamic group, wrote in a column titled "To whom it may...
From the "galactic politics" department:At the edge of solar system, a 10th planet may lurkWith a title like that, how can you resist? Especially since it provides a convenient occasion to clarify some persistent ambiguities in the notion of "social construction." Ian Hacking has already done this...
If anyone still needed any evidence that political speech -- public rhetoric intended to legitimate certain courses of actions while ruling out others -- is governed by the demands of social sustainability rather than by the demands of logic, they need look no further than President Bush's State...
...20! AB takes the title with a bid of 19. What I find most interesting about the speech is not the number of references to terror (I actually thought it would be a bit higher), but this new reference to the President's critics as "isolationists". Suzzane Nossel has it right when she remarks that...
Like Bill, I'm willing to speculate about the content of tonight's "State of the Union" address. However, allow me to guess about what won't be discussed. I'm willing to conjecture that President Bush will ignore a globally crucial issue that close ally Tony Blair considers one of his "top...
Thought we could all have a little fun with the State of the Union tonight. Let's try to guess how many times the President uses a derivative of the word terror (the word itself or words using the root 'terror' must be uttered--implicit remarks do not count). I have listed the tally for the last...
It is being reported that the US has secured the consent of all five permanent members of the Security Council to submit the case of Iran for the body's review. However, the US did not secure a Security Council "referal"--which would have given the body domain over the issue--but instead managed...
An interesting story via Laura Rozen, Andrew Sullivan, and Cunning Realist. According to reports, a series of emails and an internal Army memo suggests that US soldiers have used insurgents' wives as leverage in order to get the suspects to surrender. So far, there has been no confirmation that...
Mansfield and Snyder were featured on NPR's Morning Edition today. Have a listen.Filed as: Democratization, Democratic Peace