The Republic as we knew it is over. The fight now is whether the new one will be a fascistic, competitive authoritarian regime or a pluralist democracy that, one hopes, is better than what came before.
World Refugee Day was last week (June 20). Ideally I would have written this then, but I haven't been as good on real-time commenting since Twitter fell apart. I still found it important to say...
If you spent the entire Friday night and Saturday glued to the news about Prigozhin's armed rebellion, you are either an IR-head, a Russia-watcher or the Ukrainian army running out of popcorn. The...
I just returned from a two month fellowship at Edinburgh University, accompanied by my family. The trip included talks in Germany, Italy and England. These side-trips required a lot of packing, and...
This is a guest post from Erika Weinthal, a Professor at Duke University and Jeannie Sowers, an Associate Professor at the University of New Hampshire What is often referred to as environmental peacebuilding – the process of governing and leveraging the use of the environment and natural resources...
Three reasons why you shouldn’t worry too much about the blood-thirstiness of your fellow Americans.
Sorry, clickbait! But admit, it, after an apology of race science in Quillette or “The Case for Colonialism” in TWQ you probably rage-clicked on the thumbnail to let me have it. Periodic IR Twitter flares over teaching "Stoddard light" (i.e., Huntington) also show that not all scholars are aware...
This is a guest post from Tine Hanrieder who heads the research group Global Humanitarian Medicine at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. She is the author of International Organization in Time: Fragmentation and Reform. American medicine is globalizing. Medical students request more “things...
Alex Montgomery I have a new post up at Foreign Policy arguing that "The Bells" - and audience reactions to it - tell us something about American attitudes toward just war theory. A relevant topic with rising tensions w/ Iran, a debate over whether to pardon war criminals, and the stated...
Folks have been picking on the last Game of Thrones episode for a variety of unrealistic or unearned developments. Here's my take on the secessionist element. Folks have been picking on the last Game of Thrones episode for a variety of unrealistic or unearned developments. Here's my take on the...
Much ink has been spilled since last Sunday about the massacre at King’s Landing. Why did Dany carpet-bomb a civilian population after a city had surrendered? Was this a sign of her growing madness? Or a rational strategy to cement the legitimacy of her claim? Why didn’t the showrunners build it...
Here’s my argument: Late 80s/early 90s Soviet Union. The United Kingdom in 2016. The United States 2016 to now. Three contemporary examples of international suicide that conventional IR neither predicted nor can account. Ok, so perhaps suicide is too hyperbolic a concept and we should go with...
I assigned Plato’s Theaetetus this semester in my foreign policy class. It was the very first thing we read in a course that included more standard text’s like Walter Russel Mead’s Special Providence, Tom Schelling’s Arms and Influence, and selections from Andrew Bacevich’s edited volume of...
One thing that Trump hasn't done today yet (which he should have if he wants to stay in Putin's good graces) was to congratulate Russians with Victory day. It's an incredibly important holiday in contemporary Russia and its commemoration dynamic can help understand a large chunk of Russian foreign...
One of the (many) concerns about the Trump Administration's foreign policy is the impact it will have on US influence around the world. Will Trump's rhetoric and actions restore US dominance in the international system, or will they aggravate the world, leading them to look elsewhere for...
"Servant of the People" The history of the Next President Cue in the Twitter hot-takes in which Ukrainians elected themselves “a TV show star” with “no political experience”. Relax, not all TV stars are racist ignoramuses who want wall and try to spoon state flags. Despite winning the elections...