It now looks like the candidate who boasted that he knew more than the generals will be a President who appoints them and asks their advice. There has been considerable criticism of this from those concerned about a concentration of civilian power in the hands of former military brass. This is well-reasoned, because a pipeline from the Pentagon to the White House potentially gives too much civilian authority to the military and narrows the lens...
Displaying Results for ""
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
It's the eternal quandary of thinking about the intersection of international politics and global health: where does Elton John fit in? We now have an answer. It's where we try to understand issues of moral and legal responsibility of an international organization. About a month ago, I wrote about cholera and global health. One of the reasons cholera is such a big issue is because of the ongoing outbreak in Haiti—the worst in recent history,...
The Russians Are Coming (for your language too)
Gone are the good old days when I had to explain what the word ‘yarki’ means to my friends and colleagues (for the record, ‘colorful’, not ‘brilliant’). Now I will have to clarify the complexities of planting child pornography into the computers of oppositional leaders thanks to the re-emergence of ‘kompromat’. Why did kompromat, arguably a KGB-developed practice of mining compromising material on politicians and blackmailing them with it,...
WPTPN: How Vladimir Putin Became the Oracle of the East
This World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism (WPTPN) guest post is written by Emily Holland and Hadas Aron, PhD Candidates in Political Science at Columbia University. Holland's research focuses on energy politics, political development, Russian politics and East/Central Europe. Aron studies right wing populism and nationalism with a regional focus on Eastern Europe, the United States, and Israel. They blog at Commenting Together....
No More Vietnams? Reforming the Selective Service
When I was young, I dreamed of Italy. Once in a while, my father would pull out the slide projector and show us pictures from his life on a mountain near Colle Isarco, not far from Italy’s border with Austria. He taught me to speak a little in both Italian and German, which I loved. My father, though, is not Italian, and his sojourn at a mountaintop telecom site (still the only time he’s ever been outside North America) came all-expenses-paid...
WPTPN: Global Cities in a Time of Populist Nationalism
This World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism (WPTPN) guest post is written by Fiona B. Adamson, an Associate Professor of International Relations at SOAS, University of London. In the aftermath of the UK Brexit vote, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo issued a joint letter committing themselves to work more closely together and to deepen connections between cities in Europe and across the world, declaring that “the...
Why Do People Buy #Pizzagate?
Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory started by alt-right Twitter which alleged that John Podesta's emails exposed some members of the Democratic party as being part of a DC pizzeria-based child-sex ring, has made its way into Russian social networks. Now some people are convinced of the existence of pedophile lobby that ‘rules’ the US, and believe that both ‘lamestream’ media and elites are trying to hush it up. As one Russian LiveJournal user...
Being a Doctoral Student in the Time of Trump: Six Challenges
This is a guest post from Ariya Hagh, Andrew Szarejko, and Laila Wahedi. All three authors are doctoral students in Georgetown University’s Department of Government. Author order is alphabetical by last name. As we consider the broader ramifications of a Trump presidency, it is important to take a moment to consider how we in the discipline are likely to be affected so that we can adequately prepare for the coming years. If past behavior and...
WPTPN: Will Populist Nationalism Lead to Great-Power War?
This World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism (WPTPN) guest post is written by Louis F. Cooper. His online writing includes “Reflections on U.S. Foreign Policy” at the U.S. Intellectual History Blog (July 16, 2014). His Ph.D. is from the School of International Service, American University. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars of 1792-1815, which one historian has labeled “the first total war,” engulfed basically the whole of...
Poo Haikus (and Other Unconventional Ways to Raise Awareness about Global Health)
Writing about poo Raises awareness, saves lives Oddest line on CV I am definitely not a poet. Fortunately, the organizers of Poo Haiku had nearly 150 other entries from which to select 12 winners to have their haikus memorialized on the 2017 Poo Haiku calendar. This may seem like fun and games (and, let’s face it, trying to write a haiku about going #2 is pretty fun), but there’s a more serious purpose behind it. The Poo Haiku contest is...
WPTPN: An Inconvenient Post-Truth Post
This World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism (WPTPN) guest post is written by Robert Y. Shum, an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Studies at The College at Brockport, State University of New York (SUNY). Does the Paris Agreement, and the likely withdrawal therefrom by the Trump administration, matter? On the surface, the current situation is not so different from George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the Kyoto...
A Plea for Cease Fire in the New American Civil War, Part I—A Trump Unity Agenda
Before the election, I offered that I would write three posts on bridging the sharp divides that have us in warring camps--one on a unity agenda, the second on changes in the tone of our public discourse, and the third on increased civic engagement. Honesty is the best policy so I’ll start by saying that I did not think President-elect Trump would win. While I’m being honest, I’ll add that I’m a liberal democrat who found Trump’s victory deeply...