Is there such a thing as blogger's block? I suppose there must be. I've found the whole Donald Trump saga to be emotionally exhausting. It's hard to write more than 140 characters about this presidential race. How is it possible that he could or will be the nominee of a major party? Which groups has he not offended? This weekend it was the Jewish community's turn after Trump retweeted an anti-Hillary picture that featured a six-sided star and a...
British elites have been wondering for decades whether the UK still had clout on the global stage, and now they know: indeed, the country has an outsized influence on world affairs. But what a way to find out, sowing instability far and wide and suffering a never ending series of self-inflicted wounds. It is tragedy bordering on farce. And none other than Vladimir Putin is having the last laugh. The UK is counting the costs of this fateful...
We will have much, much time to ponder and study what happened yesterday... whether it was the weather that made the difference in London, why Cameron was such an idiot, and on and on. I have a few quick reactions guided by and due to my faith in confirmation bias! While I am kind of surprised by the results, I should not be as I co-authored a book that argued that individuals and leaders will often embrace xenophobia for its short term allure...
The UK's vote on whether to remain in the European Union is tomorrow. I'm having trouble squaring a fearful nativist UK with the country I knew when I lived there from 1993 to 1995 completing a second undergraduate degree in international development. The UK I knew was eclectic and increasingly multicultural, with its cultural scene perhaps even more comfortable than the United States in drawing on diverse influences to produce fantastic art....
The common understanding in military circles is that the more data one has, the more information one possess. More information leads to better intelligence, and better intelligence produces greater situational awareness. Sun Tzu rightly understood this cycle two millennia ago: “Intelligence is the essence in warfare—it is what the armies depend upon in their every move.” Of course, for him, intelligence could only come from people, not from...
Hi, Ducks! It’s me, Amanda. It’s been a long time. I’ve not blogged in awhile. There were many reasons for the break. First, it was a busy spring: I finished up being the ISA Program Chair, got a new position I am excited about, and continued working on projects that I love. It’s also been a very sad spring. In fact, it was a pretty sad year at the University of Missouri, where I’ve worked for the past 4 years. Mizzou faced a season of...
This has been going around: Why is this such a dumb counterfactual? Let me count the ways: Unlike parliamentary elections, individual voters could not vote for the full range of candidates--they voted in either the Democratic process or the Republican process Unlike parliamentary elections, the primary/caucus processes in the US were not simultaneous but sequential. Which meant that folks voting later had few choices and were reacting to the...
This is a guest post from Barry Buzan, Emeritus Professor at the LSE For the past decade or so, China has been in the grip of a growing contradiction (in the classical Marxist sense) between a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still deeply Leninist in its outlook, and the increasingly capitalist society that the CCP’s highly successful economic reforms have created. As Jonathan Fenby has argued, the CCP remains unbendingly committed to remaining in...
As the summer is heating up, all the world’s eyes are on Britain. And that really is saying something for us Americans, what with the wild ride that Donald Trump is taking us all on. But even here, eyes are rapidly averting to the mother country and the high stakes of the debate as to whether it should remain a valued member of the European Union (EU) or leave. And now with this tragedy, the stakes are even higher. Apparently the eyes of the...
This week is another NATO ministerial. What is that? Here's a handy guide to the basics and why NATO is run like an academic conference. What is the NAC? Nope, not these guys. The North Atlantic Council refers to a meeting of the representations of NATO members (not partners--those who play well with NATO but are not actually members). Ordinarily, as in all the time in Brussels, the NAC consists of senior diplomatic representatives from...
This is a guest post by Tobias T. Gibson, Associate Professor of Political Science and Security Studies at Westminster College, in Fulton, MO. Late last month, a U.S. military “drone” killed Mullah Mansour, the leader of the Taliban. Because the drone was operated by the Department of Defense, the Obama administration was quick to claim the death of such an internationally contentious figure. Publicly, the administration commented that Mansour...
As I was chatting with my dissertation adviser yesterday while in DC (yes, my dissertation was completed in 1993 but the relationship goes on), I had an epiphany that had been on the edges of my thinking but finally popped: the Brexit folks are secessionists. Sure, the European Union is not a country (nor does it have an army), but the effort to pull the UK out of the EU is very much like the effort to secede from an advanced democracy. How...