The conventional wisdom about the gradual U.S. ramp up for the military campaign against ISIS is just that, all too conventional. Blistering criticisms from the Right—that the ramp up was too slow and that the President is to blame for leaving Iraq too soon—have both proved hollow. They have been fading as the U.S. and its allies have been successfully degrading ISIS. During the last two months of their successful election campaign,...
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Theory as thought
Recently a friend and colleague wrote me to say: “The SS piece is actually really useful to me as a model for dealing with Political Science post paradigm wars.” Which prompts me (as if academics ever need such a prompt) to revisit an issue I raised almost a year ago: the role of theory in policymaking. In that long ago post, I mentioned that Patrick James and I had an article under review that addressed the relationship between...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Star Wes Awakens
The folks here are big, big fans of Star Wars, so we were most happy this week with the new teaser. Many parodies have/will ensue. Here is the Wes Anderson take:
Clans
Rutgers University law professor (and blogger) Mark S. Weiner has been awarded the 2015 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order for ideas set forth in his 2013 book, The Rule of the Clan: What an Ancient Form of Social Organization Reveals About the Future of Individual Freedom. The award includes a $100,000 cash prize and is administered by the University of Louisville. The book makes a fairly complicated argument about clans,...
The Perils of a M/W/F Class
Greetings, fellow Duck readers. I realize I've been MIA this semester - DGS duties and ISA-Midwest stuff took too much of my non-research time. Another factor in my absence, however: a Monday Wednesday Friday schedule. And, it sucked.[1] Like large-tornado-near-my-hometown sucked. Today marks the last Friday class of the semester – thank god.[2] Even though I should be getting back to research this morning, I wanted to write a little bit...
Not Surprised is Not Good Enough: what soldier atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan can teach us about Ferguson
By some strange twist of fate I happened to watch the Kill Team, a documentary about the infamous US platoon that intentionally murdered innocent Afghan men while on tour. When, in 2010 the military charged five members of the platoon, the case drew international attention due to the graphic nature of the killings, evidence that the men mutilated the bodies and kept parts as trophies, and indications that the...
2015 OAIS Blogging Awards: Call for Nominations!
It's that time of year folks. We are now receiving nominations for the third annual Online Achievement in International Studies (OAIS) Blogging Awards -- aka the Duckie Awards. We are asking Duck readers to reflect back over the past year to consider the best blogging contributions to the field of International Studies and to submit nominations for the awards. Post your nominations in the comments thread or drop us a note at duckofminerva2015 @...
World AIDS Day 2014: Five Data Points, Four News Items, and Three Films
Today is World AIDS Day, an annual day of remembrance and reflection on the global AIDS crisis held since 1988. Overshadowed this year by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, we should keep in mind that this problem is not over even if it has receded from news coverage in recent years. Here are 5 facts and 4 news items about the state of the current epidemic to keep in mind, and 3 recent films - How to Survive a Plague, Fire in the Blood, and the...
Ebola is Not Over
The Ebola crisis isn't over. In the absence of new infections in the United States, Americans have moved on to other preoccupations (Ferguson anyone?), but the problem hasn't gone away even if Google searches have plunged. There has been some positive news out of Liberia with a decline in the rate of new infections from 80 new cases per day to about 20 to 30, but the news from Sierra Leone suggests the problem is far from under control, with...
Meaningful or Meaningless Control
In May of 2014, the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) first considered the issue of banning lethal autonomous weapons. Before the start of the informal expert meetings, Article 36 circulated a memorandum on the concept of “meaningful human control.” The document attempted to frame the discussion around the varying degrees of control over increasingly automated (and potentially autonomous) weapons systems in contemporary...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Twitter Much?
As a very frequent tweeter, I could only watch this SNL sketch/dance number (didn't make it to the show, just to dress rehearsal) with just a hint of shame:
Privacy, Secrecy & War: Emperor Rogers and the Failure of NSA Reform
On November 3, Britain’s head of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) published an opinion piece in the Financial Times, noting that technology companies, such as Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, (and implying Google and Apple), ought to comply with governments to a greater extent to combat terrorism. When tech companies further encrypt their devices or software, such as what Apple has recently released with the iPhone 6, or what...