Though I've been blogging at the Duck of Minerva for more than 9 years, I haven't posted much content for several years. My last post here was in mid-February. You can find maybe half a dozen posts in 2013 and 2014. It's a terrible record. Embarrassingly, I had to look up my username just to log in. There are multiple explanations for my silence: the U.S. withdrew from Iraq, which was my original blogging muse. I became department chair. My...
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Military Officers on Women in the Infantry: Five For, One Against
Contenders for the Marine Corps Association's Major General Harold W. Chase Prize, ($3000, publication, and a plaque) are supposed to "propose and argue for a new and better way of “doing business” in the Marine Corps. Authors must have strength in their convictions and be prepared for criticism from those who would defend the status quo." Therefore it came as a surprise to many military professionals when the 2013 winner was Marine Captain...
Obama’s ISIS Strategy: A Clausewitzian Perspective
Much ink has been spilled over the last few days concerning President Obama’s speech on Wednesday evening regarding ISIS, as well as how his strategy will face many challenges going forward. Some cite that he does not go far enough, others that he has not fully laid out what to do in Syria when he has to face a potential deal with Assad. I, however, would like to pause and ask about the motivations on each side of this conflict, and whether we...
Thursday Linkage
Well, this semester is off to a brisk start, and I can't say I'm fully recovered yet from #APSAOnFire, though the subsequent events near AU added considerable intrigue to what transpired. I watched the president's speech on ISIS tonight, and I think my wife summed it up best, he looked like he wanted to give the speech about as much as we wanted to hear it. I think Jeffrey Goldberg summed it up best when evoked the Godfather and Obama's...
The First Year on the Tenure-Track: Wanting to Give the White Whale Back
As a grad student, I used to the think longingly about the day when I would finally hold a tenure-track job. I could almost taste the thrill of the teaching and the joy of faculty resources. You mean, someone will pay for my copy of [insert software you’d like to use legally]? And, textbooks will be free? I also fantasized about how wonderful it would be to not be under the thumb of my advisors. Of course, I thought I could live like a...
NATO Puts Credible Deterrence Back in Place
The evidence that President Putin has lost Ukraine in the most important senses has been around for months--Ukrainians want to be western even more now, eastern Ukrainians in majority terms continue to want this as well, Ukrainians elected a pro-western President, the EU trade deal is going forward, and Poroshenko is pushing for NATO membership with NATO not ruling this out--but crucially what was not in place until recent days is credible...
Doubts on Doubts: Part Two
In part one, I shared my views on whether international law is really law. As promised, this post cuts into the conversation on whether international law matters. Violations of international law lead many to question its effectiveness. Non-compliance especially by powerful states reinforces the instrumentalist view which characterizes international law as a strategic instrument of statecraft. States make laws that serve their material...
Saturday Nerd Blogging: The Skynet Factor and the Killer Robot Campaign
A day late, but not a penny short: at the Monkey Cage this week I look at the interplay between science fiction references and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots: The media might be forgiven for using such terms and images as click-bait. But some people have accused the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots of invoking “Hollywood paranoia” as well. NBCNews tech writer Keith Wagstaff...
Friday Nerd Blogging: NATO Week!
I have been lax in my Friday Nerd Blogging duties lately. Partly because I have been so obsessed with NATO and its summit. Now that the communiques are launched, it is time to relax and embrace that fave NATO song:
Human Rights Research and Researchers in IR: Are We REALLY that Odd?
Before APSA last week, I had the privilege of attending a small conference put on the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) Project at William and Mary. The conference was a chance for researchers in different research areas to write about the policy-relevance of their issue area and compare research and researchers in their area to the larger IR community. It relates to the discussion going on the last couple of weeks on ISQ's...
Once more unto the (climate) breach
I just happened upon a Foreign Policy piece from May 6 of this year framing climate change as a ‘Clear and Present Danger’. To summarize, the author argues that Obama’s plans to address climate change are a political non-starter in the US: Republicans are generally more opposed to carbon control policy than ever and the public is out to lunch on the subject. The solution, according to the author, is to invoke national security and get the...
ISIS and Biological Weapons: Black Flag, But Not the Black Death
This is a guest post by Frank L. Smith III, lecturer at the University of Sydney and author of the new book, American Biodefense: How Dangerous Ideas About Biological Weapons Shape National Security. The 2003 Iraq War aimed to stop rogue states from using weapons of mass destruction or giving these weapons to terrorists. Now we face ISIS, a terrorist organization that also claims to be a state. But what about WMD? Last week, Foreign Policy...