Today is Memorial Day in this U.S., which leads to all kinds of silly debates about whether this holiday celebrates just the dead killed in America's wars or the Veterans as well since there is Veteran's Day in November (which is Armistice Day everywhere else). The other silly debate that seems to occur around this time is about the draft. Karl Eikenberry (former US general and then Ambassador to Afghanistan) and David Kennedy (retired history...
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Memorial Day Linkage
Good mornin' ducks. Happy Memorial Day. The US public today, despite strong support for the military, is the least connected to the institution. Only about 0.5% of the population has served on active duty since 9/11 (roughly 9% of the population served in WWII). The FAS revisits the potentially staggering costs of a war with Iran under different scenarios in the wake of the passage of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act. Is...
Weekend Waterfowl
What's worth reading this weekend? Lots of stuff. Here's a list of a few things, from analytic to oddities. No drones, machetes, or tornados. But it would be silly if none of our resident experts weighed in on recent developments in these domains. Right? If the market expects climate change, why don't those who profess faith in its inerrant wisdom? Notes on "naïve Bayesian classifiers and orders of composition." Kindred W. argues that...
Why the Dakotas?
Slate's new history vault published a gem from the Cold War last week. This map from January 1955 shows the areas in the United States that Soviet citizens could not travel. This map shows where Soviet citizens, who were required to have a detailed itinerary approved before obtaining a visa, could and could not go during their time in the United States. Most ports, coastlines, and weapons facilities were off-limits, as were industrial centers...
In Honor of Jay Carney
I can't be the only one disturbed by the triumph of (aging) hipsters and nerds that is the Obama Administration.
Friday Morning Linkage
More of the same with the Syrian opposition. Will H. Moore really takes issue with Jonathan Panikoff on how to think about what comes next in Syria. Visualizing the Syrian conflict with the new GDELT event data set. GDELT is about to go live (in the next couple of days or week) with daily updates on Syria. Meanwhile, Jay Ulfelder roadtests GDELT as a resource for monitoring atrocities. Roland Paris on What Went Wrong in Afghanistan....
Call for Papers: 2013 International Studies Association-Northeast Annual Conference
When: 8-9 November 2013 Where: at the Providence Biltmore, Providence, RI, USA Submissions accepted 5 - 28 June 2013 The annual conference of the International Studies Association-Northeast (ISA-NE) will be held 8-9 November 2013 at the Providence Biltmore in Providence, Rhode Island. ISA-NE invites paper and panel proposals on any subject related to international studies, broadly defined. Topics might include international relations theory,...
Do US Alliances Re-Assure in Asia, or Create Moral Hazard?
The conventional wisdom on the US presence in Asia is that we re-assure all players. Specifically, US allies don’t need to arms race local opponents, because the US has extended deterrence to cover them. Hence Japan and South Korea don’t need to go nuclear, for example. Among academics, this logic pops in the work of Christensen, Ikenberrry, and Nye; among policy analysts, here is the US military saying this, and here is the DC think-tank set....
Thursday Morning Linkage
Here is your Thursday Morning Linkage. I'm going to start off with my usual conservation theme before turning to some other topics like a kerfuffle over mapping racial tolerance and the World Health Assembly (going on this week). Amphibians are in trouble all across the U.S. and world (disease, climate change, farm chemicals), along with bees and bats, nature is trying to tell us something Chinese bear bile farms are generating an uproar - in...
Wednesday Addams Linkage
It's so disorienting to be posting on a Wednesday! I'd like to begin with a bleg: I'm in the market for a platform that allows for easy screencasting. In other words, if you wanted to have 6 to 10 users simultaneously viewing a series of slides, but you thought that Google Hangout was just a little too laggy, what would you use? Comment below or email rpm47 atsign georgetown period edu. Via Inside Higher Ed, cell biologists slam the impact...
Mapping IR Theory
Thanks to the patience of the former EJIR editorial team, PTJ and I will have an article in the forthcoming special issue on the "End of IR Theory?" Only the first 35-40% resembles the working paper (PDF) we posted at the Duck. Even the name has changed. We still argue in favor of thinking about international-relations theory as dealing with "scientific ontologies": "catalog[s]--or map[s]--of the basic substances and processes that constitute...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Early but On Time
I am posting this now for two reasons: 1) I am going to be at a conference for the next few days and the hotel apparently lacks wifi! 2) it is the anniversary of Youtube, which has made much of Friday Nerd Blogging possible. So here is a tribute to the Youtube anniversary: