Twitter went nuts when President Obama said he could not get the Republicans to do what is right because of his finite powers, that he could not do some sort of Jedi mind-meld! He mixed his space franchises--Jedis may have Vulcan-like abilities, but the mind meld thing is of Star Trek. So, this sent twitter on a wonderful spiral for awhile. Some of the highlights: RT @jpodhoretz: "By Grabthar's hammer, you will be sequestered." — Hayes Brown...
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Friday Afternoon Linkage
Miscellaneous musings for the weekend. If this is true, then will the sequester be over by the next Congressional recess? Any idea as to why so many trips to Switzerland? I seriously doubt it has anything to do with this. Mattea Kramer and Chris Hellman find that we've spent $791bn on Homeland Security since 9/11 -- compared to an inflation-adjusted $500bn for the entire New Deal. On-going stress in India about Pakistan's nuclear...
Thursday Morning Linkage
I'm going to be filling in with some morning linkage in the coming weeks/months, so you'll probably see some posts with a smattering of U.S. foreign policy, global health, climate change, and whatever strikes my fancy such as the following: - the triennial meeting of CITES, the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species, opens in the next few days in Thailand (preview in Nature here) amidst a global crisis in rhino and elephant poaching; here is...
Beyond Reading the Tea Leaves: Using Data to Understand Partisanship and Foreign Policy
My frequent collaborator Jon Monten and I have a guest post on the new Chicago Council on Global Affairs blog Running Numbers. As our readers likely know, the Chicago Council runs periodic surveys about public attitudes towards foreign affairs and has historically run a number of important surveys of elite opinion. I'm cross-posting our piece here. For many observers of American politics, the fight over the nomination of Chuck Hagel as the next...
Wednesday Morning Link Dump
It's that time of year in the Georgetown Government Department... when we juggle financial aid offers and admissions in an attempt to lock down a strong incoming class of PhD students. This takes up lots of my mental energy, leaving little for the Duck of Minerva. The current DAG-3QD Peace and Justice Symposium concerns one of Charli's favorite topics: Drones. This may come as a shock to longtime readers, but almost twenty years ago I interned...
Belated/Early Friday Nerd Blogging: Ultimate Mashup
Ok, this is late for Friday but we didn't have an entry, so here we go:
Tuesday Morning Linkage Club Lite
There's a lot going on in the world, but there's also a lot going on in my world, so here's your abbreviated linkage: Jay Ulfelder explains why big data won't kill theory (or as Dan would write, I can haz quant theory?) [Dart-Throwing Chimp] Seth Masket >yearns for a Neil DeGrasse Tyson of political science [Pacific Standard] Sounds like physics envy to me, Seth [Duck of Minerva] I'm actually normally pretty permissive on issues of pay for...
The Syrian Conflict: to Internationalize or not to Internationalize
Earlier this month, The Guardian reported that the Obama administration blocked a Pentagon supported plan to provide arms to Syrian opposition forces. For civilians in Syria hoping for meaningful intervention to stop the conflict, this must have been difficult news to absorb. I was reminded of this story yesterday while attending an informative workshop in Amman, Jordan on Islamic law and the protection of civilians. At the time, we were...
Time to Redefine the Term “soft power”?
The broad goal of this blog, to the credit of its founders, is to bridge the gap between foreign policy practitioners and foreign policy scholars. Prior to joining it recently, I have known its reputation for doing just that. While in government I kept a mental note every time I came across a policymaker who regularly followed the Duck, and frankly I lost count. So in this vein I'd like to quibble with something I thoroughly digested as a...
Monday Linkage
Mornin' ducks... In anticipation of the P5+1 talks in Kazakhstan this week, let's start the week in... Iran Yousaf Butt, a nuclear physicist, urges the West to make Iran a serious offer. But Patrick Clawson argues that the Islamic Republic is just too dysfunctional to cut a nuclear deal. Farhang Jahanpour at Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog argues that talks with Iran might just work this time. Whose argument should we believe? In other...
Can IR Theory Free this Student?
Omid Kokabee is a University of Texas PhD student from the Department of Physics who was arrested in 2011 when he returned home to Iran over the winter break to visit his family. Though he is by all accounts apolitical, Omid was sentenced to 10 years for conspiring with foreign governments and given additional time in jail after he earned some money teaching other prisoners foreign languages and physics. His fellow students in the UT Physics...
On the Word ‘Global’
The word 'global' has become so frequently used in Western strategic debate that is has almost become background music. On one level, overuse robs it of resonance. But on another, it might be contributing to the conceptual and rhetorical overstretch that has led the US to overextend itself. Consider just one recent example. In making the case recently for maintaining the Pax Americana, the expansive grand strategy in which the US tries to hold...