by Dan Nexon | 30 Jan 2013 | Featured
A little over four years ago the U.S. Department of Defense issued its first Minerva grants. These often substantial awards have produced a significant number of publications by some of the "best and brightest" (including long-term Duck of Minerva guest blogger Josh Busby) in the field and, whether directly or indirectly, shaped the nature of (at least) contemporary security studies. But it seems to me that we haven't had anything resembling a...
by Dan Nexon | 30 Jan 2013 | Featured
Tomorrow is the last day to cast your vote for the finalists in each OAIS Blogging Award category. I am pleasantly surprised by the response rate. Far more people have casts ballots than we anticipated when we rashly decided to start this thing. Please do note that voter registration is closed. We are not accepting new requests for ballots. That's all, folks.
by Dan Nexon | 30 Jan 2013 | Featured
> Anyone have good recommendations for following developments in Iraq? Yeah, remember Iraq? I hear things aren't exactly ice-cream and puppies there. Dan Brumberg and Steve Heydemann have a new Wilson Center report: "Global Authoritarians and the Arab Spring: New Challenges for U.S. Diplomacy." The Russian MOD looks to return to defense-industry autarky. I wonder if there are any implications for the claim that the globalization of defense...
by PM | 29 Jan 2013 | Featured
Let's get to the news and the comments: Tim Burke talks about the real intersection of science fiction, the great convergence, and international governance [Easily Distracted] Surowiecki talks Boeing and outsourcing [The New Yorker] Have Malian rebels destroyed ancient texts? [The New Yorker] Maybe intercepting a Taepo-dong is illegal [The Diplomat] I like reading about Mongolia and I don't think I have to justify it [The Diplomat] And also:...
by Adrienne LeBas | 29 Jan 2013 | Featured
In case folks have missed it, there is an upcoming deadline (FRIDAY!) for the 2013 ECPR General Conference in Bordeaux, September 4-7th. Unlike many other conferences, EPCR paper proposals are submitted to already-organized panels. This often results in more cohesive panels and, one hopes, more helpful feedback. Paper proposals are due this coming Friday and can be submitted through the various organized sections listed here. ... And the...
by Dan Nexon | 29 Jan 2013 | Featured
This is a guest post by Brandon Valeriano and Ryan Maness. Cyberwar is a pressing international security problem. The news media breathlessly covers any potential attack before the facts are in. Policy briefs and reports are produced on all levels of government and private industry. It would then behoove us to take a step back and examine opinions about the cyber security threat according to perceptions among policymakers, academics, and cyber...
by Josh Busby | 29 Jan 2013 | Featured
Last May, Jon Monten, Will Inboden and I published on Foreignaffairs.com the results of a survey of about 40 U.S. foreign policy professionals, split equally among Republicans and Democrats with nearly all of them having served in some capacity in the Executive Branch. As I discussed here on the Duck, we found some surprising sources of strength for bipartisan support for certain aspects of international cooperation, namely for Bretton Woods...
by Amanda Murdie | 28 Jan 2013 | Featured
It’s a question faced by scientists daily: if you found that X wasn't associated with Y, would you report it? What if you found that treatment X was harmful to Y, would you report your findings? For example, let’s say you are an oncologist and you just concluded, based on years of research, that smoking wasn’t associated with cancer – would you report your findings? What if you were employed by the cancer drug’s maker or dealing with cancer...
by Dan Nexon | 28 Jan 2013 | Featured
This is a guest post by Brent Sasley. Sasley is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas at Arlington. He blogs at Mideast Matrix and Open Zion. Follow him on Twitter. The Israeli election results are far messier than anyone had hoped, leading to furious debates about who got what right about the Israeli electorate. This seems to be especially true among Western analysts and media that aren’t close...
by Vikash Yadav | 28 Jan 2013 | Featured
North Korea Bruce Cumings' 2005 LRB article "We Look at It and See Ourselves" surely remains one of the best short articles on the Korean peninsula ever written. It is probably worth a revisit as tensions ramp up again. Paul Gottinger provided a good background piece on "South Korea's New Boss" in Counterpunch. Charles Armstrong, the Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia, blogs at CNN's GPS on "Why Sticks Don't Work With North...
by Jeffrey Stacey | 26 Jan 2013 | Featured
That Europe is caught up in a major financial crisis isn't news to anyone. Standing right at the crossroads, the Eurozone will either muddle through and risk another crisis onset in the near term or having scraped through its worst crisis in decades take strong steps on the necessary medium and long-term reforms. But what our British friends may not realize is how the vaunted special relationship is also coming to a crossroads. Prime...
by Dan Nexon | 26 Jan 2013 | Featured
The Mali campaign continues. As does the Syrian civil war. And the UN is seeking an expanded mandate in the Congo. Anonymous hacks the United States Sentencing Commission's website in retaliation for aggressive prosecution of Swartz. Jennifer Lind argues that Japanese politicians must confront their country's past. Anton Stezhnev isn't so sure about Chris Fair et al.'s new piece in the Atlantic on drone strikes and Pakistani public opinion....