Maybe we should have named the blog the "Seal of Minerva."Photo: Dan NexonThe US exit strategy in Afghanistan is in shambles; Josh Foust explains. Jing Gao describes condemnations of the anti-Japan riots on Weibo (via Doug Saunders); LA Times story quotes Jessica Weiss on the riots, who knows much about these things (via Erica Chenoweth). Aaron Belkin et al. assess the impact of the repeal of DADT (PDF). Spoiler Alert: military effectiveness...
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What’s Most Distressing about the Leaked Romney Video
Just like Barack Obama in 2008, Mitt Romney apparently believes the silly theories of partisan preference popular among his base. Or he's craven enough to peddle the argument to his donors. Neither is good news.At least Obama's caricature was sympathetic to the other side.
Monday Morning Linkage
New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy is now available via the iTunes store.Bizarro 2004 continues: this time, Republicans spend lots of time complaining about systematic bias in polling (via).Protest September continues: Islamic world, China, Chicago, OWS....Taylor Favrel provides analysis of the Sino-Japanse island dispute. Civil war continues in Syria (Syrian aircraft hit Lebanese territory, Revolutionary Guard said to have advisors in...
Saturday Musical Interlude
Saturday Morning Linkage
The cheesecake wore a raspberry sorbet.Photo: Dan Nexon Oops (updated)..., I forgot to add a link to coverage of the anti-Japanese riots and protests in China, and to backstory on the purchase of the islands. A thoughtful piece by Jill Sargent Russel at Kings of War on Syria, diplomacy, and intervention.Jay Ulfelder expresses concern about the future of democracy in South Africa. BLTN: my colleague Chris Fair argues that it is time to...
Podcast No. 8 – Interview with Daniel Levine
Interview with Daniel Levine.
A Short (and Hasty) Note on the Current Wave of Attacks
Tunisia Protests, APReaders probably already know that anti-western attacks are spreading beyond Egypt and Libya, and to non-US facilities. In Sudan, the German embassy is "in flames."And so on.How would someone committed to relational social analysis understand what's happening? Here's an 'analytical snap judgment':We have an event -- the emergence of the anti-Muslim film -- that fits a particular pre-existing script concerning identity...
Pyongyang isn’t ‘Laid-Back & Leafy,’ or What Parag Khanna didn’t Learn in NK
I know what you’re thinking – how many more d--- pictures of this guy and Kim Il Sung (left, KJI right) do I have to look at? Well…too bad! They go on and on and on…In the last two weeks I rolled out a series of impressions from my trip to North Korea (one, two, three, four). Apparently Parag Khanna went to NK at the same time I did (last month) and simultaneously put up his impressions at CNN-GPS, making for an interesting comparison of views...
Friday Morning Linkage
Does this cat think that he's a duck?Photo: Dan NexonAsian maritime disputes roundup: background on Diaoyu/Senkaku and on the Southern Kuril Islands; what happened when Chinese ships sailed into the waters around Dioayu/Senkaku. Dan Trombly: "Benghazi and Diplomacy's Hard Power."Peter Rutland discusses rising Armenia-Azerbaijan tensions. If you're not paying attention, you should be. Baku believes that all its shiny new military equipment (paid...
“Reversing the Burden of Proof”: Tactic or Norm
An interesting observation I took away from this meeting is the frequency with which I heard practitioners talking about the need to "reverse the burden of proof" from advocates (to prove that a particular weapon causes significant humanitarian harm) to governments (to prove that it doesn't). As Richard Price documented in his study of the landmines campaign and John Borrie documented in his landmark genealogy of the cluster munitions...
Friday Nerd Blogging
You never know what you'll learn when conducting field research. Refer playfully to a powerful and influential person in the humanitarian disarmament network as the "Jedi Master of arms advocacy" over dinner and drinks? Discover unexpectedly that this individual (who shall remain unnamed) has never seen Star Wars. The easy part: I know what to send him / her as a thank-you present for insights shared. The hard part: how to explain the...
Inside the Bubble, Round II
Richard Grenell was pushed out as Mitt Romney's national-security spokesman. In The Daily Beast, he attempts to defend his former boss.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got it right. The Middle East desk at the State Department got it right, too. And so did Mitt Romney. All three correctly rejected the initial Cairo Embassy statement on the developing violence in Egypt and Libya as weak and inappropriate. And yet Romney was the only one to...