by Charli Carpenter | 8 Aug 2012 | Featured
One of the more interesting issues raised informally during the time I spent at the Lincoln Center's Emerging Technologies Workshop was the relative likelihood of developments in lethal autonomous robotics leading to fully autonomous armies: that is, eliminating the human presence from battle-spaces altogether. The general consensus is that this is unlikely, with which I am not claiming to disagree. But what fascinated me was a particular...
by Dan Nexon | 8 Aug 2012 |
More politics of Batman, this time with special Schmitt sauce. Well, yeah, superheroes are kind of about who gets to decide the exception.... and their answers are often fascist. Wasn't that a major point of Watchmen?Thomas Wright: the Republican Rejection of UNCLOS was a Very Bad Thing. Alexander Cooley: what Central Asia tells us about a post-hegemonic world. Against adverb police. Two sides of the same COIN?Joseph Young discusses extremely...
by Charli Carpenter | 8 Aug 2012 |
I spent last week doing "field research" - that is, participant-observation in one of the several communities of practice whose work I'm following as part of my new book project on global norm development. In this case, the norm in question is governance over developments in lethal autonomous robotics, and the community of practice is individuals loosely associated with the Consortium on Emerging Technologies, Military Operations and National...
by Steve Saideman | 7 Aug 2012 |
Too good to wait (spoilers for Dark Knight Rises):
by Dan Nexon | 7 Aug 2012 |
I've put together a collection, albeit not a comprehensive one, of posts at the Duck of Minerva that focus on what might be called "the profession." The link is now a tab (Academia and Graduate School) below our banner.The rationale? Many of our most consistently popular pieces -- including ones that still get significant hits years after their publication -- fall into this category, so I think it might be a good service to try to consolidate...
by Dan Nexon | 7 Aug 2012 |
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I am now chief interviewer for the New Books Network's SF and Fantasy channel. I've got some exciting authors lined up for launch, and a few more who have agreed to record in September. But my response rate has dropped off dramatically in the last two weeks.In retrospect, August might not have been the best time to start interviewing.Anyway, I'm hoping that many of the outstanding requests will come through. But...
by Dan Nexon | 7 Aug 2012 |
The battle for Aleppo continues.Are China and Russia providing the US with an excuse for not acting in Syria? James Vreeland, quoted in the article, thinks so. Did the USSR win the solar-system race?Joshua Foust slams Alex Cooley for the content of his interview in Harpers.Sarah Wanenchank on digital dualism in augmented-warfare discourse (via Adam Elkus).Brad DeLong discusses the tragedy and farce of US inaction on climate change. Kindred...
by Dan Nexon | 6 Aug 2012 |
Back in May Robert Kelley touched off a discussion about Journal Citation Reports and impact factor rankings. Journal impact factor provides a textbook study in the consequences of a well-institutionalized but highly problematic quantitative measure. Impact factor is highly skewed, easily gamed, and somewhat arbitrary (two-year and five-year windows). Nonetheless, it drives a great deal of behavior on the part of authors, editors, and...
Phil Arena has been playing around with alternative measures of military power. He begins with the straightforward observation that one current and popular measure of military power, the CINC scores in the Correlates of War project, list the United States as having fallen behind the People's Republic of China in its military capability. As Phil writes, this is not a conclusion that most, if any, observers of world politics would endorse--and...
by Dan Nexon | 6 Aug 2012 |
James Hill for The New York TimesThe game theory of Olympic Badminton, from Quantitative Peace and Jordan Ellenberg. At e-ir, Tanzil Chowdhury says that intervention is never justified -- because of imperialism and messiness and all that.Amartya Sen places the European crisis within the context of the Great Convergence (via 3QD). China moves forward on its SSBN program, and in the South China Sea. Mark Byrnes ruminates on Churchill and modern...
by Patrick Porter | 5 Aug 2012 |
With sanctions and talks – and a big stick in the background – the United States and its allies are trying to curtail Tehran’s nuclear programme. Australia is playing its part. Canberra recently blocked a shipment of industrial equipment to Iran. Australia’s Foreign Minister, Senator Bob Carr, believes preventing a nuclear Iran is vital. Is he right?Kenneth Waltz thinks not. The celebrated American political scientist says we should redefine...
by Dan Nexon | 4 Aug 2012 |