by Steve Saideman | 18 Jul 2012 | Featured
Romney apparently said today "we've been 'turning to the United Nations' to 'raise our kids.'"I don't know if this is true,* but it raises a variety of questions/thoughts:Does the UN have stock in ink? Kids today seem to like tattoos. What is the curriculum include at UN Day Care?Learning How to Circumvent Your Parents' Vetoes? Membership 101: You can join any club you want as long as your name is ok (Taiwan, Macedonia) even if you fall short...
by Dan Nexon | 18 Jul 2012 | Featured
I have bowed to popular demand responded to a small number of requests by creating a page (also accessible via a tab above) to host PDF versions of working papers posted at the Duck of Minerva. The page currently has links to three pieces, including compilations of Stuart J. Kaufman's and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson's recently serialized posts.I hope the section will grow with the responses people have planned to Stuart's piece, as well as with...
by Dan Nexon | 18 Jul 2012 | Featured
A majority of Americans support a no-fly zone in Syria. I expect that "no-fly zone" comes across as a relatively anodyne, costless policy to the US public. And, indeed, most of the policies that would be required to make such a zone work poll considerably less well. UPDATE: (via) Daniel Larson makes the same point, but with more words.
by Dan Nexon | 18 Jul 2012 | Featured
Photo by AuthorI didn't find it terribly surprising that Scotland's National Museum presents the industrial revolution as an important component of Scottish national identity. After all, what better way to combat the anti-Pict stereotypes peddled in such racially insensitive works as Brave than to present the Scottish people as industrious and innovative by nature? Because that in no way would ever contribute to offensive stereotypes, now would...
by Dan Nexon | 17 Jul 2012 | Featured
That's the takeaway from a new working paper by Brian Haggerty, a doctoral student at MIT. His conclusion:The United States and its NATO allies no doubt possess the capabilities required to achieve some measure of air superiority over northwest Syria and to maintain patrols over population centers to defend them from some incursions by Syrian forces equipped with heavy weapons. But as this analysis shows, an intervention to establish only...
by Megan MacKenzie | 17 Jul 2012 | Featured
Do scandals- particularly the kind that receive international attention- inspire progressive gender policies? While there is no conclusive research on this question, there are indicators that sexual violence scandals may be as important as public opinion or operational changes in influencing policy change in the military (perhaps more so).My prediction- you can quote me on this- is that the current onslaught of sexual violence scandals in the...
by Charli Carpenter | 16 Jul 2012 | Featured
The ICRC has stated that the violence in Syria constitutes an non-international armed conflict. This is significant because it means the organization tasked with guarding and promoting the Geneva Conventions is declaring that at least portions of the Geneva Conventions (especially Common Article 3) applies to the conflict and unlawful attacks on non-combatants could be prosecuted as war crimes.At Lawfare Blog, University of Texas' Robert...
by Dan Nexon | 14 Jul 2012 | Featured
by Josh Busby | 14 Jul 2012 | Featured
In these summer months while we wait for the Olympics to start and for Romney to pick his VP candidate, the foreign policy cognoscenti has started in on Mitt Romney's campaign with conflicting advice about whether or not his announced foreign policy trip this later this summer is worthwhile and whether or not the Republican nominee should spend much time talking about the issue.While as a citizen and foreign policy wonk, I want our prospective...
by Steve Saideman | 13 Jul 2012 | Featured
Charli has volunteered me to sub for Friday Nerd Blogging duty for her for the next three weeks. It turns out that sending her links to fun stuff is a bad idea. That will teach me.The most important pop cultural event of the next week is clearly the return of Breaking Bad. Too bad it does not have any dragons, super-heroes, or other Comic-con bait. So, BB cannot count for Friday Nerd Blogging. The good news is that there may be a spin-off...
by Josh Busby | 10 Jul 2012 | Featured
I just finished reading Peter Piot's lively memoir No Time to Lose of his time as an epidemiologist helping identify the Ebola virus in the 1970s through to his service as the first director of UNAIDS. It is an engaging read not least because Piot conveys a profound empathy for those affected by disease. Piot also projects additional warmth and humanity, from his appreciation for Congolese music to good beer.More substantively, Piot has a...
by Charli Carpenter | 10 Jul 2012 | Featured
Wow. If you can write a dissertation on the politics of shark attacks as an IR specialist, I think you can do pretty much anything. From the Ted website:Chris Neff is a third year PhD candidate in Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He is conducting the world's first doctoral dissertation on the politics of shark attacks.Of course, I'm curious to know how this dissertation topic relates to IR precisely. (I get...