by Dan Nexon | 15 Jun 2012 | Featured
Colin Kahl sent me a list of recent work he's done on the US-Iran standoff. The first is a CNAS report, Risk and Rivalry: Iran, Israel, and the Bomb (PDF). The abstract:As Iran's nuclear progress continues and negotiations fail to reach a breakthrough, the threat of an Israeli preventive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities grows. In Risk and Rivalry: Israel, Iran and the Bomb, authors Dr. Colin H. Kahl, Melissa G. Dalton and Matthew Irvine...
by Charli Carpenter | 15 Jun 2012 | Featured
As if controversies over graphic sex, gratuitous nudity and rat torture weren't enough, now this. Yep, that's George W. Bush's head on a spike, in the Game of Thrones Season 1 scene where Joffrey torments his fiance Sansa by forcing her to view various decapitated heads.Fans didn't actually catch this, until producers pointed it out on the DVD commentary. The news was popularized on a Reddit thread, picked up by IO9 and quickly caused a stir....
by Dan Nexon | 14 Jun 2012 | Featured
I've been meaning to write substantive posts about my recent trip to Taiwan, but between the time change, conference prep, and getting sick, I haven't had the time. In the interim, I found a video of the knife-making process at Maester Wu knives on Kinmen. Kinmen (aka Jinmen aka Quemoy) was repeatedly, and intensively, shelled by the People's Republic of China in 1958. Maester Wu Bombshell Steel Knives took advantage of the cheap source of...
by Dan Nexon | 13 Jun 2012 | Featured
A standard critical argument in my field looks something like this:1. Phenomenon X involves A assumptions about the world;2. Approach Y contains assumptions inconsistent with A; therefore3. Y cannot be used to understand X.In some instances, and given some specific conditions, this can be a persuasive argument. But it is clearly not a priori true; articulated in the form above, I submit, it is a logical fallacy--one often found alongside, but...
by Dan Nexon | 13 Jun 2012 | Featured
For the small percentage of our readership that doesn't overlap with that of the Monkey Cage, see its roundup on her passing and a guest post there by Rick Wilson.
by Robert Kelly | 12 Jun 2012 | Featured
I found the above image here. A hat-tip goes to Andrew Sullivan for referencing this debate yet a second time.Here is part one of my response to two recent, heavily-trafficked posts (one, two) on hypothetical retrenchment under Ron Paul. (So yes, that makes 4 total posts, including this one.) I got some flak on how I ranked US allies in order of importance, with the implication that those further down were more likely candidates for a...
by Steve Saideman | 12 Jun 2012 | Featured
Slate posted a piece on the academic study of pop culture. It found that academics studied Buffy the Vampire Slayer most. Well, actually, no, it found that more folks studied the Buffy than the Matrix, the Simpsons, Aliens or The Wire.This led to a Facebook discussion of selection bias. We can discuss the merits of these five and ponder why the Simpsons did so poorly (perhaps we need a consistent plot progression?), or why the Wire is...
by Jay Ulfelder | 12 Jun 2012 | Featured
The Institute for Economics and Peace is making a big splash today with the release of the 2012 edition of its annual Global Peace Index (GPI)---"the world's leading measure of global peacefulness," according to its web site. The launch event for the 2012 edition included several people whose work I respect and admire, and the Institute identifies some of the heaviest hitters in the global fight for peace and human rights---Kofi Annan, Desmond...
by Rational Insurgent | 11 Jun 2012 | Featured
So I recently read Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” series after being pleasantly surprised by the movie. I easily breezed through all three books on plane rides, on which I prefer reading fiction (yes, even teen fiction) rather than my typical literary fare.Collins is no Steinbeck.Nonetheless, I (slightly hesitantly) confess that I was impressed with many of the underlying themes within the series—particularly with how well Collins seems to...
by Dan Nexon | 11 Jun 2012 | Featured
Alex Cooley -- whose book on power-political competition in Central Asia is due out soon -- had an interesting op-ed in Friday's New York Times. He argues that the apparent success of the 12th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit masks ongoing Sino-Russian tensions in the region:Since the financial crisis, China has displaced Russia as Central Asia’s leading trading partner, and Beijing would welcome using the S.C.O. framework to...
My GOP gone by, I miss it so.Conservatives are fond of the saying widely, but probably falsely, attributed to Everett Dirksen: "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." Of course, the saying hasn't kept up to date with inflation or with the growing size of the federal budget--in 1962, a billion dollars was just under 1 percent of the entire budget; these days, it would be well under 1/1000th of a percent of...
by Rational Insurgent | 8 Jun 2012 | Featured
Barbara Walter and I have started a new blog called Political Violence @ a Glance. Check out the About page to see, well, what we’re about. We have a great group of contributors lined up (including Duck's own contributor Steve Saideman), a handful of posts already published, and plenty more on the way. Feel free to cruise by.--reposted from the Monkey Cage--