Or, how do we compare the not so nearly like? There is an obvious temptation to compare Libya to Syria and ponder why the US has not jumped into the fray now that Syria has started killing lots of people (to be fair, the piece does show how different the cases are). Now, I am not a Middle East expert (and I avoid playing one on TV), but this is a handy opportunity to think about how we do comparisons and then maybe we can figure out what is...
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The 2011 Canadian Election: I don’t even know
Last year I was much better at blogging about the UK General Election. I thought it was going to be incredibly boring, but then there was the rise of a third party in an unexpected way which changed the balance of power. This year with Canada’s turn to re-stack the deck, I thought the election was going to be incredibly boring, but then there was the rise of a third party in an unexpected way which very well may change the balance of power....
North Waziristan: Drones and Compellence
North Waziristan has witnessed 20 drone strikes in the first four months of this year, which is a relatively lower number than the previous year (in 2010 there were a record setting 104 drone strikes in North Waziristan or 8.67 strikes per month). The relative "silence of the drones" this year is mainly attributed to a lull following the imprisonment of a CIA agent, Raymond Davis, who was accused of murdering two men in Pakistan on 27 January....
New Breed of Chicken Hawks?
John Bolton writes in the LA Times, which unlike the rest of the world I read because where else could I find out who died in my neighborhood recently, that we must stay in Afghanistan forever! Until the job gets done. I have no particularly informed opinion about this, which is kind of sad, but I was amused by the response of a Times columnist, complaining that Bolton had no right to make such a proclamation given his dodging of the draft back...
Most Entertaining IR Scholar? None of the Above?
Steve Walt has a challenge: ...who are the most amusing, entertaining, or witty writers in the field of international relations and foreign policy? I don't mean books or articles that are "funny" because they are wildly off-base; I mean scholars who are a joy to read because their prose is lively, they offer amusing asides, and maybe even manage a laugh-out-loud witticism on occasion. And to narrow the field a bit more, let's exclude...
A Beast in the Heart of Certain Small Units
Excellent in-depth discussion of the Stryker Brigade in the New York Times. What's great about this piece is that the author goes into considerable depth to understand the structural context behind the so-called "Kill Team"'s campaign of recreational murder against civilians, and resist the seductive and typical "bad apple" story.That said, I think this piece over-determines the impact of simply being in a conflict zone and under-emphasizes the...
Shabby Sheik: Gaddafi’s ‘fashion’ and cultural property
As much as the proposal to put Mummar Gaddafi’s outfits up for display at the Costume Institute of New York should be true in a fully just world, I would imagine that it isn’t.Alas, the West shall be deprived of “four decades of Colonel Gaddafi’s superior dress sense”. And we are weaker for it.However, this did get me thinking. Could Libya make a plausible case that Gaddafi’s outfits (which have been out-Gaga-ing Lady Gaga since well before she...
A puzzle in promotion: Petraeus at the CIA
This is a guest blog by Jarrod Hayes, who is is an assistant professor of International Relations at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research broadly focuses on the social construction of foreign and security policy.The New York Times is reporting that President Obama plans on moving Leon Panetta to the position of Secretary of Defense and David Petraeus to the position of CIA director. While the Panetta move is interesting in its own...
My challenge to the Drezner challenge: who would bother with us?
Stephanie has seconded below Drezner's challenge to name three books most useful for a President-in-waiting. Please obey her.These should not be academic in nature because, Dan implies, politicians are not up to it intellectually. It is true. Politicians are not a smart lot. Often when I hear a "strategic logic of..." talk, I use the same tried-and-true joke: have you ever met a Congressman? It always gets a laugh because it 1) is probably...
Presidential Reading List: (After you probably get through the ones with ‘Bacevich’ on the cover)
Dan Drezner has issued a call to arms!... or to your library card:"I therefore call upon the readers of this blog to proffer up their suggestions -- if you had to pick three books for an ambitious U.S. politician to read in order to bone up on foreign affairs, what would they be?"I have a gut feeling that all of the answers are going to be grand strategy, grand strategy and some war on terror/Afghanistan. (Although, maybe I’m not being generous...
Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice
I would like to be as snarky as Brian, but paying attention to Afghanistan is pretty darned depressing. In the aftermath of the second (yes, second) prison break at the Saraposa prison, what hope is there for the counter-insurgency effort? I posted initially on my blog about what the breakdown at the prison says about the effort: the feeble Afghan government, the limited ability of the international community to make progress, and the...
Terrorism: A Problem for Realists
Whatever version of political realism you are dealing with, the sovereign state is still central to its universe. Which is one reason realists are uncomfortable with any world view that accords 'non-state actors' a pivotal or even significant role.I'm a huge fan of the work of political realists such as John Mearsheimer, Robert Pape or Christopher Layne, especially of their warnings against our own self-defeating behaviour. But there is a...