The Commonwealth Games begin tomorrow in Delhi, which offers a good excuse for some thoughts on two neglected topics in contemporary international relations – India and the Commonwealth. With 54 nations involved the Games are a major international sporting event, and were bid for by India as a way of demonstrating their emerging significance in the world, a kind of Olympics in a minor key that would do for the Indian bit of the BRIC nations...
A (way) while back Charli posted a link to a report by Landmine Action. The short version is that it is calling for a ban on so-called ‘blast-weapons’ as a method of warfare.From the outset I’m going to admit that it’s simply not easy to defend things that can blow innocent civilians to smithereens. And I don't intent to defend the weapons themselves as some kind of fabulous invention. I do, however, wish to take on some of the thinking and...
He's not alone, of course, but scholar Gilles Dorronsoro is quite pessimistic about the Afghan surge and ongoing counterinsurgency campaign:The current counterinsurgency campaign shows little signs of accomplishing its mission. The surge is not enough to reverse the Taliban’s gains, or the quick decline of the Karzai government. Pakistan’s lack of support makes the Taliban sanctuary there a major strategic problem.More troops and the latest...
$250 million = the amount spent just by the US in FY2010 to counter narcotics in Afghanistan$100 million = the amount earned annually by the Taliban from narcotics trafficking304,000 acres = the number of acres devoted to opium in 2009304,000 acres = the number of acres devoted to opium in 2010$64 per Kg = the price of opium in 2009$169 per Kg = the price of opium in 2010Total production of opium did decline, but mainly because of a disease...
I've been teaching Af-Pak in my security class these past few weeks. The war has been going on for so long that many "highlights" now seem like distant history.For instance, everyone remembers the farce that was George W. Bush's May 1, 2003, celebration of the end of major combat operations in Iraq. The image of the "Mission Accomplished" banner is engrained in our brains, as is the picture of Bush in flightsuit strutting to deliver his...
Mark Blyth waxing enthusiastic about why "austerity" is not commonsensical economic policy at all. Food for thought.WatsonMedia presents Mark Blyth on Austerity from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.
Stephen Biddle has a spot-on piece over at Foreign Policy on how Presidents, and Obama in particular, must take into account domestic politics when setting national security strategy. With the release of Bob Woodward's latest book, Obama's Wars, many have jumped on the President's alleged quote that he can't lose the entire Democratic Party to justify the need to set a troop draw-down date for Afghanistan as evidence that he's putting politics...
Every night, about 15 minutes or so after we've put my 3-year old daughter to bed, we inevitably hear a knock at the door. She's typically knocking because she needs to go the bathroom. She's also knocking because she wants to scope out what we are doing, find out if she is missing anything. One thing that bothers her is if me or my wife leaves the house after she goes to bed. In order to go to sleep she needs some kind of guarantee that we...
My (first) book, Prisoners of America’s Wars: From the Early Republic to Guantanamo is now shipping on Amazon.com (or Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, etc.). Considering that this would be the closest thing to offspring that I have ever produced, I thought that I would post it in the hope that it may be of some interest to some Duck readers. I've pasted the abstract below for that very reason:Prisoners of war have been a significant feature of...
I often find myself in disagreement with Amitai Etzioni, but he does makes some sense in his recent Politico op-ed on Petraeus' "metrics" for progress in Afghanistan: The newest way General Petraeus plans to measure success in the war in Afghanistan reminded me of what the government did when its campaign to persuade the public to stop smoking did not make much headway. It stopped counting how many people had had their last cigarette - and...
Did anyone else know about this additional outrageous consequence of the "war on terror"? You may have to be a subscriber to see this note from The Nation, September 20? Deborah Amos's Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East (PublicAffairs; $25.95) is a harrowing account of the pain and anguish suffered by the Iraqi Sunni diaspora in the Middle East. Especially perverse is a legal hurdle faced by exiles seeking...
I attended the Harvard Social Studies concentration’s 50th anniversary celebration on September 25, well aware of the controversy over the University's naming an undergraduate research scholarship in honor of New Republic editor-in-chief, Martin Peretz. Generating the conflict were Peretz’s long history of contemptuous writings about Muslims and other groups and especially his recent, disgraceful statement: “I wonder whether I need . . ....