I came across this Chris Anderson piece from a 2008 issue of Wired via Ana Andjelic. Anderson argues that in the era of Big Data we no longer need to rely on theory and the scientific method to achieve advances in knowledge:Google's founding philosophy is that we don't know why this page is better than that one: If the statistics of incoming links say it is, that's good enough. No semantic or causal analysis is required. That's why Google can...
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Smart Bombing War Criminals While Avoiding Civilians
Despite what is sometimes argued, fighting wars is not a crime. But it is against the law for weapons-bearers to target large areas indiscriminately without regard for potential collateral damage. Instead, they are required to carefully choose only legitimate military targets. In my view, the same standard could be applied to whistle-blowing advocacy groups: organizations like Wikileaks should engage in precision targeting of legitimate...
How About Some Collateral Damage Control?
In an earlier post on the lessons of the Afghan War Diaries, I pointed out an unfortunate legal fact: that civilian harms aren't necessarily evidence of war crimes. But I also argued, as I long have, that such "unintentional" civilian casualties are unacceptably high. Today, I have an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune that goes a bit further, suggesting a number of ways that the rules of war themselves could and should be updated to...
Could Simple Automated Tools Help Wikileaks Protect Its Afghan Sources?
Julian Assange has a problem. When pressed by human rights organizations to redact any current or future published documents because they too feared the effects on Afghan civilians, he reportedly replied that he had no time to do so and "issued a tart challenge for the human rights organizations themselves to help with 'the massive task of removing names from thousands of documents.'" Leaving aside his alleged claims about the moral...
Web 2.0 and the IR Profession
Dan Drezner and I have a new essay in International Studies Perspectives on the ways in which user-generated technologies are impacting the discipline of IR. Here's the abstract:The International Relations (IR) profession has not fully taken stock of the way in which user-driven information technologies—including Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Wikipedia—are reshaping our professional activities, our subject matter, and even the...
That’s President Timberlake to You!: Which Rock Stars Should Rule the World?
After hearing that former Fugee and musical star Wyclef Jean is running to be the President of Haiti (despite not having lived there for decades and apparently not actually speaking French very well), I got to thinking – what other musical super stars could run as leaders to help fix the nations of the world? In what way could Lady Gaga help with nation-building projects? Could Paul McCartney advise the World Bank in any way (other than being...
Lessons in Globalism from Patong
Current Intelligence has published some ruminations of mine from my trip to Phuket last month. Lead paragraph follows:Though I definitely passed through customs and back, it’s hard to know whether I traveled to a country called Thailand these past two weeks or whether I was actually just in one of those many outposts of globalization where a multi-national cacophony of Western tourists connect superficially with caricatures of a place’s...
Another Iran data point
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden (who served George W. Bush) said something fairly provocative on CNN in late July -- but Fox News trumpeted the story: Michael Hayden, a CIA chief under President George W. Bush, said that during his tenure "a strike was way down the list of options." But he tells CNN's State of the Union that such action now "seems inexorable."During the cold war competition with the Soviet Union, Jimmy Carter's Secretary of...
Good Norms, Bad Norms
I am reading a fascinating new addition to the literature on the influence of transnational advocacy networks in world politics: Mark Lawrence Schrad’s The Political Power of Bad Ideas. Essentially a history of the prohibition movement, his broader theoretical point is that transnational advocacy networks not only influence governments into doing what they should (like banning landmines and the recruitment of child soldiers) but also,...
Perspective
I am in New Delhi doing research on elite perceptions of India's strategy in Afghanistan. I just thought I would share a few quick observations from conversations with Indian security experts... One of the greatest benefits of coming all the way out here is to help situate research questions within a broader political discourse. Here is what I have noted so far:First, one quickly realizes that the voices which are most accessible to us in the...
Duch-ing the issue: International Justice in Cambodia?
Lots happening on the international law front – A Spanish judge (not Garzon!) has indicted three American soldiers who fired upon a hotel in Iraq which resulted in the death of a Spanish journalist. (Those Spanish judges sure love their universal jurisdiction...) Also, the Cluster Munitions Treaty came into effect.But perhaps the biggest international law story of the week was that of the conviction of Kaing Guek Eav or “Duch” by the...
It’s hot out there…
Actually, it's a beautiful day up here in Massachusetts. A nice, cool morning which, according to a meteorologist on a local AM radio station, could only mean one thing -- that global warming is a hoax. Just before I changed stations, however, I caught this little claim -- something to the effect "there's no consensus on global warming. There are a huge number of leading climate scientists who dispute it...."Hmmm? Of course, such a claim would...