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...
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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...
Wikileaks and “War Crimes”
Last Monday, Julian Assange told reporters in London that the Afghan War Diaries reveal war crimes in Afghanistan, and reiterated this statement on Democracy Now! midweek. The claim has been widely reported and is being reported as fact by some sources. This installment in my series on the Wikileaks story will evaluate this claim and correct a few conceptual inaccuracies circulating in the press coverage.But first, here's what this post is not...
The ticking clock(s) on Iran…
Apparently, containment of Iran is no longer an option and the Obama administration is showing signs of toughening its stance. In doing so, the administration appears to be shifting the anticipated costs and benefits (and the likelihood) of military strikes on Iran.One of Israel's leading commentators, Ehud Yaari, had this piece in yesterday's Jerusalem Post: I have solid information indicating that the top echelons of the administration –...
“An AQ/Taliban Executioner’s Dream.”
Quoting an anonymous former military intelligence officer, that is how Adam Swerer described the Wikileaks' archive published Sunday in an op-ed earlier this week. Joshua Foust concurred in a PBS essay:If I were a Taliban operative with access to a computer — and lots of them have access to computers — I’d start searching the WikiLeaks data for incident reports near my area of operation to see if I recognized anyone. And then I’d kill whomever...
UN Passes “Right to Water”: Diplomacy everywhere but not a drop to drink.
Yesterday the General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution declaring “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life."The vote passed with 122 countries voting and 41 countries abstaining, including United States, Britain, Canada, Australia – but also other nations like Botswana and Turkey. On the other hand, China, Russia, Germany, France, Spain and...
Children shouldn’t have Strontium 90
The Washington Post calls this one of the ten worst campaign attack ads of all time (ranked 2nd behind Daisy Girl). Hmmm, I actually thought it made a good point -- and certainly summed up Goldwater's views on international treaties and arms control. I thought the line "they can make you die" was a nice touch. I guess the ice cream cone might have been a bit over the top....Still, it was Goldwater who gave us this classic during his acceptance...
Identifying Groupthink
Many of the Journolist critics have expressed concerns that the listserv's membership -- you had to be political "center to left" to join -- fomented groupthink. Andrew Sullivan's critique is succinct, but he's hardly alone in leveling the charge: "It is this tendency to groupthink and exclusivity that concerns me."Reihan Salam, who was generally sympathetic to Journolist in an on-line piece he wrote last week, has recalibrated his argument to...