by Jon Western | 24 Nov 2009 |
I know the EU is often dysfunctional, but this really shocked me. Last week, the EU selected Herman van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister, as the European Union’s first president, and Catherine Ashton of Britain, currently the group’s trade commissioner, as its high representative for foreign policy. (She's also the Baroness Ashton of Upholland).Rompuy has been on the job in Belgium for less than a year and Ashton has no foreign policy...
by Charli Carpenter | 24 Nov 2009 |
I was just complaining to a friend how I'm not such a fan of the Iphone I recently bought, but here's a reason to rethink: the new Iphone Death Star app. Of course, it's no Star Wars: Pod Racer. But as someone who recently bummed around on an old Atari machine while on a vacation to business trip in Portland, (and who has a seven-year old son), I'm pretty pleased.
by Laura Sjoberg | 24 Nov 2009 |
I know most of you must have thought I disappeared from the blog world. Apparently, I've found something I am unreliable about. I'd tell you it has been a crazy semester, but that would be a bad excuse. I'd promise to do better, but its a promise I'm not sure I can keep. So, instead, I'll just post (for the second time in one night) about something I've been doing some work on ... helping to start the LGBTQA Caucus of the ISA. The purposes of...
by Laura Sjoberg | 24 Nov 2009 |
David Kirkpatrick yesterday wrote in the New York Times about how the health care debate is reviving the abortion debate in US politics. I read this article right after I saw a film that several of my feminist colleagues and friends recommended, called "Not Yet Rain." Among other things at issue in this film is the Helms Amendment to the U.S. 1973 Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits the use of U.S. aid funds to "motivate or coerce" or...
by Rodger Payne | 23 Nov 2009 |
President Obama has been receiving a fair amount of heat lately for "dithering" about U.S. policy towards Afghanistan. After all, the administration has been thinking through its Afghan policy since late summer. Critics in the opposition party say the President's decision is "long overdue" and that the "strategy review" needs to move from the "evaluation phase" to the "execution phase" ASAP.Administration officials have long said that the...
by Rodger Payne | 20 Nov 2009 |
Annually, the University of Louisville awards significant cash prizes in five fields: Music Composition, Religion, Education, Psychology, and World Order.For about 15 years, I have directed the administration of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Basically, I chair the initial review committee that is housed within the Department of Political Science.The Award's basic purpose is described on our webpage:Submissions will be...
by Charli Carpenter | 19 Nov 2009 |
I won't be blogging much until I get back from the west coast, where I've gone this week to assist my colleague Alex Montgomery with his nuclear diplomacy simulation at Reed College. As luck would have it, this issue of International Studies Perspectives has a useful article on simulations as a pedagogical tool in IR classes. This article reflects some experiences in teaching International Relations (IR) by using films to supplement the use of...
by Bill Petti | 17 Nov 2009 |
Two topics that are right up my alley: international conflict and data visualization. Put the two together, and you have a truly thought provoking piece of work.David McCandless is a "visual journalist" who specializes in visualizing data across numerous subjects. In his latest work for The Guardian's Data Blog, David visualize a ton of data regarding troop deaths and injuries, size of forces by country, as well as the civilian toll in...
by Charli Carpenter | 16 Nov 2009 |
Earlier I blogged about the importance and absence of data disaggregating unintentional civilian deaths from total civilian deaths in wars worldwide. To get a preliminary handle on this question, I examined a dataset on civilian victimization developed by Alexander Downes at Duke University for his study on why governments target civilians in war. His dataset includes 100 interstate wars and runs from 1823-2003. It includes low, medium and high...
by Jon Western | 11 Nov 2009 |
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has just been released. According to the BBC:Analysts believe the game could sell as many as 5m units globally on its first day.It is the sixth installment in the Call of Duty series and gives players the chance to be a member of a military strike force that takes on a Russian ultra-nationalist terrorist group.It sees the combat team traveling to Russia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Brazil and into orbit, in an...
by Rodger Payne | 11 Nov 2009 |
Back in fall 2007 and spring 2008, former Duck blogger Peter Howard was carefully following reports about the apparent Israeli attack on an alleged Syrian nuclear facility of some sort. I just linked Peter's last post on the event, from April 2008, and to a Duck search result that should unearth his entire series of posts. The Israel target was quite mysterious and the rumors associated with the attack far outnumbered the facts.The German...
by Charli Carpenter | 9 Nov 2009 |
This is an important question from a legal and humanitarian perspective. In legal terms, targeting civilians is a war crime. Accidentally killing or maiming them in the pursuit of legitimate military objectives is, well, just too bad. So in judging government's records of compliance with the law, one needs to measure the difference. There are policy ramifications to such measurements as well. Over time, atrocities against civilians seem to be...