by Peter | 19 May 2009 |
There is a massive fight simmering just below the surface here in DC, one that looks to get really ugly, really quick, and with major long-term consequences for national politics. No, its not the pending SCOTUS confirmation fight, but the battle over the Pentagon budget. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has taken on one of the most powerful and entrenched political forces in Washington, the Defense spending lobby, and as Eisenhower had warned,...
by Charli Carpenter | 19 May 2009 |
This is an open thread about President Obama's remarks about abortion at Notre Dame's Commencement Speech. Comment away.
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 18 May 2009 | Featured
I finally managed to see the new Star Trek film yesterday. Unlike the terrible travesty that was the Watchmen film -- to which I had such an adverse reaction that I still can't manage to grind out a coherent blog post about it, despite having tried on multiple occasions to do so -- this re-imagination and re-invigoration of the franchise actually got it right, in my view: what we saw on the screen combined the best elements of classic Star Trek...
by Charli Carpenter | 16 May 2009 |
The latest Human Rights and Human Welfare roundtable is online at University of Denver's Korbel School website. This month, I and several other human rights scholars debate the value of Julie Flint and Alex de Waal's recent article condemning the International Criminal Court and, in particular, its Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo.My two cents:"Let us assume that Moreno-Ocampo erred, as has been ably described, in failing to launch a...
by Dan Nexon | 14 May 2009 |
by Charli Carpenter | 14 May 2009 |
My reaction to Obama's decision to block the release of detainee photos is up at LGM. In brief: It's not pictures that inflame anti-American opinion. Brutality has done that already. And trying to cover up that bad behavior only makes it look as if the new Administration is complicit. In short, this is the worst tactical decision I've seen Obama make so far, and I fear the grave consequences of associating his administration with the worst...
by Dan Nexon | 13 May 2009 |
Peter:What it is not, however, is a Realist argument. To continue my picking on Walt, if you're going to run around calling yourself a realist and writing a realist blog, for cryin' out loud, advance a realist argument from time to time!!!Lets review: Realism assumes an anarchic world of rational state actors maximizing security, defined as sufficient military force to defend the integrity of a the state. In that anarchic environment, systemic...
by Dan Nexon | 13 May 2009 |
I identified with Calvin. Now my sympathies lie at least equally with his parents.Spurred by Calinball rules via DeLong.
by Peter | 13 May 2009 |
Stephen Walt asks a very interesting question: why does the US overspend on defense? This is a very smart question, the kind you need to be contrarian theorist to ask. Given the global downturn in the economy, you'd think defense spending would absorb its fair share of pain.As is well documented, the US spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. And yet, worried that China may be less than 5 years away from sending a sub...
by Peter | 12 May 2009 |
As if there wasn't enough depressing evidence about the poor state of the academy, Inside Higher Ed covers a new report documenting the disappearance of tenure track jobs. (H/T to Craig)Take home point: Only 27% of all higher education faculty jobs are tenure or tenure-tracked positions.The overall number of faculty and instructor slots grew from 1997 to 2007, but nearly two-thirds of that growth was in "contingent" positions -- meaning those...
by Charli Carpenter | 9 May 2009 |
It's not going to get on anyone's list of top ten IR movies, that's for sure. But that doesn't mean I'm disappointed, exactly... more like a little shell-shocked.Lawyers, Guns and Money doesn't have a peekaboo function, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone else, so my reactions from seeing the film only once so far are hidden safely below the fold. Foreign policy subtext - decidedly post-Global War on Terror. The original Federation always...
by Peter | 9 May 2009 |
There’s been a lot of discussion about the Movies and IR, and I couldn’t resist a list. Plus, there’s a Bond movie on TCM—Goldfinger and now Thunderball—and I think Walt is crazy for leaving out war and spy movies, as that’s as much the stuff of IR as anything else.I’m not a film critic. A lot of the movies I love aren’t “brilliant” by film critic standards but are nonetheless fun to watch, and are very illustrative of particular concepts or...