by Dan Nexon | 7 Apr 2009 |
Jacob Weisberg reminds us that conventional wisdom is often wrong, and then isolates seven instances of "received wisdom" that might prove wrong.A lot of our premises have turned out to be wrong lately. I'm talking not about evanescent bits of conventional wisdom that have shifted but about overarching assumptions that were widely shared across the political spectrum—big things that experts and nonexperts agreed about—until they were proved...
by Dan Nexon | 6 Apr 2009 |
Princeton University Press officially released The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change last week, but copies have yet to arrive at online retailers. However, you can preorder the book from Amazon right now, at a significant 27% discount, which brings the price down from $29.95 to 22.01 [update at 21h10m: currently 33% off at $20.21; gotta love that algorithm]. Plus, if you...
by Peter | 2 Apr 2009 |
The G-20 is wrapping up in London, and they seem to have successfully issued a communique that is actually more than straight boilerplate non-commitment.My hope is that the reforms discussed for the IMF begin a re-fastening of the embedded-liberalism that has served as the foundation of the international order and an institutionalization of this new compact.The global economic turmoil is revealing two key structural facets of the international...
by Rodger Payne | 2 Apr 2009 |
Imagine for a moment that the world is a community of states. For decades, European states have lived just across the pond from some of the richest and most powerful people in the world: the Americans. While the Europeans have generally been on good terms with their neighbors, they often admit in private that the Americans can be loud, bullying, and inconsiderate of community needs.For example, Americans produce more pollution than anyone else...
by Randy Waterhouse | 31 Mar 2009 |
Pakistani Taliban Leader Threatens Attack on WashingtonCompellence in its purest form: a threat to inflict pain if an adversary does not alter their current behavior. Is the threat credible? It's unclear at this time, although US officials are publicly dismissing it. Other threats of late seem more credible--although the FedEx strategy is an example of deterrence, not compellence.And no, I am not morally equating FedEx and Mehsud--just pointing...
by Charli Carpenter | 30 Mar 2009 |
Complex Terrain Lab's Symposium on Peter Singer's Wired for War kicked off today with opening comments by Singer and my post on the politics of global norm construction re. autonomous weapons. They've got a fantastic line-up of bloggers over there, including Ken Anderson of Opinio Juris and Matt Armstrong of Mountain Runner, so check it out.
by Charli Carpenter | 28 Mar 2009 |
Suzanne Katzenstein and Jack Snyder are calling for “human rights pragmatism” in this month’s The National Interest. Their article, "Expediency of the Angels," draws on quantitative human rights literature showing the limits of “naming and shaming” and specifying the conditions under which human rights strategies can be most effective – in particular when activists speak to the power and interests of “spoilers” and construct schemes that enable...
by Peter | 26 Mar 2009 |
Another mysterious air strike has come to light. Via the NYT, we have links to reports that in January, a "major power" conducted a significant air strike in Sudan on a convoy of trucks supposedly transporting weapons from Sudan to Hamas in Gaza. CBS reports that while Sudanese officials have accused the US of carrying out the strike, US officials hint that Israel was behind the attack. Haaretz reports that Israeli officials, while not...
by Rodger Payne | 25 Mar 2009 |
Two months ago -- before the Inaugural -- I blogged "The 'war on terror' is over." At that time, the British Foreign Secretary said that the UK no longer used the phrase.Now, apparently, the US will stop using the phrase as well: The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase "global war on terror," a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor.In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense...
by Dan Nexon | 25 Mar 2009 |
Tim Burke expresses his outrage at the oversized sense of entitlement reflected in Jake DeSantis' letter of resignation from AIG. Next, two commentators show up and demonstrate not only a sense of entitlement, but a total disconnect from the way the economy works for most Americans, that makes DeSantis look like Francis of Assisi.All worth reading, except for my own comment. Tim wrote a better one, apparently at the same exact time I crafted...
by Dan Nexon | 24 Mar 2009 |
What should we call this?FedEx in January announced it had renegotiated a deal to buy 777 Freighters from Boeing over the next decade. The company increased its order to 30 planes from 15 and agreed on an option for another 15 planes.The labor-related cancellation provision came to light in FedEx's filing on third quarter earnings. "Our obligation to purchase these additional aircraft is conditioned upon there being no event that causes FedEx...
by Peter | 24 Mar 2009 |
A friend writes,* "What the end of hegemony looks like..."In another indication that China is growing increasingly concerned about holding huge dollar reserves, the head of its central bank has called for the eventual creation of a new international currency reserve to replace the dollar.In a paper released Monday, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said a new currency reserve system controlled by the International Monetary...