by Rodger Payne | 2 Dec 2008 |
Colgate University Professor Michael Johnston has won the 2009 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. The prize is worth $200,000.The press release describes the award-winning ideas from Professor Johnston's Cambridge University Press book: Johnston, a political science professor at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., earned the prize for ideas he set forth in his 2005 book, Syndromes of Corruption: Wealth, Power and...
by Peter | 1 Dec 2008 |
Today Obama formally announced the core of his National Security team: Clinton at State, Gen. Jones as SAPNSA, and Gates to remain at DoD. It’s a team of experienced insiders, centrists, pragmatists, and even Republicans. Some have asked the obvious question: Is this Change you can Believe in for national security and foreign policy?The selection of Jones is particularly interesting. He breaks a recent trend in the National Security Advisor...
by Rodger Payne | 1 Dec 2008 |
What are you watching?I'm tuned to the History Channel's "Next Nostradamus":Two men sharing startling visions of the future possess distinctly different backgrounds: Michel de Nostradamus was a French apothecary and healer in the 16th century; he would become the most famous seer in history. His 21st century counterpart is Dr. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a renowned political scientist who teaches game theory at New York University and Stanford....
by Peter | 1 Dec 2008 |
El Pollo Rico is back!!! Let the rejoicing commence!I just ate the best chicken one can buy in the Washington DC metro area. After a weekend of excellent food, this was perhaps the best thing I ate (with the possible exception of my pumpkin pies, those were quite nice and I do love pumpkin pie). If it weren't raining, I'd consider shouting from the rooftop.El Pollo Rico makes rotisserie chicken--that's it--and its the best around. It was a...
by Peter | 29 Nov 2008 |
Many years ago, I attended a talk by Michael Shapiro. He was doing something on memory and place, and showed a clip from some Steve Martin movie--Father of the Bride, maybe II--and a colleague of mine, ever the concerned young scholar, said Yes, but Professor Shapiro, over in Bosnia (which was going on at the time), people are dying, and here you are showing movies. What does this tell us that we should do to stop that?And he replied: Who is...
by Charli Carpenter | 29 Nov 2008 |
In a Reuters op-ed yesterday, Bernd Debusmann makes "the business case for high seas piracy":As far as illicit businesses with low risk and high rewards go, it doesn't get much better than piracy on the high seas. The profit margins can easily surpass those of the cocaine trade. The risks? "There is no reason not to be a pirate," according to U.S. Vice Admiral William Gortney, who commands the U.S. navy's Fifth Fleet. "The vessel I'm trying to...
by Rodger Payne | 28 Nov 2008 |
Last night, at a couple of gatherings with family and friends, some people were speculating that Afghanistan could become Barack Obama's Vietnam -- or Iraq. A blogger at the socialist Monthly Review made this precise charge last summer. Should we reasonably fear this possibility?First, events since election day seem to assure that Obama's campaign promise about Iraq withdrawal will be fulfilled.Since I posted about "Obama's exit strategy?" just...
by Charli Carpenter | 28 Nov 2008 |
If you're like me (or Dan) and you live in the U.S., you spent much of yesterday's holiday feeling lucky to be living in America and not in Goma (or Mumbai. Or Darfur.) Well, in the spirit of Dan's suggestion in his last post, note this appeal from Avaaz.org.The brutal war in Congo is escalating, as a terrified Congolese people plead for Europe to send peacekeepers to protect them. European leaders are wavering as their council meeting...
by Dan Nexon | 27 Nov 2008 |
Rob Farley Scott Lemieux (sorry, Scott):Somehow, this doesn't seem like the right time for a chipper Thanksgiving greeting...The terror attack on Mumbai certainly sucks the cheer out of Thanksgiving.In fact, almost every Thanksgiving something terrible is happening somewhere in the world, whether headline grabbing or not. For over ten years, to take but two examples, it has been a pretty good bet that unspeakably awful (and probably...
by Peter | 27 Nov 2008 |
Its Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays. I'm in Ohio, visiting family in Cleveland and Canton. Driving out here Tuesday night was quite the adventure, there's nothing like a minor snow storm on the Pennsylvania turn pike. When we finally did arrive at 1:30am, the driveway was slick and my car couldn't make it up! There's nothing like shoveling a driveway at 1:30am. There's snow on the ground here--something that is a fact of life in...
by Charli Carpenter | 27 Nov 2008 |
Daniel Sekulitch provides an update on the pirate "mothership" sunk by India last week in a much-trumpeted police action on the high seas:"It has now been confirmed by the IMB's Piracy Reporting Centre that the vessel sunk last week by an Indian warship was not a pirate mothership but, rather, a fishing boat that had been hijacked by pirates. The Thai-owned fishing boat, Ekawat Nava 5, had been commandeered early on November 18 and the crew had...
by Dan Nexon | 26 Nov 2008 |
The New York Times reports:A parliamentary hearing on the origins of the war between Georgia and Russia in August ended in a furor on Tuesday after a former Georgian diplomat testified that Georgian authorities were responsible for starting the conflict.Erosi Kitsmarishvili, Tbilisi’s former ambassador to Moscow, testified for three hours before he was shouted down by members of Parliament.A former confidant of President Mikheil Saakashvili,...