by Rodger Payne | 16 May 2008 |
Conservatives have a fundamental misunderstanding of appeasement. While it should refer to specific concessional policies offered to aggressors in order to avoid war, conservatives use the phrase haphazardly as a political bludgeon against domestic foes who favor negotiation and arms control instruments over more hawkish policies. The inevitable comparison is to Neville Chamberlain and Adolph Hitler.Everyone knows how that turned out.In 1988,...
by Charli Carpenter | 15 May 2008 |
This month I am teaching (for the first time) an intensive summer course. Since the topic is the "Politics of International Human Rights," and since I'm forcing my students to blog, all my blog posts for this month will concern human rights in one way or another.Let's begin with news from the American Political Science Association. APSA, which had contracted with New Orleans for its 2012 convention, is under pressure from a number of APSA...
by Rodger Payne | 14 May 2008 |
According to President George W. Bush, the U.S. has been engaged in a "war on terrorism" for almost the entirety of his presidency. Indeed, he frequently laments the fact that he's been a "war President" despite not knowing in 2000 that that would be his destiny.Critics have often bashed the President for failing to urge the American people to make common sacrifices in support of that war. Even sympathetic voices say that soldiers have made...
by Peter | 13 May 2008 |
In a clear case of what would be called stating the obvious if it were said by the leader of any other organization other than the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a clear warning to the military and its industrial partners on Tuesday that expensive, new conventional weapons must prove their value to current conflicts, marked by insurgency and terrorism, if they hope for a place in future budgets.because the headline "Gates...
by Rodger Payne | 12 May 2008 |
A few weeks ago, ABC News (Australia) reported the following from AFP: "Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity," UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Here's the logic: Using biological materials (like corn) for energy production increases global food prices because it increases market demand. Biofuel production also increases competition for arable land and potentially encourages...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 12 May 2008 | Featured
Recent days have seen a number of articles like this one from the New York Times, in which it is claimed that people are changing their commuting patterns because of the high price of gas. The equation is pretty simple: higher gas prices = more expensive to drive to and from work = more use of mass transit. Although the article also cites increased urban congestion and the availability of wireless connections (and hence to ability to do online...
by Charli Carpenter | 11 May 2008 |
It is always wonderful, at this time of year, when grading a student’s paper teaches a professor something and leaves him/her thinking anew about ethical ironies in world politics. My MPIA student, Christopher Farnsworth, who is now being recruited by the US Department of Defense, just wrote a fascinating analysis of Congressional policy on the sale of precision-guided munitions for my class on the “Rules of War.” (The paper, which is still in...
by Peter | 11 May 2008 |
With the unfolding of the humanitarian tragedy in Burma following the cyclone, people are once again (re)learning how awful that regime is (by one popular account, the 3rd worst dictatorship in the world—don’t laugh, even Drezner loves the list).Back in The Day, when the Axis of Evil (you remember that—Iran, Iraq, North Korea) came out, I used to go through a little exercise with my students called what makes a country Evil? In particular, I...
by Peter | 9 May 2008 |
An interesting thing happened late Tuesday night and into early Wednesday morning. The narrative that had driven the Democratic Presidential primary contest unraveled before our eyes and a new narrative was cast.Going into the Tuesday primaries in IN and NC, the story was Obama has the lead, Hillary is making a move, and they will probably split the two states with the contest continuing on through June 3. And, the predicted outcome did in fact...
by Charli Carpenter | 9 May 2008 |
At the urging of a friend, I have recently finished consuming the complete box-set of Joss Wheddon's now-defunct Firefly TV series plus the feature film Serenity. (Totally missed this show in 2002 while writing my dissertation.)Though my partner can't quite see what I like about Firefly/Serenity(and didn't accept my claim that I was viewing it as a mere artifact of popular culture - really), truth is it's a damn cool series that should have...
by Rodger Payne | 6 May 2008 |
Political Scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt received a lot of heat for their recent work about the power of the Israeli lobby inside the United States.Mearsheimer and Walt raised issues that are rarely discussed in the United States. Indeed. some describe this topic as "the third rail" of US foreign policy debate.Now that the power of "the Lobby" has been made part of the US public debate, Israel's nuclear weapons program should also...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 6 May 2008 | Featured
Never knew the word "bleg" before today, when Dan asked me to put up the following request from Russell B:"How can I send a bleg to the readers of the Duck? Being the Ultimate Part-timer, I've finally secured myself some rather stable work but have to concoct a course on Globalization and Security (like a globalization version of a traditional Security Studies course). So I'm looking for input, as I have no priors."Any thoughts?