by Rodger Payne | 9 Aug 2007 |
Anne-Marie Slaughter, the Dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, blogged this yesterday: Here is my nightmare. The Cheneyites succeed in creating a situation in which Bush does decide to bomb Iran. Iran retaliates, as they openly threaten to do, with terrorist attacks against us on U.S. soil. That tilts the election. I can imagine a Karl Rove political calculation that would buttress a Cheney-Addington...
by Maia Gemmill | 9 Aug 2007 |
Are you following the tale of mysterious missile that Georgian officials claim was launched by a Russian plane violating Georgian air space?The Russians are counter-claiming Georgian provocateuring, which seems patently silly. Both sides are offering a variety of reasons why they could not possibly have been the source of the missile. Now, Kommersant is claiming that the Georgians, after having examined the remains of the missile and declared...
by Maia Gemmill | 7 Aug 2007 |
I'm currently reading about the economic impact of the demographic shift (i.e., aging populations) of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. One of the reforms being advocated to improve the solvency of the pension systems is, of course, raising the retirement age, which in most of these countries is 60 or lower. Raising the retirement age has been a common theme in discussions about Social Security reform in the US--the problem in a...
by Rodger Payne | 7 Aug 2007 |
Since July 1, I've been "Acting Chair" in my academic Department -- and I'm not in a Theater Department. If I worked in sports, I'd probably be called the interim, chair. A colleague who had served as department leader through nine years was tired of the job and announced last year that the faculty needed to find a successor.The guy who stepped forward was due for a sabbatical -- and leaves for a Fulbright in Hong Kong next week.Thus, my...
by Maia Gemmill | 6 Aug 2007 |
Gazprom has a problem. We often read about Russia wielding its energy power as a political tool, cutting off energy supplies hither and thither to punish political foes. Last winter's dispute with Belarus did not fit the usual template. Although the script was similar to the dispute with Ukraine--Gazprom looks to double energy prices in new contract--the scenery was rather different. Belarus has been one of Russia's closest most reliable allies...
by Peter | 5 Aug 2007 |
Its always exciting when foreign policy comes front and center in an election. Usually its "The Economy" or some other domestic issue that separates the candidates, so its particularly interesting that the Democrats have turned to foreign policy as the first major issue on which the major candidates have (or have at least manufactured) a stark difference. Today's installment of Ducking the Issues examines the Clinton - Obama dust-up over...
by Peter | 3 Aug 2007 |
Does it ever feel like you work here? Sometimes I wonder if I do.....
by Maia Gemmill | 30 Jul 2007 |
Americans tend to have a very simplistic view of the world. For example: we are opposed to Evil Dictatorship. You are opposed to Evil Dictatorship. We are Liberal Democrats. Therefore you must be Liberal Democrats, too. I suspect that we are not alone in this tendency, but it has frequently gotten us into trouble. We should be careful not to assume that all those who oppose Dictatorships are George Washingtons.Foreign Policy's Passport blog has...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 27 Jul 2007 |
For members of generation X like myself, Star Wars is one of the constitutive myths of our childhoods. The Force, lightsaber duels, the Millennium Falcon, "I am your father," "he's my brother," "I've got a bad feeling about this," and so on . . . this is what we grew up with. And because Star Wars was such a mega-hit, the characters and tropes and themes spawned a whole slew of allusions and invocations that continue to infiltrate popular...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 25 Jul 2007 |
I was going to reply to Peter's comment on my last post about Harry Potter in the comments section, but it started to get too long and I thought I'd better make an actual post out of it. I am also going to try to do this without revealing anything of great significance from the plot of the seventh book (which I finished yesterday), but I can't guarantee that I won't let something slip.Also, at this point I am just going to be replying to...
by Peter | 25 Jul 2007 |
Apparently, I wasn't the only person who thought that this might be when it happened...
by Maia Gemmill | 24 Jul 2007 |
Today's IHT has possibly one of the most idiotic commentaries about US-Russian relations that I've read in a long time. In this column, [sorry, it's behind the pay wall] John Vinocur essentially places all the blame for the current deterioration in US-Russian relations squarely on Russia's shoulders.He writes:Does anybody out there remember Dick Cheney's harangue in Lithuania last year, the growlingly bellicose one that the Russians regard as...