by Rodger Payne | 1 Nov 2006 | Featured
If you missed IR scholar John Mueller's appearance on the Daily Show, watch it soon on the Comedy Central website.Mueller has been writing a great deal about the overblown threat from terrorism -- and he managed not only to plug his current book, but also his next one!Incidentally, that next book is going to be The Cold War as Farce. Perhaps Nayef Samhat and I will produce The Comedy of Global Politics first. Incidentally, I've been on a...
by Peter | 30 Oct 2006 | Featured
Always be wary of office furniture that comes in a nice compact box and then says "assembly required." This weekend was the weekend to reclaim the basement and reclaim some functional workspace at home. For the past 10 months, i've been using a half-sized card table as a "desk" in the basement. The original plan when we threw out the desk from the old office (donated, actually) and moved the computer downstairs to the then newly finished...
by Rodger Payne | 28 Oct 2006 | Featured
Rob Farley of LGM has a thoughtful "web exclusive" article up at The American Prospect that everyone here should read. Here's his question: Does the justification for the invasion of Afghanistan hold up in retrospect, or have our difficulties there belied the wisdom of this war in the same way the disastrous occupation of Iraq has underscored the folly of that one?Again, I urge everyone to read the entire piece.That does not, however, stop me...
by Rodger Payne | 27 Oct 2006 |
Film #10 "Wag the Dog" (1997). We viewed it Tuesday.Reading for Thursday: Jane Kellett Cramer, "'Just Cause' or Just Politics? U.S. Panama Invasion and Standardizing Qualitative Tests for Diversionary War," 32 Armed Forces & Society, Spring 2006, pp. 178-201.The students and I are in the midst of watching a number of comedies about global politics in order to consider various critical perspectives. After all, among other virtues, comedies...
by Peter | 27 Oct 2006 | Featured
In my research methods class, I assign David Kang's fantastic article, "International Relations Theory and the Second Korean War." Its a very well written, well argued piece that criticizes IR theorists who have repeatedly been wrong in predicting a second Korean War and then offers a detailed analysis of why the arguments are flawed. One of his key points is that many analysts smuggle in mis-placed assumptions about North Korea that leads them...
by Rodger Payne | 25 Oct 2006 |
I commented on this point more than three years ago, but since President Bush said something dubious again today, it seemed worth repeating. First, here's what Bush said at his news conference, with the egregious part in red: Over the past three years I have often addressed the American people to explain developments in Iraq. Some of these developments were encouraging, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein, the elections in which 12 million...
by Peter | 23 Oct 2006 |
Last week, we were treated to a stunning admission from the head General in Iraq. What he said was not all that stunning--anyone who has been paying attention could see that things in Iraq were getting bad-- but stunning in that he actually said it. As reported in the WaPo:A two-month U.S.-Iraqi military operation to stem sectarian bloodshed and insurgent attacks in Baghdad has failed to reduce the violence, which has surged 22 percent in the...
by Bill Petti | 21 Oct 2006 |
Pat Tillman’s brother Kevin has published a stirring letter in which he makes his case for a change of leadership on November 7th. A portion is presented below:Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.Somehow those...
by Rodger Payne | 19 Oct 2006 |
Film #9 "The Great Dictator" (1940). We viewed it Tuesday.Readings for Thursday: J. Michael Waller, "Ridicule as a weapon," White Paper No. 7, Institute of World Politics, January 2006.This is a terrific Charlie Chaplin film, which satirizes Nazi Germany under Adolph Hitler -- and takes on Mussolini and war as well. Roger Ebert's review of the film accurately describes Chaplin's portrayal of Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomania. Chaplin, writes...
by Bill Petti | 19 Oct 2006 |
John Maine got the job done last night and "the igniter" finally got going, hitting a leadoff homerun against Chris Carpenter. It's down to 27 outs. I'll give you three guesses what I'll be doing at 8:19 tonight.LET'S GO METS!That's all.
by Dan Nexon | 18 Oct 2006 |
If you haven't guessed by now, I'm kind of a sucker for the Decemberists. I rarely buy music anymore -- money's a bit tight while my wife is in school -- but I still ordered The Crane Wife the day it was released. Any band that produces a video centered around a prep-school model UN (and spoofing so many different genres at once it will make your head spin) and could give us "The Mariner's Revenge" deserves a great deal of academic-geek...
by Bill Petti | 17 Oct 2006 |
On Monday, Slate ran a three-part book review by Bill Emmott and Fareed Zakaria in which they discuss Ian Bremmer's new book The J-Curve, which purports to explain the difficulties of political transitions. Now I have not read the book, but this discription of Bremmer's thesis struck me:Bremmer's argument is that history shows that the most stable countries are often also the most closed: North Korea, Cuba, China under Mao, Soviet Russia. But...