by Dan Nexon | 23 Nov 2006 |
Despite the many important global developments of the last few weeks, I haven't been blogging much lately. Nor have I accomplished a great deal of the last substantive rewrite I need to do for my book manuscript.Today, I hope, marked the culmination of my increasing lack of focus.Yes, I did wear these shoes all day. I discovered them when my daughter wanted to walk on my shoes and pointed out that "you're wearing this shoe on this foot, and...
by Peter | 21 Nov 2006 |
We now have 3 major review panels asking "serious" and "hard" questions about the future of US policy in Iraq. There is the infamous Baker Commission, a high-level group within the National Security Council, and a top-secret review within the Pentagon. Despite all of these "outside-the-box" efforts to take a "fresh look" at Iraq, the supposed solutions are seeming rather conventional. In great Washington policy tradition:The Pentagon group has,...
by Rodger Payne | 17 Nov 2006 |
Film #13 "Gandhi" (1982). We viewed it Tuesday.Reading for Thursday: Sharp, Gene, There Are Realistic Alternatives (Boston: Albert Einstein Institution, 2003). Photo credit: U.S. Department of State"Gandhi" is an outstanding film about the public life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, often called Mohatma for "great soul." The work won 8 Academy Awards, including Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director. Unfortunately, at 188 minutes,...
by Bill Petti | 17 Nov 2006 |
We have all heard the charge before that some in the public sphere always “Blame America First” whenever there is a negative outcome in world politics. Critics charge that these folks are quick to find some connection, however remote or irrational, between American action (or inaction) and the ills of the world. To be fair this characterization is obviously a stereotype, however it isn’t entirely inaccurate. There are certainly some voices that...
by Rodger Payne | 14 Nov 2006 |
Soon, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by longtime Bush family friend James Baker (and former Indiana House member Lee Hamilton, who filled a similar role on the 9/11 Commission), is going to report its recommendations about the future of the US war. Inside the beltway, the great hope is that the 10-member team will "solve" the wrenching problems concerning the future of America's role in Iraq. As reported in today's Christian...
by Dan Nexon | 11 Nov 2006 | Featured
Bennett Richardson of the Christian Science Monitor reports that some LDP politicians are raising the nuclear issue in Japan. The article provides plenty of food for thought about the impact of North Korea's nuclear test on Japanese politics, but it also includes a rather strange quotation from a Japanse academicAlarmist views have been continually wrong in the past and they are wrong again now," says Shunji Taoka, a defense writer and former...
by Rodger Payne | 10 Nov 2006 |
Film #12 "Network" (1976). We viewed it Tuesday.Readings for Thursday: Michael Massing, "Now They Tell Us," 51 The New York Review of Books, February 26, 2004.PIPA (Program on International Policy) and Knowledge Networks Poll, "Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War," October 2, 2003.I selected this film for a number of reasons. First, it highlights the power of transnational corporations in global politics. Arthur Jensen, head of a...
by Peter | 8 Nov 2006 |
Last night's election seems to have been the political wave that some had anticipated. Democrats won big-- taking not just the House and Senate (it seems), but also governorships and other local races nationwide.Aside from all the post-election analysis that will be coming out in the next few days, 2 points stick out from an International Relations perspective.1. Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil once famously said "all politics is local"...
by Dan Nexon | 8 Nov 2006 |
Let's all say a warm welcome to our old friend, Checks and Balances. You may not remember him -- it seems like he's been gone forever -- but he used to play a key role in our Constitutional Architecture.I sure hope he sticks around for a while.Image source: https://www2.semo.edu/vending/PS103/us%20checks%20and%20balances.jpg
by Dan Nexon | 7 Nov 2006 |
Shorter Ken Mehlman, Rick Santorum, and assorted other Republican talking heads:Lots of bad things are happening. Iran just tested advanced missiles. Anti-US forces are on the rise in Latin America. Terrorism is on the rise. We've made the world more dangerous. Vote for us!I leave the natural conclusion up to our readers.Don't forget to vote.
by Dan Nexon | 5 Nov 2006 |
I often strive to be evenhanded. I really do. At other times my anger and frustration at American foreign policy leads me to lose any sense of dispassion. With Hanson, I fear, evenhandedness is impossible. In Friday's National Review Online, the classicist and yeoman farmer plumbs new depths of surreal self-parody. How can one mock Hanson's reminders of all the good things that have happened in Iraq, the Middle East, and South Asia? The Iraqis,...
by Rodger Payne | 3 Nov 2006 |
Film #11 "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964). We viewed it Tuesday.Readings for Thursday: Lee Butler, "The Risks of Nuclear Deterrence: From Superpowers to Rogue Leaders" National Press Club, February 2, 1998.Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy," Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006."Dr. Strangelove" is one of my all-time favorite films and its powerful 40-year old critique...