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...
by Peter | 2 Nov 2006 |
The New York Times published today a chart obtained from a classified military briefing that shows how the US military is measuring Iraq and charting its descent toward chaos.This chart is fascinating on so many levels.The first is the most obvious. The US military paints a bad and worsening picture of sectarian violence in Iraq. Quite disturbing, actually. Moreover, this is not new-- they have been monitoring this for some time. The article...
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...