Dan encouraged me to mention a new book that some Duck readers might find interesting, Hitting First: Preventive Force in U.S. Security Strategy (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006), edited by William W. Keller and Gordon R. Mitchell of Pitt's Matthew Ridgway Center for International Security Studies. Their chapter 1, "Preemption, Prevention, Prevarication" is available on the press website.Disclosure: the volume includes my chapter,...

"We're talking a whole lot worse than Three Mile Island," he said. "If an insider knows where the target sets are, in other words, the way to damage the reactor or to blow a hole in the spent fuel pool, it would be a hell of lot worse than anything we've ever seen in this country before." --- Peter Stockman, Senior Investigator, Project on Government Oversight (POGO)Widely read blogger-journalists Kevin Drum and Andrew Sullivan are noting the...

Ned Lamont's primary victory over Joe-Mentum Lieberman was certainly seen as a watershed political moment, where the anti-war message toppled an incumbent. Given that incumbents in Congress have something like a 90-95% success rate in re-election (actually, I think its higher than that, but i'm blogging at 6 am and not inclined to look it up), defeating a sitting Senator, former Presidential candidate and Vice-Presidential nominee is a pretty...

An addendum (and yes, I still have internet access) to my post on progressive foreign policy. Ron Suskind, in his interview with Salon, gets it mostly right:One of the things that I think is clear about the moment we're in now is that in a way this is a new kind of war, a new kind of conflict we're fighting now, with a kind of global insurgency. We know insurgencies, we've seen many of them through history, and very often it's the case where...

The movers are here. My internet connection is scheduled to cut out any time now. I've had a great time at OSU. The Mershon Center is a wonderful institution, with terrific academics and staff. They've built an exciting intellectual climate. Thanks to everyone for having me out and for making my stay so interesting and productive. If you are looking for post-doctoral fellowships in international studies, then you should definitely apply to...

Numerous updates below the fold.The AP quotes Bush's address on the foiled airline bombing plot:"This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation," President Bush declared.Anyone who reads blogs or listens to right-wing talk programs knows that "Islamic Fascists"--and its clumsy neologistic spinoff, "Islamofascists"--has long been a staple of right-wing rhetoric....

LGM has been doing the important work that I might be tackling if I weren't in the middle of moving: taking on the "ghosts of 1972" interpretation of Lamont's victory over Lieberman. Scott tackles the problems with the underlying story (Marc Schulman articulates a more reasonable version of the 1972 analogy, but I still think he's wrong). Rob eviscerates Jacob Weisberg's muddled column.I have to wonder what kind of political activity Jacob...

Students in my Intro to IR Research and World Politics classes have, on occasion, heard me rant about Wikipedia and how it is not an appropriate research source for writing papers. While useful for background information and links to other useful sites, the fundamental nature of a Wiki undercuts its reliability as a source for scholarship. Students in that class will also be familiar with the three broad approaches to knowledge that I use as...

Some thoughts that I want to throw on the table. I do not necessarily endorse the following proposal, but I think it is worth considering.1. Hezbollah is a greater threat to Israel than the Palestinians. Hezbollah is a more effective fighting force than Hamas and other Palestinian militants. Hezbollah has greater capacity to inflict punishment on Israel. Hezbollah takes a harder line on Israel than the majority of Palestinian do.2. Hezbollah...

My unscientific observation is that historians tend to be much snarkier than political scientists. Or, at least, they're better at it.These were the words of the arch-royalist Pierre de Belloy, whose Conferences des edicts de pacification (1600) has the distinction of being the longest and perhaps the most tedious tract to issue from the toleration controversy of the sixteenth century.-- E.M. Beame, "The Limits of Toleration in...

I wrote too soon.Taylor Owen points my attention to Dershowitz's latest, um, foray into social science.The oft-reported mantra that "occupation causes terrorism" is false. Occupations, like Israel's presence in the West Bank, are often the necessary result of attacks by insurgent groups and terrorists - not the other way around.History and contemporary experience make this clear.First, Palestinian terrorism began well before there was any...