As I alluded to in my last post, I've been doing exploratory research for a possible blog piece on the general vapidness of the "network" metaphor in a great many popular writings on terrorism and global change. In the process, I stumbled upon a Belmont Club post containing this gem:However perfectly networked the US military battlespace ever becomes, it is still an instrumentality of a state, an organizational type that took form in the Treaty...

Part of the Duck's ongoing mission is to highlight articles in academic international-relations journals that speak to topics of general concern among the blogging and blog-reading community. In that spirit, I want to call attention to the latest issue of International Security, which includes a provocative article by Alex Montgomery.Alex is a good friend of mine from our days together at the Center for International Security and Cooperation,...

Speaking of orgiastic consumerism, here's EB Game's order page for the Xbox360:I guess you can't say they didn't warn you (although the duplicative "please read the bottom of the page for important information" suggests they weren't always quite so explicit that ordering an Xbox360 from them for Christmas wouldn't be such a good idea).Of course, my careful investigations reveals that EB Games is a "Happy Holidays" kind of company. That explains...

Another year, another faux controversy about the secular humanists, liberal atheists, and assorted no-goodniks stealing Christmas from the righteous and god-faring. Their methods haven't changed much from last year: preventing municipalities from establishing religious icons on public property without equal time for other religious displays and, most shockingly of all, forcing the employess of megacorporations to say "Happy Holidays!" rather...

What would happen to Iraq if America withdrew almost immediately?In other words, what would happen if Representative Murtha's proposal was implemented? Gary Boatwright at Seeing the Forest is taking this question seriously -- as is Nir Rosen in The Atlantic Monthly.The conventional wisdom, is that the violence would worsen as Iraq moves toward civil war. The Iraqi government would be unable to govern and Iraq might become a failed state. That's...

[updated on 12.4.05]I know I promised to comment on the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, but to be honest it isn't worth the effort and I don't know if I have the strength. Those who read this blog are intelligent enough to see the Victory Stratey for what it is--a transparent attempt to mollify the administration's critics and reverse the declining trend in public opinion for the war.The 'strategy' is simply a collection of regurgitated,...

President Bush spoke at the US Naval academy today. His theme? Well, Bush wants to close off talk of troop withdrawal from Iraq:These decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the good judgment of our commanders -- not by artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington. (Applause.)Some are calling for a deadline for withdrawal. Many advocating an artificial timetable for withdrawing our...

I don't have time to comment on the document yet since I just got my hands on it, but I will definitely post my thoughts soon. In the meantime, here is a link to the full-text.Filed as: Iraq, Exit Strategy

An excellent piece by Justin Webb at the BBC on the ongoing war on science by evangelical christians in the US and its impact on politics and the Republican party.Patrick has previously blogged about so-called "intelligent design" and I don't think I can improve on his points, suffice it to say that I am fervent supporter of evolution and rational science. Whether or not there is a higher power is a question beyond my faculties--agnostic is the...

Why, oh why do people continue to assert that the US is required in any way to defend Taiwan in the case of an attack by mainland China? The latest example of this fallacy comes from an AFP report from Monday. The article recounts Chinese President Hu Jintao's restatement of China's position on Taiwanese independence. At the end of the article we come across this statement:Despite switching diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979,...

Josh Marshall asks if Abu Musab Zarqawi is really the mastermind behind Mesopotamian jihadism.It it is hard not to see this information in the light of the fairly constant tendency through the War on Terror to build up varous Terrorist Masterminds, who become the focus of most or all news reportage, then trail off into nothing. Not infrequently, they have an uncanny resemblance to characters out of 1984. And with Zarqawi particularly there is a...