"Servant of the People" The history of the Next President Cue in the Twitter hot-takes in which Ukrainians elected themselves “a TV show star” with “no political experience”. Relax, not all TV stars are racist ignoramuses who want wall and try to spoon state flags. Despite winning the elections with a whopping 73% (and beating his own onscreen presidential score in his hit TV show), this one is different. If you grew up in post-Soviet Russia...
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Understanding Israel
This is a guest post from Brent Sasley, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. He tweets at @besasley. Israel holds a prominent place in the American popular imagination. It’s a major source of news reports, as well as an increasingly partisan issue in American electoral politics. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that American journalists and western journalists more generally seek out American and western analysts and...
Game of Thrones and Alliance Politics
I saw this tweet and could not help but respond: I enjoyed @mchorowitz on GoT Dragon airpower, but it’s time for @RyanGrauer to give the people what they want- an analysis of how Westerosi alliance politics will affect military command structure and battlefield effectiveness. — Jon Askonas (@JonAskonas) April 15, 2019 Given that I have written about both Game of Thrones and alliance politics, I have to enter this discussion. Spoilers...
Clarifying Classic Confusions for IR students
An amazing series of tweets must be re-posted here so that IR profs everywhere can use them for syllabi and for the first day of class. A grateful nation owes Herb Carmen, former naval aviator, a tremendous debt. Casual vs. Causal pic.twitter.com/3N2ftzChkf — Herbal (@HerbCarmen) April 5, 2019 Boarder vs. Border pic.twitter.com/8U3OU7pibl — Herbal (@HerbCarmen) April 5, 2019 Loose vs. Lose pic.twitter.com/qrJ4Z4cJt9— Herbal (@HerbCarmen)...
Editors, we need to talk about robustness checks
It's happened to all of us (or least those of us who do quantitative work). You get back a manuscript from a journal and it's an R&R. Your excitement quickly fades when you start reading the comments. One reviewer gives a grocery list of additional tests they'd like to see: alternate control variables, different estimators, excluded observations. Another complains about the long list of robustness checks already in the manuscript, as it...
Winners of the 2019 Duckies!
This is a guest post from William Kindred Winecoff, Incoming Chairand Brent E. Sasley, Outgoing Chair of the Online Media Caucus The Online Media Caucus’s 2019 Duckies have come and gone. The reception celebrating Online Achievement in International Studies, generously sponsored by SAGE Publishing, included three fascinating Ignite speakers and the presentation of five awards to very deserving scholars. Ignite speakers: Meg Guliford, PhD...
Climate Change as Anarchy: The Need for A New Structural Theory of IR
I arrived in Toronto for ISA on Thursday and went straight to the annual luncheon hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, which featured some of my favorite policy oriented scholars, Kori Schake, Dan Drezner, Charles Kupchan, and Barry Posen. It was a lively discussion about the rise of illiberal nationalism and what it means for world order. Someone from the audience asked about climate change, and the topic got lost in the shuffle. The...
Failed National Military Strategy Analogies
by Anonymous US National Security expert, as part of a new series of posts providing insights into the policy-making process Sir:Per your request at the 0500 stand-up, I have compiled the full set of analogies developed to wrap around the pending National Military Strategy. Staff were told to supply a framework analogy appropriate for supporting the following: Because we cannot be certain when, where, or under what conditions the next fight...
Does IR really have a “culture problem?”
Is it a mistake to push back on a senior scholar (whose work you admire) right before ISA? Maybe. Is it overkill to post twice in one week? Probably (sorry Duck superiors). But I had to say something about this Christian Reus-Smit piece in Foreign Policy--based on his new book--claiming IR doesn't understand culture. It's an example of the sort of well-meaning critique that fails to really engage with work being done in IR, which can divide and...
Citation Conversation Continued
My post on citation got far more engagement than nearly all of the things I have posted over the years, so I thought I would return to the scene of the crime/post. While many academics agreed whole heartily with my take, more than a few did not including folks I respect a great deal. What were their perspectives? Citations are a lousy measure, one with much bias, of academic relevance/achievement, etc.People would rather be contacted so that...
The slow death of realism in IR
It seems like good times have come around again for realists. After decades in the theoretical and empirical doldrums (getting end of Cold War wrong, opposition to war in Iraq, terrorism and COIN) realism is back. The most recent U.S. National Defense Strategy renews a focus on great power competition, specifically with China and Russia. The Pentagon has offloaded MRAPs and is stocking up on boost phase interceptors, hypersonics, and other...
Is religious freedom just for the faithful?
Yesterday, Michelle Kosinki of CNN reported via Twitter that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was holding a special briefing for "faith-based media" only. She later relayed that the State Department was refusing to release the list of invited media or a transcript of the event. And we've now learned that the topic of the briefing was the state of religious freedom around the world. This creates a dangerous precedent and raises some serious issues...