After a long hiatus, I am ready to take up a number of the other points raised in the four Disorder of Things posts on my book The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations.II. ethics and politics, which are good things but not scienceAt the end of the first part of my reply I suggested that the "gang of four" interlocutors (Paul, Joe, Nick, and Meera) who commented on the book are quite correct to point out the importance of my professed but not expansively justified position on the irresolvable nature of value controversies to the overall argument, because many of the points that they...

Politics is always somewhat gross, but there seems to be an abundance of stories lately that make me queasy. In the tradition of saying to your friends, "You have got to try this; it's so disgusting" or to your wife, "I think this milk is going bad; taste it," I share them with you, my online friends (or if you like, wives).Budweiser wrapping itself in the flag: This ad shows a split screen of an American soldier coming home and a family getting ready to throw him a homecoming party. There is, of course, an Official Bear of the Homecoming Party and it is not Coors. I have always hated ads...

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn has released a new report criticizing the National Science Foundation, in no small part because he is offended that the NSF funds political science.This new, lengthy-for-Congress report is a slick and well-produced piece of agit-prop. In it, Coburn claims to have found billions (!) in mismanagement at the NSF, including plenty of made-for-journalists "scandals" like jello wrestling at the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica and shrimp on treadmills. Drawn from inspector general reports and Coburn's staff's review of NSF grant awards, Coburn criticizes the agency...

Does America’s having great power mean that we must “manage” the global system?  Fellow Duck Jon Western seems to think so.  He writes in Current Intelligence that a major reason for the U.S. to reduce its military spending is so that other countries can be better “satisfied with American management of the [global] system” and “global public goods.”  I do not want to pick on Jon, but I think that his views reflect those of much of our policy elite, both in government and nongovernmental roles.  They believe it is America’s right, responsibility, or fate to manage the world. I disagree and...

With the politics of "budget crisis" dominating the political discourse, what does a Tea Party-dominated Republican foreign and defense policy look like? Not good. Gutting diplomacy and development and leaving defense spending largely uncut means American power becomes more blunt and unwieldy. I've written up my take in the current issue of Current Intelligence. Here's a portion: Republican Congressional leaders have pledged that nothing is off the table... Except of course, it turns out the Republicans aren’t really all that serious about cutting defense spending. With nearly 30 million...

Strategist Edward Luttwak once observed that strategy has a paradoxical logic. The best way forward may be the longest way round, offence can be the best defence, and a seemingly victorious course pursued indefinitely will lead to over-reach. This is produced by the limitations of human strength, the resistance and friction of conflict, and the sheer dynamism and chaos of war.This dynamic surfaces in the insurgency in Afghanistan and the terrorist-hunting campaign in Pakistan. Consider two headlines following Bin Laden's death. In Afghanistan, killing Bin Laden may not dis-spirit the...

How many times have you been accused of making a straw man argument?  How many times have you deployed that rhetorical trump card against a foe?  In blogs, in debates, in academic conference rooms, the straw man charge is a tried and true way of undermining an opponent and advancing your own position.  To accept the claim that, yes, my argument is a straw man, is to admit defeat. However, I come not to burn straw men, but to praise them. To begin, I exclude outright distortions and lies about an argument.  Those should be called what they are—and merit dismissal.  Straw men are made of...

So he wasn't armed, and maybe it wasn't legal, and we should have found him a long time ago. But we are missing the point. Our soft power was winning the war on terror. We just had to give it some time.The Financial Times reports: "Shopkeepers remember the [Osama] household demonstrating a preference for Coke, Pepsi and imported juices." No one can resist the allure of American culture, not even Mr. Death to America. See! He really didn't mean it. Who was going to make his beloved Coke if we are all dead? What was he going to drink, Orangina? That stuff is terrible. And my guess is Pakistani...