Most of my public comments on Snowden have focused on how to evaluate his actions as a US citizen and someone entrusted with a high-level security clearance. Here I want to focus on an analytical concern--that of international hierarchy. I don't have a strong sense of...
Charles Hill has a storied and impressive career, successful books to his name, and a prestigious position at Yale University. He's also repeating historical tripe:"The way the world through almost...
Brad Delong:The treaties of Muenster and Osnabrueck in 1648—the Peace of Westphalia—and the earlier peace of Augsburg in 1555 established the principle in European international law that internal...
The IMF has changed course and legitimated capital controls (under certain circumstances). Former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson (among others) bemoans Greece's inability to devalue its currency...
Mark Safranski has a useful post up at Zenpundit critiquing LTC P. Michael Phillips' Parameters article Deconstructing our Dark Age Future."(I cannot remember the last time I saw an article written by a military officer, rather than a civilian post-modernist, whose title began with the word "Deconstructing.") Phillips argues (like many before him, not least Yahya Sadowski) that:The Westphalian state system is not in fact in decline; this arrange- ment, as we have imagined it, never really existed beyond a proposed behavioral model exemplifying the American experience. Instead, territori-...
Rob Farley points to a Times article reporting that Russia will soon annex South Ossetia. The source for the report? The South Ossetian president. So, as Rob notes, caveat emptor. Indeed, I can't find anything about this on an (admittedly quick) look through the English-language Russian press. I do see a word of a military cooperation agreement and mutual recognition between South Ossetia and Abkhazia. More griping about lack of adequate support (background) from Russia from the SCO. A report on South Ossetia's decision to form a new government....So, yeah, I tend to agree. Given the paucity...
Because I shouldn't assume that all of our readers also read The Monkey Cage, I note the debate between, on the one hand, Raymond "Bud" Duvall and Alex Wendt, and, on the other hand, Henry Farrell, about Bud and Alex's Political Theory article, "Sovereignty and the UFO." Round I: Henry engages (with special guest appearance from PTJ).Round Ia: Henry taunts?Round II: Bud and Alex respond.That's all, for now.