Alright folks, I don't really have much to say here. Instead, I'll provide a link (PDF) to a copy of the bid we submitted nearly a year ago. Be warned that it includes some egregious typos and other fun* stuff. Why do I think this will be of interest? For some time,...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Tobias T. Gibson, an associate professor of political science and security studies at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. In the buildup to President Obama’s...
I understand that there's been some recent blog-chatter on one of my favorite hobbyhorses, peer review in Political Science and International Relations. John Sides gets all 'ruh roh' because of an...
Millennium. Journal of International Studies Annual Conference "Rethinking the Standard(s) of Civilisation(s) in International Relations" 19-20 October 2013 London School of Economics and Political...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Tim Dunne. He is Research Director of the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Queensland and the past editor of the European Journal of International Relations. tl;dr warning: ~2400 words. In a recent lively and provocative post, Stephen Walt argues that liberal imperialists are like ‘neocons’ only more human rights-friendly. They are alike in the sense that both ‘are eager proponents for using American hard power’. And combined, these two sets of protagonists have been responsible for bad foreign policy decisions...
Today is Memorial Day in this U.S., which leads to all kinds of silly debates about whether this holiday celebrates just the dead killed in America's wars or the Veterans as well since there is Veteran's Day in November (which is Armistice Day everywhere else). The other silly debate that seems to occur around this time is about the draft. Karl Eikenberry (former US general and then Ambassador to Afghanistan) and David Kennedy (retired history prof) wrote a NYT op-ed about the state of US civ-mil and what to do about it, including ... bring back the draft. Oy. First, to be clear, there...
Good mornin' ducks.  Happy Memorial Day. The US public today, despite strong support for the military, is the least connected to the institution.  Only about 0.5% of the population has served on active duty since 9/11 (roughly 9% of the population served in WWII). The FAS revisits the potentially staggering costs of a war with Iran under different scenarios in the wake of the passage of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act. Is al-Assad and the new National Defence Force winning the civil war in Syria?  (The article has some useful graphics) The US is happy that India has cut...
What's worth reading this weekend? Lots of stuff. Here's a list of a few things, from analytic to oddities. No drones, machetes, or tornados. But it would be silly if none of our resident experts weighed in on recent developments in these domains. Right? If the market expects climate change, why don't those who profess faith in its inerrant wisdom? Notes on "naïve Bayesian classifiers and orders of composition." Kindred W. argues that ideational IPE doesn't do a good job of explaining developments in US-EU trade negotiation. My reaction is that he's (1) choosing, as he notes, one particular...
Slate's new history vault published a gem from the Cold War last week. This map from January 1955 shows the areas in the United States that Soviet citizens could not travel. This map shows where Soviet citizens, who were required to have a detailed itinerary approved before obtaining a visa, could and could not go during their time in the United States. Most ports, coastlines, and weapons facilities were off-limits, as were industrial centers and several cities in the Jim Crow South. These restrictions mirrored Soviet constraints on American travel to the USSR. Both the United States and the...
I can't be the only one disturbed by the triumph of (aging) hipsters and nerds that is the Obama Administration.
More of the same with the Syrian opposition. Will H. Moore really takes issue with Jonathan Panikoff on how to think about what comes next in Syria. Visualizing the Syrian conflict with the new GDELT event data set.  GDELT is about to go live (in the next couple of days or week) with daily updates on Syria. Meanwhile, Jay Ulfelder roadtests GDELT as a resource for monitoring atrocities. Roland Paris on What Went Wrong in Afghanistan. Seven lessons for the next time we end up in a small war.  Call me a skeptic. Joshua Keating asks what Chaos Theory can tell us about IR. and......
When: 8-9 November 2013 Where: at the Providence Biltmore, Providence, RI, USA Submissions accepted 5 - 28 June 2013 The annual conference of the International Studies Association-Northeast (ISA-NE) will be held 8-9 November 2013 at the Providence Biltmore in Providence, Rhode Island. ISA-NE invites paper and panel proposals on any subject related to international studies, broadly defined. Topics might include international relations theory, international law and organizations, foreign policy, globalization, human rights, international development, conflict resolution, military/strategic...