Although I've commented extensively on these issues on other people's blogs, I haven't used the Duck as a platform for weighing into the morass of the Karl Rove "evil liberals want to destroy America" or Richard Durbin "stop behaving like Nazis" speeches. The whole...
By now you all probably know that Ahmadinejad handily won the election in Iran:Ultra-conservative Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swept to a landslide win in presidential elections on Saturday,...
I'm tied up with an article I have under "revise-and-resubmit"; the other members of the Duck are similarly preoccupied. We'll all be posting again shortly. Patrick, for example, has promised a post...
To get a reputation for being suspicious and distrustful is certainly not desirable. Nevertheless, men are so false, so insidious, so deceitful and cunning in their wiles, so avid in their own...
The bipartisan Congressional Task Force on the United Nations has released its findings in the form of a report entitled "American Interests and UN Reform." Among the report's many recommendations -- including many with which I completely agree, such as empowering the Secretary-General to replace top UN officials, and the creation of an Independent Oversight Board to audit UN programs -- comes the following dramatic proposal: eliminate the UN Human Rights Commission, because it has betrayed its founding mission by permitting members who abuse human rights.So distorted has the 53-member Human...
For reasons that should come as no surprise (the Duck's staff ranges from centrist to leftist), our "international relations" blogroll doesn't get much further to the "right" than Oxblog or Dan Drezner. Most of the blogs we link to lean left.I'd like to change that, so if anyone has any suggestions for conservative international-relations and international-political-economy blogs that we should link to, please let me know. The conditions are:1. The blog actually has to fit those categories2. The blog must be predominately substantive policy and/or academic discussions of international...
[Cross posted at "Discord and Elaboration"]I think Patrick is on to something when he writes that the current dilemma facing the US in Uzbekistan isn't strictly one of security-vs-morality. Of course, one could (and many have) frame the issue in this way. However I think there is another way to look at the issue. I see the problem as strategy-vs-strategy, or more specifically, intrinsic interests-vs-reputational interests. The Defense Department sees the K2 airbase (K2 is shorthand for Karshi-Khanabad) as an intrinsic interest, one that is vital operationally to fighting the GWOT (Greater...
At some point I intend to write a long post making substantive contributions to the interesting discussions of center-left foreign-policy principles that have been developing on places like America Abroad and Democracy Arsenal. I think the public debate that's emerging really goes to show how the benefits of having an increasing number of international-relations experts blogging.That being said, the discussion over at Democracy Arsenal involves rather different visions of what center-left foreign-policy coalitions, such as the Truman National Security Project, should be about.Michael Singer...
Always deny what you don't want to be known, and always affirm what you want to be believed. For, though there be much - even conclusive - evidence to the contrary, a fervent affirmation or denial will often create at least some doubt in the mind of your listener. (Series C, 37)I guess early modern Europe wasn't very different from the present after all...For other maxims from Guicciardini, see here and here.Filed as: Maxims, Guicciardini and lies
Glenn Reynolds asks for science fiction suggestions from his readers. Top of the list?Lots of readers have been writing in with suggestions as to authors. Iain M. Banks -- whom I've never read -- seems a favorite, particularly his Use of Weapons.To paraphrase Wanda Gershwitz:"Otto, you’re a conservative.”“Aha! Conservatives don’t read Banks!”“Yes, they do—they just don’t understand it."Filed as: Iain M. Banks, science fiction, and instapundt
The Washington Post reports today on the recent NATO-Russia joint communique, which among other points stated that "issues of security and stability in Central Asia, including the recent tragic events in Uzbekistan, was also discussed." According to the Post, this rather bland language papered over an intra-agency dispute within the US government about how best to handle the situation stemming from the 13 May crackdown against a failed uprising in the city of Andijon. The crackdown, which Human Rights Watch has labeled a "massacre," involved the deployment of armed troops to respond to an...
I really don't want to criticize the same high-profile blogger twice in a row, but David Adesnik's takedown of Henry Kissinger deserves some commentary.Kissinger's shilling for China again. No news there. David does a good job of pointing out what's substantively wrong with the op-ed. His framing, however, is all off. For David, Kissinger's mistake is a failure of realism:As a committed realist, Kissinger desperately wants to believe that American foreign policy can be made without reference to the deeply-rooted ideals of democracy and human rights. And he's right; it can. From 1969 until...