If the owl of minerva flies at twilight, then the duck merely keeps on waddling.

As I’ve hinted at before, we’re in for some changes.

While Charli introduces her kids to the Great American Roadtrip, PTJ is grinding away at his much-anticipated new book on the philosophy of social science. Both shall return, but their lack of activity leaves a void here at the Duck.

Both Peter Howard and I, on the other hand, will soon suffer from more serious cases of bloggus interruptus. Peter is off to the State Department on a prestigious fellowship, and, pending paperwork, I’ll also be embedded in the world of national security policy. Indeed, I’ve already stopped blogging on major issues of the day, and expect to only engage in occasional “lite” blogging until I go on long-term hiatus.

But change is exciting, and we’re thrilled to have suckered recruited a number of excellent bloggers. I expect most of them will want to write a post introducing themselves in greater detail, but here are the headlines:

• Andrew Conway blogs at an maintains the excellent Zero Intelligence Agents. He’s a PhD student at New York University with some years of defense and intelligence work under his belt, and he’s contributed to a number of high-profile blogs (more here).

• Craig Hayden blogs at Intermap; he holds a PhD from the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California and is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of International Studies at American University (more info here).

• Daniel McIntosh blogs at Liberty/Security; he is an Associate Professor at Slippery Rock University where he works on some pretty cool stuff related to international security and international political economy(more info here).

• Laura Sjoberg received her PhD from the University of Southern California, and is currently transitioning to a new job at the University of Florida. For information on her lengthy and growing list of publications, you can check out her personal website or her page at the University of Florida.

We’ve invited all four to cross-post to their other outlets, and to blog here as much or as little as they would like. But, frankly, I’m pretty excited to be bringing in scholars with such diverse expertise, and I hope they stay for quite some time.