North Waziristan has witnessed 20 drone strikes in the first four months of this year, which is a relatively lower number than the previous year (in 2010 there were a record setting 104 drone strikes in North Waziristan or 8.67 strikes per month). The relative...
Dan Drezner has issued a call to arms!... or to your library card:"I therefore call upon the readers of this blog to proffer up their suggestions -- if you had to pick three books for an ambitious...
I would like to be as snarky as Brian, but paying attention to Afghanistan is pretty darned depressing. In the aftermath of the second (yes, second) prison break at the Saraposa prison, what hope...
Whatever version of political realism you are dealing with, the sovereign state is still central to its universe. Which is one reason realists are uncomfortable with any world view that accords...
Steve Metz concludes a sharp piece on NATO thusly:It is time for this debate over NATO’s viability to take place. While NATO may serve as an institutional reminder of the shared democratic values of the Atlantic community (and NATO’s not-so-Atlantic new members) and help with interoperability between its members’ military forces, the Alliance, in its current form, has proven it cannot lead and execute complex, sustained operations in today’s world. Three strikes in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and now Libya may not be enough to put NATO out of business, but it certainly should be enough to...
Why did the Obama administration really intervene in Libya? Andrew Sullivan and Steve Walt both reject the administration's claims (again) that we were on the verge of a mass slaughter in Libya if Qaddafi's forces had been allowed to move into Benghazi. Walt also wants us to read Alan Kuperman’s op-ed “A False Pretense for War?” As usual, Kuperman has an interesting take: First, he argues that there was no credible evidence of an imminent slaughter in Benghazi – and that, in fact, the signs point in the opposite direction – that Qaddafi has shown restraint with respect to attacking...
In the tradition of the satirical website, Stuff White People Like, I offer you the first installment of Stuff Political Scientists Like, which I will offer in irregular installments if political scientists like it. This seemed only appropriate since in the words of the author of that website: "It is important to note that a high percentage of white people also get degrees in Political Science, which is pretty much like arts, and only seems to have the word “science” in it to make white people feel better about themselves."Political scientists like "original datasets." The topic is really...
I learned quite a few new things about military law and the rules of war at the Cornell Bombing Workshop I attended last weekend (political scientists who study war law often do when sitting down with actual military practitioners and international law professionals). A short round-up of additional insights will follow, but this one merits a slightly longer post: the International Law Association has released an expanded report on the definition of armed conflict that, if it is picked up on in war law jurisprudence, may change how we think about the legality of things like targeted killings...
In the latest attempt to project its "soft power" in South Asia, the US government has approved a $20 million project to bring a local adaptation of Sesame Street to Pakistan. Time magazine notes:"'The idea is to prepare and inspire a child to go on the path of learning,' said Faizaan Peerzada, a collaborator on the Pakistani version of the show. "This is a very serious business, the education of the children of Pakistan at a critical time." Their main messages will be of acceptance and empowerment, to sway youngsters away from religious extremism and promote growth."The Guardian writes that...
Although reports that he is insufficiently feminist appear to have been exaggerated, Joss Whedon does appear to be insufficiently Browncoat. Or so it would seem since he recently blocked the first fan-based effort to acquire the rights to a television series by nixing Unstoppable Signals’ movement to revive Firefly, the one-season hit space western whose film sequel Serenity just beat out The Empire Strikes Back for Best SciFi Film of All Time at io9. (If you need more background on the show and its connection to post-9/11 global political culture, start with this and follow the links.)This...
In prepping for a fortuitously timely class session on humanitarian intervention, I reread Madeline Albright's op-ed from 2008 on the "end of intervention." The claim, which I bought at the time, was that the perceived illegitimacy of the Iraq War had resuscitated the norm of state sovereignty, which had taken some hits since the end of the Cold War. Implicit in the piece was that the invasion of Iraq had disillusioned formerly "liberal hawks," particularly as Bush's rhetoric had been so instrumentally idealistic. I never bought that neoconservatives are really concerned about human rights....
Though I clearly swim in the shallow end of the pool of those who think about Zombies in International Relations - in fact, I learned what a zombie is from Dan Drezner's book. At the same time, I can't really resist a brief observation on the popularity of the Zombie book, and follow-up journal articles, blog posts, and ISA panels. I don't mean this to engage all of the relevant issues, but can't resist a few reflections.Dan Drezner asks what the global political community would look like it the undead walked among us. What if the undead were aggressive attackers looking to exterminate...