- A new military study concludes that drone strikes are more deadly to civilians than those conducted by manned fighter craft. Keep in mind, however, that fighter pilots are the traditional elite in the USAF and the rise of drones and drone pilots has generated a lot of internal politics. More important: there’s no indication that the study controlled for the kinds of missions being carried out by drones and by strike aircraft.
- Speaking of drones, here’s Maj David J. Blair (Georgetown ABD) and Capt Nick Helms on “What’s at Stake in the Remote Aviation Culture Debate.”
- Cheryl Rofer is firmly in the camp of the Snowden skeptics. Her conclusion: “Snowden’s actions have shown that he can’t be trusted. There may be other reasons for his actions, but there is no reason for governments to assume anything but the worst. Every country has secrets it wants to keep. Whatever country receives him will keep close tabs on his whereabouts and his use of the internet.”
- Daniel Brumberg argues that Egypt’s biggest problem is a lack of a plausible unifying vision for the county.
- Ayesha Siddiqa alleges that Pakistan’s ISI has infiltrated US think tanks.
- The Millennium: Journal of International Studies special issue on “materialism” is available for free right now. I still think that there’s a basic category error going on, but the issue has some great pieces that cover a growing intellectual movement in the field.
- The first issue of Territory, Authority, Governance is also available for your reading pleasure.
And also:
- The Standing Group on International Relations (SGIR) of the European Consortium on Political Research (ECPR) is now the European International Studies Association (EISA). I’m not only already a member, but I’ve already suggested affirmative action for North Americans in leadership positions.
- Steve Burt defends modern American poetry against the slings of Mark Edmundson.
- The physics of traffic jams.
Almost all of these links deserve a “via.” My apologies for losing track of where I got them from.
Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.
He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.
He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.
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