The Duck of Minerva

Jon Western

Jon Western has spent the last fifteen years teaching IR in liberal arts colleges at Mount Holyoke College and the Five Colleges in western Massachusetts. He has an eclectic range of intellectual interests but often writes on international security, U.S. foreign policy, military intervention, and human rights. He occasionally shares his thoughts about professional life in liberal arts colleges. In his spare time he coaches middle school soccer, mentors the local high school robotics team, skis, and sails.

Recent Posts

Syria and the magic wand

by Jon Western | 28 September, 2012 |

Yesterday’s NYTimes had an op-ed from Michael Doran and Max Boot on five reasons why the U.S. should show some backbone and intervene in Syria now: 1) it will help contain Iran; 2) it will help contain the regional spread of conflict; 3) it will contain the influence of Al Qaeda and other extremists in Syria; 4) it will improve U.S. relations with regional partners; and 5) it will stop the humanitarian crisis.Syria is tragic and complicated and I certainly do not want to contribute to the narrative that says nothing can be done to protect civilians. But, it is not helpful to pretend that...

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How did he screw this up so badly?

by Jon Western | 13 September, 2012 |

I don't really want to pile on, but the question for me is: how does a major presidential candidate in the 21st century (and a guy who has been running for office now for seven straight years) screw this up so badly? As a resident of Massachusetts, I watched Romney as governor, he wasn't a disaster and I don't think he ever displayed the level of incompetence that we've seen recently. So what's going on? I've been pondering this with various Massachusetts political analysts/friends over the past day, here's what I see:As governor, Romney's staff was small and most decisions were made within...

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Can’t stop thinking about tomorrow…

by Jon Western | 10 September, 2012 |

Michael Horowitz and Philip Tetlock have an interesting piece in Foreign Policy that examines the record on long-range forecasting of global events -- 15 - 20 years into the future. They acknowledge the inherent difficulties of such a projections, but still wonder:whether there are not ways of doing a better job -- of assigning more explicit, testable, and accurate probabilities to possible futures. Improving batting averages by even small margins means the difference between runner-ups and World Series winners -- and improving the accuracy of probability judgments by small margins could...

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Lessons from Syria…thus far…

by Jon Western | 6 September, 2012 |

The violence in Syria is spiking. 1,600 killed in the past week and 100,000 new refugees in the past month. After a year-and-a-half of violence, the UN reports that there are now more than 230,000 refugees, 1.2 million internally displaced persons, more than 2.5 million in need of humanitarian aid. Lakhdar Brahimi, the new UN/Arab League envoy called the violence "staggering." Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo yesterday condemned Assad's "crimes against humanity."So what have we learned over the past year-and-a-half? First, despite all the complaints about the era of...

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Any good academic movies?

by Jon Western | 29 August, 2012 |

With the loss of the drinking intellectual stimulation that comes from APSA, I'm in need of some inspiration to kick start the semester that begins next week. We all know that academic life is full of adventure, comedy, human drama, and conflict. So, it shouldn't be too difficult to find a decent Hollywood movie about academic life. Lucky Jim should be a shoe-in, but the 1957 film is just bad. Wonder Boys ranks high because Michael Douglas looks good in a pink robe, and in a rarity for this genre, actually refuses to sleep with his student. A Beautiful Mind isn't really about academic life,...

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Least Experienced Foreign Policy Ticket — Ever?

by Jon Western | 14 August, 2012 |

One of the defining features of the current era of globalization is the rise in uncertainty and complexity in global politics. There are more actors, more transactions, and more challenges as a result. In the face of this, the United States continues to spend more on national security – the military, intelligence, and homeland security – than almost all other countries in the world combined. And, yet it’s clear that as the world is becoming increasingly more complex, the United States’ ability to influence outcomes – as demonstrated by the Iraq, Afghanistan, and the global economic crisis...

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The Problems With China

by Jon Western | 25 July, 2012 |

Yesterday's IMF report on China "praised China's leaders" for responding quickly to its recent economic slowdown and concluded that "China's economy seems to be undergoing a soft landing, though global headwinds are increasing." It also repeated increasingly frequent warnings about the fragility of the banking sector and suggested that there are "significant downsize risks" ahead in China. China may have a soft landing amid the current slowdown, but it is worth reminding ourselves that it is a country with enormous contradictions -- many of which look to be far more complicated than the...

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Bark like a dog!

by Jon Western | 25 May, 2012 |

I'd write a lengthy comment on this, but with my new administrative responsibilities, I have a full day of meetings on liberal arts assessment and impact -- oh, and some kind of silly discussion on the instrumentalization of education and the vocational turn. Whatever. I'll just say that this should take care of my presentation at new faculty orientation next month.... From Department of Omnishambles: Karl Marx's end of year department assessment:ht: Sherrill Stroschein

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Right to the razor’s edge…or not

by Jon Western | 24 May, 2012 |

With Obama's proposed $487bn cuts in defense spending over the next ten years and the potential for another $500bn in cuts through sequestration set to kick in next January if Republicans and Democrats fail to reach the grand bargain compromise on the budget, lots of folks are now harping about the looming threat to American national security if the cuts take hold. Earlier this month, General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., assistant commandant, U.S. Marine Corps concluded that: “We have a tendency to view sequestration as a budget issue, but it’s really not a budget issue. It’s a re-ordering of our...

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Institutionalizing Atrocity Prevention

by Jon Western | 24 April, 2012 |

I'm sure there will be plenty of skeptics, but President Obama's speech this morning at the U.S. Holocaust Museum (see Charli's post below) and today's first meeting of the atrocity prevention board at the White House is a positive development. For the past twenty years -- since the beginning of the Bosnian War -- the U.S. has gradually increased the resources and institutional capacities for collecting and analyzing intelligence, preventing, and coordinating responses to mass atrocities. Yet, it is clear that even with these efforts, the U.S. government efforts have continued to be plagued...

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