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

It’s hot out there…

by Jon Western | 2 August, 2010 |

Actually, it's a beautiful day up here in Massachusetts. A nice, cool morning which, according to a meteorologist on a local AM radio station, could only mean one thing -- that global warming is a hoax. Just before I changed stations, however, I caught this little claim -- something to the effect "there's no consensus on global warming. There are a huge number of leading climate scientists who dispute it...."Hmmm? Of course, such a claim would require something called EVIDENCE. So, what does the evidence show about the current state of thinking/consensus within the climate science community?...

read more

The ticking clock(s) on Iran…

by Jon Western | 29 July, 2010 |

Apparently, containment of Iran is no longer an option and the Obama administration is showing signs of toughening its stance. In doing so, the administration appears to be shifting the anticipated costs and benefits (and the likelihood) of military strikes on Iran.One of Israel's leading commentators, Ehud Yaari, had this piece in yesterday's Jerusalem Post: I have solid information indicating that the top echelons of the administration – National Security Council, Pentagon, State Department – have reached the conclusion that the US cannot adopt the option of containing a nuclear Iran.The...

read more

Children shouldn’t have Strontium 90

by Jon Western | 28 July, 2010 |

The Washington Post calls this one of the ten worst campaign attack ads of all time (ranked 2nd behind Daisy Girl). Hmmm, I actually thought it made a good point -- and certainly summed up Goldwater's views on international treaties and arms control. I thought the line "they can make you die" was a nice touch. I guess the ice cream cone might have been a bit over the top....Still, it was Goldwater who gave us this classic during his acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican Convention...:...that helped spawn the modern "conservative" movement of today (ranked 7th by the Post):I've begun...

read more

Top Secret America: The Garrison State has arrived

by Jon Western | 20 July, 2010 |

A couple of thoughts on Dana Priest and William Arkin's series that began in the Washington Post yesterday. First, this is the type of story that is all but non-existent in our non-stop 24-hour news cycles -- a two-year investigative report that pulls together thousands of bits and pieces of information and carefully assembles them to tell the bigger story of where we have traveled in the past decade. (I see that the story actually bumped CNN's coverage of Sara Palin's last tweet...) (Update: My bad -- the Post actually featured Palin's last tweet above the Top Secret America in the...

read more

The IDF’s blog campaign

by Jon Western | 13 July, 2010 |

During my recent trip to Israel, I had the opportunity to talk to a young IDF officer who was assigned as a spokeswoman/public relations specialist for one of the IDF's commands. I told her about Stephanie's recent post on the Gaza flotilla raid and how the Israeli Foreign Ministry quickly tweeted a response to Stephanie about the post. She told me that there is a new effort by both the Foreign Ministry and the IDF to respond rapidly to information that pops up on the blogosphere. Within each IDF command, there is a separate section within the public information branches that monitors blogs...

read more

Congratulations Spain!

by Jon Western | 11 July, 2010 |

I've been traveling in the Middle East and Europe for the past month and watched all, or parts of, 15 World Cup games in ten or so cities -- including a kibbutz in northern Israel -- with commentary in at least seven languages. I watched the games --mostly in bars -- with Algerians, Mexicans, Germans, Italians, Palestinians, Israelis, French, Australians, etc.... I also watched kids playing and dreaming of their own World Cup on street corners, parks, and alleyways in most places I visited. Truly a joy to watch -- especially in so many different places.So, it's been a bit of an adjustment...

read more

oh boy….

by Jon Western | 22 June, 2010 |

So, I'm in Brussels this morning meeting with various NATO folks on how they plan to develop a strategy for rebuilding public support for Afghanistan and for the future expeditionary operations outlined in the the Albright Experts Group report and someone comes in with a copy of Rolling Stone. Quite frankly, that's not something I thought I'd ever see -- Rolling Stone had the entire place buzzing....My first reaction: This can not end well for McChrystal. He has a lot of support here, but this crossed so many lines-- civil-military relations, leadership judgment, command authority, the...

read more

Meanwhile, in the West Bank

by Jon Western | 18 June, 2010 |

I’m traveling in Israel this week on an academic study tour with a mix of 15 political scientists, economists, and historians. It’s a grueling schedule – 14 to 16 hours of sessions per day – meeting with Israelis, Israeli –Arabs, and Palestinians. I finally have a short break in the schedule so this is the first of several posts. I’ll post some thoughts on Gaza later, but I’ll start with the West Bank. On Tuesday, we went to Ramallah and met with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to talk about state building in the West Bank. Fayyad introduced his two-year plan for Palestinian...

read more

Sanctioning Iran

by Jon Western | 9 June, 2010 |

I just heard a radio discussion in which two pundits debated whether or not today's sanctions will trigger a reversal in Iran's nuclear program. The focus of the conversation was single cause = single effect -- the sanctions either will or will not be successful gauged solely against the one criteria. Obviously, that criteria is the most significant. But, like most policy instruments, sanctions are a complicated tool. I've been influenced most on this topic by David Baldwin's Economic Statecraft. David argues that that there are multiple objectives behind almost every policy. To effectively...

read more