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

Fueling the fire in Yemen.

by Jon Western | 12 January, 2010 |

My friend, Stacey Philbrick Yadav, has just posted an interesting take on American policy in Yemen at Foreign Policy. She writes: I've been traveling regularly to Yemen since 2004, conducting research on the relationship between Islamists and leftists in Yemen's opposition parties. Throughout this time, I have maintained correspondence with Yemeni journalists and political activists from a wide range of ideological positions. They are united in their concern about expanding U.S. involvement in Yemen, understanding just how badly it is likely to turn out for them and their country.In part,...

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Sailing up stream….

by Jon Western | 11 January, 2010 |

Last week appeared to be Development Week at Foggy Bottom. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her long-promised "Development" speech. The next day, Dr. Rajiv Shah was sworn in as the new administrator for USAID. In his speech, he identified four key priorities for his tenure: 1. To improve lives and fight poverty,2. To expand human rights and economic opportunities,3. To build democratic institutions and improve governance 4. To advance U.S. foreign policy to enhance our own prosperity and security. Both Clinton's speech and Rajiv's appointment seem to me to strike the right notes, i.e,...

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The sources of Uganda’s anti-gay bias

by Jon Western | 5 January, 2010 |

The NY Times ran a story this morning on how three American evangelical Christians influenced the gay death penalty bill now pending in Uganda. While the emphasis in the story is on the influence of the American evangelical Christians, there is a line in the NYTimes article that deserves more attention: Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. (my emphasis) Likewise, Andrew Sullivan picks up the story and blasts the Americans. But he too has a line that is added...

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Which New Year’s Eve would you rather celebrate?

by Jon Western | 31 December, 2009 |

Dan Drezner and Bill have both flagged Randy Schweller’s new piece in National Interest. I’ve just finished reading the piece and I agree with them – it’s really a depressing read. But, it’s the type of piece that we see periodically – it tries to take stock of the state of the global politics and IR scholars’ understanding of it. In many way, it reads a lot like Mearsheimer’s “Why We Will Miss the Cold War” or Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations?” It aims high and tries to explain large systemic events by using a lot of broad generalizations to develop the core argument that we live in a...

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Coming Soon…..Ataque de Panico

by Jon Western | 23 December, 2009 |

Uruguayan producer Fede Alveraz uploads a short 4-and-a-half minute film of giant robots destroying Montevideo to YouTube and now has a $30million dollar contract to develop a feature length film of it. Alveraz says it cost him $300 to produce -- call me a skeptic on that point -- but it is cool how quickly information technologies open space for new voices....

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Even More Thoughts on Obama’s Oslo Speech

by Jon Western | 15 December, 2009 |

Obama has received a lot of credit and praise for his articulation of Just War doctrine in his Oslo speech. And, while I, like Charli, found a lot to like about the speech, I take exception to the way in which he set up the issue of Just War:We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence...

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Flash the message…ten red balloons

by Jon Western | 7 December, 2009 |

A group from MIT won DARPA's recent balloon challenge. In case you missed it, DARPA placed ten 8-foot red balloons around the country on Friday and issued a challenge to groups to be the first to identify the correct location of all of them. The winning group received $40k.Here's how DARPA defined the challenge:a competition that will explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems. The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of 10 moored,...

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Baroness Ashton of Upholland?

by Jon Western | 24 November, 2009 |

I know the EU is often dysfunctional, but this really shocked me. Last week, the EU selected Herman van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister, as the European Union’s first president, and Catherine Ashton of Britain, currently the group’s trade commissioner, as its high representative for foreign policy. (She's also the Baroness Ashton of Upholland).Rompuy has been on the job in Belgium for less than a year and Ashton has no foreign policy experience. So much for the arguments that we might get some form of balancing -- hard or soft -- from Brussels. Looks like France and Germany were so...

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Not getting enough of real war?

by Jon Western | 11 November, 2009 |

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has just been released. According to the BBC:Analysts believe the game could sell as many as 5m units globally on its first day.It is the sixth installment in the Call of Duty series and gives players the chance to be a member of a military strike force that takes on a Russian ultra-nationalist terrorist group.It sees the combat team traveling to Russia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Brazil and into orbit, in an attempt to thwart the terrorists.I haven't seen it yet, but apparently one level has the player joining in a massacre of civilians at an airport. I'm not...

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Step Aside Blackwater/XE Services…

by Jon Western | 6 November, 2009 |

The "market" seems to be working in some sectors in Iraq and Afghanistan. New private security firms are popping up everywhere. Ten thousand Ugandans have gone to work as security guards in Iraq in the past two years. Now many are looking for work in Afghanistan. From the BBC:Seth Katerema Mwesigye, an instructor at Watertight, says the money has made him wealthy by Ugandan standards."I was a student at Makerere university, but when I left, I did not have land. When I came back, I bought land and cows. All that money came from Iraq."Mr Masiko says that Iraq has proved to be a lucrative...

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