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

The limits of our diplomatic capabilities

by Jon Western | 28 September, 2009 |

I am generally supportive of President Obama's renewed emphasis on diplomacy. But, I also must admit to some skepticism about what, in the end, more "diplomacy" will be able to accomplish. For years, a core assumption of the critics (myself included) of the Bush administration and the neocons has been that contemporary diplomatic institutions and practices offer a more refined set of instruments to deal with the complexities of contemporary global challenges. Maybe. But, then again, maybe not. Several recent studies and stories reveal significant problems with the institutions of American...

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How Multilateral Can Obama Be?

by Jon Western | 25 September, 2009 |

My colleague, Mlada Bukovansky, from Smith College who does excellent work on the evolution of norms and the role of institutions raises some interesting points on the question at the IR Blog. She's cites three recent examples on trade and the environment in which the Obama administration's rhetoric on multilateralism is disconnected from its actions. I think her punch line is fascinating and really thought provoking:...multilateralism is difficult. It is especially difficult for a superpower. And it is most especially difficult for a democratic superpower. Anyone who studies trade and...

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“Success is Still Achievable”

by Jon Western | 22 September, 2009 |

General McChrystal's strategic review concludes that the situation in Afghanistan is serious and getting worse, but "success is still achievable" as long as he gets more troops to wage a more aggressive counterinsurgency campaign.According to the review, the US/ISAF objective in Afghanistan is to get to a point where the "insurgency no longer threatens the viability of the state." To this end, it calls for a new strategy in which the focus is winning over the population.But I find this assessment striking:"Afghan social, political, economic, and cultural affairs are complex and poorly...

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Afghan Statebuilding

by Jon Western | 20 September, 2009 |

I'm generally sympathetic to the letter from the IR scholars on Afghanistan discussed below -- though I am most certainly not a realist and I am not averse to statebuilding as a concept or as an occasional practice in foreign policy. I supported the effort in Bosnia (notwithstanding the impression given in George Will's Washington Post column tomorrow morning -- I'll respond to that later). For me, I have long been persuaded by Tony Smith from Tufts who argues that the question should not be simply: is one for, or against, the enterprise of state building. It is whether or not there is a...

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