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

Cyber Events Data and Foreign Policy Reactions

by Jon Western | 24 July, 2013 |

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Ryan C. Maness of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Brandon Valeriano of the University of Glasgow. In the rush to note the changing face of the battlefield, few scholars have actually examined the impact of cyber conflict on foreign policy dynamics. Instead most studies are of a hyperbolic nature that suggests the wide ranging impact of cyber conflict on daily social and military life. Here we attempt to cut through the bluff and bluster to examine exactly what happens between countries when cyber conflict is utilized as a foreign policy choice...

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About Those Israel Academic Study Trips…

by Jon Western | 23 July, 2013 |

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Kavita Khory, Professor of Political Science at Mount Holyoke College. Last spring the Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) of Boston invited me to participate in a weeklong study tour to Israel.   Designed for scholars of international relations, political science, and public policy, the purpose of the educational tour was to provide an “in-depth firsthand exposure” to Israel and promote a “deeper understanding” of its politics and society.  The faculty study tour, now in its fourth or fifth iteration, is billed as the cornerstone of the organization’s...

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How Would Al Gore Have Fought the Iraq War?

by Jon Western | 22 July, 2013 |

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Elizabeth Saunders who is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University. In this year of Iraq-related anniversaries, this summer marks the 10-year anniversary of the emergence of the insurgency, when many Americans realized the Iraq War would not be over any time soon. Would things have been different had Al Gore been president? The latest issue of Perspectives on Politics has a symposium that considers this question in light of Frank P. Harvey’s book Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic and...

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Friday Morning Linkage

by Jon Western | 19 July, 2013 |

Is it 1953 or 2013?  2013 Aspen Security Forum  is currently meeting in Aspen Meadows, CO.  Here's the list of speakers -- scroll through and see if anything strikes you.   HT: Tamara Cofman Wittes. An excellent piece by Naunihal Singh that concludes for all the talk of a unique people's revolution, the Egyptian coup (yes, it was a coup) was a pretty common variant of coups.  Spoiler alert:  It's the economy stupid. The Obama administration had little influence over the events and even less consistency on Egypt.  William Harris says the western liberal narrative on the Gezi Park...

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Friday Morning Linkage

by Jon Western | 12 July, 2013 |

The American retailer response to Bangladesh worker safety  -- American firms will monitor and report, but not much else. For those who want to become more socially informed consumers -- missed this last month when Forbes tested the Buycott app. The Oil Drum shuts down:  It seems peak oil peaked before oil did. But, did the rise in fracking contribute to its death? Joshua Goldstein looks at the new Uppsala data on Syria and global battle deaths. Eric Reeves warns that "Darfur teeters on the edge of a complete humanitarian collapse and uncontrollable violence." and... Can an organization...

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Friday Morning Linkage

by Jon Western | 28 June, 2013 |

Paypal has just launched PayPal Galactic "to figure out what currency can be used and how commerce should be regulated off Earth" once all the space travel and tourism picks up."   More from MercuryNews.com:  "...serious challenges such as space law -- an uncertain legal area still in its infancy -- concerns about pollution and the lack of government regulations could slow the commercialization of space, said Jill Tarter, of the SETI Institute." ICRC releases its first position paper on Cyber Warfare. ICG's latest report on Syria:  Syria's Metastasising Conflicts Egypt is unraveling and...

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Academic Freedom, Financial Allure, and Overseas Research, Programs, and Campuses: Do We Self-Censor?

by Jon Western | 17 June, 2013 |

Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese dissident who found refuge last year in the United States with a fellowship at NYU is now claiming that he is being pushed out of NYU because his human rights advocacy and criticisms of the Chinese government is upsetting NYU's relationship with China. From the NYTimes: In a statement released Sunday, Mr. Chen said university officials were worried that his outspoken criticism of the Chinese government might threaten academic cooperation. N.Y.U. recently opened a campus in Shanghai, and a number of professors are involved in programs and research projects here...

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Friday Morning Linkage

by Jon Western | 14 June, 2013 |

    Are we headed to war in Syria?   The media seems to be going all in on the chemical weapons "red line" justification. How close are we to moving to implement a no-fly zone? Hezbollah is the real Red Line. Drezner:  realism trumps liberalism again. Behind yesterday's UN Syrian Casualty Count. Sunni clerics call for jihad against Assad and Egyptian government says Egyptians have freedom to travel to Syria if they'd like. Meanwhile: Did Erdogan blink? How the protests in Taksim Square have derailed Erdogan's plans to transform Turkey into a presidential system. This week in...

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The Challenges of Dissent: A Dissenter’s View

by Jon Western | 13 June, 2013 |

The commentary on Edward Snowden over the past several days and the various discussions on dissent, resignations, and whistleblowing have given me a lot to think about.  I'll leave discussion of the merits of Snowden's actions to Dan's thread below.  Here I want to think about the process and pitfalls of whistleblowing and dissent.  Twenty years ago this summer I had my own moment in the spotlight for resigning from my position at the State Department in protest over American policy in Bosnia. My situation and experiences were quite different -- I was a policy dissenter not really a...

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Friday Morning Linkage

by Jon Western | 7 June, 2013 |

The PRISM slides:  two nice touches you may have missed (Someone put some real thought into presentation -- this is not your grandparents' NSC-68): Top secret, code word, art work.  There's a special seal for "Special Source Operations" that has an eagle lifting a bundled globe -- very impressive; and, Great product placement -- special advertising in a top secret document.  The slides prominently feature the companies' trademarked logos in the header. But, I wonder if this drew NSA analysts to the products or away from them?  I'd like to see the market research on this one. Steve Walt asks...

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