The Duck of Minerva

Robert Kelly

Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy, Pusan National University, Korea Home Website: https://AsianSecurityBlog.wordpress.com/ Twitter: @Robert_E_Kelly

Recent Posts

“Against Dogmatic Bourgeois Flunkeyism,” or what I learned in NK (1)

by Robert Kelly | 31 August, 2012 |

My North Korean VisaIn August, I visited North Korea for the first time. It was the most unique travelling experience I’ve ever had. I’d certainly recommend it to political scientists and Asia experts, but it wasn’t anything close to a ‘vacation’ or break or anything like that. (Yes, some of the sites marketing tours of NK actually call it that.)At a bookstore devoted to the works of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, I stumbled across an essay, from the latter if I remember correctly, about social scientists’ commitment to the revolution and juche. It included the title line – that we must avoid...

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Guest Post: Dave Kang – “Confucian North Korea”

by Robert Kelly | 31 July, 2012 |

I am happy to guest post my friend Dave Kang of the University of Southern California. I think Dave’s work on east Asia and IR theory is excellent; I would start with this or this if you’re interested. REKConfucian North KoreaFigure 1. Korean Worker’s Party symbolIt is easy to caricature North Korea as a “bizarre” “land of no smiles” full of brainwashed robots. In the past few years, North Korea has become somewhat prominent in popular culture either as a salacious joke or a freak show of a country. (And yes, I refuse to give you too many links to articles I think are misinformed...

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Multicultural Panic Comes to Korea

by Robert Kelly | 26 June, 2012 |

<img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('310e98ce-49cb-4b0f-b5c7-8ea02326bd47'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://lh5.ggpht.com/-0FUOBjhtgfg/T9XkvHerJlI/AAAAAAAAANo/b2TAgN7QGjo/video3ce1177ddb82%25255B20%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" />Xenophobia so sloppy and racist, Glenn Beck himself would blush…This recently ran on Korea’s largest broadcaster in primetime news slots until the outburst controversy grew so loud, it got pulled. Don’t miss the guy in the white shirt and tie behind a desk to lend academic...

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Ranking US Allies: A Response to Stephen Walt, Andrew Sullivan & all those Canadians…

by Robert Kelly | 21 June, 2012 |

<img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('9ab6f160-8fa0-4fcc-a292-405526f7884b'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://lh4.ggpht.com/-PqxwrrtujtM/T-JEowomCmI/AAAAAAAAAPA/yY5-l-pt3y8/videocbda4184ad6b%25255B66%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" />Who knew Canada could be so controversial…Last week, I tried to rank US allies, drawing response from both Walt and Sullivan (oh, and these guys, whose website name’ll creep you out). So here are a few responses:1. I accept the arguments from many commenters that Turkey...

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More on Abusing America’s ‘Exorbitant Privilege’: Will the Bond Market Turn on the US at a 100% Debt-to-GDP ratio?

by Robert Kelly | 17 June, 2012 |

As part of a now lengthy chain (one, two, three, four) on US allies and the likelihood of US retrenchment, I argued that American hegemony, despite America’s huge debt and deficit, is more financially stable than almost anyone expected. Because foreigners’ appetite for dollars seems unquenchable and because we print the global reserve currency, borrow in it, and face no serious reserve challengers (the euro and RMB maybe, see below), US can exploit this ‘exorbitant privilege’ far worse than anyone ever thought. For example, I think almost everyone expected the bond-market to turn against the...

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More on US Allies (2): A Response to My Critics

by Robert Kelly | 12 June, 2012 |

I found the above image here. A hat-tip goes to Andrew Sullivan for referencing this debate yet a second time.Here is part one of my response to two recent, heavily-trafficked posts (one, two) on hypothetical retrenchment under Ron Paul. (So yes, that makes 4 total posts, including this one.) I got some flak on how I ranked US allies in order of importance, with the implication that those further down were more likely candidates for a diminished American commitment. Vikash and I are also having a really protracted and wonky comments debate about just how long US borrowing can forestall US...

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America’s ‘Exorbitant Privilege’ means it can Borrow to Sustain Hegemony Longer than Anyone Ever Expected

by Robert Kelly | 7 June, 2012 |

Two of my posts this week (one, two) on hypothetical retrenchment under Ron Paul got a lot of traffic and comments. (H/t to Stephen Walt and Andrew Sullivan.) So here is some follow-up.The OP was intended as an emergency exercise if the US were to face a truly significant crisis that forced retrenchment. The purpose was to ask who are the most important US allies and commitments if we were forced to choose. Right now, the US is not choosing. We are all over the place; if anything, we are taking on more commitments (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, the Asian pivot). As I tried to say in...

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Say Ron Paul Won…Which US Allies would get Retrenched? (2)

by Robert Kelly | 1 June, 2012 |

Here is part one where argued that America’s 8 most important allies are, in order: Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Israel, and South Korea. I argued for 3 quick-and-dirty reasons for that ranking, but I got some criticism on these in the first post, so here is some elaboration :1. National Security: Some places, like SA and Mexico, may not appeal much to Americans, but they are so obviously important, that abandonment would be hugely risky. So yes, SA is a nasty, reactionary ‘frenemy,’ not really an ally at all, but we’re stuck with it. A Saudi collapse would set off...

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Say Ron Paul Won…Which US Allies would get Retrenched? (1)

by Robert Kelly | 26 May, 2012 |

Here is an answer to Jon Western’s good question. Here is Steve Walt saying nice things about Ron Paul, and Layne has a nice recent piece in the National Interest, and another at ISQ, about looming US retrenchment.  Earlier I argued that I think lots of people in IR now both expect and want some measure of US pullback. The argument is pretty well-known by now – empirically, the US is doing more than it can afford, like the Iraq war (trillion dollar deficits and ‘overstretch’); normatively, we are violating far too many of our liberal values against a comparatively minor terrorist threat...

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What Exactly is the Social Science Citation Index Anyway?

by Robert Kelly | 22 May, 2012 |

Yeah, I don’t really know either. I always hear the expression ‘SSCI’ thrown around as the gold standard for social science work. Administrators seem to love it, but where it comes from and how it gets compiled I don’t really understand. Given that we all seem to use this language and worry about impact factor all the time, I thought I would simply post the list of journals for IR ranked by impact factor (after the break).I don’t think I ever actually saw this list before all laid out completely. In grad school, I just had a vague idea that I was supposed to send my stuff to the same...

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