The Duck of Minerva

Rodger Payne

Rodger A. Payne is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville. He serves on the University’s Sustainability Council and was a co-founder of the Peace, Conflict, and Social Justice program. He is the author of dozens of journal articles and book chapters and coauthor, with Nayef Samhat, of Democratizing Global Politics: Discourse Norms, International Regimes, and Political Community (SUNY, 2004). He is currently working on two major projects, one exploring the role of narratives in international politics and the other examining the implications of America First foreign policy.

Recent Posts

Global Strike Task Force

by Rodger Payne | 12 August, 2008 |

Just about anyone who follows American foreign policy understands the predictable early U.S. responses to a global crisis. The Navy is asked to dispatch vessels into nearby seas -- thereby signaling American interests, power and resolve. Or so the thinking goes.These deployments are certainly cheaper than direct involvement in a crisis and rarely lead to any kind of active (hostile) U.S. military operations.Since 2001, however, the U.S. has developed a Global Strike Task Force (GSTF) that seems to offer a fundamentally new approach to handling crisis. USAF General John Jumper (then the...

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Dark Knights

by Rodger Payne | 11 August, 2008 |

I know Dan and Charli have been diligently (and quite helpfully) blogging about war, but it's the weekend and I went to see "Dark Knight" yesterday. After it ended -- and if you've seen it, you probably already know why -- I kept thinking that every Batman and his villain antagonist(s) simply reflect their times. In their own way, they are social constructs. If this is true, what, exactly, is this latest Batman film trying to say about post-9/11 America? If you want to read about Russia's latest war, skip this post. You might also want to skip over the remainder if you haven't yet seen the...

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Back to the Future IV

by Rodger Payne | 7 August, 2008 |

Do you have secret longings for the cold war? Vladimir Putin apparently does. Here's the AP lede from 2 days ago: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is calling for Russia to regain its influential position in former Cold War ally Cuba, Russian news reports said Monday.The statement comes amid persistent speculation about whether Russia is seeking a military presence in a country just 90 miles (150 kilometers) from the United States in response to U.S. plans to place missile-defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic."We should restore our position in Cuba and other countries," Putin was...

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Fish out of water?

by Rodger Payne | 19 July, 2008 |

The figure at right is borrowed from a U.S. government website of Dennis A Wolf, a statistician with Oak Ridge National Lab. This particular image relates to a short article: "Assessing Fish Susceptibility to Predation." As anyone can clearly see, fish exposed "to a startling stimulus" do not flop. Rather, they exhibit "the characteristic C-shape (see figure)... behavioral response." They start swimming in a completely different direction.Perhaps foreign policy observers should apply this knowledge when analyzing the Bush administration's latest policies towards the axis of evil:This...

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An “act of war”

by Rodger Payne | 10 July, 2008 |

Examine these two policy-related statements and see if you can spot the nuclear illogic in one of these positions.First, this is Iran's statement after its missile tests, as reported by The Scotsman: "The first US shot on Iran would set the United States' vital interests in the world on fire," said Ali Shirazi, a mid-ranking cleric who is Khamenei's representative to the naval forces of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards. "Tel Aviv and the US fleet in the Persian Gulf would be targets that would be set on fire in Iran's crushing response," he said.Next, the US position, according to an AP...

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The hazards of burning oil

by Rodger Payne | 3 July, 2008 |

Thanks to the calendar, the U.S. is about to celebrate the July 4 holiday with a long weekend. For many people, July 3 (today) will be like the Wednesday before Thanksgiving or New Year's Eve. You might be in the office, but you aren't likely to get much work accomplished and you probably plan to leave early.In that spirit, may I offer an entertaining video that addresses something on most travelers' minds this holiday -- the supply of oil: Hat tip: Simon Dalby.

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Iraq update

by Rodger Payne | 24 June, 2008 |

I haven't blogged here for awhile, nor have I written anything about Iraq in quite some time. What's up there, anyway?First, I recommend Fareed Zakaria's June 21 assessment in Newsweek. Read the entire piece ASAP.Next, take a look at the latest word from the bureaucrats paid to keep up with the situation on the ground. Indeed, today's Post details some news about a pair of recently released U.S. government reports. Journalist Karen DeYoung notes that "In many respects, the two reports seemed to assess wholly different realities."The one from the Pentagon ("Measuring Security and Stability in...

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Who said it?

by Rodger Payne | 22 May, 2008 |

Can you tell the difference between the views expressed by a human rights activist who worries mostly about humanitarian emergencies in Asia and those stated by a prominent neorealist American academic? 1: Realist thinking versus liberal talk:A. "...oil and strategic interests are what dictate Western policies, not their professed liberal values. All the talk of humanism or humanitarianism is just for public relations." B. "...public discourse about foreign policy in the United States is usually couched in the language of liberalism. Hence the pronouncements of the policy elites are heavily...

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Appeasement Anecdotes

by Rodger Payne | 16 May, 2008 |

Conservatives have a fundamental misunderstanding of appeasement. While it should refer to specific concessional policies offered to aggressors in order to avoid war, conservatives use the phrase haphazardly as a political bludgeon against domestic foes who favor negotiation and arms control instruments over more hawkish policies. The inevitable comparison is to Neville Chamberlain and Adolph Hitler.Everyone knows how that turned out.In 1988, even conservative icon Ronald Reagan was attacked by right wing critics for his successful negotiation of an Intermediate Nuclear Force agreement with...

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The Golf War

by Rodger Payne | 14 May, 2008 |

According to President George W. Bush, the U.S. has been engaged in a "war on terrorism" for almost the entirety of his presidency. Indeed, he frequently laments the fact that he's been a "war President" despite not knowing in 2000 that that would be his destiny.Critics have often bashed the President for failing to urge the American people to make common sacrifices in support of that war. Even sympathetic voices say that soldiers have made virtually all the major sacrifices in this war.Indeed, rather than make sacrifices, the President has long encouraged the American people to live their...

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