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

Dr. Strangelove’s Mineshafts

by Rodger Payne | 28 December, 2010 |

What would the world be like after a nuclear attack of some type? That's the question answered by the President's National Security staff in the June 2010 second edition of the Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation. I haven't read the entire 130 page document, but I did read a chunk of it, as well as an interesting article about it by Ira Chernus, a professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Here's the provocative opening paragraph that got me to click on his piece:Good news! You’ve got a pretty good chance of surviving a terrorist’s nuclear...

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‘Tis the season

by Rodger Payne | 13 December, 2010 |

This year began with a human tragedy of horrific proportions -- the earthquake in Haiti. We may never know precisely how many people died, but the government in Port-Au-Prince estimated 230,000 in February. The news did not improve as the year progressed. Consider this ANI news report from Saturday about flooding in Pakistan -- and keep in mind that floodwaters have not yet receded in some areas even though the worst flooding occurred months ago: It is estimated that the floods affected up to 20 million people, while over 750,000 homes were damaged or destroyed.The UN had rated it as the...

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2011 Grawemeyer winner

by Rodger Payne | 30 November, 2010 |

Kevin Bales, President of Free the Slaves, has won the 2011 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. The prize is worth $100,000 this year.The press release describes the award-winning ideas from Ending Slavery, the most recent book published by Bales with University of California Press:In the book, Bales outlines steps to end the enslavement of some 27 million people worldwide. Slavery and human trafficking are tightly interwoven into the modern global economy, so new political and economic policies must be enacted to suppress them, he says.Slavery, illegal in every country but...

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(Head of) State Secrets

by Rodger Payne | 15 November, 2010 |

As I've already noted, former President George W. Bush is apparently settling some scores in his new memoir. In Europe, his passages about former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are attracting a good deal of attention.According to press reports, Bush says Schroder was for the Iraq war before it was against it. Because of his own electoral problems, Bush implies, Schroeder flip-flopped. The former president writes that when he said he was considering the use of force in Iraq, Schroder said, "'What is true of Afghanistan is true of Iraq. Nations that sponsor terror must face consequences....

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Bush: McConnell plays politics with national security

by Rodger Payne | 13 November, 2010 |

In his new memoir, former President George W. Bush says that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) let electoral politics influence his advice about the Iraq war in 2006. Cincinnati's CityBeat has the exchange from Bush's memoir: "In September 2006, with the midterm elections approaching, my friend Mitch McConnell came to the Oval Office. The senior senator from Kentucky and Republican whip had asked to see me alone. Mitch has a sharp political nose, and he smelled trouble. 'Mr. President,' he said, 'your unpopularity is going to cost us control of the Congress' ...'Well, Mitch,' I...

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Drip, drip, drip

by Rodger Payne | 12 November, 2010 |

I do not own a copy of the George W. Bush memoirs, but I have been following the bits and pieces that appear in my newspaper. I'm going to try to blog about a few of the most important items, especially as they pertain to my past blogging and/or research interests.For example, the former President confirms that Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in September 2002. This has long been a matter of discussion on the Duck.Even more interesting, Bush says he rejected Israel's request that the US bomb the facility. Given Bush's "preemptive" war policy, Israel may have viewed this as a...

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The Osirak Myth (again)

by Rodger Payne | 6 October, 2010 |

I failed to comment on Jeffrey Goldberg's September 2010 Atlantic Monthly piece about US or Israeli responses to Iran's apparent nuclear weapons program. Goldberg has the threat meter set to nearly 10 as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reportedly said this summer that Iran is one to three years away from building a nuclear weapon (p. 60).A lot has been said and written about this piece, but this claim has not received enough attention (p. 58): Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an enemy’s nuclear program. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed the Iraqi reactor at...

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Negotiating with the Taliban

by Rodger Payne | 1 October, 2010 |

He's not alone, of course, but scholar Gilles Dorronsoro is quite pessimistic about the Afghan surge and ongoing counterinsurgency campaign:The current counterinsurgency campaign shows little signs of accomplishing its mission. The surge is not enough to reverse the Taliban’s gains, or the quick decline of the Karzai government. Pakistan’s lack of support makes the Taliban sanctuary there a major strategic problem.More troops and the latest strategy have failed to make progress. The war is not conclusive in the south — where stabilization could take years—and the Taliban is gaining momentum...

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Flashback: Afghanistan “Mission Accomplished”

by Rodger Payne | 30 September, 2010 |

I've been teaching Af-Pak in my security class these past few weeks. The war has been going on for so long that many "highlights" now seem like distant history.For instance, everyone remembers the farce that was George W. Bush's May 1, 2003, celebration of the end of major combat operations in Iraq. The image of the "Mission Accomplished" banner is engrained in our brains, as is the picture of Bush in flightsuit strutting to deliver his speech.However, people often forget a speech delivered by Donald Rumsfeld that same day in Kabul: Rumsfeld said that in regard to Afghanistan, Bush, U.S....

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Another war on terror outrage: asylum denied

by Rodger Payne | 28 September, 2010 |

Did anyone else know about this additional outrageous consequence of the "war on terror"? You may have to be a subscriber to see this note from The Nation, September 20? Deborah Amos's Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East (PublicAffairs; $25.95) is a harrowing account of the pain and anguish suffered by the Iraqi Sunni diaspora in the Middle East. Especially perverse is a legal hurdle faced by exiles seeking asylum in the United States. Amos reports that Iraqis who have "paid ransom for the release of a loved one who had been kidnapped by a militia or criminal...

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