The Duck of Minerva

Steve Saideman

Steve Saideman is Professor and the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. He has written The Ties That Divide: Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy and International Conflict; For Kin or Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism and War (with R. William Ayres); and NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone (with David Auerswald), and elsewhere on nationalism, ethnic conflict, civil war, and civil-military relations.

Recent Posts

NATO: Silly Proposals and Enduring Realities

by Steve Saideman | 23 August, 2014 |

I was going to post about my talk in Toronto on NATO , but now I have a slightly different NATO post to write: a response to this piece by Anne Applebaum proposing that Obama magically fix NATO.  Given that the title of my talk was “The Present and Future of NATO: More of the Same,” it is inevitable that I would be a skeptic of Applebaum's piece.   The basic thrust of the talk was that NATO's flaws are both baked into NATO's design (see the opt out language in Article V--an attack upon one equals an attack upon all and each country responds as each deems necessary) and inherent in...

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Thinking About Governments and Violence

by Steve Saideman | 14 August, 2014 |

I got into an extended twitter discussion about the 1992 LA riots.  Why?  Because that event helped to inform much of my thinking about ethnic conflict and because I see in Ferguson some key similarities despite the on-going events being about police aout of control rather than riots.  How so? The event that triggered the riots of 1992 was not the televised beating of Rodney King but the acquittal of the cops who beat him.  This demonstrated to many that the cops essentially had immunity/impunity, that the police were a combatant rather than a relatively impartial adjudicator of disputes. ...

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Friday Nerd Blogging: Force for Change

by Steve Saideman | 18 July, 2014 |

A depressing series of news days lately.  What can make us feel good?  Jon Stewart?  Stephen Colbert?  Star Wars?  How about all three? Yet another reason to regret leaving San Diego--where the Force for Change ends at Comic-Con.  May the force ever be in your odds!  

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Path Dependence, Iraq Edition

by Steve Saideman | 12 June, 2014 |

With the fall of Mosul to the jihadists of Syria and Iraq, there is much blame-casting to be had.  Some are blaming Obama for not keeping a residual force in Iraq although it is not clear that a small US force would have kept the Iraqi military from breaking. This always, always frustrates me because it ignores what the US faced in 2009--the accumulation of dynamics produced by the bad decisions of the past.  In this case, if people remember, there were many stories where Iraqi elites said two things: yes, we want the U.S. to stay, but no, we cannot say that in public.  Why? Pretty simple:...

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And The Winner Is?

by Steve Saideman | 27 May, 2014 |

Obviously, too soon to tell.  But with the new Obama announcement setting an enddate-ish, my nominee might just be: Pakistan.  Pakistan got to have heaps of aid despite spending the entire time subverting American/NATO efforts in Afghanistan.  Much American, Canadian, British, Danish, French, Germany, Dutch, Aussie (and others) blood is on Pakistan's hands. Who else?   Afghan kleptocrats or whatever you want to call those who enriched themselves and sent pallets of $ to Dubai. Russia and other authoritarian states through which the effort flowed.  Much money spent along the way, much...

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