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

If At First You Do Not Succeed

by Steve Saideman | 12 March, 2012 |

Lots of posts these days about whether to go to grad school for a PhD, including by Dan Drezner.  Drew Herrick has a nice post that not only presents his views but heaps of links to past posts by various folks (including myself) on this topic.  What these blogs have largely omitted is any discussion of what happens to the aspirants who do not get in or who get in but without funding (which most folks then say "run away!").When I was applying to grad school in a galaxy far away, in a time long ago, I didn't get into several schools, and those were the ones that notified me the most quickly. ...

read more

When Life Imitates Sports

by Steve Saideman | 7 February, 2012 |

Lots of folks use war as analogy for football (US version) or football as analogy for war, such as the blitz starting with war going to football and going back to war.  How about we take a key concept from football and from other sports and apply it to US (and perhaps NATO) defense policy: the salary cap? In professional sports, leagues have had to impose restraints upon owners of teams since competition among them (combined with nepotism leading to lousy decision-making) cause salaries to escalate.  As a result, bargaining with unions tends to be about the split of the income, with each...

read more

Egghead

by Steve Saideman | 4 February, 2012 |

 How are pieces of research like eggs?  Well, I was having a fun conversation with a grad student of mine while we were dining in the aftermath of a workshop on failed states, and I was suggesting a potential research strategy.  The point I was trying to make is that you don't want to waste your research.  At first, I was using bullets--but given our topics, violence, and given that bullets do not degrade over time, eggs made more sense.The basic idea is that when you do research, you don't always use everything you learn for a particular piece.  Indeed, one of Saideman's rules of...

read more

Grand Strategy or Glossing Over Budget Cuts: Q&A

by Steve Saideman | 5 January, 2012 |

 The twitter-verse, or at least, one of the corners I follow, had heaps of tweets dedicated to the rollout of the US defense review, with Obama playing a starring role.  Apparently, Obama briefing at the Pentagon is a new thing.  Anyhow, it raised all kinds of questions, so I thought I would answer them all here.  Yes, all of them.  Ok, some of them.Q: Is the review really a review of what the US wants to do, or is it a gloss over the requirements imposed by the fiscal crisis?A: Yes, it is a gloss, but it is more significant than that.  In the good old days, Grand Strategy meant the overall...

read more

Identity Under Threat

by Steve Saideman | 12 December, 2011 |

Blackwater, the infamous private security contractor (that is, 21st century mercenaries), changed its name to Xe, but that didn't work.  So now: ACADEMI.  Really.  I am not kidding.  This seems to be a focus group mistake.  After all, if you want to have the image of being decisive, forceful, reliable, and assertive, do you really want to identify yourself with academics who dither, passive, and cannot meet a deadline to save their lives?  Sure, we are good at attacking strawmen (strawpersons?), but real people with guns shooting back?  I didn't think so. So, let's ask the interwebs: what...

read more

Words are Wind?

by Steve Saideman | 2 December, 2011 |

 In the fifth book of the Game of Thrones series, it seems like every character at some point says: "Words are Wind."  This means that a promise or threat is being made, but there may not be any credibility.  Without getting sunk into an overly academic debate about the credibility of commitments, signaling and resolve, I just wanted to highlight a promise or two that might be "wind-worthy."Specifically, NATO, the US, the Danes, the Canadians, and everyone else keeps telling the Afghans that they will not be abandoned even as everyone is already heading out the door with official transition...

read more

The Political Science Store

by Steve Saideman | 29 November, 2011 |

The other day I briefly pondered what a Political Science Store would look like, after hearing about Anthropologie--a national chain of clothing stores.*  I received a bunch of ideas via facebook, twitter, and my blog, so I had to come up with different sections of the store:Used:  Tables (mostly in 2x2 dimensions); old Prisoner Dilemmas; Linear Regressions with several assumptions already violated; Political Culture arguments that come with "Racism Within" warning tags; Old Wine in New Bottles;Canadian goods: Crowns;a barren shelf labeled Oversight;lots of oui's and non's at a steep...

read more

Being Wrong

by Steve Saideman | 2 November, 2011 |

Twitter inspired a conversation today with Starbuck about Eliot Cohen, who wrote a very important book on civil-military relation, Supreme Command.  It features case studies where civilian leaders over-rode military officers, focusing on Lincoln, Churchill, Clemenceau and Ben-Gurion.  Clemenceau had said that war was too important to be left to the generals, and I agree.  I found Cohen's book very persuasive despite:the extreme selection bias: no cases of civilians making bad decisions and over-riding good military advice.  What would do the trick? Including an Iraq chapter where Rummy...

read more

Rumors of His Death Have Not Been Exaggerated

by Steve Saideman | 20 October, 2011 |

Qaddafi has lost his contest with Hussein and Bin Laden for hiding the longest from US/Allied/Local searches.  Lots of folks will make much of this event, as they should.  I have already seen a great tweet/blogpost by Spencer Ackerman predicting everyone's responses.What would my readers predict of me?  Woohoo?  Well, sure.  That NATO made a difference despite being hamstrung by the dynamics of coalitional bargaining within and between countries?  Indeed.  That much of the effort and all of the sacrifices (except for tax $$) were paid by Libyans?  Yes.What does Libya teach us about NATO that...

read more

Pondering Failure in Afghanistan

by Steve Saideman | 11 October, 2011 |

 Colonel Gian Gentle, a confirmed counterinsurgency [COIN] skeptic, raises questions for Col. Paul Yingling about the role of generals as COIN seems to be falling short in Afghanistan.  Yingling made much noise in 2007 by attacking American generals for poor leadership in 2007, as the US was losing in Iraq at the time.  Gentle is essentially pushing Yingling either to call Petraeus a bad general now (since Afghanistan is not such a happy place) or retract his earlier criticisms.While this is an argument between two Colonels, I am stepping in because I received a similar question last week at...

read more