The Duck of Minerva

Vikash Yadav

Vikash is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Asian Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. His main areas of academic interest are (post-) globalization, economic development, and economic freedom, with a regional focus on South Asia

Recent Posts

Battling a Straw Man and Still Losing

by Vikash Yadav | 15 March, 2010 |

[I don't mean to rail on the Washington Post's coverage of the war in Afghanistan two posts in a row, but the coverage is honestly a bit dismal this week. In my last post, I showed why Rajiv Chandrasekaran's article "At Afghan outpost, Marines gone rogue or leading the fight against counterinsurgency?" completely misunderstood the strategic importance of the town of Delaram from which the report was written.]An Op-ed article in yesterday's WaPo by Michael O'Hanlon and Hassina Sherjan, "Five Myths About the War in Afghanistan" poorly argues the case for "toughing it out" in Afghanistan. Since...

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Delaram

by Vikash Yadav | 14 March, 2010 |

Rajiv Chandrasekaran's article in today's Washington Post, "At Afghan outpost, Marines gone rogue or leading the fight against counterinsurgency?" paints a picture of Marines grudgingly guarding a town in no man's land on the edge of the desert:"DELARAM, AFGHANISTAN -- Home to a dozen truck stops and a few hundred family farms bounded by miles of foreboding desert, this hamlet in southwestern Afghanistan is far from a strategic priority for senior officers at the international military headquarters in Kabul. One calls Delaram, a day's drive from the nearest city, "the end of the Earth."...

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Afghan Perceptions of Operation Moshtarak

by Vikash Yadav | 14 March, 2010 |

Now that the fighting is over in the town of Marjah, how did the Afghan media perceive Operation Moshtarak? Here is a cursory round up of opinions from some of the newspapers in Afghanistan.(Unfortunately, I am dependent on reading translations of the local newspapers from thousands of miles away, but I still think it is fruitful to try to see events through the eyes of local elites rather than relying on military propaganda.)1. Weesa (government owned newspaper published in Pashto from Kabul) ran an interesting editorial on 7 March 2010 titled, "People Want an End to Terror." The "terror"...

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Paintings, Pictures, and Power

by Vikash Yadav | 3 March, 2010 |

At the "Theory Talks" Blog, there is an excellent interview with Michael J. Shapiro on "Pictures, Paintings, Power and the Political Philosophy of International Relations."  Shapiro argues for the need to awaken the discipline from its pre-Kantian slumber and to move beyond the "anemic, empiricist philosophy of social science which treats mere appearances" as well as the "security-minded and war strategy focused" versions of international relations.  Instead of working within the established techniques of the discipline, Shapiro embraces alternative genres (e.g. film, architecture, poetry,...

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Peace Talks and Terror Tactics

by Vikash Yadav | 26 February, 2010 |

Video Source: Channel 4 (UK)One day after peace talks between India and Pakistan, there has been an attack targeting Indian nationals on a goodwill mission in Afghanistan. I don't think anyone seriously doubts that these Taliban-led attacks in Afghanistan are being directed from Pakistani soil. (In general, the Afghan and Indian people have quite warm relations and Afghan nationalists have gravitated toward seeking a strategic partnership with India as both countries share territorial disputes with Pakistan.) Moreover, there are strong suspicions that a Pakistani extremist organization is to...

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Mullah Baradar and Stringer Bell

by Vikash Yadav | 22 February, 2010 |

My first thought when I heard of the capture of Mullah Baradar, "Mullah Omar's #2 man," was of Stringer Bell, "Avon Barksdale's #2 man" from "The Wire.""The Wire" was the ultimate show for Political Scientists. Beneath the gritty surface of a stale cops-n-robbers thematic is a brilliant show about dynamic organizations - mainly "po-lice" and criminal gangs, but also the city's decaying educational system, the media, city hall, etc. The individual characters no matter how innovative and charming cannot transcend the organizations in which they work or "the game" in which these organizations...

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The Hurt Locker

by Vikash Yadav | 13 February, 2010 |

When I heard that the "Hurt Locker," a drama set in the midst of the Iraq War, was nominated for several Oscars, I was intrigued. Americans have not shown much interest as a people in either of the current official wars and even less interest in documentaries about and dramas set in these conflicts. My initial hunch was that this film, was selected to balance out "Avatar", the narrative of which clearly questions militarism and imperialism (while also reveling in astounding levels of mindless violence). So I assumed that "The Hurt Locker" would make a conservative counter-argument which...

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Gates Grilled at Pakistan’s National Defense University

by Vikash Yadav | 12 February, 2010 |

[Crossposted from my Notebook]The Defense Department has pulled from its website the transcript of the Q and A session last month between Secretary of Defense Gates and Pakistani military officers.  The frank talk was apparently a bit heated. At one point, one of the Pakistani military officers asked Secretary Gates point blank: "Are you with us or against us?"The transcript reveals a deep level of distrust between the US and the Pakistani military.  It also shows that some junior officers of the Pakistani military do not take ownership of their government's current offensives against...

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Operation Moshtarak

by Vikash Yadav | 8 February, 2010 |

Operation Moshtarak ("Together" in Dari), which is slated to move into a more active phase any day now, has been billed as the largest ground battle in Afghanistan since 2001 and the largest air assault since the Iraq War in 1991. The planned attack, which will be centered around the towns of Marjeh (Marjah) and Nad-E'ali (Nad-e-Ali) in Helmand Province, was announced in a press conference by the Pentagon last week. Villages have been leafleted and village leaders have been informed of the coming attack.It is not uncommon to advertise a planned offensive in the Afghan war, but the usual...

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US Contemplated Giving India Nuclear Technology in 1961

by Vikash Yadav | 7 February, 2010 |

Two days ago the National Security Archive released a fascinating State Department document from 1961. In the document, US officials recommend passing nuclear technology to India in order to take the steam out of the anticipated nuclear tests by Communist China. Ultimately, of course, Secretary of State Rusk vetoed the recommendation to pass America's nuclear secrets on to India. China would go on to hold its first test three years later. India would not test its first nuclear device (i.e. the "Smiling Buddha") until 1974. Nevertheless, the document reveals a great deal about how the US...

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