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

Kicking the Can Down the Ring Road

by Vikash Yadav | 20 May, 2011 |

How is it that time and time again we are persuaded to hang on for another year in Afghanistan with the mantra that counterinsurgency (a.k.a. COIN) will really work this time. While I certainly acknowledge the limited range of alternative options and oppose any peace agreement with the Taliban, I think that putting our faith in COIN time and time again is problematic... To understand why, perhaps a (not so brief) recap of how the discourse of COIN has mutated in Afghanistan would be helpful...From late 2003 to mid 2004, Robert Andrews, a CIA and DoD official and Donald Rumsfeld's head of...

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Revolution, Revolution until Victory

by Vikash Yadav | 15 May, 2011 |

‎"... Yet the crowds were not placated, and they spent the next hour in the courtyard repeating the classic songs of the uprising, "thowra thowra huta nasr" (revolution, revolution until victory)." -Al Jazeera (4/25/2011)The revolution which overthrew Hosni Mubarak is in danger. While Western media outlets have given primacy in their coverage of events to speculative discussions about the historic, current, and future role of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as the pivotal role of the Egyptian military, it is the organizations representing the rights of factory workers and allied leftist youth...

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Tere bin Laden

by Vikash Yadav | 3 May, 2011 |

"You Americans, you think when something dies, it goes away." - Robin Williams in the play "Tiger"In Urdu/Hindi the phrase "Tere bin Laden," which was also the title of last year's hit Bollywood comedy about the American War on Terror, is a play on words which can be read as "Your bin Laden" or "Without you, Laden."  The phrase succinctly captures the current reality in which bin Laden is both absent and polysemic.As Faisal Devji has argued, Americans and Arabs have tended to forcibly fit this Saudi man -- who swore allegiance to a reclusive Afghan mullah: who lived and fought in Africa and...

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North Waziristan: Drones and Compellence

by Vikash Yadav | 30 April, 2011 |

North Waziristan has witnessed 20 drone strikes in the first four months of this year, which is a relatively lower number than the previous year (in 2010 there were a record setting 104 drone strikes in North Waziristan or 8.67 strikes per month). The relative "silence of the drones" this year is mainly attributed to a lull following the imprisonment of a CIA agent, Raymond Davis, who was accused of murdering two men in Pakistan on 27 January. One day after the US paid diyya (thereby implicitly reinforcing sharia in Pakistan) to have Davis released there was a drone attack which killed 40-50...

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India: Choosing between America and Iran

by Vikash Yadav | 21 April, 2011 |

India appears to be continuing to shift its West Asia policy away from a once budding partnership with Iran, which aimed among other things to stabilize Afghanistan. It is rumored that in late March, the Indian National Security Adviser, Shiv Shanker Menon, delicately delivered a message to the Islamic Republic that India's PM would not be making a state visit later this year (Telegraph [Kolkata] 3/10/11). If the news reports are correct, the diplomatic maneuver comes only a few months after India abandoned the practice of paying for its crude oil imports from Iran through the Tehran...

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Boys’ Toys

by Vikash Yadav | 20 April, 2011 |

The following word cloud from Crystal Smith's The Achilles Effect blog reflects the vocabulary commonly used for toy advertisements directed toward young boys (i.e. those toys in the 6-8 year old boy's section of the Toys 'R Us website were classified as "boys' toys"). While the data visualization was not meant as part of a rigorous study, it is nevertheless interesting anecdotal evidence pointing toward the ways in which gender stereotypes are shaped and/or reinforced, particularly when the word cloud is compared to toys targeted toward girls from the same age group. (Yes, I am aware that a...

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Can Elmo Save Pakistan?

by Vikash Yadav | 13 April, 2011 |

In the latest attempt to project its "soft power" in South Asia, the US government has approved a $20 million project to bring a local adaptation of Sesame Street to Pakistan. Time magazine notes:"'The idea is to prepare and inspire a child to go on the path of learning,' said Faizaan Peerzada, a collaborator on the Pakistani version of the show. "This is a very serious business, the education of the children of Pakistan at a critical time." Their main messages will be of acceptance and empowerment, to sway youngsters away from religious extremism and promote growth."The Guardian writes that...

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The Infected Zone

by Vikash Yadav | 31 March, 2011 |

UK Movie Poster for "Monsters" (2010). Source: Wikipedia.The post-9/11 generation sci-fi film "Monsters" (Gareth Edwards, 2010) is a kind of "Cloverfield" for the US-Mexican border (or if you're a real film buff, it is a "Sin Nombre" journey film with real aliens, i.e. gigantic extra-terrestials). But this is more than just a monster flick.The film takes the notion of a militarized zone and an alien invasion along the US-Mexican border quite literally, but it is set six years after the invasion or infestation. Thus, Mexico is transformed into a late-Occupied Iraq or Afghanistan and Texas...

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We’re Sorry

by Vikash Yadav | 25 March, 2011 |

We're sorry...That some of our soldiers publicly refer to your people in derogatory and racist language.That some of our soldiers shoot your unarmed civilians at random, defile their corpses, and cut off body parts to keep as trophies.That some of our soldiers killed the cousin of your head of state. We didn't even know we were in the hometown of the President, how could we have known he was a Karzai? Oh, right.. we're very sorry.That our helicopter pilots slaughtered your children while they are out collecting firewood.  That argument we made about how using attack helicopters instead of...

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Of Lords and Flies

by Vikash Yadav | 23 March, 2011 |

The release of the first three of a reported 4,000 photos and videos from an American "kill team" in Afghanistan threatens to become the next "Abu Ghraib."  The horrific images of civilian corpses being photographed with grinning American troops raises important questions about the American military's ability to maintain professional standards and discipline; soldiers' (racialized) understanding of and ability to engage with foreign societies; and the underside of military culture. In other words, contrary to the military's spin machine, these images are not an aberration or simply the...

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