Everybody’s talking about nuclear war with Russia right now and it bugs me, not least because I’ve seen this nuclear frenzy before. Now, I think people have good reason to be worried about Russian nuclear use, as I wrote some five months ago. But...
Gentle reader*, People that have an itch at scribbling generally entertain their visitors with their happy projects, high flights, and wonderful publications, therefore 'tis to be supposed...
As someone who works on religion and politics, I encounter the term "soft power" a lot. Most of the time it's in a good way; soft power is a means to advocate for policies that draw on our values...
US President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives to a "Make America Great Again" campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 1, 2019. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo credit should read SAUL...
This is a guest post from Ronald R. Krebs, who is the Beverly and Richard Fink Professor in the Liberal Arts and Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. His most recent book is Narrative and the Making of US National Security. At times, in recent years, it has seemed that Republicans and Democrats occupied different narrative universes with respect to national security. Republicans generally continued to live in the world of the War on Terror. Democrats gave voice to a more balanced understanding of the threats and opportunities facing the United States. Even when...
This guest post is by Joseph O’Mahoney, currently a Stanton Fellow at MIT and an Assistant Professor in Seton Hall’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations. In the US, support for President Donald Trump’s executive order, which restricts travel to the US by citizens of seven Muslim majority countries, has been mixed. Perhaps surprisingly, the Islamic State or ISIS is wildly in favor of the so-called “Muslim ban.”. Postings to pro-ISIS social media accounts called the proposed order a “blessed ban” and hailed Trump as “the best caller to Islam”. Why? Because it “clearly revealed the...
Following his prescient piece from last year, Tom Wright has a provocative new essay on Donald Trump's foreign policy in Politico. He suggests that Trump foreign policy has Jeckyll and Hyde qualities. While Trump (and Bannon) are committed to a radical vision to upend establishment foreign policy, they hold a minority view in the government. To staff his administration, Trump has largely turned to establishments folks like Mattis, Kelly, McMaster, among others. This means that there isn't really anyone to implement that radical vision, leaving Trump's views to express themselves on a few...
This World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism (WPTPN) guest post is written by Simon Frankel Pratt, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto. His research is on institutional politics, international norms, and the US's security apparatus. For further information, see his website or find him on Twitter (@simon_the_pratt) Unlike other contributions to this essay series, mine will be somewhat more informal in tone. I am going to share some concepts (and neologisms) that I find helpful for making sense of ‘Trumpism’—by which I mean Trump, his rogues’ gallery (or carnival), and...
Every day it seems we hear more about the advancements of artificial intelligence (AI), the amazing progress in robotics, and the need for greater technological improvements in defense to “offset” potential adversaries. When all three of these arguments get put together, there appears to be some sort of magic alchemy that results in widely fallacious, and I would say pernicious, claims about the future of war. Much of this has to do, ultimately, with a misunderstanding about the limitations of technology as well as an underestimation of human capacities. The prompt for this round of...
Since the U.S. election Iranian-American relations have gone into a rapid tailspin, with Iran reacting to the triumphalist tenor of the Trump campaign and the improvised response of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn that sought to “put Iran on notice.” The arrival of his replacement in General H.R. McMaster offers the U.S. a fresh opportunity to tone down its approach to Iran, beginning with guarding against any dramatic escalation of the stakes. For unless the Administration is actually willing to go to war with Iran, this confrontation actually won't get the U.S. anywhere...
This is an open letter signed by US international affairs scholars to their fellow citizens. If you hold a PhD in international relations or an extant field and wish to add your name to the list, please tweet #StudytheWorld with your name and institutional affiliation or send this information in an email to ir.scholars.openletter@gmail.com. Dear Fellow Americans, Recently, President Trump tweeted that people should “Study the world!” to understand his foreign policy. As scholars of international relations, we have studied the world, and we are concerned that the actions of the President...
Trump told us we should study the world. IR scholars had something to say about that. Earlier I promised to turn some of these quips into a special blog post, which also happens to be my Ignite talk at this year's Duckies' Awards in Baltimore. Happy #ISA2017.