The Bidens are serving the Macrons US-made wine and cheese. A cute gesture or a clumsy diplomatic move?
Say “cheese”!
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US Foreign Policy
Putin-Biden summit, but make it an 18th century gossip column
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...
Not everything outside the Pentagon is “soft power”
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...
Trump’s Budweiser Putsch
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...
More US Foreign Policy Posts
Trump Wants People to “Study the World!” IR Scholars Can Jump All over This.
"Study the world!" brayed Trump on Twitter last week, in defense of his travel ban. Dan Drezner, who studies the world for a living, shot back: "I have studied it, and I can tell you with some certainty that your words and actions have harmed US national security." On Facebook, I've seen friends and colleagues with PhDs in international relations post their own versions of Dan's tweet: Andrew Moravcsik: "I have studied the world, and people who say they are going to change history generally repeat it." Richard Price: "Those who seek power by dividing ultimately succumb to those who unite to...
Does Bannon’s Appointment to the NSC/PC Require Senate Confirmation? Perhaps A Judge Should Decide.
Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen published an op-ed in today's New York Times calling for the removal of Steve Bannon from the National Security Council Principals Committee, a position he apparently obtained without Trump being fully briefed. According to Mullen: "Having Mr. Bannon as a voting member of the Principals Committee will have a negative influence on what is supposed to be a candid, nonpartisan deliberation. I fear that it will have a chilling effect on deliberations and, potentially diminish the authority and prerogatives to which Senate-confirmed Cabinet officials are...
Trump and the move away from the sitcom approach to foreign policy
If the United States is Blossom, then Australia is Six. If the United States is Alex P. Keaton, then Australia is Skippy (not this Skippy). These relationships make understanding the recent dust-up between Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister (no, not president—though republicanism remains a perenially-debated issue) Malcolm Turnbull (no, not Trumble). Last Saturday, Trump and Turnbull had a phone call. In and of itself, this is not remarkable. Australia is one the US’ most consistent and long-standing allies. Australia has been the US’ long-time pal, contributing troops to US-led...
Travel Ban Lifted in Early Victory for Non-Violent-Resistance to Trump
My colleague Erica Chenoweth has a great article in The Guardian today on the power of non-violent resistance: Many people across the United States are despondent about the new president – and the threat to democracy his rise could represent. But they shouldn’t be. At no time in recorded history have people been more equipped to effectively resist injustice using civil resistance... Historical studies suggest that it takes 3.5% of a population engaged in sustained nonviolent resistance to topple brutal dictatorships. If that can be true in Chile under Gen Pinochet and Serbia under Milosevic,...
Scientists Will March on Washington on April, 22. International Relations Scholars Should Join Them.
As became clear earlier this week in the discussion around how academic associations should respond to Trump's travel ban in organizing their annual meetings, President Trump's policy does not only affect national and religious minorities; it does not only affect scientists from Muslim-majority countries. In the case of the travel ban, it is also an existential attack on scientific inquiry - inhibiting scholarly collaboration and exchange on which all scientists rely. Excluding individuals from freedom to share scientific ideas based on their nationality or faith from is discriminatory and...
Talk Intel To Me
I remember laughing about an article in The Medium about a TV Sitcom that triggered the downfall of Western Civilization. In case you were wondering, it’s Friends with its “tragic hero” Ross Geller. The author lamented the awful mistreatment of the most cerebral character on the show that signified the harsh embrace of anti-intellectualism in America in the early 2000s. For instance, most of Ross’s academic stories were cut off by his bored friends and audience laughter. Why? Maybe some people would like to know more about sediment flow rate?! In the age of an amazing accessibility of...
Party Trumped Policy in 2016
This is a guest post by Christopher Gelpi and Elias Assaf. Christopher Gelpi is Chair of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and Professor of Political Science and Elias Assaf is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at The Ohio State University, both at The Ohio State University President Donald Trump adopted a variety of controversial and unorthodox foreign policy stances during the 2016 presidential campaign. Since taking office, Mr. Trump has moved quickly to begin implementing many of these policies – including a border wall...
Understanding Trump’s Worldview
Over the weekend, Donald Trump gave an interview with Michael Gove of The Times of London and Kai Diekmann, a former editor of the German newspaper Bild. (The interview is behind a paywall, but you can register for free for access to two articles a week from The Times.) There has been ample coverage in the press (see here, here), focusing on Trump's ambivalence to NATO ("obsolete" "very important"), hostility to the European Union ("Personally, I don’t think it matters much for the United States"), and equal regard for Angela Merkel and Putin ("Well, I start off trusting both — but let’s see...