Jon Western
- Syttende mai!
- Remembering Kenneth Waltz
- Erica Chenoweth and Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham put together a special issue of the Journal of Peace Research on nonviolence. (Free access through July 31).
- A New Deal for Fragile States: spoiler alert -- national leadership and ownership of agendas are key.
- In other IRS news -- don't F@#$ with adjuncts...
- 3-d printable drones in our future?
- Meanwhile, back in Syria: Could things get any worse?
- Michael Walzer sees dithering in Syria as an entirely rational response.
- Is the town of Qusayr next?
- Jon Lee Anderson on videos of atrocities in war.
and....
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- More on the question of Red Lines. I asked so what? John Mueller wants them erased. Malfrid Braut-Hegghammar wants them enforced.
- Must read from Dexter Filkins on Obama administration's thinking on Syria .
- Tom Ricks sees some wisdom in the lessons from Iraq on Syria.
- Steve Walt applauds the administration's buck passing.
- Zbigniew Brzezinski argues intervention will make things worse.
- Daniel Serwer on how Syria is affecting Iraq.
- Colin Kahl and Marc Lynch look toward "progressive engagement" after the Arab uprisings.
- Seeing the glass half-full in Pakistan.
and....
Over the years I've taught Scott Sagan and Charles Perrow for a range of different courses. Based on those two books, I'm pretty sure that I'd rather not read these two terms in the same sentence: "nuclear weapons" and "rot." From this morning's Washington Post:
The Air Force stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to control — and, if necessary, launch — nuclear missiles after a string of unpublicized failings, including a remarkably dim review of their unit’s launch skills. The group’s deputy commander said it is suffering “rot” within its ranks.
“We are, in fact, in a crisis right now,” the commander, Lt. Col. Jay Folds, wrote in an internal email obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by the Air Force.
The tip-off to trouble was a March inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., which earned the equivalent of a “D” grade when tested on its mastery of Minuteman III missile launch operations. In other areas, the officers tested much better, but the group’s overall fitness was deemed so tenuous that senior officers at Minot decided, after probing further, that an immediate crackdown was called for.
The Air Force publicly called the inspection a “success.”
All of this "success" comes after a much publicized effort that began in 2008 to fix the problems of complacency, demoralization, and insubordination.
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So everyone is bashing Obama’s use of red lines on Syria. In Sunday's New York Times, Daniel Byman took the concept of red lines to task because failure to act on them weakens America’s credibility and reputation:
…when deterrence fails, the United States looks weak and indecisive.... Moreover, not acting after issuing ultimatums harms America’s reputation. As Mr. Rogers and others have argued, inaction makes it more likely that American red lines elsewhere in the region will be questioned, especially in Iran, which is facing pressure on its nuclear weapons program and watching Syria closely.
But here is the question: Does the United States really look weak and indecisive if it fails to follow through on a bluff? The United States uses force at a rate that is several times greater than others – it has already toppled regimes on Iran’s western border and on Iran’s eastern border – and somehow it is the lesson of Syria that is more salient for Iran? More broadly: why should an occasional bluff matter?
Well, actually it doesn’t. Robert Jervis demonstrated four decades ago that signaling is complex business. Jon Mercer’s excellent book on reputation shows that we’ve spent far too much blood and treasure over the folly of preserving our credibility. Daryl Press spent years trying to demonstrate the costs of lost credibility when a state fails to follow through on its threats. His finding? The conventional wisdom on credibility “is wrong.” In his book Calculating Credibility: How Leaders Assess Military Threats, Press writes:
A country’s credibility, at least during crises, is driven not by its past behavior but rather by power and interests. If a country makes threats that it has the power to carry out – and an interst in doing so—those threats will be believed even if the country has bluffed in the past….When assessing credibility during crises, leaders focus on the “here and now,” not on their adversary’s past behavior.
He and Jenny Lind have a nice post on Steve Walt’s blog warning against using the idea that we have to intervene in Syria to defend American credibility in the wake of Obama’s red line. We don’t.
But, this also raises another interesting question.
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- Red lines or red lights on Syria? It's not just about Syria.
- What if the Tsarnaevs had been shooters instead of bombers?
- Playing out academic feuds in the press...Reinhart and Rogoff respond.
- Fodder for PTJ: What do scientifc studies tell us?
- Very persuasive: I spent three hours yesterday on the tarmac at O'Hare delayed by an FAA furlough hold as a result of sequestration -- passed the time reading Mark Blyth's Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea -- scathing rebuke of neoliberalism.
- If you are keeping score, Spain's unemployment just topped 27% -- 6 million -- with more budget cuts pending.
- Tarak Barkawi warns of the neoliberal assault on academia.
- While we're at it -- here's one reason REF is so popular among academics. ht: Sherrill Stroschein
- Who knew? Apparently it's more lucrative to be a member of the Chinese National Peoples Congress than to be a member of the US Congress.
- The best we can advise on whether or not to go to grad school: "good luck?"
- I'm confused -- we spend $750bn+/yr on national security and we're in danger of falling into isolation?
- ISA News: Congratulations to Dan and Patrick! They will be involved with ISQ -- ISA's flagship publication for the next five years. Dan has been selected as the lead editor, Patrick as the web editor. Congrats!
- I'm not a fan of the new grading software technologies, but maybe I can be persuaded -- grading while at ISA does suck.
- Already? Minerva (note: not Duck of) a threat to MOOCs.
- We have an answer to the universe? It's all code? Cool.
- The decline in critical thinking in the US is becoming a national security concern. Can we securitize the liberal arts?
- Barbara Walter, Daniel Maliniak, and Ryan Powers find that articles written by women in IR are cited significantly less than articles written by men.
Plus:
- Why leaving Afghanistan isn't so easy -- retrograde logistics.
- Kony
20122013, it's now a $5m bounty.
and...
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- Joshua Goldstein and I look at R2P After Syria.
- But, what will Syria look like after Syria?
- And, what exactly is the Obama administration doing there? Training and arming the rebels covertly but not with non-lethal military aid -- body armor and night vision.
- UN arms treaty blocked by Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Go figure.
- Title is misleading, but this is comprehensive look at Afghanistan -- will likely be at war long after 2014.
- Current Intelligence has a nice feature from Clive Schofield dissecting the myths and realities of Arctic competition.
- Bringing sabermetrics and moneyball to Washington, where's Bill Petti when we need him?
- Callum Watson looks to IR to unpack the paradox of Swiss diversity and intolerance.
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OK, the 10-year retrospectives on the Iraq War are in and the debate is on. Yes, Bush, Cheney, and the neocons sold the country a bill of goods on Iraq. They are war criminals and should be held accountable. Iraq was a strategic disaster, it was a financial disaster, and for far too many it was a human and humanitarian disaster. Yes, yes, yes, the intelligence was faulty, the pundit class failed, Judith Miller was wrong, and the New York Times screwed up. The list goes on.
But, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen all of this, and it won’t be the last. Read on and be sure to take the time to watch the video clip at the end.
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It's the Ides of March. Be careful out there. Here's a random selection of this week's reads:
- How Fear made America. Scott Lemieux reviews Ira Katznelson's new book Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time.
- Anatol Levien questions the "endgame" in Afghanistan.
- Ken Roth asks what rules should govern drone attacks.
- Charles Hunt on the on-going challenges of peacekeeping in DRC.
- North Korean propaganda video of life in the United States.
- Missed this earlier -- the four stages of Putinism.
- The guy who put internet freedom on the "grown-ups table" is leaving the State Department.
- Larry Diamond is running a MOOC on Democracy Development course through Coursera. Begins April 1.
And....
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Happy International Women's Day.
- Remembering events in Bosnia twenty years ago and how the world was changed.
- The Guardian's profile of a few voices from around the world.
- Urvashi Sahni and Xanthe Ackerman offer strategies for action.
In my weekend reading, I'll be trying to make sense of some of this week's bizarre events.
- North Korea ends peace pact and ratchets up the threat.
- Jeffrey Lewis worries about the next moves
- Senator Robert Menedez says Congress and the United States must "ensure that North Korea pays a price for its continued reckless behavior."
- BBC has video of North Korean State TV footage of a visit by Kim Jong-un to troops.
- Marcus Noland discounts the effect of the new sanctions.
- The debate over Dennis Rodman. Robert is annoyed, Joel Wit and Jenny Town think maybe it's not all bad.
- The Arab League will allow its members to arm the rebels in Syria.
- The US wants the the diplomatic negotiation areas at to the UN to "be an inebriation-free zone."
Miscellaneous musings for the weekend.
- If this is true, then will the sequester be over by the next Congressional recess? Any idea as to why so many trips to Switzerland?
- I seriously doubt it has anything to do with this.
- Mattea Kramer and Chris Hellman find that we've spent $791bn on Homeland Security since 9/11 -- compared to an inflation-adjusted $500bn for the entire New Deal.
- On-going stress in India about Pakistan's nuclear capabilities and new developments in India's own capabilities.
- A basic primer on Iran
- "One of the most bizarre relationships in international relations?"
- Thinking about the prequel to Argo.
- Wow! (I think). Rat to rat brain connections. Where will this technology lead us? Darpa is behind it? Really?
- Michael Klare warns of danger in the South China Sea.
And...
Apparently, the Arab Spring will not come to the UAE this weekend. Planners of an LSE conference on the implications of the Arab Spring set for this weekend in UAE have cancelled the event after efforts by senior UAE officials to control the content. From the BBC:
A senior LSE academic told the BBC he had been detained at the airport in Dubai on Friday.
Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, who is the co-director of the Kuwait programme at LSE, said immigration authorities had separated him from his colleagues and confiscated his passport before denying him entry and sending him back to London.
In an earlier statement given to the BBC, the university said:
"The London School of Economics and Political Science has cancelled a conference it was co-hosting with the American University of Sharjah on The Middle East: Transition in the Arab World.
"The decision was made in response to restrictions imposed on the intellectual content of the event that threatened academic freedom."
It did not say who had placed restrictions on the conference but a well-placed source told the BBC pressure had come from "very senior" UAE government officials.
To date LSE has received £5.6m ($8.5m) from the Emirates Foundation, which is funded by the UAE government, but the institution denied that the foundation was involved in placing the restrictions.
I am guessing we'll get more details about this specific event in the days to come. But, here are a couple of quick thoughts:
Here's the round-up:
- The United Nations refuses to pay compensation to victims of the cholera it brought to Haiti. Not really a surprise. Read Jonathon Katz's The Big Truck That Went By.
- Joshua Landis' survey of the debate over counting casualties in Syria. There is a strong sense that the numbers are under-reported.
- Megan Price and her team at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group are still analyzing the numbers presented in their preliminary report.
- Marc Lynch hosts a debate on whether or not to arm the Syrian rebels.
- After listening to Sean Lynn-Jones' podcast, my weekend read: David Shambaugh's China Goes Global: The Partial Power.
- Steve Hess on why there hasn't been a China spring.
And:
- If it looks like a Duck -- the Monkey Cage's take on the Hagel filibuster and the politics of the Senate
- Daniel Serwer thinks the US should be funneling money to Moaz al Khatib and the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition forces.
- Corruption and inefficiency in the delivery of humanitarian aid -- can it still be overcome.
- John McCain wants to give the Syrian Opposition Coalition control over humanitarian aid. Really not a good idea.
- Understanding factionalism in Syria -- and how to start a battalion in five easy lessons.
- Thinking about post-conflict justice in Syria
- The debate on whether or not the end is in sight.
And:
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Winter Storm Nemo is bearing down on us and everything is shut down up here in the Northeast. No classes and no office hours!
Here's the quick snow edition:
- Why are we now naming winter storms?
- Canadians dissing on Toronto.
- Moscow has received its heaviest snow in a century. With pictures.
- I used to do this on really cold snow days growing up in North Dakota -- blow soap bubbles and watch them freeze and shatter. (There really was nothing else to do at -20 degrees in North Dakota)
- Thomas Ricks continues his rant on the dismissal of CENTCOM Commander General James Mattis.
- Ricks' earlier takes here.
- Some Teaparty folks think Mattis' dismissal is part of Obama's longer-term intent to kill Americans.
- Maybe, but at least we know the moon landing wasn't faked.
- But, really, while Mattis may be a popular and effective leader of Marines, his role at CENTCOM as the face of the American power in the Middle East probably requires a bit more diplomatic polish than he's demonstrated in the past.
- International Crisis Group on new threats from North Korea.
- The internal political dynamics in Syria suggest that the war isn't likely to end any time soon.
- Interesting podcast from America Abroad on the spill-over effects of the Syrian war.
- Daniel Serwer concludes that the longer term trends in Syria also look bleak.
- I haven't seen the episode of PBS's NOVA on Drones, but Kevin Gosztola at Dissenter isn't very happy about it.
And finally:
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Ok, you went to Oberlin or maybe Swarthmore or Bowdoin or Haverford or Macalester. It was your first experience away from home -- your first real intellectual stimulation, the drugs, the sex -- it was a total mind blowing experience. You had dinner at a professor’s house and then stayed late into the night discussing the Russian Revolution. You experimented with Marxism, liberation theology, or maybe even poetry. From the moment you left college, you knew you would get your Ph.D. and become a liberal arts college professor.
Sorry to burst the bubble, but let me be blunt here. You can’t get it back. Seriously, you can’t. When you finish your Ph.D. and land that job in a liberal arts college – you are not a student experiencing new and “fresh” ideas for the first time in your life. You are an untenured assistant professor. (With an emphasis on untenured and assistant). There is nothing “fresh” about being untenured and assistant (emphasis is still there). And, there is no more experimentation.
And for those of you interviewing for a job in a liberal arts college and planing to tell us all about how “the liberal arts education transformed” your life. Don’t. Really.
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- New term alert: France is worried that Mali and the region is turning into "Afrighanistan."
- If you didn't see this on Wednesday, go back and read Adrienne LeBas's piece here on Duck.
- Some evidence of Malian support for intervention?
- Mohammed Adow at Al Jazeera's Africa blog also thinks so.
- Gregory Mann believes the intervention was necessary and is widely supported, but worries about the new dangers and dynamics it has created.
- Alex Thurston isn't so sure.
- Conn Hallinan looks back to the link with NATO's Libya intervention.
- Tobias Koeph and JonTemin ask the question -- what next?
- Steve Walt -- of course.
- The Guardian's live updates on the related hostage crisis in Algeria.
My colleague, Javier Corrales, has an excellent summary of the internal political dynamics in Venezuela on the news yesterday of President Hugo Chavez's deteriorating health condition. Corrales reports that the "Venezuelan government is busy preparing for the re-inauguration of the country's beloved president, Hugo Chávez, and also for his funeral."
The timing of all of this makes for significant confusion:
Venezuela's constitution offers some guidance on what to do. If the president dies, the vice president (in this case, Nicolás Maduro, an avowed communist) will take office. He will call a new election within 30 days. If Chávez survives but cannot attend the inauguration, most jurists agree that the president of the National Assembly (Diosdado Cabello, who will presumably be reelected to that post in a vote on January 5) will take power. If the government then rules that the president-elect is only "temporarily absent," Cabello will govern for 90 days, which will be renewable for 90 more. If it instead declares the president-elect to be "permanently absent," Cabello would be constitutionally obligated to call an early election...
...The political confusion, meanwhile, is no small matter. The government's unwillingness to accept that Chávez most likely cannot be inaugurated has produced unnecessary uncertainty. The indecision is probably the result of a power struggle within Chávez's party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. The PSUV knows well that the timing of the announcement of the president's absence (whether it occurs before or on the inauguration date) and the type of absence (permanent or temporary) determines who gets to control the succession, Maduro or Cabello. And each man leads a different faction.
Chávez stated his preference for Maduro to succeed him in December, during a weekend visit to Caracas between cancer treatments. But the rest of the party does not seem to be fully on board. Maduro's opponents believe that he is too close to Cuba and too distant from Venezuela. As foreign minister since 2006, Maduro has spent much of his time away from home in recent years. Cabello, too, has detractors. Thanks to his history as a member of the armed forces, a state governor, and a minister of public works, he is seen as being allied with the least glorious element of Venezuela's revolution: corrupt businessmen and military officials who have profited from their dealings with the state.
Is the tide turning on the idea of austerity?
- Philip Pilkington takes issue with this week's New York Times feature story on how well the Latvians are enduring austerity.
- The IMF thinks Latvia has gone too far.
- Last week, IMF Director Christine Legarde warned Germany to go slower in making cuts.
- And, yesterday, it (the IMF) acknowledged in a new paper that "“Forecasters significantly underestimated the increase in unemployment and the decline in domestic demand associated with fiscal consolidation,” -- a finding that it began to unroll last fall.
- Former EC Commissioner Lord Mandelson warns of the obvious. Brookings experts recently reviewed Eurozone progress. Martin Edwards gives his take here.
- For those inclined, check out Mark Blyth's talk last month at the Penn Social Science and Policy Forum on his forthcoming book Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea. If you jump to the 9th segment, you'll get to his discussion of these most current trends -- including Latvia.
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