Category: International Relations
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Bolton Watch
Steve Clemons has launched Bolton Watch over at TPM Cafe. It should be good. Steve talks about a story that gives you some indication of the style of Bolton over on his own blog: When he arrived at the UN, one of the first meetings he had with other Security Council principals had him stepping…
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Leo Strauss and the origins of Neo-Conservatism
I have been looking into the philosophy of Leo Strauss in more depth recently, and found the first episode of the BBC series, ‘The Power of Nightmares’ (60mins) quite helpful. It is worth a look. Some interesting stuff in there about the early days of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. This is related to a…
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The Perils of Primacy
Benjamin Shwarz has a thoughtful piece on how America must deal with it’s primacy. He argues that since the end of the Cold War, the United States has not fully dealt with its new position, and must seriously consider it’s position, and soon. He notes: Defense analysts have grown increasingly nervous about the convergence of…
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Peace spreads?
Following on from my post last month about the apparent spread of peace, the Atlantic have a helpful graph that summarises the Human Security Report. The number of ongoing armed conflicts is 40 percent lower now than in 1992, and the number of deadly conflicts—defined as wars leading to 1,000 or more combat deaths—is 80…
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Peace epidemic?
Dan Drezner links to an article by Fred Kaplan in Slate. Kaplan questions the veracity of claims in the Human Security Report that the world has become a more peaceful place since the end of the Cold War. Kaplan is unconvinced: All the report’s graphs end in 2002, the final year for which the authors…
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Staff rebellion at the World Bank?
A good friend of the staff here at Gavin’s Blog, Steve Clemons, has a story on an array of departures at the World Bank, since neo-conservative/neo-idealist Paul Wolfowitz became head of the organisation. The money quote: In recent months, picking up steam in recent weeks, there has been a massive exodus of top talent from…
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Foreign Policy cover
The latest issue of FP has a catchy cover, I like it…
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Drezner's letter to Karen Hughes
Dan Drezner wrote a really entertaining open letter to Karen Hughes about how the US could help out Pakistan with regard to the recent earthquake, and in doing so improve US-Islam relations immensely. Indeed after US involvement in Indonesia subsequent to the tsunami, polls showed that hostility to the US decreased dramatically. The money quote:…
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Conference posting
I am at the Hilton in Washington now, and hope to live blog at least some of this event. It is also being webcast for those of you interested in watching it. It is also available on C-Span. Oh I just spotted Philip Bobbitt! Am I the only one who looks at professors and thinks…
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Giving justice its due: George Perkovich
The latest edition of Foreign Affairs is full to brim with excellent essays. One of my favourites is Perkovich’s essay on justice. It is wide ranging and well written, taking in various disciplines from economics to evolutionary psychology. I will post more about it once I get near a computer. Perkovich is vice president for…