Anwar al-Awlaki and Targeted Killing: A quick, first, and uneasy reaction

*post written with comments from fellow duck Ben O'Loughlin

The world media is reporting that Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed in Yemen – although details are very sketchy at this point.

It is very clear to me that Awlaki was not a particularly nice person – he advocated some rather terrible things (even before 9/11 supposedly radicalised him). His followers have been certainly linked to terrorism, including the Fort Hood shooting.

However, I must admit that I am somewhat troubled by this turn of events. Earlier this year I suggested that the targeted killing of bin Laden was acceptable under international law. He’s been linked to the financing and organising of terrorist attacks around the world and this was well established before his death.

But I have yet to see any reports that suggest that Awlaki has been tied to any material support for terrorist attacks. I think this changes the legal game substantially. It essentially is suggesting that *we* (whoever that is) are now targeting people for their ideas rather than they are actually doing. Pushed to its logical extreme, a person might unintentionally inspire others to commit violent acts. Should they be eliminated?

I’m no fan of Awlaki and I will certainly not mourn his passing, (really – he seems like a total jerk) but this raises serious questions about the targeted killing program, who is being targeted and why. Presumably, in the case of targeted killing, its important there is evidence BEFORE the killing, rather than a scrabble now to piece together a case, after the fact.

I hope there is evidence that he actually materially supported terrorism.

Edit: Will McCants has linked to an article at Foreign Policy from November 2010 which argues the case for taking out Awlaki. I still have mixed feelings about this. I will feel better if there is a case/dossier of evidence that can be brought forward - and I still maintain that this case should have been made before striking out at him. 

Our new Fall line-up

We're welcoming a couple of new guest bloggers to Duck. Jay Ulfelder, who blogs at Dart Throwing Chimps, is a political scientist who does excellent work forecasting regime survival and change, democratization, and violent conflict. And Erica Chenoweth from Wesleyan University will be posting as Rational Insurgent -- also the name of her blog. She's done some amazing work on terrorism and most recently on civil resistance and non-violent conflict. A very warm welcome to both!

Friday Nerd Blogging

How the author coded the characters either for "good" or "lawful" certainly beggars the imagination. That said, as an out and proud political scientist I cannot help but appreciate a handy 3x3 grid wherever I can get one... H/T selfishmeme

"Magic Democracy Words" Don't Tie Their Speaker's Hands

 In an August 30 piece for BBC News, Shashank Joshi, a graduate student at Harvard University and associate fellow at a major U.K. think tank, argued that strong statements from American officials about Syrian president Assad's loss of legitimacy would help advance the Syrian revolution by committing the U.S. to stronger courses of action. Joshi writes (emphasis added):

The Syrian revolution of 2011 could also have been one more of those many abortive uprisings whose blood flecks the history of the modern Middle East, yet could not change its course. Things are no longer so clear. The outside world is slowly getting its act together. The US finally issued its "magic democracy words" (a term coined by US Middle East scholar Marc Lynch) and called for President Assad to go. No-one expects that the words will wound themselves, but they tie American hands and thereby force the machinery of US foreign policy to churn out fresh ways of hounding Damascus.

This isn't the only place I've seen it said that sharp pronouncements from American officials about a foreign leader's right to rule or the need for regime change "tie American hands." This might sound nit-picky, but that phrasing's not quite right, and it makes a difference for how effective we might expect those "magic words" to be.

The language about hand-tying comes from game theory. In multiplayer games, each player's course of action often depends, in part, on its expectations about what other players will choose to do. This interactive aspect of the game means that one player can influence the others' choices by committing him or herself to following or eschewing a specific course of action. For that commitment to be credible, it has to be visible (or audible) to the other players. More important here, it also has to be something its maker can't undo, or, if he or she can undo it, something that would obviously be costlier to undo than to follow.

A classic example of hand-tying comes from the game of chicken. Imagine a contest with two cars hurtling toward each other. If the cars smash into each other, both drivers lose badly. If both cars swerve, neither driver wins, and they both look a little cowardly. The only way to win the game is to hold the course longer than the other guy. To scare your rival into swerving first, you might commit yourself to holding course by, say, visibly locking the steering wheel into a fixed position. (To see these ideas in action, watch Kevin Bacon on a tractor. Technically, that's foot-tying, but you get the point.)

Credible commitments differ from weaker forms of signaling. Signals don't foreclose any courses of action; instead, they affect other players' beliefs about what course of action the signal's issuer will choose. Game theory tells us that signals should have a weaker effect on other players' actions than credible commitments do. They don't lop any branches off the game tree; they just modify receivers' beliefs about which branch of the tree they are probably heading down.

"Magic democracy words" are not credible commitments; they are weak signals. They are audible, but they neither lock in nor foreclose any specific policy options. After saying that a ruler like Assad must go, the U.S. government might do more to make that happen, but it can also do nothing, and it can even work to support that ruler's continuation in office. Whichever path it chooses, it can also change course at any time. Doing so might somehow diminish America's reputation, but the costs of a diminished reputation must be balanced against all kinds of other interests, many of which will probably weigh more heavily than ephemeral concerns about consistency and likeability. International relations is replete with flip-flops, hypocrisy, and duplicity, so it's hard to imagine many situations in which reputational concerns would compel a government to pursue a course of action that was otherwise judged to be counter to its national interest.

To my mind, magic democracy words are more like trash-talking than hand-tying. They might get players and fans a little hot under the collar, but they don't really tell us much about the action to come. Smart players and coaches will ignore the jawboning and will look for their signals in the play that follows instead.

* * *

This post appeared earlier this week on my own blog, Dart-Throwing Chimp. Joshi left a comment there that deserves to be carried over here. He wrote:

I’ve had a good discussion with Jay on Twitter about this. But to the commenter above, just wanted to add that this (allies) was my intended focus. The next passage in the article (after the one excerpted here) was: “They also send a powerful signal – not to Mr Assad, but to US allies and partners who now know that there may be a cost to hedging their bets. For example, their firms may be caught up in sanctions, as has occurred in the course of US policy towards Iran.” I grant that I shouldn’t have said “powerful”. But, technically, this is a case of commitment or tying hands, and not signaling. Even creating weak costs for inaction still qualifies as tying hands, e.g. http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/41/1/68.abstract.

Terrorism in Democracies

Yesterday the FBI arrested a Massachusetts man, who has been subsequently charged with a number of crimes related to terrorism. [1] This is the latest in a string of plots that the U.S. has successfully thwarted, yet it raises alarms for many Americans who have felt immune from Al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism on U.S. soil. Erik Dahl, of the Naval Postgraduate School, has identified dozens of credible plots (as many as 45 by jihadist-inspired groups or individuals, according to John Avlon) since 9/11, all of which have been either botched by offenders or thwarted by the authorities.

Americans should not be too surprised by this latest wave of domestic plots. After all, domestic attacks make up the vast majority of terrorist activity--jihadist or not. Neither should they be too surprised about homegrown AQ-inspired activity, which is simply part of the current wave of terrorist activity around the world, as Karen Rasler and William Thompson tell us. Some scholars have even argued that Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism is simply a "fad" that will eventually go the way of all other other fads.

Nonetheless, this brings up three important questions:  (1) Will the current wave of jihadist terrorism be replaced? (2) If so, by what kind of terrorism? (3) Where?

My answers: (1) Probably. (2) Who knows? (3) Largely in democratic countries, most likely.

One of the most important continuities during the past forty years is the fact that terrorism tends to occur much more in democratic countries than in nondemocratic ones--the subject of the book I am currently completing for Columbia University Press. Take a look at this chart, which shows the the number of terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2008 according to the Global Terrorism Database, distributed by regime type:

This chart shows that democracies remain the most frequent targets of terrorist attacks around the world. Additional research confirms that despite all of the concern about terrorism in weak states, democracies also remain the most frequent sources of terrorist activity.

There are lots of reasons why, about which much has been written.

But here's the good news: terrorism is incredibly rare, even in democracies. As John Mueller insists, a person is more likely to drown in one's toilet than to be killed (or hurt) by a terrorist. Although there is a fascination with terrorism among the public and in the media, and although it is certainly destructive, violent, and terrifying to those who experience it, terrorist attacks almost never occur.

Moreover, in a recent working paper with Joe Young, he and I find that terrorism does not actually threaten "our way of life," as some argue. Democracies are incredibly resilient to terrorist threats, and although democracies occasionally do circumvent limits on civil liberties, such measures are usually temporary and are typically repealed over time. Martha Crenshaw has found that democracies almost never retaliate against foreign terrorist attacks using military force, although when they do, it can be quite consequential as we've seen in Afghanistan.

My point is that terrorist plots and terrorist attacks are rare but normal in democracies--and that's likely to continue. Although terrorism is a nuisance, it is not an existential threat to the United States, nor is it ever likely to be.

On the whole, there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

The Department of Homeland Security should put that on a billboard.
-----
[1] I shan't dabble in definitions of terrorism because the caveats and qualifications could go on ad nauseam. For those interested in debates on how terrorism should be defined, Chapter 1 of Bruce Hoffman's Inside Terrorism is great on the subject. I use a fairly noncontroversial definition: terrorism is politically-motivated violence by non-state actors directed at civilians to produce fear in a broader population.

[cross-posted to Rational Insurgent]

Stuff Political Scientists Like #10 -- a Degree from an Elite School

Political scientists like other political scientists with a Ph.D. degree from a good school. Those who go to Harvard or Yale or Berkeley are ‘well-trained.’ This means that they have successfully completed coursework in rigorous quantitative methods, not that they don’t pee on the floor. Schools with a good pedigree degree offer no guarantees on the latter. In fact, continence is unlikely.

Different kennels elite departments are known for their skill in preparing graduates of particular breeds kinds. Midwestern schools tend to produce terriers students excellent at getting close to the ground to inductively derive theories based through extensive quantitative data mining. European schools are fine producers of hounds post-structuralists capable of sniffing out even the deepest reifications. Chicago has a reputation for training both Rottweilers offensive realists and German sheperds defensive realists. The University of California, San Diego excels at producing herding dogs rationalist scholars who round up the appropriate cases so as to avoid selection effects, while Rochester is an excellent school for sporting dogs game theorists.

Every year students of various pedigree and breed compete for best in show a tenure-track academic job. They are judged on the basis of their gait job talk, teeth collegiality, and, to please the diversity office, color. Pure-bred elite students with papers a diploma from a top school are almost guaranteed a good job. Those mutts who adopt a more analytically eclectic approach find that they please no one, and often spend several months if not years in a humane society visiting adjunct position before they find a nice home with colleagues who love them. They are generally no longer puppies much older than the average student with a good degree when they begin their first job. For unknown reasons, however, they do have fewer health problems and generally live a longer life. Nevertheless, often they are never adopted, in which case they generally are euthanized forced to go to law school. Faculty members generally prefer a student with a good degree, but they often feel better in the end giving someone else a shot.

Of course, having a good degree has a major downside too, however. Generations of inbreeding at elite schools of political science can lead to congenital problems such as an exceedingly narrow dissertation topic involving something called a “selectorate” and, somewhat inexplicably, hip problems. They are snooty and have bad dispositions. In rare cases, this can be blamed on rabies, but this has mostly been eradicated.

If the particular candidate selected for a permanent position turns out to not in fact be well trained and bites people does not perform adequately, it is possible but not to easy to get rid of him (or her). He likely has children friends and allies who do not want to part with him. The department might, nevertheless, find a nice place for him in the country deny him tenure.

The Aussie Military Accepts GI Janes into the Ranks

While the US and UK continue to debate the ways that women impact cohesion and combat effectiveness, effective immediately, the Australian military will allow women to participate in combat roles. Australia joins a small group of countries that have removed combat restrictions for women, which includes Canada, New Zealand, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Norway, Denmark, France, Serbia, Israel and Switzerland.

Several individuals within the Australian Defence Forces I've spoken to over the last year have indicated that this policy change has been a long-time coming. Defence Minister Stephen Smith came out several months ago indicating his support for the policy change- even in the face of national concern and criticism. Despite warning signals from the department of defence, several national media outlets and opposition leaders are calling the policy a gimmick and an attempt to distract attention from recent sex scandals associated with the military, including the now infamous 'skype scandal' involving the un-consented broadcasting of a sexual encounter within a military academy. Neil James of the Australian Defence Association said that the policy 'jumped the gun' and warned that there could be more female casualties if women were allowed to serve in all combat roles.

One former naval officer told ABC radio that she didn't expect many women to meet the physical requirements for some of these positions but that "it just has to be done, and I think Australia's very brave to do this."

The impact this policy change will have on the Australian military and its ability to recruit and retain women can only be measured in time. But if other military's experiences of gender integration are any indication, this policy will largely be forgotten in a few months and women who meet the physical requirements will enter these roles with little fanfare. Perhaps this renewed debate will spark attention back in the US, where policy-makers and the US government still cling to weak arguments about the need to keep women out of combat.

The World Is Waiting: U.S. Public Opinion and Climate Change

So, we're almost in October, and it's still 100 hundred degrees here in Texas.  We have just endured the hottest summer on record for any state in the United States.  Just last month, thousands of acres burned in a series of wildfires just outside Austin.

September 2011 Texas Fires

Our governor Rick Perry is running for the Republican nomination for president, and though climate change is not high on the agenda, he took time out of his busy schedule to deny that climate change was real and to claim his perspective was akin to being a modern day Galileo. These remarks prompted President Obama this week to quip: "You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change."

Now, as I'll say more in my next post, there are reasons from a scientific perspective to be skeptical that the drought and fires in Texas are attributable to climate change, but I think it may be smart politics.

Some months ago I posted about Republican elites' allergies to all things climate change and how this issue had become a partisan signifier like abortion. This was before Perry threw his hat into the ring and before his rival Jon Huntsman took him to task for his climate change denialism via Twitter:"To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

At the time, I promised to come back to U.S. public opinion on the topic. So here goes. This isn't just about U.S. domestic politics because unlocking U.S. climate policy remains the most important step towards addressing the problem globally.

Lest we forget about Somalia

The musician K'naan's haunting elegy for his country Somalia, wracked by famine:

So, 20 summers after I left as a child, I found myself on my way back to Somalia with some concerned friends and colleagues. I hoped that my presence would let me shine a light into this darkness. Maybe spare even one life, a life equal to mine, from indifferently wasting away. But I am no statesman, nor a soldier. Just a man made fortunate by the power of the spotlight. And to save someone’s life I am willing to spend some of that capricious currency called celebrity.

My pale by comparison five-part series on Duck of Minerva here about this already forgotten tragedy.

Obama Reveals his Superhero Powers at the UN

The world has been watching this week as the Palestinian Government prepares to make a bid to the Security Council for recognition as an independent state. Many thought Obama had backed himself into a corner with a statement last year declaring his support for Palestinian statehood. But never fear, the President's propensity to dilute astute political goals to the point of meaninglessness appears to be limitless. In fact, if Obama was a superhero it is likely that his power would be to retract from lofty political objectives and political commitments at the speed of light. He entices victims with incredible speeches about change, ethics, and possibility and then inflicts disappointment, dissolution and disbelief to all in his realm of influence. In fact, he is SO talented that many victims have fallen into his charming trap more than once.
Many don't want to see Obama's dark side. Furthermore, with the scary Big Brother cast of rejects that make up the Republican candidates it becomes easier to hold on to fantasies of Obama's potential as a good guy.
"He just needs more time, he's under so much pressure, he inherited such a mess..." yeah yeah, we got it. But this week the President had an opportunity to follow through on his word. To make a politically difficult decision and support Palestinian statehood. Instead of sticking his neck out he gave a rambling UN speech that included a statement likening Palestinian requests for statehood to a 'shortcut' and declaring that "peace will not come through statement and a resolution at the UN." I fell into your trap Obama- again. You got me on guantanamo bay and health care too. But now I see the superpower talent and I'm not going to get caught by your tactics again.

End of DADT

Today is a good day to mark the passing of a true injustice.

Be Concerned but not Informed: Radical Islamic Terrorism and Mainstream Media since 9/11

The website e-IR asked me to review how mainstream media have represented radical Islamist media in the past decade, and what this means for the spread of radical discourses more broadly. Here is my reply, and you can read the original at e-IR here.

Mainstream media’s presentation of radical Islamic terrorism since 11 September 2001 is simply a continuation of how mainstream media have represented political violence for many decades. Moral panics about enemies within, journalists following agendas set by ministers, scandalised yet sensationalist coverage of violence, victims and perpetrators – all familiar from the post-9/11 period, but also thoroughly documented in the classic studies of media and violence in the 1970s and 80s. The focus on Islam has been hugely damaging for many people across a number of countries, but what is at stake is more fundamental. Modern societies have not found a way to manage the boundaries between their mainstreams and margins. In 20 years’ time, other groups will be demonised, journalists will continue to fail to explain why violence occurs, and many people trying to go about their daily lives will find themselves anxious, suspicious, and ill-informed.

Stuff Political Scientists Like #9 -- Being Liked, or Citations

Political scientists love citations, or, more accurately, to be cited. Actually compiling citations is a tremendously tedious chore that political scientists leave to the very end of any paper, one marked by a bitter struggle with Endnote.

Citations are the best marker political scientists have of success. As political scientists come in both male and female varieties, they cannot simply measure penises. And even if all political scientists were male, there would not be, to use political science parlance, enough “variation” in such a measure to properly differentiate between them. What is exactly is the substantive difference between 4 and 4.15 inches? Once could of course use the standard deviation, but many political scientists would simply not know what that meant.

Political scientists love to be cited for the same reason that rich people like to name buildings -- proof of their existence after death. I was here! I was noticed! I was read! Political scientists are not going to cure cancer. Or even stop genocide, which as well all know is a simple product of strategic logic utility maximization that all human beings are powerless to stop. Every back issue of the American Political Science Review will one day be like a time capsule from the past, showing how we lived back then. It is not etched in marble, but it will have to do.

When pressed, political scientists will acknowledge that citations are a very flawed marker of current academic influence and future immortality because very few citations are actually indications of having learned anything from prior scholarship. Political scientists are bad listeners.

Ironically the most cited political scientists are those with the least influence, those whose work is so terribly bad that other political scientists write innumerable articles criticizing it, thus driving up the citation count. This is called the “Huntington Index.” One might think that if something is so wrong it should be so obvious that it need not merit such overwhelming response. This proves you are not a political scientist.

Political scientists also use “drive-by citations,” repeatedly citing the same one or two works seen as representative of an entire school of scholarship that one does not feel like reading but must acknowledge.* There are also “hat tip citations,” those perfunctory recognitions of those others who blazed the trail before you and who must be cited lest one incur their wrath for not being cited when they serve as reviewers. This is the academic version of saying, “ ‘sup?” and barely nodding one’s head.

Citations are also not immune to the influence of organized crime. Ordinary, law-abiding political scientists live in fear of “citation cartels,”** those who artificially inflate their citation counts by citing one another, thereby distorting the operation of ordinary market mechanisms based on actual consumption. See “peace, democratic.”

Finally political scientists must cite the work they seeking to discredit. Most citations are therefore passive-aggressive. Passive aggressiveness can be enhanced by finding a much older article that made the same point 80 years before and citing it first. This is not hard to do. Political scientists are the world's leading consumers of old wine and new bottles.

*Credit goes to Mike Tierney for originating this term.

**Harald Schoen came up with this. My thanks.

Mortenson declines Education Grawemeyer

In addition to filling an open faculty line in international relations (IR), I was hired in 1991 by the University of Louisville with the idea that I would eventually direct the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. The World Order award was then one of four Grawemeyer Awards and at the time I was hired, I knew virtually nothing about any of them. The prize was worth $150,000, making it the largest award in Political Science. Nonetheless, it was not especially well-known even within the discipline, nor much publicized outside of it, though the earliest prizes were awarded to prominent IR scholars and Political Scientists like Samuel Huntington, Robert Jervis, Robert Keohane and Richard Neustadt.

The annual awards in Education and Religion were also relatively unknown. The award in Music Composition, however, apparently became a major global award and typically receives media coverage in the New York Times and other global outlets. The award amount eventually increased to $200,000 (though it decreased after the 2008 stock market dip) and a fifth award in Psychology was added in 2001. Sporadically, awards other than Music Composition have received a modicum of publicity.

The World Order Award winner received a great deal of publicity in 1994 when Mikhail Gorbachev visited Louisville to speak and collect his payment. Though this selection occurred just before I assumed leadership of the World Order Award, I recall that most of the coverage concerned his missing pants -- truly. While I have never believed that the lack of media interest in the World Order winners reflected anything in particular about the field or the winning ideas, it can be frustrating laboring in relative obscurity. Many people reading this post have perhaps reviewed for the award in the past -- and I know that many had never really heard about the prize until I asked them to read for it.

In any case, there are clearly far worse fates than being unknown to the wider world. Earlier this year, on April 14 -- after months of delay and behind-the-scenes negotiation -- the Education winner for 2011 was announced: Greg Mortenson, author of the bestselling book, Three Cups of Tea.

Was this the academic equivalent of the Grammy award for Milli Vanilli?

Luck and a Fair "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" To You!

Not to make light of ongoing troubles in the Horn of Africa and beyond, but... well.



If you want to go beyond the five A's, click here.

R2Paternalism

The banner image of the ICRtoP (International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect) website  features a photo of seven boys under the protective gaze of a UN peacekeeper as he carries his bottled water, while other soldiers patrol ahead on the pathway that they all share together. From a structural perspective, the image is compelling because it situates the viewer as the rear-guard of the mission.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no context provided for this image on the ICRtoP website -- not even a photo credit [there is a photocredit on the "contact us" page].

Nevertheless, there are several details about the photo and the context in which it was taken that I believe are worth mentioning: First, the photo was taken by Eskinder Debebe on March 1, 2000 in the Becora district of Dili, East Timor. All of the adults in the photo are Portuguese soldiers supporting the UNTAET (UN Transitional Administration in East Timor) mission; there are no Timorese adults in the photo.  Second, although all of the soldiers on this mission were armed, there are no visible weapons on the soldier standing closest to the children. One might notice the handle of an assault rifle on the soldier ahead on the path in front of the children, if one examined the photo very carefully, but weapons are clearly not foregrounded in this image. In fact, the soldiers are wearing berets and baseball caps rather than helmets, again creating the image of paternal protection without reference to the violence that may accompany humanitarian intervention by foreign forces. Third, while Debebe took several other photos on this day for the UN, including photos of one of the Portuguese soldiers who is clearly of African (and/or possibly Brazilian) descent -- that soldier is not visible in this image. Fourth, there were other photos of these children interacting with the soldiers, but this was the only one in which all of the boys are clothed. Fifth and related to the previous point, there are no buildings from the surrounding impoverished village, making it easier to focus on the lives of the children saved by the presence of these troops rather than the monumental and prolonged task of rebuilding and developing this area. Finally, there is no hint of the complex colonial and neo-colonial history of East Timor or the political maneuvering by regional powers that led to UNSC Resolution 1264 which brought the peacekeepers to Dili. Without careful research one would not even suspect that the soldiers are from the former colonial power in this region. In fact, there is no hint of politics at all in this pleasant scene; power is masked through paternal benevolence.

Learn to Love Lawfare

Photo courtesy of Etsy. The perfect lawfare key chain!

Over at the Lawfare blog, Jack Goldsmith recently offered up a "mea culpa" on his changing views of the concept and practice of lawfare. I don't want to address the specifics of that post, but this and the Libya situation got me thinking again that a non-pejorative conceptualization of lawfare needs to be put forward. Particularly in the context of the International Criminal Court. Stay tuned. But for now...

Charles Dunlap defends that his original conception of lawfare was meant to be a neutral one. But it has since been co-opted by various scholars and political actors as a pejorative accusation - meant to delegitimize those who abuse law for strategic purposes. There's an important distinction to be made though between the understanding of lawfare as a strategic weapon of war versus a coercive alternative to war. Specifically, there is a normative gap between the pejorative conceptualization of lawfare in the realm of U.S. national security and as a "weapon of the weak" to constrain U.S. military power, and the multilateral realm of international criminal law where the lawfare of the ICC and other tribunals is viewed as a a benchmark of moral progress.

Certainly, this latter form of lawfare is both coercive and strategic, whether it's arresting war criminals or threatening judicial intervention if human rights abuses are not curbed. Therefore, this use of lawfare is meant to prevent and end conflict, not provoke it, entrench it or restrain legitimate uses of military force. The combined use of judicial and military intervention, in the Former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Libya, and Cote d'Ivoire, etc., underscores this trend.

Among the few that have addressed this understanding of lawfare are those that participated on the international tribunals panel at a conference on lawfare at Case Western University School of Law a year ago. (I posted a brief summary of this conference here.) Discussion of the ICC was scant and the selected quotes below, from the subsequent special journal issue, demonstrate there's little consensus on lawfare in this realm so far.

On Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the Construction of a Liberal International Order

Debate over NATO's military intervention in the Libyan civil war has reinvigorated discussion among observers of international relations on the merits (or demerits) of the United Nations's Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. You can find links to important entries in the current debate at the end of this post, but I'm going to react here to one part of it. In a rejoinder to her critics, including IR student and Slouching Towards Columbia blogger Dan Trombly, Princeton University's Anne-Marie Slaughter casts R2P as an instrument for positive change in the international system, a wrench that ratchets the world closer to the liberal ideal of government for the people on which, she claims, the contemporary notion of sovereignty is based. For The Atlantic, she writes:

It is international law itself -- or rather the governments that bring it into being -- that is in the process of redefining the international definition of sovereignty (e.g. the conditions on which you can be a player in the international system) to include a responsibility to protect (R2P) their citizens. Trombly argues that this conception of sovereignty "essentially strips its value," because the whole point of a sovereign is to protect individuals from each other, in return for which it can and must demand absolute obedience. In the R2P world, by contrast, the sovereign "protects and serves." Strips its value? Really? I may be an international lawyer, but I'm also a daughter of Charlottesville, Virginia, home to Monticello and Mr. Jefferson's university. Last I checked, "protects and serves" was his definition of domestic sovereignty. The Declaration of Independence, after all, argues that all men have inalienable rights and that governments exist "to secure these rights ... deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." "Protects and serves" is how all liberal democratic governments define their relations with their citizens; and I would wager the majority of the world's autocracies at this point as well.

To my mind, though, R2P's power as an instrument of positive change in the international system is greatly weakened by its dependence on a process of selective enforcement in which the judges are effectively immune from the coercions they impose upon others. Strong supporters of R2P often justify selective enforcement in terms of opportunity, saying it's reasonable to apply limited resources to cases where they might be expected to make the biggest difference, and to choose the instruments of intervention based on their expected costs as well as their benefits.

Conflict prevention and early warnings: closing the gap through communications?

The catastrophes of Rwanda and Bosnia led to a debate in the 1990s about the warning-response gap. Conflict prevention and early warning systems did not seem up to scratch. Third parties intervened too late, if at all. Spending was skewed towards mitigating the effects of conflicts, not on stopping them happen in the first place. The spread of satellite television brought conflicts into more immediate public vision. It was feared this created a CNN effect whereby policymakers were forced into military intervention for humanitarian causes to satisfy a more globally-aware public opinion. But this meant only those conflicts caught on camera would be responded to. The overall picture was a mess, it was argued. International relations lacked an effective system of warning-response.

Friday Nerd Blogging

Now that Blood and Chrome appears to be at risk of demotion from upcoming TV show to series of webisodes (!) BSG fans among the readership can at least geek out on this documentary. (Because most of us have so little better to do with the start of the term and all.)

Post-revolution Walk of Shame in Libya: women asked to 'go home' in the afterglow of the revolution

The exciting and tumultuous eve of the revolution in Libya has achieved many of its objectives: the power balance has swung in the rebel's favor, many national governments around the world now recognize the Transitional National Council (TNC) as the legitimate leadership, and most (though not all) of the country is under their control.

In many ways, this week can be described as 'the morning after' the revolution in Libya. Rebels drunk on gun battles are now waking up with adrenaline hang-overs to the realities of post-revolution Libya. There's mortar rounds everywhere, hundreds of displaced Libyans are crashing indefinitely in Tripoli, and- perhaps worst of all- Cameron and Zarkosy showed up way too early, keen to help get the revolutionary council on its feet/ensure their financial interests.

In keeping with classic 'morning after' politics, men are waking up with only hazy memories of which women were at the party and what they did to contribute to the revolution. The TNC are trying to get their house in order for Cameron and Zarkosy as well as for the international media and for some reason these women just keep hanging around asking about what kind of future there is for them together, wanting some kind of commitment. The TNC's responses so far reminds me of the scene in the movie Bridesmaids when Jon Hamm's character turns to Kristen Wiig after a one night stand and says "I really want you to leave, but I don't want to sound like a dick."

New Statistics on Civilian Targeting

In a new paper, Michael Spagat and a number of collaborators explore the determinants of intentional civilian killing in war.

Using sophisticated regression analysis they claim to have found "four significant behavioral patterns":

"First, the majority (61%) of all formally organized actors in armed conflict during 2002-2007 refrained from killing civilians in deliberate, direct targeting.

Second, actors were more likely to have carried out some degree of civilian targeted, as opposed to none, if they participated in armed conflict for three or more years rather than for one year.

Third, among actors that targeted civilians, those that engaged in greater scales of armed conflict concentrated less of their lethal behavior into civilian targeting ad more into involvement with battle fatalities.

Fourth, an actor's likelihood and degree of targeting civilians was unaffected by whether it was a state or a non-state group."

Now those who follow the literature on war law compliance will find a number of these arguments to be quite interesting, somewhat counter-intuitive, and highly policy-relevant. I'll leave that discussion to comments (may even kick it off) but in the body of this post let me just say two things.

Life Imitiating Political Science and Vice Versa

I had a nice life imitating art (or science) today.  I was lecturing about identity and the stuff we political scientists have borrowed from social psychology to explain ethnic conflict today.  The idea is to get my IR of Ethnic Conflict class exposed to the basics before we move on to the international relations issues that are the heart of this course.

So, today, I am quite aware of my identity and how my self-esteem depends on how I see my group and how others see my group.  Then I notice a blog about Teaching Political Science which links to an article that focuses almost entirely on American Politics and a smidge on Comparative Politics.  I would not mind it if the article was not entitled "Ten Things Political Scientists Know ..."  But since it entirely ignores International Relations (and Political Theory, I guees), I have a pretty gut level emotional response of the marginalization of the group with which I identify.

One of the upsides of residing in Canada has been that the border pretty much does away with imperialist Americanists trying to define the field only in terms of their narrow subfield (one that would be considered a sub-subfield of Comparative Politics in other countries, as it is in Canada).*  Sure, I have long since realized that Americanists are pretty handy since they tend to insist that the grad students have strong quant skills which make them useful to those of us who are falling further behind on high tech skills. 

* Canadian Politics is the parallel subfield up here, but Canadianists tend not to be so forceful and tend not to seek dominance (we are what we study?).

 But moments like this make me realize:

1. Americanists might still be pretty damned narrow-minded about what Political Science is, more so than the other subfields.
2. My lecture today about the logic of invidious comparisons (explicating Horowitz 1985) is not just for my class but also for understanding why I am so provoked right now.

Giving Peace a Chance

Joshua Goldstein's book on peacekeeping is now out, and in this promotional video he shows us what the future of conference presentations could look like. ;)

Palestinian Unilateralism

I just got this note in my Inbox from the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston:

In a little more than a month, the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations will seek a unilateral declaration of statehood in the General Assembly. Israel and its friends around the world, including the United States, are urging the Palestinians to reject unilateralism. Only face-to-face negotiations will bring true peace.

In the letter, CJP uses "unilateralism" eleven more times to describe the Palestinian actions.

This has been the major talking point from pro-Israel groups for well over a year. Nothing should be decided "unilaterally", i.e., outside the context of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. As a rhetorical strategy, the term is clearly coded pejoratively.

But, even so, it is very awkward term for this campaign, especially since the Palestinians have extensive global support for this move coming from multilateral organizations such as the Arab League and almost certainly from a majority of the United Nations General Assembly which is likely to support a move for expanded observer status should the vote come to it.

Furthermore, the concept of "Palestinian unilateralism" is probably a hard sell when well over three-fourths of the security fence/wall built (unilaterally) by the Israelis is located on the Palestinian side of the Green line.

Still, all of this makes me wonder about a much deeper and more perplexing question: would John Bolton support Palestinian unilateralism if the UN objected to it?

On Rick Perry and Superman

 A few thoughts from Jay Smooth on Rick Perry's favorite superhero:

Ten Theses (Mostly Concerning Foreign Policy) About 9/11

Counterfactual theses:

• Absent 9/11 or a 9/11-style attack, the US would not have invaded Afghanistan but might very well  have used force against Iraq. Rationale: despite the Bush campaign's repeated condemnation of "nation-building" and calls for a more "humble" foreign policy (remember that?), Cheney and others were already singling out Iraq as a policy failure of the Clinton administration.
• Absent 9/11 Bush would not have been a one-term president, but the 2002 midterm results would have been much more favorable to the Democrats. Rationale: the 2001 slump would largely have been over; I suspect the closeness of the campaign was, in part, a consequence of increasing polarization over his foreign policy. On the other hand, without the "existential threat" card, the Republicans would have faced significant problems in 2002.
• Absent 9/11 or a 9/11-style attack, attention would have shifted much more quickly toward the implications of Chinese economic growth. Rationale: there were signs of trouble in the relationship prior to 9/11 (Hainan Island). US foreign policy after 9/11 gave the relationship "breathing space" as the US turned toward the jihadi threat (itself a security risk for China) -- and generally created a favorable environment for China by angering so many other states. On the other hand, absent 9/11 the US would not be in Central Asia -- and thus we that region would not be a possible future flashpoint. Note: I am not suggesting that Sino-US relations would have been deeply fraught. I am suggesting that they would have been a much more important theme of Bush's presidency than it became.
• Absent 9/11 the Bush Administration would have much more seriously contemplated force against Iran and/or North Korea. Rationale: Iraq and Afghanistan made serious force projection anywhere else difficult, and undermined of the US to build a coalition in favor of other military action.

Another Sad Event around 11 September

Chris Clayton Joyner, aka "Dr. J," passed away last night. He was one of the nicest people in Georgetown's Government Department and the School of Foreign Service. He'll be missed, not only by his colleagues, but by thousands of his former students. Although I got the email this morning, Erik Voeten provides the impetus to post.

Repost: September 11 - a blogging personal history

I wasn't going to post this (again), but the thread below is starting to turn toward reminiscence; a cut-and-paste job seems easier than rewriting.

Commemorating

Friday Nerd Blogging

Alcohol (Battlestar Galactica) from Anno Superstar on Vimeo.

Though by right this post should be pure casual Friday nerd filler (as opposed to genuine literary commentary on representations of military affairs in science fiction), I feel compelled to point you to this highly academic and substantive essay by Jason T. Eberl and Erik D. Baldwin, "How to Be Happy After the End of the World" in which it is argued:

"Fans of BSG are sometimes frustrated with the characters' actions and decisions. But would any of us do better if we were in their places? We'd like to think so, but would we really? The temptation to indulge in sex, drugs or alcohol... to cope with the unimaginable suffering that result from surviving the death of civilization would be strong indeed... Nevertheless we think that many of the characters in BSG would be happier if they made better choices and had a clearer idea about what happiness really is."

But while the authors may be right about happiness in the philosophical sense and in the show generally, I don't think their pessimistic view of the relationship between alcohol and happiness is generally reflected in BSG fan culture (the various alcoholic beverages of BSG are detailed here). Consider a comparative analysis of two similar "Starbuck Tribute" fan videos, both set to the same Pink song "So What?" yet each depicting different sides of Starbuck's personality:





I don't know how you'll read these videos, but I briefly coded them (disclaimer: over a good glass of Müller-Thurgau and without any particular rigor) for whether Starbuck is depicted as "angry" "happy" "troubled" "kick-ass" or engaged in "flying" "fighting" "sex" or "love." The first video shows her to be angrier, more troubled, less kick-ass, less sexual and loving, less happy and less involved in useful military activities. The second video has her primarily kick-ass, about twice as sexy/affectionate with her various males, and barely angry or troubled at all.

Which video has more drinking scenes?

$h•! PTJ Says #2: on the difference between assumptions and conclusions

I am going to try writing down pieces of advice that I give to students all the time, in the hopes that they might be useful for people who can't make it to my office hours.

"Spelling out your theoretical and methodological assumptions -- the contours of your conceptual equipment, so to speak -- is a vital part of doing good social science, because if I don't know what your assumptions are then I really can't fairly evaluate your results. In fact, if I don't know what your assumptions are, I probably have little choice but to apply my own standards, which may or may not be appropriate to your project. So being as clear as you can about your assumptions (with the caveat that it's impossible to actually spell out *every* assumption that you're making, both because that kind of self-awareness is a theoretical ideal rather than a live possibility, and because of the Wittgensteinian logical paradox involved in trying to endogenize every rule of a game) is critical.

However, spelling out your assumptions is not the same thing as establishing their validity or their value. Yes, your take on discourse is more pragmatic/Foucault than CDA/Wodak, but that's not a conclusion of your research -- it's an assumption. Just like 'individuals make rational choices under conditions of imperfect information' or 'human beings are meaning-making animals.' The fact that you assume this tells me a lot about you, but basically zippo about whether you are right or, more to the point, about whether your assumption is a useful one for the research problem at hand. You can't use a set of assumptions about discursive practices to conclude that discourse matters or that discourse works the way you think it does, because you already assumed that at the outset! Ditto assumptions about material factors, ideas, etc. "mattering." You can and should be as detailed as you can be about your assumptions, but if you want anyone to appreciate them as anything other than an expression of your idiosyncratic aesthetic sensibilities, you need to show us what insight they generate in practice -- and you have to refrain from overreaching and tautologically concluding that results generated by applying assumption X are an argument for the validity of assumption X. Those results might indeed contribute to an argument that it is useful to make assumption X when trying to explain what you're trying to explain, but that's as far as it goes.

Making 'assent to assumption X' a condition of membership in some fraternity helps you found or adhere to a school of thought, but whether it helps you explain anything is an entirely different issue. The fact that members of a school, like adherents of any other type of sect, will parade their results as if they constituted 'evidence' for their assumptions should be regarded in about the same spirit as any other testimonial, which is to say, compelling to believers but largely inscrutable to outsiders. Displaying your allegiance doesn't contribute to knowledge, although it can get you into interesting conversations."

Interstellar Relations Syllabus

If you're interested in how the syllabus turned out, you can read it here.

I must say that I am very much enjoying teaching the class so far. Thanks to everyone for their comments and suggestions.

Zombie Theory of Foreign Policy

We have gone almost a month without talking about zombies, and you all must be in need of a fix. Instead of thinking how various theories of international relations might expect us to cope with a zombie epidemic, I thought it might be fun to think about how leading public figures – elected officials, pundits, etc. – might respond to a zombie attack. This is in keeping with my general belief that we would see many different responses by individuals in the same structural circumstances, that foreign policy is more important than international relations.

Incidentally, I just want you to know that you can Google anyone with ‘zombie’ in front of their name and find an image. What is wrong with you people?

Michelle Bachmann: This Martian invasion will not be tolerated.

Momar Qaddafi : Can you help a brother out?

John Boehner: My sundried skin will not be tasty to them, I am immune. Later, b*tches.

Nancy Pelosi : Be not afraid, I am one of you.

George W. Bush: Zombies hate America for our freedom, to use our brains.

Rick Perry: I urge everyone to spend the day fasting and praying to God to save us from this zombie scourge. This is exactly why I take my gun with me when I jog.

Al Gore: This is yet another sign of the terrible effects of global warming.

Mitt Romney: Do they take checks? I mean, have they heard the good news about Jesus Christ?

Ron Paul: I might make an exception on military spending for this.

Dick Cheney: You are not going to make a big deal about waterboarding these guys, right? Can we at least agree that zombies do not qualify under the Geneva Conventions or are you going to bust my balls on this one too, Amnesty?

Barack Obama: I reject the false choice between the security that comes with eradicating all zombies and our values.

Glenn Beck: Is Woodrow Wilson one of them, because I’d like a shot at that mother*cker.

Sarah Palin: I am uniquely positioned to deal with the zombie threat. In Alaska I can see the graveyard from my house.

Hillary Clinton: It is important for us to understand underlying structural causes of zombies, like poor access to water and development.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn : OK, I can’t get bitten by one, but can I still have sex with one?

Bill Clinton: I had the same question as DSK.

Bank of America: We know how you feel.

Anne Coulter: Zombies are Liberals.

John McCain: It is absolutely unacceptable that zombies are receiving healthcare when they are no longer legal citizens of this country. Or alive.

Hosni Mubarak: This would have been better for me a few months ago. I could have used a little rallying around the flag.

Benjamin Netanyahu: We have some lovely new accommodations we would like to show you just outside Jerusalem.

Dan Drezner: OK, now I'm going to buy a Benz.

Let's make this interactive. Can you think of some others? Please reply below.

The Remote War

This post is a little impressionistic and attempts a few trans-Atlantic generalisations, but is probably still worth a punt.

If Clausewitz was right that each period holds to its own theory of war, what do we see when we look in the mirror after a decade of the conflict against Islamist terror networks? In the US and UK at least, I'd suggest that the War on Terror was a reflection of the evolving liberal-market state.

That is, a state that defines its security interests through an expansive liberalism, securing itself by exporting liberal institutions and values and investing its struggles with heightened meaning, seeing them as politically Good, while simultaneously seeking to keep that struggle as private and remote from their citizens.

Liar, hypocrite or partisan hack?

Dick Cheney's memoir apparently verifies an interesting political point from George W. Bush's memoir. Last November, I noted that the former President claimed that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had approached him in 2006 prior to the congressional elections in order to urge withdrawal of some US troops from Iraq. This might save the Republican majority, argued the Majority Leader, even though McConnell was publicly taking the position that the US should remain in Iraq for vital security reasons. After the election, of course, Bush famously increased the US deployment in Iraq ("the surge").

A local columnist in Louisville has identified a key passage in Cheney's memoir that apparently confirms Bush's account, based on the former Veep's recollection of a July 2007 dinner he hosted (p. 462):

Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell walked over to me. Mitch had been one of the most concerned of the Republicans. He was up for reelection and had suggested to the president that he needed to begin a withdrawal in order to avoid massive defection of Republican senators.

As my original post noted, McConnell's opposing public and private positions certainly make him look bad.

Was he lying when he said US troops were vital for security? Was he simply acting as a hypocrit? Or, and you can feel free to pick more than one choice, was he overtly expressing his partisan preferences in each situation, regardless of the security implications?

Assessing the Arguments Against GI Jane II: Unpacking the Cohesion Hypothesis

In my post last week I talked about the three main arguments against removing the combat exclusion for women: the physical standards argument, the moral argument, and the cohesion hypothesis. My main point was that with increased research on physical standards, the intangibility of the moral argument, and increased evidence that women already are in combat, the cohesion hypothesis remains as the most significant set of arguments against GI Janes.

There are two main premises to the cohesion hypothesis: 1. cohesion is causally linked to group (in this case military unit) performance; 2. women negatively impact cohesion and thereby negatively impact troop effectiveness.

The trouble with these two premises is that they both have been largely discounted by researchers. In her 1998 article on the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy in International Security, Elizabeth Kier concludes that “the results from more than five decades of research in group dynamics, organizational behaviour, small-group research, sports psychology, social psychology, military history, and military sociology challenge the proposition that primary group unit cohesion enhances military performance.” Some research even indicates that high levels of cohesion can be detrimental to military performance as it results in conformity, groupthink, and a lack of adaptability. Many of the studies on cohesion and the military find that leadership and task- not social- cohesion have a greater impact on performance than social cohesion.
In terms of the second premise, as mentioned in the last post RAND's major study on cohesion in 1997 found that women don't impact group performance or military readiness. Subsequent research has reconfirmed this conclusion.

In addition to shaky (at best) premises, another major problem with the cohesion hypothesis is that it is never clear what exactly is meant by cohesion within the military context. In hopes of finding answers to this puzzle I went on a wild goose chase for cohesion clarity.

Peddling Fear: Frank Gaffney's world.

Frank Gaffney is calling for a new HUAAC -- actually slightly renamed to House Anti-American Activities Committee...because apparently "un-American" is not tough enough:



Earlier this week, he wrote:

Absent a fundamental course correction, America will go the way of Europe and others before it, succumbing to an insidious totalitarian doctrine known as Shariah whose purpose, in the words of its prime practitioners — the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) — is to "destroy Western civilization from within."

Wow, I hadn't realized that Europe has already succumbed to the insidious totalitarian doctrine. Sucks to be them.

As for the course correction, well, we've spent $7.6 trillion on defense and homeland security since 9/11/01 and apparently we are more vulnerable than ever. Cheney just released his autobiography and is telling anyone who will listen that his proudest accomplishment as VP was overseeing America's torture policy.

In Gaffney and Cheney's world, what we desperately need is to have that HUAAC investigator, John Wayne, ride to the rescue...er, in a convertible? Yeah, well, whatever as long as he gets the subversive, lefto, pinko, racist, radical, Muslim Brotherhood, insidious totalitarian, bacteriologist (yes, bacteriologist), progressive, commie terrorists (or whoever they are) before they destroy us. The classic climax scene from Big Jim McClain -- 6:45 but absolutely worth it: