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International Relations(hips)

It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow, so I hope you have already picked up your chocolates and roses and not left that for the last minute. If so, so you can spend few minutes worse than checking Stephen Walt’s Valentine’s Day Guide to IR.

4. “Special Relationships”: Then there are those cases where two states form long and lasting bonds, usually buoyed by repeated (and possibly insincere) professions of devotion and reinforced by domestic politics and elite connections. The United States and the United Kingdom are perhaps the longest-running example these days — even if England tends to play the role of the neglected and taken-for-granted spouse — and of course there’s America’s “special relationship” with Israel. But these aren’t the only examples one can think of: Russia has had a “special relationship” of sorts with Serbia since the 19th century, and former colonial powers like Britain and France retain lingering connections to their former colonies.   Given that no two states interests are ever identical, however, an excessively intimate relationship may even be bad for both parties. If the illusion of unanimity prevents either party from a) doing what is in its own interest, b) convincing its partner to do what is actually in theirs, or c) pursuing other valuable friendships, then maybe it’s time for separate vacations.

…

But what about True Love? Where does it fit in my typology?  I’m sorry, but this is the world of international politics and no self-respecting realist would put much weight on the power of love in world affairs.

Happy Valentine’s Day!


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By admin – February 13, 2010

When Sunday comes..

Tomorrow United will play Portsmouth and for once it isn’t the biggest game of the weekend. But only because it is time for Super Bowl XLIV and United will, with all likelihood, win Pompey with ease.

So no better time to watch the highlights from last year than now – and after that it is time to get some PBR’s and Natty Ices..

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By admin – February 6, 2010

Cormac McCarthy: The Road

Father and son walk across the cold and wretched post-apocalyptic world carrying only pieces of a map, a revolver and two bullets and whatever they are able to find from deserted villages and cities on their ‘road’. The story is a one about despair and universal nightmare – the world that ceased to exist – but at the same time it is brutal and terrifying, it is a beautiful story about hope and humanity.

Throughout the wearing wandering the boy and father go through short conversations about their own place in the world that is left with an extraordinary tenderness; for the father the son is his warrant to live. And for the son carrying the fire symbolizes them being the good guys.

They sat by the side of the road and ate the last of the apples.

What is it? The man said.

Nothing.

We’ll find something to eat.  We always do.

The boy didn’t answer. The man watched him.

That’s not it, is it.

It’s okay.

Tell me.

The boy looked away down the road.

I want you to tell me. It’s okay.

He shook his head.

Look at me, the man said.

He turned and looked. He looked like he’d been crying.

Just tell me.

We wouldn’t ever eat anybody, would we?

No. Of course not.

Even if we were starving?

We’re starving now.

You said we weren’t.

I said we weren’t dying. I didn’t say we weren’t starving.

But we wouldn’t.

No. We wouldn’t.

No matter what.

No. No matter what.

Because we’re the good guys.

Yes.

And we’re carrying the fire.

And we’re carrying the fire.  Yes.

Okay.

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By admin – August 9, 2009

Reading: Dean Karnazes – Ultramarathon man

Dean Karnazes: 50/50: Secrets I Learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days

Dean Karnazes: Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

Dean Karnazes is one of the, if not the, fittest man on the planet – at least Men’s Fitness magazine has given him that title and looking his achievements one cannot really argue against. He has run 135 miles nonstop across Death Valley in 120°F temperatures, and a marathon to the South Pole at -40°F. He won 4 Deserts Race Series in 2008, Vermont Trail 100 Mile Endurance Run in 2006, Badwater Ultramarathon in 2004. In 2005, he ran 350 miles (560 km) in 80 hours and 44 minutes without stopping, and has completed single-handedly the 199-mile Providian Saturn Relay six times. He is eleven-time 100-Mile/1 Day Silver Buckle holder at the Western States Endurance Run (i.e., better than ten twenty-four hour finishes), 1995-2006. In short, he has run awfully lot and awfully long.

But besides running ultramarathons, Karnazes has also written two books: Ultramarathon Man (2005) and 50/50 (2008). They both are excellent reads, but probably don’t give too much unless you’re an avid runner. I finished the 50/50 just before starting to prepare for my own marathon last weekend and I must admit that some of the Karnazes’ words were with me on my run. At one point I had to take baby steps just to conquer a steep hill and after that I had to stop to a grocery store and pick up a popsicle to give me some extra energy to finish the run. I wasn’t obviously in an optimal condition to run a marathon, but at least I finished it.

Ultramarathon man is a personal account about Karnazes’ passion on running. The book has probably done more to promote ultra endurance running for the general public than any other book. After the release of the book Karnazes, has told that he had became famous as “the man who eats pizzas during his all-night-runs” (an episode he described in the book).

50/50 is on his quest to run 50 marathons in 50 states on 50 consecutive days in 2006. The book is written almost like a blog, daily writings after every event on the bus hurrying to the next race. Karnazes managed to accomplish the task and finished his 50th marathon, the NYC marathon on the official race day, in 3 hours and 30 seconds. But besides being his running log, 50/50 offers many great tips for any runner; ranging from nutrition to training and equipments to psychology of running.

Running teaches you that there’s a difference between working hard and feeling bad. Consumer culture tries to teach us otherwise. How many television commercials talk about “making life easier”? If everything you knew about life came from TV, your goal would be to live the easiest, most comfortable and unchallenging life you possibly could. You would believe that the only good feelings are sensual pleasures such as the taste of a good soft drink and the fun of driving an expensive car and lying on the beach.

But it’s not true. Challenging and testing your mind and body, even to the point of exhaustion, failure, and breakdown, can feel as wonderful as anything else life has to offer. I suppose the enjoyment of hard work is more of an acquired taste than the taste for pleasure and fun, but once you’ve acquired it, you’re blessed with more ways to feel good, and life is better. Harder and better.

50/50 p.88

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By admin – July 28, 2009

“Lessons” of Architect of a Futile War

Robert S. McNamara, probably the most influential (and most controversial) secretary of defense in U.S. history, passed away at the age of 93.

Plenty has already been written about former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and much more will be written now that he is gone. Many commentators will remember him from his disastrous mis-management of Vietnam, some as an outspoken advocate of nuclear disarmament. And some will see McNamara as a tragic figure who “spent the rest of his life wrestling with the war’s moral consequences,” and as someone who “wore the expression of a haunted man.” (NYTimes obituary)

For me he is a quite archetypical Cold Warrior who put his pragmatism at the time in to the contest and acted as he believed was right.

Stephen M. Walt also sees McNamara’s role a little bit differently from the NYTimes obituary, for example:

I see his fate differently. Unlike the American soldiers who fought in Indochina, or the millions of Indochinese who died there, McNamara did not suffer significant hardship as a result of his decisions. He lived a long and comfortable life, and he remained a respected member of the foreign policy establishment. He had no trouble getting his ideas into print, or getting the media to pay attention to his pronouncements. Not much tragedy there.

McNamara may have been a gifted analyst and corporate executive, blessed with a lot of raw smarts, but he was also one of those people who could not imagine being wrong or resist the desire to tell the world what to do. Failure in Vietnam did not teach him humility; he ran the World Bank with same ego-driven sense of infallibility he had brought to the Pentagon (and with predictably mixed results). Yet this second experience with failure did not temper his love of the limelight or his desire to prescribe How Things Should Be Done. He spent the last decades of his life offering high-profile advice on various aspects of nuclear weapons policy — with the same degree of self-assurance he had always displayed — and he sought the spotlight once again with a belated memoir on his role in Vietnam. As always, however, it was filled with “lessons” for others; to the last, McNamara retained an unwarranted confidence in his own ideas as well as an inability to keep quiet.

But as Walt points out, McNamara’s later role in the society raises a broader question about the role of “former officials who have led their country into major disasters. Ordinarily, we should respect the men and women who have devoted years of their lives to public service and listen carefully to the counsel of those who have the benefit of long experience.” Also, someone who is no longer competing for a job in Washington might be more likely to give an honest advice instead of the one that still might face a confirmation hearing.

But in some cases — and a lot of former Bush administration officials come to mind here — the failures are of sufficient gravity as to render all subsequent advice suspect. And when a government official’s repeated errors have left thousands of their fellow citizens dead or grievously wounded, along with hundreds of thousands of other human beings, it would be more seemly for them to remain silent, in mute acknowledgement of their own mistakes. And if they persist in pontificating — as Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, and Dick Cheney are now doing — a nation that understood the importance of accountability might have the good sense to pay them the attention and respect they deserve. Which is to say: none.

It might be a good time to really start considering where should the line for accountability been drawn.

Make sure to read McNamara’s great piece from FP – Apocalypse Soon and watch Errol Morris’ superb 2003 documentary, The Fog of War.

Link: Walt on FP

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By admin – July 8, 2009

Leif Salmén: Alas Akropolilta

Myytti ja mystiikka, muisti ja mielikuvitus kuuluvat yhteen, ja niiden potentiaali on suunnaton aivan riippumatta siitä, miten ’todellisia’ ne oikeastaan ovat. Raikkaille lähteille päästäksemme meidän pitää kuitenkin olla aina vlamiita kyseenalaistamaan yhä uudelleen, tulkitsemaan tuoreesti ja tarkastelemaan myyttien sisältöä ja merkitystä uusista näkökulmista. Muussa tapauksessa kulttuuria uhkaa tukahtuminen. Niin kävi muinaisissa imperiumeissa Egyptistä Roomaan, ja nyt kivettyminen koettelee kristittyä länsimaailmaa.

Alas Akropoliilta on toimittaja, kirjailija, runoilija Leif Salménin seitsämäs esseekokoelma ja jatkaa samaa linjaa Palatsi Bosborin Rannalla –kirjan kanssa. Salmén tarkastelee länsimaisen yhteiskunnan henkistä perintöä ja yhteiskunnan rappiota ja kehitystä . Hänen keskustelujensa päähenkilöitä ovat niin Sokrates ja Montaigne, kuin Musil, Marx sekä Spenglerkin – ja tapahtumapaikat vierivät läpi Euroopan ja Pohjois-Afrikan ja halki Yhdysvaltojen. Omalla tavallaan Salmén on eittämättä kosmopoliitti, jonka kuuluvimmaksi ääneksi jää kaikumaan vieraiden kulttuurien arvostuksen ehdottomuus.

Miettiessäni Asklepiosta, viimeistä jumalaa, jonka Sokrates mainitsi ennen kuolemaansa, tajuan nyt yhä hämmästyneempänä, että olen loppujen lopuksi optimisti. Sanotaan, ettei historiasta ole mitään opittavaa, mutta minä ainakin olen kaikesta elämästäni ja kokemastani oppinut, että julmimmatkin tragediat jäävät unholaan, ja vaikka Ikaros syöksyikin maahan, hänen isänsä Daidaloksen aatteet elävät edelleen. Ihmiskunnan mitta ei ole yksilö vaan maailma. Ihmiskunta nousee aina, vaikkakin arpisena ja kolhittuna katastrofin jäljiltä, katse tyhjänä ja tuijottavana, mutta pian sen haavaisille huulille nousee arka hymy, kun se muistaa mistä koostuu – meistä kaikista.

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By admin – June 11, 2009

“Empathy” and International Relations

“Empathy” and International Relations  – an impossible combination to put together?

It definitely is in short supply when we are talking about foreign policy, where leaders are supposed to carry their own agendas with little or no attention paid to the needs or preferences of the opposite side.  And perhaps even more importantly, often the “leaders (and sometimes whole nations) often have a fixed view of certain events and find it hard to believe that anyone might legitimately see things differently.”

One reason for this absence of empathy is the human tendency to filter current situations through the prism of the past. One of the more enduring findings in political psychology is that people place more weight on their own experiences than on the experiences of others, even when their own experiences are in fact atypical. According to Robert Jervis’s classic Perception and Misperception in International Politics: “if people do not learn enough from what happens to others, they learn too much from what happens to themselves.” The salience of first-hand experience in shaping subsequent beliefs is increased if the event happens early in one’s life or career, and if it has important consequences for the individual (or the nation). In other words, we overlearn from big and important events, especially when they happen to us early.

Of course more empathy does not mean less or no conflicts, but what it can do is create a situation where spiraling hostilities and exaggerated threats are less likely. Or as Walt put it: “developing a greater capacity for empathy won’t eliminate conflicts of interest between states, and won’t always make it possible to resolve the differences that will inevitably arise. But an inability to understand an adversary’s perspective (or an ally’s, for that matter) is a crippling liability, and there’s less excuse for it in our increasingly interconnected age.”

If you haven’t read Robert Jarvis’ classic you could do worse than grab it next on your reading table. (And perhaps be first one to review it on Amazon – how surprising that there are no reviews from this one?) Or at least start with the Walt’s piece at FP.

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By admin – May 29, 2009

Walt’s Guide to IR Theory

“What to read if you have no time to read?“, asks Stephen M. Walt in his Foreign Policy magazine blog. If you are overwhemed by the magnitude of many IR theory books Walt has a solution for you. Don’t grab the books, but concentrate on the articles and he goes to offer his “top ten classic IR articles.”

1. Albert Wohlstetter, “The Delicate Balance of Terror.” Foreign Affairs (1957) Even more than Bernard Brodie or Tom Schelling, Wohlstetter laid out the basic requirements for stable nuclear deterrence. For that I can forgive him a lot of his other “contributions.”

2. Mancur Olson and Richard Zeckhauser, “An Economic Theory of Alliances.” Review of Economics and Statistics, (1966). This article identified and solved an intriguing puzzle, spawned an enormous literature, and still shapes how we think about alliance dynamics.

3. Kenneth Waltz, “International Structure, National Force, and the Balance of World Power,” Journal of International Affairs, (1967). Clear and brief statement of Waltz’s views on bipolarity, anticipating his landmark 1975 essay in the Handbook of Political Science and the subsequent Theory of International Politics. (And I always liked it more than the earlier 1964 essay on “The Stability of a Bipolar World.”)

4. Robert Jervis, “Hypotheses on Misperception,” World Politics (1968). Succinct summary of how psychological tendencies can lead to erroneous judgments and poor decisions. Still worth reading today, especially if you don’t have time for the 1976 book.

5. Michael Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, (1983) or “Liberalism and World Politics,” American Political Science Review (1986). These articles launched the whole “democratic peace theory” debate. Others carried on this discussion, but Doyle deserves the credit for igniting the discussion.

6. John Ruggie, “International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order,” International Organization (1983).
Robert Gilpin once told me he thought this was the single best article ever written in the field of modern political economy. ‘Nuff said.

7. Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy is What States Make of It,” International Organization (1992). The portrayal of the “Gorbachev revolution” now seems quaint, but this article did more to bring constructivist theory into the mainstream of IR than any other publication, and the theoretical arguments must be confronted.

8. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization (1998). The best article I’ve ever found for teaching students about how international norms emerge and spread, and why they are important.

9. William C. Wohlforth, “The Stability of a Unipolar World.” International Security (1999). I’ve always wished I’d written this myself, but Wohlforth got there first and did it better than I would have.

10. Alexander George’s “Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison,” in P.G. Lauren, Diplomacy: New Approaches. A methodological article that guided countless Ph.D. dissertations and did more than any other single piece to trigger renewed interest in the development of rigorous qualitative methods.

Honorable Mentions: My list here could go on forever, but here are few articles that I’ve particularly enjoyed and/or learned from: George Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs; Stephen Krasner, “State Power and the Structure of International Trade”, World Politics; Chaim Kauffman and Robert Pape, “Explaining Costly Moral Action: Britain and the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” International Organization; Barry Posen, “Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony, International Security; James Fearon, “Rationalist Theories of War,” International Organization; Andrew Mack, “Why Big Powers Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict,” World Politics; Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma, World Politics; and “Why Nuclear Superiority Doesn’t Matter,” Political Science Quarterly; Robert Keohane, “The Demand for International Regimes, International Organization; John Gaddis, “The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System,” International Security; Stanley Hoffmann, “Obstinate or Obsolete: The Fate of the Nation State in Western Europe,” Daedalus; Timur Kuran, “Now out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the Revolutions of 1989,” World Politics; and Graham Allison, “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” American Political Science Review.

I can’t really criticize Walt’s list, although, I would probably have promoted George Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs and Robert Keohane, “The Demand for International Regimes, International Organization in to top ten. And also added Reinhold Niebuhr, “The Illusion of World Government,” Foreign Affairs; and Hans Morgenthau, “To Intervene or Not to Intervene,” Foreign Affairs.

What would you have changed from Walt’s list?

Link: FP Blogs

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By admin – May 24, 2009

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