"The Dictators Are Smarter Than You Think"

Go here for a review of Will Dobson's new book ("The Dictator's Learning Curve") on why dictators are not an endangered species and how they adapt.

Why Iran Should Get the Bomb

Ken Waltz, realist par excellence, on why Iran should get nuclear weapons: pretty standard "they can be deterred, and besides, it will stabilize the region" stuff. Go to the current issue of Foreign Affairs, although to get the entire article, go through the Skidmore College library site. Type in "Foreign Affairs" in the "journals" field and then choose Academic Search Elite of any other database that takes you to the current issue. 

Why the US and Russia are estranged - from Foreign Policy.

Go here for a great little thought piece by Michael Weiss today in Foreign Policy, provocatively entitled "Putin's Got America Right Where He Wants It."

Cool, quirky map source!

Wow! I just found out about Geocurrents, and if you are interested in the ways that human events can be mapped (pizza delivery, corpse transportation, "overlooked news events, Hungarian hyper-nationalism" etc, etc), you should definitely check out this site!

A good article on the meaning "appeasement" (with references to Munich, of course!)

Here is the full-on version, written by Yale historian Paul Kennedy. And here is a condensed version, written for the History News Network.

More on the Munich analogy

Had enough on the Munich analogy? Of course you haven't! 


First up are two articles on the Munich analogy and the 2008 Russo-Georgian war. This Op-Ed by a British journalist, entitled "'Munich' Shouldn't Be Such a Dirty Word," takes a careful and skeptical look at the analogy used for decades by presidents to justify going to war. Conversely, here is a letter to the NY Times from an American professor who argues that doing nothing to punish the Russians for attacking Georgia in 2008 is disturbing similar to appeasement at Munich in 1938.

And go here for an essay on the History News Network on mis-use of the analogy.


Here is an analysis by Robert Kaplan of those two favorite evoked sets, Munich and Vietnam. 

Finally, here is a New York Times piece on the use of the Munich analogy in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Russian warships headed for Syria

This is one reason the Russian government is so obdurate on the Syrian human rights issue: they have a naval base there! And now they are sending warships to Syria, just in case the west gets any ideas...

And here's another piece (June 19) on the Russian naval base from Radio Free Europe.

Things get nasty in Russia

Summer term is approaching, and I'm posting again in anticipation of Session 1 at Skidmore College. Here is the latest news from Moscow on mass protests today and sudden arrests by Russian police of opposition figures. 

Here is a guide to a few of the major opposition activists, including talk-show host Ksenia Sobchak.