For students of contemporary history, Afghanistan has become virtually synonymous with upheaval, instability, bloodshed, warfare—and tragedy. Over the past nearly half-century, the embattled country and its long-suffering citizens have experienced invasions, occupations, armed resistance movements, impoverishment, severe economic dislocation, the displacement of millions of refugees, and repressive misrule by religious fanatics. Scholars, journalists, and policy…
Category: Roundtables
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-22 on Tudor, Blue Helmet Bureaucrats
When asked to think of the United Nations (UN), many of my students picture blue-helmeted soldiers. In UN hagiography, peacekeeping is synonymous with forceful, self-sacrificial, and benevolent internationalism. The reality is, of course, more complicated.
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-21 on Whitlark, All Options on the Table
Rachel Whitlark’s All Options on the Table: Leaders, Preventive War, and Nuclear Proliferation brings together two critical areas of international relations research: nuclear politics and the role of individual leaders. After the Cold War ended, many historians and political scientists turned their attention away from nuclear weapons—and even, for a few years, from international security more…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-20 on Cox, Agonies of Empire
Agonies of Empire is the product of years of thinking about the United States. Michael Cox reflects on the recent past—the decades of what we still refer to as the “post–Cold War”—to understand the difficulties and limits of US global power.
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-19 on Demarais, Backfire
It is hard to browse the news without seeing reports on yet another wielding of economic sanctions. The United States currently has various forms of sanctions against over 30 countries as well as over 15,000 “specially designated” companies and individuals. The European Union has its own list, not as long as the US but longer…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-18 on Mundy, The Sisterhood
As many women scholars can and do attest, the path to academia can be full of discrimination, both open and institutional. I am part of that cohort, as one of the few female historians, in Canada or the United States, doing the history of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Even today, this field continues to…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-17 on Lonergan and Lonergan, Escalation Dynamics in Cyberspace
Although for over a quarter century an increasing number of states have acquired and used cyber capabilities, and cyberspace has become an increasingly important arena for international security interaction, far too many national intelligence and defense scholars, practitioners, and policymakers have sidestepped its vital role, either claiming that the technical barriers to entry are too…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-16 on Walton, Spies
Spies! What a great title! I could feel the ground shift within the first few pages of Calder Walton’s blockbuster accounting of the twentieth century “epic intelligence war between east and west.” Cold War historiography is again on the move and Walton, who is the assistant director of the Belfer Center’s Applied History Project, at…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-15 on Kassenova, Atomic Steppe
An academic book editor once said to me that it usually means no good when a history book becomes timely. While publishers certainly hope that their books are widely read, unfortunately it is often an international crisis that makes the media, and a general audience, turn to history books for advice. In Europe, a new…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-14 on Edwards, Prisoner of their Premises
George C. Edwards’s Prisoners of their Premises: How Unexamined Assumptions Lead to War and Other Policy Debacles tackles a central question in the study of foreign policy making: how do we explain decisions that have observably catastrophic outcomes? Edwards’s argument is that a vital step in the making process–problem identification–provides significant purchase on this question….