[Our essayists decided that the best analysis of the Biden administration’s 2022 strategy would take the form of a Gothic dialogue between American founders –ed.] Outside Philadelphia, Two Ghosts Walk into a Bar. James Madison: [cheerily] Who wants a drink? President Biden’s National Security Strategy [NSS] is here! John Adams: Convince me to care. Every…
H-Diplo|ISSF Conference Report: “History and Memory in International Relations”
October 26-28, 2022 marked the twelfth year in which the European Network Remembering and Solidarity (ENRS) hosted its flagship academic conference, Genealogies of Memory. Since its inception in 2011, the annual conference has developed into a leading international forum for contemplating memory politics in Europe. The theme of this year’s conference, history, and memory in…
H-Diplo | ISSF Roundtable 14-7 on Barder, Global Race War: International Politics and Racial Hierarchy
“Theory” makes the world of the professors go ‘round. It is the gold ring on the dissertation-award, post-doc, tenure ladder, lead article, monograph, promotion, citation count endowed chair carousel. In political science in the United States the dominant view of theory among a self-identified ‘mainstream’ roughly corresponds to that of their colleagues in the natural…
H-Diplo | ISSF Roundtable 14-6 on Stewart, Governing for Revolution: Social Transformation in Civil War
In Governing for Revolution, Megan A. Stewart examines variation in rebel governance, asking why some rebel movements undertake expansive and costly governance initiatives during war, while others refrain from doing so until the conflicts end. According to Stewart, governance can be both extensive and intensive. Intensive governance refers to intrusive projects that have the potential…
H-Diplo Essay 503- Isabel V. Hull on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
The H-Diplo editors have asked about the “formative years” of scholars’ interest in international affairs. I honestly don’t know where it all started. I was a nerdy kid interested in history, natural and (I guess) unnatural, and politics very early on. I was an avid reader of Time, despite its “strange inverted Timestyle” (“Backward ran…
H-Diplo|ISSF Commentary: Avey, “The Biden and Trump National Security Strategies: Continuity, Change, and the Implications for Scholars”
Despite a sense that most formal strategy documents do not matter much, there is a great deal of attention to a President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) when it is released.[1] Scholars, think tank analysts, and pundits are quick to comment on its strengths and, more commonly, highlight its flaws. The release of President Joe Biden’s…
H-Diplo | ISSF Roundtable 14-5: Zegart, Spies, Lies and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence
Amy Zegart’s book Spies, Lies and Algorithms: The History of Future of American Intelligence, provides a well-written and easy to read overview of the multiplicities of American intelligence; everything from what intelligence is, to intelligence in classrooms and the effects of “spytainment,” and of course, intelligence of the digital age. Zegart describes the initial concept…
H-Diplo|ISSF Roundtable 14-4: Young, Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World
Few actors in international relations evoke caricature and misunderstanding like North Korea. A country that has long vexed US policymakers, North Korea has become the go-to adversary of convenience for the American imagination. The Pentagon pinned its post-Cold War force structure to the assumption of a second Korean War, meaning that a decade of US…
H-Diplo|ISSF Roundtable 14-3: Teaching Critical Approaches to International Relations
I very much enjoyed reading the four contributions to this roundtable. The theme that runs through all four is the different journeys, taken by different people, that nonetheless led to similar conclusions about how we can teach International Relations (IR). Underlying all this, for me at least, is a disquieting feeling that, over the last…
H-Diplo|ISSF Commentary “Fear and the Logic of Othering: Decoding the Biden Administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy”
As result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration delayed the release of the new National Security Strategy (NSS) until October 2022.[1] At first glance, it is impossible to avoid noting that the entire NSS—which analysts have described as a disappointing document and “a laundry list of challenges, threats, and responses”[2] —revolves around…
