You Might Be a White Supremacist

Thanks to John Kelly's incredibly dumb comments about the American Civil War, I have been inspired to finally write a post that has been germinating for a while (and I am ripping off Jeff Foxworthy's "you might be a redneck routine.")

• If you think that both sides of the US Civil War were honorable, you might be a white supremacist.
• If you think that the civil war happened because the North didn't compromise enough (despite many historic compromises named things like "The Missouri Compromise"), you might be a white supremacist.
• If you think there were fine people on both sides of Charlottesville, you might be a white supremacist.
• If you take a vague executive order about a ban on Muslims and enthusiastically enforce it, you might be a white supremacist.
• If you empower the immigration folks to violate a heap of norms (sick kids in hospitals?), then you might just be a white supremacist.
• If you give Steve Bannon an office in the White House, you might be a white supremacist.
• If you continue to have Stephen Miller involved in policy-making and speech-writing, you might be a white supremacist.
• If you appoint a friend of the KKK as Attorney General, someone the 1980s GOP thought to be too racist to be a Federal Judge, you might be a white supremacist.
• If you support disenfranchising minorities via voterfraudfraud, such as by appointing a known vote suppressing such as Kris Kobach as head of a voter suppression effort, you might just be a white supremacist.
• If you target an NFL player for protesting police violence against minorities, you might just be a white supremacist.

I could and probably will go on....   but this gets the idea across even without referring to Trump's racial discrimination in rental housing or other older statements/behavior).

Update:

• If you cannot denounce slavery, you might just be a white supremacist:

Today journalist April Ryan asked Sarah Sanders: "Does this administration believe slavery was wrong?" Sanders left without answering. pic.twitter.com/vZYCZnMFAH

— Tara McKelvey (@Tara_Mckelvey) October 31, 2017

Ottawa Rocks: Fall Break Interrupted Edition

Academics look forward to the various breaks so that they can get grading done, so that they can make progress on grants, so that they can revise and resubmit.  And we whine other folks schedule stuff during the breaks (I still have no idea why Carleton folks are so enthused about scheduling meetings during the summer).  So, yeah, I whined this week about all the stuff that was happening in town during Carleton's reading week.  BUT it was a great week, so let's take a quick scamper through the events and what I learned (because that is why I got in this business--I love learning new stuff):

• On Wednesday, there was an event at Global Affairs Canada to launch a book on its recent history.  For those outside of Canada and for those who can't keep track of its ever-changing name, Global Affairs Canada is Canada's State Department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  In my fifteen years in Canada, it has been the Dept of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, then Dept of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (pronounced Defeated, no!), and now GAC (they hate that, referring to it as Global Affairs). 
• Anyhow, the event kicked off with Jean Chretien talking about his foreign affairs experiences with some fun comparisons between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.  I had never seen Chretien in person, and I can see why he did so well.  He was sharp, interesting, and semi-candid. And funny. 
• Stefanie Von Hlatky, a good friend, and one of her graduate students, Sara Greco, presented an interesting take as did Adam Chappnick.  I ran off before the other papers as I do have grants to write. 

• On Thursday, I attended three events in succession: a day long CGAI event on defence procurement, a talk by Dan Drezner, and a book launch by Aisha Ahmad, a former student.

• As a CGAI Fellow, I feel obligated to attend their events.  As someone who does not study defence procurement but talks about it a lot anyway (it is the one defence issue that sucks up most of the oxygen in Canada [and elsewhere]), events like this are handy to catch up.  The consensus was unsurprising: procurement is broken and the big Defence Policy Review, which now goes by SSE--Stronger, Secure, Engaged, is unlikely to be completed as advertised.  Mostly because Canada lacks enough experts to do the procuring (hey, NPSIA students, here's a growing field for you!) but also because no defence policy has survived for twenty years.  Parties change, priorities change, the defense budget is the easiest thing to cut in hard times to get the budget less deficit-y.  My comeback to that would be: if the Liberals are re-elected, and that seems very likely, then we may not get 20 years of this policy but we might get enough to make it mostly stick.
• I am probably developing the rep in town for asking the more obnoxious questions at these events.  I asked the Deputy Defence Minister about the contradiction between the talk of transparency and the use of Non-Disclosure Agreements.  She noticed that I did not like her answer much, but we had a pleasant exchange after the event (I need to avoid alienating everybody in defence given the partnership grant I am working on).  I asked another speaker--one from industry who was complaining about government--about whether their intra-industry competition undermines Canadian procurement, citing the example of two shipyards fighting over a contract, leaving the Vice Chief of Defence Staff suspended for probably a year or more....  I was far more dissatisfied by this guy's answer.  Anyhow, it was a very interesting day, and I learned much about how broken defence procurement is and why.
• Dan Drezner was in town at the invitation of NPSIA and Phil Lagasse's Barton Chair.  Drezner did a great job of presenting his book on the Ideas Industry.  I read the first half of the book beforehand, so I knew mostly what was coming.  It was a very fascinating hour, causing me to re-think my role in the Idea Industry (I will blog when I finish the book about my sudden realization I am a public intellectual... definitely not a thought leader).



Best use of Dark Knight Rises

• Then, I met Mrs. Spew at the War Museum to see Aisha Ahmad present her book, Islam & Co, which discusses the interactions between the Mosque and the Market which then leads some groups to lead proto-states out of state failure until the outsiders come in and pound them (Taliban, Islamic Courts of Somalia, ISIS).  We brimmed with pride as she did such a great job of presenting her work and making it so very meaningful.  The room was packed, and it was not a small room. She answered the questions deftly.   So, yeah, clear eyes, full hearts and all that.
  
• On Friday, I spent the morning at Global Affairs again, but this time, I was the center of attention.  I was in their Policy Lab, presenting the lessons of Afghanistan as I saw them.  My one big regret is that I didn't get a chance to interview many of the attendees when I was writing my book since they had much on the ground experience.  Since they didn't throw things at me and stayed the entire time, I think I got it mostly right. I did say some controversial things about the politicians and about whole of government (a phrase used to describe efforts to try to overcome bureaucratic politics and usually fall short).

So, yeah, Ottawa is a great town for someone who studies International Relations even if it means getting far less work done during reading period.  Now I have to do the grading I didn't do this week if I can resist the siren call of Stranger Things 2.

Secessionism is Hip Again: Catalonia Edition

When I started writing my dissertation long ago in a galaxy far away (early 1990s San Diego), I had a problem: each day there seemed to be a new secessionist crisis, which meant re-writing the intro chapter every day.  I eventually learned a key pro-tip: write a very drafty intro and then leave it behind and then re-write it LAST since the diss/article/book will inevitably change somewhat.  Anyhow, I am having deja vu, what with the Kurds and then the Catalans making news.

I have not studied the Catalans, and I have not been able to pay much attention because I have lots of other stuff getting my attention (yeah, full profs need to remember how to say no, pro-tip deux).  But I did write a bunch of stuff back when I was a junior prof that applies now.  While much of it was on the International Relations of Secession (see ye olde ties that divide or "Discrimination in IR"), I did do some data stuff on separatism.  One of the clearest findings then and now is this: groups that lose autonomy tend to be separatist.  Oh, and groups that lose their institutional means of expressing dissent may resort to violence.

So, while the Catalans may not have played this brilliantly, the government of Spain has been dumber.  There really was no reason for Spain to jump so hard and so fast on the Catalans.  Before the past several months, Catalans were ambivalent about secession.  How to reduce that ambivalence?  Revoke their autonomy and do other things to make the Catalans feel as if they cannot exert their voice in a democratic Spain.  What should Spain should have done?  Arrogant for me to say from my position of ignorance, but here I go: not much.  Spanish leaders should just not have recognized the referendum as happening.  "Oh, you guys are lining up to vote on something purely symbolic? How cute."

What has worked in Canada could have worked in Spain: give the separatists enough of what they want that it becomes hard for them to win a referendum.  Sure, sometimes you get a nail-biter, but it is easy to imagine what would have happened in 1995 if Canada had been heavy-handed.  Yes, more decentralization can lead to more demands and perhaps more separatism, but doing the opposite does so more quickly and, more importantly, can lead to violence.  As Spain shuts off the ability of the Catalans to win democratically, it would not be surprising if some Catalans became radicalized and started using violence.

Then again, unforced errors are all the rage these days: Brexit and Trump and now Spain v Catalonia.  So, we can pile on the Spaniards for messing this up, but damn our houses of glass are broken. 

All Over the World: Some Thoughts on US Troop Deployments

In the aftermath of the Niger ambush, folks are wondering where the US troops are.  Perhaps an easier question is where are they not?

Just in case any Senators are interested in knowing where US Special Forces are deploying to these days. #OpenSource #Niger pic.twitter.com/IZUEjGntn1

— Ben Collins (@BenCollins1776) October 23, 2017

I forget who linked to this document which lists, accurately or not,* where US service folks are serving (see this page for links to all kinds of related reports).

* Dave and I relied heavily on NATO placemats for the numbers in Afghanistan even as we were told, due to politics, that some countries deliberately over-estimated or under-estimated.

 I had a few reactions along the way, so here's some quick takes:

• Someone needs to scrub this a bit, as it reports 1k US Marines in Austria and 4 in Australia. Given that the US very publicly has developed a relationship with Australia to train Marines there, I am pretty sure someone switched the two numbers.  
• Bosnia has two American service members.  Almost certainly the Defense Attache and his/her assistant or an observer for EUFOR (European Force).  Which reminds me of how we all resolved the contradiction between "in together, out together" and "hasten the day we could leave" as the US and Canada left Bosnia when NATO's SFOR became EU's EUFOR.
• There are 142 American service members in Canada (more than half USAF)?  This is probably a combo of NORAD stuff and exchange relationships. I joked "Holy Occupation" on twitter, but this is a pretty unsurprising number.
• Two thousand in Djibouti.  Much drone and Special Ops probably run out of there.  China and Japan also have folks based there--pretty crowded for a small country.
• 500 Marines in El Salvador?  Not sure what to make of that
• 360 in Kosovo as the US, yes, is still in KFOR.  Interventions last a long time....
• Iceland: 0.  Ah, backfill memories as the US used to have fighters and support aircraft based in Iceland.  Not anymore.
• Georgia: 0.  No defense attache?
• 127 Marines in Libya?  All guarding the embassy?  I have no idea.
• 258 Marines in Norway?  Mighty cold.  But as a friend reminded me, US has pre-deployed equipment there, which means folks there to take care of it.  
• Lithuania is not listed?
• 112 in Poland?  This seems wrong as the US deployed a Brigade Combat Team (4k) to Poland and somewhat dispersed it in the region.  But the US is a Framework Nation of the Persistent Presence in Poland, so it has got to be more like 1k at the very least.

So, no, not a great list.  Especially since it lists Niger at 5.  Super-oops.

My takeaways:

• The Marines are far busier than one would expect.
• Past interventions lead traces.
• We need a better list.
• It reminded me of this song:

Advising and Assisting: Lessons from Omelets

Omelets?  OMLT: Observer,  Mentor, Liaison Teams.  In Afghanistan, many (but not all, due to caveats)* NATO members and partners (the latter would be non-members like Australia, Sweden, Georgia, etc) would put small groups of troops into a larger Afghan unit to help mentor them and provide them with critical linkages to air support, artillery support, intel, and other stuff needed to make the Afghans more effective.  During the high point of the effort, from 2006-2013 or so, these OMET-ed Afghan units would go into battle alongside ISAF forces.  This is key because if the Afghan unit broke and ran, the small numbers of ISAF Omeleteers (yes, they were called omeleteers) would still have the protection of the ISAF battlegroup.

*  Some countries were reluctant to participate in OMLTS due to: higher risks--one's security still mostly depended on the Afghans or one might be present when Afghans commit war crimes--why the Danes, otherwise fairly aggressive and caveat-free, chose to OMLT only garrison units.  Oh, and many countries had rules about whether OMLTs could accompany their mentees outside the country's area of operations.

Why is this relevant?  Because these days, few places where "advising and assisting" is there such backup. Indeed, in Niger, there were not even American planes and helicopters nearby.  As hinted at  on the Bombshell podcast, this violated one of the fundamental rules in Afghanistan--that operations were not take place more than a hour from a major alliance medical facility. This meant helos, and if no helos, then no ops unless within a short drive of medical help.  Why? Because if you can get a wounded soldier/marine/whatever to a hospital within an hour, then they have a  high probability of living.  This is important because wounded soldiers don't count: that they don't get listed in Killed in Action totals (do you know how many of your country's military folks were wounded in Afghanistan or Iraq?  Probably not, but KIA, maybe); they don't make the news as much, and, yes, they don't semi-require the President or someone else to call/write the relatives. [Ok, overly cynical--golden hour rule is very important for making sure those hurt in harm's way have the best chance to survive their wounds]

Anyhow, those rules, like all rules, tend not to apply as strictly to Special Operations types.  Why?  Necessity--they go to places where there is not major allied infrastructure providing heaps of helos and hospitals.  Oh, and SOF means secret so when bad stuff happens, it is less likely to cause trouble back home.  As poker this week in Vegas reminded me, less likely does not mean impossible.  So, things went poorly in Niger and we have little idea what happened, but it is now news.

The US forces were advising and assisting the Nigeriens and got ambushed.  One of the tricky things about this stuff is advising and assisting often means combat--killing and being killed, wounding and being wounded.  But they fall short of conventional combat operations, so publics and medias and politicians get confused about whether this is combat or not.  Anyhow, because there are few civilians in the proper jobs at State and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, this administration probably didn't really know who was in Niger and what they were doing.  So, more abdication of responsibility to the military.... and when the military is left alone, they may engage in risky or careless behavior.  Such as falling into rituals and habits that allow the adversaries to plan ambushes, for instance.

Again, we don't know much.  What we do know is that this US administration needs to staff up and start engaging in oversight.  Instead, they have engaged in blamecasting with a Congresswoman.  Not good.  Did this administration learn from the failed Yemen raid early in their term?  Does not seem so. All we do know is that Congress and the media need to ask tough questions of four star generals, active and retired, to figure out what went wrong, what can be learned, and how will stuff like this be less likely in the future.  To be clear, whenever a country has thousands of troops strewn through the world, advising and assisting militaries in and near conflict zones, bad stuff will occasionally happen.  But we would like to have confidence that much is being done to minimize risks, maximize effectiveness, and perhaps be able to communicate these activities to democratic publics.  And who has such confidence these days?

Always Tis What You Do: GOP edition

I am a Potter-ite as I have said many times, with the key creed being:

It is our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.  Chamber of Secrets.

While I have been traveling (and not yet gambling) this week, I have missed the chance to spew about much stuff.   So, I have a hot take or two:

• We really should not be surprised by Kelly lying about Congresswoman Wilson.  Kelly was awful at DHS, amplifying or encouraging or at least not mitigating the Muslim ban way back in February.  Under his administration, ICE felt unshackled to engage in all kinds of awful tactics against people who presented no threat to the US.  And then he chooses to lie and attack rather than apologize for his master's inability to convey any empathy.  So, yeah, tis your choices, John Kelly. [I do thank him for presenting yet more evidence that there are too many ex-generals in this administration]
• Lots of talk of George W. Bush subtweeting Trump in his speech critical of nativism and protectionism.  That is a choice and a good one, but then again, he also showed up to campaign for a truly awful candidate for governor in Virginia.  Maybe we ought not expect Bush to criticize GOP candidates, but he did choose to support him.
• McMaster?  He keeps on talking about denuclearization and military options, which is scaring the crap out of me.  Because a war with North Korea, the only way to denuclearize NK, would be catastrophic for South Korea, Japan, North Koreans, and, oh, yeah, the international economy.  He also keeps showing up on TV spinning for Trump--another choice that is harmful especially for civilian-military relations since he is still an active member of the US Army.
• Mattis says we shouldn't be asking questions about the Niger ambush?  Oversight of the military is not just your job, sir.  It involves Congress, and because Congress operates via fire alarms (they wait for someone to report a problem and then respond), the media play a vital role in civilian control of the military.  I continue to think Mattis is overrated because he is better than the rest.  That ain't saying much these days.
• Trump?  His choices continually suck.

We know the character of the folks in this administration.  Maybe some day, we will find out that Kelly, Mattis and McMaster prevented worse things from happening, but I can't really count on that. All I see are the choices they make, and that tells me enough.

False and Real Patriotism

This administration lives in a bizarro universe and so does, alas, much of the media.  The latest?

-@USArmy recruiters told to stop enlisting green card holders effective immediately, reports @mic. https://t.co/WZJuumDKZ8

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 17, 2017

FFS. So, @USArmy needs recruits and we are cutting off heaps of sources of potentially great soldiers. Super smart? Not. https://t.co/HtyT43Rudc

— Steve Saidemonster (@smsaideman) October 17, 2017

For the past couple of months, the false focus of what it means to be an American and a patriot has been on whether one stands or kneels during the anthem at sporting events.  The real focus should be on how this administration is so hostile to minority ethnic groups and immigrants (see the latest survey that has Trump wildly unpopular among non-whites).  Keeping green card holders out of the army?  What the hell? 

One could focus simply on the irrationality of this--that with most younger Americans being unqualified/disqualified (mostly due to physical fitness), one would think that taking in those who are willing and able to serve would make sense.

More importantly, what is more patriotic than being willing to fight and die for one's adopted country?  Actually serving is far more important than standing during the anthem.  One is a real contribution and, as Trump reminded a soldier's widow, a potentially risky thing to do.  The other? Purely symbolic and actually has got little to do with being a patriot, as dissent is just as American, if not more so, than standing during a song. 

I have been blogging less lately because many of my entries would simply be FFS.  For fuck sake.  Why?  Because this administration is so often full of shit, so shameless that hypocrisy seems to a badge of honor.  Who is the better patriot?  Colin Kaepernick or Donald Trump? It ain't close.  Not at all.  Kaepernick knows that sacrificing self for political change is worth the cost.   Trump only knows sacrificing others for personal aggrandizement and ego.

Twas 1775 when Samuel Johnson said: "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."  Indeed.

Quebec and Xenophobia: the Liberals are Illiberal

Quebeckers get upset when accused of being racist or xenophobic, but then the government of Quebec proposes to deny public services to those who cover their face.

The controversial legislation would effectively ban public workers — including doctors, nurses, teachers and daycare workers — as well as those receiving a service from the government, from wearing the niqab, burka or any other face covering.

 This is very clearly aimed at Muslim women wearing burkas and niqabs and not at those who endure the Canadian winter via fleecy balaclavas.  Why?  Because it is good politics--there is no real threat of face covered folks--just the imagined threat and taking a stance that tells one's base that one is with them by being against the other. 

It makes me want to resurrect an old meme of mine: the xenophobic squirrel.

I will need to find the old pic and make new ones for the PLQ (Quebec Liberal Party) as most of my old ones were aimed at the Parti Quebecois.

They call it religious neutrality.  I call it Islamophobia.  And, of course, the opposition parties in Quebec say it isn't enough.

This does remind me that the national and provincial parties are not the same entities, as Trudeau and the NDP refused to go along with this kind of crap two yeas ago.  It cost the NDP bigly, but not Trudeau.  I wonder if anyone will ask him about this, and whether he will dodge or not.  

Hostile Work Environments

In this space, I have frequently railed against sexual harassers, including outing one at my old place.  Why?  First, much sympathy for those who are directly victimized as it can derail careers and create great pain.  Second, it is simply wrong.  But third, and the topic du jour, is that it creates a hostile work environment.  That seems abstract, and when I first heard that phrase a couple of decades ago, I had no idea what it means.  Now?  Absolutely, I do.

When I was at Texas Tech, there was an assistant prof who slept with multiple grad students, as in at the same exact time and place.  It poisoned pretty much everything:

• it poisoned faculty-student relations as junior faculty realized that they could not spend any non-office time with students since one of our colleagues was using such opportunities to prey.
• it poisoned student-student relations as students thought that those who were sleeping with faculty were getting special treatment in terms of grades and protection from both the harasser (probably) and the rest of the faculty (probably not).  
• it poisoned senior-junior faculty relations as the seniors were oblivious and wanted to give the guy special treatment that the rest of us would not get (they literally said that) while the junior faculty were outraged both by the predator and the special treatment he was getting. 
• it poisoned the future of the department since getting him fired for being absent without leave took the new department chair's time and health as he had to fight insiders who wanted to keep an AWOL sexual harasser (he eventually was fired, although I am sure he became someone else's problem). 

At McGill, the sexual harassment by one guy over decades:

• derailed the careers of many young women interested in Mideast studies and peacebuilding.
• created tensions among the grad students because some didn't know, some didn't believe and some didn't know what to do. 
• created resentment by those faculty in the know towards the administration that barely slapped a wrist.
• fostered tensions within the faculty between those in the know and the predator that remained inside the department.

My list for McGill is different because the dynamics were a bit less central to everything.  Why?  Because the predator was not an ally of other senior faculty, that the predator involved fewer students in all the stuff he was up to (the students at McGill did not vote in faculty meetings in numbers that were larger than the junior faculty), because McGill was not nearly as poorly administered at all levels as TTU despite my problems with a chair who knew nothing, heard nothing, etc.

So much of the Harvey Weinstein stuff is familiar to me.

• There are folks at McGill who remain silent because of confidentiality agreements that were imposed--so journalists know that something happened (and is still happening) but can't write stories with out names and testimony (I have been approached several times over the past year or two).   As someone who was never officially in the loop, I never had to agree to such a pledge. 
• Others fear saying stuff because of potential lawsuits--my post last year led some folks to speculate when I would get sued.  Not yet.  
• The community of victims is far larger than folks think--I am not surprised that Weinstein did this over and over again for decades.  He felt entitled and empowered by his own impunity.  That is very familiar given that the harassers I have known are not one-time guys who fell in love or in deep like or had crushes on one amazing student.  Nope, they kept preying upon those who were vulnerable because they could. Again, confidentiality does not protect the future victims.

While sexual harassment happens to most women at some point, it may or not happen everywhere.  I wasn't at Vermont long enough to see anything or hear about anything.  On the other hand, I was at McGill for ten years and only now am hearing about other people (thanks to my post of last year).  At Carleton?  So far, so good.  It does not seem to be a hostile work environment.  Sure, we have some faculty members who are less than optimal colleagues, but so far, I have not heard anything.  That does not mean that it hasn't happened or isn't happening because, as I have seen elsewhere, the predators often do stuff outside of view and are often protected by conspiracies of silence.  I hope this bad stuff isn't going on where I work now, but the odds are not in our favor, given that this is more prevalent than I would like even if it is less prevalent than how Hollywood tends to portray academia.

I remember folks saying that universities could not have policies on faculty-grad student romance since you can't legislate against love. So many of our profs were married to other profs who they had met when one was faculty and the other was a student.  I call bullshit on that. Yes, romance can happen, but if one has feelings for a student, wait until they are not a student.  I think general policies in this case are needed because the damage done to individuals and communities can be so deep and so lasting that it is worth deferring or even denying a few real relationships. 

Proud and Humbled

I was in Toronto yesterday for an awards ceremony.  Aisha Ahmad, one of my Phd students from my time at McGill, was receiving an award for best article on an international security topic in 2016.  She was supposed to heave received it last winter at the ISA meeting in Baltimore, but that took place shortly after Trump announced his Muslim ban.  So, I accepted the award on her behalf, and we decided to hold an event in Toronto to recognize her.

Of course, Aisha decided to take advantage of the moment by doing two things: schooling us on doing research and on highlighting her students.  After big IR poohbah Robert Keohane (whose last name gets mispronounced more frequently and in more ways than mine) had a few comment and insights, Aisha discussed positionality in research, especially in fieldwork, making it clear that everyone has a distinct position from where they ask questions, but it seems that only brown folks and women folks tend to be asked about their position and how it affects their work.  She had a great example from real life as her white male colleagues interviewed the same guy she did on the same day but in a different context and got a very different perspective of that same guy.  Really very clarifying discussion. 

Aisha then had a series of her students--undergrad and grad--to discuss their work briefly, and they knocked our socks off.  I have always been impressed with her diligence and her dedication, but mentioning that would have turned my Harry Potter reference (three d's of disapparition) into a Dodgeball reference (five d's of dodgeball).

After she talked, Barnett Rubin moderated, David Dewitt and I said a few things.  David talked about Aisha's article and spiffy new book. I talked about Aisha and how truly impressive she is and how far she has come.  The path has not been easy for her, but she has walked it (or ran it, I guess) with grace and fire. 

I have much pride for her excellence, but I am also humbled because she works so much harder than I do/did, is so much more diligent and passionate about the work, and is just rocking the profession. I joked that I will take all credit for her success, as is my right as her supervisor, but, we know the truth--it is all Aisha. 

Texas Tech and Guns

I finished watching some fun TV to find that there has been a shooting at Texas Tech, where I taught from 1995-2002 (well, until 2001, but was technically still employed until summer of 2002).  We don't know much yet, but I can't help but think about a few things:

1. The Texas legislature decided to allow guns on campus despite the opposition of university police departments across the state and, well, common sense.
2. The first person to pay the price for this is a campus cop, and the student seems to have problems.  The cops were visiting the student to do a welfare check.  So yeah.
3. The slogan at TTU, instead of hook 'em or gig 'em or whatever, is Guns Up!  

I am glad that my remaining friends at TTU and everyone else except the cop and the kid are ok.  The kid's life is destroyed, and the cop is gone and his family is ripped apart.  But there's more freedom with heaps of guns, so there's that.

Happy Thanksgiving, Eh?

I was away last Canadian Thanksgiving, and, yes, I am still giving thanks for that terrific time last year (facebook reminds me I took a bus tour to Mt. Fuji last year and encountered ninjas along the way).  So, I don't think I properly gave thanks last year.  Moreover, with the past year of US politics, well, it makes Canada's joys stand out just a wee bit more in stark relief.  So, let me give thanks:

• I am thankful for the great group of friends I have in Ottawa, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto and elsewhere in Canada.  Some stereotypes are actually true--most Canadians I have met are friendly and polite and funny.  We truly feel at home.
• I am thankful for the two cool jobs I had.  I loved teaching at McGill, and miss the students who went there as well as most of my former colleagues.  It was a great opportunity, and I will always be thankful for it.  Carleton has been mighty, mighty good, with five years flying by.  Sure, I ended up hiring my friends (ok, not so much as I got bounced off of the committees when my friends got short-listed), which makes the place even better, but I felt very welcome even before that.  And the folks at the Dean's Office have recognized my contributions (of course, I then end up doing more stuff for them ...hmmmm).
• I am thankful to Canada's grant agencies as they have funded my research, which has included a lot of sweet travel around Canada and far, far beyond.  The forms are not fun, and the big partnership grant is a tough nut to crack, but my research ambitions have been very high ever since I moved here since I can get funding to the work I want to do.
• I am thankful for being in a national capital.  Studying international relations, especially defense and national security stuff, is so much more fun and interesting when one is close to the action (or non-action).  I regularly meet military officers, diplomats, officials across the government, ambassadors and personnel representing their countries to Canada, media folks, and on and on.  It is just so very interesting.  As a deeply curious person, I enjoy this so very much.
• I am so very thankful for being able to continue to play in a very vibrant, friendly ultimate frisbee community which owns its own fields only 12 minutes from my house. I am, of course, thankful the chance to play so much in Montreal as well.  
• I am thankful for the great skiing although I doubt I will be returning to Whistler this winter.  Maybe Banff if I am lucky.
  
• I am thankful that the 2015 election went the way it did.  Perhaps because the Conservatives had been in power for ten years or so, incumbent fatigue led Canada to move left instead of right, bucking the future trend.  The Liberals are not perfect, nor is Justin Trudeau, but damn near all of my friends would trade their government for the Canadian one in a heartbeat.  I have had the chance to give them my feedback more directly from time to time, and it is an homor to be asked to do so. I do gripe about them, but the Liberals made their big move around this time two years ago when the Conservatives shifted to an Islamophobic stance and the Liberals, as well as the NDP, refused to go along.  That the NDP is now led by a Sikh makes me more inclined to take them seriously in the future.  The multiculturalism of Canadian politics is a tonic these days as I watch the White Supremacist in Chief degrade American politics.
• I was going to be thankful that I can get the new Star Trek on TV weekly without having to pay CBS streaming, but, well, the show is not that good.
• I am thankful for better snow removal service!  It took some trying, but we finally found a reliable company. 

I am sure there is more, but I have some class prep to do for tomorrow.  To sum up, I am very grateful that the job market washed us up on these friendly shores.  Not what I expected at all when I started my PhD, but I am very, very lucky.

Tyranny of Low Expectations, Episode 75

I have lost track of how many times I have complained about how lauded James Mattis is, but here I go again.  I saw this:

"What you need, frankly, is a diplomatic equivalent of Jim Mattis." https://t.co/MH9dvA7PW1

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) October 7, 2017

Sure, Mattis doing great compared to Tillerson, but that is like saying that I am a sprinter when compared to a decomposing corpse.  I cried on twitter:

What evidence do we have that Mattis doing a great job?

I am waiting.... Sure, Mattis hasn't sucked up to Trump, and Trump seems to pay him much respect because Trump has a fetish for guys in uniforms.  But how are things at the Pentagon?  How are our wars going? 

So far, heaps of accidents--ships crashing, soldiers dying in training.  The US forces around the world are killing more civilians.  Every war seems to be escalating.  The US military's response to the hurricane in Puerto Rico has been slow.  Oh, and how is the state of US civilian-military relations?  Trump seems to have abdicated responsibility, which is actually bad from a civ-mil standpoint.  He keeps referring to "his generals."  Meanwhile, the generals are speaking truth to power in front of Congress, saying that they don't want a transgender ban, that they don't support Trump's other policies, but Trump keeps doing those things anyway. Oh, and the anti-immigration efforts of the White House keep on harming the US military's ability to recruit.

So, how is Mattis doing a great job?  Is it because we don't know how much worse it might be if he were not around?  That counterfactual can only work for so long.  Maybe someday we will get memoirs that identify exactly which bad options Mattis preventing Trump from choosing.  Maybe.  Right now, it is an aritcle of faith that Mattis is restraining Trump.  The big test is right in front of us: if Trump decertifies Iran, then we can say that Mattis is not nearly as powerful as folks have thought.  If Trump pulls back, I will try to stop my screams about Mattis being overrated. 

Sexual Harassment and Politics

Upon the anniversary of the Access Hollywood tape that should have ended Trump's candidacy, we have GOP folks criticizing the Democrats for hanging out with and taking money from Harvey Weinstein (not Harvey Feirstein).  Hypocrisy is not new in politics.  Do the Dem's critics have a point?

Probably.  Sure, it is not quite as bad to hang with a sexual harasser than be one, Donald.  But if the the various Dems who buddied up to Weinstein knew of his history of sexual harassment, then they ought to be criticized.  It is not just the right thing to do but also good politics--because the party that says it stands for women should stand for women.  It is pretty simple.  I doubt that Obama knew of Weinstein's history because he sent his daughter to work there, but I have no idea how well known Weinstein's reputation was outside of Hollywood.

The problem is that when someone does this kind of stuff, there is a conspiracy of silence--that many people know but don't tell, so that newcomers don't know and then find out the bad way.  When I outed one of my former colleagues as a serial sexual harasser, a few things happened:

• Plenty of former students registered their non-surprise and shared their stories.
• Plenty of colleagues of the harasser registered their surprise--yep, despite decades of engaging in this behavior and despite many graduate students knowing and warning others about it, faculty were in the dark.
• I started getting stories from students, past and present, about other harassers about whom I had no idea.  

So, yeah, I am willing to give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt, but I am aware of my party bias.  Still, I am also pretty sure that word about Weinstein was out.  So, I am not giving them much benefit of the doubt.  They should all run away and condemn.  Not just because he is now politically toxic, but also to send a message that even if you are powerful, you are not immune from the consequences.

And, yes, I feel strongly about this because I have seen students harmed by sexual harassment and departments' cultures poisoned by it.  This stuff is not going away, as power -> entitlement --> exploitation/coercion --> damage.  

Oh, and if the GOP folks get high and mighty, it is just a sham given that they ran away from and ran back to Trump in days.  Trump's latest stance on women's issues--allowing states to cut birth control from insurance programs--should remind us that whatever sins the Democrats have on women's issues, they pale in comparison to the misogynist in chief.

National Security Generalists and Learning the Lessons From Lost Wars

A friend posted this piece on facebook: "Why Nerds Should Not Be In Charge of War."  It draws from the new PBS Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick to argue that it happened because of the prominent role played by "generalists."  Yes, Robert McNamara and his gang of Whiz Kids are mighty arrogant, and they have much blame to share for the war.  Indeed, McNamara, unlike certain other arrogant former SecDefs, has spent the time since trying to grapple with what he had wrought.  There is something to the idea that we need folks involved who are regional experts.  Indeed, there has been much debate about whether we political scientists did area studies wrong by insisting on generalizable theory and advanced methods. 

But as a national security generalist, I am mildly miffed at the, dare I say it, generalizations made about the generalists. "Generalism breeds (unwarranted) confidence and certitude."  Um, maybe if you focus on Kissinger and McNamara, but there are plenty of generalists who are constantly worried about not knowing enough about a place, wondering when we will get called out for being the imposters that we think we are. 

The funny thing is that I read this piece only a few days after participating on a panel on the Kurdish referendum at a think tank in DC.  I have no Kurdish credentials--all I have are the lessons I have learned about the general dynamics of separatism (pretty much everything I was doing before I moved towards doing NATO stuff and civil-military relations).  The other panelists were a Kurd who had a sharp understanding of the politics of the area and a Middle East expert who knew much about the regional dynamics.  I felt very much like an outsider, but, as it turns out, the organizer had the right idea because I could put the specific situation into a broader context to highlight how the Kurdish situation compares and contrasts with other separatist movements.  The audience, mostly of folks who are less generalist and more area studies, actually dug what I was doing.  It turns out that those who do this Mideast stuff rarely get a chance to see the forest for all of the trees, and I got to provide them with a view of the forest, which helped them understand the specific trees better.

So, let's not burn all national security generalists for the sins of some of the most powerful of our kind.  We do need to take seriously how to foster and encourage area studies as funding of such training and work has declined.  The good news is that I have seen plenty of next generation scholars who mix general lens with specific expertise including but not exclusively my students.  Last week, I engaged in a discussion on twitter about how much area specific knowledge is necessary, and my answer to that question was to make sure generalists like myself converse with the area experts. To be clear, we need to have more occasions where the generalists and the specialists meet so that we are all both educated and humbled.

A Fool and His Beard

Tis a beautiful day in DC.  I was originally supposed to fly home from Latvia via DC yesterday, but was invited to participate in an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (not that other CSIS) on the Kurdish referendum.  I laid over... but my bag did not.  So much for my clever plan (usually I have to pickup my bag and check through customs when I fly from someplace else into the US and then onto Canada, not htis time).  So, I had to go to CVS today, and had an epiphany: