The Ben Parker Principle and Jason Kenney

With great power comes great responsibility.  While the Spider-Man comics and movies make this a central point, it is also something that is basic to democracies--that those with significant influence need to be aware of their power and use it wisely.

Alas, this is not always the case.  Jason Kenney, Premier of Alberta, committed two mistakes when trying to dismiss Melanee Thomas's arguments about his actions (dismissing those who investigate election malfeasance):

1. Kenney made a dumb argument
2. Kenney picked on an individual.

First, arguing that Melanee Thomas is biased because she ran for office long ago, before she got her PhD, is a dumb argument.  I believe this counts as ad hominen.  Rather than addressing the complaint--that Kenney is seeking to avoid accountability by firing those investigating his party--he says that Thomas is biased because of something she did a long time ago.  Since that time, Melanee went to McGill, earned a PhD, studying Canadian politics (I knew her there but she didn't study with/under me since Canadian politics ain't my field), has written articles and more about stuff, so she has become an expert on Canadian elections. 

The second mistake made by Kenney and then his staff is to pick on an individual.  As a politician, Kenney has followers, so anytime he mentions a person by name, he is essentially sending his followers at a target.  This is the world we live in now.  So, before punching down, any politician should think twice.  That Kenney did not is not surprising--he does not exactly exude responsibility.

One more note on dumb: it is dumb to tell a professor to shut up--kind of like telling a blogger to shut up--it just encourages such folks to keep on  speaking.

So, Kenney's moves here are dumb and irresponsible.  We should expect more from our leaders.

Deep State? Nope

I got triggered by this CBC story about the "deep state."  The story does a fair job of charting the development of the phrase, mostly by the far right, as part of conspiracy theories.  The problem with the piece is that it refers to all kinds of stuff that are legitimate concepts, which then lends a patina of legitimacy to the concept.

Yes, there is a military-industrial complex.  Eisenhower was not wrong.  But, no, it is not a unified actor, but a web of interactions and interests that tend to produce things like arms races.  we can blame the wars of the recent past on politicians and their interests, not some dark forces controlling them.  Influence?  Often.  Control?  Nope.

The problem these days is that Trump and his reactionary allies use it all the time to describe those in government who are .... doing their damned jobs.  Those people testifying last week and this week about what they saw Trump, Guiliani, etc do and say are doing so because they swore an oath to protect and serve the Constitution, not the President.  Lt. Colonel Vindman's case is more complicated (see this complicated piece) because he is an acting member of the US military, except it is not more complicated.  Why?  Because the military, like every other executive agency, is accountable not just to the White House but to Congress.

The reason why Trump keeps running into problems with folks in government is because Trump feels he is beyond the law and feels like the Presidency gives him the power to pursue his own interests, not the American interests.  So, when he conspires with Russians, the FBI gets involved.  When Trump tries to extort a country, members of the National Security Council detailed from various government agencies get involved.  And so on.  The central ingredient in all of this is not some nefarious actor within government, but Trump's unwillingess to "faithfully execute" the laws of the US.  This is not the deep state conspiring or acting against him.  Instead, it is the institutions of governance operating according to the rules that have been developed over two hundred and thirty years

Sure, there are bureaucratic politics always in play--that actors will generally stand on issues based on where they are in the bureaucracy.  And, yes, there are incentives and structures that lead organizations to develop cultures and interests.  But these again are not coherent rational actors.  The various agencies are rivals for money, power, influence, prestige, and autonomy.  They don't play well together.  The story of 9/11 involves, for instance, how the CIA and FBI could not coordinate because of their rival missions, identities, and interests.

Being President is hard--it takes a lot of work and smart staff to coordinate all the agencies.  Trump does not do hard work, and he finds loyalty be far more important in his staffers than intelligence, wisdom, experience, expertise, or integrity.  Trump always believed that there was something wrong with Obama since he could not wish policies into place.  Indeed, Trump was the ultimate believer in the Green Lantern theory--that one only has to imagine something to make it so.

The problem now is that any mention of the deep state is giving credibility to the bullshit spewed by the conspiracy theorists, and I just don't have any tolerance for that.  So, let's stop using the damned term, which is just distraction sauce.  Instead, let's focus on that whole failure to "faithfully execute the laws"--that Trump is in violation of his oath of office, and he is surprised that many of those in government are not willing to do the same.

The State of American Allies in the Age of Trump

I continue to think that the big change in the departure of SecDef Mattis is not that Trump has lost his guardrails but that it has caused others to lose their ability to engage in wishful thinking.  Macron's "brain death" comment might be read as self-serving since France, including under Macron, has generally sought to build up a European replacement to NATO.  However, the basic statement--that there is no one in the US engaging in the thinking that is required to lead NATO--is on target.

How so?  Each NATO summit is preceded by a series of Ministerials--meetings of Foreign Ministers (North Atlantic Council FM or NAC/FM) and Defense Ministers (NAC/D).  In between those, there are plenty of meetings within DC and between those in DC in the Pentagon and State and their counter-parts in Canada and Europe.  These meetings push agendas--items to be considered and ultimately some reaching a state of consensus.  But what happens when there are few people at State and the Pentagon staffing those desks?  What happens when the Secretary of State is more interested in promoting the next apocalypse as part of his vision for the rapture and also focused on Kansan politics?  When the SecDef is distracted by other alliance messes (see below)?  Well, we might have counted on the Brits to game the system in the old days, but Brexit has caused a fair amount of brain damage and distraction in London.  So, the alliance is not moving forwards and figuring out how to adapt to the various changing dynamics, including Turkey becoming more aligned with Russia.

The funny thing is that NATO is, compared to other places, a good news story.  The moves made in the past to create deterrence and deny Putin a fait accompli in the Baltics are in place, are working, and have yet to be undone.  How about elsewhere?

Things are looking awful in East Asia, where folks were worried before about being abandoned and being drawn into a war at the same time (rarely does one get gored by both horns of the alliance dilemma at the same time, but that is Trump's gift).  Now, they are mostly worried about abandonment.

First, let's focus on "diplomacy"

#Breaking: Defense Secretary Esper announces the U.S. and South Korea have decided to postpone the “Combined Flying Training Event,” to facilitate diplomacy with North Korea.

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) November 17, 2019

What has diplomacy gotten the US and its allies from North Korea?  Kim Jong Un has gotten heaps of recognition and pats on the back, in addition to the US cutting back on exercises in the region, and he has given up what?  Nothing.  Diplomacy is about give and take, and thus far KJU has taken and not given, and Mr. Art of the Deal has given and not taken.

Second, let's focus on "burden-sharing."  Trump's focus on all allies has been on getting paid, not on how the allies are helping the US pursue its interests.  Because as we know from Ukraine, what matters is Trump's interests, not America's.  The latest salvo is Trump demanding Japan and South Korea pay 4x or 5x more than they are currently paying for the basing of US troops.  As a reminder, these troops are not there because of American altruism but because of American interests:

1. Conflict in these regions would be bad for the US economy in a huge way
2. Keeping Europe and East Asia free has long been seen as important for American security--also, better to prevent a war than have to enter one halfway through, a lesson learned after a couple of world wars.
3.  If the US wants to contain China, these bases and these countries are damned handy.  Threatening to pull out unless these countries pay up, protection-racket style, is good for China, bad for the US. 

Back in 2016, one reason I got the election wrong is that it was so obvious that Trump would be bad for US alliances, and I thought there were enough Republicans who cared about US national security that it would tip the balance.  I was wrong about that.  NeverTrumpers may be a thing, but they are small and not a relevant voting bloc.  The question is now the 2020 election because the damage to American alliances is severe but may be somewhat (not entirely) reversible.  After eight years of Trump?  Not so much.

Balance to the Force?

I have been listening to the new Binge-Mode podcasts which are now focusing on Star Wars after doing Game of Thrones and Harry Potter.  So, I have been reminded of something that drove me crazy long ago.  Yes, there is so much bad in the prequels, but one of the dumbest ideas is this: that Anakin Skywalker would bring balance to the force.

What the hell does that mean?  It is often suggested that his killing of the Emperor at the end of Return of the Jedi is finally the act that brings balance to the force.  But balance suggests an equal weight on both sides.  Killing the most powerful Sith and then, well, dying himself and thus removing most of the relevant dark side types (until Snoke and Kylo return to the scene--depending on how much of the expanded universe one consumes and adheres to) actually disturbs the balance as now the weight should all be on the light side. 

Which gets to one of the dumbest things in the prequels--if at first, the Jedi don't think that there is a Sith menace out there, why would they (Qui-gon especially) value a prophecy about bringing balance to the force.  At that moment, these Jedi think they utterly dominate, so balance is the last thing that they would want.

Let's move to IR for a minute: once the Soviet Union collapsed, the US stood alone, a superpower with no equals.  It did not then seek out to balance power.  Power became very unbalanced, tilted heavily to the US.  As China has risen relative to the US, there is greater balance in International Relations.  Is the US happier now?  I think not. 

One could argue that it is not so much about balancing of forces but any moment in time is a particular status quo that is seen as a balance, a juxtaposition of forces, and stability-seeking powers want to keep the status quo.  Again, however, until Darth Maul and Darth Siddious became well known, there should have no need or desire for an agent to balance the force. 

So, alas, we are stuck with this dumb prequel concept attached to Darth Vader in a more sticky way than much of the crap in the prequels.  However, it is handy for illustrating how problematic the concept of balancing is in International Relations.

What I liked most about The Last Jedi is how Luke railed about the stupidity of the Jedi.  I need to re-watch to see if the balance stuff comes up.  As it stands, I am thinking of the Rise of Skywalker is not about Rey being kin to Luke/Leia/Anakin but rather a new way, alternative way to think about the force and one's role in using it.  This would allow Rey to occasionally use the force in anger, to engage in love (something else that was so dumb about the prequels--that Jedi can't marry, etc), and the balancing is within the force user rather than between the forces of light and dark. 

We will find out next month how wrong I probably am.  And that will end any balance there is now between me and my uncertain opinions.

Remembrance Day, 2019

American cemetery at Omaha Beach

One of the advantages of doing medium N work that requires a heap of travel is that I have been to war museums and memorials in Australia, Japan, South Korea, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany including American and Canadian cemeteries in Europe.  I have taken to posting pictures from my various trips on Remembrance Day (what used to be known as Armistice Day and is called Veterans' Day in the US).  This year is particularly special one, I think.

Juno Beach

Why?  Partly because I got to see more of Normandy this year--the American cemetery at Omaha Beach is so very beautiful and very haunting, and I got to see briefly Juno Beach, where the Canadians landed.  Partly because there are so few left from those who fought on those beaches and elsewhere during that war.  Partly because the rise of Neo-Nazis and their friends raise questions about the sacrifices and what we have learned and failed to learn.  Partly because we cannot seem to end any of the forever wars.  Partly because this year's Vimy Gala had a bit of a punch to it with the recognition of this year's Silver Cross Mother present (each year a mother who lost a son or daughter in war is recognized).  Partly because I am getting old, I guess. 


Each year, especially since I moved to Ottawa, I realize the Commonwealth countries do this day right, better than the American version.  My daughter when to a school named after John McRae, who wrote In Flanders Field.  Which, I guess, is what made the poppies so central to our remembrance activities.  This year, there has been more discussion of what the poppies mean, whether we should be required (!) to wear them, whether the racists on national television (Don Cherry) should be banned for arguing that immigrants don't wear the poppy, and so on.  Yes, we live in more polarizing times, and it touches on everything.

For this Remembrance Day, I will try to remember the ideas for which these folks sacrificed their lives, knowing that we have fallen short both before and now.  We ought not idealize the conflicts of the past, but we should still take seriously that those who go to war are doing it for their friends, their family, their battle buddies, their country, regardless of whether the politicians and generals who lead them are well-intentioned or not. 

Berlin Wall Falling: Thirty Years Later

I had the chance to go to Berlin when I was doing my Eurailpass tour of Europe in 1987, but it was kind of out of the way and cost more money.  So, I didn't, thinking I could go see the wall some other time.  And then the world changed.  The question is: how much?

People have been reacting online in a couple of ways:

• the fall of the wall and the liberation of Eastern Europe pale in comparison to the rise of China in terms of major shifts in international relations
• the fall of the wall and democratization produced much conflict
• walls are back in fashion.

My basic take is that we tend to observe what we want.  What did we expect on that amazing night thirty years ago?  Would we have expected Russia to be led by trolls seeking to mess with pretty much everything?  Not sure.  Would we have expected most of Eastern Europe to become and remain democratic thirty years later?  Hungary, Serbia, Belarus, and Poland are the exceptions, a growing group that should cause much dismay.  However, there was both more and less ethnic conflict than one might have expected.  When empires fall, ethnic conflict ensues.  Thanks to some interventions and some other dynamics, Yugoslavia largely remained the exception and not the rule.

Would we have expected a reunified Germany to be looked upon as one of the few remaining powerful supporters of the liberal international order?  Remember how nervous some countries were about a reunified Germany.  These days we ask Germany to do more, not less.

Checkpoint Charlie

I have been to Berlin several times to do and to present research.  I tend to go to the same places--Checkpoint Charlie and the East Side Gallery










I do think much has changed and much of it for the better.  Europe is not perfect, but it is far better off being unified than divided.  There may be some holes in the map of European democracy, but most Europeans are living free.  There might be lots of dissatisfaction, but, thus far, opposition to most governments has been peaceful and exercised through the ballot boxes.  We can be disappointed about the backsliding, but we should remember how much progress has been made. 

To say that China's rise is hugely important should not diminish the meaning and relevance of the fall of Communism in Europe, the mostly enthusiastic embrace of democracy, and all that the Europeans have accomplished since 1989.  The irony, of course, is the defeat of the far left in the late 1980s has been replaced by the emergence of the far right abetted by Russia.  Brexit would not have happened had not the Conservatives tried to placate their right flank.  Trump, well, he has more than abetted the far right in the US and around the world.  So, we can be plenty depressed on this day as well. 

I will choose to focus on the upside, that so much changed 30 years ago, most of it for the better.  If we screw up what we inherited, that is on us. 

Who is Brain Dead? Macron, NATO, or the US

Lots of hand-wringing and more this week as France's President Emmaneul Macron said that NATO is in trouble because of American unreliability.  There is a lot to this, but I do want to credit Macron for doing the whole "hey, the Emperor is wearing no clothes" thing.  American leadership is fundamental to the alliance--not just showing up if something bad happens, but pushing the alliance towards doing more, towards adjusting to new threats, and dealing with older ones. 

That is not happening now for a couple of reasons.  First, Trump's fixation with the 2% issue crowds out every other issue.  Trump has focused entirely on a false belief--that NATO countries owe the US for spending under 2% of GDP on defense--and this is the focal point of every US-NATO discussion since 2017 (yes, today is the anniversary of Trump's electoral victory.  Yuck).  I have blogged here extensively on how dumb the 2% standard is, how the goal of 2% is aspirational--to be reached in 2024 rather than today or yesterday, and that this is all bad for the alliance.

Second, the concept of brain death seems dramatic, but one could consider the US the nervous system of NATO--connecting its members and transmitting directives and policy plans.  Maybe the State Department is not the site of the US "brain" but any observer of US foreign policy will notice that there has been, indeed, brain drain at State (never recovered from Tillerson's emptying out of expertise), the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Mattis never fully staffed it, mostly letting the Joint Staff make policy), and at the National Security Council (four National Security Advisers--Flynn, McMaster, Bolton, the new guy--plus lots of turnover in staff who are spending most of their time worrying about testifying about Ukraine or buying Greenland).  Who is making NATO policy in the US?  Is there anyone staffing the respective NATO desks in these various agencies?  Are there, dare I say it, PC's (principal committee meetings) on NATO that involve more than just 2%?  No. 

Third, in the aftermath of Turkey/Syria, shouldn't NATO members be concerned?  That Trump moves American troops out of the way of an aggressive dictator after a phone call?  Given Trump's positive relationship with Putin, which runs deeper and longer than the one with Erdogan, shouldn't folks be concerned? 

Of course, this is all a bit much coming from Macron.  Why?  Because Macron has been a bit of a force for instability as well, disrupting the politics of Macedonia by denying it a chance to start the EU membership process.  People might forget, but the stability of Macedonia is a concern.  The 1999 Kosovo campaign was (almost?) as much about preventing Macedonia from blowing up and causing problems for Greece/Bulgaria/Turkey as it was about the plight of Kosovars.  Given the Russians and Chinese some playing room in the Balkans is a bad idea.  Plus Macron may be making a move to try to push forward European Defence stuff--that is, having the EU lead as NATO falls apart.  France seeking a non-US security institution in Europe is an old theme.  However, it ain't going to happen because, well, getting the Europeans to play well together on defence tends to require ... US leadership.  France is simply not up to the task as Germany's Angela Merkl pushed back pretty quickly.

Should Macron have said this so nakedly?  Probably not.  Is NATO in trouble?  Yeah, because the US is led by someone who is hostile to NATO's existence.  It really does turn on the 2020 election.  I am not sure NATO can handle four more years of Trump.  It is normal and inevitable for countries to hedge and seek alternatives when an ally becomes unreliable.  Folks may point to the American troops in Europe, and say that they will remain there to deter any (Russian) threats.  But they are commanded by the President of the United States, not by Congress, not by Europeans.  If Trump chooses not to deploy them in a crisis, if Trump chooses to block consensus at NATO, that is, well, the ballgame.  We have known this for some time, but wishful thinking was the theme du jour until Mattis went away (and they were overrating Mattis). 

So, yeah, my basic take on all of this is: duh.  Trump is bad for NATO.  This is one of the promises he has kept from the 2016 race.  Expect more hedging, although perhaps not quite as loud as Macron's.  The only way to reduce this tendency?  Elect a Democrat in 2020.*



*  Successful impeachment/conviction of Trump might make a difference as well since Pence is not as hostile to NATO.  But that outcome is significantly less likely.

Juggling and Dropping: Thinking About the Academic Balancing Act

I was asked the other day by a friend how I can keep doing everything while adding all of the CDSN  stuff to my to-do list.  My answer is: I can't.  I am behind on all kinds of stuff, as I am reminded by returning to my half-written Chile case study today.

I write this not to explain or apologize for fewer blog posts (the slide in posts has been a steady thing) or to buy some time with co-authors.  I write this because I think the idea that people can do everything and keep adding new tasks is probably unhealthy.

Academia is always a balancing act.  We have three kinds of responsibilities: teaching, research, service.  They vary in how much time they take, in when the work must be done, and, of course, in how much they are valued.  And each one has multiple tasks within the category.  As I listicle the tasks in a professor's life, I will highlight the stuff that I am currently behind on (and I am sure I am forgetting stuff).

• Teaching involves
• Course Prep
• Office hours
• Classroom time
• Grading
• Supervision of graduate students (this is the most invisible yet often most time-consuming of the teaching tasks).  I am not behind on this, but I am slower than I used to be in getting feedback back to students.
• Research involves
• Grant applications and, if successful, managing the spending/accounting
• Managing research assistants--while these folks help save time, they also require time to manage.  And, yes, when they go unmanaged, things go awry.  As I learned a while ago with my diaspora project that never came to fruition (its failure is overdetermined) 
• Reading the work previously written on the topic
• Reading the relevant documents/research materials
• Data coding/cleaning/accounting (something that is wildly underappreciated)
• Interviews, including travel to do them
• Writing
• Editing
• Proofing
• Writing letters to explain revisions for resubmission/cover letters for book proposals
• All this stuff for secondary projects
• Service involves
• Sitting on university and professional committees
• Meetings.  This is one of the big time consumers now that I am running a network.  I don't mind since it gives me the chance to hang out with interesting people, but it is the piece I underestimated the most.
• Reviewing manuscripts for journals, presses
• Performing administrative roles (not just chair/head but directing programs, running institutes, etc)
• Writing tenure/promotion letters 
• Writing letters of recommendation (the upside of teaching mostly MA students is far fewer requests to write such letters)
• Public engagement--op-eds, blogs, twitter, podcasts, speaking engagements, tv/radio, etc

None of this list refers to keeping up with the scholarly literature (reading journals and the latest books) or reading for fun (non-fiction, that is, stuff in my field but not necessary for my research--I do read fiction for real fun). Nor does it list stuff that I don't have to worry about but others do, like figuring out child care arrangements (my daughter needs no arrangements anymore and, yes, my wife took care of most of that stuff when it was necessary).

Over the course of a career, teaching tends to get easier and requires less preparation as one develops the ability to take what one knows and organize it more quickly.  However, one tends to accumulate more supervision as one gets deeper into the profession.  Despite my best efforts (moving to a program focused on MA students), I have more PhD students now than at any other time in my career.  I don't know how the David Lakes of the world do it--supervising a dozen students and remaining productive.  Hopefully, younger folks are protected from serious service work until they get tenure.  I have thus far evaded being a department chair or school director, and taking on the CDSN has been helpful in that regard.  But that means doing more service of one kind than another.

I have found that the grant writing to fund the CDSN and leading the CDSN has cut mostly into my secondary research projects.  I have still been doing the travel for the main priority--the Dave/Phil/Steve project on legislatures and overseeing militaries--but I have put off travel and research for several secondary projects.

To be clear, I am not complaining or whining (ok, maybe a bit).  I just trying to make sense of the juggling that I am doing, that others are most assuredly doing.  Perhaps the most apt metaphor might be ducks--that they sail along smoothly but they are paddling furiously below the water.  Sure, there are folks who shirk and do little service, maybe stop doing much research after tenure, and who don't put much work into the classroom.  But there is much less deadwood than there used to be, and most of the folks I know are busy balancing multiple tasks.  Many academics seem to need "no" committees that help that say no to various opportunities/requests.  Ultimately, we vary in what we prioritize, and we vary how well we disguise the difficulties and the balls we drop along the way.

It is important to note that most of us chose this profession in part so that we could control what we do (giving up control over where we do it).  So, the balancing act is largely in one's own hands.  I may blog about the varying incentive structures that shape these decisions ... when I have more time.

Medium N Analyses: Know A Little About A Lot?

When I was discussing my work with a pal yesterday at Tufts (Kelly Greenhill rocks mightily), she was surprised to find that I was the one in the Dave/Phil/Steve team doing the Latin American countries.  She didn't think I had any expertise there, and she is right.  But I asked: where do you think I have expertise?   I don't think she answered, but it gets to a downside of my method: medium N analysis.

Small n is where one studies a few cases, developing a deep knowledge about them.
Large n is where one studies many, many cases/observations using statistical techniques to determine which factors seem to matter more than others.

Folks tend to learn one, the other, or both in grad school.  Me?  Besides a few exceptions where I did some quantitative work, I have mostly been studying more than a few but less than many:

• My dissertation: I studied the international politics of three secessionist crises and asked how a variety of countries responded to them.  So, who took sides in the Congo Crisis and why?  Who supported Nigeria vs Biafra or Biafra vs Nigeria and why?  Who supported Bangladesh's secession and why?  I ultimately studied something like forty cases.
• My first book dropped the Bangladesh case since it was really all about India, plus I wanted to get hip and current, so why did countries support the Serbs or the Croats or the Bosnians in the wars of Yugoslavia's demise.
• My second book, with Bill Ayres, considered why some countries engaged in irredentism while others did not in the 1990s.  This involved bigger case studies of Croatia, Serbia, and Armenia vs. Hungary, Romania, and, yes, Russia while considering shorter case studies of other inconsistent irredentism: Albania, Ireland, Cyprus/Greece/Turkey, Pakistan/Kashmir.
• My third book, with David Auerswald, on NATO in Afghanistan studied Presidential systems (US, France, Poland), Single-Party Parliamentary Systems (UK, Canada plus Spain and Turkey), coalition governments (Denmark, Netherlands, Germany plus Belgian, Italy, and Norway), a few partners (countries who were not members of NATO--Australia and New Zealand), and then many countries reacting to the Libya campaign.
• My fourth book is an exception and an accident--Canada in Afghanistan--because it could not all fit into the NATO book.
• The fifth book, very much in progress, compares fifteen or so democracies.  We wanted to see how oversight of the armed forces varies among countries, focusing on the role of legislatures. So, we have three types of democracies (Presidential, Westminster, European), so we need some cases of each AND we want enough cases within each to understand the sources of within-category variation.  So... medium n.

There are a few patterns here--I like to have cases from all the various combinations of variables, I like to have more than a few cases per category, and I don't stick to the same cases.  I am not an expert on any particular country or region as my theory tells me which cases I need to study--which variables need to be varied to see what effects they may have.

Getting back to medium N analysis, I do it for several reasons but at some cost.  The upsides include:

• Getting more variation than I would if I only studied a couple of cases.  For me (and not just for me), variation means leverage.  That with more variation, I can get at the casual mechanisms that are at work.  
• Getting a fuller sample may not mean getting a full sample, but I have a greater chance of having representation of the thing I am studying.  For NATO in Afghanistan, I couldn't study all 20 plus members in the same level of intensity, but I could study nine closely and then a few more from a distance.  We covered most of the major actors as well as sampling some others to have non-members, to have smaller countries, and so on so that we could claim to have a representative sample of the countries involved in the enterprise.   
• Simply learning more.  More is more, and the kind of stuff I am seeking to understand is just very interesting. 

There are challenges and costs:

• I can do this kind of work if I am funded.  Going to four or five or six countries requires money.  It is probably no accident that I developed more ambitious projects when I moved to Canada where I have more access to more money
• It tends to require co-authorship.  I don't have the time to go to fifteen countries, but the three of us together do.  I don't mind co-authoring--I enjoy it and get much from it--but there are folks out there who discount co-authored work.  And, to be sure, not all co-authoring relationships go well.
• I am linguistically lame, so going to five countries with five different languages means having to find translators/interpreters.  This post is partially inspired by my copy-editing of a chapter in a book on fieldwork where I discuss this challenge directly.  
• Oh, and back to the start, this method means I know a little bit about a lot of places but not that much about any one of them. 

I need to do more thinking to explain why I do this, what the advantages are, and so forth, as I think there is more medium N analysis out there, but we don't have guides/playbooks/etc.  Any suggestions would be most appreciated.