Meaningful Metrics of Commitment?

I have been engaged in a twitter conversation with Phil Lagassé (No surprise) and folks at the Canadian International Council (first time) about the role Canada played in Afghanistan.  The question, of course, was "it" worth "it"?  And the focus was on why Kandahar.  I have talked about this before and will again, but I want to focus on the last tweet I got yesterday about Canada having more casualties per # of soldiers in Afghanistan than the US or UK.


I happen to have a handy set of figures from October 2010.*

	KIA	Size of Contingent	Population	KIA per Contigent	Rank, KIA/Cont	KIA/Pop	Rank, KIA/Pop
Denmark	37	750	5,500,510	4.93%	2	0.000007	1
UK	337	9500	61,113,205	3.55%	3	0.000006	2
Canada	152	2830	33,487,208	5.37%	1	0.000005	3
US	1247	47000	307,212,123	2.65%	5	0.000004	4
Norway	9	500	4,660,539	1.80%	6	0.000002	5
Netherlands	24	1940	16,715,999	1.24%	10	0.000001	6
Australia	21	1550	21,262,641	1.35%	8	0.000001	7
Romania	17	945	22,215,421	1.80%	7	0.000001	8
France	49	3750	64,420,073	1.31%	9	0.000001	9
Spain	30	1070	40,525,002	2.80%	4	0.000001	10
Italy	33	3150	58,126,212	1.05%	12	0.000001	11
Germany	45	4415	82,329,758	1.02%	13	0.000001	12
Poland	21	1955	38,482,919	1.07%	11	0.000001	13
Sweden	4	410	9,059,651	0.98%	14	0.000000	14
New Zealand	1	220	4,213,418	0.45%	15	0.000000	15
Turkey	2	1755	76,805,524	0.11%	16	0.000000	16

*  I created this table a year ago.  Some numbers have changed--particularly size of contingent (US pre-surge, CA/Netherlands not yet out) but also the US taking some significant hits over the past year, Canada's number of KIA increased by five before it left and so on.

First, Canada barely led in that particular metric just ahead of Denmark.  If one uses casualties per home population, then Canada is actually third behind Denmark and the UK and just ahead of the US. 

Second, this is an indicator that has some intuitive value, but has some flaws as well.  There are more differences between the US and UK on one side and Canada on the other than just per capita KIA.  Because the other two deployments are much larger than the Canadian one, the lower per contingent (but much higher aggregate) numbers might be because the UK and the US have a smaller percentage of their contingent engaged in infantry and convoy operations--where Canada has paid a high price.  The US and UK have had more folks in helos, in planes, and in supporting such assets, so the relatively small differences might be because these countries had a smaller percentage of troops in harm's way, especially before the Canadians deployed additional non-infantry assets after the Manley report and mandate extension of 2008.

Third, what this table does demonstrate is that the big four (UK, US, Denmark, Canada) have been paying a higher price.  That comes with the combination of difficult territory (Helmand and Kandahar (and Eastern Afghanistan for the US) and a willingness to take more risks rather than restrict the troops behind caveats and other limitations imposed on commanders on the ground.

So, the twitter conversation missed the real point of comparison--not between Canada and the US/UK, but between the US/UK/Canada/Denmark group and the rest.  This then speaks to the larger point of Canada choosing Kandahar over some semi-random isolated spot in Regional Command West (the Italian-led sector).*
* I still think the Canadians of the Hillier era and beyond would have been largely incompatible with the highly restricted Italians as their bosses.  I have not been told this was a conscious part of the decision-making process, but I cannot help but think that working under the Italians would have been damn near unthinkable for Hillier and the rest of the current crop of Canadian commanders.

Canadian leaders, civilian and military, were looking to change how Canada operated in the world.  Rather than 40 little missions with 40 little maple leaf flags on UN maps, there was a conscious choice to have Canada focus its efforts to make a difference and to have more influence over what it was doing and perhaps beyond.  Going to Chaghcharan where a small Lithuanian unit has filled the gap the Canadians refused to fill would have fit the old strategy of just being present but not much more than that.  But doing more than that involved risks--of casualties, of $$ being expended, of bad things possibly happening (detainee scandals, collateral damage, friendly fire, working with the brother of Karzai, whatever), and of mission failure.  

But for me, it keeps coming down to two things:

• Just showing up is not a responsible policy.  How can one espouse a policy called responsibility to protect (whether that applies to Afghanistan or not, although I lean to the idea that it does) if one just is showing up?  Willing to do enough so that one's marked down for "attending" but not really participating is a C or C+ effort that does not get one noticed one way or another.  But yet would still cost millions of dollars despite not providing a valued alliance with much added value.  
• Making a difference requires doing something is hard, not easy.  Kandahar was hard.  Harder than Canadian leaders might have expected (I am beginning to think this was less about intel failure and more about wishful thinking).

Focusing on casualties is understandable as they are a simple comparative measure of commitment, but the numbers can be deceptive.  At the end of the day, measuring lives is incredibly hard.  Was 157 Canadian lives worth it?  Depends on what "it" is, but if you want to measure the "it" in terms of the lives not lost in Afghanistan during 2006-2011 due to the provision of security (even shaky or limited) by the Canadians and the health care (deaths during childbirth, for example) facilitated by the Canadian presence, as long as Afghan lives are not discounted too much, the balance sheet is quite positive.  Canada did make a big difference in terms of lives alone.  In terms of influence gained due to the sacrifice of 157 Canadian lives, well, that is an argument that Phil Lagassé and I will be having for quite some time to come.

Halloween at the Park

I have never gone to an amusement park in the fall.  Busch Gardens was set up for Halloween in a big way.  So, I invested in the quick access pass for the afternoon and evening--a smart idea since the place was more crowded than any big park I have ever seen.  People will still coming in as I was leaving at 8pm. 

Anyhow, at 6pm, various parts of the place turned a bit "darker" as they said: scary clowns, butchers wielding chainsaws that made real noises, guys stitching themselves up, and so on.  I went to two of the five haunted houses (I was getting tired, and one of the houses had paused due to a girl who apparently sprained her ankle).  BG did a nice job of taking buildings that were in progress or stages and filling them with creepy folks--themed so one was vampires, one was just creeps.  Some shouted and jumped out, some just walked behind you and touched your shoulder, and so on.  Pretty scary stuff.

The basic theme was Gardens in the Dark, with the key illustration a rose with an unblinking eye in the middle.  And, of course, this compelled me to buy this cupcake:

It was a heap of fun.  The strangest sight were the scantily clad young ladies that were part of a dance show.  Their moves and their appearance at 2:30pm were, well, a bit unexpected.  I am not a prude, but the sexy nurse costumes were aa surprising thing to see.  And their moves were, well, wow.  Parental-guidance indeed.

The other surprise was the Pirates 4-D show--a movie with Leslie Nielsen, Eric Idle and Rodney Dangerfield.  Yep, it was old but fun.

Anyhow, I had a great, long day, a silly way to wrap up the book project.

Going Back to the Start

I realized while walking around Yorktown that this is a most suitable place to be towards the end of the Dave and Steve project on multilateral warfare.  Yorktown is only the victory that led to the endgame with the British and produced American independence due to an alliance with France, which provided not only the ships to corner Cornwallis but the siege weapons and doctrine.

I had a choice of Jamestown or Yorktown (not both since I was already spending the rest of the day at Busch Gardens (see next post).  I chose Yorktown due to my fondness for military history.  Given that this project has allowed me to learn more about World War I, World War II, and the military histories of Canada, France, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Australia (I don't remember going to a military history museum in New Zealand), it only made sense to go to the starting point of American military history--the revolution. 

The Park Service has done a nice job of preserving the battlefield.  They had the berms and the trenches in place along with cannons.  The Park Service center had a short film and some information, and an old tent of George Washington's.

The monument was beautiful.  Complete with a real live bald eagle flying nearby.  Really.  Some folks were getting married at the Victory monument.  A very pretty site but strange location except the groom was wearing some kind of cadet uniform.  The monument has three phrases circling towards the middle: One Constitution, One Country, One Destiny.  Of course, that was less ironic than it could have been since it was built in 1880, even though its creation was mandated by the Continental Congress in 1781.


Walking around Yorktown reminded me of how much history is embedded in the place.  The Civil War ran over this territory as well with the Peninsula Campaign.  I also realized about 30 years later than I should have known that one of the carriers playing a big role in the early days of the Pacific, including being sunk at Midway, was named after this battlefield.  Duh, Steve.

I then ventured over to the Yorktown Victory center, which, I think, had some civvie reanctors hanging out, in addition to the center's regular personal, so I took a video (which I will try to upload later) that has two teams of artillery folks--regulars and VA militia. 

They didn't seem to know each other well. I learned some history that I should have known--that the US Constitution was the first written constitution?  Really.  I guess so, since the Magna Carta does not count as a constitution (suck it, limeys!).  The words by the renowned scholar Jeffrey Spicoli, PhD resonate louder today:

What Jefferson was saying was, hey we left this England place 'cause it was bogus. So if we don't get some cool rules ourselves pronto, we'll just be bogus too.

One last thing--if you go, definitely take the Colonial Parkway.  The road surface was, what, stone?  Lined by trees until it is along the river/bay.  Just beautiful. 

Tis a Social Science

Yesterday, Dave Auerswald and I had several chapters of our book grilled by the faculty at William and Mary.  They were enthused about the project, but, more importantly, they gave us excellent feedback about the book.  They noticed stuff that we could not see and they gave us very sharp ideas for how to proceed.  They didn't tell us that our approach was wrong, but how to best improve it.  While I like my first two books, my participation in other people's book workshops (reading and commenting on their stuff) made me envious.  Thanks to the initiative of Mike Tierney, of W&M and our friend from grad school, I don't have to be envious any longer.  We got what we needed, and our book will be much better for it.  Oh, and longer, too ;)

17th Century Tourist Question

I am in Williamsburg for the next couple of days as the folks here are holding a semi-book workshop (the book is not complete) for David Auerswald and myself.  So, when I got in yesterday, I walked around Colonial Williamsburg.  It is very pretty, and William and Mary definitely competes quite well with last week's winner of beautiful campus-ness--U of Southern Cal.  I wonder how many campuses have their own cannons?  Probably more than we would expect.

But, walking among the historic buildings, I could only have one question: is the amount of horse poop on the streets historically accurate?  Or is it not enough?

Iran and Strange Assassination Plots

A student asked me to blog about the latest news about Iran and the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US.  I simply have no clue about it.  I do think Foreignpolicy.com has had a few posts that are most illuminating including Worst Bomb Plot Ever;  Excellent stuff here.

I do have a few questions.  Folks tend to think the guy at the center of the plot is hard to buy as a covert operative. "Manssor Arbabsiar, the Iranian expatriate at the center of the plot, bears no resemblance to a covert operative.(Worst Bomb Plot)" Um, isn't that what a covert operative is supposed to appear to be?

Complicated Canadian Constitutional Questions

As someone who was not here when Canada repatriated its constitution (whatever that means), I find the sweats and shaking that folks tend to have when this topic comes up to be entertaining.  Well, no need, apparently.  This piece says that Quebeckers are far bigger fans of the Canadian Constitution than conventionally believed and would not mind finishing the process.  Of course, the sweats and such make sense given that the efforts in the 80's and 90's precipitated two referenda, including the one in 1995 that nearly broke the 50% barrier (and what a silly number that is).

The new poll indicates a bunch of stuff:

— Fifty-nine per cent of respondents said Quebec's famous language law, Bill 101, should comply with the Charter of Rights. Only 41 per cent said Bill 101 should take precedence.



— A strong majority of those surveyed, 69 per cent, said the Constitution should be reopened eventually to include Quebec and 73 per cent said they hope to see it recognize Quebec as a nation and grant the province more autonomy.
— However, 77 per cent also said they want a moratorium of the constitutional debate.
— Seventy-one per cent called the sovereignty debate outdated.
— Seventy-six per cent expressed pride in being Canadian, while 83 per cent expressed pride in being a Quebecer. Sixty-three per cent expressed pride in being both.

 Reactions?  Well, 41 percent thinking Bill 101 should take precedence over the Charter of Rights means that the PQ is right to obsess.  If they can get 40% of the vote, first past the post plus a third party should mean getting into office, right?  So, a majority of folks are fine with the Charter of Rights being paramount, but the political incentives point elsewhere for at least one party.  Sometimes, I hate being a cynical political scientist.

I love that super-majorities favor Quebec being included in the Constitution but don't want this debate to take place anytime soon.  This is most rational.  Yes, the situation should be fixed, but the process is so messy that we ought to kick the can down the road.

Seventy-one percent think sovereignty debate is outdated!  Well, that kind of makes all PQ and more extreme Quebec nationalist claims kind of silly.  Hard to get 50% plus one if 2/3s of the folks don't want the debate at all.  Of course, thus far, I have not been that compelled by the math skills of many politicians here (and, yes, I am contradicting my assertion above about 40% on Bill 101).

And the real key is that most folks are fine being both Quebeckers and Canadians.  Just as most Texans are also fine with being Americans.  Well, except for Rick Perry sometimes.

Georgia on My Mind

The US is apparently pushing to have Georgia start the NATO membership process.  Oy!  First, of course, Georgia hardly meets the criteria for entry, given its inability to control its own territory and its failure to resolve its relations with its neighbors.  Not that I think that membership criteria are serious barriers to entry.  Far from it.

Second, and, more importantly, it undermines the essence of NATO.  The heart of the organization is a promise by all to help out when any one of the members is attacked.  Sure, as my work the past few years has shown, the opt out clause in Article V is quite real, so not all countries will show up.  Indeed, we saw this in the aftermath of 9/11 and the first time article V got invoked.  But it is one thing for some members to stay out of the common defense.  It is another to admit a country that no member seriously intends to defend, not even the US.  In the crisis a couple of years back, the US helped out Georgia, but not very far and far less than they expected.

Which leads to a third problem: providing Georgia with the appearance of security guarantees might just encourage its leaders to be less cooperative and perhaps even more provocative with its neighbors--namely Russia.  As I just lectured yesterday, one of the major kinds of war-causing misperceptions focuses on allies.  Will they or won't they come in to play in a crisis?

So, I have no real clue what the US is doing here.  Does anyone else?

Corruption Post Du Jour

I would say of the week or of the month since I really do not post on corruption on a daily basis, but I am not sure it would be du semaine or de la semaine.  Anyhow, there is a good piece in today's Gazette--it mostly relies upon a McGill Law prof who studies corruption and how to deal with it.  The keys are:

• design a system that allows an investigation to produce evidence that can be used in court.  Public inquiries tend to suck at this.
• look forward and backward by creating fostering competition for government purchases (like letting US and non-Quebec companies compete for contracts);
• Appoint a special prosecutor who is involved in the process so that muck is more than stirred--people get prosecuted;
• Make the mandate of any inquiry go back far enough into the past so that both major parties are implicated: "it is not just us!"
• appoint someone now who is beyond reproach (who would that be?).

Overall, a good set of ideas, based on serious studies of experiences elsewhere.  And that really is the need--to build on what other folks have learned rather than relying on the "Quebec model" where everything here is distinct.  

I thought about ten years ago that I should start studying corruption as it was clearly a big piece of the ethnic conflict problem but also a larger issue for countries around the world.  I figured corruption would be to the Aughts and beyond what ethnic conflict was to the 90's.  But it is a field of study that requires better economic skills than I have and more challenging data problems--people tend to hide their corrupt activities.  I also got distracted by NATO and Afghanistan, which has been a very worth obsession the past several years. 

So, I will just have to rely on other folks doing the hard work in this area.  It was great to see the Gazette rely on an expert to provide some real insights on this problem that is just killing Quebec.

How Afghanistan is Like Vietnam

I hate it when Afghanistan gets compared to Vietnam because we have different lessons we can learn from the one to be applied to the other, but there are many differences that often get glossed over.   But, it is my blog, so I can break my rules.

I was reading Tom Ricks's blog, and he had a guest poster, Lewis Sorley, summarizing the reasons why General Westmoreland "lost Vietnam."  His number 1:

And the number one reason why Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam: With his unavailing approach to conduct of the war he squandered four years of support by much of the American people, the Congress, and even the media.

Yep, while there are many reasons why the US and NATO may fail in Vietnam, wasting time--2002-2008/9--is a key part of the story.  I absolutely hate it (as frequent readers of this blog know all too well) when people say: we have been doing this (whatever this is) for ten years.  No, NATO/US have only been doing COIN seriously--for a couple of years.  And the conventional wisdom is that it takes ten or more years to do.  So, we wasted about half of the bare minimum time needed, and now the once patient publics are not patient anymore.  2014 is around the corner.  So, seeing this assessment of Vietnam reminds me that there are some general (pardon the pun) dynamics of fighting these kinds of wars, and wasting time seems to be one of them.

The Pop Social Science of Ewoks

I most enjoyed one piece of this week's How I Met Your Mother: Barney was using Ewok appreciation as an indicator of age.  Those over a certain hated Ewoks, those under loved them. 

This site has a bit more detail on the discussion.  I always felt conflicted over the Ewoks as Return of the Jedi had some great scenes (It's a trap!), but the Ewok battle seemed just a bit too cute.  And yes, I am on the left side of the age line.  Worse, the Ewoks set the stage for ... Jar Jar.*  Some would trace the worst parts of Return to the worst parts (the majority) of the prequels.

* I could not watch more than a few minutes of the 3rd Transformer movie as it had two JJ like transformers serve as pets/pals/major annoyances for the Shia Leboeuf character.

I appreciated this discourse on Ewoks because I guess I had never considered how different generations viewed them.  I have thought about the correct way to show kids the series, with Star Wars, Empire, Return before the prequels, as it was intended, so that Empire ends with the big twist.  But not about pro vs. anti Ewok generations.  Hmmm.  

While HIMYM has had its ups and downs, I have appreciated its Seinfeld/Friends-esque element--having characters with competing theories of social behavior and then seeking to test them.  Barney often does this by himself, but more fun when he faces competition.

Remember Which War?

The Canadian papers are starting to fill up with the planning for the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.  Yep, they call it the same thing up here.  Anyhow, I am curious is whether this is getting any play in the US.  For Canadians, this war is pretty significant, apparently.  Why?

• Canadians can boast that they beat the Americans.  The only big battle the US won was after the formal declaration of peace--the Battle of New Orleans.  The British/French/first nations folks thwarted the American invasion, building some institutions (reserve units) that became part of the new Canadian federation in 1867.  Yes, fifty years later.  Things move slowly when it is cold (the time from the French and Indian Wars to the Revolutionary War in the US case was 12 years).
• That the US lost most of the battles (they burned the capital, eh) and basically consider the war a draw explains why it is not so featured in the US.  Or is it?
• The occasion plays to Canadian fears about American invasions since the US did actually try to invade Canada and seize hunks of territory.  Canadians will still occasionally voice concerns about American designs on Canadian oil and water.  This helps to provide just a bit of glue to Canadian identity--a shared modest anti-Americanism.

Anyhow, I will be tracking the festivities over the next couple of years. If any Americans spot significant remembrance activities, shoot me an email.

Pondering Failure in Afghanistan

Colonel Gian Gentle, a confirmed counterinsurgency [COIN] skeptic, raises questions for Col. Paul Yingling about the role of generals as COIN seems to be falling short in Afghanistan.  Yingling made much noise in 2007 by attacking American generals for poor leadership in 2007, as the US was losing in Iraq at the time.  Gentle is essentially pushing Yingling either to call Petraeus a bad general now (since Afghanistan is not such a happy place) or retract his earlier criticisms.

While this is an argument between two Colonels, I am stepping in because I received a similar question last week at a presentation in Los Angeles (at USC) on the current book project: did our work on caveats and other means by which countries influence how their troops are used in alliance operations explain mission failure on Afghanistan?

The answer to my question is also partly an answer to Gentle's question.  That is, (a) not so clear the mission has failed; (b) failure is over-determined.  First, there are lots of indicators that seem to suggest that the Taliban momentum of 2008-09 has been broken, even as violence continues.  NATO and the US may not be clearly winning (whatever that means, see below) but we are not so clearly losing as we were a few years ago.

Second, COIN and good generalship can only do so much.  Likewise, caveats and other overly blunt means to control troops in a multilateral damage can have an impact, but other stuff matters as well.  What matters?  I have long talked about the three Ps of Afghanistan: poppies, Pakistan, President Karzai.  Each one makes COIN very, very hard.  Poppies give the insurgents access to cash and facilitates corruption of police, courts, army, etc, which need to be the backbone of the COIN effort.  Pakistan serves as a sanctuary (although not from drones), making "defeat" of the Taliban very hard since they can rest, recover and re-arm there.  Plus Pakistan may just be doing more than providing space for these guys.  Karzai presents the third challenge to the NATO/US effort, as the military side of COIN is aimed at providing a safer environment so that the government can provide services and gain the confidence of the people.  Karzai has been focused on maintaining his grip on power, at the expense of building institutions and putting competent people into power. Generals McChrystal, Petraeus, and Allen had/have finite ability to get Afghanistan to do what is necessary to make progress.

The key difference between these generals running the Afghanistan war and the ones who ran the Iraq war before 2007 is that the current folks have proven adaptable to the circumstances.  While the newer folks may have tried to apply an Iraq template to Afghanistan and that may not be the best fit, they at least have a better grasp of the multi-dimensionality of the conflict.  The American generals in the first four years of the Iraq war had very little clue about how to prepare for the conflict, where to focus the efforts, and how to move from conventional war to counter-insurgency.  Franks was one of the worst generals in recent memory, Abizaid recognized the realities (I think) but could not get those under him to adjust, and Casey was mostly focused on preserving the Army rather than adapting to the realities on the ground.

Military experts can draw greater distinctions between the past and present crews (Yingling, I am sure, could roast Gentile's assertions pretty quickly).  But the conditions in Iraq with the AQ types overplaying their hands, the Sunnis realizing that the US was their best protection against Shiites and Sunni extremists, and somewhat more compliant local leadership enabled COIN.  In Afghanistan, these conditions have not really existed.  So, there is more going on here than generals.  Clearly so, as Gentile is really attacking counter-insurgency doctrine more than individual generals.   War is politics by other means, and COIN especially so.  Winning a COIN battle means getting the politics right, and that is largely although not entirely out of the hands of the military.  All the COIN stuff can do is enable the politicians, not work miracles despite the hype surrounding Petraeus.


Gentile's attack is actually a different war, one for the soul of the military.  What will be the future of the American army?  A smaller one for sure, hopefully avoiding these kinds of conflicts.  The reality is that politicians will continue to use force in ways that are inconvenient to conventional thinkers in the military.  There will be few conventional wars to fight as long as the opponents realize that the US can beat them at that game.  That is not going change even as these Colonels fight over the lessons to draw from the wars of the Aughts.

Indeed, this whole discussion reminds me of the most basic lesson of Vietnam--people will learn the lessons they want to learn, as these conflicts are complicated.  There is never one single set of lessons to learn, and so the fight afterwards is over which lessons do people want to learn.

Scary Thought of the Day

After watching the first season of Game of Thrones, I had much fun making fun of the Stark's motto: Winter is Coming.  Well, after reading the second and third book, where the Starks do not enjoy Autumn, all I can say is that "Winter is Coming" is now pretty damned scary.

And, despite my pop culture fixation today, I did spend Canadian Thanksgiving writing IR stuff.  Specifically, the last chapter of my current book.  Usually, the conclusion is the most fun, because it requires heaps of thinking and not too much research.  Thus far, squeezing a short account of NATO's Libyan experience into a book on Afghanistan is not so much fun.  Alas.  Still, I am thankful that this has been such a rewarding project--just very, very interesting stuff, producing lots of interesting interactions, and not a small amount of travel for both research and presentation.  With this project nearing an end, my work is not headed towards a GoT-like Winter.  But summer does seem to be ending.

Godwin's Law of TV

Godwin's Law is that any internet conversation, given enough time, will eventually lead to comparisons to Hitler and Nazis.  Well, I have been most amused that in the aftermath of last night's wonderful Breaking Bad finale, my favorite TV critics (http://twitter.com/sepinwall, https://twitter.com/#!/BastardMachine/, https://twitter.com/#!/HitFixDaniel  ) started by ranking the seasons of BB but ended up ranking seasons of The Wire.

That's right--any discussion of best of TV anything ultimately leads to The Wire.   I call it: Stringer's Law.  Wallace's Law would be confusing: where is it? 

Giving Thanks, Canadian-Style

It is Thanksgiving up here in Canada.  Sure, the sneaky Canadians beat the Americans every year to the harvest celebration.   Aside from being earlier (harvest is earlier!), Canadian Thanksgiving is different from the American one in a couple of other ways.

1. No real consensus on when the big meal is: my informal FB poll has Sunday as more popular, but not as dominant/no brainer as Thursday is for the folks down south.
2. No consensus on the meal itself.  Sure, some go for Turkey (and we had a hard time just finding turkey breasts at the grocery store on Saturday), but duck seems like a popular choice.
3. The travel/family thing.  Canadians always marvel at how many Americans travel very far for Thanksgiving, as they don't go great distances for their version.  

But my daughter is a big fan of holidays and turkey (and pie), so we had a low-key (how Canadian!) celebration of the holiday, with turkey, pies, stuffing, and the like.  So, it seems like this would be a good time to give thanks for Canadian stuff (will save the general life thanking--health and family and such for the American one). 

• I am thankful for my Canadian (and other) students.  They are bright, engaged, fun, and only a few are whiny (papers are due last week and this week, so the whininess inherent in the 21st century undergrad went up a bit).  
• I am thankful for the Canadians around me.  Our neighbors and other folks we have met in Canada have always been quite friendly.  Even though we don't speak the dominant language of this part of the country, we have never felt especially alienated (particularly when compared to a certain previous place we resided).  We have developed some great friendships with people in Montreal, Kingston, and Ottawa.
• I am thankful for the benefits of living in a small country (big territory, small population) as I have had amazing access to politicians, policy-makers, military folks, and the like. 
• I am thankful for the generous national grant agency (SSHRC) for funding much of my research for the past ten years.
• I am thankful that the Canadian economy has been in better shape than the American one, even though there are some similar problems up here.  One of the benefits of the last referendum (1995) is that my house was undervalued when we bought it, and has steadily gained value since then.  
• I am thankful that ultimate is not only pretty robust up here but growing even more with the new West Island ultimate leagues. 
• I am thankful for the skiing (not a big skating or hockey fan) that will keep my weekends interesting for much of the winter.  I am not so grateful for the long, long winters, but skiing and indoor ultimate can make the winters move a little faster.

I am sure there is stuff that I am forgetting (no, I am not forgetting the health care system--just not giving thanks for it).  But we are in our tenth year in Canada, and we are grateful for a great ten years (leaving aside what the country has done to our cars). 

Round Numbers Can Be Deceiving

Just as last month was the 10th anniversary of 9/11, today is the 10th anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan (as if being governed by the Taliban would be considered "not war").  But that round ten number is deceptive.  Sure, it means that this conflict is the longest in American history (depending on when you start the clock on the Vietnam war), but at no time did this particular reflect a commitment and an effort akin to the big wars of American history--the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.  Instead, it is actually akin to the war in the Philippines which dragged on far longer than the official enddate.   Insurgency and counter-insurgency is like that--not respecting treaties and such.

While there are plenty of good pieces being written about the war's 10th anniversary, such as at Foreignpolicy.com, the idea of 10 years at war is incredibly frustrating to me.  Afghanistan was going to be very, very hard to achieve anything looking like stability, but the US government, under Rummy, Bush and the anti-state-building, no foreign policy is too important to screw up gang, deliberately under-invested in Afghanistan.  Perhaps motivated by the myth that Afghans are so xenophobic that any decent footprint would be too big, but more likely using that myth to keep resources slated for the war in Iraq, Rummy set strict limits on the troops deployed to Afghanistan.  This not only meant relying too heavily on local proxies for the operations to capture Bin Laden and other AQ types, but it mean relying too heavily on warlords, Karzai, and Pakistan.  It mean, most importantly, wasting several years. 

The clock was always going to be ticking on the patience of the democracies, and doing real stability operations, including counterinsurgency takes time.  By very much wasting time between 2002 and 2008 (only serious efforts once Obama surged and re-surged), Bush, Rummy, Cheney and the rest not only let the Taliban to recover, but also helped to create the illusion that "we have been there longer than two world wars combined" and other myths that helped to run out the clock.  Given the acceptance of 2014 as the year of transition, it seems clear that the US had about 12-13 years to try to stabilize Afghanistan.  Sure, this was a very impossible task, but wasting half that time made it harder still.

Of course, the Iraq war was more than just a diversion of troops.  That war eroded American will, cost far more money, weakened allied support in Afghanistan, and fostered an insurgency that would then share its technologies (how to build a better roadside bomb) with the Taliban.  So, recent reports of one third of American vets saying both wars were "worth it" should not surprise us.  Iraq was not worth it, especially as it empowered Iran, impeded progress in Afghanistan, and cost an enormous amount of lives (US, Iraqi and others), dollars and political capital.  Afghanistan?  Hmmm.   We will only really know in 2015 or 2020.  The lives of Afghans are largely better now than in 2002 or 2001 or 2000, BUT if Afghanistan succumbs to another civil war after NATO leaves, then it will be very hard to argue it was worth it.

LA Story

I am in LA briefly to present the NATO and Afghanistan book.  It went well, with some very useful comments from the discussant and from the audience.  Great timing, as I am in the middle of writing the conclusion and some of the comments definitely addressed the big questions.  So, other than the talk, what did I learn and/or was reminded of?

I love Southern California.  The rain yesterday made for wonderfully clear skies today.  The palm trees, the hills in the distance, and all of that made for a very nice scene.  I hadn't realized that Shriner's Auditorium, site of the Emmys, is next to the campus.

The campus of University of Southern California really shows what money does.  Really.  Just a very modern campus with beautiful buildings, great landscaping and heaps of coaster bikes (no gears).  Does not hurt to have George Lucas (see the building he funded to the right), Steven Speilberg and others from Hollywood and elsewhere dumping huge sums of cash on the place. 

Walking around before my talk reminded me of the thought I usually have when I visit San Diego for a conference: why the hell did I leave?  The answer: no academic jobs when I finished grad school in 1993 and few opportunities since then.  Sure, they have earthquakes and a deeply messed up political system (direct democracy is not so good).  Still, great Mexican food with best Churros I have ever had, I think.

Next stop (after going home for a few days): William and Mary.  Probably lovely in the fall.  Certainly great friends await.  And probably heaps of useful criticism.  But the Mexican food and the palm trees will probably be lacking.

NATO Rocks, NATO Sucks, NATO Rocks

If you follow the travels and speeches of US SecDef Panetta, you will find him being pretty bipolar on NATO: trashing the alliance one day and praising it the next.  Well, this is all about preparing for and then being at the NAC DM: North Atlantic Council Defense Ministerials--where the SecDefs and MoD's meet.  I remember the good old days on the Joint Staff where the talking points were vetted in the interagency.  Anyhow, as I come to the end of a long book project on NATO, I have gone from being super-critical of NATO to being appropriately so, I think.

Our project moved from focusing on the organization to focusing on the member states and their political dynamics.  The challenges of caveats, limited capabilities and all the rest suggested a hamstrung alliance.  But, as we think about the big picture, I cannot help but notice that NATO is still quite relevant.  The Libyan operation was far smoother than publicly portrayed in terms of the military interoperability.  Sure, many countries did not participate, but those that did engaged in a complex ballet of refueling, coordinating, planning, and all the rest.  The politics means that not all countries participate, and much variation in how they participate, but once in, the NATO doctrine, training, and the rest make a big difference than if it were just a couple of random countries working together.

So, I now tend to react to comments about the weaknesses and irrelevance of NATO with protestations about the alliance's enduring impact.  It may not be efficient but can be effective.  Something to think about some more during conclusion writing season.

Ironies of the Week

McGill retained its high ranking as a great place to work among Canadian workplaces at a time where the support staff is on strike.  Given that this is the third (at least) strike in the past nine or so years (twice by staff, once by teaching assistants), it is strange to see McGill do so well.  Of course, other big employers in Canada may have more strikes or McGill ranks highly because the strikes are so effective.  If McGill always caves in (like it has done in previous strikes), then having a weak employer might improve its ranking. 

I am pretty suspicious of all rankings, so perhaps I am biased.  Still, when I see strikers have picket signs that refer to this ranking, it does raise a question or two.  Of course, working at a university is pretty cool for a variety of reasons, so I am not surprised that McGill would compare well to other kinds of employers.  But are McGill folks happier than those at other universities?  Apparently by this survey.  I guess it kind of depends on who is asked.

Sharp Advice on Fieldwork in Dangerous Places

Jason Lyall, a relatively junior but already prominent prof at Yale, doing work on civil war, discusses the challenges of doing fieldwork in a conflict zone.  This kind of work--not something that my wife would let me do or that I would do, knowing the risks.  But if we want to understand the worst forms of human behavior as they have big consequences, somebody's going to take risks.  Glad that Lyall is sharing what he learned so that my students (and yours) can be make more informed decisions when doing what needs to be done.

Cutting Foreign Aid

I am not at all surprised to see foreign aid on the US chopping block to deal with the budget crisis.  Foreign assistance is never popular and always over-estimated.  But the problem for is this: coming up with the correct analogy.  I tweeted the following:

Cutting foreign aid to address budget crisis is like an alcoholic cutting back on apertifs.

I am not sure that is the most apt analogy so I am taking suggestions.  Winner gets, well, credit when I post it.

Harper As Control Freak

I am shocked, just shocked that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper might have left the Minister of National Defence Peter Mackay out of the loop when making decisions about Afghanistan.  Murray Brewster is having some great press, publicizing his new book (not yet released) on Canada and Afghanistan.  The book (a classic case of a book I have read but not read myself) details how Harper tried to control the messaging of the war and seemed to leave the Minister of National Defence out of decision-making processes. 

Given all that I have heard and observed since I moved to Canada, I am not at all surprised.  For instance, the decision to send a new training mission to replace the combat mission was most obviously made with no consultation with military folks given that there was no NATO request for 1000 trainers nor places to put them.  That is why the mission went from being Kabul to "Kabul-centric."

One of the things I have been asserting lately, a product of my comparative study of the countries involved in Afghanistan, is that leaders that stand in front of the mission tend to foster more support.  Leaders that hide ultimately pay a price for that--at least in terms of support for the mission.  Harper was almost entirely silent.  Why?

In 2006, with Canadian casualties mounting, some of Hillier's people were frustrated with the fact the government was saying little about the war, allowing the NDP to fill the void with anti-military rhetoric and robbing the mission of public support.  That frustration "boiled over" during a meeting between Defence Department officials and the PMO on Sept. 6, 2006, in the immediate aftermath of bloody Operation Medusa, Brewster writes. Hillier chastised Harper's staff for what he considered a lack of moral support.
Insiders later attributed the silence to the PMO's difficulty in crafting a suitable political message.  "It was always a crisis," the book quotes one anonymous PMO official as saying.
"I think the reason there was so much silence was because we were trying to figure out how to transition the communications politically from a hard terrorism message to, you know, about women voting and all that stuff.”
That's why, Brewster writes, "there was no consoler-in-chief during that awful summer.
"The country that had not been at war in half a century was left to figure out for itself why its sons and daughters were coming home in caskets."

To be fair, this passage conflicts with an earlier passage in the piece focusing on how Hillier and previous Minister of National Defence Bill Graham were warning everyone that Kandahar was going to be different than Kabul--dangerous and that body bags would be coming home.

I do look forward to reading the book, as it will provide me with more proof of what we have come to understand about Canadian civil-military relations.  Given the controversies of the past few weeks, we could all use a dose of reality.

Progress on Afghanistan

This BBC post has a few stats that suggest that things are better in Afghanistan.  Specifically, the number of kids in school has increased by over 600% and the GDP/capita has tripled.  Even the casualty stats are kind of okay.

That is, if you notice, the increase in civilian casualties seems to have been stemmed, that Afghan security forces are taking far fewer hits, and so on.  One could argue that figures through August are premature, but most of every year's damage has taken place in summer (where "winter is coming" is actually a good thing).  So, we will see 2011 look less bad than 2010 unless something strange happens.  NATO has been doing a better job of avoiding harming civilians, even though it still happens.  But again, what really stands out here is that the ANA and ANP are not getting hit that hard.  Given that "Transition" is supposed to put these guys more in the front, and given that they have always been seen as easier targets, this one trend (I use that word hesitantly) is very, very important.

Of course, none of this is necessarily sustainable.  When the US and its allies leave in 2014-2015, schools will likely close, the economy (which is almost entirely based on aid and the activities of the foreign folks) will suffer, and the ANA/ANP will be taking the blows quite directly.  That is, if they can remain functional and united.

Still, not too bad.  On the usual Afghan-o-meter of confidence from zero to ten, I guess I am now at negative three.  Which is an improvement.

Canadian Identity

I was talking about identity in my Intro to IR class yesterday, focusing on how identity is somewhat out of one's control.  This video about Canadians and their "national character" testifies to this since it is actually an American production.  AND I got the link from a Brit.



Nearly every Canadian documentary or movie about its military history usually starts with the view that the Canadians were being deployed and used quite badly by British commanders and success occurs only when the Canadians are allowed to command.  So, distinction from Britain is a key element of Canadian identity (going so far as to piss off a friend who obsesses about the Crown and its role in Canadian politics) even though anti-Americanism is really more central to Canadian identity these days.  To be clear, Canadian anti-Americanism is, well, like the Canadian stereotype, kind of cute, funny and mostly harmless.  Canadians do not throw rocks or eggs at American Presidents.

Anyhow, all this is an excuse to show the video clip.

Game of Thrones update

I have been reading the Game of Thrones series since the first season of the TV series aired.  What mighty thick books are these.  And chock full of surprises.  Hence, see below the break

Voting Rules Fraud

The fraud is not one of non-eligible voters voting.  No, the fraud are the claims by the Republicans that their efforts to put laws on the books to restrict access to voting are anything but attempts to prevent Democratic voters from casing their vote.

The damning bit of proof: "Under the Texas law, licenses to carry concealed handguns would be an acceptable form of identification to vote, but not student ID cards."  Hmmm.

The piece here does the usual "he said, she said," especially with the headline.  Too bad the GOP does not realize that disenfranchising voters leads to more conflict.  Or perhaps they do not care.  Let's bet on the latter, given their stands over the past couple of years, preferring to see Obama fail rather than help the country out.

What galls me most about this voter fraud crap is how obvious the tactic is yet how "fairly" it is covered.  The media is complicit.  Not a huge surprise but annoying nonetheless.

Just a short rant to start the week.

More on Advising

I posted last week on advising.  Well, some folks have thought about such stuff far longer and far more completely.  Check out this site, put together by Cynthia Verba, a Harvard prof who also happens to be the wife of uber-Poli Sci star Sidney Verba. 

Art Imitating Life continued

Given how nasty the war has been in Afghanistan, I guess it is only appropriate that this cartoon in the NYT today is brutally funny:

Not sure I get stone the hole, but otherwise, oh my.

Of course, when people say ten years or longer than the two World Wars combined, it frustrates me because the effort has been inconsistent at best.  Canada went it, came out, went to Kabul in a relatively light stability op, and was in Kandahar with a relatively small contingent (historically-speaking) for five years or so.  The US?  Treated Afghanistan as a sideshow from 2002-2008.

Still, ten years is a round number, so it will resonate more.  So, any other suggestions for party games?  How about "move the omelet" as in spoon race with not just an egg, but a delicious concoction of egg, peppers, onions?

Ig Nobels for Political Science

There are awards given out every year to note research that, well, is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Nobel-prizing winning research--the Ig Nobels.  Given that research has been the theme of the week here at the Spew (and Globe and Mail), I am, of course, disappointed to find no political science on this year's list of Ig Nobels.

Of course, all good research projects start by insisting there is a hole in the scholarship of a topic (a lacuna, if you will).  So, the lack of political science Ig Nobels is really an opportunity for us to ponder what work in our field makes us laugh and then think.  Various takes on the McDonald's peace come to mind.  As does a certain book on the application of Theories of International Relations to Zombies.  The problem with Drezner's Z-book is that it deliberately attempts to be funny (I think it actually is, others may disagree).  I am not sure Ig Nobels are given to work that is deliberately satirical.  The list of this year's winners suggests that it is the only accidentally or unintentionally amusing that wins.

So, I ask my readers: what work in the past couple of years compares well to the Ig Nobel winners?  What piece of work would you nominate for an Ig Nobel-like prize?  I have to go to the dusty archives to come up with some nominations (or browse the web).  Inspire me with your choices.

Perceptions of Academia

My op-ed on research and teaching in the Globe and Mail got far more positive comments than my previous op-eds on Afghanistan.  Not a huge surprise given how controversial the latter is.  But it was kind of fun to observe the comment threads on the former, as it appears that there is a Godwin's law specific to academic discussions.

Godwin's law is the observation that any internet discussion that goes on long enough will eventually invoke comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis.  Well, on any discussion about universities, it seems that the conversation eventually must end up in one of two places: that we profs are really in the business of indoctrinating our students; or that universities are really about money/profit.  Each raises a variety of interesting questions.

Indoctrination?  What are we forcing students to learn/follow/believe?  This usually refers to left-wing folks inflicting their views on the students who then become hippies.  I am pretty sure this refers to pieces of the social sciences more than anything else: political science, economics, history, sociology and the like.  It is not clear how the rest of the university is in indoctrination business--chemistry, math, biology, engineering, etc.  Given that it is the latter that tends to wag the university dog (they bring in more money, fame, prestige, etc), it is not clear how this indoctrination machine works.  Another big problem with this set of beliefs is that we apparently suck at this.  Yes, educated people are, on average, less conservative than folks with fewer degrees, but there are plenty of folks in North America who have both college degrees and conservative views.  So, the indoctrination machine apparently sucks.

To the second, profit-making machines?  Um, whuck (a 30 Rock term compressing WTF)?  Yes, tuition has been going up (although hearing Canadians complain about this makes me giggle given how low tuition is in Canada, compared to the US), but whose pockets are being lined?  Yes, university presidents are getting paid more than in the past, but the wage distribution in academia hardly compares with the skewness of wages in the rest of the economy.  Who are the stockholders in this view of profit-seeking universities?  Who owns the shares?  Again, I do whine about there being more administration and administrators, but universities are spending most of their money on salaries/benefits of professors and staffers.  That is where most of the money goes.  Do professors make a good wage?  Yes, but, again, does not compare to the rest of the economy for folks with lots of degrees. 

Some of the comments seem as if they did not read the op-ed that they are criticizing.  Not surprising, but what the conversation there suggests is: confirmation bias.  That we tend to observe the stuff that confirms are pre-existing beliefs and ignore what does not.  Which would also explain the very kind emails I got from some profs around Canada, complimenting me on the post, and the nice facebook comments as well. 

I am so aware of the dangers of confirmation bias that my intro to IR course is very much not about indoctrination (except for convincing the convinced that the Bush administration made big mistakes in its foreign policy, like firing the Iraq army in 2003).  My goal in that class is to introduce a variety of theories about international relations and some tools to figure out for oneself which ones are more persuasive.  That is, I am trying to foster lots of different beliefs so that down the road students do not cram reality into the one box in their head via confirmation bias but have choices about how to view things.

If trying to get folks to see multiple perspectives is indoctrination, well, then I am guilty.  But then we have stretched the concept of indoctrination so far that it loses all meaning.

Art Imitating Life

Community is a wonderfully unrealistic, silly show that is frequently making fun of the very sitcom enterprise.  But this week, it was making fun of Model UN and of the UN itself.  Good times.  In the competition between two Model UN teams seeking to represent the school, one team chose to be reasonable, leading to the prof (played by Freeks And Geeks vet Martin Starr!) to rule for the other team:

That's the common sense move, one that flies in the very face of the UN itself, a fundamentally symbolic organization founded on principles of high minded rhetoric and empty gestures.

I knew there would be more poli sci this year and would have a fun actor from a great TV to cameo as the poli sci prof.  Complete with beard!  But little did I know that it would make fun of the UN so adeptly.  Good times.  I look forward to more Poli Sci Community and hopefully getting a nice clip of that piece to show in future classes.

My Favorite Chairman

Admiral Mike Mullen is retiring today, stepping down from the highest position in the US military.  Why am I a big fan?  Not just because he called out Pakistan for its support of the Haqqani network.  Not just because he took a pretty strong stand to end Don't Ask Don't Tell.  Perhaps it is because he helped to recover the position from the damage that Rumsfeld, Myers and Pace did to the spot.

To be clear, his take on DADT was quite powerful:

"No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot help but be troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,"

But the bigger and more important contribution he made was to return the job of the Chairman to be the senior adviser to the President and SecDef on military matters, even pushing back a bit when his views might not have been those that they sought.  Given that Rumsfeld turned the spot into lapdog (or Vulcan mindmeld victim) and Myers and Pace went along with the worst ideas of the Bush crew with nary a peep, Mullen reminded us that the job of the military is to provide the best advice to the President and then implement the orders of the President and SecDef even if they (the military) disagree. 

Having the military disagree a bit with the leadership is a natural situation, given their conflicting audiences and imperatives.  Advice is just that--making recommendations.  These implies two things: that you are not just telling the bosses what they want to hear; AND you know that they don't have to heed the advice.  The previous two chairman forgot or ignore their roles and became yes-men.  Mullen never seemed to fit that category.  He served a SecDef and a President that wanted the best advice--not best defined by guessing what they wanted but informed estimates of the best ways to proceed.  And Mullen gave it.  Now he is stepping down after a long and distinguished career.

All I can say is: thanks.

Concussions and Hockey

I have posted on and off over the past few years about the concussion problem in football.  Of course, football is not the only sport that has this problem.  Hockey faces the same crisis, especially when its star of the moment, Sidney Crosby, has been sidelined by a concussion for more than half a season.  Ken Dryden, the former goalie great of the Canadiens, has a great piece at Grantland.com* about what needs to be done, at least as a start.

*  With this piece, Bill Simmons's little empire starts making a big dent behind the silly stories of pop culture and Red Sox collapses. 

The question Dryden raises now is whether the commissioner of hockey, Gary Bettman, will do what it takes.  Roger Goodell of the NFL has been mixed at best.  Changes in the kickoff rules are good, but how about requiring the safest possible helmets?  And how about getting the media folks to change their coverage and focus less on the hardest hits?  The game of football is great without focusing so much on the collisions.  I do think football has been making progress, with stories of guys going for the right kind of tackles.  But much more progress can and should be made.  Especially since the NFL sets the example for all other forms of football (college, high school, and younger).

False Choices of Teaching Versus Research

Camp Airy, 1979

My blog ended up producing this op-ed.  Thanks to Roland Paris for encouraging me to turn the rant into a submission.  Combined with the advising rant from yesterday that got heaps of play thanks to certain retweets by folks with large bases of followers (thanks to Andrew Exum), I am a media star for a day or two. 

I just hope the paparazzi don't find me.  Damn, too late, as time traveling ones have taken photos of me while I was at summer camp long ago:

Advising for Money?

I should not be surprised that there are folks (at least one, anyway) that are selling advising services.  That is, this person is saying she makes money advising PhD students since their own formal advisers don't advise much:

I am teaching your Ph.D. students to do things like plan a publishing trajectory, tailor their dissertations for grant agencies, strategize recommendation letters, evaluate a journal's status, judge the relative merits of postdoctoral options, interpret a rejection, follow up on an acceptance, and—above all—get jobs. And business is so good I'm booked ahead for months.

I guess I am surprised--that Phd students have the cash to hire people like this.  But am I surprised that profs can be lousy advisers?  Um, no.  I know of some profs that don't even do the basics, like read the damned chapters within a month or two (one colleague lets them sit on his desk for a year, sometimes).  Doing more than that, to help a phd student find a job by reviewing the CV, read stuff to be submitted to journals, networking to help them find jobs--this all takes heaps of time.  But it is definitely part of the job.

Yes, it is part of the job, especially since we profs can do our work because our grad students are doing the grading, the coding, the book-chasing, and all the rest.  I consider it part of the implicit pact we make--the student needs to do the work (his/hers and mine), take feedback seriously, and so on and I will need to do the work to make sure they get started in this difficult business.  Indeed, I have often used the Harry Potterism of unbreakable vow--that advising is a lifelong (or career-long) deal.  I still chat up my adviser and rely on him from time to time and expect to do the same for my disciples students.

Indeed, this is not just an obligation, but one of the proudest parts of my work the past ten years or so.  Nearly every student for whom I have served as their primary supervisor has gotten a tenure track job after or as they finished their dissertation.  I do whine about the workload (I will be reading three or four completed dissertations next spring; and the staff strike is making recommendation letter processing more painful this fall), but I am mighty proud when these folks do well.

But again, I am not surprised that not everyone works hard for their graduate students.  Institutions often provide little incentives to do this part of the job well, and people who prove to be unreliable in this endeavor rarely face any consequences except perhaps having less work to do.  Burden-sharing in academic departments is not unlike that within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--wildly uneven.  The good news is: in my business, no one gets killed.  The bad news: some folks get lost.  If there is someone out there that will take some money to help those who find themselves with sucky advisers, I cannot blame them.

And there are rewards.  Just yesterday, a guy upon whose committee I sit dropped by to give me a big bottle of beer.

Separation of Church and Prof?

For the second straight year, I have had a student approach me on this day in the Jewish calendar to wish me a Happy New Year.  One could suggest that these students are being perceptive since I was born into a Jewish family.  Or one could suggest that they have a poor sense of boundaries since I only look Jewish/sound Jewish (I complain a lot).  But I am not at all a religious person.  Indeed, I am pretty anti-religious when it comes down to it.  So, it feels mighty awkward to me. 

I guess I would never have imagined approaching a prof with an assumption about them and then acting on it.  I know there is no ill intention--obviously, the opposite.  But I still think that my religion or lack thereof is a private thing (only fit for blogging).  I do mention other private things in class, like my family to illustrate various concepts (like my strategic dogs and what they imply for strategic thinking), but I never identify myself by religion.  So, is it appropriate for students to assume that I am of one particular sect/brand/whatever and then appeal to the imagined community that the student thinks we share?  Again, I think not. 

This never happened before the last couple of years.  Are folks being more presumptuous or am I just becoming too approachable and informal in class?  Your guess is as good or better than mine.

Flying Ethics

After proving how self-centered I am with my previous post about my willingness to fly regardless of the environmental consequences, I will now present my rules for flying behavior.

1. I do not tilt the seatback more than an inch or so unless the seat behind me is empty.  I have spent way too much time behind people who seem oblivious to the person behind them.
2. I cede the armrest to the person in the middle if I am on the aisle (which I always am).  But my space begins on the other side of the arm rest and I will defend that turf.  Last night I was stuck with a thin tall guy who had no sense of space, kept occupying mine.  Oy.
3. I don't look nasty at the parents with screaming kids, but will ask if they can control the kid if he/she wants to use the back of my seat for soccer practice.
4. If I am in the middle or window seat, I try only to get up once or twice during a longish flight.  I get out of my seat to let the middle/window folks out when I have the aisle seat (which is almost always), but prefer to keep that dance down to 2-3 times per medium flight.  The elbow guy from last night wanted to do that dance again and again.  

So, what rules do you have?

Oh, and I am a big fan of Trip It and Flight Track apps.  Helps to organize the travel info and keep me informed as I travel.

Anyhow, that is enough travel blogging for now.  I have a whole week before I go again, this time to LA. 

Never Too Late to Overthink Harry Potter

A terrific post here that does some nice over-thinking about the various themes and sources of Harry Potter.  That there is far more of Ancient Greek stuff flowing through the tales than I would have suspected.  Very striking and persuasive.

Flying and the Logic of Collective Inaction

A facebook friend of mine commented on my status the other day when I was traveling to the Cotswolds near London for a workshop.  He had observed that I had been flying a lot lately, and I should be thinking of the climate.  That is, flying is bad for global warming.  I don't disagree with the science (he is a scientist).  I just have pretty strong beliefs due to my understanding of the logic of collective action that if I exercised any restraint on my travel, it would have no impact on anyone else but me.  And my family.  That is, my understanding of social science trumps the implications of science.

The basic logic of collective action is that when there is a public good or public bad (defined by two key properties: (a) does my enjoyment of the good reduce that available to others; and (b) can non-cooperators be excluded from the good), free-riding is inevitable and even rational.  If I were not to fly, and everyone else continued, would my restraint really reduce the warming of the planet in any meaningful way?  Nope.  If everyone restrained and I did not, would my flying matter?  Not much.  One can consider me selfish for thinking this way, but I am realistic.  I do not think we will make any headway on global warming anytime soon in any arena, whether that is relying less on beef (cows fart methane, right?), using solar/hydro power, conserving lots of power, etc.

I am more optimistic about finding replacements for oil because the market creates incentives to innovate.  As oil prices climb, substitutes become affordable and innovation becomes profitable.  But as far as I can tell, efforts to monetize the warming effects of various behavior are failing.  Carbon tax anyone?

I do think that I will be flying less.  First, because my wonderful project is coming to an end.  I will not be flying all over the place to do research for the next one (poor research design!).  Second, I do think that as oil gets increasingly scarce, air travel will become increasingly pricey (and perhaps research funding will also become scarce).  So, in 15-20 years, I may not be flying to conferences as the experiences may be priced out of existence.  So, I am embracing the moment and taking advantage of the travel opportunities in the near future. 

The logic of collective action applies to other realms, of course.  I do recycle even though it requires  bit of effort.  If I had to sacrifice a lot to recycle (like not doing my research or giving up opportunities to meet interesting people in beautiful manors with great food), I probably would not.  But if it just means dumping some stuff in a big govt-provided trashcan, then sure. 

I just think I understand the social realities just as my friend/critic understands the effects of air travel.  Now, I must grab some food (produced probably in environmental destroying ways) before I hop on my next flight to get back home.

Gender in the Social Sciences

Progress! This study shows that women are getting more PhDs in the US across all fields compared to 30 years ago.  With the social sciences and education leading the way, but the life scoiences not that far behind and ahead of humanities.  Of course, we should not be surprised since the comparison is to 30 years ago.  Which is forever in terms of gender relations.  Not quite as forever ago as Mad Men's era, but 1979 was the year of 3 Mile Island when nuclear power plants seemed like scary ways to provide electricity.

I found that this news  to be most interesting because I am traveling from a workshop in the English countryside (complete with sheep and very narrow roads) on Adaptation in Afghanistan that was an entirely male crew.  At drinks last night, this oddity was observed, with the Europeans noting that there are far more senior female scholars of International Security/War Studies in the US and Canada than in Europe.  Why?  Not entirely clear but the idea was raised that American security scholars come from political science whereas they are based in War Studies type places in Europe.  I don't know if that is true, but I did notice the discrepancy when the group first met.  I tend to find myself chatting with female security/conflict folks at North American meetings much of the time since the younger folks are doing lots of interesting work, and the gender balance is pretty balanced (as far as I can anecdotally observe). 

I would be curious to see the same figure up above for various European countries, but my guess is that, except for Scandinavia (the new Danish Prime Minister is female), the Europeans are behind North America. 

In related unrelated news, Australia will now be allowing women to serve in combat, including in Special Operations Forces, joining the Israel, Canada and New Zealand. 

Old Building Means Light Blogging

I am at a workshop in the cotswolds in the UK in a hotel with thick walls.  This means lousy wifi.  So don't expect much blogging for a couple days.  Do post suggestions for topics.  Cheerio.

R.O.C.K in the UK

I am always surprised that I have only been to London three times: one long trip more than twenty years ago as part of a summer educational experience, one long weekend last year as part of a workshop, and now another four days for a workshop on military adaptation in Afghanistan.

So, what I have seen and learned?  First, I was surprised to see a separate line for students at Customs at Heathrow.  Students?  I almost whipped out my McGill ID to get in the shorter line.  Second, I cannot remember another airport where the TV screens at customs were telling people that they must declare asylum at the airport or else they cannot do it at all.  Hmmm.  Asylum.   Nope, not this time.

I spent the afternoon walking in the general direction of Regent's Park.  I found a store dedicated to the Beatles and then a museum at 221 Baker Street dedicated to Sherlock Holmes.  I walked to Lord's Cricket field because I thought it would be cool to see a major home to that strange sport.  Was not so much because it had big walls blocking the pitch.  Alas.  Even worse, I didn't realize how close I was to Abbey Road.  Instead, I went to Regent's Park, which was lovely although way too much "football" and no ultimate.  Perhaps this is what happens to declining empires--they don't adopt the newer and better sports.

After Regent's Park, including a very  nice "Honest Sausage," I walked down a series of streets (actually the same street with the name changing occasionally), and discovered that there are far more organic, gluten-free, and such places in London than I remember from previous visits.  Healthy Brits?  Perish the thought.

Finished with beer/dinner with the delightful Stephanie Carvin. 

Tomorrow, I take a train to the Cotswolds to the site of the workshop.  Yep, tis a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Sicilians and the Pakistan Problem

I have already blogged about the latest news on the US and Pakistan, but I had a good conversation with one of my colleagues (Jason F) about it that made me think a bit more.  I realized that this situation is much like this battle of wits:

Or in poker, when one has to figure out if the other guy thinks that I think that she thinks that I think that she has a strong hand.

Here is the Pakistan situation.  After the Bin Laden mission, Pakistan was upset that the US did not inform them of the raid.  So, over the following weeks, the US informed Pakistan of suspected insurgent gatherings and then watched to see what happened.  And?  The insurgents in Pakistan seemed to have been tipped off.  So, the US had proof that Pakistan was leaking intel to the bad guys.  But there is more to it: the folks doing the leaking must have had a good idea that passing along the information would cause the insurgents to flee and thus informing the US that there would be a leak.  That is, the folks doing the leaking did not care that they their leaks would be observed.  The key actors in Pakistan not only did not care that the US would get upset but perhaps even wanted to antagonize the US.  Meanwhile, the US knowing that the info would probably be leaked was creating a situation where Pakistan would unambiguously signal how thoroughly unreliable it was.  Again, the Pakistanis almost certainly understood this.

So, what are the Pakistani folks involved thinking?  As a non-expert, I can only speculate, but my guess is either they think that the US has no choice since it must ship stuff through Pakistan to the Afghanistan mission OR the US is leaving anyway, so screw 'em.

The funny thing is that the US would have more leverage of the Pakistan military was more corrupt since the foreign aid would be something that they sought to pocket.  So, I am confused.  But I do expect that US aid will slow, that the US will continue to step up lines of communication (LOC's) that go around Pakistan, and that the relationship will worsen.

My Personal Comedian

Over the past few months, I have become very fond of the Nerdist podcast, hosted by Chris Hardwick.*  The podcast focuses on comedy and on nerd stuff and their intersection as Chris and his pals posture themselves as nerds and are interested in comic books, superheroes, Star Trek/Wars, and all the rest while Chris and his pals are also standup comedians (and actors and more). 
The most recent podcast featured Tom Wilson, Biff of Back to the Future.  He has, of course, done far more than that, but the role of Biff crowds out everything else, especially in the public eye.  Of course, Tom played the gym teacher in Freaks and Geeks who dated Haverchuck's mother.  He is also an artist, with some great pop art.

 * Hardwick will be hosting a talk show about Walking Dead each week after each episode to add to his many activities.

I had a great encounter with Tom about 20 years ago.  Steve Oedekerk and Tom came to UCSD to do a charity show, but it was poorly, poorly advertised.  So, the comics barely outnumbered the audience.  My wife and I considered Tom to be our own personal comedian that night.  Steve and Tom gave us a full show (perhaps not the show they intended, but the full hour plus) despite only having a few people show up.  Tom was great that night, so I am pleased to see him pop up in things, like Freaks and Geeks.

Given how he has often been cast as a bully, especially the role of Biff, the podcast was most interesting because Tom informed us all that he started out small and picked on and only grew to be the big guy late in high school.  So, when preparing for Back to the Future, he identified more with Marty and less with Biff.  Fascinating stuff.

On the podcast, Tom does a great job of discussing the challenges of being an iconic character in a huge movie so central to pop culture so early in one's career.  Like Barry Williams (Greg Brady) and Mark Hamill, Tom has become identified with this single character so he gets the same kinds of responses again and again, even twenty-five years after the first movie came out (and as we approach the year in which many of the events of the second movie take place). 

So, Tom has come up with various strategies (like the postcard at the Nerdist link) and this song:

Mess with the Bull?

The old phrase is: mess with the bull, and you will get the horns.  Is it a coincidence that after the Prime Minister and Defence Minister let Chief of Defence Staff Walt Natynczyk hang out to dry for flying on government planes that we then get a flurry of stories about questionable flying decisions involving Minister of Defence Mackay?

First, there is the story that Mackay got a lift back from his vacation via a search and rescue helicopter (of which there are mighty few).  Then there was the story of an Air Force cargo plane (C-17) being used to deliver a firetruck for charity to the Dominican Republic despite the complaints of the Air Force folks.  Given that C-17s are few and had been busy with Afghanistan and other missions, this seemed like a questionable use of resources.

So, last night I engaged in a twitter conversation with my friend who is wise in the ways of Canadian civ-mil relations, Phillipe Lagassé, about the timing of these revelations.  Seems to us, more or less, that the CDS, who was chosen in large part because he was far more soft-spoken than his predecessor, Rick Hillier, is still very much of this current generation of senior officers.  That is, savvy, proud, and perhaps more willing to push back than the generation before Hillier.  It may not be the case that Natyncyzk is firing back at his bosses, but like mortar fire, indirect responses are harder (although not impossible) to trace and stop.

I have no inside knowledge--this is just semi-wild speculation.  Of course, all of this is really just about different folks yelling: "hey, look! A distraction."  or "Squirrel!!"  The important issues of the day are not a few flights here and there, but those that I have listed before on my previous squirrel post.

Given my current obsession about squirrels as a means of distracting folks from core issues, I think I might need another sauce for my collection.  We have denial, perspective, awesome and secret sauces.  Perhaps we should have distraction sauce?  If so, I am pretty sure it would taste like squirrel.