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What's the "value" offered by international relations scholarship?

What does it mean to think about world events "like an international relations scholar"?

Trump's order to withdrawal 🇺🇸 troops from 🇸🇴 offers a useful

 This event could be viewed from a variety of angles, from the "micro-level" on up.

International Relations scholars/analysts can and do use each of the following angles, though not all are strictly speaking taking an "International Relations angle".

Let's explore the angles.
The "country-expert" angle entails discussing the event by laying out the situation within Somalia, providing details on key figures involved and perhaps how the conflict has disrupted Somalia's internal governance and society.

https://t.co/uO4iL4MvbJ
The "Military/Security analyst" angle involves outlining the details of what US troops presently do in Somalia and how they carry out their mission (including equipment, mission, and tactics).

See this @ChathamHouse report by @PDWilliamsGWU

https://t.co/0XWu6crZIU
The "Area Studies/Regional Expert" angle involves discussing the decision as an event that will impact the Horn of Africa or East Africa more broadly

https://t.co/iqOzCiq344
A "US Defense Policy" angle might look at the decision in light of the broader goal of removing US troops from the the "Greater Middle East"

See this recent @BrookingsInst report by @MichaelEOHanlon & Bruce Riedel

https://t.co/kolYUGeOmT
A "US Foreign Policy" angle would consider the decision in light of the overall global realignment of US forces, from South Korea to Germany

https://t.co/OMp5VFeOjB
For instance, this angle might consider the domestic political pressures influencing the decision

https://t.co/6FH5buYeH1
Finally, an "International Relations" angle would ask, "what does this teach us about international politics?"
For example, an IR scholar could ask "what does this teach us about the behavior of major powers?"
This could entail evaluating if the decision is consistent with our understanding of great power competition drives troop deployments (such as this forthcoming @The_JOP paper by @carlammm, @markdnieman, @olga_chyzh, & @SamRBell).

https://t.co/q8hSTqpBtj
Or one could see what the event teaches us about hegemonic states?

Ex: Does ability to project power (key feature of a major power) mean having to have a military presence everywhere all the time?

See @pkmacdonald & Joe Parent in @Journal_IS

https://t.co/GcEYfwUYa4
This broader angle provides context, perspective, & language that helps organize thinking and offer understanding of an event.

You know, the things a Liberal Arts education provides

https://t.co/t3UbMq9fm4
In short, the IR angle "pulls up to 30,000 feet"* to ask about the general patterns & behaviors of key actors** operating globally.

[END]

* I've stolen this phrase from JJM, who says it ALL THE TIME :)

** States are a key actor, not the only one (thread for another time)

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Let's talk about that "Longer Telegram" making the rounds...and why it's a

First, to be clear, it IS NOT a telegram. It's a report. I mean, it has a flipping 11.5 page executive "summary"...


...a two page table of contents...


...and clocks in at 62 pages (minus the forward and executive summary) or 73 pages (if you include the executive summary).

Of course, the author of "The Longer Telegram" calls it a "telegram" because they want it to be directly and explicitly compared to George Kennan's 1946 "Long Telegram" about US policy towards the Soviet Union.

https://t.co/rHikkOYuoT
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Paul Poast
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Why are civil-mil scholars upset about Austin Lloyd's nomination as the 28th Secretary of Defense?

Consider the nomination of the 3rd Secretary of Defense: George Marshall

[THREAD]


In 1950, Truman wanted to fire the second SecDef, Louis Johnson, and install George Marshall as Secretary of Defense.


There was a problem: when the Department of Defense was created in 1947, section 202 of the 1947 National Security Act (which created the DoD, then called "The National Military Establishment") would not allow recently retired officers to serve as SecDef

https://t.co/bWx4h1OFah


Marshall had only retired as a 5-star General in 1947


Of course, by 1950 Marshall had already served as Secretary of State and had proposed the "Marshall Plan" for the recovery of Europe
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Paul Poast
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Was the attack on the US Capitol an attempted coup?

Rather than debate that question here (or in another forum), I'm making it an assignment. Specifically, I'm asking my Quantitative Security students to determine if it belongs in our coup/attempted coup datasets.

[THREAD]

A core goal of this course is to introduce students to how Large-N data on violence and security are created.

We put WAY TOO much emphasis on estimators & software (Stata v R 🙄); not enough on the quality of the data going into the analysis.

First, what happened? @johncarey03755 offers a succinct

Second, I'll ask the students to read some of the recent pieces that say the event was NOT a coup attempt.

These include...

...detailed twitter threads by
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Paul Poast
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After 4 years of Donald Trump, the US must "reassure" its allies.

That's what I'm reading/hearing lately, such as in this @nytimes piece. What do international relations scholars know about reassuring allies? Can it be done? Is it even

This passage from the article captures well the call for "reassurance": the US must convince its allies in Asia and Europe that the US would indeed use its nukes to protect them.


That's a tall order!

Indeed, such a tall order that it's been a major question explored by international relations scholars for a long time. A LONG TIME.

The topic was of keen debate in the 1950s, with Henry Kissinger writing a series of pieces on the topic, such as this 1956 @ForeignAffairs

The academic discussion picked up in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

This included Robert Schelling's paper in the first issue of the Journal of Conflict
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Paul Poast
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Is it true that democracies don't go to war with each other?

Sort of. But I wouldn't base public policy on the finding.

Why? Let's turn to the data.

[THREAD]


The idea of a "Democratic Peace" is a widely held view that's been around for a long time.

By 1988, there already existed enough studies on the topic for Jack Levy to famously label Democratic Peace "an empirical law"


The earliest empirical work on the topic was the 1964 report by Dean Babst published in the "Wisconsin Sociologist"


Using the war participation data from Quincy Wright's "A Study of War", Babst produced the following two tables


The tables show that democracies were NOT on both sides (of course, Finland is awkward given that it fought WITH Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union).

Babst expanded his study beyond the World Wars in a 1972 paper in Industrial Research. He confirmed his finding.
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Enough! Reporters doing it again. Both-sidesing. U enable Trump's propaganda by doing this

Reporter's both-sides question:

"What was your role in what happened at the Capitol?

Proper question:

"Are you going to take responsibility for your role in inciting insurrection?"


The press enabled the storming of the Capitol because they never held GOP accountable for pushing #TheBigLie that election was stolen

I have been yelling about this for months. Starting here where @TerryMoran got it right

But after press returned to form


Not long after Nov 4th press started both-sidesing again. Question Republicans were asked over & over was:

"Do u think Biden won?"

This enabled the coup

The proper question at minimum:

"Why are u enabling this charade? Why are u spreading


After repeatedly yelling that press wasn't demanding answers of GOP for spreading #TheBigLie I hoped this political violence on Dec 10th would finally get press to demand answers. But no. They continued to both-sides


I noted how impotent the American press was acting by treating #TheBigLie as credible. The press is supposed to hold people in power accountable, but beside @TerryMoran on election night, they by and large
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The December 12th, 2020 - "DC Rallies To Support Trump" (Jericho + Stop the Steal + MAGA million march).

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THIS: It's a little late, but here is the final White House Coronavirus Task Force report from the Trump administration. It features some lessons learned from the federal officials on the panel, many that speak directly to the situation in

- Georgia is back to 6th in the country for new cases in the week leading up to 1.17 (not long ago we were doing better than nearly every other state)
- 5th in the country for test positivity
- 97 percent of all counties in the state in the "red zone"

2/n


It's the recommendations that are the most interesting (we know things are bad here).

"Mask mandates work," it reads. "Any indoor space where masks cannot be worn ... must be substantially curtailed or closed."

This rec has been here before, but not so bluntly.

3/n

3/n


"This virus can be mitigated and community spread can be curtailed, but action needs to be taken before an increase in hospitalizations is seen," it continues. " it needs to be more comprehensive and longer than the summer mitigation actions."

4/n

Then, finally: "Georgia is still experiencing widespread community spread and needs to accelerate mitigation to prevent ongoing fatalities."

This final one is a message that we've seen before, too, though again, not in so direct terms.

5/n
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