Via David Axe, it appears that the Somali government has collapsed following the seizure of its capitol, Baidoa, by Islamist fighters. Ethiopian troops withdrew from Baidoa less than a day before its fall. The collapse of the Somali provisional government represents a foreign policy disaster for both Ethiopia and the United States; the United States […]
Robert Farley
Robert Farley is an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky. He contributes to the blogs Lawyers, Guns, and Money and TAPPED.
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TACTFUL UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE DAY.
Josh Keating, commenting on a roquefort cheese trade dispute: The last thing Obama wants right now is to get into a trade war with France over a last-minute decision by his predecessor, particularly when he’s looking for French cooperation on far more pressing issues. But even the farmers seem to realize that the “cheese wars” […]
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GAZA TUNNELS BACK IN BUSINESS.
Smuggling operations have resumed in the tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border: The tunnels linking Gaza and Egypt are back in business, despite the hundreds of tons of bombs and missiles that Israeli troops rained down on them. The air reeked from spills of newly smuggled fuel being poured into plastic barrels as winches powered by […]
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THE ABSTINENCE-ONLY CLOWN SHOW.
Joe at Advocates for Youth notes that clowns are always scary: We currently spend $1.5 billion a year to fund abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education in our public schools. And yes, that money goes to people like Derek Dye, as he is employed by the Elizabeth New Life Center that received an $800,000 CBAE grant in 2007 […]
Posted inEducation in America
EVALUATIONS, STUNTS, AND TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS
Ezra: I grew up among academics. And I have never since met a class of people so contemptuous of teaching. You’d think they were being asked to chew mud. When in the course of making blanket statements based on what amount to personal anecdotes, Ezra should probably pause to consider whether he knows any academics […]
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MORE ON THE ARMY WAR COLLEGE.
Thomas Ricks has a bit more on academic freedom at the Army War College. Ricks quotes Mark Perry: It’s worse than you think. They have curtailed the curriculum so that their students are not exposed to radical Islam. Akin to denying students access to Marx during the Cold War…. I was a part of a […]
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UNIPOLARITY AND STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS.
Via Yglesias, Justin Logan asks an interesting question: Realists talk a lot about structure in the international political context: various structures of the balance of power push states in one direction or another. If Mexico were twice as powerful as the United States, different structural forces would be acting on us. Realists note that structures […]
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TROUBLING DEVELOPMENTS AT ARMY WAR COLLEGE.
Ezra highlights Tom Ricks’ post on trouble at the Army War College. The Army War College, like its Navy counterpart, employs primarily civilian academics to produce research and to furnish senior officers with a strategic perspective. The Naval War College, for example, was an important cog in the project to produce the Cooperative Maritime Strategy. […]
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NOT COOKING WITH GAS.
Russia has become engaged in yet another dispute with its western neighbors, this time over natural gas. Russia has cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in a price and payment dispute. For some time, Russia has supplied Ukraine with gas at a substantial discount. When the price of natural gas was high, Russia locked itself […]
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ACTING WISELY.
Max Boot almost staggers into some almost useful points in a WSJ op-ed: But to say that Israel has the right, indeed the obligation, to act is not the same thing as saying that it is acting wisely. It is too early to know whether its actions are well-advised. All will depend on how the […]
