Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Walt & I

Stephen W. Walt, that is.

At his blog, I found this there:

My kids are at summer camp this week, so my wife and I are sneaking away for a couple of days of R & R. I love my kids, but I am looking forward to what an IR theorist might call "the tranquility of a bipolar world" (and I mean "bipolar" in the structural realist sense, not as a synonym for manic depression). There'll be at least one guest blogger while I'm gone, and I may chime in a bit if time and internet access permits. But mostly I'm going to hike, paddle a kayak, enjoy my wife's company, and reflect on how lucky I am that she married me.

In the meantime, here are a few things you might want to read, focused mostly on the always-cheerful situation in the Middle East.

...8. Katja Favretto (a recent Ph.D. from UCLA whom I don’t know) has an interesting article in the latest issue of the American Political Science Review, entitled "Should Peacemakers Take Sides? Major Power Mediation, Coercion, and Bias." It's a formal analysis that draws on evidence from the Bosnian crisis, and I'm pondering what it implies for the U.S. role as an "evenhanded" mediator in the Middle East. More on this when I get back and have a chance to re-read it.



I left the following comment:

Article #8
by YMedad on Wed, 08/05/2009 - 4:50am

She writes in the abstract: "...an intervener's willingness to secure an agreement using force. When a highly biased power intervenes in a crisis, a peaceful settlement is likely because warring parties are certain the third party will enforce an agreement by military means".

When you re-read it, ask yourself if you really want the US to militarily intervene which, I presume, means invade Israel, blockade it, or even intern tens of thousands of US Jews maybe. Gee, you sound like a right-wing fanatical nut.

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