International Security News

Now the mathimaticians say they can model the frequency of insurgent attacks. But they didn’t put that in the new counter insurgency manual. Warning all poly-sci students, time to take those advanced math classes. Bummer.

Stephen Walt tempers the Iran discussion with some realism (excuse me for that) in his latest post arguing that making Iran a stable, democratic and effective country could undermine US interests in the Middle East. It is ashame such interesting discussions happen so far away from the mainstream in domestic debates on the issue.

Craig Calhoun makes an excellent criticism of academic writing that thesis writers should keep in mind. In short, social scientists should contribute to public debates on important topics. Will your next thesis, article or dissertation aspire to that? Or just to graduation?

The American Bar Association published it’s advice for law students who are interested in national security law jobs. The 90 page document, with advice, stories and information can be found here, most of the links from the document can be found here. It’s worth skimming even for non-lawyers interested in international security jobs in general.

According to Hans Rosling in a presentation at TED India. Also a good example for those who say that acedemic presentations have to be boaring. When you’re telling me about your thesis, please do it like this!

…or just not bother with the whole thing. So much for state’s being rational actors. We are all going to die.

We live in the future!

New book by the man often used by the CIA for predictions of how hot situations around the world will pan out, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, makes you wonder, can you really predict the future? See the NYT’s review for more.

Or everybody panic. Whistleblower at IEA says the world is running out of oil much more quickly that official projections.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/game-theory.html