Putin or IS a Bigger Threat to World?

Gary Kasparov in a recent interview laid out his case for why Putin is a bigger threat to the world than IS (read about the interview here).  In his interview Kasparov compares European responses to Putin with European responses to Hitler pre WWII.  Kasparov also argues that the rest of the world is playing chess while Putin is playing poker and that Putin is calling our bluff.

For my two cents, Kasparov has a point and we should consider whether or not we are addressing Putin's aggressive Russian foreign policy correctly.  I am not convinced that the world response is similar to how we responded to Hitler pre WWII or that current Russian foreign policy indicates a similar desire to directly own and control the world.  Perhaps a few readers might chime in here and add their thoughts.

Mars Update

India enters Mars exploration attempts with a mission that could land them in the Mars Club with a modest $75 million budget.  Read here.

Should We Expect a Different Response from IS?

I have recently been asked what I thought about IS and about the response to IS proposed and made actionable by President Obama.  I have written previously that I believe IS is a transnational actor and that I believe IS to be a revolutionary movement that desires to create a new country.  Eventually the goal of IS is to move from being a country to, I believe, global domination in carrying out their particularl ideological understanding of the teachings of Islam.  I also wrote in that earlier blog that determining the best means of fighting against IS is difficult.

Today I want to first readdress the issue of what type of action to take against IS.  Secondly, what type of response should we expect from IS as a result of the chosen course of action by the U.S. government.    Finally, does this expected action change what action to take against IS?

IS is a revolutionary group.  This organization is transnational in its scope and position, presently operating in multiple countries.  The intent of IS is to create a new country with the IS organization as the government of that country.  IS leadership believes that their ideological view of Islam represents the truest conception of Islam, the practice of the faith, and the socio-economic and political structures that must exist if the truest conception and practice of Islam are acted upon and enforced (in the context of IS leader's conceptions, enforcement of socio-economic and political practice of Islamic life is required).  Because of the ideological disposition of IS leadership, IS as an organization represents not just a threat to populations in Iraq, Syria and Turkey, but to populations in all countries in the world.  IS represents a threat to the accepted international order (while this order may be found repulsive on many fronts, it is the status quo under which populations have grown and may continue to grow with minimal intrustion on the sovereignty of populations, through recognized governments, over their own territory).

The U.S. government, led by the Obama administration, has determined in executing the will of the U.S. population to engage actively in the pursuit of destroying IS.  The course of action taken to date involves the use of military assets in tactical strikes against targets.  The destruction of these targets, both human and non-human, is meant to physically deny access to structures, deny ability to control territory, and psychologically deny peace of mind to IS and IS leadership.  The Obama administration has also determined to start arming moderate anti-Syrian government forces.  This second action is questionable based on messages it sends and supplies it makes available to potential enemies of the U.S. population.  But, given these courses of action what should we expect from IS?

IS leadership has told IS followers to atttack U.S. and French citizens according to an article I read today.   In other words, IS leadership has told its followers to engage in acts of terror against the U.S., France, and others joining in the effort to destroy the IS.  For my two cents this response is exactly what we should have expected.  IS pictures itself as a state, as such if recognized by other states it would be an internationally legal equal.  IS has not been recognized and so remains a non-state, transnational actor and not a legal equal.  IS also does not possess the required forces to engage in direct military confrontation against the superior military forces of the U.S., France, Canada, Australia, etc. against which it has told its followers to rise up.  When faced with asymmetry the choices of conflict behavior are limited and most of the choices will be easily categorized as acts of terror.

Should the U.S. government change the course of action it has chosen in response to IS statements and potential actions?  The simple answer is no.  If the U.S. government chooses to change its actions the choice should be based on questions raised about the usefulness and results of arming moderate rebels in their actions against the Syrian government.  I always want people to realize that if the government chooses to take armed action against any population group, "We the people" must accept our role in the decision and our responsibility for the decision, because "We the people" elect our government--whether you as an individual voted for the current officers of government or not, collectively we bear responsibility for the actions of our elected government.  If we disagree with the government decision or the likelihood of personally being targets as a result of government decisions, we should then work to remove the current officers of our government or to get those officers to reverse their course of action on our behalf.  Finally, if you do not want to be a target, then never, ever, consent to allow your government to engage in militarized actions on behalf of policy meant to represent our aims as a population.

Mars, Whoo-Hoo!!!!

I remain amazed at what God has allowed human's to acheive in the realm of science and technology. If I were not a nerd for information about human destructive behaviors, I would be a science geek--probably a physicist.  (Hat off to AJ for explaining to me the difference between nerd and geek, as a non-physical scientist I am a nerd, a biologist would be a geek).  Today the first news stories I read in the wire services and news services were all about the Maven spacecraft entering Mar orbit.  The spacecraft is there to test the atmospheric composition in hopes of determining why Mars is not warm and wet like Earth (it is supposed by tests of Mars soil and geologic features that it was once warm and wet).  Hats off to NASA folks and good luck with the atmospheric measurments.

Of course, not all that I have read, watched over the years dealing with Mars is based on scientific acheivement.  So I offer the following top 10 list of movies and books on the subject.

10.  Invaders from Mars (1986)
 9.  The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)
 8.  Mars Needs Women (1967)
 7.  Mars Attacks (1996)
 6.  Mars (Ben Bova)
 5.  War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells)
 5.  Mission to Mars (2000)
 4.  Return to Mars (Ben Bova)
 3.  Total Recall (1990)
 2.  Red Planet (2000)
and, for my two cents the best book/movie about Mars
 1.  Red Planet (Robert Heinlein)

Rethinking Battle Deaths as Metric of Armed Conflict

For the majority of the years I have been a student of and professor of the study of violent political conflict we have measured the magnitude of violent conflict on battle deaths.  We have decided primarily whether a conflict is a militarized dispute or a war based on how many uniformed deaths there are in a calendar year of conflict.  A few years back Steve Saideman pointed out an obvious oversight to me regarding categorization of violence, notably that improvements to medical treatment in the field and at front area medical units meant more survivors that would have been deaths in previous decades.  Also, if a conflict is a civil war or other intrastate conflict, uniformed battle deaths only occur on one side of the conflict.

Today I was perusing Political Violence @ a Glance and was greeted by this piece by Tanisha Fazal. Fazal echoes thoughts that Saideman first voiced to me a few years back.  She breaks down four reasons for lower death rates in conflict zones and suggests that we may need to redesign our measurement of magnitude of violent political conflict to consider what we can compare and cannot compare.  For my two cents, Fazal is correct, it is time to redesign the measures and reconsider whether or not battle deaths is the best sign of conflict magnitude in the contemporary era.   

Scotland or Great Britain

Oh my dear Scotland, beware what you get when you give way to the thinking of Macbeth:

"From this moment the very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand"

Scotland is headed to its referendum next week.  All seems sensible that rather than violence we have democratic process in place to determine the future of Scottish independence.  But, Scotland be wary, if you do not accept the gifts of greater autonomy offered by Great Britain, what does happen to such things as currency, status in the EU, national debt, etc?

Should the Scots assume that the greater portion of North Sea oil revenue is suddenly theirs?  Should Scots assume that they will not be saddled by a share of the national debt of Great Britain when they declare their independence?  Oh nationalism come to us again, cause us to have strange dreams, lead us in devious paths.

For my two cents, take the autonomy, cook up some more haggus, and enjoy a good dose of Islay single malt.

What to Do With IS

What should the U.S. government do on behalf of the citizens of the U.S. about the Islamic State?  President Obama is supposed to explain his plan on Tuesday and Wednesday in meetings with congressional leaders from both parties and a speech on the eve of the anniversary of September 11, 2001.   I believe the issue raises a number of very interesting questions for the study of conflict management.

First, what is IS?  The Islamic State is a movement that by its name calls itself a government.  By its actions IS is trying to rule over western Syria and eastern Iraq.  By its actions it poses a threat to Syrians and Iraqis who are non Sunni, as well as a potential threat to Turks and Kurds.  Indeed anyone in the general area of their operation and claims of control who does not accept their particular political, religious, and social doctrines is currently in peril of existence.  To become the government over a population within a territory and receive recognition from other states is how the system recognizes/determines what states exist in the system.  Remember that even the U.S. had to receive recognition from other states after declaring independence from the United Kingdom.  Normal procedure to the birth of a state does not include a formal declaration of independence but does historically involve some group of people claiming representation over a larger population and this happens within the framework of a geographic space that is almost guaranteed (we could question this element in the case of Antarctica) to not be without government or population already in place.

The second question is does the U.S. population want IS to become a recognized state?  I would say does the U.S. government want to recognize IS, but the U.S. government is supposed to do what "We the People" desire it to do.  As a population we can have any number of reasons why or why not to desire our government to recognize IS.  Our reasons could be matters of ideology, beliefs about what other governments/populations we support and desire to continue supporting, matters of financial interest, etc.  In determining foreign policy, the U.S. government should, I would argue, consider all of these possible reasons for why to support or not support recognition of IS.  Currently, I would argue, that we have alliance, financial, and security reasons (before even delving into social, religious, etc. reasons) for expecting our government to oppose IS.

The third question is how to operationalize the decision to support/oppose IS as a state.  I would argue, again, that we have chose to oppose IS and our government is responsive to that choice.  For my two cents it is at the point of how to oppose that things get interesting.  How do you fight IS when IS is fighting against another government that we have opposed?  The Assad regime in Syria will be greatly assisted by any and all efforts on our part to destroy IS.  Also, non-state actors we oppose in northern and eastern Syria that are connected to other terrorist bases would be positively impacted by our destroying IS.  So, I await with some interest the game plan about how to thwart IS without assisting other state and non-state actors in the region that we do not wish to support.

Truly Amazing Stuff Happens

Came across this gem while perusing news wires this am.  

For my two cents, an all provident God has saved this man to tell his story and for some greater purpose.  I never cease to be amazed by stories of people who survive ordeals such as the one Ali Hussein Kadhim survived.  I hope that governments around the world will take note and realize the depraved nature of the IS forces.

New Semester, New Issues, Same Old Issues

At last, the new semester starts.  Great, new semesters mean new issues so I do not get bored, for a few months anyway.  However, the new semester brought with it many of the same old issues of starting a new semester, including consuming my time and limiting my ability to blog about what I am reading, doing, thinking.

A quick update on life, went to APSA annual meeting last week.  I survived the great fire of 2014 at the Marriott Wardman Park, and no, I did not light it.  Dan Drezner has an interesting piece on the fire available here.  The conference was good, talked to interesting people about some interesting research.  Talked to more interesting people about grad schools, etc.  Visited with some grads from the department of Politcal Science here at GCC--good to see you all.

Little League Football season is underway, my boys are both playing.  The oldest even earned a starting spot at center for one game this season (they are 3 games in at the moment).  The youngest is still learning that offensive and defensive linemen do not do the same thing.  Great fun in the Saturday afternoon sun, rain, wind that goes on into the early evening hours.

Football in general has started.  Roll Tide Roll !!!!!!!!!!!!!  The Tide did not look absolutely fabulous on defense, but did have two RBs gain over 100 yards on less than 20 carries each and a first time starting QB throw for over 250 yards.  GCC kicks off the season at 1:30 tomorrow vs. Juniata---GO WOLVERINES!!!!

Will try to resume some normal blogging soon.