How to fake a scholarly argument — Abrahms in The Atlantic

March 8, 2023 This article caught my eye because its author, Max Abrahms, charges that there is "frequent disconnect between international-relations scholarship and common espoused views in Western media about the war." Now, I do not know why common views should reflect IR scholarship necessarily, but I do have an issue with the claim that …

How not to reason about the war — Allison in The Washington Post

February 28, 2023 Graham Allison, one of the most cited political scientists and respected analyst, has published an op-ed in the Washington Post that has one scratching one's head in bewilderment. It is a mashup of unexplained and unsupportable assumptions presented as fact, and sloppy reasoning that hides its shortcomings behind rhetorical flourishes. I am …

NYT publishes another call for Ukraine to surrender

February 7, 2023 This morning I woke up to an email from Hein Goemans and a link to an op-ed in The New York Times by Christopher Caldwell. It is yet another call for the US to abandon Ukraine in order to force its surrender to Russia, dressed up as a call for negotiations. I …

Lies, damned lies, and stupidity: Gfoeller & Rundell in Newsweek

December 13, 2022 I have seen my share of very bad analysis and amplified Kremlin propaganda about this war, but the recent article by Gfoeller and Rundell in Newsweek manages to stand out even in this crowd for its mendacity, disinformation, and unadulterated stupidity. The authors assert that "lessons from the U.S. Civil War show …

Washington Post publishes another call to surrender to Putin

December 2, 2022 My happiness of seeing my long-suffering op-ed appear in the Union-Tribune today was destroyed by the Washington Post publishing an outright call to capitulate to Russia by some unknown to me "specialist" named Robert Wright. Comrade Wright has thoughts: "If an enduring peace can be had through negotiation — and we won’t …

Peak dishonesty: Mearsheimer in The New Yorker

November 18, 2022 The Kremlin Posse is out in force: first it was vanden Heuvel, then Walt, and now, of course, Mearsheimer, this time in an interview for The New Yorker. All peddling the same story, which is not surprising -- they are three people but it's the same circle jerk that's been peddling anti-Americanism …

It does not matter what happens, Putin must be given a slice of Ukraine: Walt in FP

November 17, 2022 It really does not matter what happens in this war, Walt and his ilk just want Putin to have Ukraine. The Russians invade (see? we told you! NATO is to blame), Russia captures nearly a third of Ukraine (Kyiv in 3 days, let Putin have it!), Russia stalls (don't help Ukraine, we …

Realism without reality: Kupchan in the NYT

November 3, 2022 Another day, and another shoddy analysis of the Russo-Ukrainian War, with appropriately counter-productive policy prescriptions: this time by Charles Kupchan in the New York Times. As usual, I will note problems with logic and evidence in specific parts of the argument. "The war in Ukraine is dangerously escalating." This is the opening …

When analogies go to war: Lieven on “the West” misreading the Russo-Ukrainian War

November 2, 2022 It has been a while since I wrote a response to a polemic about the war in Ukraine, but this one caught my eye. It's an article by Anatol Lieven published a few days ago in Foreign Policy. In it, the author advances the thesis that the correct analogy for the war …

Russia’s aims/justifications for the war, evolving

May 9, 2022 I have spent some time talking about Russia's changing aims in its war on Ukraine, but perhaps we should take some stock of the evolving justifications for the war. As you will recall, in his declaration of war -- sorry, "special operation" -- Putin talked about Ukraine being a fictitious country, and …