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"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
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Category Archives: International Relations
The Architecture and Its Guild: How ASIL Reads Trump
On his show today, Mark Halperin wondered about Trump’s approval ratings at the American Society of International Law, which meets this week. The question has a structural answer before it has an empirical one. The field selects for men whose … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, International Law, International Relations
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Randall Schweller & The Anarchy Within
Randall Schweller was born in 1958 and earned his undergraduate degree in political science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1984. He then moved to Columbia University for graduate training, completing his M.A. in 1990, … Continue reading
Posted in International Relations
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Ten Convenient Beliefs For International Relations Scholars
International relations scholars believe their field, whose theoretical frameworks, whose empirical research programs, and whose policy relevance claims have made it one of the most institutionally influential academic disciplines in the social sciences, produces reliable knowledge about how states behave, … Continue reading
Posted in International Relations
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The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for Power in the History and Practice of International Humanitarian Law
Nobody in international humanitarian law says they want power over the definition of legitimate violence. They say they protect the vulnerable, humanize war, or fill gaps in the law. That is the move. Interpretive authority is a status claim wrapped … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Amanda Alexander, Human Rights, International Law, International Relations
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Stephen Turner and International Relations: A Strategically External Observer
There is no Turner school of International Relations in any conventional sense, and Turner himself would probably find the idea faintly amusing. His entry into IR was, by his own account in his 2022 memoir Mad Hazard: A Life in … Continue reading
Posted in International Relations, Stephen Turner
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Decoding The Atlantic Council
The Atlantic Council began in 1961 as a civilian support structure for NATO. American policymakers worried that the United States and Western Europe might drift apart as Europe rebuilt economically after the war. The Council gave military officers, diplomats, and … Continue reading
Posted in International Relations
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Decoding Nadia Schadlow
9:59 AMNadia Schadlow is a strategist of consolidation. While many on the current American right focus on disruption, she focuses on the architecture that remains once the dust settles. Her core argument is that the primary failure of the post-Cold … Continue reading
Posted in International Relations
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Decoding Ian Bremmer
Ian Bremmer founded Eurasia Group, the first major firm to brand itself explicitly as a geopolitical risk consultancy. His clients are multinational corporations, hedge funds, banks, and large institutional investors. This sets him apart from the typical think tank expert, … Continue reading
Posted in International Relations
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Decoding The Just Security Institute
Written with AI: The role of Just Security within the national security ecosystem extends into the granular management of professional reputations and the long-term archiving of dissent. While it functions as a coordination hub, it also operates as a prestige … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, International Law, International Relations, War
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It’s Hard & Often Pointless To Regulate War
Carl Schmitt argued that law cannot control politics in moments of existential conflict. His famous formulation, “sovereign is he who decides on the exception,” means that real authority belongs to whoever can suspend normal rules when survival is at stake. … Continue reading
Posted in Carl Schmitt, Human Rights, International Law, International Relations
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