The Quantitative Peace

The Military and Competitive Sports

I missed my last post, but thankfully I'm on top of this week's edition. 

Kyleanne Hunter and Oliver Kaplan have a piece at Political Violence @ a Glance discussing some of the military roots of the biathlon. I've never known much about the sport's history, but it certainly makes sense that its origins are so closely tied to the kinds of security needs that Hunter and Kaplan cite. This was particularly interesting to me as both my wife and I grew up close to Lake Placid, New York. Lake Placid hosted the winter Olympics twice—once in 1932 and again in 1980—and continues to be a destination for tourists and athletes alike. Additionally, the 10th Mountain Division is headquartered about three hours from there at Fort Drum, and they have an armory located in Saranac Lake, New York where I grew up. Two members of the US biathlon team are also from Saranac Lake: Annelies Cook and Tim Burke. 

I went to high school with both Annelies and Tim, and it's great to see them doing so well. Hunter and Kaplan's discussion of the biathlon's history also makes me appreciate the sport and where I grew up a little bit more, and it's neat to think about the sport in terms of how it intersects with my own personal historical/research interests. The idea that specific military assignments can evolve into cooperative/competitive sporting events is really interesting, and I'm sure there's been much more written about it than I'm aware of (which is little). Naturally this makes me wonder what other sports have evolved out of military activities. Archery comes to mind, but I suspect that has competitive origins that are less exclusively military. There are a number of other shooting-related events during the summer games (see here), but again, many of these events are not necessarily exclusively military in origin either. Some of the historical information the link provides, and the descriptions of some of the events, suggest more of a hunting-related background. And many of these events appear to have been phased out, or have only been held once or twice.

It also makes me wonder as to what kind of selection effects might be at work in terms of how these activities evolve into competitive sports. Presumably you need activities that are a mixture of some highly specialized skill, but also something that's not overly secretive. After all, you don't want other states knowing that you have individuals highly trained in a particular task if that will compromise their work in some way. You also need an activity where multiple countries have need of the same type of training or force. As Hunter and Kaplan discuss, multiple countries were deploying similar sorts of forces to patrol remote, mountainous border regions, thereby facilitating the development of some sort of competitive event based on these shared activities. So not every state needs to have a given force, but at least a few do in order for it to be competitive. 

So what are some contemporary examples of the sorts of military activities that could evolve into internationally competitive sports? And how has technological innovation changed the landscape, so to speak, in terms of the pool of potential activities that could evolve in this way? My mind immediately went to some underwater sports, thinking of some combination of navigating an underwater obstacle course, and then performing some task requiring a demonstration of dexterity. This list of underwater sports suggests there are some sports that at least partly resemble these activities. Underwater navigation and underwater target shooting, specifically. This article also indicates that no underwater sports have been a part of the Olympic games. This appears to be due to the International Olympic Committee selecting which games it will grant approval to. Still, these seem like activities that require a high degree of specialization, but are also pursued by enough countries to facilitate competition. 

Another future possibility would be sort sort of aerial drone competition. Competitors might be judged on their ability to take off, perform certain maneuvers, perhaps "paint" a moving target for a given period of time, and then land. Though there are more advanced military variants, less sophisticated and less expensive drone variants are already being experimented with for a variety of purposes (see Amazon's recent talk of drone-based delivery). Though this would certainly emphasize physical performance less than other athletic activities, I'm not sure it's all that different from other activities like shooting, much of which emphasizes hand-eye coordination. This is also technology that more countries are likely to pursue for security/military purposes as time goes on.

If anyone can think of other military activities that might translate into internationally competitive sports, please share in the comments. 

The Dark Knight Rises and the Economic Impact of Bane's Occupation of Gotham

I started working on this post a long time ago and, for whatever reason, never got around to finishing it. So please keep in mind that this was largely written shortly after the film first came out. I should also disclose at the outset that this post will contain spoilers, so if there is some sort of unbelievably powerful force that has kept you from seeing this fantastic movie, please be warned. For those still interested, there's more after the jump.

How Do You Review?

I’ve been sending articles out for review for a few years now, and I’ve also had the opportunity to review several papers for journals. Having been through each side of the ordeal, I’ve begun to form some opinions on the peer review process as a whole. This is something other political scientists have written extensively about. For example, Michael Allen recently addressed the issue on this blog, and Nathan Jensen recently wrote an interesting piece about one of his paper’s journeys through the political science peer review process.  However, some of my recent experiences have prompted me to think about the process from the vantage point of the reviewer. Most of what I can recall reading on the subject tends to focus on the process as a whole, or discusses the process from the point of view of the submitter, rather than the reviewer. So I thought I’d reflect on my experiences and what practices I’ve tried to incorporate into my reviews.

1. Take reviews seriously: This might seem like an obvious point, and it's one Jensen makes in his post, but for anyone who has been through the process you know you can’t always take this for granted. We’ve all gotten terrible reviews in some way shape or form—some of them are condescending in their tone, some of them seem to address topics or ideas that are completely irrelevant to the paper in question (even after much reflection), some of them are incredibly short, and some of them are just wrong. And these points just concern content. Some reviewers just don’t respond to review requests from journals, and others don’t seem to get around to the review until several months after the paper was submitted.

For the most part, all of these things are well within the power of the reviewer to control. I say “for the most part” because sometimes comments or suggestions made in a review may be wrong, but I’d like to believe reviewers are not dishing out incorrect information on purpose. And maybe sometimes people just aren’t communicating their thoughts well, thereby leaving the reader with no idea as to how those thoughts apply to their paper. Also, sometimes life does get in the way, causing unexpected delays. But, quite often, you as a reviewer can control these sorts of factors.

The review process can and does put a burden on journal editors and reviewers—there’s no question about that. As Jensen notes in his post, senior scholars in particular can be swamped with review requests. But reviewing is probably one area in which scholars can have the greatest impact on the professional fortunes of other scholars. And I don’t mean to imply that reviewers should fail to reject a paper just to provide a boost to someone else’s career. Not every paper deserves to be accepted or given a revise and resubmit, but editors rely to varying degrees on the advice given to them by reviewers. We also know that there are plenty of hard working people out there who face rejection after rejection, many of which are for really silly reasons. If you’re going to reject a paper, the author deserves to know why. A flippant one-line response is not helpful to anyone.

I typically try to get my reviews back within a month or two, if possible. I'm still pretty early on in my career, at a point where not many people know much of my work, so it's probably pretty easy for me to meet this goal as compared to more senior scholars. On the one occasion that I've known in advance that I wasn't able to get reviews back in a timely manner, I’ve communicated this to the editor. It’s easy to blow this responsibility off—I mean, this isn’t your work, right? You are taking time away from your own busy schedule to review someone else’s work. Still, more likely than not you are asking others to do the same for you. 

2. Be clear and detailed: Along the lines of the previous point, a lack of detail in a review doesn’t help anyone. I once received reviews on a paper that ran the gamut from a single sentence saying to publish the article as is, to a rather lengthy, and in no uncertain terms, reject. As nice as it was to see that someone enjoyed your paper so much that they suggested accepting it, I’m not sure that such a brief reply helps. Truthfully, some of the more lengthy and critical reviews provided me with ideas for changes that I really do believe made the paper a better one.  

More often than not, papers are going to be rejected, and reviewers should know this. Even if you like a paper so much that you want to see it accepted as is, or with minor revisions, there will usually be at least one other reviewer on a given paper, and it is quite possible that this other reviewer will have a very different take. No paper is perfect, so it can be helpful to know why a reviewer believes that the strengths of a paper outweigh any weaknesses. Especially when other reviewers are less supportive. It’s also helpful to be able to compare reviews to see if there are any common themes/complaints that are popping up across readers. Given the high rate of rejection, I think it’s important to remember that it’s not really just about the one or two reviews that the author receives on a given round of submission. Setting aside for a moment the fact that one person can get the same paper to review over the course of that paper’s journey through the review process, if reviewers are clearly raising the same concerns through multiple rounds of reviews that might be a pretty good signal that something needs to be changed. Sometimes these sorts of things are easy to spot from one set of reviews, and at other times they’re not, but the authors can’t tell if the reviewer doesn’t provide the detail. Given the high probability of rejection, if you, as a reviewer, think that a paper's strengths outweigh its weaknesses, a failure to highlight those very features could result in them being erased in future rounds of reviews.

I’ve gotten to the point where I offer a brief statement at the beginning of the review in which I explicitly state whether or not I’m recommending acceptance, rejection, etc. I also try to offer a brief summation of what factors I’m considering in making this recommendation. I also try as hard as possible to not waver in my judgment—if you have “mixed feelings” or you “could be convinced” that a paper could be worthy of publication, don’t try to pass the buck to the editor and the other reviewers. Just recommend an R&R and move on. Nothing says you have to accept the second or third round of revisions, but given how competitive the review process is, this kind of waffling is effectively the same thing as rejecting the paper outright, and it's probably not all that helpful to the author.

Beyond the introduction, I also try to clearly identify each individual point that I want to address. And yes, this often involves an enumerated list and/or bullet points. To some extent I think this is just a matter of style. However, it can be difficult in a meandering review to discern the exact points that the reviewer wants you to address, and as much as it is the author’s responsibility to take their revisions seriously, it is also the reviewer’s responsibility to make clear those points that need addressing. Furthermore, we hold ourselves to a pretty high standard when it comes to organizing our thoughts and arguments in the context of an academic paper, so why shouldn’t it bethe same in reviews? It is, after all, all part of the same, broader, knowledge-generating process.

3. Offer constructive criticism: Again, this seems like an obvious one, but you can’t take it for granted. We spend an awful lot of time in college and graduate school learning/practicing how to pick apart other people’s arguments. So while pointing out the flaws in someone’s article is certainly an important part of the review process, I also think it’s equally important to be able to point out its strengths.

For the most part, my experience on this point leads me to believe that most reviewers are pretty good about this. However, I have received reviews that are highly critical, with little in the way of constructive commentary. "Complainy" might be the most appropriate made-up adjective to describe these reviews. If you as a reviewer think that there are some deficiencies with an argument or method, you need to spell that out for the author. If such deficiencies were clear to all, then they probably wouldn’t be in the paper to begin with. Further, I think the degree to which any flaw is damning to the overall article is contingent upon the availability of feasible alternatives. If you don’t like a measure that the author uses, don’t just complain and then move on. At the very least, ask the author to clarify whether or not superior measures are actually available. If you are aware of one that you believe is superior, then please share it and explain why you believe it to be better suited to the analysis at hand. Again, this is a collaborative venture, and part of the review process is being able to access the knowledge of other scholars.

I would also say that personally, as a junior scholar, I really do appreciate a good review when I get one. Some people have clearly taken the time to think about my work, and I appreciate it. As I said before, I’ve been fortunate enough to get some great feedback that I have subsequently incorporated into my work, and I do think the work is better for it. Criticism accompanied by constructive feedback and advice generally seems to be more helpful than merely pointing out the faults of a particular project.

4. Be transparent when it comes to your own limitations: As I stated above, sometimes reviewer comments are just wrong. Sometimes this is an honest mistake, and the reviewer is trying to offer sincere advice or criticism, but just gets it wrong. But, as an author this can be incredibly annoying—particularly if some factually incorrect statement could have been a major contributing factor to your paper’s rejection. If I’m reviewing a paper and I’m unclear about a measure, statistic, or method, I typically try to be entirely transparent when it comes to my own ignorance on the matter. Now I'm pretty confident in the substantive and methodological training that I received in graduate school, but this doesn’t mean I’ve mastered every analytical approach or estimation technique. Nor does it mean that I can’t learn even more about those topics and methods that I have been exposed to. Indeed, I’ve learned a lot over the past seven years, but as this SMBC comic so nicely conveys, sometimes expanding your knowledge base can raise new questions. So, when you think you don’t know, or you know you don’t know, just say, “I don’t know.” Feel free to even pose a question on the issue to the author in your review. After all, there is a certain irony in the idea that certain people, having devoted themselves to an industry that (ostensibly) is based on the discovery and accumulation of knowledge, would be so reluctant to utter those three words.

I'm sure senior scholars may have a different take on some of these issues. As I said, I'm still very early on in my career, so I'm not facing the same kinds of pressures from as many sources as they are. I don't have to deal with dissertation committees or a never ending stream of review requests. Still, I don't mind reviews all that much. They can provide me with some insights into what people in my general area of expertise are working on, and they often lead me to read works that I've not previously noticed or thought much about. But perhaps my views will change given time. 

 

 

 

 

 

History vs. Political Science? Temporally Constrained Studies and Generalizability.

So this is my first post back from a prolonged break. As I mentioned in a previous—albeit brief—entry, I’ve had a busy but enjoyable summer. I got married, defended my dissertation at the beginning of July, and my wife and I have since relocated to Tuscaloosa, Alabama where I’ve accepted a position as a post-doc. We’re both pretty excited about the move and we’re really enjoying ourselves. Having grown up in the Adirondacks in upstate New York, summers that extend beyond a two month window have a certain appeal. And now that we’re getting settled in down here, I’m slowly getting back into a routine for work. I’ve been sitting on some papers for a while now that I’m finally turning my attention to, and it’s my experience with one of these papers that motivated me to write this particular post.

I’ve been thinking recently about how we view the place that history holds in our discipline. Now, I suspect there is an initial reaction that many people (particularly quantitative political scientists) are likely to have to the word “history,” and I’m guessing that is probably one of derision. It’s not that political scientists necessarily dislike history or historians, but this reaction is conceivable given that these disciplines are marked by some important epistemological differences, and many quantitative political scientists are often taught from the outset to avoid relying on single cases when drawing more generalizable lessons and conclusions (with good reason). When we think of historians, it is often in the context of someone who provides an excruciating level of detail about one particular event, and then tries to explain its origins and broader implications/lessons. My issue is not in fact with this particular point—as social scientists, we want to be able to assess just how generalizable the relationships that we’re looking at really are. We are typically interested in exploring systematic relationships, trends, and patterns that hold over broader periods of time and apply to a wide range of actors than are many historical studies. So to be clear from the outset, I am not advocating that quantitative political science should attempt to emulate the professional approach or methods that many historians employ.

My issue, really, stems more from the assertion by many quantitative political scientists that a study that is time bound in some way is “history”. This does not apply to all political scientists, but it’s been my experience that reviewers will often look at the temporal range of a study and dismiss its if it is explicitly bound to a particular period of time that does not overlap with the present (allowing a few years of slack on just what constitutes the “present”, that is). Indeed, some seem to be under the impression that it’s not even political science if the gap between the time period covered by a study and the present is sufficiently large. For example, let’s say I’m interested in understanding the domestic determinants of pre-hegemonic US foreign policy behavior. In this particular instance, there are theoretical reasons to suppose that the behavior of the US could be different in this time period as compared to later periods. Let’s further suppose that I have theoretical expectations regarding the relationship between X and Y, and I write a paper on this relationship for the period between 1900 and 1945. I would not at all be surprised to receive reviews rejecting the paper at least in part because the reviewer(s) questioned the study’s broader relevance, given that it’s bound to a 46-year time period.  

I think these sorts of reactions expose some problems and some important assumptions that we often make as political scientists. First, not every study necessarily needs to neatly map onto the present time period—or any other arbitrarily chosen time period. There is nothing inherently unscientific about the notion that certain relationships or phenomena can only be found in a particular temporal context. I’m fairly certain people have not abandoned the study of dinosaurs simply because we no longer see T-Rex roaming around the countryside. And our field is rife with examples of research, the temporal context of which is fundamentally limited in some way. Scholars of American politics provide perhaps the clearest example of an entire sub-field that cannot be held to apply to a period extending back beyond 1789. The sub-field of international relations is similarly dependent in many ways upon the existence of the modern nation-state, which we typically trace back to 1648, and some of the most widely used only go back to 1815. Do we consider our endeavors in these areas “history” because our studies are bound to these time periods?

Also on this point, there seems to be a double standard when we consider the broader implications of our research. Taking my example from earlier, reviewers will commonly ask how the study of US foreign policy between 1900 and 1945 is relevant for today, but rarely do we consider how a study of US foreign policy from 1945–2013 informs our understanding of the 1900–1945 period. It strikes me that this is (1) perpetually moving the goalpost, and (2) that it may be the wrong goalpost. This may seem like an odd point, but what it “relevant” by current standards is something that obviously changes on a day-to-day basis, and it’s a standard that says nothing about the quality of a paper as a piece of social science, or whether or not a paper helps us to understand a particular question about a given set of relationships. Really, this only represents our own innate temporal biases, but it says nothing about how scientific a piece of research is.  If the goal is truly generalizable theoretical and empirical knowledge, in a temporal sense, then this kind of consideration should apply just as much as thinking about how a study informs our understanding of the present. Conducting a study with the purpose of expanding our knowledge of systematic relationships between societal actors is not synonymous with expanding our knowledge of systematic relationships between societal actors for the purposes of informing our understanding of the present.

And it’s not as though we don’t attempt to deal with “unique” time periods and cases in our current research. However, it’s often the case that the manner in which we deal with these cases is fairly crude. For example, we might include a dummy variable in a model to control for a time period (or characteristics of a time period) that we believe to be unique in some way. Bipolarity during the Cold War, for example. Similarly, we might include a dummy variable in our model to control for states that we believe to be unique—depending on our topic, it might be a state like Israel, Egypt, the US, or maybe a group of states like the “Great Powers”. Sometimes we might also include an interaction term to account for how the effect of one variable might be conditional upon another. 

But these approaches are not always appropriate methods for dealing with the questions that we want to answer. Dummying out a particular time period is only going to tell us whether or not a given time period or group has a higher or lower intercept than the alternative time period or group. This approach is also often atheoretical. For example, we might have a belief that a time period is somehow different, but cannot fully articulate why or how. Similarly, interaction terms with a variable capturing a particular time period, for example, are implicitly suggesting that a given relationship is time-bound in some way. However, these approaches don’t allow us to examine whether or not the remaining variables in our models also have different effects in the context of a particular time period. For example, maybe we’re interested in whether or not both regime type and economic interests have a different effect on conflict propensity during the Cold War as compared to after. This, then, would suggest that maybe splitting our sample into two time periods is the more appropriate means of addressing our question. In fact, the notion that we would dummy out a particular time period because we suspect that it’s “different” in some way, but don’t exactly know how, is exactly the reason why we would want to conduct a study that is temporally bound in the first place.

This points to another issue. I think these biases are somewhat rooted in, and reinforced by, our relatively limited access to “good” data. Almost every journal article contains passages wherein the authors attempt to assert the broader relevance of their work. In the case of international relations, it is also quite common for these articles to then proceed to test their arguments using data that is only available for the post-World War II period. Sometimes, these tests will use data for a single country—often the US. Yet the arguments the authors make are often asserted as applicable to a broader set of countries than just the US, and rarely do such papers even address their own temporal limitations. We implicitly accept the generalizability of papers in which the tests of broader theoretical arguments rely on data from an incredibly narrow and often unrepresentative set of states, but push back when a study openly acknowledges its more narrow temporal confines. Why should we automatically assume that such studies inform our understanding of international relations and state behavior in the 1800s?

This is understandable. Particularly in the field of international relations, the availability of data is exponentially greater in the post-World War II period than before. Commonly used indicators like GDP and trade either don’t exist, are often missing, or are highly inaccurate for earlier time periods. Accordingly, many of our studies focus on this 50–60 year time period—not because it somehow matters more, or because we are interested only in this particular time period, but because this is the period for which we have access to relatively abundant data sources. But even in the post-World War II time period some of the data we use can still be of questionable reliability. Accordingly, when we see an article that focuses on a much earlier time period it sticks out like a sore thumb, and reviewers will often proceed to subject that paper to a different standard than other papers—a standard that really has nothing to do with the execution of the paper or the soundness of its argument.

This knee-jerk reaction against studies that are temporally bound in some way can also have deleterious consequences for our ability to understand the world. Finding that a particular relationship between two variables holds only for a given time period can reveal new and interesting questions. For example, we have evidence that Republicans and Democrats have switched their positions on military spending over the course of the Cold War. If we were looking for a relationship between Republicans and higher military spending over the entirety of this time period, we might erroneously conclude that there is no relationship. Alternatively, the finding that this relationship is temporally bound in some way raises new questions: Why did they switch? What caused the switch? Etc.

If our goal is to continuously develop and refine our understanding of how the world works then we must think carefully about the standards we set. If that standard is that we must only examine relationships that hold for centuries at a time, then we are imposing some very serious limitations on ourselves as researchers. These kinds of “big” systematic relationships are clearly important, but the march of scientific progress is not marked exclusively in these terms. 

Update

Just a quick update. Three months ago I said we would resume posting later in the spring. Naturally, deadlines are made to be pushed back. It's been a pretty big and glorious summer, though, so I hope our reader(s) will excuse us for the prolonged absence. I'm happy to say that I got married in June (at a zoo, no less) and have just turned in the final copy of my dissertation to the Graduate School, and most of us are in, or have recently completed, the process of moving to new jobs. I could do without the packing, but the road trip will be fun. Anyway, we're hoping that by the fall we'll be back in the swing of things. 

"Kountry" Package for STATA

I may be late to the ball on this one, but in discussing a project that we're working on, fellow QP blogger Michael Allen recently pointed me to the "kountry" package for STATA. The package was created by Rafal Raciborski for the purposes of facilitating the creation of country codes and switching between codes provided by different sources (e.g. COW, IMF, etc.). The cite for the STATA Journal piece corresponding to the package is below:

 Raciborski, R. 2008. kountry: A Stata utility for merging cross-country data from
        multiple sources.  Stata Journal 8: 390-400

Anyone that has worked with country codes knows that this can be a pretty big pain. I've used it once so far, but it seems to work pretty well. Others may have been aware of this before now and might be aware of any bugs, problems, etc. If so, please add to the comments section any notes that you might want to make on the matter.

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On another note, I just wanted to reiterate the earlier message that posting will continue to be sparse for a while longer. While we would all very much like to be blogging more regularly—especially in light of the recent debates, and the final upcoming foreign policy debate—everyone is currently engaged with other professional responsibilities. I believe this will prove to be time is well-spent, though, as everyone seems to be keeping busy and is pretty productive. 

NSF Funding Amendment, Part II

Erik Voeten at the Monkey Cage with an update on the amendment that cuts NSF funding for political science programs. A version of the amendment passed the House with a vote of 218-208. You can see the breakdown of the votes here (thanks for Erik for so conveniently providing the link to the votes). Erik also notes a couple of important points: 1) This is not the end of the issue, and 2) No other discipline was singled out in the same way as political science. 

Other interesting facts:

1. Jeff Flake has a BA in International Relations (see his official House bio page).
2. Jeff Flake has an MA in Political Science (see his official House bio page).
3. As described above, political science appears to have been singled out. In 2011 political science programs were awarded approximately $21 million dollars. Keep in mind these are awarded amounts, and do not reflect the actual amount spent in a given year. The Duck of Minerva makes reference to actual annual expenditures being something closer to $9 million. 
4. Economics programs were awarded $55 million in 2011. If we assume a similar pattern applies, that means econ programs are getting somewhere around $23 million per year in actual appropriations.
5. Sociology programs were awarded approximately $15.5 million, working out to be about $6.7million per year.

Political science awards do not even come close to what economics programs are awarded each year. Consequently, I'm not entirely sure what the fiscal justification for this cut can be. To single out only political science in this way would seem to indicate the gripe is more substantive than fiscal. If not, then why not make a flat cut of 10%-20% across all BSES programs? Spread the cuts evenly? You could cut the annual econ awards by half and that would be the equivalent of cutting all of the annual political science awards AND some of the sociology program. So, what gives?

There is probably a better/more efficient source for summary information than what I used, but you can search NSF records of programs and awards here. My estimates of yearly expenditures are extremely rough. Again, it's important to note that these are awarded amounts, not what is actually spent each year. There is going to be overlap from one year to the next as programs are often funded over the course of a couple of years. There is also some degree of overlap between programs as well. Accordingly, the figures provided should be taken as rough guidelines/comparisons, as well as with a healthy grain of salt. If anyone has a link to actual annual expenditure statistics by program, as opposed to awards, please share. I did a quick search this morning but didn't find anything more helpful than this particular source. 

Stuff is still happening in (the sequel)...

I really don't know how many times I'll be able to use that title, but given that the American audience has become so distracted by the Washington debt ceiling battle, I decided to check on some old favorites and post a quick update on goings on elsewhere.  

Libya:  Apparently Libyan rebels have made "significant" gains in the past week, taking control of some key cities on the way to Tripoli.  NATO planes have damaged or destroyed over 150 targets in the past week alone.  However, who really knows what qualifies as a "military target" for these purposes.  Sources in the article also indicate that some of Ghadaffi's forces have begun consolidating in Tripoli and have begun removing their uniforms, apparently gearing up for a transition in tactics.  It will be interesting to see what the next month brings.  

Syria:  It sounds like the body count in Syria is continuing to rise steadily.  Syrian security forces are apparently combating "armed gangs" in an effort to protect the people.  This includes firing into Palestinian refugee camps as well it seems.  The article also mentions a Youtube video that has surfaced, purportedly showing some pretty graphic scenes from the crackdown.  I've not seen it, but it sounds pretty unsettling.  

Bahrain:  It sounds as though things have quieted down for the time being, but Bahrain is still dealing with the fallout from the previous protests and crackdowns.  Quiet doesn't necessarily mean good, however, as the BBC is reporting that hundreds of people are still in jail and there are reports of widespread torture.  Not terribly surprising, but it's important to keep in mind the fact that the violence carries on even once the streets have cleared.    

War Songs

Blogging has been lite lately, but in response to Phil's subtle nudges, I've decided to offer up my own list of war songs.  I'm approaching this from a more general angle of "war songs" as opposed to songs that are strictly anti-war.  These songs are not necessarily supposed to reflect any particular personal views of war--they just happen to be drawn from the general body of music that I grew up listening to.  That said, there are most certainly some common themes.  

As a general rule I will list songs by song title and then artist.  Some of these will probably be songs/bands that many people are familiar with, but others less so (as an aside, it was almost a sport in high school to seek out rare and obscure records--not because the music was particularly good, but that's how you win, duh).

1. The Trooper -- Iron Maiden: (Song link)  Everything about this song is amazing--the narrative, the guitar work--everything.  The guitar riffs in particular are simply classic.  But aside from the musical component, the lyrics are especially good, as they tell a graphic and coherent story.  Furthermore, this story takes us back a ways to a time when we're talking about fighting with muskets and cavalry charges.  I mean just look at the imagery!
2. Aces High -- Iron Maiden: (Song link)  Yes, another Maiden joint.  They're fantastic.  Anywho, unlike the Trooper, Aces High is all about dog fights.  The guitar work is again phenomenal, having this sort of frantic quality to it that matches up with the song's lyrics quite well.  The chorus serves as a nice foil to the rest of the song and gives the listener a sense that they are almost soaring through the air.  
3. World War II -- English Dogs: (Song link)  The English Dogs made a transition shortly after this song toward more of a punk-metal style, some of which is available on the iTunes.  Nowhere near the more poetic and technical styling of an Iron Maiden tune, this song has nevertheless always stuck with me.  I think what's always fascinated me about this song is the context in which it was written.  During the early to mid 1980s many other English punk bands were (as the song suggests) singing about the perils of nuclear war and the impending nuclear apocalypse.  This seems sort of obvious given the backdrop of the Cold War at the time.  Alternatively, this song points out that World War II was a pretty hellish experience, and in so doing, sort of asks the question, "what more do you want?"  
4. War Ensemble -- Slayer: (Song link)  This is probably one of their more aggressive/famous songs, and the connection is pretty obvious.  Their lyrics are also incredibly graphic, which I think is appropriate given that war is a pretty miserable thing.  We don't need to experience it directly to know that it's not something that we should seek out for enjoyment.  That said, we're surrounded by music, movies, video games, etc., that try to find the poetry or excitement in an otherwise hellish experience, and I think this song speaks to the far darker aspects of war.  Like Iron Maiden, but in a totally different way, old-school Slayer has a way about them when it comes to evoking a particular type of imagery.  Honorable mention should also go to "Hallowed Point" (Song link) which is also on the Seasons in the Abyss album.  While this song is not directly about war, I think it definitely relates quite closely.  
5. Generals -- GBH: (Song link)  Another song that has stuck with me for a long time.  This song speaks to a few different points, but I think the most important of them are these ideas of the exploitation and manipulation of the common foot soldier, and asking these questions about why/how an individual is told to fight.  The song ends by raising these questions of the human costs that are incurred, and combined with the chorus, I think does a successful job at linking these themes of serving some abstract and higher cause with the aforementioned micro-level themes of the human suffering and costs (of those on the winning side, might I add).  
6. Let's Start a War -- The Exploited: (Song link)  This speaks to some of the same themes as the previous song, but I think it more directly speaks to the different costs that are incurred by members of different classes in society.  I've never been a huge fan of the Exploited, but this is another song that I've always remembered.
7. Viva la Revolution -- The Adicts: (Song link)  Not so much about war in an interstate sense, but more about social upheaval and civil conflict.  Still, a great song and perhaps appropriate given the current state of things around the world.  This band was a great one in large part because of their style--they drew heavily on clockwork orange imagery for the band's (and especially the lead singer's) look.  While not as graphic as the other songs, this was just a really fun one. 

I'm sure there are probably some songs that I'm leaving out, so this list may be revised if I think of anything.  My thanks to Phil for the idea--I had a lot of fun thinking about this idea and sifting through my music collection.  And as I mentioned before, some of these songs don't necessarily have a particular message about war itself, but when you comb through this stuff it just reminds you how influential warfare has been in shaping the musical world.

Evolution, Secrecy, and Bureaucracies

This sort of reminds me of this.  Really one passage in particular, I suppose:

We tend to marvel at the Darwinian perfection of organisms now, saying 'this must have been highly selected for, it's a tuned and sophisticated machine'.  In fact, it's a mess - there's so much unnecessary complexity.

Bear with me.  The preceding passage is from an article I found on the BBC regarding flaws in proteins that are believed to be linked to more complex biological structure emerging.  While not directly related to Walt's post on bureaucracies, the passage quoted above just sort of struck me as appropriate.

Walt's basic argument is that America's foreign policy, being one that he generally describes as imperialistic, could not be sustained without a large and complex bureaucratic organism that can manage foreign policy activity.  These bureaucracies, Walt argues, are more prone to secrecy because it makes the perpetuation of American foreign policy easier.  Basically, secrecy allows bureaucratic actors to pursue their own policy preferences and use the tactics and strategies that they want to use.  Without secrecy the public may find out about the reprehensible policies that bureaucrats are employing and put a stop to it.

Like the preceding passage, Walt's argument seems to assume that the functions of the bureaucracy are finely tuned and selected for because they better enable the bureaucracy to do its job.  The first mistake here is treating the national security bureaucracy (as he refers to it) as a monolithic entity that controls foreign policy.  Indeed, one of the core elements of bureaucratic politics theory is the existence of multiple bureaucratic agencies, all with their own particular mission/mandate, and that are often "competing" with one another to influence the direction of foreign policy.  These theoretical models often focus on the individuals within these bureaucratic agencies, arguing that membership in a particular agency, previous experience, and one's rank within the organization all determine views and preferences.  It may be more appropriate to say that these factors partially shape preferences, and partially determine the extent to which an individual can pursue their preferences.  The "previous baggage" component suggests that preferences are partially determined by factors other than an individual affiliation with a particular agency.  Nevertheless, bureaucratic politics theory assumes that these individuals will seek to enhance their own standing and, as a result, the standing of their organization within the broader organizational context (i.e. the Pentagon/DOD will try to maximize its influence within the broader foreign policymaking community).    

Now I don't doubt that some of these bureaucratic actors enjoy having a certain level of secrecy associated with their work, as Walt suggests.  This surely opens up opportunities to do things that would not otherwise be possible if these actors were subject to a higher level of public scrutiny.  But I think one mistake is thinking that this is all completely deliberate.  The redundancy of bureaucratic functions likely accounts for a substantial amount of the secrecy that exists in the American foreign policymaking "apparatus."  Since there are multiple organizations all competing for influence within the system there is a strong incentive to not share information with those actors/organizations that are perceived to be your competitors.  The FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, and other intelligence gathering agencies are in many ways rivals when it comes to gathering intelligence.  Indeed this was argued to be a major problem in the wake of the September 11 attacks.  The solution?  Create the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence to oversee much of the broader intelligence and security community.  

The result?  The CIA, who had arguably been top-dog in this field prior to the creation of the DNI is still far more entrenched in the national security bureaucracy than the newly created DNI.  This is largely due to path dependence and the fact that the CIA had 60 years to establish its own contacts and relations with other agencies.  Again we see the CIA in a position where there are strong incentives to jealously guard any agency-exclusive information in an effort to stave off the DNI's growing influence.  The CIA is therefore in a position to undertake its own operations and only report successes once they have become, well, successful.  Failures of course should never see the light of day.

Now this may sound a lot like what Walt is proposing.  However, the major difference is that a great deal of secrecy is introduced into the system as a byproduct of other actions---not because a high level of secrecy is optimal for the pursuit of some foreign policy goal.  This secrecy also exists in an intra-governmental fashion, and is not simply an issue of external transparency.  Again, as we have seen over the past few years, and as many folks have argued, the refusal to share information between government agencies has resulted in a decidedly suboptimal system for ensuring our national security.

The current bureaucratic structure has not evolved, its characteristics have not been selected for, because it is the best suited system for pursuing national security.  Certainly policymakers, while delegating substantial powers to the actors within these agencies, can face very negative consequences when bad policies or tactics are uncovered, so internal transparency is not necessarily desirable for political leaders either.  The creation of the DNI and Homeland Security have definitely increased the size of the national security bureaucracy, and have probably increased the level of secrecy in the system, but I don't think this is the intent.  These agencies were created in an effort to facilitate communication between other agencies in the system and to keep political leaders better informed.  While I don't totally disagree with Walt's assessment, I think there are probably some more nuanced organizational factors that contribute a great deal to our understanding of why we see the structures and behavior that we see.