Archive for June, 2010

After 59 years of marriage:

Meanwhile Germany and France, the two countries on whose close and strategic cooperation the entire EU system depends, have opposite views about how the current crisis should be addressed. The French think the Germans should pay through the nose to keep the euro going while increasing the German government deficit to bolster the European economy. The Germans think the French should shut up.

Walter Russell Mead: G-20 Fiddles; World Burns.

I never thought I’d live to see this day!

John Ging, director of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza:

It’s an unbearable situation here at the moment, and it needs to be solved very quickly. It’s a Palestinian problem, made by Palestinians, and causing Palestinian suffering. So let’s have a Palestinian solution.

Yahoo! News: Palestinians must ease Gaza electricity crisis: UN.

See also: Noah Pollak – International Outrage, Please!

There are many sources of fear in world politics — terrorist attacks, natural disasters, climate change, financial panic, nuclear proliferation, ethnic conflict, and so forth. Surveying the cultural zeitgeist, however, it is striking how an unnatural problem has become one of the fastest-growing concerns in international relations. I speak, of course, of zombies.

The best (and most hilarious) introduction to the theories of international relations I’ve ever read. Daniel W. Drezner on Zombies, Realists, Liberals and Neocons:

What follows is an attempt to satiate the ever-growing hunger for knowledge about how zombies will influence the future shape of the world. But this is a difficult exercise: Looking at the state of international relations theory, one quickly realizes the absence of consensus about the best way to think about global politics. There are multiple paradigms that attempt to explain international relations, and each has a different take on how political actors can be expected to respond to the living dead.

I. The No-Drama School of Zombie Realpolitik:

How would the introduction of flesh-eating ghouls affect world politics? The realist answer is simple if surprising: International relations would be largely unaffected. Although some would see in a zombie invasion a new existential threat to the human condition, realists would be unimpressed by the claim that the zombies’ arrival would lead to any radical change in human behavior. To them, a plague of the undead would merely echo older plagues, from the Black Death of the 14th century to the 1918 influenza pandemic. To paraphrase Thucydides, the realpolitik of zombies is that the strong will do what they can and the weak must suffer devouring by reanimated, ravenous corpses.

II. Unite-to-Fight-Zombie Liberals:

And what would liberals do after a ghoul invasion? Provided that the initial spread of zombies did not completely wipe out governments, the liberal expectation would be that an international counterzombie regime could make significant inroads into the problem. Given the considerable public-good benefits of wiping the undead from the face of the Earth, significant policy coordination seems a likely response.

The liberal paradigm would predict an outcome that would not be perfect and would be quite vulnerable to political criticism over time — much like the European Union. That said, the system would also be expected to function well enough to ward off a total zombie apocalypse. Zombie flare-ups would no doubt take place. Quasi-permanent humanitarian counterzombie missions, perhaps under United Nations auspices, would likely be necessary in failed states.

III. Neoconservatism and the Axis of Evil Dead:

The neoconservative policy response to an undead uprising would be simple and direct. To paraphrase Robert Kagan, humans are from Earth, and zombies are from hell. Neither accommodation nor recognition would be sustainable options in the face of the zombie threat. Instead, neocons would recommend an aggressive and militarized response to ensure human hegemony. Rather than wait for the ghouls to come to them, they would pursue offensive policy options that take the fight to the undead. A pre-emptive strike against zombies would, surely, be a war against evil itself.

A must read. Daniel W. Drezner at Foreign Policy: Night of the Living Wonks. Toward an international relations theory of zombies.

UPDATE: Marco Werman interviews Daniel W. Drezner on the Zombie Menace (Podcast/mp3): >Click<

UPDATE II: According to Daniel Nixon, the zombie wars will make the United States more powerful than ever. Foreign Policy: America’s Triumph Over the Zombie Horde

Feeds!

Vor einiger Zeit habe ich die Feed-Funktion des Blogs äußerst erfolgreich zerschossen. Worauf mich erstaunlich viele Leser hingewiesen haben, was mich natürlich auch ein wenig gefreut hat. Resonanz! Weniger erfreulich gingen dagegen meine Versuche aus, das technische Unheil wieder zu beseitigen. HTML ist bekanntlich die Sprache des Antichristen. Mindestens.

Dankenswerterweise hat Daniel Fallenstein mich heute darauf hingewiesen, dass einige Subfeeds weiterhin funktionieren. Was wiederum – nach einigen Bastelversuchen – einen vollständigen Feed via Feedburner ermöglichte. Die Lösung ist zwar nicht besonders elegant, aber sie funktioniert technisch einwandfrei.

Kurz und gut: Den Feed dieses Blogs kann man jetzt hier abonnieren.

Die Lesempfehlungen aus der Sidebar kann man weiterhin direkt bei Delicious abonnieren, außerdem werden Blogeinträge, Leseempfehlungen und ein Haufen Nebensächlichkeiten auch regelmäßig von mir getwittert.

Weitaus wichtiger als alle Feeds dieser Welt: Es ist Sommeranfang. Vergesst das langweilige Internet, all die redundanten Feeds und genießt lieber das gute Wetter, der nächste Winter kommt bestimmt!

Palestinian pragmatism:

While a majority of 72% support and 26% oppose a boycott of settlements’ products, only 38% support and 60% oppose preventing Palestinian laborers from working in settlements. While the Gaza Strip and the West Bank support the boycott of settlements’ products equally, support for preventing laborers from working in settlements is greater in the Gaza Strip, reaching 45%, than the West Bank (34%).

This is actually a good sign, says Evelyn Gordon:

Myth [..]: Palestinians’ prime concern is ending Israeli settlement construction. In fact, the poll found a huge majority, 60% to 38%, opposing a ban on Palestinians working in the settlements; in the West Bank, where the settlements actually are, support dropped to 34% percent. [...]

Why? Because most Palestinians’ actual prime concern is supporting their families [...] and the settlements are a major employer. It will be years before the Palestinian economy is capable of providing an alternative.

If this turns out to be true, we will have a real chance for peace. Just remember Golda Meir’s prophecy:

We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.

Rasmussen Telefonumfrage unter 1000 erwachsenen Amerikanern:

Manchmal, wenn ein Land angegriffen wird, stellen die Vereinigten Staaten diesem Land militärische Unterstützung zur Verfügung, um bei der Verteidigung des Landes zu helfen. Nun lese ich Ihnen eine kurze Liste von Ländern vor. Bitte sagen Sie mir jeweils, ob die Vereinigten Staaten diesem Land militärische Unterstützung zur Verfügung stellen sollten, um das Land im Falle eines Angriffes zu verteidigen.

Die Ergebnisse der Umfrage:

Israel rehabilitates Palestinians who lost legs after being kneecapped by Hamas: