Deterrence, military intervention, international bargaining, treaty compliance, and the application of formal theory to questions of war, diplomacy, and security.
A dispatch from the road, later than usual. The week covered the launch of the junk drawer series, a USPS post whose central mechanism acquired a fuel surcharge while the post was still fresh, a Supreme Court case in which the drawer breaks, and a Friday post on Iran that staked a prediction now counting … Read more
Here are two statements about the same agreement, issued within twenty-four hours of each other, by officials who were present at its creation. Donald Trump, April 8, 2026: “There will be no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried Nuclear ‘Dust.’” Iran’s … Read more
A week that started with three posts on prediction markets and ended with a ceasefire that may or may not be one. Plus: a poll you took, a court hearing nobody is watching, and a new series beginning next week that Ed. did not see coming. In the News Total and Complete Victory (Fragile Truce … Read more
[This is the first ever guest post on Math Of Politics. If you’re interested in posting on Math Of Politics, drop me an email.] By Scott Ainsworth. To understand the Cotton letter, we need to think about the operation of treaties. Treaties are like contracts, designed to solidify current behaviors or constrain future behaviors for some period of … Read more
The Greek Tragedy is a “thing.” And lately it has reemerged. The question at the heart of this post is how one should bargain when between a rock and hard place.[0] This point was raised and discussed very well by Henry Farrell in this piece, which was responding to this op-ed in the NY Times by Yanis Varoufakis, the … Read more
Today’s post by Maria Popova and Vincent Post, “What is lustration and is it a good idea for Ukraine to adopt it?” made me think about the difference between what I will call policy and discretionary purges. It is not easy for a nation to fix itself after a period of authoritarian rule. There are many … Read more
It’s been too long since I prattled into cyberspace. This Monkey Cage post by Kyle Dropp Joshua D. Kertzer & Thomas Zeitzoff caught my contrarian attention. In a nutshell, it says that those who are less informed about the location of Ukraine are more likely to support US military intervention. This is an intriguing and policy-relevant finding … Read more
All is not well in Thaliand, where the opposition Democrat Party is calling for its supporters (some of whom have been actively protesting for months now) to boycott today’s parliamentary elections. Boycotting elections is not uncommon: indeed, opposition parties have recently boycotted elections in Bangladesh and the main Islamist opposition party is calling for a boycott … Read more
The Syrian crisis and the debt ceiling/government funding crisis have one thing in common in my mind. Narrative. In each situation, President Obama has a chance to “look Presidential” by being decisive. To be short about it, “Presidents order military strikes based on moral/strategic prerogative” and “Presidents tell Congress that the business of governing goes … Read more
Why did Obama seek Congressional authorization for military intervention in Syria? There are a number of theories, ranging from the facile to the subtle (and probably including the subtly facile). The “best” explanation, from my perspective at least, is that President Obama is signaling something about his ability to prosecute a potential conflict (for example, … Read more