More Walt

Noted realist international relations professor and commentator Stephen Walt has was is really a very good blog. He's been very prominent in the poli sci community in the U.S. for a long time (structural realism, defensive realism, balance of threat.. zz..), but only came to worldwide and public prominence when he co-wrote an article (later book) with John J. "give everybody nukes!" Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby and U.S. foreign policy. He produces a steady stream of posts on a vast array of topics on the world today, whether its on Israel-Palestine, pessimism on Afghanistan, nuclear Iran, films and so forth..

More recently, he has written two pieces that caught my interest. The first compares Obama to Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon, and hopes he will be like the latter in terms of foreign policy (detente and recognition of enemies, military withdrawal from quagmires..). I am somewhat jealous because I long had drafts for a Nixon-Obama analogy piece kicking around on my desktop, and Walt has largely articulated what I would have said. He also has a must-read 'Threatmonger's Handbook' describing all the tactics used over the years to justify a large, large number of unnecessary and often ill-advised wars.

Worth tracking.