If a specter haunts the chancellories of America, it isn’t communism and it isn’t Karl Marx.  It’s Thucydides, the chronicler of the 30 year Peloponnesian War between ancient Sparta and Athens that led to the comprehensive defeat of the world’s first great democratic power.  The assumptions most Americans bring to the study of foreign policy […]

Pharaoh Hosni is out; the Mubarak dynasty is done.  This had to happen and, whatever comes next, the downfall of an undemocratic leader well past his sell-by date is a good thing in and of itself. The nation of Egypt is not a personal possession to be handed down like an heirloom from generation to […]

The shock waves of Hosni Mubarak’s resignation have just started to roll across the Middle East, but in Egypt the upheaval has barely begun. The country now embarks on what the protesters in Tahrir square hope will be a transition to a true, civilian-led democracy. In the meantime, Egypt is headed for a period of […]

My recent post “Virginity, Polyamory and the Limits of Pluralism” provoked more comments than any previous one. Almost all the comments latched on to a single sentence: “Once you legitimate same-sex marriage, you open the door to any number of alternatives to marriage as a union of one man and one woman,” from polygamy to […]

Reading Sun Tzu’s classic The Art of War for the Bard grand strategy seminar this winter was an unsettling experience.  Of course, that is the point.  The Art of War is one of those books that doesn’t want to sit there in your lap; it wants to reach up and slap you in the face.My […]

Today we are starting a new feature at Via Meadia: our StratBlog.  At Bard College I’m teaching a modified version of the Yale Grand Strategy curriculum developed by John Gaddis, Charles Hill and Paul Kennedy to a group of undergraduates this semester and the students have been generous enough to agree to share this experience […]

As the Tunisian government fell, Egypt erupted, Jordan’s cabinet was ousted, Algeria and Yemen protested, and Syria braced for a wave of demonstrations—what was happening in Iraq? Nothing much. Mainly business as usual: The country resumed oil exports from the Kurdistan region for the first time since 2009 in the wake of a breakthrough agreement […]

The Egyptian government has survived the first crisis of the revolution and both the government and the protesters are moving to a new trial of strength.  Surviving the first blast of popular fury — and of international criticism — is an important milestone for the government.  The longer it can hold out, the more likely […]

February 1, 2010—One week ago, Egypt was a stable authoritarian regime, prospects of change were minimal, and every expert in Washington would have bet on the endurance of its regime. Today, Egypt is in a state of chaos. The regime, even after using its mightiest sword, hasn’t been able to control the country, and the […]

The Obama administration is now living through one of the oldest and most difficult recurring problems in American foreign policy: what do you do when revolution breaks out in an allied country?The only clue history offers is not an encouraging one: there is often no satisfactory resolution of the dilemmas revolutions present.In 1789 Americans watched […]