Scott Reinhard, Expert Button (February 2010). Print at Scott Reinhard Co. Image source. Last month Tom Nichols, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and a well regarded authority on Russian foreign policy and American nuclear strategy, published a thought-provoking essay on his blog titled “The Death of Expertise:” […]
Category Archives: Futuristics
Notes From All Over (26/11/13): Germs, Governments. and Gettysburg
A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. This is the first “Notes From All Over” I have written this month, so this list is a long one. TOP BILLING When We Lose Antibiotics, Hereβs Everything Else Weβll Lose TooMaryn McKenna. Wired. 20 November 2013. If we really lost antibiotics to advancing drug resistance […]
America 3.0
It is unusual for me to read a book aimed at popular conservative audiences. I am something of a disaffected conservative. Crony capitalism and government overreach have proved to be bipartisan endeavors, and I have long lost faith that the Republican party can ever be more than an organ of America’s governing elite. [1] Outside […]
Notes From All Over 2/11/2010
A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit – abridged addition this time around. DEMOGRAPHICS The Wheel of History Turns to The Gods Razib Khan. Gene Expression. 10 October 2010. An extremely important survey of global demographic trends over the next forty years.The post focuses on the difference between the birth rates of […]
Foxes, Hedgehogs, and Forecasting
Today I ran across Louis Menard’s review of Philip Tetlock’s book Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Do We Now? The bulk of Dr. Tetlock’s book concerns a 18 year experiment designed to test the forecasting skills of pundits and analysts. Having gathered some 284 experts in international politics, he asked them to […]
Afghansistan 2050: Futures That Will Not Be
The following is my contribution to the Afghanistan 2050 Roundtable hosted by the proprietors of ChicagoBoyz. The opening post of the roundtable – which explains its purpose and methods – can be found here. My piece is cross-posted at ChicagoBoyz with the rest of the submissions. The great challenge with interpreting the future is that […]
Notes From All Over 29/07/2010
A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING: Haiti, Disaster Sociology, Elite Panic, and LootingGary Peterson. Resilience Science. 2010 January 30. This is one of the more compelling defenses of decentralization to be found under 2,000 words. Looking at disaster situations, Mr. Peterson does not find the disorder and chaos of […]
Futuristics, Geopolitics, and National Resilience
Earlier this month Antoly Karlin (of Sublime Oblivion) wrote an interesting post outlining several possible trajectories India may take in the near future. A fair amount of the post is devoted to comparing India with Asia’s other billion-person behemoth, China. The two giants are likely to remain engaged in intense strategic competition for the next […]
An Interesting Thought
The Business of Climate Change Conference 2009. Jeff Rubin. World Wildlife Fund: Canada. Posted 4 January 2010. βStop thinking about what the Middle East is producing. Start thinking about what the Middle East is consuming.β The video is worth watching – for the first 20 minutes. Rubin is at his best when discussing short term […]
Strategic Forum: Yemen 2011
Obama Addresses Nation as Military Offensive in Yemen BeginsScott Rayman. New York Times. 10 January 2011. WASHINGTON (REUTERS) β American forces unleashed a punishing air attack Sunday against military targets and Al-Qaeda camps inside Yemen, striking at terrorists blamed for the Black Friday attacks that murdered hundreds of Americans across the American Southwest. “The perpetrators […]
