Tuesday
Jul262011
Worth a Read
Raoul HeinrichsRaoul Heinrichs is Sir Arthur Tange Scholar at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU, and Deputy Editor of Pnyx.
- Two brilliant essays by literary critic and former Yale Professor William Deresiewicz: the first, delivered at West Point last year, on the importance of solitude to leadership; the second, a provocative take on the limits of an Ivy-League education.
- What role should academics play in the public debate about foreign policy? Harvard’s Stephen Walt, a great blogger who straddles academia and policy, has a great take at the Institute for Public Knowledge, with six compelling recommendations. Yale’s Nuno Monteiro has also weighed in (via Daniel Drezner).
- The NY Times’ Paul Krugman and Robin Wells - reviewing what looks to be an interesting new book by Jeff Maddick, Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present - on why financial crises are becoming more severe. The Cato Institute’s Christopher A. Preble has a piece in the National Interest that looks at the implications for US grand-strategy.
- Can China Defend a ‘‘Core Interest’’ in the South China Sea? The US Naval War College’s James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, in the previous edition of the Washington Quarterly, have a great piece on the way China’s complex geopolitical situation threatens to impede its dominance in the South China Sea. In a similar vein, Princeton’s Aaron Friedberg explores the prospects for ‘Hegemony with Chinese Characteristics’.
- Four months into the war, David Reiff writes in in the New Republic that Western ambitions in Libya greatly exceed the resources anyone is willing to commit. It’s hard to disagree, as I noted here on Pnyx some months ago. Meanwhile, as costs mount, London and Paris have begun the predictable process of lowering the bar to success.
- In the Winter 2011 edition of Security Challenges, a range of experts discuss the future of the Australian Army. With contributions by Hugh White, Andrew Davies, Peter Leahy and James Brown, it’s a fascinating and, in many ways, sobering outlook for Australian landpower. Full text available in the coming months.