Author Archive | Eric Posner

In response to my skepticism about President Obama’s justification for the surge of troops in Afghanistan, Heather Hurlburt explained on Bloggingheads that the U.S. needs to stabilize the Afghanistan-Pakistan border not only to keep extremists in Pakistan out of Afghanistan, but (more important) to keep extremists in Afghanistan out of Pakistan.  If the Pakistani regime […]

Ken Anderson’s post a while back expressed pessimism for classic collective-action reasons: Well, I do not understand how this Copenhagen conference manages to overcome the collective action failure problems that have been encountered in Kyoto and every other exercise in this area.  Extremely diffuse damage from a multitude of players, now and into the future; […]

Suppose that astronomers around the world alerted us that a large asteroid is headed in our direction, and might collide with the earth in the year 2012.  The astronomers cannot give us a precise probability of collision because of many imponderables.  The laws of physics are, of course, uncontroversial, but there is some disagreement about […]

Representative David Obey’s Share Our Sacrifice Act would finance the war in Afghanistan by imposing a tax on the public.  The idea is yet another in a line of gimmicky populist measures that are sprouting like dandelions this political season, and it has garnered the support of apparently sensible people.  But it has little to […]

The answer is not “the rule of law.”  According to the WSJ, Holder said: The 9/11 attacks were both an act of war and a violation of our federal criminal law, and they could have been prosecuted in either federal courts or military commissions. So the U.S. government has the option to try suspected members […]

Sept. 1, 1939 Nazis Invade Poland Overcrowding in Germany Cited Sept. 2, 1939 For Nazis, a Hard Time To Be Europeans Neighbors’ Suspicions Caused Stress, Resentment Sept. 3, 1939 In Central Europe, Other Countries Invade Their Neighbors, Too Sept. 4, 1939 When Fuhrers Snap Rallies, Pogroms Took Toll on Leader

Henry Farrell replies to my replies. International Law and Rational Choice Theory.  I agree with Henry’s discussion of the limits of rational choice theory and so don’t understand why he thinks I commit the fallacies that he describes.  It would be one thing if I said that states’ compliance with treaty X is consistent with […]

Continuing our exchange, Henry Farrell says that the answer is likely yes, noting that “there is good evidence that the HRC’s predecessor, the even more widely excoriated UN Commission on Human Rights did have a measurable, and arguably positive, effect in punishing notorious human rights violators, despite its many flaws.”  He cites two empirical papers […]

I mentioned before Henry’s defense of the laws of war.  Here is the relevant passage. There is likely a very plausible case to be made that these norms ought to be much tougher and more restrictive than they are – even if they are not a product of power politics they are limited by these […]

Henry Farrell continues our conversation about my book.  One thing he says is that international law should not be regarded as a single entity, which is either “good” or “bad,” but is a label attached to a multitude of cooperative arrangements undertaken by states, which should be evaluated on their own terms.  Security Council resolutions […]

That was the topic of a conference last Friday at the American Enterprise Institute.  The three panelists who addressed this question agreed that an Iranian nuclear arsenal would be worrisome indeed, not because Iran would immediately incinerate Tel Aviv, but because it would almost certainly use its conventional forces and its terrorist infrastructure more aggressively […]

Thanks to bouilhet for finding the passage I mentioned in my earlier post (from Wittgenstein’s Nephew): If one disregards the money that goes with them, there is nothing in the world more intolerable than award ceremonies. I had already discovered this in Germany. They do nothing to enhance one’s own standing, as I had believed […]