Happy to have a new open access Security Studies article on why & how revolutionary regimes often struggle to balance against threats soon after taking power, undermining military effectiveness www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Incredible to reflect on Syria one year ago today and where it is now. In just minutes, Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa will meet with POTUS, marking the first time a Syrian president will visit the White House since 1946. Expect sanctions, ISIS, Israel on the agenda.

Happy to have a new open access Security Studies article on why & how revolutionary regimes often struggle to balance against threats soon after taking power, undermining military effectiveness www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Two panels commemorating the contribution of Black American soldiers towards the liberation of the Netherlands in World War Two have been quietly removed from a cemetery in Limburg. It follows a complaint by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission.

NEW: Common Crawl, the massive archiver of the web, has gotten cozy with AI companies and is providing paywalled articles for training data. They’re also lying to publishers who have asked for material to be removed. “The robots are people too,” CC’s exec director told us when we asked about this.

You can read a PDF version of the intro to The First Right: Self-Determination and The Transformation of International Order by clicking on the link below. You can also get a 30% discount using the promotion code AUFLY30 from the Oxford website. academic.oup.com/book/60825/c...

Satellite images show that most of the 260,000 civilians in Sudan’s el-Fasher are likely still trapped, as mass RSF killings continue

“Individuals on the ground sent a message that reached us Monday morning that 1,200 were dead,” Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, said. “By that evening, they said 10,000. By Tuesday, we couldn’t reach them anymore. We assume our ground contacts are dead.”

Hi folks! A few thoughts on this essay, and the questions that we *should* be asking, rather than the ones this Army officer seems inclined to answer. I haven’t done a CMR thread in a while so I’m overdue. 🧵

There's been lots of chatter about how air strikes may or may not signal resolve. Spoiler alert: They are really bad at signaling resolve for a variety of reasons which I explained in this Ethics & International Affairs Piece. #civmilsky #poliscisky #academicsky drive.google.com/file/d/1sf5k...

Let's hear it for the farm workers who harvested the pumpkins that are decorating homes across America for #Halloween today. #WeFeedYou Que se oiga para los campesinos que cosecharon las calabazas que hoy decoran los hogares en todo los Estados Unidos. #SoyEsencial

Great analysis of the situation in Tanzania by Dan Paget

NEWS: CBS News gutted its climate team as part of the big Paramount layoffs this week. These journalists had been doing incredible reporting on extreme heat, flooding, clean energy investments and more. I've got details for Climate-Colored Goggles: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/cbs-news-g...

Since apparently normal procedures around classified and secret information aren't enough... #civmilsky www.reuters.com/world/americ...

Sarkozy is going to jail but he’s not the first one. In our new dataset we track modern leaders who have been prosecuted by their own states. There are 215 of them. Turns out leader prosecution is a common & healthy practice in democracies. Full access link: foreignpolicy.com/2025/10/28/d...

God, or whatever you believe in, help the people of Jamaica. Worst landfall on record just occurred, according to @capitalweather.bsky.social. Graphic below is from them. Sustained winds of 185MPH and gusts of 252(!) MPH at land level.

Today is the 7th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Synagogue massacre, where 11 Jews were killed for their congregation's support of immigrant rights. I look at what Jews from the synagogue are doing to honor their dead & stand up for immigrants' rights. paydayreport.com/jews-work-to...

Lula and Trump met earlier this morning to discuss tariffs, and Trump never brought up the issue of Bolsonaro. Even when a reporter asked Trump if he would discuss Bolsonaro, he said it's "none of your business." Lula said the meeting went great. www.bbc.com/portuguese/a...

Any real expert inside the government knows the President’s boat strikes won’t hold up in court. And they know detention in many cases will bring on judicial review. If those voices prevail, the govt will avoid bringing detainees to the U.S. or GTMO.

What could go wrong?

NEW: there's been some chatter in recent days about an ICE purchase of "guided missile warheads and explosive components" in September. However, it appears ICE simply entered the wrong product code when it entered the payment record into a federal database: www.wired.com/story/no-ice...

"The fall of the Assad regime should have brought answers but to so many families of Syria’s disappeared, it has only brought a new kind of absence. We ask for names, for lists, for truth. We are given nothing. No answers, no records, no acknowledgment." www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs - Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75% - Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60% - Social Sciences by 50–70% - History by 60% - Biology by 75% - The German department will lose all PhD seats - Sociology from six PhD students to zero

Questions: --Are the survivors actually being detained? --If so, military detention or law enforcement detention by USCG? If military detention, no AUMF as legal authority, so bare Article II seems only theory. A problem I flagged when I was first made aware of this scheme to attack boats.

By conducting lethal military operations under an invented designation and without any legislative or judicial review, the president is claiming the power to take life unilaterally and outside the limits of law. apnews.com/article/trum...

In the last 70 years, federal jobs fell from 4.5% of all employment to below 2%. Civil servants aren't what's driving government debt, and firing them won't address it.

"One source told me that some of the reversals came after the Trump administration realized that they had accidentally terminated critically important staffers working on current measles and Ebola outbreaks."

Why are migrant workers in Qatar being recruited as cannon-fodder for Russia in Ukraine, and is labour surplus from the 2022 World Cup responsible? Brilliant reporting from @samindrakunti.bsky.social and @bobbyperu.bsky.social in @josimarfootball.bsky.social josimarfootball.com/2025/09/25/t...

The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

When Rebels Win now has a cover! Thanks to the @cornellupress.bsky.social team for work on the design. It's out December 15, & available to preorder. Please get in touch if you're interested in having me talk about the book in a seminar series or a class! www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 #𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 #𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬? They face huge risks, especially during economic crises, when dictators choose to financially extort or #purge their business allies. And yet, despite their power to disrupt, business elites rarely switch sides. My research shows why.

My article "From Insurgent to Incumbent: Ideology, Rebel Governance, and Statebuilding after Rebel Victory in Civil Wars" is now out in an @comppol.bsky.social print issue with page numbers www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

Fabricating “evidence” of crimes is one use. You know the reactions to political violence? Soon false accusations will have video that appeals real to anyone not looking closely. And maybe to them too. But another problem is people dismissing real evidence because they think anything could be fake.

EU extending targeted Nicaragua sanctions for another year as we reach seven and a half years since the 2018 protests and government crackdown www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/pre...

This is my regular reminder to everyone that jstor is open to the general public now; a free account there will give you access to 100 papers a year.

People always ask me : “Cristi, how do you manage parenting a baby while going up for tenure?” It’s easy. The secret is *flow-based-scheduling*. Here are its three core strategies for new academic parents: Sleep when the baby sleeps Cry when the baby cries Publish when the baby publishes

Kaleb Horton RIP.

"higher ed is an economic engine, health-care engine, technological-innovation engine. it should be a common public good for everyone. the vast majority of Americans of any political stripe need education for their kids, their families, in order to move forward." www.chronicle.com/article/is-t...

Important reporting on how young people from multiple African countries have been lured by promises of jobs and education and then forced to work in support of Russia and Belarus's war on Ukraine www.premiumtimesng.com/investigatio...

Final goodbyes to Gaza City: ‘I look at the walls of my house, even the lamp, and it breaks my heart, the little details. It feels strange to think I won’t have a house. This thought will haunt you no matter where you go.’

#CRS2025 also saw the launch of our latest @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social Special Issue on the Legacies of Rebel and Paramilitary Governance. Check out the SI here: www.tandfonline.com/toc/fciv20/c... with @nielsterpstra.bsky.social

The arrival of Ahmad al-Sharaa in NYC for the UNGA is a timely moment to highlight our new book, published a few weeks ago in Europe and in a month ago in the US (already on Kindle). What lessons can we draw from the past? A threat

Some good news from Egypt wapo.st/46zoDuT (gift link)

David Petraeus greeting Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the Concordia Summit in NYC. When Petraeus was a 3-star in Iraq in 2004-6, Sharaa was fighting the US as a member of the al-Qaida branch there; when Petraeus was a 4-star, Sharaa was teaching fellow Camp Bucca detainees classical Arabic

In Nicaragua, longtime regime loyalists have been purged, shoring up Rosario Murillo’s power, likely to help her fully take over if her husband, longtime President Daniel Ortega, resigns or dies. I spoke with Frances Robles from the @nytimes.com about the crackdown www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/w...

Proposal would cut oversight of LA county jails in the name of “cost-cutting,” when the need for outside scrutiny of jail conditions is extremely clear www.latimes.com/california/s...

Update on Maine-Canada border crossings - August saw 115,000 fewer people crossing at ports of entry compared to 2024, a 28% decline. That takes the total reduction in crossings to 560,000 since February. #mepolitics

Folks at #APSA2025, our roundtable for Phil Martin's Strong Commanders, Weak States and my When Rebels Win is this after at 4pm in VCC West 207!