Rubio’s speech at Munich was a massive free dose of fentanyl to an addict desperate not to get clean. And it worked. Europe is full of suckers.

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Will the demon be freed should the bowl shatter? Asking for a household with small kids and limited storage space.

Quick reminder to please your abstracts to our #EISAPEC26 section on #REALism - join us in beautiful Lisbon if you ask, e.g.: Is the Trump administration realist? Can geopolitics help us understand China's foreign policy? How do small states navigate uncertainty? And...What would Morgenthau say?

"Die Gewerkschaft führt in ihrer Pressemitteilung aus, dass Promovierende besonders hart von den Kürzungen betroffen seien." Mit Kürzungen wie diesen sind jegliche Bemühungen um wissenschaftlichen "Nachwuchs" wertlos. Diejenigen, die sich die Prekarität noch antun, werden doppelt bestraft.

All rich datasets are alike; each limited dataset is limited in its own way.

2 jobs in contemporary war and conflict and international security: jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

A huge win for Dutch higher education and the Netherlands as a whole - the new coalition cabinet has announced it wants to reverse all cuts to higher education planned by the previous government. What targeted activism, electoral politics, and a bit of luck can do...🎉🇳🇱

Dit is inderdaad onverwacht en reden voor voorzichtig optimisme! Als dit gerealiseerd gaat worden is dat een grote opsteker voor al diegenen die actie hebben gevoerd tegen het desastreuze onderwijsbeleid van het kabinet Schoof! ✊

Dass die Berliner Stadtbetriebe nicht in der Lage sind, Bürgersteige von Glatteis zu befreien, ist das wohl klarste Zeichen, dass wir uns in der Polykrise befinden. In diesem Essay werde ich

This is bureaucratic politics, folks. Rutte's primary concern might well be the overall security interests of the alliance partners, but he's also deeply invested in maintaining the alliance itself. Nobody should be surprised at statements such as this: He is standing where he's sitting - NATO.

And again, beyond Greenland the UK and EU states need to develop military contingency plans for territories under their oversight around the Caribbean in case the Trump administration completely destabilises the region www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

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I'd expect that a serious journalistic source like the BBC would at least be able to correctly identify Trump's magnetism as non-equilibrium quantospectral with individual hybridised excitations.

It sure does feel like everyone only ever reads the first chapters. Hans Morgenthau, of Jewish descent (!), spent a career concerned about how to LIMIT and AVOID whatever Stephen Miller is doing. He'd turn in his grave seeing his name cited as inspiration. nationalinterest.org/feature/step...

The Founders assumed that Members of Congress would jealously and zealously guard the powers and prerogatives of their branch of government against the grasping of an overweening Executive, and instead we got this supine GOP majority that yearns to lick the boot.

Deutsche, die sich über die Bahn aufregen 🤝 Amis, die sich über Faschos aufregen ABOLISH ICE

Yes, yes, the review system is broken. But sometimes, you get not one, not two, but three long, detailed, constructive reviews and you're just in awe of your anonymous colleagues' dedication and generosity. They're making it easy to produce better scholarship.

It can still be THEORETICALLY useful though alright alright I'll see myself out

Connected with reports that military leaders are shopping around for options to distract Trump from Greenland, this is worrying. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/u...

nobody does this much work on the weekend in europe without a great reason

There is one week left to apply for @uclspp.bsky.social's new Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics role! Importantly, the successful candidate will also join our senior team and contribute to our research and impact activities. Applicants must have, or be near to finishing, a PhD. Apply 👇

Neither Denmark nor its European partners are going to fight the US militarily in or over Greenland. That doesn't mean they couldn't punch back - from diplomatic to technological and economic sanctions to basing rights, potential foreign policy entails painful coercive tools that are not military.

Denmark and the rest of the EU have to try to prevent a war with the US by convincing Trump that the 1951 US-Danish Agreement on Greenland was his idea.

Entirely as literally everyone predicted.

Deploying the Franco-German brigade to Greenland would perfectly align the deterrence and the ragebait camps in Europe's foreign policy debate. In this essay I will

German nuclear weapons discussed in the FAZ/FAS. And I can't help but think what Chris LaRoche and I argued *way back in 2024* (!) is still very relevant: warontherocks.com/2024/05/germ...

Trump in a single gaggle on Air Force One just threatened: -- a second strike against Venezuela -- Cuba -- Mexico -- Colombia -- Iran -- Greenland (which in turn would be an attack on the EU and Denmark)

The idea that Rubio is in it to take down Cuba, Miller is in it for the aspects of war that would allow him more latitude to terrorize citizens at home, and Hegseth is in it for the masculinity bonus, while persuading Trump with oil, appeals to me and accounts for most of this. Also Trump's pique.

This by @ecfr.eu’s Majda Ruge is a good guide to Trump’s calculus on Venezuela. Rival factions (primacists, prioritisers, restrainers) have been counseling different courses of action, but “the answers depend on what the president decides will bring him the biggest ‘win’.” ecfr.eu/article/maga...

"This really big and important thing that's happening and drawing everyone's attention is actually just a distraction" is not the smart political move Schumer seems to think it is.

Unless the "interim governing structure" is 'the Maduro regime run by Delcy Rodriguez,' they're gonna have a hard time governing much. Either that or they have some invading to do. It is robustly unclear to me what they think they are doing or if they know.

I'm not sure what experts suggested this? I'm barely an expert on this and even I have been on record saying Venezuelan capabilities are not sufficient to prevent or effectively resist US air operations.

So much for that particular part of the "plan".

There may be, and hear me out on this, there may be some problems with having a mad emperor king. One of which is that no limits exist on what he might say at a press conference, and how that might derail any previously offered explanations by various underlings.

From Reuters

Dass es die Bundesregierung bisher erfolgreich schafft, sich vor einer Stellungnahme zu Venezuela zu drücken, spricht auch wieder Bände. "Mit Sorge verfolgen" tue ich den Gesundheitszustand meiner Großtante, nicht einen offenen Völkerrechtsbruch.

One hypothesis as things develop (aka speculation for now) - if the Trump administration made a deal with the Venezuelan military, that might explain both the very easy capture and how he thinks they're going to "run" Venezuela without further strikes or mil. presence.

A deluge of work on regime change after the 2003 invasion of Iraq yielded strong (and rare) agreement in IR: it doesn't work & has terrible consequences. @profdownes.bsky.social's book Catastrophic Success lays it out, but it's right there in the title. www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Everyone knows Maduro was like the head vampire of Venezuela - take him out and all the rest apparently ceases to exist. tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwik...

Is...is the theory here that the rest of the Venezuelan government and state just throw their hands up in defeat and go along with this now that Maduro is gone?

Entirely predictably, Trump doesn't give a f*ck about Venezuela. All there is in terms of strategy is "quick win sells well with voters" and "oil something something". The Trump administration was never one for plans and detail, and it'll come back to bite them - but by that time, they won't care.

Pay no attention to Trump's incoherent rambling. They have not thought through how to expropriate the oil. There is no US oil major that would operate in Venezuela in its current condition.

While there is understandable focus on the US side of things, I can't help but wonder how/why the Venezuelans didn't manage to hide/secure/protect Maduro?

"Panama light"? Possibly, though in terms of pretext, operation (e.g. ground presence) and very likely post-regime change involvement, things looks so different that while I understand the analogy (I have used it myself) I wonder whether it detracts rather than helps us describe/analyze things.

I think there's a non-zero chance this will sell well beyond the Bsky/natsec crowd. Hits the "drugs/socialism/migrants" MAGA notes. No boots, no US deaths. Pretend legality ("US law enforcement action"). Quick win? It might well still turn into a clusterfuck like everything Trump touches, ofc.

We've been upgraded from 'forever wars' to 'whatever wars'.

Maduro is a brutal and oppressive dictator of Venezuela. Trump has no legitimate legal basis for military action against Venezuela under United States or international law. Both of those facts are simultaneously true.

I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war