There is a lot of talk here about the U.S. offer of a bailout for Argentina. But Argentina's weakness and the Chinese angle have been known for years. Alarm bells have been ringing in DC about Argentina's further slide into the Chinese financial orbit for months. money.usnews.com/investing/ne...

For better or worse, by saving Argentina's economy from collapse, the U.S. will prevent it from China's economic control. China is now Argentina's top trading partner and Argentina has long running loan swap line of $18 billion, and recently another $20 billion line of which it has used $5 billion.

Argentina has gone through libertarian and leftist populists before. Its economy tanks under both. The U.S. has to save them or China may. The issue as most observers know are internal consensus and long-term economic policies. Without those, Argentina's century of underdevelopment will continue.

I don't know whether the Venezuelan military buildup against Trinidad and Tobago is about interdiction of narcotics or pressuring Trinidad and Tobago akin to Guyana? trinidadexpress.com/newsextra/ve...

The Maduro regime maybe nearing its end. demerarawaves.com/2025/09/19/f...

A long thread, on the current Peruvian political puzzle where an incumbent president stays in power with record low job approval (3%); a Congress empowered to easily remove presidents, did so in the past, but not doing so; and a stable economy. But no mention of ethnic politics and the military.

A transaction cost analysis of military and diplomatic history would be epic.

TIL that Milli Vanilli and Boney M. were both creations of German music producer Frank Farian. He sang the super hit Caribbean accented Boney M. numbers. He later created No Mercy, which had a less stellar but still prominent music career.

The U.S. is really ramping up the pressure on Venezuela. Yet again, there's no mention of the Essequibo dispute and Venezuelan pressure on Guyana. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/u...

After getting walloped by the Afghans, the U.S. will reach the same solution to Afghanistan as the Brits: have a pliable government to maintain core security interests with the understanding that their actual control over the country is pretty tenuous and we can't intervene to save them.

My family had a Gurkha security guard for many years. He had the traditional khukri: our family members didn't walk around armed, which was great because there were needlessly grave animosities among some. We paid him well enough for the job. This is my take on the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia alliance.

Ohm symbol with Shiva's trident (trishul). Both quite common in Hindu beliefs, but never saw a combination like this in a bracelet. Most possibly made of silver. TIL that Kash Patel is a Shaivite Hindu, by the way.

Indian foreign policy commentators are realizing the gap between India's economic, military, infrastructure, and human capital (hard power means) with its claims to be a great power. The tragedy is that Indian field experts in economics, defense, et al have known and raised these issues for years.

You have to be naive or ignorant to believe that the 1936 abdication crisis was only about Wallis Simpson's carnal capacity and Edward VIII's sense of duty. There was much more to it from the Dominions and domestic political factions across parties to the Church of England and class conflict.

Great article on India-China relations. What makes this stand out is its accounting for India's economic dependence on China.

TFW when I suspect that we're gonna abandon Taiwan and go back to Afghanistan:

New Delhi may be warming to Beijing — or bracing for more tension. The clues are in the details.

Now that the unipolar moment is over, it seems like the discourse is reverting to a Cold War mode, where developing states are being assumed to seek security patrons from one or another bloc and play one off against another to drive the best deal. Whether that theory holds is an open question.

A real problem IR and CP scholarship will face in the coming years is that so few of us focus on inter-state security in developing societies, while the U.S.-China GPC is playing out and will play out prominently there. This is a matter of normative issues and taste changes that go back to 1991.

Any discussion that does not include Essequibo and the disputed border between Venezuela and British Guiana going back to the 19th century is incomplete. Were anybody else president, you would still see a military building up as a counter threat to Venezuela revising the existing border militarily.

As I said months ago, the U.S. may have a war in Latin America, soon. I am genuinely puzzled as to whether this is about only about narcotics or also threats to regional peace by Venezuela? www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-...

When Peron returned to take power in 1973, the political system had changed. Peronists were divided between left and right wings. Rightwing leaders repressed the leftwing and leftist parties. Leftwing insurgent Montoneros carried out attacks. Peron was old, senile, and sans a charismatic successor.

This is a big deal! Peru is one of the top operators of Soviet-Russian defense equipment in Latin America. It currently operates the MiG-29, Su-25, and the French Mirage 2000. The transition of the F-16 to the value arms market in Latin America has been quite fast. www.twz.com/air/f-16-cle...

We keep seeing more Indian activity- slowly but surely- on the East African coast. We need to get back on it @vasabjit.bsky.social- sorry it’s been a a bit of trial recently!

This thing here, exhibit A in "the danger of leaving our ships to melt in the hot sun", is HMS Glatton. And on this day in 1918 things went even more pear-shaped than they already were...

What Indian defense is not ready for is that the growth of its and China's navies is bound to push Indonesia to increase its navy. India has an oft forgotten naval rivalry with Indonesia centered on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

I love Tennessee!

I got off the "tech gadget to improve your daily life train" with smart watches. I never owned one. Is my life the worse for it? Maybe. But the marginal benefit has been small enough and the joy of wearing a proper analog watch high enough that I don't care.

Folks, The U.S. agricultural sector as a whole is essentially unprofitable sans huge subsidies. This here estimate of $9.3 billion is on the conservative side. I have heard of way more: factoring in all sorts of indirect sops. Also, it now mostly goes to Big Ag firms. usafacts.org/articles/fed...

1815-1914, for a 100 years, Britain maintained global hegemony. Defeats from the Indian Mutiny, Ashanti, Zulu, etc., couldn't stop them. Then it took 30 years and two world wars to fully knock them out of the perch. The U.S. can't handle 34 years, a defeat by Afghans and a stalemate in Iraq. Sheesh!

Of all the crewmen who died on the Titanic, there were those who knew about the risks of excess speed in the iceberg field and those who knew and didn't care or sought some glory. Though they all died, the first set had clear consciences, and I believe there's some good for the soul in that.

My colleague said, she didn't understand the mentality of mountain climbers. Especially the ones who line up to climb Everest, K2, and peaks like that. Bragging rights and adrenaline highs for themselves and tons of rubbish and dead bodies on mountains. That was so insightful, it broke my brain.

I know the PoliSci job market is bad, but y'all have no idea about 2008. Folks were invited for campus visits and told when they landed that the position was canceled. I heard from old timers that the job market was also a bloodbath in the late 1970s when the Boomers were all done with college.

I expect a distinct responses to state and national elections for Modi and BJP. This may lead to loss of control at the state level while national control remains, creating the sort of instability that characterized the 1970s-80s. OTOH it may stop BJP's push for concomitant national-state elections.

India is collaborating with the Nepalese army to stabilize the situation. www.msn.com/en-us/news/w...

As I suspected, Nepal's army is now in-charge: www.msn.com/en-us/news/w...

There are good odds that Russia ends up losing more men in Ukraine than the U.S. lost in the entirety of the Second World War. What an absolutely historic blunder.

Nepal, a country bordering both India and China, is facing revolutionary conditions. The question is whether its fragile ethnic unity maintained through massive graft, debilitating consensus seeking, and a carousel of political leaders, will be able to yield a new, stable, democratic regime. 1/2

Polish and Dutch fighters, directed by Italian early warning aircraft, German air defenses on alert. Dutch PM: “I’m glad that Dutch F35 fighter jets were able to provide support. The Netherlands stands shoulder to shoulder with our NATO ally Poland.” Common defense working as designed.

The American left's desire to compare politics here to Europe rather than Latin America is pretty telling about biases.

Any suggestions on great Indian food and Chinese food places in Vancouver?

Okay, I have no idea whether this is what is happening. If it's some aide trying to get ahead of the news or he knows something.

Lots of possibilities here, but at the risk of prognosticating I'll say I think the most likely scenario is that the drones that have crossed the border lost their control link and just continued on their flight path due to incompetence on the part of the operators.

NATO absolutely could defend the Suwalki Gap; Poland's military could beat the Russian military in its current state (even assuming it wasn't already occupied) singlehandedly. The risk is more with the Baltic states which have considerably less of a military and Russian minorities.

A lot depends on the circumstances. If they tried today they would probably have a very hard time generating enough mass it's to back up their spearheads into Lithuania/Poland, let alone hold on to their gains. Presuming a ceasefire in Ukraine coupled with several years to reconstitute they might

I hope this is all a mistake or misunderstanding because a Hail Mary type situation is also possible like the Ardennes Offensive aka Battle of the Bulge. NATO will only get stronger, so this could be seen by Russia as a closing window of opportunity.

No idea what happens if Russia (and Belarus) decide to do a swift strike against Poland to create a land corridor to Kaliningrad. Would this be the Suwalki Gap scenario? Wouldn't Lithuania be involved too? Can NATO defend it or will it have to escalate horizontally or threaten vertical.

If any of y'all want to get a coffee or something at APSA, please send word.

Social status is a helluva drug! India was partitioned because Muslim landed elites in the United Provinces and Bihar and Hindu counterparts in Bengal refused to accept universal adult suffrage (and land reform). As a Hindu Bengali, I then spent 8 years in Mississippi where I witnessed the same.

Based on Conrad's novel about the Belgian Congo, Apocalypse Now is about futility. How notions of the "white man's burden" collide with reality and destroy not only the colonized but the colonizer himself. In that, it is about futility. 1/3