Saideman's Semi-Spew

Yesterday, I was on an APSA roundtable with the sharpest minds on US civil-military relations (I did feel like playing the old Sesame street song): Peter Feaver, Heidi Urben, Risa Brooks, Carrie Lee, with Lindsay Cohn serving as moderator (she chimed in d…

Since Trump returned to power, I have been talking a lot about the broken transmission belt of policy.* In ordinary times, if a person, firm, or association had a problem, they could complain to their Congressperson or Senator, and that person would put h…

Bargaining with someone of bad faith is likely to go badly.

The lighting always sucks in this part of DND, but this is only place we can do this.

I keep hearing about the threat of hypersonic missiles, and I keep wondering how this changes things?

Not to worry, Robin, for we have multiple Bat-cakes to meet the occasion.

A couple of weeks ago, I got into a running skeet spat because I argued we ought not valorize a military member for protesting the Trump administration while in uniform.

NATO issued a six paragraph communique https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/official-texts-and-resources/official-texts/2026/07/08/the-ankara-summit-declaration A big improvement over last year's?

I have spent the last week in London, the first time in 14 years and only the second time since my seven week experience after my junior year in college.

I am in London, having finished a two day Civil-Military Relations Network workshop, our very first, on Command.

It does not take an IR scholar or an historian to note the significance of Donald Trump signing onto a "deal" with Iran while he's at Versailles, site of the treaty that temporarily ended WW1 and set up WW2.

I have been arguing that the heart of NATO, Article V, has been dead for since January 2025.

Perhaps it is unfair to call Pete Hegseth a bad faith actor since he seems to be a real believer in Christian nationalism.

Lots of stuff happening the past week or two: Canada decides to buy a Swedish plane (no, not that one), rather than the American one.

I am looking for help: with the help of a fantastic RA, Alireza Mamdouhi, I have created a googlesheet to crowdsource a list of violations of American Civil-Military Relations norms by the Trump Administration.

I read a terrific piece by my partner in crime (I am sure some members of some legislatures will consider our latest book* criminal due to our discussion of their, um, lack of relevance), Phil Lagassé, but took a heap of umbrage at his footnote: I dislike…

Yesterday was a pretty special day.

The llamas were greedy but sweet.

The truly amazing thing of the time in which we live is that we have so much information, yet people buy the bullshit mis and disinformation.

After three days of briefings in Manila with all kinds of sharp people, I found myself thinking about some of the bigger implications.

The last day of this familiarization tour was perhaps the best.

After so much travel in non-English speaking countries, hanging out in a former American colony is quite a shift in gears.

Today, we had a series of high level briefings, and we got a good idea of where the Philippines stands in this part of the world: on the edge of a World War.

Today was our first day of briefings in Manila.

I knew that Japan's occupation of the Philippines was brutal, but my education of World War II history tended to be focused on Europe and the Pacific sub campaign.