Sam Ratner

Yale, Harvard, Stanford

you can just not fund this shit under any circumstances

you don’t have to pretend they need better training, or are doing an important job incorrectly

they’re just racist thugs doing ethnic cleansing and the whole gang should be in jail

Rolling with the Economic Tides | Vanessa Ogle Ian Kumekawa’s Empty Vessel follows the lifespan of one barge, from bunkhouse to floating prison to barracks and back, as it traces the shadowy outer limits of the maritime economy.

“For every waterfront revitalization project in Europe or North America, there is a port somewhere else that was not downsized and cleaned up but expanded, often at appalling cost.” —@vanessahistory.bsky.social

Thank you!

Block The Bombs To Israel

With both of those in mind, you should take a few minutes and email or call your representative in the House and ask them / demand that they cosponsor.

...relationship between the military and democracy (which he also barely writes about in the book, and, to the extent he does, he's much more critical of democracy than of the military), not a deterrence problem. Am I imagining this? Missing scholarship? What's going on there?

... is writing in the mid-50s, and a reason why his ideas took off. But Huntington basically ignores nuclear questions in the book and, in my very limited poking around, I haven't seen much on this connection. People tend to write as though Huntington was trying to solve a problem of the...

... because if you believe deterrence rests on confidence that the military will carry out apocalyptic orders, then the military has to cultivate the compartmentalized mental framework Huntington lays out in order to maintain nuclear credibility. That feels like a v live question when Huntington...

I ask because Huntington alludes to "technological changes" that prompted him to write a book demanding total military fealty to civilian orders, but doesn't explain what he's talking about. To me, it seems like he's obviously talking about nukes...

Question for nuke historians and civ/mil experts: Is there scholarship on Huntington's Soldier & the State and nuke/deterrence policy? @nuclearanthro.bsky.social @wellerstein.bsky.social @risabrooks12.bsky.social

Trump to direct Pentagon to buy coal to revive industry, Bloomberg News says U.S. President Donald Trump is set to direct the Pentagon to use government funding and Pentagon contracts to sustain U.S. coal-fired power plants, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing a White H...

I feel personally attacked by this idiotic policy www.reuters.com/business/ene...

Using the military to prop up coal is a real petromasculinity two-fer.

More of this!

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating: the Biden nuclear policy team bears a huge amount of responsibility for normalizing this nonsense. What was once a fringe right wing position became the settled wisdom of Vipin Narang and Jake Sullivan, and now here we are.

But John Carl, I'm told that This Is Not an Arms Race—And If It Is, America Is Losing! Can't have that!

Three Truths About the End of New START and What It Means for Strategic Competition The expiration of New START does not necessarily foretell an arms race or a massive U.S. nuclear buildup. Instead, the expiration of the treaty may be an opportunity for a new era of arms control.

The last US-Russia nuclear arms control agreement expires tomorrow, and the most some centrist think tankers can muster in response is, "finally, now the US can join the sprint toward 'tactical' nuclear use." Something is deeply wrong in our nuclear discourse. www.csis.org/analysis/thr...

‘Backing down isn’t an option’: Minnesota ICE shootings mobilize Americans to join ICE observer groups The killings of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti have inspired people across the US to document federal agents’ activities in their communities

for over 3 weeks, I've spoken to ICE watchers and organizers across the country: first right after Renee Good's killing — then 2 weeks into my reporting, Alex Pretti was killed.

ICE watchers are being detained and harassed — but they're also stopping ICE abductions and inspiring others to join them

Perhaps Brett McGurk can address this during his next CNN segment?

Ilhan Omar about to punch a slime bucket of a man, just an absolute potato sack looking motherfucker.

nice argument, unfortunately I have already depicted myself as a squared-up Ilhan Omar and you as a collapsing sewer ogre

I am just gonna say it, these guys are completely emasculated by the knowledge that they have been out-organized by a group that is significantly made up of women, and all the bullshit call of duty nonsense is cope for their wounded egos bsky.app/profile/jeet...

The Tom Ricks siren (which is actually the Mark Grimsley siren, which is actually the Doug McAdam siren etc etc) blaring rn

To be clear, I'm not beefing with Seva's article, which I largely agree with -- just noting that "the US, China, and Russia are moving toward regime type convergence" is an insight you wouldn't have gotten from the legions of breathless Thucydides Trap enthusiasts in Washington.

Reflecting on the left commentators who said that shared authoritarian interests across the US, Chinese, and Russian oligarchic class were a greater threat to most people's safety and democracy than "great power competition" and were laughed at by "expert" analysts.

Putting this in the massive file of responses to people who say, "we need to let frontline Dems be viciously xenophobic in order to win."

“Abolish ICE” - ICE www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/u...

One year later: UW-Madison’s pro-Palestine encampment in photos University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin authorized a police raid of the pro-Palestine encampment one year ago today. Here are moments that defined the 12-day protest.

Jennifer Mnookin is the new president of Columbia University. Congratulations to Columbia for adding to its storied reputation as a home for administrators who love calling the cops on their students. www.dailycardinal.com/article/2025...

Exxon-Backed Coalition Challenges How Companies Account for Emissions. Some Say It Could Stop Them From Decarbonizing. Leading climate figures argue the “E-ledgers” approach absolves businesses of their climate responsibilities.

Oxford & Harvard profs develop a new GHG emissions inventory system to mirror the way that financial accounting is done, where liabilities are passed down to the buyers. Did they know that it would help polluters evade disclosure? That Exxon & others would use it to sow chaos?

We need accountability from Venezuela to Minnesota - CIP The impunity of security forces brought us crises at home and abroad. Only accountability can lead us out.

What appears unprecedented isn't as unprecedented as we think it is. In my latest for the International Policy Journal at @cipolicy.bsky.social, I write about how the abuses we're seeing under the second Trump admin are an unfortunate consequence of decades of unaccountability for similar 🧵

(!) Newly-released State Department docs show the Trump-Vance-Rubio admin detained Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi for fake news *initially propelled by Columbia itself* — including that he was yelling at "Jewish bystanders," when what he was actually doing was confronting an antisemitic disruptor.

(!) Newly-released State Department docs show the Trump-Vance-Rubio admin detained Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi for fake news *initially propelled by Columbia itself* — including that he was yelling at "Jewish bystanders," when what he was actually doing was confronting an antisemitic disruptor.

I hate polling questions like "What is the most important issue to you?" A ridiculous thing to ask someone. I have no clue how I would answer that. Basically meaningless data.