@dhnexon
Professor in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Power Politics | Empires | International Order dhnexon.net | https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com | duckofminerva.com
We, the far right authoritarian party, are Very Serious about the economic & geopolitical threat of a Rising China in the New Era of Hegemonic Competition, as we dismantle our alliances, universities, the institutions of global governance, immigration, & our military footprint in East Asia.
👇 recent @foreignaffairs.com piece actually — I am not joking — takes the time to assert (not argue, assert) that US membership in the League of Nations wouldn't have made any difference during the 20s and 30s. (This is the IR 101 version of "let me share what I learned about markets in Econ 101").
But look at the five seconds of applause he got at the SOTU. Totally worth it!
It's also an urgent political project — the foundation for sweeping institutional and legal reforms, including unpacking the Court.
As someone keeps on reminding me, this war makes a lot more sense once you start treating it as “content creation” by sociopaths.
There is no evidence that Epstein blackmailed American policymakers. This is getting insane.
First the jokes about illegally killing people on boats allegedly carrying drugs, now a comedy routine about torpedoing an unarmed ship in an undeclared war
The DC Disciplinary Counsel has filed ethics charges against DOJ pardon attorney Ed Martin over the letter he sent Georgetown on its DEI policies, court filings show The charges, filed Friday but made public Tuesday, allege he violated the 1st & 5th amendments of the constitution by using his position to threaten not to hire Georgetown students unless the school ceased teaching DEI
Another reason why Bondi is trying to block state bars from investigating DOJ attorneys accused of ethics violations (which is itself illegal): slate.com/news-and-pol...
How Marco Rubio Went From Neocon “It” Boy to Top MAGA Lieutenant.
Rubio has always been a political shapeshifter, and the distance from neoconservatism to Trumpism is actually very short.
My piece in @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/poli...
Claude cannot actually feel, it can't think, it doesn't have opinions, it isn't self aware, it doesn't have context outside the immediate window you are using it with. By asking for its comment on war crimes you are legitimizing the idea that it can be used autonomously or for war at all. Stop it.
This is why, in our forthcoming book on the Dynamics of Power Politics, Stacie Goddard, Paul MacDonald and I include diplomatic capital among the five fundamental "types" of capabilities.
This feels like something I should be able to help with and yet I'm crashing on ms. line edits. Dropping a comment to increase the chances that I circle back...
I've experimented with having Claude produce adventures from my notes and maps, and this speaks to me.
One of the best reasons to staff bureaucracies with professionals— and to choose knowledgeable people to hammer out peace agreements —is to ensure precise language with actionable implications and to build the kind of intergovernmental infrastructure that is necessary for successful implementation. Rushed and vague agreements tend to fail. Indeed, the June 2025 cease-fire agreement in Congo that left Trump gloating did not halt advances by the M23 rebel forces, which continued to seize key Congolese cities. In October, Trump was eager to take credit for the "peace accord" inked by Cambodia and Thailand. But this agreement was merely a joint declaration that left important border demarcation issues unresolved and monitoring mechanisms underspecified; unsurprisingly, a few weeks later, cross-border clashes resumed.
Here is the time when I promote @cooleyoneurasia.bsky.social and my piece on kleptocratic foreign policy, specifically 👇. Earlier in the article, we walk through how the process is *supposed* to enable expert input.
The contrast with the people in the room for the JCPOA is mind-blowing.
This is a technical story with stunning strategic implications. It is quite possible the US launched a massive war because Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff lacked the technical expertise to even understand what the Iranians were offering in negotiations. Absolute idiocy.
www.ms.now/news/trump-i...
"If the American way of war can’t work against Iran, a weak regime with a middling military, there is no chance that it will work in a much harder case — China, say." Excellent piece by Jacquelyn Schneider www.ft.com/content/9fae...
How the Roberts Court destroyed our Democracy
"Five presidential elections ago, before the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling that lifted many remaining campaign finance restrictions, the share of billionaire spending was almost zero — 0.3 percent, to be precise."
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...
Every second of free time you have ever had in your life was subsidized by the existence of the combine harvester.
Taking over the strait is load bearing
The administration that cares so deeply about fighting antisemitism.
🎯Very concise & to the point, summing up such a broad, wide-ranging mess!
OK, here's our story on the wild situation in Manhattan today where the Justice Department settled a monopolization case against Live Nation without telling its own lawyers.
We got one week of testimony that was going really badly for the company. But corruption won out.
prospect.org/2026/03/09/l...
There was no objective to US action, thus can it also be declared complete whenever Trump gets bored or worried about the stock market.
And the mess all these random actions create will just keep piling up for the next administration.
"Very complete, pretty much" says the leader of the world's most powerful country about a war he started and which has killed schoolchildren and is strangling the world economy.
We cannot successfully outsource the solutions to the problem of how to live wisely and agreeably well to markets, bureaucracies, & parasocial algorithm-driven media feeds. We need, rather, societies of abundance in the service of human-scale connection and purpose to have what is in any sense... 1/
Looks to me like an F16. But I'm not the kind of person who can tell from a quick, distant video.
bsky.app/profile/metr...
