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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This new paper by @audreyalejandro.bsky.social puts forward an argument that we'll take seriously at the COW war data project. This is especially relevant we thinking about recoding the Non-State and Extra-state war data.

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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yes! I also encourage the students to read the entire special issue! It remains relevant!

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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Link here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

journals.sagepub.com

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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Looking forward to the start of Quantitative Security!! A key topic we'll discuss is how computation and classic regression fit within the "credibility revolution". My short answer is, "focus on measurement, not method". My longer answer is, "read Achen's classic paper" 👇

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Reposted by Paul Poast

World Politics Review @wpr.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Should the U.S. pull its forces back from the island chain running from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines—and if it does, must its alliances there go too? @profpaulpoast.bsky.social weighs a report that has sparked heated debate among strategists:

wpr.pub

Rethinking the U.S. Military’s Footprint in East Asia

A new report about America’s military posture in the region has sparked debate over how Washington should best protect its core interests.

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In short, if you think island chains are key to US security (either for containing China or creating a bugger to the Western Hemisphere), then Japan is a crucial ally.

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- It is not frequently seen as part of the third island chain, but -- given Japan's proximity to the Aleutian Islands (let alone Russia), it's difficult to see how the northern portion of the third island chain can be secure without Japan.

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- It also starts the second island chain (though some exclude it, for reasons unknown to me)

- It starts the first island chain (though some hold that the chain actually starts with South Korea).

But even if the US did "retreat" to the second island chain, Japan would still be a crucial ally. That is because Japan is a link in ALL of the island chains (as shown in the below map).

A second island chain strategy for Asia - Defense Priorities

The heart of that discourse is whether the US should retreat from the "first island chain" and instead focus on the "second island chain". I think that's a discussion worth having, as the first island chain does leave US forces vulnerable and might be unnecessarily provocative towards China.

defensepriorities.org

Key points The United States has two core interests in Asia worth protecting with military power: defending the U.S. homeland […]

Rethinking the U.S. Military’s Footprint in East Asia

As I cover in my latest column for World Politics Review, there is much discourse lately about US "island chain" policy: the policy, since the 1950s, that the US maintains several "chains" of allies and bases in the Pacific that help "contain" China

worldpoliticsreview.com

A new report about America’s military posture in the region has sparked debate over how Washington should best protect its core interests.

World Politics Review @wpr.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Why is Japan a critical US ally? One short answer: island chains! 🧵

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Reposted by Paul Poast

A new report urging the U.S. to pull its forces back from East Asia and end its alliances there has been widely condemned. But are the report’s recommendations completely off base? Columnist @profpaulpoast.bsky.social weighs in:

wpr.pub

Rethinking the U.S. Military’s Footprint in East Asia

A new report about America’s military posture in the region has sparked debate over how Washington should best protect its core interests.

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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The report is an important read that should lead to some rethinking, if not wholesale changes, in how the US approaches East Asian defense. Link here: www.worldpoliticsreview.com/rethinking-t...

worldpoliticsreview.com

Rethinking the U.S. Military’s Footprint in East Asia

A new report about America’s military posture in the region has sparked debate over how Washington should best protect its core interests.

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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Lots of discussion lately about "island chains". In my latest for @wpr.bsky.social, I both defend and critique the recent @defpriorities.bsky.social s report by @jekavanagh.bsky.social.

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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

IR Book of the Week! "The Arms Control Paradox" by Amy J. Nelson. Lots of discussion recently about nuclear arms control, both for its own sake and as a model for AI regulation. "Elimination" is not realistic, but management of expectations (or, more directly, ambiguity & uncertainty) is possible.

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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Fewer Americans, regardless of Party affiliation, see China's territorial ambitions as a "critical threat". As for being an "economic threat", the results are largely unchanged (though the percentages were already low). These findings come from recent polling by the @global-affairs.bsky.social

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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Below is my syllabus "AI Statement". Reliance on LLMs is incompatible with "cultivating the embrace of geeking out"

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Reposted by Paul Poast

World Politics Review @wpr.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The U.N. General Assembly has endorsed dropping the 1569 Mercator projection, on which Africa looks about the size of Greenland. Maps have always carried geostrategic weight, columnist @profpaulpoast.bsky.social writes.

wpr.pub

Can a New Map Change the World?

African nations are pushing to abandon the antiquated Mercator projection, drawing attention to the historical and geostrategic significance of maps.

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Paul Poast @profpaulpoast.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

In the modern world of GPS, does the appearance of physical maps matter? Yes, because they play a crucial role in shaping how we (including policy makers) think about the world. I explain why in my latest for @wpr.bsky.social www.worldpoliticsreview.com/maps-geopoli...

worldpoliticsreview.com

Can a New Map Change the World?

African nations are pushing to abandon the antiquated Mercator projection, drawing attention to the historical and geostrategic significance of maps.

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Reposted by Paul Poast

Aleksandra Spalinska @alexspalinska.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Thrilled that my book, "Neomedievalism in International Relations: Scattering the International, Elucidating the Empire", has been selected as the IR Book of the Week" by @profpaulpoast.bsky.social! Looking forward to more discussions on medievalism, modernity, the international and empire in IR!

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Turns out it's not clear cut: at all. It depends not only on how one codes the "gap" between fighting, but also whether the entry of additional states into the fighting constitutes a new and different war.

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On the one hand, one could code these as two separate wars. On the other hand, given that there was only about an 8 month gap between the wars, one could also say that the current war is a continuation of the Twelve Day War.

- The "Twelve Day War" between Israel and Iran (with US intervention) lasted from June 13, 2025 to June 24, 2025. - The joint US-Israel attack on Iran commenced on February 28, 2026 (and is ongoing).

I'm not referring to claims that "the US has been at war with Iran for over 45 years" (it hasn't). Instead, consider the following:

When did the "War Against Iran" start? 🧵

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In the meantime, please check out the software. It remains a work in progress, but I'm very pleased with the progress to date (and I hope many find it useful)!

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I will soon have an updated version of the above working paper which will discuss the process that went into creating his application, as well as its value.

But there is still value in creating applications for users. They assist in replication and in making transparent the various "judgement calls" that go into dataset creation.

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...the old way of approaching the creation of a software like NewGene was rendered obsolete by advances in LLMs.

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But as I explain on the NewGene site... www.newgenesoftware.net

newgenesoftware.net

Home | My Site 2

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As some of you know, I have worked for a number of years on creating an update to that software, one that provided the same functionality as EuGene, but enabled users to go further (with new datasets, new units of observations, etc).

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Eugene: A conceptual manual

For those of you not aware, EuGene was a widely used dataset generating tool that aided scores of international relations scholars since it was first developed in the early 2000s www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

tandfonline.com

The study of international relations using quantitative analysis relies, in part, on the availability of comprehensive and easily manipulable data sets. To execute large‐n statistical tests of hyp...

Very excited to announce Version 0.1 of the "International Relations Dataset Generator", a fully online successor to the EuGene and NewGene software.

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As I've shared with other audiences, nuclear arms control is our best example of controlling an existential risk...and it's not an encouraging example.

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Washington and Moscow, the signatories to the treaty, eventually violated and left the treaty this past decade. Even then, this treaty only pertained to a small slice of nuclear weapons. Thousands still existed and were being developed.

5) Finally, if the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is your model for "success" (which Anthropic referenced in the above memo), then it's not a great model.

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And even if All-but one firm in China (or the US slowed down), it only takes one to develop the "super-intelligent" AI that many fear. The only way to shut them all down would be to turn off the whole system, which isn’t happening.

4) It only requires one of these firms to deviate to render the control effort obsolete. This has been brought up quite a bit, as even if all US-based AI firms slowed down, does that mean firms in China would as well?

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In contrast, LLM development is being conducted by a variety of private firms, large and small, through programming teams that can be geographically dispersed.

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The Development of a nuclear weapon requires large scale resources, access to uranium, and the labs, scientists and infrastructure that only a state has the capacity to provide.

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