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Jonathan Caverley

@jcaverley.bsky.social
2.4K followers 1.3K following 72 posts

Political scientist who studies defence (with a “c”) strategy and industrial policy. www.jonathancaverley.com

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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 18h
This is not what I had in mind when I entered academia but at this stage of my career I'll take it. 
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
My learning this stuff exists just after hitting cruising altitude out of Heathrow is Moses-on-Mt.-Nebo tier dolor.
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Am I the only one who sees this and thinks "that's no moon"?
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Foreign Policy Research Institute @fpri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🆕 What Stands Out in the US-Greenland-Denmark Agreement with Rebeca Pincus and @aaronstein1.bsky.social. buff.ly/V0dMDxe
buff.ly
What Stands Out in the US-Greenland-Denmark Agreement - Foreign Policy Research Institute
This whole Greenland saga has elicited all sorts of commentary. Let’s step back. The United States has had a presence on Greenland and permissive basing rules
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Charlie Thomas @cthomasjamh.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
CASI has been hands down filled with some of the best, most focused, and most informative scholars I have ever met. They’ve been worth their weight in gold in every briefing I’ve been at with them. This is a deep mistake that will rob us of critical expertise in exchange for saving spare change.
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Steve Saideman @smsaideman.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Super jazzed to have @risabrooks12.bsky.social appear on the Civil-Military Relations Network's podcast Unequal Dialogues civilmilitaryrelations.substack.com/p/unequal-di... and, yes, I asked Eliot Cohen belatedly and he is flattered by the homage.
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Remarkable, and depressing, data analysis in this piece.
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Christoph Harig @charig.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Shamelessly re-plugging my article on the "very fine line between an appropriate response to democratic backsliding and undue political activism by military leaders", since we're discussing it again today:
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
US Chief of Naval Operations “conveyed to Hegseth that barely one-fourth of the Navy’s destroyer fleet is ready to deploy.” www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
washingtonpost.com
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
“Macerated” is now my new favorite not-quite-euphemism.
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Deva Woodly @devawo.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
War is not the answer is often styled by hawks as a hippie slogan but it’s just the plain truth most of the time.
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Eric Carbone @ericcarbone.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Also they’ve announced Epic Fury is over.
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
“Right now, we’re doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury – which we have plenty”
www-aljazeera-com.cdn.ampproject.org
US pausing $14bn arms sale to Taiwan due to Iran war, navy chief says
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao's remarks come as US President Donald Trump gives mixed signals on the sale.
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Brilliant
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
One of the field's most interesting scholars in civi-military relations writing on a very important and timely target.
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Christoph Harig @charig.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Can civil-military relations scholarship provide prescriptive normative guidance for military leaders' appropriate behaviour in democratic backsliding? My new article in @journalofgss.bsky.social debates this civil-military conundrum academic.oup.com/jogss/articl... #CivMilSKy
Civil-Military Relations in the Prevention of Democratic Backsliding  Christoph Harig 

Abstract  
Most civil-military relations scholarship implicitly or explicitly sees the military as a threat to democratic institutions and governments. In recent years, however, there have been several instances in which democratically elected governments tried to use the armed forces for undermining democratic institutions. Hence, military leaders may sometimes have to contest lawful political decisions if these potentially threaten democracy. This challenges fundamental normative assumptions in civil-military relations research. The present article therefore asks: Which analytical tools does civil-military relations scholarship provide for assessing the appropriate role of military leaders in the prevention of democratic backsliding? Should there be general, prescriptive normative theories for military leaders’ appropriate behaviour in contexts of democratic backsliding? The article begins by reviewing civil-military relations scholarship’s perspectives on the appropriate political role of armed forces and discusses how these are challenged by democratic backsliding. Building on previous attempts to conceptualise military dissent and the military’s role in autocratization processes, the article argues that military behaviour in backsliding processes cannot be assessed without taking military role conceptions as explanatory variable for military leaders’ ideas about appropriate behaviour into account. Illustrative examples from the Americas then assess military leaders’ reaction to backsliding attempts and their consequences for democracy and civil-military relations. The findings underline that prescriptive guidance for military disobedience should be treated with caution.
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Jill Sargent Russell, PhD @jsargentr.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I would spend foolishly on trucks and air lift. They will not go out of trend. (And if an ICE truck, make the body and works modular so electrics can be adapted when it is robust enough for military use.)
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Gulf chaos further compounds European states' incentives to arm selfishly & wastefully now versus collectively & cost-effectively later. Germany/Poland generate most new capability; France/UK nuclear deterrence & mild power projection. It's probably enough. www.foreignaffairs.com/europe/europ...
foreignaffairs.com
Europe’s New Defense Core
As America steps back, four countries will shape the continent’s security.
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Elizabeth (Bit) Meehan, PhD @elizabethbitmeehan.com · 25/03/2026
chat i'm going to ask a somewhat prickly question: what do you (fellow political scientists) want out of your professional association right now (knowing that this is a sample of Very Online People and folks with wildly differing opinions)
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Adam Smith observed that there’s a lot of ruin in a nation, I continue to be surprised by how much ruin there is in a hegemon. www.ft.com/content/a6d0... America keeps bailing out Trump
ft.com
America keeps bailing out Trump
The country’s underlying strengths are absorbing his erratic choices, including the war on Iran
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
There is a metaphor here somewhere…. www.ft.com/content/9089...
ft.com
Cargill uses AI to get more meat from the bone as beef prices soar
System called CarVe spots flecks of meat on carcasses as they move along the production line
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Secretary Hegseth's public comments reveal a key shift in US civil-military relations that hasn't gotten enough attention. NYT recently described his view of war as without "moral purpose" but more accurately he assigns war *no* political or strategic purpose. 1/7 www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/u...
nytimes.com
How Hegseth Came to See Moral Purpose in War as Weakness
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Secretary Hegseth's public comments reveal a key shift in US civil-military relations that hasn't gotten enough attention. NYT recently described his view of war as without "moral purpose" but more accurately he assigns war *no* political or strategic purpose. 1/7 www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/u...
nytimes.com
How Hegseth Came to See Moral Purpose in War as Weakness
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Mike Petersen @michaelbpetersen.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
It is remarkable how little industry knows about the Navy and vice versa.
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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
Back in 2020, Lindsay Cohn, Dani Lupton and I wrote about the danger of domestic law enforcement making itself indistinguishable from the military www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
washingtonpost.com
Analysis | What’s happening in Portland could hurt civilian control of the military. Here’s how.
Blurring the line between police and military could create an internal security force accountable to only one political branch or official.
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Foreign Affairs @foreignaffairs.com · 03/01/2026
“Even if a regime change operation succeeds at first, history again shows that long-term outcomes are often disappointing,” write Alexander Downes and Lindsey O’Rourke.
foreignaffairs.com
The Regime Change Temptation in Venezuela
If past is prologue, a U.S. attempt to overthrow Maduro would not end well.
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Jason "Red5" Lyall @jaylyall.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
hey fellow authors, I received my Anthropic copyright settlement materials in the mail today. I thought I'd filed a claim already, but it turns out I needed to do so again. Might be worth double-checking or filing a new claim, just to be sure You can do so here: www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Returning today from some European events on transatlantic relations. No doubt the colleagues I met are revising their priors further. All such documents are tools of domestic as much as international politics. This one seems almost entirely aimed at the former. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
whitehouse.gov
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
This is dead right. Elites in China, India, the US and elsewhere took Huntington’s naive essentialism and turned it into an instruction manual for mobilization. academic.oup.com/edited-volum...
academic.oup.com
The Domestic Sources of Grand Strategy
AbstractOver the past decades of American-dominated International Relations, research on domestic sources of grand strategy has largely coalesced around th
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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 01/12/2025
Indeed: Huntington was an early warning sign of how, amidst skyrocketing inequality, a small coterie of unpatriotic super elites would seek to tear down state structures while shouting racist narratives of blood and soil into the media that they control
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
In our new (open access!) Survival article, Ethan Kapstein and I argue Europe’s rapid rearmament and US focus elsewhere are enabling a more effective and sustainable transatlantic partnership...if its members are willing to acknowledge and maintain it. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
The Atlantic Alliance: Diverging Interests, Converging Policies
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and US President Donald Trump’s re-election have prompted fears about the health and durability of the NATO alliance. Such fears appear excessive. Alliance members are ...
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Adam @kels316.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
would be bonkers if a bunch of rocket scientists had to leave the US for Europe because of fascism.
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
“No more foreign wars,” as the monkey’s paw curls shut.
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
The black box of academic publishing is dark inside indeed - and I've not even mentioned Manucript Central yet - but it also contains other academics doing their best as editors to steward your work with care and respect.
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Alex Luck @alxluck.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
My short overview for @navalnews.com on the major news broken overnight in Japanese media that Australia now wants to acquire Upgraded Mogami aka 06FFM for the RAN under SEA 3000. As noted, no official statement by Canberra yet. www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2...
navalnews.com
Upgraded Mogami Set To Win SEA 3000
Japanese media has broken the story that the Upgraded Mogami is set to be the preferred design for a major Australian frigate purchase.
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
This. The political economy of American higher education is deeply misunderstood even by most of the people within it. This is shocking considering the stakes involved as well as US elites' obsession with it.
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Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
People: World Cup can't happen now FIFA will pull out football fans: FIFA will just do corruption People: who even understands how to be corrupt well enough to navigate this situation? FIFA: www.insideworldfootball.com/2025/07/08/f...
insideworldfootball.com
FIFA opens office at Trump Tower, New York - Inside World Football
July 8 – FIFA has opened an office at Trump Tower in New York City, deepening its already close ties with the much-criticised US administration.  US President Donald Trump and FIFA supremo Gianni Infa...
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Alex Luck @alxluck.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Great footage, highly recommended watch for naval infrastructure enthusiasts. Note also the completely stripped down and cut open Type 209 boat. Something you don't see often in such footage.
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Sirens: A Bombshell Production @sirenspod.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
This is Sirens, brought to you by the Ladies of Bombshell. In Ep 1, our hosts talk about why they are launching a new podcast, reveal what horrible things they have discovered at the bottom of their work bags, and talk about issues that may lure men to their death. sites.libsyn.com/92063/bonds-...
sites.libsyn.com
Sirens: A Bombshell production: Bond markets, AI and DOGE2025
This is Sirens, a new series, brought to you by the Ladies of Bombshell - Loren DeJonge Schulman, Radha Iyengar Plumb, and Erin Simpson. In this episode, our hosts talk about why they are launching a ...
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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Star Trek - TMP: How is it that between Earth and the Klingon Empire -- the Federation's pacing threat -- Starfleet has one starship in drydock and that's it? Where's the rest of the fleet? Who are they assigned to? Oh, wait...
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Automatic follow given the endorser.
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
No one in the world more qualified than my colleague @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social to discuss the ramifications of the military in LA.
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
In addition to the other excellent suggestions, I would start with CRS's Rob O'Rourke's devastating testimony here: armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfile...
armedservices.house.gov
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Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
cc: @jcaverley.bsky.social
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Jonathan Caverley @jcaverley.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
As someone accustomed to seeing charts with missile range rings emanating from “bad guys’” territory, I was unprepared for how unsettling I found this graphic in the excellent new report from IISS. I understand the importance of Europe arming but am also saddened by it. www.iiss.org/research-pap...
Map showing European missile ranges covering western Russia.
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War on the Rocks @warontherocks.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
Foreign military sales are under the microscope. What should change? warontherocks.com/20...
warontherocks.com
In Brief: How to Improve the Foreign Military Sales Process - War on the Rocks
In an April 9 executive order, the president directed his administration to “improve speed and accountability in the defense sales system.” The order aims
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PubAffairs EU Debates, News & Opinions 🇪🇺 @pubaffairsbruxelles.eu · 07/04/2025
[Analysis] #EUDefence: A transatlantic #Defense industrial base? Two contrasting views, by @jcaverley.bsky.social, Ethan B. Kapstein, @elietenenbaum.bsky.social and @leoperiapeigne.bsky.social | @ifri.bsky.social
pubaffairsbruxelles.eu
A transatlantic defense industrial base? Two contrasting views - PubAffairs Bruxelles
The evolving landscape of global defense cooperation has brought the transatlantic relationship between the United States (US) and Europe into sharp focus. As geopolitical tensions rise and the threat...
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