iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I’m sorry. Is the message “invest in us OR we’ll destroy humanity” or “invest in us AND we’ll destroy humanity“?

Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

BTW, Cardinal McElroy has a PhD in political science from Stanford (1989). Wrote his dissertation, eventually a book, on Morality and American Foreign Policy.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The usual timeline: 1. The thing 2. The buzz about the thing 3. The backlash to the buzz 4. The backlash to the backlash 5. I first hear about the thing

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

If I understand, the issue is fake people signed up by brokers for commissions and real people who don’t qualify under income limits. They are fully subsidized policies. So the only ones benefiting from the non-users are the insurance companies and brokers. But the screen will hit legitimate people.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This election will be a reminder that “people don’t vote based on foreign policy” is most accurate if you mean “people don’t choose candidates based on a comparison of their foreign policy positions.” But voters do respond to the outcomes of foreign policy choices if they are salient.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Every answer would be at least five paragraphs long, with a clear thesis statement, supporting evidence, and consideration of prominent counter arguments. Only it wouldn’t be a bit. 🤓

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Reupping this prediction... bsky.app/profile/ksch...

A post by me saying

Accounts from contemporary Chinese observers must be dismissed as unreliable, a history written by the victors. There is no way that the United States, in the words of one Chinese scholar, “just handed it to us.”

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Reposted by Ken Schultz

John Halloran @profhalloran.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I think everyone should take some time this morning and read this article.

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Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Wife: Can you take out the trash and recycling? Me: No, I need to sit on the couch. For national security.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Had a chance to go snorkeling off Catalina Island last week. Very different from snorkeling in Hawaii.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Guessing that “you all should slow down development of your product that competes with mine” isn’t going to work.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

This is a very good statement. “In many fields and activities, years of training have traditionally served not only to produce a final answer or product, but also to develop understanding and the ability to formulate new questions and ideas.”

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

My theory is that if you take an impulsive leader loosely tethered to reality, replace the policymaking process with sycophants and strivers who tell him how brilliant and popular he is, and cede every institutional check on his power, a bunch of ill-advised and inexplicable stuff will happen.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

If the military objectives have been achieved but the political objectives have not, that tells you that we didn’t have an appropriate strategy.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Yes, Trump likes to irritate people in other countries so that it is politically harder for their leaders to make concessions. Brilliant strategy!

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Time to update this graph... Source: www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/...

Graph titled US Favorability in Major Allies showing percent of people having favorable views toward the US in Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and South Korea 2000-26. There is a very clear partisan cycle.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Guessing no one reads it anymore, and certainly not anyone is this administration, but Keohane and Nye had a whole chapter in Power and Interdependence about why the US doesn't always win in disputes against Canada despite its superior military and economic resources.

A table titled "Patterns of Outcomes in High-level conflict: Canada-United States" The table shows 16 cases whose outcomes favored the US, 16 that favored Canada, and 8 that were equal.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Seems like Canada is doing exactly what the National Security Strategy said we want it to do.

• Primacy of Nations - The world's fundamental political unit is and will remain the nation-state. It is natural and just that all nations put their interests first and guard their sovereignty. The world works best when nations prioritize their interests. The United States will put our own interests first and, in our relations with other nations, encourage them to prioritize their own interests as well. We stand for the sovereign rights of nations,

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

So about that cheap mystery beef. Either it’s not going to happen, or it won’t happen until after Labor Day. Just brilliant politics by the brightest minds. www.ft.com/content/7aab...

The official said the president would formalise the agreement by signing an executive order within the next two weeks.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Optimist: the cup is half full Pessimist: the cup is half empty Schrödinger’s cat: we can resolve this indeterminacy by knocking the cup off the table

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Reposted by Ken Schultz

The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 21/08/2026

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Ellis Rosen.

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Gerry Doyle @mgerrydoyle.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

a week after japan surrendered

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Sure, you could take a GLP-1 to suppress your appetite. Or, for lower cost and fewer side effects, you could just look at the photo of the AI breakfast burrito making the rounds here. 🤢

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Been a long time since I’ve seen these in the wild.

A collection of National Geographic magazines.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Students who get good grades on homework tend to get good grades on tests. But a recent study out of China shows a divergence. The old correlation holds for students who didn't use AI on homework, but it's the opposite for those who did. Using AI = best homework grades, worst test grades

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Fresh off his failed war against Iran, Trump is going to rebound by going after the low-hanging fruit of … North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Every now and then I check in on the Article II treaty making process and confirm that it is broken.

A bar graph titled "Whither Treaties?" tracking the number of treaties submitted to the Senate and ratified in each year since 1977. The bars drop dramatically starting in 2009. The last ratification is in 2023. No treaties have been submitted or ratified in 2026 (and the one submitted in 2025 happened at the end of Biden's term).

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Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 17/08/2026

friend sends

the "oh they got this all screwed up" meme from thesimpsons, but it goes from "PIVOT TO ASIA // NO MIDDLE EAST WARS" to "PIVOT TO ASIA? NO, MIDDLE EAST WARS!"

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David Darmofal @daviddarmofal.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Republicans believe in a government so limited that it can give you an electric shock with its own hands.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

This can’t be. Just last week, Elbridge Colby (Groton 1998, Harvard 2002, YLS 2009) told Asian allies to ignore the “panjandrums of the global elite” suggesting that the US was weakening its commitment to Asia.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Picking grapefruit from my tree that I cannot eat sent me down a rabbit hole looking at how increased use of statins has affected the grapefruit market. Turns out, US production and consumption have plummeted, and medication interactions are one factor. ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/...

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

The leader of the most powerful country in the world threatening to annex a strategic waterway would be a five-alarm fire, but we all just assume he’s full of it.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Colby wants a Goldilocks level of uncertainty about the US defense commitment: enough that they will spend more on defense but not so much that they will make plans without us. Hard to do when foreign policy is set by the whims of an impulsive leader via social media post.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Just recalling this passage from the National Security Strategy (Nov 2025)

But the days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over—not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was. It is rather emerging as a place of partnership, friendship, and investment—a trend that should be welcomed and encouraged. In fact, President Trump's ability to unite the Arab world at Sharm el-Sheikh in pursuit of peace and normalization will allow the United States to finally prioritize American interests.

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Christina Wolbrecht @cwolbrecht.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

The fundamental inability to understand that other people also have people who love them—to imagine what others might suffer BEFORE you suffer it yourself—is just staggering. The utter abandonment of empathy.

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Judah Grunstein @judah-grunstein.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I agree with everything in this thread. I'd only add two things. First, the US military's ability to project force globally is also contingent on the forward basing made possible by its alliances. So the strategic competence extends to eroding those alliances as well.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

A couple years ago, someone asked me about the lessons of Afghanistan, and I made a snide comment that we would surely forget those lessons because you had to forget in order to do the next stupid thing. Didn’t realize it would be this quick.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

As an addendum to the discussion of institutional neutrality clause in the Vanderbilt statement, I want to call out this passage. If I'm not mistaken, it articulates a political ideology and theory of social change before saying that universities cannot have such things.

To ensure this enduring success, American universities need to be firmly committed to their core purpose: the cultivation of a free and self-governing republic by the creation, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge through reason, argument, and evidence, rooted in the pursuit of truth and discovery at the frontiers of human knowledge and in a university culture of free inquiry, wide-ranging debate, and academic excellence.

If faculty and students seek to pursue the truth wherever it lies, a university cannot have a political ideology or pursue a particular vision of social change.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Great analysis by @kschake.bsky.social . Right into my US foreign policy syllabus.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

When the moon hits a ship That's been left there to drift That's a bad day

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Kurt Taylor Gaubatz @kurttg.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

It's almost as if the Pentagon is being run by some disgruntled mid-level officer who was always sure he and his drinking buddies knew more than the generals.

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Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

The US military is very, very good at 3-4 things, and none of them is going to bring Iran to the kind of surrender Trump wants. That it has come to crowdsourcing ideas from the military shows what a devastating strategic failure this war already is, not to mention the effect on morale.

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Ken Schultz @kschultz.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Can’t believe that Homer gave his young hero’s trainer a trite name like Mentor and not a cool name like Duncan Idaho.

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