An awful lot of international relations can be dispiriting. A glance at the Syrian conflict reveals its awful humanitarian toll, which stands in stark counterpoint to the coldly realpolitik nature of great-power foreign policies toward that country. My point is, it's very easy to feel beleaguered when studying world politics.

But then, every once in a while, comes a story that cries out for its own theme song.

Yesterday the Russians busted an American spy. The Washington Post's Will Englund and Greg Miller provide the straight reporting:

An American diplomat accused by Russia of spying for the CIA was ordered to leave the country Tuesday after a highly publicized arrest that seemed designed to embarrass the United States and its premier intelligence service.

The expulsion of Ryan C. Fogle was announced by the Russian Foreign Ministry, and footage on state-run television showed him wearing a blond-streaked wig and a baseball cap as he was held facedown and handcuffed.

The Soviet-style episode came just days after U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry visited the Russian capital in an attempt to soothe diplomatic tensions over the conflict in Syria and the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing.

A statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which appeared intended to put the United States on the defensive, said, “While our two presidents have reaffirmed their willingness to expand bilateral cooperation, including between intelligence agencies in the fight against terrorism, such provocative Cold War-style actions do not contribute to building mutual trust.”

For somewhat droller reporting on the incident, one needs to surf over to the New York Times, where it's clear that David Herszenhorn and Ellen Barry just enjoyed the dickens out of filing this report:

The circumstances of Mr. Fogle’s unmasking seemed bizarre, even given the long, colorful history of spying by the Soviet Union, Russia and their rivals.…

[T]he Russians released the videos and photographs of Mr. Fogle’s assortment of props, which also included two pairs of sunglasses, a pocketknife and a protective sleeve made to shield information held on the electronic chips now routinely imprinted on passports, transit passes and identification cards.

He also carried a decidedly un-smart phone that from a distance looked like an old-model Nokia. Unlike its counterpart in the “Get Smart” television series, it was not built into the bottom of a shoe.

The most recent comparable spy folly came at the Russians’ expense. In 2010, the American authorities arrested 10 “sleeper” agents who had been living in the United States for a decade, posing as Americans. Some were couples with children; some had well-developed careers in real estate and finance.

What they had not done was send any classified secrets back to Russia, and when they were caught they were not charged with espionage but with conspiring to work as unregistered foreign agents. They were eventually expelled to Russia in a swap that included the Kremlin’s release of four men convicted of spying for the West.

If Americans then wondered exactly what sort of high-level intelligence the Russian government had expected its operatives to find while living humdrum lives in places like suburban Montclair, N.J., the case of Mr. Fogle seemed to pose its own curious questions:

What exactly did he expect to accomplish with a shaggy, ill-fitting wig that seemed to fall off his head at the slightest bump? And why would a counterterrorism officer, trained by the Russian special services, need a letter describing how to set up a new Gmail account without revealing personal information?

Perhaps the overarching question was just: Really?

Looking at the details of what Fogle ostensibly had on him, it's hard to take this event seriously at all. The letter in particular is just one or two Nigerian princes away from looking like a spam email.

The other reason it's hard to take the arrest seriously is that it appears that neither was it a sensitive intelligence operation, nor will it affect bilateral relations all that much. If Fogle's endeavor was truly significant, it's doubtful that the FSB would have gone public like this -- instead, it would have strung out the operation as long as possible in an effort to deceive the United States. And Fogle won't be rotting in a Russian prison, as he' has already been expelled. Post-capture, both Russian and U.S. officials are playing down the incident.

More generally, this won't affect the bilateral relationship -- which, at this point, is based on the occasional mutual interest (counterterrorism), the more frequent clashing interest (Syria, energy), Vladimir Putin's calcified state of feeling aggrieved at the hands of the United States, and the Obama administration's conscious decision to not get drawn into petty rhetorical games with the Russian leadership.

No, instead, one must stand back and gape in wonder at how reality breeds fiction, which then breeds reality. As the NYT story referenced, the last public espionage story involving Russia and the United States involved the placement of deep-cover Russian intelligence agents in U.S. suburbs, which didn't produce much in the way of intelligence, though it did lead to at least one lad magazine pictorial. That scandal, in turn, inspired former CIA officer Joe Weisberg to create FX's The Americans, a truly outstanding show about deep-cover Russian agents operating in the United States during the early Reagan years. And while I cannot recommend the show highly enough, one of the few farcical elements of it is the number of wigs that the lead characters used during the first season. Ostensibly, the lead male character, played by Matthew Rhys, has such extraordinary wig work that he's able to woo and marry an American FBI employee!! It makes Fogle's wigs seem pretty crude -- so crude one wonders if they were planted by Russia's FSB.

The closing of the first season of The Americans played one of the best Cold War-tinged songs ever written, Peter Gabriel's "Games Without Frontiers." That song was perfect for the closing scene because it matched the emotional heft that the show managed to serve up for all of the main characters. Alas, in comparison this scandal seems to feel far more farcical. Readers are thereby warmly urged to suggest what song should accompany this particular espionage episode. I, for one, would suggest this little ditty.

Am I missing anything? Seriously, am I -- is there anything serious to draw from this case?

This past week your humble blogger added another affiliation to his bio, as he has now joined the Brookings Institution as a... wait for it... nonresident senior fellow with the Managing Global Order project.

Now, those who live and breathe the mores and rhythms of DC's think tank community are already aware of the awesome rights, responsibilities and entitlements that comes with this honorific. Those not in the wonk priesthood, however, might wonder. Clearly, "nonresident" implies I'm not moving to DC. But what are the other perks of being a nonresident senior fellow?

The better way to phrase this query is -- what aren't the perks of being a nonresident senior fellow? It's almost as cool as being a full professor, for Pete's sake!! To list all the perks would take too long. Here are, in order, the top ten benefits to being a nonresident senior fellow at a think tanks, however:

10) Now all of my talks can be shorter. Before any academic or policy talk, a speaker usually receives an introduction in which the convenor reads the person's bio. If the speaker has lots of awards, affiliations, and publications, then this process can take a while, cutting into the speaker's allotted time. Secretly, all speakers want this, cause it means they don't have to remble on as long. Adding the Brookings affiliation will cut my talks by at least thirty seconds.

9) I'm now one affiliation away from the PACT. A key plot device in 30 Rock was Tracy Morgan's quest for the EGOT -- Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Oscar awards. Foreign policy wonks have a similar quest, except it operates by affiliations: Press, Academia, Consulting, and Think Tankery. Adding my nonresident senior fellow appellation to being a Fletcher professor and a contributing editor here at FP, I now have a PAT. The only thing missing is the for-profit consulting gig. I'm looking in your direction, Stonebridge Group and/or McKinsey!!

8) 50,000 frequent flyer miles with an airline of my choice. This sounds like a great perk, but really, it's just so that I can be conversant in frequent flyer-speak when bumping into other nonresident senior fellows at conferences:

ME: So did you get upgraded on this flight?

OTHER WONK: Oh, yeah, but that's because I'm Super Premium status. You?

ME: No, and I was willing to use miles too!!

OTHER WONK: Oh, no, never use your own miles!! See, what you should do it... [long disquisition about the art of frequent flyer mile management.]

You get the idea.

7) Officially one of the old boys now. The "senior" is a tipoff -- I can no longer declare "Young Turk" status. Instead, I'm clearly part of an old boy network of some kind or another. Which will, inevitably, lead to attacks from Glenn Greenwald.

6) Attract a much better class of groupies. Oh, sure, as a full professor I get the entreaty from a student willing to do just about anything to get an RAship/grad school admission/job. DC, however, attacts a much more desperate and stylish set of aspirants. Indeed, within 24 hours of becoming a nonresident senior fellow, my LinkedIn profile was beseiged with requests ranging from "I'm just dying to polish your memos" to "I feel like I'm the only research assistant who gets you -- I mean, really gets you!!"

5) One free black helicopter ride. I have every confidence that the sovereigntists in the crowd are already freaked out by the "Managing Global Order" moniker. AS YOU SHOULD BE!!! Who do you think supplies the black helicopetrs to the United Nations? Before we do, however, a nonresident fellow can pick where in the country the brand-spanking new black helicopter can buzz, just to freak out some locals. I, for one, am looking forward to a quick, below-the-radar trip through the Texas panhandle.

4) Playing the Lincoln card.  All nonresident senior fellows run into bureaucratic impediments at some point or another.  Once a year, I can pull the Lincoln card out of my wallet, and utter the following: "I am a nonresident senior fellow, clothed in IMMENSE POWER!  You will procure me these PowerPoint slides."

3) Preferential treatment at the Old Ebbitt Grill.  For years, I used to make reservations at this venerable DC establishment and still find myself cooling my heels and not impressing my date as more distinguished Beltway denizens would just waltz on in.  Not anymore!!  Now I just flash your "Nonresident Senior Fellow" gold card to the maitre d'hotel and -- KABLAMM!! -- my date and I are enjoying the finest champagnes in the land.  This is a much more civilized way of exerting power than the more old-fashioned method in which -- as I understand it -- the men simply unzipped their flies and compared penis sizes. 

2) At least ten more seconds of air time on CNN. Cable news nets will let senior nonresident fellows blather on for at least two more sentences before interrupting duing an interview.

1) "Nonresident Casual Fridays." One Friday, every other month, the nonresident fellows show up at the Brookings Institution very early, camp ourselves in the offices of the resident fellows, and scare the bejeezus out of them when they walk in. Alternatively, we prank call the senior resident fellows, pretending to be a White House flack asking for permission to vet them for a prominent subcabinet position.

December 25th is a time of love, gifts, prayers... and thinking long and hard about Santa Claus as an actor in world politics.  Sure, one could just compose awesome poems in the holiday spirit -- or one could think seriously about the implications of the jolly fat man for the international system. 

I emailed a few of our gravitas-oozing foreign affairs pundits about the true meaning of Santa in our hyperconnected, globalized world.  Here's what I got in response: 

Ian Bremmer:

Santa is the most damning piece of evidence yet that we live in a G-Zero world.  This stateless actor commands a vast intelligence apparatus, an apparent slave army of little people, and is not above working animals long past their breaking point.  By any stretch of the imagination, he's a rogue actor.  And yet, despite these flagrant violations of international norms, there isn't even a nascent effort to combat, contain or regulate his activities.  The G-20 continues to dither, revealing itself yet again as toothless and pointless.  This would never have happened back when the U.S. was the hegemon!!

Niall Ferguson: 

On this day of Christ's birth, I will tell you something that the New York Times, which is so in the bag for this administration that one of their columnists kept predicting an Obama victory despite overwhelming mispeception to the contrary, will not:  Santa Claus is a force for good in the world.  Developing countries will cling to their indigenous Christmas heroes, foolishly hoping that these local legends can guide their country towards peace and prosperity.  Wake up, rest of the world!!  Yes, Santa can seem a bit domineering with his black-and-white dichotomy of naughty and nice.  Let's face it, however -- those countries that have embraced St. Nick are better off.  If anything, Santa's problem is that he's not being mean enough to the naughtys of the world.  Only when he is prepared to deploy the elves to places like Syria and the Congo will Santa be able to honestly wish all a good night.  I hope ole Saint Nick acts in this expansionist manner -- but I worry that the Obama administration, to distract from the fiscal cliff, will declare some kind of "war" on Christmas.  Food for thought....

Donald Rumsfeld: 

Beltway pundits, serenely sipping their eggnog at those Georgetown Christmas cocktail parties, will offer soothing patter about the merits of a white Christmas and the inherent goodness of Santa Claus.  And other powerful interest groups, like retailers and the Catholic Church, will argue in favor of celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25th.  Some clever liberal pundits will go so far as to point out that it was an American corporation created the modern-day Santa.  Don't let these lobbies fool you -- celebrating Christmas on December 25th and welcoming Santa Claus onto our soil is a breach of American sovereignty that can no longer be tolerated.  Why should Americans celebrate this most American of holidays the same time as everyone else in the world?  Is it American for our government offices to be closed on this day because of some unelected bureaucrat based in that oldest of old Europe cities, Rome??!!  Is it American to have some foreign actor -- a.k.a. Kris Kringle -- make decisions about whether our children have been good or bad?!   Americans don't need some foreign list to determine who's naught and nice.  I believe that there's a document that already takes care of everything we need, and it's called the United States Constitution.  Our elected oficials must take action to protect the Constitution of the United States from these global efforts to affect our daily lives.  We're an exceptional country with exceptional children -- we don't need Santa to tell us what they deserve. 

Jennifer Rubin: 

It is on Christmas more than any other day that we can appreciate how wrong Chuck Hagel would be for the Secretary of Defense position.  The former Senator from Nebraska seems all too willing to compromise in the War on Christmas, suggesting that perhaps "some" public spaces should be free of mangers.  This is fully consistent with Hagel's past waffling on various threats to the American way of life, as evidenced by [MINIONS-- PLEASE INSERT LAZY, INACCURATE HYPERLINK HERE--JR].  I've heard exclusively from a top GOP source whose last name rhymes with "Fristol" that Senate Republicans have a master file of statements Hagel made at a Senate Christmas party years ago where he raged against the "rank commercialism" of the holiday.  It's this type of anti-free enterprise statements that clearly demonstrate that Hagel is out of the American mainstream in his views on Christmas -- and America's place in the world. 

Anne-Marie Slaughter:

There are many things to admire about Christmas -- and yet I'm left wondering why, on this most nurturing, this most feminine of holidays, it's a fat, aging, affluent white man who traipses around the world offering gifts to children.  It could be that Mrs. Claus simply doesn't want to leave the North Pole -- or it could be that she's trapped there by the hidebound traditions of this holiday.  Clearly, the current model of delivering everyone's presents on one night makes it impossible for women to have it all.  Perhaps we should rework how Christmas operates to make it a more family-friendly model for the Clauses.  Instead of everyone getting their presents on one night, it should be staggered throughout the year.  This would allow both Santa and Mrs. Claus to participate in the making of the list, the checking it twice, and the bestowing of presents to the world's children.  Let's face it -- the more that women take an active part in the management of this holiday, the better for everyone involved. 

Merry Christmas, foreign policy wonks!! 

As the Barack Obama gears up his re-election campaign, plenty of political commentators have proffered their advice for which past American election should guide his strategy.  Why not look overseas, however?  After all, in North Korea, paramount leader  Kim Jong Un visited some newly-built apartments that his father Kim Jong Il " paid deep attention from sites to designing and building."  Apparently, the residents were crying at the opportunity to meet Kim and his wife.  That's leadership. 

On the other hand, Kim's visit smacks a bit of standard Western politicking.  Maybe Obama should be thinking on a more grandiose level. 

In the New York Times, Andrew Kramer provides an excellent template, recounting the heroic exploits of Russian President Vladimir Putin: 

Russia’s president piloted a motorized hang glider over an Arctic wilderness while leading six endangered Siberian cranes toward their winter habitat, as part of an operation called “The Flight of Hope,” his press office confirmed Wednesday.

While Mr. Putin recently has found some resistance to his stewardship at home, he found a more receptive crowd among his feathered followers. Experts say that when raised in captivity, these cranes quickly form bonds with figures they perceive as parents. That is a role, apparently, that Mr. Putin has been training for....

Mr. Putin on past expeditions has tranquilized a tiger, used a crossbow to extract tissue from a whale and put a tracking collar on a polar bear. News of his latest plan rippled over the Internet all day Wednesday, to great merriment. Some wondered just how far he would go. Would he try to imitate the gasping-shrieking cry of the cranes, to instill more faith in his leadership?

He has also appeared shirtless riding a horse in Siberia and flown on a fighter jet, a bomber and an amphibious firefighting airplane. Last summer, he dived into the Kerch Strait in the Black Sea and, remarkably, quickly discovered fragments of two ancient Greek urns.

Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, however, was later compelled to admit that the discovery was staged.

Oh, man, now I want Putin to be my president, but only after he strangles three enemies of the United States with his bare hands!!  I don't care if the enemies are already dead when he does it -- this is a real leader!!

Sure, skeptics might point out that the last time a president of the United States got all macho and donned a flight suit, it didn't end well.  And maybe, just maybe, a political leader trying to act like a superhero is harkening back to the outdated and ephemeral notion of Weberian charismatic leadership.  Or, perhaps, this kind of derring-do realy masks personal  insecurities and... inadequacies that don't need to be discussed on a family blog.  But dammit, in this world of the new normal, we need heroes!! 

I hereby challenge my readers to devise new heroic exploits for Barack Obama to accomplish as a way of exercising raw, pure, unfiltered leadership.  Here are a few suggestions: 

1)  Obama teams up with fellow superhero Cory Booker to fight crime in Newark -- Incredibles-style.

2)  Inspired by Man on Fire, Barack Obama goes to Mexico and takes care of the drug cartel problem -- single-handedly. 

3)  After three years, Barack Obama has laid the groundwork for collecting an assemblage of fellow crusaders for truth, justice and the American Way.  With a superteam of Michelle Obama, Bill Gates, Seal Team Six, Tom Cruise, the cast of The Expendables, Michael Phelps, Kerri Walsh, Misty-May Treanor, the 1992 and 2012 Dream Teams, and -- of course -- Bill and Hillary Clinton, this elite group of avengers reverse-Red Dawns the Russian Federation, defeating Putin and vanquishing, once and for all, America's number one geopolitical foe.

Any other suggestions?   

Foreign policy wonks and international relations scholars have summer daydreams just like everyone else.  So I can only imagine what my colleagues thought when they read about the latest TV special in Pyongyang:

After a failed missile launching, aborted diplomacy with Washington, and continuing international pressure over the country’s nuclear program, North Korea’s untested young leader has tried once again to take a dramatic step with his isolated, impoverished nation, this time with a bit of unapproved help from Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh.

North Korean state-run television on Monday showed footage of costumed versions of Tigger, Minnie Mouse and other Disney characters prancing in front of the leader Kim Jong-un, and an entourage of clapping generals.

The footage also showed Mr. Kim in a black Mao suit watching as Mickey Mouse conducted a group of young women playing violins in skimpy black dresses. At times, scenes from the animated Disney movies “Dumbo” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” were projected on a multipanel screen behind the entertainers; an article in the state-run press said unnamed foreign songs were on the bill.

The appearance of the characters from the United States, North Korea’s mortal enemy, was remarkable fare on tightly controlled North Korean television, which usually shows more somber and overtly political programs. A Disney spokeswoman, Zenia Mucha, had no comment Monday beyond a statement: “This was not licensed or authorized by the Walt Disney Company.”....

The performance was not the first time the Kim dynasty’s fate had been entwined with Disney. In 2001, the current leader’s older brother, Kim Jong-nam, was apparently banished from the line of succession after being detained by the Japanese authorities while trying to enter Japan on a Dominican Republic passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

If you look at Sky News' YouTube clip of the show, it does seem like there's a whole Disney Princess theme going on as well: 

The BBC reports that this production "seems to point to an easing of North Korea's paranoia about what it calls spiritual pollution from the West."  Or... a Kim obsession with Disney.  Take your pick. 

In full summer daydream mode, I think this is an outstanding opportunity to pursue unconventional statecraft towards Pyongyang.  Clearly, there's something about Disney that renders the Kim family weak at the knees.  Clearly, the best way to exploit this vulnerability is to have the State Department commission Disney to make a film containing Zoolander-like subliminal images that target the Kim family in particular to subvert their own regime.  We know (sorta) that Disney has done this before.  We know that even someone as wide-eyed as Katy Perry can be weaponized.  Why shouln't the United States exploit its soft power and deploy the Disney Gambit against the Kims? 

Because it's the summer and I'm lazy In the interest of participatory policymaking,  I hereby encourage readers to submit their own plots and subliminal messaged ideas in the comment stream.  Let's make this manipulation of Kim Jong Un a reality! 

When we last left off with Bo Xilai, he and his family were in a spot of trouble for myriad crimes and misdemeanors in Chongqing, including the possible poisoning of a British national.  According to this New York Times story by Jonathan Ansfield and Ian Johnson, however, that's just the beginning of Bo's crimes:

When Hu Jintao, China’s top leader, picked up the telephone last August to talk to a senior anticorruption official visiting Chongqing, special devices detected that he was being wiretapped — by local officials in that southwestern metropolis.

The discovery of that and other wiretapping led to an official investigation that helped topple Chongqing’s charismatic leader, Bo Xilai, in a political cataclysm that has yet to reach a conclusion.

Until now, the downfall of Mr. Bo has been cast largely as a tale of a populist who pursued his own agenda too aggressively for some top leaders in Beijing and was brought down by accusations that his wife had arranged the murder of Neil Heywood, a British consultant, after a business dispute. But the hidden wiretapping, previously alluded to only in internal Communist Party accounts of the scandal, appears to have provided another compelling reason for party leaders to turn on Mr. Bo.

This is both interesting and unsurprising.  The leadership in Beijing has every incentive to tar and feather Bo to ensure that his residual popularity in Chongqing does not lead to a revival in his power.  It's now gotten to the point where Bo's son had to issue a statement to the Harvard Crimson in an attempt to shed the image of being a spoiled princeling driving around in a red Ferrari.   I don't doubt the wiretapping story, but let's face it, Beijing's ruling cliques are going to have an incentive to... let's say embellish Bo's perfidy.  

And we here at Foreign Policy want to help!! 

At this point, the accusations being hurled at Bo Xilai, his wife, and his son are flying so fast and furious that the hashtag #BoXilaicrimes is now rising on Twitter.  Look at the list yourself -- here are my faves so far: 

RT @parrav: Guess who's the final cylon?#BoXilaiCrimes

RT @blakehounshell: Shot the deputy #BoXilaicrimes

RT @kensofer: Created Jar Jar Binks. #BoXilaicrimes

RT @_dpress  Tore Jeremy Lin's meniscus #BoXilaicrimes

RT @HayesBrown: Cancelled Firefly.#BoXilaiCrimes

RT @NeilBhatiya: Designed the new Gmail #BoXilaicrimes

 

RT @Seagalla designed the high-speed rail signaling system. #BoXilaiCrimes

 

And, my own contribution: 

RT @dandrezner: Made sure the cast of "Girls" consisted only of princelings. #BoXilaicrimes

 

So... the hard-working staff here at Foreign Policy encourage you to contribute to the #BoXilaicrimes meme.  Think of the most annoying things you have  had to process recently -- and then blame them on Bo!  It's easy and fun.

Your humble blogger is busy going into carbohydrate withdrawal celebrating Passover this week.  I blogged about the international relations implications of this holiday a few years ago -- but that was pre-Arab Spring.  This (and a few glasses of kosher wine) got me to thinking:  what would happen if the event that inspires the Passover holiday -- the Exodus -- were to happen today? 

With apologies to Colum Lynch, I suspect the reportage would be something like this: 

U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING ON JEWISH EXODUS ENDS IN CHAOS:  Permanent Five split on who to sanction for loss of life

Colum Lynch, Foreign Policy

NEW YORK:  Attempts by the U.N. Security Council to reach consensus on an approach to the situation in Egypt came to naught earlier today, as different members of the Security Council blamed different actors in the region for the growing human rights and humanitarian disaster. 

U.S. Ambassdor to the United Natuons Susan Rice, addressing the Council, blasted China and Russia for their "addiction to obduracy."  She concluded, "Over the past decade we have continually raised the repeated human rights abuses and acts of genocide committed by the Phaaroh's regime against the Jewish population in Egypt.  Each time, China and Russia have vetoed even the mildest of condemnations, arguing that it was a matter of Egyptian sovereignty.  Only now, with the desperate escape of that minority from the Phaaroh's clutches, do the governments of Russia and China take such an acute interest in the welfare of the Egyptian people. "

The United States, France, and United Kingdom have indeed introduced thirteen separate resolutions on human rights abuses in Egypt since the advent of the Phaaroh who knew not Joseph. 

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin delivered a blistering response, arguing that it was the radical Jewsish leaders who had escalated the situation by resorting to weapons of mass destruction and demanding that Moses be indicted by the International Criminal Court as a war criminal:  "It was not the Phaaroh who imposed unspeakable sanctions against the Egyptian people.  It was not the Phaaroh who slaughtered every first-born male child in Egypt -- except the Jews -- in a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions.  Surely, not a house in Egypt was spared from this , this plague.  It was not the Phaaroh who resorted to trickery in the Red Sea, luring innocent Egyptian troops into the kill zone before massacring them.  Both sides are equally guilty in the bloodshed, and until both sides renounce violence, a peaceful solution will be nothing but a mirage of the desert." 

No agreement on any resolutions were reached.  British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant flatly rejected many of the Russian assertions, arguing that only soldiers were afffected by the Red Sea disaster, and that it was not immediately obvious whether the Jews were actually responsible for the harsh sanctions that befell Egypt prior to the Jewish Exodus.

Doctors Without Borders upped the number of Egyptian dead into the five figures, but those figures could not be independently confirmed.  The Phaaroh's government again rejected the entry of the U.N. Secretary-General's fact-finding mission on the grounds that it represented an intrusion of sovereignty.  Russian and Chinese officials blamed this inflexible position on the civil society campaign to label the Egyptian Pyramids the "Slavery Pyramids." 

Humanitarian officials are not sure about the current status of the Jewish refugees.  According to unconfirmed reports from Egypt, the Jews left in such a hurry that they lacked basic provisions like bread or yeast, carrying only crude rations into the desert.  The disputed status of the Sinai makes drone overflights impossible in that area.  The "final status" of the Jews is also unclear, as the Assyrians, Moabites, and Philistines all declared the refugees to be persona non grata in their jurisdictions. 

Outside the UN building, the NGO Inside Children annnounced that they planned to release a video entitled "LetMyPeopleGo2012," demanding that the Phaaroh release all Egyptian Jews immediately.  The group rebuffed criticisms that this problem had been overtaken by events, saying that calling attention to the cruel despotism in Egypt was still "a worthwhile and noble cause."    

As the author of Theories of International Politics and Zombies, I want to make it absolutely clear that I have absolutely nothing to do with this: 

But, based on Al Qaeda's current capabilities, I'm beginning to think that this is their best chance for revival.

I could point to full-blown reports, news stories, or portentious weather forecasts, but American residents already know the truth -- Thanksgiving travel is an ordeal.  Traffic jams, crowded flights -- it seems everyone is trying to get somewhere in the days before Turkey Day. 

With the general mantra of "hurry up and place your hands in a surrender position wait" governing these next 36 hours, I thought it would be worth considering how a better appreciation of the tools of stateraft might help those of you on the road to avoid unnecessary frustrations. 

Let's say that another actor -- which we'll call the target -- is pursuing a course of action that conflicts with your interests in world politics.  This presumably means that all your attempts to avoid this clash of interests in the first place have failed.  What are your options in developing a policy response? 

Well, there's always the denial option -- physically preventing the target from doing the thing that is bothering you.  Of course, denial often requires the overpowering, sustained use of force, and therefore is massively expensive.  Very few actors have this option available to them. 

If denial is not possible, another possibility is compellence.  In this case, the goal is to punish the target such that it recalculates the costs and benefits of doing what it is doing and acquiesces to you.  While less costly than denial, punishing the target will often involve punishing yourself, albeit not as severely.  Some actors possess this option, but its success rate is far from guaranteed

Compellence and denial sound very coercive -- what about inducements?  Surely the most efficient way to alter the target's behavior is to buy them off!  Not so fast -- sometimes the price is extraordinarily steep.  Sometimes the target doesn't want to be thought of as for sale.  And sometimes the target might con you. 

There's always the possibility of persuasion -- using sweet reason to get the target to reconsider their motives and reverse their actions.  Of course, what seems eminently reasonable to you might not look so smart to the target, so this is hardly a surefire recipe for success. 

Finally, one should always consider acceptance -- allowing that the costs of trying to change the target's behavior far outweigh the costs of adjusting to the target's behavior.  Intuitively, this is a very frustrating outcome -- but if you lack the capability or the budget to pursue the other options, then it still might be the best course of action.

What, you might ask, does this have to do with Thanksgiving travel?  Quite a lot, actually.  Let's say you're stuck in a traffic jam on I-95, or you're on a plane with a crying toddler sitting next to you.  The natural instinct is to declare that the situation is "unacceptable" and that "failure is not an option."  All well and good, but let's run through our  list of generic policy options and see what's feasible if you're, say, stuck in a traffic jam: 

1)  Denial:  If you're on the road, sure, you could use RPGs to blast a hole through the traffic.  That would require an awful lot of them, however, and I hear they're expensive and illegal to use.  Good luck having enough of them to force your way through the tri-state area.     

2)  Compellence:  Lot of drivers seem to believe that there are forms of punishment that could be pursued:  constant horn-honking, hanging right on someone's bumper, and so forth.  This can work with a few drivers, but more often than not it simply creates reciprocal bellicose behavior/minor fender-benders/West Coast shootings by the targets. 

3)  Inducements:  The proffering of inducements on clogged interstates is exceptionally rare, for two reasons.  First, what can be offered?  Snacks?  Drinks?  A video player?  These are all exhaustible resources -- so in a traffic jam, this will only get you a few car lengths ahead. 

4)  Persuasion:  As Tom Vanderbilt so wonderfully explained in Traffic, communication across cars is difficult.  There's that horn, and of course gesticulations with one's fingers can also often be used.  Neither of these really persuades, however. 

Unfortunately, but logically, this leads us to acceptance as the best approach to handling Thanksgiving traffic jams.  It's the best of a bad set of policy options -- much like modern-day statecraft. 

[What about the crying toddler on the plane?--ed.  Oh, then this metaphor works even better -- crying toddlers are the uncontrollable rogue states of travel.  The parent could try denial, but suffocating children still carries serious legal penalties in most states.  Compellence is popular, except if the idea is to get a screaming child to stop screaming, punishment isn't really going to work well.  Inducements -- "here, have some chocolate!" -- can work, but the child quickly figures out the associated moral hazard and has an incentive to act out again to get more inducements later in the flight.  Using persuasion on crying children is something that non-parents are convinced will work -- until the moment they become parents themselves and realize their own utter stupidity.  No, if a child is bawling uncontrollably during a flight, it's not because the parent is derelict in their parenting -- it's because they've already exhausted the first four policy options and have no recourse but acceptance.]

Safe and sane travels to one and all!   

The Official Blog Son and I were lucky enough to catch Team USA's thrilling come-from-behind victory over Brazil in the FIFA Women's World Cup. It was a great and controversial game, sure to be replayed on ESPN Classic for years to come. It also got me to thinking about how prominent thinkers and writers about world politics would use the game as a hook for their foreign affairs columns and op-eds this week. Here are their opening paragraphs:

Tom Friedman:

I was quaffing hearty German pilsners with FIFA President Sepp Blatter in a luxury box in Dresden's Glücksgas Stadium (try the bratwurst!!) when he said something that hit me like a thunderbolt: "I can't understand why there's so much demand for video replay in soccer. You know, there is no instant replay in the real world." And really, that's what the global economy is like -- a fast-speed, arcing bullet of a free kick with no time to press the pause button. You have to use every part of your being -- your legs, your head, though admittedly not your arms -- just to keep pace.

Anne-Marie Slaughter:

Watching the thrilling run of the Americans leading up to Abby Wambach's header, I was struck by the complex, free-flowing sequence of passes that got the ball from the American end to Megan Rapinoe's left foot. It was such a seamless, interlaced network of exchanges -- dare I call it a web of them? -- that moved the ball forward. As the passes moved from one player to another, I bet social networking technologies moved even faster, alerting Americans that a Big Moment was about to happen. In winning, the United States showed the power of webbed networks -- or is it networked webs? -- yet again.

Kishore Mahbubani:

All of the Western media will focus on the "theatrics" of the USA-Brazil game, but it doesn't matter. This was an intramural match between Western Hemisphere teams, which means it was irrelevant. Japan's stunning upset of host Germany in the quarterfinals is the real story of this World Cup, yet another signal of how the one remaining Asian team will leave the three "Western" teams still alive in the dust.

Charles Krauthammer:

This was an example of American exceptionalism and American will to power at its finest. Battling a set of rules and referees that were clearly anti-American in their effect, the noble U.S. side displayed dogged determination and grit, vanquishing their Brazilian counterparts. The only black mark on the U.S. side was the timidity of the U.S. coach Pia Sundhage in obeying FIFA's absurd and corrupt rules. Sundhage, from that socialist bastion of meek multilateralism that is Sweden, adhered to the letter of FIFA law in pulling Rachel Buehler after she was "red-carded." A true American coach would have instead followed the spirit of the law and sent an 11th player onto the pitch in place of the unjustly accused Buehler.

Glenn Greenwald:

Americans will thump their chests, display their brassy jingoism, and bray to the heavens about how the refereeing in this game was "unfair" or "ridiculous." They'll claim that the referee's red card of Buehler and mandated do-over of the penalty kick during regular time was "anti-American." They'll overlook the fact that the Australian ref could have midfielder Carli Lloyd off the field for a flagrant, deliberate handball but didn't. They'll overlook the granting of a re-kick for U.S. player Shannon Boxx during the penalty kick phase. They'll overlook the aesthetic beauty of Brazilian star Marta's soccer artistry. They'll overlook the arrogance of U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo -- a perfect American name if there ever was one -- as she had the audacity to question the ref (if the officials weren't so obviously in Corporate America's back pocket, Solo would have been red-carded). They'll overlook the fact that the extra half-hour of play insidiously stacked the deck for the Americans, rewarding their better conditioning against the poorer and put-upon Brazilians. They'll overlook the 158 other things that I will now lay out in excruciating detail. Only when WikiLeaks focuses its might on FIFA will the soccer world be more just.

Robert D. Kaplan:

The sweltering heat in Dresden clearly began to affect the crowd. They booed the Brazilian star Marta with all of her touches. You could sense a growing danger as the boos grew louder. The German fans, upset at seeing their own team get knocked out, had clearly decided to side with their tribal allies. It is likely that only Wambach's header prevented what would have been an unruly German/American riot, breaking down the tenuous social fabric. The riot would have started in the heart of Europe, but I have every confidence that, before long, the unrest would have spread to Halford MacKinder's heartland in the middle of Eurasia.

Gideon Rachman

This match crystallized both the promise and the peril of the rising BRIC powers as they assume more responsibilities in global governance. The game put FIFA's many problems -- bad decision-making, a lack of transparency about the bad decision-making -- on full display. Even after the match, FIFA never explained why Brazil was awarded a re-kick following Solo's block of Christina's penalty kick. Instead of constructively seeking reform, however, the Brazilian side tried to free-ride off of FIFA's flaws. Marta constantly whined to the refs about the lack of Brazilian free kicks. Defender Erkia flopped onto the pitch in a transparent effort to stall play. Unless and until the BRIC countries learn to play cooperatively with the fading West, global governance will look as effective as FIFA's efforts to block corruption. Which is to say, not effective at all.

Readers are warmly encouraged to offer their own suggestions in the comments.

[Note to readers: Because Dan was upgraded to business class on his trip to Beijing, he was exposed to a serious viral infection in the food called metaphoricus overloadus, known more commonly as Friedman's Disease. Rest assured, it is far from fatal -- it usually passes after 24 hours of no travel. As near as we can determine, all the facts in the blog post below are accurate. While suffering from Friedman's Disease, however, side effects do include rapid-fire, over-the-top metaphors. Remember: You've been warned!! --ed.]

To truly understand the phenomenon that is China, you need to fly into Beijing's airport and then try to get into the city. That's it; that's all you need. Just that adventure alone will tell you all you need to know about the contradictions of the Middle Kingdom.

First you enter a glittering, modern airport, with helpful signs in Mandarin and English. It's sheer scale and modernity telegraphs the ways in which China has already entered modernity. The monorail from my terminal to baggage claim was a pointed reminder of how much the United States lags behind in infrastructure investment in recent years.

And yet, there's the traffic. Summer in Beijing is a confusing miasma of traffic and smog and traffic. As my compatriot and I clambered into our taxi at Beijing's immaculately clean and modern airport, we knew that the ride to the hotel could take anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes depending on the traffic. Just as we Americans don't know when exactly China will catch up, the Chinese are not sure how long it will take to get there.

We might like to think that driving in a New York City taxi is as exciting as a carnival ride, but that's nothing compared with a taxi ride on a Beijing superhighway. In New York, there's always that sense that, in the end, the taxi driver won't risk an actual collision. On the road to Beijing, however, I witnessed at least two last-minute swerves and road rage that would have made Los Angelenos blush. Using an accent that an old-style New York cabbie would have admired in its sheer swarthiness, my cabbie kept honking for at least two minutes after a car viciously cut him off.

It's a fantastical engineering problem, getting so many cars and motorcycles and trucks and buses to merge and move in the same direction. And that's when it hit me like a thunderbolt -- China itself is like this superhighway. It's massive in size, 10 lanes easy. It's filled with an array of vehicles determined to get ahead. The problem is that when you combine all the vehicles together, the real possibility of a two-week-long traffic jam in which everyone wants to go somewhere but nobody gets anywhere is clearly a possibility. Predicting China's future is like predicting the traffic:  You know there will be some stop-and-go, but you just don't know how much of it there will be.

When we got to the hotel, I paid my cabbie and he signaled that I owed him four more yuan. I was suffering from ATM disease, so I took out a single U.S. dollar bill and a 100-yuan note, looked at him, and said, "You choose." He paused, and then took the yuan note and made the necessary change. Clearly, all of us participating in this hyperaccelerated, globalized economy are going to have to make the necessary change soon enough.

Yesterday Rush Limbaugh asked a former U.S. serviceman who called into his show a totally-hypothetical-and-not-in-any-way-designed-to-impugn-the-patriotism-of-the-sitting-president-kind of question: 

Are you aware of any military contingency plans for a president who might not be your prototypical pro-America president? Are there contingency plans to deal with a president who may not believe that the United States is the solution to the world's problems?

Marc Ambinder provides both a succinct ("No.") and a more detailed answer.  Now, some readers might take umbrage at the partisanship of Limbaugh's question, but I think it dovetails nicely with some recent research interests of my own.  In particular:  what would happen if the president was under threat of turning into a zombie? 

Let's break this down into two phases:  A) a president who's been bitten but is still clearly human; and B) an undead POTUS. 

The first situation could distort the government's initial policy responses.    After all, the actors with the most immediate stake in sabotaging any attack on zombies are those who have been bitten by zombies, and the human relatives of zombies. By definition, the moment humans are bitten, they will inevitably become zombies. This fact can dramatically alter their preferences. This change of mind occurs in many zombie films. In George Romero's Land of the Dead (2005), the character of Cholo has the most militant anti-zombie attitude at the outset of the film. After he is bitten, however, he decides that he wants to "see how the other half lives." In Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (2002), as well as Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Survival of the Dead (2010), family members keep their undead relatives hidden from security and paramilitary forces.  

Clearly, soon-to-be-ghouls and their relatives can hamper policy implementation.  One would expect a soon-to-be POTUS to order research efforts on finding a cure rather than focusing on prevention, for example. 

If the situation is unclear when the president is infected, all hell breaks lose once he becomes a member of the differently animated.  The law here is extremely murky.  From Ambinder:

The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 spells out a procedure. Let's look at 3 USC 19, subsection "E."  We're dealing with a situation where there is no President, no Vice President, no Speaker of the House and no President Pro Tempore. The law then appoints the Secretary of State as President until either the end of the current president's term in office OR someone higher in the chain of command suddenly re-appears or recovers from injuries and is able to discharge the powers of office.  (The Secretary of Defense is sixth in line, after the Secretary of the Treasury.)

This seems clear: If it's not clear, after some sort of decapitation attack, whether the President, the Vice President or the two Congressional successors are alive, or if they're all alive but disabled, then the Cabinet secretaries become acting President -- until and unless a "prior entitled individual" is able to act.

Let's say that the POTUS, the VPOTUS, the Speaker and the President Pro Tempore are all injured; only the Vice President recovers. As soon as that person is eligible, he or she can "bump" the Acting President aside whenever he wants....

The problem is that, in a catastrophic emergency, the people who need to know who is in charge might not have the resources to find this out immediately. These people are, in particular, the Secret Service, and the folks who execute lawful orders from the National Command Authority (which is another name for the commander in chief's executive powers).

Well, then what the hell happens if a president is bitten by a zombie, dies, and then becomes a zombie?  It seems to me that the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 doesn't cover this contingency. 

There is also the question of the conflicting bureaucratic imperatives that some organizations, like the Secret Service, would face in this scenario.  For example, in Brian Keene's The Rising, the U.S. government falls apart almost immediately. A key trigger was the Secret Service's difficulties altering their In divining bureaucratic preferences, where you stand depends on who you eat. standard operating procedures. After the president turned into a zombie, he started devouring the secretary of state. As a result, "one Secret Service agent drew his weapon on the undead Commander-in-Chief, and a second agent immediately shot the first." 

I think the lesson to draw here for Rush and others is that in divining both bureaucratic and presidential preferences, where you stand depends on who you eat. 

I hereby applaud Rush for being brave enough to highlight this troublesome question during a week when nothing else is going on in the world. 

Rest assured, dear readers, I'm hard at work cobbling together the 2010 Albies.  It's a Friday, however, which means there's a preternatural instinct to look for something amusing to blog about.  Unfortunately, today's payroll figures don't cut it. 

Fortunately, there's a golden rule for humor in world politics:  sports + global governance = comedy gold.  And sure enough, today FIFA president Sepp Blatter didn't disappoint:

FIFA President Sepp Blatter criticized the International Olympic Committee on Friday while defending his own organization against corruption allegations, saying the Olympic body handles its finances "like a housewife."

Mr. Blatter, a member of the IOC since 1999, said FIFA was more transparent than the IOC, and backtracked on plans to create an anti-corruption commission.

"Our accounts are open to everyone. ... We've [done] it since I'm the president. It wasn't done before," Mr. Blatter said in Qatar, where he is attending the Asian Cup. "The IOC does it like a housewife. She receives some money and she spends some money."

Mr. Blatter also said the IOC "has no transparency," and that any transparency was left to the Olympic-sanctioned sports themselves....

Mr. Blatter's criticism of the IOC comes as FIFA, soccer's governing body, faces an IOC probe.

The IOC ethics commission is studying evidence provided by the BBC after it broadcast allegations that FIFA officials—some with Olympic connections —took kickbacks from the soccer body's former marketing partner in the 1990s.

The story does a decent job of highlighting the absurdities of Blatter's claims, but the New York Times' Rob Hughes details the precise absurdities regarding FIFA's vote to have Qatar host the 2022 World Cup: 

The vote for Qatar was jaw-dropping.

Only after the decision did FIFA executives, including Blatter, give credence to the notion that the tournament might have to be switched from June to January. It seems that FIFA is having second thoughts. Having accepted Qatar’s promise to build a dozen stadiums air-conditioned, the fear is that players or spectators could fry in the desert heat in summer.

Franz Beckenbauer, a former player who is about to give up his seat on the FIFA panel, was the first to suggest the switch. But FIFA’s own general secretary said it could not be right to vote for a tournament in June/July, then arbitrarily move it to another time of year. Blatter, on a visit to Qatar, however, contradicted him.

Bloomberg's Tariq Panja explains the problems with Blatter's proposal to switch the time of year for the Cup: 

If the tournament is moved, major European competitions like England’s Premier League, Spain's La Liga and Italy's Serie A would be severely disrupted. Those leagues would need to shut down for about two months and a longer-than-normal international break during the season may lead to more injuries.

“That would demand a complete re-organisation of the whole world’s fixtures and I cannot see that happening,” Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger said at a press conference today. “If all the championships are not going from March until November and you re-organise and then the dead (off) season would be in December.”

Here's a good and simple rule of thumb:  if an international sports organization has to choose where to host a high-profile, touist-generating moneymaker of an athletic competition, then it's corrupt. 

The hard-working staff here at the blog would like to thank Sepp Blatter for managing to live up to the comic presence that his very name suggests.  Way to go, Sepp! 

Time to catch up on recent events in the zombieverse: 

1)  Data point #527 that zombies are moving up to the top of the cultural zeitgeist:  AMC will be airing a televised version of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comic book series.  The Comic-Con trailer looks pretty cool. 

2)  In an effort to allay rising fears of a zombie apocalypse, Cracked proffers Seven Scientific Reasons a Zombie Attack Would Quickly Fail.  They're trying to be on the side of the angels with this piece, but I gotta say that I'm pretty unconvinced by most of their arguments.  They are correct to point out the myriad ways in which zombies are vulnerable to the elements, animals, and firearms.  What they don't talk about is that zombies are not likely to be as seriously affected by these countervailing effects as humans with, well, pain receptors.  It doesn't matter if a zombie destroys itself trying to get at live human flesh.  What matters is that by having this single-minded pursuit, they're pretty likely to succeed, guaranteeing that the zombie race can replicate even as individual zombies decay. 

3)  A few people in the blogosphere are pinging me about this Guardian story regarding zombie ants.  From the original story: 

The oldest evidence of a fungus that turns ants into zombies and makes them stagger to their death has been uncovered by scientists....

The finding shows that parasitic fungi evolved the ability to control the creatures they infect in the distant past, even before the rise of the Himalayas.

The fungus, which is alive and well in forests today, latches on to carpenter ants as they cross the forest floor before returning to their nests high in the canopy.

The fungus grows inside the ants and releases chemicals that affect their behaviour. Some ants leave the colony and wander off to find fresh leaves on their own, while others fall from their tree-top havens on to leaves nearer the ground.

The final stage of the parasitic death sentence is the most macabre. In their last hours, infected ants move towards the underside of the leaf they are on and lock their mandibles in a "death grip" around the central vein, immobilising themselves and locking the fungus in position.

I hate to break it to tem, but this is hardly the first zombie insect story -- Greg Laden at ScienceBlogs was all over the zombie insect question earlier this summer.  It turns out that zombie hornets might exist, which sound way scarier to me than zombie ants.   

These creatures are more like the "old school" Haitian zombies, in which some evil master controls them, than the flesh-eating ghouls of post-Romero zombie cinema that have been my primary concern.  Still, Current Intelligence's Adam Weinstein is freaked out: 

A plant had one of nature's most industrial animals do its physical bidding, somehow bringing the neurons and synapses to heel in a coherent, productive way. The liberal arts major in me is mystified and repelled.

The armchair strategist in me thinks: How can our enemies use that?

I'm no chemical or biological weapons expert, so if you are, tell me if I'm crazy, please: Can you imagine a future powder solution, not unlike weaponizable anthrax or botulinum agent, that spreads a fungus capable of commandeering a human brain? Could particular strains be developed to direct hosts into this behavior or that: jumping out of windows, refusing to eat, choking strangers out? Could it even be used to turn reasonable, free-thinking individuals into PBIEDs -- that is, suicide bombers?

Well.... first of all, I refuse on principle to believe that an M. Night Shyamalan movie premise could ever constitute a real threat. 

Second of all, even if I violated that principle, I'm not sure that this is as serious a threat as the flesh-eating zombie.  What makes that strain particularly virulent is its ability to replicate itself.  These kind of zombies, at best, render themselves as total slaves.  What they can't seem to  do is spread the zombie virus beyond themselves to other agents. 

At worst, this kind of bioweapon could, in theory, be used to create a giant army of zombies.  Lacking free will, however, they'd be far less effective than the droids in The Phantom Menace. 

I think that's all the zombie news this week.  More updates as warranted.