Drezner's World Is Going on a Fact-Finding Trip

The newsletter will be intermittent for the next two weeks

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Dear readers,

The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World is headed overseas for the next ten days or so. As one of the co-directors for the Fletcher School’s Russia and Eurasia Program, I am occasionally obligated to partake in activities related to that position. Traveling to Russia now is right out, so instead I’ll be going to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to see how those countries are coping with Russian revanchism, an influx of Russian migrants, and a desire to preserve policy autonomy in a… let’s say “precarious” corner of the world.

This means two very long trips and some uncertain internet access while there. So I cannot promise that there will be newsletters over the next ten days. I will try, however, to opine while abroad. If nothing else, I’m gonna have to weigh in on The Diplomat.

In the meanwhile, and if you haven’t already, check out my latest for Politico on the politics of national security leaks. It came about because of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s initial defense of Jack Teixeira as a whistleblower and whether that meant that all national security leaks would always be viewed through a partisan lens. I’m someone who thinks political polarization has had pernicious effects on the American body politic, and Greene’s reaction would be Exhibit A if I was filing that brief.

In the end, however, I concluded that partisanship goes only so far in explaining the myriad political reactions to the Edward Snowdens and Jack Teixeiras of the world:

Even in today’s polarized atmosphere, partisanship alone does not explain the reaction to every leak. National security is one area where the ideological extremes of both parties often meet, with the far-left and far-right valorizing leakers because they view them as victims of a system they do not trust. A further complication is that by their very nature, whistleblowers are often contrarian, cantankerous and self-righteous — and that automatically makes them polarizing figures.

Read the whole thing — and you’ll be hearing opinions from me on other topics as soon as I form them and have the time to write them out!

DWD