Michael A. Innes

Of which the essence thereafter remains unexamined

07.08.2018 by Michael A. Innes

I’ve been digging into the use of Pearl Harbor analogies in America’s response to the 9-11 attacks – and, because of a curious twist in the political landscape in 2001, I’ve been looking a little more closely at a well known study of the Pearl Harbor attack, Roberta Wohlstetter’s Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford University Press, 1962). Wohlstetter’s book is a classic examination of military intelligence (and its failures). It also enjoyed a parallel life as a physical prop […]

Categories: Noteworthy • Tags: forensic history, forensic research

An area, call it what you will, of safety

08.06.2018 by Michael A. Innes

Colleagues at Arab Digest have just published an interesting commentary on “Boundaries in the Arab world and their remarkable durability.” It’s not publicly available, but I do hope they’ll release it as a sample for general readers. The piece, authored by Chatham House’s Greg Shapland, ex of the Foreign Office, alludes to one of those issue-areas that bridges the grounded, practical, concrete world of international law, and the often fuzzy realm of historical understanding, collective identity and memory, and perception […]

Categories: International Boundary Disputes • Tags: Gulf War, history, Iraq, politics, safe havens, sanctuary, terminology

Left in folders next to the trivial and the mundane

08.10.2017 by Michael A. Innes

Trawl industry news or employment classifieds (pick your preferred sector) using keywords like “research” and “information”, and you might find yourself thinking that the sum total of reality is digital, too big for mere human minds to process, and that making sense of it is best left to machines and software. It’s a world in which understanding is less contingent on a cognitive capacity for critical engagement and creative insight than it is on the accessibility of information. Access is […]

Categories: Noteworthy • Tags: archival investigations, archive, forensic history, forensic research, historical research, history

Confronted by a fate that restricts their lives

05.03.2017 by Michael A. Innes

I know nothing of Korea, other than having a general sense of the roles its politically divided geographies play vis-a-vis US and global security, two subjects that I follow closely. Occasionally a blockbluster headline will focus the mind. The past few weeks have produced two: a very public and messy political assassination, tracked in near-real time; and revelations of a (formerly) sub-rosa cyber war the US has been waging on North Korea’s nuclear missile program. Of Korean culture north or […]

Categories: Practice Notes • Tags: cultural content, international security, Korea, North Korea, political communication, political science, sense of place, South Korea, space and place, spatial theory

A signed statement on the failure of language

14.02.2017 by Michael A. Innes

I’ve stayed away from commenting publicly on the new US administration. There’s so much fodder, so much grist, that it could easily overwhelm. It does overwhelm. Daily news feeds are prefaced and filled with coverage of Trump, his family, his appointments, his interests. My instinct is to stay completely away from it, for at least three reasons: First, there is paranoia: we have yet to fully understand and appreciate the consequences of speaking ill or in any way that might […]

Categories: Noteworthy • Tags: body language, dominance, Donald Trump, framing, handshake, Justin Trudeau, Mexican stand-off

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