Michael Paarlberg
@mpaarlberg.bsky.social
Associate professor of political science, Virginia Commonwealth University. Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy. Assoc. Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies. Formerly The Guardian & Latin America advisor, Bernie Sanders. 교포
michaelpaarlberg.org
michaelpaarlberg.org
To paraphrase the late Robert Fitch, vulgar imperialism explains 99% of the world www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
November 5, 2025 at 4:39 PM
To paraphrase the late Robert Fitch, vulgar imperialism explains 99% of the world www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Trump knows regime change wars are unpopular so he has sold it as a counternarcotics operation, figuring that executing people on boats he alleges are narco terrorists is popular with the US public. Only 27% approve.
November 2, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Trump knows regime change wars are unpopular so he has sold it as a counternarcotics operation, figuring that executing people on boats he alleges are narco terrorists is popular with the US public. Only 27% approve.
It’s even more lopsided when it comes to a military invasion of Venezuela: 55% opposed vs. 15% support. Even more Republicans oppose rather than support invasion.
November 2, 2025 at 11:28 PM
It’s even more lopsided when it comes to a military invasion of Venezuela: 55% opposed vs. 15% support. Even more Republicans oppose rather than support invasion.
Someone should do this for political prediction markets, and create an Inverse Carville
October 31, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Someone should do this for political prediction markets, and create an Inverse Carville
Looks like I made it - quoted randomly in an article about a Punjabi gang killing in Fresno www.eurasiareview.com/28102025-ind...
October 30, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Looks like I made it - quoted randomly in an article about a Punjabi gang killing in Fresno www.eurasiareview.com/28102025-ind...
See also Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Iran. If you wanted to design a policy that actually strengthens authoritarian regimes, you couldn’t find one with a better track record than US economic sanctions.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/w...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/w...
October 26, 2025 at 6:59 PM
See also Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Iran. If you wanted to design a policy that actually strengthens authoritarian regimes, you couldn’t find one with a better track record than US economic sanctions.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/w...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/w...
If we believe this is about drugs, there would be a stronger case for invading Peru, Myanmar, or the Czech Republic than for Venezuela - which is at best a passthrough country for about 8% of cocaine flows to the US per the DEA
October 26, 2025 at 5:00 PM
If we believe this is about drugs, there would be a stronger case for invading Peru, Myanmar, or the Czech Republic than for Venezuela - which is at best a passthrough country for about 8% of cocaine flows to the US per the DEA
If autocracy is our criteria, here is a map of all the countries that the US should be overthrowing, in purple
October 26, 2025 at 5:00 PM
If autocracy is our criteria, here is a map of all the countries that the US should be overthrowing, in purple
Here's a more comprehensive word cloud using ggplot. Again, mostly military related. I don't see much about "socialism" or related topics.
October 23, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Here's a more comprehensive word cloud using ggplot. Again, mostly military related. I don't see much about "socialism" or related topics.
Here's a basic word cloud for @grahamformaine.bsky.social's Reddit posts, for which I took out stop words like "a" and "the" and also duplicate plural words like marine/marines etc. The account has been deleted from Reddit but I got over 2,000 archived posts by scraping Pushshift.
October 23, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Here's a basic word cloud for @grahamformaine.bsky.social's Reddit posts, for which I took out stop words like "a" and "the" and also duplicate plural words like marine/marines etc. The account has been deleted from Reddit but I got over 2,000 archived posts by scraping Pushshift.
Since Graham Platner's old Reddit posts are in the news, and since I teach my students data scraping with R and use Reddit as an example, I decided to scrape Reddit for all his old posts and see which words appear the most. As you can see, he mostly posted about the military:
October 23, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Since Graham Platner's old Reddit posts are in the news, and since I teach my students data scraping with R and use Reddit as an example, I decided to scrape Reddit for all his old posts and see which words appear the most. As you can see, he mostly posted about the military:
The obvious question for DOJ here is, how did these MS-13 leaders end up in US custody in the first place? They were in prison in El Salvador and then somehow…they weren’t.
October 20, 2025 at 11:30 AM
The obvious question for DOJ here is, how did these MS-13 leaders end up in US custody in the first place? They were in prison in El Salvador and then somehow…they weren’t.
But we’re giving it to this guy who takes strategic advice from his dogs so I’m sure nothing bad will happen this time
October 16, 2025 at 4:38 AM
But we’re giving it to this guy who takes strategic advice from his dogs so I’m sure nothing bad will happen this time
Not quite the best translation but you can get a sense of the seriousness of thinking going into Trump’s military policy toward Venezuela
October 15, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Not quite the best translation but you can get a sense of the seriousness of thinking going into Trump’s military policy toward Venezuela
The US flying B-52 bombers over Venezuela at the exact same moment that it is flying commercial planes full of deportees to Caracas and Chevron is sending oil tankers full of Venezuelan crude to the US really encapsulates Trump’s Venezuela policy
October 15, 2025 at 5:41 PM
The US flying B-52 bombers over Venezuela at the exact same moment that it is flying commercial planes full of deportees to Caracas and Chevron is sending oil tankers full of Venezuelan crude to the US really encapsulates Trump’s Venezuela policy
October 12, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Surprise kiddos
October 12, 2025 at 4:01 AM
Surprise kiddos
Boluarte impeached, sadly before we could see if it is mathematically possible for a Peruvian president to have a negative approval rating
October 10, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Boluarte impeached, sadly before we could see if it is mathematically possible for a Peruvian president to have a negative approval rating
I’m sure this is no big deal www.bain.com/about/media-...
October 9, 2025 at 3:38 PM
I’m sure this is no big deal www.bain.com/about/media-...
I don’t think there’s enough discussion about how likely it is that the AI sector will collapse the global economy even before it cooks the planet www.axios.com/2025/10/08/o...
October 9, 2025 at 3:37 PM
I don’t think there’s enough discussion about how likely it is that the AI sector will collapse the global economy even before it cooks the planet www.axios.com/2025/10/08/o...
Update: The whole Kirk vigil is an appeal by “Porky,” the mayor of Lima, to get Trump to personally intervene in a lawsuit with a US asset management company. Because of course. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/w...
October 8, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Update: The whole Kirk vigil is an appeal by “Porky,” the mayor of Lima, to get Trump to personally intervene in a lawsuit with a US asset management company. Because of course. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/w...
Maybe the tankies should consider the possibility that Mamdani really believes what he says
October 8, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Maybe the tankies should consider the possibility that Mamdani really believes what he says
Bukele fired the Supreme Court, 1/3 of judges in El Salvador, and the AG and replaced them with loyalists…not because he needed to in order to fight crime, but because he needed to get around the constitutional ban on reelection, and shut down corruption investigations against his administration.
October 6, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Bukele fired the Supreme Court, 1/3 of judges in El Salvador, and the AG and replaced them with loyalists…not because he needed to in order to fight crime, but because he needed to get around the constitutional ban on reelection, and shut down corruption investigations against his administration.
This kind of thing reminds me of being in El Salvador when Paul Walker died and seeing the minutes from the Legislative Assembly a few days later that had a moment of silence for Paul Walker. But that was the day Nelson Mandela died, and someone had to pencil in “and also for Nelson Mandela”
October 4, 2025 at 9:17 PM
This kind of thing reminds me of being in El Salvador when Paul Walker died and seeing the minutes from the Legislative Assembly a few days later that had a moment of silence for Paul Walker. But that was the day Nelson Mandela died, and someone had to pencil in “and also for Nelson Mandela”
Good insights into think tank culture in this essay. One thing that always strikes me is how much subject-specific knowledge is overvalued in Washington’s policy circles, and undervalued in academia. substack.com/inbox/post/1...
October 2, 2025 at 3:55 AM
Good insights into think tank culture in this essay. One thing that always strikes me is how much subject-specific knowledge is overvalued in Washington’s policy circles, and undervalued in academia. substack.com/inbox/post/1...