Will Smiley
@will-smiley.bsky.social
History (Ottoman and Russian Empires) and international law.
Author, "From Slaves to Prisoners of War" (Oxford, 2018) and co-author, "To Save the Country" (Yale, 2019).
All views strictly my own.
Author, "From Slaves to Prisoners of War" (Oxford, 2018) and co-author, "To Save the Country" (Yale, 2019).
All views strictly my own.
It's fun to see how Wikipedia gets better every year. For example, in my dissertation/book, I wrote about two Russian officers, Semyon Zorich and Francesco Zambeccari, whom the Ottomans captured in different wars. I couldn't really find much about them except Ottoman records on their captivity...
November 21, 2025 at 12:33 AM
It's fun to see how Wikipedia gets better every year. For example, in my dissertation/book, I wrote about two Russian officers, Semyon Zorich and Francesco Zambeccari, whom the Ottomans captured in different wars. I couldn't really find much about them except Ottoman records on their captivity...
It’s very sad that Hillsdale is not just going along with this, but pushing it (I say this as a Hillsdale alum). Larry Arnn has proven to be just as much an intellectual lightweight and political weathervane as many of us thought.
November 11, 2025 at 9:39 PM
It’s very sad that Hillsdale is not just going along with this, but pushing it (I say this as a Hillsdale alum). Larry Arnn has proven to be just as much an intellectual lightweight and political weathervane as many of us thought.
World’s worst bothsidesism. Biden “abstained”—like Rs would’ve just done it if he asked? Like he didn’t try to break the filibuster?
Also frustrating to see Moyn piggybacking off No Kings which is exactly the kind of normie, liberal, majority female Resistance that he’s disdained for years.
Also frustrating to see Moyn piggybacking off No Kings which is exactly the kind of normie, liberal, majority female Resistance that he’s disdained for years.
October 31, 2025 at 1:31 PM
World’s worst bothsidesism. Biden “abstained”—like Rs would’ve just done it if he asked? Like he didn’t try to break the filibuster?
Also frustrating to see Moyn piggybacking off No Kings which is exactly the kind of normie, liberal, majority female Resistance that he’s disdained for years.
Also frustrating to see Moyn piggybacking off No Kings which is exactly the kind of normie, liberal, majority female Resistance that he’s disdained for years.
Thought you meant this, also fitting
October 25, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Thought you meant this, also fitting
This seems to understate how wrong Patrick is. I thought the highlighted part was very well established, not just the argument of one book.
October 25, 2025 at 12:27 AM
This seems to understate how wrong Patrick is. I thought the highlighted part was very well established, not just the argument of one book.
oh yes, the famous 1942 "pivot to battleships," intended to take advantage of the then-new technology of "big guns," which won us WW2.
October 24, 2025 at 7:31 PM
oh yes, the famous 1942 "pivot to battleships," intended to take advantage of the then-new technology of "big guns," which won us WW2.
FYI those are not janissaries, but the Nizam-i Cedid troops who (temporarily) replaced them. Unlike the early janissaries who were enslaved Christian boys, Nizamiye troops were native Muslims, mostly Turkish-speaking.
Here’s a janissary!
Here’s a janissary!
October 20, 2025 at 5:24 PM
FYI those are not janissaries, but the Nizam-i Cedid troops who (temporarily) replaced them. Unlike the early janissaries who were enslaved Christian boys, Nizamiye troops were native Muslims, mostly Turkish-speaking.
Here’s a janissary!
Here’s a janissary!
LOL this is about Trump’s conversation with Putin in Helsinki
October 16, 2025 at 10:24 PM
LOL this is about Trump’s conversation with Putin in Helsinki
I find it funny that this guy is a big-deal right-wing influencer and yet google is literally like "who? are you sure that's the name?"
October 5, 2025 at 4:06 AM
I find it funny that this guy is a big-deal right-wing influencer and yet google is literally like "who? are you sure that's the name?"
The irony is there IS something you can do to protect against gender discrimination in family law. But the sharia-ban advocates wouldn’t like it.
October 3, 2025 at 2:40 PM
The irony is there IS something you can do to protect against gender discrimination in family law. But the sharia-ban advocates wouldn’t like it.
So you don't HAVE to sign it to get grants, but if you DO sign it, and then a professor says something they don't like on Facebook, you have to pay back all federal money (and, somehow, PRIVATE contributions too, WTF?) For any sensible administrator, the downside obviously outweighs the upside.
October 2, 2025 at 1:42 AM
So you don't HAVE to sign it to get grants, but if you DO sign it, and then a professor says something they don't like on Facebook, you have to pay back all federal money (and, somehow, PRIVATE contributions too, WTF?) For any sensible administrator, the downside obviously outweighs the upside.
Don’t miss the completely craven trustees betraying their fiduciary duty.
September 30, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Don’t miss the completely craven trustees betraying their fiduciary duty.
so weird to think that I was one room over that day, attending a different talk instead of the one that changed the course of American history.
September 19, 2025 at 3:02 AM
so weird to think that I was one room over that day, attending a different talk instead of the one that changed the course of American history.
comedians, you say?
September 18, 2025 at 2:39 AM
comedians, you say?
really sounds like someone has been using ChatGPT (but knows well enough to prompt it not to use em-dashes)
September 10, 2025 at 7:01 PM
really sounds like someone has been using ChatGPT (but knows well enough to prompt it not to use em-dashes)
In law school we read The Paquete Habana, 175 US 677 (1900), in which the Supreme Court held that even in a declared war, fishing boats couldn't lawfully be seized--let alone sunk with all hands. (And that was in the midst of an aggressive colonial war!) Compare to... this. How far we have fallen.
September 10, 2025 at 5:52 PM
In law school we read The Paquete Habana, 175 US 677 (1900), in which the Supreme Court held that even in a declared war, fishing boats couldn't lawfully be seized--let alone sunk with all hands. (And that was in the midst of an aggressive colonial war!) Compare to... this. How far we have fallen.
Founding Farmers is fine but I can’t think of it the same way since reading David Kirkpatrick’s description of “Brotaiba,” the UAE ambassador, using it to lobby Obama admin officials to let Sisi do a little coup, as a treat.
September 8, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Founding Farmers is fine but I can’t think of it the same way since reading David Kirkpatrick’s description of “Brotaiba,” the UAE ambassador, using it to lobby Obama admin officials to let Sisi do a little coup, as a treat.
Thinking of these works in particular--
September 7, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Thinking of these works in particular--
This is a very old and very brutal idea. It's simple, obvious, and usually wrong. Ironically (or fittingly?) the classic American statement of it is a 1927 American Journal of International Law article by Elbridge Colby--great-grandfather and namesake of a prominent Trump DoD official.
September 6, 2025 at 7:18 PM
This is a very old and very brutal idea. It's simple, obvious, and usually wrong. Ironically (or fittingly?) the classic American statement of it is a 1927 American Journal of International Law article by Elbridge Colby--great-grandfather and namesake of a prominent Trump DoD official.
The great-grandfather of Elbridge Colby, who now serves in DoD, wrote the classic American text making exactly this argument.
www.jstor.org/stable/21891...
www.jstor.org/stable/21891...
September 6, 2025 at 7:14 PM
The great-grandfather of Elbridge Colby, who now serves in DoD, wrote the classic American text making exactly this argument.
www.jstor.org/stable/21891...
www.jstor.org/stable/21891...
No, we lost Vietnam because our strongest, bravest, most superhuman Warfighter was debilitated by bone spurs. Because of Woke.
September 6, 2025 at 1:49 PM
No, we lost Vietnam because our strongest, bravest, most superhuman Warfighter was debilitated by bone spurs. Because of Woke.
The NK/SEAL secret killings article is disturbing for all sorts of reasons but this part specifically sounds like some people in special forces are really worried Trump is about to order something especially crazy and risky. Otherwise why leak NOW?
September 5, 2025 at 1:41 PM
The NK/SEAL secret killings article is disturbing for all sorts of reasons but this part specifically sounds like some people in special forces are really worried Trump is about to order something especially crazy and risky. Otherwise why leak NOW?
When is someone going to write this book again, but about constitutional law?
Maybe, just maybe, believing that international law "isn't really law" paves the way for the same attitude toward constitutional law. Maybe it's actually norms and culture all the way down.
Maybe, just maybe, believing that international law "isn't really law" paves the way for the same attitude toward constitutional law. Maybe it's actually norms and culture all the way down.
September 3, 2025 at 1:34 AM
When is someone going to write this book again, but about constitutional law?
Maybe, just maybe, believing that international law "isn't really law" paves the way for the same attitude toward constitutional law. Maybe it's actually norms and culture all the way down.
Maybe, just maybe, believing that international law "isn't really law" paves the way for the same attitude toward constitutional law. Maybe it's actually norms and culture all the way down.