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Lindsay P Cohn Profile picture
Lindsay P Cohn
@lindsaypcohn
PoliScientist. Assoc Prof. Civ-mil, manpower, IR/NatSec, militarized policing, int'l law, foreign policy, public opinion, Europe. Views own, not NWC's/DON’s
Fellakommando Südost 🇩🇪🇪🇺🇺🇦 Profile picture John Bujnoch Profile picture 2 subscribed
Sep 3, 2022 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
@jonvankin @RadioFreeTom The issue is how the public perceives the military; do they see them as non-partisan servants of a rule of law state, or as particularly affiliated w one party/policy? The latter is bad, for multiple reasons (recruiting/retention, mil advising, dynamics of domestic unrest)
1/ @jonvankin @RadioFreeTom There is of course nothing unusual abt presidents having military backdrops; what *is* a more recent phenom and somewhat unsettling is when they have such backdrops for *clearly partisan/electoral events*. This makes the mil look like they are backing that politician/policy
2/
Jul 8, 2022 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
It’s HERE!!! I’m so excited that this is out. For all of you who have been asking me about Posse Comitatus for years and then saying “so, have you published anything on this?” The answer is now YES I HAVE. Short thread: First, obvs, the book is a comparative look at legal frameworks for domestic uses of mil forces (focus is on security deployments as opposed to disaster relief etc.). This is an important contribution and I’m grateful to Pauline and Rosalie for doing it and for including me.
Jun 27, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
SO many in the “pro-life” mvmt think the term “abortion” refers only to elective procedures w no health issues at stake. AND they think outlawing THOSE will have no effect on how Dr.s treat e.g. ectopic pregnancies. So they think all the objections they’re hearing are dishonest. I am not in any way defending these ppl; I’m pointing out that their ignorance is profound and many of them have no idea just how profound their ignorance is. We need Dr.s to talk publicly about the realities of pregnancy, illness, miscarriage, etc.
Mar 9, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
I will continue to add to my thread trying to keep track of some of the best reporting and analysis on the Russian invasion of Ukraine (see below), but I thought I would do a short thread summarizing what I think we know so far. So for the tl;dr crowd … The Russian military is performing worse than anyone expected and the Ukrainian resistance is performing better than anyone expected. Those are both significant, but they do not change the fact that Ukraine almost certainly cannot win a conventional war with Russia.
Feb 24, 2022 • 167 tweets • 37 min read
This is a full-scale invasion. Many of these attacks prbly aimed at air defenses in prep for air dominance and ground attack, but plenty of them hitting civilian targets like apt bldgs.
Dec 8, 2020 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Argh.
No.
Stop appointing recently retired GOFOs as SecDef. OSD is not a military shop, it’s supposed to be the main locus of defense POLICY-making. The person in charge will have PLENTY of military advisors around; what we need in that role is a POLICY-maker. And no, the national security council staff cannot possibly do all of the defense policy-making on its own.
Jul 17, 2020 • 36 tweets • 10 min read
I think a lot of ppl want to know the answer to this, @docbrianS , which is why I’ll QT instead of responding directly to you. Short thread. Feds can always enforce fed law/protect fed property. Officially, this is the mission of at least some of the fed law enforcement officers there. But those missions can be interpreted narrowly (just physically guard the building) or broadly ...
1/
Mar 19, 2020 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
Since this is getting some more attention, I have an update: I may have discovered the origins of the myth that it’s a fundamental principle of American democracy that militaries aren’t involved in policing.
Oct 17, 2019 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Ok, I heard a brief @NPR interview this afternoon w Rep Scott Perry on the Mulvaney comments (I don’t know who the interviewer was but she was 🌟🔥👑) and I feel the need to clarify some things.
1/ There are currently three different explanations circulating for why the aid to Ukraine was held up:
1) bc Ukraine might be corrupt and we want them to investigate themselves plus specifically Hunter Biden to prove to us they’re not-corrupt enough to deserve our aid
2/
Aug 3, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Tl;dr: Repubs are much more skeptical of climate science than of medical or nutrition science (both significantly more influenced by $$ and less substantiated than climate science). Big problem is lack of general understanding of how science works.
1/ wired.com/story/american… So here’s my contribution to the general understanding:
1) scientists/academics don’t get paid to publish in academic journals. At all. Zero.

2) Some ppl might get paid to publish in industry or interest group pubs, so always check the publication venue.
2/
Jul 6, 2019 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Gather round, kids, and let me tell you about the time the federal govt delegated down to the military commanders of domestic regions the decision whether to respond to a State request for federal military aid ... Granted, Wilson was incapacitated, but still. Sending out a telegram basically saying “hey, guys, there’s a lot going on - race riots and strikes and such - so, uh, if a governor asks you for help just, uh, do it, k?” seems a bit like an abdication of War Dept responsibilities.
Apr 12, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I’ve been trying to explain this for years. I had undergrads tell me their Chemistry prof told them science was experiments so PoliSci was a lie.
Let’s talk about science. The word derives from the Greek for knowledge, and for a long time “science” was used to refer to things we thought we knew through discovery (i.e. not revelation), but eventually it got narrowed down to those areas of knowledge that we “knew” through a certain process.
Jan 16, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Yesterday in class we talked about NATO, and my military students were sincerely curious about why the US is still in NATO, since those countries should “pay for their own defense”.
I think this common belief misunderstands much of NATO’s purpose. A thread.
1/ Lord Ismay, NATO’s 1st SecGen, famously said NATO’s job was to “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”.
NATO was NEVER *just* a defensive alliance that should have dissolved as soon as the threat went away. It was also about solving the German Problem.
2/
Jan 12, 2019 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Hook: “We think that if working with everybody in the region, and if we construct our diplomacy the way we want to, that we will be able to get rid of all forces under Iranian control”

I know I should do analysis, but all I can do is laugh-cry at this. apple.news/AV0zHpPgjSxiCm… Here are the major actors who have little/no problem w Iranian influence in Syria: Russia, Assad, Iraq, Hezbollah.
Actors who don’t want Iran in Syria: US, Israel, Saudi Arabia
Actors who don’t like it but could live w it if it gets them what they really want: Turkey, Kurds
Sep 24, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Every uni/prof I know struggles w this. For the uni there are only 3 solutions; all are problematic:
1) toughen admissions stds so only those who are ready make it in. Appeals to profs, but is a massive blow to the bottom line as well as a terrible collective action problem.
1/ 2) have xtra remedial coursework and specially-qualified faculty to get all incoming students up to speed. This wd also be ok w profs; problem is it lengthens the time students spend at uni, thus also how much $$ they spend, and is also a terrible collective action problem.
2/
Aug 10, 2018 • 14 tweets • 2 min read
Let’s talk about space force.
Yes, we have a lot of physical assets in space, which in turn support an enormous amount of our every-day activity as well as critical security and defense activities. It is important to safeguard these things. 1/ Importantly, there are several ways to “attack” space-based assets. One is kinetic - using physical force to damage the physical integrity of the asset. All others are non-kinetic, e.g. messing with the software that runs them or using lasers to blind them (temp or perm)
2/
Jul 21, 2018 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
@smsaideman wrote a great little blog on why NATO’s still a good investment. I’d like to add a few points, bc I have friends who are smart but not into politics and who genuinely would like to know why the US still bothers with NATO.
1/ The big thing most people are missing is: what are the alternatives? So here they are, as I see them.
1) Fortress America - this is where we exit all alliances and institutions, cut our defense budget way back, focus on homeland defense, and stay out of most world events.
2/
Jul 7, 2018 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
Here is a thread in response to all the discussions about whether Dems should “go left” or “stay center” for this mid-term.
Caveats: I’m neither a Democrat nor a professional political strategist. I’m a Political Scientist with a decent understanding of elections.
1/ The argument is between progressives, who want to run candidates like Ocasio-Cortez, and moderates, who worry that leftist candidates will scare off centrist independents and moderate Republicans. So the disagreement is fundamentally about which people the Dems hope to win.
2/
Jun 21, 2018 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Ok, I’m seeing an enormous amount of confusion/ignorance about how one gets into this country legally vs illegally. I can’t fix that entirely, but I can try to clear some things up.
1/ One way to enter the country legally is to come w a passport from a country that isn’t under a US visa requirement. You can stay for a few months on a tourist visa. You can violate the terms of the visa by working or staying too long.
2/
May 10, 2018 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
There are some intelligent and respectable people in the IC (and elsewhere) who insist that torture works b/c they’ve seen its results. Let me emphasize: THIS IS NOT EVIDENCE THAT TORTURE WORKS.
1/ That’s because there’s no way to test the counterfactual of what information could have been gotten w/o torture, and no way to tell empirically whether torture produces better results than non-torture. This allows ppl to use anecdotal evidence, but that’s not good enough ...
2/
Apr 5, 2018 • 24 tweets • 4 min read
If I hear one more person say something like “Posse Comitatus is what makes us a democracy” I’m going to start throwing things. That is so wrong it’s backward. That law was - and was meant to be - the main facilitator of Jim Crow. Thread.
1/ First: “posse comitatus” refers to the common law doctrine that this 1878 Act was going to ban, i.e. the ability of local law enforcement officials to call for the help of local able men to enforce the law. Britain did/still does allow this, and it was normal to the Founders.
2/