Let me second Yglesias' recommendation of this Dave Meyer post on signaling. Meyer concentrates on the public relations aspect of signaling behavior in a democracy, but here are some assumptions that have to hold for a strategy of "signaling", such as invading small countries in...
foreign policy
Yglesias:But foreign policy questions are McCain's passion, he's chosen to put them at the center of his campaign, and there's really nothing at all Burkean about McCain's take on them..
Randy Paul helpfully explains why Castro is bad even if he led only the 34th worst regime since 1900. Police state dictatorships are never particularly admirable; it seems to me.
Via Yglesias, Rodger Payne gives some solid reasons for preferring Obama to Clinton on Cuba policy:Last summer, however, Obama wrote an op-ed for the Miami Herald calling for the US to ease up on some aspects of the economic embargo toward Cuba...Obama has also voted...
Via Yglesias, Dean Baker has some tough words for the Washington Post and the Beltway media more generally:Rather than acknowledge that the experts on whom they rely had badly misunderstood.
Walter Pincus, via Defense Tech:The State Department, departing from traditional public diplomacy techniques, has what it calls a three-person, "digital outreach team" posting entries in Arabic on "influential" Arabic blogs.
The President on Cuba:President Bush is planning to issue a stern warning Wednesday that the United States will not accept a political transition in Cuba in which power changes from one Castro brother to another, rather than to the Cuban people.As described by an official...