New Contributor Alert

At the invitation of Galrahn, I have joined Information Dissemination. Some questions with some answers...

Who am I?

My name is Rob Farley. I teach national security at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. I've blogged at Lawyers, Guns and Money for five years, and I used to blog at the American Prospect. I've published a few things in a few places, some of them about maritime affairs. I played a very, very small part in the academic conversations that preceded the Cooperative Maritime Strategy, although it's fair to say that I got much more from the experience than I could ever have hoped to offer in return.

What am I interested in?

I'm best described as an international security scholar with an interest in maritime affairs, and with a serious bent towards naval antiquarianism. Battleships are my true, dear love, and I try to share that love in my blogging and my academic work. I work in organizational theory, and my focus tends to be on organizational dynamics and interactions. I'm a long-time fan of the Royal Navy. I have a broader intellectual interest in international politics, national strategy, and military procurement.

What kind of posts will I write?

I plan to write about three posts a week. These posts will concentrate on my interests; expect to see some historical analysis, some antiquarianism, and a fair number of book reviews. My politics can be broadly described as "left-center-left," although I'll grant it's unclear what precisely that means. Galrahn wants me to develop and project a progressive position on maritime security, so much of my work will lean in this direction. Although I love a good blog spat, and I often enjoy the vitriolic, hyperbolic arguments that characterize the blogosphere, here at ID I'll normally refrain from engaging in vicious, ad hominem assaults against people I've never met.

What am I working on, and how will blogging at ID further these projects?

Currently I'm working on several projects related to national security and maritime affairs. I'm writing a short article for Warship: International Fleet Review on stateside views of the Royal Navy; more on that later. I'm also working on projects on prestige and military procurement, and on the proliferation of amphibious warfare vessels in the international system. My book project is on the history of anti-submarine warfare. It stems from my dissertation, and conceives of modern ASW as primarily the product of collaboration between the military organizations of the United States and the United Kingdom. I'd like to say that the project is about half finished.

In addition to serving as your humble blogger, I want to make the ID experience productive in terms of my academic work. ID has precisely the kind of audience that I need to engage with, and over my time here I'll be sending out periodic blegs on topics that could benefit from your expertise.

I thank Galrahn for the honor of letting me work at Information Dissemination, and I look forward to engaging with the readers here.