Alexander Kirss

PhD in Political Science from @gwtweets, now advising global CxOs. I study businesses, international security, political economy, and collect 📚.

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

Think businesses don't matter for interstate conflict? Think they do matter? Before answering those questions we need to think critically about which businesses, and why, will oppose interstate wars. My new article in @bap_journal does just that! https://t.co/eDhTgYVXrm

[Capitol Hill Books @chbooksdc]

nobody will remember:
- your salary
- how busy you were
- how much you worked

people will remember:
-how you courageously kept buying more books despite your growing TBR pile.

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

@SeanMolloyIR @ProfPaulPoast @lucian_ashworth @DrIanHall Great to see such a close reading of Mahan! Intriguing how much of his work was memory-holed by contemporary scholars (particularly “realists”). Folks still look to and cite “The Influence of Sea Power” while ignoring his other work — which was just as influential in its time.

[Gartner @Gartner_inc]

Gartner HR expert Alexander Kirss spoke with @CNBCMakeIt in depth about why CEOs are leaving at record rates.

Read the full article here: https://t.co/Gq2hVBfOGx

#GartnerHR #GreatResignation #CEO

[Ling Chen @lingchenjhu]

Global supply chains have become new economic weapons for great powers. In this article with @mevers90, we develop a structural theory of business-state relations and show how power transitions affect a state's ability to exercise economic statecraft 1/n https://t.co/PbWEicko24

[Eric Lach @ericlach]

The thing I’ll remember from the scene outside the Roosevelt Hotel this week isn’t just the asylum seekers sleeping on the sidewalks, it’s the happy hour revelers drinking Aperol spritzes at outdoor tables just feet away

https://t.co/Hr3sH9rjqa

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

Love folks that study nukes and deterrence, but when a single funder dumps more than $100 million into your sub-field over 6 years and you can’t use that to set up a sustainable research ecosystem, it’s hard to blame the funder. And MacArthur was just one of many funders.

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

That sound you hear? It’s 100s of international security scholars wearily sighing in unison.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Excellent analysis

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

“Pay” as in materially optimal? Absolutely not. Even conquest of the Middle East, i.e. a massive hydrocarbon reserve, isn’t materially optimal my dude. Taking Taiwan would be a lesser prize. See Coe and Markowitz: https://t.co/Hyg6JOnLAX

[Elbridge Colby @ElbridgeColby]

One really important thing to bear in mind:

A successful war against America would pay off very handsomely for China. People seem to assume China would only go to war out of being backed into a corner. This isn't necessarily true. We have to remember that war can indeed pay. 1/

[Milena Rodban @MilenaRodban]

Until a geopolitical incident affects their cash flow, they ignore them. This is why it’s so hard to get companies to be proactive, why so many got caught flat footed in February 2022, why employees suffer from snap decisions made in a crisis…

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

@RGC_NYS is a great political scientist and an even greater politician. Proud of his commitment to mitigating the housing crisis in his town!

[Robert Gesualdo Cantelmo @RGC_NYS]

Proud to unveil the campaign's housing agenda. Let's lift Ithaca to even greater heights!

https://t.co/w4VHvQ0pzQ

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

Any historians of RAND have a guess at who the “Adam” that Roberta Wohlstetter gifted this signed copy of Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision to might be? Referred to as a “master magician” while the book is dedicated to her “favorite magician” (which I’m assuming is Albert?).

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

Wendell Wilkie’s mid-war travelogue, signed by the politician turned globe trotter. Why bother purchasing these relics? Because it’s easy to be nostalgic for the past, and it’s comforting to reflect on how other generations confronted their challenges in our own difficult times.

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

The A. J. Liebling collection is filling out nicely with these two (relative) rarities. Both marked first editions. One of the most famous early writers for The New Yorker, Liebling’s dispatches as a war correspondent in World War II are also not to be missed!

[David Edgerton @DEHEdgerton]

Were imports into the UK during the Second World War higher or lower than before the war? Some May Day thoughts. https://t.co/CD8Z2ftvy0

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

First edition, fourth printing of Hans Morgenthau’s “Politics Among Nations”….no dust jacket but only $20! I’m sure some IR person on here is interested….(not my listing) https://t.co/k7RdUAAbM3

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

Understanding businesses’ role in foreign security policy has never been more important: “Still, both Eu­rope and the U.S. will find that de­cou­pling de­pends not just on poli­cies but on com­pansies, who are mo­ti­vated by sales, not ide­ol­ogy.” https://t.co/1iKJ6teq6D

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

@jbcohen92 @MattFay9 Congrats man!

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

This book that argues access to oil is part of the United States’ “national interest” was published in 1944, but I bet you could find an analogous example every few years from then until 2003. In fact *all* the books in this series are vintage examples of well worn arguments!

[Alexander Kirss @AlexKirss]

@calvinthrall @mollymmelin Just as long as you use my work as a jumping off point for a discussion of how firm-level theories can improve on industry-level theories. I never got down to the firm-level so that space is wide open for someone smarter than me (hint, hint).