Craig Kafura
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ckafura.bsky.social
Craig Kafura
@ckafura.bsky.social
Director, foreign policy and public opinion @Chicago Council; Fellow @Truman National Security Project; old Young Leader @Pacific Forum. Dad, husband, and hockey player. Via Columbia, Yale, and Appalachia.
Reposted by Craig Kafura
Some news. My book on climate and security for Cambridge University Press is the winner of the 2026 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Advancing World Order. Thrilled to be among the august company of previous winners. www.uoflnews.com/post/uofltod...
2026 Grawemeyer world order award winner explores the connection between climate change and security | UofL News
For his work to understand why climate change leads to negative security consequences in some places and not others, Joshua W. Busby, professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, ...
www.uoflnews.com
December 2, 2025 at 2:06 PM
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Today is World AIDS Day. We remember those we lost, honor those who fought to keep people alive, and recommit to care that does not depend on who is in power.
December 1, 2025 at 9:26 PM
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The numbers in here are hilarious.

Do you use AI on the job?
Execs: 87%
Managers: 57%
Workers: 27%

Planned investment by 2030: $5T
"Necessary" annual revenue to justify that spend: $650B
Current annual revenue: $50B
Three years into the generative-AI wave, demand for the technology seems surprisingly flimsy
Investors expect AI use to soar. That’s not happening
Recent surveys point to flatlining business adoption
econ.st
November 30, 2025 at 12:28 AM
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PHOTOS: A pair of snowy owls have taken roost of Montrose Harbor Beacon Pier, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. | Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
November 25, 2025 at 11:45 PM
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In 1924, Calvin Coolidge's 16-yr-old son played tennis on the White House grounds w/o wearing socks. He got a blister and was dead from infection a week later.

This is unthinkable today—which is why I wrote this series. Cuz the systems that save us from this kind of fate are in urgent need of care.
For a yr, I've been working on a series for The New Atlantis about the vast systems that underlie our lives. Our ancestors built them up over decades to fend off hunger, thirst, darkness and disease. But too few of us know about them—and they're all at risk. The conclusion is now available online:
Why We Are Better Off Than a Century Ago
Our ancestors built grand public systems to conquer hunger, thirst, darkness, and squalor. That progress can be lost if we forget it.
www.thenewatlantis.com
November 25, 2025 at 9:03 PM
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Ukrainian sumo wrestler Aonishiki said that he had surprised even himself by becoming the first from his country to win a sumo tournament. 👉 ebx.sh/tb4Bb5
November 25, 2025 at 2:42 PM
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haven’t seen ROS or Solo but this seems like a pretty ball-knowing list from Pritzker, particularly if he volunteered the name “Star Wars” rather than “A New Hope”
November 24, 2025 at 4:51 PM
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thoughtful, if depressing, comment on the Japan-China confrontation from the liberal Korean daily Hankyoreh.
english.hani.co.kr/arti/english...
[Column] There’s no solving the feud between Japan and China
US, which ought to be the mediator here, is nowhere to be seen
english.hani.co.kr
November 24, 2025 at 4:39 PM
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Ranked-choice voting makes sense for party primaries because party primaries often feature fractured fields.
November 24, 2025 at 3:59 PM
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I maybe be just a small-town political scientist but I reckon that the Trump administration's right hand has no fucking idea what its far-right hand is doing.
"US senators say they spoke with Rubio about Trump’s Ukraine peace plan who denied it is a US plan." Welcome to the Topsy Turvy administration in which six or seven people are pursuing their own private foreign policy, and much of it is scripted by a hostile foreign power.
US senators say they spoke with Rubio about Trump’s Ukraine peace plan who denied it is a US plan
U.S. senators critical of President Donald Trump’s approach to ending the Russia-Ukraine war say they spoke with U.S.
apnews.com
November 23, 2025 at 3:03 AM
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NEW: Today the Siebel Institute—the US' oldest/most prestigious brewing school & a cornerstone of the industry globally—announced its relocation from Chicago to Montreal, citing "[r]ecent regulatory changes in the US [that] have made it much more challenging for many of our international students."
November 20, 2025 at 9:26 PM
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NEW IL-09 poll with the Justice Coalition Action: Daniel Biss and Kat Abughazaleh are tied for first in the Democratic primary with 18% of the vote.

Laura Fine trails in third with 10%, and all other candidates receive 6% or less of the vote.
November 20, 2025 at 9:03 PM
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Americans view Taiwan warmly and tend to favor various approaches for supporting Taiwan’s international status.
(@ckafura.bsky.social @global-affairs.bsky.social)
More, via Opinion Today:
opiniontoday.substack.com/p/251119-top...
November 20, 2025 at 4:03 AM
Reposted by Craig Kafura
Many have asked for the LLM Survey paper. The release was bungled a bit by PNAS, but it is live now: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
The potential existential threat of large language models to online survey research | PNAS
The advancement of large language models poses a severe, potentially existential threat to online survey research, a fundamental tool for data coll...
www.pnas.org
November 20, 2025 at 7:41 PM
"In Book X of The Republic, Plato excludes poets on the grounds that mimetic language can distort judgment and bring society to a collapse...we observe a structurally similar failure mode [in LLMs]: poetic formatting can reliably bypass alignment constraints."
November 20, 2025 at 7:38 PM
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I can't believe we even have to say this, but swastikas, nooses, and other hate emblems aren't "potentially divisive." They're symbols of terror and should continue to be banned by our troops.
 
Secretary Noem and Secretary Hegseth, I expect a reversal of this immediately.
U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols
The military service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has drafted a new policy that classifies such items “potentially divisive.”
wapo.st
November 20, 2025 at 7:00 PM
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"phishing" is right there
Fish have committed credit card fraud
November 19, 2025 at 9:53 PM
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China has been restrained to the announcement re: South Korea's pursuit of a nuclear-powered subs. LEU vs. HEU fueled reactors and building good relations with Lee factor into that approach. But given the implications of where US-ROK relations are headed, can this restraint last?
Questions abound about how US-ROK cooperation will look on South Korea's pursuit of nuclear-powered subs and how China and other regional actors might respond. Yun Sun explains the mild reaction from Beijing so far, but with caveats. www.38north.org/2025/11/sout...
South Korean Nuclear-Powered Submarine Plan: Unpacking China’s Moderate Reaction - 38 North: Informed Analysis of North Korea
On October 29, President Trump announced that the United States will share nuclear propulsion ...
www.38north.org
November 19, 2025 at 6:36 PM
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Oh, hey, some personal news: I'm now a guest columnist for @documentedny.bsky.social, the best nonprofit newsroom in America.

documentedny.com/2025/11/17/d...
Documented Announces Newsroom Expansion With New Hires  - Documented
Documented expands its team with new hires and a guest columnist to provide trusted journalism for immigrant communities.
documentedny.com
November 19, 2025 at 4:54 PM
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November 18, 2025 at 9:05 PM
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This is just such a stunning chart
From the great new NBER paper by Bloom et al on the cost of Brexit.

It ain't pretty - they estimate UK GDP is down between 6-8%. Consistent with the doppelgang model of @johnspringford.bsky.social for CER.

A lot of 'free' GDP available availabe for Labour if it had the courage to reset properly.
November 17, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Great discussion on U.S.-China relations @global-affairs.bsky.social tonight with Rana Mitter, John Mearsheimer, and @leslievinjamuri.bsky.social
November 18, 2025 at 12:00 AM
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Old polls teach me so much about controversies I never knew existed.
Danish Gallup, March 1963, on the preferred spoken form of numbers
November 17, 2025 at 5:05 PM
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The cost of Trump's immigration surge: Stalled investigations into child sexual abuse, Iranian oil smuggling and human trafficking, among others. My latest piece is a big team effort on how DHS has been transformed into the Department of Deportation.

Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/u...
Homeland Security Missions Falter Amid Focus on Deportations
www.nytimes.com
November 16, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Reposted by Craig Kafura
🚨Out in PNAS🚨
Examining news on 7 platforms:
1)Right-leaning platforms=lower quality news
2)Echo-platforms: Right-leaning news gets more engagement on right-leaning platforms, vice-versa for left-leaning
3)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
November 14, 2025 at 2:35 PM