The collapse of the Soviet Union produced the greatest change in world power relationships since World War II. With Moscow’s headlong fall from superpower status, the bipolar structure that had shaped the security policies of the major powers for nearly half a century vanished, and the United States emerged as the sole surviving superpower. Commentators were quick to recognize that a new “unipolar moment” of unprecedented U.S. power had arrived.1 In 1992 the Pentagon drafted a new grand strategy designed to preserve unipolarity by preventing the emergence of a global rival.2 But the draft plan soon ran into controversy, as commentators at home and abroad argued that any effort to preserve unipolarity was quixotic and dangerous.3 Ofacials quickly backed away from the idea and now eschew the language of primacy or predominance, speaking instead of the United States as a “leader” or the “indispensable nation.”4 The rise and sudden demise of an ofacial strategy for preserving primacy lends credence to the widespread belief that unipolarity is dangerous and unstable. While scholars frequently discuss unipolarity, their focus is always on its demise. For neorealists, unipolarity is the least stable of all structures because any great concentration of power threatens other states and causes them to take action to restore a balance.5 Other scholars grant that a large

The Stability of a Unipolar World

What drives politics in dictatorships? Milan W. Svolik argues authoritarian regimes must resolve two fundamental conflicts. Dictators face threats from the masses over which they rule - the problem of authoritarian control. Secondly from the elites with whom dictators rule - the problem of authoritarian power-sharing. Using the tools of game theory, Svolik explains why some dictators establish personal autocracy and stay in power for decades; why elsewhere leadership changes are regular and institutionalized, as in contemporary China; why some dictatorships are ruled by soldiers, as Uganda was under Idi Amin; why many authoritarian regimes, such as PRI-era Mexico, maintain regime-sanctioned political parties; and why a country's authoritarian past casts a long shadow over its prospects for democracy, as the unfolding events of the Arab Spring reveal. Svolik complements these and other historical case studies with the statistical analysis on institutions, leaders and ruling coalitions across dictatorships from 1946 to 2008.

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The Politics of Authoritarian Rule

This article examines the evolution of security studies, focusing on recent developments in the field. It provides a survey of the field, a guide to the current research agenda, and some practical lessons for managing the field in the years ahead. Security studies remains an interdisciplinary enterprise, but its earlier preoccupation with nuclear issues has broadened to include topics such as grand strategy, conventional warfare, and the domestic sources of international conflict, among others. Work in the field is increasingly rigorous and theoretically inclined, which reflects the marriage between security studies and social science and its improved standing within the academic world. Because national security will remain a problem for states and because an independent scholarly community contributes to effective public policy in this area, the renaissance of security studies is an important positive development for the field of international relations.

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The Renaissance of Security Studies

Preface 1. Unfamiliar words 2. Catalysts 3. Cosmocracy 4. Paradise on Earth? 5. Ethics across borders 6. Further reading.

Global Civil Society

PROTRACED COUNTERINSURGENCY: CHINESE COIN STRATEGY IN XINJIANG by MAJ J. Scott LaRonde, USA, 95 pages. In 1949, following the conclusion of its revolutionary war against the Chinese Nationalist forces, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) peacefully occupied China’s western most province of Xinjiang. For nearly sixty years, the PLA has conducted a counterinsurgency against several, mostly Uyghur-led, separatist movements. Despite periods of significant violence, particularly in the early 1950s and again in the 1990s, the separatist forces have not gained momentum and remained at a level one insurgency. Mao ZeDeng is revered as a master insurgent and the father of Fourth Generation Warfare. Strategists in armies worldwide study his writings on revolutionary and guerilla warfare. This monograph concludes that Mao, as well as the communist leaders who followed him, was also successful at waging protracted counterinsurgency. For nearly sixty years, separatist movements in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan have all failed. This monograph analyzes the conflict in Xinjiang and concludes that the Chinese continue to defeat the separatist movement in Xinjiang through a strategy that counters Mao’s seven fundamentals of revolutionary warfare.

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Approved for Public Release; Distribution is Unlimited

An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat. Since the establishment of the United Nations and the enshrinement

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/20049362

Give War a Chance

Preface Part I: The Logic of Strategy 1. The Conscious Use of Paradox in War 2. The Logic in Action 3. Efficiency and the Culminating Point of Success 4. The Coming Together of Opposites Part II: The Levels of Strategy 5. The Technical Level 6. The Tactical Level 7. The Operational Level 8. Theater Strategy I: Military Options and Political Choices 9. Theater Strategy II: Offense and Defense 10. Theater Stragegy III: Interdiction and the Surprise Attack 11. Nonstrategies: Naval, Air, Nuclear 12. The Renaissance of Strategic Air Power Part III: Outcomes: Grand Strategy 13. The Scope of Grand Strategy 14. Armed Suasion 15. Harmony and Disharmony in War 16. Can Strategy Be Useful? Appendix A: Definitions of Strategy Appendix B: The Gulf War Air Campaign Appendix C: Instant Thunder Notes Works Cited Index

Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace

From Geopolitics to Geo-economics: Logic of Conflict, Grammar of Commerce

'A fascinating book, well written and forcefully argued...Luttwak's formulations are as refreshing as they are convincing...He has done for Roman historians what they have not done for themselves.' -Z. Yavetz, New Republic

The grand strategy of the Roman Empire from the first century A.D. to the third

Only one thing could possibly link the protracted warfare in the former Yugoslavia, the destruction of Grozny, and the recent border fighting between Ecuador and Peru. Once more, as in centuries past, wars are rather easily started and then fought without perceptible restraint. When belligerents see that no particular penalty is paid for opening fire first or using any and all means of warfare?even the wholesale destruction of cities by aerial or artillery bombardment? self-imposed restraints on the use of force are everywhere eroded. The border fighting between Ecuador and Peru had only just begun when tactical bombing was employed, as if it were no more conse quential than one more infantry skirmish. This new season of war is upon us as one more consequence of the passing of the Cold War. The latter induced or intensified a number of hot wars in the contested zones between each camp as each super power provided allies and clients with weapons and expertise far beyond their own capacities. Thus the Middle East especially became something of a preferred battleground by proxy. At the same time, however, the fear that escalation could eventu ally reach the nuclear level inhibited any direct combat whatsoever by the superpowers themselves in Europe or anywhere else, even on the

Edward N. Luttwak

Papers

Give War a Chance

Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace

From Geopolitics to Geo-economics: Logic of Conflict, Grammar of Commerce

The grand strategy of the Roman Empire from the first century A.D. to the third

Toward Post-Heroic Warfare