National War College

About: National War College is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Politics & Foreign policy. The organization has 41 authors who have published 48 publications receiving 521 citations. The organization is also known as: NWC.

The Iraq War and Agenda Setting

Abstract: This essay takes concepts from early examples of a literature that is seldom used in foreign policy analysis—the literature on agenda setting in the U.S. government—and applies it to the case study of the U.S. decision to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. After a brief case history, the essay examines various core themes in the agenda-setting framework, and finds that concepts such as policy communities, focusing events, and policy windows can help explain the U.S. decision to go to war. The purpose of the essay is not to advance the current state of agenda-setting research, whose focus is usually not on explaining decision-making processes within the executive branch; the purpose, instead, is to revive an older framework of analysis from the agenda-setting field and demonstrate its utility in examining foreign policy behavior. The essay suggests that the agenda-setting literature could offer similar insights to many other examples of foreign policy decision making, and concludes by suggesting a handful of broader lessons of the agenda-setting paradigm for the analysis of national behavior.

Explaining Wars of Choice: An Integrated Decision Model of NATO Policy in Kosovo

Abstract: This study explains the behavior of democratic states during wars of choice using an integrated decision model. Integrated models are an attractive choice for explaining multifaceted decisions, particularly when simpler, existing theories have an uneven or only partial ability to explain conflict behavior. To illustrate these points, this study assesses the behavior of key NATO members during the 1999 intervention in Kosovo. I compare the behavior of France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. with the expectations of theories of collective action, balance of threat neorealism, public opinion, and government institutional structures. As an alternative, I introduce a simple, integrated, decision-making model that incorporates the core concepts from the other explanations in a staged, conditional manner. The integrated model does a better job of explaining state behavior in Kosovo than do existing theories. The integrated model also is applicable to other conflicts. The results of this study, and the potential of integrated models, have implications for our thinking about foreign policy analysis, for behavior during military interventions and the fight against terrorism, and for future U.S. leadership of alliance and coalition war efforts.

Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic for American Statecraft

Abstract: This is a book on how to think - strategically - about foreign policy. Focusing on American foreign policy, this book discusses the national interest as a concept in strategic logic and describes how to select objectives that will take advantage of opportunities to promote interests, while protecting them against threats. It also discusses national power and influence, as well as the political, informational, economic, and military instruments of state power. Based on a graphic model that illustrates strategic logic, the book uses examples from recent American statecraft. It ends with an extended critique of American foreign policy and a detailed outline of an alternative strategy that is better suited to the problems of the 21st century.

Poverty, Pipeline Vandalisation/Explosion and Human Security: Integrating Disaster Management into Poverty Reduction in Nigeria

Abstract: This paper interrogates the common official refrain to attribute vandalisation-induced pipeline explosion to poverty in the country. It argues that although poverty has explanatory relevance in terms of the ubiquity of oil pipeline explosion, such attribution conceals more than it reveals: it clearly shows that the poor are the direct and hardest hit in oil pipeline explosion in Nigeria, but conceals the fact that rich vandalisation barons are behind these threats to human security; it conceals the contradiction between the material circumstances of the victims and the sophisticated technology deployed in such nefarious acts. While it reveals the disempowerment of the poor to negotiate their survival outside the lure of fuel scooping, it conceals the power of the barons to easily negotiate their freedom from conviction. Also, it conceals the seeming contradiction of perceptions of security between the government officials and the poor citizens. The paper therefore argues that it is this prevalent situatio...

The Folly of 'Asymmetric War'

Abstract: Shifting U.S. defense policy to focus on asymmetric threats would distort defense priorities for years to come and trap U.S. armed forces in endless conflicts that military power cannot win.