Showing papers in "International Security in 1998"

Abstract: A challenger to the continuing dominance of neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism in the study of international relations in the United States, constructivism is regarded with a great deal of skepticism by mainstream scholars.1 While the reasons for this reception are many, three central ones are the mainstream's miscasting of constructivism as necessarily postmodern and antipositivist; constructivism's own ambivalence about whether it can buy into mainstream social science methods without sacrificing its theoretical distinctiveness; and, related to this ambivalence, constructivism's failure to advance an alternative research program. In this article, I clarify constructivism's claims, outline the differences between "conventional" and "critical" constructivism, and suggest a research agenda that both provides alternative understandings of mainstream interna-

Abstract: He explores their enduring theories, and recommends that they be applied to today's fundamental international dilemmas. Although no one school has all the answers, this analysis maintains that history has provided the theoretical tools to meet modern challenges, and that great political minds of the past can still guide modern politicians through the confusion of current events.

Abstract: ~ U n t i l recently, there has been a near consensus among policymakers and scholars that the objective of ethnic conflict management should be to support and preserve integrated, multiethnic societies. In the last few years, however, the idea that separating the warring populations may be the best solution to many of the most intense ethnic conflicts has been gaining ground. Events in Bosnia have supported this trend, as observers note that the more the warring groups have separated, the more peaceful their relations have become, while proposals to thoroughly reintegrate them command less and less support.' In addition, a growing body of scholarship that focuses on the role of intergroup security dilemmas in ethnic conflicts argues that intermixed population settlement patterns can promote escalation of violence, implying that separation of warring groups may dampen conflict2

Abstract: I Cultural theories have long enjoyed a prominent place in the field of international security. Indeed, two waves have come and gone since the start of World War 11, and we are now at the high watermark of a third.' Today's culturalists in national security studies are a heterogeneous lot, who bring a variety of theories to the table. However, virtually all new culturalists in security studies are united in their belief that realism, the dominant research program in international relations that emphasizes factors such as the material balance of power, is an overrated, if not bankrupt, body of theory, and that cultural theories, which look to ideational factors, do a much better job of explaining how the world works. This article assesses this latest wave of cultural theories in security studies by focusing on some of its most prominent examples. There is no question that virtually all cultural theories tell us something about how states behave. The crucial question, however, is whether these new theories merely supplement realist theories or actually threaten to supplant them. I argue that when cultural theories are assessed using evidence from the real world, there is no reason to think that they will relegate realist theories to the dustbin of social

Abstract: An era of unprecedented peace and prosperity appears to be at hand at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The world’s major powers enjoy cooperative relations, democracy is taking root in many countries that long suffered under authoritarian rule, and the world economy is expanding as it becomes increasingly liberalized and integrated. Contrary to the dire predictions of a return to a Hobbesian world, the end of the Cold War has not been accompanied by the fragmentation of international order and the emergence of rivalry among atomistic national units.

Abstract: Offense-defense theory offers an optimistic view of international politics based on the argument that war can be prevented if defense gains an advantage over offense. It also argues that an effective arms control can reduce the risk of arms races and war. The theory has been useful in foreign policy analysis and in international relations scholarship since it is used to explain theoretical and policy issues and the causes of World War I and ethnic and civil wars and to predict post-Cold War Europe political relations.

Abstract: 1 I appreciate the opportunity to comment on Kimberly Ann Elliott’s response to my article “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work.”’ I briefly restate the main findings of my original article and summarize Elliott’s criticism of my work. I then show why Elliott’s charges are not valid and why my conclusion-that there is little empirical support that economic sanctions can achieve ambitious foreign policy goals-still stands. A simple question lies at the heart of the disagreement between Elliott and me: How robust is the evidence that economic sanctions work? Since 1985 the most influential work on this question has been Economic Sanctions Reconsidered by Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott (hereafter HSE).2 Reviewing the universe of sanctions from 1914 to 1990, HSE found that sanctions succeeded in 40 of 115 cases, or 34 percent of the total. This important study provided the empirical support for a significant shift in the scholarly consensus on the effectiveness of sanctions from marked pessimism in the 1960s and 1970s to qualified optimism in the 1980s and 1990s. My article “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work challenges the validity of HSE. I examined the 40 claimed successes and found that only 5 stand up. Eighteen were actually settled by either direct or indirect use of force; in 8 cases there is no evidence that the target state made the demanded concessions; 6 do not qualify as instances of economic sanctions; and 3 are indeterminate. If I am right, then sanctions have succeeded in only 5 of 115 attempts, and thus there is no sound basis for even qualified optimism about the effects of sanctions.

Abstract: Influenced by the resurgence of nationalism in the post-Cold War era, international relations scholars have produced a pessimistic evaluation of ways that nationalism increases the chances of international conflict. Three broad themes have emerged in the literature. The first focuses on the use of nationalism to divert attention from the state's inability to meet societal demands for security, economic development, and effective political institutions.' Illegitimate regimes may seek to bolster their grip on power by blaming foreigners for their own failures, increasing international tensions.' The second looks at groups within the state that have expansionist or militarist goals. By propagating nationalist or imperialist myths, they can generate broad public support for their parochial intere s t ~ . ~ The third emphasizes how political elites can incite nationalism to gain an advantage in domestic political competition. Nationalism can be used both to mobilize support for threatened elites and to fend off potential challenger^.^ This function can be particularly important in democratizing or liberalizing authoritarian regimes, which lack established political institutions to channel

Abstract: ~ I n “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work,”’ Robert Pape sets up a straw man and then boldly proceeds to knock it down. His target is an “emerging optimism” about sanctions, which in his oversimplified characterization says that economic sanctions-used in isolation from other tools-are ”as effective as military force and more humane” (p. 90). But policy analysts-and certainly policymakerswho are looking for ways to strengthen sanctions and make them more effective are generally far more nuanced in their conclusions and more limited in their expectations of what sanctions can achieve than Pape asserts. And in the wake of the experiences in Iraq and Haiti, few suggest that economic sanctions are necessarily more humane or that their use can be justified regardless of the humanitarian consequences. While my disagreements with Pape’s methods are many, the Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott (hereafter HSE) bottom line on the utility of economic sanctions is not terribly different.2 Although Pape cites our work as the “key evidence’’ supporting the perceived optimism that sanctions can achieve major foreign policy goals, he never cites our own interpretation of the evidence. We concluded that ”although it is not true that sanctions ’never work,’ they are of limited utility in achieving foreign policy goals that depend on compelling the target country to take actions it stoutly resists. . . . The success rate importantly depends on the type of policy or governmental change sought” (HSE 2d ed., vol. 1, pp. 92-93). Moreover, we found that the utility of sanctions had declined

Abstract: ~ Although civilian-military relations are central to democratic governance, American interest in the issue has waxed and waned. Until 1945 the United Sates’ favorable geographic position permitted it to demobilize rapidly after each war. The onset of the Cold War almost before the guns of World War I1 had cooled ensured that the United States would maintain a large military establishment. The unprecedented threats arising from the Cold War and the inception of nuclear weapons heightened concerns about relations between the military and civilian society. They also triggered a flurry of important studies on civilian-military relations,’ as well as a warning from retiring President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the

Abstract: This article examines the connection between demographic and environmental stress (DES) and civil strife in Kenya. DES is a composite variable encompassing population growth degradation depletion and maldistribution of renewable resources. The causal connection between population growth environmental pressure and civil strife is rarely direct and obvious. Thus some scholars dismiss the notion that DES represents a serious threat to political stability in the developing world. States need not totally collapse for population growth and environmental pressures to produce violent internal conflicts; violence could also result from the purposive actions of the state s elite. Nevertheless analysts must resist the kind of environmental determinism that creeps into discussions of population growth and environmental degradation as potential sources of civil strife. As the discussion of institutional inclusivity and groupness suggests DES would produce widespread violence only in certain institutional and social contexts. Consequently future analysts must clearly specify the intervening variables that mediate the relationship between DES and deadly internal conflict.

Abstract: ~ F o r much of the last decade, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has sought to redefine itself as the core of an enlarged security community in Western and Central Europe and as a tool for managing conflicts in and around these areas. International regime theory, which sees interstate institutions as mechanisms to facilitate cooperation that might otherwise be infeasible, helps explain NATO’s eagerness to take on new missions by arguing that institutions are easier to adapt once in place than to build from scratch.’ We nonetheless lack a framework for anticipating whether these new objectives can be achieved in operational terms. In this article, I develop such a framework and use it to focus on the prospects for successful adaptation in a key area: Can NATO perform multilateral peace operations effectively and reliably? A number of officials have voiced optimism on this issue. In referring to outside support for the 1997 Bosnian elections, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana thought it ”a good lesson” that ”different international institutions,” including NATO, had ”worked together in a peacekeeping operation of this nature.”2 Kofi Annan, then undersecretary general of the United Nations (UN) for peacekeeping operations, suggested that NATO could have a major role in the ”peacekeeping with teeth” that he was promoting3 This article reaches a different conclusion. I argue that NATO’s members will likely be reluctant to use force to manage or settle disputes that do not involve its members’ territories. If this occurs, it

Abstract: International relations scholars have largely overlooked Japan in their surveys of great power politics. At the same time, students of Japan frequently focus on a single policy area or on Japan’s bilateral relations with specific states and have generally failed to test Japan’s larger strategic calculus against international relations theory.’ Those who have examined Japanese grand strategy typically adopt a structural realist model, under which states are motivated primarily by the fundamental imperative of military security and frequently subordinate other goals to that end. Some scholars, observing divergence from behavior predicted by this theory, have concluded that Japan’s foreign policy is nonrealist or otherwise exceptional.2 In this article, we examine Japan’s postwar foreign policy both against structural realism and against what we call ”mercantile realism,” which recognizes technoeconomic security interests-including, but not limited to, those associated with military security-as central considerations of state policy. We conclude that although Japan clearly does not ignore military security,

Abstract: i D u r i n g the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton pledged to lift the ban on homosexuals in the U.S. armed services. Once in office, he met with enormous resistance from the U.S. military and its congressional allies, and by the summer of 1993, the original policy proposal was dead. Instead, Congress enacted the ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” policy: gays and lesbians can now serve in the military, but they must keep their sexual orientation private. Opponents of the open integration of gays and lesbians have discarded many of the standard justifications for excluding homosexuals from military service. For example, the Pentagon and its allies no longer argue that gays and lesbians are security risks because of the threat of blackmail. As early as 1957, a study commissioned by the U.S. Navy was unable to uncover any evidence that homosexuals were security risks.’ Thirty years later, another Department of Defense (DoD)-commissioned report repeated tlus finding: “Since [1957] no new data have been presented that would refute [the] conclusion that homosexuals are not greater security risks than heterosexuals.”2 Nor do opponents of allowing homosexu-

Abstract: I T h e creation of the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1923 as a federation of sovereign republics, however fictitious in practice, proved to be highly consequential six decades later when Mikhail Gorbachev, then secretary-general of the Communist Party of the USSR, initiated a program of ideological and political liberalization. As the process of reform gained momentum between 1988 and 1991, it unleashed a growing tide of national self-assertion in which the tension between the formal rhetoric of republic sovereignty and the reality of a highly centralized state produced growing pressures to give substance to the claim.' With the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991, its fifteen constituent union republics were proclaimed sovereign, independent states, and their recognition by the international community bestowed upon them an acceptance, status, and legitimacy barely dreamt of even three years earlier. Although this process of dissolution and reconstitution was remarkably peaceful and consensual, especially by comparison with Yugoslavia, it was nonetheless accompanied by a number of serious, and in some cases deadly conflicts, many of them over demands for sovereignty or independence by ethnopolitical groups within the new states. Even though the overwhelming number of potential confrontations have been managed peacefully, six conflicts escalated into regional wars involving regular armies and heavy arms: the civil

Abstract: Do economic sanctions "work"? Although the traditional answer to this question has been negative, Robert A. Pape contends that the past decade has witnessed "increased optimism about the utility of economic sanctions" by international relations scholars.' In questioning this alleged optimism, he raises issues concerning the concept of economic sanctions, the standards by which their success should be judged, the causal logic of "the theory of economic sanctions," and reassessment of the most often used economic sanctions database.2 These topics will be discussed in turn.

Abstract: Real ism is usually regarded as a dominant-and monolithic-approach in the study of international relations. In the past few years, however, some of the most vigorous and interesting debates in international relations theory have emerged among different types of realism. It has become clear that realism is not a single theory, but a family of theories. One of the most significant divides within realism is between offensive realism and defensive realism.* Offensive realists generally argue that the international system fosters conflict and aggression. Security is scarce, making international competition and war likely. Rational states often are compelled to adopt offensive strategies in their search for security.2 Defensive realists, on the other hand, argue that the international system does not

Abstract: I c o u l d another massive North Korean attack on South Korea intended to quickly reunify the peninsula under Pyongyang's rule really succeed? Although the capabilities of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) for such an attack are atrophying as its economy declines, the Defense Intelligence Agency still considers a Korean war scenario to be the primary near-term military concern of the United States.' The Pentagon also appears to think that North Korea just might achieve an initial breakthrough, perhaps taking nearby Seoul and even much of the rest of the peninsula before ultimately being defeated by U.S. reinforcements and whatever could be salvaged at that point from the military of the Republic of Korea (ROK).' It considers conflict in Korea to be one of two chief prototypes of \"major theater war\" that, according to the Pentagon's 1993 Bottom-Up Review (BUR) and 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), would probably unfold according to a standard script. Battle would begin with U.S. and allied forces executing a defensive action or \"halt phase,\" during which they are nevertheless presumed to lose some land. Next, a major U.S. buildup would ensue, during which enemy forces would be attacked to the extent possible, principally by airpower. Finally, joint allied forces would undertake a counter-

Abstract: Do militaries provoke crises and wars to protect their organizational interests, or are their ends better served by avoiding such confrontations? Does internal strife encourage a country’s leaders to pursue aggression beyond its borders, or to behave more cautiously on the international stage? Despite much research, scholars continue to reach different answers to these questions. Proponents of militarist theories of war contend that the military’s organizational interests are generally served by actual, or threatened, use of their forces; hence these organizations tend to support belligerent foreign policies. Critics counter this assertion, noting that war can be very damaging to military organization, and that officers frequently counsel against international adventurism. Advocates of diversionary theories of war argue that when political elites are confronted with internal strife, they are tempted to provoke external conflicts in order to unite the country behind their leadership. Skeptics charge that when a country is divided internally, its leaders will try to avoid creating additional problems abroad. These two theories are among the most common domestic-level explanations of the causes of war. They are also policy relevant, given the prominent political role of the military and the potential for upheaval in countries such as Russia, China, and North Korea. Nevertheless, despite the theoretical and practical importance of these theories, we still do not know when soldiers and domestic strife will provoke war and when they will promote peace. Militarist and diversionary theories of war are usually treated separately; however, in this article I show that they are useful complements. A diversionary approach shows that a particular type of domestic strife, what I call

Abstract: In his article "Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War,"' Stephen Van Evera claims that "offense-defense theory" is "important," has "wide explanatory range.... wide realworld applicability.... large prescriptive utility.... [and] is quite satisfying" (p. 41). Van Evera's conclusions are, however, unwarranted. First, his reformulation of influential arguments made prominent by Robert Jervis stretches the meaning of key concepts such that interesting avenues of empirical inquiry are closed off rather than opened. Second, the hypotheses-or "prime predictions"-Van Evera derives from the theory are themselves products of faulty deductive logic. Furthermore, they are nontestable, presumably nonscientific in Van Evera's understanding of the term.2 Van Evera's results are thus of little use to the social scientist who is interested in understanding the myriad causes of war and conditions facilitative of peace. In his classic article, "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma," Jervis argued that the security dilemma is more virulent and the international system less stable when offense enjoys an advantage over defense. By contrast, when defense is more potent, status quo powers find it easier to adopt compatible security policies, and the pernicious effects of international anarchy are greatly diminished.3 Although the operation-

Abstract: In his stimulating article, “Europe‘s Uncommon Foreign Policy,”’ Philip Gordon presents a powerful and sobering account of the persistent failure, over many years, of the member states of the European Union (EU) to make any serious progress toward a common foreign policy. The 1991 Treaty on European Union ostensibly raised the ante, with a grand new commitment to develop a common foreign and security policy (CFSP), but the results so far have been derisory. Indeed, in relation to the massive crisis of the Yugoslav civil war, Europe’s failure to act effectively together is even more scandalous than it was before. Gordon‘s conclusion that this pattern is likely to continue appears to be uncontroversial. The process of European integration may continue, he believes, but there is little likelihood that it will spread significantly to the field of foreign and security policy. Even if this conclusion is broadly correct-and it may well b e h i s analysis is based on a number of propositions, mainly related to traditional academic theories of economic integration, that are inadequate, or even misleading, when applied to the problhatique of a common European foreign policy. As a result, his article is ultimately unsatisfactory as an explanation of what has been going on in the real world, and why. Profound differences exist between the process of internal (mainly economic) integration and the process of external (mainly political) integration. It is these differences that explain why there has been much more progress in the first category than in the second. The process of internal (mainly economic) integration has six essential and distinct ingredients: a closed system, with a known set of participating countries; the concerted choice of discrete policy areas for integration; the negotiation of explicit bargains with predictable consequences; the option of offsetting side bargains; the enactment of these bargains in legislation; and the justiciability of these bargains before the European Court of Justice. The central feature of internal (mainly economic) integration is thus the key characteristic of predictability. Academic theorists may expatiate about spillover, convergence, and momentum, and over time they may seem to be right. However, at any given juncture in the integration process, the governments believe they know what they are doing, they believe they have a discrete choice, they believe they can broadly predict the consequences of the bargain being offered, and if they step forward it is because they believe the bargain will be advantageous.