Showing papers in "International Security in 2015"

A U.S.-China Grand Bargain? The Hard Choice between Military Competition and Accommodation

Abstract: Despite the intense focus on China's rise, the United States has yet to confront the most challenging question posed by this power shift: Should it pursue a strategy of limited geopolitical accommo...

The Impact of China on Cybersecurity: Fiction and Friction

Abstract: Exaggerated fears about the paralysis of digital infrastructure and the loss of competitive advantage contribute to a spiral of mistrust in U.S.-China relations. In every category of putative Chinese cyber threat, there are also considerable Chinese vulnerabilities and Western advantages. China has inadvertently degraded the economic efficiency of its networks and exposed them to foreign infiltration by prioritizing political information control over technical cyber defense. Although China also actively infiltrates foreign targets, its ability to absorb stolen data is questionable, especially at the most competitive end of the value chain, where the United States dominates. Similarly, China’s military cyber capacity cannot live up to its aggressive doctrinal aspirations, even as its efforts to guide national information technology development create vulnerabilities that more experienced U.S. cyber operators can attack. Outmatched by the West, China is resorting to a strategy of international institutional reform, but it benefits too much from multistakeholder governance to pose a credible alternative. A cyber version of the stability-instability paradox constrains the intensity of cyber interaction in the U.S.-China relationship—and in international relations more broadly—even as lesser irritants continue to proliferate.

Strategies of Inhibition: U.S. Grand Strategy, the Nuclear Revolution, and Nonproliferation

Abstract: The United States has gone to extraordinary lengths since the beginning of the nuclear age to inhibit—that is, to slow, halt, and reverse—the spread of nuclear weapons and, when unsuccessful, to mi...

Alliance Coercion and Nuclear Restraint: How the United States Thwarted West Germany's Nuclear Ambitions

Abstract: When does a nuclear-armed state's provision of security guarantees to a militarily threatened ally inhibit the ally's nuclear weapons ambitions? Although the established security model of nuclear proliferation posits that clients will prefer to depend on a patron's extended nuclear deterrent, this proposition overlooks how military threats and doubts about the patron's intentions encourage clients to seek nuclear weapons of their own. To resolve this indeterminacy in the security model's explanation of nuclear restraint, it is necessary to account for the patron's use of alliance coercion, a strategy consisting of conditional threats of military abandonment to obtain compliance with the patron's demands. This strategy succeeds when the client is militarily dependent on the patron and when the patron provides assurances that threats of abandonment are conditional on the client's nuclear choices. Historical evidence from West Germany's nuclear decisionmaking provides a test of this logic. Contrary to the co...

Assuring Assured Retaliation: China's Nuclear Posture and U.S.-China Strategic Stability

Abstract: Whether China will abandon its long-standing nuclear strategy of assured retaliation for a first-use posture will be a critical factor in future U.S.-China strategic stability. In the past decade, advances in U.S. strategic capabilities, especially missile defenses and enhanced long-range conventional strike capacity, could undermine China's nuclear retaliatory capability, which is based on a relatively small force and second-strike posture. An exhaustive review of Chinese writings on military affairs indicates, however, that China is unlikely to abandon its current nuclear strategy of assured retaliation. Instead, China will modestly expand its arsenal, increase the sophistication of its forces, and allow limited ambiguity regarding its pledge not to use nuclear weapons first. This limited ambiguity allows China to use the threat of nuclear retaliation to deter a conventional attack on its nuclear arsenal, without significantly increasing the size of its nuclear forces and triggering a costly arms race. ...

The Myth of Entangling Alliances: Reassessing the Security Risks of U.S. Defense Pacts

Abstract: A large literature assumes that alliances entangle the United States in military conflicts that it might otherwise avoid. Since 1945, however, there have been only five cases of what might be characterized as U.S. entanglement—the 1954 and 1995–96 Taiwan Strait crises, the Vietnam War, and the interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s—and even these cases are far from clear-cut. U.S. entanglement is rare because the United States, as a superpower with many allies, is capable of exploiting loopholes in alliance agreements, sidestepping commitments that seriously imperil U.S. interests, playing the demands of various allies off of each other, and using alliances to deter adversaries and allies from initiating or escalating conflicts.

Balancing in Neorealism

Abstract: Does neorealism offer a convincing account of great power balancing behavior? Many scholars argue that it does not. This conclusion rests on a misunderstanding of neorealist theory and an erroneous reading of the evidence. Properly specified, neorealism holds that great powers place an overriding emphasis on the need for self-help. This means that they rely relentlessly both on arming and on imitating the successful military practices of their peers to ensure their security. At the same time, they rarely resort to alliances and treat them with skepticism. There is abundant historical evidence to support these claims. Since 1816, great powers have routinely achieved an effective balance in military capabilities with their relevant competitors and promptly copied the major military innovations of the period. Case studies show that these outcomes are the product of states' efforts to ensure security against increasingly capable rivals. Meanwhile, the diplomatic record yields almost no examples of firm peacet...

Indignation, ideologies, and armed mobilization: civil war in Italy, 1943–45

Abstract: Ideas shape human behavior in many circumstances, including those involving political violence. Yet they have usually been underplayed in studies of the causes of armed mobilization. Likewise, emotions have been overlooked in most analyses of intrastate conflict. A mixed-methods analysis of Italian resistance during the Fascist regime and the Nazi occupation (1943–45) provides the opportunity to theorize and analyze empirical evidence on the role of indignation and radical ideologies in the process of armed mobilization. These nonmaterial factors play a crucial role in the chain that leads to armed collective action. Indignation is a push factor that moves individuals away from accepting the status quo. Radical ideologies act as pull factors that provide a new set of strategies against the incumbent. More specifically, detachment caused by an emotional event disconnects the individual from acceptance of the current state of social relations, and individuals move away from the status quo. Ideologies communicated by political entrepreneurs help to rationalize the emotional shift and elaborate alternative worldviews (disenchantment), as well as possibilities for action. Finally, a radical ideological framework emphasizes normative values and the conduct of action through the “anchoring” mechanism, which can be understood as a pull factor attracting individuals to a new status.

Barriers to Entry: Who Builds Fortified Boundaries and Why?

Abstract: Fortified boundaries are asymmetrical, physical barriers placed along borders. These boundaries are more formidable in structure than conventional boundary lines, but less robust than militarized boundaries. Their goal is to impose costs on infiltrators and in so doing deter or impede infiltration. A novel dataset of all such boundaries worldwide shows that states are constructing these barriers at an accelerating rate. More than half of barrier builders are Muslim-majority states, and so are the vast majority of targets. A multivariate analysis demonstrates that, contrary to conventional wisdom, states that construct such barriers do not tend to suffer disproportionately from terrorism, nor are they apt to be involved in a significant number of territorial disputes. Instead, differences in state wealth and migration rates are the best predictors of barrier construction. Qualitative case studies suggest that the most effective fortified boundaries are found where the initiating state controls the territory beyond a boundary that blocks the only access route into the state.

The Inscrutable Intentions of Great Powers

Abstract: Can great powers reach confident conclusions about the intentions of their peers? Many scholars argue that they can. One set of arguments holds that states can deduce others’ current intentions from certain domestic characteristics such as their foreign policy goals, ideology, or regime type. Another focuses on behavior and maintains that states can infer current intentions by examining their counterparts’ arms policies, membership in international institutions, or past actions in the security realm. A final set of arguments explains why intentions are unlikely to change and thus why current designs are good predictors of future plans. On careful review, these optimistic claims are unpersuasive. Great powers cannot confidently assess the current intentions of others based on the latter's domestic characteristics or behavior, and they are even less sure when it comes to estimating their peers’ future intentions. These findings have important implications for theory and policy. Theoretically, they strengthe...

Is There an Oil Weapon?: Security Implications of Changes in the Structure of the International Oil Market

Abstract: What is the relationship between oil and coercion? For decades states have worried that their dependence on oil gives producers a potential lever of coercion. The size, integration, and sophistication of the current oil market, however, are thought to have greatly attenuated, if not eliminated, the coercive potential of oil. The best way to analyze the current global oil market is by viewing it as a series of distinct market segments, from upstream production to midstream transport to downstream refining, with the potential for coercion varying across them. Oil-producing states do not have the greatest coercive potential in the international oil market. Instead, the United States remains the dominant presence, though its dominance has shifted from production—where it resided prior to World War II—to the maritime environment. These findings are significant for scholars’ and policymakers’ understanding of the relationship between oil and coercion. More generally, they suggest that studies of the potential for states to coerce others using economic instruments should take into account differences in the structure of markets for different goods.

Soft balancing in the Americas: Latin American opposition to U.S. intervention, 1898–1936

Abstract: In the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, scholars of international relations debated how to best characterize the rising tide of global opposition. The concept of “soft balancing” emerged as an influential, though contested, explanation of a new phenomenon in a unipolar world: states seeking to constrain the ability of the United States to deploy military force by using multinational organizations, international law, and coalition building. Soft balancing can also be observed in regional unipolar systems. Multinational archival research reveals how Argentina, Mexico, and other Latin American countries responded to expanding U.S. power and military assertiveness in the early twentieth century through coordinated diplomatic maneuvering that provides a strong example of soft balancing. Examination of this earlier case makes an empirical contribution to the emerging soft-balancing literature and suggests that soft balancing need not lead to hard balancing or open conflict.

Beyond Emboldenment: How Acquiring Nuclear Weapons Can Change Foreign Policy

Abstract: What happens to the foreign policies of states when they acquire nuclear weapons? Despite its importance, this question has not been answered satisfactorily. Nuclear weapons can facilitate six conceptually distinct foreign policy behaviors: aggression, expansion, independence, bolstering, steadfastness, and compromise. This typology of foreign policy behaviors enables scholars to move beyond simple claims of “nuclear emboldenment,” and allows for more nuanced examination of the ways in which nuclear weapons affect the foreign policies of current and future nuclear states. The typology also sheds light on Great Britain's response to nuclear acquisition. Britain used nuclear weapons to engage in greater levels of steadfastness in responding to challenges, bolstering junior allies, and demonstrating independence from the United States, but it did not engage in greater levels of aggression, expansion, or compromise. The typology and the British case demonstrate the value of distinguishing among different effe...

The Security Bazaar: Business Interests and Islamist Power in Civil War Somalia

Abstract: In civil wars across the world, certain Islamist groups have competed exceptionally well against their rivals. The conventional wisdom points to either religion or ethnic politics to explain Islamist success. These ideological and identity-based explanations, however, tend to overlook the powerful economic influence that the local business class has over civil war outcomes. Civil war can be modeled as a market for security, wherein protection must be purchased from multiple substate rackets. Using this market model, a close investigation of the Somali case reveals why and under what conditions the interests of the profit-driven business class align with those of ideologically motivated Islamist groups. Security costs are of critical importance to businesses in a civil war, and Islamists are uniquely competitive in lowering these costs. The business-Islamist alliance is therefore driven by rational, economic considerations, which can contribute to the rise of Islamist power.

Keeping the Bombs in the Basement: U.S. Nonproliferation Policy toward Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan

Abstract: How has the United States behaved historically toward friendly states with nuclear weapons ambitions? Recent scholarship has demonstrated the great lengths to which the United States went to prevent Taiwan, South Korea, and West Germany from acquiring nuclear weapons Yet seemingly on the other side of the ledger are cases such as Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan, where the United States failed to prevent proliferation, and where many have argued that the United States made exceptions to its nonproliferation objectives given conflicting geopolitical goals A reexamination of the history of US nonproliferation policy toward Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan, based on declassified documents and interviews, finds that these cases are not as exceptional as is commonly understood In each case, the United States sought to prevent these states from acquiring nuclear weapons, despite geopolitical constraints Moreover, once US policymakers realized that prior efforts had failed, they continued to pursue n

Blood Revenge and Violent Mobilization: Evidence from the Chechen Wars

Abstract: Despite a considerable amount of ethnographic research into the phenomena of blood revenge and blood feud, little is known about the role of blood revenge in political violence, armed conflict, and irregular war. Yet blood revenge—widespread among many conflict-affected societies of the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond—is not confined to the realm of communal infighting, as previous research has presumed. An empirical analysis of Russia's two counterinsurgency campaigns in Chechnya suggests that the practice of blood revenge has functioned as an important mechanism in encouraging violent mobilization in the local population against the Russian troops and their Chechen proxies. The need to exact blood revenge has taken precedence over an individual's political views, or lack thereof. Triggered by the loss of a relative or humiliation, many apolitical Chechens who initially sought to avoid involvement in the hostilities or who had been skeptical of the insurgency mobilized to exact blood revenge to res...

How Realism Waltzed Off: Liberalism and Decisionmaking in Kenneth Waltz's Neorealism

Abstract: Neorealism is one of the most influential theories of international relations, and its first theorist, Kenneth Waltz, a giant of the discipline. But why did Waltz move from a rather traditional form of classical realist political theory in the 1950s to neorealism in the 1970s? A possible answer is that Waltz's Theory of International Politics was his attempt to reconceive classical realism in a liberal form. Classical realism paid a great deal of attention to decisionmaking and statesmanship, and concomitantly asserted a nostalgic, anti-liberal political ideology. Neorealism, by contrast, dismissed the issue of foreign policymaking and decisionmaking. This shift reflected Waltz's desire to reconcile his acceptance of classical realism's tenets with his political commitment to liberalism. To do so, Waltz incorporated cybernetics and systems theory into Theory of International Politics, which allowed him to develop a theory of international relations no longer burdened with the problem of decisionmaking.

Concessions or coercion? How governments respond to restive ethnic minorities

Abstract: Destabilized multiethnic states and empires are environments that are highly susceptible to violent ethnonationalist conflict. Conflicts between states built on the ruins of such empires and their minorities are especially common. James Fearon has famously argued that these conflicts are the result of minorities' rational incentives to rebel, which in turn are the result of newly independent states' inability to guarantee that these minorities will not be discriminated against if they acquiesce to citizenship, as well as expectations that over time the balance of power will shift against minorities as states consolidate their institutions. States can, however, take steps to reassure their minorities. The puzzle is why they often fail to do so. In fact, states often adopt policies that confirm minorities' worst fears, pushing them toward rebellion. Such action may be precipitated by a state's belief that a minority is motivated by a separatist agenda rather than by the desire to have its concerns and griev...

Pakistan's Battlefield Nuclear Policy: A Risky Solution to an Exaggerated Threat

Abstract: Pakistan has introduced a new battlefield nuclear weapon, Nasr, into its arsenal. Nasr, a short-range ballistic missile, was first flight-tested in 2011. Pakistani leaders have declared that the weapon is meant to deter India from executing its Cold Start war doctrine. The doctrine was conceived by members of India's army and its strategic community in 2004 as a solution to perceived operational shortcomings of the army in responding to major terrorist incidents involving Pakistanis. It recommends the positioning of smaller army units at the international border with the capability to rapidly invade Pakistan and occupy narrow slices of territory, while denying Pakistan the ability to anticipate the attack and to immediately assemble a counterattack force. The Cold Start war doctrine, however, has since been publicly disavowed by the Indian government, and the Indian army has not reorganized or equipped its troops in a manner consistent with the doctrine. Further, the use of battlefield nuclear weapons ins...

The Showdown That Wasn't: U.S.-Israeli Relations and American Domestic Politics, 1973–75

Abstract: How influential are domestic politics on U.S. foreign affairs? With regard to Middle East policy, how important a role do ethnic lobbies, Congress, and public opinion play in influencing U.S. strat...

Correspondence: “Everyone's Favored Year for War—or Not?”

Abstract: Jack Snyder’s article “Better Now Than Later: The Paradox of 1914 as Everyone’s Favored Year for War” makes an important contribution to scholars’ understanding of World War I. Snyder argues that all of the continental powers were pessimistic about the future, optimistic about the prospects for war in 1914, and inouenced by betternow-than-later thinking.1 The hypothesis that preventive logic strongly inouenced German and Austria-Hungarian decisionmaking is familiar,2 but the idea that it signiacantly inouenced Russian and French decisionmaking is relatively new. It is also paradoxical. Underlying shifts in power that create incentives for one state to aght sooner rather than later should generate the opposite incentives for its adversary.3 Snyder documents the “puzzle of simultaneous optimism” in 1914 (p. 73), and makes a theoretical contribution by analyzing the utility of a modiaed bargaining model of war for explaining this puzzle. I agree with many of Snyder’s arguments about the outbreak of World War I and with his conclusions about the limitations of the standard bargaining model of war.4 I do not, however, accept his central thesis that 1914 was “everyone’s favored year for war.” Concerns about the future were countered by fears of a devastating war. None of the European powers wanted a world war, though each was willing to take substantial risks to maintain its inouence and avoid a humiliating diplomatic defeat. German political leaders wanted a localized Austro-Serbian war and were willing to accept a larger war with Russia and France, but only if they believed they could avoid a threefront war that included Britain. Although French leaders feared that Russia’s commitment to France might decline as Russian military power continued to grow, Snyder is wrong to conclude that leaders in both St. Petersburg and Paris were eager for war in 1914 (p. 79). Both states had concerns about their military readiness, and both recognized that war would be more risky in 1914 than in two or three years, when Russia would be stronger. In arguing that an important cause of war in 1914 was that “all of the continental Correspondence: “Everyone’s Favored Year for War?”

Correspondence: Evolution and Territorial Conflict

Abstract: For decades, evolutionary psychologists have offered explanations for complex human behaviors. These efforts are typically plagued by methodological problems, including unfalsiaability, reasoning by analogy, and endogeneity. Dominic Johnson and Monica Duffy Toft’s evolutionary explanation for the unique place of territory in human conoict stumbles on these same grounds.1 Johnson and Toft argue that humans—perhaps all vertebrates—have evolved a propensity for territoriality, incurring higher costs and aghting harder for land as compared with other sources of conoict. Their claims suffer from four problems, however. First, their understanding of evolution is imprecise and problematic, employing what is known as the “adaptationist fallacy” in lieu of clearly specifying a causal, biological mechanism. Second, they fail to sharply distinguish their account from plausible nonbiological alternatives. Third, they invite signiacant endogeneity problems by crossing the species barrier and traversing multiple levels of analysis. Fourth, they neglect cutting-edge research pointing to the limits of biological inheritance and evolutionary effects on behavior. Ultimately, their approach adds little to scholars’ understanding of territoriality. Johnson and Toft suggest that territoriality is “‘soft-wired’—a component of human nature but one that is responsive to prevailing conditions” (p. 11). As such, vertebrate organisms have evolved both a predisposition toward territorial aggression and, critically, “assessment,” the ability to evaluate the relative value, resources, and defensibility of a piece of land; the costs of aggression; and an opponent’s capabilities.2 Based on these two assumptions, Johnson and Toft identify three conditions—value asymmetry, economic defensibility, and resource holding potential—that they maintain leads to variation in the willingness of creatures to aght or posture over terrain. There are four problems with Johnson and Toft’s claims. First, they rest on a shaky conception of evolution, because the authors assume that physical traits and even Correspondence: Evolution and Territorial Conoict

Correspondence: Secrecy, Civil-Military Relations, and India's Nuclear Weapons Program

Abstract: Gaurav Kampani provides a compelling account of the evolution of India’s nuclear weapons program from 1989 to 1999 and rightly highlights how the need for secrecy “stymied India’s operational advances.”1 “Secrecy concerns,” he argues, “prevented decisionmakers and policy planners from decomposing problem sets and parceling them out simultaneously for resolution to multiple bureaucratic actors, including the military” (p. 82). In his eagerness to argue this point, however, Kampani is too quick to dismiss other explanations for India’s slow pace of operationalization. In this letter, I argue that a more complete account of “New Delhi’s long nuclear journey” should incorporate civil-military relations as another inouential factor.