Why are democracies unusually successful in war? We find that superior human capital, harmonious civil-military relations, and Western cultural background are largely responsible. These traits correlate positively with democracy, and account for democracy’s apparent effectiveness bonus. This is either good news or bad news for democratic effectiveness theorists. Many believe that democracy causes these traits. If so, our findings strengthen democratic effectiveness theory by explicating its causal mechanism. But others see democracy as a consequence rather than a cause of such traits. If so, our findings challenge the thesis by identifying alternative causes of the effectiveness bonus previously attributed to democracy. Either way, the results show a powerful effect for unit level variables in military performance. In the process, these same results sharpen our understanding of military effectiveness in general, and the relationship between military performance and regime type in particular.

/pdf/democracy-and-military-effectiveness-a-deeper-look-1nigbnxruv.pdf

Thinking about National Security

Democracy and Military Effectiveness A Deeper Look

JIMMY CARTER'S FOREIGN POLICY: THE BATTLE FOR POWER AND PRINCIPLE Frances M. Jacobson Old Dominion University, 2008 Director: Dr. Simon S. Serfaty Evaluating the foreign policies of presidents while they are in office or shortly after their tenure ends can sometimes lead to conclusions that prove to be unsound in the future. The case of Harry Truman exemplifies this. When he left office in 1952 his approval rating was in the 20 percentile range. Yet, he set the tone and direction of United States foreign policy that led eventually to the successful conclusion of the Cold War. The foreign policy of President Jimmy Carter was also generally viewed as a failure by many scholars in the field, both during his time in office and for some years beyond. Another analysis is now due. This work reviews five issue areas of Carter's foreign policy: the Panama Canal treaties, arms transfers and human rights, Southern Africa, Camp David Accords, and the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis. It argues that Carter pursued policy choices that proved to be in the best interests of the United States in the long run. These issues were and are some of the most contentious that any president has been faced with in the post war world. Emotions ran high on many of them, which can create a toxic environment for many politicians, most of whom either have their eye on the next election or on their legacy. Carter, however, was not held prisoner to either of these. He consistently did the right thing, but seldom the popular thing. Camp David was the exception, and he has been given high praise for his work in helping to stabilize the Middle East, a region that is filled with old hatreds and grievances. It is difficult to achieve anything positive there and most presidents shy away from the Arab-Israeli problem because it yields little or nothing in political rewards. Carter's policies were not without their critics, however, and he got few accolades for his work on the other areas of concern that this work covers. This work has examined Carter's foreign policy from the vantage point of what we know now, and argues that he tried to work within a framework of power and principle. It concludes that while his steady diplomacy, his prudence, and his refusal to use a military option except as a last resort made him unpopular at the time, in hindsight, he was successful in working for the long term national interests of the United States.

/pdf/jimmy-carter-s-foreign-policy-the-battle-for-power-and-2cxk18jey7.pdf

Jimmy Carter's foreign policy : the battle for power and principle

: Focusing on the future is inherently difficult without an existential or quantifiable conventional threat to Western security, and a lack of continual predictability makes it problematic at best. Yet, Western militaries currently sit stuck in the middle, with strategies defined by operational effectiveness not strategic positioning. Juxtaposed to this is an environment whereby threat streams continually erode the advantages afforded by high technology dominance through seeking to attack vulnerabilities indirectly. This monograph sits in a space that questions current strategies of technological superiority. Its importance is in framing strategic choice and the case in point of short-lived relative advantage, whether dictated by internal policy, threat, or an inability to translate the technology into truly effective capability. The compounding effect is a lack of overall strategy and the view that aspiring to technological dominance has supplanted the traditional logic of strategy for development. This creates military subservience to only the driving forces of the day without a clear understanding for the future. Analyzing trends in the future security environment demonstrates that a lack of change may not spell the end for wider US hegemony and military dominance. However, the relative nature of comparative advantage suggests that this is downhill slope. This does not ignore the view that technological dominance has enabled the Western Way of War, mitigating a perceived lack of mass with quality. However, recognizing current fiscal and resource constraints the previous planning assumptions do not apply when emerging from a decade of conflict. Returning to a theoretical base of first principles offers a way to adapt in the face of institutional bias, recognizing the lessons from history. This is not an easy task and there remain no clear answers for dealing with an uncertain future. A phenomenological approach tackles this to understand this environment from the pe

Stuck in the Middle Without a Coherent Strategy: An Allusion to Future War

: The RAND Corporation and the RAND/UCLA Center for the Study of Soviet International Behavior (CSSIB) have a joint project for the Carnegie Corporation entitled Avoiding Nuclear War: Managing Conflict in the Nuclear Age. This project has two broad objectives: to understand better the process of escalation from peace through general nuclear war; and to identify and assess, while protecting vital national interests, unilateral and cooperative measures that might inhibit unintended escalation or improve prospects for reversing or controlling escalation once it has begun. This report contributes to the larger project by describing efforts of the author and colleagues in the RAND Strategy Assessment center to develop and use knowledge based analytic models of national-command-level decisionmaking for better understanding and communicating issues of deterrence, escalation, and war termination. The intended audience includes researchers and government figures interested in crisis decision making, related command and control problems, and a framework for thinking about first strike stability that integrates both force-posture factors and behavioral factors.

/pdf/studying-first-strike-stability-with-knowledge-based-models-5ercv0qlgs.pdf

Thinking about National Security

Citations

Democracy and Military Effectiveness A Deeper Look

Jimmy Carter's foreign policy : the battle for power and principle

Stuck in the Middle Without a Coherent Strategy: An Allusion to Future War

Studying First-Strike Stability with Knowledge-Based Models of Human Decisionmaking

SECDEF: The Nearly Impossible Job of Secretary of Defense

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