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Begin New Search Topic War Political Geography United States Content Type Journal Article

1. The End of War: How a Robust Marketplace and Liberal Hegemony Are Leading to Perpetual World Peace

Author:
Michael Mousseau
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Permanent world peace is beginning to emerge. States with developed market-oriented economies have foremost interests in the principle of self-determination of all states as the foundation for a robust global marketplace. War among these states, even making preparations for war, is not possible, because they are in a natural alliance to preserve and protect the global order. Among other states, weaker powers, fearing those that are stronger, tend to bandwagon with the relatively benign market-oriented powers. The result is a powerful liberal global hierarchy that is unwittingly, but systematically, buttressing states' embrace of market norms and values, moving the world toward perpetual peace. Analysis of voting preferences of members of the United Nations General Assembly from 1946 to 2010 corroborates the influence of the liberal global hierarchy: states with weak internal markets tend to disagree with the foreign policy preferences of the largest market power (i.e., the United States), but more so if they have stronger rather than weaker military and economic capabilities. Market-oriented states, in contrast, align with the market leader regardless of their capabilities. Barring some dark force that brings about the collapse of the global economy (such as climate change), the world is now in the endgame of a five-century-long trajectory toward permanent peace and prosperity.
Topic:
Peace Studies, War, Hegemony, Peacekeeping, Global Security, and Liberal Order
Political Geography:
United States, United Nations, and Global Focus

2. The Demographic Transition Theory of War: Why Young Societies Are Conflict Prone and Old Societies Are the Most Peaceful

Author:
Deborah Jordan Brooks, Stephen G. Brooks, Brian D. Greenhill, and Mark L. Haas
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The world is experiencing a period of unprecedented demographic change. For the first time in human history, marked disparities in age structures exist across the globe. Around 40 percent of the world's population lives in countries with significant numbers of elderly citizens. In contrast, the majority of the world's people live in developing countries with very large numbers of young people as a proportion of the total population. Yet, demographically, most of the world's states with young populations are aging, and many are doing so quickly. This first-of-its kind systematic theoretical and empirical examination of how these demographic transitions influence the likelihood of interstate conflict shows that countries with a large number of young people as a proportion of the total population are the most prone to international conflict, whereas states with the oldest populations are the most peaceful. Although societal aging is likely to serve as a force for enhanced stability in most, and perhaps all, regions of the world over the long term, the road to a “demographic peace” is likely to be bumpy in many parts of the world in the short to medium term.
Topic:
Demographics, War, International Security, Democracy, and International Relations Theory
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Japan, China, Germany, and Global Focus

3. The ad bellum Challenge of Drones: Recalibrating Permissible Use of Force

Author:
Alejandro Chehtman
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Drones constitute an incremental advance in weapons systems. They are able to significantly reduce overall, as well as collateral, damage. These features seem to have important implications for the permissibility of resorting to military force. In short, drones would seem to expand the right to resort to military force compared to alternative weapons systems by making resorting to force proportionate in a wider set of circumstances. This line of reasoning has significant relevance in many contemporary conflicts. This article challenges this conclusion. It argues that resorting to military force through drones in contemporary asymmetrical conflicts would usually be disproportionate. The reason for this is twofold. First, under conditions of radical asymmetry, drones may not be discriminatory enough, and, thereby, collateral damage would still be disproportionate. Second, their perceived advantages in terms of greater discrimination are counteracted by the lesser chance of success in achieving the just cause for war. As a result, resorting to military force through drones in contemporary asymmetrical conflicts would generally be disproportionate not because of the harm they would expectedly cause but, rather, because of the limited harm they are ultimately able to prevent. On the basis of normative argument and empirical data, this article ultimately shows that we need to revise our understanding of proportionality not only at the level of moral argument but also in international law.
Topic:
International Law, War, Military Affairs, Weapons, and Drones
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Europe

4. The Education of an Anti-Imperialist: Robert La Follette and U.S. Expansion, Richard Drake

Author:
Edward Rhodes
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
“History,” Winston Churchill is reported to have observed, “is written by the vic¬tors.” The losers, if they are lucky enough to avoid vilification, are airbrushed out. When it comes to our understanding of American foreign policies of the first four decades of the twentieth century, the history-writing victors have, for the most part, been liberal internationalists. Democrats and Republicans alike, in the wake of the Second World War, concluded that the task of making the world safe for America demanded active, global U.S. politico-military engagement. In the name of liberal international institutions, Washington's “Farewell” injunctions against entangling alliances would be consigned to the waste bin of quaint anachronisms.- See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19341#sthash.wG3JMQox.dpuf
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Education, and War
Political Geography:
United States and Washington

5. Sleepwalking Again: The End of the Pax Americana 1914–2014; After Gaza 2014: Schabas; Peer Review Redux; In this Issue

Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
I think it is difficult to contest that the most important state player in world affairs over the last one hundred years – and consistently so over this period – has been the United States of America. World War I – into which, to borrow from Christopher Clark's justly celebrated book, we 'sleepwalked' – marks a useful starting point. It is not only the fairly important role America played in bringing WWI to an end that signals the beginning of this era, but also the no less important role it played in shaping the aftermath. Wilson's 14 points were considered at the time 'idealistic' by some of the yet-to-be 'Old Powers'. But by dismantling the Ottoman Empire through the principle of self-determination (not at that time a universal legally binding norm) it was an early swallow to the demise, a mere generation later, of all other colonial empires and the truly decisive reshaping of the balance of power in the post-WWII world. The US played an equally cardinal role in ideating and realizing the United Nations Organization and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – two lynchpins of our current world order.
Topic:
Human Rights and War
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Gaza

6. The Misunderstood Lessons of Bosnia for Syria

Author:
Andrew Radin
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In developing U.S. intervention policy in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and most recently Syria, the 1992 to 1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina has repeatedly been used as an analogy. For example, John Shattuck, a member of the negotiating team at the Dayton peace talks that ended the war, wrote in September 2013 that for Syria “the best analogy is Bosnia…Dayton was a major achievement of diplomacy backed by force…A negotiated solution to the Syria crisis is possible, but only if diplomacy is backed by force.” Many other analysts and policymakers with experience in the Bosnian conflict—such as Nicholas Burns, the State Department spokesman at the time; Christopher Hill, a member of Richard Holbrooke's negotiating team; and Samantha Power, who began her career as a journalist in Bosnia—also invoked the Bosnian war to urge greater U.S. involvement in Syria. Although the rise of ISIS has significantly altered the conflict over the last year, echoes of the Bosnian conflict remain in Syria: the conflict is a multiparty ethnic civil war, fueled by outside powers, in a region of critical interest to the United States.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Libya, Kosovo, and Syria

7. Scholarship and the ship of state: rethinking the Anglo-American strategic decline analogy

Author:
Katherine C. Epstein
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
This article uses the centenary of the First World War as an opportunity to re-examine a major element of the existing literature on the war—the strategic implications of supposed British decline—as well as analogies to the contemporary United States based upon that interpretation of history. It argues that the standard declinist interpretation of British strategy rests to a surprising degree upon the work of the naval historian Arthur Marder, and that Marder's archival research and conceptual framework were weaker than is generally realized. It suggests that more recent work appearing since Marder is stronger and renders the declinist strategic interpretation difficult to maintain. It concludes by considering the implications of this new work for analogies between the United States today and First World War-era Britain, and for the use of history in contemporary policy debates.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, and America

8. Humanity Considerations Cannot Reduce Wars Hazards Alone: Revitalizing the Concept of Military Necessity

Author:
Yishai Beer
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The exercise of brute force by militaries, though common, reflects professional incompetency. A well-trained military has an inherent interest in enhancing its operational effectiveness and constraining unnecessary brutality. The law of armed conflict, however, generally ignores the constraining effect of the necessity principle, originally intended to allow only the minimally necessary use of force on the battlefield. Consequently, the prevailing law places the burden of restricting the exercise of brute military force upon humanitarian considerations (and the specific norms derived from them). Humanity alone, however, cannot deliver the goods and substantially reduce war’s hazards. This article challenges the current dichotomy between the two pillars – mistakenly assumed to be polar opposites – of the law of armed conflict: necessity and humanity. It calls for the transformation of the military’s self-imposed professional constraining standards into a revised legal standard of necessity. Though the necessity principle justifies the mere use of lethal force, it should not only facilitate wielding the military sword but also function simultaneously as a shield, protecting combatants and non-combatants alike from excessive brutality. The suggested transformation would bind and restrain the prospective exercisers of excessive force, political and military alike, and restrict the potential damage that might be caused both intentionally (to combatants) and collaterally (to non-combatants). The combined effect of the current changes in war’s pattern and the law of armed conflict, in the military and social thinking of recent decades, and the new strategies available due to the development of new military technologies have all created a new war environment – one that may be ready to leverage the constraining potential of military professionalism into a binding legal standard and norms.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, International Law, Treaties and Agreements, and War
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Europe

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

Author:
Daniel Bessner and Nicolas Guilhot
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
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.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, War, Grand Strategy, and International Relations Theory
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus

10. Recalcitrance and initiative: US hegemony and regional powers in Asia and Europe after World War II

Author:
Arthur A. Stein
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that US power and preferences following World War II led to bilateralism in Asia and multilateralism in Western Europe. It argues that the challenges facing the United States in both regions were similar, as were US policies meant to address them. With some lag, the United States supported the economic recovery of the regional powers it had defeated (Germany and Japan), saw the restoration of regional trade as a prerequisite, sought military bases to assure postwar security, and envisioned rearming its former foes as part of its security strategy. The outcomes in the two regions reflected the preferences and reservations of regional actors. The critical differences between the regions were structural. The existence of middle powers was critical in Europe, the return of colonial powers to Asia precluded regional arrangements in the short term, and geostrategic differences shaped the requisites for regional security.
Topic:
Economics and War
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Asia

11. Can the World Afford to Condone the 'Divided States of Syria'?

Author:
Hassan Mneimneh
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
After more than three years of corrosive wars, Syria no longer exists as a nation-state. It has been replaced by disparate entities and precarious arrangements – to the detriment of the Syrian population. The 'Divided States of Syria' are in large part the result of the survival strategy of the regime, aided by the futile pursuit of a 'political solution' by the international community. As the tragedy deepens, the recovery of Syria becomes more difficult, and the implications for regional stability increase in gravity. The West – the United States in particular – has abstained from forceful engagement. Yet, the price to pay today may in retrospect pale in light of the political, strategic and moral catastrophes that the current reserved approach is enabling.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States and Syria

12. Unfulfilled Promises, Future Possibilities: The Refugee Resettlement System in the United States

Author:
Todd Scribner and Anastasia Brown
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
World War II caused the displacement of millions of people throughout Europe. In response, the United States initiated a public-private partnership that assisted in the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of the region's displaced persons. For nearly 40 years after the War, the US commitment to refugee resettlement played out in an ad hoc fashion as it responded to emerging crises in different ways. During this period the government's involvement with resettlement became gradually intertwined with that of non-governmental resettlement agencies, which came to play an increasingly vital role in the resettlement process. The budding relationship that began in the middle decades of the twentieth century set the foundation for an expansive and dynamic public-private partnership that continues to this day. The Refugee Act of 1980solidified the relationship between resettlement agencies and the federal government, established political asylum in US law, and created the refugee resettlement program and a series of assistance programs to help refugees transition to life in the United States. This legislation marked a decisive turning point in the field of refugee resettlement.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

13. Iran's Continuing Interests in Afghanistan

Author:
Sumithra Narayanan Kutty
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
When it comes to Afghanistan's future, the United States ironically has more in common with Iran than it does with Pakistan. As Western troops draw down, a look inside Iran's enduring interests, means to secure them, unique assets, and goals that may or not conflict with other regional actors.
Topic:
Government and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Iran

14. "The Lessons of 1914 for East Asia Today: Missing the Trees for the Forest"

Author:
Todd H. Hall and Jia Ian Chong
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
A century has passed since the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo set in motion a chain of events that would eventually convulse Europe in war. Possibly no conflict has been the focus of more scholarly attention. The questions of how and why European states came to abandon peaceful coexistence for four years of armed hostilities—ending tens of millions of lives and several imperial dynasties—have captivated historians and international relations scholars alike.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Middle East, and East Asia

15. "Dead Wrong? Battle Deaths, Military Medicine, and Exaggerated Reports of War's Demise"

Author:
Tanisha M. Fazel
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Several recent books argue that war is on the decline. In Winning the War on War, for example, Joshua Goldstein lauds the recent successes of the peacemaking community in countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ivory Coast. In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker writes that not only war but violence in general has become much less common, as the civilizing forces of literacy and modern government have tempered our baser instincts and allowed our "better angels" to prevail.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and East Asia

16. "Delegitimizing al-Qaida: Defeating an 'Army Whose Men Love Death'"

Author:
Jerry Mark Long and Alex S. WIlner
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Al-Qaida has established a metanarrative that enables it to recruit militants and supporters. The United States and its allies can challenge its ability to do so by delegitimizing the ideological motivations that inform that metanarrative.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and East Asia

17. "Ethnofederalism: The Worst Form of Institutional Arrangement…?"

Author:
Liam Anderson
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Critics of ethnofederalism— a political system in which federal subunits reflect ethnic groups' territorial distribution—argue that it facilitates secession and state collapse. An examination of post-1945 ethnofederal states, however, shows that ethnofederalism has succeeded more often than not.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and East Asia

18. Collective evil and individual pathology: The depoliticization of violence against Afghan civilians

Author:
Harmonie Toros and Luca Mavelli
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article explores how the violence against Afghan civilians carried out by the Taliban and US 'rogue' soldiers has been accounted for as the product of, respectively, collective evil and individual pathology. These two seemingly contending explanations, it is argued, are part of the same strategy of depoliticization, which aims to provide support and legitimacy for the US-led war in Afghanistan. The article discusses how the genealogy of the discourse of collective evil surrounding the Taliban can be traced to an Orientalist political theodicy, which frames the Taliban as 'children of a lesser God' – that is, as fanatical puppets at the mercy of a violent God – and how the discourse of individual pathology surrounding the unsanctioned violence of US soldiers is instrumental to exempt military and civilian leadership from collusion and responsibility. The article challenges this latter narrative of individual blame by discussing how killing, torture and desecration of bodies are at the heart of warfare. Hence, it is concluded, the language of collective evil and individual pathology are part of the same strategy of depoliticization, which aims to silence political contestation and conceal the dehumanizing aspect of war, its structural production of violence, and the complex and dispersed nature of responsibility.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Taliban

19. War by Contract: Human Rights, Humanitarian Law and Private Contractors

Author:
Rein Müllerson
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Although the sub-title of the book indicates that the authors are not going to deal with all the legal issues arising in the context of a 'privatization' of warfare, the book, and not only the first chapter by Eugenio Cusumano on the policy prospects of regulating private military and security companies (PMSCs), throws its net wider than the title suggests. And rightly so. The privatization of warfare is a consequence and an element of the post-Cold War triumph of capitalism, and especially its neo-liberal advocates' tendency to privatize and deregulate all and everything. It is not by chance that PMSCs have mushroomed in the heartland of neoliberalism – the USA – faithfully followed by its Anglo-Saxon brethren on this side of the Atlantic. As the book specifies, in 2009 there were approximately 119,706 Department of Defense contractors in Iraq, compared with about 134,571 uniformed personnel. The authors accept the privatization of various functions of the state, including its 'monopoly of violence', to be almost inevitable. Nevertheless, they call for stronger and tighter regulation of the status and functions of PMSCs and control over their activities. They also show that though often new norms may be needed, in many cases existing laws, and their stricter and sometimes more creative application, may serve the purpose. The book concludes that 'many private military and security companies are operating in a “gray zone”, which is not defined at all, or at the very least not clearly defined, by international legal norms'.
Topic:
Human Rights and War
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

20. Misunderestimating Bush and Cheney

Author:
Christian Caryl
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The National Interest
Abstract:
A SPECTER is haunting Washington-the specter of George W. Bush. President Obama may have spent almost five years in the White House by now, but it's still possible to detect the furtive presence of a certain restless shade lurking in the dimmer corners of the federal mansion. Needless to say, this is something of a first: usually U.S. presidents have to die before they can join the illustrious corps of Washington ghosts, and 43 is, of course, still very much alive in his tony Dallas neighborhood, by all accounts enthusiastically pursuing his new avocation as an amateur painter. Yet his spirit is proving remarkably hard to exorcise.
Topic:
Government and War
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, and Middle East

21. Breach of Logic

Author:
James Joyner
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The National Interest
Abstract:
Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country [5] (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2013), 256 pp., $26.00. FOLLOWING HIS graduation from West Point, Andrew J. Bacevich had a distinguished career as an army officer, retiring as a colonel and serving in both Vietnam and the Gulf War. He has since carved out a second career as an iconoclastic scholar preaching the evils of perpetual war. In numerous essays and books, Bacevich, who teaches international relations at Boston University, has ventilated his contempt and despair for America's penchant for intervention abroad, directing his ire at both the liberal hawks and neoconservatives. Throughout, his stands have been rooted in a cultural conservatism that sees America as having strayed badly from its republican origins to succumb to the imperial temptation.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States, America, Vietnam, and England

22. Redcoat Leaders Weren't All Dolts

Author:
William Anthony Hay
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The National Interest
Abstract:
Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 480 pp., $37.50. THE VICTORS in wars may write the history of those wars, as the cliché says, but history usually manages to delve into the perspectives, interests and exploits of the defeated as it pieces together, over time, a complete picture. A vast literature on the Napoleonic wars, the Civil War and both world wars includes such explorations of the defeated to explain how events unfolded and what factors drove them. But no similar body of literature has emerged to survey the British side of the American Revolution. British historians neglected a defeat that complicated the story of their country's rise to imperial greatness, while Americans operated within the prejudices and assumptions of nineteenth-century patriotic writers. Later attempts to debunk their accounts rarely challenged the overarching-and overly deterministic-narrative of how the United States gained its independence.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States and America

23. Defense on a Diet

Author:
Melvyn P. Leffler
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The United States is now in a period of austerity, and after years of huge increases, the defense budget is set to be scaled back. Even those supporting the cuts stress the need to avoid the supposedly awful consequences of past retrenchments. “We have to remember the lessons of history,” President Barack Obama said in January 2012. “We can't afford to repeat the mistakes that have been made in the past -- after World War II, after Vietnam -- when our military policy was left ill prepared for the future. As commander in chief, I will not let that happen again.” Similarly, then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told Congress in October 2011, “After every major conflict -- World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the fall of the Soviet Union -- what happened was that we ultimately hollowed out the force. Whatever we do in confronting the challenges we face now on the fiscal side, we must not make that mistake.”
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States, Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Korea

24. Cyberwar and Peace

Author:
Thomas Rid
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Cyberwar Is Coming!” declared the title of a seminal 1993 article by the RAND Corporation analysts John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, who argued that the nascent Internet would fundamentally transform warfare. The idea seemed fanciful at the time, and it took more than a decade for members of the U.S. national security establishment to catch on. But once they did, a chorus of voices resounded in the mass media, proclaiming the dawn of the era of cyberwar and warning of its terrifying potential. In February 2011, then CIA Director Leon Panetta warned Congress that “the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyberattack.” And in late 2012, Mike McConnell, who had served as director of national intelligence under President George W. Bush, warned darkly that the United States could not “wait for the cyber equivalent of the collapse of the World Trade Centers.”
Topic:
Security and War
Political Geography:
United States

25. Bridge to Somewhere

Author:
Jose W. Fernandez
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
International development has moved beyond charity. Gone are the days when the United States would just spend its seemingly bottomless largess to help less fortunate or vanquished countries, as it did after World War II. International development has reached a new, globally competitive stage, bringing with it enormous strategic and economic implications for the United States in the years ahead.
Topic:
Development and War
Political Geography:
United States

26. Border Battle

Author:
Enrique Krauze
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico. By Amy S. Greenberg. Knopf, 2012, 344 pp. $30.00 (paper, $16.95). Every country sooner or later confronts the sins of its past, though rarely all at once. In recent decades, historians of the United States have revealed and explored the sins of American imperialism, recounting in detail Washington's interventions in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Yet they have largely overlooked American meddling in Mexico. Consequently, few in the United States recognize that the Mexican-American War (1846–48) was Washington's first major imperialist venture. Fewer still would understand why future U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, who fought in Mexico as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, would come to see it as the country's most “wicked war.”
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, Middle East, Latin America, Mexico, and Southeast Asia

27. A Far Cry From Failure

Author:
Michael O'Hanlon
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Stephen Biddle and Karl Eikenberry are outstanding public servants and scholars, but their respective articles on Afghanistan (“Ending the War in Afghanistan” and “The Limits of Counter­insurgency Doctrine in Afghanistan,” September/October 2013) convey excessively negative assessments of how the war is going and of Afghanistan's prospects. Their arguments could reinforce the current American malaise about the ongoing effort and thereby reduce the odds that the United States will continue to play a role in Afghanistan after the current NATO-led security mission there ends in December 2014. That would be regrettable; the United States should lock in and solidify its gains in Afghanistan, not cut its losses.
Topic:
NATO and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and United States

28. "Train as You Fight" Revisited: Preparing for a Comprehensive Approach

Author:
Sebastiaan Rietjens, Paul C. Van Fenema, and Peter Essens
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
In 1973 General William F. DePuy, first commander of the u.S. army's training and Doctrine Command (tRaDOC), emphasized that it was necessary to expose soldiers to realistic battlefield conditions before they experienced actual combat.1 Doing this should improve the soldiers' preparation and thereby, in the long run, their effectiveness and efficiency. DePuy's belief was widely shared and led to the development of new training methods and a training philosophy that is often referred to as “train as you fight”. ever since, military training programs have continuously been improved and better shaped towards the real threats that soldiers were facing in the theater. a clear example reflecting the new philosophy was the establishment of the uS Combat training Centers (CtCs). the five pillars upon which the CtC program is based, require (1) that participating units be organized as they would for actual combat, (2) a dedicated, doctrinally proficient operations group, (3) a dedicated, realistic opposing force (OPFOR), (4) a training facility being capable of simulating combat conditions, and (5) a base infrastructure.2 this suggests that the main focus in training is to develop a combat ready force that is physically and psychologically prepared to fight and win wars.3 the dominant focus on combat readiness is also mentioned in a 2006 RaND report reviewing for the united States army its leadership development. the authors concluded that whereas changes in operational environment were identified (e.g. “operations other than war”), “adaptation has centered largely on the more tangible elements and mechanics of war.”
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States

29. The Uneasy Relationship Between Economics and Security

Author:
Alexander Ferguson
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The most publicly discussed link between economics and security is the relationship between economic performance and power. the underpinnings for this relationship come from the philosophical approach that sees political power stemming from economic power. espoused at least since the 17th century by english Civil War philosopher James Harrington, these ideas saw their most well known expression in the philosophy of Karl Marx, who saw economic change driving political change. If economic structures determined politics then the link with security is clear. Carl von Clausewitz's likened war to other areas of conflict within developed societies, such as commerce and politics: “It is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others.”
Topic:
Security and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, and Germany

30. Decade of War: Enduring Lessons from a Decade of Operations

Author:
Elizabeth Young
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The year 2001 began with the inauguration of a U.S. President deliberately aiming to shift the use of the military away from the numerous humanitarian and peacekeeping interventions of the 1990s toward responding to and defeating conventional threats from nation-states. The mood was optimistic, with the new U.S. national Security Strategy, recently put in place by the departing Clinton administration, citing widespread financial prosperity and conveying no sense of an imminent threat to the homeland.2 But this situation proved fragile: the events of a single day, September 11, 2001, altered the trajectory of the United States and the way it used its military over the next decade. a nation focused on countering conventional threats was now confronted by an enemy that attacked the homeland with low-tech means in asymmetric and unexpected ways—individuals armed with box-cutters using hijacked civilian aircraft.
Topic:
Security and War
Political Geography:
United States

31. Military Leaders and Global Leaders: Contrasts, Contradictions, and Opportunities

Author:
Anthony J. DiBella
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Leadership has long been a focal point of human curiosity but has recently gathered even more attention. As globalization becomes increasingly the dominant force in political, social, and economic affairs, leaders far and wide are being called upon to take on new roles and address emergent challenges. This trend may be most prominent in the arena of national security. In particular, military leaders must now interact with a broader range of social communities as engagements span national and cultural boundaries. While in the past, national militaries or their forces or branches acted alone, most of today's engagements involve coalitions, “partners”, or joint forces. How do the traditional traits and characteristics of military leaders align with this new environment? This paper will examine several traits or characteristics of military leaders, compare them to those of other global leaders, and suggest ways to prepare military leaders for global leadership roles that go beyond parochial interests.
Topic:
Globalization and War
Political Geography:
United States

32. From Multilateral Champion to Handicapped Donor–And Back Again?

Author:
Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The global financial crisis triggered by the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and its aftermath in the subsequent five years has made visible and telling two new realities of the 21st century. First, the United States and its western allies no longer represent the single canonical example of the economic and political model of a free market democracy that other countries ought to strive to imitate. The crisis was triggered in the United States in part by a failure of monetary and financial regulatory policy; many emerging market economies, including China, India and Brazil, recovered relatively quickly from the global crisis in part due to so-called heterodox policies inconsistent with the U.S. model. Second, the global economy is no longer dependent on growth in the traditional western democracies; it is growth in China and other emerging market economies that has fueled the global recovery. For the first time in over 100 years, there is convergence between the per capita incomes of the richest and at least some large developing countries.
Topic:
War and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States, China, and India

33. The Liberation of Rome, 1944: Did Hitler Know?

Author:
Thomas Patrick Melady, Ph.D.
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:
I arrived in Rome in October 1945. I was drafted shortly after graduating from high school the previous June. It was a whirlwind experience that included four months of basic infantry training at Camp Blanding, Florida, a few weeks in Virginia, and then I was on the boat for Italy. The second time I arrived was almost half a century later. It was August 1989. I was nominated by then-President George H.W. Bush to be the United States Ambassador to the Vatican. As I walked amongst the historic relics from Roman antiquity, my curiosity reemerged about the peaceful liberation of this city that took place so long ago. I was still perplexed by the narrative of how Rome managed to elude the nightmare of being a battleground while so many of Europe's other historic sites fell victim to the horrors of the world's second greatest war. It is a question that has intrigued me to this day.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

34. Worldwide Threat Assessment

Author:
James R. Clapper
Publication Date:
04-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:
This year's threat assessment illustrates how dramatically the world and our threat environment are changing. Threats are growing more interconnected and viral. Events that at first seem local and irrelevant can quickly set off transnational disruptions that affect US national interests. It's a world in which our definition of "war" now includes a "soft" version. We can add cyber and financial to the list of weapons being used against us. And such attacks can be deniable and non-attributable.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States

35. True Peace Is Hard To Find

Author:
David Harris
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
After reading the compelling case made by Yosef Kuperwasser and Shalom Lipner in “The Problem Is Palestinian Rejectionism” (November/December 2011), it was quite jarring to read the companion piece, “Israel's Bunker Mentality,” by Ronald Krebs. Krebs' argument boils down to this: Israel was doing quite nicely as a liberal, secular state until 1967, when a war mysteriously descended on it, and since then an illiberal, ethnocentric nationalism has taken over and redefined the country. In the process, Krebs contends, Israel became enamored with the occupation of territories acquired during the Six-Day War, helped along by a growing ultra-Orthodox community and large-scale Russian immigration.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Israel, and Palestine

36. Military doctrine, command philosophy and the generation of fighting power: genesis and theory

Author:
Geoffrey Sloan
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
It was the British maritime strategist Sir Julian Corbett who, on the eve of the First World War, described doctrine as 'the soul of warfare'. This assertion conceals as much as it reveals, leaving out any explanation of how doctrine is formulated, disseminated or used, and any account of the relationship between doctrine and command philosophy. It is only through a synthesis of these two factors that fighting power can be generated. Doctrine can be described as a force multiplier in that a fighting organization that applies it consistently will be able to take on a larger force in battle and win. It is often analysed and evaluated in isolation from command philosophy. How, then, do we define doctrine and what are the major variants of command philosophy? What is the nature of the relationship between doctrine and command philosophy? Is it possible to identify and assess the component parts of doctrine, and to understand how they manifest themselves at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war?
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States

37. Where Is Private Note Issue Legal?

Author:
Kurt Schuler and William McBride
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
During the 18th and 19th centuries and for part of the 20th century, more than 60 countries had free banking. The major characteristics of free banking are competitive issue of notes (paper money) and deposits by commercial banks, low legal barriers to entry, little regulation unique to the industry, and no central control of reserves (the monetary base) within the national monetary system (Dowd 1992, White 1995). Among the countries that had a form of free banking was the United States. Even after the freest period of free banking ended, with the Civil War, banks continued to issue notes until the federal government effectively monopolized note issue in 1935.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States

38. Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change.

Author:
Rachael Bryson
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
In Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change Williamson Murray differentiates between innovation and adaptation. Innovation, the focus of a previous book (with Allan R. Millett, 1998), includes peacetime advancements and learning. In contrast, adaptation is comprised of wartime changes and battlefield lessons. Murray argues that militaries able to adapt to battle conditions have a higher probability of ending the conflict as the victor. He expands on this point, writing that the United States has demonstrated a lack of adaptability in recent conflicts, and therefore the purpose of this study is to glean lessons about adaptability that may be applied to the US military.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States

39. From Cold War to Hot Peace: The Habit of American Force

Author:
Richard K. Betts
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
WHEN THE UNITED STATES BECAME MORE SECURE, it became more forceful. Since the Cold War ended, it has spent far more than any other country or coalition to build armed forces; it has sent forces into combat more frequently than it did in the era of much bigger threats to national security; and it has done so much more often than any other country. The United States has been, quite simply, “the most militarily active state in the world.” To many in the mainstream of American politics, this is as it should be, because the United States has the right and responsibility to lead the world—or push it—in the right direction. To others, more alarmed by the pattern, U.S. behavior has evolved into “permanent war.”
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States

40. Partisan Balance: Why Political Parties Don't Kill the U.S. Constitutional System

Author:
Paul Frymer
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
The Constitution of the United States provides the federal government with 536 elected officials who come from 536 different electoral districts. David Mayhew asks whether this constitutional system is democratically fair. Given the 536 differently constituted and independent electoral bases, there is a real potential for what Mayhew labels both "dissonance" and "skew" in terms of which voters are represented by government activity.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States

41. Iraq: Transition to Embassy Lead – 2010-2012

Author:
James Franklin Jeffrey
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:
The 2011 transition from a US military-centric American presence in Iraq to a diplomatic lead, requiring the build out of already the largest US embassy since Vietnam, was an extraordinary political and logistic al effort, all but unparalleled in State Department history. The transition's success and its many challenges provide lessons for both the upcoming Afghanistan transition and 'expeditionary diplomacy' generally. It provides a model for diploma tic primacy in a conflict environment, but also cautionary lessons on the limits of diplomatic engagement in a war zone.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Vietnam

42. Introduction

Author:
Julie Smith
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Many people believed that Great Britain was not and did not wish to become European, and that Britain wanted to enter the Community only so as to destroy it or divert it from its objectives. Many people also thought that France was ready to use every pretext to place in the end a fresh veto on Britain's entry. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you see before you tonight two men who are convinced of the contrary.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Germany

43. Britain, Europe and the United States: change and continuity

Author:
Arthur I. Cyr
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
There is no shortage of attention to disagreements and tensions between the United States and the nations of Europe, considered both individually and collectively. The 40th anniversary of Britain's entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU), is a good benchmark anniversary not only for reflection on what has transpired to date but also for evaluation of current trends and likely future developments. The nation's course, regarding both entry into membership and participation, has hardly been smooth, but the relationship with the institution has endured.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, and Europe

44. Israel's War in Gaza: A Paradigm of Effective Military Learning and Adaptation

Author:
Benjamin S. Lambeth
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Assessing major combat experiences to help rectify errors made in the planning and conduct of operations has enjoyed a long and well-established tradition in the fields of military history and security studies. In particular, since Operation Desert Storm against Saddam Hussein's Iraq by U.S. and coalition forces in 1991, the pursuit of "lessons learned" from major combat has been a virtual cottage industry within the defense establishments of the United States and its principal allies around the world.
Topic:
Security and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Israel

45. The True Size of Africa

Author:
Thomas Cargill
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The next big thing: Once known only for hunger and war, Africa's moment has arrived
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Europe, and Middle East

46. No Marshall Plan for the Middle East

Author:
Amitai Etzioni
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
At first blush, the idea that the United States, working with other nations, should initiate, guide, and finance economic development and introduce democratic regimes to the nations of the Middle East—just as it did in post–World War II Germany and Japan—is appealing. From a humanitarian viewpoint, one cannot help but be moved by the idealism of helping millions of people who are currently unemployed and poor—including many children and young people, and others who live under oppressive regimes—to gain the kind of life Americans cherish. From a realpolitik viewpoint, military means will not suffice when it comes to ending the terrorism that threatens the United States and its allies, or halting the insurgencies that destabilize the Middle East.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Middle East, and Germany

47. How Wars End: Why We Always Fight the Last Battle

Author:
James N. Soligan
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Ongoing engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq have resurrected one of the most important and challenging questions facing political and military leaders in the United States and other nations: how to set objectives, conduct operations, and terminate wars in a manner that achieves intended political outcomes. The collective track record leaves much to be desired, and results of even the most recent conflicts would argue that we have not yet learned the necessary lessons from wars in the 20 th century to prevent making many of the same mistakes and suffering similar consequences in the 21 st century.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

48. Charter Schools: Choice of Somali-American Parents?

Author:
Farhan Hussein
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Most of the Somali community in the United Stated came here after civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991. During the war, hundreds of thousands of people fled to neighboring countries where many received resettlement aid from yet other countries, including the United States. The largest Somali community in the United States lives in Minnesota, mainly in the Minneapolis area.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Somalia

49. Small Arms, Big Problems

Author:
C.J. Chivers
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
As U.S. marines fought in Marja last year, they captured the weapons used by Taliban fighters. These arms -- from British Lee-Enfields to Soviet Kalashnikovs to Czech vz. 58s -- tell the story of how many modern wars are fought.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States

50. Will China's Rise Lead to War?

Author:
Charles Glaser
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Realist international relations theorists usually would predict that the basic pressures of the international system will force the United States and China into conflict. But properly understood, realism offers grounds for optimism in this case, so long as Washington can avoid exaggerating the risks posed by China's growing power.
Topic:
International Relations and War
Political Geography:
United States and China