International Security

Eric Bartz and Khalid Momand respond to Geoffrey Swenson's Summer 2017 article, "Why U.S. Efforts to Promote the Rule of Law in Afghanistan Failed."

Despite their disagreements, proponents of deep engagement and offshore balancing share an optimistic but unrealistic assessment regarding the durability of U.S. military dominance. China’s antiaccess/area denial strategy and conventional precision-strike capabilities are already undermining the United States’ military dominance in East Asia. The United States will need to adapt its military to meet this challenge.

Contrary to conventional accounts, the United States did not immediately adopt a balancing strategy against the Soviet Union after World War II. Rather, the Eisenhower administration sought U.S. withdrawal from Western Europe by pursuing a buck-passing strategy. Only under the Kennedy administration did the United States begin to make permanent commitments to the defense of Europe. A new theory analyzes this shift in policy, defining those who sought to withdraw from Europe as “negative liberals” and those who sought firmer balancing commitments as “positive liberals.”

Balancing theory suggests that China’s emergence as a global power should signal a transition from unipolarity to a multipolarity, but so far no such power shift has occurred. Nevertheless, given its expanding economy, China is increasingly challenging U.S. hegemony.  It remains unclear, however, whether China will strive to replace the United States as the sole global authority, modify the current system to allow for multipolarity, or continue to focus on internal development and enact the change to a Chinese order gradually.

Realist scholars have long debated the question of how much power states need to feel secure. Offensive realists claim that states should constantly seek to increase their power. Defensive realists argue that accumulating too much power can be self-defeating. Proponents of hegemonic stability theory contend that the accumulation of capabilities in one state can exert a stabilizing effect on the system. The three schools describe different points along the power con­tinuum. When a state is weak, accumulating power increases its security. This is approximately the situation described by offensive realists. A state that con­tinues to accumulate capabilities will eventually triggers a balancing reaction that puts its security at risk. This scenario accords with defensive realist as­sumptions. Finally, when the state becomes too powerful to balance, its oppo­nents bandwagon with it, and the state’s security begins to increase again. This is the situation described by hegemonic stability theory. These three stages delineate a modified parabolic relationship between power and secu­rity. As a state moves along the power continuum, its security increases up to a point, then decreases, and finally increases again. This modified parabolic re­lationship allows scholars to synthesize previous realist theories into a single framework.

President George W. Bush’s Iraq surge decision in late 2006 is an interest­ing case for civil-military relations theory, in particular, the debate between professional supremacists and civilian supremacists over how much to defer to the military on decisions during war.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, concern that Russian nuclear weapons scientists could sell their expertise to the highest bidder or steal nuclear weapons or their components has risen dramatically. Sharon Weiner considers several ways to discourage these potential “nuclear entrepreneurs” from undertaking such efforts.

In considering recent efforts to redefine international security in terms of human security, the author argues that the term is still "so vague that it verges on meaninglessness—and consequently offers little practical guidance to academics who might be interested in applying the concept, or to policymakers who must prioritize among competing policy goals."

Though the end of the Cold War raised questions in some minds about the status of the field and the survival of IS, the journal has flourished over the last decade. A substantially new agenda has emerged, one that raises fundamental questions about America’s role in the world, the character of great power relations, and the feasibility and desirability of various possible post–Cold War international orders.

Although Western NGOs have contributed to the establishment of local-level democratic institutions and election practices, these achievements have been limited by nondemocratic practices and human rights abuses.