International Security Program

Speaker: Payam Ghalehdar, Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program

Under what conditions does the United States promote democracy abroad? From Western-style liberal democracy to outright authoritarianism, the historical record of U.S. regime promotion reveals a wide-ranging variation in promoted regime types. According to the standard narrative, this variation stems from a clash between the pursuit of hard-nosed self-interest and democratic values and ideals. This presentation challenges the misleading distinction between interests and ideals, arguing that both democracy promotion and democracy prevention can stem from national security considerations. To shed light on the variation in U.S. regime promotion, the presentation instead focuses on competing beliefs among U.S. foreign policy elites about the link between regime type and regime efficacy.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Speaker: Tory Kindrick, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

Policymakers and theorists have long debated the utility of nuclear deterrence as policy, while philosophers have debated its morality. In 2017, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, declared the use of nuclear deterrence to be immoral, signing the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in his role as head of state of Vatican City. No nuclear weapons states have as yet signed the treaty. This discussion explores how moral views may facilitate and complicate policy discussion and considers questions for moral authorities, policymakers, and practitioners when contemplating the morality of deterrence.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Co-Sponsored by Project on Managing the Atom

Speaker: Chuck Freilich, Senior Fellow, International Security Program

The speaker,  a former deputy national security adviser in Israel, author of Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change (2018), will discuss the ramifications of Israel's elections for Israel itself, the United States, and the Middle East. Among the issues addressed: the future of the peace process, the Iran nuclear issue and Iranian challenge generally, the potential for conflict with Hezbollah and Hamas, U.S.-Israeli relations, and the elections' domestic ramifications.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Speakers: Mathias Ormestad Frendem, Henry Chauncey Jr. '57 Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Studies and the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy, Yale University; A. Bradley Potter, Research Fellow, International Security Program

What effect do emerging communications technologies have on U.S. civil-military relations? How might the history of such technological disruption help us prepare for future disruptions? Most scholarship suggests that such developments should empower civilian leaders to better monitor and oversee military leaders, bringing in line military efforts with civilian preferences. However, the speakers argue that these technologies also bring with them challenging consequences for civil-military relations. Namely, they may encourage tendencies in both parties that undermine decision-making and long-term healthy interaction. The speakers illustrate this with a case study of relations between President George W. Bush and George W. Casey prior to launching the "surge" in Iraq.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Speaker: Elena Chachko, Research Fellow, International Security Program

A growing number of U.S. foreign and security measures in the past two decades has directly targeted individuals—natural or legal persons. These individualized measures have largely been designed and implemented by administrative agencies. Widespread application of individual economic sanctions, ranging from terrorism sanctions to sanctions against Russian individuals for election meddling; security watchlists; detentions; targeted killings; and individualized cyber countermeasures have all become significant currencies of modern foreign and security policies since the early 2000s. The constant development of technology for precision targeting and algorithmic decision-making will likely continue driving this trend. While the application of many of these measures in discrete contexts has been studied, they have yet to attract a holistic analysis.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Speaker: Patrick Porter, Professor of International Security and Strategy, University of Birmingham

How should political realists view the United States' role in the Middle East? Political realists disagree on what America should "do" and "be" in the Middle East. They are united in their scepticism towards extravagant geopolitical projects such as the "Global War on Terror" and attempts to transform the region along democratic, capitalist lines. Yet they divide over other fundamental questions: how important is the Middle East to U.S. national interests? Is America's patronage of Israel and the Saudi bloc prudent? What military posture is needed, if any, and for what purpose? This seminar offers a genealogy of these intramural arguments within realism, in order to surface the disagreements and evaluate the choices they offer. The speaker identifies two strands: "primacy" realism, that advocates continued pursuit of hegemony with the United States as an effective stabilizer, and "shield of the republic" realism, which views the region as an unruly place that both entangles and corrupts the republic, involving interests that are either manageable from a remove or only generated by being there in the first place. The speaker makes the case for the second tradition, arguing that the time for abandonment has come.

Please join us! Coffee, tea, and refreshments provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

This seminar is being held under the auspices of the joint HKS/MIT Program on Strategy, Security, and Statecraft.

Speaker: WU Riqiang, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

It is generally believed that in peacetime current Sino-U.S. nuclear relations are stable and deliberate nuclear exchanges between these two countries are unimaginable. However, conventional conflict might escalate to nuclear level, even if both sides wish to avoid it at the beginning of the war. This seminar will provide a causal mechanism of Sino-U.S. inadvertent escalation. Three driving factors are identified: the vulnerability of Chinese nuclear forces, the not-by-design co-mingling of China's conventional and nuclear weapons, and the fog of war. The security dilemma will worsen the situation and increase the escalatory risk. The mechanism is then tested via two hypothetical scenarios: a missile campaign and submarine warfare. In order to reduce the risk of inadvertent escalation, the United States should build confidence with China by declaring mutual vulnerability vis-à-vis China and constraining its strategic capabilities. China could also demarcate its nuclear and conventional missiles and clarify its no-first-use policy that conventional attacks on nuclear weapons would be regarded as nuclear attacks.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Speaker: Mariya Grinberg, Research Fellow, International Security Program

In times of war, why do belligerents continue to trade with each other? The speaker shows that states set product level commercial policies to balance two potentially conflicting goals — maximizing state revenue from continued trade during the war and minimizing the ability of the opponent to benefit from security externalities of the trade. States are more likely to trade with the enemy in (1) products that their opponents take a long time to convert into military capability and (2) products that are essential to the domestic economy. The amount of time it takes the opponent to convert gains from trade into military capabilities determines which products are too dangerous to be traded during a war. The mitigating factor is the amount of revenue the state can extract from trade. The more essential the product is to the domestic economy, the less a state can afford to lose trade in it.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Speaker: Aroop Mukharji, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

President William McKinley's foreign policy ranks among the most consequential of all U.S. presidents. At the start of his first term, the United States was primarily hemispheric in its foreign policy orientation. By the start of his second term, the United States had brought down a European colonial power, had begun governing seven new overseas territories, and had fought two additional wars in Asia.

This presentation focuses specifically on the Spanish-American War and why McKinley decided to intervene. Three myths about his motivations continue to persist: (1) that the United States waged an economically imperialist war to open up trade opportunities, (2) that the rhetoric of manliness pressured McKinley into taking a more aggressive stance, and (3) that the yellow press whipped up a public frenzy that led to the declaration of war. These influences are greatly overstated. Instead, this presentation will argue that the Spanish-American War was partly a humanitarian war, but also a "precautionary war" (author's term) that was based on a general fear of disorder, uncertainty, and instability and waged to ensure conditions that better facilitated regional stability and peace.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Speaker: Christopher Anzalone, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Security Program

The advent of Islamist rebel governing projects in different regions of the world from Africa to the Middle East and West and South Asia provides an opportunity to link the empirical study of these groups with the broader academic literature on rebel governance, political Islam, and religion and violence. Despite in recent years making up a larger number of empirical cases of insurgent organizations seeking to implement governance projects, Islamist organizations have to date received limited focus in studies on the structures, ideologies, and dynamics of rebel governance. This interdisciplinary project examines the strategies and experiences of Islamist insurgent organizations that have actively attempted to set up civil governing systems through which to interact with local civilian populations. It situates the study of Islamist insurgent groups with governance ambitions within the growing literature on rebel governance.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.