International Security

Speaker: Steven Simon, Professor in the Practice of International Relations, Colby College

Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Speaker Series, co-sponsored with MIT's Security Studies Program.

Everyone is welcome! Please join us! Light refreshments provided.

Speaker: Sirianne Dahlum, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Security Program

A long-standing debate revolves around business elites and their role in states' war behavior. Some arguments imply that when business elites have a large influence on policymaking, states turn more belligerent, as business elites encourage military expeditions to open up or protect markets. Contrasting perspectives in the liberal tradition, such as "capitalist-peace" arguments, emphasize that business elites have strong economic incentives to avoid war and thus will have a pacifying effect when they hold political power. Comprehensive tests of these arguments are scarce, and those that exist do not account for the degree to which business elites hold sway over policymaking.  Drawing on new global data on the social composition of regime-support coalitions covering more than 200 years from 1789–the present, the speaker presents evidence on the war behavior of regimes supported by business elites. 

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

A Project on Managing the Atom seminar with Julius Weitzdörfer, Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow with the International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom.

Speaker: Vanes Ibric, Research Fellow, International Security Program

Why do countries with formal alliances engage in armed hostilities against one another? What motivates states to attack their allies? As evidenced by Italy's betrayal of the Central Powers in World War I or the border conflict between Soviet Union and China in 1969, countries with formal alliances have engaged in wars and militarized disputes. The speaker provides a new theoretical framework that distinguishes between alliances in which one state entered the alliance with a strong predisposition to attack its ally (i.e., premeditated fighting) and alliances in which fighting happens as a result of situational changes following the formation of the alliance (i.e., situational fighting).

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

A Nuclear Nonproliferation Practitioners Seminar with Joyce Connery, Board Member and former Chairperson at the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board.

Sponsored by the Project on Managing the Atom and Women in Defense, Diplomacy and Development (W3D).

Speakers: Luis Simón, Professor in International Relations, Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel 

Linde Desmaele, Ph.D. Candidate and Researcher, Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel 

Why does the United States prioritize Europe or East Asia?  The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy speaks of the erosion of America's competitive edge and warns about how Russian revisionism and China's rise threaten the balance of power in Europe and East Asia.  Drawing on insights from balance of power theory, the speakers provide a framework that explains why the United States prioritizes Europe or East Asia. Such a decision, they contend, hinges primarily on the degree to which a particular competitor is able to upset the regional balance across three key domains simultaneously: military, economic, and political-diplomatic. The speakers assess their framework against those competing explanations that may point to threat or bureaucratic politics as the main drivers of U.S. regional prioritization. To probe their hypothesis, they examine how the Europe vs. Asia dilemma played out during the Cold War and post–Cold War periods.

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

Speaker: Peter Slezkine, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

By the end of the Second World War, most American policymakers assumed that their country had become inescapably and durably entangled in the affairs of the globe. Half a decade later, they settled on an objective that would determine the direction of their country's international efforts going forward. Throughout the 1950s, as the United States established itself as a permanent player on the global stage, American policymakers pursued the overarching aim of "free world leadership." This seminar will trace the emergence and evolution of the concept of the "free world" in American history, demonstrate its impact on policymakers' understanding of the Cold War and the United States' global role, and investigate the shift to alternative perspectives (including one centered on the "third world") by the end of the 1960s. Finally, the seminar will address how the current U.S. global order has been durably shaped by its original focus on the "free world."

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

A Project on Managing the Atom seminar with David Arceneaux, Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom.

Speaker: Audrye Wong, Grand Strategy, Security, & Statecraft Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program

Economic statecraft — the use of economic tools to pursue political goals — is an important foreign policy strategy for many major powers and has been an increasingly important tool for China. The speaker will provide a theoretical framework to explain the effectiveness of economic statecraft, focusing on positive inducements, which have been relatively understudied. She will argue that effectiveness is influenced by the interaction between two variables: (a) the type of inducement strategy; and (b) the level of public accountability in the target country. 

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