Articles

Dozens of in-depth interviews in Lebanon after its civil war show how wartime displacement transformed localities in ways that transcend religious identity. With more than 80,000 people displaced from southern Lebanon because of fighting since October 7, 2023, the Israel-Gaza war is likely to strengthen Hezbollah’s grip when the displaced populations return and in localities in south Lebanon where displaced populations settle. 

Although China's motives for developing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have been well studied, scholars have yet to comprehensively examine why states seek to join the initiative. The authors fill this gap by examining how and why states join the BRI. Countries join by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China on cooperation under the BRI framework.

In the Henty Mance interview, Joseph Nye, who coined term 'soft power,' says that the turmoil facing the United States and Harvard was worse in the 1960s.

Calder Walton recounts how Russia and China are using their intelligence agencies to reverse the outcome of the Cold War

A textbook case of coercive diplomacy, Hezbollah's maneuver was calculated and deliberate, which reflects the group's strategic expertise. Drawing on open-source materials and public statements in Arabic and Hebrew, this article analyzes Hezbollah's coercive-diplomacy campaign and examines its implications for escalation scenarios between Israel and its central military opponent.

Atonement is an apology and reparations payments from one state to another for mass atrocities and other human rights abuses. The only case of atonement so far is that of West Germany and Israel in 1952. The West German decision to atone for the Holocaust was neither a moral choice nor the result of U.S. pressure. Instead, both countries saw atonement as politically expedient.

According to the "Madman Theory" outlined by Daniel Ellsberg and Thomas C. Schelling, and embraced by Presidents Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, being perceived as mad can help make seemingly incredible threats—such as starting a nuclear war—more credible. However, recent research has largely concluded that the Madman Theory does not work. 

The authors write that this is a moment of great hope for Iran but also great worry. Although the extensive frontline participation of women in protest movements often makes them more effective, it also raises the stakes dramatically. Defeat of today's protesters could be followed by an even deeper patriarchal backlash. 

Hostile foreign states are using weaponized information to attack the United States. Russia and China are disseminating disinformation about domestic U.S. race relations and COVID-19 to undermine and discredit the U.S. government. These information warfare attacks, which threaten U.S. national security, may seem new, but they are not. Using an applied history methodology and a wealth of previously classified archival records, this article uses two case studies to reveal how and why a hostile foreign state, the Soviet Union, targeted America with similar disinformation in the past

Kelly Greenhill argues that by exploiting political divisions that exist within targeted states, the threatened or actual deployment of engineered flows of migrants has long been a distressingly effective policy instrument, and it is unlikely to go away anytime soon. Unless policymakers begin to confront the forces that enable weaponized migration, the favored policy responses seem destined to increase, rather than curtail, its use.