Articles

55 Items

President Barack Obama listens as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, April 4, 2016.

AP

Magazine Article - The National Interest

Principled Pragmatism: Fredrik Logevall on Obama's Legacy

    Author:
  • Paul Richard Huard
| May 23, 2016

"I think that he has on some level grasped the difficulties I mentioned a moment ago: the difficulties of counterinsurgency and nation building, the limits of American power. I think he has acted on the basis of those convictions. I think he has a fundamental faith in diplomacy, which I think is right. He understands that diplomacy and negotiations can be a very powerful tool in the tool kit of American strategists, and I think that he is exactly right. So I am appreciative of the fact and supportive of the fact that he has pursued negotiations with Iran most notably, also with Cuba."

Members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front celebrate at Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat, Philippines on Thursday March 27, 2014 as they await the signing of a peace accord between the government and their group in Manila.

AP/ Froilan Gallardo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

United They Fall: Why the International Community Should Not Promote Military Integration after Civil War

| Winter 2015/16

Many international peacebuilders have suggested that integrating opposing combatants into a national military after civil war helps prevent conflict from recurring. Analysis of eleven cases of post–civil war military integration, however, reveals little evidence to support this claim. Underlying political conditions, not military integration, determine whether peace endures.

US and Ukrainian soldiers stand guard during opening ceremony of the 'Fiarles Guardian - 2015', Ukrainian-US Peacekeeping and Security command and staff training, in western Ukraine, in Lviv region, Monday, April 20, 2015.

(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Magazine Article - The National Interest

Russia and America: Stumbling to War

| May-June 2015

In the United States and Europe, many believe that the best way to prevent Russia’s resumption of its historic imperial mission is to assure the independence of Ukraine. They insist that the West must do whatever is required to stop the Kremlin from establishing direct or indirect control over that country. Otherwise, they foresee Russia reassembling the former Soviet empire and threatening all of Europe. Conversely, in Russia, many claim that while Russia is willing to recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (with the exception of Crimea), Moscow will demand no less than any other great power would on its border. Security on its western frontier requires a special relationship with Ukraine and a degree of deference expected in major powers’ spheres of influence. More specifically, Russia’s establishment sentiment holds that the country can never be secure if Ukraine joins NATO or becomes a part of a hostile Euro-Atlantic community. From their perspective, this makes Ukraine’s nonadversarial status a nonnegotiable demand for any Russia powerful enough to defend its national-security interests.

Journal Article - Survival

China, North Korea and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons

| April-May 2013

Once described as ‘as close as lips and teeth’, in recent years the relationship between China and North Korea has become more strained. Beijing has conflicted motivations in its policy towards Pyongyang. The threat to Beijing’s interests if North Korean nuclear weapons or materials find their way into the hands of others outweighs the danger of a regime collapse in Pyongyang.

North Korea's heir apparent observed military drills with his father, heralding a growing public profile for Kim Jon-un as he takes on a more prominent role in the reclusive nation.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Collapse of North Korea: Military Missions and Requirements

    Authors:
  • Bruce W. Bennett
  • Jennifer Lind
| Fall 2011

The upcoming transition in North Korea’s leadership will not inevitably bring about a collapse of government, but the potential consequences of such an event necessitate advance and combined planning. It is imperative that China, South Korea, and the United States develop a coordinated response, as each of these countries could take destabilizing action to protect their individual interests. A relatively benign collapse could require 260,000 to 400,000 troops to gain control of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, prevent humanitarian disaster, manage regional refugees, and ensure stable U.S.-Chinese relations. Civil war or war on the peninsula would only increase these requirements.

(R-L) Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov, General Secretary of the Communist Party Josef Stalin, & German Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signing the German-Soviet non-aggression pact in Moscow, Aug 23, 1939.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Preventing Enemy Coalitions: How Wedge Strategies Shape Power Politics

| Spring 2011

States use wedge strategies to prevent hostile alliances from forming or to dis­perse those that have formed. These strategies can cause power alignments that are otherwise unlikely to occur, and thus have significant consequences for international politics. How do such strategies work and what conditions promote their success? The wedge strategies that are likely to have significant effects use selective accommodation—concessions, compensations, and other inducements—to detach and neutralize potential adversaries. These kinds of strategies play important roles in the statecraft of both defensive and offensive powers. Defenders use selective accommodation to balance against a primary threat by neutralizing lesser ones that might ally with it. Expansionists use se­lective accommodation to prevent or break up blocking coalitions, isolating opposing states by inducing potential balancers to buck-pass, bandwagon, or hide. Two cases—Great Britain’s defensive attempts to accommodate Italy in the late 1930s and Germany’s offensive efforts to accommodate the Soviet Union in 1939—help to demonstrate these arguments. By paying attention to these dynamics, international relations scholars can better understand how balancing works in specific cases, how it manifests more broadly in interna­tional politics, and why it sometimes fails in situations where it ought to work well.

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Security Curve and the Structure of International Politics: A Neorealist Synthesis

    Author:
  • Davide Fiammenghi
| Spring 2011

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.

In this Sept. 21, 2007 file picture the Euro sign is photographed in front of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Europe's Troubles: Power Politics and the State of the European Project

| Spring 2011

The 1990s were years of great optimism in Europe. As the Europeans were putting the finishing touches on their economic community, observers pre­dicted that political and military integration would soon follow. Optimism has turned to pessimism since the turn of the century, however. Most analysts believe that the economic community is in crisis, and hardly anyone predicts the creation of a political or military counterpart to it. Why has the European project run into trouble and what does the future hold? The answers to these questions are largely to be found in the distribution of power. It was the over­whelming power of the Soviet Union that drove the Western Europeans to consider a variety of integration initiatives and to build and maintain the European Community (EC) during the Cold War. In 1991 the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived them of a compelling geostrategic reason to pursue further integration or even to preserve their economic community. As a result, the Europeans have made no real effort to establish a political or military com­munity over the past two decades, and the EC has slowly started to fray. As long as there are no significant changes in the balance of power going forward, worse times lie ahead.

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Graceful Decline? The Surprising Success of Great Power Retrenchment

| Spring 2011

There is broad scholarly consensus that the relative power of the United States is declining and that this decline will have negative consequences for interna­tional politics. This pessimism is justified by the belief that great powers have few options to deal with acute relative decline. Retrenchment is seen as a haz­ardous policy that demoralizes allies and encourages external predation. Faced with shrinking means, great powers are thought to have few options to stave off decline short of preventive war. Contrary to the conventional wis­dom, however, retrenchment is not a relatively rare and ineffective policy in­strument. A comparison of eighteen cases of acute relative decline since 1870 demonstrates that great powers frequently engage in retrenchment and that re­trenchment is often effective. In addition, we find that prevailing explanations overstate the importance of democracies, bureaucracies, and interest groups in inhibiting retrenchment. In fact, the rate of decline can account for both the ex­tent and form of retrenchment, even over short periods. These arguments have important implications for power transition theories and the rise of China.

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Myth of Military Myopia: Democracy, Small Wars, and Vietnam

| Winter 2009/10

The problems of fighting an insurgency with a firepower- and capital-intensive strategy are well known, yet democracies have failed to adopt more effective strategies. Scholars have identified military bureaucracy and culture to explain this tendency, but it can also be attributed to a desire to shift the cost of war away from the less-wealthy voter, who is more apt to support less-effective, but less labor-intensive strategies, if they lower the cost of fighting. This theory explains Lyndon Johnson's decision to pursue a suboptimal counterinsurgency strategy in the Vietnam War.