Articles

151 Items

U.S. Army Soldiers share tactics and training with Nigerian Army Soldiers, Nigeria, February 8, 2018.

Capt. James Sheehan, U.S. Army

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Cult of the Persuasive: Why U.S. Security Assistance Fails

    Author:
  • Rachel Tecott Metz
| Winter 2022/23

Why does the U.S. Army rely on persuasion to influence military partners to improve their forces despite repeated failures that undermine U.S. foreign policy goals? The army prioritizes its role as a fighting force, not an advisory group. U.S. leaders have developed an ideology—the cult of the persuasive—to advance army bureaucratic interests.

Residents wearing face masks walk by tree shadow cast on a Communist Party's logo near a residential area in Beijing, Thursday, March 2, 2023. Chinese leader Xi Jinping's agenda for the annual meeting of the ceremonial legislature: Revive the economy by encouraging consumers to spend more now that severe anti-virus controls have ended, and install a government of loyalists to intensify Communist Party control over the economy and society. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

AP Photo/Andy Wong

Magazine Article - Foreign Affairs

The New China Shock: How Beijing’s Party-State Capitalism is Changing the Global Economy

| Dec. 08, 2022

In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008, China began to move away from the market-based approach that had shaped its economic policies for three decades, and toward something that might be termed "party-state capitalism," which involves a high degree of CC control over strategic sectors of the economy. This has led to significant changes in the U.S.-Chinese economic relationship, as both sides have made efforts to secure supply chains, screen inward and outward capital flows, diminish the power of global firms, and reorganize alliances to protect against economic coercion.

A protester holds up a placard outside the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong, Wednesday, June 26, 2019.

AP Photo/Kin Cheung

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Nowhere to Hide? Global Policing and the Politics of Extradition

    Author:
  • Daniel Krcmaric
| Fall 2022

U.S. power extends beyond the military and economic spheres to include policing. The United States has used its global policing power to capture terrorists, warlords, and drug kingpins. But extradition is not simply a bureaucratic tool. States’ geopolitical interests shape their willingness to cooperate with others in extraditing fugitives. 

A set of NanoRacks CubeSats is photographed by an Expedition 38 crew member after the deployment by the Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (SSOD).

NASA

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Small Satellites, Big Data: Uncovering the Invisible in Maritime Security

    Authors:
  • Saadia Pekkanen
  • Setsuko Aoki
  • John Mittleman
| Fall 2022

The world’s oceans have always provided ships with room to hide. New technology is changing that. Small satellites now collect terabytes of global data daily. Computational analytics can mine that data as humans cannot. Increasingly, this information expands the ability to identify and track ships and their activities, including those affecting national and international security. 

Soldiers stand guard after a preparedness enhancement drill simulating the defense against Beijing's military intrusions, ahead of the Lunar New Year in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan on Wednesday, Jan 11, 2023. China renewed its threats Wednesday to attack Taiwan and warned that foreign politicians who interact with the self-governing island are "playing with fire."

AP Photo/Daniel Ceng

Magazine Article - Foreign Affairs

The Consequences of Conquest: Why Indo-Pacific Power Hinges on Taiwan

| June 16, 2022

Of all the intractable issues that could spark a hot war between the United States and China, Taiwan is at the very top of the list. And the potential geopolitical consequences of such a war would be profound. Taiwan-"an unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender," as U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur once described it--has important, often underappreciated military value as a gateway to the Philippine Sea, a vital theater for defending Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea from possible Chinese coercion or attack.

Soldiers conducting a Mobile Training Team deployment in Liberia.

U.S. Army

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Soldiers' Dilemma: Foreign Military Training and Liberal Norm Conflict

| Spring 2022

When the U.S. military trains other states’ forces, it tries to impart liberal norms such as respect for human rights. But when liberal norms clash, these soldiers prioritize loyalty to their unit, the military, and shared goals.

Ugandan police and other security forces chase people off the streets to avoid unrest after all public transport was banned for two weeks to halt the spread of the new coronavirus.

AP Photo/Ronald Kabuubi

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Opportunistic Repression: Civilian Targeting by the State in Response to COVID-19

    Authors:
  • Donald Grasse
  • Melissa Pavlik
  • Hilary Matfess
  • Travis B. Curtice
| Fall 2021

Opportunistic repression arises when states use crises to suppress the political opposition. An examination of the relationship between COVID-19 shutdown policies and state violence against civilians in Africa, including and a subnational case study of Uganda, tests this theory.

Black Americans register to vote in the July 4 Georgia Democratic Primary in Atlanta, Ga., on May 3, 1944. Registrations are increasing in Atlanta as black schools are giving instructions to students in ballot casting procedure.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

White Supremacy, Terrorism, and the Failure of Reconstruction in the United States

| Summer 2021

White Southerners opposed to Reconstruction used violence to undermine Black political power and force uncommitted white Southerners to their side. Although structural factors made it harder for the U.S. government to suppress this violence, a series of policy failures prompted Reconstruction’s failure and generations of injustice.

solar power plant

Wikimedia CC/Thomas Lloyd Group

Journal Article - Energy Research & Social Science

Lessons for Renewable Integration in Developing Countries: The Importance of Cost Recovery and Distributional Justice

| July 2021

This article examines both the premise and prescription of the argument to integrate renewable electricity in developing countries through elements of the standard model (such as a wholesale spot market, or an independent system operator for dispatch). This is done by highlighting the differences between power sector reform experiences in the developing and developed worlds, and the causal mechanisms underlying these differences.