Middle East & North Africa

168 Items

Qumya, Mandate Palestine, 1948.

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Social Cohesion and Community Displacement in Armed Conflict

    Authors:
  • Daniel Arnon
  • Richard J. McAlexander
  • Michael A. Rubin
| Winter 2022/23

Mass killing such as cleansing and genocide is a common occurrence in war. Communities face the terrible choice of leaving their homes ahead of military action, or staying. Analysis of the previously restricted “Village Files,” a Zionist survey of Arab Palestinian communities conducted in the 1940s, finds that the key indicator of whether a community flees imminent violence is social cohesion.

A row of T-34 tanks

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Dangerous Changes: When Military Innovation Harms Combat Effectiveness

    Author:
  • Kendrick Kuo
| Fall 2022

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, military innovation can degrade a state’s military effectiveness as well as strengthen it. In fact, innovation is a gamble that a state may lose, particularly if it is already overextended in its commitments. 

British Foreign Minister Lord Edward Halifax, left, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, back to camera, shaking hands with French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier.

AP

Journal Article - Cooperation and Conflict

Re-conceptualizing Triangular Coercion in International Relations

| 2022

By forcing an otherwise uninvolved intermediary to align with the coercer, a coercer can alter the balance of vulnerability vis-à-vis its otherwise resilient target and enhance its susceptibility to coercion, albeit by extension. Existing scholarship tackles triangular coercion from different angles and mostly focuses on actor typology. This article seeks to promote scholars' and policymakers' understanding of this strategy by proposing a conceptual model that distills its logic into the abstract components of vulnerability, resilience, and leverage.