The Belligerent Bear The Belligerent Bear Pål Røren Russia, Status Orders, and War Do states get higher social status from ªghting? The relationship between war and social status in world politics has been widely explored in recent years by scholars of inter- national relations.1 This topic is of crucial interest given the ªnding in cog- nate literatures that actors are willing to bicker, quarrel, or

The Cult of the Persuasive The Cult of the Persuasive Rachel Tecott Metz Why U.S. Security Assistance Fails the Second Division of the Iraqi Army melted away and a few hundred Islamic State ªghters in pickup trucks took Mosul.1 The fall of Mosul was less a testa- ment to the strength of the Islamic State than to the failure of the United States’ multibillion-dollar effort

The Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship The Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship Reid B. C. Pauly and Rose McDermott Although the role of psychology and human emotions has increasingly made inroads into our under- standing of the micro-foundations of decision-making in many areas of conºict studies, much less work has examined how they inºuence nuclear strategy. This article highlights the critical role of these factors in nuclear

China’s Party-State Capitalism and Global Backlash China’s Party-State Capitalism and International Backlash From Interdependence to Insecurity Margaret M. Pearson, Meg Rithmire, and Kellee S. Tsai Efforts to guarantee national security in both China and countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) increasingly concern the activities of ªrms. Legal frameworks in several states, including China, have been recon- ªgured to include ªrms in

Dangerous Changes Dangerous Changes Kendrick Kuo When Military Innovation Harms Combat Effectiveness Conventional wisdom suggests that innovation consistently improves military power. Militaries that oppose it invite defeat, but those that innovate secure victory. Innovation is considered a sign of organizational health because the ever-changing character of war constantly threatens to render existing capabilities obsolete. Conversely, misfortune comes to those who allow the march of historical

U.S. Policy Choices in the South China Sea How Much Risk Should the United States Run in the South China Sea? M. Taylor Fravel and Charles L. Glaser China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea poses an especially vexing set of policy choices for the United States. For decades, the South China Sea disputes appeared to be lim- ited to small islets, rocks, and reefs

Narratives and War Narratives and War C. William Walldorf Jr. Explaining the Length and End of U.S. Military Operations in Afghanistan In May 2017, amid yet another intense national debate about increasing troops in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump asked Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), “How does this end?” Graham answered, “It never ends.” Soon after, Vice President Mike Pence implored Graham to give Trump an off-ramp,

Soldiers’ Dilemma Soldiers’ Dilemma Renanah Miles Joyce Foreign Military Training and Liberal Norm Conºict On April 14, 1979, the “rice riots” broke out in Monrovia, Liberia. Several thousand protestors took to the streets in frustration and desperation over a government proposal to in- crease the price of rice, a food staple that most Liberians relied on for subsis- tence. As demonstrators marched toward the president’s

Why Drones Have Not Revolutionized War Why Drones Have Not Revolutionized War The Enduring Hider-Finder Competition in Air Warfare Antonio Calcara, Andrea Gilli, Mauro Gilli, Raffaele Marchetti, and Ivan Zaccagnini Over the past two de- cades, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have progressively become a constant feature of modern conºicts and, if current trends continue, they will likely be- come even more important in the future.1

Defending the United States Defending the United States Jaganath Sankaran and Steve Fetter Revisiting National Missile Defense against North Korea U.S. policymakers have long feared the emergence of a North Korean intercontinental ballis- tic missile (ICBM) threat. In 1998, the congressionally mandated bipartisan Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, known as the Rumsfeld Commission, argued that North Korea was devoting

Prediction and Judgment Prediction and Judgment Avi Goldfarb and Jon R. Lindsay Why Artiªcial Intelligence Increases the Importance of Humans in War There is an emerg- ing policy consensus that artiªcial intelligence (AI) will transform interna- tional politics. As stated in the 2021 report of the U.S. National Security Commission on AI, “The ability of a machine to perceive, evaluate, and act more quickly and

Opportunistic Repression Opportunistic Repression Civilian Targeting by the State in Response to COVID-19 Donald Grasse, Melissa Pavlik, Hilary Matfess, and Travis B. Curtice This article considers whether governments have used the COVID-19 pandemic to cement their au- thority through repression. A core feature of emergency responses is the sus- pension of the rule of law, which permits states greater latitude to take actions in order

Wartime Commercial Policy Wartime Commercial Policy and Trade between Enemies Mariya Grinberg Conventional wisdom suggests that trade is the ªrst casualty of war.1 Because the gains from trade can be converted into military capabilities, trading with the enemy is akin to selling the opponent the gun they will use to shoot you. The empirical record of wartime trade, however, suggests otherwise. For example, World War

Terrorism and the Failure of Reconstruction White Supremacy, Terrorism, and the Failure of Reconstruction in the United States Daniel Byman Wade Hampton’s im- posing statue, 15 feet tall and 17 feet long, greets visitors to the South Carolina state house. Hampton, a Confederate general in the Civil War, “the Savior of South Carolina,” was one of the largest slaveholders in South Carolina and a member

Illusions of Autonomy Illusions of Autonomy Hugo Meijer and Stephen G. Brooks Why Europe Cannot Provide for Its Security If the United States Pulls Back In the past decade, Europe’s security landscape has changed dramatically. Russia is far stronger militarily than it was ten years ago, and its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and subsequent aggressive actions in Eastern Ukraine demonstrated that territorial revisionism remains

PRC Assertiveness in the South China Sea PRC Assertiveness in the South China Sea Andrew Chubb Measuring Continuity and Change, 1970–2015 Why has the People’s Republic of China (PRC) courted international opprobrium, alarmed its neigh- bors, and risked military conºict in pursuit of its claims covering vast areas of the South China Sea? Despite its central importance to understanding the se- curity of the world’s

Conventional Counterforce Dilemmas Conventional Counterforce Dilemmas Ian Bowers and Henrik Stålhane Hiim South Korea’s Deterrence Strategy and Stability on the Korean Peninsula As a South Korean F-35 ºies over North Korea undetected, it drops a guided bomb on a ballis- tic missile about to deliver its deadly payload. This scenario, which graphi- cally demonstrates South Korean thinking about how to nullify North Korea’s nuclear threat,

Bound to Fail Bound to Fail John J. Mearsheimer The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order By 2019, it was clear that the liberal international order was in deep trouble. The tectonic plates that underpin it are shifting, and little can be done to repair and rescue it. Indeed, that order was destined to fail from the start, as it contained the seeds