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In 2008, the iconic doomsday clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistswas set at five minutes to midnight—two minutes closer to Armageddon than in 1962, when John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev went eyeball to eyeball over missiles in Cuba. We still live in an echo chamber of fear, after eight years in which the Bush administration and its harshest critics reinforced each other's worst fears about the Bomb. And yet, there have been no mushroom clouds or acts of nuclear terrorism since the Soviet Union dissolved, let alone since 9/11. The worst fears still could be realized at any time, but this book argues that the United States has never possessed more tools and capacity to reduce nuclear dangers than it does today—from containment and deterrence to diplomacy, military strength, and arms control. The bloated nuclear arsenals of the Cold War years have been greatly reduced, nuclear weapon testing has almost ended, and all but eight countries have pledged not to acquire the Bomb. Thus, despite wars, crises, and Murphy's Law, the dark shadows cast by nuclear weapons can continue to recede. The book believes that positive trends can continue, even in the face of the twin threats of nuclear terrorism and proliferation that have been exacerbated by the Bush administration's pursuit of a war of choice in Iraq based on false assumptions. It advocates a “back to basics” approach to reducing nuclear dangers, reversing the Bush administration's denigration of diplomacy, deterrence, containment, and arms control.

This book considers why with its tremendous military advantage the United States so often fails to coerce much weaker states. The answer frequently resides in the large asymmetry in power which provides the United States a high probability of victory in a brute force war. The resultant high expected outcome from war introduces an incentive to leverage coercive demands upon a weak adversary, concession to which threaten the survival of the state, its regime, or its regime leadership. Perceiving its survival at stake an opponent will resist, so long as it has the means to do so. Theoretically, to avoid signaling costs, a powerful challenger should only choose coercive strategies likely to succeed. In practice, however, as in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, U.S. leaders may first seek United Nations Security Council resolutions to lower the diplomatic and political costs for brute force war. Coercion may also fail when interests are so limited that the United States cannot continue to make its threats credible as in 1986 following the El Dorado air raid against Libya. In other cases, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, coercion eventually succeeded, but not before coercive diplomacy failed as the United States placed the prestige of NATO at stake over non-vital interests.

The CIA was created in 1947 in large part to prevent another Pearl Harbor. On at least four dramatic occasions, the Agency failed at this task: prior to in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Iranian revolution of 1978, the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There has been no shortage of studies to understand how such failures happened. Until now, however, none of the explanations proffered has been fully satisfying, and sometimes competing explanations have been mutually incompatible. In contrast, this book proposes a unified, coherent and rigorous theory of intelligence failure built on culture and identity. Crucially, the book takes a systematic look at Cassandras - people who offered strategic warning, but were ignored, to show that surprises could be anticipated. As the first post-positivist study of intelligence failure, the book views intelligence analysis as permeated by social facts, and thus firmly in the grip of the identity and culture of the intelligence producer, the CIA. As a consequence, it can present novel model of surprise that focuses on the internal make-up the CIA, including the identities of analysts, the corporate identity of Langley as a whole, and the Agency's organizational culture. It suggests that by examining the key features of the Agency's identity and culture, we can arrive at a holistic, unified understanding of the intelligence failures that resulted in dramatic strategic surprises.

Why do national armed forces differ in their cohesion, or will to fight? Why do some country's militaries fight hard when facing defeat, while others collapse? In this book I present cohesion theory to explain why national militaries differ in their staying power. My argument builds on insights from the existing literature on military effectiveness and collective action. According to the theory, the cohesion of national militaries depends on two variables: the strength of a regime control over its citizens and the strength of military autonomy. When regime control is strong, states instill and enforce norms of unconditional loyalty throughout the population, and inside the military. Motivated by these norms, the regime's hard-core supporters will fight even when defeat in war looks unlikely and they will pressure the rest of the country to do the same. When military autonomy is strong, the armed forces can demand and enforce norms of unconditional loyalty as well as trust among its personnel. These norms will motivate most units—even reserve units—to fight with determination and discipline on the battlefield. In seven case studies, I assess the plausibility of my arguments by comparing the performance of such militaries as the French and German armies of World War II and World War I and the North Vietnamese and American armies during the Vietnam War.

Intervention in armed conflicts is full of riddles that await attention from scholars and policymakers. This book argues that rethinking intervention—redefining what it is and why foreign powers take an interest in others' conflicts—is of critical importance to understanding how conflicts evolve over time with the entry and exit of external actors. It does this by building a new model of intervention that crosses the traditional boundaries between economics, international relations theory, and security studies, and places the economic interests and domestic political institutions of external states at the center of intervention decisions. Combining quantitative and qualitative evidence from both historical and contemporary conflicts, including interventions in both interstate conflicts and civil wars, it presents an in-depth discussion of a range of interventions—diplomatic, economic, and military—in a variety of international contexts, creating a comprehensive model for future research on the topic.

This book provides an in-depth and engaging history of the U.S. military in the Gulf and how local and regional events, from tribal politics and rising terrorism threats to neighboring rivalries and warfare, have affected a U.S. regional basing presence from the Second World War to the present. Though the spread of regional violence since 2011 has triggered questions about the future of the U.S. military basing presence, base politics dynamics are nothing new for either the U.S. military or the respective Gulf Arab host monarchies. External and internal security dynamics are the main drivers influencing Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) host nations either to accept or reject the U.S. military from local bases. Understanding the puzzle of how internal and external security concerns cause either a base eviction or a basing renegotiation also helps to explain the national security strategies and policies of the host GCC countries. When external security concerns outweigh perceptions of internal security, a Gulf Arab host nation is more likely to maintain a U.S. military basing presence. By comparison, when internal security threats far outweigh external security considerations, a host Gulf Arab nation will be more likely to call for the U.S. military’s basing expulsion or the termination of any U.S. military basing lease. Basing access will be a core component of any future U.S. national security strategy and studying base politics from an historical perspective helps explain when and why basing access may succeed or go awry for future policymakers and regional scholars.

Does leadership targeting work? This question lies at the heart of studies on the efficacy of counterterrorism policy. This book examines whether killing or arresting terrorists is an effective means by which to weaken and degrade a group’s operational capacity. It aims to identify and explain why decapitation works in some cases and not in others. In order to determine whether decapitation is an effective strategy, this project examines nearly one thousand instances of leadership targeting. A group’s susceptibility to leadership targeting is a function of three factors: organizational structure, communal support, and group type or ideology. Leadership decapitation is unlikely to result in the demise of groups that are highly bureaucratized, have high levels of communal support, or are driven by a religious or separatist ideology. Leaders matter less under these conditions, and their removal can have adverse consequences, such as retaliatory attacks or an overall increase in the frequency of attacks. The data reveals that the largest and oldest organizations are highly resistant to destabilization after targeting. Separatist, religious, and especially Islamist groups are unlikely to weaken after the removal of their leaders. In order to develop counterterrorism policies that will degrade and weaken terrorist organizations, it is essential to identify whether our policies are likely to be effective or to have adverse consequences. The book examines the cases of Hamas, al-Qaeda, Shining Path, and ISIS to understand how organizational structure, local support, and ideology contributes to their resilience in the face of repeated leadership attacks.

This book details the relationship between the US Army’s counterinsurgency doctrine and its changing lessons of Vietnam. The US Army, battered by its experience in Vietnam, radically reshaped its institutional identity after the war. To do so, they had to contend with the lessons of Vietnam. Not only that, but they needed to address what these lessons said about the utility of counterinsurgency doctrine, which many within the Army blamed for the US defeat. This book is a study of how the lessons of the Vietnam War influenced Army attitudes towards counterinsurgency in the post-Vietnam era, with a particular focus on the interplay between military doctrine and history. It demonstrates that Vietnam had a profound effect on Army attitudes towards counterinsurgency. These lessons, and the fortunes of counterinsurgency, were inextricably tied to the contemporary challenges the Army saw itself facing. The trauma of defeat in Vietnam meant that the Army was unwilling to openly talk about the lessons of that war. Instead, there was a silence, and whatever understanding the army had of how to conduct counterinsurgency faded over time, disappearing from doctrine and the military education system. In time, Army leaders constructed a set of ‘lessons of Vietnam’ that eschewed military interventions unless specific favorable circumstances held. However, try as it might, the Army could escape neither Vietnam nor counterinsurgency and subsequent experiences modified its understanding of both. This book attempts to understand the contradictions within the Army’s lessons that led them back to counterinsurgency once again.

Interest in nuclear energy has surged in recent years. Many tout this as important for meeting growing energy needs and redressing the problem of global climate change. Yet there are also risks that accompany a renaissance of nuclear power, as underscored by the “meltdown” at a Japanese nuclear power plant in 2011. Others also fear that the spread of nuclear energy will facilitate nuclear weapons proliferation. The Nuclear Renaissance and International Security analyzes the contexts and tradeoffs associated with the growth of nuclear energy. Applying diverse qualitative and quantitative research methods, the contributors probe critical questions: Why do countries rely on nuclear power? How do buyers and sellers of nuclear technology approach nuclear power? Why do countries provide peaceful nuclear assistance to other states? Under what conditions do countries embrace multinational approaches to the fuel cycle? To what extent is global climate change a driver of the nuclear renaissance and would nuclear power development make a meaningful dent in global greenhouse gas emissions? Do peaceful nuclear programs contribute to nuclear weapons proliferation? Will the diffusion of nuclear technologies lead to an increase in the trafficking of nuclear and radiological materials? Does the diffusion of sensitive enrichment and reprocessing technologies and latent nuclear weapons capabilities excite security dilemmas, crisis instability and international conflict? This book will help scholars and policymakers better understand why countries are pursuing nuclear energy - and evaluate whether this is a trend that one should welcome or fear.

This book begins by developing a theory about the domestic obstacles to making peace and the role played by shifts in states' governing coalitions in overcoming these obstacles. In particular, it explains how the longer the war, the harder it is to end, because domestic obstacles to peace become institutionalized over time. Next, it tests this theory with a mixed methods approach—through historical case studies and quantitative statistical analysis. Finally, it applies the theory to an in-depth analysis of the ending of the Korean War. By analyzing the domestic politics of the war's major combatants—the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and North and South Korea—it explains why the final armistice terms accepted in July 1953 were little different from those proposed at the start of negotiations in July 1951, some 294,000 additional battle-deaths later.

The United States faces a complex and rapidly shifting international security landscape. Forces of ethnic and religious extremism, diffusion of information technologies, proliferation of mass destruction weapons, and newly empowered non-state actors are just some of the trends whose complex interplay will produce unanticipated threats. Yet, while the future is more uncertain today than during the Cold War, we currently have a window of opportunity for shaping a more favorable future. The challenge for the United States, and for all states, is not just to manage uncertainty but also to prevail in spite of it. To help address that challenge, this book examines strategic choices in uncertain times and analyzes how different strategies position states to compete, manage risk, and prevail despite uncertainty. It investigates how past and current political and military leaders have responded to uncertain strategic and technological environments, and assesses the consequences of those strategies for their state's power and influence.

This book responds to a growing concern that changes in the life sciences and the nature of warfare could lead to a resurgent interest in chemical and biological weapons (CBW) capabilities. By bringing together a wide range of historical material and current literature in the field of CBW arms control, the book reveals how these two disparate fields might be integrated to precipitate a biochemical arms race among major powers, rogue states, or even non-state actors. It seeks to raise awareness among policy practitioners, the academic community, and the media that such an arms race may be looming if developments are left unattended, and to provide policy options on how it—and it's devastating consequences—could be avoided. After identifying weaknesses in the international regime structures revolving around the Biological Weapons and Chemical Weapons Conventions, it provides policy proposals to deal with gaps and shortcomings in each prohibition regime individually, and then addresses the widening gap between them.

This book provides a more comprehensive, definitive, and rigorous treatment of proxy war. This book argues that proxy war can and should remain a useful and effective tool of foreign policy, but that such an endeavor demands better understanding and deliberation. Proxy war serves as a means of indirect intervention when conditions eclipse policies using direct or non-intervention. Indirect intervention, however, is not synonymous with proxy war. Rather, proxy war falls on the spectrum of indirect intervention and includes other options such as simply donating assistance to politically-motivated, local fighters or offering support to mercenary forces from outside the country. Building on this knowledge, policy makers and strategists can better judge how fixed and unchangeable conditions such as the presence of interstate competition, domestic politics, geography, and the characteristics of the international system influence proxy war. More importantly, this book explains the role of conditions that a state can alter or change to improve the utility and efficacy of proxy war—more or less, it provides a “how to” manual for conducting proxy war, should the policy be chosen. The ability to maintain a coherent policy (both internally and externally) and cultivate/maintain control over a proxy’s activities increase the chances that a proxy war policy contributes to the pursuit and attainment of national interests. The book provides a new look at proxy war using uncommon and unused cases to test the concepts presented.

While policy makers and scholars have long devoted considerable attention to strategies like deterrence, which threaten others with unacceptable consequences, such threat-based strategies are not always the best option. In some cases, a state may be better off seeking to give others a greater sense of security, rather than by holding their security at risk. The most prominent use of these security assurances has been in conjunction with efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Ongoing concerns about the nuclear activities of countries like Iran and North Korea, and the possible reactions of other states in their regions, have catapulted this topic into high profile. This book represents the first study to explore the overall utility of assurance strategies, to evaluate their effectiveness as a tool for preventing nuclear proliferation, and to identify conditions under which they are more or less likely to be effective.

Territorial disputes are one of the main sources of tension in Northeast Asia. Escalation in such conflicts often stems from a widely shared public perception that the territory in question is of the utmost importance to the nation. Yet that’s frequently not true in economic, military, or political terms. The tiny and remote islets, known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, for instance, have no such value. Yet citizens and groups in both countries have mounted sustained campaigns to protect them as the heart of the nation. Similar movements are taking place throughout the region and have wide-ranging domestic and international consequences. Focusing on non-state actors rather than political elites, Alexander Bukh explains how and why apparently inconsequential territories become central to national and nationalist discourse in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. These Islands Are Ours gives us a new way to understand the nature of territorial disputes and how they inform national identities by exploring their social construction, amplification, and ideological consequences.

NATO member states are all undergoing some form of military transformation. Despite a shared vision, transformation has been primarily a US-led process centered on the exploitation of new information technologies in combination with new concepts for “networked organizations” and “effects-based operations.” Simply put, European states have been unable to match the level of US investment in new military technologies, leading to the identification of a growing “transformation gap” between the US and the European allies. This book assesses the extent and trajectory of military transformation across a range of European NATO member states, setting their transformation progress against that of the US, and examining the complex mix of factors driving military transformation in each country. It reveals not only the nature and extent of the transatlantic gap, but also identifies an enormous variation in the extent and pace of transformation among the European allies, suggesting both technological and operational gaps within Europe.