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The article examines the frustrations that U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara shared with colleagues and confidants at the Office for International Security Affairs (ISA), particularly Assistant Secretary John McNaughton and his deputy Adam Yarmolinsky, as indicated in his speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Montreal, Canada entitled "Security in the Contemporary World," in 1966. In the speech, he talked about the strength of U.S. defense, U.S. policy in Vietnam and the issue of global insecurity to inner-city problems. Furthermore, he talked about his disillusionment with the war in Vietnam. A new perspective on McNamara and his speech is possible by better situating Yarmolinsky in the historiography of the Office of the Secretary of Defense under McNamara.

The article explores the nature of the Korean War as a confused muddle of solutions and syndromes that caused more confusion than clarity as Americans entered and struggled through the Vietnam War. Topics discussed include two opposing perspectives on the Korean War including a strong sense that another limited war in Asia would be unproductive, how U.S. policymakers worked to manipulate public memory abut the Korean war to serve their agendas, and the notion that U.S. intervention in Vietnam should come only in the form of an all-out-war.

The end of the Cold War, the unification of Germany and the removal of US troops has rekindled interest in European defence cooperation. The EC has common security policies on its agenda, the military role of the WEU is being enhanced, and the new NATO strategy emphasizes multilateral European forces. A European Defence Union offers large potential efficiency gains. Power, like any natural monopoly, is generated more effectively and more cheaply by joint forces than by the sum of fragmented individual forces. There are also large economies of scale in weapons production. Trends in budgets, costs and threats are making national provision problematic and national arms industries non-viable. An EDU may appear more attractive than either spending vast sums to attain minimum efficient scale or relying on forces that are so small and ill-equipped as to require either dependence on the US or acceptance of effective neutrality. However, an EDU reduces national sovereignty; poses problems of command, control and organization; risks free-riding and adverse reactions by the US and USSR; and is vulnerable to exploitation and rent-seeking by military industrial interests. This paper examines the economics of these issues and suggests a route towards effective cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the military policy public in the United States--those attentive to and interested in military issues of foreign policy--similar to or different from the foreign policy public generally? This paper identifies this military policy public, specifies some of its demographic characteristics, and compares it with the American foreign policy public and the attentive public policy public. It adds a significant refinement to the understanding of public opinion and public policy relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determination that strategy should have a long-term predictive quality has left strategy seemingly wanting when having to address what are currently called 'strategic shocks', such as the recent Arab Spring and the NATO commitment to Libya. The focus on grand strategy, particularly in the US, is responsible for this trend. Its endeavour to mitigate risk in the national interest is inherently conservative, rather than opportunistic, and it is favoured and probably required by powers that are committed to the status quo, that need to manage diminishing resources, and that are dealing with relative decline. Strategy as traditionally but more narrowly defined by generals for use in a military context, is much more exploitative and proactive. Precisely because it is designed to be used in war it presumes that its function is offensive, that it will have to deal with chance and contingency, and that its aim is change. Its task is to deal with the uncertainties of war, and to respond to them while holding on to long-term perspectives. Clausewitz addressed the issue of 'war plans' in book VIII of On war, but the thinker who did most to inject planning into European strategic thought was Jomini. His influence has permeated much of American military thinking. The effect of nuclear planning in the Cold War was to ensure that strategy at the operational level became conflated with broader views of grand strategy-not least when the Cold War itself provided apparent continuity to strategic thought. Since 1990 we have been left with a view of strategy which fails to respond sensibly to chance and accident. Strategy needs context, and a sense of where and against whom it is to be applied. Its core task is to embrace contingency while holding on to long-term national interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010 the coalition government conducted a major review of defence and security policy. This article explores the review process from a critical perspective by examining and challenging the state-centrism of prevailing conceptions of current policy reflected in the quest to define and perform a particular 'national role' in contrast to a human-centric framework focused on the UK citizen. It argues that shifting the focus of policy to the individual makes a qualitative difference to how we think about requirements for the UK's armed forces and challenges ingrained assumptions about defence and security in relation to military operations of choice and attendant expensive, expeditionary war-fighting capabilities. In particular, it confronts the prevailing narrative that UK national security-as-global risk management must be met by securing the state against pervasive multidimensional risk through military force, that military power projection capabilities are a vital source of international influence and national prestige and that the exercise of UK military power constitutes a 'force for good' for the long-term human security needs of citizens in both the intervened and intervening state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the determinants of cooperation and the effectiveness of deterrence when fear is a motive for conflict. We contrast results obtained in a complete information setting with those obtained in a setting with strategic risk, where players have different information about their environment. These two strategic settings allow us to identify and distinguish the role of predatory and preemptive incentives as determinants of cooperation and conflict. In our model, weapons unambiguously facilitate peace under complete information. In contrast, under strategic risk, we show that increases in weapon stocks can have a nonmonotonic effect on the sustainability of cooperation. We also show that under strategic risk, asymmetry in military strength can facilitate peace, and that anticipated peacekeeping interventions may improve incentives for peaceful behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a strategic defence review expected to begin in 2010, this article reflects upon the history of the review in British defence policy and planning. The authors argue that for decades successive defence reviews have followed a process in which policy development moves through four phases: failure, inertia, formulation and misimplementation. This has resulted in a cycle of defence reviews that have proved to be incomplete and unsustainable: a cycle in which each review leaves so much unfinished business that another radical reappraisal of defence policy is soon thought necessary, and a cycle from which a succession of governments have so far proved unable or unwilling to escape. The article suggests that the strategic defence (and security) review promised for the next parliament is in danger of continuing this pattern of policy deficiency. The authors contest that this need not be the case. With a close understanding of the pattern of past reviews it should be possible for the 2010 review finally to break the mould and produce a coherent and above all sustainable defence policy and strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of social science during the Cold War. The author reveals that American military officials actively collaborated with social scientists during the Cold War as part of an effort to contain the spread of Communism in emerging nations. The collaboration eventually led to the creation of the Special Operations Research Office, which was founded to study the political and social causes of the Communist revolution. The author details the history of the office and its impact on world history.

The Labour government's 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) marked the end of almost twenty years during which Labour had been little more than a bystander in British defence policy-making. The ‘foreign policy-led’ SDR marked an impressive and authoritative debut, emulated by other national governments. Ten years later, however, the SDR is a fading memory. British defence is out of balance and facing immense stress, and calls are mounting for a new strategic defence review. This article examines the difficult choices which a defence review would have to make. But a defence review also requires the governmental machinery with which to analyse and understand defence, and with which those difficult choices can be made. The article argues that this machinery is wearing out. Defence policy, planning and analysis in the United Kingdom have reached a state of organizational, bureaucratic and intellectual decay which may be irrecoverable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many observers, the Iraq crisis spelled the end for EU ambitions in the defence sphere. The profound public and bitter divisions that emerged were seen as illustrative of the insuperable problems confronting ESDP. This article argues, however, that the reverse is in fact the case. Far from sounding the death knell for ESDP, the crisis has had a cathartic effect in compelling the member states to face up to and resolve the major ambiguities that had always threatened to undermine EU defence policies. Consequently, these member states have, in the months following the war, laid the basis not only for a more modest but also for a more effective ESDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Deviance management (the identification and sanctioning of norm breakers) practiced in the military enhances the legitimacy of social-control agents, in part, by keeping intact the social distinctions between leaders and followers. Three "turning points" in organizational reaction to social deviance since World War II (shifts in the severity of sanctions, court expulsions, and the rate at which "bad paper" discharges were given) are examined in light of the war-peace cycle, the changing social qualifications of the forces, and contingencies commonly thought to characterize the Vietnam War. Official responses to deviance became more intense during periods when the social superiority of those in charge was most problematic. Moreover, after experiencing hegemony with regard to educational credentials which set them apart from the troops, the rate of discretionary sanctioning used by the officer corps expanded significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity of the state to mobilize resources is a key determinant of national power. It also has direct implications for a central concern of the arms race literature: the effect of growing domestic political pressure on the probability of war. However, to date political scientists have had little success in predicting either the ease with which the state could make peace-time increases in the level of extraction or the flexibility with which the executive could allocate revenue in support of foreign and defense policies. In this paper a theoretical approach designed to address these questions is presented and then applied to British, French, and German policy making in the 35 years before World War I. During this period the traditional methods and levels of extraction were manifestly incapable of meeting both the demands for new social welfare programs and the increased foreign expenditures generated by colonial expansion and recurring arms races. The theoretical approach presented here offers an interpretation of the origins of the controversies that ensued and their differing outcomes. It also provides a means for assessing the relative ability of the British, French, and German governments to sustain the domestic political price of the arms race before World War I. This assessment is substantially different from one widely held in the arms race literature on the period. The approach here offers, moreover, an avenue for improving our understanding of the relationship between domestic and international politics and developing a more theoretically sophisticated measure of intergovernmental power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diplomacy and military force mutually support each other as instruments of national policy, functioning better in concert rather than as separate entities. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a useful case study of policymakers utilizing force and diplomacy synergistically. State Department efforts prior to the crisis paved the way for a unified front with Latin American neighbors against the emplacement of Soviet missiles in Cuba. With a backdrop of nuclear threats supporting the more usable capabilities of conventional air strikes, invasion forces, and blockading ships, the American threat of force made a negotiated settlement attractive to the leadership of the Soviet Union. The risks and political damage commensurate with the use of force encouraged the Kennedy administration to pursue a diplomatic solution. Military leaders tended to not consider the political effects of the use of force. President Kennedy understood the interrelationships between force and diplomacy, as did State Department leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The history of British defence reviews has been one of repeated disappointment: a cycle in which policy failure is followed by a period of inertia, giving way to an attempt at a new policy framework which is then misimplemented by the defence leadership. Each failed defence review therefore sows the seeds of its successor. With this in mind, in 2010 the new coalition government embarked upon an altogether more ambitious exercise: a strategy review comprising a National Security Strategy and a Strategic Defence and Security Review. This article suggests, nevertheless, not only that the 2010 strategy review looks likely to follow past performance, but also that it is coming unstuck at an unprecedented rate. This is a pity since the 2010 review had much to commend it, not least the adoption of a risk-based approach to security and defence policy-making. What is the explanation for this outcome? Is it that the British have, as some have suggested, lost the ability to 'do strategy', if ever they had it? The authors offer a more nuanced understanding of the policy process and argue that the coalition government in fact has a very clear and deliberate strategy-that of national economic recovery. Yet the coalition government cannot allow national defence and security to fail. The authors conclude with an assessment of the options open to the defence leadership as they seek to address the failing 2010 strategy review and suggest a variety of indicators which will demonstrate the intent and seriousness of the political, official and military leadership of the Ministry of Defence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of a coalition government by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, combined with the need for important cuts to Britain's armed forces has raised significant uncertainties about Britain's attitude to defence cooperation within the European Union. Since taking office the coalition, while grappling with the implications of Britain's fiscal challenges, has shown an unprecedented interest in strengthening bilateral defence collaborations with certain European partners, not least France. However, budgetary constraints have not induced stronger support for defence cooperation at the EU level. On the contrary, under the new government, Britain has accelerated its withdrawal from the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This article assesses the approach of the coalition to the CSDP. It argues that, from the perspective of British interests, the need for EU defence cooperation has increased over the last decade and that the UK's further withdrawal from EU efforts is having a negative impact. The coalition is undermining a framework which has demonstrated the ability to improve, albeit modestly, the military capabilities of other European countries. In addition, by sidelining the EU at a time when the UK is forced to resort more extensively to cost-saving synergies in developing and maintaining its own armed forces, David Cameron's government is depriving itself of the use of potentially helpful EU agencies and initiatives-which the UK itself helped set up. Against the background of deteriorating European military capabilities and shifts in US priorities, the article considers what drove Britain to support EU defence cooperation over a decade ago and how those pressures have since strengthened. It traces Britain's increasing neglect of the CSDP across the same period, the underlying reasons for this, and how the coalition's current stance of disengagement is damaging Britain's interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the way in which Germany's participation in the international intervention in Afghanistan has shaped and transformed the country's politics of defence and deriving policies. It argues that in the wake of operational challenges posed by the insurgency in northern Afghanistan since 2007, and in particular the increasing rate of German combat fatalities, established post-Cold War dogmas of German politics are becoming subject to erosion. Developments in the Kunduz region of northern Afghanistan, with the tanker bombing of 4 September 2009 as its apex, have had a catalyst function in this process. In particular, strategic, operational and tactical requirements for counterinsurgency operations have had significant politico-strategic repercussions for the country's defence and security policy more generally. As a result, in recent years the Bundeswehr has begun to undergo a far-reaching structural process of military adaptation and innovation. The article explains and analyses this phenomenon of political change and military learning in the context of political paralysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we seek to advance the theoretic and empirical literature on the diversionary use of force. We argue that state leaders are more likely to engage in diversionary foreign policy behavior when opposition groups from within the winning coalition press for policy changes, but the government rejects those policy demands. Only when domestic unrest threatens a loss of political support from groups that are politically important to the leadership do we expect leaders to try and rally their support through heightened international conflict. We test this argument in an analysis of Japanese foreign policy behavior from 1890 to 1941 regarding (i) the initiation of military threats, (ii) concessions in negotiations, and (iii) the escalation of military confrontations. Drawing upon new data sets collected on Japanese domestic politics and foreign relations, we find strong support for our argument in a series of statistical tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the persistence of the autonomous French estate system in peripheral French territories despite the consolidation of royal authority in the 17th century, specifically focusing on the "pays d'états" system's presence in Provence. The "pays d'états" were semi-representative provincial governing bodies that could levy taxes. The author believes these systems survived because of their importance to frontier war-making in France. Emphasis is given to the supplying of French troops, petitions for reimbursement, and French royal fiscal policy. The author highlights the connections, as opposed to opposition, between French absolutism and traditional local government in the provinces.

At the heart of the ‘special relationship’ ideology, there is supposed to be a grand bargain. In exchange for paying the ‘blood price’ as America's ally, Britain will be rewarded with exceptional influence over American foreign policy and its strategic behaviour. Soldiers and statesman continue to articulate this idea. Since 9/11, the notion of Britain playing ‘Greece’ to America's ‘Rome’ gained new life thanks to Anglophiles on both sides of the Atlantic. One potent version of this ideology was that the more seasoned British would teach Americans how to fight ‘small wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby bolstering their role as tutor to the superpower. Britain does derive benefits from the Anglo-American alliance and has made momentous contributions to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet British solidarity and sacrifices have not purchased special influence in Washington. This is partly due to Atlanticist ideology, which sets Britain unrealistic standards by which it is judged, and partly because the notion of ‘special influence’ is misleading as it loses sight of the complexities of American policy-making. The overall result of expeditionary wars has been to strain British credibility in American eyes and to display its lack of consistent influence both over high policy and the design and execution of US military campaigns. While there may be good arguments in favour of the UK continuing its efforts in Afghanistan, the notion that the war fortifies Britain's vicarious world status is a dangerous illusion that leads to repeated overstretch and disappointment. Now that Britain is in the foothills of a strategic defence review, it is important that the British abandon this false consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK faces a pressing defence dilemma. The declaratory goals of defence policy are struggling to match the demands made by operational commitments and the financial and organizational capacities. The article examines how and why this situation has come about. While recognizing that existing calls for higher defence spending, reform of the Ministry of Defence, efficiency gains or a renewal of the so-called military covenant between the military and society may address discrete elements of the defence dilemma in Britain, it argues that current problems derive from a series of deeper tensions in the nexus of British defence more widely defined. These include a transnationalization of strategic practice, in ways that both shape and constrain the national defence policy process; the institutional politics of defence itself, which encourage different interpretations of interest and priority in the wider strategic context; and finally the changing status of defence in the wider polity, which introduces powerful veto points into the defence policy process itself. It argues that while a series of shocks may have destabilized existing policy, prompted ad hoc organizational adaptation in the armed forces and led to incremental cost saving measures from the government, a ‘dominant crisis narrative’—in the form of a distinctive and generally agreed programme of change—has yet to emerge. The article concludes by looking forward to a future strategic defence review, highlighting the critical path dependencies and veto points which must be addressed if transformative change in British defence is to take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at pre-crime in the context of counter-terrorism. Pre-crime links coercive state actions to suspicion without the need for charge, prosecution or conviction. It also includes measures that expand the remit of the criminal law to include activities or associations that are deemed to precede the substantive offence targeted for prevention. The trend towards anticipating risks as a driving principle in criminal justice was identified well before 2001. However, risk and threat anticipation have substantially expanded in the context of contemporary counter-terrorism frameworks. Although pre-crime counter-terrorism measures are rationalized on the grounds of preventing terrorism, these measures do not fit in the frame of conventional crime prevention. The article argues that the shift to pre-crime embodies a trend towards integrating national security into criminal justice along with a temporal and geographic shift that encompasses a blurring of the borders between the states' internal and external coercive capacities. The counter-terrorism framework incorporates and combines elements of criminal justice and national security, giving rise to a number of tensions. One key tension is between the ideal of impartial criminal justice and the politically charged concept of national security. Pre-crime counter-terrorism measures can be traced through a number of interlinking historical trajectories including the wars on crime and drugs, criminalization and, more fundamentally, in colonial strategies of domination, control and repression. The article concludes by identifying a number of challenges and opportunities for criminology in the shift from post-crime criminal justice to pre-crime national security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preparations for the next UK defence review are under way; a struggle is imminent and the lines of battle are being drawn. There is a grave danger that in the new ‘age of austerity’ defence planning—and strategy generally—will be driven by tribal conflicts, either between supporters of one or other of the armed services or between contending viewpoints about the nature of conflict. And there will be others who will argue that the defence review should be driven simply by the need to reduce government expenditure, as quickly as possible. These arguments not only reduce the defence debate to a struggle between various incompatible and uncompromising tribal beliefs—‘war among the fetishes’, perhaps—they also miss the point. This article gauges the extent of the economic challenges which the UK defence establishment will confront over the coming decade. The authors consider how best to approach the problem of undiminished (and even expanding) commitments at a time of decreasing resources. They argue that defence planning should be driven by the notion of value (the ratio of function to cost), which in turn requires both a clear national political vision and a defence establishment which is output- rather than input-oriented. Finally, the authors assert that defence must transform itself to be able to achieve the outputs required in the most efficient and responsive manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American decision to deploy missile defence in Poland endangered the central myth of Putin's regime (Russia's rebirth as a Great Power), challenged the status of Putin as Russia's strongman, and introduced an additional uncertainty into the carefully scripted campaign for succession to Putin. It also hit the raw nerve of Russia's reliance on nuclear weapons. The character of Russian policy-making has guaranteed the worst-case scenario evaluation of the American programme. The Russian elite's world view has magnified the problems resulting from the deployment into fears of a window of vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In historical perspective, the Kosovo war stands as a significant turning point. Within the Balkan region, Operation Allied Force marked the end of the nationalist wars of the 1990s and the beginning of a new phase of partnership and integration with the EU and NATO. In terms of the wider European security order, its repercussions were contradictory. NATO reasserted its role as Europe's leading security institution, yet Operation Allied Force also gave significant momentum to the EU's development as a quasi military body. Further afield, an immediate crisis erupted in Russo-western relations followed by renewed cooperation on the ground; the longer-term impact, however, was a lingering resentment in Moscow at NATO action. At the global level, meanwhile, Operation Allied Force appeared to symbolize the primacy of both American-led western power and of the liberal norms and values that underpinned the intervention. But this was arguably a high point: future global security crises would be managed in the context of the rising power of the non-western world, a more fragmented West and greater contestation over the norms that should underpin international society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kosovo war was a decisive catalyst in the development of the EU's international security role. The escalating crisis in Kosovo confirmed that the EU was still unable to prevent, contain or end violent conflict along its own borders. This led the EU to augment both its hard and soft power through the launch of the European Security and Defence Policy and the Stabilisation and Association Process. These initiatives endowed the EU with the potential to make a distinct contribution to international conflict management. Unsurprisingly, this continuing transformation has encountered significant obstacles relating to capabilities, political will and coordination. Concerns have also been raised about how the development of a military dimension has changed the nature of EU power. However, the EU has not abandoned the core principle upon which its international role was founded, namely the need to transcend conflict. Ten years after its failings in Kosovo, the EU is assuming increasing responsibility for conflict management and becoming a more capable international security actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the last two decades the US has pursued what some analysts have called the ‘fantastical idea’ of military transformation that would enable the US to change the very nature of war. Known as the ‘revolution in military affairs’, this process would use technology to provide the US with battlefield dominance that no opponent could overcome. Motivated by the politics of the Cold War, however, this exit from reality has proved less than effective in what has become known as the ‘war on terror’. The US has been pulled into nasty, ‘small’ wars, against enemies utilizing asymmetric tactics. The Bush administration has tried to destroy these groups through the use of military force, failing, or even worse refusing, to recognize that these enemies feed off the economical, political and social rot of weak and failing states. For the last eight years the US government has addressed the symptoms of a problem rather than the actual disease. If America wants to make serious progress with the most pressing national security risks, the next American president must enact a revolution in foreign affairs that sees a massive overhaul and substantial investment in the State Department and USAID. A critical mass of research exists to illustrate the links between development and security—it is time Washington gets serious and embraces a conception of security that is more holistic, and ultimately, more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British military have embarked on a comprehensive process of transformation towards a network-enabled, effects-orientated, and expeditionary force posture. This has involved developing brand new military doctrine, organizational concepts, and technology. The US military are also transforming, and American military ideas about network-centric and effects-based warfare have influenced the British military. But the British have not simply aped their US ally. Rather, British military transformation has followed a different path. Hence, this article proposes a dynamic model of military innovation involving two international drivers: new operational challenges and military emulation; and three national shapers: resource constraints, domestic politics and military culture. This model is then applied to a detailed empirical analysis of the process and progress of British military transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

German strategic decision-makers have to reconsider their approach to the use of force. In Afghanistan, the Bundeswehr is faced with the challenge of a growing insurgency. This situation requires a willingness to provide combat forces for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Hence, the conviction in German domestic politics that the Bundeswehr should only be employed for the purposes of stabilization and reconstruction is increasingly challenged by a changing operational reality in Afghanistan, and allies’ reluctance to continue to accept German policy. In essence, the issue is about German participation in counterinsurgency operations. To continue current policy undermines Germany's military credibility among allied partners and restrains Germany's ability to utilize fully military power as an instrument of policy. This article argues that while military force in recent years has become an integral part of German foreign policy to pursue national interests, political decision-makers in Berlin and the broader German public will still have to come to terms with the reality of a new security environment in Afghanistan. For the German government the ‘small war’ in northern Afghanistan is a very politically exhausting undertaking. Both politically and militarily Germany seems ill-prepared to sustain such an operation. Its political and strategic culture still promotes an aversion to involvement in war-fighting. In addition, the government and the Bundeswehr lack vital strategy-making capabilities. Still, there are indicators that the changing operational reality in Afghanistan might lead to a significant evolution of the German approach to the use of force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the European Security and Defense Policy in relation to the emerging "human security" paradigm, an alternative to the traditional concept of national security. Human security prioritizes the welfare of individuals over that of the state, and is proposed as a more ethical basis for security policy. Topics discussed in the article include the nature of war in the post-Cold War and "post-national" era, the evolving military and foreign policy of the European Union, and the role of the United Nations and NATO.

The article discusses the ethical issues surrounding the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), and the military undertakings of the European Union (EU) since 1999. The compatibility of any military posture with the stated purpose of the EU as an agent of international cooperation is discussed, along with issues around criteria for intervention in international conflicts, including concern for peace, human rights, and international law. Other topics discussed include the EU involvement with disarmament questions, internal EU security, and political accountability.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath offer a rare opportunity to examine how presidential approval responds to a sudden and severe national security crisis. I utilize the 2000-2002 National Election Studies panel to track change in public attitudes toward George W. Bush over the first two years of his presidency. An advantage of using panel data is that it allows me to go beyond aggregate change in presidential approval to examine how change is related to defense policy predispositions and prior political awareness. I find important differences. Over these two years, those high in political awareness experience priming of their defense predispositions but very little rally effect. In contrast, those low in political awareness experience a rally in support for Bush but very little priming. These results reaffirm that those with different levels of political awareness respond to dramatic messages in distinct ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in the international environment such as the shift toward unipolarity, the rise of globalization, and the expansion of terrorist networks have redefined the sorts of problems confronted by policymakers and military practitioners in the arena of national security. With most of its fundamental concepts and frameworks rooted in the study of international relations (IR), the field of security studies has failed to keep up. Highly educated soldiers and diplomats sent to help rebuild failed or fragmented states are still poorly equipped to identify major obstacles or formulate solutions for accomplishing their missions. The safety of states and societies today depends less exclusively on blocking the military, economic, and ideological initiatives of a foreign power and more on supporting the integrity of members that can participate in an international system regulated by generally agreed-upon rules and conventions. The need to help various types of states under a variety of cultural and economic conditions build legitimate, durable political institutions and functioning societies should push security studies toward a broader examination of comparative politics. Beyond the balance of power and modalities of interstate competition, the new security studies should embrace fundamentals found outside of IR to make more robust intellectual contributions to the examination of comparative defense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying the method of enlightenment correctly to the area of nuclear non-proliferation would require a major effort to critically evaluate ideologies. Liberal arms control—despite its many successes and merits—has devised over the years a whole set of ideological tenets and attitudes. Some of them have been transformed into beliefs that could be termed myths. The most prominent ideological myth of the liberal arms control school is the notion that the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of 1968 (NPT) was in essence a disarmament agreement, not a non-proliferation treaty. To depict the negotiations as a premeditated effort of enlightenment, where the governments of this world came together to solemnly decide that some of them would be allowed to have some nuclear weapons for an interim period while the others would renounce their possession immediately, is pure. It would be equally wrong to qualify the ‘grand bargain’ as one between the nuclear haves and the nuclear have-nots. Another myth of the liberal arms control school is the notion that—in order to gain support for the NPT—the superpowers had altered their nuclear weapons strategy in the 1960s. Again, this contention is not borne out by the development of nuclear strategies and doctrines. The third myth is the contention that there was an abrupt shift in US non-proliferation policy as George W. Bush came into power. The major changes in US non-proliferation policy had already started during the Clinton administration and some of them can be traced back to the tenure of President George W. H. Bush senior. They all reflected the changed international environment and represented necessary adjustments of the non-proliferation strategy. The Clinton administration left some of the traditional paths of arms control and rightly undertook some changes that were necessary because traditional instruments of arms control were no longer adequate. The Bush administration continued that policy, but in a more radical way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate on nuclear proliferation has become increasingly polarized. While there is widespread agreement on the perilous state of the traditional non-proliferation regime, the analyses of the causes differ widely. The liberal arms control community has sought to salvage the eroding non-proliferation regime both by overplaying its importance (nuclear enlightenment') as well as by blaming the policies of the nuclear weapons states, notably the United States. However, this view rests on several assumptions that have been increasingly revealed as myths: the myth of a universal non-proliferation norm generated largely by the Non-proliferation Treaty; the myth of a direct relationship between nuclear reductions and proliferation; and the myth of US policy being a cause of, rather than a reaction to, the non-proliferation crisis. Clinging to these myths is counterproductive, as it seeks to perpetuate old policies at the expense of new approaches. However, new approaches to non-proliferation are bound to gain in importance, even if they run counter to established arms control dogmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the deterrence-versus-restraint dilemma in extended deterrence in the context of the Tripartite Crisis Game under incomplete information. This model was developed specifically to capture the mixed motives and contradictory impulses that oftentimes frame extended deterrence encounters. To focus the analysis and to gain tractability, we make specific assumptions about the utilities of the players: Challenger, Defender, and Protégé. Our most significant simplification concerns Defender's type. In particular, we assume that Defender, although not heavily invested in the issues in dispute, is known to prefer conflict to the breakup of its strategic relationship with Protégé. One important result concerns unequivocal commitments. We find that such commitments are efficacious but only when Protégé's threat to sever its relationship with Defender is highly credible. In the absence of this condition, a straddle (or mixed) strategy is optimal for Defender. A straddle strategy, which involves probabilistic support of Protégé, is the mechanism by which Defender attempts to resolve the deterrence-versus-restraint dilemma. Sometimes, the stratagem works and Challenger is deterred and Protégé is restrained. But a straddle strategy will always fail to deter determined Challengers, such as Germany in 1914, that prefer to fight rather than back down during a confrontation. It may even fail to deter hesitant Challengers with an aversion to conflict. We use these insights to explain and evaluate British policy in the runup to World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European armed forces are currently undergoing a profound series of shifts in relation to their core roles. These changes are increasingly challenging long-held assumptions about what armed forces are for and how they should be structured and organized. This article argues that these changes have not primarily occurred in response to an objective, functional reassessment of the nature of the threat, as is assumed in much of the civil—military relations literature. Instead, new military roles are emerging as a consequence of domestic and international socio-political infl uences that shape states' perceptions of what their armed forces should look like and the purposes they should serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explains why pessimism about the chances of success of military intervention had become an immovable feature of the British official mind by 1965. Several factors including the attitudes and capabilities of the British and Rhodesian military and the possibility of South African intervention are examined. The British military planning staff conducted investigations into the feasibility of a military operation to overcome settler resistance in Central Africa.

Despite decades of research on coercive diplomacy, the linkage between deterrence and compellence still remains unexplored. The present essay provides both a theoretical and empirical analysis of why studying their linked relationship is desirable. After overviewing the literature, it investigates the interplay between US strategies of deterrence and compellence in the First Gulf Crisis (1990–1991), suggesting that the deterrence–compellence linkage is stronger when the two strategies coexist or after they have coexisted. In particular, such a linkage was absent at the beginning of the First Gulf Crisis but very much present from the middle of the crisis until its end. Although this essay represents only a preliminary foray into exploring the potential linkage between deterrence and compellence, it appears that a better grasp of this relationship could provide us with the tools to counteract as well as reduce the negative effects of miscalculation and misperception, practices that are partially responsible for unpredicted and unwanted outcomes in international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the operational utility of computer-based information warfare across the Taiwan Strait. It reviews the capacity of both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan to wage offensive and defensive information warfare, and acknowledges that both sides have invested and continue to invest considerable amounts of resources into developing their information warfare ability, both have taken part in the Revolution in Military Affairs process that has redefined military strategy in an age of high-technology warfare, and computer-based information warfare will serve as part of a broader military strategy that revolves principally around conventional methods of attack and deterrence. However, using a critical security approach the article suggests that the capacity to wage computer-based information warfare is currently limited, and plays more of a psychological role in the propaganda offensive that continues across the Taiwan Strait. Hence, computer-based information warfare is ‘old wine in new bottles’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most theoretical and formal arguments about rational deterrence assume that war is a game-ending move. In the asymmetric case, the logic of deterrent threats then rests on the relative merits of war and submission. Perfectly informed rivals ensure that immediate deterrence always succeeds although general deterrence may not. Does this strong result survive the repetition of the standard one-shot deterrence game? We show that an unbundling of the war outcome, and the resulting possible recurrence of a challenge to the status quo, changes the very nature of deterrent threats and can lead to the failure of immediate deterrence. If the status quo can be challenged repeatedly, it is rational, in case of challenge, for the rivals to threaten probabilistic escalation of the crisis to war with the following consequences: the challenger will challenge the status quo now and then; the defender finds it rational to resist at least for a while; the resulting recurrence of challenge, resistance, and escalation can lead the rivals to threaten, with some likelihood, wars that are long enough to be catastrophic for all parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the American foreign policy of U.S. President George W. Bush. Calibration of national interests that are essential to wise policy decisions; Consideration of American militarism as one of the most dramatic and consequential legacies of the Cold War; Assessment of the unprecedented centralization of power within the executive branch.

Explores the approaches to deterrence in Great Britain, France and the U.S. Announcement of unilateral reductions in the number of operationally available warheads by Great Britain; Elimination of air-deliverable gravity bombs in France; Distinction between dissuasion and deterrence in the September 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review.

This article focuses on the speech entitled "Beyond Vietnam," delivered by civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. in Riverside Church in New York City, on April 4, 1967, against the Vietnam War. Although some activists and newspapers supported King's statement, most responded with criticism. King's civil rights colleagues began to disassociate themselves from his radical stance, as the NAACP issued a statement against merging the civil rights movement and peace movement. King remained undeterred, stating that he was not fusing the civil rights and peace movements, as many had suggested. This article asks students to connect this speech to the present by having them consider which of King's ideas about America's role in the world are relevant today.

Asserts that the American bombing strategy in Vietnam from 1965 to 1972 offers a fuller understanding of the many motivations for the nature of U.S. escalation, the changing objectives, and the reasons for American successes and failures. Historian Mark Clodfelter's framework for understanding successive administrations' objectives in Vietnam; Military policies adopted by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon; Class discussion guide for history teachers.

Absent a clear case of an armed attack, the UN Charter severely restricts the ability of individual states to react to what they perceive as their national security risks, relegating such a task to the collective decision-making of the Security Council. Contemporary global security risks pose serious challenges to this regime. Stopping terrorist groups and rogue regimes from obtaining weapons of mass destruction or ending incidents of mass atrocities against civilian populations often require swift and resolute collective responses. Not all those who can respond to such threats are willing to do so, and the collective response of the Security Council frequently proves ineffective. As the stronger military power, the US has both the ability and the motivation to provide the public good of global security unilaterally, while other countries rely on international law to explain their inaction. The so-called 'Bush Doctrine', which asserts an authority to act unilaterally and pre-emptively, can thus be understood as an earnest effort to respond to these security challenges. But this doctrine upsets the existing UN regime, and in turn creates other risks to global stability. This essay seeks to lay out the prevailing global security risks as a collective action problem. It assesses the tensions that exist between existing legal constraints on the use of unilateral force and the proposals for their modification, and evaluates the ramifications of such proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) has become a contentious subject in transatlantic security relations. This essay identifies the ambiguities that have occurred in the policymaking on both sides of the Atlantic that appear to have generated a basic lack of confidence and trust in the other side's good intentions and commitment to cooperation. It does so by sketching three historical time periods—1981–1986, 1988–1996, and 1998–2004—that convey the recurrent patterns and outcomes in the ESDP dispute. These three cases cover the periods (1) from the London Report on European Political Cooperation to the Single European Act and the Western European Union Security Platform, (2) the Maastricht Negotiations on a Common Foreign and Security Policy, and (3) the evolution of ESDP from St. Malo to Brussels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom's present strategic nuclear deterrent, the Trident submarine-based system, has been in full operation for less than four years. But the government will have to consider questions about the follow-on to this system before the end of this parliament and its successor government will almost certainly have to start taking, and implementing, decisions before 2008–9. In the past, political and public debates about the UK's nuclear weapons tended to flow forward on their own technical momentum, backed by the strategic imperatives of the Cold War. The next successor decisions, however, will be made in an era where both the technical questions and the strategic environment will be radically different. There may or may not be another vigorous public debate, but the present, and next, government will face some fundamental [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the historical development of ideas linking the German people with war and the relationship between medieval identities, stereotyping and political power. Network of motifs associating the Germans with war; Supreme fitness for armed struggle of the German people; Observation that medieval Germans habitually sought warlike qualities in their rulers; Elements in the political life of the later Middle Ages which ensured that such qualities came to the fore.

This article argues that the Bush strategy of ‘spectacle war’ is caught in an earlier Cold War paradigm primarily aimed at influencing American public opinion and that it fails to take into account the reality of the current global context, especially with regard to changes in the nature of sovereignty and in the role of military force. The United States, in its current posture, has the capability to be very destructive but is much less able to do ‘compellance’, that is to say, to impose its will on others. In particular, the current strategy cannot defeat terrorism. The article draws up a typology of different visions of how American power is, or should be, exercised based on different assumptions about sovereignty and military power. It concludes that American power can only be exercised constructively within a cosmopolitan framework. Such a framework is best suited to the containment, and possibly, the defeat of terrorism. It would contribute both to global economic growth and to American democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]