Abstract From ancient times to the present, rising powers have taken up arms to reorder the world. Yet such violent revisionism poses a puzzle: If a rising power is profiting from the existing order, why would it disrupt that progress with a reckless fit of expansion? One reason is slowing economic growth. Over the past 150 years, peaking powers, meaning rising powers whose economic booms have slowed but not yet stopped, have been the most dangerous kind of country. An extended period of rapid growth equipped them with the means to shake up the world, and then a protracted growth slowdown motivated them to move aggressively to try to rekindle their rise. Peaking power dynamics help explain some of the most consequential geopolitical events in modern history, including the surge of U.S. imperialism in the late nineteenth century, the outbreak of World War II, and Russia's 2014 aggression against Ukraine. These findings amend classic theories of great power conflict and have ominous implications for contemporary Chinese foreign policy.
{"title":"The Peril of Peaking Powers: Economic Slowdowns and Implications for China's Next Decade","authors":"Michael Beckley","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00463","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00463","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract From ancient times to the present, rising powers have taken up arms to reorder the world. Yet such violent revisionism poses a puzzle: If a rising power is profiting from the existing order, why would it disrupt that progress with a reckless fit of expansion? One reason is slowing economic growth. Over the past 150 years, peaking powers, meaning rising powers whose economic booms have slowed but not yet stopped, have been the most dangerous kind of country. An extended period of rapid growth equipped them with the means to shake up the world, and then a protracted growth slowdown motivated them to move aggressively to try to rekindle their rise. Peaking power dynamics help explain some of the most consequential geopolitical events in modern history, including the surge of U.S. imperialism in the late nineteenth century, the outbreak of World War II, and Russia's 2014 aggression against Ukraine. These findings amend classic theories of great power conflict and have ominous implications for contemporary Chinese foreign policy.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"313 1","pages":"7-46"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81956035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Since the 2010s, China has used economic coercion against Western and Asian states to achieve territorial and political goals. China's leveraging of its market is a form of “predatory liberalism” that weaponizes the networks of interdependence created by globalization. The United States and other like-minded partners have mostly used piecemeal “de-risking” measures such as decoupling, supply chain resilience, reshoring, and trade diversion to reduce dependence on China and thereby minimize vulnerability to its economic coercion. But these practices do not stop the Chinese government's economic bullying. “Collective resilience” is a peer competition strategy designed to deter the Xi Jinping regime's economic predation. What informs this strategy is the understanding that interdependence, even asymmetric interdependence, is a two-way street. Original trade data show that the previous and current targets of economic coercion by the Xi Jinping regime export over $46.6 billion worth of goods to China on which it is more than 70 percent dependent as a proportion of its total imports of those goods. These target states could band together in a collective resilience alliance and practice economic deterrence by promising to retaliate against China's high-dependence trade should Beijing act against any one of the alliance members.
{"title":"Collective Resilience: Deterring China's Weaponization of Economic Interdependence","authors":"V. Cha","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00465","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Since the 2010s, China has used economic coercion against Western and Asian states to achieve territorial and political goals. China's leveraging of its market is a form of “predatory liberalism” that weaponizes the networks of interdependence created by globalization. The United States and other like-minded partners have mostly used piecemeal “de-risking” measures such as decoupling, supply chain resilience, reshoring, and trade diversion to reduce dependence on China and thereby minimize vulnerability to its economic coercion. But these practices do not stop the Chinese government's economic bullying. “Collective resilience” is a peer competition strategy designed to deter the Xi Jinping regime's economic predation. What informs this strategy is the understanding that interdependence, even asymmetric interdependence, is a two-way street. Original trade data show that the previous and current targets of economic coercion by the Xi Jinping regime export over $46.6 billion worth of goods to China on which it is more than 70 percent dependent as a proportion of its total imports of those goods. These target states could band together in a collective resilience alliance and practice economic deterrence by promising to retaliate against China's high-dependence trade should Beijing act against any one of the alliance members.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"1 1","pages":"91-124"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74771668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In an era of increased politicization of the military, there are powerful disincentives for commanders-in-chief to challenge the preferences of the senior military leadership. Even though presidents may have the constitutional “right to be wrong,” they require considerable political capital to test that proposition. Dominant normative theories of civil-military relations focus on ideal-type scenarios that do not reflect the messy, inherently political character of elite decision-making. A case study of civil-military dynamics during the Iraq War identifies four decision-making strategies that George W. Bush and Barack Obama used to avoid incurring a domestic political penalty for being seen to go against the preferences of the uniformed military. Drawing on declassified documents and dozens of interviews with former administration officials and top-ranking military leaders, the findings indicate that both administrations used these strategies during key episodes of civil-military friction in the Iraq War (the 2007 surge and the troop drawdown that followed). Scholars and practitioners should focus on strengthening civilian and military leaders' capacity to navigate the politics of national security decision-making and reconsidering conventional understandings of the apolitical role of the military.
在军事日益政治化的时代,总司令挑战高级军事领导人的偏好存在强大的抑制因素。尽管总统可能拥有宪法赋予的“犯错的权利”,但他们需要相当大的政治资本来检验这一主张。军民关系的主流规范理论侧重于理想类型的场景,这些场景并不反映精英决策的混乱和固有的政治特征。对伊拉克战争期间军民关系动态的一个案例研究表明,乔治•w•布什(George W. Bush)和巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)采用了四种决策策略,以避免因被视为违背了军方的偏好而招致国内政治惩罚。根据解密文件和对数十名前政府官员和高级军事领导人的采访,研究结果表明,在伊拉克战争中军民摩擦的关键时期(2007年增兵和随后的撤军),两届政府都使用了这些策略。学者和实践者应该把重点放在加强文职和军事领导人驾驭国家安全决策政治的能力上,并重新考虑对军队非政治角色的传统理解。
{"title":"Bargaining with the Military: How Presidents Manage the Political Costs of Civilian Control","authors":"A. Payne","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00468","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00468","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In an era of increased politicization of the military, there are powerful disincentives for commanders-in-chief to challenge the preferences of the senior military leadership. Even though presidents may have the constitutional “right to be wrong,” they require considerable political capital to test that proposition. Dominant normative theories of civil-military relations focus on ideal-type scenarios that do not reflect the messy, inherently political character of elite decision-making. A case study of civil-military dynamics during the Iraq War identifies four decision-making strategies that George W. Bush and Barack Obama used to avoid incurring a domestic political penalty for being seen to go against the preferences of the uniformed military. Drawing on declassified documents and dozens of interviews with former administration officials and top-ranking military leaders, the findings indicate that both administrations used these strategies during key episodes of civil-military friction in the Iraq War (the 2007 surge and the troop drawdown that followed). Scholars and practitioners should focus on strengthening civilian and military leaders' capacity to navigate the politics of national security decision-making and reconsidering conventional understandings of the apolitical role of the military.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"31 1","pages":"166-207"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79044731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract When is China prone to miscalculate in international crises? National security institutions—the rules shaping the flow of information between leaders and their diplomatic, defense, and intelligence bureaucracies—offer one important answer to this question. A theoretical framework differentiates between three institutional types: integrated, fragmented, and siloed. Integrated institutions reduce the risk of miscalculation both by building capacity to relay bureaucratic information to the leader, and by fostering a competitive dialogue between bureaucracies that improves the quality of information that they provide. In contrast, miscalculation is more likely under two types of pathological institutions. Fragmented institutions reduce capacity to relay bureaucratic information to leaders and encourage bureaucrats to manipulate information to conform with the leader's prior beliefs. Siloed institutions restrict information sharing between bureaucracies, which degrades the evaluation of information and encourages bureaucracies to manipulate information to suit their organizational interests. A medium-N analysis of China's international security crises from 1949 to 2012 demonstrates that national security institutions help to explain the majority of its crisis miscalculations. Case studies on the 1962 Nationalist invasion scare, the 1969 Sino-Soviet border conflict, and the 2001 EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft incident illustrate the mechanisms by which national security institutions shape the risk of miscalculation in international crises.
{"title":"The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation in China's International Crises","authors":"T. Jost","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00464","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract When is China prone to miscalculate in international crises? National security institutions—the rules shaping the flow of information between leaders and their diplomatic, defense, and intelligence bureaucracies—offer one important answer to this question. A theoretical framework differentiates between three institutional types: integrated, fragmented, and siloed. Integrated institutions reduce the risk of miscalculation both by building capacity to relay bureaucratic information to the leader, and by fostering a competitive dialogue between bureaucracies that improves the quality of information that they provide. In contrast, miscalculation is more likely under two types of pathological institutions. Fragmented institutions reduce capacity to relay bureaucratic information to leaders and encourage bureaucrats to manipulate information to conform with the leader's prior beliefs. Siloed institutions restrict information sharing between bureaucracies, which degrades the evaluation of information and encourages bureaucracies to manipulate information to suit their organizational interests. A medium-N analysis of China's international security crises from 1949 to 2012 demonstrates that national security institutions help to explain the majority of its crisis miscalculations. Case studies on the 1962 Nationalist invasion scare, the 1969 Sino-Soviet border conflict, and the 2001 EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft incident illustrate the mechanisms by which national security institutions shape the risk of miscalculation in international crises.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"29 1","pages":"47-90"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89423275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Racialization—the processes that infuse social and political phenomena with racial identities and implications—is an assertion of power, a claim of purportedly inherent differences that has saturated modern diplomacy, order, and violence. Despite the field's consistent interest in power, international security studies in the United States largely omitted racial dynamics from decades of debates about international conflict and cooperation, nuclear proliferation, power transitions, unipolarity, civil wars, terrorism, international order, grand strategy, and other subjects. A new framework lays conceptual bedrock, links relevant literatures to major research agendas in international security, cultivates interdisciplinary dialogues, and charts promising paths to consider how overt and embedded racialization shape the study and practice of international security. A discussion of several research design challenges for integrating racialization into existing and new research agendas helps scholars reconsider how they approach questions of race and security. Beyond diversifying the professoriat itself, revealing and countering embedded biases are crucial to determine how alternative ideas have been marginalized, and, ultimately, to develop better theories.
{"title":"Racialization and International Security","authors":"Richard W. Maass","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00470","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00470","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Racialization—the processes that infuse social and political phenomena with racial identities and implications—is an assertion of power, a claim of purportedly inherent differences that has saturated modern diplomacy, order, and violence. Despite the field's consistent interest in power, international security studies in the United States largely omitted racial dynamics from decades of debates about international conflict and cooperation, nuclear proliferation, power transitions, unipolarity, civil wars, terrorism, international order, grand strategy, and other subjects. A new framework lays conceptual bedrock, links relevant literatures to major research agendas in international security, cultivates interdisciplinary dialogues, and charts promising paths to consider how overt and embedded racialization shape the study and practice of international security. A discussion of several research design challenges for integrating racialization into existing and new research agendas helps scholars reconsider how they approach questions of race and security. Beyond diversifying the professoriat itself, revealing and countering embedded biases are crucial to determine how alternative ideas have been marginalized, and, ultimately, to develop better theories.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"142 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135613330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Do states get higher social status from fighting? The prestige of war depends on the type of “status order” that it is interpreted in. Status orders condition and enable the pursuit and recognition of status within social clubs of world politics. Depending on the status order, social clubs may either value or stigmatize belligerence. An analysis comparing the status recognition that Russia received in three social clubs (the great power club, the G-8, and the UN Security Council) after it annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014 explores this assumption. The analysis shows that war generated different status effects on Russia's status within each of these clubs. Contrary to popular belief, and amid widespread condemnation, Russia was increasingly recognized as a great power within U.S. public discourse. In contrast, Russia's belligerence diminished its status within the G-8 and had little effect on its status in the UN Security Council. The findings underline the importance of context in estimating status effects of participating in wars and any other behavior that might impact a state's standing in world politics.
{"title":"The Belligerent Bear: Russia, Status Orders, and War","authors":"Pål Røren","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00458","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00458","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Do states get higher social status from fighting? The prestige of war depends on the type of “status order” that it is interpreted in. Status orders condition and enable the pursuit and recognition of status within social clubs of world politics. Depending on the status order, social clubs may either value or stigmatize belligerence. An analysis comparing the status recognition that Russia received in three social clubs (the great power club, the G-8, and the UN Security Council) after it annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014 explores this assumption. The analysis shows that war generated different status effects on Russia's status within each of these clubs. Contrary to popular belief, and amid widespread condemnation, Russia was increasingly recognized as a great power within U.S. public discourse. In contrast, Russia's belligerence diminished its status within the G-8 and had little effect on its status in the UN Security Council. The findings underline the importance of context in estimating status effects of participating in wars and any other behavior that might impact a state's standing in world politics.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"30 1","pages":"7-49"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77397059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Security assistance is a pillar of U.S. foreign policy and a ubiquitous feature of international relations. The record, however, is mixed at best. Security assistance is hard because recipient leaders are often motivated to implement policies that keep their militaries weak. The central challenge of security assistance, then, is influence. How does the United States aim to influence recipient leaders to improve their militaries, and what drives its approach? Influence in security assistance can be understood as an escalation ladder with four rungs: teaching, persuasion, conditionality, and direct command. Washington increasingly delegates security assistance to the Department of Defense, and the latter to the U.S. Army. U.S. Army advisers tend to rely exclusively on teaching and persuasion, even when recipient leaders routinely ignore their advice. The U.S. Army's preference for persuasion and aversion to conditionality in security assistance can be traced to its bureaucratic interests and to the ideology that it has developed—the cult of the persuasive—to advance those interests. A case study examines the bureaucratic drivers of the U.S. Army's persistent reliance on persuasion to influence Iraqi leaders to reform and strengthen the Iraqi Army. Qualitative analysis leverages over one hundred original interviews, as well as oral histories and recently declassified U.S. Central Command documents. The findings illustrate how the interests and ideologies of the military services tasked with implementing U.S. foreign policy can instead undermine it.
{"title":"The Cult of the Persuasive: Why U.S. Security Assistance Fails","authors":"Rachel Tecott Metz","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00453","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Security assistance is a pillar of U.S. foreign policy and a ubiquitous feature of international relations. The record, however, is mixed at best. Security assistance is hard because recipient leaders are often motivated to implement policies that keep their militaries weak. The central challenge of security assistance, then, is influence. How does the United States aim to influence recipient leaders to improve their militaries, and what drives its approach? Influence in security assistance can be understood as an escalation ladder with four rungs: teaching, persuasion, conditionality, and direct command. Washington increasingly delegates security assistance to the Department of Defense, and the latter to the U.S. Army. U.S. Army advisers tend to rely exclusively on teaching and persuasion, even when recipient leaders routinely ignore their advice. The U.S. Army's preference for persuasion and aversion to conditionality in security assistance can be traced to its bureaucratic interests and to the ideology that it has developed—the cult of the persuasive—to advance those interests. A case study examines the bureaucratic drivers of the U.S. Army's persistent reliance on persuasion to influence Iraqi leaders to reform and strengthen the Iraqi Army. Qualitative analysis leverages over one hundred original interviews, as well as oral histories and recently declassified U.S. Central Command documents. The findings illustrate how the interests and ideologies of the military services tasked with implementing U.S. foreign policy can instead undermine it.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"1 1","pages":"95-135"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83056038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}