Abstract How do electoral politics affect presidential decisionmaking in war? As both commander in chief and elected officeholder, presidents must inevitably balance competing objectives of the national interest and political survival when assessing alternative military strategies in war. Yet, how and when electoral pressures influence decisionmaking during an ongoing conflict remains unclear. Drawn from the logic of democratic accountability, two mechanisms of constraint may be inferred. First, presidents may delay making decisions that are perceived to carry excessive electoral risk. Second, electoral pressures may have a dampening effect, causing presidents to water down politically sensitive courses of action to minimize any expected backlash. Recently declassified documents and interviews with senior administration officials and military figures illustrate these mechanisms in a case study of decisionmaking during the second half of the Iraq War. Both George W. Bush's surge decision of 2007 and Barack Obama's decision to withdraw troops in 2011 are shown to have been profoundly influenced by concerns related to the domestic political calendar. These findings call for further study of the nuanced ways in which the electoral cycle shapes wartime decisionmaking.
战争中选举政治如何影响总统决策?作为总司令和民选公职人员，总统在评估战争中的其他军事战略时，不可避免地必须平衡国家利益和政治生存这两个相互竞争的目标。然而，在持续冲突期间，选举压力如何以及何时影响决策仍不清楚。根据民主问责的逻辑，可以推断出两种约束机制。首先，总统可能会推迟做出被认为会带来过度选举风险的决定。其次，选举压力可能会产生抑制作用，导致总统淡化政治敏感的行动方案，以尽量减少任何预期的反弹。最近解密的文件和对高级政府官员和军事人物的采访，在伊拉克战争后半段的决策案例研究中说明了这些机制。乔治·w·布什(George W. Bush) 2007年增兵的决定和巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama) 2011年撤军的决定都受到了与国内政治日程相关的担忧的深刻影响。这些发现需要进一步研究选举周期影响战时决策的微妙方式。
{"title":"Presidents, Politics, and Military Strategy: Electoral Constraints during the Iraq War","authors":"A. Payne","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00371","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00371","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract How do electoral politics affect presidential decisionmaking in war? As both commander in chief and elected officeholder, presidents must inevitably balance competing objectives of the national interest and political survival when assessing alternative military strategies in war. Yet, how and when electoral pressures influence decisionmaking during an ongoing conflict remains unclear. Drawn from the logic of democratic accountability, two mechanisms of constraint may be inferred. First, presidents may delay making decisions that are perceived to carry excessive electoral risk. Second, electoral pressures may have a dampening effect, causing presidents to water down politically sensitive courses of action to minimize any expected backlash. Recently declassified documents and interviews with senior administration officials and military figures illustrate these mechanisms in a case study of decisionmaking during the second half of the Iraq War. Both George W. Bush's surge decision of 2007 and Barack Obama's decision to withdraw troops in 2011 are shown to have been profoundly influenced by concerns related to the domestic political calendar. These findings call for further study of the nuanced ways in which the electoral cycle shapes wartime decisionmaking.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"108 1","pages":"163-203"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91305672","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 Standard explanations for the demise of U.S.-Soviet détente during the 1970s emphasize the Soviet Union's inability to put aside its communist ideology for the sake of a more cooperative relationship with the United States. Soviet resistance to reaching a stable accommodation during this period, many analysts maintain, was especially evident in the Middle East, where Moscow is said to have embraced the “radical Arab program” vis-à-vis Israel. Such accounts do not fare well, however, in light of the historical evidence. Instead, that evidence indicates that the Soviet Union was eager to cooperate with the United States to achieve an Arab-Israeli agreement. The Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations, however, were not interested in working with the Soviets in the Middle East, and instead sought to expel them from the region. These findings have important implications for scholarly debates about whether great power rivals can cooperate on issues where their strategic interests are overlapping, as well as for contemporary debates over U.S. policy toward countries such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
{"title":"Who Killed Détente? The Superpowers and the Cold War in the Middle East, 1969–77","authors":"G. Jackson","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00369","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00369","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Standard explanations for the demise of U.S.-Soviet détente during the 1970s emphasize the Soviet Union's inability to put aside its communist ideology for the sake of a more cooperative relationship with the United States. Soviet resistance to reaching a stable accommodation during this period, many analysts maintain, was especially evident in the Middle East, where Moscow is said to have embraced the “radical Arab program” vis-à-vis Israel. Such accounts do not fare well, however, in light of the historical evidence. Instead, that evidence indicates that the Soviet Union was eager to cooperate with the United States to achieve an Arab-Israeli agreement. The Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations, however, were not interested in working with the Soviets in the Middle East, and instead sought to expel them from the region. These findings have important implications for scholarly debates about whether great power rivals can cooperate on issues where their strategic interests are overlapping, as well as for contemporary debates over U.S. policy toward countries such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"124 1","pages":"129-162"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79528891","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 and how do domestic politics influence a state's nuclear choices? Recent scholarship on nuclear security develops many domestic-political explanations for different nuclear decisions. These explanations are partly the result of two welcome trends: first, scholars have expanded the nuclear timeline, examining state behavior before and after nuclear proliferation; and second, scholars have moved beyond blunt distinctions between democracies and autocracies to more fine-grained understandings of domestic constraints. But without linkages between them, new domestic-political findings could be dismissed as a laundry list of factors that do not explain significant variation in nuclear decisions. This review essay assesses recent research on domestic politics and nuclear security, and develops a framework that illuminates when and how domestic-political mechanisms are likely to affect nuclear choices. In contrast to most previous domestic arguments, many of the newer domestic-political mechanisms posited in the literature are in some way top-down; that is, they show leaders deliberately maintaining or loosening control over nuclear choices. Two dimensions govern the extent and nature of domestic-political influence on nuclear choices: the degree of threat uncertainty and the costs and benefits to leaders of expanding the circle of domestic actors involved in a nuclear decision. The framework developed in this review essay helps make sense of several cases explored in the recent nuclear security literature. It also has implications for understanding when and how domestic-political arguments might diverge from the predictions of security-based analyses.
{"title":"The Domestic Politics of Nuclear Choices—A Review Essay","authors":"E. Saunders","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00361","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00361","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract When and how do domestic politics influence a state's nuclear choices? Recent scholarship on nuclear security develops many domestic-political explanations for different nuclear decisions. These explanations are partly the result of two welcome trends: first, scholars have expanded the nuclear timeline, examining state behavior before and after nuclear proliferation; and second, scholars have moved beyond blunt distinctions between democracies and autocracies to more fine-grained understandings of domestic constraints. But without linkages between them, new domestic-political findings could be dismissed as a laundry list of factors that do not explain significant variation in nuclear decisions. This review essay assesses recent research on domestic politics and nuclear security, and develops a framework that illuminates when and how domestic-political mechanisms are likely to affect nuclear choices. In contrast to most previous domestic arguments, many of the newer domestic-political mechanisms posited in the literature are in some way top-down; that is, they show leaders deliberately maintaining or loosening control over nuclear choices. Two dimensions govern the extent and nature of domestic-political influence on nuclear choices: the degree of threat uncertainty and the costs and benefits to leaders of expanding the circle of domestic actors involved in a nuclear decision. The framework developed in this review essay helps make sense of several cases explored in the recent nuclear security literature. It also has implications for understanding when and how domestic-political arguments might diverge from the predictions of security-based analyses.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"11 1","pages":"146-184"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75007316","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}
was launched forty-four years ago, in the summer of 1976, by what was then called the Program for Science and International Affairs. For thirty-one of those years—nearly three-fourths of its history—Sean Lynn-Jones has played a central role in running and shaping the journal. He has been a masterful manuscript diagnostician, becoming legendary as a provider of comments. He has had a keen eye for promising manuscripts and has been uncommonly skillful at pulling together interesting selections of articles. He has combined a wide knowledge of the aeld with a rare ability to situate potential articles in the literature and to judge their contribution. He has possessed an uncanny knack for the deft title. He has handled all the pressures and mishaps associated with managing a relentless decision and production process with aplomb and without losing his good nature. Through it all, he has been a congenial colleague and has retained his well-developed sense of humor. Sean deserves much of the credit for what International Security has become. Now, alas, he has decided to retire. For me personally, having worked with Sean every one of those thirty-one years, it is hard to imagine the journal without him and even more difacult to adequately express my appreciation for his enormous contribution in making and sustaining the journal as an important and respected voice in the aeld. But we must carry on without him, while wishing him well as he travels the world in fulallment of his professed retirement agenda. We are fortunate that Morgan Kaplan has agreed to take on the job of replacing the irreplaceable Sean Lynn-Jones. Morgan has arrived with energy, enthusiasm, expertise, and a deep commitment to carrying on in the tradition that Sean has established. Profound, if inadequate, thanks to Sean. Warm and expectant welcome to Morgan. —Steven E. Miller Summaries
是在44年前的1976年夏天启动的，当时被称为科学与国际事务项目。其中31年——将近其历史的四分之三——肖恩·林恩-琼斯在经营和塑造该杂志方面发挥了核心作用。他是一位杰出的手稿诊断学家，以提供评论而成为传奇。他对有前途的稿子有敏锐的眼光，而且在挑选有趣的文章方面有非凡的技巧。他将该领域的广泛知识与一种罕见的能力相结合，能够在文献中定位潜在的文章并判断它们的贡献。他拥有一种不可思议的技巧来获得这个灵巧的头衔。他沉着地处理了所有与无情的决策和制作过程相关的压力和事故，并没有失去他的善良本性。在经历了这一切之后，他一直是一位意气相投的同事，并保持着他那成熟的幽默感。肖恩对国际安全的发展功不可没。现在，唉，他决定退休了。就我个人而言，在这31年的每一年里，我都与肖恩一起工作，很难想象没有他的杂志会是什么样子，更难以充分表达我对他的感激之情，他在创建和维持这本杂志方面做出了巨大贡献，成为该领域一个重要而受人尊敬的声音。但我们必须在没有他的情况下继续工作，同时也祝他在世界各地旅行，完成他公开宣布的退休计划。我们很幸运，摩根·卡普兰已经同意接替不可替代的肖恩·林恩-琼斯。摩根带着精力，热情，专业知识，以及对肖恩所建立的传统的坚定承诺来到了这里。虽然不够深刻，但多亏了肖恩。热烈欢迎来到摩根。——steven E. Miller总结
{"title":"Editor-in-Chief's Note","authors":"Steven E. Miller","doi":"10.1162/isec_e_00366","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_e_00366","url":null,"abstract":"was launched forty-four years ago, in the summer of 1976, by what was then called the Program for Science and International Affairs. For thirty-one of those years—nearly three-fourths of its history—Sean Lynn-Jones has played a central role in running and shaping the journal. He has been a masterful manuscript diagnostician, becoming legendary as a provider of comments. He has had a keen eye for promising manuscripts and has been uncommonly skillful at pulling together interesting selections of articles. He has combined a wide knowledge of the aeld with a rare ability to situate potential articles in the literature and to judge their contribution. He has possessed an uncanny knack for the deft title. He has handled all the pressures and mishaps associated with managing a relentless decision and production process with aplomb and without losing his good nature. Through it all, he has been a congenial colleague and has retained his well-developed sense of humor. Sean deserves much of the credit for what International Security has become. Now, alas, he has decided to retire. For me personally, having worked with Sean every one of those thirty-one years, it is hard to imagine the journal without him and even more difacult to adequately express my appreciation for his enormous contribution in making and sustaining the journal as an important and respected voice in the aeld. But we must carry on without him, while wishing him well as he travels the world in fulallment of his professed retirement agenda. We are fortunate that Morgan Kaplan has agreed to take on the job of replacing the irreplaceable Sean Lynn-Jones. Morgan has arrived with energy, enthusiasm, expertise, and a deep commitment to carrying on in the tradition that Sean has established. Profound, if inadequate, thanks to Sean. Warm and expectant welcome to Morgan. —Steven E. Miller Summaries","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"os-46 1","pages":"4-4"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87241421","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}
Michael C. Horowitz, Shahryar Pasandideh, A. Gilli, Mauro Gilli
Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli should be lauded for making clear how the growing complexity of capital-intensive military platforms such as aghter jets hinders states, such as China, seeking to mimic the United States.1 Gilli and Gilli join a long line of thinkers, myself included, who argue that military technology does not always diffuse easily and that the characteristics of technologies matter in driving how those technologies spread and inouence international politics.2 Although there is much to like about Gilli and Gilli’s article, their analysis has some theoretical limitations with implications for policymaking. First, because Gilli and Gilli evaluate only military technology adoption, they miss the broader ways that human capital, tacit knowledge, and organizational practices shape military power. Gilli and Gilli’s unit of analysis is military-technological superiority (p. 145), suggesting a technologically determinist view of military power. Technology, however, is only a subset of how states generate military power. More important for victory and defeat, on average, is how states develop and employ their capabilities on the battleaeld.3 Gilli and Gilli’s ignoring of the organizational component of military power is relevant because another reason why a country such as China might struggle to adopt some of today’s key military capabilities involves a lack of tacit organizational and Correspondence: Military-Technological Imitation
{"title":"Correspondence: Military-Technological Imitation and Rising Powers","authors":"Michael C. Horowitz, Shahryar Pasandideh, A. Gilli, Mauro Gilli","doi":"10.1162/isec_c_00363","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_c_00363","url":null,"abstract":"Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli should be lauded for making clear how the growing complexity of capital-intensive military platforms such as aghter jets hinders states, such as China, seeking to mimic the United States.1 Gilli and Gilli join a long line of thinkers, myself included, who argue that military technology does not always diffuse easily and that the characteristics of technologies matter in driving how those technologies spread and inouence international politics.2 Although there is much to like about Gilli and Gilli’s article, their analysis has some theoretical limitations with implications for policymaking. First, because Gilli and Gilli evaluate only military technology adoption, they miss the broader ways that human capital, tacit knowledge, and organizational practices shape military power. Gilli and Gilli’s unit of analysis is military-technological superiority (p. 145), suggesting a technologically determinist view of military power. Technology, however, is only a subset of how states generate military power. More important for victory and defeat, on average, is how states develop and employ their capabilities on the battleaeld.3 Gilli and Gilli’s ignoring of the organizational component of military power is relevant because another reason why a country such as China might struggle to adopt some of today’s key military capabilities involves a lack of tacit organizational and Correspondence: Military-Technological Imitation","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"53 1","pages":"185-192"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90826853","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 Conflict between returning refugees and nonmigrant populations is a pervasive yet frequently overlooked security issue in post-conflict societies. Although scholars have demonstrated how out-migration can regionalize, prolong, and intensify civil war, the security consequences of return migration are undertheorized. An analysis of refugee return to Burundi after the country's 1993–2005 civil war corroborates a new theory of return migration and conflict: return migration creates new identity divisions based on whether and where individuals were displaced during wartime. These cleavages become new sources of conflict in the countries of origin when local institutions, such as land codes, citizenship regimes, or language laws, yield differential outcomes for individuals based on where they lived during the war. Ethnographic evidence gathered in Burundi and Tanzania from 2014 to 2016 shows how the return of refugees created violent rivalries between returnees and nonmigrants. Consequently, when Burundi faced a national-level political crisis in 2015, prior experiences of return shaped both the character and timing of out-migration from Burundi. Illuminating the role of reverse population movements in shaping future conflict extends theories of political violence and demonstrates why breaking the cycle of return and repeat displacement is essential to the prevention of conflict.
{"title":"Home, Again: Refugee Return and Post-Conflict Violence in Burundi","authors":"S. Schwartz","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00362","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Conflict between returning refugees and nonmigrant populations is a pervasive yet frequently overlooked security issue in post-conflict societies. Although scholars have demonstrated how out-migration can regionalize, prolong, and intensify civil war, the security consequences of return migration are undertheorized. An analysis of refugee return to Burundi after the country's 1993–2005 civil war corroborates a new theory of return migration and conflict: return migration creates new identity divisions based on whether and where individuals were displaced during wartime. These cleavages become new sources of conflict in the countries of origin when local institutions, such as land codes, citizenship regimes, or language laws, yield differential outcomes for individuals based on where they lived during the war. Ethnographic evidence gathered in Burundi and Tanzania from 2014 to 2016 shows how the return of refugees created violent rivalries between returnees and nonmigrants. Consequently, when Burundi faced a national-level political crisis in 2015, prior experiences of return shaped both the character and timing of out-migration from Burundi. Illuminating the role of reverse population movements in shaping future conflict extends theories of political violence and demonstrates why breaking the cycle of return and repeat displacement is essential to the prevention of conflict.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"66 1","pages":"110-145"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89491158","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 Many scholars and policymakers in the United States accept the narrative that China is a revisionist state challenging the U.S.-dominated international liberal order. The narrative assumes that there is a singular liberal order and that it is obvious what constitutes a challenge to it. The concepts of order and challenge are, however, poorly operationalized. There are at least four plausible operationalizations of order, three of which are explicitly or implicitly embodied in the dominant narrative. These tend to assume, ahistorically, that U.S. interests and the content of the liberal order are almost identical. The fourth operationalization views order as an emergent property of the interaction of multiple state, substate, nonstate, and international actors. As a result, there are at least eight “issue-specific orders” (e.g., military, trade, information, and political development). Some of these China accepts; some it rejects; and some it is willing to live with. Given these multiple orders and varying levels of challenge, the narrative of a U.S.-dominated liberal international order being challenged by a revisionist China makes little conceptual or empirical sense. The findings point to the need to develop more generalizable ways of observing orders and compliance.
{"title":"China in a World of Orders: Rethinking Compliance and Challenge in Beijing's International Relations","authors":"A. Johnston","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00360","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00360","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Many scholars and policymakers in the United States accept the narrative that China is a revisionist state challenging the U.S.-dominated international liberal order. The narrative assumes that there is a singular liberal order and that it is obvious what constitutes a challenge to it. The concepts of order and challenge are, however, poorly operationalized. There are at least four plausible operationalizations of order, three of which are explicitly or implicitly embodied in the dominant narrative. These tend to assume, ahistorically, that U.S. interests and the content of the liberal order are almost identical. The fourth operationalization views order as an emergent property of the interaction of multiple state, substate, nonstate, and international actors. As a result, there are at least eight “issue-specific orders” (e.g., military, trade, information, and political development). Some of these China accepts; some it rejects; and some it is willing to live with. Given these multiple orders and varying levels of challenge, the narrative of a U.S.-dominated liberal international order being challenged by a revisionist China makes little conceptual or empirical sense. The findings point to the need to develop more generalizable ways of observing orders and compliance.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"8 1","pages":"9-60"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85859960","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 Chinese views of nuclear escalation are key to assessing the potential for nuclear escalation in a crisis or armed conflict between the United States and China, but they have not been examined systematically. A review of original Chinese-language sources and interviews with members of China's strategic community suggest that China is skeptical that nuclear escalation could be controlled once nuclear weapons are used and, thus, leaders would be restrained from pursuing even limited use. These views are reflected in China's nuclear operational doctrine (which outlines plans for retaliatory strikes only and lacks any clear plans for limited nuclear use) and its force structure (which lacks tactical nuclear weapons). The long-standing decoupling of Chinese nuclear and conventional strategy, organizational biases within China's strategic community, and the availability of space, cyber, and conventional missile weapons as alternative sources of strategic leverage best explain Chinese views toward nuclear escalation. China's confidence that a U.S.-China conflict would not escalate to the use of nuclear weapons may hamper its ability to identify nuclear escalation risks in such a scenario. Meanwhile, U.S. scholars and policymakers emphasize the risk of inadvertent escalation in a conflict with China, but they are more confident than their Chinese counterparts that the use of nuclear weapons could remain limited. When combined, these contrasting views could create pressure for a U.S.-China conflict to escalate rapidly into an unlimited nuclear war.
{"title":"Dangerous Confidence? Chinese Views on Nuclear Escalation","authors":"Fiona S. Cunningham, M. T. Fravel","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00359","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00359","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Chinese views of nuclear escalation are key to assessing the potential for nuclear escalation in a crisis or armed conflict between the United States and China, but they have not been examined systematically. A review of original Chinese-language sources and interviews with members of China's strategic community suggest that China is skeptical that nuclear escalation could be controlled once nuclear weapons are used and, thus, leaders would be restrained from pursuing even limited use. These views are reflected in China's nuclear operational doctrine (which outlines plans for retaliatory strikes only and lacks any clear plans for limited nuclear use) and its force structure (which lacks tactical nuclear weapons). The long-standing decoupling of Chinese nuclear and conventional strategy, organizational biases within China's strategic community, and the availability of space, cyber, and conventional missile weapons as alternative sources of strategic leverage best explain Chinese views toward nuclear escalation. China's confidence that a U.S.-China conflict would not escalate to the use of nuclear weapons may hamper its ability to identify nuclear escalation risks in such a scenario. Meanwhile, U.S. scholars and policymakers emphasize the risk of inadvertent escalation in a conflict with China, but they are more confident than their Chinese counterparts that the use of nuclear weapons could remain limited. When combined, these contrasting views could create pressure for a U.S.-China conflict to escalate rapidly into an unlimited nuclear war.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"30 1","pages":"61-109"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80407913","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 recent years, jihadists across the world have transformed their gendered violence, shocking the world by breaking from prior taboos and even celebrating abuses that they had previously prohibited. This behavior is surprising because jihadists represent a class of insurgents that are deeply bound by rules and norms. For jihadists, deviating from established Islamist doctrines is no easy feat. What then explains these sudden transformations in the rules and norms governing jihadist violence? An inductive investigation of contemporary jihadist violence in Pakistan and Nigeria reveals a new theory of jihadist normative evolution. Data from these cases show that dramatic changes in jihadist violence occur when an external trigger creates an expanded political space for jihadist entrepreneurs to do away with normative constraints on socially prohibited types of violence. As these jihadist leaders capitalize on the triggers, they are able to encourage a re-socialization process within their ranks, resulting in the erosion of previously held taboos, the adoption of proscribed behaviors, and the emergence of toxic new norms.
{"title":"“We Have Captured Your Women”: Explaining Jihadist Norm Change","authors":"Aisha Ahmad","doi":"10.1162/isec_a_00350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00350","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In recent years, jihadists across the world have transformed their gendered violence, shocking the world by breaking from prior taboos and even celebrating abuses that they had previously prohibited. This behavior is surprising because jihadists represent a class of insurgents that are deeply bound by rules and norms. For jihadists, deviating from established Islamist doctrines is no easy feat. What then explains these sudden transformations in the rules and norms governing jihadist violence? An inductive investigation of contemporary jihadist violence in Pakistan and Nigeria reveals a new theory of jihadist normative evolution. Data from these cases show that dramatic changes in jihadist violence occur when an external trigger creates an expanded political space for jihadist entrepreneurs to do away with normative constraints on socially prohibited types of violence. As these jihadist leaders capitalize on the triggers, they are able to encourage a re-socialization process within their ranks, resulting in the erosion of previously held taboos, the adoption of proscribed behaviors, and the emergence of toxic new norms.","PeriodicalId":48667,"journal":{"name":"International Security","volume":"80 1","pages":"80-116"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74592452","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}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：