The title of Philip Snow’s massive new book is apt: China and Russia: Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord is essentially the thesis of the book. Over the course of the four hundred years or so covered in the book, Snow argues that the power dynamic between the entities called “China” and “Russia” vacillated from…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-24 on Zhang, China’s Gambit
Ketian Zhang’s book seeks to depart from “pessimistic” and superficial assumptions about China’s behavior and the “likelihood of major conflicts” involving the Asian country (2). China, she maintains, “utilizes a full spectrum of coercive tools” (2), and its foreign policy is central to regional security in the Indo-Pacific, while also providing an example of rising…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-23 on Rakove, Days of Opportunity
For students of contemporary history, Afghanistan has become virtually synonymous with upheaval, instability, bloodshed, warfare—and tragedy. Over the past nearly half-century, the embattled country and its long-suffering citizens have experienced invasions, occupations, armed resistance movements, impoverishment, severe economic dislocation, the displacement of millions of refugees, and repressive misrule by religious fanatics. Scholars, journalists, and policy…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 116: Preble on Brands, ed., The New Makers of Modern Strategy
In the 45th and final chapter of The New Makers of Modern Strategy, John Lewis Gaddis notes that the first Makers of Modern Strategy “edited by Edward Mead Earle, came out in 1943, two years before the militarily foreseeable end of an era of ‘world’ wars that had begun twenty-nine years earlier. The second, under…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 115: Lim on Han, The Ripple Effect
One of the major strengths of The Ripple Effect is its context-sensitive deliberation on the multifaceted nature of China’s presence in primarily the Mekong states of Southeast Asia. Unlike other works that focus solely on, say, economics or politics, the book weaves together a broad spectrum of influences, encompassing economic ties, cultural diplomacy, geopolitical maneuvering,…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 114: James on Gavin, The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty
With The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty: Rethinking International Relations and American Grand Strategy in a New Era, Francis Gavin has written an elegant and thought-provoking extended essay on the challenges facing the modern world, offering reflections on how to formulate an adequate grand strategy for not only the US, but also…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-22 on Tudor, Blue Helmet Bureaucrats
When asked to think of the United Nations (UN), many of my students picture blue-helmeted soldiers. In UN hagiography, peacekeeping is synonymous with forceful, self-sacrificial, and benevolent internationalism. The reality is, of course, more complicated.
H-Diplo | RJISSF Article Review 173: Rovner on Stein, “Bringing Politics Back In”
Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel occurred over a year ago, but it will be a long time before we can list all the consequences. What we know already is devastating. Hamas killed about 1,200 Israelis and took 251 hostages back to Gaza. Israel’s response was a ferocious war in Gaza, a combined air and ground…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Commentary III-3 on Marc Trachtenberg, “Is There Life after NATO?”
H-Diplo | Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum Commentary III-3 Forum on Marc Trachtenberg, “Is There Life after NATO?” 16 January 2025 | PDF: https://issforum.org/to/CIII-3 | Website: rjissf.org | Twitter: @HDiplo Editor: Diane Labrosse | Commissioning Editor: Diane Labrosse | Production Editor: Christopher Ball Contents Introduction by Jack Snyder, Columbia University. 2 “Is There Life after NATO?” by Marc Trachtenberg, UCLA. 5…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 113: Friend on Freedman, Command
It is hard to know where to start in reviewing a book like Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine, Sir Lawrence Freedman’s most recent capacious history of a military phenomenon. In previous work, Freedman has tackled strategy and nuclear deterrence—pretty much all of both.[1] Here, he sets out to examine “the…