By discussing the history of the nuclear disarmament of Ukraine, Mariana Budjeryn’s book offers a significant contribution to the literature on Russia’s war on Ukraine. The author elegantly discusses Russia’s ambition to become the only nuclear successor state to the Soviet Union and how this goal led to the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Additionally,…
Category: Roundtables
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-28 on Allen et al., Beyond the Wire
Reporting over the last two years has indicated China’s interest in contesting the US military presence in places where China claims “historical connections.”[1] This has involved public statements as well as attempts to stir up local opposition to the US presence, and most recently, to a study by researchers at Tsinghua University who claimed that…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-27 on Specter, Atlantic Realists
Neoconservatives used to say that they abandoned liberalism because they were “mugged by reality.” [1]The line’s rhetorical punch was easy to grasp. Some political beliefs allow you to wander the world blissfully ignorant of its dangers. Sometimes, however, these dangers become impossible to ignore. They grab you, shake you out of your dreamworld, and force…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-26 on Wilford, The CIA
In his latest book, The CIA: An Imperial History, Hugh Wilford recognizes the impossibility of being comprehensive. Because the life-span of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was founded in 1947 and is still functioning today, coincides with the period of America’s status as a great power, it would be an unachievable task to cram…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-25 on Snow, China and Russia
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 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 Roundtable 16-21 on Whitlark, All Options on the Table
Rachel Whitlark’s All Options on the Table: Leaders, Preventive War, and Nuclear Proliferation brings together two critical areas of international relations research: nuclear politics and the role of individual leaders. After the Cold War ended, many historians and political scientists turned their attention away from nuclear weapons—and even, for a few years, from international security more…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-20 on Cox, Agonies of Empire
Agonies of Empire is the product of years of thinking about the United States. Michael Cox reflects on the recent past—the decades of what we still refer to as the “post–Cold War”—to understand the difficulties and limits of US global power.