The bitter rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is more than just a contest for regional influence. It is certainly no run-of-the-mill cold war as far as U.S. officials are concerned, as it involves issues that have dominated polity attention for the last two decades: terrorism, nuclear weapons, and oil. The conflict threatens U.S. forces…
Article Review 92 on “Dangerous Days: The Impact of Nationalism on Interstate Conflict”
Nationalism is back. From the rise of nationalist parties in Europe, to Brexit, to the election of an American President who declares “America First,” nationalism has once again become a buzzword in world politics. Despite its resurgence, however, our understanding of how nationalism shapes international outcomes and politics among nations remains incomplete. Ever since Stephen…
Review Essay 38 on Burdens of War: Creating the United States Veterans Health System
Jessica L. Adler, who teaches history and health policy at Florida International University, offers us a valuable, well-organized, and carefully researched history of the origin and early development of what is today the mammoth and often troubled Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system. Mammoth it is; the VA treats over 9 million veterans…
Roundtable 10-8 on China’s Hegemony: Four Hundred Years of East Asian Domination
Joining the growing list of international relations (IR) scholars who are turning to historical analyses of alternative, non-Westphalian diplomatic systems for insights into the creation and maintenance of political order is Ji-Young Lee, whose book, China’s Hegemony: Four Hundred Years of East Asian Domination, provides an empirically rich and theoretically insightful account of premodern East…
Roundtable 10-7 on Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy
With the Trump administration debating whether to certify that Iran is complying with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), colloquially known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, this Roundtable on the tortuous path to its conclusion is timely. Our reviewers bring special expertise to the task. Robert Gallucci was the lead negotiator for the…
Fitzsimmons Response to Article Review 87
It is gratifying to see the discussion in this forum prompted by Jacqueline Hazelton’s recent International Security article,[1] since scholarly debates about counterinsurgency have receded from the spotlight over the past decade. One hopes that this hiatus will be short-lived given the rich empirical opportunities presented by the recent history of operations in Iraq and…
Policy Roundtable 2-3: The New Austrian Government and the Rise of the Far-Right in Europe
Austria, a small nation state in the heart of Europe with less than 9 million inhabitants, is usually not at the center of world political attention. Without doubt, outside of the country more people are able to name the main characters of The Sound of Music than can list any members of the Austrian government….
Roundtable 10-6 on The Cybersecurity Dilemma: Hacking, Trust, and Fear Between Nations
Cybersecurity is a relatively new foreign policy problem. A decade ago, it received little attention, but since 2013 the Director of National Intelligence has named cybersecurity risks the biggest threat facing the nation. The non-profit Council on Foreign Relations “Cyber Operations Tracker” contains almost 200 state sponsored attacks by 16 countries. The list includes one…
Article Review 91 on “Nuclear Beliefs: A Leader-Focused Theory of Counter-Proliferation.”
In “Nuclear Beliefs: A Leader-Focused Theory of Counter-Proliferation,” Rachel Whitlark advances a new framework to explain why military force is rarely employed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. According to power transition theory, a nuclear weapons program should spark an intense security dilemma with a high risk of war as other nations consider using…
Article Review 90 on “Future Warfare in the Western Pacific: Chinese Antiaccess/Area Denial, U.S. AirSea Battle, and Command of the Commons in East Asia” and on “Should the United States Reject MAD? Damage Limitation and U.S. Nuclear Strategy toward China.”
When the Cold War ended in the late 1980s, Washington and Beijing were on good terms–the military balance between the two countries was not politically salient. Much has happened in the ensuing decades. While American attention turned towards battling Iraq in two wars, responding to the threat posed by al-Qaida in Afghanistan and around the…