Nearly twenty years ago, Robert Ross wrote an influential article on the sources of stability in East Asia. He argued that while the United States and China were destined to engage in great-power competition, geography and structural factors would lead to a stable regional bipolar balance. The United States would focus on maintaining its maritime…
Policy Series: Trump and Europe – An Inauspicious Start
European public opinion has a problem with U.S. Republican Presidents. Ronald Reagan was deeply mistrusted in his early years in power;[1] George W. Bush was regarded as a disaster and liability well before the crisis-scarred end of his term.[2] Barack Obama, meanwhile, continued to enjoy excellent approval ratings on this side of the Atlantic.[3] As…
Policy Series: Expertise and Naïveté in Decision-Making: Theory, History, and the Trump Administration
Donald Trump has never claimed to be a foreign policy expert.[1] He does not like in-depth reading, and prefers one-page policy option papers with “lots of graphics and maps.”[2] He claims to have a “very good brain,” and promises to be a strong leader who puts “America first” and makes it “great again.”[3] Should we…
Policy Series: Will Trumpism increase the Danger of War in the International System?: IR Theory and the Illiberal Turn in World Politics
This short piece focuses on mapping and evaluating some of the expectations of International Relations (IR) theory with regard to the potential effects of Trumpism and the illiberal turn in world politics on war and peace.[1] Obviously, there is a high degree of uncertainty here, but that does not mean that such an intellectual exercise…
Policy Series: “The Art of the Bluff: The U.S.-Japan Alliance under the Trump Administration”
Tell us this cannot happen, the Japanese said to their American friends, listening to Republican Party nominee Donald J. Trump during the 2016 campaign. Trump attacked Japan as an economic predator, disdained American allies as free riders, and broadly rejected the U.S. grand strategy that had benefited Japan tremendously. Friends in Boston and Washington D.C….
Policy Roundtable 1-8: Immigration and Refugee Policy in Donald Trump’s America
Donald Trump made immigration and refugee policy central to his presidential campaign. According to Trump, radical Islamic extremism and the massive refugee flows out of the Middle East combined to created unacceptable risks. Following the December 2015 mass shooting in San Bernadino, California, the Trump campaign called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims…
Article Review 75 on “Weaving Tangled Webs: Offense, Defense, and Deception in Cyberspace.”
The recent Democratic National Committee e-mail hack, and revelations passed on to Wikileaks, by Russia, illustrate the complicated nature of cyber statecraft. While there are many theories and ideas about cyber war, few scholars have articulated a realistic way to examine the cyber domain as it confronts a new way to conduct espionage and information…
Policy Series: Trump and Historical Legacies of U.S. Middle East Policy
The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States has prompted deep reflection, even soul-searching, by scholars of international affairs.[1] For the historians among them, the natural tendency is to connect the past to the present, and even the future. What major historical continuities in U.S. Middle East policy is Trump inheriting from…
Policy Series: “Trumpism, History, and the Future of U.S. Foreign Relations”
Trying to make critical sense of the current state of foreign affairs is treacherous business for anyone, but for an historian it comes close to pursuing a death wish. Even with all the advantages of hindsight, the past remains shrouded to varying degrees, while decoding the present is like trying to see through a blinding…
Authors’ Response to Article Review 71 on “Soft Balancing in the Americas: Latin American Opposition to U.S. Intervention, 1898-1936.”
We thank Christopher Darnton for his thoughtful and useful critique, and we are in agreement with many of his points. However, Darnton perhaps overstates the goals of our article. Notably, Darnton faults the article for failing to test a “causal explanation of Latin American foreign policy against alternatives.” Our article does not claim to test…