Throughout the postwar era, the question of military power has sparked some of Japan’s most intense political debates. After a devastating and destructive war that many blamed on the imperial military, the question of whether a peaceful and democratic Japan should or could possess military power was extraordinarily potent. The country’s new constitution, which was…
Tag: Cold War
H-Diplo|RJISSF Review Essay 71: Buono on Bowen, Original Sin
To grasp what Bleddyn Bowen calls “the original sin of space technology” (3)—its military heritage—one only need follow the daily press. Lawmakers are pushing to create a Space National Guard from which the fledgling US Space Force can draw experienced personnel.[1] SpaceX, after providing internet services to Ukrainian troops through its Starlink satellite constellation, has…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable on Maurer, Competitive Arms Control
Arms control is complicated. It is a process marked by countless studies and even more meetings, ranging from early internal deliberations weighing the benefits and drawbacks of talks to the give-and-take of years spent at the bargaining table.
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable 14-23 on Wight, Oil Money
David Wight opens his book with a stunning example of the hubris inspired by the petrodollar bonanza of the 1970s: a proposal by White House Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld for an Arab space agency, developed in partnership with the United States but paid for by Arab oil producers. Wight notes Rumsfeld’s belief that such…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable 14-20 on Reynolds, Need to Know
I must confess I love anniversaries. Particularly, I should add, the historical kind. And 2022 was a banner year, in this regard. Not only was it the 50th anniversary of the Watergate burglary, the 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 75th anniversary of the passage of the National Security Act and the formation…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Article Review 158: McCoy on Fibiger, “Indonesia and the Third Indochina War”
H-Diplo | Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum Article Review 158 Mattias E. Fibiger, “Indonesia and the Third Indochina War: The End of Containment.” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 29, no. 3 (2022): 240–270. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/18765610-29030003. 17 May 2023 |PDF: https://issforum.org/to/jar-158 | Website: rjissf.org Editor: Diane Labrosse | Commissioning Editor: Thomas Maddux | Production Editor:…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable 14-19 on Bartel The Triumph of Broken Promises
H-Diplo | Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum Roundtable Review 14-19 Fritz Bartel, The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022. ISBN: 9780674976788 15 May 2023 |PDF: https://issforum.org/to/jrt14-19 | Website: rjissf.org Editor: Diane Labrosse | Commissioning Editor: Thomas Maddux | Production…
H-Diplo | ISSF Forum 36 (2002) on the Scholarship of Walter LaFeber
“Walt” Let me begin by talking about a picnic in one of Madison’s beautiful parks near a lake in midsummer 1957. It was ideal weather and the three of us (Walt LaFeber, Tom McCormick, and myself) were talking with our wives about our graduate school experience, the profession, and the unknown future. I was surprised…
H-Diplo Roundtable XXIII-11 on The Revolution that Failed: Nuclear Competition, Arms Control, and the Cold War
Do nuclear weapons revolutionize world politics? For decades, the standard answer from international relations scholars has been a resounding yes. This mainstream view, known as ‘The Theory of the Nuclear Revolution,’ is associated with scholars such as Kenneth Waltz, Robert Jervis, and Charles Glaser. [1]It argues that nuclear weapons generate a condition of mutual vulnerability that…
Review Essay 60 on “Explaining Divergent Trends in Coups and Mutinies”
Military disloyalty and disobedience can take several forms. Some acts of disobedience are individual in nature—a single officer refusing to follow a direct order, for instance, or deserting his or her unit.[1] Others, such as mass desertions or defections, coups d’état, and mutinies, are collective endeavors.[2] While instances of collective disobedience have often been treated…