On Wars, without a subtitle, is Michael Mann’s latest contribution to a long and distinguished career as a professor of sociology on both sides of the Atlantic. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of California–Los Angeles. Most famous for the four-volume The Sources of Social Power, which was produced over decades, Mann has…
Tag: Japan
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 16-3 on Mukherjee, Ascending Order
Over the last decade or so, the International Relations (IR) literature has increasingly turned its attention to the crucial role of status and status-seeking in influencing state interactions and the shape of international order. Recent real-world politics has only underscored the importance of thinking about status given that, on the one hand, the international order…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 15-55 on Henry, Reliability and Alliance Interdependence
The interdependence of alliance commitments, specifically the notions that the United States must continually demonstrate loyalty to allies and that a failure to back any ally (no matter how strategically insignificant or obstreperous) would surely lead other allies to question the credibility of US security guarantees, has long been conventional wisdom among policymakers in Washington,…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Article Review 168: Hunt on Ito and Rentetzi, The Co-Production of Nuclear Science and Diplomacy”
Kenji Ito and Maria Rentetzi make a clear and ambitious claim in the introduction to their special issue of History and Technology: “Knowledge production in science and technology is fundamentally diplomatic” (4). Their call to explore how nuclear science, technology, and engineering have been enacted through negotiations among states is of a piece with longstanding…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 15-32 on Matsuda, Voluntary Submission
Takeshi Matsuda opens his study of postwar Japanese-American relations, Voluntary Subordination, by reproducing the title of Charles Beard’s presidential address to the American Historical Association in 1934: “Written History as an Act of Faith.”[1] It is an intriguing beginning point, not least because of the timing of Beard’s assertion, and its implications. When he spoke…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Review Essay 78 on Skabelund, Inglorious, Illegal Bastards
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…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Article Review 159: Michel on Allcock, “Diplomacy, the Media, and a Search for Legitimacy”
H-Diplo | Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum Article Review 159 Thomas Tunstall Allcock, “Diplomacy, the Media, and a Search for Legitimacy: Reassessing Gerald Ford’s Pacific Tours.” Diplomacy & Statecraft 33:4 (Dec. 2022): 741-771. DOI: 10.1080/09592296.2022.2143119. Reviewed by Eddie Michel, University of Pretoria 2 June 2023| PDF: http://issforum.org/to/JAR-159 | Website: rjissf.org Editor: Diane Labrosse |…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Rountable on Chung, Pride, Not Prejudice: National Identity as a Pacifying Force in East Asia
I was enormously curious over the claim coming out of the book’s title when asked to introduce this book in this H-Diplo Roundtable. As my fellow reviewers here noted as well, the book’s main claim runs opposite to a well-established view, at least in the discipline of political science and international relations, on the causal…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Commentary: “Japan’s New NSS: Zeitenwende or Time-Tested Tradition?”
Japan’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) and its associated National Defense Strategy and National Buildup Program, which were announced on 16 December, have provoked commentary on the radical change in Japanese security policy.[1] The country’s first ever National Security Strategy was introduced in 2013, and a revision of that document had long been in the…