Three quarters of a century since the first and only use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear landscape has changed substantially in terms of the number of nuclear powers, the size of nuclear arsenals, and the destructiveness of the weapons themselves. Despite this transformation, the basic questions occupying both policymakers and scholars…
Tag: United States
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-30 on Bush and Prather, Monitors and Meddlers
H-Diplo | Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum Roundtable Review 16-30 Sarah Sunn Bush and Lauren Prather, Monitors and Meddlers: How Foreign Actors Influence Local Trust in Elections. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022. ISBN: 9781009204262. 4 April 2025 | PDF: https://issforum.org/to/jrt16-30 | Website: rjissf.org | Twitter: @HDiplo Editor: Diane Labrosse Commissioning Editor: Jeff Colgan Production Editor: Christopher Ball Pre-Production Copy…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-29 on Budjeryn, Inheriting the Bomb
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,…
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 Commentary III-3 on Marc Trachtenberg, “Is There Life after NATO?”
H-Diplo | Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum Commentary III-3 Forum on Marc Trachtenberg, “Is There Life after NATO?” 16 January 2025 | PDF: https://issforum.org/to/CIII-3 | Website: rjissf.org | Twitter: @HDiplo Editor: Diane Labrosse | Commissioning Editor: Diane Labrosse | Production Editor: Christopher Ball Contents Introduction by Jack Snyder, Columbia University. 2 “Is There Life after NATO?” by Marc Trachtenberg, UCLA. 5…
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 16-17 on Lonergan and Lonergan, Escalation Dynamics in Cyberspace
Although for over a quarter century an increasing number of states have acquired and used cyber capabilities, and cyberspace has become an increasingly important arena for international security interaction, far too many national intelligence and defense scholars, practitioners, and policymakers have sidestepped its vital role, either claiming that the technical barriers to entry are too…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-16 on Walton, Spies
Spies! What a great title! I could feel the ground shift within the first few pages of Calder Walton’s blockbuster accounting of the twentieth century “epic intelligence war between east and west.” Cold War historiography is again on the move and Walton, who is the assistant director of the Belfer Center’s Applied History Project, at…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Commentary III-2 on Marc Trachtenberg, “Operation Farewell and the Siberian Pipeline Explosion”
It is a treat to read something, anything, that Marc Trachtenberg writes. The reasons go beyond the originality and authority of his substantive contributions to international history and international relations. Trachtenberg focused on European foreign relations before shifting to the United States, and, as is well known, trained in history and a titan in the…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-8 on Brew. Petroleum and Progress in Iran
For nearly half a century, the United States has tried to hobble the Iranian economy. The Carter administration first imposed sanctions in the wake of the 1979 American embassy takeover. Despite some periods of détente, like the Mohammad Khatami presidency of 1997-2004 and the immediate aftermath of the 2015 nuclear deal, the general trend has…