How long will the United States remain the world’s sole superpower, uniquely capable of commanding the commons and projecting sustained military power to overseas regions? Why has the United States been so prone to use military force in the years since the Soviet Union collapsed? And how might answers to these questions hinge on strategic…
Article Review 41 on “Stalking the Secure Second Strike: Intelligence, Counterforce, and Nuclear Strategy.”
In this smart, provocative piece, Austin Long and Brendan Rittenhouse Green issue a ringing challenge to the conventional wisdom about the viability of secure, second-strike nuclear forces. As they note at the outset, “the ability of a nuclear force to absorb a preemptive attack and nonetheless retaliate with enough weapons to cause unacceptable damage” is…
Article Review 40 on Canada and NORAD
Given recent trends in American strategy, militarily relevant science and technology, and the global balance of power, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is in the process of gaining a new lease on life, regardless of whether Canadian and American politicians wish it to be so. The three analyses under review offer many specific…
Article Review 39 on “Increasing Canadian Foreign Intelligence Capability: Is it a Dead Issue?”
Stuart Farson and Nancy Teeple identify an interesting puzzle in the history of Canadian public policy. Why, in spite of several periods of open reflection about the matter, does the federal government eschew the setting up of a foreign intelligence service? The idea of foreign intelligence gathering came in and out of Canadian dialogue at…
Roundtable 8-2 on The Official History of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Vol. I: From the Approach of the Second World War to the Suez Crisis
The publication of the first volume of Michael Goodman’s much anticipated official history of the British Joint Intelligence Committee is a major event for students of intelligence and international relations. For nearly eighty years the Joint Intelligence Committee [JIC] has been at the center of the British foreign and security policy machinery. The JIC system…
Roundtable 8-1 on Looking for Balance: China, the United States, and Power Balancing in East Asia
Will Asia be the site of the next major global conflict or will Asia’s future continue to be characterized by peace and stability? This question has invited a veritable multitude of arguments and counterarguments during the last two decades as scholars have tried to assess the implications of growing Chinese power for the international system….
Welcome to ISSF
Welcome to the website for the International Security Studies Forum, a production of H-Diplo, the International Studies Association’s Security Studies Section, and the journals International Security, Security Studies, and the Journal of Strategic Studies. ISSF is currently funded by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation. Learn more about us and our personnel on our About…
Roundtable 7-20 on Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency
In 2015 the United States faces a number of opportunities to intervene with military force in countries of secondary or even less strategic importance to U.S. policy makers. President Barack Obama’s completion of the withdrawal of American ground combat troops from Iraq, and plans to draw down U.S. troops from Afghanistan, have not reduced…
Article Review 38 on “The Impact of China on Cybersecurity: Fiction and Friction.”
As Geoffrey Blainey, the prominent Australian scholar, wrote long ago, “For every thousand pages published on the causes of wars, there is less than one page directly on the causes of peace.”[1] The field of international security studies seems to have such an alarmist tendency, as most publications focus on conflict and war rather than…
Roundtable 7-19 on Knowing the Adversary: Leaders Intelligence and Assessment of Intentions in International Relations
How political leaders and their intelligence agencies assess the long-term intentions of their adversaries in international politics, how their assessments change in response to changes in the adversary’s capabilities or behavior, and the extent to which political leaders rely on their intelligence agencies are old questions in the study of international relations. The assessment of…