Entangling
Hawks Become Us: The Sense of Power and Militant Foreign Policy Attitudes
Caleb Pomeroy
Security Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does power shape foreign policy attitudes? Drawing on advances in psychological research on power, I argue that the sense of relative state power explains foreign policy hawkishness. The intuitive sense that "our state" is stronger than "your state" activates militant internationalism, an orientation centered on the efficacy of force and deterrence to achieve state aims. Beyond general orientation towards the world, this sense of power explains discrete attitudes towards pressing security issues, from threat perception in the South China Sea to nuclear weapons use against Iran. Five original surveys across the US, China, and Russia, as well as an experiment fielded on the US public, lend support to these claims. The psychological effects of state power overshadow dispositional traits common in behavioral IR, like individuals' personalities and moral proclivities. More surprisingly, power changes individuals, making hawks of even the most dovish. Taken together, the paper presents a "first image reversed" challenge to standard bottom-up accounts of foreign policy opinion and offers unique explanatory leverage in a potential era of US decline, China's rise, and Russian belligerence.
They're Still There, He's All Gone: American Fatalities in Foreign Wars and Right-Wing Radicalization at Home
Richard McAlexander, Michael Rubin & Rob Williams
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
What explains right-wing radicalization in the United States? Existing research emphasizes demographic changes, economic insecurity, and elite polarization. This paper highlights an additional factor: the impact of foreign wars on society at home. We argue communities that bear the greatest costs of foreign wars are prone to higher rates of right-wing radicalization. To support this claim, we present robust correlations between activity on Parler, a predominantly right-wing social media platform, and fatalities among residents who served in U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, at both the county and census tract level. The findings contribute to understanding right-wing radicalization in the US in two key respects. First, it examines widespread, nonviolent radical-right activity that, because it is less provocative than protest and violence, has eluded systematic measurement. Second, it highlights that U.S. foreign wars have important implications for domestic politics beyond partisanship and voting, to potentially include radicalization.
U.S. Military Should Not Be in My Backyard: Conjoint Experiments in Japan
Yusaku Horiuchi & Atsushi Tago
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
The war in Ukraine has manifested the critical importance of the American alliance network and the swift and effective deployment of necessary military assets. But do citizens of the U.S. allies support the deployment of such advanced, thus controversial, military assets in their countries? To examine this question, we administered two conjoint experiments in Japan, a critical U.S. ally in Asia. The results show the Japanese citizens' strong Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) sentiment: They value the U.S.-Japan alliance per se but do not want those advanced arms (specifically, Osprey and F-35 fighter jets) to be deployed in their vicinity, particularly when the U.S. military operates them. Our study contributes to the literature on alliance politics and civil-military relations by emphasizing the importance of paying close attention to local public opposition as a potential source of instability in global military alliances.
Hypersonic Weapons: Vulnerability to Missile Defenses and Comparison to MaRVs
David Wright & Cameron Tracy
Science & Global Security, forthcoming
Abstract:
Assessing the utility of hypersonic boost glide vehicles (BGVs) requires comparing their capabilities to alternative systems that could carry out the same missions, particularly given the technical difficulties and additional costs of developing BGVs compared to more established technologies. This paper discusses the primary motivations given for BGVs -- most notably countering missile defenses -- and summarizes current hypersonic development programs. It finds that evading the most capable current endo-atmospheric defenses requires that BGVs maintain speeds significantly higher than Mach 5 throughout their glide phase, which has implications for their mass and range. The paper then compares BGVs to maneuverable reentry vehicles (MaRVs) carried on ballistic missiles flown on depressed trajectories and shows that MaRVs can offer significant advantages over BGVs in a wide range of cases. Finally, the paper shows that BGV maneuvering during its glide phase can result in substantial costs in range and glide speed.
Shock Persistence and the Study of Armed Conflict: Empirical Biases and Some Remedies
Jenny Guardado & Steven Pennings
International Interactions, forthcoming
Abstract:
Poor employment prospects for potential insurgents are often thought to increase the intensity of armed conflict. A large empirical literature tries to identify the strength of this "opportunity cost" channel, in part by regressing conflict on commodity price shocks that affect the demand for workers. In this research note we develop a theoretical framework to interpret these empirical results. We argue that because commodity price shocks are usually persistent, the estimated strength of the opportunity cost mechanism will be biased upwards (towards zero) -- even for labor-intensive commodities whose price shocks are not permanent. We define this bias analytically and, using regressions on simulated data, show that it is quantitatively important for commodities studied in the literature. The bias occurs because persistent shocks that reduce employment prospects today are correlated with unobserved dynamic motivations to fight, such as the expected value of an oil field or a fighter's subjective value of a grievance. We conclude that the opportunity cost mechanism may be even stronger than has been estimated, and that researchers should use transient, seasonal or anticipated shocks to identify its magnitude.
Punching before the Bell Rings: United Nations Signaling and Pre-Deployment Violence in Civil Wars
Jacob Kathman, Michelle Benson & Paul Diehl
International Studies Quarterly, September 2023
Abstract:
In the post-Cold War era, United Nations (UN) peacekeeping has been an effective civil conflict mitigation tool. On the path to peacekeeping, the UN Security Council often signals its growing likelihood to deploy an operation by passing resolutions addressing the conflict. How do these signals affect violence levels in a pre-operation environment? We posit that conflict actors have incentives to improve their relative positions through violence as the UN signals its likelihood to intervene. Using a new dataset that links UNSC resolutions to active civil wars from 1989 to 2014, we find that resolution passage is significantly related to an increase in combatant use of anti-civilian violence. Additionally, as the signal strengthens with the passage of a greater number of resolutions, violence increases. Thus, although deployed peacekeeping operations may effectively protect non-combatants, the process leading to deployment can produce a dangerous environment for civilians.
Using Process Tracing to Investigate Elite Experience Accrual: Explaining Margaret Thatcher's Support for US Air Strikes Against Libya
Samuel Morgan
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
The United States' invasion of Grenada in 1983 represented the lowest point in Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan's relationship, with Thatcher incensed at what she perceived to be her ally's misuse of military force. However, in April 1986, Thatcher gave permission for the United States to use British-based aircraft for air strikes against the Gaddafi regime in Libya, a mission as tenuously grounded in international law as Grenada. How do we explain Thatcher's apparent change in approach to foreign policy, now placing strategic interests above her previous deference to international law, and what does this tell us about the role experience plays in a leader's foreign policy decisions? Drawing on insights from the ongoing behavioural revolution in International Relations, this paper argues that the experience Thatcher gained during the Grenada episode led to her support for US strikes against Libya. A process tracing approach using documents from the UK National Archives, as well as biographies and memoirs, tests this individual-level hypothesis against a rival structuralist explanation. This research shows how experience gained in office can influence a leader's future foreign policy decision-making and demonstrates the utility of process tracing methods for investigations into the role of experience in international politics.
Engaged Hawks and Quiet Doves: Introducing the National Defense Engagement Index
Leah Matchett
Legislative Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Members of Congress reveal their preferences on an issue, not only in how they vote, but also how they spend their time. I introduce and validate a new measure of Congressional engagement in national defense, based on the amount of time and legislative energy a member spends on defense issues. I demonstrate the utility of this index through the reexamination of two key puzzles in the literature on Congressional defense preferences: how veterans and members with military interests vote relative to their peers. Using the National Defense Engagement Index (NDEI) I find that both veterans and members who have military industry in their districts are much more likely to be engaged with defense than other members of Congress. These results help to resolve discrepancies in previous literature and suggest the benefit of investigating member engagement as a key part of research on Congressional behavior.
The Bomb as God: A metaphor that impedes nuclear disarmament
Jacques Hymans
Security Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
"Nuclear embeddedness" refers to a state's persistent failure to reconsider its possession of a nuclear arsenal. The sedimentation of the metaphor of the Bomb as God in a state's political culture consolidates "nuclear embeddedness." Because metaphorizing something as God puts it beyond even boundedly rational calculation, the metaphor of the Bomb as God effectively blocks a state from seeing its way clear to nuclear renunciation. The article probes the plausibility of this hypothesis with historical analyses of the nuclear policies of the U.S., India, Pakistan, and North Korea, and with case studies of three high-level American, British, and French nuclear officials who ultimately turned against the Bomb.