International Actor
The Opium Trade and Patterns of Terrorism in the Provinces of Afghanistan: An Empirical Analysis
James Piazza
Terrorism and Political Violence, Spring 2012, Pages 213-234
Abstract:
Contemporary terrorist movements in Afghanistan are frequently alleged to be fueled, in part, by the country's voluminous opium trade. Experts argue that terrorist groups currently active in Afghanistan, like the Afghan Taliban, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Hizbul Islami, and various al-Qaeda affiliates, use drug trade profits to recruit and pay cadres, acquire weapons and equipment, and bribe officials while becoming more powerful, and deadly, in the process. This study empirically examines the relationship between the opium trade and terrorism in Afghanistan by conducting a series of negative binomial regression estimations on terrorist attacks and casualties in the 34 Afghan provinces for the period 1996 to 2008. The analysis also considers various economic development, infrastructure, geographic, security, and cultural factors when examining causes of terrorism in the provinces. The study determines that, across all model specifications, provinces that produce more opium feature higher levels of terrorist attacks and casualties due to terrorism, and that opium production is a more robust predictor of terrorism than nearly all other province features. Furthermore, tests indicate that the direction of causation runs from opium production to higher rates of terrorism, not otherwise. The study concludes with a brief discussion of the policy implications of the findings.
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A Boom with Review: How Retrospective Oversight Increases the Foreign Policy Ability of Democracies
Michael Colaresi
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the ongoing debate concerning whether democracies can carry out effective national security policy, the role of transparency costs has received little attention. I argue for a more nuanced understanding of how some democracies that possess specific investigative institutions, such as national security-relevant freedom of information laws, legislative oversight powers, and press freedoms, are able to avoid the problems of which democracy skeptics warn. Using a new dataset on national security accountability institutions in democracies within a Bradley-Terry framework, I find that national security oversight mechanisms raise the probability that a democracy wins international disputes as well as increasing the expected number of enemy casualties, as compared to democracies that lack effective oversight. Contra previous theories of foreign policy efficacy, I find that the chances for democratic foreign policy success are maximized when competitive elections are linked to institutions that increase the retrospective revelation of previously classified information.
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The "new" military and income inequality: A cross national analysis
Jeffrey Kentor, Andrew Jorgenson & Edward Kick
Social Science Research, May 2012, Pages 514-526
Abstract:
Military expenditures have escalated over the last three decades in both developed and less developed countries, without a corresponding expansion of military personnel. Spending has instead been directed towards hi-tech weaponry, what we refer to as the "new" military. We hypothesize that this new, increasingly capital-intensive military is no longer a pathway of upward mobility or employer of last resort for many uneducated, unskilled, or unemployed people, with significant consequences for those individuals and society as a whole. One such consequence, we argue, is an increase in income inequality. We test this hypothesis with cross-national panel models, estimated for 82 developed and less developed countries from 1970 to 2000. Findings indicate that military capital-intensiveness, as measured by military expenditures per soldier, exacerbates income inequality net of control variables. Neither total military expenditures/GDP nor military participation has a significant effect. It appears from these findings that today's "new" military establishment is abrogating its historical role as an equalizing force in society, with important policy implications.
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What the Numbers Say: A Digit-Based Test for Election Fraud
Bernd Beber & Alexandra Scacco
Political Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
Is it possible to detect manipulation by looking only at electoral returns? Drawing on work in psychology, we exploit individuals' biases in generating numbers to highlight suspicious digit patterns in reported vote counts. First, we show that fair election procedures produce returns where last digits occur with equal frequency, but laboratory experiments indicate that individuals tend to favor some numerals over others, even when subjects have incentives to properly randomize. Second, individuals underestimate the likelihood of digit repetition in sequences of random integers, so we should observe relatively few instances of repeated numbers in manipulated vote tallies. Third, laboratory experiments demonstrate a preference for pairs of adjacent digits, which suggests that such pairs should be abundant on fraudulent return sheets. Fourth, subjects avoid pairs of distant numerals, so those should appear with lower frequency on tainted returns. We test for deviations in digit patterns using data from Sweden's 2002 parliamentary elections, Senegal's 2000 and 2007 presidential elections, and previously unavailable results from Nigeria's 2003 presidential election. In line with observers' expectations, we find substantial evidence that manipulation occurred in Nigeria as well as in Senegal in 2007.
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Television News, Public Opinion, and the Iraq War: Do Wartime Rationales Matter?
Kevin Coe
Communication Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
The idea that the public is swayed by the rationales for war that circulate throughout the media environment is well established in popular discourse. Research on the determinants of support for war, however, has largely ignored the role that such rationales might play. This study is the first to directly test the possibility that rationales for war present in news coverage influence public support for war. Pairing a detailed computer-assisted content analysis with measures of public support for the Iraq War, this study shows that, contrary to popular wisdom, rationales for war present in television news have only a limited impact on public attitudes about U.S. military action.
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Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet War Scare: The Untold Story
Benjamin Fischer
Intelligence and National Security, January/February 2012, Pages 75-92
Abstract:
During the Soviet war scare of the 1980s, British intelligence shared vital information from KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky with its American partners. The US intelligence community, however, was suspicious of the message and the messenger, dismissing Soviet ‘war talk' as disinformation. Some officials even believed that the British had tweaked their reports to influence US policy. President Ronald Reagan, however, on the advice of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, listened to Gordievsky rather than his intelligence advisors. The war scare had a profound influence on Reagan's thinking about nuclear war, Kremlin fears, and Soviet-American relations that led him to seek a new détente with Moscow and the end of the Cold War through diplomacy rather than confrontation. Subsequent events and post-Cold War revelations vindicated Gordievsky. Reagan sought his advice on the eve of his first summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev and later expressed his gratitude during a private meeting in the Oval Office.
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The Role of Iran in the Failed Coup of 1981: The IFLB in Bahrain
Hasan Tariq Alhasan
Middle East Journal, Autumn 2011, Pages 603-617
Abstract:
In December 1981, a group baptized al-Jabha al-Islamiyya li Tahrir al-Bahrayn [The Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain] unsuccessfully attempted to carry out a coup d'état in Bahrain. The group published newsletters and books in which it described its attempts to overthrow the Al Khalifa ruling family and install Iranian-style Islamic rule instead. These documents provide evidence for the group's involvement with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and of the support the Iranian regime provided for their activities against the Bahraini government.
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Persistent Fighting and Shifting Power
Robert Powell
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Three striking features about both interstate and civil war are (1) there are often periods of persistent fighting, (2) fighting commonly ends in negotiated settlements as well as in militarily decisive outcomes, and (3) fighting sometimes recurs. This article links these features to shifts in the distribution of power and to the fact that one of the functions of fighting is to forestall adverse shifts. The analysis centers on a simple model of state consolidation. The equilibrium displays these features: Fighting occurs when the distribution of power is shifting rapidly. The factions avoid fighting and cut deals when the distribution of power shifts slowly or is stable. Fighting resumes if the distribution of power again begins to shift rapidly. The analysis also shows that state consolidation can occur without fighting if the process is sufficiently slow. Fighting now rather than later can also reduce the total cost of fighting.
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Radionuclide Evidence for Low-Yield Nuclear Testing in North Korea in April/May 2010
Lars-Erik De Geer
Science & Global Security, Spring 2012, Pages 1-29
Abstract:
Between 13 and 23 May 2010, four atmospheric radionuclide surveillance stations, in South Korea, Japan, and the Russian Federation, detected xenon and xenon daughter radionuclides in concentrations up to 10 and 0.1 mBq/m3 respectively. All these measurements were made in air masses that had passed over North Korea a few days earlier. This article shows that these radionuclide observations are consistent with a North Korean low-yield nuclear test on 11 May 2010, even though no seismic signals from such a test have been detected. Appendix 1 presents a detailed analysis of the radioxenon data and Appendix 2 describes a hypothetical nuclear test scenario consistent with this analysis, including the possibility that the test used uranium-235 rather than plutonium-239. The analysis suggests that the technical and analytical basis to detect small nuclear tests using radionuclide signatures may be more developed than is generally assumed.
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Is camera surveillance an effective measure of counterterrorism?
Alois Stutzer & Michael Zehnder
Defence and Peace Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Camera surveillance has recently gained prominence in policy proposals on combating terrorism. We evaluate the instrument based on a comparative perspective and previous evidence on crime. We expect camera surveillance to have a relatively smaller deterrent effect on terrorism than on other forms of crime. In particular, we emphasize that: (i) terrorists have more opportunities for substitution; (ii) targets under camera surveillance might become more and not less attractive if terrorists aspire media attention; (iii) real-time interventions are limited as behaviour is only understood as suspicious in the light of hindsight; and (iv) closed-circuit television might crowd out social surveillance.
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Justified Uses of Force and the Crime of Aggression
Erin Creegan
Journal of International Criminal Justice, March 2012, Pages 59-82
Abstract:
This article contends that the crime of aggression should not have been codified in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The crime of aggression is an outlier in the Rome Statute, and not so unambiguously morally wrong as the humanitarian crimes of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Aggression is instead a political crime, which yields an abstract harm. The decision by states to use force is itself political, and should be subject to political sanctions rather than criminal ones. It should also be the providence of states, through changes in custom particularly, to determine which uses of force are legitimate and which are not. More than this, the article also disputes that the concept of ‘aggression' is a good one to distinguish positive and negative uses of force. Whether a use of force is also an incursion into sovereign territory is not as important as whether the use of force is committed for a just purpose or not. The article lists several examples of uses of aggressive force that show that penalization of aggression may be undesirable: humanitarian intervention, anticipatory self-defence, defence against non-state actors, prevention of conflict escalation, and intervention in favour of self-determination or democratic governance. The article thus concludes that uses of force by states should be decriminalized and further evaluated.
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How Plausible is Chinese Annexation of Territory on the Moon?
John Hickman
Astropolitics, Spring 2012, Pages 84-92
Abstract:
This article argues that a hypothetical decision by the People's Republic of China to assert territorial sovereignty over the area surrounding its planned manned Moon base is plausible. Enhanced international prestige in the near term and access to natural resources and strategic military positions in the long term may be sufficient temptations for China's leaders to challenge the United States to a twenty-first century space race. Strategic surprise could be successfully employed, given the opacity of Chinese decision-making; the conceptual blindness of external observers, including decision-makers, analysts, and academics; and China's repeatedly demonstrated capacity for executing military or diplomatic surprises of comparable magnitude. The ability of signatory states to withdraw from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty with one-year's notice means that international law only poses a temporary obstacle to such a decision. A manned Moon base would fulfill the condition of effective occupation necessary for territorial sovereignty under international law. An international relations constructivist approach discourages consideration of the advantages to states of territorial aggrandizement or the weakness of international law in restraining the behavior of states.
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Audience Costs: An Historical Analysis
Marc Trachtenberg
Security Studies, Winter 2012, Pages 3-42
Abstract:
This article examines the argument that the ability of a government to generate "audience costs" - to create a situation, that is, in which it would pay a domestic political price for backing down - plays a key role in determining how international crises run their course. It does this by looking at a dozen great power crises to see how well various aspects of the audience costs argument hold up in the light of the historical evidence. The audience costs mechanism, it turns out, does not play a major role in any of those crises - a conclusion which, the author claims, has certain important methodological implications.
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Connections Can Be Toxic: Terrorist Organizational Factors and the Pursuit of CBRN Weapons
Victor Asal, Gary Ackerman & Karl Rethemeyer
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, March 2012, Pages 229-254
Abstract:
Despite plentiful scholarship relating to the prospect of terrorists utilizing chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons, little of this work is both quantitative in nature and global in scope. Leveraging open-source data, this study quantitatively explores factors influencing the terrorist organizational decision to pursue CBRN weapons. The findings suggest that organizations embedded in alliance structures and based in authoritarian countries with relatively strong connections to a globalized world are more likely to seek to develop or acquire CBRN weapons. Contrary to previous qualitative studies, the present study failed to find a significant relationship between CBRN pursuit and religious ideology.
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Splitting Atoms: Why Do Countries Build Nuclear Power Plants?
Matthew Fuhrmann
International Interactions, Winter 2012, Pages 29-57
Abstract:
Why do countries build nuclear power plants? This article develops a series of arguments for national reliance on nuclear power relating to economic development, energy security, nuclear proliferation, the "supply side," norms, and nuclear accidents. Statistical tests of these arguments using a dataset on nuclear power plant construction in 129 countries from 1965 to 2000 yield two main conclusions. First, nuclear energy programs emerge and expand largely for innocuous reasons as a means to meet growing energy needs and enhance energy security. The evidence does not support the argument that countries pursue civilian nuclear power to augment nuclear weapons programs. If nuclear power contributes to nuclear proliferation, the former does not appear to take on a sinister dimension from the beginning. Second, major nuclear accidents substantially reduce the probability of reactor construction - especially in democracies and states that have not previously invested in nuclear energy. We are unlikely to observe a true "nuclear energy renaissance" in the aftermath of the March 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan. Accordingly, it is doubtful that nuclear power will be a meaningful solution to global climate change.
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Hizballah and Its Mission in Latin America
William Costanza
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, March 2012, Pages 193-210
Abstract:
The activities of Hizballah in Latin America generally have been viewed by governmental authorities in the region as a security concern primarily because of its importance in bilateral relations with the United States rather than as an internal terrorist threat targeted against their sovereign interests. This article explores Hizballah's network and past activities in South America to assess the nature of Hizballah's strategic aims in the region in support of its global organizational goals. The author argues that the perception of Hizballah as a legitimate political organization by Latin American governments has hampered efforts to effectively apply counterterrorism resources to root out the entrenched Hizballah infrastructure in the region that can potentially carry out directives by the Hizballah leadership or by serving as a proxy of Iran.
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Surreptitious Lifelines: A Structural Analysis of the FARC and the PKK
Vera Eccarius-Kelly
Terrorism and Political Violence, Spring 2012, Pages 235-258
Abstract:
The Armed Revolutionary Forces of Columbia (FARC) and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have both demonstrated an uncanny ability to transform themselves and adapt to changing environmental conditions. Integral to the groups are webbed criminal enterprises, cross-border sanctuaries, and internationally-oriented advocacy networks. Both organizations avoided catastrophic breakdowns through a combination of organic survival mechanisms and precise organizational restructuring. Since 2008, the FARC moved away from a centralized wheel structure model toward a system of multiple decision-making nodes. Guerrilla units now operate in an atomized manner since they are often disconnected from the central leadership. This encouraged a growing number of FARC commanders to focus on narco-profits rather than the organization's ideological goals. Meanwhile, the PKK functions in an octopus-like manner, extending its tentacles into neighboring countries and Europe. However, the process of democratization in Turkey and improved international law enforcement collaboration increased internal as well as external pressure on the PKK to restructure. As a result the PKK is struggling to keep its far-reaching tentacles coordinated. The PKK misjudged its ability to manage political groups which weakened its ideological grip, yet the organization's control over criminal and guerrilla branches continues to be as fierce as ever. The FARC's and the PKK's organizational changes suggest that security agencies in Colombia and Turkey need to adapt their counterterrorism strategies also.
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Managing Global Counterinsurgency: The Special Group (CI) 1962-1966
Jeffrey Michaels
Journal of Strategic Studies, January/February 2012, Pages 33-61
Abstract:
The contemporary American counterinsurgency discourse has emphasised a particular historical narrative of Vietnam to justify large-scale military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Absent from this narrative is any reference to the broader Cold War context in which Vietnam existed alongside numerous other small-scale counterinsurgencies and was therefore the exception, not the rule. This article seeks to redress this shortcoming by examining the way counterinsurgency was conceived and managed at the level of ‘grand strategy.' Specifically, it focuses on the Special Group (Counterinsurgency) to demonstrate that senior policymakers under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson understood ‘counterinsurgency' as involving ‘indirect' assistance to foreign governments, rather than taking ‘direct' military action with American ground forces.