Making War
Is the decline of war a delusion? The long peace phenomenon and the modernization peace -- the explanation that refutes or subsumes all others
Azar Gat
Journal of Strategic Studies, November 2024, Pages 776-800
Abstract:
The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the China challenge, revive the question of whether the world is becoming more peaceful. Realists’ claim that we told you so compares oranges with cabbage. Today’s world is divided into a “zone of peace”, encompassing all the developed countries, and a “zone of war”, comprising less developed countries. Within the former, interstate wars, civil wars, and the “security dilemma” itself have all disappeared. The Long Peace since 1945 is widely attributed to nuclear deterrence. However, the sharp decrease in war had begun during the 19th century. The effect of industrialization is the greatest lacuna in IR theory. The Malthusian Trap that plagued premodern societies has been broken. Wealth is no longer finite and a zero-sum game. This transformation has made democracies as well as nondemocracies fight much less, and has sharply increased international trade. It underlies both the democratic/liberal and capitalist/trade interdependence peace.
Nationalism, Internationalism, and Interventionism: How Overseas Military Service Influences Foreign Policy Attitudes
Bradford Waldie
International Studies Quarterly, December 2024
Abstract:
How does military experience change individual foreign policy preferences? Prior research on military service focuses on the effects of combat experience on political participation and policy preferences, but combat is not the only military experience that influences attitudes. Living overseas is a common military experience with the potential to shape foreign policy preferences. Using observational data from a sample of military elites and original survey data from a sample of military veterans, I leverage semi-random and non-voluntary assignments to overseas military bases to investigate the relationship between overseas exposure and foreign policy preferences. The data provides evidence that overseas military service increases the likelihood of calling for international engagement, decreases nationalist attitudes, and increases the willingness of military members to assist individual allies. The ability to shape the preferences of military members has important implications for the development of foreign policy and the stability of international engagement.
Arms and Elections: Arms Deals with Autocracies, Defense Contracting and U.S. Presidential Elections
Joshua Alley
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The United States makes more arms deals with autocracies during election years. U.S. leaders sell arms to autocrats to bolster their electoral prospects by claiming credit for providing jobs and increasing defense contracting. Autocratic arms recipients have the political flexibility to order arms around elections and increase their security by taking arms. Three major pieces of evidence support this argument. First, I detail electoral cycles in arms deals between the United States and autocracies. I then show that arms deals increase defense contract awards in swing states. Finally, I unpack the process by showing how deal timing shifts after regime change, that U.S. allies drive most of the autocratic arms deals cycle and that the same platforms that move in arms deals increase swing state contracts. The argument and results detail an electoral driver of U.S. security cooperation with autocrats.
Assessing the Lethality of Conventional Weapons against Strategic Missile Silos in the United States, Russia, and China
Ryan Snyder
Science & Global Security, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper provides a framework for assessing the vulnerability of strategic missile silos in the United States, Russia, and China to conventional weapons with any accuracy or explosive yield. Comparisons between ground motions induced by nuclear surface bursts and earth-penetrating conventional explosions were made to calculate the maximum distance at which a silo-based missile would be vulnerable to a conventional detonation. Single-shot kill probabilities then confirmed that U.S. long-range air- and sea-based precision conventional cruise missiles possess lethalities against missile silos comparable to U.S. nuclear ballistic missiles: typically well above 90%. This result suggests that long-range conventional weapons may not only be substituted for the silo counterforce targeting roles of nuclear weapons, but may have broader strategic stability and defense implications due to the relative survivability of and reliance on specific nuclear forces among nuclear powers and regional defense dynamics driving the acquisition of similar weapons by more countries.
Defending the fortress: How asset ownership shapes the desire to resist foreign aggression
Albert Weckman & Anton Brännlund
Journal of Peace Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
In recent years, security policy attitudes have surged to the forefront of public discourse, especially amidst geopolitical shifts like Russia’s incursions into Ukraine and China’s assertiveness in the South Asian Sea. Yet, despite its significance, scholarly focus on these attitudes, particularly concerning the will to resist foreign aggression, remains scant. This research endeavors to fill this gap by exploring the correlation between economic resources, primarily tangible asset ownership, and defense-related attitudes. Drawing on multiyear survey data from Finland -- a nation uniquely positioned given its mandatory military service for males and its proximity to Russia’s sphere of interest -- we find a strong association between tangible asset ownership and an increased willingness among citizens to resist foreign incursions. This relationship becomes even more pronounced during times of geopolitical uncertainty, underscoring the importance of the prevailing security environment in shaping these attitudes. While we do not refute previous arguments regarding increased economic opportunities leading to decreased war proclivity, we emphasize the conditional nature of this relationship, contingent upon the immediate threat to one’s material possessions. In essence, citizens are more inclined to defend what they have when the specter of war looms large.
Do birds of a feather deter better? Cultural affinity and alliance deterrence
Saera Lee, Addison Huygens & Sara McLaughlin Mitchell
International Interactions, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using a new latent measure of cultural affinity in military alliances (1816–2011), this study shows that states are less likely to be targets of militarized disputes or wars if they are members of defensive alliances with more culturally similar states. The theory posits that alliances between culturally similar states are designed with rules and norms that reflect the community’s shared interests, which helps the members handle intra-alliance conflicts, and strengthens the overall credibility of the agreements, deterring attacks on outside members. Empirical analyses of politically relevant dyads with alliance ties shows that cultural affinity provides deterrence benefits in alliances between democracies (e.g., NATO) or between autocracies (e.g., Arab League, Gulf Cooperation Council) and that the deterrence results are strongest for potential targets that are non-democratic.
Tracking Forecasting Accuracy of Geopolitical Schools of Thought -- and Causes of their Predictive Successes and Failures
Philip Tetlock
Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
International relations theories have often been faulted for not advancing falsifiable forecasts. Given the complexities of geopolitics and the near impossibility of satisfying the “ceteris paribus” clause in scientific hypothesis testing, this criticism imposes an unfair standard. It is reasonable however to ask about the predictive track records of international relations theorists who enter high-stakes policy debates. Whether a neorealist of neo-institutionalist proves an adroit or maladroit forecaster sheds little light on the truth status of their preferred theory but considerable light on: (a) how much credence to attach to their claims about the likely outcomes of pursuing various policy options in specific theaters of conflict; (b) how superior forecasters blend abstract covering laws with real-world knowledge to generate well-calibrated probability estimates.
Rethinking the Role of Teams and Training in Geopolitical Forecasting: The Effect of Uncontrolled Method Variance on Statistical Conclusions
Clifford Hauenstein et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using data from a geopolitical forecasting tournament, Mellers et al. (2014) [Psychological strategies for winning a geopolitical forecasting tournament. Psychological Science, 25, 1106–1115] concluded that forecasting ability was improved by allowing participants to work in teams and providing them with probability training. Here, we reevaluated Mellers et al.’s conclusions using an item response theory framework that models latent ability from forecasting choices. We found that the relationship between latent ability estimates and forecast accuracy differed from the interpretation of the original findings once key extraneous variables were statistically controlled. The best fit models across the first 2 years of the tournament included one or more extraneous variables that substantially eliminated, reduced, and, in some cases, even reversed the effects of the experimental manipulations of teaming and training on latent forecasting ability. We also show that latent traits associated with strategic responding can discriminate between superforecasters and non-superforecasters, making it difficult to identify the latent factors that underlie the superforecasters’ superior performance.