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CIAO DATE:04/07
International Security, Spring 2006 (Volume 30, Issue 4)
The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of U.S. Primacy by Keir A. Lieber, Daryl G. Press
For nearly half a century, the world's most powerful nuclear-armed states have been locked in a condition of mutual assured destruction. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the nuclear balance has shifted dramatically. The U.S. nuclear arsenal has steadily improved; the Russian force has sharply eroded; and Chinese nuclear modernization has progressed at a glacial pace. As a result, the United States now stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy, meaning that it could conceivably disarm the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia and China with a nuclear first strike. A simple nuclear exchange model demonstrates that the United States has a potent first-strike capability. The trajectory of nuclear developments suggests that the nuclear balance will continue to shift in favor of the United States in coming years. The rise of U.S. nuclear primacy has significant implications for relations among the world's great powers, for U.S. foreign policy, and for international relations scholarship.
Internal Conflict: Sources and Solutions
Symbolic Politics or Rational Choice? Testing Theories of Extreme Ethnic Violence by Stuart J. Kaufman
Rational choice theories claim that extreme ethnic violence (war and genocide) can be explained either as the result of information failures and commitment problems or as the utility-maximizing strategy of predatory elites. Symbolic politics theory asserts that such violence is driven by hostile ethnic myths and an emotionally driven symbolic politics based on those myths that popularizes predatory policies. Tests of these models in the cases of Sudan's civil war and Rwanda's genocide show that the rationalist models are incorrect: neither case can be understood as resulting from information failures, commitment problems, or rational power-conserving elite strategies. Rather, in both cases ethnic mythologies and fears made predatory policies so popular that leaders had little choice but to embrace them by playing up associated ethnic symbols, even though these policies led to the leaders' downfalls. Ethnic security dilemmas in such cases are driven not by uncertainty but by predatory leaders engaged in symbolic politics.
Building a Republican Peace: Stabilizing States after War Michael Barnett
Although peacebuilders do not operate from a common template, liberal values so define their activities that their efforts can be called "liberal peacebuilding." Many postconflict operations aspire to create a state that contains the rule of law, markets, and democracy. Growing evidence suggests, however, that liberal peacebuilding is re-creating the conditions of conflict; states emerging from war do not have the necessary institutions or civic culture to absorb the pressures associated with political and market competition. In recognition of these problems and dangers, there is an emerging call for greater attention to the state and institutionalization before liberalization. These critiques, and lessons learned from recent operations, point to an alternativerepublican peacebuilding. Drawing from republican political theory, this article argues that the republican principles of deliberation, constitutionalism, and representation can help states after war address the threats to stability that derive from arbitrary power and factional conflict and, in the process, develop some legitimacy. Republican peacebuilding is not only good for postconflict states; it also is appropriate for international peacebuilders, who also can exercise arbitrary power.
The Evolution of U.S.-Indian Ties: Missile Defense in an Emerging Strategic Relationship Ashley J. Tellis
The shift in Indian positions on missile defense in the context of the growing transformation of U.S.-Indian relations since the end of the Cold War, and particularly since the advent of the George W. Bush administration, has been remarkable. New Delhi's traditional opposition to strategic defenses gave way to its current consideration of missile defense for a variety of reasons. These included structural factors related to the dissolution of U.S.-Indian antagonism associated with the bipolar configuration of the Cold War; the growing recognition in Washington and New Delhi of the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction and their associated delivery systems in the hands of hostile states intent on nuclear coercion; and the Indian and American desire to forge a new partnership grounded in democratic values but ultimately oriented toward promoting geopolitical equilibrium in Asia in the face of rising challengers such as China and problem states such as Pakistan. All of these factors combined to produce a dramatic new acceptance of strategic defenses as conducive to stability on the part of New Delhi. What is fascinating about this evolution is the manner in which missile defenses have come to reflect both an example of, and a means toward, the steady improvement in U.S.-Indian ties occurring in recent years. This, in turn, implies that a deepening bilateral relationship has become part of New Delhi's larger solution to increasing India's capacity to defeat those threats requiring active defenses in the future.
Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: The Causes of Civilian Victimization in War Alexander B. Downes
Despite normative and legal injunctions against targeting civilians in war, as well as doubts regarding the effectiveness of such strategies, belligerents have frequently turned their guns on noncombatants. Two variablesdesperation to win and to save lives on one's own side in protracted wars of attrition, and the intention to conquer and annex enemy territoryexplain this repeated resort to civilian targeting. According to the desperation logic, costly and prolonged wars of attrition cause states to become increasingly anxious to prevail and to reduce their losses. Adopting a policy of civilian victimization permits states to continue the war while managing their losses and hopefully coercing the adversary to quit. In the appetite for conquest model, by contrast, belligerents specifically intend to seize and annex territory. Attackers in this model employ civilian victimization to eliminate enemy civilians, who can threaten the aggressor's immediate military position and present a future threat of rebellion. Multivariate analysis of interstate wars between 1816 and 2003 corroborates the importance of these factors,and a case study of the British starvation blockade of Germany in World War I supports the plausibility of the desperation mechanism.
Correspondence
How Intelligent Is Intelligence Reform?
Joshua Rovner, Austin Long, Amy B. Zegart
Index to International Security: Volume 30 (Summer 2005Spring 2006)