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| 1 |
ID:
192025
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| Summary/Abstract |
When crises occur between nuclear-armed states, do relative nuclear capabilities affect the outcome? The literature offers no consensus about nuclear superiority’s effect on crisis victory, but this article demonstrates that this effect depends on the size of the disparity between states’ nuclear arsenals. Although superiority is correlated with victory in crises between states with similarly sized nuclear arsenals, superiority provides no advantage in asymmetric crises. Because a vastly inferior state risks annihilation in a nuclear conflict, it will acquiesce to an opponent’s demands before the crisis occurs, unless backing down implies an existential threat as well. Given an asymmetric crisis has emerged, therefore, the inferior side will be willing to bid up the risk of nuclear war, deterring superior opponents. Using quantitative analyses of crisis data, this article shows that the positive association between nuclear superiority and crisis victory decreases as the disparity between competing states’ arsenals increases.
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| 2 |
ID:
192031
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| Summary/Abstract |
In “Will the Drone Always Get Through?,” we investigated empirically whether Medium-Altitude and High-Altitude Long-Endurance (MALE and HALE, respectively) drones make attacking comparatively easier or even easy in an absolute sense, as some analysts and scholars assume or claim. To conduct our analysis, we first translated existing arguments into testable hypotheses consistent with the literature on the offense–defense balance (ODB)—that is, whether drones shift the ODB toward the offense or to offensive dominance. Then we explored relevant disciplines such as radar engineering, electromagnetism, signal processing, and air defense operations to assess these competing hypotheses. For our analysis, we focused on current- and next-generation drones. Our findings suggest that current-generation drones neither lower the probability of interception by air defense systems compared to existing aerospace technologies, nor are they in the position to systematically avoid interception. Regarding next-generation drones, it is not possible to derive definitive conclusions, but our analysis suggests that scholars should pay more attention to how technological change affects the defense, not only the offense, as advances in semiconductors, big data, machine learning, and communications, among other fields, are going to significantly enhance air defense capabilities in the future.
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| 3 |
ID:
192024
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| Summary/Abstract |
The conventional wisdom in international relations holds that an actor’s past record of keeping her word determines her cooperative credibility, and that mutual perceptions of credibility are essential in sustaining cooperation. Yet competing reputation-skeptic and psychological perspectives dispute this conventional wisdom, suggesting that assessments of cooperative credibility result from observers’ judgments about the other’s capabilities and interests or observers’ foreign policy orientations. How do observers assess others’ cooperative credibility? We field a nationally representative survey experiment asking 2,953 Americans to evaluate a hypothetical coercer’s commitment to lift sanctions on a would-be proliferator in exchange for the latter dismantling its nascent nuclear program. We vary the coercer’s previous behavior plus several other contextual factors. We find that respondents’ hawkishness interacts with the coercer’s past actions to shape respondents’ credibility assessments and their support for the proliferator accepting the proposal, with substantial implications for theories of misperception and bargaining.
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| 4 |
ID:
192026
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| Summary/Abstract |
Is political violence and support for political violence more prevalent in democratic societies with high levels of affective polarization? This study argues that affective partisan political polarization fosters dehumanization of opposing partisans, lends a moralistic and zero-sum nature to political life, and facilitates group mobilization. These all produce an environment in which political violence is both more socially acceptable and more frequent. The study tests this assertion using two sets of empirical tests: an original survey of 1,899 US residents and a cross-national time-series analysis of eighty-three democracies. It finds that in the United States, Democrats who express aversion toward Republicans are 8% more likely to express support for the use of political violence, whereas Republicans who express aversion toward Democrats are 18% more likely to endorse political violence. Furthermore, in the cross-national analysis, democracies characterized by higher levels of affective partisan political polarization are 34% more likely to experience frequent political violence.
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| 5 |
ID:
192027
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| Summary/Abstract |
Rebels have become the most prolific users of landmines but still display significant variation in how they employ and restrict the weapon’s use. This article argues that how rebels exercise restraint on landmine use depends on which audiences they rely on most. In a comparative case study of three Philippine rebel groups—the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Abu Sayyaf Group, and the New People’s Army—this article highlights three main findings. First, rebels reliant on voluntary compliance from local communities are more likely to limit the effects of landmines on their perceived constituency. Second, when rebels have conciliatory relations with the government, they are more likely to comply with national law, reciprocate government behavior, and limit the effects of landmines on the government’s constituents. Finally, rebels seeking legitimacy from human-rights-conscious foreign sponsors are more likely to comply with international law related to landmine use.
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| 6 |
ID:
192030
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| Summary/Abstract |
In “Will the Drone Always Get Through? Offensive Myths and Defensive Realities,” Antonio Calcara et al. examine whether emerging and disruptive technologies, namely unmanned aerial vehicles or drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper and TB-2 Bayraktar, change the offense–defense balance (ODB) in war. Their investigation of “current-generation” and “next-generation” drones—those with greater stealth and autonomy, for instance—nets two overall findings. First, the authors contend that the former “do not yield an offensive advantage against current-generation air defense systems.” Second, the authors “caution against taking for granted that next-generation drones will have an offensive advantage against next-generation air defenses.”Footnote1 This latter finding recognizes that air defense technologies are likely to evolve and compensate for advances in drone technology.
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| 7 |
ID:
192029
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| Summary/Abstract |
In “Will the Drone Always Get Through? Offensive Myths and Defensive Realities,” Antonio Calcara and coauthors open the article with: “Do emerging and disruptive technologies yield an offensive advantage?”Footnote1 To answer this ambitious question, they look at one highly scoped segment of unmanned or autonomous technology: Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance and High-Altitude Long-Endurance armed remotely piloted aircraft.Footnote2 The authors then use the article’s body to detail why these platforms cannot survive against modern integrated air defense systems by either avoiding detection or saturating air defenses, concluding that emerging technologies, therefore, do not necessarily lead to an offensive advantage.Footnote3 Although the article’s technical analysis is reasonably correct, in creating a straw man argument about the impetus and purpose of a rather narrow category of autonomous systems, its conclusions ultimately miss the mark. For all the technical detail, the authors miss the potential impact of autonomy on future air campaigns, a phenomenon that American pilots in training would call “unscorable at 12”—a term used when a bomb is dropped within correct parameters and yet fails to land near the impact zone.Footnote4
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| 8 |
ID:
192028
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| Summary/Abstract |
Given similar probabilities of mass expulsion, why do some governments expel ethnic groups en masse and others refrain? Extending the genocide studies literature on the dynamics of restraint, this theory-building study introduces a new framework to conceptualize the process of governments’ mass expulsion policy decisions. The novel paired-comparison case study of Asian minorities in postcolonial Uganda and Kenya generates new hypotheses about what enables and constrains a specific type of eliminationist policy. Despite analogous contexts, target populations, and motives to expel, in 1972 Uganda systematically expelled up to 80,000 South Asians en masse, whereas in 1967–69 Kenya did not. The negative case of Kenya, a country that seemed likely to expel but refrained, highlights important factors that constrain government expulsion decisions: alliances, target group “homeland” state(s), and international organizations. Evidence was drawn from archival research conducted at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The article concludes by outlining a research agenda to test the new analytical framework to contribute to our understanding of demographic engineering policies and restraints on ethnic violence.
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