Security clearance
Is a Nuclear Deal with Iran Possible? An Analytical Framework for the Iran Nuclear Negotiations
James Sebenius & Michael Singh
International Security, Winter 2012/13, Pages 52-91
Abstract:
Varied diplomatic approaches by multiple negotiators over the past several years have failed to conclude a nuclear deal with Iran. Mutual hostility, misperception, and flawed diplomacy may be responsible. Yet, more fundamentally, no mutually acceptable deal may exist. To assess this possibility, a "negotiation analytic" framework conceptually disentangles two issues: (1) whether a feasible deal exists; and (2) how to design the most promising process to achieve one. Focusing on whether a "zone of possible agreement" exists, a graphical negotiation analysis precisely relates input assumptions about the parties' interests, their no-deal options, and possible deals. Under a plausible, mainstream set of such assumptions, the Iranian regime's no-deal options, at least through the fall of 2012, appear superior to potential nuclear agreements. If so, purely tactical and process-oriented initiatives will fail. Opening space for a mutually acceptable nuclear deal - one that avoids both military conflict and a nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable Iran - requires relentlessly and creatively worsening Iran's no-deal options while enhancing the value of a deal to the Iranian regime. Downplaying both coercive options and upside potential, as international negotiators have often done, works against this integrated strategy. If this approach opens a zone of possible agreement, sophisticated negotiation will be key to reaching a worthwhile agreement.
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Estimating the Duration of Jihadi Terror Plots in the United States
Edward Kaplan
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, December 2012, Pages 880-894
Abstract:
The number of ongoing terror plots increases with the duration of time from plot initiation until plot execution or interdiction (whichever comes first), yet no estimate of the probability distribution governing terror plot duration has appeared in the open literature. To remedy this gap, jihadi terror plots in the United States were identified from terrorism-related indictments that occurred between 11 September 2001 and 30 June 2011 in addition to successful attacks. From a review of indictments, affidavits, and other publicly available information, it was possible to identify lower and upper bounds for the initiation date of the plot in question as well as the ending date corresponding to either the arrest of the suspect(s) eventually convicted or an attempted/actual act of terror. These observations enable estimation of the duration distribution of jihadi terror plots in the United States accounting for the censoring and truncation effects inherent with these data (technical details appear in the Appendix). The estimated mean plot duration equals 270 days (standard error of mean 40 days), while 95 percent of all plots are estimated to fall between 33 and 750 days. These estimates suggest that on average, approximately three ongoing terror plots have been active in the United States at any point since 11 September 2001.
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Faith or Doctrine? Religion and Support for Political Violence in Pakistan
Christine Fair, Neil Malhotra & Jacob Shapiro
Public Opinion Quarterly, Winter 2012, Pages 688-720
Abstract:
Around the world, publics confronted with terrorism have debated whether Islamic faith gives rise to a uniquely virulent strain of non-state violence targeted at civilians. These discussions almost always conceive of "Islam" in general terms, not clearly defining what is meant by Islamic religious faith. We engaged this debate by designing and conducting a large-scale public opinion survey in Pakistan that measures multiple elements of religiosity, allowing us to separately consider the relationship between support for militant organizations and (1) religious practice; (2) support for political Islam; and (3) "jihadism," which we define as a particular textual interpretation common to Islamist groups espousing violent political action. We also measured support for militant organizations using a novel form of an "endorsement experiment" that assessed attitudes toward specific groups without asking respondents about them directly. We find that neither religious practice nor support for political Islam is related to support for militant groups. However, Pakistanis who believe jihad is both an external militarized struggle and that it can be waged by individuals are more supportive of violent groups than those who believe it is an internal struggle for righteousness.
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Predicting Armed Conflict, 2010-2050
Håvard Hegre et al.
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
The article predicts changes in global and regional incidences of armed conflict for the 2010-2050 period. The predictions are based on a dynamic multinomial logit model estimation on a 1970-2009 cross-sectional data set of changes between no armed conflict, minor conflict, and major conflict. Core exogenous predictors are population size, infant mortality rates, demographic composition, education levels, oil dependence, ethnic cleavages, and neighborhood characteristics. Predictions are obtained through simulating the behavior of the conflict variable implied by the estimates from this model. We use projections for the 2011-2050 period for the predictors from the UN World Population Prospects and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. We treat conflicts, recent conflict history, and neighboring conflicts as endogenous variables. Out-of-sample validation of predictions for 2007-2009 (based on estimates for the 1970-2000 period) indicates that the model predicts well, with an area under the receiver operator curve of 0.937. Using a p > .30 threshold for positive prediction, the true positive rate 7-9 years into the future is 0.79 and the False Positive Rate 0.085. We predict a continued decline in the proportion of the world's countries that have internal armed conflict, from about 15% in 2009 to 7% in 2050. The decline is particularly strong in the Western Asia and North Africa region and less clear in Africa south of Sahara. The remaining conflict countries will increasingly be concentrated in East, Central, and Southern Africa and in East and South Asia.
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Don't Come Home, America: The Case against Retrenchment
Stephen Brooks, John Ikenberry & William Wohlforth
International Security, Winter 2012/13, Pages 7-51
Abstract:
After sixty-five years of pursuing a grand strategy of global leadership - nearly a third of which transpired without a peer great power rival - has the time come for the United States to switch to a strategy of retrenchment? According to most security studies scholars who write on the future of U.S. grand strategy, the answer is an unambiguous yes: they argue that the United States should curtail or eliminate its overseas military presence, abolish or dramatically reduce its global security commitments, and minimize or eschew efforts to foster and lead the liberal institutional order. Thus far, the arguments for retrenchment have gone largely unanswered by international relations scholars. An evaluation of these arguments requires a systematic analysis that directly assesses the core claim of retrenchment advocates that the current "deep engagement" grand strategy is not in the national interests of the United States. This analysis shows that advocates of retrenchment radically overestimate the costs of deep engagement and underestimate its benefits. We conclude that the fundamental choice to retain a grand strategy of deep engagement after the Cold War is just what the preponderance of international relations scholarship would expect a rational, self-interested leading power in America's position to do.
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Keith Payne, Thomas Scheber & Kurt Guthe
Comparative Strategy, Fall 2012, Pages 385-392
Abstract:
A commonly held view is that nonstate actors cannot be deterred. A historical review of deterrence vis-à-vis nonstate actors, however, shows that deterrence can be applied successfully to terrorist groups for some purposes and at some times. An examination of the sensitivities, vulnerabilities, and other characteristics of the core al-Qa'ida group suggests a combination of denial and punitive deterrent measures could be used to discourage this nonstate actor from attempting a mass-casualty attack.
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Support for torture over time: Interrogating the American public about coercive tactics
Jeremy Mayer & David Armor
Social Science Journal, December 2012, Pages 439-446
Abstract:
In this study, we examine what influences public attitudes toward torture and whether the public's attitude affects or is affected by shifts in presidential policy on torture. We employed ten surveys over five years that looked at approval of torture, as well as two surveys that asked questions about specific methods. We find that public support for torture has risen mildly, but a resilient ambivalence best describes the public's attitude. The public was not affected by the change in government from an administration that strongly supported enhanced interrogation techniques to one that opposed them, and labeled them torture. Public opinion also seemed unaffected by the increased criticism of torture generally. Large majorities oppose most specific methods of interrogation, while at times a majority supports torture in general. We also find support for torture and specific methods is affected most strongly by partisanship and ideology.
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The Latin Bias: Regions, the Anglo-American Media, and Human Rights
Emilie Hafner-Burton & James Ron
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Media attention is unevenly allocated across global human rights problems, prompting anger, frustration, and recrimination in the international system. This article demonstrates that from 1981 to 2000, three leading Anglo-American media sources disproportionately covered Latin American abuses, in human rights terms, as compared to other world regions. This "Latin Human Rights Bias" runs counter to broader trends within the Anglo-American general coverage of foreign news, where Latin America's share of reporting is far smaller. The Bias is partially explained by the region's proximity to the United States (US), its relevance to US policy debates, and by path dependency. A significant portion of the Latin Bias remains unexplained, however, despite our best attempts to rigorously model explanations offered by leading Western journalists. These findings suggest that geographic regions are an important factor in the media's perception of global human rights problems and that both human rights policymakers and scholars may be inappropriately drawing general lessons from regionally specific and biased patterns. We conclude with suggestions for future research.
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More Combatant Groups, More Terror?: Empirical Tests of an Outbidding Logic
Michael Findley & Joseph Young
Terrorism and Political Violence, November/December 2012, Pages 706-721
Abstract:
We examine and test the logic that outbidding among insurgent groups results in more suicide terrorism specifically and more terrorism of any type, which has become a popular argument in recent years. A global analysis of terrorism from 1970-2004 provides scant support for the notion that outbidding increases suicide terrorism. An extension of the argument to all types of terrorist attacks provides even less support. The logic of outbidding has received considerable attention in academic and policy circles in recent years. Similar to the argument that democratic occupation increases suicide terror, our lack of empirical support suggests that considerable cross-national work is still needed to understand suicide terror adequately. We suggest some reasons why this may be the case, drawing particular attention to the problem of overgeneralizing from a limited set of cases.
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Perceptions of the "Arab Spring" Within the Salafi-Jihadi Movement
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Tara Vassefi
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, December 2012, Pages 831-848
Abstract:
This article provides a detailed examination of how the Salafi-jihadi movement perceives the "Arab Spring" revolutionary events. Although Western scholars almost unanimously agree that these events will have an enormous impact on Al Qaeda and other groups that share its ideology, the voice of the jihadis has not been examined in detail. This article addresses this critical gap in the literature through an analysis of 101 significant documents produced by jihadi thinkers within a year following the movement's very first statement on the uprising in Tunisia. These include statements released by jihadi spokesmen, interviews with the movement's intellectual leaders, and discussions on jihadi Web forums. The article concludes that Al Qaeda and the jihadi movement largely believe that the uprisings provide them a great deal of new opportunities, and outlines the movement's developing strategy to capitalize on rapidly changing events on the ground.
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Sending a Message: The Reputation Effect of US Sanction Threat Behavior
Timothy Peterson
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Studies often assume that empty sanction threats inflict reputation costs on senders. However, target response to senders' previous decisions whether to back down or impose sanctions remains unexamined. In this paper, I argue that the target of sanction threats looks to the sender's actions against prior resistant targets. When the sender has backed down recently, the target, inferring that the sender is prone to making empty threats, is less likely to acquiesce. Conversely, when the sender has recently imposed sanctions against a resistant target, the current target infers that sanction imposition is likely to follow resistance, and therefore, it is more likely to acquiesce, all else equal. In statistical tests of US sanction threats spanning 1971-2000, I find strong evidence that the target is less likely to acquiesce when the United States recently backed down from a sanction threat. I find somewhat weaker evidence that the target is more likely to acquiesce when the United States recently imposed sanctions.
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Matthew Baum
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Media outlets in multiparty electoral systems tend to report on a wider range of policy issues than media in two-party systems. They thus make more competing policy frames available to citizens. This suggests that a "free press" is insufficient to hold governments accountable. Rather, we should observe more challenges to the governments' preferred frames and more politically aware citizens in multiparty democracies. Such citizens should thus be better equipped to hold their leaders accountable, relative to their counterparts in two-party democracies. I propose a mechanism through which democratic publics can sometimes constrain their leaders in foreign policy. I test hypotheses derived from my theory with cross-national data on the content of news coverage of Iraq, on public support for the war, and on decisions to contribute troops to the Iraq "Coalition of the Willing." I find that citizens in countries with larger numbers of parties confronted more critical and diverse coverage of Iraq, while those with more widespread access to mass media were more likely to oppose the war and their nations likely to contribute fewer troops to the Coalition.
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The Long and Short of It: Cognitive Constraints on Leaders' Assessments of "Postwar" Iraq
Aaron Rapport
International Security, Winter 2012/13, Pages 133-171
Abstract:
The George W. Bush administration's assessments of challenges that might come after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq were wide of the mark, but it is unclear why this was the case. Along with the difficulty of anticipating the future, perhaps the opportunity costs of allocating resources to postconflict considerations were simply too high. Institutional biases and civil-military friction may have also led actors to privilege certain information and plans over others. Although plausible, these hypotheses do not sufficiently explain strategic assessment prior to the 2003 invasion. They cannot account for the substance of most senior policymakers' assessments, especially those of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, which was optimistic when late-stage operations were considered but not when combat plans were deliberated. An established psychological theory that describes how people mentally represent distant future actions - as opposed to those that are seen as impending - explains the nature of strategic assessment in the Iraq case. As individuals think about actions at the end of a sequence of events, the desirability of their goals becomes increasingly salient relative to the feasibility of achieving them. This makes decisionmakers more prone to underestimate the costs and risks of future actions.
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Robert Haley & James Tuite
Neuroepidemiology, Winter 2013, Pages 178-189
Background: Military intelligence data published in a companion paper explain how chemical fallout from US and Coalition bombing of Iraqi chemical weapons facilities early in the air campaign transited long distance, triggering nerve agent alarms and exposing US troops. We report the findings of a population-based survey designed to test competing hypotheses on the impact on chronic Gulf War illness of nerve agent from early-war bombing versus post-war demolition.
Methods: The US Military Health Survey performed computer-assisted telephone interviews of a stratified random sample of Gulf War-era veterans (n = 8,020). Early-war exposure was measured by having heard nerve agent alarms and post-war exposure, by the computer-generated plume from the Khamisiyah demolition. Gulf War illness was measured by two widely published case definitions.
Results: The OR (95% CI) for the association of alarms with the Factor case definition was 4.13 (95% CI 2.51-6.80) compared with 1.21 (95% CI 0.86-1.69) for the Khamisiyah plume. There was a dose-related trend for the number of alarms (ptrend < 0.001) but not for the number of days in the Khamisiyah plume (ptrend = 0.17).
Conclusions: Exposure to low-level sarin nerve agent in fallout from bombing early in the air campaign contributed more to chronic illness than post-war demolition.
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The Effect of US Troop Deployment on Host States' Foreign Policy
Carla Martinez Machain & Clifton Morgan
Armed Forces & Society, January 2013, Pages 102-123
Abstract:
Major powers often deploy troops abroad with the consent of host states. The stated aim of these deployments is often both to protect the host state and to foster stability in the region. Drawing from an extension of Palmer and Morgan's two-good theory of foreign policy, the authors explore some of the (perhaps unintended) effects of troop deployments abroad on the foreign policies of the host states. In particular, the authors focus on the effects of US deployments. The authors argue that as the number of US troops deployed to a host state increases, we should expect the host state to reduce its own troop levels, be more likely to initiate militarized interstate disputes, and be less likely to be the target of interstate disputes. The authors test these hypotheses using data on US troop deployments abroad from 1950 to 2005 and discuss implications that their findings may have for US foreign policy.
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Gunes Gokmen
Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, December 2012
Abstract:
This paper tests Huntington's the Clash of Civilizations hypothesis evaluating the impact of civilizations on militarized interstate disputes. In particular, we investigate whether countries that belong to different civilizations tend to be more involved in conflict than countries that belong to the same civilization. We show that over the period of 1816-2001, dissimilarity in civilization in a dyad has no effect on conflict involvement. However, even after controlling for temporal dependence, and for geographic, political, military and economic factors, being part of different civilizations in the post-Cold War period brings about 63.6% higher probability of conflict than belonging to the same civilization, whereas this effect is insignificant during the Cold War.
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Thirty Years of Broadcasting Africa on U.S. Network Television News
Yusuf Kalyango & Uche Onyebadi
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Fall 2012, Pages 669-687
Abstract:
This study examines the coverage of Africa by the U.S. television networks over a 30-year period, to determine whether the evening news broadcasts pay equal attention to Africa compared to South America and Europe. Also assessed is whether incidents of wars, famine, and public health crises and the increasing importance of Africa's oil, gold, and diamonds on the international market, continue to dominate the U.S. television network evening news coverage of the continent. A content analysis of ABC World News, NBC News, and CBS Evening News shows that coverage of Africa has steadily decreased more than coverage of other regions. The majority of international stories were about Europe while coverage of Africa on all three networks was far less when compared to other regions. Also, conflicts and crises dominated Africa's coverage throughout the 3 decades and stories linked a considerable amount of the news events to a particular U.S.
interest. More results and their implications are discussed in detail.
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Opposite trends in summer precipitation in South and North Korea
Yeonjoo Kim, B. Kang & J.M. Adams
International Journal of Climatology, December 2012, Pages 2311-2319
Abstract:
We analysed daily precipitation data at the rain gauge stations in North Korea over a period of 25 years from 1983 to 2007, and in South Korea over a period of 35 years from 1973 and 2007. We found a striking trend of decreasing summer precipitation across North Korea. By contrast, in South Korea, the trend is opposite: there is a major increase in summer precipitation. Also, the number of dry days in summer showed an increasing trend in North Korea and a decreasing trend in South Korea. For the number of days with heavy precipitation (i.e. days with above 50 mm/day daily precipitation) during summer, a decreasing trend was detected in North Korea, but no trend in South Korea. However, in South Korea, there was a significant increase of days with heavy precipitation over the whole year. These opposite trends in summer precipitation between North and South Korea were further confirmed using four global/regional satellite and rain gauge datasets of CPC Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP), the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), Precipitation REConstruction over the Land (PREC/L), and the Asian Precipitation-Highly Resolved Observation Data Integration Towards the Evaluation of Water Resources (APHRODITE).
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Country or leader? Political change and UN General Assembly voting
Axel Dreher & Nathan Jensen
European Journal of Political Economy, March 2013, Pages 183-196
Abstract:
We investigate empirically changes in voting in the United Nations General Assembly consequent to leader turnovers over the 1985-2008 period and find evidence that governments with new rulers are more supportive of the United States on important votes. We consider the explanations that might underlie our empirical result, including material gain and ethical motivation. In contrast to our findings on key votes, our results show that voting on non-key votes in the General Assembly does not robustly shift towards the U.S. following leader change. We therefore conclude that material gain is the most likely reason for the observed pattern.
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Becoming a State-in-the-World: Lessons Learned from the American Occupation of Germany
Grant Madsen
Studies in American Political Development, October 2012, Pages 163-179
Abstract:
For students of American Political Development, the emergence of globalization and Americanization as themes of inquiry has spurred a growing interest in explaining America's rise as "a legal-economic and geopolitical hegemon." An important episode in this rise came during the American occupation of Germany after World War II. In postwar Germany, America's military government realized that the American public remained unwilling to support (over the long term) the global projection of what Michael Mann has called "despotic power." To achieve its fundamental goal of reorienting Germany toward a peaceful coexistence with the Unites States, military government turned instead to what Mann has called "infrastructural power" (power projected "through" society by state institutions). In pivoting from despotic to infrastructural power, three important consequences followed for the occupation. (1) Because it relied on the development of new infrastructures within a new German state, the occupation saw institutional "genesis" in which the Germans themselves influenced the pathway and timing of military government policy. (2) In creating new state institutions, military government performed "policy bricolage," creatively reconstructing institutions "from" the ruins of war-torn Europe (as opposed to "on" its ruins). (3) Financial policy took a central place in military government's focus because it allowed for "increasing returns" in advancing military government's interests. Collectively, military government's experience provided lessons for an American state in the world.
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Demographic and Economic Consequences of Conflict
Tadeusz Kugler et al.
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on conflict traditionally focuses on its initiation, duration, and severity, but seldom on its consequences. Yet, demographic and economic recovery from the consequences of war lasts far longer and may be more devastating than the waging war. Our concern is with war losses and post-war recovery leading to convergence with pre-war performance. To test this proposition, we choose the most severe international and civil wars after 1920. We find that all belligerents recover or overtake demographic losses incurred in war. Economic assessments differ. The most-developed belligerents recover like a "phoenix" from immense destruction in one generation. For less-developed societies, the outcomes are mixed. The less-developed belligerents recover only a portion of their pre-war performance. The least-developed societies suffer the most and fall into lasting poverty traps. The overlapping generation growth model accounts for such differences in recovery rates based on pre-war performance challenging arguments from Solow's neoclassical growth perspective. Our results imply that foreign aid is incidental to the post-war convergence for the most-developed societies, can prompt recovery for the less-developed societies, and is not effective - unless it is massive and sustained - for the least-developed societies. World War II may provide a poor guide to current post-war challenges in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
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Why States No Longer Declare War
Tanisha Fazal
Security Studies, Fall 2012, Pages 557-593
Abstract:
Why have states stopped issuing declarations of war? Declaring war was a norm of international politics for millennia, but now appears to have exited states' behavioral repertoires. I argue that the proliferation of codified jus in bello, the law of war governing belligerent conduct, has created disincentives for states to issue formal declarations of war. The increasing number of codified international laws that govern belligerent conduct during warfare has made complying with the laws of war extremely costly. One way for states to limit these costs is to avoid admitting they are in a formal state of war by refraining from declaring war. I test this claim, as well as others, using an original data set. I also discuss several cases of nineteenth and twentieth century wars that illustrate the logic of this argument.
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Military Expenditures and Inequality in the Middle East and North Africa: A Panel Analysis
Hamid Ali
Defence and Peace Economics, November/December 2012, Pages 575-589
Abstract:
Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries have been characterized by the preponderant role of their military forces in economic matters, as demonstrated by the high levels of military spending and the growing industrial complex. While extensive research examines the relationship between military expenditure and economic growth, little attention has been paid to the effect of military expenditure on economic inequality. Studying inequality in MENA countries provides an opportunity to assess factors that shape the countries' level of economic well-being, which has greater public policy implications in terms of how society allocates its scarce resources among competing needs. This paper examines two important issues. In the first part of the paper, we examine the relationship between military spending and inequality in MENA countries using a panel regression for country-level observations over the period 1987-2005. The empirical results indicate that military spending has a strong and negative effect on inequality. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, in MENA countries a systematic increase in military spending could reduce the level of inequality. In the second part of this paper, we examine the demand for military expenditure; we find that factors such as inequality level and per capita income negatively affect military expenditure.
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Ratification Patterns and the International Criminal Court
Terrence Chapman & Stephen Chaudoin
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
What types of countries have ratified the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court? Because the court relies on state cooperation, it is a good example of a regime facing a "participation problem." In order to be effective, the regime requires active members, but states that fear regime effectiveness will therefore find it potentially costly to join. We analyze the extent to which this problem plagues the ICC. We find that countries for whom compliance is likely to be easiest - democracies with little internal violence - are the most likely countries to join the ICC. On the other hand, countries with the most to fear from ICC prosecution, nondemocracies with weak legal systems and a history of domestic political violence, tend to avoid ratification. We contrast our findings with those of a recent article by Simmons and Danner (2010), arguing that ratification patterns show evidence of credible commitments. Our analysis across a breadth of evidence, both descriptive and multivariate, suggests caution toward arguments about the impact of the ICC on global practices and provides support for the notion that states strategically select themselves into supranational judicial agreements.
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Organizing for Resistance: How Group Structure Impacts the Character of Violence
Lindsay Heger, Danielle Jung & Wendy Wong
Terrorism and Political Violence, November/December 2012, Pages 743-768
Abstract:
How does the way in which a group organizes change the lethality of the group's attacks? In this article, we argue that groups organized vertically as hierarchies are likely to conduct more lethal attacks. We build our argument around three advantages inherent to centralized structures: functional differentiation, clear command and control structures, and accountability. We argue that each of these characteristics positively impacts an organization's ability to deliver an effective lethal blow. To test our argument, we use a mixed method approach, drawing on empirical evidence and support from a time-series case study. Our large-N analysis examines the trends in more than 19,000 attacks. In this test we develop a novel proxy measure for hierarchy based on a group's bases of operation and non-violent activities. To complement the empirical work, we examine the history of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Basque separatist group. Over several decades of violent operations, this group's structure has changed dramatically. We analyze how these shifts impacted ETA's ability to maximize the effectiveness and damage of their attacks. In both the case study and large-N analysis, the more hierarchically organized the group, the more easily the group can orchestrate lethal attacks.