Cheap Threats

Cheap Threats PDF

Author: Dianne Pfundstein Chamberlain

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1626162832

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Why do weak states resist threats of force from the United States, especially when history shows that this superpower carries out its ultimatums? Cheap Threats upends conventional notions of power politics and challenges assumptions about the use of compellent military threats in international politics. Drawing on an original dataset of US compellence from 1945 to 2007 and four in-depth case studies—the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 2011 confrontation with Libya, and the 1991 and 2003 showdowns with Iraq—Dianne Pfundstein Chamberlain finds that US compellent threats often fail because threatening and using force became comparatively “cheap” for the United States after the Cold War. Becoming the world’s only superpower and adopting a new light-footprint model of war, which relied heavily on airpower and now drones, have reduced the political, economic, and human costs that US policymakers face when they go to war. Paradoxically, this lower-cost model of war has cheapened US threats and fails to signal to opponents that the United States is resolved to bear the high costs of a protracted conflict. The result: small states gamble, often unwisely, that the United States will move on to a new target before achieving its goals. Cheap Threats resets the bar for scholars and planners grappling with questions of state resolve, hegemonic stability, effective coercion, and other issues pertinent in this new era of US warfighting and diplomacy.

Cheap Threats

Cheap Threats PDF

Author: Dianne Pfundstein Chamberlain

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 1626162816

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Why do weak states frequently resist threats of force from the United States? Dianne Pfundstein Chamberlain draws on an original dataset on US compellence from 1945 to 2007 and case studies of Cuba (1962), Iraq (1991), Iraq (2003), and Libya (2011) to explain the conundrum. She argues that the United States model of inexpensive warmaking allows it to casually threaten force and carry out frequent short-term military campaigns. Yet it also signals an unwillingness to bear the higher human, political, and financial costs of a prolonged conflict."

Military Threats

Military Threats PDF

Author: Branislav L. Slantchev

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-02-03

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1139493051

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Is military power central in determining which states get their voice heard? Must states run a high risk of war to communicate credible intent? In this book, Slantchev shows that states can often obtain concessions without incurring higher risks when they use military threats. Unlike diplomatic forms of communication, physical military moves improve a state's expected performance in war. If the opponent believes the threat, it will be more likely to back down. Military moves are also inherently costly, so only resolved states are willing to pay these costs. Slantchev argues that powerful states can secure better peaceful outcomes and lower the risk of war, but the likelihood of war depends on the extent to which a state is prepared to use military threats to deter challenges to peace and compel concessions without fighting. The price of peace may therefore be large: states invest in military forces that are both costly and unused.

Coercion

Coercion PDF

Author: Kelly M. Greenhill

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 019084633X

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In 'Coercion', leading international relations scholars Kelly M. Greenhill and Peter Krause have gathered together an eminent cast of contributors to produce what promises to be a field-shaping work on one of IR's most essential subjects: coercion, whether in the form of compellence, deterrence, or a mix of the two. The volume moves beyond these traditional premises and examines the critical issue of coercion in the 21st century, capturing fresh theoretical and policy relevant developments and drawing upon data and cases from across time and around the globe.

Emerging Technologies and International Stability

Emerging Technologies and International Stability PDF

Author: Todd S. Sechser

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-11-28

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1000485560

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Technology has always played a central role in international politics; it shapes the ways states fight during wartime and compete during peacetime. Today, rapid advancements have contributed to a widespread sense that the world is again on the precipice of a new technological era. Emerging technologies have inspired much speculative commentary, but academic scholarship can improve the discussion with disciplined theory-building and rigorous empirics. This book aims to contribute to the debate by exploring the role of technology – both military and non-military – in shaping international security. Specifically, the contributors to this edited volume aim to generate new theoretical insights into the relationship between technology and strategic stability, test them with sound empirical methods, and derive their implications for the coming technological age. This book is very novel in its approach. It covers a wide range of technologies, both old and new, rather than emphasizing a single technology. Furthermore, this volume looks at how new technologies might affect the broader dynamics of the international system rather than limiting the focus to a stability. The contributions to this volume walk readers through the likely effects of emerging technologies at each phase of the conflict process. The chapters begin with competition in peacetime, move to deterrence and coercion, and then explore the dynamics of crises, the outbreak of conflict, and war escalation in an environment of emerging technologies. The chapters in this book, except for the Introduction and the Conclusion, were originally published in the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Veto Rhetoric

Veto Rhetoric PDF

Author: Samuel Kernell

Publisher: CQ Press

Published: 2023-04-26

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1506373534

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"While veto threats have a long history, presidents have come to be more reliant on this bargaining tool in the last few decades. Veto Rhetoric therefore serves as a nice companion to Sam Kernell′s classic study, Going Public, which documented a similar trend with regards to presidential public appeals. Kernell′s current study will no doubt once again lead presidential scholars to rethink how they understand and conceptualizing presidential-congressional relations." - Joel Sievert, Texas Tech University In Veto Rhetoric, Samuel Kernell offers a fresh, more sanguine perspective to understanding national policy making in this era of divided government. Contrary to the standard "separation of powers" representation of the veto which deals presidents a weak "take it or leave it" hand, Kernell shows that veto rhetoric forces Congress to pay careful heed of the president’s objections early in deliberations as legislation is forming. Moreover, the book introduces original statistical analysis to test the argument and extends previously reported analyses to include the Biden presidency. Veto Rhetoric will change the way students of Congress and the presidency assess their respective roles in making national policy.

Mississippi Mud

Mississippi Mud PDF

Author: Edward Humes

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 0671535056

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Documents governmental and political corruption in the Deep South through the story of a daughter who seeks justice when her parents are slain in Mississippi.

Emotional Choices

Emotional Choices PDF

Author: Robin Markwica

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 0198794347

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Why do states often refuse to yield to military threats from a more powerful actor, such as the United States? Why do they frequently prefer war to compliance? International Relations scholars generally employ the rational choice logic of consequences or the constructivist logic of appropriateness to explain this puzzling behavior. Max Weber, however, suggested a third logic of choice in his magnum opus Economy and Society: human decision making can also be motivated by emotions. Drawing on Weber and more recent scholarship in sociology and psychology, Robin Markwica introduces the logic of affect, or emotional choice theory, into the field of International Relations. The logic of affect posits that actors' behavior is shaped by the dynamic interplay among their norms, identities, and five key emotions: fear, anger, hope, pride, and humiliation. Markwica puts forward a series of propositions that specify the affective conditions under which leaders are likely to accept or reject a coercer's demands. To infer emotions and to examine their influence on decision making, he develops a methodological strategy combining sentiment analysis and an interpretive form of process tracing. He then applies the logic of affect to Nikita Khrushchev's behavior during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and Saddam Hussein's decision making in the Gulf conflict in 1990-1 offering a novel explanation for why U.S. coercive diplomacy succeeded in one case but not in the other.