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71. Just War Theory and the 2008–09 Gaza Invasion

Author:
Michael L. Gross, Jerome Slater, Davis Brown, and Tamar Meisels
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Jerome Slater's normative treatment of Israel in the 2008–09 Gaza War spotlights an often misunderstood domain of the security studies field: just war theory. This is a largely understudied area, given its normative framework of analysis in a field that historically is largely devoid of norms. My sense is that this journal may be becoming a forum for the reintroduction of this framework to the field, thanks to Slater's article and Robert Pape's call for a revised standard for humanitarian intervention. As a student of the ethics of war, I welcome this development. But precisely because just war theory is understudied, it is still highly prone to oversimplification and abuse. Slater regrettably engages in both in his attempt to apply it to the conduct of Israel in the Gaza War.
Political Geography:
Israel

72. Nuclear Negotiations with Iran

Author:
Paul R. Pillar, James K. Sebenius, Michael K. Singh, and Robert Reardon
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
James Sebenius and Michael Singh are to be commended for advocating rigor in the analysis of international negotiations such as the one involving Iran's nuclear program. Although they describe their offering as a neutral framework for analyzing any negotiation, they are not at all neutral regarding the negotiations with Iran; and they present conclusions that derive directly from specific substantive assumptions, especially about Iranian objectives. The authors repeatedly describe their assumptions as “mainstream,” implying that they are uncontroversial and that any differing ones are too extreme to be worth considering. For an assumption to reside within the mainstream of popular and political discourse about Iran, however, does not make it correct. Sebenius and Singh do something similar with assumptions about U.S. interests, while sliding silently between the descriptive and the prescriptive in a way that fails to contrast actual policies with possible ones that would be consistent with those interests. Many readers' principal takeaway from their article will be that a zone of possible agreement probably did not exist as of the time of their writing and probably will not exist unless the United States takes steps toward going to war with Iran. That answer, however, given the questionable assumptions on which it is based, is very likely wrong.
Political Geography:
United States and Iran

73. Reviewers for Volume 37

Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
From April 1, 2012, to March 31, 2013, International Security received 275 article manuscripts. International Security relies heavily on the evaluations and advice of external reviewers in making its editorial decisions. The editors thank the reviewers listed below for their invaluable assistance. As in previous years, we are recognizing outstanding reviewers for the exceptional quality, quantity, and timeliness of their reviews. Outstanding reviewers are denoted with an asterisk.

74. "The Meaning of the Cyber Revolution: Perils to Theory and Statecraft"

Author:
Lucas Kello
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Security policy in the information age faces formidable challenges. Chief among these is to evaluate correctly the impact of cyberweapons on strategy: Does the new technology require a revolution in how scholars and policymakers think about force and conflict? Practitioners confront a predicament in addressing this question: the cyber revolution gives rise to novel threats and opportunities requiring immediate policy responses; yet understanding its nature and its consequences for security is a slow learning process. Interpretation of cyber phenomena involves analysis of a new body of experience that existing theories may be unable to clarify. It presupposes, moreover, a technical understanding of a transforming technology, whose implications require time to master because of its scientific complexity.

75. "The Myth of Cyberwar: Bringing War in Cyberspace Back Down to Earth"

Author:
Erik Gartzke
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Ablitz of media, punditry, and official pronouncements raise the specter of war on the internet. Future conflicts may well take place in cyberspace, where victory or defeat could be determined in mere "nanoseconds." Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has even warned of a "cyber-Pearl Harbor." Nor are fears of cyberwar abstract speculation. Events such as the denial of service attacks against Estonian and Georgian government websites, the Stuxnet worm designed to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges, and the recent hacking of U.S. military computer networks seem to indicate that the era of cyberwar has already arrived.
Political Geography:
United States

76. "Legitimating Power: The Domestic Politics of U.S. International Hierarchy"

Author:
David A. Lake
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The United States has maintained extensive international hierarchies over states on the Caribbean littoral for more than a century and over Western Europe for nearly seven decades. More recently, it has extended similar hierarchies over states in the Middle East, especially the Persian Gulf. International hierarchy is based on authority relations between states; once they took the form of empires but today are restricted to informal political relationships such as spheres of influence and de facto protectorates. Authority, in turn, is a form of legitimate power that entails a right to command by the dominant state and an obligation or duty to comply by the subordinate. This raises a series of key questions. How does the United States build and sustain legitimacy for itself in subordinate countries? In this postcolonial age, the dominant state must rule indirectly through client regimes. How does the United States ensure legitimacy for such collaborationist regimes? Most important, how does the United States sustain this "double game" of legitimating both its rule and that of its clients, given norms of the sovereign equality of states and, increasingly, of popular sovereignty and democracy? How one answers these questions is relevant not only to theories of international relations but also to current policy debates, especially those on the role of the United States in the Middle East. If the United States cannot legitimate its role in the region, as I argue it cannot for reasons explained below, it should consider following its imperial forefather and withdraw "East of Suez."
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Central America

77. "How Oil Influences U.S. National Security"

Author:
Charles Glaser
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Scholars and policy-makers in the United States commonly worry that a lack of "energy security" is hurting U.S. national security, yet little of their analysis actually links energy requirements with the probability of military conflict. Energy security is usually defined as "the reliable and affordable supply of energy," and most analyses focus on the physical security of oil supplies, the increasing price of oil, and the economic costs of oil disruptions. Their key recommendations call for the United States to reduce oil imports, decrease its vulnerability to oil supply disruptions, and prepare strategies for managing available supplies when disruptions occur. Not linking these energy issues directly to possibilities for international conflict leaves an important gap in our analysis. International conflict lies at the heart of standard conceptions of U.S. national security. Issues that are judged to engage U.S. national security are typically granted top priority on the national agenda, are given entitlement to U.S. resources, and are frequently thought to warrant the use of military force. Thus, without exploring the links between energy requirements and military conflict, we risk conflating U.S. national security with U.S. prosperity, and misjudging the nature of the challenges facing the United States.
Political Geography:
United States

78. "Fueling the Fire: Pathways from Oil to War"

Author:
Jeff D. Colgan
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
What roles do oil and energy play in international conflict? In public debates, the issue often provokes significant controversy. Critics of the two U.S.-led wars against Iraq (in 1991 and 2003) charged that they traded "blood for oil," and that they formed a part of an American neo-imperialist agenda to control oil in the Middle East. The U.S. government, on the other hand, explicitly denied that the wars were about oil, especially in 2003. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld argued that the war "has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil," a theme echoed by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

79. "Correspondence: Debating American Engagement: The Future of U.S. Grand Strategy"

Author:
Benjamin H. Friedman, Justin Logan, Campbell Craig, Brendan Rittenhouse Greenspan, Stephen Brooks, G. John Inkenberry, and William Wohlforth
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In making their case for maintaining the United States' policy of "deep engagement," Stephen Brooks, John Ikenberry, and William Wohlforth stress that the U.S. security commitment to states in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, together with the formidable specter of American preponderance, stifles regional rivalries and hinders the resurgence of a dangerous era of multipolar power politics. The authors contend that a policy of U.S. retrenchment could spark the "return of insecurity and conflict among Eurasian powers," whereas a continuing policy of deep engagement, by "supplying re- assurance, deterrence, and active management . lowers security competition in the world's key regions, thereby preventing the emergence of a hothouse atmosphere for growing new military capabilities." In short, they suggest, deep engagement reduces the chances of a major Eurasian war; a new strategy of retrenchment would increase them.
Political Geography:
United States and America

80. "Correspondence: Reconsidering the Cases of Humanitarian Intervention"

Author:
Alex Bellamy and Robert Pape
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In a recently published piece, Robert Pape makes some misleading and erroneous comments on my published work. First, Pape writes, "Alex Bellamy, a staunch advocate of R2P [the responsibility to protect initiative], catalogues episodes of mass atrocities to clarify 'R2P's preventive agenda,' with a total of twenty-one qualifying for intervention from 1990 to 2010". Pape provides no reference to support this statement. In truth, I have never produced a list of "cases" that "qualified" for intervention. The datasets that I have produced relate to cases where the lowest casualty estimates suggest that at least 5,000 noncombatants were intentionally killed. Nowhere have I suggested that this "qualifies" these cases for intervention. Actually, I have been generally critical of abstract talk about criteria and thresholds for armed intervention, as well as the pervasive and erroneous tendency to treat R2P as synonymous with humanitarian intervention, both of which I believe to be disconnected from political realities. Since I began working on R2P a decade ago, I have repeatedly expressed caution about the use of force for protection purposes for reasons similar to those aired by Pape last year. In my first book on R2P, I concluded that "non-consensual force is a highly unreliable form of protection."

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