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22. Ending Civil Wars: A Case for Rebel Victory?
- Author:
- Monica Duffy Toft
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Since the end of World War II, policymakers have shown a marked preference for settling civil wars through negotiated settlements. The core recommendation of this policy is to employ third-party resources—primarily in the form of economic incentives and good offices—to halt the violence and preserve the combatants. Scholars of civil wars, for their part, have devoted the bulk of their analyses to exploring how best to achieve negotiated settlements. In recent years, however, other scholars have introduced a counterargument. Supporters of this “give war a chance” option advocate allowing belligerents to continue fighting until one side achieves a military victory. A survey of the literature on civil war termination makes clear that, of the two groups, the negotiated settlements camp is far more pervasive and influential than the “give war a chance” camp.
- Topic:
- War
23. The Deception Dividend: FDR's Undeclared War
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- When do leaders resort to deception to sell wars to their publics? Dan Reiter and Allan Stam have advanced a "selection effects" explanation for why democracies win the wars they initiate: leaders, because they must secure public consent first, "select" into those wars they expect to win handily. In some cases, however, the "selection effect" breaks down. In these cases, leaders, for realist reasons, are drawn toward wars where an easy victory is anything but assured. Leaders resort to deception in such cases to preempt what is sure to be a contentious debate over whether the use of force is justified by shifting blame for hostilities onto the adversary. The events surrounding the United States' entry into World War II is useful in assessing the plausibility of this argument. President Franklin Roosevelt welcomed U.S. entry into the war by the fall of 1941 and attempted to manufacture events accordingly. An important implication from this finding is that deception may sometimes be in the national interest.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- United States
24. "How Smart and Tough Are Democracies? Reassessing Theories of Democratic Victory in War"
- Author:
- Alexander B. Downes
- Publication Date:
- 04-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The argument that democracies are more likely than nondemocracies to win the wars they fight— particularly the wars they start—has risen to the status of near-conventional wisdom in the last decade. First articulated by David Lake in his 1992 article “Powerful Pacifists,” this thesis has become firmly associated with the work of Dan Reiter and Allan Stam. In their seminal 2002 book, Democracies at War, which builds on several previously published articles, Reiter and Stam found that democracies win nearly all of the wars they start, and about two-thirds of the wars in which they are targeted by other states, leading to an overall success rate of 76 percent. This record of democratic success is significantly better than the performance of dictatorships and mixed regimes.
- Topic:
- War
25. "Bridge over Troubled Water? Envisioning a China-Taiwan Peace Agreement"
- Author:
- Phillip C. Saunders and Scott L. Kastner
- Publication Date:
- 04-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- After eight years of cross-strait tensions, the decisive 2008 Taiwan election victories by the Kuomintang (KMT, or Nationalist Party) and KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou provide a major opportunity to improve relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party welcomed Ma's victory as reducing the threat of Taiwan independence and creating an atmosphere for resumed dialogue and closer ties. Recognizing that final resolution of Taiwan's status is currently impossible, leaders on both sides have raised the possibility of negotiating a peace agreement that might stabilize the cross-strait situation. If successful, an agreement might greatly reduce the chance of a crisis that could draw the United States and China into a military conflict. Such an agreement could also provide a positive example that might apply to other cases of long-term political or ethnic conflict. This article examines what a China-Taiwan peace agreement might look like and whether it could be effective in managing tensions and reducing the risk of war.
- Topic:
- War and Water
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and Taiwan
26. Ending the Korean War: the Role of Domestic Coalition Shifts in Overcoming Obstacles to Peace
- Author:
- Elizabeth A. Stanley
- Publication Date:
- 07-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Throughout history, shifts in governing coalitions have critically affected war termination. For example, the execution of the Athenian democratic ruler Cleophon and the ascendancy of the pro-Spartan oligarchs in B.C. 404 led to Athens' surrender to Sparta and ended the twenty-seven-year Second Peloponnesian War. Similarly, the death of Russian Empress Elizabeth in January 1762 led her Prussophile successor, Peter III, to immediately recall Russian armies that were occupying Berlin and conclude the Treaty of Saint Petersburg by May—ending the fighting between Russia and Prussia in the Seven Years' War. During World War I, riots in Germany ushered in a new government that then negotiated the final war armistice, as Kaiser Wilhelm II fied to Holland. Likewise, during World War II, France and Italy surrendered shortly after changes in their governing coalitions, in 1940 and 1943, respectively. Most recently, on his first full day in office, U.S. President Barack Obama summoned senior officials to the White House to begin fulfilling his campaign promise to pull combat forces out of the war in Iraq.
- Topic:
- Government and War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Iraq, France, Germany, Korea, and Prussia
27. The Waning of U.S. Hegemony—Myth or Reality? A Review Essay
- Author:
- Christopher Layne
- Publication Date:
- 07-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Over the next two decades, international politics will be shaped by whether the international system remains unipolar or is transformed into a multipolar system. Can the United States sustain its primacy? Or will the emergence of new great powers reorder the distribution of power in the international system? If U.S. power is waning, will power transition dynamics result in security competitions and an increased possibility of war? In particular, what are the implications of China's rapid ascent to great power status? If the United States is unable to preserve its hegemonic role, what will happen to the security and economic frameworks that it took the lead in creating after the end of World War II and that have provided the foundation for the international order ever since? In a world no longer defined by U.S. hegemony, what would become of globalization and the open international economic system that the United established after World War II and expanded after the Cold War ended? This essay reviews five publications that grapple with these questions: Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy; Parag Khanna, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order; Kishore Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East; National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World; and Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World.
- Topic:
- Economics and War
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and Asia
28. Correspondence: Another Skirmish in the Battle over Democracies and War
- Author:
- Alexander B. Downes, Dan Reiter, and Allan Stam
- Publication Date:
- 10-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam; Alexander B. Downes. "Correspondence: Another Skirmish in the Battle over Democracies and War." International Security 34, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 194.
- Topic:
- War
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