Multilateral Constraints on the Use of Force: A Reassessment

The difficulty of achieving a multilateral consensus in the NATO Alliance can create more of a crisis than does the difficulty of generating an effective UN response to threats to international peace and security. NATO was supposed to be America\u27s prime multilateral institution for obtaining legitimation and support of military action when the UN Security Council was paralyzed because of the veto. But as it has turned out Washington\u27s ability to obtain a Brussels imprimatur for U.S.-led multilateral military operations has become almost as hard as (and in some cases even harder than) obtaining UN endorsement. And whereas proposals to change the UN Security Council\u27s voting rules have become a matter for open discourse among statespersons, such discourse with respect to the North Atlantic Council is shied away from as subversive of the ethos of the Alliance.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1718/thumbnail.jp

The Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR): In Historical Perspective

Except for the Eisenhower administration’s threat of nuclear retaliation to even local non-nuclear and limited aggression, the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is the most open description of US capabilities and strategies for employing nuclear weapons in a wide range of contingencies. Blurring the distinction between non-nuclear and nuclear war, the 2018 NPR reverses the commitment in the Obama administration’s 2010 NPR to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US grand strategy. It champions this wider role as warranted by three developments: the deterioration of the Post-Cold War relationships with Russia and China; new technologies which allow for precisely tailored nuclear attacks well short of mutual assured destruction (MAD) levels, and evidence that Moscow and Beijing are adopting such limited nuclear war capabilities and strategies; and the evident desire of other states and non-state actors hostile to the United States to acquire their own weapons of mass destruction and/or intimidation. But the 2018 NPR fails to show why modernized nuclear capabilities are better able to deter and defend against potential enemy aggression than technologicallyadvanced nonnuclear capabilities. Its presumption of controllable nuclear exchanges will reduce the calculations of risk and increase the likelihood of conflicts escalating to nuclear war

Taiwan at a Turning Point

The five essays in this volume resonate well with the theme of Taiwan at a Turning Point. John Copper examines the implications of the CHEN Shiu-bian and MA Ying-jeou presidencies for Taiwan\u27s democratization, focusing on elections, corruption, and ethnic relations. Overall, he concludes that recent events have strengthened democracy in Taiwan. Dennis Hickey analyzes President Ma\u27s responses to the central challenges facing Taiwan. He finds that Ma has stabilized relations with Beijing and Washington, although there is room for substantial improvements. in contrast, there has been little change in the political polarization on fundamental identity issues. John Hsieh charts the changes in the party system: from the two-party competition to the multi-party competition, and now back to the two-party competition He develops an explanatory model for this evolution based on social cleavages and electoral institutions in Taiwan. Steven Chan explains the growing economic integration between China and Taiwan, in the face of several important inhibiting factors. He argues that the rising influence of Taiwanese businesses in the key for Taiwan\u27s decision making and analyzes the implications of intense cross-strait commerce from the perspective of a signaling and committment mechaniscm. Cal Clark argues that the effective leadership of the state played a major role in Taiwan\u27s successful economic development and democratization, but that now the effects of this very successful strategy have undermined the government\u27s ability to promote economic upgrading for the next developmental stage