Think Again – Supplying War: Reappraising Military Logistics and Its Centrality to Strategy and War

This article argues that logistics constrains strategic opportunity while itself being heavily circumscribed by strategic and operational planning. With the academic literature all but ignoring the centrality of logistics to strategy and war, this article argues for a reappraisal of the critical role of military logistics, and posits that the study and conduct of war and strategy are incomplete at best or false at worst when they ignore this crucial component of the art of war. The article conceptualises the logistics–strategy nexus in a novel way, explores its contemporary manifestation in an age of uncertainty, and applies it to a detailed case study of UK operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001

Selecting for Shame: The Monitoring of Workers’ Rights by the International Labour Organization, 1989 to 2011

Why do intergovernmental organizations target some countries, but not others, for naming and shaming? We seek answers by examining these processes within the International Labour Organization (ILO), which through two principal bodies, monitors compliance with international conventions governing the rights of workers. We examine whether political interests and calculations or norms inducing adherence to international conventions best explain which countries the ILO calls out for their misconduct, what punishment countries receive, and whether naming and shaming in the ILO amount to distinctive activities. Based on an analysis of the 1989–2011 period, we find considerable evidence that norms matter to members of both ILO bodies. That is, we find evidence that the ILO “does its job” by acting in accordance with the organization's formal mandate. We also find evidence that the process of naming, which leads to the initial identification of culprits, stands apart from the process by which the ILO prioritizes, or chooses, from among countries for shaming. While our findings are specific to the ILO, they back claims that IOs can override states interests, if crafted in ways that limit political influence

The Diplomatic Core: The Determinants of High-Level U.S. Diplomatic Visits, 1946–2010

Face-to-face diplomacy is an important feature of international relations. But when and why do high-level diplomatic interactions occur? We examine different theoretical perspectives using a new dataset of diplomatic visits by the US President and Secretary of State. We argue for assessing these visits along two dimensions. First, we posit that the degree of discretion or constraint in the diplomatic calendar falls along a spectrum. Strategic and domestic factors are at opposite extremes while diplomatic routines fall in the middle. Second, we consider the convergence in the relative influence of these sets of factors across the President’s and the Secretary’s calendars. We develop and test hypotheses about the determinants of visits by the President and Secretary of State across twelve presidencies from 1946 to 2010. Overall, the travels of the President and Secretary converge to serve a set of priorities that derive from a fairly stable set of national interests and from diplomatic routine. We observe that the President effectively retraces the footsteps of the Secretary more than the reverse. We find some evidence of domestic (including individual-level) influences on diplomacy, but only limited evidence that times of crisis produce distinct patterns in face-to-face encounters