Sound and fury, signifying something? NATO and the Trump administration’s second year

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Security in northeast Asia: structuring a settlement

A potential pathway exists for a Northeast Asian settlement where the Koreas, the United States, China, and Japan can each live within the status quo. Sustaining a settlement will require reining in foreign policy hawks reluctant to allow the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to retain a nuclear arsenal. The United States will also need to engage allies fearful of conflict with North Korea but also disinclined to let a neighboring state enjoy a local nuclear monopoly. The United States should continue outreach to North Korea with the objective of establishing a process that links sanctions relief and security guarantees to a plan for eventual denuclearization. The future China-DPRK relationship must be considered and isolated from the US-China relationship— notably, economic tensions and disputes in the South and East China Seas. It should facilitate Chinese leverage over North Korea and encourage China to reinforce its economic and security ties with North Korea to influence and restrain Pyongyang’s decision making. The Trump administration must earn the support of stakeholders across the policy-making and procedural spectrum and facilitate a domestic political consensus in favor of the emerging settlement. Securing a settlement in Northeast Asia may be a productive way of reducing one of the most troublesome spots in US foreign relations.1Published versio

The shadow of exit from NATO

President Donald Trump has not been shy about trying to coerce close allies. This inclination has led to concerns that the president poses a unique threat to American alliances. Theoretically, these concerns are consistent with an influential line of argument pointing to strategic restraint and reassurance—via binding institutions—as what sets American alliances apart. However, the Trump presidency is not the first time that the shadow of exit has hung over the United States’ commitment to Europe. Indeed, a closer look at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) formative period shows that the United States actively considered leaving Europe throughout the 1950s. Even after resigning itself to staying in the early 1960s, the United States used threats of abandonment to put down the Franco-German revolt—the most significant challenge to its preponderant position in the NATO alliance. The primary implication is that American alliance relations have been characterized by more uncertainty—and less restraint and reassurance—than institutionalists have cared to emphasize, which paradoxically suggests that NATO, and the United States’ broader alliance network, is robust enough to survive President Trump’s attempts at coercion.Published versio

Preparing for papercuts: archives between concepts and practices

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NATO enlargement and US foreign policy: the origins, durability, and impact of an idea

Since the Cold War, NATO enlargement has moved from a contentious issue in US foreign policy debates to an accepted plank in US strategy. What explains this development—why has support for enlargement become a focal point in US foreign policy? After first reviewing US policy toward NATO enlargement, this article evaluates a range of hypotheses from international relations theory and policy deliberations that might explain the trend. It finds that no one factor explains the United States’ enlargement consensus. Instead, pervasive US support for enlargement reflects the confluence of several international and domestic trends that, collectively, transformed NATO expansion into a lodestone of US foreign relations. Regardless, the development carries a range of consequences for US national security; although enlargement afforded the United States significant oversight of European security and political developments, it came at the cost of increased tensions and diminished flexibility with Russia, allied cheap-riding, and US overextension.Accepted manuscrip

Evaluating NATO enlargement: scholarly debates, policy implications, and roads not taken

NATO’s enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe after the Cold War is the subject of significant debate in academic and policy circles. With few exceptions, however, this debate focuses on single issues, such as whether enlargement led to the decline of the West’s relations with Russia. In this framing document, we look to expand the debate. We do so by sequentially reviewing the process by which NATO enlarged, outlining the array of issue areas within which to assess the consequences of NATO enlargement, and highlighting the particular importance of counterfactual analysis to any judgment of enlargement’s legacy. Building on a May 2019 workshop at Boston University, we also summarize the results of several articles that collectively evaluate the consequence of expansion for the USA, Russia, non-US NATO members, and the organization itself. Finally, we conclude by outlining elements of a broader research program on the aftereffects of NATO enlargement.Accepted manuscrip

Systemic and military sources of rising state strategy towards declining great powers

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 260-284).What explains variation in relatively rising state strategy towards declining great powers? This project develops and tests a theory of state strategy vis-a-vis declining great powers, termed Realist Decline Theory. Realist Decline Theory argues that states debating the strategies to adopt towards a declining peer are forced to consider the costs and benefits of either preying on the declining state, or supporting the decliner and helping it maintain its place within the great power ranks. As the costs and benefits wax and wane, states adopt different degrees of predation or support for self-interested reasons. Two variables - the polarity of the international system and the declining state's military posture - determine these costs and benefits by shaping the security threats facing relatively rising states. This study uses multiple primary and secondary sources to measure Realist Decline Theory's variables and evaluate its analytic power against competing explanations. The argument is tested using two structured, focused comparisons of rising state strategy in the post- 1945 international system: American policy towards the declining Soviet Union (1989-1990), and American and Soviet strategy towards the declining United Kingdom (1945-1949). These cases were selected because they provide strong tests of the theory vis-a'-vis competing theories. The cases also permit observation and evaluation of substantial variation in the nature of rising state strategy. The overall finding is that Realist Decline Theory indeed explains variation in rising state strategy, although other factors are important. This study makes several contributions. First, it identifies and explains an empirical puzzle that is either overlooked or only loosely explained by existing research. Second, the study attempts to synthesize different streams of international relations theory in the realist tradition into a unified realist theory of state strategy. Third, the research contributes to Cold War historiography. Finally, the study offers insight for policymakers worried about the possible decline of the United States and rise of new great powers to international prominence.by Joshua Richard Itzkowitz Shifrinson.Ph.D

Partnership or predation? How rising states contend with declining great powers

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Trump's National Security Strategy: A Critics Dream (February 2018)

President Donald Trump released his administration’s first National Security Strategy on December 18, 2017 with much fanfare. In the run-up to the release, Trump’s foreign policy had come in for significant hostility, with critics decrying the administration for betraying U.S. liberal internationalism and pursuing an avowedly “America First” agenda. Initial reactions to the speech from much of the policy and scholarly communities have been at best ambivalent, with analysts lambasting the strategy’s “realist framing,” its emphasis on great power competition, and seeming over-reliance on the military tools of statecraft.LBJ School of Public Affair