Large and rapid power shifts resulting from exogenous economic growth are considered sufficient to cause preventive wars. Yet most large and rapid shifts result from endogenous military investments. ...We show that when the investment decision is perfectly transparent, peace prevails. Large and rapid power shifts are deterred through the threat of a preventive war. When investments remain undetected, however, states may be tempted to introduce power shifts as a fait accompli. Knowing this, their adversaries may strike preventively even without conclusive evidence of militarization. In fact, the more effective preventive wars are, the more likely they will be launched against states that are not militarizing. Our argument emphasizes the role of imperfect information as a cause of war. It also explains why powerful states may attack weaker targets even with ambiguous evidence of their militarization. We illustrate our theory through an account of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
The United States has been at war for thirteen of the twenty-two years since the Cold War ended and the world became unipolar. Still, the consensual view among international relations theorists is ...that unipolarity is peaceful. They base this view on two assumptions: first, the unipole will guarantee the global status quo and, second, no state will balance against it. Both assumptions are problematic. First, the unipole may disengage from a particular region, thus removing constraints on regional conflicts. Second, if the unipole remains engaged in the world, those minor powers that decide not to accommodate it will be unable to find a great power sponsor. Placed in this situation of extreme self-help, they will try to revise the status quo in their favor, a dynamic that is likely to trigger conflict with the unipole. Therefore, neither the structure of a unipolar world nor U.S. strategic choices clearly benefit the overall prospects for peace. For the world as a whole, unipolarity makes conflict likely. For the unipole, it presents a difficult choice between disengagement and frequent conflict. In neither case will the unipole be able to easily convert its power into favorable outcomes peacefully.
An Economic Theory of War Monteiro, Nuno P.; Debs, Alexandre
The Journal of politics,
01/2020, Letnik:
82, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
When does war occur for economic reasons? In an anarchic environment, stronger states may fear that their security will be undermined by the economic growth of weaker states and may attempt to ...constrain it. Weaker states, even if they are rising, may prefer to declare war. The weaker institutional constraints on stronger states are, and the smaller the spheres of influence of weaker states are, the greater are the risks of war. We illustrate our theory by analyzing the economic roots of the Second World War, and we reflect on the general lessons of our argument.
What makes coercion succeed? For most international relations scholars, the answer is credible threats. Yet scholars have neglected a second key component of successful coercion: credible assurances. ...This article makes two contributions to our understanding of coercion and credible assurances. First, we offer a theoretical framework exploring the causes and consequences of assurance credibility. In order to coerce the target, a challenger must issue both credible threats that defiance will be met with punishment, and credible assurances that compliance will be met with restraint. In turn, the credibility of assurances is determined by power and a reputation for restraint. Whereas greater power boosts credible threats, it undermines credible assurances. Therefore, powerful states must cultivate a reputation for restraint in order to issue credible assurances. Second, we provide empirical support for our claims through a nationally representative, scenario-based survey experiment that explores how US citizens respond to a hypothetical coercive dispute with China.
Qualitative historical knowledge is essential for validating natural experiments. Specifically, the validity of a natural experiment depends on the historical processes of treatment assignment and ...administration, including broader macro-historical dynamics. But if validating a natural experiment requires trust in the ability of qualitative evidence to establish the causal processes through which the data were generated, there is no good reason for natural experiments to be considered epistemically superior to historical research. To the contrary, the epistemic status of natural experiments is on a par with that of the historical research on which their validation depends. They are two modes of social-scientific explanation, each with its own pros and cons; neither is privileged. We illustrate this argument by re-examining an important recent contribution to the literature on violent conflict: Ferwerda and Miller’s 2014 natural experiment estimating the causal effect of the German decision to devolve authority to the Vichy French government on violent resistance during World War II.
This article critically reviews scholarship on the role of conflict and cooperation in conditioning nuclear proliferation. We start by laying out the trajectory of scholarship on the causes of ...proliferation, organizing it in three waves: (
a
) security and (
b
) nonsecurity drivers of proliferation, and (
c
) supply constraints on nuclear acquisition. We then examine the recent turn in the proliferation literature toward a strategic interaction approach, focusing on how conflict and cooperation between proliferators, their adversaries, and their allies shape the spread of nuclear weapons. We argue for an integrated framework for analyzing the tools states can deploy to foster or stymie proliferation. Finally, we sketch an agenda for research on nuclear proliferation. Here, we argue that scholarship should (
a
) incorporate nonsecurity dynamics into the strategic interaction approach to the study of proliferation and (
b
) combine rigorous theory with careful historical research to further our understanding of the causes of proliferation.
Proving equivalence of programs has several important applications, including algorithm recognition, regression checking, compiler optimization verification and validation, and information flow ...checking. Despite being a topic with so many important applications, program equivalence checking has seen little advances over the past decades due to its inherent (high) complexity. In this paper, we propose, to the best of our knowledge, the first semi-algorithm for the automatic verification of partial equivalence of two programs over the combined theory of uninterpreted function symbols and integer arithmetic (UF+IA). The proposed algorithm supports, in particular, programs with nested loops. The crux of the technique is a transformation of uninterpreted functions (UFs) applications into integer polynomials, which enables the precise summarization of loops with UF applications using recurrences. The equivalence checking algorithm then proceeds on loop-free, integer only programs. We implemented the proposed technique in CORK, a tool that automatically verifies the correctness of compiler optimizations, and we show that it can prove more optimizations correct than state-of-the-art techniques.
Nationalism, Collaboration, and Resistance Kocher, Matthew Adam; Lawrence, Adria K.; Monteiro, Nuno P.
International security,
11/2018, Letnik:
43, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Does nationalism produce resistance to foreign military occupation? The existing literature suggests that it does. Nationalism, however, also can lead to acquiescence and even to active collaboration ...with foreign conquerors. Nationalism can produce a variety of responses to occupation because political leaders connect nationalist motivations to other political goals. A detailed case study of the German occupation of France during World War II demonstrates these claims. In this highly nationalistic setting, Vichy France entered into collaboration with Germany despite opportunities to continue fighting in 1940 or defect from the German orbit later. Collaboration with Germany was widely supported by French elites and passively accommodated by the mass of nationalistic French citizens. Because both resisters and collaborators were French nationalists, nationalism cannot explain why collaboration was the dominant French response or why a relatively small number of French citizens resisted. Variation in who resisted and when resistance occurred can be explained by the international context and domestic political competition. Expecting a German victory in the war, French right-wing nationalists chose collaboration with the Nazis as a means to suppress and persecute their political opponents, the French Left. In doing so, they fostered resistance. This case suggests the need for a broader reexamination of the role of nationalism in explaining reactions to foreign intervention.
Water is the most important resource for all kind forms of live. It is a vital resource distributed unequally across different regions of the globe, with populations already living with water ...scarcity, a situation that is spreading due to the impact of climate change. The reversal of this tendency and the mitigation of its disastrous consequences is a global challenge posed to Humanity, with the scientific community assuming a major obligation for providing solutions based on scientific knowledge. This article reviews literature concerning the development of nanomaterials for water purification technologies, including collaborative scientific research carried out in our laboratory (nanoLAB@UA) framed by the general activities carried out at the CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials. Our research carried out in this specific context has been mainly focused on the synthesis and surface chemical modification of nanomaterials, typically of a colloidal nature, as well as on the evaluation of the relevant properties that arise from the envisaged applications of the materials. As such, the research reviewed here has been guided along three thematic lines: 1) magnetic nanosorbents for water treatment technologies, namely by using biocomposites and graphite-like nanoplatelets; 2) nanocomposites for photocatalysis (e.g., TiO
/Fe
O
and POM supported graphene oxide photocatalysts; photoactive membranes) and 3) nanostructured substrates for contaminant detection using surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), namely polymers loaded with Ag/Au colloids and magneto-plasmonic nanostructures. This research is motivated by the firm believe that these nanomaterials have potential for contributing to the solution of environmental problems and, conversely, will not be part of the problem. Therefore, assessment of the impact of nanoengineered materials on eco-systems is important and research in this area has also been developed by collaborative projects involving experts in nanotoxicity. The above topics are reviewed here by presenting a brief conceptual framework together with illustrative case studies, in some cases with original research results, mainly focusing on the chemistry of the nanomaterials investigated for target applications. Finally, near-future developments in this research area are put in perspective, forecasting realistic solutions for the application of colloidal nanoparticles in water cleaning technologies.
The election of Donald J. Trump challenged some long-held core tenets of US foreign policy. For decades, US administrations have valued the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons among their most ...important foreign policy goals. At the same time, Washington has expanded its global influence by extending robust security guarantees to numerous countries around the globe. Finally, the US has established strategic stability vis-à-vis its nuclear adversaries by relying heavily on the doctrine of deterrence. These three policies, as the analysis below will show, are deeply connected. Security assurances to allies, combined with a focus on deterring -- rather than rolling back -- adversary regimes, have long been among the most effective tools in Washington’s nuclear nonproliferation toolkit. The limited spread of nuclear weapons that resulted from these policies, in turn, has made it possible for the US to expand its global influence and achieve its broader strategic goals at relatively low cost, avoiding major wars against nuclear adversaries and exercising a great deal of influence over its protégés.
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