核威慑效应的生成及印巴核威慑的稳定性

核威慑理论伴随着冷战的展开而逐渐丰富,对稳定核威慑需具备的条件,学者们的论述基本趋向于大致相同的结论,然而在适用上却也有不同的解释。自1998年南亚的印、巴进行公开核试验以来,两国核竞赛有增无减,使南亚成为核关注的焦点。印巴两国虽然经历了几次紧张的对峙和冲突,但最终未走向战争,显然核威慑对抑止冲突升级发挥了重要作用,虽然南亚核威慑因技术条件的有限性使其相对脆弱,但在彼此的核学习和相互角逐过程中,两国的威慑会渐趋稳定。     

Has the Forgotten “Stability-Instability Paradox” Belatedly Reared Its Ugly Head in Ukraine?

When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine last February, he seemed surprisingly confident that threatening nuclear escalation would inhibit any North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) response. Despite Russia’s poor military performance, this coercive nuclear gambit seems to have paid off. Western countries preemptively ruled out direct intervention and have declined Ukraine combat aircraft and longer-range missiles as they openly agonize about how Putin could react if facing an outright military defeat. This seemingly successful use of nuclear brinkmanship raises the specter of the stability-instability paradox, a largely forgotten Cold War theory worrying that stable mutual nuclear deterrence could embolden military adventurism at lower levels of warfare     

Russia’s Escalation Management and a Baltic Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone

This article examines the idea of a Baltic Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) in the context of the Russian Federation’s deterrence and escalation management theories, largely as enunciated by Russian military theorists. It first introduces the history of the Baltic NWFZ idea from the early 1960s to the present proposals, and then explores Russian escalation management. The author concludes by considering how Baltic NWFZ proposals may interact with—and be understood through—the Russian military’s perspective.     

Managing the 1986-87 Sino-Indian Sumdorong Chu Crisis

ABSTRACT

How did China and India manage to prevent the 1986-87 Sumdorong Chu Crisis from escalating into a war? I argue that it was a combination of changing geopolitical factors (Sino-Soviet rapprochement and the end of Soviet support for India in the context of Sino-Indian tensions) and military factors (conventional deterrence and perceptions of limited revisionism) that help explain crisis management. While these geopolitical and military factors helped avert immediate escalation, the crisis truly ended only after China and India sought a new modus vivendi during Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s landmark trip to China in December 1988. The absence of great power (Soviet) support meant that India had to make a costly signal to China in the form of Gandhi’s trip that happened during the 1987-89 cycle of protests in Tibet against Chinese rule. Nevertheless, Gandhi’s visit took place after India had demonstrated its military strength and resolve in its ability to defend the status quo on the border, and therefore should not be interpreted as a sign of weakness. In other words, I argue that successful deterrence requires broader foreign policy reorientation. At the same time, considerations of power (in the form of internal/external balancing) are central to strategic stability in the Sino-Indian dyad, and that any recourse to diplomacy that ignores the realities of military power is unlikely to be successful for crisis management.     

The Grand Strategy of Militant Clients: Iran’s Way of War

This article argues that militant clients should be understood as a pillar of Iran's grand strategy and an extension of its military power. The article examines why Iran has relied on militant clients since the 1979 revolution and the benefits and costs of its client approach. In evaluating these issues, it identifies five main areas where Iran has gained from its client strategy: 1) maintaining independence from the West; 2) successfully exporting its religio-political worldview; 3) extending its military reach and power; 4) reducing political costs of its foreign activities; and 5) establishing needed regional allies. It further identifies five main dangers that Iran faces by continuing its strategic behavior: 1) increased pressure from the United States and a broader US military regional footprint; 2) more unified regional adversaries; 3) the risk of unintended escalation with the United States and regional adversarial states; and 4) enduring regional instability and insecurity     

胁迫式外交:战略竞争时代美国对外战略的转型

以特朗普政府2017年《国家安全战略报告》和2018年《国防战略报告》为标志,世界进入美国启动的战略竞争新时期,地缘政治争夺和大国竞争再度成为世界政治的突出主题。美国重振和维护世界主导地位的目标未变,但"胁迫式外交"成为特朗普政府推行对外战略的常态,美国对外行为出现了冷战结束以来最为显著的变化,表现为重新激活战略军事威慑以压制战略军事竞争对手、以贸易热战和科技冷战方式打压战略经济竞争对手、以政治勒索方式逼盟友承担义务、以极限施压方式压制地区敌对国家、以退群和搅局方式阻挠多边外交。美国推行胁迫式外交与特朗普个人的执政风格相关,但根本性的原因是国际政治权力结构的重大变化和战略竞争时代的来临,推动美国对外权力输出发生了转型性变化。这也意味着美国对外权力输出方式正在发生从软实力向硬实力、从依赖制度优势向依赖实力优势的巨大偏转。美国所谓国际"领导力"正加速蜕变为维护美国特权的"胁迫力",美国权力输出的这种变化可能代表着未来美国外交发展的一种长期趋势。     

Russian military strategies in the Arctic: change or continuity?

This paper examines the nature of Moscow’s military strategies in the Arctic. It is argued that the roles of military power have radically changed since the Cold War era. According to Russian strategic thinking, instead of being a coercive instrument in a global confrontation between two superpowers and capitalist and socialist systems, now military power has new functions, such as to ascertain Russia's sovereignty over its (not their) exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in the region, protect Moscow’s economic interests in the North, prevent illegal migration and potential terrorist attacks against critical industrial and infrastructural objects, fulfil some dual-use functions (such as search and rescue operations, monitoring air and maritime spaces, providing navigation safety, mitigating natural and man-made catastrophes), help academic community in developing Arctic research, and carry some symbolic functions. These new roles, however, do not preclude military power from fulfilling its traditional functions, such as territorial defence, power projection, deterrence, and containment. Russia’s military modernisation programmes are described. The authors arrive at a conclusion that these programmes do not provoke an arms race or undermine the regional cooperation. To prevent negative security trends, a system of arms control and confidence- and security-building measures should be developed in the region.     

Mismatched Deterrents: Preventing the Use of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons

The basic logic of graduated deterrence worked fairly well against the Soviet Union, as each level of aggression was to be deterred by a matching response. But this logic has now been undermined vis-à-vis future rogue state chemical and biological attacks by the spread of dual-use technologies that can be diverted to weapons, and by decisions of the United States and other democracies to forego possession of chemical or biological weapons. This article identifies some of the serious difficulties of alternative approaches to deterring chemical or biological attacks, ranging from nuclear escalation to a reliance on supposed American advantages in conventional weapons. Lumping chemical and biological weapons together with nuclear weapons into a new category of "weapons of mass destruction" is a very imperfect solution.     

The British Nuclear Experience: The Role of Beliefs,Culture, and Status (Part Two)

Part One of this article, which appeared in the last edition of Diplomacy and Statecraft, argued that the origins and early development of British nuclear weapons was largely driven by the particular ideas and beliefs of a relatively small political, scientific, and military elite. It is also argued that these beliefs, which developed into a “deterrence state of mind” amongst the elite, derived in part from a traditional strategic culture that emphasised the importance of producing the most sophisticated weapons of the day to protect Britain's diplomatic and security interests in a largely anarchic international system. Part Two argues that these ideational factors, based on a “realist” perspective of international security held by Britain's political-military leadership, have remained of crucial importance through to the present day.     

Getting a Grip on Tailored Deterrence: The World of Conflict Management

The assumption that the United States operates from a position of strength relative to its potential enemy underpins U.S. deterrence theory. This perceived strength has emboldened American administrations to take serious tactical risks, such as the positioning of aircraft carriers in the Eastern Mediterranean during the 1973 Yom Kippur War in order to dissuade Soviet intervention in that conflict. This tacit assumption, facilitated and entrenched by overwhelming U.S.conventional military superiority in the post-Cold War era, forms the foundation both for the relatively recent developmentof tailored deterrence and for the “Flexible Deterrence Options” (FDO) that now constitute a routine aspectof the joint military planning process. This article argues that the tacit assumption of strength is too narrow and can promote the implementation of deterrent policies and actions that have the opposite effects of those intended. Deterrence, rightly understood, is a component of a conflict management strategy which implies a degree of weakness on the part of the statethat employs it. This condition must be recognized and then incorporated into policies and plans for deterrence.     

“天安号”事件与国际危机管理

2010年3月26日发生在朝鲜半岛西部海域的韩国“天安号”反潜护卫舰爆炸沉没事件，韩国政府认定为朝鲜攻击所致。韩国对事件的认定有着明显的政治主导意识和政治倾向，企图使朝韩危机从双边扩大为地区多边甚至超地区的国际危机演化，这将为美国谋求扩展在东亚的战略利益提供机会。国际危机管理是国家在维护国际安全稳定中经常面对的课题，如果美韩坚持把实现自身的战略利益作为危机管理的目标，朝鲜半岛危机则始终存在继续升级的危险。     

The prince of darkness and the evil empire: Richard Perle,the Soviet Union,and U.S. arms control policy

This paper consists of three parts. First, it investigates the rationality assumption behind much deterrence theorizing and arrives at the conclusion that the rationality assumption is not fully compatible with credible retaliation. Moreover, the requirements of central deterrence and of extended deterrence tend to be incompatible with each other. Since theoretical deliberations call the persisting reliability of deterrence into question, alternatives to deterrence have to be considered. The second part of the paper therefore investigates strategic defense as an improvement over deterrence and a possibly stabilizing element in deterrence. The final part refers to conceivable conflicts of interests between the USA and Western Europe concerning SDI. It is argued that such conflicts of interest either arise from parochial concerns or from overlooking the comparative advantages of free and totalitarian systems in the production of military power.     

Quantum Sensing's Potential Impacts on Strategic Deterrence and Modern Warfare

This article examines the impact of quantum sensing on strategic deterrence and modern warfare. It has two related objectives. The first is to highlight quantum sensing as an important area of research for the policy communities considering the role of emerging technologies on strategic deterrence and countering weapons of mass destruction. The second aim is to present the potential warfighting implications of quantum sensing if employed by either the United States or its adversaries. While quantum sensing technologies offer opportunities to transform modern warfare, they also present challenges and risks. The article contends that the quantum sensing investment, research, and development should be prioritized within the Department of Defense's quantum science modernization agenda to ensure that the U.S. military does not cede technological advantage to competitors, such as the People's Republic of China, who are actively investing in quantum sensing applications that could upend the United States’ existing deterrence and warfighting capabilities.     

On Extended Nuclear Deterrence

This analysis discusses the central challenges that countries face when they practice extended nuclear deterrence. One key problem has to do with credibility: potential aggressors may not believe that a country would fight to defend an ally, particularly if doing so risks a nuclear attack against its homeland. Countries might be able to address this issue by forging formal alliances with protégés or by stationing nuclear forces on the protégé’s territory. Do these measures discourage third-party aggression? Defence pacts involving nuclear-armed states effectively bolster extended deterrence. One risk of extending nuclear protection from the American perspective, however, is that it might pull the United States into unwanted wars by risk-acceptant protégés. Yet, in a nuclear context, the risk of alliance entrapment is generally overblown. Placing nuclear weapons on an ally’s territory does much less to bolster extended deterrence than one might initially think. Although foreign nuclear deployments may reassure allies and promote non-proliferation to some degree, their value for extended deterrence is fairly minimal. The United States continues to deploy nuclear weapons in five European countries, but the case for maintaining these deployments is decidedly weak.     

Windows of opportunity for conflict prevention: responding to regional conflict in West Africa1

This article charts the course of regional crisis in West Africa since 1999 and assesses the extent to which the United Nations (UN) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) succeeded in preventing an escalation of crisis in that sub‐region. It argues that although windows of opportunity existed for preventing the escalation of conflict and attention was sometimes paid to warning signs, the UN and ECOWAS had limited success largely because the regional dimensions of the conflicts were not recognized earlier. Additionally, while there has been increased collaboration between the UN and ECOWAS in response to regional crisis, these efforts are hampered by the absence of a systematized base of operations. This paper discusses the experience of the last five years and concludes that ECOWAS has not only become more responsive but has developed an evolving political framework for early action which could be greatly improved with coordinated and targeted support from the UN.     

U.S.Deterrence and Coercive Diplomacy and China's Coping Strategy

Deterrence and coercion are two kinds of strategies,the latter being more aggressive than the former.The U.S.Asia-Pacific Rebalancing strategy is an important diplomatic legacy of Obama's administration.For the issues involving the Diaoyu Islands,the South China Sea,cyber security,DPRK's nuclear program,and Iran's nuclear program,the U.S.has carded out military deterrence and non-force coercion against China.But generally,these are low-level coercive measures and distinct from the severe economic sanction and diplomatic isolation imposed by the U.S.on Russia,Syria,DPRK and Iran in recent years.Concerning issues where the U.S.and China hold distinct views,there would be less strategic leeway for the two countries.If the U.S.is to strengthen deterrence and coercion towards China,China can respond more actively and effectively,but it will be more difficult to build a new model of China-U.S.major-country relationship.     

The Economic Leverage of International Organizations in Interstate Disputes

Addressing a long-standing debate in international relations scholarship, this study shows that international governmental organizations (IGOs) with high economic leverage over their member states, such as some development banks, substantially lower the risk that political disputes experience the use of military force. Empirical tests covering cases of disputatious claims and international crises since 1946 make use of a new classification of IGOs that have economic leverage and use it toward increasing states’ cost of using force in disputes. When pairs of states are subject to the economic leverage of IGOs, they are substantially less likely to use force. For the understanding and practice of interstate dispute resolution and international conflict more generally, the study suggests a specific linkage between institutionalized economic interdependence and conflict escalation.     

Restoring Deterrence

While the strategy of deterrence has faced considerable criticism since September 11, it needs to be reexamined. This article addresses serious challenges to the deterrence strategy. It also considers the deterrence strategy as it relates to states such as Iraq, North Korea, Iran and others. Ultimately, it argues that deterrence is a security policy offering a way forward for the United States that is not only more effective because more tailored, but is also more moral than its alternatives.     

A Long War in the East: Doctrine,Diplomacy, and the Prospects for a Protracted Sino-American Conflict

Increasing diplomatic tension between China and the United States has led to concerns about military conflict, possibly including rapid nuclear escalation. Scholars have spent less time considering the opposite scenario: protracted conventional war. This analysis explains why a combination of politics, geography, and technology may conspire to produce such a war, despite the fact that both sides are planning for a short, high-intensity fight. It shows how the Peloponnesian War, an ancient conflict fought with ancient weapons, nonetheless provides a warning of what might happen in the present. It also describes a grim trade off that American policy-makers will face in the event of war. Washington can take steps to reduce the chance of nuclear escalation, but in so doing will make a long war more likely. The conclusion describes the diplomatic challenge of war termination in a protracted conflict where neither side can compel the other to back down.     

Politics,proximity and paranoia: the evolution of Kashmir as a nuclear flashpoint

This article traces the evolution of Kashmir as a “nuclear flashpoint,” and the relationship between Kashmir, nuclear weapons, and regional security. The first section discusses the concept of a geopolitical flashpoint, providing a definition and a series of historical examples. The Kashmir issue and its role in the broader Indo-Pakistani conflict fit reasonably neatly into this definition. A second section briefly traces the history of nuclear weapons programs in the region, as the potential for nuclear escalation by competing powers or their allies is a key factor in defining nuclear flashpoints (a post-1945 phenomenon). The third section examines the evolution of the Kashmir issue and successive Indo-Pakistani crises within a nuclearized regional environment from 1984 to 2003. The final section assesses the prospects for Kashmir in the near future, and concludes that due to underlying political factors, Kashmir will remain a nuclear flashpoint for the foreseeable future.