The Invincible Wilsonian Matrix: Universal Human Rights Once Again

A conservative or realist approach has little appeal in the present debate over American foreign policy. In the twentieth century, according to George F. Kennan, the United States succumbed to “the evils of utopian enthusiasms.” In recent years, this worldview has been associated most closely with the neoconservatives, but even the Clinton administration leaned in the same direction. Crusading moralism has been the recurrent theme of America's self-image as a global power. Whether or not neoconservatives and liberals today are really dedicated to the same democratic political culture as the one that Wilson idealized, a recognizable Wilsonian manner of conceptualizing international relations has come to dominate American politics, reflected in a shared rejection of any foreign policy that is not based on the temporal salvation of humanity. Yet many Wilsonians seem unable to imagine that one can be “moral” without trying to make everyone resemble one's self.     

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.     

Beyond Primacy: Hegemony and ‘Security Addiction’ in U.S. Grand Strategy

The George W. Bush administration embraced a particularly aggressive counter-terrorist and counter-proliferation strategy after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The “Bush Doctrine,” as it became known, reflects a “primacist” approach to grand strategy that aims not only to eliminate global terrorist networks and cowl rogue state proliferators, but also to dissuade potential near-peer competitors from challenging the American-centred international system. Critics expect that this ambitious approach to strategic affairs has become unsustainable in the face of the growing quagmire in Iraq. But “security addiction” in the post-9/11 environment has instead created conditions for a bipartisan consensus on the overall direction, if not the particular modalities, of “primacist” grand strategies. Despite the unpopularity of the Bush administration and significant American commitments to Afghanistan and Iraq, it is highly unlikely that President Barack Obama will heed calls for military retrenchment or strategic restraint.     

The Rise and Demise of the Two-State Paradigm

The conventional wisdom recommends the establishment of a Palestinian state to bring about an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (the two-state paradigm). This article first reviews the confluence of domestic and international factors that led to the resurgence of the two-state paradigm. Next, it concludes that a peaceful outcome in accordance with this paradigm is unlikely to emerge in the near future: the two national movements, the Palestinian and the Zionist, are not close to a historic compromise, and the Palestinians are not able to build a state. Finally, the article analyzes the policy options available to policymakers. State-building is unlikely to succeed. Similarly, a binational state, where Arabs and Jews live peacefully together is not within reach. A regional approach that advocates a greater role for Arab states in Palestinian affairs has better chances of stabilizing the situation than the previous options. Finally, in the absence of a solution, the most realistic policy appears to be conflict management.     

Dangerous Revisionism: On the Founders, ‘Neocons’ and the Importance of History

Debates regarding the Bush Administration's grand strategy began long before the forty-third president left office. A group of distinguished historians and political scientists have argued over the course of the last few years that the Administration's grand strategy did not represent a major break with historical precedent, as is sometimes argued, but continued the evangelical support for liberty that has always made the United States a “dangerous nation” to tyrants. Along the way, this revisionism creates straw men, and co-opts or redefines terms that are central to the traditional understanding of U.S. foreign policy. It also seems to misunderstand grand strategy itself, focusing almost entirely on continuity of ends while ignoring the rather glaring discontinuities in the ways that generations of U.S. presidents have chosen to pursue them. Overall, the revisionist project fails in both of its tasks, which are: To make the case that the Bush administration took actions of which the Founding Fathers would have understood and approved; and by implication, to justify the unnecessary, tragic war in Iraq.     

Why Foreign Fighters?: Historical Perspectives and Solutions

Insurgencies that recruit foreign nationals to join rebel groups in various civil wars around the globe are a source of growing concern to policymakers. Despite attention focused on recent Islamist groups, foreign fighters are a phenomenon that is neither new nor uniquely Islamic. In conflicts from the Spanish Civil War to the Afghanistan War, insurgencies consistently recruited foreigners by framing the local war as one that threatened a shared transnational identity group and necessitated a defensive mobilization. It is therefore possible to draw lessons about combating their flow through counter-recruitment from a wide array of historical cases.     

Nuclear Terrorism Redux: Conventionalists, Skeptics, and the Margin of Safety

The casual media observer might well believe that nuclear terrorism is highly likely in the United States and it is a question of “when, not if.” This is the view of the “conventionalists.” But there is a second school, the “skeptics,” that believes the nuclear world is more secure than at any time in history and that the possibility of a nuclear terrorist event is overstated. This article articulates arguments made by these two schools of thought and develops a framework for analyzing the issue. It concludes that while enhanced national and international vigilance against nuclear terrorism is necessary, when viewed through an historical lens, today's margin of nuclear safety may actually be higher than in the past.     

Is Russia Succeeding in Central Asia?

On a number of recent occasions, the top Russian leadership has expressed its special interest in the affairs of former Soviet republics, including the assertion that Russia has a “privileged” relationship with these now independent states.¹ Is this a claim of accomplished fact, of future intention, or perhaps an empty expression of nostalgia for lost status? As we see it, the record of Russian actions in the largest group of these states—the five of Central Asia—allows us to exclude the first and question whether the second is realizable. Russia must contend with the aspirations of those states themselves, as well as the determined interests of China and, to a lesser extent, the West.