Hegemony,Force Posture,and the Provision of Public Goods: The Once and Future Role of Outside Powers in Securing Persian Gulf Oil

International relations theories emphasize the stabilizing role hegemons play in world politics. But little scholarship has examined the link connecting hegemony to its potentially positive returns in the security realm: force posture. We correct this deficit by developing and testing an argument about the consequences of different hegemonic force postures under varying threat conditions. We present a typology of force posture options and probe their effects through over-time analysis of how major powers have worked to provide one particularly important public good since 1945: access to Persian Gulf oil. Drawing on field work, we also explore the implications of our framework for current and future US force posture in the region. We conclude that hegemonic stability is a very real phenomenon in the Gulf, but it does not require the massive forward deployment of US forces that has characterized the past twenty years of US presence there.     

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.     

Violence and the U.S. prohibitions of drugs and alcohol

This paper examines the relation between prohibitions and violence,using the historical behavior of the homicide rate in the UnitedStates. The results document that increases in enforcement ofdrug and alcohol prohibition have been associated with increasesin the homicide rate, and auxiliary evidence suggests this positivecorrelation reflects a causal effect of prohibition enforcementon homicide. Controlling for other potential determinants ofthe homicide rate does not alter the conclusion that drug andalcohol prohibition have substantially raised the homicide ratein the U.S. over much of the past 100 years.     

The Heroes of COIN

The conventional wisdom holds that security in Iraq only improved after Gen. David Petraeus implemented a new counterinsurgency doctrine that stressed population security instead of aggressive operations against insurgent forces. This interpretation is strikingly similar to the historiography of the Huk Rebellion, the Malayan Emergency, and the Vietnam War. In each case observers criticized initial efforts as brutal and counterproductive, only to be rescued when enlightened new leaders arrived on the scene. This article challenges the familiar hero narrative, arguing that critics routinely exaggerate the importance of leadership changes because they view conflicts as experiments in counterinsurgency rather than exercises in state-building. Whereas counterinsurgency (COIN) theory emphasizes issues like public security and government legitimacy, theorists of state-building describe a bloody and protracted competition for power under conditions approaching anarchy. The upshot is that the “heroes” of late-stage COIN might actually depend on the earlier “villains” who did the dirty work of establishing political order and coercing the population into obedience.     

Making sense of HIPAA Privacy: solutions for complex compliance dilemmas

This Article examines and proposes solutions for the following compliance problems under the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act's Privacy Rule: (a) determining compliance requirements when multiple provisions of the Privacy Rule allow a use or disclosure of protected health information; (b) managing minimum necessary for disclosures to noncovered entities; (c) managing interaction between organized healthcare arrangements and noncovered providers; (d) processing joint health and life/disability insurance applications; (e) reconciling family coverage explanations of benefits and family member's confidential communication demands; and (f) explaining denial of protected health information access based on endangerment. In the course of the analysis, the Article presents a Privacy Rule Compliance Tool that summarizes the compliance requirements associated with each Privacy Rule provision that allows protected health information use or disclosure.