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After Nuclear Midnight: The Impact Of A Nuclear War On India And Pakistan, Karthika Sasikumar

Faculty Publications

During the past decade, computer models have predicted that the physical impacts of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, or even a single strike on a large city, would be devastating. The social, economic, and political impacts – although less well known – would also be crippling and would reverberate throughout the world. Efforts to use “Armageddon estimates” to scare the people of India and Pakistan have thus far not significantly reduced the risk of nuclear weapons use in this turbulent region. However, the increasing penetration of television and social media may give members of the public a better …

Nonproliferation Regime Compliance: Prediction And Measure Using Unscr 1540, Sean F. Conroy

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates factors that predict compliance with international regimes, specifically the Non-Proliferation Regime. Generally accepted in international relations literature, is Krasner’s (1983) definition that regimes are “sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given [issue] area of international relations.” Using institutionalization as a framework, I hypothesize that compliance is a function of the respect for which a nation has for the rule of law. I investigate the NP regime through the lens of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540, a mandate for member nations to enact domestic legislation …

The Effects Of Historical Trauma And Gender On National Identity Within The Hmong Diaspora, Kalia Vang

All College Thesis Program, 2016-2019

Since 1975 the Hmong have settled in the West as a diasporic group. Their involvement in the Vietnam and Secret Wars with the United States in Southeast Asia had forced the group to flee their homes in the mountain tops of Laos. This political migration has since forced Hmong leaders to reframe Hmong national identity in the diaspora, specifically in the United States. With this, certain aspects and perspective from Hmong women on the Secret War were marginalized. Thus, this research asks the following question: why is national identity interpreted differently within the Hmong diaspora? This research project is broken …

Unconventional Lawfare: Operational Law In The War On Terror, L. P. Miller

Political Science Student Scholarship

This thesis examines the legal work required to establish a sufficient lawfare defense by focusing on the Department of Defense Judge Advocate Generals’ Corps (JAG Corps). The work will describe the JAG Corps as a well-trenched bureaucracy with a moral mission to uphold the military’s honor through laws, and how this was interpreted by the Bush and Obama administrations.

A Radical Idea: Applying Psychological Strategy To Combat Foreign Fighters Defending The Islamic State, David Michael Smaney

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the necessity of psychological strategies to combat the Islamic State’s recruitment of foreign fighters. This thesis argues that psychological strategies are a primary weapon due to the psychological nature of the war against the Islamic State, which is a part of the overall war of ideas. This thesis does not consider psychological strategies for other aspects of U.S. counterterrorism strategy, nor does it reflect the difficulties involved with developing U.S. strategies in the U.S. federal government. Furthermore, this thesis only focuses on foreign fighter defending and supporting the Islamic State, which is the successor of Al …

Humanization Of The Enemy: The Pacifist Soldier And France In World War One, Daniel E. Stockman

Senior Theses

Not all French citizens were enthused by the prospect of war in 1914, nor were they all so willing to embrace a dehumanized view of the enemy. Some French citizens believed the “Great War” to be a patriotic endeavor. Propaganda encouraged this nationalism and the dehumanization of the enemy. “Political” pacifism existed within the French Third Republic psyche following France’s defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. However, these pacifistic undertones were systematically undermined as France began to militarize itself. Drawing from a series of notebooks, and established academic sources, this paper shows that some French soldiers endured a world at …

The Plight Of Undocumented Female Migrants: Identifying Structural Factors That Contribute To The Proliferation Of Sex Trafficking And The Failings Of International Law, Hannah K. Valles

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the conditions at two specific border zones, the United States-Mexico border and the Mexico-Guatemalan border, that render undocumented female migrants vulnerable to abduction or recruitment into sexual exploitation. In addition to exploring the factors that expose women to trafficking networks, the study scrutinizes the legal failings of the international law-making community with regards to the safeguarding of women whose socio-economic conditions and environment of perpetual violence prompt their extralegal international movement. The paper provides an overview of the social, economic, and historical factors that underpin the flourishing of sex trafficking operations in …

Military Intervention In Interstate And Civil Wars: A Unified Interpretation, Zachary C. Shirkey

Publications and Research

Military intervention into interstate and civil wars is both common and important. It lengthens wars, makes them more severe, and shapes how they are fought. Even the mere possibility of intervention can alter the course of a war as belligerent powers alter their strategies to either encourage or dissuade potential interveners. These effects of military intervention are found in both civil and interstate wars. Yet, is state intervention into interstate and civil wars essentially one phenomenon or are they distinct phenomena? By looking at which states are likely to intervene, why and when they intervene, and which wars are most …

Humanitarian Military Intervention: A Failed Paradigm, Faruk Rahmanovic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since the end of the Cold War, traditional justifications for war have diminished in relevance and importance, while the use of Humanitarian Military Interventions (HMI) has proliferated, to the point that formerly traditional wars – e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq invasions – have become retroactively redefined as HMIs. While HMI suffers from a number of problems, from international law to historical track record, its proponents have managed to turn aside all arguments by claiming they represent either statistical outliers, improper implementation, or at best indicate a need for a certain degree of fine-tuning. Crucially, the validity of the HMI practice is …

Ethnicity, Religion And Violence In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jusuf Salih

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

The violence that erupted in the Balkans at the end of the second millennium made fierce enemies of people who had lived together in peace as neighbors, friends, classmates, and married couples. Nationalism, chauvinism, and religious fanaticism quickly grew stronger, leading to the disappearance of centuries-long harmony among its inhabitants. Among the reasons for the conflict were the experienced communist leaders who skillfully used religious slogans to advance their campaigns; also, religious leaders became close associates to political leaders with hopes that they would attain the religious rights denied and limited during the old governance. As a result, nationalism and …

Endpoints After Empire: Explaining Varying Levels Of Democracy In Post-Communist Europe, William John Eger Jr.

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This study seeks to determine the impetus behind varying levels of post-communist democratization in central and eastern Europe. It explores the different theories of democratization. The work takes a regional approach to examining the states. This approach isolates less traditional factors that contribute to democratic quality: history, culture and geography. Qualitative studies of each help explain why the countries of the region have such a varying level of rights and freedoms.

The Little Lady That Could: Small Latvia Rejoins The Euro-Atlantic Community, Sandis Sraders

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

When the Cold War abruptly ended, Latvia found it necessary to find a new place in the international community. Its smallness, weaknesses and sensitivities as well as historic experiences made the task urgent because it needed a protector and a broader community to belong to. Like a needle in a haystack, finding these would prove challenging, primarily because not many options existed. First, only one community, the Euro-Atlantic community, could satisfy Latvia’s willingness to escape Russia’s unwanted dominance. Second, as a small state, Latvia had little influence over international affairs.

This research focuses on several distinct aspects of Latvia’s objective …

Dreaming As A Critical Discourse Of National Belonging: China Dream, American Dream And World Dream, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores the normative politics of national belonging through an analysis of the ‘China Dream’ and the ‘American Dream’. It traces how politicians and public intellectuals employ such slogans to highlight how national dreams emerge in times of crisis and involve a combination of aspirations and anxieties. It compares parallel rhetorical strategies – ‘patriotic worrying’ in China and the American Jeremiad in the US – to examine how belonging to these two nations involves a nostalgic longing for the past as a model for the future. Debates about the meaning of these national dreams highlight the tension between freedom …

Building Military Helicopter Capacity: Influences On Process And Effectiveness, Rudy Goff

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

In 2016, the National Military Strategy of the United States of America listed building the capacity of partner nations as a key priority. By building military capacity, partner countries can become better equip to fight ongoing insurgencies, transnational terrorist organizations, and other threats to the U.S. themselves, allowing the U.S. to shift focus and resources towards other areas that need attention. In today’s battlefield, mobility and firepower are of the utmost importance. One capability that can address both of these areas is helicopters, which can greatly increase the effectiveness of a military and reduce the required number of ground troops …

The Apocalyptic Imagination And The Fundamentalist Mindset, Charles B. Strozier

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores the psychological meanings of the apocalyptic imagination in what I call a fundamentalist mindset. That mindset has its own long history but is newly relevant in the nuclear age. We no longer need God to bring about ultimate destruction. There are many facets of the fundamentalist mindset (for example, its intense literalism), but the focus in the article is on two: its kairotic sense of time and its rampant paranoia. These two facets interact synergistically around violence that is experienced by those who revel in it as moral in a totalistic sense. Killing becomes healing. The evil …

Suicide Terrorism: Performance Violence As Public Plunge, Gregory Saathoff

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores the relationship between the social psychology of the individual and the final abyss of suicide terrorism. The boy on the high dive is a metaphor for the fearful pause before the leap. For a young child, the dive is exciting and dangerous: the fearful pause is somewhat analogous to thoughts and feelings before the terrorist’s catastrophically destructive contemplated homicidal/suicidal behavior. If we think about the leap itself, there may be a better analogy. Is there any corollary to a specific group of suicide completers? What can be learned from others who have contemplated and undertaken perhaps the …

Why We Have The Center For The Resolution Of Intractable Conflict In Oxford, John, Lord Alderdice

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Center for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict (CRIC) was formally established at Harris Manchester College by a decision of the Governing Body of the College in 2013 to facilitate research, teaching and training, seminars and conferences, and direct engagement in situations of political violence and long-standing community conflict in various parts of the world.

The CRIC is a very young institution, but already it is having an impact out of proportion to its size and modest resources. This is because the issues we are addressing have a heightened public profile and also because of the quality and leading-edge of …

A Policy-Oriented Framework For Understanding Violent Extremism, Wael Haddara

New England Journal of Public Policy

Violent extremism represents a serious challenge to open and democratic societies. This article presents a framework for understanding violent extremism in the context of “lone-wolf” attacks in Western societies. The framework combines social, political, and psychological factors and highlights the importance of integrating the available evidence from multiple disciplines to develop cogent, effective policy. Specifically, in addition to a broad survey of motivational factors, the article draws on terror management theory to provide insight into the interaction between religiosity and violence.

Counterextremism programs are most successful at mitigating the risk of violence when they are focused on behavior, rather than …

Geographies Of Absence: Radicalization And The Shaping Of The New Syrian Territoriality, Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj

New England Journal of Public Policy

In November 2015, the United States and the Russian Federation convened the main international stakeholders engaged in the Syrian conflict to broker the Vienna Accords. The unfolding political process culminated in the issuing of UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Since then the situation has evolved rapidly, ushering in a new outlook for the resolution of the six-year-old civil war. The conflicting parties in Syria have not yet fathomed the momentum of this deal. Some progress has been made as part of successive attempts to establish a “cessation of hostilities,” but there have not yet been any major breakthroughs because the …

The East China Sea In Dod China Military Power Reports, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2000 saw Congress require the Department of Defense (DOD) to prepare an annual report on Chinese military power. This report contains classified and unclassified editions. Documenting Chinese military developments, strategy, and trends are critical parts of these reports. Beijing’s military activities in the East China Sea (ECS) are important report components. This work explains the importance of these and other DOD reports for those studying ECS developments, examines how DOD has documented Beijing’s military activities within these publicly accessible reports, and describes how members of Congress have reacted to ECS developments during the Obama …

The Courts And Foreign Affairs At The Founding, Kevin Arlyck

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of John Burton’S Method Of Conflict Resolution And Its Applicability To The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, John Kenneth Steinmeyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper argues that the interactive problem-solving workshops created by political scientist John Burton and applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by social psychologist Herbert Kelman, while not, as yet, resulting in a just and permanent peace agreement, are effective in resolving intractable conflict, and, if persistently used, can significantly help to produce such an agreement. This is done by closely examining two books of Burton and a series of articles by Kelman to describe their process; the characteristics of intractable conflict are also reviewed from the work of social psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal. It is then argued that the psychological elements …

The Al-Qaeda Organization And The Islamic State Organization: History, Doctrine, Modus, Operandi, And U.S Policy To Degrade And Defeat Terrorism Conducted In The Name Of Sunni Islam, Paul Kamolnick

ETSU Authors Bookshelf

The al-Qaeda Organization (AQO) and the Islamic State Organization (ISO) are transnational adversaries that conduct terrorism in the name of Sunni Islam. It is declared U.S. Government (USG) policy to degrade, defeat, and destroy them. The present book has been written to assist policymakers, military planners, strategists, and professional military educators whose mission demands a deep understanding of strategically-relevant differences between these two transnational terrorist entities. In it, one shall find a careful comparative analysis across three key strategically relevant dimensions: essential doctrine, beliefs, and worldview; strategic concept, including terrorist modus operandi; and specific implications and recommendations for current USG …

Terrorism: A Tool For Shaping Public Opinion, Jonathan E. Voisich

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Public Opinion matters on issues of foreign policy. This makes controlling public opinion very important for governments. In this paper I will argue that elites use terrorism both as a tool for instilling fear and by creating a certain image of groups they wish to support or destroy in order to shape public opinion. I will examine both literature on framing and public opinion data on foreign policy to show why public opinion is so important and how it can be shaped. The two case studies showing terrorism being used in these ways will be the Ronald Reagan administration’s policy …

U.S.-China Economic And Security Review Commission: Emerging Factor In Western Pacific Strategic Policy Analysis, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Those studying and analyzing Western Pacific strategic trends and develop- ments have access to multiple unclassified analyses of security trends in this region covering these waters and adjacent countries. These information resources are produced by military and government agencies from multiple countries, multinational public policy research institutions, popular and scholarly journals, and Internet resources featuring text, data, webcasts, and imagery. One of these resources is the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission established in the 2001 National Defense Authorization Act. This article argues that this organization’s analyses should be considered essential reading by civilian and military policymakers and individuals and …

The European Immigration Crisis: An Analysis Of How Terror Attacks Have Affected Immigrant And Refugee Populations In Western Europe, Taylor M. Scimeca

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The 2015 European Immigration Crisis brought an unprecedented number of immigrants to parts of Western Europe as millions of people fled war-torn and politically unstable countries. Similar to the increase in immigrants, Western European countries have also been combatting the rise of terror attacks throughout Europe. The increase in immigration coupled with an increase in terror attacks has caused anti-refugee sentiments among some Europeans and demands for stricter immigration policies. This paper examines how terrorism has impacted refugee and immigrant populations throughout Western Europe with a focus on Germany, France, and Belgium following the 2015 European Immigration Crisis.

In order …

A Contemporary Analysis And Comparison Of Kurdish National Movements: Syria, Iraq, And Turkey, Grayson Lanza

Honors Undergraduate Theses

As commonly understood, and particularly espoused by Kurdish nationalists, the Kurds are by far the largest ethnic group in the world without their own nation-state. An estimated 2 to 2.5 million ethnically Kurdish people inhabit portions of Syria. There are approximately 6.5 million ethnically Kurdish people in Iraq, 7.6 million in Iran, and 16 million in Turkey. Overall, there are about 30 million Kurds in the world. In the broader context of the Kurdish nationalist struggle, this paper suggests that there is a growing bipolar hegemony for power over the control of Kurdish land and politics. Research was predicated around …

Leftovers Of A Dissolved Empire: Assessing The Political Stability Of The Former Soviet Republics Of Kazakhstan, Georgia, And The Ukraine, Taraleigh Davis

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explore why when compared to the former Soviet Republics of Ukraine and Georgia there is a measure of stability in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has made it a priority to slowly build a sense of its own nationalism after decades of Soviet control. In over 20 years of independence it has only known violence for an 18-month period. The Republic of Kazakhstan has gone from the leftovers from a dissolved empire to a stable regional power. Kazakhstan’s hegemony in Asia and peaceful ethnic-governmental relations has made it possible for Kazakhstan to have a multi-faceted foreign …

A Tale Of Two Neighbors: A Comparative Analysis Of The Processes Of State Creation And Regime Formation In Colombia And Venezuela, Alexander Mintz

Government and International Relations Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Successful Interventions: Identifying And Influencing Key Variables, Braeden J. Campbell

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This research paper was inspired by a desire to see the United States (U.S.) have continued success in the 21st century. The problem that spurred this research was the realization that the U.S. has an opportunistic, short-term, military centric, foreign policy strategy. I believe that in the 21st century, a steady state, balanced, long-term strategy will ensure continued success. This research paper posits that an already strong networked opposition, a repertoire of resistance, and physical infrastructure are both jointly necessary and sufficient for a successful intervention. To test for this pattern, I first explore a common variable attributed to determining …