International Relations Commons^™

The Place Of Nuclear Weapons In Russian Identity: An Ontological Security Analysis, Peter Ernest Yeager

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

On May 9, 2008, Russia’s Victory Day, four 14-wheeled MAZ-7917s drove through Red Square carrying Topol intercontinental ballistic missiles. This was the first time nuclear weapons had been paraded through Moscow since before the end of the Cold War. The previous August, Russia had resumed nuclear-capable bomber patrols, and in January, 2007, President Putin acknowledged Russia had begun to build new nuclear weapons. These remarkable events were met with little acknowledgement in the West, as if they were completely normal. Instead, they represented a major evolution in the bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia. Sixteen years of fitful …

Can’T Let Go: Anxiety, Ontological Security, And French Foreign Policy Decision-Making During The Hollande Administration, Peter D. Langley

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Why does France continue to intervene militarily in sub-Saharan Africa despite repeated commitments, both in practice and in rhetoric, to disengage and adhere to strict non-intervention? Although many accounts of France’s African security policy have been put forth, few have analyzed French foreign policy choices through the decision-making process itself, let alone exclusively applied International Relations (IR) theories to understand those decisions. Synthesizing a narrative approach with an ontological security interpretation, which understands states as having identity security needs on top of their physical ones, I propose an alternative framework for understanding France’s security-seeking, threats to identity, and how they …

Ddr, Cassandra Jagroop

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) has been a facet of post-conflict resolution since the 1980s. DDR seeks to address a wide range of issues varying from security to human rights, law, elections, and governance. One of the major issues arising from a conflict region are armed groups involved in the fighting and how to handle them. These armed groups represent the deep insecurity and lack of faith the population has in the state mechanism (Rondeau 2011, 654), thus in order to move ahead in the post-conflict situation the issue of armed groups needs to be tackled. The evolution of warfare …

Russia-Ukrainian War 2022: Battle Of Hostomel, Arthur Borsuk

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

On February 24, 2022, the Russian Federation began the active phase of a full-scale invasion of the territory of sovereign Ukraine. This invasion was preceded by the recognition of the independence of the quasi-republics in the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (located in the east of Ukraine) and the introduction of a large group of troops into their territory. The invasion began with a massive missile and air strike against critical infrastructure, military units, civilian facilities and air defense positions. At the same time, the ground troops of the Russian Federation crossed the border in all border …

S-400s, Disinformation, And Anti-American Sentiment In Turkey, Russell "Alex" Korb, Saltuk Karahan, Gowri Prathap, Ekrem Kaya, Luke Palmieri, Hamdi Kavak, Richard L. Wilson (Ed.), Major Brendan Curran (Ed.)

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

As social and political discourse in most countries becomes more polarized, anti-Americanism has risen not only in the Middle East and Latin America but also among the U.S. allies in Europe. Social media is one platform used to disseminate anti-American views in NATO countries, and its effectiveness can be magnified when mass media, public officials, and popular figures adopt these views. Disinformation, in particular, has gained recognition as a cybersecurity issue from 2016 onward, but disinformation can be manufactured domestically in addition to being part of a foreign influence campaign. In this paper, we analyze Turkish tweets using sentiment analysis …

Racialization And International Security, Richard W. Maass

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Racialization—the processes that infuse social and political phenomena with racial identities and implications—is an assertion of power, a claim of purportedly inherent differences that has saturated modern diplomacy, order, and violence. Despite the field's consistent interest in power, international security studies in the United States largely omitted racial dynamics from decades of debates about international conflict and cooperation, nuclear proliferation, power transitions, unipolarity, civil wars, terrorism, international order, grand strategy, and other subjects. A new framework lays conceptual bedrock, links relevant literatures to major research agendas in international security, cultivates interdisciplinary dialogues, and charts promising paths to consider how overt …

A Cross-Disciplinary Approach To The Maritime Security Risk Of Piracy And Lessons Learned From Agent-Based Modeling, Joanne Marie Fish

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation takes a cross-disciplinary approach to understanding pirate activity. Maritime piracy presents a dynamic ever-evolving problem. In today’s globalized world, contemporary maritime piracy presents a transnational threat. It is a complex socio-economic and political problem which the modern world considers to be criminal activity. Like all complex problems it must be deconstructed to fully comprehend it.

All criminal activity, maritime piracy included, has certain elements of supply and demand. For the activity to occur there must be a certain level, or supply, of targets. At the same time, we can posit that there must be a lack of other …

U.S. Military Aid And The Role Of Foreign Armies In Civil Politics, Jennifer Jones Cunningham

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The recent expansion of the Egyptian military's role in civil politics has led to uncertainty regarding the relationship between U.S. military aid and democratization. However, studies focusing on the link between foreign aid and democratization often exclude military aid from their analyses. This omission is particularly problematic given that civilian control over the military is a vital precondition for democratic consolidation, and a high percentage of U.S. military aid recipients are not yet consolidated democracies. Proponents of military aid point to the role security cooperation can play in diffusing democratic norms of professionalism. Critics worry military aid strengthens an institution …

Armed Humanitarian Intervention: The Role Of Powerful Leaders In Framing And The National Security Decision Making Process, John Marshall Callahan

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This study identifies and analyzes the decision making and framing processes for selected cases of armed humanitarian intervention by the United States in the post-Cold War Era. It fills a gap in the literature on decision making, focusing on the role of the powerful individual leader in national security decision making and the framing of interventions to the U.S. public and other stakeholder audiences. An examination of extant literature on the subject of U.S. foreign policy decision making, and development and implementation of framing strategies is used to determine the role of the individual leader in those processes using three …

Ritualized Rhetoric And Historical Memory In German Foreign And Security Policy, Sara A. Hoff

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Recent changes in German foreign policy behavior have led to questions about Germany's European vocation. At the center of this inquiry is Germany's struggle to resolve the intersection between historical memory and present day international responsibility, especially in cases involving the use of force. This dissertation examines how and when historical memory has influenced, shaped, and informed contemporary German foreign and security policy and rhetoric by examining cases within two policy areas: out of area operations and nuclear nonproliferation. Focusing on the case of Libya, this dissertation also considers the cases of Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Nuclear nonproliferation, a global …

Developments In The Global Energy Markets And Constructing The Future Of The Persian Gulf Security, Nihat Cengel

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This study analyses the global energy projections and regional dynamics in the Persian Gulf. It is shown that the future projections in the world energy markets signify the importance of cooperation between developed and developing countries. It is also suggested that connected to the global economic crises and the regional demand change in the energy market, there is a growing need for international support to the Persian Gulf security.

I argue that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) could play a crucial role for eliminating political conflicts and maintaining the regional stability. As a result, collective arm transfer to the region, …

Maturing International Cooperation To Address The Cyberspace Attack Attribution Problem, Jeff J. Mcneil

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

One of the most significant challenges to deterring attacks in cyberspace is the difficulty of identifying and attributing attacks to specific state or non-state actors. The lack of technical detection capability moves the problem into the legal realm; however, the lack of domestic and international cyberspace legislation makes the problem one of international cooperation. Past assessments have led to collective paralysis pending improved technical and legal advancements. This paper demonstrates, however, that any plausible path to meaningful defense in cyberspace must include a significant element of international cooperation and regime formation.

The analytical approach diverges from past utilitarian-based assessments to …

The Tale Of Two Narratives: Nato As A Collective Defense And A Collective Security Institution, Anna M. Rulska

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The goal of this project is to determine NATO's present and future roles as a collective security organization and as a security alliance. In the past, NATO has dealt with both objectives under different and changing conditions. This paper argues that throughout the entirety of its history, NATO worked as both collective security and collective defense organization. The theoretical assumptions made within the paper are supported by the analysis of the past behavior of the Alliance in respect to the relationship between the narrative of collective security and that of collective defense, and changes within that relationship. Four specific periods …

Applying The Information Age Combat Model: Quantitative Analysis Of Network Centric Operations, Sean Deller, Shannon R. Bowling, Ghaith A. Rabadi, Andreas Tolk, Michael I. Bell

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

The nature of and the approach to command and control is evolving in order to meet the challenges of Information Age warfare. One of the main tasks of command and control is the arrangement of the assets within a combat force in order to ensure their ability to manage and exploit information. Connectivity between the various assets represents existence, capacity, reliability, and other attributes of links establishing the connectivity. The Information Age Combat Model was introduced by Cares in 2005 to contribute to the development of an understanding of the influence of connectivity on force effectiveness that can lead eventually …

Pivotal Deterrence And United States Security Policy In The Taiwan Strait, Charles D. Pasquale

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents a model of pivotal deterrence—a version the author loosely terms holistic pivotal deterrence—based on the model originally presented in Crawford's Pivotal Deterrence: Third-Party Statecraft and the Pursuit of Peace, and applies it to a regional case study of U.S. security policy in the Taiwan Strait; placing particular emphasis on the crisis junctures of 1954-55, 1958, 1962, and 1995-96. By contrasting this with other models of deterrence, it provides an alternative perspective with which to consider the empirical data on the United States-China-Taiwan relationship and developments in the Strait. By viewing the data through this lens, this …

East European Security Revisited: Institutions, Power, And Security, Blagovest Tashev

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Drawing on the literatures on democratization, security studies, and small states this dissertation explores the relationship of small states' domestic and international institutionalization and their security. Small states have limited power not only to affect their environment but also to guarantee national security. Small states, it is hypothesized, enhance their security through the consolidation of domestic institutions and the accumulation of capacities provided by their participation in capacity-reach international institutions.

The dissertation tests the hypothesis by applying the comparative method to the post-communist states of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania. The three case studies analyze the effects of domestic …

Latin American-United States Security Relations And The Power Asymmetry Divide, Matthew R. Slater

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Security relations between Latin American and the United States are generally well explained by hegemonic stability theory. Succinctly stated, hegemonic stability theory explains that in systems with a hegemonic power there is a greater likelihood of security cooperation. This is because a hegemon provides public goods, such as a stable currency or security from outside interference, and in turn, the less powerful states acknowledge the leadership of the dominant state. When compared to other regions it is readily apparent that the U.S. and Latin America do not have major security issues on the level of East Asia, the Middle East, …

Nuclear Pariahs And Regimes In The New World Disorder, Wayne F. Lesperance Jr.

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This thesis discusses the role of pariah states vis-a-vis the nonproliferation regime. Specifically, the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is analyzed to determine, first, whether Iran is a pariah, second, the potential threat the IRI poses to the Persian Gulf region and third, the possible international responses that may be undertaken to address Iranian pariahtude in the nuclear field. Through the course of this thesis regimes are defined as a set of implicit and explicit rules, principles, norms, and decision-making procedures around which actor's expectations converge and which govern relations among states. Pariahs are defined as …

Increasing International Military Interdependence: Defense Cooperation In The New World Order, Sheila Callaham-Gay

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines whether military interdependence among states is increasing or decreasing. Although it is impossible to predict the future, it can be deduced that military interaction is increasing as a result of current world events and stated Presidential policy objectives. In order for interdependency to reach fruition governments must create policy which allows mutual goals to be realized. If military-to-military programs contribute to U.S. political objectives then government policy toward military interdependence should allow the U.S. military to act as a catalyst for international cooperation as well as the guardian of U.S. security interests. Whether global peace and security …

France And Nato: A Case Of Misunderstanding, Servane Burel

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

In 1966, General Charles de Gaulle partially withdrew France from the integrated military structure of the North Atlantic Treaty organization (NATO). This action represented a climax in the ongoing evolution in French foreign policy. Both sides of the Atlantic failed to understand de Gaulle's actions because of the ambivalent relation between the concept of grandeur in world politics and France's loyalty to the Alliance. Consequently, the partial withdrawal was perceived as a drastic shift in policies exemplifying French "anti-Americanism" and lack of commitment to the Alliance and NATO.

In contrast, this thesis presents this decision as simply a political statement, …

Inter-American Indemnity: Internal Security And The Mutual Security Program For Latin America (1951-1961), Robert George Baker

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the purpose of U.S. military aid in the American Republics from 1951 through 1961 and proves that concern for internal security became dominant during that period. At first military aid supported hemispheric defense against communist aggression, which Washington orchestrated through mutual defense agreements, but by 1953 maintenance of internal security emerged as the major aim of aid to several Central American nations. In 1956 the National Security Council determined that internal security was a vital goal of the military aid program for Latin America. The ascendance of internal security concerns is described and analyzed in three parts: …

Arctic Leverage: Canadian Sovereignty And Security, Nathaniel French Caldwell Jr.

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

In 1987 the Canadian government recognized that in order to be a major player in collective security with the United States and NATO, it would have to make a significant contribution to the common defense. However. since Canada could not hope to outspend the larger powers, its contribution would have to be leveraged by control of a strategic piece of real estate -- the Canadian Arctic. The major program to enhance Canadian control of the Arctic would be the acquisition of ten-to-twelve nuclear attack submarines. That submarine force was sold to the public and Parliament as a means to enhance …