The year of the drone misinformation

This paper challenges the widely held view in the research communities around the world that US drone strikes on the Pakistan's north-western border area with Afghanistan lead to large-scale civilian casualties and are unpopular in that tribal area. As an example of that view the author analyses a recent research report, ‘The Year of the Drone’, produced by the New American Foundation, and argues that sources of the report are questionable and doubtful. The author, who is a native of the border area with Afghanistan and has lived almost all of her lifetime in the area, informs that the drone attacks are popular in the region and the reports about large-scale civilian casualties are baseless. She provides some evidence in support of her argument and cautions the researchers against the uncritical acceptance of the notions, like the drone attacks are unpopular or have killed civilians.     

Classical geopolitics,realism and the balance of power theory

Since the end of World War II, classical geopolitics as a particular form of realism has been disengaged from the development of mainstream realist theories. This disengagement has not only concealed the value of classical geopolitics as a framework of analysis for policy and strategy, but also created an increasing rift between theory and policy in contemporary realist theories. This paper seeks to reengage classical geopolitics with mainstream realist theories by clarifying its realist traits and analytical characteristics, (re)stating its core propositions and probing into its potential contribution to the development of mainstream realist theories. This paper contends that classical geopolitics, while having a distinctive pedigree, can arguably be considered an integral part of the family of realist theories in view of its basic theoretical assumptions concerning international anarchy, the unit of analysis and power politics. As a framework of analysis, classical geopolitics incorporates three interrelated strategic propositions. Those three propositions not only constitute the theoretical core of classical geopolitics, but also manifest a peculiar balance-of-power conception that is essentially distinct from those proposed by mainstream realist theories. This paper argues that those three propositions combined promise to fill in prominent lacuna in the balance-of-power research programme, and also have significant implications for contemporary world politics.     

“Leading from behind”: neoclassical realism and operation Odyssey Dawn

In March 2011, President Barack Obama ordered US air and naval forces to commence Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya to impose a no-fly zone. The decision by the Obama Administration to intervene in a limited and supporting role in Libya is an important development in US foreign policy. Operation Odyssey Dawn presents scholars with a valuable opportunity to analyze and explore how US foreign policy is made and what roles domestic politics and elite perceptions play in decisions to use force. The author argues that neoclassical realism is a useful and compelling theoretic framework with which to analyze Operation Odyssey Dawn. While the Administration intervened in response to perceived external-level threats to US national interests, salient intervening domestic-level variables and elite perceptions shaped and guided the tenor and scope of the operation.     

A Typology of War Ethics

Interdisciplinary communication on war is impeded by doctrinal gaps concerning its morality, immorality, and amorality. Much is written on ad bellum ethical standards for military force by states, mainly in the fields of international politics and religious studies. However, a necessary first step in comparing these different approaches to war ethics with each other is to develop a system for classifying them. The classification system offered in this paper places war ethics on a grid with two scales. One axis of the grid ranges from permissiveness to restrictiveness. The other axis ranges from regard for self to regard for others. Twelve forms of war ethics are assigned points within the grid, including pacifism, just war, holy war, UN Charter obligations, several variants of realism, cost–benefit analysis, isolationism, and various ideological war ethics such as communist and fascist approaches. In doing so, this paper lays the groundwork for “quantifying” war ethics, to enable measurements of their effects against other state-level characteristics and outcomes of interaction.     

Power,polarity, and prudence: the ambiguities and implications of UK discourse on a multipolar international system

What do UK policymakers mean when they say that Britain’s strategic environment is returning to “multipolarity”? In realist international theory, polarity is a specific causal concept; the number of powers capable of balancing even the most capable other state(s) in the international system (“poles”) is taken to determine the system’s stability. Does the post-2017 appearance of polarity references in British security policy documents therefore reflect some unexpected UK renaissance of realist thought? Or is something else going on, as recent work by Ben Zala suggests? This article will demonstrate that, while UK official usage of the “multip–” word has indeed flourished recently, the term is actually being used in a more elastic, less bounded way than realism prescribes in order to generate other kinds of political effect. Specifically, “polarity” (and its “multi-” prefix) is used to characterise the behaviour of those major states that oppose Western-preferred international order, to elide Britain’s own relative power/status tensions, and to capture an expansive laundry-list of perceived international dangers. The article then discusses five ways in which a shift in polarity could negatively affect Britain; important consequences that merit preparatory contemplation, yet that an imprecise, catch-all understanding of “multipolarity” too readily obscures.     

A nuclear-armed North Korea without ICBMs: the best achievable objective

This article analyzes the North Korean nuclear crisis from a balance-of-power perspective. It is in the long-term interests of international peace for a secure and independent North Korea to serve as a buffer between US and Chinese ground forces. However, the conventional military advantage of the South Korean-American alliance over North Korea has grown drastically since the end of the Cold War, threatening North Korea’s survival. Since North Korea lacks any reliable ally, nuclear weapons represent its most cost-effective way to restore a balance of power and thus secure itself. Accepting security guarantees in exchange for its nuclear arsenal is rhetorically appealing but not a viable approach. North Korea’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), however, has overcompensated for the post-Cold War imbalance, inviting talk in Washington of waging a preventive war. Persuading North Korea to give up its ICBM capability, not its nuclear arsenal, should therefore be the primary objective of US diplomacy.