Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945–1960: The Soul of Containment. by William Inboden

This article predicts that the nuclear weapon states may opt sooner for nuclear elimination than generally expected. This delegitimation of nuclear weapons is due to five factors whose importance has grown since the mid-1990s: nuclear proliferation, the risk of nuclear terrorism, the nuclear taboo, missile defence, and the increased importance of international law. The article starts with categorizing nuclear weapons policies: nuclear primacy, maximum deterrence, minimum deterrence, existential deterrence, and post-existential deterrence. The nuclear weapon states will probably shift their policies from nuclear primacy (US), maximum deterrence (Russia), minimum or existential deterrence (UK, France, Israel, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea) to post-existential deterrence (or elimination), taking one step at a time.     

The politics of international chemical weapon justice: The case of Syria, 2011–2017

There has been near-universal condemnation of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict. The international community has nevertheless struggled to make progress on holding the perpetrators to account. This article reviews developments at the international level in terms of Syrian chemical weapon justice between 2011 and 2017. It argues that there have been substantive disagreements between states on the rationale and means of justice in the Syrian case. It also argues that international initiatives have been tightly intertwined with developments in chemical disarmament and conflict resolution processes as well as the broader war. The article describes progress and challenges to chemical weapon justice in a number of distinct formal international mechanisms during the period studied. The analysis concludes by contextualizing international responses—including the U.S. tomahawk strikes against a Syrian airbase—to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attacks of April 2017.     

The German wars of liberation 1807–1815: The restrained insurgency

In the Age of Napoleon, ‘small wars’ and ‘revolutionary war’ were closely connected. There were, however, different strands of this phenomenon: speaking professionally, conservative officers condemned small wars as an irregular regression to previous less disciplined forms of warfare. The Prussian state continually tried to discipline and regulate spontaneous risings. Yet the irregular character of small wars offered the opportunities for a less complex way of fighting, thus enabling the arming of the ‘people’ to fight. Individual undertakings, such as Ferdinand von Schill's doomed campaign in 1809, were designed to spark off a general popular uprising. But they were cheered by many and supported by few. Meanwhile, Neidhardt von Gneisenau conceived guerrilla-style Landsturm home-defence forces, which were designed for an irregular people's war. These concepts were put into practice in the ‘war of freedom’ – or ‘war of liberation’ – in 1813. Eventually both the mobilisation and the tactics remained regular, however, despite the emphatic appeal to a national ‘people's war’.     

The insurgency of the Vendée

The insurrection in the Vendée combined open warfare with the methods of petite guerre, ambushing French republican soldiers and cutting their supply lines to Paris. These tactics, when combined with the hatreds generated by a civil war, go far to explain to the cruelty of the conflict in the west and the depth of the hatreds it engendered. In republican eyes the use of guerrilla tactics was unjust and illegitimate, and they denounced their adversaries as common criminals and brigands, portraying them as backward, superstitious, even as subhuman, and in the process justified the savage repression they unleashed against them.     

Reconsidering Truman's claim of ‘half a million American lives’ saved by the atomic bomb: The construction and deconstruction of a myth

This essay, based on substantial archival research, critically examines President Harry S. Truman's often‐cited post‐World War II claim that he had received pre‐Hiroshima counsel in 1945 that the invasion(s) of Japan could cost ‘half a million American lives’. This essay concludes that there is no 1945 archival evidence supporting Truman's postwar contention, and that there is substantial evidence undercutting his claim. Moreover, in view of the total size of American forces scheduled for 1945–46 operations against Japan, any claim of 500,000 American dead seems implausible. This essay also critically examines how Truman's postwar memoir claim of ‘half a million American lives’ was constructed, and this essay discusses the many and rather varied casualty/fatality numbers that Truman presented during his White House and post‐presidential years. Such an analysis also focuses on the numbers he privately provided in the construction of his memoirs by ‘ghost’ writers. Reaching beyond the specific question of Truman's claims, this essay also discusses the dangers of analysts relying heavily upon post‐event memoir and interview sources, and this essay emphasises the need generally to instead privilege contemporaenous archival materials. Otherwise, analysts risk letting policymakers, often in self‐serving recollections, shape the history of crucial events.     

The rising unit cost of defence equipment — The reasons and the results

This paper constructs a conceptual model for the selection of defence equipment providing best value for money. It then shows how the unit cost of the chosen equipment increases between one generation of equipment and its successor because of developments in the perceived threat, the available technology and industrial productivity, and demonstrates that unit cost increases can arise from a logical and rational procurement policy and are not necessarily caused by technological chimeras and military vainglory. The resulting persistent rise in unit cost is unlikely to be significantly slowed by any of the counter‐measures yet proposed.

The paper then discusses the policies which nations have adopted to accommodate past increases in unit cost, and the options which confront any nation at the point when it can no longer afford to re‐equip a particular element of its armed forces.     

The Strategic Use of Soft Balancing: The Normative Dimensions of the Chinese–Russian ‘Strategic Partnership’

This article examines Chinese and Russian foreign policy and military strategy from the theoretical standpoint of soft balancing. Analysis of their thinking indicates that both seek to offset US military superiority without engaging American power directly. To that end, Chinese and Russian strategists have adopted ‘soft’ or ‘normative’ power assets as strategic capabilities in their military and foreign policy. Alternative norms, such as the concept of ‘sovereign democracy’, allow China and Russia to deliberately ignore human rights issues in order to achieve diplomatic advantage with respect to the United States. The two powers have institutionalized these norms within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which they use to counterbalance US interests in Central Asia.     

The Illusion of Afghanistan’s Electoral Representative Democracy: The Cases of Afghan Presidential and National Legislative Elections

This article is the latest in a series of published articles systematically examining Afghan Presidential and legislative elections. Structural problems including fraud, ethno-linguistic block voting, and the Single Non-Transferable Vote have had significant impacts on the development of Afghan democratic elections. The challenge now facing the current Afghan government and future elections is the daunting task of uniting the Afghan people while not repeating the electoral mistakes of the past. The tricky balancing act of fostering an overarching national identity without being perceived as privileging particular identities requires strong leadership and a willingness to challenge traditional ethnic, linguistic, and religious norms when need be. Karzai and Ghani Administrations have seriously failed relative to this dynamic.     

The Role of Perceptions and Political Reform in Counterinsurgency: The Case of Western Iraq, 2004–05

The political side of counterinsurgency has long been recognized as more important than the military side. The major works on counterinsurgency call for political reform that redresses legitimate insurgent grievances. Thereby, insurgents are encouraged to pursue their aims via political instead of military means. In western Iraq, insurgent perceptions of US weakness inhibited effective political reform. Moderate Sunnis did not engage the Coalition or Iraqi government until these perceptions had been revised. The connection between insurgent perceptions and effective political reform deserves greater attention. With the exception of some arguments from the political science field, the literature on counterinsurgency insufficiently addresses the importance of insurgent perceptions.     

The Moral Dimension of “Global Zero”

Regrettably, moral arguments are largely absent from the current debate on nuclear disarmament. Indeed, complementing politico-strategic thinking with ethical categories could significantly strengthen the abolitionist call. To fill the gap, this article analyzes the evolution of the nuclear ethics of the Roman Catholic Church and especially its position on nuclear deterrence. If this strategy was granted interim and strictly conditioned moral acceptance during the Cold War, nuclear deterrence is today increasingly considered ineffective, an obstacle to genuine disarmament, and hence morally unjustifiable. In the new security context, the conditions for the Catholic Church's “interim nuclear ethics” have altered, and nuclear disarmament has become a feasible option and an alternative strategy to deterrence.     

The Weight of the Past(s): The Impact of the Bundeswehr’s Use of Historical Experience on Strategy-Making in Afghanistan

This article seeks to explain the basic dynamics of the development of the German military approach in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2010 by looking at the impact of the Bundeswehr’s established uses of historical experience. First, the German military approach in Afghanistan has slowly evolved from a peacebuilding and mediation mission towards a full-fledged combat deployment. Second, the Bundeswehr’s exclusive focus on the World War II experience has contributed to the emergence of the Balkans experience as a formative experience that shaped initial operational thinking in Afghanistan. Third, because a thorough debate on the historical foundation of counterinsurgency remained absent, the operational shift in 2009 was perceived as a return to ‘classical’ military tasks and thus led to an almost exclusive focus on training for combat.