Offense And Defense In The International System

Author :
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
ISBN 13 : 9781412829939
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Offense and Defense in the International System written by and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The importance of military factors in international relations may seem obvious, but the causal linkages are often difficult to define. Surveying a long sweep of history, and the ins and outs of offensive weaponry, George H. Quester offers an overview of how military technology has shaped our international system. Contemporary events have made this book as timely as ever. As Americans renew the debate on mi"ssile defense, and as the danger of nuclear-capable rogue states and their terrorist allies is evident as never before, the need to understand the differences between defensive and offensive weapons has taken on a new urgency. Quester shows that very careful analysis is required here, as some important elementary distinctions need to be drawn. His analysis covers naval and air warfare, as well as ground combat, and he deals with the offensive or defensive leanings of guerrilla warfare. Quester compares the post-World War II nuclear balance with military situations before 1945. Quester also ties in domestic economic, social, political, and scientific trends, and how they influence international politics. Quester considers when a military situation favors striking first in a crisis(an offensive situation), and when a nation may be better off waiting for the other side to begin a war(defensive). In his new introduction, Quester reviews the post-Cold War debate among political and military analysts as to the contemporary relevance of these concepts and offers a powerful rebuttal to those who would dismiss the offense/defense distinction as outmoded, illusory, or a function of propaganda. Above all, the book demonstrates that we can learn a great deal from our recent and not-so-recent historical experience with nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons and their proliferation make the area of international conflict more perilous than ever. This book will be of interest to military analysts and students of international affairs. George H. Quester is professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland. His books include Nuclear Monopoly, Deterrence Before Hiroshima (both available from Transaction), Nuclear Diplomacy, The Politics of Nuclear Proliferation, and American Foreign Policy: The Lost Consensus.

Author : Michael E. Brown
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262265270
Total Pages : 492 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Offense, Defense, and War written by Michael E. Brown and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-10-15 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An overview of offense-defense theory, which argues that the relative ease of offense and defense varies in international politics. Offense-defense theory argues that the relative ease of offense and defense varies in international politics. When the offense has the advantage, military conquest becomes easier and war is more likely; the opposite is true when the defense has the advantage. The balance between offense and defense depends on geography, technology, and other factors. This theory, and the body of related theories, has generated much debate and research over the past twenty-five years.This book presents a comprehensive overview of offense-defense theory. It includes contending views on the theory and some of the most recent attempts to refine and test it.

Author : Keith Dowding
Publisher : SAGE
ISBN 13 : 141292748X
Total Pages : 785 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Encyclopedia of Power written by Keith Dowding and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2011-02 with total page 785 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collects 381 entries that discuss political science, international relations, and sociology.

Author : Andrew H. Kydd
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691133883
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Trust and Mistrust in International Relations written by Andrew H. Kydd and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-26 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Develops a theory of trust in international relations and applies it to the Cold War. Contrary to the common view that both sides were willing to compromise but failed because of mistrust, this work argues that most of the mistrust in the Cold War was justified, because the Soviets were not trustworthy.

Author : Charles L. Glaser
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400835135
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rational Theory of International Politics written by Charles L. Glaser and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-26 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within the realist school of international relations, a prevailing view holds that the anarchic structure of the international system invariably forces the great powers to seek security at one another's expense, dooming even peaceful nations to an unrelenting struggle for power and dominance. Rational Theory of International Politics offers a more nuanced alternative to this view, one that provides answers to the most fundamental and pressing questions of international relations. Why do states sometimes compete and wage war while at other times they cooperate and pursue peace? Does competition reflect pressures generated by the anarchic international system or rather states' own expansionist goals? Are the United States and China on a collision course to war, or is continued coexistence possible? Is peace in the Middle East even feasible? Charles Glaser puts forward a major new theory of international politics that identifies three kinds of variables that influence a state's strategy: the state's motives, specifically whether it is motivated by security concerns or "greed"; material variables, which determine its military capabilities; and information variables, most importantly what the state knows about its adversary's motives. Rational Theory of International Politics demonstrates that variation in motives can be key to the choice of strategy; that the international environment sometimes favors cooperation over competition; and that information variables can be as important as material variables in determining the strategy a state should choose.

Author : Stephen Van Evera
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801467187
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Causes of War written by Stephen Van Evera and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What causes war? How can military conflicts best be prevented? In this book, Stephen Van Evera frames five conditions that increase the risk of interstate war: false optimism about the likely outcome of a war, a first-strike advantage, fluctuation in the relative power of states, circumstances that allow nations to parlay one conquest into another, and circumstances that make conquest easy. According to Van Evera, all but one of these conditions—false optimism—rarely occur today, but policymakers often erroneously believe in their existence. He argues that these misperceptions are responsible for many modern wars, and explores both World Wars, the Korean War, and the 1967 Mideast War as test cases. Finally, he assesses the possibility of nuclear war by applying all five hypotheses to its potential onset. Van Evera's book demonstrates that ideas from the Realist paradigm can offer strong explanations for international conflict and valuable prescriptions for its control.

Author : Brad Townsend
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000097110
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Security and Stability in the New Space Age written by Brad Townsend and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-12 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the drivers behind great power security competition in space to determine whether realistic strategic alternatives exist to further militarization. Space is an area of increasing economic and military competition. This book offers an analysis of actions and events indicative of a growing security dilemma in space, which is generating an intensifying arms race between the US, China, and Russia. It explores the dynamics behind a potential future war in space and investigates methods of preventing an arms race from an international relations theory and military-strategy standpoint. The book is divided into three parts: the first section offers a broad discussion of the applicability of international relations theory to current conditions in space; the second is a direct application of theory to the space environment to determine whether competition or cooperation is the optimal strategic choice; the third section focuses on testing the hypotheses against reality, by analyzing novel alternatives to three major categories of space systems. The volume concludes with a study of the practical limitations of applying a strategy centered on commercialization as a method of defusing the orbital security dilemma. This book will be of interest to students of space power, strategic studies, and international relations.

Author : Keir A. Lieber
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501724460
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book War and the Engineers written by Keir A. Lieber and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do some technologies provoke war? Do others promote peace? Offense-defense theory contends that technological change is an important cause of conflict: leaders will be tempted to launch wars when they believe innovation favors attackers over defenders. Offense-defense theory is perhaps best known from the passionate and intricate debates about first-strike capability and deterrence stability during the cold war, but it has deeper historical roots, remains a staple in international relations theorizing, and drives modern arms control policymaking. In War and the Engineers, the first book systematically to test the logical and empirical validity of offense-defense theory, Keir A. Lieber examines the relationships among politics, technology, and the causes of war. Lieber's cases explore the military and political implications of the spread of railroads, the emergence of rifled small arms and artillery, the introduction of battle tanks, and the nuclear revolution. Lieber incorporates the new historiography of World War I, which draws on archival materials that only recently became available, to challenge many common beliefs about the conflict. The author's central conclusion is that technology is neither a cause of international conflict nor a panacea; instead, power politics remains paramount.

Author : Stephen M. Walt
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801470013
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Revolution and War written by Stephen M. Walt and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-09 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revolution within a state almost invariably leads to intense security competition between states, and often to war. In Revolution and War, Stephen M. Walt explains why this is so, and suggests how the risk of conflicts brought on by domestic upheaval might be reduced in the future. In doing so, he explores one of the basic questions of international relations: What are the connections between domestic politics and foreign policy? Walt begins by exposing the flaws in existing theories about the relationship between revolution and war. Drawing on the theoretical literature about revolution and the realist perspective on international politics, he argues that revolutions cause wars by altering the balance of threats between a revolutionary state and its rivals. Each state sees the other as both a looming danger and a vulnerable adversary, making war seem both necessary and attractive. Walt traces the dynamics of this argument through detailed studies of the French, Russian, and Iranian revolutions, and through briefer treatment of the American, Mexican, Turkish, and Chinese cases. He also considers the experience of the Soviet Union, whose revolutionary transformation led to conflict within the former Soviet empire but not with the outside world. An important refinement of realist approaches to international politics, this book unites the study of revolution with scholarship on the causes of war.

Author : Jan-Frederik Kremer
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 3642374816
Total Pages : 302 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cyberspace and International Relations written by Jan-Frederik Kremer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-08 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cyberspace is everywhere in today’s world and has significant implications not only for global economic activity, but also for international politics and transnational social relations. This compilation addresses for the first time the “cyberization” of international relations - the growing dependence of actors in IR on the infrastructure and instruments of the internet, and the penetration of cyberspace into all fields of their activities. The volume approaches this topical issue in a comprehensive and interdisciplinary fashion, bringing together scholars from disciplines such as IR, security studies, ICT studies and philosophy as well as experts from everyday cyber-practice. In the first part, concepts and theories are presented to shed light on the relationship between cyberspace and international relations, discussing implications for the discipline and presenting fresh and innovative theoretical approaches. Contributions in the second part focus on specific empirical fields of activity (security, economy, diplomacy, cultural activity, transnational communication, critical infrastructure, cyber espionage, social media, and more) and address emerging challenges and prospects for international politics and relations.