MAD and Taboo: US Expert Views on Nuclear Deterrence, Coercion, and Non-Use Norms

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul C Avey
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Nuclear Arsenal ◽  
Policy Success ◽  
Key Issues

Abstract This research note reports views on nuclear deterrence, coercion, and non-use norms from surveys of 320 current and former US national security officials and 1,303 US-based international relations scholars. It finds that both groups hold relatively optimistic views on these key issues. Majorities express confidence that nuclear weapons are useful for deterrence, but are skeptical that a nuclear arsenal can translate into coercive foreign policy success. Respondents are also confident that the nuclear taboo constrains countries from using nuclear weapons in a first strike, but the intensity varies by the country in question. Although limited, the results demonstrate overlap between academics and policymakers on key nuclear concepts. To the extent that experts hold these topline nuclear views that can influence their decision-making, teaching, and research. The results also point to a common tension in thinking about deterrence against conventional attack and norms constraining nuclear first use.

scholarly journals Relations between Israel and USSR in 1956—1957: according to Documents of State Archives of Israel

2021 ◽  
pp. 356-374
Author(s):  
Yu. I. Kostenko ◽  
V. M. Morozov
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International Relations ◽  
National Security ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
Soviet Jews ◽  
State Archives

Authors of the article analyze the relations between Israel and the USSR in 1956-1957. Particular attention is paid to Israel’s efforts to ensure national security, the consequences of the Sinai campaign and the “problem of the Jews of the USSR”. The relevance of the study is due to the importance of these issues for bilateral relations. The opinion that the USSR has passed to unconditional sup-port of the Arabs and that this policy will not change is commented on the opinion that has taken root in Israel. It is noted that Israel’s victory in the 1956 Sinai campaign dealt a blow to the positions of the USSR in the Arab world, but the Israeli leadership realized that the USSR would not agree with the loss of these positions. It is shown that Israel strove to maintain an “atmosphere of dialogue”, to develop trade relations, cultural and scientific ties with the USSR, fearing that the position of the USSR on the Middle East would affect the position of Soviet Jews. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the authors used un-published and previously untranslated archival materials, which made it possible to look at the events through the eyes of Israeli diplomacy, to understand the reasoning for decision-making. The authors conclude that the events of 1956 influenced the way the country’s leadership perceived Israel’s place in international relations. It is emphasized that at this time Israel finally established itself in a pro-Western foreign policy orientation.

Grappling with Dr. Strangelove’s “Wargasm” Fantasy

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 464-481
Author(s):  
Rodger A Payne
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Sexual Fantasies ◽  
Stanley Kubrick ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Private Correspondence

Abstract Dr. Strangelove continues to be viewed as one of the most acclaimed films of all-time. Likewise, international relations (IR) experts commonly list the film among the most essential IR-themed movies. The IR scholars who discuss Dr. Strangelove as a text or recommend it for courses generally claim that it can be used to explain nuclear deterrence, the security dilemma, mutually assured destruction, Cold War competition, and various other traditional serious concerns of the field. They also recognize that the satirical film is critical of nuclear strategy. This article considers Dr. Strangelove’s sexual subtext, involving important metaphors and symbols that IR scholars characteristically ignore. Yet, for decades, film critics and scholars from other disciplines have identified and emphasized the importance of the film's comedic “sexual framework” and concluding “wargasm.” Director Stanley Kubrick even acknowledged these key elements in private correspondence. The film suggests that the national security establishment's masculine view of the utility of nuclear weapons and deterrence are comparable to absurd male sexual fantasies. Feminist IR scholars frequently note that mainstream scholars largely ignore their critique of masculine views of the discipline and nuclear strategy. The article concludes that scholars in the field should both prioritize Dr. Strangelove’s sexual subtext and rely upon feminist contributions to help understand those elements.

Political Asylum in Germany: International Norms and Domestic Politics

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-49
Author(s):  
John Bendix ◽  
Niklaus Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Expected Utility ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Political Asylum ◽  
German Politics

Although political asylum has been at the forefront of contemporaryGerman politics for over two decades, it has not been much discussedin political science. Studying asylum is important, however,because it challenges assertions in both comparative politics andinternational relations that national interest drives decision-making.Political parties use national interest arguments to justify claims thatonly their agenda is best for the country, and governments arguesimilarly when questions about corporatist bargaining practices arise.More theoretically, realists in international relations have positedthat because some values “are preferable to others … it is possible todiscover, cumulate, and objectify a single national interest.” Whileinitially associated with Hans Morgenthau’s equating of nationalinterest to power, particularly in foreign policy, this position hassince been extended to argue that states can be seen as unitary rationalactors who carefully calculate the costs of alternative courses ofaction in their efforts to maximize expected utility.

1. The history and evolution of foreign policy analysis

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie M. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Large Groups

This chapter traces the history and evolution of foreign policy analysis (FPA) as a subfield of international relations (IR) from its beginnings in the 1950s through its classical period until 1993. It begins with a discussion of three paradigmatic works that laid the foundation of FPA: Decision Making as an Approach to the Study of International Politics (1954), by Richard C. Snyder, H. W. Bruck, and Burton Sapin; ‘Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy’ (1966), by James N. Rosenau; and Man–Milieu Relationship Hypotheses in the Context of International Politics (1956), by Harold and Margaret Sprout. These three works created three main threads of research in FPA: focusing on the decision making of small/large groups, comparative foreign policy, and psychological/sociological explanations of foreign policy. The chapter also reviews classic FPA scholarship during the period 1954–1993 and concludes with an assessment of contemporary FPA’s research agenda.

Foreign Policy Decision Making

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Goldgeier
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
The Cold War

Decision makers, acting singly or in groups, influence the field of international relations by shaping the interactions among nations. It is therefore important to understand how those decision makers are likely to behave. Some scholars have developed elegant formal theories of decision making to demonstrate the utility of rational choice approaches in the study of international relations, while others have chosen to explain the patterns of bias that exist when leaders face the difficult task of making decisions and formulating policy. Among them are Herbert Simon, who introduced “bounded rationality” to allow leaders to short-circuit the decision process, and Elizabeth Kier, who has shown how organizational cultures shaped the development of military doctrine during the interwar period. The literature on foreign policy decision making during the Cold War looked inside the black box to generate analyses of bureaucratic politics and individual mindsets. Because decision making involves consensus seeking among groups, leaders will often avoid making choices so that they will not antagonize key members of the bureaucracy. Scholars have also investigated the role of “policy entrepreneurs” in the decision-making process, bringing individual agents into organizational, diplomatic and political processes. Over time, the field of policy decision making has evolved to help us understand not only why leaders often calculate so poorly but even more importantly, why systematic patterns of behavior are more or less likely under certain conditions.

scholarly journals Politics, policy-making and the presence of images of suffering children

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-608
Author(s):  
Helen Berents
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Visual Politics ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Political Dimensions

Abstract In 2017 Trump expressed pity for the ‘beautiful babies’ killed in a gas attack on Khan Shaykhun in Syria before launching airstrikes against President Assad's regime. Images of suffering children in world politics are often used as a synecdoche for a broader conflict or disaster. Injured, suffering, or dead; the ways in which images of children circulate in global public discourse must be critically examined to uncover the assumptions that operate in these environments. This article explores reactions to images of children by representatives and leaders of states to trace the interconnected affective and political dimensions of these images. In contrast to attending to the expected empathetic responses prompted by images of children, this article particularly focuses on when such images prompt bellicose foreign policy decision-making. In doing this, the article forwards a way of thinking about images as contentious affective objects in international relations. The ways in which images of children's bodies and suffering are strategically deployed by politicians deserves closer scrutiny to uncover the visual politics of childhood inherent in these moments of international politics and policy-making.

Defending International Norms: The Role of Obligation, Material Interest, and Perception in Decision Making

2001 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 621-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard K. Herrmann ◽  
Vaughn P. Shannon
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Normative Reasoning ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Material Interest ◽  
Individual Perceptions ◽  
Material Interests ◽  
Feature Norms

States defend norms in some cases but not in others. Understanding this variation sheds light on both U.S. foreign policy and the role of normative reasoning. We report the results of four experiments embedded in a survey of U.S. elites. The experiments identified the effects of felt normative obligation (that is, the logic of what is appropriate) and concern for U.S. economic and security interests (that is, the logic of utilitarian consequence) as well as the role played by individual perceptions. We find that perceptions of another actor's motivation, of conflicts as civil or cross-border wars, and of the democratic nature of victims affect decisions to defend a prescriptive norm. This finding means that theories of international relations that feature norms as structural concepts need to consider actor-level cognition when examining the operation of norms. Moreover, we find that when U.S. economic and security interests are at stake there is a much greater inclination to defend norms than when simply normative obligation is present. Most U.S. elites appear to treat the presence or absence of U.S. material interests as a legitimate criterion for deciding whether or not to defend an international prescriptive norm.

Decision-making and the Munich crisis

1980 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Black
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
Policy Alternatives ◽  
Recent Edition ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
United States Intervention

It is now twenty years since Richard Snyder and two associates published a monograph presenting their “framework” for studying international relations as foreign policy decision-making. The basic assumptions of this approach have become an indispensable part of the study of international relations. No-one would now think of ignoring the important processes by which groups of leaders formulate and choose among policy alternatives. Yet the approach itself has been relegated to subsections of surveys of the field, or dismissive footnotes. Although James Rosenau's influential anthology, International Relations and Foreign Policy, still retains three “decision-making” selections in its most recent edition, Rosenau himself pronounced a respectful epitaph for this approach some years ago. Glenn Paige's initial, massive study of the United States' intervention in Korea has had no successors.

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