Books in the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs series

In Waging War, Planning Peace, Aaron Rapport investigates how U.S. presidents and their senior advisers have managed vital noncombat activities while the nation is in the midst of fighting or preparing to fight major wars.

In Catastrophic Success, Alexander B. Downes compiles all instances of regime change around the world over the past two centuries. Drawing on this impressive data set, Downes shows that regime change increases the likelihood of civil war and violent leader removal in target states and fails to reduce the probability of conflict between intervening states and their targets. As Downes demonstrates, when a state confronts an obstinate or dangerous adversary, the lure of toppling its government and establishing a friendly administration is strong. The historical record, however, shows that foreign-imposed regime change is, in the long term, neither cheap, easy, nor consistently successful. The strategic impulse to forcibly oust antagonistic or non-compliant regimes overlooks two key facts. First, the act of overthrowing a foreign government sometimes causes its military to disintegrate, sending thousands of armed men into the countryside where they often wage an insurgency against the intervener. Second, externally-imposed leaders face a domestic audience in addition to an external one, and the two typically want different things. These divergent preferences place imposed leaders in a quandary: taking actions that please one invariably alienates the other. Regime change thus drives a wedge between external patrons and their domestic proteges or between proteges and their people. Catastrophic Success provides sober counsel for leaders and diplomats. Regime change may appear an expeditious solution, but states are usually better off relying on other tools of influence, such as diplomacy. Regime change, Downes urges, should be reserved for exceptional cases. Interveners must recognize that, absent a rare set of promising preconditions, regime change often instigates a new period of uncertainty and conflict that impedes their interests from being realized.

Overextension is the common pitfall of empires. Jack Snyder identifies recurrent myths of empire, describes the varieties of overextension to which they lead, and criticizes the traditional explanations offered by historians and political scientists.

After more than two years of bitter negotiations during which combatants & civilians continued to suffer casualties, the Korean armistice was concluded in July 1953. Focusing on the Americans formulation of negotiating positions & on their attempts to coordinate political goals with military tactics, Rosemary Foot here charts the tortuous path...

As the preponderant world power, the United States is a potential arbiter of war and peace between such feuding rivals as India and Pakistan, Turkey and Greece, China and Taiwan. How can it deter them from going to war and impel them to accept...

The proliferation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons is now the single most serious security concern for governments around the world. Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz compare how military threats, strategic cultures, and...

High-security organizations around the world face devastating threats from insiders-trusted employees with access to sensitive information, facilities, and materials. Matthew Bunn and Scott D. Sagan outline cognitive and organizational biases that lead organizations to downplay the insider...

High-security organizations around the world face devastating threats from insiders-trusted employees with access to sensitive information, facilities, and materials. Matthew Bunn and Scott D. Sagan outline cognitive and organizational biases that lead organizations to downplay the insider...

Walldorf argues that Western governments can and must integrate human rights into their foreign policies. Failure to take humanitarian concerns into account, he contends, will only damage their long-term strategic objectives.

Looking at Japan and Germany Lind demonstrates that denials of past atrocities fuel distrust and limit international reconciliation and argues that a country's acknowledgment of past misdeeds is essential for promoting trust and reconciliation after war.

Many assume that in international politics, and especially in war, "anything goes." Civil War general William Sherman said war "is all hell." The implication behind the maxim is that in war, as in hell, there is no order, only chaos; no mercy, only...

Some have claimed that'War is too important to be left to the generals,'but P. W. Singer asks'What about the business executives?'Breaking out of the guns-for-hire mold of traditional mercenaries, corporations now sell skills and services that until recently only state militaries possessed. Their products range from trained commando teams to...

The proliferation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons is now the single most serious security concern for governments around the world. Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz compare how military threats, strategic cultures, and...

The United States has been the world's dominant power for more than a century. Now many analysts believe that other countries are rising and the United States is in decline. Is the unipolar moment over? Is America finished as a superpower?In this book, Michael Beckley argues that the United States has unique advantages over other nations that...

Wark shows that faulty intelligence assessments were crucial in shaping the British policy of appeasement up to the outbreak of World War II. His book offers a new perspective on British policy and intelligence in the interwar period.

A balance-of-power perspective on the formation, development, and future of the EC/EU.

In The Soul of Armies Austin Long compares and contrasts counterinsurgency operations during the Cold War and in recent years by three organizations: the US Army, the US Marine Corps, and the British Army.

What strategic behavior is appropriate for a state as powerful as the U.S.? To answer this question, Robert J. Art concentrates on "grand strategy"-the deployment of military power in both peace and war to support foreign policy goals.

What is it about ethnicity that breaks countries apart and drives people to acts of savage violence against their lifelong neighbors? Stuart Kaufman finds the roots of ethnic violence in myths and symbols, the stories ethnic groups tell about who they are.

Rosen argues that armies and navies are not forever doomed to "fight the last war." Rather, they are able to respond to shifts in the international strategic situation.

A compelling new argument to help us understand why authoritarian militaries sometimes fight very well-and sometimes very poorly. Talmadge's framework for understanding battlefield effectiveness focuses on four key sets of military organizational practices.

Gavin challenges key elements of the widely accepted narrative about the history of the atomic age and the consequences of the nuclear revolution.

Since the unprecedentedly effective performance of the allied air campaign against Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, the role of American air power in future wars has become a topic of often heated public debate. In this balanced appraisal of air...

In this fascinating account of the battle tanks that saw combat in the European Theater of World War II, Mary R. Habeck traces the strategies developed in Germany and the Soviet Union between the wars for the use of armored vehicles in battle.

Great powers often initiate risky military and diplomatic inventions in far-off, peripheral regions that pose no direct threat to them, risking direct confrontation with rivals in strategically inconsequential places. Why do powerful countries behave...

Greenhill offers the first systematic examination of forced migration as an important but largely unrecognized instrument of state influence. She shows both how often this unorthodox brand of coercion has been attempted and how successful it has been.

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.

The definitive assessment of Japanese security policy and its implications for the future of East Asia.

Legro offers a new understanding of the dynamics of World War II and the sources of international cooperation.