Books in the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs series

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.

Whole World on Fire focuses on a technical riddle wrapped in an organizational mystery: How and why, for more than half a century, did the U.S. government fail to predict nuclear fire damage as it drew up plans to fight strategic nuclear war? U.S...

Finnemore examines changes over the past 400 years about why countries intervene militarily as well as in the ways they have intervened.

Between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, the United States was embroiled in competitive inter-state politics. Although it did not directly involve itself in European affairs, the United States did engage regularly in dangerous struggles with...

Thomas G. Mahnken sheds light on the shadowy world of U.S. intelligence-gathering, tracing how America learned of military developments in Japan, Germany, and Great Britain in the period between the two world wars.

Mitrovich argues that the Cold War policy of containment was only the first step in America's clandestine campaign to destroy Soviet power, revealing a range of previously unknown covert actions launched during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.

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...

How do leaders perceive threat levels in world politics, and what effects do those perceptions have on policy choices? Mark L. Haas focuses on how ideology shapes perception. He does not delineate the content of particular ideologies, but rather the...

Liberal democracies very rarely fight wars against each other, even though they go to war just as often as other types of states do. John M. Owen IV attributes this peculiar restraint to a synergy between liberal ideology and the institutions that...

Several hundred thousand members of the Red Army were stationed in East Germany when that state was reunited with its western counterpart. The peaceful transfer of these soldiers to their homeland produced a welcome outcome to a potentially explosive...

This new account of early Cold War history focuses on the emergence of a bipolar structure of power, the continuing importance of the German question, and American efforts to create a united Western Europe.

Copeland asks why governments make decisions that lead to, sustain, and intensify conflicts, drawing on detailed historical narratives of several twentieth-century cases, including World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

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

In this now-classic work of the theory and practice of airpower and its political effects, Robert A. Pape helps military strategists and policy makers judge the purpose of various air strategies, and helps general readers understand the policy debates.

Benjamin A. Valentino finds that ethnic hatreds or discrimination, undemocratic systems of government, and dysfunctions in society play a much smaller role in mass killing and genocide than is commonly assumed. He shows that the impetus for mass...

American power today is without historical precedent, dominating the world system. No other nation has enjoyed such formidable advantages in military, economic, technological, cultural, and political capabilities. How stable is this unipolar American...

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...