Grand Strategy, Defense Policy, and International Security Studies

Vocabulary flashcards defining core strategic concepts, doctrines, treaties, historical events, and analytical frameworks from the lecture transcript.

Grand strategy

Coordination of national resources and instruments to achieve political objectives; connects ends, ways, and means.

Ends, ways, and means

Ends are desired outcomes; ways are methods; means are available resources.

Kennan Long Telegram

1946 analysis of Soviet behavior that helped shape containment.

Kennan X article

1947 public argument for patient resistance to Soviet expansion.

Containment

Limiting an opponent's further expansion; it does not necessarily require military intervention everywhere.

Rollback

Reversing an opponent's existing control or gains.

Truman Doctrine

1947 commitment to support threatened free peoples, initially Greece and Turkey.

Marshall Plan

European economic recovery program announced in 1947 and implemented in 1948; economic resilience supported containment.

National Security Act of 1947

Created the NSC and CIA and reorganized the defense establishment.

NSC 68

1950 document calling for a major buildup against the Soviet threat; the Korean War accelerated implementation.

New Look

Eisenhower's strategy emphasizing nuclear deterrence and massive retaliation to offset conventional disadvantages and manage costs.

Flexible response

Developing credible options at different levels of conflict rather than relying only on massive nuclear retaliation.

Détente

Managing tensions through negotiation and cooperation while strategic rivalry continues.

Nixon Doctrine

Allies should carry more conventional defense burdens while the United States supports their security.

Levels of analysis

Individual leaders; domestic or state institutions; international system and power distribution.

Anarchy

Absence of an overarching international government.

Sovereignty

A state's claim to supreme authority within its territory.

Hamiltonian tradition

Focuses on commerce, economic power, and national strength.

Wilsonian tradition

Focuses on democracy, international institutions, and a rules-based international order.

Jeffersonian tradition

Focuses on protecting domestic liberty and avoiding costly foreign entanglements.

Jacksonian tradition

Focuses on honor, national security, and forceful retaliation against threats.

Upward politicization

Intelligence officials tailor analysis toward political leaders' preferences.

Downward politicization

Policymakers pressure intelligence analysts toward preferred conclusions.

Strategic interaction

An opponent responds to your actions; war cannot be planned as if the enemy were passive.

Capabilities versus intentions

Capabilities concern what an actor can do; intentions concern what it wants or plans to do.

Logistics

The supply and support systems that sustain military operations.

Defense as a function of force

Repelling attack or limiting damage if attacked.

Deterrence as a function of force

Preventing an opponent from choosing an unwanted action through credible threatened consequences.

Compellence

Pressuring an opponent to stop, reverse, or undertake an action.

Swaggering

Displaying military strength for prestige rather than a specific defensive or coercive goal.

Acquisitive use of force

Using force to seize territory or resources.

Requirements for deterrence

Capability, credibility, communication, and something the opponent values that can be threatened.

Jus ad bellum

Just-war principles concerning the decision to enter war.

Jus in bello

Just-war principles concerning conduct during war, including discrimination and proportionality.

Rally around the flag

An initial rise in public support for national leaders during a crisis or military action; it may fade.

Weinberger Doctrine

Vital interests, commitment to winning, clear objectives, adequate and reassessed forces, public support, and force as a last resort.

Powell Doctrine

Emphasis on clear political objectives and adequately sized decisive military means.

Traditional threats

Direct military challenges from opposing conventional forces.

Disruptive threats

Capabilities or methods that undermine established military advantages.

Irregular threats

Politically motivated nonstate actors using asymmetric methods, as defined in Meese chapter 15.

Catastrophic threats

Threats capable of extreme damage, especially those involving WMD.

General conventional war

Massive mobilization for comprehensive defeat of an enemy, exemplified by the world wars.

Limited war

War constrained in objectives, geography, resources, or methods; it can still be lengthy and costly.

Five domains of warfare

Land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace.

Outer Space Treaty of 1967

Restricts WMD in space; it is not a ban on all military uses of satellites.

Three cyber missions in Meese 14

Defend DoD networks; help defend against attacks of major national consequence; support military operations.

Stuxnet significance

Demonstrated that a cyber operation could physically damage equipment, including Iranian centrifuges.

Spiral development

Incremental acquisition that adapts requirements and technology using feedback and new developments.

First offset

Nuclear weapons countering Soviet conventional superiority during the New Look.

Second offset

Precision strike, stealth, surveillance, communications, and integrated operations offsetting numerical disadvantages.

Third offset in the textbook

New approaches including human-machine collaboration to preserve advantages against emerging competitors and A2/AD.

Anti access

Capabilities that prevent or complicate entry into a theater of operations.

Area denial

Capabilities that restrict freedom of action within a theater.

Three advantages of asymmetry

Surprise, evasion, and deniability.

Terrorism

Politically motivated violence or threats intended to influence a wider audience through fear.

Insurgency

Organized subversion and violence challenging political control or established authority.

Political legitimacy

Acceptance of the right to govern; a central issue in insurgency.

VEO

Violent extremist organization; can include core leaders, supporters, and loosely affiliated self-directed attackers.

Self directed extremist violence

Violence inspired by a movement without direct operational orders from its leaders.

Countervalue targeting

Threatening cities, industry, and other societal assets to impose unacceptable costs.

Counterforce targeting

Targeting military capabilities, especially nuclear forces before they can be used.

Assured destruction

Credible ability to retaliate after an attack with unacceptable destruction.

MAD

Mutually assured destruction: both sides possess credible, survivable second-strike capabilities.

Second strike capability

Ability to retaliate after absorbing an enemy attack.

First strike capability

Ability to attack first in a way that may destroy or seriously weaken an opponent's capacity to retaliate.

Dirty bomb versus nuclear weapon

A dirty bomb disperses radioactive material with conventional explosives; it does not produce a nuclear explosion.

NPT three pillars

Nonproliferation, peaceful nuclear use, and disarmament.

NPT recognized nuclear weapon states

United States, Russia as Soviet successor, United Kingdom, France, and China.

IAEA role

Safeguards and inspections that help verify nuclear commitments.

Nunn Lugar

1991 Cooperative Threat Reduction initiative to secure and dismantle former Soviet WMD and related materials and infrastructure.

ABM Treaty

1972 agreement limiting strategic missile defenses, reflecting the logic that mutual vulnerability could support stability.

San Francisco system

US-centered network of largely bilateral security alliances in postwar Asia.

Strategic ambiguity over Taiwan

Uncertainty about a US military response, intended to discourage both a mainland attack and destabilizing unilateral moves by Taiwan.

Yoshida Doctrine

Prioritize Japan's economic recovery while relying heavily on US security protection.

Japan Article 9

Postwar constitutional constraints on war and military activity that shaped debates over Japan's security role.

Alliance entanglement

Fear of being pulled into a partner's conflict.

Alliance abandonment

Fear that a partner will fail to provide promised protection.

Dual containment

Clinton-era policy articulated in 1993 to isolate both Iran and Iraq.

JCPOA

2015 agreement restricting and monitoring Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Perestroika

Gorbachev's restructuring reforms.

Glasnost

Gorbachev's policy of greater openness.

Competitive authoritarianism

Meaningful political competition exists, but incumbents heavily skew institutions and resources in their favor.

Hybrid warfare

Combination of military force, irregular methods, proxies, and informational or other tools.

Able Archer

1983 NATO exercise associated with heightened Soviet fears and escalation danger.

INF Treaty date

December 1987, not 1997.

Preemption

Action against an imminent attack.

Prevention

Action against a threat expected to become more dangerous in the future.

Strategic proportionality

Weigh the risks and costs of action against those of inaction; avoiding one danger can create a larger one.

Woolsey metaphor

1993 contrast between the defeated Soviet dragon and diverse post-Cold War snakes.

Kilcullen feedback problem

Military pressure changes adversaries; defeating vulnerable actors can leave more capable survivors.