The use of force

What do Nuzan and Hansen (lecture 13) write about the Cold War?

• bipolarity underpinned the Cold War

• characterisation of the USSR as posing an ideological challenge became the foundation of US foreign policy

• fear that failure to keep up would make one’s nuclear forces vulnerable to the enemy

What does Jervis (lecture 13) write about the Cold War?

• steps taken by states to bolster their security tend to have the effect of making others less secure

• at first glance, Cuban missile crisis was a security dilemma

• traditionalist school sees the USSR as inherently expansionist

• not a coincidence that the Cold War only ended after fundamental change occurred in the USSR

What does Evangelista (lecture 16) argue about the end of the Cold War?

• most sig. factor was Gorbachev’s declaration of ‘freedom of choice’ and the unilateral defensive restructuring and reduction of the army by ½ million troops

• realists view the end as a Soviet response to decline

• cognitive impact of Chernobyl have been presented as a significant ideationally charged factor

• end of the Cold War was a combination of multiple factors

What doe Brooks and Wohlforth (lecture 16) argue about the end of the Cold War?

• Soviet relative decline influenced Moscow’s strategic choices

• material incentives systematically undermine alternatives to retrenchment - but this doesn’t discount the role of ideas completely

• best argument in favour of ideational factors is the existence of a poor fit between changes in material incentives and evolving state behaviour

• material pressures best explanation for the reorientation of Soviet foreign policy

• Soviet relative decline - technological lag, growth rates and imperial overstretch

What does Fazal (lecture 18) argue about the decline of war thesis?

• has been a dramatic decrease in the number of declarations of war in 21stc.

• rise of jus in bello (laws regulating war) has made declaring war costly

• avoiding declarations allows for ambiguity

• proliferation of law on war has led to a decline in official declarations of war

What does Zacher (lecture 18) argue about war and territory?

• experience of the two world wars and the development of nuclear weapons has led to the development of the territorial integrity norm

• change in the normative status for state territoriality constitutes a basic transformation in the global political order

• Vasquez - ‘territorial issues are so fundamental that the behaviour associated with their settlement literally constructs a world order’