International Relations: Decision-Making, War, Terrorism, and Nuclear Weapons

Flashcards covering foreign policy decision-making models, typologies of war, international terrorism, the causes of World War I, and Cold War nuclear dynamics from lecture notes.

Affective Bias

A systematic divergence from rational decision-making driven by an individual's personal feelings, likes, or dislikes regarding another leader or situation.

Cognitive Bias

A systematic divergence from rational decision-making rooted in how an individual thinks, encompassing wishful thinking, historical analogies, justification of effort, enemy images, and mirror images.

Rational Actor Model

A five-step decision-making model where an actor clarifies goals, prioritizes goals, lists alternative policies, investigates likely policy consequences, and selects the most rational policy.

Bureaucratic Politics Model

A decision-making model positing that agencies with competing interests bargain for outcomes, each pursuing agency-specific interests as the best route to the national interest.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Established routines and predetermined guidelines upon which bureaucracies base low-level or mid-level decisions when goals are already established.

Presidential Management Model

A collegial management system where broad debate from all positions is narrowed to a set of choices, which is then finalized by a small, trusted group of decision-makers.

Nixon-Kissinger Model

An insider foreign policy structure characterized by high leader interest, close agreement between leader and advisor, and an international and domestic context that permits exclusive bilateral foreign policy choices.

War (Traditional Definition)

Sustained political violence carried out by the militaries of states, traditionally state-oriented and typically declared or endorsed by governments.

War (Clausewitzian Definition)

Politics by other means; a rational, goal-oriented extension of the political act chosen by a state to attain vital necessities or prevent vital losses.

Domestic / State Level of Analysis

An analytical approach attributing the causes of war to internal state characteristics, such as regime type, economics, nationalism, or democracy versus authoritarianism.

PKK (Kurdish Workers Party)

A Kurdish group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and fought by Turkey, despite US support for Iraqi Kurds who support the group.

Hegemonic War

A category of war fought for systemic or global dominance and control, exemplified by World War I and World War II.

Total War

A war in which a combatant mobilizes all resources to defeat the enemy, conquer territory, capture the capital, and occupy the state.

Limited War

A conflict undertaken to achieve a single or limited objective rather than total conquest, such as the Gulf War or the Vietnam War.

Raids

Single-instance, one-shot military strikes focused on a specific target, such as operations during the Six-Day War or targeted bombings.

UNSC Resolution 1566

An October 2004 United Nations Security Council resolution defining terrorism as criminal acts against civilians committed to cause death, injury, or hostage-taking to provoke general terror or compel government action.

International Terrorism

A rational and political tactic used predominantly by non-state actors targeting civilians to inflict fear, shock, and demonstrate resolve when other political means are unavailable.

Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871)

A war manipulated by Otto von Bismarck that united Germany, shifted the European balance of power, and fueled French revanchism over the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.

Cult of the Offensive

A pre-World War I military doctrine that privileged rapid, offensive attacks over defensive strategies, directly shaping both the Schlieffen Plan and Plan XVII.

Schlieffen Plan

Germany's timetable-driven offensive war plan requiring a rapid march through Belgium to defeat France in six weeks before turning to confront mobilized Russian forces.

Plan XVII

France's primary pre-World War I military operational plan, rooted in hyper-nationalism and the cult of the offensive, designed to recapture Alsace and Lorraine.

Blank Check

Germany's unconditional backing and diplomatic support granted to Austria-Hungary during the July Crisis following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Fog of War

Clausewitz's concept describing the inherent uncertainty, confusion, and chaos of the battlefield, necessitating strict military discipline and hierarchical chain of command.

Containment

The core Cold War foreign policy of the United States aimed at preventing the territorial and ideological expansion of Soviet-led communism.

Domino Theory

The strategic rationale under containment asserting that allowing one country to succumb to communism would trigger the fall of surrounding neighboring states.

Manhattan Project

The top-secret United States research and development project during World War II, led by Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves, that built the first nuclear weapons.

Trinity Detonation

The world's first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States on July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Little Boy

The $13\text{ kiloton}$ Uranium-235 fission bomb dropped by the B-29 bomber Enola Gay onto the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

Fat Man

The $21\text{ kiloton}$ Plutonium fission bomb dropped by the B-29 bomber Bock's Car on the city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.