Power Problems

MIT professor Barry Posen joined the show to discuss the crisis in Ukraine, the origins of the conflict, what diplomatic approaches are available, and how US strategy is pushing China and Russia together.

1. Barry R. Posen bio
2. Barry Posen, “Unleashing the Rhetorical Dogs of War,”Just Security, February 15, 2022.
3. Barry R. Posen, “A New Transatlantic Division of Labor Could Save Billions Every Year!”Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 7, 2021.
4. Barry R. Posen,Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014).

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Should the United States classify as much information as it does? Yale Law School professor Oona A. Hathaway explains how the U.S. government overclassifies information, why incentives generate more secrecy, the threat to democracy this system poses, and what to do about it.

• Oona Hathaway bio
• Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro, Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018). 
• Oona A. Hathaway, “Keeping the Wrong Secrets: How Washington Misses the Real Security Threat,” Foreign Affairs 101, no. 1 (January/February 2022).
• Oona A. Hathaway, “Secrecy’s End,” Minnesota Law Review 106 (2021): pp. 691-800.

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Richard Hanania argues that the existence of a consistent, top-down, overarching U.S. grand strategy is an illusion. Instead of a unitary actor adhering to a coherent strategy over time, the state is subject to a set of concentrated interests that have outsize influence on U.S. foreign policy. 

Show Notes:

• Richard Hanania bio 
• Richard Hanania, Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy: How Generals, Weapons Manufacturers, and Foreign Governments Shape American Foreign Policy (New York: Routledge, 2021).
• Richard Hanania, “’Just Trust the Experts,’ We’re Told, We Shouldn’t,” New York Times September 20, 2021.
• Richard Hanania, “Ineffective, Immoral, Politically Convenient: America’s Overreliance on Economic Sanctions and What to Do about It,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 884, February 18, 2020.

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Quincy Institute Senior Fellow Anatol Lieven discusses the origins of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Russia's strategic perspective, the mistakes of NATO enlargement, and why the Biden administration has options to defuse tensions but is not pursuing them. Post-withdrawal Afghanistan policy and strategic competition with China are also covered. 

1. Anatol Lieven bio
2. Anatol Lieven, “Russia Is Right on the Middle East,” Foreign Policy, November 30, 2021.
3. Anatol Lieven, “Ukrainian Neutrality: A ‘Golden Bridge’ Out of the Current Geopolitical Trap,” Responsible Statecraft, January 3, 2022.

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 What do quantum mechanics have to do with international relations? Ohio State University professor Alexander Wendt lays out a theory of the physical world based on quantum effects and explains how it might inform our approach to social science, including international politics. 

Show Notes

• Alexander Wendt bio
• Alexander Wendt, Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
• Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999)
• Alexander Wendt, “The Mind-Body Problem and Social Science: Motivating a Quantum Social Theory,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 48, (2018): pp. 188-204.

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The desire for high status drives great powers’ foreign policies. Cambridge University professor Steven Ward discusses how status concerns motivate rising powers like China as well as declining powers like the United States, and how that can produce belligerent policies and exacerbate international tensions.

Show Notes

• Steven Ward bio
• Steven Ward, Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
• Steven Ward, “Status from Fighting? Reassessing the Relationship Between Conflict Involvement and Diplomatic Risk,” International Interactions 46, no. 2 (February 2020).
• Paul Musgraves and Steven Ward, “Testing Tripwire Theory Using Survey Experiments,” APSA Preprints, 2021.

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Despite the popular Cold War concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD), the United States and Soviet Union engaged in risky, escalatory nuclear competition despite the costs and risks. University of Cincinnati associate professor and Cato adjunct scholar Brendan Rittenhouse Green discusses what drove this competition and explains the role of nuclear arms today, with a focus on the future of U.S.-China nuclear relations.

Show Notes

• Brendan Green bio
• Brendan Rittenhouse Green, The Revolution that Failed: Nuclear Competition, Arms Control, and the Cold War, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
• Brendan Rittenhouse Green and Austin Long, “The MAD Who Wasn’t There: Soviet Reactions to the Late Cold War Nuclear Balance,” Security Studies 26, no. 4 (July 7, 2017): pp. 606-641.

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Marquette University Associate Professor Risa Brooks discusses civil-military relations in the United States, the role of military leaders and institutions in the making of foreign policy, and what reforms are needed to re-exert civilian primacy over the armed forces. Brooks touches upon concerning episodes, from Obama's Afghanistan surge to Trump's explicit politicization of the military, to suggest the proper norms around civil-military relations have eroded in recent years.

Show Notes

• Risa Brooks bio
• Risa Brooks, James Golby, and Heidi Urben, “Crisis of Command: America’s Broken Civil-Military Relationship Imperils National Security,” Foreign Affairs 100, no. 3, (May/June 2021).
• Lionel Beehner, Risa Brooks, and Daniel Marer, Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations: The Military, Society, Politics, and Modern War (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2020).
• Risa Brooks, “Paradoxes of Professionalism: Rethinking Civil-Military Relations in the United States,” International Security 44, no. 4 (Spring 2020): 7-44.

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The U.S. military budget is larger than those of the next 11 highest spenders combined. William Hartung, Director of the Arms & Security Program at the Center for International Policy discusses what cuts would make military spending more efficient.

1. William D. Hartung bio
2.  William D. Hartung, “Profits of War: Corporate Beneficiaries of the Post-9/11 Pentagon Spending Surge,” Watson Institute of Public and International Affairs, September 13, 2021.
3.  William D. Hartung, “Profiteers of Armageddon: Explaining the Money Behind the Pentagon’s Nuclear Weapon Build Up,” Inkstick Media, October 12, 2021.

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Access to oil is so vital that powerful countries can take extraordinary measures to protect themselves from ever being vulnerable to oil coercion. Rosemary A. Kelanic, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Notre Dame University, discusses the recent history of great powers’ quest for oil security and what kind of future military postures the United States and China may take toward the Persian Gulf.

• Rosemary A. Kelanic bio
• Rosemary A. Kelanic, Black Gold and Blackmail: Oil and Great Power Politics, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020).
• Rosemary A. Kelanic, “Why Iran’s ‘Oil Weapon’ Isn’t That Scary,” The Washington Post, June 18, 2019.

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