International Security Changing

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International Security: Changing TargetsAuthor(s): Lawrence FreedmanSource: Foreign Policy, No. 110, Special Edition: Frontiers of Knowledge (Spring, 1998), pp. 48-63Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149276 .Accessed: 18/11/2013 16:06

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International

Security: Changing Targets by Lawrence Freedman

nternational security addresses questions of force: how to spot it, stop it, resist it, and occasionally threaten and even use it. It considers the condi-

tions that encourage or discourage organized violence in international affairs and the conduct of all types of military activity. International security therefore deals with the most fundamental questions of war and peace and, consequently, with the highest responsibil- ities of government. For this reason, it continues to be an area of academic endeavor where it is considered both appropriate and possible for scholarship to feed into the policy process.

During the Cold War, as politicians and generals became mindful of the potentially devastating consequences of superpower conflict, they turned to members of the academy for help in devising policies that avoided both war and appeasement. Out of this relationship emerged a set of cherished formulas that imbued the Cold War with a sense of order-"containment," "flexible response," and "detente." This order, and with it the mainstream agenda for international security studies, largely collapsed along with the Berlin Wall. The subject itself did not become obsolete but rather had to be recast to reflect the changing nature of conflict. The focus on NATO'S central front and the nuclear balance was replaced by a strong interest in how force is being used in

LAWREN CE FREEDM AN is professor of war studies at King's College in London and a member of FOREIGN POLICY'S editorial board.

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Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and postcommunist Europe, and in the consequences of the West's discretionary approach to intervention in regional conflicts. This shift has demanded a greater understanding of local history, culture, and socioeconomic conditions. While the impact of information technology on military affairs points to the growing potential for the West to use force discriminatingly, an awareness of the strategies that weak nations use to counter the offensive maneuvers of their stronger adversaries points to the emergence of unconventional threats such as nuclear terrorism. Academics have by and large adapted well in developing this new agenda. Their difficulty has been in con- vincing colleagues and government of its importance, given the absence of the overriding strategic imperatives of the Cold War.

THE GOLDEN AGE

Until the Second World War, the study of war was largely the preserve of generals and peace that of lawyers. The idea that the effective application of international law could constrain the worst tendencies of states was undermined when efforts to implement this principle after the First World War failed to prevent the second. If anything, the peace tradition has now been taken over by economists who, having moved beyond mercantilism, no longer see war as serving any useful purpose and have long been excited by the potentially pacific consequences of international trade.

The study of war is still strongly influenced by a Prussian general who fought against Napoleon Bonaparte's armies. Carl von Clause- witz's legacy was an unfinished book, On War, which combines a practical grasp of strategy and tactics with a sophisticated view of war's essential character. His teachings were followed avidly, though not always accurately, in a number of countries. To this day, theorists of war tend to define themselves by reference to Clausewitz, although they increasingly oppose his views as he was largely a theorist of a classic form of warfare that is no longer practiced.

His most famous aphorism, that war is a continuation of political activity by other means, remains the basis for the study of war as a potentially rational pursuit. This assertion was the starting point for investigations into the strategic implications of nuclear weapons. Bernard Brodie was the first to popularize the notion that these weapons were so fearful that they might actually serve to prevent another total

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International Security

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The next Clausewitz?

war through the workings of deterrence. The experience of the Korean War suggested that wars could be kept limited in their means (non- nuclear), so long as their ends were also limited, a theme picked up by Robert Osgood and Henry Kissinger in the mid-1950s.

But even as some theorists were promoting the notion of limited war, the United States was taking on obligations to allies in NATO that at least required the possibility of initiating nuclear war-an action that appeared to be downright suicidal with the growth of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. The attempts to find ways of extracting political benefit from a nuclear arsenal-without triggering a cataclysmic conflagration-dominated strategic theory from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. In addition to his- torians and political scientists, engineers and economists entered the fray. Drawing on advanced methodologies such as game theory, they sought to construct models to help conceptualize the dilemmas of nuclear strategy.

Some found this field of study contemptible, giving credibility to schemes for mass murder. Analysts such as Herman Kahn, who seemed to delight in outrageous metaphors, lent themselves to satire, most mem- orably in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Yet the intellectual legacy of

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this period was substantial. Tom Schelling, for example, provided a framework for thinking about how two sides might pursue competing geopolitical interests without losing sight of shared interests, most notably in the avoidance of nuclear war. This helped turn the view of Cold War strategists away from a crude "zero-sum game."

During this golden age of what were then known as "strategic" studies, Western governments found that they could rely on academic institutions for conceptual innovation, hard research, practical propos- als, and, eventually, willing recruits for the bureaucracy. Standards were set for relevance and influence that would prove difficult to sustain.

Soon the Cold War became both less dangerous, in the aftermath of the crises in Berlin and Cuba of the early 1960s, and more aggravating, as the United States followed the imperatives of anticommunism into the quagmire of Vietnam. The former development left strategic studies less vital; the latter tended to discredit it. Consequently, research during this era was characterized by a heightened degree of skepticism, with analysts warning of the limits of deterrence and coercion (Alexander George), the distorting effects of bureaucratic politics (Graham Allison), and the perils of misperception (Robert Jervis).

The greatest policy interest lay in efforts devised to get out of the Cold War, or at least to mitigate its most dangerous aspects, through arms control. Studies in this field tended to have a technical bias, although these widened as academics and policymakers gained an increased appreciation of the political role that arms control negotiations were playing in East-West relations. The debate over SALT II negotiations in the late 1970s was not so much about the arcana of the military balance, though it was often conducted in those terms, than the prospects for d tente with the Soviet Union.

STRATEGIC STUDIES TO SECURITY STUDIES In the years that followed, two events shook confidence in strategic studies. The first was the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, which with one swift stroke reinforced the pessimistic view of Soviet intentions and invalidated a decade of d tente. In truth, detente had never been a trouble-free period, with U.S.-Soviet rivalry being played out in Angola, Latin America, and the Middle East. Moreover, at the front- line of the Cold War in Europe detente remained firmly in place. Nor was there evidence that Soviet action in Afghanistan was influenced

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by shifts in the strategic balance-the main target of the hawks' critique of detente. Nonetheless, it highlighted the two superpowers' divergent views on the value of the exercise. What had appeared in Washington as the development of an interconnecting web of agree- ments to constrain Soviet ambitions was seen in Moscow as a means to institutionalize global power sharing. The drama of the invasion, cou- pled with the revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua, created the indelible impression that the West had been caught off-guard.

Confidence in the predictive utility of strategic studies was undermined by the second event, which occurred almost exactly a decade later: the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the subsequent implosion of the Soviet Union. By the mid-1980s, it had become evident to most analysts, if not the general public, that the cumulative ineffi- ciencies of the Soviet economy and the stagnation of its political system made some sort of change inevitable. The status quo was untenable. There was, however, nothing inevitable about communist parties giving up their power gracefully, as China demonstrated. So while there was some loss of face for failing to predict the end of the Cold War, this failure was less a function of ignorance of the stresses and strains within the Soviet system than of proper caution in fore- casting how these problems might be resolved.

Aside from a credibility gap with the public, strategic practitioners faced an even more serious problem: the sudden lack of a problem. The absence of a great power conflict to worry about produced evidence of disorientation. Attempts to conjure up replacements for the lost Soviet threat-out of a reconstituted Russia, revanchist Germany, revivalist Japan, rampant China, or so-called "rogue states" in the Third World-were often greeted with derision, as were attempts to recast international conflict in terms of a clash of great civilizations rather than great powers. The inheritors of the idealist tradition in international relations now apparently rode the tide of history, far more comfortable with the modem themes of the primacy of economics and the shrinking role of the state.

A certain amount of retooling could take place. There was a mass exodus from arms control to ethnic conflict, requiring practitioners to pay more attention to the softer social sciences such as anthropology. On a larger scale, a shift from "strategic" to "security" studies and from "national" to "international" studies had been under way for some time. There were good reasons for this transition. Questions of force must 52 FOREIGN POLICY


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always be put in a wide context, if only to make sense of the particular causes of conflict. Even in the realist tradition, force must always be considered as an instrument of foreign policy alongside other political and economic instruments. This shift, however, also reflected the revival of the idealist tradition and notions of multilateral cooperation, thereby serving to delegitimize force as a primary tool of statecraft.

Economic, social, and environmental factors deserved attention because they could aggravate violent tendencies, trigger cross-border conflicts, and affect the conduct of war. Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in 1990 was borne as much out of indebtedness and declining oil prices as long-standing territorial claims. Russia's efforts to hold on to Chechnya in part reflected concern over oil pipeline routes. The drug trade threatened to destabilize governments in Latin America. Violence in the Balkans could not be comprehended without regard to cultural factors. Arguments over scarce resources such as water were a constant source of irritation in many parts of the world and could be expected to inten- sify if population pressures continued to grow. More questionable was the tendency to classify these factors as sources of insecurity that could pose larger risks to the West than potential military threats.

But military force does not lend itself to coping with such problems- diplomatic, multinational frameworks are better suited for dealing with economic and environmental hazards. Once anything that generates anx- iety or threatens the quality of life in some respect becomes labeled a "security problem," the field risks losing all focus. Such an agenda is con- ceivably rich, and is certainly inclusive, but it can also be off-puttingly vague. Practitioners are likely to reach inappropriate conclusions if they insist on squeezing issues that vary so widely into one, unsuitably broad, conceptual framework geared toward coping with military threats. Defense of the nation against infectious disease is an altogether different problem than defense against ballistic missile attack. The notion of "economic security" encourages a confrontational approach to trade policy, while that of "environmental security" has often served more to confuise than to clarify by encouraging a search for adversaries.

Academics working in economics or on environmental issues rarely see themselves as security specialists. By contrast, students of international political economy have been more inclined to turn security studies into a subfield of their own. This practice has been in line with the twin pre- sumptions that, first, international trade and finance have become so global in character that mutually dependent states are severely constrained

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from going to war with one another, and, second, the spread of democratic forms of government means that mutually respecting states have no inclination to go to war with one another. According to this school of thought, as states come to share economic views and political values, it becomes easier for them to act on a multilateral basis through international institutions and to isolate the malevolent and the disruptive.

A REALIST REVIVAL? The response of many working in the realist tradition to the challenges posed by the new security agenda has been to insist that, whatever the changes in domestic politics and economic practices, states are still subject to the same strategic imperatives. This assertion does not ring true: Having disposed of their empires, the major powers are no longer interested in local conquest. Nor do they assume that, as a matter of course, economic interests such as trade routes require constant military support.

An alternative response may be more promising, reflecting realism's origins as an unsentimental intellectual temper rather than a theoretical construction. Transnational phenomena and domestic factors need not be jettisoned because they fail to fit within the standard realist framework that asserts the primacy of the state system. Indeed, any realist revival will depend on drawing these factors into an analysis of the role of force in contemporary international affairs. This approach would assert the con- ditionality of the most progressive developments and the fragility of long- established institutions when under stress, keeping in mind how human relations can turn vicious in short order, while potentially creative political, economic, and social movements can suddenly take on a disruptive and vengeful aspect. The underlying purpose of a realist revival would not be to peddle despondency for its own sake but to challenge complacency, sustaining an awareness of the dark side of international affairs to encourage measures that protect and promote the light.

The need for such skepticism has been well illustrated by the sudden reversal of the "Asian miracle." American officials have warned that the side effects from this crisis could include political unrest in Hong Kong and Indonesia and even the refusal of South Korea to fulfill its obligations to the U.S.-North Korean nuclear agreement. Although spectacular levels of economic growth can help ease all sorts of political problems--both inter- nal and regional-turning former "trouble spots" into "emerging economies," it is always unwise to assume that auspicious economic con-

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ditions can continue indefinitely. As the economic climate becomes harsher, issues of corruption, intercommunal tensions, and poverty are aggravated; competition for markets and minerals intensifies; and indiffer- ence to the environment grows. Attempts to establish more democratic and accountable forms of government become both more necessary and difficult. Before wholesome developments are declared permanent, it is important to ensure the durability of their foundations.

A keen historical sense is vital to understanding the origins and development of all types of conflict and the likely effects of changes to the rules of the political game, economic circumstances, or external interference. Yet history itself is too often disregarded in security studies (in the belief that policymakers are only interested in tomorrow) or else becomes the plaything of international relations methodology. The search for supposed "laws" of international relations normally involves taking historical events out of context to compare them with other incidents that share certain superficial features but are nonetheless fundamentally separate in terms of time and space. One example of this is the observation that democratic states do not go to war with one another, which Jack Levy proclaimed the closest to an "empirical law" yet identified. Despite the intense statistical analysis that has gone into attempts to validate or refute this proposition, its proponents cannot guarantee that in the future more democracy will mean more peace. It is not obvious that quantitative studies covering precommunist Europe shed any light on the impact of relatively free elections in postcommunist Europe. Of more benefit here are careful comparisons between the foreign policies of stable democracies and those in the midst of uncertain transitions.

Edward Luttwak has put a historical gloss on the reluctance of democracies to go to war, by reference to a "postheroic" age, reflected most striking- ly in a low tolerance for casualties. The presumption that public opinion will not accept great sacrifices is now firmly embedded, although the evidence here is scanty and strongly influenced by recent American, and especially post-Vietnam, experiences. The public's readiness to sacrifice almost certainly depends on the issues at stake and has always been limited in the absence of direct threats to state and society or to cherished values. If the major Western states do appear to apply an important discretionary element to decisions on the use of force, this behavior reflects changes in their international situations and, in particular, the absence of direct threats to their most vital interests. It is much harder to make a case for intervention in Africa when there is no link with a global balance of power.

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America's Achilles' Heel? Anyone seeking insight into current mainstream thinking on military affairs could do worse than to read the report of the National Defense Panel, Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century, published last December. The panel was chartered by the U.S. Congress to provide a degree of oversight to the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). In contrast to the QDR, which was generally viewed as representing a conservative perspective, the panel argues that today's relatively relaxed security environment provides a unique opportunity to divert resources away from sustaining the present force structure and toward developing one that can meet the challenges likely to emerge within the next two decades.

The panel suggests that the United States has little choice but to engage in the generality of international security problems and recom- mends that it deal with these issues-relying on diplomatic rather than military methods-before they reach a crisis point. Another sensible assumption is that opponents will have taken account of the Gulf War and will not accept American conflict on American terms. Future opponents are likely to rely on alternative methods of warfare, notably terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and seek also to draw West- emrn states into forms of urban combat where more advanced military capabilities would be less effective. Noting the growing American dependence on information systems, the panel concludes that this venue offers tempting new targets for would-be adversaries.

In fact, the panel goes so far as to assert that responding to "information warfare threats to the United States may present the greatest challenge in preparing for the security environment of 2010-20." Having said that, they acknowledge that the "threat is dif- fuse and difficult to identify." Indeed, the discussion of information warfare (and related topics such as "space control") in this report reflects that current thinking has not advanced much beyond assert- ing rather obvious desiderata-we must deny to our enemies what we must protect for ourselves. The extent to which information systems are moving out of governmental control might have given the panel more pause in considering whether traditional military concepts of control have much relevance in the Information Age.

-L.F.

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The past focus on great power politics and the Cold War distracted attention from the full effects of decolonization and the consequent surge of new states that have their own armed forces, which are fed by the transfer of arms and technology from East and West. Instead of the existential threats typically generated by the offensive impulses of a rad- ical great power, the challenges faced by the Western democracies are now more likely to emanate from some distant turbulence. The equi- librium of the international system may not be threatened, but the economic or social effects may be difficult to contain and the immediate human repercussions too distressing to ignore. But the West must weigh these more limited interests against its inclination to stay clear of trouble and not put scarce resources and soldiers' lives at risk in regions that appear to be chronically chaotic and irredeemably desperate.

THE CAUSES OF CONFLICT This new situation has not suddenly rendered irrelevant the conceptual framework through which the dynamics of conflict, crisis, and war were understood in the past, even though this structure was developed in con- nection with the quarrels and rivalries of the great powers. There are still tensions at the international level that require attention, but there are also now important applications of this framework to be made on a smaller scale at the regional level. Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East have all witnessed eruptions of violence, turning states and groups that have long coexisted, sometimes apparently amicably, into belligerents.

Investigations into these conflicts require practitioners to vigorously integrate diplomacy and military power with knowledge of local history, socioeconomic conditions, and political life. This approach would also benefit regional specialists who, because of their inability to grasp "power politics," can at times be taken by surprise by the course of events in their area. During the buildup to the Gulf War, for example, disaffected members of the local intelligentsia were often more vocal, accessible, and sym- pathetic than feudal monarchs, but the power lay with the latter. And the inability of the United States and its allies to dislodge Iraqi president Sad- dam Hussein since 1991 indicates that the use of power can go awry without a keen appreciation of the context within which it is being exercised.

As engagement in the world's problems has become more discretionary for Western democracies, credible rationales have become critical in building both domestic and international support for any action. This

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new imperative has encouraged sensitivity to the normative aspects of foreign policy, highlighted in a recent volume edited by Peter Katzenstein, and the ethical dimensions of foreign policy. It soon becomes evident that core principles are often in tension and do not always point in one policy direction, as in the tensions between the traditional rights of states and human and minority rights. The same general principle can have different effects according to the circumstances. The right of self-determina- tion has been invoked when bringing Germans together and pulling Czechoslovaks apart, when keeping the Falkland Islands attached to Britain and attempting to detach Chechnya from Russia.

A principled security policy can soon appear problematic. If pushed too far, it can be seen as imprudent and undermining of hard interest: if not pushed far enough, then the charge is likely to be one of hypocrisy and double standards. It can also encourage practitioners to emphasize the unprincipled character of opponents. Selling the "threat" may involve demonizing local political forces and the ideolo- gies they represent. This tactic may produce rationales that work well as morality plays but are less than helpful in preparing interventionist forces for complex and multifaceted situations. An example of this came with the fixation on the faction led by militia commander Mohammed Aidid during the U.S. intervention in Somalia from 1992 to 1994, or the current difficulty faced in finding ways to respond to the stirrings of change in Iran. American policymakers routinely refer to rogue states, a group of authoritarian, ideologically hostile nations devoted to disrupting the international system. The diverse member- ship of this aberrant category--Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Syria-argues against a strategy that treats these nations as a mono- lithic, like-minded threat deserving of a standard response.

By and large, engagement-provided nations achieve it in good company and agree to share its burdens-has been the easiest choice. This development has led to the growing importance of those institutions through which multilateral actions can be organized. Indeed, it has been striking just how much debate on international security in the 1990s has revolved around the competing claims of institutions as the providers of preventive diplomacy, crisis management, conflict resolution, and military action. At the start of the 1990s, a central focal point for many of the West's ambitious strategic plans was the United Nations, because it had become apparent that little could be done of a forceful nature without the UN's imprimatur.

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Over the past decade, ambitions have been scaled down (as many academics had anticipated) as nations once again face the familiar problems of turning fine words into deeds.

American academics have not taken seriously enough the EU's pre- tensions to become Europe's key security provider, while their Euro- pean counterparts have taken them too close to heart. So far the EU has been inhibited in developing a decisive and effective external policy by the need for consensus and self-absorption mandated by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. In the early days of the Yugoslav wars, the EU at times seemed bent more on crisis aggravation than management: first, by failing to acknowledge the strength of ethnic feeling; and, second, by making the creation of an independent Bosnian state almost unavoidable but doing little to guarantee its integrity. More recently, it has mismanaged the most important conflict involving one of its member states-that between Greece and Turkey.

Americans tend to place more emphasis on NATO, the organization where the United States plays the leading role. Perhaps, for this reason, NATO has emerged stronger than was commonly expected when the Soviet threat-its raison d'etre-was evaporating. The alliance also benefits from its well-defined command structure, which proved itself invaluable during the crises in Bosnia and the Persian Gulf. Its prestige is reflected in the desire of most of the former communist states to join its ranks. Few issues have sparked more controversy in foreign policy journals than NATO enlargement. The topic raises some important, ana- lytical issues since the motives behind new alliance formation, which has classical geopolitical connotations, turn out to be largely tied to reinforcing certain positive political tendencies in the candidate states.

THE CONDUCT OF WAR

The discretionary aspect of the West's military operations comes at a time when its conventional military superiority is beyond dispute. The United States, with or without its major allies, can take on all comers. There are reasons to suppose that this gap in capability will grow. The efficient application of conventional force is increasingly influenced by the ability to collect, transmit, and interpret information, and this is an area in which the United States excels. Hence, the proclamation of a "revolution in military affairs" that promises the elegant delivery of weapons (with just the right amount of lethality) against immaculate-

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ly chosen targets, without the constraints of distance, climate, or ter- rain. In some quarters, there is excitement over the idea that information technology could lead to new forms of warfare that disrupt vital economic and social, as well as military, functions by attacking information flows. A vision of a victimless, virtual war is developing, suit- able for a postheroic age, in which casualties on all sides, but especially our own, are kept to a minimum.

Military journals are full of essays on the varieties of digitized conflict. Academic journals have paid this issue less attention. The Gulf War, which the security community has hailed as the harbinger of wars to come rather than an anomalous episode, has been picked over by the more military-literate academics to check whether it provides as much support to the revolutionaries as they suppose. In general, though, security theorists have not joined in the debate on the future conduct of war with the same gusto as they have shown for discussing the continuing validity of neore- alism and the role of intemrnational institutions in the promotion of peace.

The main need is for considerations of future military capabilities to be linked to the contingencies in which they are likely to be used. It is by no means clear who will be willing or able to fight the United States as the United States wishes to be fought. Reference in the professional military literature is made to the demands of war against unidentified "peer com- petitors," whose armed forces bare scant resemblance to those of any country other than possibly the United States itself. As even the more imaginative novelists find these days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to devise scenarios for major wars involving the United States that are likely to be decided through a conventional battle. Prior to the Gulf War, some countries might have been tempted to try their hand against Amer- ican forces, but these are now regarded with the proper respect.

As a result, there is a nagging realization that the logical response of opponents to this sort of conventional strength is not to fight on West- emrn terms but to rely on more irregular methods. Those aspects of the international security agenda geared toward addressing the problems of terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction can, from this perspective, be understood as part of an effort to preserve America's decisive edge in the conventional sphere by containing the wherewith- al of others for nonconventional warfare. To the extent that this effort fails, then engagement in individual conflicts could become more haz- ardous for outside forces, while those conflicts themselves are more likely to take on a terrible aspect. Richard Betts, no isolationist, has argued

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that American vulnerability to biological weapons may lead the Unit- ed States to pull back from involvement in some foreign conflicts.

The case has been made, most notably by Kenneth Waltz, that nuclear proliferation and international security are not necessarily incompatible, given the stabilizing effects of mutual deterrence. Few are comfortable with relying on such a proposition. Concern with this issue, and more recently with new types of biological weapons, is one topic on which Western public opinion can be mobilized. The Harvard-based studies on the need to address the consequences of the Soviet Union's collapse on its nuclear arsenal and facilities-which prescribed bringing together the best information possible, devising workable measures, and sustaining interest over a period of years-provided a model of how academics and policymakers could work together effectively.

There is also awareness in the security community-as memories of the swift victory of the Gulf War give way to the ongoing challenge of implementing the Dayton accords on Bosnia-that the ideal of decisive military activity, with forces able to return home after a quick burst of victorious fighting, is likely to remain the exception rather than the rule. Responses to the failure of weak states may involve stronger nations getting bogged down in irregular forms of warfare over extend- ed periods and accepting some responsibility for the reconstruction of a civil society and a functioning economy.

TOMORROW'S TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT American policy has become a critical variable in determining the future shape of international security when the United States, with its allies, now tends to approach issues as a series of discrete, short-term choices. But while issues of force may appear as occasional and discretionary in the United States, in many parts of the world they occur reg- ularly as facts of life. In East Asia and the Middle East, there has been evidence that local states still expect the United States to play a leading role and, in fact, often depend on it.

The challenge for the United States, and its closest allies, is to find a level of engagement in international affairs that prevents small problems from becoming large ones without imposing unacceptable burdens at home. The great power of the United States means that no level of engagement is precluded, while its modest interests mean that no level can be assumed. Because it has the choice, the United States, when

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engaged, would expect to impose its preferences while limiting its lia- bilities. Uncertainty about American intentions now requires many nations to develop strategies that assume American passivity. The less activist the United States, the less activist many of its allies, and the more local conflicts will be left to regional actors-a development that increases the odds that small problems will turn into large ones.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Many of the most relevant works on international security are covered in the bibliographies of other articles in this issue. The works men- tioned here address topics solely connected with armed force. The most accessible version of Clausewitz's On War remains that of Michael Howard, Peter Paret, and Bernard Brodie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976). Martin van Creveld discusses the inadequacy of the Clausewitzian legacy in The Transformation of War (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1991).

The first classic of the nuclear age was Brodie's The Absolute Weapon (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1946). Henry Kissinger's Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York, NY: Harper, 1957) was the first "bestseller." Among works of the golden age, Herman Kahn's On Ther- monuclear War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960) is still worth looking at as a period piece, but Tom Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1960) has remained the most durable. The nuclear debates are discussed in Lawrence Freedman's Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, second edition (London: Macmillan for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1989).

Alexander George was responsible for two of the more important critical works on American strategy. He and a number of coauthors produced The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy: Laos, Cuba, Vietnam (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1971) of which a new version was published in 1994, and cowrote with Richard Smoke, Deter- rence in American Foreign Policy (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1974). Graham Allison's Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company 1971) established the importance of bureaucratic factors in policymaking and Robert Jervis' Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,

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1976) drew attention to the dangers of assuming that states understand each other. Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Stein provide a sustained, though somewhat overstated, critique of deterrence in We All Lost the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).

Alternative views on the future of security studies following the end of the Cold War are found in Stephen Walt's "The Renaissance of Security Studies" (International Studies Quarterly, June 1991) and Edward Kolodziej's "Renaissance in Security Studies?" (International Studies Quarterly, December 1992). In his "Should Strategic Studies Survive?" (World Politics, October 1997), Richard Betts provides a valuable affirmation of the need for strategic studies and in the process fur- nishes readers with a useful survey of many important themes. Michael Mandelbaum's The Dawn of Peace in Europe (New York, NY: Twen- tieth Century Fund, 1996) provides a useful discussion of the various issues facing NATO, including enlargement, from a skeptical perspective.

A valuable debate on nuclear proliferation is Scott Sagan & Kenneth Waltz's The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York, NY: W W Norton, 1995). Three recent articles in FOREIGN POLICY (Winter 1997-98) cover some of the most worrisome aspects of the diffusion of power: William Keller & Janne Nolan's "The Arms Trade: Business As Usual?," Robert Manning's "The Nuclear Age: The Next Chapter," and John Steinbruner's "Biological Weapons: A Plague Upon All Houses." Betts draws some dark conclusions in "The New Threat of Mass Destruc- tion" (Foreign Affairs, January/February 1998).

An enthusiastic assessment of American military potential in the Information Age can be found in Joseph Nye, Jr. & William Owen's "America's Information Edge" (Foreign Affairs, March/April 1996) but see also Eliot Cohen's "A Revolution in Warfare" (in the same issue) and Martin Libicki's Defending Cyberspace and other Metaphors (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1997).

Stephen Biddle provides a challenging reassessment of the "lessons" of the Gulf War in "Victory Misunderstood: What the Gulf War Tells Us About the Future of Conflict" (International Security, Fall 1996). For a view on how military policy should reflect the unreadiness of Western countries to go to war, see Edward Luttwak's "A Post-Heroic Military Policy" (Foreign Affairs, July/August 1996).

For links to relevant Web sites, as well as a comprehensive index of related articles, access www.foreignpolicy.com.

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Article Contentsp.48p.49p.50p.51p.52p.53p.54p.55p.56p.57p.58p.59p.60p.61p.62p.63

Issue Table of ContentsForeign Policy, No. 110, Special Edition: Frontiers of Knowledge (Spring, 1998), pp. 1-96+1-48+97-194Front Matter [pp.1-48]Editor's Note [pp.9-11]Think AgainChina [pp.13-27]

The Frontiers of KnowledgeInternational Relations: One World, Many Theories [pp.29-46]International Security: Changing Targets [pp.48-63]International Law: The Trials of Global Norms [pp.65-80]International Institutions: Can Interdependence Work? [pp.82-194]International Economics: Unlocking the Mysteries of Globalization [pp.97-111]International Political Economy: Beyond Hegemonic Stability [pp.112-123]International Decision Making: Leadership Matters [pp.124-137]International Development: Is It Possible? [pp.138-151]International Business: The New Bottom Line [pp.152-165]

Booksuntitled [pp.166-169]untitled [pp.169-172]untitled [pp.172-174]untitled [pp.175-177]untitled [pp.177-179]untitled [pp.179-181]

Global NewsstandContribuciones: July/September 1997, Buenos Aires [pp.182-183]Middle East Journal: Winter 1998, Washington, DC [pp.183-184]Management Science: December 1997, Providence, Rl [pp.184-185]Le Monde Diplomatique: January 1998, Paris [pp.186-187]Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte: December 12, 1997, Bonn [pp.187-188]South African Yearbook of International Affairs: 1997, Pretoria [pp.188-189]State, Government, and International Relations: Summer 1997, Tel Aviv [pp.189-190]

LettersMexican Standoff [pp.191-193]

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International Security Changing

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