Volume 131 - Number 4 - Winter 2016–17

Tactical Advantages of Terror
RICHARD BETTS applies offense-defense theory to explain the intense advantages that terrorist groups have in launching offensive strikes and in exploiting the defenses that a nation can put up in this era of globalization and asymmetric warfare.

Volume 129 - Number 3 - Fall 2014

The War Powers Resolution and the Constitution
Jacob K. Javits, the former U.S. Senator and the principal author of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, urges Congress to uphold its Constitutional authority to partake in the decision-making process to commit U.S. troops to war. Originally written in 1984, the article remains relevant and speaks to the current political landscape pertaining to the role of the President and of Congress in the war against ISIS.

Volume 129 - Number 3 - Fall 2014

Obama’s War on ISIS: But What Does This Mean?
Robert Jervis discusses President Barack Obama’s decision to go to war against ISIS. He argues that domestic politics and “perhaps common sense” argue against inaction on the part of the United States. He questions, however, the likelihood that Obama’s policy will succeed.

Volume 128 - Number 2 - Summer 2013

The Role of Villain: Iran and U.S. Foreign Policy
Paul R. Pillar examines why Iran has become a major focus of attention of U.S. foreign policy and finds that even a nuclear-armed Iran would not pose the major threat that is commonly assumed. The Iran issue simply fills a traditional American psychological and political need to have a foreign adversary. 

Volume 128 - Number 1 - Spring 2013

The Consequences of Forced State Failure in Iraq
ANDREW FLIBBERT discusses the Iraq war and its aftermath. He argues that most of the pathologies in Iraqi political life since 2003, from sectarian mobilization to insurgent violence, are best understood as consequences of forced state failure. He contends that the war should not be viewed as badly conducted so much as badly conceived, claiming that the same ideas that led to the war also determined the shape of the peace in subsequent years. 

Volume 127 - Number 4 - Winter 2012-2013

Zionism, the Jewish State, and an Israeli–Palestinian Settlement: An Opinion Piece
Jerome Slater critically examines the case for the continuation of Zionism and for Israel to remain a Jewish state. He argues that while much of the Zionist argument is unconvincing, “liberal Zionism” is still defensible. Consequently, he claims, that first the Palestinians should conditionally recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of an overall Israeli–Palestinian peace settlement, and second the Israelis should agree to the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state in the occupied territories, so that the Palestinian Israelis who choose to remain in Israel are treated as fully equal citizens as the Jews. 

Volume 126 - Number 3 - Fall 2011

The Costs and Benefits of Immigration
Darrell M. West seeks to reframe the public debate over immigration policy by arguing that the benefits of immigration are much broader than popularly imagined and the costs more confined. He contends that in spite of legitimate fear and anxiety over illegal immigration, immigrants bring a “brain gain” of innovation and creativity that outweighs real or imagined costs.

Volume 126 - Number 1 - Spring 2011

Review: Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
Alexander H. Montgomery

Volume 124 - Number 3 - Fall 2009

Review: Radical Democracy in the Andes
Ryan Carlin

Volume 124 - Number 2 - Summer 2009

What the New Deal Did
David M. Kennedy revisits the New Deal’s relevance to our own time. He concludes that the stubborn persistence of the Great Depression through the decade of the 1930s opened the political space for the New Deal’s greatest accomplishments, all of which were aimed at reducing risk in key sectors of the economy and imparting a measure of security to American life for generations thereafter.