March 2013
"Why America Should Not Retrench"
Policy Brief
By Stephen Brooks, Former Fellow, International Security Program, 2003-2004, G. John Ikenberry and William Wohlforth, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
The United States' extended system of security commitments creates a set of institutional relationships that foster political communication. Alliance institutions are first about security protection, but they also bind states together and create institutional channels of communication. For example, NATO has facilitated ties and associated institutions that increase the ability of the United States and Europe to talk to each other and to do business. Likewise, the bilateral alliances in East Asia also play a communication role beyond narrow security issues. Consultations and exchanges spill over into other policy areas. This gives the United States the capacity to work across issue areas, using assets and bargaining chips in one area to make progress in another.
Winter 2012/13
"Don't Come Home, America: The Case against Retrenchment"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 37
By Stephen Brooks, Former Fellow, International Security Program, 2003-2004, G. John Ikenberry and William Wohlforth, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
After sixty-five years of pursuing a grand strategy of global leadership—nearly a third of which transpired without a peer great power rival—has the time come for the United States to switch to a strategy of retrenchment? This analysis shows that advocates of retrenchment radically overestimate the costs of deep engagement and underestimate its benefits. We conclude that the fundamental choice to retain a grand strategy of deep engagement after the Cold War is just what the preponderance of international relations scholarship would expect a rational, self-interested leading power in America’s position to do.
Winter 2005/06
"Correspondence: Striking the Balance"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 30
By Stephen Brooks, Former Fellow, International Security Program, 2003-2004, Robert Art, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1974-1977, 1978-1979; Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security, William Wohlforth, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security, Keir A. Lieber and Gerard Alexander
Some scholars argue that the balance of power theory that explained the bipolar and multipolar systems of the past is irrelevant in a unipolar world. These letters debate the possibility of expanding the traditional definition of "balancing" to account for policies that states are pursuing today.
Summer 2005
"Hard Times for Soft Balancing"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 30
By Stephen Brooks, Former Fellow, International Security Program, 2003-2004 and William Wohlforth, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
The development of the concept of soft balancing is an attempt to stretch balance of power theory to encompass an international system in which traditional counterbalancing among the major powers is absent.
Spring 2002
"From Old Thinking to New Thinking in Qualitative Research"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 4, volume 26
By Stephen Brooks, Former Fellow, International Security Program, 2003-2004 and William Wohlforth, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
After correcting what the authors state is Robert English’s “misunderstanding of [their] research design,” the authors elaborate their article’s contribution on “how to assess the causal implications of widely accepted findings” and the significance of this practice for qualitative research.
Winter 2000/01
"Power, Globalization, and the End of the Cold War: Reevaluating a Landmark Case for Ideas"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 25
By Stephen Brooks, Former Fellow, International Security Program, 2003-2004 and William Wohlforth, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
The authors marshal evidence from recently released sources to argue that shifting material pressures resulting from changes in the structure of global production had a much greater influence on Soviet foreign policy in the 1980s than previously thought.
Summer 2000
"Brother, Can You Spare a Paradigm? (Or Was Anybody Ever a Realist?)"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 25
By Andrew Moravcsik, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1986-1988, Jeffrey W. Legro, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1987-1989, Peter D. Feaver, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1985-1987; Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security, Gunther Hellmann, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1987-1988, Randall Schweller, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro and William Wohlforth, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
In this issue's correspondence section, Peter Feaver, Gunther Hellmann, Randall Schweller, Jeffrey Taliaferro, and William Wohlforth argue against points made in Jeffrey Legro and Andrew Moravcsik's fall 1999 article "Is Anybody Still a Realist?" Legro and Moravcsik respond to their critics.
Summer 1999
"The Stability of a Unipolar World"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 24
By William Wohlforth, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
Some have defined U.S. preponderance as "a unipolar moment"; others have suggested that the current structure is "uni-multipolar." Regardless of the characterization, the conventional wisdom maintains that unipolarity is unstable and conflict prone, and thus unlikely to prevail over the long term. In our lead article, the author challenges this logic.
