Mailing address
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
79 John F. Kennedy Street, Mailbox 134
Cambridge, MA, 02138
Ivan Arreguin-Toft
Research Fellow, International Security Program
Contact:
Telephone: (617)-496-2580
Fax: (617)-496-0606
Email: arreguin_toft@harvard.edu
Experience
Ivan Arreguin-Toft is a postdoctoral fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from The University of Chicago, where his dissertation research received support from the Smith Richardson Foundation and the Institute for the Study of World Peace. His current research focuses on the the widely assumed but poorly researched question of the utility of barbarism—the systematic and deliberate violation of the laws of war in pursuit of a military objective—as a strategy in war. This research is expected to result in a book manuscript, tentatively entitled Worse than Death: The [F]utility of Barbarism in War.
Dr. Arreguin-Toft's tenure to date at the Belfer Center has been taken up with a number of important policy-relevant security and international relations theory projects; including publications, conferences and seminars, and a number of ongoing projects and grant applications. He has published a journal-length treatment of his theory of asymmetric conflict in International Security and his book, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict, was published by Cambridge University Press in December 2005.
March 30, 2007
"Why Victory Became Defeat in Iraq"
Op-Ed, Nieman Watchdog
By Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Research Fellow, International Security Program
As long as there was an army to fight, the U.S. was unstoppable, writes a Harvard scholar who studies asymmetric conflicts. But once we lost the Iraqi people, all the power in the world wasn’t enough to achieve victory. (Second of two parts.)
March 23, 2007
"How a Superpower Can End Up Losing to the Little Guys"
Op-Ed, Nieman Watchdog
By Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Research Fellow, International Security Program
A Harvard scholar explores the implications of his recent research on asymmetric conflicts, which shows that strong actors are losing to the weak more and more often over time, and gleans some important lessons about the United States and Iraq. (First of two parts.)
2007
"How to Lose a War on Terror: A Comparative Analysis of a Counterinsurgency Success and Failure"
Book Chapter
By Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"If it is true that every strategy has an ideal counterstrategy, then understanding how to counter terrorism demands some understanding of terrorism as a strategy."
December 2005
How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict
Book
By Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"In How the Weak Win Wars, Arreguin-Toft means to convince the reader that when the very strong meet the weak in asymmetric armed conflict, strategy matters more than power. Despite minor excursions in his conclusions, he achieves this goal through expert scholarly analysis and a writing style that elucidates complex topics with facility. His work is extremely relevant in the current geopolitical context and serves as a warning to US policy makers to get military strategy right, regardless of relative power. Arreguin-Toft's argument makes perfectly clear the perilous consequences of neglecting the importance of strategic interaction."
— Edward Bradfield, Harvard International Review (Summer 2005)
Read the entire review.
October 25, 2004
"'Peace with Honor' in Iraq"
Op-Ed, The Boston Globe
By Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Research Fellow, International Security Program and Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
"The only other remaining policy option is to expand military service, and if history is any guide, providing security in Iraq will require an army of at least a million soldiers."
August 2003
"The [F]utility of Barbarism: Assessing the Impact of the Systematic Harm of Noncombatants in War"
Conference Paper
By Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Research Fellow, International Security Program
Under what conditions does barbarism — a state or non-state actor’s deliberate and systematic injury of non-combatants during a conflict — help or hinder its military and political objectives?
October 2002
"Tunnel at the End of the Light: A Critique of US Counter-terrorist Grand Strategy"
Journal Article, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, issue 3, volume 15
By Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"This essay introduces a theoretically grounded critique of US counterterrorist grand strategy in reaction to the destruction of the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York and a portion of the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on September 11th 2001."
Summer 2001
"How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 26
By Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Research Fellow, International Security Program
Ivan Arreguín-Toft of Harvard University offers a theory of asymmetric conflict to explain “how a weak actor’s strategy can make a strong actor’s power irrevlevant.” According to Arreguín-Toft, the interaction of actor strategies is the best predictor of asymmetric conflict outcomes. After providing quantitative and qualitative tests of his theory, he considers some of the implications of his thesis for both theory building and policymaking.
