Both of us have an academic background touching on security studies, international relations and strategic studies. Of particular interest to Bear is Russia and the post-Soviet space.
Recent international relations posts:
Overview
In terms of international relations theory, our preferred 'lens' can be summed up as an institutionalist reading. What we mean by this is that international relations can be usefully interpreted by analysing the various incentives and factors at play at the bureaucratic/administrative/'institutional' level that drives international policies. To provide some examples:
- The 2003 Iraq War is not best understood by focusing on George W. Bush's personality and biography, nor by treating Iraq and the United States as 'black boxes' in an anarchic system. Rather, it pays dividends to look at the Republican Party's ideology as a whole, at how intelligence apparatuses were set up within the State Department and the CIA, and the strategic culture of the US military.
- WW2 cannot be understood by treating the Nazis, Japanese, British, Soviets, Americans etc as "rational" in equivalent terms. How the Nazis understood the world, translated into policy through their Party and government apparatus, is what dictated their actions, more than some objective rationalism or Hitler's pure force of will.
In short, if we take Waltz' three frames of international relations (individuals, states, international system) we place emphasis on States, and then how that shapes interactions with the international system and variously empowers or disempowers certain individuals.
In terms of the grand theories of International Relations, we do believe that there is significant value in game theory, Realism and its offshoots. However, it can only get you so far. Constructivism and Critical Geopolitics are necessary in order to understand how actors actually interpret their place in an anarchic international system. Neoliberal approaches then provides tools and insights in how to shape and address the international system. Namely: democratic peace, free trade, and international institutions.
Some Key Readings
- Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus - Gerard Toal
- Strategy - Lawrence Freedman
- Queer International Relations: Sovereignty, Sexuality and the Wil - Cynthia Weber
- Sex, Politics and Putin: Political Legitimacy in Russia - Valerie Sperling
- The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations - Samuel Huntington
- Westmoreland was Right: Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Vietnam War - Dale Andrade
- The Accidental Guerrilla - David Kilcullen
- On War - Karl von Clausewitz
- The Influence of Sea Power upon History - Alfred Mahan
- Bullets not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare - Jacqueline L. Hazelton
- Revenge of Geography - Robert D. Kaplan
- Prisoners of Geography - Tim Marshal
- Talking to the Enemy - Scott Atran
- The Security Principle: From Serenity to Regulation - Frédéric Gros
- Man, the State, and War - Kenneth Walz
- Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace - Hans Morgenthau
- After Hegemony - Robert Keohane
- Social Theory of International Politics - Alexander Wendt
All international relations posts: