blog

Karim Elkady, a post-doctoral fellow with CSS, presented chapters from his book manuscript on state-building at two CSS Research and

On May 13, 2020 Burak Kadercan, associate professor of strategy and policy at the Naval War College, presented several draft chapters from his new book, Shifting Grounds: The Social Origins of Territorial Conflict. His study builds on existing social constructivist research on territory and territoriality in international relations and political geography, and examines the interactive relationship between territory and war from conceptual, theoretical, and historical standpoints.

By Benjamin Denison

American efforts at democracy promotion and Russian allegations of American interference in Russian domestic politics are not new. As Russia continues to see regime change lurking behind democracy promotion efforts and other tools of American statecraft, I believe that the best way for the U.S. to move forward is to try to change the perception that it is uniquely interested in overthrowing the current regime in Moscow.

Will the Korean War’s Armistice Agreement see its 75th anniversary? It certainly shouldn’t. With a better, more realistic and diplomatically-minded set of signatories—that applies especially to the White House—it won’t.

Thomas Cavanna, a visiting assistant professor at The Fletcher School, presented a new version of his working paper on U.S.

By Zoltan Feher This article was first published by Global Security Review on May 26, 2020. György Spiró’s novel Captivity follows

Senior Research Fellow Polina Beliakova presented two new papers on civil-military relations at at CSS Research and Policy Seminars in

Nils Hägerdal presented his new working paper, “U.S. Military Intervention in Oil-Producing States,” at the CSS Research and Policy Seminar

By Sidita Kushi

The United States has been bullying its staunchest ally and calling it diplomacy. The Trump administration’s strong-arming of the small Balkan nation of Kosovo – inciting a US-backed governmental collapse amidst a pandemic – mirrors a broader trend of declining US diplomatic capacity and international legitimacy. Now analysts with no expertise in the region are coming out of the woodwork to defend the administration by rewriting history. But no amount of genocide denial and hyper-partisan delivery of half-truths can cover up the fatal policy flaws.

The CSS Research and Policy Seminar on April 8 discussed America the Bully, an upcoming book co-written by Monica Toft and Sidita Kushi. The new study traces the evolution of U.S. foreign policy, both through historical narratives and data-driven analysis, to understand how the United States has relied on different tools of statecraft to achieve its political objectives across pivotal eras. In particular, the book evaluates America’s reliance on its armed forces to achieve its strategic interests, questioning the country’s blurred foreign policy objectives and its bullying tactics.