June 22, 2020

New Owl in the Olive Tree post "Military Means and Political Ends"

Minerva-funded researchers, Erik Gartzke and Jon R. Lindsay's Owl in the Olive Tree post "Military Means and Political Ends". The portfolio of military options available to policymakers and commanders today is large and growing. U.S. military power increasingly relies on a many different types of platforms and capabilities from different services. Threats to U.S. military dominance are becoming more complex as well. As the 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy asserts, “State and non-state actors place the safety of the American people and the Nation’s economic vitality at risk by exploiting vulnerabilities across the land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace domains.”

Feb. 11, 2020

Michael Allen's new article, "Outside the Wire: U.S. Military Deployments and Public Opinion in Host States"

How do citizens within countries hosting U.S. military personnel view that presence? Using new cross-national survey data from 14 countries, we examine how different forms of exposure to a U.S. military presence in a country affect attitudes toward the U.S. military, government, and people. We find that contact with U.S. military personnel or the receipt of economic benefits from the U.S. presence correlates with stronger support for the U.S. presence, people, and government.

Nov. 20, 2019

Erik Gartzke's new article on "Blood and Robots: How Remotely Piloted Vehicles and Related Technologies Affect the Politics of Violence"

New technologies such as Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs) make it possible to remove human beings from direct involvement in combat. How will this evolving dynamic affect the practice and purposes of political violence? Will conflict become ‘costless’ in human terms as machines replace people on the front lines or will the logic of war continue to