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International Politics Test 2

Terms

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Trends in Armed Conflict
1 -Geographical concentration has been outside of Europe & North America. 90% of all conflicts have fallen in the Global South.
2 - Moving from interstate to intrastate.
3 - More terrorist activites (trending upwards).
4 - Duration of wars has decreased.
5 - Weapons available are far more destructive.
6 - Number of countries involved in a single conflict has decreased.
7 - Goals of warfare have changed.
*8* - Introduction of nuclear weapons has played a major role.
Explaining armed conflict between states: a levels of analysis approach.
Study written notes.
Explaining armed conflict within states: characteristics and causes of civil war.
Reasons:
1 - Increased number of independent states.
2 - More minority groups seeking autonomy or independence.
3 - Break-down of some states -->failed states with no gov't apperatus.

Characteristics:
1 - Very servere and brutal.
2 - Long Duration
3 - Resistance to negotiated settlement

Causes:
1 - Relative deprivation --> individuals within a society/state feel they are relatively undervalued vs. other groups in society will generate feelings of fustration & humiliation.
2 - Succestionist revolute
3 - ethnic warefare --> Yugoslavia
4 - Failed States
5 - Economic sources - when rapic economic growth takes place - middle class disappears "revolution of rising expectations"
6 - International contributions - ideology, break-up of colonies.
National security & power
National Security - a countries compacity to resist external (& internal) threats to its physical survival or core values.

Power is relational & has 2 types
1 - Hard Power Capabilities
- military
- land size
- population
- economy

2 - Soft Power Capabilites
- social & economic indicators
- state administration
- state education
- intelligence collection
- quality of leadership
Relative burden of military spending
Ratio of defense spending to GNP
Defense converstion
Redirecting budget from military expendatures to internal development.
Efforts to attain power - 5 general categories.
1 - Trends in military spending
- over the long term it has been increasing
- historically in real terms, wealthy countries spend the most on weapons
- global south has increased spending & their share that they are spendind concentrated in the middle east.

2 - Arms trades trends
- countries of the global south makeup a large amount of the recieving countries
- tends to be mainly concentrated in the Middle East
- The U.S. has become the uncontested supplier of weapons.
- Increase of illegal arms trade
- Suppliers Motivation --> profit, gain friends, help allies, maintain your own military industrial complex.

3 - Development of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. (See notes for countries)

4 - Technological Improvements

5 - Proliferation
- number of countires having nuclear weapons
- Nth country problem as the number of countries increase with nuclear weapons the probability of an accident or use increases
- horizontal proliferation--># of countries w/nukes increases
and vertical proliferation --># & types of nukes you have increases
3 schools of thought on America's role in the world.
1 - Neo-Isolationalist - Pat Buchannan - do not get involved unless directly affected
2 - Realists - U.S. should stay involved in the world in order to maintain dominance.
3 - Internationalists - increase involvement for a better role in the world through multi-lateral organization with more emphasis on human rights and democracy.
4 - Democratic Realists (Bush administration) promote democracy through military might. More selective as to where to get involved w/more emphasis on unilateral means.
Concepts of coercive diplomacy & security dilemma
Coercive Diplomacy - the threat or actual use of military capabilites to get what a state wants.

Three factors -
1 - Persuading others to do something that they would not otherwise do.
2 - Convince others to agree to threaties or conventions that are not to their advantage
3 - protecting themselves from attack by others.

Security Dilemma
- Peace must endour
- Economic devlopment is vital to military security
- Headed towards a multi-polar world.
Deterrence and Compellence
Deterence - get others to continue not to do something
Compellence - to get someone to do what they woudl not otherwise do.
Extended deterence - state promises to use military capabilites to deter attacks on others
ALL RELY ON CREDABILITY OF THREAT
Nuclear strategies
1 - 1st & 2nd strike capbilites - ability to reduce opponents ability to retaliate / also being able to absorb initial strike
2 - Brinkmanship - taking it all the way to the brink / threat until you force others to do what they would not other wise do.
3 - Massive retaliation - any attack will be countered by nukes
4 - MAD - Mutuall Assured Destruction - all parties must have 2nd strike and be willing to use it on military and non-military targets.
5 - NUTS - Nuclear Utilization Theory - we have them lets use them, if necessary they will be used, does not believe MAD will work, thinks nukes can be used in a war.
Conventional Warfare
Armed conflict wages without nukes
Three levels of conflict.
1 - high intensity - global conflict
2 - middle/medium intesity - regional conflict
3 - low intesity - conflict that falls below the typical threshold of warfare but still invovles military units from different states
4 types of Low Intensity Conflicts.
1 - counterinsurgency - U.S. would intervene to support a gov't against an insurgency
2 - pro-insurgency - use military to support an insurgency
3 - policy type action - military force is deployed to maintain calm
4 - military show of force.
3 Elements of a crisis
1 - Threat of crisis is to the core-values of the decesion makers
2 - restricts the amount of decesion making time
3 - needs to be an element of surprise
Economic sanctions
deliverate governmental action that inflicts economic depervation on a state or society through the use of economic means.

2 types - embargo(against 1) & boycott (against 2 or more)
Alliances & 3 realist attitudes
A formal agreement among states to coordinate their behavior in teh event of a military emergency alined against a common enemy. Helps countries to increase their military capabilites by helping to dispense the defense burden.

3 realist attitudes -
1 - Benifital - helps to spread defense burden, deternce value, defense value, preclusion value - decreasing the # of possible allies for your enemy.
2 - Costs outway benifits
1 - entanglement - fighting a way you would not otherwise fight
2 - By joining an alliance my allies enemies are mine.
3 - loss of creative ambiguity - increases certainity rise up equal to an enemy
4 - secuity dilema - by increasing your own security you may actually be decreasing it
5 - joining alliances preserves existing rivalaries
3 - Alliances should be avoided
1 - allows states to act more aggressively then they otherwise would
2 - draws in neutral players
3 - efforts are required to manage the behavior of other alliance members
4 - alliances may increase a local conflict into a global conflagration
Balance of power
Peace will result when military capabilites are distributed in such a way that no one state or combination of states is strong enough to dominate the others.
1 - increase your capabilites but negotiate instead of fight
2 - fight rather than fail to increase your capabiliites
3 - stop fighting rather than eliminate an essential actor
4 - oppose an actor or coalition that is becoming predominate in the system
5 - contain actors with supranational organizational principles (treaties or conventions)
6 - permit defeated or constrained essential actors to re-enter the system as acceptable parteners

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