Roy Licklider

The Power of Oil: The Arab Oil Weapon and the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and the United States

An extensive literature argues that economic sanctions by themselves do not usually force governments to alter important policies, but the literature does not make it clear why this is true. According to its initiators, the purpose of the 1973–74 Arab oil weapon was to force changes in the policies of states toward the Arab-Israeli conflict. This article examines the responses of the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States to this attempted coercion. The analysis shows that these countries did not significantly alter their policies, apparently because the sanctions were unable to coerce top-level decision-makers and did not create much political pressure on them, a problem shared by most attempts at limited external coercion.

Early returns: Results of the first wave of statistical studies of civil war termination

The results of the first wave of large‐N studies of how civil wars end are brought together. The studies have significant problems and do not always agree. However, some conclusions are reached by two or more different studies: civil wars do end; secession is an unusual outcome but increased autonomy is not; most civil wars do not break out again; the post‐Cold War upsurge in civil wars has ended; some civil wars do end with negotiated settlements, especially prolonged ethnonationalist conflicts; most ethnic conflicts do not escalate into civil war; identity‐based civil wars seem similar to other civil wars except that settlements do not last as long. Several different databases have also been developed for future research. It is important that researchers both address one another more and work with those of different methodological persuasions to produce conclusions which will benefit both theory and public policy.

The Missile Gap Controversy

The disputes surrounding the formation of military policy are not famous for their clarity, yet, even so, the controversy over the missile gap stands out as a muddled issue. The controversy arose in the late 1950S as a result of intelligence estimates that between 1960 and 1964 the Soviet Union might have more intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) operational than would the United States. Assuming the existence of a missile gap, opponents of the Eisenhower administration argued the existence of a deterrence gap, that Soviet supremacy in ICBMs was so great that the American strategic forces could be eliminated in a single massive attack. Administration spokesmen generally conceded the missile gap but denied a deterrence gap on the grounds that the American strategic forces were too numerous and varied to be eliminated by a single attack and that the leaders of the Soviet Union were aware of this fact. We now know that the administrations contention that a missile gap did not necessarily imply a deterrence gap was never tested, since the missile gap itself never developed. Therefore it

Ethical Advice: Conflict Management vs. Human Rights in Ending Civil Wars

The theory of transitional justice, usually either war crimes tribunals and/or truth commissions, rests on the assumption that after internal conflict, societies must learn and accept the truth of what sort of violence has occurred in order to build a functioning, united society, and that any solution which omits such policies should be rejected. There is no empirical support for this assumption. Moreover, acting on it implies that civil war should be continued. Conflict resolution theory asserts that all major players, including those who have committed atrocities, must be involved in the settlement if it is to be stable. This seems a more appropriate strategy, especially when dealing with someone elses country and war.

What's All the Shouting About?

NOT long ago it was fashionable to argue that modernization would reduce, if not eliminate, ethnic hatred. Instead, nationalism appears stronger than ever, and ethnic conflict remains a major global issue. The study of ethnic conflict as a distinct field from nationalism itself is only about twenty years old, gaining wide attention mainly in the last ten. It has grown up primarily in response to the decline over the last half century in the number of interstate wars and the simultaneous rise in the number of internal wars, especially ethnic and religious wars. With the end of the cold war, there was a sudden, if short-lived, upsurge of optimism, especially among liberals, about the ability of the United States and other Western countries to resolve the problems of countries experiencing humanitarian disasters resulting from civil war and other forms of internal strife:

United They Fall: Why the International Community Should Not Promote Military Integration after Civil War

Preventing the recurrence of civil war has become a critical problem for both scholarship and policy. Conventional wisdom urges the creation of capable, legitimate, and inclusive postwar states to reduce the risk of relapse into civil war, and international peacebuilders have often encouraged the formation of a new national army that would include members of the wars opposing sides. However, both the theoretical logics and the empirical record identifying military integration as a significant contributor to durable post–civil war peace are weak. An analysis of eleven cases finds little evidence that military integration played a substantial causal role in preventing the return to civil war. Military integration does not usually send a costly signal of the parties’ commitment to peace, provide communal security, employ many possible spoilers, or act as a powerful symbol of a unified nation. It is therefore both unwise and unethical for the international community to press military integration on reluctant local forces.

Soviet Control of Eastern Europe: Morality versus American National Interest

The American policy of opposing Soviet control of Eastern Europe has not been seriously questioned, probably because morality (encouraging self-determination) seems to coincide with national interest (weakening Soviet power). This article contends, however, that the primary American national interest in Eastern Europe is the prevention of thermonuclear war. Eastern Europe without tight Soviet control would be very unstable due to disputes between the Eastern European countries, problems of national minorities within such countries, and governments without popular legitimacy. A few of these participants might invite outside assistance. Given the importance of Eastern Europe, some of these invitations would be accepted by the Soviet Union and/or Western Europe. The other side would intervene in turn, and the United States would be drawn into a superpower confrontation with a very real risk of war. If these assumptions are sound, it is in the American national interest to keep the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. The usual moral argument for opposition to Soviet domination is simply that the peoples of Eastern Europe are entitled to self-determination, that this right is denied to them by Soviet control (as shown most clearly in the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian revolts), and that therefore Soviet control should be opposed. The realpolitik arguments are somewhat more complex: removal of Soviet control would deny valuable human, material, and industrial resources to the Soviet Union; would make it more vulnerable to pressure from abroad; would encourage nationality groups within the Soviet Union to push for self-determination, further weakening the government; and would be a major propa-

International trade warfare: Economic and political strategic considerations

Summary An actor government may seek to change a policy of a target state by exerting an economic toll. Trade warfare can only impose high economic costs on the target if the actor can withhold noncompetitive exports or irreplaceable markets. Economic damage may not be sufficient. Decision-makers in the target will be more concerned with their own benefits and costs than with those of the national economy. Governments seem likely to continue to use economic warfare, despite its weak record of identifiable success, because the measures are valuable as signals to domestic constituencies, the target government and third nations.

The failure of the Arab oil weapon in 1973–1974

Abstract The Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEQ stated that the 1973–1974 oil embargo was designed to force Israel to return the territory captured in 1967, alter the status of Jerusalem, and restore the rights of the Palestinians. It seemed in a strong position to ensure compliance with its demands since it controlled a large proportion of oil exports and had impressive financial resources, while the industrial countries had no available substitutes and limited stockpiles. Nonetheless, OAPEC failed to achieve its goals because it had little leverage over its real target, Israel, and because it was unable to effectively reward its friends and punish its enemies. The failure of the Arab oil embargo to accomplish its political purpose in 1973–1974 casts doubt on the political utility of such an embargo in the future and, indeed, on the political utility of economic embargoes in general.

The American Way of State Building: Germany, Japan, Somalia and Panama

Little has been written about attempts to alter the domestic political systems of these countries, even though this was central to the missions. The latter two cases were selected as extremes on a ‘degree of difficulty’ scale. In Somalia there was basically no governing structure; the US had to build one in order to end the starvation caused by civil war. In Panama the US took over a government in place and had an alternative national leader; the problem was to change the existing state system. The cases reveal a stress on short‐run security issues over long‐term political questions.