Sarah E. Kreps

Targeting Nuclear Programs in War and Peace: A Quantitative Empirical Analysis, 1941-2000

When do states attack or consider attacking nuclear infrastructure in nonnuclear weapons states? Despite the importance of this question, relatively little scholarly research has considered when and why countries target nuclear programs. The authors argue that states are likely to attack or consider attacking nuclear facilities when they are highly threatened by a particular country’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Three factors increase the salience of the proliferation threat: (1) prior violent militarized conflict; (2) the presence of a highly autocratic proliferator; and (3) divergent foreign policy interests. The authors test these propositions using statistical analysis and a new data set on all instances when countries have struck or seriously considered striking other states’ nuclear infrastructure between 1941 and 2000. The findings lend support for the theory and very little support for the alternative explanations. States are not deterred from attacking nuclear programs by the prospect of a military retaliation and concerns about international condemnation do not appear to influence the willingness to strike. Ultimately, states are willing to accept substantial costs in attacking if they believe that a particular country’s acquisition of nuclear weapons poses a significant threat to their security.

The Foreign Policy Consequences of Trade: China’s Commercial Relations with Africa and Latin America, 1992–2006

What are the foreign policy consequences of China’s growing trade relations? In particular, are states that trade more heavily with China more likely to side with it on key foreign policy issues? Does a shift toward China come at the expense of American influence? We evaluate these questions using data on bilateral trade for China and developing countries in Africa and Latin America between 1992 and 2006. Using ordinary and two-stage least squares to control for endogeneity, we present the first systematic evidence that trade with China generates foreign policy consequences. The more states trade with China, the more likely they are to converge with it on issues of foreign policy. This has implications for the United States, whose foreign policy preferences have diverged from those of China during the period of study and who may find it harder to attract allies in international forums.

The Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Contemporary Conflict: A Legal and Ethical Analysis

The increased use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in contemporary conflict has stirred debate among politicians, government officials, and scholars. Spokespeople for the U.S. government often highlight the precision of UAVs and argue that this quality enables military action to comply with the international humanitarian law principles of distinction and proportionality. This article criticizes the technologically advanced weapons on the same ground on which the U.S. government has defended them: meeting international standards of distinction and proportionality. The article opens with a discussion of the legal implications of Just War theory. It then offers a critique of the politico-military discourse surrounding UAVs and presents a philosophical framework that might lessen the confusion surrounding the ethics of modern warfare. The article closes with a discussion of the various ways that defenders of the UAVs overstate the ability of technology to answer difficult legal and political questions that the principles of distinction and proportionality pose.

Political Parties at War: A Study of American War Finance, 1789–2010

What determines when states adopt war taxes to finance the cost of conflict? We address this question with a study of war taxes in the United States between 1789 and 2010. Using logit estimation of the determinants of war taxes, an analysis of roll-call votes on war tax legislation, and a historical case study of the Civil War, we provide evidence that partisan fiscal differences account for whether the United States finances its conflicts through war taxes or opts for alternatives such as borrowing or expanding the money supply. Because the fiscal policies implemented to raise the revenues for war have considerable and often enduring redistributive impacts, war finance—in particular, war taxation—becomes a high-stakes political opportunity to advance the fiscal interests of core constituencies. Insofar as the alternatives to taxation shroud the actual costs of war, the findings have important implications for democratic accountability and the conduct of conflict.

Attacking the Atom: Does Bombing Nuclear Facilities Affect Proliferation?

Abstract What are the consequences of military strikes against nuclear facilities? In particular, do they ‘work’ by delaying the target states ability to build the bomb? This article addresses these questions by conducting an analysis of 16 attacks against nuclear facilities from 1942 to 2007. We analyze strikes that occurred during peacetime and raids that took place in the context of an ongoing interstate war. The findings indicate that strikes are neither as uniformly fruitless as the skeptics would suggest, nor as productive as advocates have claimed. There is evidence that the peacetime attacks delayed the targets nuclear program, although the size of this effect is rather modest. The wartime cases were less successful, as attacks often missed their targets either due to operational failure or limited intelligence on the location of critical targets. In our concluding section we show that many of the conditions that were conducive to past success are not present in the contemporary Iran case. Overall, our findings reveal an interesting paradox. The historical cases that have successfully delayed proliferation are those when the attacking state struck well before a nuclear threat was imminent. Yet, this also happens to be when strikes are the least legitimate under international law, meaning that attacking under these conditions is most likely to elicit international censure.

Flying under the radar: A study of public attitudes towards unmanned aerial vehicles

Unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, have become a central feature of American foreign policy, with over 400 strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen in the last decade. Despite criticisms that have arisen about ethics and legality of this policy, polls have registered high levels of public support for drone strikes. This article shows that the standard formulation of poll questions takes as a given the government’s controversial claims about combatant status and source of legal authorization. I conduct a survey experiment that evaluates how varying the terms of the debate –in particular whether the strikes are compatible with international humanitarian law (IHL) and have legal authorization – affects public support for the drone policy. Treatments that incorporated contested assumptions about IHL meaningfully decreased public support while the public was less moved by questions about domestic or international legal authorization.

Separating Fact from Fiction in the Debate over Drone Proliferation

What are the consequences of drone proliferation for international security? Despite extensive discussions in the policy world concerning drone strikes for counterterrorism purposes, myths about the capabilities and implications of current-generation drones often outstrip reality. Understanding the impact of drones requires separating fact from fiction by examining their effects in six different contexts—counterterrorism, interstate conflict, crisis onset and deterrence, coercive diplomacy, domestic control and repression, and use by nonstate actors for the purposes of terrorism. Although current-generation drones introduce some unique capabilities into conflicts, they are unlikely to produce the dire consequences that some analysts fear. In particular, drone proliferation carries potentially significant consequences for counterterrorism operations and domestic control in authoritarian regimes. Drones could also enhance monitoring in disputed territories, potentially leading to greater stability. Given their technical limitations, however, current-generation drones are unlikely to have a large impact on interstate warfare. Assessing the consequences of drone proliferation has important implications for a range of policy issues, including the management of regional disputes, the regulation of drone exports, and defense against potential terrorist attacks on the homeland.

Borrowing Support for War The Effect of War Finance on Public Attitudes toward Conflict

How does the way states finance wars affect public support for conflict? Most existing research has focused on costs as casualties rather than financial burdens, and arguments that do speak to the cost in treasure either minimize potential differences between the two main forms of war finance—debt and taxes—or imply that war taxes do not dent support for war among a populace rallying around the fiscal flag. Using original experiments conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom, we evaluate the relationship between war finance and support for war. We find that how states finance wars has an important effect on support for war and that the gap in support resulting from different modes of war finance holds across the main democracies engaging in conflict, regardless of the type of war or individuals’ party identification. The findings have important implications for theories of democratic accountability in wartime and the conduct of conflict, since borrowing shields the public from the direct costs of war and in turn reduces opposition to it, giving leaders greater latitude in how they carry out war.

Pragmatism's contributions to international relations

This article examines the methodological and substantive contributions that pragmatism stands to make in the field of international relations (IR) theory. The methodological advantages that pragmatism offers have been described by many scholars in recent years, but the substantive contributions that classical American pragmatists (1870–1930) made to the study of international order have been largely overlooked. It suggests that a careful reading of this philosophical canon, particularly the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce and Josiah Royce, will provide important resources for todays IR theorist.

Why Does Peacekeeping Succeed or Fail? Peacekeeping in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone

Why do some UN peacekeeping missions succeed and others fail? Why did the mission in Sierra Leone produce peace and that in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has not? These two UN missions have had unambiguously divergent outcomes, with violence ending in Sierra Leone and the DRC being “the killing fields of our times.” This paper seeks to explain the factors that contribute to these starkly different outcomes, with an eye towards understanding the conditions under which force is likely to be effective in the peace enforcement setting. Comparing the cases of the DRC and Sierra Leone produces two-related insights on peacekeeping. First, the presence of too few, poorly equipped, and too constrained peacekeepers will cast doubt on the likely success of a particular peacekeeping force. Second, an overly ambitious or ambiguous political objective — one that hopes peacekeepers can make peace amidst spoilers outside the peace process — also creates an environment ripe for failure. Both speak to the utility of force and its interplay with the political process.