International Relations Theory

Gavin reassesses the strategy of flexible response, the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin Crisis, the origins of and motivations for US nuclear nonproliferation policy, and how to assess the nuclear dangers we face today. Archival evidence makes it clear that decision makers were more concerned about underlying geopolitical questions than about the strategic dynamic between two nuclear superpowers.

In The Triumph of Improvisation, James Graham Wilson takes a long view of the end of the Cold War, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 to Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. Drawing on deep archival research and recently declassified papers, Wilson argues that adaptation, improvisation, and engagement by individuals in positions of power ended the specter of a nuclear holocaust.

In Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad, Michael Walzer revises and extends the arguments in his influential Spheres of Justice, framing his ideas about justice, social criticism, and national identity in light of the new political world that has arisen in the past three decades. Walzer focuses on two different but interrelated kinds of moral argument: Maximalist and minimalist, thick and thin, local and universal.

Coercion examines the critical issue of coercion in the 21st century, with a particular focus on new actors, strategies, and objectives in this very old bargaining game. The chapters in this volume examine intrastate, interstate, and transnational coercion and deterrence as well as both military and nonmilitary instruments of persuasion, thus expanding our understanding of coercion for conflict in the 21st century.

In this thoroughly updated second edition, Derek S. Reveron provides a comprehensive analysis of the shift in US foreign policy from coercive diplomacy to cooperative military engagement. The US military does much more than fight wars; it responds to humanitarian crises and natural disasters, assists advanced militaries to support international peace, and trains and equips almost every military in the world.

Borders can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life. Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place.