Military Competition Research Articles

Should the United States Reject MAD? Damage Limitation and U.S. Nuclear Strategy toward China

Abstract As China invests in its nuclear forces and U.S.-China relations become increasingly strained, questions of U.S. nuclear doctrine require greater attention. The key strategic nuclear question facing the United States is whether to attempt to maintain and enhance its damage-limitation capability against China. The answer is less straightforward than it was during the Cold War, because China's nuclear force is orders of magnitude smaller than the Soviet force was. Part of the answer depends on the military-technical feasibility of the United States achieving a significant damage-limitation capability: What would be the outcome of military competition over the survivability of China's intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and command and control, and over the effectiveness of U.S. ballistic missile defenses? The answer also depends on the benefits that a damage-limitation capability would provide; these could include contributions to homeland deterrence, extended deterrence, and reassurance of U.S. regional allies. The final piece of the analysis concerns the potential costs of a damage-limitation capability, which could include increased escalatory pressures during crises and growing political tension between the United States and China. A thorough analysis demonstrates that the United States should forgo such a capability because the prospects for preserving a significant damage-limitation capability are poor; the deterrent benefits would be small; and the escalatory and political costs would be relatively large.

The Pivot between Containment, Engagement, and Restraint: President Obama’s Conflicted Grand Strategy in Asia

ABSTRACTThis article examines the formulation and implementation of American grand strategy under the Obama administration, and how the “pivot to Asia” functions within this strategic context. It argues that President Obama attempts to secure continued American hegemony through a combination of cooperative engagement and restraint. This exposes a fundamental dilemma at the heart of America’s rebalancing: increased engagement with US allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific is fueling political, economic, and military competition with China. Sequestration and questions over American strategic coherence and consistency are simultaneously undermining the credibility of the pivot, both at home and abroad. The article concludes that this dilemma makes it unlikely for the pivot to succeed in its stated aims, unless the United States re-emphasizes cooperative engagement with China.

Bridging Troubled Waters: China, Japan, and Maritime Order in the East China Sea by James Manicom (review)

In this book, James Manicom contests the orthodox view that the strategic rivalry between China and Japan will escalate into a fullblown military conflict. The book concedes that the East China Sea will be the likely medium for Sino–Japanese military rivalry and cyclical tensions will persist; however, it makes the compelling case that cooperation will endure.

Sisters of Saint George: female membership and material remembrance within the Crossbow Guild of late medieval Ghent

ABSTRACTThis article contributes to ongoing research on women's roles within late medieval guilds and parishes, especially their giving of objects on their death. Looking at women within archery and crossbow guilds in Flanders, and drawing on records of bequests they left to guilds on their deaths, as well as at membership lists, the article will demonstrate the ability of women to take part in religious services through objects. Female guild-sisters were invisible in the public life of many groups, but they played an important role in the devotional side of guild activities, using personal possession to express their part within the piety and community of guilds, even shooting guilds associated with military service and military competitions.

Intra-Elite Competition and Long-Run Fiscal Development

We offer a new rationale to help explain cross-national differences in long-run fiscal development. Higher public goods provision can translate into productivity gains in an industrializing society. Thus, capitalist elites -- unlike agricultural elites, who rely on traditional production methods -- may prefer to invest in greater fiscal capacity. Furthermore, to pay for this investment, capitalist elites may prefer to shoulder a higher tax burden through progressive direct taxation, which they may view as the least-worst economic option. To test the predictions of our argument, we exploit an original fiscal database that spans 30-plus developed and developing nations over 1870-2010. We find a positive, significant, and robust relationship between intra-elite competition among agricultural and capitalist elites and the size and structure of fiscal states. Our results show that fiscal development may take place even in the absence of interstate military competition and warfare.

Historical innovations in the regulation of business and accounting practices: A comparison of absolutism and liberal democracy

This historical review article draws upon two theoretical models to compare state regulatory innovations pertaining to business and accounting practices in two contrasting periods: the Colbert Period, a period of absolutism under Louis XIV in seventeenth-century France; and the period of liberal democracy in the United States in the early twentieth century, during which the US federal government sought to expand its power over the regulation of unregulated capitalist activity. These two contrasting periods of state intervention in business and accounting practices can be characterized as innovations whose underlying design was conditioned by contemporary circumstances. The theoretical models employed include that of Miller (1990), who maintained that a primary “reason of state” (i.e. “political rationality”) justifying intervention in business and accounting practices during the Colbert period was “military competition” between France and other European powers. The second theoretical model employed is based on Clarke (2004), who argued that there is cyclicality to reasons of state focusing on “restoring economic stability” in the face of economic crises. This article identifies innovations in the regulation of business and accounting practices that have helped states to obtain the economic resources necessary for the exercise of sovereignty while maintaining social order within their national boundaries.

Innovation in accounting thought and practice – an introduction

Innovation is crucial to the evolution of human society. Accounting, as a complex human construction, both defines and reflects our behaviour (Rose and Miller, 1992). It has emerged in different settings across time and space and plays a key role in ordering the affairs of individuals, organisations and society. Accounting not only emerges but also changes. Historical accounting researchers are not indifferent to this evolution. A variety of approaches have been used to examine the evolution of accounting ideas, thought and practice in different historical periods. From this point of view, and since the opus prima by AC Littleton entitled Accounting Evolution to 1900 (Littleton, 1933), accounting history research has expanded in its coverage of periods, areas, episodes and institutions (Carnegie and Potter, 2000; Carmona, 2004, 2006; Walker, 2008) and elucidated the ability of the human being to invent, to innovate and to change. In addition, the lenses used in approaching accounting history have been widened (Gaffikin, 2011; Carnegie, 2014). This special issue comprises six contributions, the earlier versions of which were presented at the seventh Accounting History International Conference (7AHIC), held in Seville, Spain, in September 2013. The authors of these works are from France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the USA. The topics studied within the settings under examination involve professional associations, accounting authors, government agencies, the adoption of forms of accounting regulation, private companies and not-for-profit organisations. Interestingly, the periods studied relate mainly to the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. Baker and Quere draw upon two theoretical models describing state regulation of economic activity in order to analyse two contrasting historical periods. The first is the Colbert period under Louis XIV in seventeenth-century France. The second is the United States, in the early twentieth century, when the federal government sought to control capitalist activity. The first theoretical model employed is that of Miller (1990) who maintained that the principal “reason of state” for intervention in business and accounting practices during the Colbert period was “military competition” between France and other European powers. The second model is based on Clarke (2004) 596396 ACH0010.1177/1032373215596396Accounting HistoryEditorial research-article2015

ASB Vs. A2/AD : Changes of U.S.-China Military Competition Structure and Confrontation in the South China Sea

ASB Vs. A2/AD : Changes of U.S.-China Military Competition Structure and Confrontation in the South China Sea

On Technological Determinism

“Technological determinism” is predominantly employed as a critic’s term, used to dismiss certain classes of theoretical and empirical claims. Understood more productively as referring to claims that place a greater emphasis on the autonomous and social-shaping tendencies of technology, technological determinism is a valuable and prominent perspective. This article will advance our understanding of technological determinism through four contributions. First, I clarify some debates about technological determinism through an examination of the meaning of technology. Second, I parse the family of claims related to technological determinism. Third, I note that constructivist and determinist insights may each be valid given particular scope conditions, the most prominent of which is the scale of analysis. Finally, I propose a theoretical microfoundation for technological determinism— military–economic adaptationism—in which economic and military competition constrain sociotechnical evolution to deterministic paths. This theory is a special case of a general theory—sociotechnical selectionism—which can be regarded as also including (mild) constructivist theories as special cases. Greater understanding of, respect for, and engagement with technological determinism will enhance the study of technology and our ability to shape our sociotechnical systems.

A U.S.-China Grand Bargain? The Hard Choice between Military Competition and Accommodation

Despite the intense focus on China's rise, the United States has yet to confront the most challenging question posed by this power shift: Should it pursue a strategy of limited geopolitical accommodation to avoid conflict? U.S. policy continues to focus almost entirely on preserving the geopolitical status quo in Northeast Asia. Given the shifting power balance in Asia, however, there are strong theoretical rationales for considering whether significant changes to the status quo could increase U.S. security. A possibility designed to provide the benefits of accommodation while reducing its risks is a grand bargain in which the United States ends its commitment to defend Taiwan and, in turn, China peacefully resolves its maritime disputes in the South China and East China Seas and officially accepts the United States' long-term military security role in East Asia. In broad terms, the United States has three other options—unilateral accommodation, a concert of Asian powers, and the current U.S. rebalance to Asia. Unilateral accommodation and the rebalance have advantages that make the choice a close call, but all things considered, a grand bargain is currently the United States' best bet.

Explaining Durable Diversity in International Systems: State, Company, and Empire in the Indian Ocean

International Relations theories generally hold that increased interaction between units in an international system produces convergence in their forms through military competition, institutional emulation, or normative socialization. In contrast, we argue that diverse international systems can endure despite increasing interaction. The early modern Indian Ocean international system hosted a variety of statist, corporate, and imperial polities. Diversity endured for three reasons. First, powerful foreign and local actors held differing maritime and land-oriented preferences for conquest, which created the potential for coexistence between unlike polities. Second, congruent European and Asian ideas of heteronomy facilitated durable polity diversity. Third, strategies of localization enhanced enmeshment. Convergence on common polity forms failed to occur despite the presence of a statist model during this period. Subsequently, a reconfigured form of diversity under colonial empires succeeded this order. Greater attention to past diverse systems coheres with recent calls to study history to better understand not only contemporary instances of international hierarchy, but also unbundled and shared sovereignty regimes

State Metallurgy Factories and Direct Taxes in the Urals, 1700–50: Paths to State Building in Early Modern Russia

Historical-sociological descriptions of rise and development of modern bureaucratic attribute great significance to war and taxation. According to so-called military-taxation theory, collects taxes, which grant it resources to survive in geopolitical competition. The ability of a to regularly raise necessary tax revenue to conduct war is viewed as one of most important indicators of successful building. According to this theory, that adopt most productive taxes and institutionalize most modern forms of tax administration are able to mobilize ever greater quantities of labor and materiel and therefore have edge in this perpetual arms race.... In long run, military competition led all surviving states to converge on efficient and productive tax systems, and those tax systems in turn led to militarization and bureaucratization of society. (1) The history of early modern Russian state, too, has been analyzed through prism of military-taxation theory. Chester Dunning and Norman Smith detect a fiscal-military in Russia in 16th century, while Endre Sashalmi prefers period between second half of 17th century to first quarter of (18)th century for emergence of a Russian fiscal-military state. (2) By contrast, Janet Hartley concludes that Russia could hardly be defined as a fiscal-military even in (18)th century. (3) The observations and conclusions of these authors (as well as my own) should be taken as preliminary and open to discussion, because of both current of historical research and existence of important theoretical problems that still require further attention. From 20th century through present day, historians of taxation have reconstructed budget, yearly fluctuation of returns from various types of taxes, and structure of tax apparatus. They have also reconstructed composition of tax apparatus and its daily activities related to collection of taxes and revenue from population. (4) Yet more research is required, working with sources of (16)th through (19)th centuries to resolve new and important theoretical problems. One such question concerns manner in which we approach itself. As Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast note, economists and social scientists concerned with understanding how develops and interacts with larger society have modeled as a revenue-maximizing monarch, a stationary bandit, or a single-actor 'representative agent.' By overlooking reality that all states are organizations, this approach misses how internal dynamics of relationships among elites within dominant coalition affect how states interact with larger society. (5) Their approach may not be entirely new, after all, Max Weber already recognized as a human community, one that claims a monopoly of legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. (6) North, Wallis, and Weingast are right, however, to remind us that as a human community is an organization, and that its internal structure and institutions have had a decisive effect on course of building. (7) In Russia, state emerged in late (15) th century as an organization of hereditary landowning class (termed nobility in (18)th century), centralized and united around figure of monarch. Social collaboration within ruling class was in many respects what allowed Russian autocracy to function. Regionally based, independent magnates were absent. As David Goldfrank notes, the aristocracy contributed only glue, not centrifugal counter-force to central establishment. (8) Occupying a office was both right and duty of ruling class. The Russian administrative apparatus of (17)th and (18)th centuries performed function of a corporate structure for ruling class. …

Mood at the Midpoint: Affect and Change in Exploratory Search Over Time in Teams That Face a Deadline

The purpose of this paper is to advance the team dynamics and group development literatures by developing and testing a theoretical model of how affect shapes transitions in teams over time. Integrating the group transitions literature with theory and research on the mood-as-input theory, I propose that shared team mood influences the extent to which team members seek out and experiment with alternative ways of completing their work at different points in a team’s life. In the first half of the team’s life, when team members are relatively task-focused, I argue that team positive mood (i.e., a positively valenced affective state shared by team members at a given point in time) stimulates, whereas team negative mood (i.e., a negatively valenced affective state shared by team members) suppresses, exploratory search. At the temporal midpoint, however, when team members’ focus on performance heightens, team positive mood acts as a shutoff switch for search, leading to a decline in exploratory search over the second half of the team’s life. Team negative mood at the midpoint, on the other hand, leads team members to persist in exploratory search, even as a deadline draws near. A team’s trajectory of exploratory search over time, I propose, influences team performance such that it is highest when teams engage in high exploratory search early in the team’s life and decline in exploratory search over the second half of the team’s life. The results of a longitudinal, survey-based study of teams preparing for a military competition largely support my predictions.

Soft Spying: Leveraging Globalization as Proxy Military Rivalry

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsMatthew CrosstonDr. Matthew Crosston is Professor of Political Science, Miller Chair for Industrial and International Security, and Director of the International Security and Intelligence Studies Program at Bellevue University, Bellevue, Nebraska. A graduate of Colgate University, with an M.A. from the University of London, and a Ph.D. from Brown University, he has done post-doctoral work at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. A specialist in intelligence analysis, counterterrorism, and cyberwar ethics, Dr. Crosston has expertise in Russian-area studies, political Islam, and global conflict. He previously taught at Clemson University and the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). The author of Fostering Fundamentalism: Terrorism, Democracy and American Engagement in Central Asia (London: Ashgate, 2006), his articles have appeared in numerous peer-reviewed publications.

Assessing the danger of war: parallels and differences between Europe in 1914 and East Asia in 2014

The article looks at structural analogies between the strategic situation in Europe in the summer of 1914 and in East Asia today, with particular emphasis on the probability of the outbreak of a major war. The author examines analogies regarding the nature of the international system, i.e. is the international system characterized by outright anarchy or by a more or less developed and institutionalized understanding among the main actors about the way to preserve peace and to organize economic exchange? The article addresses domestic factors (nationalism, democratic, authoritarian or semi-democratic regimes) and investigates military dynamics against the backdrop of geography and the availability of military equipment and technologies. Possible routes of military escalation are also discussed. Special attention is paid to states that have isolated themselves and that dispose of military means that might promise swift victory. The article comes to the conclusion that there are very few similarities between Europe in 1914 and East Asia today, but that both the high degree of militarization of the Korean peninsula and the evolving military competition between the US and China in the region do imply the possibility of a major armed conflict in a not too distant future.

Bridging troubled waters: China, Japan, and maritime order in the East China Sea

Bridging Troubled Waters: China, Japan, and Maritime Order in the East China Sea. By James Manicom. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2014. Softcover: 266pp. In this book, James Manicom contests the orthodox view that the strategic rivalry between China and Japan will escalate into a full-blown military conflict. The book concedes that the East China Sea will be the likely medium for Sino-Japanese military rivalry and cyclical tensions will persist; however, it makes the compelling case that cooperation will endure. The book explores the intriguing between China and Japan, which has been paradoxically characterized by deep economic interdependence, yet beleaguered by periodic tensions over their maritime disputes, lingering strategic mistrust and even brinkmanship. The book examines the origins, nature and durability of cooperation between China and Japan despite historical and existing conflicting interests between the two countries. The author interrogates an interesting question in International Relations theory on how China and Japan have avoided conflict over their maritime disputes, notwithstanding the seemingly incessant military posturing and sabre-rattling at sea and yet managed to cooperate while resisting settlement of underlying issues. The book explores this central point in depth by comparing five attempts at cooperation in the East China Sea in the areas of disputed sovereignty, fisheries management, marine surveys, and hydrocarbon resource development. Throughout the book, Manicom makes it clear that he does not share the cynicism expressed by scholars that disputes over resource-rich maritime space are fundamentally prone to conflict. Indeed, lurking in every corner of the book is Manicom's insightful, if but slightly overarticulated, thesis that, contrary to pessimistic assessments, the two countries have been able to cooperate on contested jurisdiction when material issues have been separate from the more symbolic aspects of their relationship (p. 11). This is not to disparage the central empirical finding of the book, however. In fact, the simplicity of Manicom's proposition belies its innovation. The focus of the book on cooperation, while not an entirely novel approach, is quite refreshing in the study of China-Japan maritime relations. His thesis also leaves the reader cautiously optimistic, which is a rare commodity these days. In order to support the book's provocative core insights, Manicom presents important and interesting case studies that reveal historical commonalities worthy of sustained reflection. The first case study (Chapter 2) examines the dynamics of crisis and tension management in the context of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute, and the collapse of Deng Xiaoping's formulaic modus vivendi to focus on joint development instead of actively pursuing sovereignty claims. The second case study, in Chapter 3, assesses the China-Japan agreement on fisheries--signed in 1997 and which came into force in 2000--which illustrates an example of reciprocal cooperation over an area of mutual interest. The third case study (Chapter 4), explores the 2001 notification agreement over marine surveys in disputed waters. The fourth case study in Chapter 5, traces the confrontational dynamics of resource development in the East China Sea, principally a resource exploitation agreement in 2008, which to date has yet to be implemented. In his analysis of these case studies, Manicom's basic argument is that cooperation underwritten by mutually shared economic interests is easier to achieve compared to cooperation based on strategic issues. In this regard, putting the above cases of cooperation in a continuum, the fisheries agreement is both robust and durable, while the notification agreement is less successful relative to the 2001 resource development agreement. …

Racing toward Tragedy?: China's Rise, Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the Security Dilemma

In the post–Cold War period, scholars have considered the Asia Pacific to be ripe for military competition and conflict. Developments over the past decade have deepened these expectations. Across the region, rising military spending and efforts of various states to bolster their military capabilities appear to have created an increasingly volatile climate, along with potentially vicious cycles of mutual arming and rearming. In this context, claims that China's rapid economic growth and surging military spending are fomenting destabilizing arms races and security dilemmas are widespread. Such claims make for catchy headlines, yet they are rarely subject to rigorous empirical tests. Whether patterns of military competition in the Asia Pacific are in fact attributable to a security dilemma–based logic has important implications for international relations theory and foreign policy. The answer has direct consequences for how leaders can maximize the likelihood that peace and stability will prevail in this economically and strategically vital region. A systematic empirical test derived from influential theoretical scholarship on the security dilemma concept assesses the drivers of bilateral and multilateral frictions and military competition under way in the Asia Pacific. Security dilemma–driven competition appears to be an important contributor, yet the outcome is not structurally determined. Although this military competition could grow significantly in the near future, there are a number of available measures that could help to ameliorate or manage some of its worst aspects.

The NATO-Warsaw Pact competition in the 1970s and 1980s: a revolution in military affairs in the making or the end of a strategic age?

The NATO-Warsaw Pact military competition at the heart of the Cold War was also the incubator of a ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ (RMA) in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, which predates the better-known American concept of RMA of the 1990s.

War, State Formation, and Culture

Historical sociology has long been concerned with the study of organized state violence. Since the mid-1970s, a substantial body of work has come to focus on the importance of warfare to historical processes of state formation. The first generation of this literature proposed that the relentless existential struggle between the warring polities of medieval Europe had favored the survival of states that could adopt ever more efficient means to extract and mobilize resources from the local population to feed the war effort. Early states therefore evolved the institutions to collect taxes and administer territory largely as a functional byproduct of interstate military competition. From this perspective, the logic of war making was the driving force behind the rise of the modern state in Europe.

China’s air zone rouses regional fears

Why has China’s recent creation of an Air Defence Identification Zone so alarmed its neighbours and the wider international community? Although Beijing is not breaching any laws, its move comes amid rising tensions over conflicting territorial claims in the East China Sea. There is a risk that the zone will contribute to the long-term trend of mutual suspicion and military competition in Northeast Asia.