Size matters in international relations. Owing to their unique vulnerabilities, small states
have different needs, adopt different foreign policies, and have a harder time achieving …

A large literature assumes that alliances entangle the United States in military conflicts that it
might otherwise avoid. Since 1945, however, there have been only five cases of what might …

The idea that war is going out of style has become the conventional wisdom in recent years.
But in Only the Dead, award-winning author Bear Braumoeller demonstrates that it shouldn't …

While the American alliance system in Asia has been fundamental to the region's security
and prosperity for seven decades, today it encounters challenges from the growth of China …

While scholars have made many claims about US military interventions, they have not come
to a consensus on main trends and consequences. This article introduces a new …

Two mechanisms of costly signaling are known in international relations: sinking costs and
tying hands. I show that there exist four mechanisms of costly signaling that are equally …

Hedging is typically understood as a middle path straddling balancing/bandwagoning, the
military/economic, and United States/China. This conventional understanding of hedging …

How do adversaries communicate? How do diplomatic encounters shape international
orders and determine whether states go to war? Diplomacy, from alliance politics to nuclear …

Theories of balancing are under assault. On theoretical and historical grounds, realists and
non-realists challenge the claim that states balance against shifts in aggregate material …

How does foreign support for separatists influence conflict escalation with the central
government? What types of miscalculations over foreign support encourage separatists to …