Jeffrey Meiser

While practitioners and historians have long noted the importance of leadership in war, the scholarship on military effectiveness has generally ignored the role of leadership. This essay uses the scholarship on strategy, leadership, and military performance to develop a strategic leadership theory of military effectiveness. The theory proposes that strategic leadership can have two effects on military performance. First, a strategic leader can increase combat power by creating an advantageous context for battle through the development and implementation of an effective theory of success (strategy). Second, a strategic leader can increase motivation by inculcating an identity and values in the fighting force consistent with the leader’s strategy. A case study of General Matthew Ridgway’s leadership intervention in the Korean War suggests the potential analytical utility of a strategic leadership explanation of military effectiveness.

Civil wars are often the product of low-level political violence that escalates, rather than emerging ex nihilo from a peaceful society. Therefore, it is important to focus on what causes the initial pattern of violence and why it escalates. This essay integrates structural and strategic theories of political violent to develop an analytical framework of violence escalation. This framework allows us to identify critical junctures where intervention may limit or halt escalation. The framework is applied to Iraq, 2003-2006 to determine how and why violence escalated, culminating in widespread sectarian civil war in 2006.

One of the most vibrant research programs in international relations (IR) is neoclassical realism.  This realist approach to foreign policy argues that the most important factor in shaping state behavior is the structure of the international system, but neoclassical realist also argue that domestic factors act as intervening variables to shape the timing and intensity of a state’s reaction to structural pressures and incentives.  Liberal theory provides a means for challenging neoclassical realism.  From a liberal perspective, domestic norms and institutions are the most important factors in shaping state behavior.  Liberal political institutions and norms tend to act as a restraint on state power in general and foreign policy specifically.  Liberal institutions such as separation of powers, federalism, and democratic elections make it more difficult for political leaders to enact policies that require substantial national resources in all policy areas, from major health care reform to large-scale imperialism.  In fact, these institutions make it difficult to accomplish any major national policy change.  Liberal norms reinforce institutional restraint.  Individuals and collectives that have internalized liberal norms will view the use of state power with suspicion and favor political leaders and policies that minimize the use of state power.  In many cases, the incentives and pressures of domestic political structure are stronger than the incentives and pressures of the international system and therefore will be more decisive in shaping foreign policy.  Drawing on various existing strands of IR scholarship on domestic political structure and state action, this paper develops a liberal approach to the study of foreign policy and demonstrates its potential value by applying it to the foreign policies of rising powers—Great Britain, Germany, Japan, the United States, and the USSR—between the mid 1800s and WWII.  The main finding is that illiberal or non-liberal rising powers are much more expansionist than liberal states.  These findings may have relevance for the foreign policies of current rising powers like China, India, and Brazil.

What good is military strategy? According to the scholarship on military effectiveness, the answer is "not much"-strategy does not significantly affect the performance of armies in combat. Strategic theory scholarship disagrees and describes four specific mechanisms linking strategy to military effectiveness: Exploiting weaknesses in the adversary's strategy; causing psychological dislocation in the enemy commanders; creating a favorable center of gravity and pattern of war; and focusing resources and controlling violence in service of political goals. This essay uses a case study from the southern front of the First Arab-Israeli War to explore how strategy affects military performance. We find that Israeli General Yigal Allon's military strategy significantly increased the combat efficiency and battlefield performance of the Israeli Defense Force, consistent with the mechanisms suggested by strategic theory. These findings suggest that military strategy is indeed an important determinant of military effectiveness.

A strategy is a theory of success. Other definitions of strategy abound but are unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons. Several recent essays call attention to why we need a clear, consistent definition of strategy and why other definitions of strategy are inferior to the theory of success definition. Regardless of whether the authors are attacking, defending, or reinterpreting strategy, they share the common characteristics of misunderstanding the nature of strategy and lacking an analytically useful definition of strategy. 1

Civil wars are often the product of low-level political violence that escalates, rather than emerging ex nihilo from a peaceful society. Therefore, it is important to focus on what causes the initial pattern of violence and why it escalates. This essay integrates structural and strategic theories of political violent to develop an analytical framework of violence escalation. This framework allows us to identify critical junctures where intervention may limit or halt escalation. The framework is applied to Iraq, 2003-2006 to determine how and why violence escalated, culminating in widespread sectarian civil war in 2006.

As the U.S. government implements the Global Fragility Act, it will be working to develop political strategies for selected countries.  We argue that the best political strategy to help stabilize fragile states is one of “strategic empowerment.” This means supporting local actors with the legitimacy required to govern as well as the interests and values that align with ours.

Drug trafficking has reached unprecedented levels in West Africa causing major social, political and economic problems and undermining security in almost every country in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region. The central cause of the increased drug trafficking is the change in drug trafficking routes from the traditional Trans-Caribbean route through West Africa. Countries in West Africa have been unable to develop and implement successful counter-narcotics policies due to resource constraints, corruption, and the lack of clear national and regional strategies. The Gambia for example has seen a sharp increase in the quantity of drugs transiting through the country in the past ten years. This paper analyzes this phenomenon and its consequences on the ECOWAS region and proposes some recommendations on how the region should deal with the problem. My main purpose is to bring to light the main reasons for West Africa's endemic security, political, security and economic problems–transnational organized crime (TOC) activities mainly drug trafficking—and the consequences for both the region and the international community. 2

Liberalism is a defining feature of modern democracy, illustrated by the prevalence of the term 'liberal democracy' as a way to describe countries with free and fair elections, rule of law and protected civil liberties. However, liberalism – when discussed within the realm of IR theory – has evolved into a distinct entity of its own. Liberalism contains a variety of concepts and arguments about how institutions, behaviours and economic connections contain and mitigate the violent power of states. When compared to realism, it adds more factors into our field of view – especially a consideration of citizens and international organisations. Most notably, liberalism has been the traditional foil of realism in IR theory as it offers a more optimistic world view, grounded in a different reading of history to that found in realist scholarship.

Within the US defense community, strategy
making has become a narrow-minded exercise rooted in the
concepts of ends, ways, and means and the whole-of-government
approach. Strategic thinking can be improved by defining strategy as a
theory of success and understanding that the purpose of strategy is to
create advantage, generate new sources of power, and exploit
weaknesses in the opponent. This analysis of the 2009 Afghanistan
policy review and strategy-making process illustrates an approach to
overcoming dysfunctional strategic practices.

In recent years, influential field commanders have pushed for prolonged and expanded military strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prof. Jeffrey Meiser raises the question of whether this position is a characteristic of modern general officers or part of a broader attitude of military officers for the most part. This article uses the United States' experience during its "imperial" era to test the hypothesis that military officials are more likely to advocate for political-military expansion than are civilian officials. This supposition is derived from the literature on civil-military relations, which has found that military leaders tend to favor military solutions to policy problems. The inference is that military officials will tend to see political-military control of foreign territory as the best solution to instability and will advocate for political-military expansionism. Professor Meiser's study seeks to clarify the various arguments that link civil-military relations to foreign policy actions by analyzing 10 cases of American military intervention in the Caribbean Basin and the Asia-Pacific region during a particularly belligerent period of American foreign policy: the presidential administrations of presidents Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft (1893-1913).

Prior to the Civil War, racial exploitation was at the heart of the Anglo-American strategy of political and economic development. Put simply, the Anglo-American state successfully redistributed wealth from Native Americans and African Americans to white males and their families. Native American land was expropriated and sold at low prices or given to Anglo-American settlers fueling the agrarian economies of both the North and South. Chattel slavery deprived African Americans of both the fruits of their labor and their basic human rights. But it also underpinned the rise of cotton production in the South, a major driver of American economic growth in the antebellum period. These developments were not an accidental product of white racism, but the result of a political economy strategy, which created a dual American state: a contract state, premised on the rule of law, that promoted the growth of a prosperous, liberal democratic society of Anglo-Americans, and a predatory
state that financed white liberal society through its ruthless exploitation of Indian lands and African American labor.

Two days before the world entered 2015, a handful of former officers from the Gambian Armed Forces attacked the State House in Banjul, The Gambia. Published accounts call Lamin S. Sanneh, a former Gambian military officer, the ringleader of the aborted coup. Accounts vary, but 3-4 of the dissidents were killed, including Sanneh. He was my friend, and as I write these words, I still can’t believe that he is dead.

This course uses major themes in hip hop music to introduce us to core political issues of race and racism; sexism and gender; inequality and class; and history, power, and culture. Assigned readings give us historical and theoretical background and inform our understanding of the empirical realities of racism and racial inequality in the United States and its broader economic, cultural, social, and political effects. The assigned listening gives us lyrics and musical forms rooted in the realities of black communities in the U.S., especially impoverished ones, but also transcend race, ethnicity, culture, and nationality to appeal to people around the world. In other words, rappers tell us specific things about poor black communities, but they also tell us something about the human condition.

Understanding what strategy is and when and why different types of strategies work is crucial to the success of all goal-seeking behavior. Individuals and organizations pursue strategies to achieve their goals, however often these strategies are implicit and not subject to much introspection or critique. This is one reason why people, corporations, and nation-states often pursue bad strategies. This course focuses on the range of strategies that countries use to solve national security problems and pursue foreign policy goals. We identify, understand, and evaluate the tools that are available to countries in times of peace, war, and the gray area in between. Throughout the course we analyze when, why, and how some strategies are more effective than others.

Course Overview This course provides an overview of the international and domestic factors shaping American foreign policy. The purpose of the course is to understand how domestic and international factors empower and restrain the actions of the United States of America in the international arena. There are two normative positions that can be taken on this issue. First, one could argue that American national success relies largely on exercising strategic restraint. From this perspective factors that foster restraint are a normative good. The second perspective is that it is in the national interest of the USA to implement a strategy of primacy. From this perspective, factors that encourage the accumulation and use of American power are normatively good. This theme of power and restraint provides a unifying theme throughout course as we discuss the theoretical, history, and practical realities of American foreign policy. This course covers contemporary foreign policy issues that many people feel strongly about. I expect lively discussions on both theoretical and practical aspects of these issues. However, disrespectful language will not be tolerated. Students are required to behave in a collegial fashion during all discussions. Course Objectives • Identify and understand the main factors that shape American foreign policy. Use these causal factors to analyze past and present American foreign policies and evaluate options for future policy. • Understand the role of the United States in international affairs and why it is important for American citizens to be aware of US actions abroad. • Understand how American foreign policy affects the different regions of the world and how the rest of the world views American foreign policy. • Evaluate competing arguments using logic and historical evidence. • Demonstrate the ability to identify and think critically about the current international problems that confront the United States • Evaluate the international threats and opportunities that face the United States. COURSE REQUIREMENTS There are three types of assignments for this course:

This course differs from most international security courses in two ways. First, this course is about threats to survival of the human species. Our primary questions are: What are the most dangerous threats to human survival on planet Earth and what can be done? An underlying assumption is that the United States and other countries spend too many resources on minor threats like terrorism and not enough on threats that could actually end human civilization as we know it. Second, this course provides an explicit methodology for measuring and evaluating threats and ways to respond to those threats. Students will use the methods of risk management, threat assessment, and scenario planning to evaluate threats and risks like global warming, asteroid strikes, global pandemics, nuclear war, and WWIII. We also draw on the public health, disaster management, social capital, and resilience literatures to develop ways to prevent, mitigate, and adapt to catastrophic events. Course Objectives • Understand and apply threat and risk assessment methodologies • Understand and apply scenario planning methodologies • Understand and apply trend analysis • Categorize and evaluate threats and risks • Understand the elements of resilience, mitigation and prevention • Analyze existing policies for the mitigation and prevention of catastrophic threats Course Requirements

Geopolitics is the study of the interaction between geography and politics. Geography is defined expansively as the study of spacial relationships, with special emphasis on how special variation in biophysical world affects human societies. Politics is the study of power—how it is attained, maintained, and used. Putting these concepts together we can define geopolitics as the study of how variation in the biophysical world shapes the pursuit and use of power by human societies. This course addresses the following questions: How does the biophysical environment shape power relations among human societies? Is geopolitical analysis useful for understanding the role of energy and the environment in the international system? Why or why not? How does the distribution of energy and environmental resources shape power relations? As new great powers emerge, are we entering an age of increased scarcity of resources (water, oil, food) and increased conflict? Will global warming cause geopolitical change? BASIC CONCEPTS The three basic building blocks of geopolitics are place, borders, and distance. Human societies are fundamentally shaped by their biophysical location. Relationships between societies are fundamentally shaped by characteristics of their borders and their distance from one another. Two other factors—technology and our mental maps of the world— shape the meaning of the core building blocks of geopolitics. Special Places (Spatial Differentiation) For centuries historians and philosophers have argued that place fundamentally shapes human societies. Open plains foster vulnerable and hostile societies and vast empires. Areas fragmented by topography and ecology (mountain ranges, forests, etc.) foster a multitude of diverse political units. Temperate zones facilitate the development of complex societies. A long coastline with many good ports facilitates the emergence of a commercial society. This type of reasoning is dismissed by some as deterministic, but there is no denying that the particular type of place a society emerges has a foundational impact on is political, economic, and cultural development over the long run. The most important role that place plays in this course is the unequal distribution of energy and environmental resources and the need to transport these resources around the globe. We

This publication is a compilation of nine essays written by Army,
Marine, Navy, and Air Force officers enrolled in the Afghanistan-Pakistan (AFPAK) Hands program while attending the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University (NDU). All of the officers have extensive experience in Afghanistan and were encouraged to combine this experience with their newly acquired knowledge of theory and history to produce essays that could provide both cutting-edge analysis of our current
operations in Afghanistan and deeper insights about counterinsurgency (COIN) and stability operations. These papers succeed admirably.

"At a time when America is widely viewed as expansionist, this insightful and felicitously written book reminds us that American foreign policy is also significantly self-restrained. Across thirty-four meticulously-researched historical cases from 1898-1941, Meiser shows how domestic factors, such as divided institutions, competitive electoral politics, and anti-imperialist norms, limited and eventually eliminated expansionist aims, even as America rose to great power status in the world. His findings shed essential historical light on contemporary foreign policy debates about military intervention, regime change, nation-building, public tolerance of war, institutional gridlock, and partisan politics."—Henry Nau, professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University

"Jeffrey Meiser's Power and Restraint is an essential contribution to the evolving literature on the behavior of rising great powers. The book's value is found in its focus on 'under-expansion' by the United States between 1898 and 1941, an unconventional yet convincing interpretation that yields new insights into the likelihood of political-military expansion by rising powers. Meiser deftly integrates explanatory logic that cuts across theoretical camps—power distribution at the international system level, domestic institutional structure, and normative orientations—to produce compelling conclusions on the behavior of the United States as it joined the ranks of the great powers in the early twentieth century." —Scott A. Silverstone, United States Military Academy at West Point 
See more at: http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/power-and-restraint#sthash.7HcTCd9n.dpuf

Hip hop is the language of antiracism. Through a well-developed collection of rhetorical techniques, concepts, imagery, narratives, and ways of being, hip hop gives practical expression to the antiracist ideals of unabashed appreciation of blackness and assertion of the equality of Black culture. A hip hop theory of antiracism seeks to rethink antiracism to put it on a more productive path. It is an approach derived from the tradition of Black nationalism and seeks to build power from within the Black community and use that power base to engage with white society from a position of strength. A hip hop theory of antiracism provides a new language and logic for engaging Americans in a discussion about race and justice in the United States.