Research interests:
- International relations theory
- International security studies
- East Asia (esp. Japan & the Korean Peninsula)
- U.S. foreign policy
Selected publications (see CV for complete list):
“Push and Pull on the Periphery: Inadvertent Expansion in World Politics,” International Security, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Winter 2022/23), pp. 136-173.
“Introducing the Warring-States Japan Battle Data,” International Interactions, Vol. 49, No. 1 (2023), pp. 147-162.
“General Nuclear Compellence: The State, Allies, and Adversaries,” with Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro, Strategic Studies Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Fall 2019), pp. 93-121.
“The Case of the Pivot to Asia: System Effects and the Origins of Strategy,” with Victor D. Cha, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 132, No. 4 (Winter 2017-18), pp. 595-617.
“America’s North Korean Nuclear Trilemma,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Winter 2017), pp. 153-164.
“Explaining North Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions: Power and Position on the Korean Peninsula,” Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 71, No. 6 (2017), pp. 621-641 (supplemental data).
“Anarchic Threats and Hegemonic Assurances: Japan’s Security Production in the Postwar Era,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Vol. 17, No. 1 (January 2017), 101-135.
Google Scholar profile:
Click here.
Book Project: Inadvertent Expansion in World Politics (under contract, Cornell University Press)
Based on my 2021 doctoral dissertation, available here.
Why do great powers adopt expansionist foreign policies? Despite its great variety, much of the existing literature shares a common characteristic: that of seeing expansion as the centrally-driven and strategic extension of the state’s territorial domain. However, many important historical instances of great power expansion do not comport with these expectations, showing expansion to be far more peripherally-driven and far less strategic than they would expect. In this project, I make a distinction between centrally-driven “intentional expansion” and peripherally-driven “inadvertent expansion,” and I explain inadvertent expansion in the history of great power politics. I make three central arguments. First, inadvertent expansion is a surprisingly general phenomenon, occurring in approximately one-in-four cases of great power territorial expansion. Second, inadvertent expansion is a manifestation of a principal-agent problem, being much more likely to occur under conditions of rudimentary transportation and communication technology. Third, leaders will be more likely to engage in inadvertent expansion when the perceived geopolitical risks are less severe. These arguments are supported with a mixed-methods research strategy. First, I present new data on great power territorial expansion, comprising 258 observations coded as either strategic or inadvertent from 1816 to 2014. Second, I lay out a series of qualitative case studies of great power inadvertent expansion (and non-expansion), including the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, the United States, France, Japan, and Italy. The arguments and evidence in this dissertation have important implications for the literature on territorial expansion and international relations theory more broadly.
Other Works in Progress:
“Lost Seoul? Assessing Pyongyang’s Other Deterrent,” with Daryl G. Press
What would be the effects, in terms of casualties, of a major North Korean artillery attack on South Korea? The progress of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs gets the majority of the media, scholarly, and policy attention. Yet the North may already possess a powerful deterrent in the form of thousands of artillery pieces, capable of striking civilian and military targets across the demilitarized zone (DMZ). This paper assesses the nature of the North Korean artillery threat by modeling a major North Korean artillery barrage of a variety of civilian targets in South Korea. The analysis finds that the kinds of civilian casualties expected under realistic scenarios, while not insignificant, are considerably fewer than most existing journalistic, scholarly, and policy assessments of the issue. These findings have important implications for our understanding of North Korean behavior and U.S. foreign policy on the Korean Peninsula.
“Access Denied? Airpower vs. A2/AD in East Asia,” with Daryl G. Press
How is the balance of power shifting in maritime East Asia? Can the United States still project effective military might into the region and fulfill its core commitments to its allies and partners? These are increasingly urgent questions, as China’s military rise is reshaping regional geopolitical relations. Given China’s growing arsenal of missiles of increasing range and accuracy, the U.S. military is being forced to rethink some of its basic approaches to the region. We examine these questions by focusing on a central pillars of U.S. power projection in East Asia: land-based air power. We conduct a military campaign analysis of the U.S.’s ability to defend Taiwan’s airspace in the context of a hypothetical war over the island with China. The model we constructed allows us to consider multiple scenarios, alternative U.S. basing options, various PLA missile attack strategies, and a number of U.S. defensive options, to see how they influence outcomes. Our results will have important implications for the U.S.’s military posture, regional allied relations, and peace and conflict in East Asia.
“Mission Creep: Explaining Costly Military Intervention”
What explains unexpectedly costly military interventions? Why do some uses of military force abroad end quickly and relatively easily, whereas others drag on for years, involving far greater material and human costs than were initially expected? In this project, I examine costly military interventions by the great powers in the 20th and 21st centuries. I examine these issues using a mixed-methods research strategy, combining quantitative analysis with qualitative historical case studies. For the quantitative component, I’ve compiled and begun to analyze data on military interventions by the great powers from 1918 to the present (n = 135) in order to uncover some of the correlates of unexpectedly costly military interventions. For the qualitative component, I will conduct in-depth comparative case studies, pairing interventions that were unexpectedly long and costly with comparable interventions that were much less so. Planned cases include comparing Japan (1918-1925) and the United Kingdom’s (1918-1920) interventions in the Russian Civil War; Italy and Germany’s interventions in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939); the U.S. (1962-1973) and China’s (1979) interventions in Vietnam; and the Soviet (1979-1989), U.S. (2001-2021), and possibly earlier British (1919-1920) interventions in Afghanistan.
“Why do States Bandwagon?”
There are three pieces of conventional wisdom on bandwagoning in the theoretical literature in international relations. The first is that bandwagoning is risky, since it puts junior alliance partners at the mercy of their great power allies, opening them up for future exploitation. The second, related, argument is that bandwagoning will therefore be relatively rare, as rational states will be reluctant to put their security in jeopardy by forming such alliances. The third argument is that, to the extent that bandwagoning exists, it is a strategy of weak states, as those with sufficient military capabilities will see their security interests best served by balancing against preeminent great powers rather than bandwagoning with them. This paper examines each of these pieces of the conventional wisdom using alliance data from 1816 to the present and finds little support for them. First, the junior partners that join bandwagoning alliances tend to be more powerful, on average, than the regional states that stay out of such alliances and the states that join other kinds of alliances. Second, bandwagoning is a common occurrence in modern international relations, comprising approximately 40 percent of all alliances involving at least one great power. And third, junior partners in bandwagoning alliances are almost never exploited by their great power patron in the years after the alliance is formed. In sum, the conventional wisdom on bandwagoning appears to be wrong. Bandwagoning alliances are relied upon by states for the same reason as other alliances: to ensure their security and advance their interests.
“Do Diplomatic Sanctions Work?”
Do diplomatic sanctions work? Are the stated goals that a great power sets out to achieve when severing diplomatic relations typically met before relations are reestablished? Despite being an important and commonly-used foreign policy tool—particularly by the United States—there is surprisingly little research that examines the effectiveness of diplomatic sanctions. In this paper, I address this question by looking at U.S. diplomatic relations from 1785 to the present, focusing on all instances in which the U.S. downgraded or severed diplomatic ties for political purposes in peacetime. Based on preliminary research, there are approximately 36 cases in which the U.S. severed diplomatic ties, or refused to form them, with another state in times of peace. I plan to conduct a “medium-n” analysis of these cases, in order to establish: a) a baseline rate of success of this commonly-used foreign policy tool, and b) why it appears to succeed in some cases, but not others. Answering these questions will have important implications for both the theory and practice of foreign policy.