My Google Scholar profile can be accessed here.
Selected publications (see CV for complete list):
"Access Denied? The Sino-American Contest for Military Primacy in Asia," with Daryl G. Press, International Security, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Summer 2025), pp. 118-151.
"Lost Seoul? Assessing Pyongyang's Other Deterrent," with Daryl G. Press, The Texas National Security Review, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Summer 2025), pp. 8-27.
Inadvertent Expansion: How Peripheral Agents Shape World Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2024).
"Push and Pull on the Periphery: Inadvertent Expansion in World Politics," International Security, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Winter 2022/23), pp. 136-173.
- Review: Andrew J. Payne, "Review of Anderson, 'Push and Pull on the Periphery'," H-Diplo Jervis Forum Article Review, No. 184 (October 16, 2025).
"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.
"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.
"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.
Work in Progress:
"Quagmire: 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 = 181) 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); France's interventions during decolonization in Algeria (1954-1962) and Morocco (1953-1956); 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.
"Do Diplomatic Sanctions Work?" with Michael Goldfien.
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, we 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. There are approximately 26 cases in which the U.S. severed diplomatic ties, or refused to form them, with another state in times of peace. We 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.
"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.