DASSO

Christopher Ford argues for a "neo-legitimist" conception of international law and sovereign state legitimacy – an approach grounded in privileging the contractual lawmaking power of states that can demonstrate their governance structures to be the result of free choice-making by a self-consciously sovereign national people – that he suggests may help rescue the international legal system from its current crisis of legitimacy.

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Nir Boms and Khaled Homsi walk the reader through the tumultuous last year of Syria’s relations with Israel as the former struggles to find itself and its place in the world after the fall of the Assad dictatorship. Their article explores a range of issues related to the emergence of the nascent "Syrian National Project," arguing that the success or failure of this project under Ahmad al-Sharaa will determine whether Syria becomes once more a renewed adversary of Israel, a failed state, or a newly pragmatic partner.

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Kirk Shoemaker explores the role that Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) have the potential to play in becoming a European economic bridge to India, not only helping their region develop further but also assisting India’s rise to great power status. This, Shoemaker argues, will complement the United States' "cornerstone strategy" and help make India a powerful regional player in the Indo-Pacific.

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Joseph Lyons looks at the challenges of "elasticity" in U.S. nuclear deterrence and force posture. Exploring the efficacy of U.S. deterrence policy through the prism of the country’s ability to expand usable, survivable strategic capacity on decision-relevant timelines, Lyons argues that an elasticity-focused decision rule should be employed to prioritize deterrence investments, and that the American bomber force is, in these terms, especially important to the U.S. Nuclear "Triad."

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In this article, Dr. Christopher Ford explores the close parallels between (and shared historical genealogy of) the elite-capture theory of American politics articulated by modern right-wing intellectuals and similar ideas expressed in the 1970s by left-wing thinkers such as Barbara and John Ehrenreich and Alvin Gouldner, tracing what he describes as a modern convergence between "Left-Marxist" and "Right-Marxist" discourse. Ford then considers the potential implications for geopolitics if present-day trends continue, outlining the potential future emergence of a new axis of global confrontation between "traditionalist" and "cosmopolitan" camps. Finally, he suggests a possible response to these intellectual currents at the level of political theory that could help stave off such a future of international conflict.

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Nicholas Martinez and Kiersti Bertolas outline the national security challenges facing the United States from the recent crisis of fentanyl drug smuggling, arguing that the ineffective nature of American responses to date stems from the lack of an integrated national security strategy for addressing this crisis. In place of prior disaggregated approaches, they thus urge the adoption of a "4D" strategy that integrates deterrence, diplomacy, disruption and defense.

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In this article, Santiago Spadiliero recounts the history of U.S. national security policy on homeland missile defense. He traces the initial development of the current system as a response to small-scale threats from "rogue regime" missile proliferators, such as North Korea and Iran, but argues that the resulting architecture has become badly out of date in the face both of expanded threats from such regimes and, in particular, the missile-based coercive bargaining strategies adopted by Russia and China. To help meet present-day threats, Spadiliero suggests a new articulation of expanded policy objectives for homeland missile defense and discusses the potential of the new U.S. "Golden Dome" initiative to meet these needs.

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In this essay, Christopher Ford provides a brief overview of DSS' history, discussing in particular the special flavor and approach that have made DSS a unique and valuable contributor to national security education for more than four decades.

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DSS' current director, John Rose, tells the story of his long personal involvement with DSS, which began when he was a student in the program and continues to this day. He also describes the current range of DSS programming and activities, its educational partnerships in the national security community, and its success in expanding into doctoral education.

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In this essay, the man who brought DSS to Washington, D.C., Keith B. Payne, looks back across the program's long life, narrating the history of its move to what is now Missouri State University and then its relocation to Washington two decades ago.

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This essay reprints reflections on DSS' founder, William Van Cleave, from former student and DSS professor J.D. Crouch, putting the man and his program in historical context and offering Crouch's view of its impact in the U.S. national security community.

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In this note, Christopher Ford describes the remarkable backgrounds of DSS' current faculty, providing a list of the various positions they have held in various parts of the U.S. national security enterprise that illustrates the unique experience upon which DSS programs draw in educating students in its graduate certificate, master's and doctoral programs.

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Dr. Christopher Ford and Dr. Craig Wiener discuss an emerging literature on the geopolitics of what is increasingly referred to as Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) – that is, the international security impact of efforts to acquire Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools more intelligent than humans. After describing some of this new work, they critique one prominent recent account arguing for a U.S.-China strategic ASI standoff based on the nuclear weapons analogy of "Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD), finding that approach conceptually flawed and game-theoretically unstable. In its place, Ford and Wiener offer their own approach to strategy in ASI-related U.S. strategic competition with China, which they term "Persistent Offensive Preclusion of Adversary AI" (a.k.a. "POPAAI" or "PopEye").

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In this article, Dr. Gary Geipel reflects upon the emergence of a "post-truth" information environment in today's age of political and analytical narratives untethered from factual veracity, and the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) upon this environment. In particular, Geipel speculates about possible future scenarios of AI impact upon international relations in three alternative future scenarios: "Competing Realities," "Catastrophic Disconnect" and "Virtual Retreat."

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In this article, Rachel Butler discusses the role of female terrorists in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIS), exploring these terrorist organizations' shift into employing females in increasingly operational capacities, the dynamics that lay behind this development, and the ways in which understanding this history undermines traditional stereotypes of female involvement in terrorism. By understanding the ways in which terrorist organizations have actually used female fighters, Butler argues, present-day security planners can better address the threats presented by terrorist activity.

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In this article, Inderjit Grewal explores the ways in which religious ideology can affect countries' decision-making with regard to nuclear weaponry, focusing in particular upon the case of India – where Hindutva Hindu nationalist ideology seems to have had an important role in affecting the country's approach. Flagging these religious themes in Indian policy and also noting religious overtones that may affect nuclear-related decisions in Pakistan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and terrorist organizations, Grewal urges that such motivations be better understood if the international community is adequately to address nuclear nonproliferation threats.

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Dr. Christopher Ford, John Schurtz, and Erik Quam offer a detailed analytical account of how cybernetic theories of social control developed by the scientist Qian Xuesen and his disciples were adopted by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and are today critical to understanding the Party’s domestic governance and foreign relations.

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Paul Schecklman recounts how rising overall electricity demand, the evolving nature of warfare, and adversary threats to U.S. critical infrastructure combine to create a potential crisis of resilient electricity supply for the U.S. Department of Defense, and how novel nuclear reactor designs now under development could help meet that challenge.

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Drew Nickels explores the potential and degree of historical success enjoyed by Czechoslovakia, Romania, Sweden, and Switzerland in trying to apply "deterrence by denial" strategies to their relations with the Nazi regime in the years before and during the Second World War.

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Christopher Ford and Nigel Biggar write about a theory of political rights and national sovereignty that claims to provide an alternative both to Russian and Chinese propaganda discourse and to the excesses of some Western rights-based thinking.

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Morteza Safari explores the strategic culture of the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

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Christopher Ford discusses the Iranian nuclear crisis and the way in which United Nations sanctions "snapback" might be able to help solve it if we act quickly.

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Michael Brown reviews Barbara Walter's book on "How Civil Wars Start."

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The editorial board welcomes you to Missouri State University's electronic journal Defense & Strategic Studies Online (DASSO). In this opening essay, the Board offers an introduction to MSU's Defense and Strategic Studies (DSS) program and to its flagship publication.

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Dr. Christopher Ford and Dr. Alex Memory offer a data-driven analysis of dependency relationships between China and the small states of Oceania, suggesting possible conclusions about Beijing's grand strategy and its apparent emphasis upon cultivating dependency relationships for potential strategic advantage.

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Mr. David Sarabia draws lessons for contemporary U.S. - China challenges over Taiwan based upon historical analyses of land power and sea power dynamics in great power conflicts from the Peloponnesian War through World War Two.

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Dr. Christopher Ford explores how America's adversaries attempt to use the West's integrity against it, as a tool for their own strategic advantage.

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