From the editors

States have incentives to sponsor non-state armed groups as instruments of foreign policy, especially if they lack the ability to project conventional military power.¹ They also promise to protect them, extending deterrence promises to shield militants from third parties. In The Dark Side of Deterrence: Thinking through the State Sponsorship of Terrorism, Alex Wilner of Carleton University in Canada theorises the costs, benefits, and risks of this approach, using Iran’s sponsorship of violence in Europe as an illustration.

Special operations forces (SOF) play a leading role in counterterrorism, and they have adopted a much larger public profile over the last 30 years.² In The Rise of Special Operations Forces: Generalized Specialization, Boundary Spanning and Military Autonomy, Eitan Shamir of Bar Ilan University and Eyal Ben-Ari of Kinneret College in Israel explain why. Rather than focusing on external factors, the authors argue that the internal development of SOF capabilities has made them more valuable, and that adroit leaders have learned how to win over policymakers.

The rise of SOF, however, has not spelled the end of conventional military campaigns.³ In The Saudi Air War in Yemen: A Case for Coercive Success through Battlefield Denial, Ralph Shield of the U.S. Naval War College offers a close examination of the ongoing Saudi air war against the Houthis in Yemen. While punitive bombing raids had little effect on the Houthis, the campaign has been more successful when air power was used in support of ground forces, making Houthi battlefield success unlikely and increasing the incentives to negotiate. A coercive strategy of denial may succeed where punishment failed.

Vulnerable state leaders are also hard to coerce.⁴ In Saddam versus the Inspectors: The Impact of Regime Security on the Verification of Iraq’s WMD Disarmament, Gregory D. Koblentz of George Mason University revisits the puzzle of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi leader could have welcomed international inspectors enthusiastically to demonstrate Iraq’s disarmament before the war in 2003. Doing so, however, might have exposed Saddam’s personal security apparatus. Concern for his personal safety led to increasing friction with inspectors, and set in motion the chain of events leading to war.

The final article in this issue engages a lively debate over grand strategy.⁵ In Grand Strategy vs. Emergent Strategy in the Conduct of Foreign Policy, Ionut C. Popescu of the University of Texas at Austin asks whether grand strategists need to craft a long-term design, or whether they should embrace improvisation. The answer depends on four factors: the relative uncertainty of international politics at any given time; the relative importance of short-term versus long-term goals; the degree of domestic consensus or controversy over national objectives; and the particular style of different presidents.

Notes

¹ See, for example, Stephen Tankel, ‘Beyond the Double Game: Lessons from Pakistan’s Approach to Islamist Militancy’, The Journal of Strategic Studies (2018).

² See, for example, Jon R. Lindsay, ‘Reinventing the Revolution: Technological Visions, Counterinsurgent Criticism, and the Rise of Special Operations’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 36/3 (2013), 422–53.

³ On coercion, see Robert A. Pape, Jr., ‘Coercion and Military Strategy: Why Denial Works and Punishment Doesn’t’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 15/4 (1992), 423–75.

⁴ On regime insecurity, see Narushige Michishita, ‘Coercing to Reconcile: North Korea’s Response to US “hegemony”’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 29/6 (2006), 1015–40; and Jeffrey W. Knopf, ‘Varieties of Assurance’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 35/3 (2012), 375–99.

⁵ Recent work on grand strategy includes Jacqueline L. Hazelton, ‘Drone Strikes and Grand Strategy: Toward a Political Understanding of the Uses of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Attacks in US Security Policy’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/1–2 (2017), 68–91; and Michael Clarke and Anthony Ricketts, ‘Did Obama Have a Grand Strategy?’ The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/1–2 (2017), 295–324.