Red lines: Enforcement, declaration, and ambiguity in the Cuban Missile Crisis

ABSTRACT

Using declassified materials to examine the eleven red lines of the Cuban Missile Crisis, this study qualifies and amends two popular beliefs about them: failing to punish violations damages credibility and deterrence requires declaring unambiguous red lines. I argue, first, that violations of red lines create fleeting ‘windows of credibility’ wherein violators fear retaliation. If declarers move quickly, they can convert non-enforcement into a bargaining chip, exchanging it for concessions while avoiding escalation. Second, rather than wholly embrace clarity or ambiguity, declarers frequently optimize by combining clear demands with ambiguity about the consequences of crossing those lines.

KEYWORDS:

• Red lines
• deterrence
• coercion
• crisis
• credibility
• Cuban Missile Crisis

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Phil Haun, Michael Joseph, Jeff Kaplow, Roseanne McManus, Nicholas Miller, James Morrow, Vipin Narang, Kenneth Oye, Reid Pauly, Barry Posen, Joshua Rovner, Ken Schultz, the editors, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments and insights at various stages of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ White House, ‘Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013, Press Release, 30 August 2013; Wyn Bowen, Jeffrey W. Knopf, and Matthew Moran, ‘The Obama Administration and Syrian Chemical Weapons: Deterrence, Compellence, and the Limits of the “Resolve plus Bombs” Formula’, Security Studies 29/5 (2020), 797–831.

² Many other cases contributed to popularizing both lessons. For instance, in the Munich Crisis, Britain and France are widely thought to have damaged their credibility by having committed to defend Czechoslovakia and only to abandon it in Prague’s hour of need.

³ Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Volume II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); James I. Matray, ‘Dean Acheson’s Press Club Speech Reexamined’, Journal of Conflict Studies 22/1 (2002); Thomas J. Christensen, ‘Threats, Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace: The Lessons of Mao’s Korean War Telegrams’, International Security 17/1 (1992), 122–54; Hal Brands and David Palkki, ‘“Conspiring Bastards”: Saddam Hussein’s Strategic View of the United States’, Diplomatic History 36/3 (2012), 625–59. Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009).

⁴ E.g., R. W. Apple, Jr. ‘Allow Miscalculation, Open the Way to War’, New York Times, 24 April 1994; Jim Hoagl, ‘ … And the Tale of a Transcript’, Washington Post, 17 September 1990; Mark Helprin, ‘Hollow Talk in the South China Sea’, Wall Street Journal, 15 August 2010.

⁵ I make no claim to novelty for this argument. Instead see Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960); Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).

⁶ Richard Haass and David Sacks, ‘American Support for Taiwan Must Be Unambiguous’, Foreign Affairs, 2 September 2021; Joshua Rovner, ‘Ambiguity is a Fact, Not a Policy’, War on the Rocks, 22 July 2021.

⁷ See especially Andrew Bennett and Checkel, Jeffrey T., eds., Process Tracing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); John Gerring, Case Study Research: Principles and Practices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 172–85.

⁸ This approach pursues ‘theory-centric’ process tracing rather than ‘case-centric’ (case explaining). Within that umbrella, it combines theory-testing and theory-building by revealing when and why causal processes divert from the expected sequence. Concepts from: Derek Beach and Rasmus B. Pedersen, Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019), 11–22.

⁹ Speculatively, intense fear of nuclear war could lead policymakers to declare fewer or more ambiguous red lines (to avoid entrapment into escalation), to enforce less aggressively after violations, and to devote more care to crafting the mix of ambiguity and clarity in their red lines. Future research might investigate these possibilities.

¹⁰ Of course, threatened consequences are not always imposed; bluffs qualify as coercion.

¹¹ For more on this definition, see Dan Altman and Nicholas Miller, ‘Red Lines in Nuclear Nonproliferation’, The Nonproliferation Review 24/3-4 (2017), 315–42. For similar definitions, see Yoel Guzansky, ‘Thin Red Lines: The Syrian and Iranian Contexts’, Strategic Assessment 16/2 (2013), 23–24; Bruno Tertrais, ‘Drawing Red Lines Right’, The Washington Quarterly 37/3 (2014), 8; Bruno Tertrais, The Diplomacy of ‘Red Lines’ (Paris: Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, 2016). On the dual roles of threats and assurances in coercion: Schelling, Arms and Influence, 4, 74.

¹² Schelling, Arms and Influence, 69.

¹³ E.g., see the definition of militarized compellent threats. Todd S. Sechser and Matthew Fuhrmann, ‘Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail’, International Organization 67/1 (2013), 173–95.

¹⁴ James D. Fearon, ‘Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes’, American Political Science Review 88/3 (1994), 577–92; Kenneth A. Schultz, Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

¹⁵ On the distinction between state-specific and leader-specific credibility: Danielle L. Lupton, Reputation for Resolve: How Leaders Signal Determination in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020); Jonathan Renshon, Allan Dafoe, and Paul Huth, ‘Leader Influence and Reputation Formation in World Politics’, American Journal of Political Science 62/2 (2018), 325–39; Joshua D. Kertzer, Resolve in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 111.

¹⁶ Schelling, Arms and Influence, 35.

¹⁷ Michael Tomz, ‘Domestic Audience Costs in International Relations: An Experimental Approach.’ International Organization 61/4 (2007), 821–40; Robert F. Trager and Lynn Vavreck, ‘The Political Costs of Crisis Bargaining: Presidential Rhetoric and the Role of Party’, American Journal of Political Science 55/3 (2011), 526–45.

¹⁸ Joshua D. Kertzer, Jonathan Renshon, and Keren Yarhi-Milo, ‘Are Red Lines Red Herrings?’, Working Paper, 2018.

¹⁹ Jack Snyder and Erica D. Borghard, ‘The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound.’ American Political Science Review 105/3 (2011), 437–456; Marc Trachtenberg. ‘Audience Costs: An Historical Analysis’, Security Studies 21/1 (2012), 3–42; William G. Nomikos and Nicholas Sambanis, ‘What Is the Mechanism Underlying Audience Costs? Incompetence, Belligerence, and Inconsistency’, Journal of Peace Research 56/4 (2019), 575–588.

²⁰ Daryl G. Press, Calculating Credibility: How Leaders Assess Military Threats (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005); Jonathan Mercer, Reputation and International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).

²¹ Lupton, Reputation for Resolve; Frank P. Harvey, and John Mitton, Fighting for Credibility: US Reputation and International Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016); Alex Weisiger and Keren Yarhi-Milo, ‘Revisiting Reputation: How Past Actions Matter in International Politics’, International Organization 69/2 (2015), 473–95.

²² Mark Mandell, ‘Obama’s Thick Red Line on Syria’, BBC News, 22 August 2013.

²³ Jake Miller, ‘John McCain blames Obama’s “Feckless” Foreign Policy for Ukraine Crisis’, CBS News, 3 March 2014.

²⁴ Olivia Beavers, ‘Former Obama National Security Adviser Blasts Decisions in Syria as a “Colossal Mistake”’, The Hill, 19 February 2017.

²⁵ This stipulation is why I refer to my argument about windows of credibility as amending the enforcement hypothesis rather than falsifying it.

²⁶ Credibility is the target’s perception of the probability that the coercer will carry out the threat after a violation. Temporally, I focus on immediate (within-crisis) credibility. Reputation encompasses longer-term views about an actor with implications for the credibility of all of that actor’s threats. The discussion focuses on immediate credibility for simplicity’s sake and for consistency with the analysis of a single crisis.

²⁷ The fact that violators will often anticipate and ‘price in’ the potential for retaliation does not negate windows of credibility. In effect, the violator accepts creating incentives to retaliate as the price for reaping the benefits of the violation. The violator may hope that the declarer’s response will be eventual non-enforcement, but opportunistic pressure by the declarer shortly after the violation may nonetheless lead the violator to grant concessions.

²⁸ Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984).

²⁹ I take no position on the relative importance of U.S. credibility with Assad versus with Moscow. For an account that emphasizes Russia, see Bowen, Knopf, and Moran, ‘The Obama Administration and Syrian Chemical Weapons’, 820–27.

³⁰ Harvey, Fighting for Credibility, 27.

³¹ Tobias Schneider and Theresa Lütkefend, Nowhere to Hide: The Logic of Chemical Weapons Use in Syria (Global Public Policy Institute, 2019); Hisham Melhem, ‘How Obama’s Syrian Chemical Weapons Deal Fell Apart’, The Atlantic, 10 April 2017.

³² As discussed previously, important new scholarship has addressed a related distinction not studied here: public versus private declarations.

³³ Roseanne W. McManus, Statements of Resolve: Achieving Coercive Credibility in International Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). However, two studies find that private communications more often affect perceptions than public statements. This study does not examine that question. Robert F. Trager, Diplomacy: Communication and the Origins of International Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Azusa Katagiri and Eric Min, ‘The Credibility of Public and Private Signals: A Document-Based Approach’, American Political Science Review 113/11 (2019), 156–72. Also see Shuhei Kurizaki, ‘Efficient Secrecy: Public versus Private Threats in Crisis Diplomacy’, American Political Science Review 101/3 (2007), 543–58; Matthew A. Baum, ‘Going Private: Public Opinion, Presidential Rhetoric, and the Domestic Politics of Audience Costs in US Foreign Policy Crises’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 48/5 (2004), 603–31.

³⁴ Matray, ‘Dean Acheson’s Press Club Speech Reexamined.’

³⁵ New York Times, ‘Confrontation in the Gulf: Excerpts from Iraqi Document on Meeting with U.S. Envoy’, New York Times, 23 September 1990.

³⁶ Brands and Palkki, ‘Conspiring Bastards’, 657.

³⁷ Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict; Schelling, Arms and Influence. On crossing borders (though couched in constructivist terms): Mark W. Zacher, ‘The Territorial Integrity Norm: International Boundaries and the Use of Force’, International Organization 55/2 (2001), 215–250. On using force: Dan Altman, ‘Advancing without Attacking: The Strategic Game around the Use of Force’, Security Studies 27/1 (2018), 58–88. On nuclear firebreaks: Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (Transaction Publishers, 2009).

³⁸ E.g., Schelling, Arms and Influence.

³⁹ Snyder and Borghard, ‘The Cost of Empty Threats’; Trachtenberg, ‘Audience Costs’; Glenn H. Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conflict among Nations: Bargaining, Decision Making, and System Structure in International Crises (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017).

⁴⁰ Snyder and Diesing, Conflict among Nations, 216–217; Scott D. Sagan, ‘The Commitment Trap: Why the United States Should Not Use Nuclear Threats to Deter Biological and Chemical Weapons Attacks’, International Security 24/4 (2000), 85–115.

⁴¹ This argument about clear demands is specific to red lines that do not fall on saliencies that make them obvious without need for declaration.

⁴² For a brief but similar discussion, see Schelling, Arms and Influence, 48; Michael Quinlan, ‘Deterrence and Deterrability’, Contemporary Security Policy 25/1 (2004), 12–13. Tertrais distinguishes these two types of ambiguity but argues only that it is best to avoid both at once. Tertrais, ‘Drawing Red Lines Right’, 7, 23. McManus classifies statements of resolve that refer to consequences as stronger by a tier than statements that merely articulate demands. McManus, Statements of Resolve, 51. Snyder and Borghard discuss both types of ambiguity together and make the same claims about both. Snyder and Borghard, The Cost of Empty Threats’, 439.

⁴³ David Beard, ‘“There Will Be Costs” – The Text of Obama’s Statement on Ukraine’, Washington Post, 28 February 2014.

⁴⁴ White House Office of the Press Secretary, ‘Remarks by the President to the White House Press Corps’, 20 August 2012.

⁴⁵ The North Atlantic Treaty, 4 April 1949.

⁴⁶ Schelling, Arms and Influence, 67.

⁴⁷ Schelling, Arms and Influence, 66.

⁴⁸ James H. Lebovic, ‘Red Lines and Green Lights: Iran, Nuclear Arms Control, and Nonproliferation’, Strategic Studies Quarterly 10/1 (2016), 10–42; Tertrais, ‘Drawing Red Lines Right’, 12–13; Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 93.

⁴⁹ Economic sanctions data suggestively support these conclusions: 74% of sanctions threats were specific about demands, and these threats succeeded more frequently. In comparison, 47% of sanctions threats were specific about consequences. T. Clifton Morgan, Navin Bapat, and Valentin Krustev. ‘The Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions, 1971–2000.’ Conflict Management and Peace Science 26/1 (2009), 104.

⁵⁰ On the role of U.S. domestic politics, see Jeremy Pressman, ‘September Statements, October Missiles, November Elections: Domestic Politics, Foreign Policy Making, and the Cuban Missile Crisis’, Security Studies 10/3 (2001), 80–114.

⁵¹ John F. Kennedy, ‘Statement on Cuba’, 4 September 1962. Kennedy personally read this statement to Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko on 18 October. W[ilson] C[enter Digital Archive], ‘Cable on the Conversation between Gromyko and Kennedy’, 18 October 1962.

⁵² The Soviet Union eventually did remove most of its troop presence from Cuba. That withdrawal owed more to the souring of relations with Castro than U.S. threats. For the 41,000 figure: Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy J. Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), 242.

⁵³ WC, ‘Gromyko to Kuznetsov and Zorin’, 5 November 1962; [U.S. State Department,] F[oreign] R[elations] of the U[nited] S[tates], 1961–1963, Volume XI, Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath] 103, ‘Tenth Meeting of the Executive Committee’, 28 October 1962; WC, ‘Khrushchev to Mikoyan’, 11 November 1962.

⁵⁴ It is, however, possible that the Kennedy’s Administration’s success at fostering an exaggerated narrative of American victory factored into this null effect.

⁵⁵ [The National Security Archive at] G[eorge] W[ashington University]. ‘Smith to Taylor’, 14 November 1962.

⁵⁶ J[ohn] F. K[ennedy Presidential Library], National Security Files, Box 338, Walt Rostow, ‘Proposed Presidential Statement on Cuban Policy’.

⁵⁷ Even after removing background noise with the software Audacity, I was not certain of my ability to recognize voices besides Kennedy’s from the poor-quality tape; hence the lack of specificity about advisors’ identities. Miller Center John F. Kennedy Presidential Recordings, ‘Drafting Meeting on the Cuba Press Statement’, 4 September 1962.

⁵⁸ FRUS 84, ‘Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State’, 26 October 1962.

⁵⁹ ‘Draft Meeting on the Cuba Press Statement.’

⁶⁰ JFK National Security Files, Box 338, Walt Rostow, ‘Memorandum to the President’, 3 September 1962.

⁶¹ Because the two statements are similar, I omit a full discussion. John F. Kennedy, ‘Press Statement’, 13 September 1962.

⁶² FRUS 18, ‘White House Meeting Transcript’, 16 October 1962.

⁶³ John F. Kennedy, ‘Address to the Nation’, 22 October 1962.

⁶⁴ Soviet Statement as of 11 September 1962. Accessed from www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/precrisis.htm. Source listed as: New York Times, 12 September 1962, 16.

⁶⁵ Max Frankel, ‘U.S. Is Prepared for Any Moves Against Its Bases by Russians’, New York Times, 22 October 1962.

⁶⁶ ‘Carter to McCone’, 11 September 1962 in Central Intelligence Agency, CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C., 1992).

⁶⁷ FRUS 26, John McCone, ‘Memorandum for Discussion [The Cuban Discussion]’, 17 October 1962.

⁶⁸ FRUS 28, John McCone, ‘Memorandum for the File’, 19 October 1962.

⁶⁹ FRUS 32, ‘SNIE 11–18-62: Soviet Reactions to Certain US Courses of Action on Cuba’, 19 October 1962.

⁷⁰ FRUS 42, ‘National Security Action Memorandum 196ʹ, 22 October 1962.

⁷¹ WC, ‘Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Presidium Protocol 60ʹ, 23 October 1962.

⁷² Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 232.

⁷³ In context, he could have said this merely to placate the Cubans. GW, ‘Memorandum of Conversation between Mikoyan, Castro, and Dorticos’, 22 November 1962. Also see Sergo A. Mikoyan, The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Missiles of November. Ed. Svetlana Savranskaya (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2012), 114.

⁷⁴ Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 196.

⁷⁵ Mikoyan, The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis, 101.

⁷⁶ On the use of covert, deniable actions to attempt to avoid escalation: Austin Carson, Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018).

⁷⁷ FRUS 84, ‘Khrushchev to Kennedy’, 26 October 1962.

⁷⁸ Associated Press, ‘Premier’s Letter Avoids Admitting U.S. Charges’, New York Times, 27 October 1962.

⁷⁹ FRUS 91, ‘Khrushchev to Kennedy’, 27 October 1962; Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 247.

⁸⁰ JFK Theodore C. Sorenson Papers, Box 48, Theodore Sorenson, ‘Fourth Draft of JFK’s Address to the Nation’, 21 October 1962.

⁸¹ He later changed his mind. FRUS 18, ‘White House Meeting Transcript’, 16 October 1962.

⁸² FRUS 38, ‘Minutes of the 506th Meeting of the National Security Council’, 21 October 1962.

⁸³ These domestic political motives have received extensive study and are not addressed here. Pressman, ‘September Statements, October Missiles, November Elections.’

⁸⁴ The National Security Advisor then interrupted. FRUS 21, ‘Off the Record Meeting on Cuba’, 16 October 1962.

⁸⁵ FRUS 41, ‘Minutes of the 507th Meeting of the National Security Council’, 22 October 1962.

⁸⁶ WC, ‘Dobrynin to Soviet Foreign Ministry’, 25 October 1962.

⁸⁷ WC, ‘Dobrynin to Soviet Foreign Ministry’, 23 October 1962.

⁸⁸ Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 240–248.

⁸⁹ Kennedy, ‘Address to the Nation.’

⁹⁰ ‘Text of Soviet Statement Challenging the U.S. Naval Quarantine of Cuba’, New York Times, 24 October 1962.

⁹¹ Kennedy, ‘Address to the Nation.’

⁹² GW, ‘Houser to Taylor’, 19 October 1962; GW, ‘Riley to the Deputy Secretary of Defense [“Rules of Engagement”]’, 22 October 1962.

⁹³ FRUS 70, John McCone, ‘Memorandum for the Files’, 25 October 1962; FRUS 76, ‘Hilsman to Rusk’, 25 October 1962.

⁹⁴ FRUS 73, ‘Fifth Meeting of the Executive Committee’, 25 October 1962; FRUS 79, ‘Sixth Meeting of the Executive Committee’, 26 October 1962; FRUS 97, ‘Ninth Meeting of the Executive Committee’, 27 October 1962; FRUS 70, John McCone, ‘Memorandum for the Files’, 25 October 1962.

⁹⁵ FRUS 18, ‘White House Meeting Transcript’, 16 October 1962; FRUS 54, ‘Smith to McCone [Soviet Challenge to the Quarantine]’, 23 October 1962.

⁹⁶ GW, Vadim Orlov, ‘Recollections’, 2002; GW, Soviet Northern Fleet Headquarters, ‘About Participation of Submarines ‘B-4’, ‘B-36’, ‘B-59’, ‘B-130’ of the 69th Submarine Brigade of the Northern Fleet in the Operation ‘Anadyr’ during the Period of October-December, 1962ʹ, December 1962.

⁹⁷ WC, ‘Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Presidium Protocol 60ʹ, 23 October 1962.

⁹⁸ WC, ‘Khrushchev to Kennedy’, 24 October 1962.

⁹⁹ Casey Sherman and Michael J. Tougias. Above and Beyond: John F. Kennedy and America’s Most Dangerous Cold War Spy Mission (New York: PublicAffairs, 2018), 169–170, 186–187.

¹⁰⁰ ‘Transcript of Conversation between President Kennedy and McNamara’, 27 October 1962 in Ted Widmer and Kennedy, Caroline, Listening In: The Secret White House Recordings of John F. Kennedy (London: Hachette UK, 2012). On another occasion, McNamara suggested that the U.S. declare a red line against shooting down U-2s after the first was shot down. Sherman and Tougias, Above and Beyond, 187.

¹⁰¹ General Services Administration, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Print Office, 1964).

¹⁰² Sherman and Tougias, Above and Beyond, 248.

¹⁰³ Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2010), 608. Also see Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 284.

¹⁰⁴ Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs (edited by Sergei Khrushchev) place less emphasis on the shootdown. Sergei N. Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Volume 3. Trans. George Shriver (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004), 338.

¹⁰⁵ FRUS 47, ‘Minutes of Meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council’, 23 October 1962.

¹⁰⁶ WC, ‘Knappstein to the German Foreign Ministry’, 24 October 1962.

¹⁰⁷ FRUS 94, ‘Eighth Meeting of the Executive Committee’, 27 October 1962.

¹⁰⁸ FRUS 97, ‘Ninth Meeting of the Executive Committee’, 27 October 1962.

¹⁰⁹ WC, ‘Dobrynin to the Soviet Foreign Ministry’, 27 October 1962.

¹¹⁰ Although Pyongyang pursued Soviet support for an invasion before the U.S. withdrawal, Stalin did not grant it. Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 382; Matray, ‘Dean Acheson’s Press Club Speech Reexamined.’

¹¹¹ I seek here to highlight neglected elements, not to rewrite the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis. U.S. brinkmanship contributed to the Soviet withdrawal, as did the Jupiter missiles concession.

¹¹² On the ineffectiveness of such airstrikes, see Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).

¹¹³ Julia Ioffe, ‘How Russia Saw the Red Line Crisis’, The Atlantic, 11 March 2016.

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Dan Altman

Dan Altman is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University. He studies issues of international security including territorial conquest, the fait accompli, red lines, deterrence, coercion, nuclear proliferation, and the causes of war. His research appears in International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Security Studies, and the Nonproliferation Review. He was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Belfer Center (Harvard Kennedy School), a postdoctoral fellow at the Dickey Center (Dartmouth), and a predoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (Stanford). He received his PhD in Political Science from MIT.