Publications

Iran hawks are already out in force denouncing the announced nuclear deal between the United States and Iran. They worry that it takes the military option off the table. But the reality is just the opposite – anyone who...

In a provocative sliver of a book, The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East, which was published before the “Arab Spring” upheavals, French scholar Olivier Ròy argues that three “traumas” mark the contemporary history of the Arab Middle...

Sarah Sunn Bush and Amaney A. Jamal, “Anti-Americanism, Authoritarian Politics, and Attitudes about Women’s Representation: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Jordan,” International Studies Quarterly (July 7, 2014).  Read the full article here....

Sarah Bush, Amaney Jamal, “Does Western Pressure for Gender Equality Help?” The Washington Post (July 30, 2014). Read the full article here....

Whether by burning a Jordanian fighter pilot alive, massacring Shiites or beheading American hostages, the self-declared Islamic State (IS) has an unprecedented knack for making enemies. IS has also inadvertently achieved what the United States never accomplished during more...

Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy under Jefferson, Polk, Truman, and Reagan by Henry R. Nau, Princeton University Press. What Good Is Grand Strategy?: Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush by Hal Brands,...

In These Pages We kick off the spring issue of Orbis with a very important article by Arthur Waldron, who contends that China’s adoption of a more forward policy militarily and a deeply revisionist approach diplomatically, especially since 2010,...

Abstract Scholars have sought to shoehorn American foreign policy into the distinctly European theories of liberalism, realism, or nationalism that are taught in International Relations courses. But America’s first grand strategy, as articulated in Washington’s Farewell Address in 1796,...

Abstract This article contends that takfiri jihadist groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Islamic State exhibit tendencies consistent with Jeffrey Kaplan’s fifth wave of terror theory. Beyond placing these groups within Kaplan’s framework, this essay also discusses...

Abstract Every few years, scholars and strategists rediscover the importance of geography. Interest in the terrestrial setting of international politics has grown again in the last few years, with classical geopolitics, in particular, receiving a fresh look from a...