PS160 Force and Strategy, Fall 2008

Strategy, the Security Dilemma, and the Offense - Defense Balance

Author: Jeffrey W. Taliaferro

	Force and Strategy
	Outline
	Realism and Security Studies
	Core Assumptions of Realism
	Levels-of-Analysis: The International System
	International Systems
	Anarchic vs. Hierarchic Political Systems
	Anarchy and Contingency
	Historical Experience: IR Theories
	Historical Experience: IR Theories (cont.)
	Historical Experience: IR Theories (cont.)
	Historical Experience: IR Theories (cont.)
	Historical Experience: IR Theories (cont.)
	The Security Dilemma (SD)
	SD and Paths to Unintended Conflict
	Security Dilemma and Unintended International Conflict (cont.)
	Offense-Defense Theory
	Offense-Defense Balance
	Robert Jervis’s Four Worlds
	Scope of Offense-Defense Balance
	Perceived or Objective Balance?
	Van Evera's 10 Causal Paths
	Implications of Offense-Defense Theory