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Texas National Security Review Texas T E R R A I TERRA INCOGNITA N C O G N I T A Volume 2 Issue 4 Volume Print: ISSN 2576-1021 Online: ISSN 2576-1153 MASTHEAD TABLE OF CONTENTS Staff: The Foundation Publisher: Executive Editor: Associate Editors: 04 Wars with Words? Ryan Evans Doyle Hodges, PhD Galen Jackson, PhD Francis J. Gavin Van Jackson, PhD Editor-in-Chief: Managing Editor: Stephen Tankel, PhD William Inboden, PhD Megan G. Oprea, PhD The Scholar Editorial Board: 10 More Significance than Value: Explaining Developments in the Sino-Japanese Contest Over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Chair, Editorial Board: Editor-in-Chief: Todd Hall Francis J. Gavin, PhD William Inboden, PhD 38 The Collapse Narrative: The United States, Mohammed Mossadegh, and the Coup Decision of 1953 Gregory Brew Robert J. Art, PhD Kelly M. Greenhill, PhD John Owen, PhD Richard Betts, PhD Beatrice Heuser, PhD Patrick Porter, PhD 60 The City Is Neutral: On Urban Warfare in the 21st Century John Bew, PhD Michael C. Horowitz, PhD Thomas Rid, PhD David Betz and Hugo Stanford-Tuck Nigel Biggar, PhD Richard H. Immerman, PhD Joshua Rovner, PhD Philip Bobbitt, JD, PhD Robert Jervis, PhD Brent E. Sasley, PhD Hal Brands, PhD Colin Kahl, PhD Elizabeth N. Saunders, PhD Joshua W. Busby, PhD Jonathan Kirshner, PhD Kori Schake, PhD The Strategist Robert Chesney, JD James Kraska, SJD Michael N. Schmitt, DLitt Eliot Cohen, PhD Stephen D. Krasner, PhD Jacob N. Shapiro, PhD 90 Thinking in Space: The Role of Geography in National Security Decision-Making Audrey Kurth Cronin, PhD Sarah Kreps, PhD Sandesh Sivakumaran, PhD Andrew Rhodes Theo Farrell, PhD Melvyn P. Leffler, PhD Sarah Snyder, PhD Peter D. Feaver, PhD Fredrik Logevall, PhD Bartholomew Sparrow, PhD 110 To Regain Policy Competence: The Software of American Public Problem-Solving Rosemary Foot, PhD, FBA Margaret MacMillan, CC, PhD Monica Duffy Toft, PhD Philip Zelikow Taylor Fravel, PhD Thomas G. Mahnken, PhD Marc Trachtenberg, PhD Sir Lawrence Freedman, PhD Rose McDermott, PhD René Värk, JD James Goldgeier, PhD Paul D. Miller, PhD Steven Weber, PhD Michael J. Green, PhD Vipin Narang, PhD Amy Zegart, PhD Correspondence 130 Contrasting Views on How to Code a Nuclear Crisis Policy and Strategy Advisory Board: Brendan Rittenhouse Green and Austin Long Mark Bell and Julia Macdonald Chair: Adm. William McRaven, Ret. Hon. Elliott Abrams, JD Hon. Kathleen Hicks, PhD Dan Runde The Roundtable Feature Stephen E. Biegun Hon. James Jeffrey David Shedd Hon. Brad Carson Paul Lettow, JD, PhD Hon. Kristen Silverberg, JD 142 No One Lost Turkey: Erdogan’s Foreign Policy Quest for Agency with Russia and Beyond Hon. Derek Chollet Hon. Michael Lumpkin Michael Singh, MBA Lisel Hintz Amb. Ryan Crocker Hon. William J. Lynn, JD Adm. James G. Stavridis, Ret., PhD Hon. Eric Edelman, PhD Kelly Magsamen Hon. Christine E. Wormuth Hon. John Hamre, PhD Gen. David Petraeus, Ret. Designed by We are Flint, printed by Linemark The Foundation Wars with Words? In his introductory essay for Vol. 2, Iss. 4, Francis J. Gavin, the chair of TNSR’s editorial board, discusses academic combat, debates over “isms,” and how to truly advance knowledge through intellectual exchange. hough we are loath to admit it, we unending, contentious debates over which “ism” Francis J. Gavin all enjoy a good academic fight. The best explained how the world worked. Like other recent passing of two noted, brilliant, young scholars, I followed these arguments with but problematic intellectual pugilists rapt attention, rooting for my “ism” with the —T the historian Norman Stone and literary critic same irrational passion I have long devoted to Harold Bloom — has made me wonder whether my often emotionally crippling attachment to the such battles are the best way to advance scholarly Philadelphia Eagles. This model of intellectual arguments and expand our understanding of the battle was how I thought scholarship and world.1 knowledge advanced. I was certainly trained in the arts of intellectual I no longer see things this way. The pursuit of combat. As an undergraduate, I had a front row wisdom is not about scoring points or attempting seat to what had been called “the great 3:1 pissing to defeat adversaries. Most of the issues we match,” an intense debate over whether NATO wrestle with in international security, foreign conventional forces could withstand an attack policy, and grand strategy are complex, contested, from larger Soviet forces, and how to assess the and difficult, defying parsimonious explanations military balance on the central front in Europe or generalizations. Most people — both in the (3:1 is the concentration of forces needed to break academy and in the policy world — explore these through a well-established front).2 Reading Greg issues in good faith. Brew’s new article, “The Collapse Narrative: The The correspondence in this issue of TNSR United States, Mohammed Mossadegh, and the between Mark Bell, Julia Macdonald, Brendan Coup Decision of 1953,” brought back memories Green, and Austin Long is, to my mind, an of my first academic clash. Twenty years ago, an exemplar of how such exchanges over scholarly article I published on the same issue received a differences should take place: in a serious but skeptical review at H-Diplo.3 I remember locking respectful manner. All four are terrific scholars. myself in my office for 48 hours, pulling out file And the fact is, the issue they are dealing with — after file of primary documents, and consulting how to define and understand a nuclear crisis — with friends and mentors, all in order to craft the is an epistemological nightmare. What is a nuclear right response.4 crisis? Is it any contest involving a nuclear armed In the academic world I was raised in, a state, which is how some political scientist have negative review had to be met — immediately coded it, or does the use of nuclear weapons have and with great force — with a sharp rejoinder. to be explicitly mentioned? Nuclear weapons have The pursuit of knowledge was often framed as perverse and puzzling effects on state behavior, a bitter contest between competing theoretical dampening crises that might have otherwise have schools, where no side could concede an inch to emerged (the Long Peace!) yet creating dangerous its opponents. The leading journal, International situations — like the Berlin Crisis and the Cuban Security, devoted scores of pages in the 1990s to Missile Crisis — that make no sense in a non- 1 Eric Homberger, “Harold Bloom, Obituary,” The Guardian, Oct. 15th, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/15/harold- bloom-obituary; Falstaff Agonistes, “Obituary: Harold Bloom Died on October 14th,” The Economist, Oct. 24, 2019, https://www.economist.com/ obituary/2019/10/24/obituary-harold-bloom-died-on-october-14th; Richard J. Evans, “Norman Stone Obituary,” The Guardian June 25, 2019, https:// www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/25/norman-stone-obituary; Marcus Williamson, “Norman Stone: Outspoken Historian and Writer Whose Work Polarised Academic Opinion,” Independent, July 1, 2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/norman-stone-death-obituary-news- historian-dead-a8974476.html. 2 While there were several competing articles published on the subject, the gist of the dispute can be found here: John J. Mearsheimer, Barry R. Posen, Eliot A. Cohen, “Correspondence: Reassessing Net Assessment” International Security 13, No. 4 (Spring 1989): 128–79, https://www.jstor.org/ stable/2538782. 3 Francis J. Gavin, “Politics, Power, and U.S. Policy in Iran, 1950-1953,” Journal of Cold War Studies 1, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 58–89, https://doi. org/10.1162/15203970152521890. 4 Francis J. Gavin, “Author’s Response,” H-Diplo, Oct. 8, 1999, https://issforum.org/reviews/PDF/Gavin-response.pdf. 5 The Foundation Wars with Words? nuclear world. And the bomb is always present, or interrogate the mental maps to understand connect knowledge to larger social purposes. hovering like a dark shadow over world politics, how space and geography affect international Perhaps the way our current academic system even when nuclear weapons appear irrelevant or policy and world politics. Borrowing from Ernest operates when it comes to studying foreign policy no one is talking about them. I’ve made the point May and Richard Neustadt’s famous Harvard and international security could use a similar elsewhere that coding anything involving nuclear Kennedy School class and book, Rhodes says helpful nudge. weapons is hard, since the “Ns” we really care we must learn to “think in space.” Jaehan Park I learned a lot sitting on the sidelines watching about are nine (the number of nuclear weapons makes the case that much of the international the great 3:1 pissing war. What I remember most states), two (the times atomic bombs have been relations theory that developed after World War as it unfolded in 1988 and 1989, however, was used in battle, both within days of each other in II was aspatial. Some of this had to do with the the strange allocation of intellectual resources. 1945), and, most importantly, zero (the number nuclear revolution, but much of it was driven Intense, passionate, and even intemperate clashes of thermonuclear wars). In the nuclear realm, by “emotional repugnance, as in the case of over the military balance in central Europe were certainty is elusive and most of our assertions Morgenthau, or of ‘physics envy,’ in the academy taking place just as the Cold War was ending and are historical interpretations. I am not sure I in general.” Systems analysis and game theoretic the Soviet Union unraveled. In just a few years, am convinced by either approach. Yet, all four models thus replaced traditional geopolitical the great pissing war would be forgotten, the term are to be commended for their efforts, as the models for understanding international relations.5 “Fulda Gap” would largely disappear, and the issues involved could not be more important.

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