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International political outcomes are deeply shaped by the balance of power, but some military capabilities rely on secrecy to be effective. These “clandestine capabilities” pose problems for converting military advantages into political gains. If clandestine capabilities are revealed, adversaries may be able to take steps that attenuate the advantages they are supposed to provide. On the other hand, if these capabilities are not revealed, then adversaries will be unaware of, and unimpressed by, the real balance of power. Most of the existing literature emphasizes that states have few incentives to signal their clandestine capabilities. This conclusion deserves qualification: the condition of long-term peacetime competition can make signaling a profitable decision. Within this context, two important variables help determine whether a state will signal or conceal its secret capabilities: the uniqueness of the capability and the anticipated responsiveness of the adversary. An extended case study of Cold War strategic antisubmarine warfare confirms these predictions.

A density functional theory-based method is developed to describe the static and dynamic response of superfluid helium at finite temperatures. The model relies on the well-established 0 K Orsay–Trento functional, which has been extensively used to study the response of bulk superfluid helium as well as superfluid helium droplets. By including a phenomenological stochastic term in this model, it is possible to obtain thermodynamic equilibrium corresponding to a given temperature by propagating the system in imaginary time. The temperature dependence of thermodynamic quantities, such as the internal energy and entropy, is computed and is compared well with experimental reference data for the bulk liquid up to about 2 K, but begins to gradually deviate above that temperature. Inspection of pseudovorticity during real-time evolution of the system near 2 K reveals the presence of roton quasiparticles, which are suggested to be precursors for quantized vortex rings (Onsager’s ghosts), as well as weaker analogs of extended vortex loops.

In this discussion that took place at the 2017 University of Texas Private Equity conference, the moderator began by noting that since 2000, the fraction of the U.S. GDP produced by companies that are owned or controlled by global private equity firms has increased from 7% to 15%. What's more, today's PE firms have raised an estimated $1.5 trillion of capital that is now available for investing. And thanks in part to this abundance of capital, the prices of PE transactions have increased sharply, with EBITDA pricing multiples rising from about 8.8X in 2012 to 11.5X at the beginning of 2017. Partly as a consequence of such abundant capital and high transaction prices, the aggregate returns to U.S. private equity funds during this four‐year period have fallen below the returns to the stockholders of U.S. public companies. Nevertheless, the good news for private equity investors is that the best‐performing PE firms have continued their long history of outperforming the market. And the consistency of their performance goes a long way toward explaining why the overwhelming majority of the capital contributed by limited partners continues to be allocated to funds put together by these top‐tier PE firms. In this roundtable, a representative of one of these top‐tier firms joins the founder of a relatively new firm with a middle‐market focus in discussing the core competencies and approaches that have enabled the best PE firms to increase the productivity and value of their portfolio companies. Effective financial management—the ability to manage leveraged capital structures and the process of readying their companies for sale to potential strategic or financial investors—is clearly part of the story. But more fundamental and critical to their success has been their ability to find undervalued or undermanaged assets—and either retain or recruit operating managements that, when effectively monitored and motivated, are able to realize the potential value of those assets through changes in strategy and increases in operating efficiency.

What do nuclear weapons mean for the stability of the military balance? Mutually assured destruction (MAD) describes a stalemated balance of power where nuclear adversaries possess survivable retaliatory capabilities that ensure neither side can escape devastation in an all-out nuclear war. Moreover, the strong form of this empirical claim, which one might term “deep MAD,” is that mutual vulnerability is an inalterable and unchangeable condition. Drawing from recently declassified primary sources, we test several of deep MAD's premises and predictions on one of its foundational cases: Soviet nuclear policy during the second half of the Cold War. We find that Soviet leaders remained seriously concerned about the nuclear balance even in an allegedly deep-MAD environment where warheads numbered in the tens of thousands. Indeed, Soviet leaders were uncertain that they could indefinitely maintain a secure second strike despite strenuous efforts. The reason for these discrepancies, we argue, is that the...

How do you credibly communicate a threat that you cannot reveal? This problem is endemic for modern space and cyberspace capabilities, but the challenge of secrecy constraints in cross-domain deterrence is not a new phenomenon. During the late Cold War, nuclear forces deterred conventional attack, theater nuclear forces deterred strategic nuclear escalation, and conventional threats to nuclear capabilities deterred conventional attack. Some of these capabilities, particularly intelligence collection and electronic datalinks, depended on sensitive tactics and technologies that could not be revealed lest the enemy develop effective countermeasures. Secrecy created uncertainty about the true balance of power, which should have made conflict more likely, according to rationalist theory. This chapter shows, however, that the United States was able to use several mechanisms to communicate its capabilities to the Soviet Union without thoroughly compromising the ability to use them. Leveraging historical evidence from senior Soviet leadership, the chapter argues that U.S. nuclear counterforce strategy, which leveraged clandestine capabilities in many domains, nevertheless was effective in shaping Soviet perceptions and influencing Soviet policy.

The conclusion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan at the end of 2014 has generated substantial uncertainty about the duration and level of international commitment to Afghanistan. The fate of local allies of international forces is therefore deeply in doubt. This article is of necessity speculative rather than empirical, but it attempts to draw on the history of previous intervention in Afghanistan as well as more general patterns of local and external alliance to sketch plausible scenarios for the fate of local allies. It proceeds in four parts. First, it draws distinctions between different types of local allies in Afghanistan based on position and relationship to the Afghan state and an external actor. Second, it examines the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan for relevant lessons for the fate of local allies. Third, it presents a scenario based on the foregoing that assumes there will be an ongoing small but significant international military presence ...

Counter insurgency has been a major component of warfare for more than half a century yet Western strategies and doctrines have scarcely advanced. While this could indicate convergence on a successful formula, the lack of success in western counter insurgency campaigns from Algeria and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan suggests the opposite. This chapter reviews the history and current state of counter insurgency in both theory and practice. It traces the evolution of counter insurgency from colonial policing through the Cold War and the resurgence of counter insurgency after the attacks of September 11, 2001. It concludes with observations on the limit of counter insurgency in the twenty-first century.

Testimony presented before the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade on June 21, 2018.

What is the relationship between oil and coercion? For decades states have worried that their dependence on oil gives producers a potential lever of coercion. The size, integration, and sophistication of the current oil market, however, are thought to have greatly attenuated, if not eliminated, the coercive potential of oil. The best way to analyze the current global oil market is by viewing it as a series of distinct market segments, from upstream production to midstream transport to downstream refining, with the potential for coercion varying across them. Oil-producing states do not have the greatest coercive potential in the international oil market. Instead, the United States remains the dominant presence, though its dominance has shifted from production—where it resided prior to World War II—to the maritime environment. These findings are significant for scholars’ and policymakers’ understanding of the relationship between oil and coercion. More generally, they suggest that studies of the potential for states to coerce others using economic instruments should take into account differences in the structure of markets for different goods.

Secure second strike nuclear forces are frequently held to be easy to procure. Analysts have long argued that targeting intelligence against relocatable targets like submarine launched and land mobile ballistic missiles is difficult to obtain. However, the scholarly consensus on intelligence for counterforce operations is seriously overdrawn. Both during and after the Cold War, the United States developed substantial intelligence capabilities to track and target submarines and mobile missiles. These efforts achieved important and under-appreciated success. Second strike forces have been far more vulnerable than most analysts are willing to credit.

Most discussion to date about offensive cyber operations has focused on the theoretical and strategic rather than operational level of analysis. This mirrors the nuclear age, where critical operational questions were neglected in public discussion until very late in the Cold War. Yet these questions are critical for both nuclear and cyber operations so analysis that neglects them has little bearing on policy questions. An examination of the planning, targeting, and command and control aspects of offensive cyber operations in the U.S. context provides a starting for a more fruitful assessment of offensive cyber.

Targeting the leadership of terrorist and insurgent groups has become a major component of US strategy since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Despite attracting modest scholarly attention, the co...

NATO special operations forces (SOF) are at a crossroads as the NATO role in Afghanistan winds down. After more than a decade of development, NATO SOF have greatly increased their ability to operate together in the field and in headquarters. If the alliance continues to emphasize SOF development, these forces can play a major role in future NATO campaigns, particularly outside Europe. Moreover, SOF can be maintained effectively in times of austerity. Yet intelligence sharing, particularly in real time, is currently one of the major limitations on NATO SOF, creating divisions between United States and United Kingdom on one hand and much of the rest of NATO on the other. In order to make truly effective use of SOF the alliance needs to make fundamental changes to its decades old system for sharing intelligence.

From January 2011 to December 2012 there were more than 60 attacks by members of Afghan National Security Forces on members of the US and coalition forces, with more taking place in the last six mo...

Establishing an effective police force has eluded both the Afghan government and ISAF. Increasing the prominence of Islamic policing will complement current efforts to defeat the insurgency.

The contribution of the U.S. intelligence community (IC) to counterinsurgency operations past and present has gone largely underappreciated, in part because of the pervasive secrecy surrounding most of the IC's activities. A review of two recently declassified histories of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s provides insight into the historical contributions of these agencies to counterinsurgency efforts. This analysis provides a context for understanding available evidence relating to the two agencies' contributions to current counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The review concludes with intelligence policy recommendations.