Research

Research Agenda & Major Projects

My research addresses questions in international security and comparative political economy, with a focus on the domestic foundations of military power and international behavior.

Methodologically, I combine multilingual archival research with original cross-national datasets, with a regional focus on Japan and East Asia.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Do Tripwires Deter? How Small Forward Deployments Contribute to Extended Deterrence (with Samuel Leiter)

Forthcoming at Journal of Strategic Studies

Abstract: Forward-deployed tripwire forces are one tool used to enhance the credibility of security guarantees. Conventional wisdom holds that these vulnerable deployments improve deterrence by increasing the credibility of the sending state’s commitment to fight to defend the host, but recent scholarship has questioned their effectiveness. Critics argue that because tripwires lack capability and publics do not punish leaders who back down, they do not deter. After distinguishing tripwires from other forward deployments, we find in three case studies drawing on archival evidence that tripwires enhance credibility through the mechanisms of international reputation and brinkmanship.

American Arms and Industry in a Changing International Order. Defence Studies. 2024. With Rosella Cappella Zielinski, Frank Finelli, Isak Kulalic, and Mark Wilson. (link)

This paper argues that the U.S. defense industrial base has been optimized for peacetime efficiency and low-attrition conflicts since the end of the Cold War, privileging cost savings over capacity, flexibility, and resilience. The paper shows why the rise of China as a peer competitor and the demands of potential protracted conflict require a more intentional and direct U.S. role in shaping defense industrial capability and capacity.

Paying the Defense Bill: Financing American and Chinese Geostrategic Competition Texas National Security Review. 2023. With Rosella Cappella Zielinski. (link)

This paper examines domestic political constraints on defense spending in the United States and China, showing how institutional and political incentives shape military budgets beyond simple threat-based or regime-type explanations. The paper highlights how internal political tradeoffs condition states’ ability to sustain military investment over time. We warn that U.S. debt is becoming unsustainable, that therefore the U.S. needs to raise taxes to provide a more sustainable foundation for military power, but conclude that it likely will not. The paper draws on an original analysis of China’s official government budget data to argue that China’s tax-funded defense spending is more sustainable over the long-term.

Featured on the War on the Rocks Net Assessment Podcast (link)

Working Papers

Leaders and Legislators in the Design of National Security Organizations

[Revise & Resubmit]

Abstract: Leader authority to shape policy processes is constrained by the formal design of national security organizations, among the most important of which are national security councils (NSC). While most advanced democracies have an NSC, their design varies across states. Some, like the US and Japan, provide leaders with significant authority to shape the policy process. Others, like in Germany and Israel, limit leader authority. This variation confounds structural theories that predict convergence of organizational design and theories that assume leaders can freely shape institutions. I argue that leaders can reshape institutions only when they gain the support of legislators. Legislators typically prioritize oversight capacity and their own influence over foreign policy but will support leader initiatives when crisis management failures drive changes in their electoral incentives. Evidence from a novel dataset of NSCs in advanced democracies and three case studies supports this argument.

Industrial Mobilization for War: Conversion Distance, State-Business Relations, and Wartime Production

Abstract: Why do some states rapidly and efficiently mobilize industry to transform economic potential into material military power while others do not? This article develops a theory of mobilization capacity that explains variation in industrial mobilization with two mechanisms: conversion distance, the gap between peacetime economic output and wartime production needs, and embedded autonomy, the combination of insulated mobilization agencies and institutionalized information exchange with industry. When conversion distance is short, increasing military production is faster and less costly. When agencies exhibit embedded autonomy, states can develop sound mobilization policy and discipline firms. A most-similar comparison of Japan and Italy in World War II illustrates the argument. Despite comparable economic resources, regime type, and threat environments, Japan produced roughly four times as much military equipment as Italy between 1940 and 1943. These findings challenge materialist and institutional accounts of power generation, conceptualize industrial mobilization as essential to national power, and offer a framework for evaluating debates over industrial policy and great-power competition.

Order Maker, Taker, and Breaker: Renewing the IR-APD Research Tradition (with Matthew J. Conklin)

[under review]

Abstract: The rise of China has placed sustained pressure on U.S. economic and security interests and strained the post-Cold War international order. But China’s rise has produced an uneven U.S. response rather than coherent balancing. Why? Balance of power logic would predict a strategic overhaul: military reorientation toward the Asia-Pacific and a complementary economic policy. Instead, the U.S. has produced a policy bundle that seems to lack strategic coherence: an uneven, at best, military rebalance to Asia, ad hoc tariffs, fragmented export controls, and a halting revival of industrial policy. Drawing on the International Relations-American Political Development (IR-APD) tradition, we argue that this policy bundle reflects the interaction between international pressure and historically constructed U.S. domestic institutional orders. An IR-APD framework shows how the United States responds as order maker, taker, and breaker: it competes within institutions built to sustain the U.S.-led international order, repurposes inherited authorities for competitive ends, and selectively undermines arrangements it once upheld. We illustrate our argument with brief cases addressing key policy domains–international economic, military, and domestic industrial policies–to show how U.S. balancing has emerged as a result of the interplay of international pressures and historically given institutions.

Allied Abandonment in WWII (with Rosella Cappella Zielinski, Ryan Grauer, and Jonathan Martin)

Datasets

Military Production Dataset

Annual output of major weapons systems by defense industrial powers in wartime.

National Security Council Dataset

Data on the formal design characteristics of NSCs in 48 major democracies from 1945 to 2023.

Battlefield Coalitions Dataset

With Rosella Cappella Zielinski, Ryan Grauer, and Jonathan Martin.

Image Source: Eberhard Grossgasteiger