Jacqueline L. Hazelton

A Message from the Executive Editor of International Security

by Jacqueline L. Hazelton | 2 December, 2022 | Publications

I write to you as the new executive editor of International Security, the first woman to hold this position. I am taking the opportunity graciously provided by the Duck of Minerva team to introduce myself to you. I also want to thank my most recent predecessors, Sebastian Rosato (pro tem), Morgan Kaplan, and Sean Lynn-Jones – himself an institution -- for their contribution to the continued excellence of International Security and for their help and support over the past six months. International Security is known for its outstanding record as a leading security studies journal. It is also...

Getting Counterinsurgency Wrong

by Jacqueline L. Hazelton | 15 July, 2021 | Featured, Security

I just published a piece in Foreign Affairs, which draws on my new book, Bullets Not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare. After two decades, the United States is finally leaving Afghanistan, and only 2,500 U.S. troops remain in Iraq. In both countries, the insurgencies continue. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. In both wars, Washington hoped that imposing democratic reforms could protect the population, win hearts and minds, and defeat the insurgency. The approach didn't fail, I argue, because civilian and government officials botched its implementation. It was inherently...

I’m So Bored With the USA

by Jacqueline L. Hazelton | 25 December, 2018 | Security, US Foreign Policy

The United States is the safest country in the world. It has vast ocean moats to the east and west and weak friendly neighbors to the north and south. It has sufficient resources to shun global trade should it so choose. It is also the wealthiest and strongest country the world has ever seen. The heaviest foreign policy costs it has paid in the 20th and 21st centuries have come from self-inflicted wounds. The war in Vietnam. The war on Afghanistan. The war on Iraq. Those have had terribly high human, economic, resources, moral, and opportunity costs. Each of those wars was a choice made by...

Big Goals and Small Adversaries: Why Grand Strategy Matters

by Jacqueline L. Hazelton | 4 December, 2018 | Security, US Foreign Policy

The United States is closing in on the 18th anniversary of its first wartime death in Afghanistan, that of CIA operative Mike Spann, providing a melancholy opportunity to emphasize the role of grand strategy as a policymaking tool. To this end, I ask why the United States has done relatively poorly in so many of its so-called small wars, wars against much weaker adversaries. Its poor record is surprising because the United States has done so well in its major wars, including the world wars, the Korean War, and the Cold War. Some of the United States’ smaller wars have gone as planned. The...

The Duck of Minerva