Layne - Fall 2012 - Bush School of Government and Public Service

Robert G. Kaufman, “To Balance or Bandwagon? Alignment Decisions in the 1930s,” Security
Studies, 1:3 (Spring 1992), pp. 417-447.
Randall Schweller, “Unanswered Threats: A Neoclassical Realist Theory of Underbalancing,”
International Security, 29:2 (Fall 1994), pp. 159-201.
Glenn Snyder, “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics,” World Politics, 36:4 (July 1984), pp.
461-495.
Grand Strategic Options - Buck-Passing
and Offshore Balancing
John Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pp. 234-267.
Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present,
pp. 16-23, 159-192.
Week 6 (1 October)
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY
Geography and Grand Strategy:
Sir Halford Mackinder, “The Geographic Pivot of History,” The Geographical Journal, 22:4
(April 1904), pp. 421-437.
Paul Kennedy, “Mahan vs. Mackinder” in Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval
Mastery, pp. 177-204.
Colin Gray, “In Defence of the Heartland: Sir Halford Mackinder and His Critics a Hundred Years
On,” Comparative Strategy, 23:1 (January-March 2004), pp. 9-25.
Christopher Fettweis, “Sir Halford Mackinder, Geopolitics, and Policymaking in the 21 st
Century,” Parameters (Summer 2000), pp.
58-71.
Robert J. Art, “The United States, The Balance of Power, and World War II: Was Spykman
Right?” Security Studies, 14:3 (2005), pp. 365–406.
Naval Power
Beatrice Heuser, The Evolution of Strategy, Chapters 8-11
Air Power and Nuclear Weapons
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