the-evolution-of-international-security-studies

90 strategic studies, deterrence and the cold warapplied these to states. Structural Realism as well as Strategic Studies morebroadly lent itself to quantitative studies of large data-sets, a methodologyaided by the introduction of computers in the 1950s and 1960s,as well as to comparative case-studies which became the norm in theinfluential journal International Security published from 1976. Game theoryconstituted yet another form of scientific scholarship based not onthe correlates deduced from data-sets or historical case-studies, but onthe running through of different scenarios and mathematical equationsbuilt around different actor assumptions and the prospects for conflict orcooperation. The fact that no nuclear exchanges took place, and hence didnot generate quantifiable data, made game theory particularly suited forthe development of deterrence theory. As game theory evolved during the1950s and 1960s it was also greatly aided – and in fact spurred – by theconstruction of computers powerful enough to run games through alarge number of cycles (Edwards, 1996). One should note, though, that alarge part of what was written on international security did not evoke hightheory or complicated deductive or quantitative techniques but came inthe form of rather straightforward empiricist scholarship with contemporaryhistory and policy problem-solving as the principal framings.The passions for ‘scientific’ method were mainly, though as we shallshow in the next chapter not exclusively, American. In Europe, thoughagain not exclusively, there was more support for historical and normativeapproaches. This epistemological clash was represented by the famousexchange between Hedley Bull (1966), who defended ‘traditional’ methodsand was sceptical about scientific ones, and Morton Kaplan (1966)who defended the behavioural move. In the event, however, it was normativedifferences that were the most prominent dividing feature of thediscourse about nuclear weapons and, as with the methodological divide,this largely resulted in the formation of two sides shouting past each other(the opposition to Strategic Studies is surveyed in the next chapter). Ingeneral the two sides stuck to their positions, though in the self-reflectionson the state of the field (Bull, 1968; Gray, 1977, 1982a, 1982b; Booth, 1979;Howard, 1979; Freedman, 1984b) that were a staple of the Strategic Studiesliterature, there was some attempt to address the normative critiquesof Strategic Studies from Peace Research.Although dominated by American scholars, Strategic Studies was byno means an exclusively US field. Some innovative thinking was done inEurope, perhaps most notably Hedley Bull’s (1961) path-breaking workon arms control. British and French military thinkers made some impacton both deterrence theory generally, and on the more self-interested topics