Matthew Kroenig
Biographic Data
| ID | 252207 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew Kroenig |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew |
| FAMILY NAME | Kroenig |
| SIGNATURE | KROENIG M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4834-0472 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 590 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Washington should pursue trilateral arms control
The expiration of New START has left the world without enforceable constraints on nuclear arsenals for the first time since the 1970s. Three developments define today’s environment: the collapse of bilateral US-Russia agreements, intensifying great power rivalry, and the emergence of China as a third nuclear superpower projected to reach 1,500 warheads by 2035. Together, these shifts render traditional bilateral arms control frameworks structural…
Ally Shoring
The New Makers of Modern Strategy
Why do open seafaring nations excel in great power rivalry? Reflections on Colin Gray’s contributions to geopolitical theory
As the world fell into the abyss of the coronavirus pandemic, exacerbating great-power tensions and geopolitical uncertainty, the international relations community lost a legendary scholar and stra
Pugnacious Presidents
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A STATE’S domestic political institutions and its behavior in international politics is a central subject in the study of political science. Democratic peace theorists have demonstrated that democratic states are less likely to engage in war with one another than pairs of autocratic states or dyads with one democratic and one autocratic state.1 Indeed, as Jack Levy has argued, “The absence of war between democracies comes…
The People’s Republic of China
This chapter analyzes the rise of China and the threat it poses to the United States and its allies. Some argue that we must begin to come to grips with what life will be like “when China rules the world.” Others maintain that the rise of China and decline of the United States could result in World War III. Fortunately, these predictions are much too dire. This chapter argues that a China led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is unlikely becom…
The Return of Great Power Rivalry
The United States of America has been the most powerful country in the world for over seventy years, but recently the U.S. National Security Strategy declared that the return of great power competition with Russia and China is the greatest threat to U.S. national security. Further, many analysts predict that America's autocratic rivals will have at least some success in disrupting-and, in the longer term, possibly even displacing-U.S. global lead…
Evaluating the Prague Agenda
The Return to the Pressure Track
During the 2016 United States presidential election campaign, Donald Trump promised to “renegotiate” the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal. The deal does not prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons and in some ways actually makes it easier for Iran to go nuclear in the future. The mere continuation of the current deal could undermine America’s interests in the Middle East and its global non-pro…
The Limits of Damage Limitation
Charles Glaser and Steve Fetter argue that the United States should not pursue a nuclear damage-limitation capability against China: U.S. nuclear superiority is impossible to maintain beyond the short term, and its pursuit will provide few benefits while incurring serious costs.1 In an extended arms race, however, we argue that U.S. damage-limitation capabilities are far more technically plausible than Glaser and Fetter conclude. Further, damage …
Social Scientific Analysis of Nuclear Weapons
Scholars interested in researching nuclear security are increasingly expressing the fear that the “important questions” have already been answered. At the same time, recent studies highlight the potential for major limitations on the ability to conduct casual inference on nuclear proliferation in particular, suggesting perhaps that we know much less than was previously believed. Although recognizing these challenges, this article argues that ther…
Reconceptualizing nuclear risks
According to a widespread conventional wisdom in the scholarly literature, the threat of nuclear weapons resides largely in the risk of accident, inadvertent use, and nuclear terrorism. In this article, we argue that this conventional wisdom is inconsistent with the increasing danger of nuclear use by leaders intentionally employing nuclear weapons as tools of statecraft. This article identifies the theoretical processes that could give rise to d…
Nukes with Numbers
Research on nuclear security has gone quantitative. Rapid growth in empirical approaches to the consequences of nuclear weapons in recent years promises to settle some controversies, even as it initiates or resurrects debates that may eventually be resolved with better estimates or data. The toolkit for studying nuclear security had long been bereft of quantitative approaches, undermining the virtuous cycle between theory and evidence. New data a…
Reaching Beyond the Ivory Tower
Many scholars are drawn to political science research with hopes that their ideas will influence important policy debates. Unfortunately, scholars who want to shape policy often do not design research appropriately or take advantage of available conditions and opportunities to advance their ideas. This article identifies the conditions under which ideas of academics—and nongovernment knowledge in general—are more likely to be considered by and in…
US nuclear weapons and non-proliferation
According to a widespread conventional wisdom, there is a link between US nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation and, therefore, in order to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to other states, the US government must first make changes to its own nuclear arsenal. This article challenges the notion that US nuclear posture has a significant bearing on the proliferation and non-proliferation behavior of other states. Contrary to the received wi…
D Printing the Bomb? The Nuclear Nonproliferation Challenge
3-D printing will make it easier for countries to acquire nuclear weapons, providing a way to print pieces of the nuclear jigsaw puzzle indigenously before anyone notices. The United States should lead an international effort to prevent this avenue to a cascade of nuclear weapons proliferation before it is too late
The History of Proliferation Optimism
Students of international politics known as ‘proliferation optimists’ argue that when it comes to the spread of nuclear weapons ‘more may be better’ because nuclear weapons deter great power war and produce greater levels of international stability. This essay provides a critique of proliferation optimism, challenging optimism’s conception of nuclear deterrence theory, its logical underpinnings, and its policy recommendations. It does this by con…
Forum
In the last issue of Survival, Matthew Kroenig proposed a new NATO strategy towards Russia. We invited American, European and Russian experts to react
Facing Reality
If Russia were to rerun its playbook from Ukraine against a NATO member, how would the West respond
Non-Proliferation Policy and Nuclear Postures
Outlier States
How should the United States deal with problematic countries, like Iran and North Korea, that support international terrorism and pursue weapons of mass destruction? In Outlier States: American Strategies to Change, Contain, or Engage Regimes, Robert S. Litwak of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars skillfully tackles this important question in his third of a trilogy of books on the subject. The work begins with an enlightening de…
Nuclear Posture, Nonproliferation Policy, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
What is the relationship between nuclear postures and nonproliferation policies and the spread of nuclear weapons? At first blush, this might appear to be an obvious question. After all, states go to great lengths—extending nuclear security guarantees to nonnuclear weapon states, forward-deploying nuclear weapons on the territory of allies, sizing their own nuclear arsenals with the proliferation decisions of other states in mind, supporting inte…
Force or Friendship? Explaining Great Power Nonproliferation Policy
Why do great powers take such different approaches to the issue of nuclear proliferation? Why do states oppose nuclear proliferation more vigorously in some cases than in others? In short, what explains great power nonproliferation policy? To answer these questions, this article tests two competing theories of nonproliferation policy. The first, political relationship theory, suggests that states oppose nuclear proliferation to their enemies but …
Nuclear Superiority and the Balance of Resolve
Scholars have long debated whether nuclear superiority or the balance of resolve shapes the probability of victory in nuclear crises, but they have not clearly articulated a mechanism linking superiority to victory, nor have they systematically analyzed the entire universe of empirical cases. Beginning from a nuclear brinkmanship theory framework, I develop a new theory of nuclear crisis outcomes, which links nuclear superiority to victory in nuc…
A Response to Desposato
Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy
In the wake of the Cold War, democracy has gained the status of a mantra. Yet there is no consensus about how to conceptualize and measure regimes such that meaningful comparisons can be made through time and across countries. In this prescriptive article, we argue for a new approach to conceptualization and measurement. We first review some of the weaknesses among traditional approaches. We then lay out our approach, which may be characterized a…
Importing the Bomb
Why do nuclear weapons spread? Using new data on sensitive nuclear transfers, this article analyzes the determinants of nuclear proliferation. The author first describes a simple logic of the technical and strategic advantages that potential nuclear proliferators can gain by importing nuclear materials and technology from more advanced nuclear states. The author then shows that sensitive nuclear transfers are an important determinant of nuclear p…
Exporting the Bomb
Why do states provide sensitive nuclear assistance to nonnuclear weapon states, contributing to the international spread of nuclear weapons? Using a new data set on sensitive nuclear transfers, this article analyzes the determinants of sensitive nuclear assistance. I first describe a simple logic of the differential effects of nuclear proliferation, which I use to generate hypotheses about the conditions under which states provide sensitive nucle…
Nuclear Superiority and the Balance of Resolve
Scholars have long debated whether nuclear superiority or the balance of resolve shapes the probability of victory in nuclear crises, but they have not clearly articulated a mechanism linking superiority to victory, nor have they systematically analyzed the entire universe of empirical cases. Beginning from a nuclear brinkmanship theory framework, I develop a new theory of nuclear crisis outcomes, which links nuclear superiority to victory in nuc…
A Strategic Approach to Nuclear Proliferation
Authors’ Note: We are grateful for generous financial support from the Department of Political Science at the University of California at San Diego, the Government Department at Georgetown University, the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and the Project on Managing the Atom and the International Security Program both at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Journal o…
Diversity, Conflict and Democracy
Does diversity endanger democracy? Ethnic composition is often thought to affect democracy by means of its influence on the probability of violent civil conflict. According to such thinking, more diverse societies are more prone to conflict, which in turn makes them less hospitable to democracy. How sound is this idea? This article tests it, performing quantitative analysis on data from the post-communist region. The study finds that conflict is …
Nukes with Numbers
Research on nuclear security has gone quantitative. Rapid growth in empirical approaches to the consequences of nuclear weapons in recent years promises to settle some controversies, even as it initiates or resurrects debates that may eventually be resolved with better estimates or data. The toolkit for studying nuclear security had long been bereft of quantitative approaches, undermining the virtuous cycle between theory and evidence. New data a…
Nuclear Posture, Nonproliferation Policy, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
What is the relationship between nuclear postures and nonproliferation policies and the spread of nuclear weapons? At first blush, this might appear to be an obvious question. After all, states go to great lengths—extending nuclear security guarantees to nonnuclear weapon states, forward-deploying nuclear weapons on the territory of allies, sizing their own nuclear arsenals with the proliferation decisions of other states in mind, supporting inte…
Force or Friendship? Explaining Great Power Nonproliferation Policy
Why do great powers take such different approaches to the issue of nuclear proliferation? Why do states oppose nuclear proliferation more vigorously in some cases than in others? In short, what explains great power nonproliferation policy? To answer these questions, this article tests two competing theories of nonproliferation policy. The first, political relationship theory, suggests that states oppose nuclear proliferation to their enemies but …
Facing Reality
If Russia were to rerun its playbook from Ukraine against a NATO member, how would the West respond
How to Deter Terrorism
Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
July 01 2010 Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Christoph Bluth, Christoph Bluth Christoph Bluth is Professor of International Studies at the University of Leeds. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Matthew Kroenig, Matthew Kroenig Matthew Kroenig is Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Rensse…
Taking Soft Power Seriously
The term soft power is entrenched in the theory and practice of American foreign policy, yet scholars have not yet developed, or empirically tested, a theory about the conditions under which governments can use soft power to their advantage—and that makes good policy hard to design. Drawing on research from the fields of communications, social psychology, and international relations theory, we develop a theory about the conditions under which sta…
The New Makers of Modern Strategy
Social Scientific Analysis of Nuclear Weapons
Scholars interested in researching nuclear security are increasingly expressing the fear that the “important questions” have already been answered. At the same time, recent studies highlight the potential for major limitations on the ability to conduct casual inference on nuclear proliferation in particular, suggesting perhaps that we know much less than was previously believed. Although recognizing these challenges, this article argues that ther…
Reaching Beyond the Ivory Tower
Many scholars are drawn to political science research with hopes that their ideas will influence important policy debates. Unfortunately, scholars who want to shape policy often do not design research appropriately or take advantage of available conditions and opportunities to advance their ideas. This article identifies the conditions under which ideas of academics—and nongovernment knowledge in general—are more likely to be considered by and in…
D Printing the Bomb? The Nuclear Nonproliferation Challenge
3-D printing will make it easier for countries to acquire nuclear weapons, providing a way to print pieces of the nuclear jigsaw puzzle indigenously before anyone notices. The United States should lead an international effort to prevent this avenue to a cascade of nuclear weapons proliferation before it is too late
The Return to the Pressure Track
During the 2016 United States presidential election campaign, Donald Trump promised to “renegotiate” the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal. The deal does not prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons and in some ways actually makes it easier for Iran to go nuclear in the future. The mere continuation of the current deal could undermine America’s interests in the Middle East and its global non-pro…
Reconceptualizing nuclear risks
According to a widespread conventional wisdom in the scholarly literature, the threat of nuclear weapons resides largely in the risk of accident, inadvertent use, and nuclear terrorism. In this article, we argue that this conventional wisdom is inconsistent with the increasing danger of nuclear use by leaders intentionally employing nuclear weapons as tools of statecraft. This article identifies the theoretical processes that could give rise to d…
US nuclear weapons and non-proliferation
According to a widespread conventional wisdom, there is a link between US nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation and, therefore, in order to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to other states, the US government must first make changes to its own nuclear arsenal. This article challenges the notion that US nuclear posture has a significant bearing on the proliferation and non-proliferation behavior of other states. Contrary to the received wi…
A Response to Desposato
War Makes the State, but Not as It Pleases
The shock of war is thought to be closely associated with the growth of the state, in the United States and elsewhere. Yet each proposal to significantly expand state power in the United States since September 11 has been resisted, restrained, or even rejected outright. This outcome—theoretically unexpected and contrary to conventional wisdom—is the result of enduring aspects of America's domestic political structure: the separation of powers at …
Why do open seafaring nations excel in great power rivalry? Reflections on Colin Gray’s contributions to geopolitical theory
As the world fell into the abyss of the coronavirus pandemic, exacerbating great-power tensions and geopolitical uncertainty, the international relations community lost a legendary scholar and stra
Pugnacious Presidents
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A STATE’S domestic political institutions and its behavior in international politics is a central subject in the study of political science. Democratic peace theorists have demonstrated that democratic states are less likely to engage in war with one another than pairs of autocratic states or dyads with one democratic and one autocratic state.1 Indeed, as Jack Levy has argued, “The absence of war between democracies comes…
The Limits of Damage Limitation
Charles Glaser and Steve Fetter argue that the United States should not pursue a nuclear damage-limitation capability against China: U.S. nuclear superiority is impossible to maintain beyond the short term, and its pursuit will provide few benefits while incurring serious costs.1 In an extended arms race, however, we argue that U.S. damage-limitation capabilities are far more technically plausible than Glaser and Fetter conclude. Further, damage …
Sticks and Straws
Diversity, Conflict and Democracy
Does diversity endanger democracy? Ethnic composition is often thought to affect democracy by means of its influence on the probability of violent civil conflict. According to such thinking, more diverse societies are more prone to conflict, which in turn makes them less hospitable to democracy. How sound is this idea? This article tests it, performing quantitative analysis on data from the post-communist region. The study finds that conflict is …
War Makes the State, but Not as It Pleases
The shock of war is thought to be closely associated with the growth of the state, in the United States and elsewhere. Yet each proposal to significantly expand state power in the United States since September 11 has been resisted, restrained, or even rejected outright. This outcome—theoretically unexpected and contrary to conventional wisdom—is the result of enduring aspects of America's domestic political structure: the separation of powers at …
The Handbook of National Legislatures
Where is the power? Students of politics have pondered this question, and social scientists have scrutinized formal political institutions and the distribution of power among agencies of the government and the state. But we still lack a rich bank of data measuring the power of specific governmental agencies, particularly national legislatures. This book assesses the strength of the national legislature of every country in the world with a populat…
A Strategic Approach to Nuclear Proliferation
Authors’ Note: We are grateful for generous financial support from the Department of Political Science at the University of California at San Diego, the Government Department at Georgetown University, the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and the Project on Managing the Atom and the International Security Program both at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Journal o…
Importing the Bomb
Why do nuclear weapons spread? Using new data on sensitive nuclear transfers, this article analyzes the determinants of nuclear proliferation. The author first describes a simple logic of the technical and strategic advantages that potential nuclear proliferators can gain by importing nuclear materials and technology from more advanced nuclear states. The author then shows that sensitive nuclear transfers are an important determinant of nuclear p…
Exporting the Bomb
Why do states provide sensitive nuclear assistance to nonnuclear weapon states, contributing to the international spread of nuclear weapons? Using a new data set on sensitive nuclear transfers, this article analyzes the determinants of sensitive nuclear assistance. I first describe a simple logic of the differential effects of nuclear proliferation, which I use to generate hypotheses about the conditions under which states provide sensitive nucle…
Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
July 01 2010 Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Christoph Bluth, Christoph Bluth Christoph Bluth is Professor of International Studies at the University of Leeds. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Matthew Kroenig, Matthew Kroenig Matthew Kroenig is Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Rensse…
Taking Soft Power Seriously
The term soft power is entrenched in the theory and practice of American foreign policy, yet scholars have not yet developed, or empirically tested, a theory about the conditions under which governments can use soft power to their advantage—and that makes good policy hard to design. Drawing on research from the fields of communications, social psychology, and international relations theory, we develop a theory about the conditions under which sta…
Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy
In the wake of the Cold War, democracy has gained the status of a mantra. Yet there is no consensus about how to conceptualize and measure regimes such that meaningful comparisons can be made through time and across countries. In this prescriptive article, we argue for a new approach to conceptualization and measurement. We first review some of the weaknesses among traditional approaches. We then lay out our approach, which may be characterized a…
A Response to Desposato
How to Deter Terrorism
Nuclear Superiority and the Balance of Resolve
Scholars have long debated whether nuclear superiority or the balance of resolve shapes the probability of victory in nuclear crises, but they have not clearly articulated a mechanism linking superiority to victory, nor have they systematically analyzed the entire universe of empirical cases. Beginning from a nuclear brinkmanship theory framework, I develop a new theory of nuclear crisis outcomes, which links nuclear superiority to victory in nuc…
Outlier States
How should the United States deal with problematic countries, like Iran and North Korea, that support international terrorism and pursue weapons of mass destruction? In Outlier States: American Strategies to Change, Contain, or Engage Regimes, Robert S. Litwak of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars skillfully tackles this important question in his third of a trilogy of books on the subject. The work begins with an enlightening de…
Nuclear Posture, Nonproliferation Policy, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
What is the relationship between nuclear postures and nonproliferation policies and the spread of nuclear weapons? At first blush, this might appear to be an obvious question. After all, states go to great lengths—extending nuclear security guarantees to nonnuclear weapon states, forward-deploying nuclear weapons on the territory of allies, sizing their own nuclear arsenals with the proliferation decisions of other states in mind, supporting inte…
Force or Friendship? Explaining Great Power Nonproliferation Policy
Why do great powers take such different approaches to the issue of nuclear proliferation? Why do states oppose nuclear proliferation more vigorously in some cases than in others? In short, what explains great power nonproliferation policy? To answer these questions, this article tests two competing theories of nonproliferation policy. The first, political relationship theory, suggests that states oppose nuclear proliferation to their enemies but …
D Printing the Bomb? The Nuclear Nonproliferation Challenge
3-D printing will make it easier for countries to acquire nuclear weapons, providing a way to print pieces of the nuclear jigsaw puzzle indigenously before anyone notices. The United States should lead an international effort to prevent this avenue to a cascade of nuclear weapons proliferation before it is too late
The History of Proliferation Optimism
Students of international politics known as ‘proliferation optimists’ argue that when it comes to the spread of nuclear weapons ‘more may be better’ because nuclear weapons deter great power war and produce greater levels of international stability. This essay provides a critique of proliferation optimism, challenging optimism’s conception of nuclear deterrence theory, its logical underpinnings, and its policy recommendations. It does this by con…
Forum
In the last issue of Survival, Matthew Kroenig proposed a new NATO strategy towards Russia. We invited American, European and Russian experts to react
Facing Reality
If Russia were to rerun its playbook from Ukraine against a NATO member, how would the West respond
Non-Proliferation Policy and Nuclear Postures
Reconceptualizing nuclear risks
According to a widespread conventional wisdom in the scholarly literature, the threat of nuclear weapons resides largely in the risk of accident, inadvertent use, and nuclear terrorism. In this article, we argue that this conventional wisdom is inconsistent with the increasing danger of nuclear use by leaders intentionally employing nuclear weapons as tools of statecraft. This article identifies the theoretical processes that could give rise to d…
Nukes with Numbers
Research on nuclear security has gone quantitative. Rapid growth in empirical approaches to the consequences of nuclear weapons in recent years promises to settle some controversies, even as it initiates or resurrects debates that may eventually be resolved with better estimates or data. The toolkit for studying nuclear security had long been bereft of quantitative approaches, undermining the virtuous cycle between theory and evidence. New data a…
Reaching Beyond the Ivory Tower
Many scholars are drawn to political science research with hopes that their ideas will influence important policy debates. Unfortunately, scholars who want to shape policy often do not design research appropriately or take advantage of available conditions and opportunities to advance their ideas. This article identifies the conditions under which ideas of academics—and nongovernment knowledge in general—are more likely to be considered by and in…
US nuclear weapons and non-proliferation
According to a widespread conventional wisdom, there is a link between US nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation and, therefore, in order to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to other states, the US government must first make changes to its own nuclear arsenal. This article challenges the notion that US nuclear posture has a significant bearing on the proliferation and non-proliferation behavior of other states. Contrary to the received wi…
Political science (31 works) · Law (25 works) · Law (18 works) · Politics (16 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (15 works) · Nuclear Issues and Defense (15 works) · Nuclear weapon (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Economics (14 works) · Political economy (11 works)