Brandon Valeriano
Biographic Data
| ID | 258634 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brandon Valeriano |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brandon |
| FAMILY NAME | Valeriano |
| SIGNATURE | VALERIANO B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Illinois Chicago |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3297-075X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 83 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
How cyber operations can reduce escalation pressures: Evidence from an experimental wargame study
Cyber operations ranging from deception and espionage to disruption and high-end degradation have become a central feature of modern statecraft in the digital age, yet we lack a clear understanding of how decision-makers employ and respond to cyber operations in times of crisis. Our research provides theoretical mechanisms and empirical evidence for understanding how decision-makers react to cyber triggers and utilize cyber responses during crise…
Cyber Peace: Charting a Path Toward a Sustainable, Stable, and Secure Cyberspace
The international community is too often focused on responding to the latest cyber-attack instead of addressing the reality of pervasive and persistent cyber conflict. From ransomware against the city government of Baltimore to state-sponsored campaigns targeting electrical grids in Ukraine and the U.S., we seem to have relatively little bandwidth left over to ask what we can hope for in terms of 'peace' on the Internet, and how to get there. It'…
Fancy bears and digital trolls: Cyber strategy with a Russian twist
Benjamin Jensenab*, Brandon Valerianob & Ryan Manessca Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA, USAb School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC, USAc Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, USABenjamin Jensen, Ph.D., holds a dual appointment as an associate professor at Marine Corps University and as a scholar-in-residence at American University, School of International Service. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at t…
Complex Terrain: Megacities and the Changing Character of Urban Operations
This edited volume, composed by military professionals in the Gray Scholars Program at Marine Corps University, describes the changing character of urban operations. The pattern of human settlement and interaction is changing and the future is urban. Because the majority of the world's population lives within cities, the future of strategic competition and conflict reside there as well. The density and connectivity of urban environments create a …
Cyber Strategy: The Evolving Character of Power and Coercion
This book examines how states integrate cyber capabilities with other instruments of power to achieve foreign policy outcomes. Given North Korea’s use of cyber intrusions to threaten the international community and extort funds for its elites, Chinese espionage and the theft of government records through the Office of Personal Management (OPM) hack, and the Russian hack on the 2016 US election, this book is a timely contribution to debates about …
How We Stopped Worrying about Cyber Doom and Started Collecting Data
Moderate and measured takes on cyber security threats are swamped by the recent flood of research and policy positions in the cyber research field offering hyperbolic perspectives based on limited observations. This skewed perspective suggests constant cyber disasters that are confronting humanity constantly. The general tone of the debate argues that cyber war is already upon us and our future will only witness more cyber doom. However, these hy…
Who Are the Enemies? The Visual Framing of Enemies in Digital Games
Digital games are among the most popular forms of entertainment media. Despite their ubiquity, the fields of political science, International Relations, and political communication have generally overlooked the study of digital games. We take up this void by examining the international enemies depicted in combat games – specifically, first-person shooter (FPS) games – which can speak to the process in the construction of international threats in …
The Impact of Cyber Conflict on International Interactions
Analysts suggest that the rise of the cyber domain of combat has led to a revolution in military affairs and have greatly changed how society interacts with the Internet. The structure and content of interactions on the battlefield have supposedly changed in light of this development. In the rush to note the changing face of conflict, few scholars have actually examined the impact of cyber conflict on foreign policy relationships. Here we use wee…
Cyber War Versus Cyber Realities: Cyber Conflict in the International System
"In 2011, the United States government declared a cyber attack as equal to an act of war, punishable with conventional military means. Cyber operations, cyber crime, and other forms of cyber activities directed by one state against another are now considered part of the normal relations range of combat and conflict, and the rising fear of cyber conflict has brought about a reorientation of military affairs. What is the reality of this threat? Is …
Books by Our Readers
The book investigates the dynamics by which citizens embrace democratic rule and reject authoritarianism, compares these dynamics with those of consolidating democracies around the world. The book also discusses what it is about the nature of public opinion and the processes of day-to-day democratic participation that have made these countries vulnerable to repeated crises of legitimacy. Using Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand as case studies, this …
Russia's Coercive Diplomacy: Energy, Cyber, and Maritime Policy as New Sources of Power
"Russia's Coercive Diplomacy offers a highly original exploration of Russia's uses of power as it exerts its influence in a post-Soviet era. Russia's place in the world as a powerful regional actor can no longer be denied, and this study focuses on how its developing sources of power are utilized in a modern context. Valeriano and Maness challenge assumptions about the ways in which power is exerted, exploring Russia's utilization of coercive dip…
Complex Interstate Rivals
The goal of this article is to engage the concept of rivalry, analyze its possible deficiencies, and empirically identify which groups of states make up what we call complex rivals . A complex rivalry is defined as a group of at least three states whose relationships are linked by common issues, alignments, or dispute joiner dynamics in which there is a threat of militarized conflict and includes persistent long-term interactions and collective a…
The dynamics of cyber conflict between rival antagonists, 2001-11
Much discussion of the concept of cyberwar, cyber conflict, and the changing dynamic of future security interactions is founded upon the study of what could be, conjured through spectacular flights of the imagination. The goal of this research article is to exhaustively collect information on cyber interactions between rival states in the last decade so that we can delineate the patterns of cyber conflict as reflected by evidence at the internati…
Becoming Rivals: The Process of Interstate Rivalry Development
Rivalries are a fundamental aspect of all international interactions. The concept of rivalry suggests that historic animosity may be the most fundamental variable in explaining and understanding why states commit international violence against each other. By understanding the historic factors behind the emergence of rivalry, the strategies employed by states to deal with potential threats, and the issues endemic to enemies, this book seeks to und…
Latino assimilation, divided loyalties and the World Cup
The tendency for Latinos in the USA to support Mexican (or other national) soccer teams is taken as a problematic signal that Latinos are not assimilating into mainstream US society. The question of cultural assimilation and identity is critical to the ongoing debate regarding immigration and the influx of Latinos in the USA. Many argue that the Latino population differs from past immigrant populations because the new group is not assimilating in…
Hollywood’s Representations of the Sino-Tibetan Conflict: Politics, Culture, and Globalization
Using film as a lens though which we can witness the global transformations in politics, economy, culture, and communication, this book analyzes Hollywood's shift in its depictions of China and Tibet.
Hollywood's Representations of the Sino-Tibetan Conflict: Politics, Culture, and Globalization
Political Messages and Cultural Realities: Modern China and Tibet in the Hollywood Image
Modern Western views of Tibet tend to be constructed through a complicated interaction between the media, Tibetan exiles, celebrity activists, and resurgent Buddhism to form a power collective of what is considered to be the Free Tibet movement. Of particular interest is the exclusion of anyone who actually lives in Tibet from this interaction. Images of Tibet are created through the diaspora movement and mythical films rather than realistic port…
Accuracy versus Propaganda in Hollywood Cinema: False Depictions of China, Tibet, and Their Protracted Conflict
Hollywood movies such as Kundun, Seven Years in Tibet , and Red Corner reveal partial truths about China and Tibet. Most importantly, these films, and others of the sort, reveal much more about the makers of the films and audience receiving them than they do regarding the subject. The mingling of fiction and fact in cinematic art produces a distorted reality; fiction is represented as fact and facts are represented as fiction. The three remarkabl…
When States Die: Geographic and territorial pathways to state death
State death, understood as the formal loss of control over foreign policy, is an important but neglected issue in the international relations literature. When do states die and why? How do states exit the system? The consequences of state death can be wide-ranging, from forced migration movements, regional instability, to general famine. Despite these severe consequences, political scientists have yet to adequately study the causes of state death…
Power Politics and Interstate War in Africa
The steps-to-war theory suggests that power politics strategies, such as alliance formation, military buildups, hardliner domestic actors, and aggressive crisis bargaining, often have the unintended consequence of escalating a crisis to war. The theory has gathered extensive empirical support in large-N studies, but only a handful of studies have examined the expectations of the theory as applied to specific regions. This paper questions if the s…
Classification of Interstate Wars
One of the recent lessons suggested by the scientific study of war is that different wars have different causes. Related to this lesson is the belief that war is multicausal and that there are different paths to war. Both these claims imply the need to create a typology of war and set the domain of various explanations of war. This article constructs a scientific typology and classifies all interstate wars from 1816 through 1997. Wars are classif…
United States–Mexico: The Convergence of Public Policy Views in the Post‐9/11 World
This article explores the state of public policy preferences between the United States and Mexico in the realm of foreign policy in the context of the post‐9/11 world, democratic change within Mexico, and the immigration protests within the United States. Specifically, we will analyze the differences and possible convergence of public policy views on the issues of terrorism, immigration, free trade agreements, drug trafficking, and foreign policy…
Identifying and Classifying Complex Interstate Wars: Complex Interstate Wars
This article takes a closer look at multiparty wars in the modern state system. Because wars are different, a classification system of interstate wars is useful for theoretical concerns and empirical testing. We label multiparty wars “complex” because we believe that the processes that bring them about are much more complicated and difficult to understand than dyadic wars. Complex wars are identified and classified on the basis of their size, the…
The Tragedy of Offensive Realism: Testing Aggressive Power Politics Models
Offensive realism is a theory of opportunistic state power maximization. States are said to always seek power so that they may dominate the international system and survive under conditions of anarchy. The theory of offensive realism is both descriptive in the sense that it suggests how states have acted in the past and prescriptive in that it suggests how states should conduct foreign policy. What remains is to empirically test the propositions …
Symposium on Replication in International Studies Research
The following symposium tackles an important debate in the field of international studies research and in social science research more broadly. Originating as presentations at the 2002 International Studies Association meetings in New Orleans, the following set of papers examines issues concerning the potential replication of research results from a number of different conceptual and technical perspectives. It also spans an array of journals and …
The dynamics of cyber conflict between rival antagonists, 2001-11
Much discussion of the concept of cyberwar, cyber conflict, and the changing dynamic of future security interactions is founded upon the study of what could be, conjured through spectacular flights of the imagination. The goal of this research article is to exhaustively collect information on cyber interactions between rival states in the last decade so that we can delineate the patterns of cyber conflict as reflected by evidence at the internati…
Classification of Interstate Wars
One of the recent lessons suggested by the scientific study of war is that different wars have different causes. Related to this lesson is the belief that war is multicausal and that there are different paths to war. Both these claims imply the need to create a typology of war and set the domain of various explanations of war. This article constructs a scientific typology and classifies all interstate wars from 1816 through 1997. Wars are classif…
Identifying and Classifying Complex Interstate Wars: Complex Interstate Wars
This article takes a closer look at multiparty wars in the modern state system. Because wars are different, a classification system of interstate wars is useful for theoretical concerns and empirical testing. We label multiparty wars “complex” because we believe that the processes that bring them about are much more complicated and difficult to understand than dyadic wars. Complex wars are identified and classified on the basis of their size, the…
Fancy bears and digital trolls: Cyber strategy with a Russian twist
Benjamin Jensenab*, Brandon Valerianob & Ryan Manessca Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA, USAb School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC, USAc Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, USABenjamin Jensen, Ph.D., holds a dual appointment as an associate professor at Marine Corps University and as a scholar-in-residence at American University, School of International Service. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at t…
The Impact of Cyber Conflict on International Interactions
Analysts suggest that the rise of the cyber domain of combat has led to a revolution in military affairs and have greatly changed how society interacts with the Internet. The structure and content of interactions on the battlefield have supposedly changed in light of this development. In the rush to note the changing face of conflict, few scholars have actually examined the impact of cyber conflict on foreign policy relationships. Here we use wee…
How cyber operations can reduce escalation pressures: Evidence from an experimental wargame study
Cyber operations ranging from deception and espionage to disruption and high-end degradation have become a central feature of modern statecraft in the digital age, yet we lack a clear understanding of how decision-makers employ and respond to cyber operations in times of crisis. Our research provides theoretical mechanisms and empirical evidence for understanding how decision-makers react to cyber triggers and utilize cyber responses during crise…
Who Are the Enemies? The Visual Framing of Enemies in Digital Games
Digital games are among the most popular forms of entertainment media. Despite their ubiquity, the fields of political science, International Relations, and political communication have generally overlooked the study of digital games. We take up this void by examining the international enemies depicted in combat games – specifically, first-person shooter (FPS) games – which can speak to the process in the construction of international threats in …
When States Die: Geographic and territorial pathways to state death
State death, understood as the formal loss of control over foreign policy, is an important but neglected issue in the international relations literature. When do states die and why? How do states exit the system? The consequences of state death can be wide-ranging, from forced migration movements, regional instability, to general famine. Despite these severe consequences, political scientists have yet to adequately study the causes of state death…
How We Stopped Worrying about Cyber Doom and Started Collecting Data
Moderate and measured takes on cyber security threats are swamped by the recent flood of research and policy positions in the cyber research field offering hyperbolic perspectives based on limited observations. This skewed perspective suggests constant cyber disasters that are confronting humanity constantly. The general tone of the debate argues that cyber war is already upon us and our future will only witness more cyber doom. However, these hy…
Complex Interstate Rivals
The goal of this article is to engage the concept of rivalry, analyze its possible deficiencies, and empirically identify which groups of states make up what we call complex rivals . A complex rivalry is defined as a group of at least three states whose relationships are linked by common issues, alignments, or dispute joiner dynamics in which there is a threat of militarized conflict and includes persistent long-term interactions and collective a…
The Tragedy of Offensive Realism: Testing Aggressive Power Politics Models
Offensive realism is a theory of opportunistic state power maximization. States are said to always seek power so that they may dominate the international system and survive under conditions of anarchy. The theory of offensive realism is both descriptive in the sense that it suggests how states have acted in the past and prescriptive in that it suggests how states should conduct foreign policy. What remains is to empirically test the propositions …
Latino assimilation, divided loyalties and the World Cup
The tendency for Latinos in the USA to support Mexican (or other national) soccer teams is taken as a problematic signal that Latinos are not assimilating into mainstream US society. The question of cultural assimilation and identity is critical to the ongoing debate regarding immigration and the influx of Latinos in the USA. Many argue that the Latino population differs from past immigrant populations because the new group is not assimilating in…
Symposium on Replication in International Studies Research
The following symposium tackles an important debate in the field of international studies research and in social science research more broadly. Originating as presentations at the 2002 International Studies Association meetings in New Orleans, the following set of papers examines issues concerning the potential replication of research results from a number of different conceptual and technical perspectives. It also spans an array of journals and …
Scare Tactics: The Politics of International Rivalry
Scare Tactics: The Politics of International Rivalry. By Michael P. Colaresi. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005. 232p. $34.95. The emerging research program of international rivalries is an important branch of study within the international relations subfield. Rather than focus on rare events such as war, this research program seeks to understand the dynamics at work for what many scholars perceive to be the most dangerous pairs of in…
The Lack of Diverse Perspectives in the International Relations Field: The Politics of Being Alone
What does it feel like to be alone intellectually? The perspectives of minorities in the International Relations field are often ignored and disrespected. This article discusses the viewpoints minorities can add to the field and how their perspectives can aid research and theory development. The challenges and intellectual hardships of those from the underrepresented classes are difficult to understand and this article provides an overview for su…
The Tragedy of Offensive Realism: Testing Aggressive Power Politics Models
Offensive realism is a theory of opportunistic state power maximization. States are said to always seek power so that they may dominate the international system and survive under conditions of anarchy. The theory of offensive realism is both descriptive in the sense that it suggests how states have acted in the past and prescriptive in that it suggests how states should conduct foreign policy. What remains is to empirically test the propositions …
Classification of Interstate Wars
One of the recent lessons suggested by the scientific study of war is that different wars have different causes. Related to this lesson is the belief that war is multicausal and that there are different paths to war. Both these claims imply the need to create a typology of war and set the domain of various explanations of war. This article constructs a scientific typology and classifies all interstate wars from 1816 through 1997. Wars are classif…
United States–Mexico: The Convergence of Public Policy Views in the Post‐9/11 World
This article explores the state of public policy preferences between the United States and Mexico in the realm of foreign policy in the context of the post‐9/11 world, democratic change within Mexico, and the immigration protests within the United States. Specifically, we will analyze the differences and possible convergence of public policy views on the issues of terrorism, immigration, free trade agreements, drug trafficking, and foreign policy…
Identifying and Classifying Complex Interstate Wars: Complex Interstate Wars
This article takes a closer look at multiparty wars in the modern state system. Because wars are different, a classification system of interstate wars is useful for theoretical concerns and empirical testing. We label multiparty wars “complex” because we believe that the processes that bring them about are much more complicated and difficult to understand than dyadic wars. Complex wars are identified and classified on the basis of their size, the…
Power Politics and Interstate War in Africa
The steps-to-war theory suggests that power politics strategies, such as alliance formation, military buildups, hardliner domestic actors, and aggressive crisis bargaining, often have the unintended consequence of escalating a crisis to war. The theory has gathered extensive empirical support in large-N studies, but only a handful of studies have examined the expectations of the theory as applied to specific regions. This paper questions if the s…
Hollywood’s Representations of the Sino-Tibetan Conflict: Politics, Culture, and Globalization
Using film as a lens though which we can witness the global transformations in politics, economy, culture, and communication, this book analyzes Hollywood's shift in its depictions of China and Tibet.
Hollywood's Representations of the Sino-Tibetan Conflict: Politics, Culture, and Globalization
Political Messages and Cultural Realities: Modern China and Tibet in the Hollywood Image
Modern Western views of Tibet tend to be constructed through a complicated interaction between the media, Tibetan exiles, celebrity activists, and resurgent Buddhism to form a power collective of what is considered to be the Free Tibet movement. Of particular interest is the exclusion of anyone who actually lives in Tibet from this interaction. Images of Tibet are created through the diaspora movement and mythical films rather than realistic port…
Accuracy versus Propaganda in Hollywood Cinema: False Depictions of China, Tibet, and Their Protracted Conflict
Hollywood movies such as Kundun, Seven Years in Tibet , and Red Corner reveal partial truths about China and Tibet. Most importantly, these films, and others of the sort, reveal much more about the makers of the films and audience receiving them than they do regarding the subject. The mingling of fiction and fact in cinematic art produces a distorted reality; fiction is represented as fact and facts are represented as fiction. The three remarkabl…
When States Die: Geographic and territorial pathways to state death
State death, understood as the formal loss of control over foreign policy, is an important but neglected issue in the international relations literature. When do states die and why? How do states exit the system? The consequences of state death can be wide-ranging, from forced migration movements, regional instability, to general famine. Despite these severe consequences, political scientists have yet to adequately study the causes of state death…
Becoming Rivals: The Process of Interstate Rivalry Development
Rivalries are a fundamental aspect of all international interactions. The concept of rivalry suggests that historic animosity may be the most fundamental variable in explaining and understanding why states commit international violence against each other. By understanding the historic factors behind the emergence of rivalry, the strategies employed by states to deal with potential threats, and the issues endemic to enemies, this book seeks to und…
Latino assimilation, divided loyalties and the World Cup
The tendency for Latinos in the USA to support Mexican (or other national) soccer teams is taken as a problematic signal that Latinos are not assimilating into mainstream US society. The question of cultural assimilation and identity is critical to the ongoing debate regarding immigration and the influx of Latinos in the USA. Many argue that the Latino population differs from past immigrant populations because the new group is not assimilating in…
Russia's Coercive Diplomacy: Energy, Cyber, and Maritime Policy as New Sources of Power
"Russia's Coercive Diplomacy offers a highly original exploration of Russia's uses of power as it exerts its influence in a post-Soviet era. Russia's place in the world as a powerful regional actor can no longer be denied, and this study focuses on how its developing sources of power are utilized in a modern context. Valeriano and Maness challenge assumptions about the ways in which power is exerted, exploring Russia's utilization of coercive dip…
Complex Interstate Rivals
The goal of this article is to engage the concept of rivalry, analyze its possible deficiencies, and empirically identify which groups of states make up what we call complex rivals . A complex rivalry is defined as a group of at least three states whose relationships are linked by common issues, alignments, or dispute joiner dynamics in which there is a threat of militarized conflict and includes persistent long-term interactions and collective a…
The dynamics of cyber conflict between rival antagonists, 2001-11
Much discussion of the concept of cyberwar, cyber conflict, and the changing dynamic of future security interactions is founded upon the study of what could be, conjured through spectacular flights of the imagination. The goal of this research article is to exhaustively collect information on cyber interactions between rival states in the last decade so that we can delineate the patterns of cyber conflict as reflected by evidence at the internati…
Cyber War Versus Cyber Realities: Cyber Conflict in the International System
"In 2011, the United States government declared a cyber attack as equal to an act of war, punishable with conventional military means. Cyber operations, cyber crime, and other forms of cyber activities directed by one state against another are now considered part of the normal relations range of combat and conflict, and the rising fear of cyber conflict has brought about a reorientation of military affairs. What is the reality of this threat? Is …
Books by Our Readers
The book investigates the dynamics by which citizens embrace democratic rule and reject authoritarianism, compares these dynamics with those of consolidating democracies around the world. The book also discusses what it is about the nature of public opinion and the processes of day-to-day democratic participation that have made these countries vulnerable to repeated crises of legitimacy. Using Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand as case studies, this …
Who Are the Enemies? The Visual Framing of Enemies in Digital Games
Digital games are among the most popular forms of entertainment media. Despite their ubiquity, the fields of political science, International Relations, and political communication have generally overlooked the study of digital games. We take up this void by examining the international enemies depicted in combat games – specifically, first-person shooter (FPS) games – which can speak to the process in the construction of international threats in …
The Impact of Cyber Conflict on International Interactions
Analysts suggest that the rise of the cyber domain of combat has led to a revolution in military affairs and have greatly changed how society interacts with the Internet. The structure and content of interactions on the battlefield have supposedly changed in light of this development. In the rush to note the changing face of conflict, few scholars have actually examined the impact of cyber conflict on foreign policy relationships. Here we use wee…
Cyber Strategy: The Evolving Character of Power and Coercion
This book examines how states integrate cyber capabilities with other instruments of power to achieve foreign policy outcomes. Given North Korea’s use of cyber intrusions to threaten the international community and extort funds for its elites, Chinese espionage and the theft of government records through the Office of Personal Management (OPM) hack, and the Russian hack on the 2016 US election, this book is a timely contribution to debates about …
How We Stopped Worrying about Cyber Doom and Started Collecting Data
Moderate and measured takes on cyber security threats are swamped by the recent flood of research and policy positions in the cyber research field offering hyperbolic perspectives based on limited observations. This skewed perspective suggests constant cyber disasters that are confronting humanity constantly. The general tone of the debate argues that cyber war is already upon us and our future will only witness more cyber doom. However, these hy…
Fancy bears and digital trolls: Cyber strategy with a Russian twist
Benjamin Jensenab*, Brandon Valerianob & Ryan Manessca Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA, USAb School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC, USAc Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, USABenjamin Jensen, Ph.D., holds a dual appointment as an associate professor at Marine Corps University and as a scholar-in-residence at American University, School of International Service. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at t…
Political science (25 works) · Law (20 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Politics (17 works) · Computer Science (15 works) · Law (12 works) · Computer security (8 works) · Economics (8 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (8 works) · Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies (7 works)