Caitlin Talmadge
Biographic Data
| ID | 4134623 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Caitlin Talmadge |
| GIVEN NAMES | Caitlin |
| FAMILY NAME | Talmadge |
| SIGNATURE | TALMADGE C |
| AFFILIATIONS | George Washington University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 185 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Adversary Perceptions of Nuclear No-First-Use Pledges
The United States has repeatedly debated whether to adopt a nuclear no-first-use (NFU) pledge. Advocates for such a pledge emphasize its potential advantages, including strengthening crisis stability, decreasing hostility, and bolstering nonproliferation and arms control. But these benefits depend heavily on nuclear-armed adversaries finding a U.S. NFU pledge credible. A new theory based on the logic of costly signals and tested on evidence from …
The meaning of China’s nuclear modernization
Will China’s nuclear modernization threaten U.S. security? Will it destabilize East Asia, creating new strategic problems for U.S. allies and partners? And will it make conventional war more likely by giving China the confidence to act under the cover of advanced nuclear weapons? Despite the centrality of China in debates over contemporary strategy, there is no consensus answer to these questions. This article surveys U.S perspectives on the mean…
Then What? Assessing the Military Implications of Chinese Control of Taiwan
The military implications of Chinese control of Taiwan are understudied. Chinese control of Taiwan would likely improve the military balance in China's favor because of reunification's positive impact on Chinese submarine warfare and ocean surveillance capabilities. Basing Chinese submarine warfare assets on Taiwan would increase the vulnerability of U.S. surface forces to attack during a crisis, reduce the attrition rate of Chinese submarines du…
The Predictable Hazards of Unpredictability: Why Madman Behavior Doesn’t Work
President Trump has routinely touted the foreign policy benefits of unpredictability. As candidate Trump complained about the US administration in 2016, “We are totally predictable. We tell everyth
Emerging technologies and strategic stability in peacetime, crisis, and war
Recent commentary has sounded the alarm about the effects of emerging technologies on strategic stability, yet the topic has received relatively little systematic scholarly attention. Will emerging technologies such as cyber, autonomous weapons, additive manufacturing, hypersonic vehicles, and remote sensing make the world more dangerous? Or is pessimism unwarranted? In this volume, we leverage international relations scholarship, historical data…
Emerging technology and intra-war escalation risks: Evidence from the Cold War, implications for today
Will emerging technologies increase the risk of conflict escalation? This paper develops a framework for evaluating the role of technology in different types of intra-war escalation. It then uses the framework to probe empirically the possible role of technology in escalation through three carefully chosen cases from Cold War. The findings largely cast doubt on the idea of emerging technologies as an independent, primary driver of otherwise avoid…
Civil-military Pathologies and Defeat in War: Tests Using New Data
This article uses an original data set, the Wartime Civil-military Relations Data Set, to test arguments about the causes of victory and defeat in war. Our analysis provides strong initial support for the notion that civil-military relations powerfully shape state prospects for victory and defeat. Specifically, states whose militaries have a significant internal role or whose regimes engage in coup-proofing appear to have a substantially lower pr…
Would China Go Nuclear? Assessing the Risk of Chinese Nuclear Escalation in a Conventional War with the United States
Could a conventional war with the United States inadvertently prompt Chinese nuclear escalation? The military-technical threat that such a war would pose to China's retaliatory capability—combined with wartime perceptual dynamics that might cause China to view this threat in an especially pessimistic light—could lead to reasonable Chinese fears that the United States might be attempting conventional counterforce, or considering or preparing for n…
When War Helps Civil–military Relations: Prolonged Interstate Conflict and the Reduced Risk of Coups
Coups remain a widespread and consequential political phenomenon, but it remains unclear whether interstate conflict protects leaders from the risk of coups or increases this risk. We theorize that interstate conflict—especially when it is prolonged—should protect domestic regimes from military overthrow by foreclosing many of the key pathways by which elites plot and execute coups. We test this argument using event history modeling. The evidence…
Different Threats, Different Militaries: Explaining Organizational Practices in Authoritarian Armies
Why do some states generate competent, professional military organizations, while others fail to do so even when they have the required economic, demographic, and technological endowments? Variation in states’ military organizational practices—their core policies related to promotion patterns, training regimens, command arrangements, and information management—holds the key. This article develops a typology of such practices and explains why and …
The Dictator's Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes
In The Dictator's Army , Caitlin Talmadge presents a compelling new argument to help us understand why authoritarian militaries sometimes fight very well—and sometimes very poorly. Talmadge's framework for understanding battlefield effectiveness focuses on four key sets of military organizational practices: promotion patterns, training regimens, command arrangements, and information management. Different regimes face different domestic and intern…
Less is More: The Future of the U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf
Hegemony, Force Posture, and the Provision of Public Goods: The Once and Future Role of Outside Powers in Securing Persian Gulf Oil
International relations theories emphasize the stabilizing role hegemons play in world politics. But little scholarship has examined the link connecting hegemony to its potentially positive returns in the security realm: force posture. We correct this deficit by developing and testing an argument about the consequences of different hegemonic force postures under varying threat conditions. We present a typology of force posture options and probe t…
The Puzzle of Personalist Performance: Iraqi Battlefield Effectiveness in the Iran-Iraq War
Saddam's Iraq has become a cliché in the study of military effectiveness—the quintessentially coup-proofed, personalist dictatorship, unable to generate fighting power commensurate with its resources. But evidence from the later years of the Iran-Iraq War actually suggests that the Iraqi military could be quite effective on the battlefield. What explains this puzzling instance of effectiveness, which existing theories predict should not have occu…
Costs and Difficulties of Blocking the Strait of Hormuz
Published under the section: Correspondence
Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz
How might Iran retaliate in the aftermath of a limited Israeli or U.S. strike? The most economically devastating of Iran's potential responses would be closure of the Strait of Hormuz. According to open-source order of battle data, as well as relevant analogies from military history and GIS maps, Iran does possess significant littoral warfare capabilities, including mines, antiship cruise missiles, and land-based air defense. If Iran were able to…
Deterring a Nuclear 9/11
Additional informationNotes on contributorsCaitlin TalmadgeCaitlin Talmadge is a doctoral candidate and member of the Security Studies Program in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In preparing this article, she benefited from the advice of Charles Ferguson, Brendan Green, Stephanie Kaplan, Steven Lehotsky, Jon Lindsay, Austin Long, Andrew Marshall, Whitney Raas, Steve Rosen, James Schlesinger, Paul …
When War Helps Civil–military Relations: Prolonged Interstate Conflict and the Reduced Risk of Coups
Coups remain a widespread and consequential political phenomenon, but it remains unclear whether interstate conflict protects leaders from the risk of coups or increases this risk. We theorize that interstate conflict—especially when it is prolonged—should protect domestic regimes from military overthrow by foreclosing many of the key pathways by which elites plot and execute coups. We test this argument using event history modeling. The evidence…
Civil-military Pathologies and Defeat in War: Tests Using New Data
This article uses an original data set, the Wartime Civil-military Relations Data Set, to test arguments about the causes of victory and defeat in war. Our analysis provides strong initial support for the notion that civil-military relations powerfully shape state prospects for victory and defeat. Specifically, states whose militaries have a significant internal role or whose regimes engage in coup-proofing appear to have a substantially lower pr…
Would China Go Nuclear? Assessing the Risk of Chinese Nuclear Escalation in a Conventional War with the United States
Could a conventional war with the United States inadvertently prompt Chinese nuclear escalation? The military-technical threat that such a war would pose to China's retaliatory capability—combined with wartime perceptual dynamics that might cause China to view this threat in an especially pessimistic light—could lead to reasonable Chinese fears that the United States might be attempting conventional counterforce, or considering or preparing for n…
Emerging technologies and strategic stability in peacetime, crisis, and war
Recent commentary has sounded the alarm about the effects of emerging technologies on strategic stability, yet the topic has received relatively little systematic scholarly attention. Will emerging technologies such as cyber, autonomous weapons, additive manufacturing, hypersonic vehicles, and remote sensing make the world more dangerous? Or is pessimism unwarranted? In this volume, we leverage international relations scholarship, historical data…
Emerging technology and intra-war escalation risks: Evidence from the Cold War, implications for today
Will emerging technologies increase the risk of conflict escalation? This paper develops a framework for evaluating the role of technology in different types of intra-war escalation. It then uses the framework to probe empirically the possible role of technology in escalation through three carefully chosen cases from Cold War. The findings largely cast doubt on the idea of emerging technologies as an independent, primary driver of otherwise avoid…
Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz
How might Iran retaliate in the aftermath of a limited Israeli or U.S. strike? The most economically devastating of Iran's potential responses would be closure of the Strait of Hormuz. According to open-source order of battle data, as well as relevant analogies from military history and GIS maps, Iran does possess significant littoral warfare capabilities, including mines, antiship cruise missiles, and land-based air defense. If Iran were able to…
The Puzzle of Personalist Performance: Iraqi Battlefield Effectiveness in the Iran-Iraq War
Saddam's Iraq has become a cliché in the study of military effectiveness—the quintessentially coup-proofed, personalist dictatorship, unable to generate fighting power commensurate with its resources. But evidence from the later years of the Iran-Iraq War actually suggests that the Iraqi military could be quite effective on the battlefield. What explains this puzzling instance of effectiveness, which existing theories predict should not have occu…
Different Threats, Different Militaries: Explaining Organizational Practices in Authoritarian Armies
Why do some states generate competent, professional military organizations, while others fail to do so even when they have the required economic, demographic, and technological endowments? Variation in states’ military organizational practices—their core policies related to promotion patterns, training regimens, command arrangements, and information management—holds the key. This article develops a typology of such practices and explains why and …
Hegemony, Force Posture, and the Provision of Public Goods: The Once and Future Role of Outside Powers in Securing Persian Gulf Oil
International relations theories emphasize the stabilizing role hegemons play in world politics. But little scholarship has examined the link connecting hegemony to its potentially positive returns in the security realm: force posture. We correct this deficit by developing and testing an argument about the consequences of different hegemonic force postures under varying threat conditions. We present a typology of force posture options and probe t…
Deterring a Nuclear 9/11
Additional informationNotes on contributorsCaitlin TalmadgeCaitlin Talmadge is a doctoral candidate and member of the Security Studies Program in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In preparing this article, she benefited from the advice of Charles Ferguson, Brendan Green, Stephanie Kaplan, Steven Lehotsky, Jon Lindsay, Austin Long, Andrew Marshall, Whitney Raas, Steve Rosen, James Schlesinger, Paul …
The meaning of China’s nuclear modernization
Will China’s nuclear modernization threaten U.S. security? Will it destabilize East Asia, creating new strategic problems for U.S. allies and partners? And will it make conventional war more likely by giving China the confidence to act under the cover of advanced nuclear weapons? Despite the centrality of China in debates over contemporary strategy, there is no consensus answer to these questions. This article surveys U.S perspectives on the mean…
Then What? Assessing the Military Implications of Chinese Control of Taiwan
The military implications of Chinese control of Taiwan are understudied. Chinese control of Taiwan would likely improve the military balance in China's favor because of reunification's positive impact on Chinese submarine warfare and ocean surveillance capabilities. Basing Chinese submarine warfare assets on Taiwan would increase the vulnerability of U.S. surface forces to attack during a crisis, reduce the attrition rate of Chinese submarines du…
When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Adversary Perceptions of Nuclear No-First-Use Pledges
The United States has repeatedly debated whether to adopt a nuclear no-first-use (NFU) pledge. Advocates for such a pledge emphasize its potential advantages, including strengthening crisis stability, decreasing hostility, and bolstering nonproliferation and arms control. But these benefits depend heavily on nuclear-armed adversaries finding a U.S. NFU pledge credible. A new theory based on the logic of costly signals and tested on evidence from …
The Predictable Hazards of Unpredictability: Why Madman Behavior Doesn’t Work
President Trump has routinely touted the foreign policy benefits of unpredictability. As candidate Trump complained about the US administration in 2016, “We are totally predictable. We tell everyth
Costs and Difficulties of Blocking the Strait of Hormuz
Published under the section: Correspondence
Deterring a Nuclear 9/11
Additional informationNotes on contributorsCaitlin TalmadgeCaitlin Talmadge is a doctoral candidate and member of the Security Studies Program in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In preparing this article, she benefited from the advice of Charles Ferguson, Brendan Green, Stephanie Kaplan, Steven Lehotsky, Jon Lindsay, Austin Long, Andrew Marshall, Whitney Raas, Steve Rosen, James Schlesinger, Paul …
Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz
How might Iran retaliate in the aftermath of a limited Israeli or U.S. strike? The most economically devastating of Iran's potential responses would be closure of the Strait of Hormuz. According to open-source order of battle data, as well as relevant analogies from military history and GIS maps, Iran does possess significant littoral warfare capabilities, including mines, antiship cruise missiles, and land-based air defense. If Iran were able to…
Costs and Difficulties of Blocking the Strait of Hormuz
Published under the section: Correspondence
The Puzzle of Personalist Performance: Iraqi Battlefield Effectiveness in the Iran-Iraq War
Saddam's Iraq has become a cliché in the study of military effectiveness—the quintessentially coup-proofed, personalist dictatorship, unable to generate fighting power commensurate with its resources. But evidence from the later years of the Iran-Iraq War actually suggests that the Iraqi military could be quite effective on the battlefield. What explains this puzzling instance of effectiveness, which existing theories predict should not have occu…
Less is More: The Future of the U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf
Hegemony, Force Posture, and the Provision of Public Goods: The Once and Future Role of Outside Powers in Securing Persian Gulf Oil
International relations theories emphasize the stabilizing role hegemons play in world politics. But little scholarship has examined the link connecting hegemony to its potentially positive returns in the security realm: force posture. We correct this deficit by developing and testing an argument about the consequences of different hegemonic force postures under varying threat conditions. We present a typology of force posture options and probe t…
The Dictator's Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes
In The Dictator's Army , Caitlin Talmadge presents a compelling new argument to help us understand why authoritarian militaries sometimes fight very well—and sometimes very poorly. Talmadge's framework for understanding battlefield effectiveness focuses on four key sets of military organizational practices: promotion patterns, training regimens, command arrangements, and information management. Different regimes face different domestic and intern…
When War Helps Civil–military Relations: Prolonged Interstate Conflict and the Reduced Risk of Coups
Coups remain a widespread and consequential political phenomenon, but it remains unclear whether interstate conflict protects leaders from the risk of coups or increases this risk. We theorize that interstate conflict—especially when it is prolonged—should protect domestic regimes from military overthrow by foreclosing many of the key pathways by which elites plot and execute coups. We test this argument using event history modeling. The evidence…
Different Threats, Different Militaries: Explaining Organizational Practices in Authoritarian Armies
Why do some states generate competent, professional military organizations, while others fail to do so even when they have the required economic, demographic, and technological endowments? Variation in states’ military organizational practices—their core policies related to promotion patterns, training regimens, command arrangements, and information management—holds the key. This article develops a typology of such practices and explains why and …
Would China Go Nuclear? Assessing the Risk of Chinese Nuclear Escalation in a Conventional War with the United States
Could a conventional war with the United States inadvertently prompt Chinese nuclear escalation? The military-technical threat that such a war would pose to China's retaliatory capability—combined with wartime perceptual dynamics that might cause China to view this threat in an especially pessimistic light—could lead to reasonable Chinese fears that the United States might be attempting conventional counterforce, or considering or preparing for n…
Civil-military Pathologies and Defeat in War: Tests Using New Data
This article uses an original data set, the Wartime Civil-military Relations Data Set, to test arguments about the causes of victory and defeat in war. Our analysis provides strong initial support for the notion that civil-military relations powerfully shape state prospects for victory and defeat. Specifically, states whose militaries have a significant internal role or whose regimes engage in coup-proofing appear to have a substantially lower pr…
Emerging technologies and strategic stability in peacetime, crisis, and war
Recent commentary has sounded the alarm about the effects of emerging technologies on strategic stability, yet the topic has received relatively little systematic scholarly attention. Will emerging technologies such as cyber, autonomous weapons, additive manufacturing, hypersonic vehicles, and remote sensing make the world more dangerous? Or is pessimism unwarranted? In this volume, we leverage international relations scholarship, historical data…
Emerging technology and intra-war escalation risks: Evidence from the Cold War, implications for today
Will emerging technologies increase the risk of conflict escalation? This paper develops a framework for evaluating the role of technology in different types of intra-war escalation. It then uses the framework to probe empirically the possible role of technology in escalation through three carefully chosen cases from Cold War. The findings largely cast doubt on the idea of emerging technologies as an independent, primary driver of otherwise avoid…
The Predictable Hazards of Unpredictability: Why Madman Behavior Doesn’t Work
President Trump has routinely touted the foreign policy benefits of unpredictability. As candidate Trump complained about the US administration in 2016, “We are totally predictable. We tell everyth
Then What? Assessing the Military Implications of Chinese Control of Taiwan
The military implications of Chinese control of Taiwan are understudied. Chinese control of Taiwan would likely improve the military balance in China's favor because of reunification's positive impact on Chinese submarine warfare and ocean surveillance capabilities. Basing Chinese submarine warfare assets on Taiwan would increase the vulnerability of U.S. surface forces to attack during a crisis, reduce the attrition rate of Chinese submarines du…
The meaning of China’s nuclear modernization
Will China’s nuclear modernization threaten U.S. security? Will it destabilize East Asia, creating new strategic problems for U.S. allies and partners? And will it make conventional war more likely by giving China the confidence to act under the cover of advanced nuclear weapons? Despite the centrality of China in debates over contemporary strategy, there is no consensus answer to these questions. This article surveys U.S perspectives on the mean…
When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Adversary Perceptions of Nuclear No-First-Use Pledges
The United States has repeatedly debated whether to adopt a nuclear no-first-use (NFU) pledge. Advocates for such a pledge emphasize its potential advantages, including strengthening crisis stability, decreasing hostility, and bolstering nonproliferation and arms control. But these benefits depend heavily on nuclear-armed adversaries finding a U.S. NFU pledge credible. A new theory based on the logic of costly signals and tested on evidence from …
Political science (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Law (11 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Economics (7 works) · Political economy (6 works) · Development economics (5 works) · Engineering (5 works)