Steered by the promise of technological, economic, and security gains, states seek partnerships to build, purchase, and operationalize military technology. Yet, these collaborations do not always yield the desired results. This is due to a commitment-implementation paradox, meaning that the conditions that make it attractive for states to join an interstate arms collaboration are those that make it difficult for them to implement the project. Concretely, the paradox exists along three dimensions: (1) the balance of power, (2) the project's goals and (3) the level of coordination. I explore the existence of this paradox in NATO's pursuit of missile defenses.
This article examines coercion strategies outside the Western intellectual tradition. It introduces the concept of the 'operational art of coercion' and scrutinizes how Russia, Israel, and Iran translate political intent into campaigns of deterrence and compellence. The study argues that strategic culture shapes how actors define credibility, manage escalation, integrate domains, and learn. In all three cases, operational art of coercion is iterative, cross-domain, and often diverges from the classical Western model of stable, prewar strategic influence. Even if competitive military learning accelerates worldwide, coercive practices are likely to stay culturally distinct rather converging toward a universal template.
It is widely accepted that war is a political phenomenon. Yet existing scholarship on war and strategy offers only partial and fragmented accounts of how force and politics interact in wartime, and the field lacks a singular concept capable of capturing their systemic, reciprocal, and constitutive relationship. This paper introduces 'polemitics' to denote the dynamic fusion of organised violence and political contestation. In doing so, it seeks to reorient the study of war around its defining political-military nexus and establishes a foundation for a broader research agenda on the political nature of war.
