Maximizing leverage : explaining China's strategic force postures in limited wars

How do nuclear-armed states maximize strategic leverage to coerce their adversaries in limited wars? Although the existing literature has examined how states have used their nuclear weapons as sources of strategic leverage, it has not fully explored the challenges states face in using these extremely destructive weapons in limited wars. China's approach to maximizing strategic leverage offers one possible solution to these challenges. It has pledged not to use nuclear weapons unless it first suffers a nuclear attack from an adversary. Instead it threatens to use space, cyber and conventional missile weapons to maximize strategic leverage against an adversary in a limited war. I develop a theory of strategic substitution to explain why states might substitute space, cyber, and conventional missile weapons for nuclear weapons as sources of strategic leverage in limited wars and how they select force postures for each of these weapons.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Cunningham, Fiona S.(Fiona Stephanie)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• M. Taylor Fravel.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/121602

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/121602