CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 183International Relations and Foreign PolicyDefense, Military, and Policy StudiesMilitary History and Strategy

The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics

Horowitz, Michael C.·2010·Princeton University Press eBooks
DOI 10.1515/9781400835102
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

The Diffusion of Military Power examines how the financial and organizational challenges of adopting new methods of fighting wars can influence the international balance of power. Michael Horowitz argues that a state or actor wishing to adopt a military innovation must possess both the financial resources to buy or build the technology and the internal organizational capacity to accommodate any necessary changes in recruiting, training, or operations. How countries react to new innovations--and to other actors that do or don't adopt them--has profound implications for the global order and the likelihood of war. Horowitz looks at some of the most important military innovations throughout history, including the advent of the all-big-gun steel battleship, the development of aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons, and the use of suicide terror by nonstate actors. He shows how expensive innovations can favor wealthier, more powerful countries, but also how those same states often stumble when facing organizationally complicated innovations. Innovations requiring major upheavals in doctrine and organization can disadvantage the wealthiest states due to their bureaucratic inflexibility and weight the balance of power toward smaller and more nimble actors, making conflict more likely. This book provides vital insights into military innovations and their impact on U.S. foreign policy, warfare, and the distribution of power in the international system.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1515/9781400835102

Cites

3 of 3 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • In general, what matters most for victory and defeat in warfare is how countries and nonstate actors use weapons systems.

    “Research on military systems and military power overwhelmingly suggests that, in general, what matters most for victory and defeat in warfare is how countries and nonstate actors use these tools (Biddle 2004, Horowitz 2010).”

    From Do Emerging Military Technologies Matter for International Politics? (2020) · cites this paper as Horowitz 2010

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 4 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Horowitz, M. C.
Corresponding author
Horowitz, Michael C.
ORCID
Horowitz, Michael C.
Venue
Princeton University Press eBooks
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Published
2010-12-31
DOI
10.1515/9781400835102
OpenAlex
W2251423976
Cited by
182
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 23 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 4
FWCI
8.32
Type
book
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Princeton University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › International Relations and Foreign Policy
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Defense, Military, and Policy Studies
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Military History and Strategy
Keywords
military innovation, balance of power, military finance, military organization, aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, suicide terrorism, non-state actors, US foreign policy, international security

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review