TGF 8: Military Power and the Use of Force

Question 0

Opportunity costs

Answer 0

The concept in decision-making theories that when the occasion arises to use resources, what is gained for one purpose is lost for other purposes, so that every choice entails the cost of some lost opportunity.

Question 1

Power potential

Answer 1

The relative capabilities or resources held by a state that are considered necessary to its asserting influence over others.

Question 2

Military-industrial complex

Answer 2

A term coined by U.S. President Eisenhower to describe the coalition among arms manufacturers, military intelligence, and top government officials that promotes defense expenditures for its own profit a d power.

Question 3

Proliferation

Answer 3

The spread of weapon capabilities throughout the state system.

Question 4

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)

Answer 4

An international agreement that seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons by prohibiting further nuclear weapons sales, acquisitions, or production.

Question 5

Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs)

Answer 5

A technological innovation permitting many nuclear warheads to be delivered from a single missile.

Question 6

Smart bombs

Answer 6

Precision-guided military technology that enables a bomb to search for its target and detonate at the precise time it can do the most damage.

Question 7

Firebreak

Answer 7

The psychological barrier between conventional and nuclear war.

Question 8

Nuclear winter

Answer 8

The expected freeze that would occur in the earth’s climate from the fallout of smoke and dust in the event nuclear weapons were used, blocking out sunlight and destroying plant and animal life that survived the original blast.

Question 9

Compellence

Answer 9

A threat of force aimed at making an adversary grant concessions against its will.

Question 10

Brinkmanship

Answer 10

Intentionally taking enormous risks in bargaining with an adversary in order to compel submission.

Question 11

Massive retaliation

Answer 11

A policy of responding to any act of aggression with the most destructive capabilities available, including nuclear weapons.

Question 12

Countervalue targeting strategy

Answer 12

Targeting strategic nuclear weapons against an enemy’s most valued non military resources, such as the people and industries located in its cities (sometimes known as countercity targeting).

Question 13

Counterforce targeting strategy

Answer 13

Targeting nuclear weapons on the military capabilities of an opponent.

Question 14

Deterrence

Answer 14

A strategy designed to dissuade an adversary from doing what it would otherwise do.

Question 15

Second-strike capability

Answer 15

A state’s capacity to retaliate after absorbing a first-strike attack with weapons of mass destruction.

Question 16

Triad

Answer 16

The combination of ICBMs, SLBMs, and long-range bombers in a second-strike nuclear force.

Question 17

Mutual assured destruction (MAD)

Answer 17

A system of deterrence in which both sides possess the ability to survive. First strike and launch a devastating retaliatory attack.

Question 18

Nuclear utilization theory (NUTs)

Answer 18

A body of strategic thought that claimed detergent threats would be more credible if nuclear weapons were made more usable.

Question 19

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

Answer 19

A plan conceived by the Reagan administration to deploy an anti ballistic missile system using space-based lasses that would destroy enemy nuclear missiles.

Question 20

Preemption

Answer 20

A quick first-strike attack that seeks to defeat an adversary before it can organize a retaliatory response.

Question 21

Preventive war

Answer 21

A war undertaken to preclude an adversary from acquiring the capability to attack sometime in the future.

Question 22

Coercive diplomacy

Answer 22

The use of threats or limited armed force to persuade an adversary to alter its foreign and/or domestic policies.

Question 23

Ultimatum

Answer 23

A demand that contains a time limit for compliance and a threat of punishment for resistance.

Question 24

Military intervention

Answer 24

Overt or covert use of force by one or more countries that cross the border to affect the target country’s government and policies.

Question 25

Covert operations

Answer 25

Secret activities undertaken by a state outside its borders through clandestine means to achieve specific political or military goals.

Question 26

Economic sanctions

Answer 26

The punitive use of trade or monetary measures, such as an embargo, to harm the economy of an enemy state in order to exercise influence over its policies.

Question 27

Inelastic demand

Answer 27

A condition under which the quantity demanded of a good does not decrease as its price increases.

Question 28

Bush Doctrine

Answer 28

A policy that singles out states that support terrorist groups and advocates military strikes against them to prevent a future attack on the United States.

Question 29

Security dilemma

Answer 29

The propensity of armaments undertaken by one state for ostensibly defensive purposes to threaten other states, which arm in reaction, with the result that their national security declined as their arms increase.