The Duck of Minerva

Jacqueline L. Hazelton

Jacqueline L. Hazelton is the executive editor of the journal International Security. She was previously an associate professor in the department of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College. Her research interests include grand strategy, liberal great power military intervention, counterinsurgency, terrorism, and U.S. foreign and military policy. The views expressed in her posts are hers alone.

Jacqueline L. Hazelton is the executive editor of the journal International Security. She was previously an associate professor in the department of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College. Her research interests include grand strategy, liberal great power military intervention, counterinsurgency, terrorism, and U.S. foreign and military policy. The views expressed in her posts are hers alone.

Recent Posts

A Message from the Executive Editor of International Security

A Message from the Executive Editor of International Security

by | 2 December, 2022 |

I write to you as the new executive editor of International Security, the first woman to hold this position. I am taking the opportunity graciously provided by the Duck of Minerva team to introduce myself to you. I also want to thank my most recent predecessors, Sebastian Rosato (pro tem), Morgan Kaplan, and Sean Lynn-Jones – himself an institution -- for their contribution to the continued excellence of International Security and for their help and support over the past six months. International Security is known for its outstanding record as a leading security studies journal. It is also...

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Getting Counterinsurgency Wrong

Getting Counterinsurgency Wrong

by | 15 July, 2021 | ,

I just published a piece in Foreign Affairs, which draws on my new book, Bullets Not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare. After two decades, the United States is finally leaving Afghanistan, and only 2,500 U.S. troops remain in Iraq. In both countries, the insurgencies continue. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. In both wars, Washington hoped that imposing democratic reforms could protect the population, win hearts and minds, and defeat the insurgency. The approach didn't fail, I argue, because civilian and government officials botched its implementation. It was inherently...

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I’m So Bored With the USA

I’m So Bored With the USA

by | 25 December, 2018 | ,

The United States is the safest country in the world. It has vast ocean moats to the east and west and weak friendly neighbors to the north and south. It has sufficient resources to shun global trade should it so choose. It is also the wealthiest and strongest country the world has ever seen. The heaviest foreign policy costs it has paid in the 20th and 21st centuries have come from self-inflicted wounds. The war in Vietnam. The war on Afghanistan. The war on Iraq. Those have had terribly high human, economic, resources, moral, and opportunity costs. Each of those wars was a choice made by...

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Big Goals and Small Adversaries: Why Grand Strategy Matters

by | 4 December, 2018 | ,

The United States is closing in on the 18th anniversary of its first wartime death in Afghanistan, that of CIA operative Mike Spann, providing a melancholy opportunity to emphasize the role of grand strategy as a policymaking tool. To this end, I ask why the United States has done relatively poorly in so many of its so-called small wars, wars against much weaker adversaries. Its poor record is surprising because the United States has done so well in its major wars, including the world wars, the Korean War, and the Cold War. Some of the United States’ smaller wars have gone as planned. The...

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