Institute for Security and Conflict Studies | Elliott School of International Affairs

Foreign Affairs Article by Alexander Downes, The Regime Change Temptation in Venezuela

What began in early September as a series of American airstrikes on boats in the Caribbean—which U.S. officials alleged were trafficking drugs from Venezuela—now seems to have morphed into a campaign to overthrow Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Over the course of two months, President Donald Trump’s administration has deployed 10,000 U.S. troops to the region, amassed at least eight U.S. Navy surface vessels and a submarine around South America’s northern coast, directed B-52 and B-1 bombers to fly near the...

Perils of Regime Change in Venezuela and Beyond, a Discussion

Join Defense Priorities for a discussion on the current state of U.S.-Venezuela relations, as well as the goals and risks of a coercive strategy, featuring Chris McCallion, Defense Priorities Fellow; Alexander Downes, Defense Priorities Non-Resident Fellow; Lindsey O’Rourke, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston College; and moderator Dan DePetris, Defense Priorities Fellow.

Lawfare Article by Alexander Downes, Trump’s Misguided War on Transgender Troops

The Trump administration has moved quickly to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. The George Washington University’s Alexander Downes reviews the justifications the administration has cited—the cost to unit cohesion, the medical cost to the military, and the dishonorable nature of transgender people in general—and finds all of them wanting, making a strong case that transgender people should be welcome in the U.S. armed forces.

Technology and the Rise of Great Powers book cover

New Book by Jeffrey Ding, Assistant Professor of Political Science

A novel theory of how technological revolutions affect the rise and fall of great powers. In this book, Jeffrey Ding offers a different explanation of how technological revolutions affect competition among great powers. Rather than focusing on which state first introduced major innovations, he investigates...

Cropped-Inadvertent Expansion How Peripheral Agents Shape World Politics book cover

New Book by Nicholas Anderson, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs

In Inadvertent Expansion, Nicholas D. Anderson investigates a surprisingly common yet overlooked phenomenon in the history of great power politics: territorial expansion that was neither intended nor initially authorized by state leaders. Territorial expansion is typically understood as a centrally driven and often strategic activity. But as Anderson shows...

New Book Chapter by Zoltán Fehér, Visiting Scholar: Small and Medium Sizes Do Matter!

In his latest book chapter, Zoltán Fehér examines the hitherto understudied question of whether (and how) small and medium powers matter for great power competition. He specifically looks at how European and Indo-Pacific small and medium powers have behaved in the context of U.S.-China great power competition and how the United States and China each want to pull these countries into their orbit. His chapter is part of the edited volume Examining Perspectives of Small-to-Medium Powers in Emergent Great Power Competition, edited by Philip Baxter and published by Palgrave Macmillan / Springer Nature in August 2025.

GW Professor Wins Lepgold Prize

Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, received the Georgetown University Lepgold Prize for his book, “Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition.” Ding also has an appointment as an assistant professor of international affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs.

Trump's 'excursion' in Iran has lasted 6 months. What went wrong?

Trump initially projected America's joint military operation with Israel would last four to five weeks. Not long after, he said the assault was substantially ahead of schedule. The war turns six months old on Friday, Aug, 28. No end is in sight. With gas prices up and polls showing the war is unpopular with Americans, the United States now says it’s changing its strategy altogether...

The Institute for Security and Conflict Studies

At the elliott School of International Affairs

The Institute for Security and Conflict Studies is an energetic academic community dedicated to furthering the study of international security.

Our mission is to advance scholarly research on international conflict and strengthen the field of security studies through graduate education; improve public understanding of key international security issues; and inform policy debates related to U.S. national security.

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