Book project.
Advising War: Great Power Influence through Boots on the Ground examines when and why great powers deploy military advisors to war zones and how advisors work on the ground. It challenges conventional wisdom that military advisors serve a primarily technical role, arguing instead that their role is profoundly social and political. Advisors extend great power influence through interpersonal relationships with counterparts.
The manuscript tests this argument with original quantitative data on advisor deployments by great powers, along with in-depth case studies of El Salvador (1979-1991) and Ukraine (2014-2022). The case studies draw on original archival materials, fieldwork in Germany, Poland, and Ukraine, and over 160 interviews with military advisors, policymakers, and recipients of advice.
The findings have broad implications. For scholars, the book rethinks how power translates into influence in international politics, shifting attention from material incentives to a social process. During wartime, influence is forged not just by leaders but by ordinary representatives of a great power military on the ground in their daily interactions with local counterparts. Counterintuitively, then, great power influence can be local and interpersonal. For policymakers, the book highlights the costs of reducing US troop presence abroad or avoiding risk during intervention: without continuous and close contact with a local military, the interpersonal relationships necessary for influence cannot materialize.
The manuscript tests this argument with original quantitative data on advisor deployments by great powers, along with in-depth case studies of El Salvador (1979-1991) and Ukraine (2014-2022). The case studies draw on original archival materials, fieldwork in Germany, Poland, and Ukraine, and over 160 interviews with military advisors, policymakers, and recipients of advice.
The findings have broad implications. For scholars, the book rethinks how power translates into influence in international politics, shifting attention from material incentives to a social process. During wartime, influence is forged not just by leaders but by ordinary representatives of a great power military on the ground in their daily interactions with local counterparts. Counterintuitively, then, great power influence can be local and interpersonal. For policymakers, the book highlights the costs of reducing US troop presence abroad or avoiding risk during intervention: without continuous and close contact with a local military, the interpersonal relationships necessary for influence cannot materialize.
Peer-reviewed journal articles.
6. "Balancing Acts: Why Great Powers Underprovide Security Assistance." International Politics, 2025.
5. "Irregular Warfare and Strategic Competition." Defence Studies, 2023 (with Kyle Atwell, Alexis Bradstreet, Catherine Crombe, and Luther Leblanc).
4. "Side-Switching as State-Building: the Case of Russian-Speaking Militias in Eastern Ukraine." Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2021 (with Jesse Driscoll).
3. "Good for democracy? Evidence from the 2004 NATO expansion." International Politics, 2020 (with Paul Poast). See reprint in light of Russia's war in Ukraine: "Good for democracy? Evidence from the 2004 NATO expansion," in Goldgeier, J., Shifrinson, J.R.I. (eds), Evaluating NATO Enlargement, 2023 (with Paul Poast).
2. "Forum - Conflict Delegation in Civil Wars," International Studies Review, 2021 (with with Niklas Karlén, Vladimir Rauta, Idean Salehyan, Andrew Mumford, Belgin San-Akca, Alexandra Stark, Michel Wyss, Assaf Moghadam, Allard Duursma, Henning Tamm, Erin K Jenne, Milos Popovic, David S Siroky, Vanessa Meier, Kit Rickard, Giuseppe Spatafora).
1. "Introducing the new CPOST dataset on suicide attacks." Journal of Peace Research, 2021 (with Robert A. Pape, Alejandro Albanez Rivas).
5. "Irregular Warfare and Strategic Competition." Defence Studies, 2023 (with Kyle Atwell, Alexis Bradstreet, Catherine Crombe, and Luther Leblanc).
4. "Side-Switching as State-Building: the Case of Russian-Speaking Militias in Eastern Ukraine." Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2021 (with Jesse Driscoll).
3. "Good for democracy? Evidence from the 2004 NATO expansion." International Politics, 2020 (with Paul Poast). See reprint in light of Russia's war in Ukraine: "Good for democracy? Evidence from the 2004 NATO expansion," in Goldgeier, J., Shifrinson, J.R.I. (eds), Evaluating NATO Enlargement, 2023 (with Paul Poast).
2. "Forum - Conflict Delegation in Civil Wars," International Studies Review, 2021 (with with Niklas Karlén, Vladimir Rauta, Idean Salehyan, Andrew Mumford, Belgin San-Akca, Alexandra Stark, Michel Wyss, Assaf Moghadam, Allard Duursma, Henning Tamm, Erin K Jenne, Milos Popovic, David S Siroky, Vanessa Meier, Kit Rickard, Giuseppe Spatafora).
1. "Introducing the new CPOST dataset on suicide attacks." Journal of Peace Research, 2021 (with Robert A. Pape, Alejandro Albanez Rivas).
Editor-reviewed articles and book chapters.
4. "Vladimir Putin and the Russian Military." in Russia Under Putin: Fragile State and Revisionist Power, edited by Andrew S. Natsios, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025 (with Raymond C. Finch III).
3. "Formal Theory and Proxy Wars." in Routledge Handbook of Proxy Wars, edited by Moghadam Assaf, Vladimir Rauta, and Michel Wyss, 2023.
2. "Defense Institution Building from Above? Lessons from the Baltic Experience."Connections QJ. 2018 (with Paul Poast).
1. “The Development of the Modern U.S.- Polish Relationship and Its Future Prospects.” in Projekt “Polska”: Silne i Bezpieczne Panstwo? ed. Anna Antczak-Barzan. Warszawa: Vizja Press, 2014: 255-267 (with Stephen D. Mull).
3. "Formal Theory and Proxy Wars." in Routledge Handbook of Proxy Wars, edited by Moghadam Assaf, Vladimir Rauta, and Michel Wyss, 2023.
2. "Defense Institution Building from Above? Lessons from the Baltic Experience."Connections QJ. 2018 (with Paul Poast).
1. “The Development of the Modern U.S.- Polish Relationship and Its Future Prospects.” in Projekt “Polska”: Silne i Bezpieczne Panstwo? ed. Anna Antczak-Barzan. Warszawa: Vizja Press, 2014: 255-267 (with Stephen D. Mull).
Working papers.
Did Western Security Assistance Work in Ukraine?
Western security assistance to Ukraine before 2022 has been portrayed as either largely symbolic or dangerously provocative. Both arguments hinge on claims about how this assistance affected Ukraine’s ability to resist Russia’s full-scale invasion. This paper provides the first systematic empirical study of that assistance and its impact on Ukraine’s military effectiveness during the first year of full-scale war. Evidence from 125 interviews with US and allied policymakers, military advisors, and Ukrainian recipients of aid, as well as fieldwork in Ukraine, Germany, and Poland, shows that Western assistance improved the quality of Ukraine’s operating force and its irregular warfare capabilities, while broader institutional reform was largely incomplete. These patterns help explain Ukraine’s early battlefield successes and subsequent difficulties mobilizing manpower. These findings suggest a different mechanism through which security assistance can contribute to preventive war: by enhancing Ukraine’s ability to defend itself even without NATO membership, assistance increased Russia’s incentive to escalate as well as presented a closing window of opportunity to do so. Security assistance may therefore sometimes make war more likely instead of deterring it. More broadly, the case of Ukraine demonstrates how security cooperation can increase partner military effectiveness even when institutional reform is limited, highlighting the value of modest assistance focused on areas of aligned interests.
Hawkish Elites and Dovish Public? Experimental Evidence on Differences Between Elite and Public Views on the Use of Force (with Paul Poast and Dani Reiter)
Do the public and foreign policy elites view the use of force differently? This paper proposes theoretical reasons for an elite-public gap, with elites putting greater emphasis than the public on maintaining the country’s international reputation. The paper tests the theory on possible tripwire effects: greater willingness to use force during a crisis if friendly troops are killed compared to if friendly troops are not killed. It implements two sets of survey experiments, each set containing the same experiment tested on an elite and a public sample, all on a hypothetical clash between the US and China in the South China Sea. The results show that both the public and elites are more likely to support the use of force if US troops are killed. However, as the theory predicts, elite tripwire effects are much larger than public tripwire effects and elites are more concerned about US reputation.
Western security assistance to Ukraine before 2022 has been portrayed as either largely symbolic or dangerously provocative. Both arguments hinge on claims about how this assistance affected Ukraine’s ability to resist Russia’s full-scale invasion. This paper provides the first systematic empirical study of that assistance and its impact on Ukraine’s military effectiveness during the first year of full-scale war. Evidence from 125 interviews with US and allied policymakers, military advisors, and Ukrainian recipients of aid, as well as fieldwork in Ukraine, Germany, and Poland, shows that Western assistance improved the quality of Ukraine’s operating force and its irregular warfare capabilities, while broader institutional reform was largely incomplete. These patterns help explain Ukraine’s early battlefield successes and subsequent difficulties mobilizing manpower. These findings suggest a different mechanism through which security assistance can contribute to preventive war: by enhancing Ukraine’s ability to defend itself even without NATO membership, assistance increased Russia’s incentive to escalate as well as presented a closing window of opportunity to do so. Security assistance may therefore sometimes make war more likely instead of deterring it. More broadly, the case of Ukraine demonstrates how security cooperation can increase partner military effectiveness even when institutional reform is limited, highlighting the value of modest assistance focused on areas of aligned interests.
Hawkish Elites and Dovish Public? Experimental Evidence on Differences Between Elite and Public Views on the Use of Force (with Paul Poast and Dani Reiter)
Do the public and foreign policy elites view the use of force differently? This paper proposes theoretical reasons for an elite-public gap, with elites putting greater emphasis than the public on maintaining the country’s international reputation. The paper tests the theory on possible tripwire effects: greater willingness to use force during a crisis if friendly troops are killed compared to if friendly troops are not killed. It implements two sets of survey experiments, each set containing the same experiment tested on an elite and a public sample, all on a hypothetical clash between the US and China in the South China Sea. The results show that both the public and elites are more likely to support the use of force if US troops are killed. However, as the theory predicts, elite tripwire effects are much larger than public tripwire effects and elites are more concerned about US reputation.