2025/11/11 by ANNETTE FREYBERG-INAN · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #International Relations and Foreign Policy #Global Political and Social Dynamics #European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies
paper · doi:10.1093/isr/viaf024
openalex publication_date 2025/11/11 · openalex created_date 2025/12/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This monograph examines the use of no-fly zones as an instrument of US foreign policy. Beginning from the observation that no-fly zones do not seem to be of much help for reaching foreign policy goals, the puzzle addressed is why they are still being used regularly, even if not every time they could be. The historical time covered is 1991–2012. The study uses a neoclassical realist (NCR) approach and falls within the category of type II NCR, which aims to explain enduring patterns of foreign policy decision making and grand strategy (Ripsman et al. 2016). Compared to neorealists, neoclassical realists exhibit a less deterministic view of the constraints imposed on state behavior by the international environment. This leaves room, and indeed creates the need, to analyze the translation of systemic conditions into state behavior via intervening variables, which are clustered around the cognitive and ideational make-up of decision makers and the institutional, political, and societal environments in which they operate.