Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study explores the proposition that the relationship between use of violent media content by teens and aggression is stronger when these youth are dispositionally predisposed to be responsive to such arousing media content, or when they are, due to socialization difficulties, emotionally vulnerable to the effects of such content. Concurrent effects are modeled in four waves of data collection over two years with 2550 middle-school students from 20 schools across the U.S, using multi-level (hierarchical linear modeling) techniques, allowing for examination of variables that describe overall differences between students as well as variables that describe intraindividual differences across time. Results indicate that students who frequently engage in use of violent media content are more likely to be aggressive if they are characterized by high-sensation seeking or if they report feelings of alienation from school. While overall use of violent media is associated with higher levels of aggression, a robust within-individual effect also exists. That is, during times when a student is viewing elevated levels of violent media content relative to the student's own norms for use of such media, he or she is also more likely to demonstrate heightened levels of aggression. This relationship is more robust among students who are high-sensation seekers, students who are alienated from school, or students who are victimized by their peers. Furthermore, during times when a student is viewing more violent media than usual and is also experiencing heightened levels of sensation seeking, school alienation, or peer victimization he or she is more likely to be aggressive.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: For more than 50 years, the United States has depended on deterrence for defense against its principal adversaries. Though deterrence has never been as fulfilling as denial - - that is, preventing an enemy’s access to the homeland - -deterrence has worked or, more precisely, not failed to work. But deterrence can be trusted no longer. Today’s adversary values his life less than our death. This adversary is not a candidate for deterrence. Moreover, while he lacks a ballistic missile delivery system, he has such a variety of other means to deliver a nuclear weapon, from commercial airliners to trucks to container ships, that the United States cannot have any confidence in its ability to mount a sustained
defense by denial.

In light of this vulnerability, we might ask, can this adversary plausibly acquire a nuclear weapon to attack the United States? The argument here is that, unless many changes are made, it is more likely than not that Al Qaeda or one of its affiliates will detonate a nuclear weapon in a US city within the next five to ten years. The loss of life will be measured not in the thousands, not in the tens of thousands, but in the hundreds of thousands. The United States is, then, at once extraordinarily powerful and tragically vulnerable.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The US will never have the organizational capabilities to prevent or cope with the increase, in recent decades, in natural, industrial/technological, and terrorist threats. Efforts to prevent and mitigate these disasters should continue, but it is more important that we reduce our vulnerabilities by deconcentrating hazmats, populations in risky areas, and the economic and political power of big organizations in our critical infrastructure. These concentrations were less in the past and could be reduced in the future through regulations and liability insurance.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Understanding power usually comes from looking at it in the context of dynamic changes both in the nature of power and the nature of adversary and the context of interactions. Traditionally, power has been defined and measured by quantitative indicators of hard power, given conventional battlefield strategy and conventional weapons state adversaries are likely to use. Today, hard power still remains an important component of state power. Yet, in light of the changing nature of the international environment, and given that states find themselves increasingly reliant on their soft power internationally and constrained by limits of their extractive capacity domestically, hard power has become a less relevant tool for addressing asymmetric threats. The present paper suggests the need not only to recognize strengths offered by the increased complexity of the American power, but also to recognize its vulnerabilities. While the US is well-equipped to combat threats that come from states, different elements of its power have become increasingly vulnerable to attacks by terrorist organizations.