Test Bank

Chapter 5: Realist Perspectives on Today’s World: Unipolarity, Rising Powers, Asymmetric Warfare, and Ethnic Conflicts

Multiple Choice

1. The realist perspective would most likely call attention to which feature of the post-Cold War international system?

a. American dominance or unipolarity

b. fragmentation of international institutions

c. proliferation of new democratic countries

d. an ideological shift toward neoliberalism

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Unipolarity

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. The ______ school of realism advocates equilibrium and coexistence and seeks to reduce American hegemony by accommodating rising powers.

a. power balancing

b. power transitioning

c. national

d. traditional

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Power Balancing Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. Arguing that ethnic conflicts in failed states, such as the Taliban government in Afghanistan, provide fertile conditions for the rise of terrorism is an argument made at the ______ level of analysis.

a. individual

b. domestic

c. systemic structural

d. systemic process

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. A war that is launched to neutralize an opponent that is getting ready to attack now is described as ______ war.

a. asymmetric

b. preventive

c. power balancing

d. preemptive

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Power Transition Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. According to power transition realists, why is it that the United States could launch a preemptive war unilaterally?

a. because international institutions gave special powers to the United States to act unilaterally

b. because the United States had an internationally mandated mission to protect and promote democracy

c. because the United States had an extraordinary concentration of power in national wealth, military expenditures, and composite measures of power

d. because terrorism as a threat could not be tied to any state actors, so the United States could launch a war to wipe out terrorists preparing to attack

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Power Transition Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. A state that seeks systematically to acquire nuclear weapons with the possible intent of passing them on to nonstate terrorists is better known as a ______ state.

a. proliferation

b. rogue

c. failed

d. terrorist

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. Which of the following groups engage in an intergovernmental agency tug-of-war to assert their interests in the decision-making system, which may result in final decisions that are not always rational or definitive?

a. the media

b. the military-industrial complex

c. bureaucratic political groups

d. interest groups

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. According to the realist perspective, how does a country undertake soft balancing?

a. by challenging a hegemon through direct military confrontation

b. by pushing back through economic and diplomatic rivalry

c. by asserting its culture as superior to that of the hegemon

d. by gaining political clout through interactions with other states in international institutions

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Rising Powers

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. U.S. President George H. W. Bush delivered the “______” speech in 1991, warning that the United States would not support independence movements that sought to replace one form of tyranny with another.

a. Chicken Kiev

b. Russian Turkey

c. Ukrainian Chicken

d. American Eagle

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Hegemony versus Equilibrium

Difficulty Level: Easy

10. Why did power transition realists view allies and international institutions as less useful in the global war on terror?

a. NATO and other allies did not believe in the same American ideology of spreading democracy.

b. NATO after the Cold War was largely an American enterprise, and the allies had few military assets to fight conflicts outside Europe.

c. The allies had different domestic political frames and, thus, could not reach a consensus on action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

d. The United States had sufficient military power and did not need any assistance following the 9/11 attacks.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Power Transition Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. Instead of accepting European support via Article 5 of the NATO Treaty after the 9/11 attacks, the United States formed the ________ to overthrow the government of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

a. coalition of the willing

b. Allied forces

c. Axis forces

d. Coalition of the abled

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Alliances

Difficulty Level: Easy

12. Terrorism and cyber warfare are examples of ______, a type of conflict in which the weak exploit technology and psychology to target the peripheral vulnerabilities of the strong.

a. symmetric threat and warfare

b. asymmetric threat and warfare

c. preemptive strikes

d. proactive threat and warfare

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Medium

13. Which of the following characterizes a failed state?

a. It is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

b. It aids nonstate terrorist groups.

c. It is not recognized by other states.

d. Its domestic institutions have collapsed.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Medium

14. Which of the following statements are true about Al Qaeda?

a. It is a full-fledged global IGO with corporate and financial operations all over the world.

b. It focused solely on recruiting members in Afghanistan following its war with the Soviet Union.

c. It only had one affiliate, located in the Arabian Peninsula.

d. It runs several multinational businesses, in the sectors of construction, manufacturing, and banking, among others.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Easy

15. The military-industrial complex includes which of the following?

a. the Department of Defense

b. government and private research institutes that develop new weapons

c. antiwar lobbying groups

d. major producers of civilian weapons

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process

Difficulty Level: Medium

16. The ______ was a worldwide military campaign to defeat nonstate terrorist groups and the rogue states that support them.

a. global war on terror

b. coalition of the willing

c. bombs over Baghdad

d. global fight against terrorism

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Hegemony versus Equilibrium

Difficulty Level: Medium

17. Which of the following countries were not members of the coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003?

a. Italy

b. Great Britain

c. United States

d. France

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Alliances

Difficulty Level: Easy

18. According to the simplified rational choice model, what does it mean if an actor is considered unitary?

a. It sees the costs and benefits of an action as canceling each other out.

b. It makes decisions as a single actor, rather than a composite of multiple actors.

c. It does not change its goals or preferences.

d. It does not consider the behavior of other actors before making a decision.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process

Difficulty Level: Medium

19. The ______ level of analysis highlights the psychological factors that affect foreign policy decision making.

a. individual

b. domestic

c. systemic structural

d. systemic process

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process

Difficulty Level: Medium

20. The slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 is an example of which of the following?

a. civil war

b. partition

c. ethnic cleansing

d. asymmetric threat

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethnic Conflict

Difficulty Level: Easy

21. Which perspective would most likely argue that the United States suffered a significant loss of prestige as a result of acting unilaterally in Afghanistan?

a. the power transition school of realism

b. the power balancing school of realism

c. the liberal perspective

d. the identity perspective

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Power Balancing Realist

Difficulty Level: Medium

22. The power transition school of realism sees war as most likely when which of the following occurs?

a. Two states balance each other out in a bipolar system.

b. There is a move toward equilibrium in the system.

c. One state is in a clearly hegemonic position in the system.

d. There is a move away from equilibrium in the system.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Chapter Introduction

Difficulty Level: Medium

23. The ______ level of analysis describes the realist argument that American dominance influenced former defense secretary Dick Cheney’s prioritization of expanding American power over spreading democracy.

a. individual

b. domestic

c. systemic structural

d. systemic process

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Hegemony versus Equilibrium

Difficulty Level: Medium

24. Which of the following statements would a power balancing realist agree with as a line of action following the 9/11 attacks?

a. The United States must launch a global war on terror.

b. Regional containment of Iran and Iraq will effectively neutralize threats and maintain stability.

c. A preemptive war to rid Iran of its nuclear weapons is the only way to deal with that threat.

d. Nuclear monopoly, with the United States as hegemon, is more stable than a balance of nuclear power.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Nationalist Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

25. In describing the post-Cold War world, what is meant by the phrase “a holiday from history”?

a. Democracy has sufficiently spread across the world, resulting in the democratic peace.

b. The world has reached a sustainable equilibrium with the United States as hegemon.

c. International institutions have flourished, resulting in many international agreements and progress toward peace.

d. The emergence of unipolarity is a brief break from conflict and the balance of power.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Power Balancing Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

26. What are the Six-Party Talks?

a. Multilateral discussions to halt proliferation of nuclear weapons via the A.Q. Khan network.

b. A multilateral coalition of key Middle East states to pressure Iran to stop development of nuclear weapons through sanctions.

c. A multilateral coalition of Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, and the United States to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear program.

d. Multilateral discussions to guide Palestine and Israel toward agreement on a two-state solution.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Alliances

Difficulty Level: Easy

27. Terrorism is an example of which of the following concepts?

a. balance of power

b. containment

c. asymmetric threat and warfare

d. counterbalancing

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Medium

28. The ______ level of analysis describes the realist view of counterbalancing that highlights the use of asymmetric threat and warfare by weak actors to resist powerful actors.

a. individual

b. domestic

c. foreign policy

d. transnational

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Cyber Warfare

Difficulty Level: Medium

29. What is a rogue state?

a. a state that did not participate in the global war on terror

b. a state whose domestic institutions have collapsed

c. a state that systemically seeks to acquire nuclear weapons with the possible intent of passing them on to nonstate terrorists

d. a state that refuses to participate in international institutions and diplomacy

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Iraq War

Difficulty Level: Easy

30. Power transition realists in the Pentagon, led by which secretary of defense, drafted a strategy document that called on the United States to forestall the emergence of any challenger to American predominance?

a. Colin Powell

b. George H. W. Bush

c. Dick Cheney

d. Donald Rumsfeld

Cognitive Domain: Easy

Answer Location: Power Transition Realists

Difficulty Level: Comprehension

31. Populist movements called upon establishment elites to push back against globalization is an example of which perspective?

a. the realist perspective

b. the power balancing perspective

c. the liberal perspective

d. the identity perspective

Cognitive Domain: Easy

Answer Location: Chapter Introduction

Difficulty Level: Comprehension

32. For realists, rising powers constitute the most serious challenge to the distribution of power and hence the stability of the international order. This is an example of which type of system?

a. unipolar

b. bipolar

c. multipolar

d. superpolar

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Multipolarity

Difficulty Level: Easy

33. The phrase, “No borders, no country” is central to the ______ perspective.

a. realist

b. power balancing

c. liberal

d. identity

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Sovereignty

Difficulty Level: Easy

Multiple Response

1. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following are examples of how U.S. President Obama refocused on diplomacy?

a. acting upon a Russian-initiated proposal to destroy chemical weapons in Syria

b. developing a nuclear agreement with Iran

c. devising a road map for peace by strengthening moderate forces within the Palestinian Authority and Israel

d. launching the Six-Party Talks to multilaterally pressure North Korea to halt its nuclear program

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Cyber Warfare

Difficulty Level: Easy

2. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following are critical rising powers that may challenge American hegemony?

a. China

b. Russia

c. Japan

d. European Union

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Chapter Introduction

Difficulty Level: Easy

3. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following statements are true about Al Qaeda?

a. It is a full-fledged global NGO with corporate and financial operations all over the world.

b. It focused solely on recruiting members in Afghanistan following its war with the Soviet Union.

c. It only had one affiliate, located in the Arabian Peninsula.

d. It runs several multinational businesses, in the sectors of construction, manufacturing, and banking, among others.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Easy

4. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. If decision makers are assumed to be rational actors, which of the following assumptions holds?

a. They have preset goals or preferences.

b. They select the course of action that maximizes their goals and minimizes costs.

c. They calculate costs and benefits mostly in material terms.

d. They act as a composite of multiple actors, engaging in bargaining and trade-offs.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following are examples of interest groups?

a. political parties and legislatures

b. corporate and other for-profit groups

c. the military-industrial complex

d. domestic governmental agencies

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: State Sovereignty, Decision Making and Ethnic Conflicts

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. The military–industrial complex includes which of the following?

a. the Department of Defense

b. government and private research institutes that develop new weapons

c. antiwar lobbying groups

d. major producers of military weapons

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. The global war on terror involved which two of the following types of states?

a. rogue states

b. new states

c. communist states

d. failed states

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following are examples of interest groups?

a. political parties and legislatures

b. corporate and other for-profit groups

c. the military-industrial complex

d. domestic governmental agencies

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: State Sovereignty, Decision Making and Ethnic Conflicts

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Key assumptions of the simplified rational choice model include which of the following?

a. the actor is unitary, making decisions as a single actor

b. the actor does not have access to complete information, so it makes decisions based on preferences

c. the actor has preset goals and preferences that it uses to evaluate circumstances

d. the actor selects the courses of actions that maximize its goals and minimize costs

Cognitive Domain: Medium

Answer Location: Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process

Difficulty Level: Application

10. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. The global war on terror involved which two of the following types of states?

a. rogue states

b. new states

c. communist states

d. failed states

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Hegemony versus Equilibrium

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following countries were members of the coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003?

a. Italy

b. Great Britain

c. Russia

d. France

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Military Interventions

Difficulty Level: Easy

True/False

1. The term BRICS refers to countries that have benefitted from the enormous expansion of the global economy following the end of the Cold War and includes Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, China, and South Korea.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Multipolarity

Difficulty Level: Easy

2. Many realists saw the expansion of NATO as necessary to back up democratic reforms in former communist countries and reassure these countries against domestic extremists who might try to destabilize the new democracies.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Alliances

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. The U.S.–Japan Security Treaty, established in 1960, guarantees U.S. support for the defense of Japan but does not obligate Japan to support the United States militarily.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Alliances

Difficulty Level: Easy

4. Terrorism and piracy are not examples of asymmetric threat or warfare.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. Modern states emerged in the seventeenth century partly because they performed functions more efficiently than city-states or city-leagues.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Sovereignty

Difficulty Level: Easy

6. The independence of Kosovo from Serbia is an example of partition.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Ethnic Conflict

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. The simplified rational choice model does not assume that actors have access to complete information.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. According to the realist perspective, unless partition is accompanied by an effective balance of power, partition merely stimulates competitive armament and instability.

An: T

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Ethnic Conflict

Difficulty Level: Easy

9. Realists emphasize the struggle for power at the state level because states remain the most powerful actors in contemporary world affairs.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Chapter Introduction

Difficulty Level: Easy

10. From a realist perspective, the global war on terror involved only nonstate actors and could be handled through international police and courts.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Hegemony versus Equilibrium

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. Power balancing realists view terrorism as a new global threat that cannot be dealt with through NATO.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Power Balancing Realists

Difficulty Level: Easy

12. Soft balancing refers to counterbalancing a dominant power through rivalry, diplomatic disagreement, and economic challenges, rather than force.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Other Rising Powers

Difficulty Level: Easy

13. According to the realist perspective, alliances were no longer essential to the balance of power following the end of the Cold War.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Chapter Introduction

Difficulty Level: Easy

14. If economic sanctions against Iran fail, power balancing realists prefer to let Iran acquire nuclear weapons and then contain it thereafter by deterrence, rather than launch a preemptive war against Iran.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Power Transition Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

15. According to the realist perspective, smaller powers seek responsibility but contribute few capabilities, so they seek to restrain larger powers through multilateralism and international institutions.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Alliances

Difficulty Level: Medium

16. Power balancing realists anticipate the return of multipolarity and, therefore, focus on containing, not preempting or preventing, the rise of powers.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Power Balancing Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

Short Answer

1. As secretary of state, ______, as well as former national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, opposed the American decision to invade Iraq because in doing so the region would be destabilized and the global war on terror would be jeopardized.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Hegemony versus Equilibrium

Difficulty Level: Easy

2. The ______ was a worldwide military campaign to defeat nonstate terrorist groups and the rogue states that support them.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Hegemony versus Equilibrium

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. The global war on terror involved both ______ and failed states.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. ______ was a transnational nongovernmental network run by a top Pakistani scientist that sold nuclear technology and equipment to rogue states.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Easy

5. Instead of accepting European support via Article 5 of the NATO Treaty after the 9/11 attacks, the United States formed the ______ to overthrow the government of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Military Interventions

Difficulty Level: Easy

6. ______ realists focus on containing, not preempting or preventing, rising powers such as China, Russia, and Japan because they view multipolarity as more stable than unipolarity.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Power Balancing Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. Analysts sometimes call the struggle among allies for supremacy against the United States following the Cold War the “______.”

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Other Rising Powers

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. Terrorism and cyber warfare are examples of ______, a type of conflict in which the weak exploit technology and psychology to target the peripheral vulnerabilities of the strong.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. ______, an example of cyber warfare, was a computer worm that the United States and Israel deployed in 2010 that crippled Iranian nuclear installations by temporarily disabling centrifuges.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Cyber Warfare

Difficulty Level: Easy

10. Some realists see partition as incentivizing ______, or the systematic persecution, torture, and killing or removal of a religious or ethnic group with the intent to take over the territory of that group.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Ethnic Conflict

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. ______ are groups of people among whom ethnic and national identities overlap substantially, such as the Arab and Israeli peoples.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Partition: Two-State Arab-Israeli Solution

Difficulty Level: Medium

12. The power transition school of realists sees wars arising from movement away from ______ and toward ______.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Power Transition Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

13. The ______ school of realism advocates equilibrium and coexistence and seeks to reduce American hegemony by accommodating rising powers.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Power Balancing Realists

Difficulty Level: Medium

14. U.S. President George H. W. Bush delivered the “______” speech in 1991, warning that the United States would not support independence movements that sought to replace one form of tyranny with another.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Hegemony versus Equilibrium

Difficulty Level: Easy

Essay

1. What factors accelerated or exacerbated terrorism and other asymmetric threats after the Cold War?

Cognitive Domain: Application

2. What is partition? What is the key disadvantage of partition from the realist perspective?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Ethnic Conflict

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. What are the key assumptions of the simplified rational choice model, which the realist perspective emphasizes as the key foreign policy decision-making process?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process

Difficulty Level: Hard

4. According to the realist perspective, what unique feature of the post–Cold War world drives international outcomes? How do the power transition and power balancing schools view and construct international strategies for the United States around this feature?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Multipolarity

Difficulty Level: Hard

5. How did the shift between U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both change and perpetuate American foreign policy toward terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Hegemony versus Equilibrium

Difficulty Level: Hard

6. What is asymmetric threat and warfare? Define three forms of asymmetric threat and warfare.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Terrorism

Difficulty Level: Medium