<b>GAMBLING ON THE RED: SHORT-OF-WAR STRATEGIES IN TERRITORY SEIZURES</b>

<p dir="ltr">Territory has been the primary cause of conflict throughout history. Whether disputes over large, shared borders or sovereignty disagreements of small islands far away, states continually pursue violent conflict over territory. To avoid the high costs of war, aggressor states use short-of-war strategies. Short-of-war strategies are measured actions pursued by states below the threshold of conventional war, operating within the ambiguous gap between peace and war. These strategies are used to avoid crossing the target state’s red lines for a conventional military response. Previous research has misunderstood the nature of ambiguity in conflict. Experts and policymakers alike have assumed that escalating violence by the aggressor state is the primary motivator for a target state’s red line response. Rather than violence, I argue that risk and deniability are better observable state behaviors to determine the rationale behind red line violations and escalation between aggressor and target states. </p><p dir="ltr">This dissertation explores the role of short-of-war strategies in territory seizures to provide conceptual clarity for the international relations field and substantive strategic applications for policymakers. Anchored in grounded theory, I conduct an inductive analysis of aggressor states attempting to seize territory from target states using short-of-war strategies. I focus on “repeat offenders,” states that have continually pursued territorial conquest since World War Two. My cases of analysis are Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine (2014), Argentina’s territorial expansion efforts under the Juan Perón regime and el Proceso military junta (1955-1982), and China’s repeated incursions into Vietnamese and Philippine territory (1987-2021). In doing so, I construct an observable framework of the major characteristics of short-of-war strategies. I also develop a typology of four different strategies aggressor states use to seize territory from target states. Focusing on state behavior, I find that the extent of deniability afforded to the aggressor state and the risk of a hostile response by the target state better conceptualize short-of-war strategies than levels of violence as red line determinants. Substantively, my findings show that the use of civilians as tools in combat scenarios is ineffective and escalates rather than mitigates conflict. My work highlights the costly failures that aggressor states endure despite using short-of-war strategies, challenging previous assumptions in short-of-war research and policymaking.</p><p><br></p>