ABSTRACT
Introduction When the cold war came to an end almost two decades ago, scholars contemplated that we might soon miss it (Mearsheimer 1990). The reason for such a counterintuitive feeling is simple: with the move from bipolarity to unipolarity, security threats no longer emanate from the rivalry of two superpowers playing according to well-established rules, but from defiant and often relatively small rogue states. Rogue states are said (or partly known) to sponsor or practice international terrorism and to engage in the acquisition and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (Tanter 1998). Their leaders are said to be genuinely belligerent and hostile, and sometimes they are even described as crazy (Krauthammer 2005; Thornhill and Ward 2002).
