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Extended Deterrence and the Outbreak of War
Abstract
Successful deterrence, it is argued, requires a combination of military capabilities and bargaining behavior that enhances a defender's credibility without provoking a potential attacker. Hypotheses on the political and military conditions under which extended-immediate deterrence is likely to succeed or fail are formulated and tested by probit analysis on fifty-eight historical cases. The empirical results indicate that (1) the military capability of the defender to deny the potential attacker a quick and decisive victory on the battlefield enhances deterrence; (2) a policy of reciprocity in diplomacy and military actions by the defender contributes strongly to deterrence success; and (3) a past record of backing down under pressure or intransigence in confrontations with the potential attacker increases the likelihood of deterrence failure.
... The second wave, which incorporated game theory models, such as the "Chicken Game," led to important insights about the nature of international relations, but did not contribute to direct policy implications: while it explained superpower relations and framed broad strategic issues, it did not significantly contribute to smaller diplomatic and military efforts [11], [12]. This lack of empirical evidence made it difficult to evaluate claims made in the deterrence literature [13], which helped lead to the third wave's emphasis on empirical work about risk taking, rewards, misperceptions, and bureaucratic politics [10], [14]. ...
... By matching strength for strength, nations prevent politics through overt domination and achieve a goal of deterrence in its simplest form. Deterrence, however, is multifaceted [14] and contextdependent-possessing equal nuclear weapon strength may deter the use of nuclear weapons, but may do nothing to deter unequal trading practices or conventional military action below nuclear thresholds or "red-lines," and may, curiously, have negative association with compellence success [37]. Failing sufficient stand-alone strength, collections of nations may align or ally themselves with another nation that is willing and able to provide extended deterrence. ...
... Sustaining the perception of strength is critical for the security model, as well as sufficient indicators that one or more parties will use their strength when sufficiently provoked. Failure to sustain both the capability and the demonstrated one will put the security model at risk as aggressor nation states and actors may perceive few costs to their own actions as demonstrated in Huth's [14] research on extended deterrence. ...
Through the development of a computational sociocultural model, we demonstrate the potential utility of a rapid-modeling approach for exploring the dynamics of nuclear deterrence. We review the past literature, showing how our model is influenced by both the domestic politics and constructivist paradigm models of nuclear deterrence. Our model development process incorporates expert elicitation into a model featuring cognitively limited, perception error-prone, belief holding, and knowledge diffusing actors. Results from both an intellective and specific scenario were generated through running the model across various strategies and courses of action (CoAs). Third-party experts validated the model's short- and long-term results and contribution to stakeholders exploring alternative CoAs. Work remains in validating this paper against empirical data sets and in automating the model construction process.
... The idea that alliances serve as a general deterrent threat can be linked to Schelling's argument that the threat of military force can coerce an actor to change its behavior based on the anticipation of such violence; therefore, the power to hurt is most useful when it is held in reserve, and an effective alliance should reduce the likelihood that an allied actor will be the target of aggressive behavior from non-allied actors (Schelling, 1966). Huth (1988) distinguishes between different types of deterrence in an alliance according to whether they are of a general form, or whether they are more immediate in nature. General deterrence involves the existence an ongoing adversarial relationship between states where the threat of war is not immediate, which encompasses the purpose of alliance commitments. ...
... Immediate deterrence is most successful when a potential attacker determines that the costs of an attack are high and the probability of successful attack is low. Therefore, successful deterrence in a militarized dispute hinges in large part on the balance of forces between sides involved in a dispute (Huth, 1988). Moreover, military strategies generally tend to favor seizing the initiative through rapid and decisive use of force (Betts, 1991;Snyder, 1984;Van Evera, 1984). ...
This dissertation explores the causes and consequences of military commitment problems and evaluates how they impact military effectiveness. Military organizations regularly encounter dynamic, heterogenous environments in which conditions can change both quickly and substantially over time, which can give rise to commitment problems. I investigate three factors necessary for military organizations to be effective in such situations: resolve—the willpower to continue with a course of action despite setbacks; adaptation—the ability to learn from and adjust to novel situations; and flexibility—the ability to respond quickly to different situations. Each of these factors is related to a different commitment problem that military forces often have to confront. First, high signals of resolve within an army can make the commitment to fight credible, such that commanders and troops believe fighting in combat is their best option, rather than fleeing or surrendering. Second, a high level of commitment to a conflict by political leaders can create better conditions for the military to adapt to novel situations and improve their doctrines. Finally, high flexibility through improved force projection capabilities can make security commitments to other states credible, as it allows military forces to respond to crises more quickly and efficiently. I demonstrate that organizational solutions to commitment problems are directly tied to military effectiveness, and along with other types of commitment solutions, provide a better framework for understanding military effectiveness than existing approaches.
... Typically state actors evaluate immediate military capabilities when determining whether or not an attack can be successful, and are less likely to be swayed by long-term balance of forces (Huth, 1988 Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities were at an advantage where China could not secure second-strike ability. ...
... China's ability to deter the Soviet Union despite its technological deficiency suggests that a nuclear threat can be mitigated with a sufficient military apparatus. The threat of nuclear war in itself is a sufficient deterrent due to a, "combination of salient political, military, and ethical questions about the immediate and long-term consequences" (Huth, 1988 force. An additional problem with this specific case is that military conflict did in fact break out although the fighting was limited to small border skirmishes. ...
... 56 Of course, none of these principles is unique to Israel. 57 Moreover, they have different interpretations due to various geopolitical circumstances, and none of them has an entirely clear definition. 58 The mode of deterrence, for example, changes between countries and situations and, particularly, between the policies that international actors seek to implement. ...
On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the aim of destroying the military infrastructure of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was serving as a launching pad for terrorist infiltrations and Katyusha attacks into northern Israel. From its outset, the Israeli public considered the war an exceptional case and a deviation from the “proper” course of Israeli history. Allegedly, unlike other Israeli wars, the 1982 War did not relate to Israeli security concerns but instead to the political aims and whims of Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon. Also, it is often described as an unjust war of choice, which Israel initiated while it was not facing an existential threat. The claim that the 1982 Lebanon War was exceptional and a deviation from original Israeli principles is the main interest of this article. To determine whether the Lebanon War was a breach of Israeli history or a deviation from Israeli foundational political-moral principles, one must analyze the core tenets of Israel’s security strategy to which it adhered in most of its battles. Using the security doctrine as a guide map reveals that the conflict was neither unique nor a deviation but rather a fulfillment of long-standing Israeli security principles.
... The theory of deterrence has a long and influential history within criminology (Beccaria, 1764;Loughran et al., 2012;Nagin & Pogarsky, 2001;Paternoster, 2010;Paternoster & Fisher, 2017), and it has influenced other social science disciplines and numerous policy domains (D'Arcy & Herath, 2011;Huth, 1988;Kilgour & Zagare, 1991). The interpretations and meaning of this theory however have changed considerably since it was described by Cesare Beccaria in 1764 in On Crimes and Punishments. ...
Targeted killings are a prominent strategy for combatting terrorism and are regularly claimed to deter political violence. Employed against terrorist leaders like Osama bin Laden and others who are argued to be prominent terrorist threats, a growing body of evidence suggests that targeted killings do not achieve their desired general deterrent impacts. Yet, this strategy still enjoys great political support and targeted killings continue to be touted as examples of previous counterterrorism success even before their impacts could be observed. Aiming to disentangle whether there is an empirical basis for these divergent claims regarding the impacts of targeted killings, this study examines the impact of the killing of bin Laden on global patterns of terrorist fatalities. Employing group-based and dual trajectory models, our findings indicate that regardless of whether an explicit cut-point is included in the analysis, the killing of bin Laden coincided with a global increase in terrorist fatalities in many but not all countries, some of which had previously declining trajectories of fatalities from terrorism. The potential impacts of future targeted killings and general deterrence are discussed along with the need to consider terrorism consequences beyond national borders.
... 6 Virtually all of these studies have focused on how leaders cultivate reputations through foreign policy choices. Most focus on how standing firm in a prior crisis creates a reputation for resolve in future crises (Harvey and Mitton 2016;Huth 1988;Kertzer, Renshon, and Yarhi-Milo 2018;Lupton 2020;Renshon, Dafoe, and Huth 2018;Sartori 2005;Weisiger and Yarhi-Milo 2015). 7 Others have analyzed the reputational effect of keeping alliance commitments (Crescenzi 2018;Gibler 2008;Mattes 2012;Miller 2012;Narang and LeVeck 2019). ...
Existing research finds that leaders develop international reputations based on their past behavior on the international stage. We argue that leaders’ domestic choices can also influence their international reputations, perhaps as much as their past foreign policy decisions do. Using formal theory and intuitive argumentation, we develop an overarching framework to predict how much any domestic choice will affect a leader’s international reputation. We theorize that certain domestic choices can inform expectations about future international crisis behavior based on the extent to which (1) the costs at stake are similar to those of an international crisis and (2) the domestic issue is salient relative to foreign policy. We use conjoint experiments and other evidence to show that many domestic choices have significant international reputational effects. There is some evidence that the reputational effect of certain domestic choices may equal that of fighting in a previous international crisis.
... US nuclear umbrella pledges to protect Japan and South Korea from North Korea exemplify extended deterrence. However, such protection has long suffered from credibility problems (Huth 1988(Huth , 1999Danilovic 2001;Fuhrmann 2018). Because security sponsors risk high costs in defending allies from a nuclear attack, insecure protégés and bellicose rivals may come to question if the sponsor has "sufficient emotional motivation for revenge" (McDermott, Lopez, and Hatemi 2017, 75). ...
How robust is public support for extended nuclear deterrence in patron and client states? Recent studies have improved scholarly understanding of US public opinion about nuclear weapon use against non-nuclear adversaries. Yet, there is limited knowledge of public attitudes regarding retaliation for nuclear strikes against US allies. We develop a theoretical typology of nuclear crises and investigate this phenomenon with a novel survey experiment (n = 6,623). Americans, Japanese, and South Koreans viewed realistic emergency alert messages about a most-likely case for nuclear retaliation: a North Korean missile attack on a US ally protected by the nuclear umbrella. Support for nuclear retaliation is low in all three countries, with important cross-national differences. Favorability increases with North Korean nuclear first-use, but it remains limited nonetheless. Surprisingly, US “tripwire” troop casualties do not increase Americans’ demands for nuclear retaliation. These findings have important implications for the study of nuclear crises and practice of extended deterrence.
... US nuclear umbrella pledges to protect Japan and South Korea from North Korea exemplify extended deterrence. However, such protection has long suffered from credibility problems (Huth 1988(Huth , 1999Danilovic 2001;Fuhrmann 2018). Because security sponsors risk high costs in defending allies from a nuclear attack, insecure protégés and bellicose rivals may come to question if the sponsor has "sufficient emotional motivation for revenge" (McDermott, Lopez, and Hatemi 2017, 75). ...
How robust is public support for extended nuclear deterrence in patron and client states? Recent studies have improved scholarly understanding of US public opinion about nuclear weapon use against non-nuclear adversaries. Yet, there is limited knowledge of public attitudes regarding retaliation for nuclear strikes against US allies. We develop a theoretical typology of nuclear crises and investigate this phenomenon with a novel survey experiment (n=6,623). Americans, Japanese, and South Koreans viewed realistic emergency alert messages about a most-likely case for nuclear retaliation: a North Korean missile attack on a US ally protected by the nuclear umbrella. Support for nuclear retaliation is low in all three countries, with important cross-national differences. Favorability increases with North Korean nuclear first-use, but remains limited nonetheless. Surprisingly, US "tripwire" troop casualties do not increase Americans' demands for nuclear retaliation. These findings have important implications for the study of nuclear crises and practice of extended deterrence.
... EE.UU. cuenta, por primera vez en la historia, con capacidad de supervisar en tiempo real, controlando las vías marítimas, concepto en lo que se ha edificado el sistema económico mundo-capitalista de intercambio de bienes y servicios (HUTH, 1998). ...
Como principal potencia del mundo contemporáneo, le corresponde a Estados Unidos fijar el orden de seguridad y estabilidad en el Sistema Internacional. Su "pivote" hacia el Indo-Pacífico hizo explícita una tendencia que se manifiesta hace bastante tiempo: el traslado del eje de las relaciones internacionales, desde una perspectiva transatlántica hacia transpacífica, manifestando la importancia que el retorno al poder de las economías asiáticas tiene en este núcleo.
De esta misma manera, en base al paradigma neorrealista y a una serie de indicadores de conflicto, respecto de la zona de estudio, las estrategias que se han esbozado en el último tiempo, los actores interesados y las épocas de comparación respecto a lo que se ha vivido en los últimos 40 años se consolida una pérdida de poder relativo de las potencias clásicas Europeas y Americanas, para dar cabida al auge de las economías asiáticas.
En la presente investigación se postula respecto de la influencia que la aparición de nuevas potencias medias en el ámbito regional tendrán en la resolución de las relaciones internacionales del Indo-Pacífico, la estabilidad en el sistema y su influencia en la ocurrencia de conflictos, lo que tendrá repercusiones en las percepciones de inseguridad que se pueden apreciar tanto a nivel Nacional, Humano y Colectivo. Esto se efectuó mediante el empleo de herramientas metodológicas y un análisis deductivo del tipo multidisciplinario, para lograr conclusiones válidas respecto de este tema que repercutirá en las relaciones internacionales del siglo XXI.
... Ultimately, the doctrine of deterrence rests on fear: it is no accident that "terror" is intrinsic to the very word 1 The theoretical principles underlying the doctrine of extended deterrence were well articulated by Paul Huth, writing in The American Political Science Review in 1988 (Huth 1988). With estimable caution, Huth ended his analysis with the following observation: ...
The COVID19 pandemic has reinforced two of the main contributing factors to the current age of disruption: the tendency of national leaders to act unilaterally; and the global decline in trust. Rather than acting collaboratively, national leaders everywhere, particularly in Europe and North America, have pursued a “go it alone” policy towards both containing and managing the virus. Some might even describe it as a “dog eat dog” approach. “Extended deterrence” and “extended nuclear deterrence”, as security guarantees extended to allies of the United States, are artefacts of over six decades of US-only strategic policy and planning. No other Nuclear Weapon State (NWS) offers such guarantees. Their fragility was already evident before the appearance of the coronavirus. And given that the credibility of the deterrence doctrine, essentially a US-backed doctrine, has continued to erode in recent years, President Trump’s mercurial approach to the coronavirus pandemic and international agreements has encouraged the allies of the United States to look at their national security through the lens of his approach to the coronavirus. Ultimately, national defence cannot be built on a fiction. The allies and clients of the United States will need to look to their own resources to guarantee their security. This is more likely to be a product of an energetic and invested diplomacy, constructive internationalism, the re-generation of trust, renewed regional and international efforts towards nuclear disarmament, renewed global progress on climate change mitigation and, of course, effective global mechanisms to manage and ultimately eliminate the COVID19 pandemic.
... The New York Times (2012) Applying the classical security dilemma in this scenario, South Korea and the United States' JMEs was meant to enhance a state's security in the long term but instead caused instability and risk conflict escalations in the short-run (Huth, 1988;Jervis, 2017). Unlike South Korea, North Korea perceived JMEs as an offensive provocation and, therefore, response to military conflicts. ...
The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which inter-Korean economic activities affect the Inter-Korean political relationship. In the field of International Relations, there are two prominent ideologies: liberalism and realism both attempt to explain the relationship between economic interdependence and political conflict. While liberalist argument of economic interdependence induces political reconciliation, realists argue that economic instrument is a tool to pursue national interests, and interaction often leads to conflicts. This paper presents Inter- Korean economic activities and Inter-Korean political relationships from 1980 to 2018. Then, it highlights the period of 2003 to 2018, examining how the Inter-Korean economic activities affect the political relationship, especially whether it corresponds with South Korean policymakers' long-standing liberal belief of a spill-over effect. A linear regression model was performed in R Studio, and tables and graphs generated from Microsoft Excel are used as tools for data analysis. The empirical evidence has shown that there is a little reliable causal relationship between the independent variable (Inter-Korean economic activities) and the dependent variable (Inter-Korean political relationship) in which the increase of Inter-Korean economic engagement does not always lead to a decrease in the numbers of military confrontations. The current South Korean administration argument of a spill-over effect from Inter-Korean economic engagement to Inter-Korean political relation is only valid in 2009-2010, 2014-2015, and 2017-2018, in which an increase of trade was accompanied by a decrease in the number of Inter-Korean military confrontations. The rise of the Inter-Korea trade in 2005-2006, 2011-2012, and 2013-2014 was accompanied by an increase in the numbers of military confrontation instead. This study suggests that the rise of Inter- Korean economic engagement might have an effect on constraining the conflict escalation process to a good effect. The findings have been discussed with several relevant International Relations theories. This paper also devoted a chapter that looks at the potential explanations of the failure to bring peace on the Korean Peninsula through trade. While I acknowledge that economic engagement does not necessarily translate into the decrease of the number of military confrontations between the two Koreas, an increase of Inter-Korean economic engagement might have played a significant role in maintaining a steady and low amount of military clashes.
... Therefore, it can be argued that the past behaviours of states create a kind of power image. Past behaviours can be quite effective on leaders' perceptions (Jervis 1976(Jervis , 2017Huth 1988). For instance, Jervis emphasises the effects of the last war on decision-making processes (Jervis 1976: 266). ...
This article provides a conceptual and empirical review of power analysis in International Relations. The main objective of this article is to bridge the gap between conceptual and empirical research on power. First, it reviews various definitions of power by focusing specifically on International Relations literature. Second, it identifies and illustrates key measurement issues concerning the national power capacities of major powers. In this article, the Composite Index of National Capabilities for 20 countries for the period between 1991 and 2012 is used to demonstrate the change in power distribution among major powers. Lastly, it introduces diplomatic representation and war proneness as two new variables that enhance the empirical analysis of power by adding a relational dimension while working with tangible and quantifiable data. These two variables are both indicators and sources of national power. The article concludes by suggesting that diplomatic representation, and war proneness of countries, should be taken into consideration analytically if one wants to comprehend the dynamics and effects of power distribution among the most powerful countries in today’s world.
... In the existing IR literature on coercion, most scholars accept Thomas Schelling's defini- tion of 'latent violence that can influence someone's choice', with a 'threat of damage, or of more damage to come' expressed to achieve the target actor's compliance with the coercer's demands. 8 Often broken down to labels such as deterrence, compellence or coercive diplomacy, 9 there have been numerous attempts to create different taxonomies of these strategies and further subtypes such as deterrence by punishment/denial, 10 gen- eral/immediate deterrence, 11 homeland/extended deterrence 12 or existential/post-existen- tial deterrence. 13 However, the IR literature has always been predominantly occupied with direct coer- cive dynamics between two actors. ...
This article deals with the concept of indirect coercion as a distinct type of coercive strategy involving three actors. We introduce a taxonomy of triangular strategies commonly employed in international politics: ‘hostage-taking’, ‘patron-client’ and ‘composite’ strategies. These three types of indirect coercion cover different ways in how the coercer draws the intermediary actor in the process of coercive bargaining to enhance his leverage over the target. For each type, we conduct a plausibility probe to study these dynamics on short empirical case studies. We argue that our conceptualisation of indirect coercion opens new avenues for research into deterrence and compellence in contemporary world politics.
... However, missing in both prior and current literature is a quantitative analysis of whether following the strategy of immediate containment produced better outcomes for the United States. Further, although the theory of extended immediate deterrence (EID) stipulates that decisive action and commitment to follow through does deter the adversary from engaging in conflict (Achen and Snidal 1989;Danilovic 2001;Huth 1988Huth , 1999Wu 1990), it primarily accounts for defensive deterrence. Put simply, EID theory argues that states which create clear boundaries and show resolve to defend their borders are more likely to deter the aggressor. ...
... However, missing in both prior and current literature is a quantitative analysis of whether following the strategy of immediate containment produced better outcomes for the United States. Further, although the theory of extended immediate deterrence (EID) stipulates that decisive action and commitment to follow through does deter the adversary from engaging in conflict (Achen and Snidal 1989;Danilovic 2001;Huth 1988Huth , 1999Wu 1990), it primarily accounts for defensive deterrence. Put simply, EID theory argues that states which create clear boundaries and show resolve to defend their borders are more likely to deter the aggressor. ...
Securitization measures were presented as key pillars of Candidate
Trump’s campaign, and have informed Executive policymaking since
President Trump assumed office. In the wake of the contentious relationship that has been developing between the Executive and the judiciary, the Court’s recent opinion sustaining, in part, the Executive’s
immigration policy, and the Court allowing the travel ban to take
effect while legal challenges go forward, it is timely to critically examine the nexus between Security, Law, and Policy. In the present
context, the Executive has articulated an agenda that explicitly securitizes immigration. The significance of this is that law and policy
each cast the immigrant as an existential threat to public safety. The
foregoing merits critical examination. We contend that explicitly securitizing immigration law and policy will have substantial political,
sociocultural, and legal effects on overall public policy and on the
content and character of American identity going forward.
... This occurs because conciliatory behavior in previous diplomatic interactions can signal lack of resolve and military unpreparedness, which might eventually lead a challenger to take a firmer stance in the current negotiation (Huth & Russet 1988). The studies of Huth and his co-authors repeatedly demonstrate that conciliatory policies adopted by states in crisis bargaining weaken their reputation for resolve and cause significant costs in the subsequent interactions with the same actor (Huth, Gelpi & Bennett 1993;Huth 1988;Huth, Bennet & Gelpi 1992). Even if prior concessions by a target do not encourage higher demands, the reputation for weakness that such concessions may bring could undermine the willingness of the challenger to make concessions in this dispute. ...
... Purchasing weapons could also be an attempt to signal military strength and the potential to increase this strength through imports. This again is aimed to deter challenges and therefore, if successful, should reduce conflict probability ( Huth, 1988;Jervis, 1989). Again, the opposite effect is also possible. ...
Do governments’ military build-ups foster the outbreak of intrastate violence? This article investigates the impact of governments’ arms imports on the onset of intrastate conflicts. There is scant empirical research on the role of the external acquisition of coercive technologies, and even fewer studies explore the respective causal mechanisms of their consequences. We argue that the existing literature has not adequately considered the potential simultaneity between conflict initiation and arms purchases. In contrast, our study explicitly takes into account that weapon inflows may not only causally induce conflicts but may themselves be caused by conflict anticipation. Following a review of applicable theoretical models to derive our empirical expectations, we offer two innovative approaches to surmount this serious endogeneity problem. First, we employ a simultaneous equations model that allows us to estimate the concurrent effects of both arms imports on conflict onsets and conflict onsets on imports. Second, we are the first to use an instrumental variable approach that uses the import of weapon types not suitable for intrastate conflict as instruments for weapon imports that are relevant for fighting in civil wars. Relying on arms transfer data provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for the period 1949-2013, we provide estimates for the effect of imports on civil war onset. Our empirical results clearly show that while arms imports are not a genuine cause of intrastate conflicts, they significantly increase the probability of an onset in countries where conditions are notoriously conducive to conflict. In such situations, arms are not an effective deterrent but rather spark conflict escalation.
... As one of the most prominent formulations among various rational choice frameworks, the expected utility theory originated as an explanation to microeconomic behavior. Over the past several decades, many political scientists have become interested in applying the expected utility theory to the study of international political choices and interactions (see Russett 1963;Bueno de Mesquita 1981;Gilpin 1981;Huth and Russett 1984;Huth 1988). Today, the expected utility theory is one of the dominant choice theories in international relations and foreign policy analysis, particularly in interstate war and peace studies. ...
... As one of the most prominent formulations among various rational choice frameworks, the expected utility theory originated as an explanation to microeconomic behavior. Over the past several decades, many political scientists have become interested in applying the expected utility theory to the study of international political choices and interactions (see Russett 1963;Bueno de Mesquita 1981;Gilpin 1981;Huth and Russett 1984;Huth 1988). Today, the expected utility theory is one of the dominant choice theories in international relations and foreign policy analysis, particularly in interstate war and peace studies. ...
Choice-making is a popular phenomenon involved in all aspects of social life. Scholars from various fields have studied how decisions are made in different situations and have developed a variety of decision theories and methods. In chapter 2, I selected six prominent theories and models in political choice and international relations studies, including three from the analytic/rational choice school and three from the cognitive decision school, and discussed their contributions and limitations. In this chapter, I attempt to construct a theoretical framework to address the essential aspects of bilateral international relations and interactive choices by integrating some key elements from both rational and cognitive schools. The theoretical framework constructed here is called the spatial supergame model. By developing the spatial supergame model, I hope to bring together some seemingly disparate pieces of theoretical and empirical knowledge about interstate choices and relations and incorporate them into a synthesized and empirically testable framework.
... As one of the most prominent formulations among various rational choice frameworks, the expected utility theory originated as an explanation to microeconomic behavior. Over the past several decades, many political scientists have become interested in applying the expected utility theory to the study of international political choices and interactions (see Russett 1963;Bueno de Mesquita 1981;Gilpin 1981;Huth and Russett 1984;Huth 1988). Today, the expected utility theory is one of the dominant choice theories in international relations and foreign policy analysis, particularly in interstate war and peace studies. ...
In this study I developed a spatial supergame model of bilateral international relations based on an interactive choice-making perspective and conducted a series of empirical tests of the most critical propositions derived from the model. Key variables in the spatial supergame model include a pair of players, critical issue dimensions, issue game structures (preferences, strategies, and non-myopic equilibria), and players’ attention dynamics. The notion of bounded rationality is viewed as the fundamental mechanism that governs the play of the spatial supergame.
This paper aims to test whether U.S. allies can bolster deterrence of U.S. alliances by bringing about rapprochement with their rivalries. The argument presented here entails that defender's military support to its protégé depends on whether the protégé mobilizes the strategic option to retaliate against the defender if it is abandoned by the defender. Direct evidence to support the argument is revealed in the results of analyses over the entire period 1816-2014. Particularly during the Cold War, the U.S. allies are much more likely to bolster the deterrence of U.S. alliances by building up rapprochement with challengers. Yet, during the period 2001-2014, there is little evidence that U.S. bilateral allies could induce the U.S. support. Rather, U.S. bilateral allies having close trade ties with challengers are far more likely to be targets of dispute initiation. These findings have significant practical implications for Korea. First, in a strategic move to protect its interests, S. Korea should pursue comprehensive ties with its northern counterpart, as a hedge against the potentially unreliable relationship with the U.S. Second, as S. Korea persistently relies on the security assurances of the U.S. and the rearmed Japan, it unknowingly exposes itself to a treacherous game in which the great powers readily sacrifice its interests, people, and territories, all in the name of preserving a delicate balance in the region. Finally, the realization of a fully armed and reunited Korea stands as the essential factor in neutralizing the shared common interests of the great powers on the divided Korean Peninsula, strategically countering their hegemonic ambitions.
Purpose
This paper aims to seek to and understand how civil conflict and international claims inform one another. Does the existence of ongoing civil and international conflicts affect how a government addresses an international claim? The paper builds on existing literature that link international and domestic conflict. However, it suggests that the logic behind civil conflicts may be different from that for international ones as states decide how to deal with any one claim.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper posits that states faced with domestic conflicts and additional international claims are more likely to seek to resolve an international claim than those without similar conflicts. It develops a series of hypotheses about the likelihood of claim escalation and peaceful settlement attempts and proceed to test them quantitatively using the Issue Correlates of War data combined with the uppsala conflict data program/peace research institute oslo Armed Conflict Data.
Findings
On the one hand, the paper finds support for the argument regarding the difficulty states are faced with when seeking to resolve multiple international claims. On the other hand, it finds that the presence of civil conflicts incentivizes states to resolve international claims either by force or peacefully, suggesting internal violence can both lead to diversionary behavior and attempts at conflict resolution.
Research limitations/implications
The findings have important implications for work considering the complexity of domestic and international conflict linkages.
Originality/value
While many studies of claim militarization and peaceful attempts focus on dyadic and international characteristics, this paper creates a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of this foreign policy decision process.
According to traditional, hawkish reputation theory, states inevitably harm their reputation for resolve by backing down and enhance or maintain it by choosing to stand firm and engage in military conflict. This logic has been used, at least in part, to justify consequential interventions like the Vietnam War, which resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars spent. However, is it always true that states maximize their reputation for resolve by refusing to back down? In other words, is fighting to demonstrate resolve always a logical reason to go to war? I advance a new theory of reputation—dovish reputation theory—that argues the answer is no. My theory can be summarized in two steps. In the first step, choosing to fight rather than back down in the past can lead to war-weariness that reduces a country’s future level of resolve. In the second step, foreign actors can observe the signs of war-weariness and therefore downgrade their estimates of a country’s reputation for resolve. I test my theory using a multi-method research design that includes survey experiments conducted on the general public and members of the United Kingdom Parliament; large-N statistical analyses of political parties’ election manifestos and militarized interstate disputes; and historical case studies of World War I and the First Iraq War. My analysis yields four key findings. First, the experience of a previous conflict can harm a state’s future resolve. Second, backing down, all else equal, does undermine a state’s reputation for resolve. Third, choosing to fight can also erode a state’s reputation for resolve if signs of war-weariness develop. Fourth, the reputation for resolve costs associated with war-weariness can equal or outweigh the reputation for resolve benefits of not backing down. This means states do not always enhance or maintain their reputations for resolve by engaging in military conflict rather than backing down. The most important implication of this project is that the benefits of using military force are lower than the common wisdom suggests.
State-level decisions to initiate militarized conflicts are the result of various factors, ranging from geographic proximity to the previous actions of potential foes. However, we know little about how the reputations of hostile actions shape future conflict and whether they vary for different types of country pairs. Through the adoption of a social network perspective, this research examines the role of post-Cold War hostility on the likelihood of future conflicts using the Militarized Interstate Dispute data from the Correlates of War project. We apply temporal exponential random graph models to evaluate whether the previous hostility levels of a country can determine future patterns of interstate conflict. Additionally, we consider how this association varies based on whether a country’s experience with an adversary is direct (a result of previous conflict with the adversary) or indirect (based on extra-dyadic disputes). Consistent with previous research, results suggest that pairs of countries with a direct history of hostile actions are more likely to fight in the future. However, in absence of this shared history, states are less likely to initiate conflict with those that have a particularly hostile or peaceful history, and instead target adversaries with middling levels of previous hostility.
Abstract: Are Operation Atlantic Resolve (OAR) and NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) rotations adequate measures to deter Russia from taking military action on NATO's Eastern flank? Deterrence theory and policy research broadly indicates that OAR and eFP rotations lack the capability to deny a Russian fait accompli in the Baltics. However, it is not clear what adjustments the United States and NATO must make to provide sufficient deterrent capability. To clarify capability requirements, we focus our analysis at the operational level in the land domain, and revisit and apply correlation of forces models and conventional deterrence theory. Our comparative force ratio analysis of NATO’s Baltic forces against Russian forces in the Western Military District and Kaliningrad Oblast reveals large NATO capability gaps. We further show that potential NATO high readiness reinforcements would be incapable of closing those gaps for at least a month in a crisis. These capability shortcomings hinder the U.S. and NATO’s ongoing efforts to conventionally deter Russian aggression in North Central Europe. Considering U.S. Military budget and force structure constraints, we identify several policy adjustments the U.S. Army can implement to strengthen U.S. capabilities to rapidly reinforce the Baltics in a crisis.
Do security guarantees affect people's willingness to spend their country's “blood and treasure” in a military crisis? Recent research finds that international legal commitments reshape domestic policy preferences. However, the focus of that scholarship is traditionally on issues such as human rights that define a society's normative obligations. In this study, we deploy two original survey experiments in the United States describing a potential military crisis on the Korean peninsula. We find that increasing the salience of the 1953 agreement between Washington and Seoul increases support for military action and that individuals become both more tolerant of U.S. military deaths and North Korean civilian casualties. In addition, the breadth of these effects increases when individuals are provided more detail about the agreement. These results extend the analysis of international law and domestic preferences into the domain of national security politics.
The study aims to assess the Japanese challenge to the status quo established with the “Washington System” during the interwar period under the American leadership from the perspective of deterrence. Deterrence is based on cost/benefit calculations. When the cost of challenging the status quo is greater than the potential benefit, the challenger prefers to maintain the status quo. At this point, satisfaction with the status-quo and credibility are two determining factors of deterrence success and sustainability of the status quo. The changes in power asymmetry in East Asian regional order since the second half of 19 th century caused the fall of the Chinese Empire, the rise of Japan, and the opening of the regional states to Western-style international relations. However, the Washington system established under the US leadership after World War I (WWI) created a dissatisfied Japan with the status-quo in the region. As its capabilities increased, Japan began to take challenging initiatives shaking the Washington System. Due to the isolationist policy of the US after the WWI, US’ responses toward Japanese aggression were minimal and shied away. Thus, it made the US in the eyes of Japan as a status-quo power having retaliatory capacity but not the intention. This study shows that the main reasons for the deterrence failure on the road to the Pearl Harbor attack were the dissatisfaction of Japan with the status-quo and Japan’s misperception of American credibility. As a result, the war became a more beneficial option in Japan’s eyes despite its unacceptable costs, and deterrence failed.
Although a prevalent technology of conflict, the impact of small arms imports on the risk of intrastate conflict outbreak has not been examined so far. This article argues that small arms not only enhance general military capabilities, but also contribute to state capacities necessary for conflict prevention. These two mechanisms are incorporated in a formal model of power shifts. The derived hypotheses are tested on 146 countries for the period 1993–2014. Using split-population and penalized fixed-effects logit models as innovative estimation methods for rare-events data, small arms imports are found to have no or even a risk-reducing impact.
The Baltic Sea region regularly experiences low-level military incidents and violations of territorial borders. Both international media and the Baltic elite interpret Russian violations of airspace as intentional and provocative. Based on reports in the Baltic News Service on Russian airspace violations, this article assesses whether there are systematic patterns regarding geographical distribution as well as variation over time. Moreover, this article examines whether Russian airspace violations can serve as costly signals of resolve and as a deterrent to further NATO expansion.
Recent studies in nuclear deterrence show that nuclear punishment is infeasible in most cases due to the opponent’s second-strike capability, tactical redundancy, and the logic of self-deterrence. However, if the challenge against nuclear deterrence is expected to go unpunished, the deterrent policy is not credible and will likely fail. Can the defender violently punish the challenger possessing nuclear weapons? If it can, under what conditions? Thanks to President Kennedy’s tape recordings, the Cuban Missile Crisis provides researchers an exceptional laboratory for testing various theories on the defender’s policy choices after deterrence failure. This article derives a research hypothesis and its competing counterpart and examines their respective explanatory power via a process-tracing analysis of key members within the Executive Committee during the crisis. The study finds that the challenger’s feasibility of retaliating with atomic weapons is a crucial predictor for the defender’s policy choices.
We study escalation and aggression in an experimental first-strike game in which two participants play multiple rounds of a money-earning task. In each round, both players can spend money to accumulate weapons. The player with more weapons can spend money to strike against the other player, which almost totally eliminates the victim's earnings potential and removes their capacity to strike. Weapons can serve as a means of deterrence. In four treatments, we find that deterrence is strengthened if weapon stocking cannot be observed, that a balance of power is effective in maintaining peace, and that mutually beneficial trade decreases the risk of confrontation, but not necessarily the likelihood of costly arms races.
The rise of China is one of the most notable events in the early 21st century. The strategic impacts of its rise and interactions between the hegemonic power and the rising power have become focal points for scholars in the field of international relations. This article uses prospect theory, power transition theory, and nuclear deterrence theory as the basis for constructing a theory of strategic competition to explain the relationship between the hegemonic power and the rising power, and the strategic interactions between them during the power transition process. This new theory of strategic competition maintains that states take diplomatic actions not just to seek gains, but also to avoid losses. Building upon a critical review and revision of power transition theory, the theory of strategic competition proposes that before the rising power overtakes it, the hegemonic power will take action to avoid incurring losses, and that in response the rising power will passively take action to avoid its own losses. After the rising power has overtaken the hegemonic power, however, it will take action to expand its interests, and the hegemonic power will then passively take action to avoid its own losses. Under the inhibitive influence of nuclear deterrence, strategic competition between the hegemonic power and the rising power is limited to peaceful measures including diplomatic means. This article tests the theory of strategic competition through examining the paradigm shifts in diplomacy of the US and China that have occurred since 2010.
Do alliances curb efforts by states to develop nuclear weapons? Atomic Assurance looks at what makes alliances sufficiently credible to prevent nuclear proliferation; how alliances can break down and so encourage nuclear proliferation; and whether security guarantors like the United States can use alliance ties to end the nuclear efforts of their allies.
Alexander Lanoszka finds that military alliances are less useful in preventing allies from acquiring nuclear weapons than conventional wisdom suggests. Through intensive case studies of West Germany, Japan, and South Korea, as well as a series of smaller cases on Great Britain, France, Norway, Australia, and Taiwan, Atomic Assurance shows that it is easier to prevent an ally from initiating a nuclear program than to stop an ally that has already started one; in-theater conventional forces are crucial in making American nuclear guarantees credible; the American coercion of allies who started, or were tempted to start, a nuclear weapons program has played less of a role in forestalling nuclear proliferation than analysts have assumed; and the economic or technological reliance of a security-dependent ally on the United States works better to reverse or to halt that ally’s nuclear bid than anything else.
Crossing diplomatic history, international relations, foreign policy, grand strategy, and nuclear strategy, Lanoszka’s book reworks our understanding of the power and importance of alliances in stopping nuclear proliferation.
Open access: http://www.cornellopen.org/9781501729188/atomic-assurance/. Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
The Evolution of the South Korea–United States Alliance - by Uk Heo September 2018
Cambridge Core - Asian Studies - The Evolution of the South Korea–United States Alliance - by Uk Heo
This paper analyzes the policy remedies for dealing with North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs. After six nuclear tests and three recent successful ICBM tests, North Korea is close to miniaturizing nuclear warheads and establishing a reliable delivery system, thus achieving a much-feared nuclear weapons capability. In defiance of the extraordinarily tough U.N. Security Council resolutions, Pyongyang persists in developing nuclear weapons. North Korea's nuclear weapons program already has exceeded the strategic patience, of the U.S.-ROK alliance. Harsher policy options to deal with the DPRK nuclear weapons are imperative. Several drastic options, including severe sanctions, preventive bombing, nuclear armament of South Korea, are evaluated in the final round of engagement policy on guaranteeing nonaggression and a peace agreement with Pyongyang.
Uncertainty about resolve is a well-established rationalist explanation for war. In addition to estimating the resolve of immediate rivals, leaders choose their actions in a crisis based on expectations about how third parties will respond. We argue that leaders will become more likely to develop inconsistent estimates of rivals’ relative capabilities and resolve – and thus will become more likely to fight – when domestic political changes occur in states that are allied with an opponent. We also consider how the relationship between conflict in rivalries and third-party domestic change depends on domestic political institutions in the third party. We argue that this effect should only hold when a challenger does not also share an alliance with the third party, and that the effect should be strongest when the third party is a non-democratic state. We test our theory using a dataset of changes in leaders’ domestic supporting coalitions and data on militarized interstate disputes from 1920 to 2001. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that the likelihood of conflict increases in rivalries only when domestic coalition changes occur in states that share an alliance with only one member of a rivalry, and that this effect is strongest and most consistent for non-democratic third parties.
The purpose of this state-of-the-field article is to take stock of the use of international relations theory in the study of cross-Strait relations since 2000. To what degree have studies of cross-Strait relations made use of international relations theory since 2000, and to what degree has international relations theory provided useful insights for understanding Beijing–Taipei relations? I focus my attention on five topics in particular: the prospects for armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait; alliance/alignment politics and the u.s. –China–Taiwan triangular relationship; interactions between domestic politics (in Taipei and Beijing) and the cross-Strait dyadic relationship; cross-Strait economic integration in the shadow of political conflict; and the role of psychology, emotion, and identity in shaping cross-Strait interactions. For each topic, I survey recent studies that apply rigorous international relations theory to the cross-Strait relationship, and where appropriate I make suggestions for further development.
The US Army is under pressure. If trends persist, it will soon shrink to its smallest size in nearly 70 years. While there are sound arguments for the current drawdown, reasonable policies can still yield unintended consequences. In particular, we argue Ameri-can landpower helps make America's conventional and nuclear security guarantees credible. Since these guarantees stabilize alliances, deter aggression, and curb nuclear proliferation, landpower's relative decline could have serious implications for the broader security situation of the United States.
The goal of this article is to distinguish small states’ foreign policy decisions from those of
major states’ by differently applying non-compensatory criteria of poliheuristic theory to
each. Is the calculus of small states’ foreign policy decisions different from that of major
states? How do different types of alliances (i. e., symmetry versus asymmetry) affect the
foreign policy of both small and major states? Most previous research explains a state’s
foreign policy with domestic constraints as a non-compensatory rule, ignoring the role of an
alliance. For example, poliheurisitc thoery may fail to explain the variations among U.S.
allies’ foreign policy behaviors regarding recent wars against terrorism – the Afghanistan and
Iraqi Wars – because of its over-focusing on domestic politics as a representation of the
noncompensatory rule. Alternatively, the modified approach using an alliance factor can
allow poliheuristic theory to help determine why some U.S. allies participated in the war on
terrorism while others did not. This article finds in comparative case studies that democratic
states under symmetric alliances with the U.S. are not prone to support and participate in
U.S. wars on terrorism (given the domestic opposition), while democratic states under
asymmetric alliances with the U.S. are likely to select an alternative option, even in the
condition of strong domestic opposition, due to an alliance influence. Therefore, I conclude
that the revised poliheuristic theory can shed light on variations in foreign policy decisions
between small and major states.
What drives Russia's Baltic policy? To answer this question, I develop a neoclassical realist framework that explains how local great powers act toward neighboring small states. In brief, the framework argues that local great powers face strong systemic incentives to establish a sphere of influence around their borders. Toward that end, they can employ positive and negative incentives. The general rule is that the higher the level of external pressure, the more assertive the policies pursued by the local great power. However, this simple relationship between external pressure and regional assertiveness is moderated by two variables: (1) the ability of small states to obtain security guarantees from extra regional powers; and (2) the level of state capacity of the local great power. The article develops this theoretical argument and shows that it goes a long way to explain the overall pattern and evolution of Russia's Baltic policy over the last two decades.
Recent research emphasizes the effectiveness of biased third parties and their use of leverage in resolving conflicts. However, scholars fail to explore systematically the conditions under which conflict management strategies straddle the confines between mediatory techniques and approaches more commonly associated with joining behavior. This article examines the threshold between neutral conflict management and overt joining by offering a model of third-party intervention based on the notion of international social proximity and situated within the familiar opportunity–willingness framework. Our arguments are tested with a novel combination of data on biased joining from Corbetta and Dixon and data on neutral mediatory efforts from Frazier and Dixon. Our findings reveal that the application of biased leverage and mediation is rare but salient, and asymmetrical ties between third parties and combatants explain their occurrence.
Since 11 February 2016, the Latvian foreign policy has been implemented by a new government. The "existential challenges" of the previous year were joined by new ones - the British vote to withdraw from the EU, military and political activities of Russia in the Middle East and in Europe, radical discussions on the change of focal-points of the foreign policy and security policy of the USA. Strengthening of Latvia's external security as the central issue.
The 2016 decision to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to South Korea has generated multitude of intensely politicized issues and has proved highly controversial. This has made it challenging to alleviate, let alone clarify, points of analytical and policy tensions. We instead disaggregate and revisit two fundamental questions. One is whether THAAD could really defend South Korea from North Korean missiles. We challenge the conventional “qualified optimism” by giving analytical primacy to three countermeasures available to defeat THAAD–use of decoys, tumbling and spiral motion, and outnumbering. These countermeasures are relatively inexpensive to create but exceedingly difficult to offset. Second, we assess the optimal way to ensure South Korean national security against North Korean missiles. By examining the balance of capability and issues of credibility/commitment, we show that the U.S. extended deterrence by punishment remains plentiful and sufficiently credible even without enhancing the current defense capability.
The authors address the question of why some militarized interstate disputes evolve into wars, while others do not. They note from previous investigations that the probability of such disputes ending in war is associated with the types of bargaining behavior adopted by disputants. Particularly important are the degrees of escalation and reciprocity that characterize that behavior. This leads them to ask two questions: first, why do statesmen involved in militarized interstate disputes adopt the bargaining behavior they do?; second, what accounts for variations in outcomes for those disputes in which similar patterns of bargaining behavior are observed? Based upon an analysis of 30 militarized interstate disputes, the authors conclude that (1) escalation in interstate bargaining is strongly associated with the nature of the issues in contention and the types of threat of force initially employed in dispute bargaining, that (2) there exists an association between the relative capabilities of disputants and the degree of reciprocity in bargaining exchanges, and that (3) variations in the outcomes of disputes largely can be accounted for in terms of the interests at stake and the diplomacy of the great powers. These findings prove to be consistent with the basic tenets of political realism, and suggest that the behavior of decision makers engaged in militarized interstate disputes is generally rational in that they respond to cost-benefit considerations.
The authors address the question of why some interstate disputes evolve into wars while others do not. They propose that factors accounting for different outcomes can be divided into two groups: those associated with the bargaining behavior of the disputants and those associated with the attributes of the dispute and disputants. They develop a typology of bargaining behavior and show that eight ideal types of bargaining behavior can be ranked with respect to their propensities to entangle disputants in war. While there exists predictable variance in dispute outcomes across these categories of bargaining behavior, there also exists some variance within the categories. The authors suggest that this within-group variance largely is accounted for by the relative capabilities of the disputants, the relative determination of opposing regimes to pursue their objectives, and the willingness of the great powers to intervene in or mediate ongoing disputes.
This essay presents a psychopolitical theory concerning the interaction effects of parties in conflict using different strategies. A typology of conflict strategies is elaborated, ranging from totalist and long-run totalist, through competitive and deterrent, to firm-but-cooperative and conciliatory. The strategies are explicated in terms of their aims, the means used, and the associated self-images, enemy perceptions, and conflict beliefs. The reciprocal interaction effects of the different strategies are then analyzed. This analysis takes into account the effects of each strategy on the adversary's self-images and enemy perceptions as well as on its tangible costs and benefits, all of which, in turn, affect its strategy. A series of hypotheses is presented concerning the mutual interaction effects for each combination of strategies, under conditions of equal and unequal power. Conclusions are then drawn concerning the effects of each strategy on different types of adversaries and upon the prospects for achieving constructive or destructive conflict outcomes.
Reagan's view of how to deal with the Soviet Union is compared to the U.S. performance record in three Soviet-American crises: Berlin, 1948-1949, Berlin, 1961, and Cuba, 1962. Reagan's public statements indicate that he views the Soviets as incorrigibly hostile, so that conflict bargaining with the Soviets is a zero-sum game requiring a coercive U.S. bargaining strategy. This is characterized as a "bullying" strategy and contrasted with a "reciprocating" approach. The two approaches provide competing hypotheses for an examination of Soviet responses to U.S. influence attempts. The study tests the association between types of U.S. influence attempts and initial Soviet reactions and then proceeds to an interrupted time series analysis of the longer effects of U.S. threats of force on the mix of coercion-accommodation in Soviet crisis bargaining. The author finds a positive association between specific U.S. threats of force and initial Soviet responses in kind, and between carrot-and-stick inducements that use less specific threats and more accommodative Soviet responses. With the exception of the Cuban crisis, U.S. threats of force have not been associated with significant extended shifts in the level of Soviet hostility. The article concludes that, on balance, the performance record of the United States is more supportive of the efficacy of a reciprocating strategy than the coercive bargaining strategy implied by Reagan's beliefs.
WHEN leaders extend deterrence, they attempt to prevent a military attack against an ally by threatening retaliation should force be used against their protégé. At present, most analysts locate extended deterrence at the intersection of nuclear and conventional force in Europe; the United States relies heavily on this strategy to protect its allies. The extension of deterrence to Europe, however, is only one among several possible applications of the strategy. It has been widely used by the United States, for example, to manage conflict in the Middle East. We propose to examine this wider extension of deterrence.
The article develops an expected-utility model of extended deterrence and tests it on 54 historical cases. Successful deterrence is associated with close economic and political ties between the defender and the state it is trying to protect, and with a local military balance in favor of the defender. Deterrence success is not systematically associated with the presence of a military alliance, with the overall strategic military balance, with possession of nuclear weapons, or with the defender's firmness or lack of it in previous crises. If deterrence fails, only alliance and the military value of the state under attack are associated with the defender's willingness to go to war.
Experimental, computer-simulation, and inter-nation studies concerning effective strategies for eliciting cooperation from an adversary are reviewed. The laboratory and inter-nation studies are consistent in indicating that a policy of general reciprocity, combined with the use of unilateral cooperative initiatives to break out of lock-ins on mutual competition, generally is effective in gaining an adversary's cooperation. The conditions under which this strategy is likely to be effective are examined also.
Barry Posen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and the author of The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the World Wars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).
This article is a substantially revised version of "Competing Views of the Center Region Conventional Balance," in Keith A. Dunn and William O. Staudenmaier, eds., Alternative Military Strategies for the Future (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, forthcoming). The author wishes to thank all of the friends and colleagues who provided comments on various drafts of this essay. He also wishes to thank the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller Foundation for their financial support. The author alone is responsible for the content of this essay.
1. The wide range of possible improvements may be loosely grouped into three categories: those of the "military reformers," who advocate a host of tactical, organizational, and hardware changes that would improve conventional capabilities without major spending increases; those of the NATO (and Pentagon) bureaucracy, which has made a battery of proposals (such as the Long Term Defense Plan) simply to buy a lot more of what we have been buying; and those of a group of technology-minded individuals who advocate investments in "new" technologies (usually called "emerging technologies" or "E.T."). For a critical discussion of the possible tactical implications of the military reformers' prescriptions for ground warfare, see John J. Mearsheimer, "Maneuver, Mobile Defense, and the NATO Central Front," International Security, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Winter 1981/82), pp. 104-122. For the best example of how the reformers' ideas have crept into official U.S. Army doctrine, see U.S. Army, FM 100-5, Operations (August 20, 1982). The reformers are also keenly concerned about weapons design. Their principal criticism of current U.S. weapons design philosophy is that it strives for technological parameters that are too far removed from the actual circumstances of both peacetime and wartime military practice. For a useful reform perspective on the technology of ground warfare, see Steven Canby, The Alliance and Europe: Part IV, Military Doctrine and Technology, Adelphi Paper No. 109 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1974/75), pp. 34-41. On aerial technology, see Jack N. Merritt and Pierre M. Sprey, "Negative Marginal Returns in Weapons Acquisition," in Richard G. Head and Ervin J. Rokke, eds., American Defense Policy, 3rd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), pp. 486-495. On the Long Term Defense Plan, see Harold Brown, Annual Report of the Department of Defense, Fiscal Year 1981 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980), pp. 47-49, 215. For arguments in favor of "emerging technologies," see Strengthening Conventional Deterrence in Europe, Report of the European Security Study (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983).
2. John J. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 23-66.
3. If breakthroughs do occur, operational reserves are necessary to combat the adversary's exploitation or encirclement efforts. NATO should, therefore, maintain sufficient "operational reserves" to counterattack in the event that the adversary manages to achieve a clean breakthrough.
4. On the defender's tactical advantage, see John J. Mearsheimer, "Why the Soviets Can't Win Quickly in Central Europe," International Security, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Summer 1982), pp. 15-20, especially footnote 30. The now superseded July 1976 version of the U.S. Army's basic field manual, FM 100-5, Operations, included some explicit statements on the extent of numerical inferiority that the defender could accept and still expect to hold successfully. In describing the tasks of a defending general, it asserts, "As a rule of thumb, they should seek not to be outweighed more than 3:1 in terms of combat power. With very heavy air and field artillery support on favorable terrain, it may be possible to defend at a numerical disadvantage of something like 5:1 for short periods of time" (p. 5-3). Somewhat ambiguously, these ratios are said to apply "at the point and time of decision" (p. 3-5). The document also holds that on the offense, U.S. generals should strive for "concentrated combat power of...
Jack Snyder is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department, Columbia University.
Robert Jervis, William McNeill, Cynthia Roberts, and Stephen Van Evera provided helpful comments on this paper, which draws heavily on the author's forthcoming book, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984).
1. Gerhard Ritter, The Schlieffen Plan (New York: Praeger, 1958), p. 60, note 34; A.A. Polivanov, Voennoe delo, No. 14 (1920), p. 421, quoted in Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), chapter 7.
2. One reason that the war did not happen until 1914 was that Russian offensive power did not seriously threaten Germany until about that year. In this sense, the fact that all the powers had offensive strategies in the year the war broke out is to be explained more by their strategies' interactive consequences than by their common origins.
3. Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive, chapters 1, 4, and 5. I have profited greatly from the works of Barry Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), and Stephen Van Evera, "Causes of War" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1984), who advance similar arguments.
4. Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive, chapters 2 and 3. See also Samuel Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969).
5. Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive, chapters 6 and 7. See also A.M. Zaionchkovskii, Podgotovka Rossii k imperialisticheskoi voine (Moscow: Gosvoenizdat, 1926).
6. Van Evera, "Causes of War," chapter 7, explores these questions briefly.
7. The best and most recent expression of this view is Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).
8. Even the usually crystal-clear Thomas Schelling is a bit murky on this point. See his Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 221-225. For a critic, see Stephen Peter Rosen, "Nuclear Arms and Strategic Defense," Washington Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Spring 1981), pp. 83-84.
9. Ulrich Trumpener, "War Premeditated? German Intelligence Operations in July 1914," Central European History, Vol. 9, No. 1 (March 1976), p. 80.
10. Russia, 10-i otdel General'nogo shtaba RKKA, Vostochnoprusskaia operatsiia: sbornik dokumentov (Moscow: Gosvoenizdat, 1939), especially p. 62, which reproduces a Russian General Staff intelligence estimate dated March 1, 1914. Van Evera's quotations suggest that decision-makers in all countries exhibited more concern about being preempted than seems warranted by actual circumstances. One explanation may be that the military oversold this danger as a way of guarding against the risk of excessive civilian foot-dragging, which was clearly a concern among the French military, at least. Another possibility is that there was a disconnect between the operational level of analysis, where it was obvious that no one could disrupt his opponent's concentration, and the more abstract level of doctrine, where the intangible benefits of "seizing the initiative" were nonetheless considered important. See Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive, chapters 2 and 3.
11. The Germans saw the planned 40 percent increase in the size of the Russian standing army as a threat to Germany's physical survival, not just a barrier foreclosing opportunities to expand. This is expressed most clearly in the fear that the power shift would allow Russia to force a revision of the status quo in the Balkans, leading to Austria's collapse. See especially Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions: German Policies from 1911 to 1914 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1975; German edition 1969), pp. 377-379, 427.
12. This is argued in Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive, chapter 4.
13. Gerhard Ritter, The Sword and the Scepter: The Problem of Militarism in Germany (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1969; German edition 1954), Vol. 1, p. 196, citing Das Volk in Waffen (5th ed., 1889), p. 129.
14. Ritter, Schlieffen Plan, p. 66.
15. Louis Garros, "Préludes aux invasions de la Belgique," Revue historique de l'armée (March 1949), pp. 37-38; French archival documents cited in Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive, chapter 4.
16. Friedrich...
According to most analyses, Japan's decision to attack the United States at Pearl Harbor in 1941 can only be explained as an act of irrationality, given the difference in relative power of the two nations. This article contends that for most purposes of analyzing national decision-making the rationality-irrationality distinction is not useful, and sug gests instead a detailed analysis of certain components of the decision and of the alterna tives considered. The Japanese decision must be seen in the context of their possible attack on third parties, notably the British and Dutch colonies in the Southwest Pacific, and the deterrent threat posed by some probability that the United States would resist the attack even though its own territory was not directly involved. A general decision- theory model was developed and tested on 17 cases in the earlier work of the author. It considers the utility to the decision-makers of each of three possible courses of action: no attack at all (retain the status quo), attack third party only, and attack also the major power which poses the deterrent threat to protect the third party. The utilities must be weighted by the probabilities attached by the decision-makers to the achievement of each out come. In this case the Japanese government attached strongly negative utilities to the status quo. Furthermore, though it would have greatly valued an unresisted attack on the European colonies, it considered it very unlikely that the United States would fail to respond militarily. It reached this assessment on the basis of extensive military, political, and economic ties between the United States and the Southwest Pacific area, despite the absence of an overt alliance. Hence, by comparison, attacking the United States directly had some attractions, given the vulnerability of the Pearl Harbor fleet and certain (mistaken) assumptions about United States willingness to conduct a long war.
A set of hypotheses derived from experiential learning and a realpolitik orientation to crisis bargaining are employed to investigate the bargaining behavior of pairs of states embroiled in recurring crises. It is proposed that in crisis bargaining, experiential learning focuses on the outcome of the preceding crisis, and the lessons drawn from that experience are interpreted in accordance with a realpolitik orientation that stresses the importance of a credible demonstration of power and resolve. The hypotheses predict that in crises between states of relatively equal military capabilities, successful outcomes encourage policymakers to repeat the bargaining strategy employed in the previous crisis, while failures lead to more coercive bargaining in the next crisis. Employing events data from a sample of 18 disputes among 6 pairs of states, each pair having been engaged in three successive crises, a significant pattern of shifts to more coercive bargaining following crises with unsuccessful outcomes was found.
This article offers an empirical description and discussion of interstate conflict behavior. The basis is a recently completed data set consisting of all recorded instances of threats, displays, and uses of military force among states since 1816. We detail historical trends in the data and describe major dimensions of dispute behavior, including patterns of participation, duration, severity and escalation, regional distribution, and national dispute proneness. The following conclusions are suggested: First, patterns of dispute behavior have been more persistent over time than we often assume. Second, when these patterns have changed, the changes have been evolutionary in nature and have paralleled changes in the size and composition of the interstate system. Third, despite the diversity of the political units that constitute the interstate system, patterns of dispute behavior are generalizable across geographic boundaries.
This article studies the effectiveness of influence strategies in serious dyadic disputes. Influence strategies are classified according to four types: bullying, reciprocating, appeasing, and trial-and-error. The study employs events data from twenty serious disputes occurring in the twentieth century. The findings support the central hypothesis that a reciprocating strategy is the most effective means of avoiding a diplomatic defeat without going to war, especially when it is employed against a bullying opponent. A closer look at the individual cases suggests that this is related to the face-saving properties of this approach, as well as the universal norm of reciprocity in international affairs.