Mobilization Follies in International Relations: A Multimethod Exploration of Why Some Decision Makers Fail to Avoid War When Public Mobilization as a Bargaining Tool Fails (original) (raw)
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Creating institutions that effectively manage interstate conflict is a priority for policy-makers. In this article we demonstrate that military allies are well positioned to influence the crisis-bargaining behavior of both challengers and targets in ways that often lead to peace. Through a three-player game-theoretic model, we demonstrate that a target's alliances not only have an effect on the demand that the challenger makes, but also on the behavior of the target. When a target values an alliance highly, an ally's recommendation for settlement can encourage the target to concede to demands without further escalation. Our statistical analysis provides evidence in support of the theoretical finding. Allies can both deter challengers and restrain partners, and as a result, can encourage peaceful behavior not only from adversaries, but from member states as well. Our study thus sheds new light on the role of military alliances as potential conflict management devices.
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The decision to send German combat troops to Kosovo dramatically demonstrated Germany's post-Wall foreign and security policy. The war in which they fought was not defensive. The troops were not sent to protect Germany's security. In fact, the troops were sent as part of a multilateral force to intervene in the territory of a sovereign state. Indeed, just a little more than a decade ago, that decision would have been unthinkable. But as a new century and a new chapter in Germany's foreign policy began, Germany contributed more troops to multilateral foreign missions than any other country, and became the second largest financial contributor to NATO. At the same time, Germany stood firm in its defiant refusal to participate in the US invasion of Iraq, and its economic stagnation and budget crisis threatened to undermine the financial basis of policy transformation from deterrence to preventative war. This chapter tells the story of the events that led to these decisions and explains Germany's dramatic foreign policy shift. The puzzles and the argument Two puzzles require explanation in the course of this policy shift. The first begins with Germany's saga in the most recent Balkan wars: its decision to unilaterally recognize the independence of Croatia and Slovenia in 1991 in open disregard of an EC agreement to provide diplomatic recognition of the two states only if human rights for minorities could be guaranteed. Germany's decision hastened the end of Yugoslavia, and it seemed an ominously defiant first foreign policy step of a newly united and fully sovereign Germany. It was puzzling because German political elites supported multilateralism-or 'embedding' Germany in 56 B.
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International Peacekeeping
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British Journal of Political Science, 2006
Why would fully informed, rational actors fight over possession of a valued asset when they could negotiate a settlement in peace? Our explanation of the decision to fight highlights the incentives that are present when the defender holds a valued asset coveted by the challenger. The defender receives utility from possession of the contested asset and sees any compromise as a loss that is lower if postponed. The challenger, instead, sees any compromise as a gain that is more valuable if reached earlier. Faced with the defender's vested interest in the status quo, the challenger needs to threaten war and may have no choice but to implement the threat to force a settlement. For the defender, the threat of war is a deterrent that might incite the challenger to back down. In the perfect equilibria that we describe, the players' ability to threaten each other credibly allows them to maintain incompatible bargaining positions instead of helping them narrow their differences. But the very credibility of these threats leads our rivals to engage in what can become lengthy protracted wars. , respectively. The authors, considering their contribution to be equal, have listed their names alphabetically. We thank James Morrow, Keith Ord and Dennis Quinn for their comments and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. 1 We therefore look at an asymmetric deterrence situation which allows us to incorporate the simplest possible escalation ladder into our model. Moreover, as Zagare and Kilgour point out, such 'one-sided deterrence relationships have obvious empirical and theoretical import': Frank Zagare and Marc Kilgour, Perfect Deterrence
American Political Science Review, 1990
thews was helpful in coordinating the typing. I thank all of those men tioned, and anyone I have inadvertently neglected to mention, who con tributed their time, effort, and suggestions. Martin Patchen West Lafayette, Indiana chev's decision to put missiles into Cuba reflected his judgment that, while An Analytic Framework 9 Kennedy would be upset about such a development, he would prefer to accept it as a fait accompli rather than to provoke an armed fight with the Soviet Union. The actual preferences of Kennedy and his key advisers were different: they preferred to risk war with the Soviets rather than accept the sudden fact of Soviet missiles ninety miles off American shores. During the crisis, each side took actions and made statements that were intended to influence the preferences and expectations of the other. For example, Kennedy's tough address to the American people, the blockade of Cuba, the mobilization of American troops and planes in the southeast ern United States, and Robert Kennedy's warning to the Soviet ambassa dor all were intended to convince Khrushchev that the United States was going to invade Cuba if he did not agree quickly to remove the missiles. Additional possible outcomesnot initially among the outcomes consideredalso were suggested by each side. The Soviets suggested a possible settlement in which they would remove the missiles while the United States would pledge not to invade Cuba and (in a later proposal) also remove U.S. missiles from Turkey. The United States proposed the deal of "missiles out for a pledge of no United States invasion" supple mented by a tacit pledge to remove the U.S. missiles from Turkey soon. As the perceptions of the two sides about the actual situation became more similar, and as new outcomes emerged as possible solutions, chances for resolution of the dispute increased. Bargaining The processes of influence and bargaining may be viewed in the context of the type of payoff matrix confronting the two sides. Influence moves may be of two typesovert action or statements about future overt actions. First, each side may be able to induce the other to change its behavior (in a more rewarding direction) by taking some overt action itself. Thus, for example, by instituting a blockade (moving the situation from cell G to cell L in table 1.2), American officials hoped to make the present situation less desirable for the Soviets and thus induce them to withdraw their missiles. However, for the Soviets, withdrawal without getting any thing in return (cell K) was no better, and maybe worse, than a continu ation of the crisis (cell L). The Soviets might have chosen to counter the blockade of Cuba with a blockade of Berlin (moving the situation from cell L to cell N), thus making the U.S. outcome poorer and providing a possible incentive for the United States to drop its resistance to the missile bases in Cuba. However, such a surrender by the United States in the face of Soviet military pressure (cell I or cell D) would have been extremely 1o Overall Perspective repugnant to American leaders, and the Soviets undoubtedly realized this. Each side also may threaten to take actions that penalize the other if the other does not take more rewarding actions (make concessions) on the issue in dispute. Thus, the United States threatened to bomb or invade Cuba, or both, if the Soviets did not withdraw their missiles (which would have moved the situation from cell L to cell Q). If this had occurred, the outcomes for the Soviets would have been worse than they were in cell L, and the Soviets would have had no options at that point that could have improved their outcomes substantially. Thus, it was in the Soviets' interest to withdraw the missiles rather than to suffer the consequences of the United States' carrying out its threat. Promises are an alternative verbal means for influencing behavior. In the latter stages of the Cuban crisis, the United States promised to take actions desired by the Sovietsi.e., to remove its own missiles from Turkey and not to invade Cubaif the Soviets withdrew their missiles. These prom ises were intended, of course, to make the outcome of such withdrawal more attractive to the Soviets (compared to other alternatives). In addition to threats and promises, persuasion may involve A pointing out to B the possible advantages to B of taking actions desired by A and the possible disadvantages of not doing so (i.e., advantages and disadvantages not due directly to A's future actions). In the Cuban missile crisis this type of persuasion was not prominent but probably was used by Kennedy to some extent when, in urging Khrushchev to accept an agreement, he pointed out some possibilities of mutually benef1cial cooperation between the two nations that might follow a resolution of the crisis. The process of bargaining in its narrower sensei.e., the exchange of offers and demandsmay be viewed within this same framework. Offers are promises to take future rewarding actions, usually on condition that the other side take actions rewarding to oneself (or stop actions punishing to oneself). Thus, Khrushchev's initial offer to settle the crisis was a promise to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba if the United States would promise not to invade (and, of course, remove its blockade). A demand made of the other side usually is linked to a threat. It asks the other side to take a given action or face unpleasant consequences. Thus, the U.S. demand that the Soviets remove their missiles from Cuba was explicitly linked to a threat to take action that would penalize the Soviets (e.g., invasion) if they did not comply. Note that this conceptual framework makes a clear separation between overt actions that have an impact on the other side and verbal statements (threats, promises, offers, etc.) about possible actions. This approach dif fers from that of many writers who group together positive or conciliatory An Analytic Framework 18 Overall Perspective ings of imminent attack combined to convince Khrushchev that the threats of bombing and invasion were no bluff. Thus the Soviet expectations of U.S. actions, in the absence of a Soviet withdrawal of the missiles, changed (box D-2). Their perception of the possible outcome of an armed confron tation may also have become more grave in light of such developments as the United States putting its strategic nuclear forces on alert (box E-2). Given this newly perceived probability of imminent U.S. attack and possi ble disaster, the Soviets shifted their objectives (box B-2). They now sought not a pohtical-military coup but, rather, a chance of retreat without humil iation. Khrushchev's next action was to offer a deal whereby the Soviets would remove their missiles in exchange for a noninvasion pledge by the United States (box G-2). (In a second letter, he asked also for removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey.) Such an outcome of the dispute was preferred by U.S. officials to the armed confrontation that would have resulted from an invasion of Cuba. Moreover, the Soviet messages did not lead U.S. officials to expect that the Soviets would withdraw peacefully if the United States refused its offer. Thus, the United States accepted and the crisis was over. An Analytic Framework 27 comes, their preferences among outcomes, and their expectancies concern ing what actions will lead to what outcomes. Within the broad theoretical framework presented in this chapter, suc ceeding chapters will explore what determines the actions of national lead ers in disputes and what kinds of actions are most effective in avoiding war while also defending the interests of one's nation. These chapters will focus on the following topics: the conflict situation, perceptions of the situation, choosing among options, the effectiveness of alternative strategies, and the settlement of disputes.
Perspectives on Politics, 2010
appears to have little impact on its duration. The analyses are comprehensive, well conducted, and well presented, and the chapter represents a significant contribution to the study of political institutions and civil war. All in all, this is an important collection of essays. Virtually every chapter presents a good synthesis of an important strand of literature. I will certainly use selections from this book in graduate seminars I teach on international relations, comparative politics, or civil war, as the chapters provide very good introductions for students about the state of the literature. That said, the book would have been much stronger if, instead of a collection of independent essays, it had served as a forum for these authors to engage one another. This is apparent in the first four chapters, in which Bueno de Mesquita, McDermott, Mason, and Lichbach discuss different theoretical approaches to the study of conflict. In the first two, Bueno de Mesquita and McDermott each present different approaches to the study of war/crisis behavior, and these are not specific to the study of intrastate conflict at all. The focus then shifts to an article by Mason on the development of theory on the onset of civil war and revolution, and that chapter makes virtually no reference to the theoretical approaches presented in the first two. It is unclear what to take from this. Has the literature on civil war completely ignored the issues raised in Bueno de Mesquita's and McDermott's contributions? Is this problematic? If so, it should be addressed. If not, why are these chapters presented? The book would have been much stronger if these issues had been addressed by the authors or by the editor. The fourth chapter, by Lichbach, is more integrative in that it attempts to show broadly how "rational choice institutionalists" across a variety of subdisciplines contribute to our understanding of conflict behavior and state building. At the very least, Lichbach and Bueno de Mesquita appear to approach the study of conflict in very similar ways. No edited volume can do everything, and asking this one to present a rigorous theoretical debate between different approaches in which the authors engage one another is a tall task. It is, however, something that needs to be done. Most importantly, I would like to see a discussion about the extent to which civil war is a unique phenomenon that should be studied independently or one that can be studied together with other forms of political violence. The inclusion of Bueno de Mesquita's and McDermott's essays seems to suggest that interstate and intrastate war can be usefully studied through the same theoretical lens. Lichbach, whose analysis incorporates insights from James Fearon's "Rationalist Approaches to War" (1995)-a piece firmly within the international relations fieldalong with Barrington Moore's classic work of comparative politics, appears to agree. In other places, however, the book suggests that phenomena should be separated out and studied more inde