Once more unto the breach
Keren Yarhi-Milo
International Security, Summer 2013, Pages 7-51
Abstract:
How do policymakers infer the long-term political intentions of their states’ adversaries? A new approach to answering this question, the “selective attention thesis,” posits that individual perceptual biases and organizational interests and practices influence which types of indicators a state’s political leaders and its intelligence community regard as credible signals of an adversary’s intentions. Policymakers often base their interpretations on their own theories, expectations, and needs, sometimes ignoring costly signals and paying more attention to information that, though less costly, is more vivid (i.e., personalized and emotionally involving). In contrast, intelligence organizations typically prioritize the collection and analysis of data on the adversary’s military inventory. Over time, these organizations develop substantial knowledge on these material indicators that they then use to make predictions about an adversary’s intentions. An examination of three cases based on 30,000 archival documents and intelligence reports shows strong support for the selective attention thesis and mixed support for two other approaches in international relations theory aimed at understanding how observers are likely to infer adversaries’ political intentions: the behavior thesis and the capabilities thesis. The three cases are assessments by President Jimmy Carter and officials in his administration of Soviet intentions during the collapse of détente; assessments by President Ronald Reagan and administration officials of Soviet intentions during the end of the Cold War; and British assessments of Nazi Germany before World War II.
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Hawks, Doves, and International Cooperation
Joe Clare
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does the hawkish or dovish nature of the domestic opposition in one state influence its own, as well as an international opponent’s, negotiating behavior? I show that doves, when negotiating in the presence of a hawkish opposition, have more bargaining leverage in international negotiations. The key is to understand an international opponent’s preference to deal with a dove rather than a hawk in future negotiations. I argue that adversaries have an incentive to concede more in negotiations to doves in order to sustain them in office, because failing to give concessions may lead to their replacement by less conciliatory (more hawkish) governments in the future. For this reason, doves are more likely than hawks to extract critical concessions from adversaries. The empirical results support this argument, which altogether suggests that doves are more successful in international negotiations not because they are more conciliatory, but rather because, for domestic reasons, they have greater bargaining leverage to extract counter-concessions from adversaries.
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Syria, Precipitator of the Six Day War
Joseph Mann
Middle Eastern Studies, July/August 2013, Pages 547-562
Abstract:
The Six Day War is renowned for its impact on the shaping of the Middle East. In the last few decades, much research examining the reasons for the outbreak of the Six Day War, its development and its ramifications has been published. Most of the research has focused on an examination of Israeli government policy before and after the war, on the Egyptian regime's hatred of the ‘Zionist entity’ and on the involvement of the superpowers during and after the war. Some research has also touched on Syria's role in the outbreak of the war. Researchers such as Eyal Zisser and Moshe Maoz have shown Syria's decisive role in initiating the war and suggest that various factors, such as a lack of government stability in Syria, precipitated the conflict. This research continues, to a great extent, in the line of those researchers: indeed, it points to Syria as being the main factor behind the outbreak of war through an examination of the changes that occurred in the character of its government from 1966. However, unlike other research so far, this attempts to show that the unique character of the neo-Ba'ath regime is what brought war to the region and that, had the Ba'ath coup not occurred in 1966, it is doubtful whether Syria would have entered the conflict. This article seeks to emphasize that the Syrian regime went blindly into the war despite military unpreparedness and a lack of political and military cooperation with other Arab countries and with the Soviets. It also exposes, for the first time, the state of the Syrian troops on the front and in the cities, as well as the feelings of the senior officers on the eve of the war, and reveals documents about the military and political cooperation between Syria and Egypt that would eventually force President Nasser to enter a war he did not want to get involved in. Moreover, the research exposes the deep rift – which many believe pushed Syria to take rash independent measures –between the Soviet leadership and the Ba'ath regime before the war. And, finally, the research exposes the atmosphere in Syria following the war, and the administrative and military steps the Syrian regime took immediately after the defeat in order to consolidate its power.
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Douglas Kriner & Francis Shen
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent scholarship argues that how members of Congress respond to an ongoing war significantly influences the president's strategic calculations. However, the literature is comparably silent on the factors influencing the public positions members take during the course of a military venture. Accounting for both national and local electoral incentives, we develop a theory positing that partisanship conditions congressional responses to casualties in the aggregate, but that all members respond to casualties in their constituency by increasingly criticizing the war. Analyzing an original database of more than 7,500 content-coded House floor speeches on the Iraq War, we find strong support for both hypotheses. We also find that Democrats from high-casualty constituencies were significantly more likely to cast antiwar roll-call votes than their peers. Finally, we show that this significant variation in congressional antiwar position taking strongly correlates with geographic differences in public support for war.
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Why States Won’t Give Nuclear Weapons to Terrorists
Keir Lieber & Daryl Press
International Security, Summer 2013, Pages 80-104
Abstract:
Many experts consider nuclear terrorism the single greatest threat to U.S. security. The fear that a state might transfer nuclear materials to terrorists was a core justification for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and, more recently, for a strike against Iran’s nuclear program. The logical basis for this concern is sound: if a state could orchestrate an anonymous nuclear terror attack, it could destroy an enemy yet avoid retaliation. But how likely is it that the perpetrators of nuclear terrorism could remain anonymous? Data culled from a decade of terrorist incidents reveal that attribution is very likely after high-casualty terror attacks. Attribution rates are even higher for attacks on the U.S. homeland or the territory of a major U.S. ally — 97 percent for incidents in which ten or more people were killed. Moreover, tracing a terrorist group that used a nuclear weapon to its state sponsor would not be difficult, because few countries sponsor terror; few terror groups have multiple sponsors; and only one country that sponsors terrorism, Pakistan, has nuclear weapons or enough material to manufacture them. If leaders understand these facts, they will be as reluctant to give weapons to terrorists as they are to use them directly; both actions would invite devastating retaliation.
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Questioning the Effect of Nuclear Weapons on Conflict
Mark Bell & Nicholas Miller
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the effect of nuclear weapons on interstate conflict. Using more appropriate methodologies than have previously been used, we find that dyads in which both states possess nuclear weapons are not significantly less likely to fight wars, nor are they significantly more or less belligerent at low levels of conflict. This stands in contrast to previous work, which suggests nuclear dyads are some 2.7 million times less likely to fight wars. We additionally find that dyads in which one state possesses nuclear weapons are more prone to low-level conflict (but not more prone to war). This appears to be because nuclear-armed states expand their interests after nuclear acquisition rather than because nuclear weapons provide a shield behind which states can aggress against more powerful conventional-armed states. This calls into question conventional wisdom on the impact of nuclear weapons and has policy implications for the impact of nuclear proliferation.
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Winning Hearts and Minds Through Development: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan
Andrew Beath, Fotini Christia & Ruben Enikolopov
MIT Working Paper, August 2013
Abstract:
Development programs are increasingly used not only as an instrument for economic and political development, but also as a tool for counterinsurgency. We explore the effectiveness of this approach using a large-scale randomized field experiment in Afghanistan. We find that the country’s largest development program improves economic welfare, attitudes towards the government, and levels of security in villages during program implementation. The positive effect of the program on security, however, is observed only in villages with low levels of violence at program start. After program completion, the magnitude of the effect on security declines and is no longer significant. Results suggest that development aid can reduce violence, but the effect is only short-lived and requires that a certain minimum threshold of initial security be in place.
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Khrushchev visits the Bolshoi: [More than] a footnote to the Cuban Missile Crisis
David Winter
Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, August 2013, Pages 222-239
Abstract:
At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis on October 23, 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev attended Moscow’s Bolshoi Opera with a group of Presidium leaders and visiting Romanian Communist leaders. Although many accounts of the crisis mention this fact, there has been little scholarly interest in what opera was presented at the Bolshoi that evening (Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov [Mussorgsky, M. (1968). Boris Godunov [English translation of libretto by David Lloyd-Jones]. New York, NY: Oxford University Press Music Department])—apart from occasional brief mention that the lead role was sung by the American bass Jerome Hines. This article suggests that seeing that opera may have affected Khrushchev’s subsequent behavior during the crisis. After a brief sketch of the historical background and plot of the opera, the paper draws connections and parallels between (a) the opera’s plot and libretto passages and (b) aspects of Khrushchev’s political career and the confrontation between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. The psychological concept of generative historical consciousness (Winter, D. G. [2008]. Taming power: Should we? Can we? How? Paper presented at the annual scientific meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Paris, France; Winter, D. G. [2010]. Taming power: Development of a psychological measure from leaders’ speeches. Paper presented at the annual scientific meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, San Francisco.), as a psychological mechanism that can tame power, is introduced as a link between Mussorgsky’s opera and Khrushchev’s behavior and verbal imagery during the crisis. By itself, of course, seeing the opera did not “cause” Khrushchev to remove the Soviet missiles from Cuba; nevertheless, there are several mechanisms by which the psychological resonance of the opera narrative with Khrushchev’s own situation and memories may have affected his choices and behavior, and thereby influenced the crisis outcome.
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Iranian methamphetamine and Turkey: An emerging transnational threat
Behsat Ekici & Salim Ozbay
Trends in Organized Crime, September 2013, Pages 286-305
Abstract:
Traditionally, Turkish security officials were engaged with state-level threats from Iran. Their primary concerns were export of revolutionary ideology, sponsorship of terrorism, proliferation of nuclear weapons and energy blackmail. In the recent years, however, the nature of the threat has changed and diversified. Non-state actors, mainly transnational crime syndicates, have begun to pose a significant threat to both Turkey and Iran. Iranian drug networks (IDNs) have become the primary actors in heroin and methamphetamine trafficking through Turkey. The IDN threat transcends the jurisdictions of the two states and casts a debilitating impact on the Asia-Pacific countries. Despite a plethora of enacted initiatives, high profits sustain large-scale trans-regional methamphetamine trafficking. Retail prices in the Asia-Pacific markets approach hundred-fold profits over the production costs of methamphetamine in Iran. In this context, Turkish law-enforcement agencies report increasing amounts of methamphetamine seizures since 2009. The upsurge in seizure quantities is coupled with an escalation of cases and arrests. This paper investigates dimensions of the methamphetamine threat in Turkey, profiles of the actors, shipment routes, and modus operandi of the trafficking syndicates. It provides insight into a non-traditional non-state threat coming out of Iran. The inferences are based on an analysis of 183 methamphetamine case files and 81 provincial questionnaires of the Department of Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime (KOM).
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Ahsan Butt
International Organization, July 2013, Pages 575-607
Abstract:
This article questions the validity of anarchy as an assumption in International Relations theory. Powerful states often provide public goods to smaller states in return for their acquiescence on matters of interest. This transactional provision of public goods is analogous to how central governments behave in domestic environments; thus the hierarchic structure of domestic politics is replicated in international politics. The anarchy-hierarchy distinction, which rests on a neat separation of international and domestic structures, is therefore highly contentious. One public good that great powers provide, largely ignored by the literature on hierarchy, is justice. Powerful states can provide a forum for aggrieved parties to settle their disputes, and thus contain conflicts before they escalate to war. If such a forum is no longer provided, the system reverts to anarchy, where escalation — and therefore, war — is more likely. South America's war-prone decade can be explained by the variation in structural conditions on the continent. Due to the Depression, its Good Neighbor policy, and the onset of World War II, the United States was less interested in South American affairs in the 1930s, resulting in a more anarchic structure and a higher propensity for war.
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A Model Humanitarian Intervention?: Reassessing NATO’s Libya Campaign
Alan Kuperman
International Security, Summer 2013, Pages 105-136
Abstract:
NATO’s 2011 humanitarian military intervention in Libya has been hailed as a model for implementing the emerging norm of the responsibility to protect (R2P), on grounds that it prevented an impending bloodbath in Benghazi and facilitated the ouster of Libya’s oppressive ruler, Muammar al-Qaddafi, who had targeted peaceful civilian protesters. Before the international community embraces such conclusions, however, a more rigorous assessment of the net humanitarian impact of NATO intervention in Libya is warranted. The conventional narrative is flawed in its portrayal of both the nature of the violence in Libya prior to the intervention and NATO’s eventual objective of regime change. An examination of the course of violence in Libya before and after NATO’s action shows that the intervention backfired. The intervention extended the war’s duration about sixfold; increased its death toll approximately seven to ten times; and exacerbated human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If it is a “model intervention,” as senior NATO officials claim, it is a model of failure. Implementation of R2P must be reformed to address these unintended negative consequences and the dynamics underlying them. Only then will R2P be able to achieve its noble objectives.
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Tying Hands Behind Closed Doors: The Logic and Practice of Secret Reassurance
Keren Yarhi-Milo
Security Studies, Summer 2013, Pages 405-435
Abstract:
Private diplomacy and secret agreements among adversaries are major features of international relations. Sometimes secret reassurance has resulted in cooperation and even peace between longtime adversaries. Yet rationalist theories consider private diplomatic communication as cheap talk. How do we explain this gap between theoretical expectations and the empirical record? I offer a theory that explains how, why, and when a leader may convince an enemy that his private reassurances are credible even when they are not costly to undertake. I also account for the conditions under which recipients of such reassurance infer the leader's benign intentions from these secret interactions. I claim that leaders engage in secret reassurance with the enemy when they face significant domestic opposition. The adversary can leverage the initiator's domestic vulnerability by revealing the secret reassurance, thereby imposing domestic punishment on the initiator. Further, by entering into private or secret negotiations and offering their adversary such leverage, initiators generate “autonomous risk” that exists beyond their control. I evaluate this theory against two empirical cases. The first case looks at Richard Nixon's secret assurances to the Chinese leadership in 1972. The second examines the secret negotiations between Israeli officials and the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization that ended with the signing of the Oslo I Accord in 1993.
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After Oslo and Utøya: A shift in the balance between security and liberty in Norway?
Anne Lise Fimreite et al.
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, forthcoming
Abstract:
The article addresses the challenges a society faces to when trying to balance between security and liberty after a terrorist attack. A main question is to what extent attitudes towards counterterror measures changed in Norway after the massive terror attacks in July 2011. A hypothesis that people will be more in favour of such measures after a terror attack is examined using data from two surveys – one conducted in 2006 and one in August in 2011, with additional results from a survey in 2012. The Norwegian response after the 2011 attacks is compared to the response to the same questions in the US shortly after 9/11 2001. A main finding is that in Norway, in contrast to the US, levels of support for counterterror measures declined immediately after the attacks. The authors argue that this can be explained partly by the different levels of trust in the two countries, and partly by differences in the political executive's framing of the crisis. In 2012, support of counterterror measures in Norway has risen to pre-2011 levels. This is related to the changed discourse after the publication of the report from the 22 July Committee.
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Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think)
Daniel Drezner
International Security, Summer 2013, Pages 52-79
Abstract:
A common argument among scholars and policymakers is that America’s military preeminence and deep international engagement yield significant economic benefits to the United States and the rest of the world. Ostensibly, military primacy, beyond reducing security tensions, also encourages economic returns through a variety of loosely articulated causal mechanisms. A deeper analytical look reveals the causal pathways through which military primacy is most likely to yield economic returns: geoeconomic favoritism, whereby the military hegemon attracts private capital in return for providing the greatest security and safety to investors; direct geopolitical favoritism, according to which sovereign states, in return for living under the security umbrella of the military superpower, voluntarily transfer resources to help subsidize the costs of hegemony; and the public goods benefits that flow from hegemonic stability. A closer investigation of these causal mechanisms reveals little evidence that military primacy attracts private capital. The evidence for geopolitical favoritism seems more robust during periods of bipolarity than unipolarity. The evidence for public goods benefits is strongest, but military predominance plays only a supporting role in that logic. While further research is needed, the aggregate evidence suggests that the economic benefits of military hegemony have been exaggerated in policy circles. These findings have significant implications for theoretical debates about the fungibility of military power and should be considered when assessing U.S. fiscal options and grand strategy for the next decade.
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Benjamin Tkach
Texas A&M University Working Paper, August 2013
Abstract:
Does the corporate structure of private security firms (PSFs) influence conflict outcomes? Employers’ inclusion of PSFs in conflicts generates a dilemma for government employers as the former are profit-maximizing agents contracted to provide services outside established military structures. Contracts provide the legal structure to govern the provision of services. But contracts between PSFs and state employers are incomplete, particularly in conflict zones where considerable unforeseen contingencies exist. One approach to mitigate incomplete contracts is to identify information about the PSFs. We expect that the severity of the dilemma varies across different types of PSFs’ corporate structures. PSFs are either publicly traded or individually owned firms — firms that have non-public ownership structures. Corporate structure of the firm influences information availability. Increased information reduces oversight and management costs for employers of PSFs which, in turn, is argued to improve firm effectiveness. Satisfying demand for security services requires utilizing both publicly traded and individually owned firms. Expectations are tested utilizing both U.S. and non-U.S. headquartered private security firms operating in Iraq from March 2003 to December 2007. Based on the U.S. objective of establishing law and order, conflict outcome is measured using insurgent attacks and civilian casualties. Publicly traded firms are associated with reductions in violence, while individually owned firms are not. My findings have important theoretical and policy implications for both PSFs and their employers.
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Norms, Diplomatic Alternatives, and the Social Psychology of War Support
Aaron Hoffman et al.
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using experiments, we show that subjects who are asked about their support for war without being told about diplomatic strategies to deal with crises back military operations at levels consistent with people who are told that the alternatives to war are of low quality. In contrast, subjects who are told that diplomacy could work to resolve conflicts express less support for military operations. These results suggest that, in the absence of conflicting evidence, people premise their support for war on the assumption that leaders use force as a last resort. Implications for the study of success as an influence on public attitudes about US military operations are considered.
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Strategic Uses of Mediated Public Diplomacy: International Reaction to U.S. Tourism Advertising
Jami Fullerton & Alice Kendrick
American Behavioral Scientist, September 2013, Pages 1332-1349
Abstract:
Using a newly launched U.S. tourism commercial as a stimulus, this pre/post quasi-experimental study empirically tests the bleed-over effect of tourism advertising on public diplomacy measures. Metrics for both tourism and public diplomacy objectives were obtained after the commercial was viewed by a large, nationally representative sample of Australian adults. Confirmation of the bleed-over effect was found. Subgroup analysis further explains how the commercial affected various audience segments. Practical and theoretical implications for the use of tourism advertising as a tool for mediated public diplomacy are explored.
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Democracy, Territory, and Armed Conflict, 1919–1995
Johann Park & Patrick James
Foreign Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
Democracy and territory are two of the most important factors that affect conflict and war. Yet no research design looks directly at a possible interaction between these two variables to influence occurrence of armed conflict. This study seeks to answer the following question: “How do two democracies behave when a contentious issue such as territory arises as the source of conflict between them?” Results based on Militarized Interstate Dispute data from 1920 to 1996 produce the conclusion that the pacifying effect of democracy stands up for both territorial dyads and non-territorial ones in spite of the imperatives toward militarization created by territorial conflict. However, territory of high salience still appears to increase the likelihood of armed conflict between two democracies.
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Geoffrey Wallace
Journal of Peace Research, July 2013, Pages 479-493
Abstract:
Past studies have applied insights from the democratic peace to show that democracies are also less likely to sanction one another compared to other regime types. More recent work challenges this finding by arguing that the economic peace between democracies largely disappears once methodological improvements are included along with the particular behavior of the United States as market hegemon. This article cautions that these critiques may themselves be an artifact of particularities in past data on economic sanctions. Using a larger and more representative sanctions dataset, the analysis shows that democracies do seem less likely on average to sanction each other. Furthermore, the United States does not appear to be unique in its sanctioning behavior compared to other democracies. However, the article proposes a middle ground between proponents and skeptics of an economic peace between democracies. The analysis shows that the pacifying effects of joint democracy only operate for security related sanctions, while in non-security related matters democratic constraints are less evident. The results point to the importance of considering more closely the choice of data on sanctions, but also the need to take into account the issues under contention for episodes of economic coercion.
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The Cost-Effectiveness of Armored Tactical Wheeled Vehicles for Overseas US Army Operations
Chris Rohlfs & Ryan Sullivan
Defence and Peace Economics, July/August 2013, Pages 293-316
Abstract:
This study uses for official use only data on US military operations to evaluate the large-scale Army policies to replace relatively light Type 1 tactical wheeled vehicles (TWVs) with more heavily protected Type 2 variants and later to replace Type 2s with more heavily protected Type 3s. We find that Type 2 TWVs reduced fatalities at $1.1 million–$24.6 million per life saved for infantry units, with our preferred cost estimates falling below the $7.5 million cost-effectiveness threshold, and did not reduce fatalities for administrative and support units. We find that replacing Type 2 with Type 3 TWVs did not appreciably reduce fatalities and was not cost-effective.
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Martial Law? Military Experience, International Law, and Support for Torture
Geoffrey Wallace
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
A large body of work points to diverging civil–military views on the initial decision to use force, yet there is little sense if similar differences hold over appropriate conduct in the midst of armed conflict. The rise of international laws governing behavior during war has similarly raised the question of whether these rules can shape the beliefs of various domestic actors. This paper seeks to address both gaps in the literature by leveraging the use of experiments embedded in a pair of US national surveys to examine the impact of international law and military experience on individual attitudes toward torture. The results show veterans are significantly more likely to support torture compared to civilians without any prior military background. International law further reduces civilian support for torture, while veterans are largely unaffected by general legal appeals. However, when facing highly precise rules, or where the threat of punishment is delegated to third parties, more legalized agreements can significantly reduce veteran support for torture. The results have implications for the study of institutional design, the differential effects of legal norms on nonstate actors, and the potential for greater awareness of the laws of war to influence attitudes toward wartime violence.
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Radicalism of the Hopeless: Refugee Flows and Transnational Terrorism
Daniel Milton, Megan Spencer & Michael Findley
International Interactions, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine whether refugee flows increase transnational terrorism in states to which refugees flee. Recent studies find that refugee flows contribute to the spread of interstate and civil war, but to a far lesser extent have studies examined how refugee flows could lead to other forms of political violence. We discuss two ways in which refugee flows can lead to transnational terrorism: how conditions in camps contribute to the radicalization of refugees; and how poorly host states treat refugees. We then conduct empirical tests using data on worldwide international refugee flows and transnational terrorism. Specifically, we model the effect of refugee flows on transnational terror attacks within a directed dyad framework to account for characteristics of origin and host states. Using a rare-events logit model, along with count models to check robustness, we find that refugee flows significantly increase the likelihood and counts of transnational terrorist attacks that occur in the host country, even when controlling for other variables. Given the prominence of refugee flows and populations worldwide, the results suggest that states with significant refugee populations and the international community at large should take measures to address the conditions in refugee camps, as well as the treatment of refugees by host states in order to prevent transnational terrorism.
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Donor ideology and types of foreign aid
Viktor Brech & Niklas Potrafke
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine how donor government ideology influences the composition of foreign aid flows. We use data for 23 OECD countries over the period 1960-2009 and distinguish between multilateral and bilateral aid, grants and loans, recipient characteristics such as income and political institutions, tied and untied aid, and aid by sector. The results show that leftist governments increased the growth of bilateral grant aid, and more specifically grant aid to least developed and lower middle-income countries. Our findings confirm partisan politics hypotheses because grants are closely analogous to domestic social welfare transfer payments, and poverty and inequality are of greatest concern for less developed recipient countries.