CIAO DATE: 10/2013
Volume: 38, Issue: 1
Summer 2013
Summaries (PDF)
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 inºuence 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 ofªcials in his administration of Soviet intentions during the collapse of détente; assessments by President Ronald Reagan and administration ofªcials of Soviet intentions during the end of the Cold War; and British assessments of Nazi Germany before World War II.
Karen Yarhi-Milo
How do policymakers infer the long-term political intentions of their states’ adversaries? This ques- tion has important theoretical, historical, and political signiacance. If British decisionmakers had understood the scope of Nazi Germany’s intentions for Europe during the 1930s, the twentieth century might have looked very differ- ent. More recently, a Brookings report observes that “[t]he issue of mutual dis- trust of long-term intentions . . . has become a central concern in U.S.-China relations.”1 Statements by U.S. and Chinese ofacials conarm this suspicion. U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke noted “a concern, a question mark, by people all around the world and governments all around the world as to what China’s intentions are.”2 Chinese ofacials, similarly, have indicated that Beijing regards recent U.S. policies as a “sophisticated ploy to frustrate China’s growth.”
Military Primacy Doesn't Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think) (PDF)
Daniel W. Dresner
Acommon 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.
Why States Won't Give Nuclear Weapons to Terrorists (PDF)
Keir A. Lieber, Daryl G. Press
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.
A Model Humanitarian Intervention? Reassessing NATO's Libya Campaign (PDF)
Alan J. Kuperman
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.
The Permanence of Inconsistency: Libya, the Security Council, and the Responsibility to Protect (PDF)
Aidan Hehir
Many observers heralded the Security Council—sanctioned intervention in Libya in March 2011 as evidence of the efficacy of the responsibility to protect (R2P). Although there is no doubt that the intervention was significant, the implications of Resolution 1973 are not as profound as some have claimed. The intervention certainly coheres with the spirit of R2P, but it is possible to situate it in the context of a trajectory of Security Council responses to large-scale intrastate crises that predate the emergence of R2P. This trajectory is a function of the decisionmaking of the five permanent members of the Security Council (P5), a group guided by politics and pragmatism rather than principles. As a consequence, the Security Council's record in dealing with intrastate crises is characterized by a preponderance of inertia punctuated by aberrant flashes of resolve and timely action impelled by the occasional coincidence of interests and humanitarian need, rather than an adherence to either law or norms. The underlying factors that contributed to this record of inconsistency—primarily the P5's veto power—remain post-Libya, and thus the international response to intrastate crises likely will continue to be inconsistent.
Just War Theory and the 2008–09 Gaza Invasion (PDF)
Michael L. Gross, Jerome Slater, Davis Brown, Tamar Meisels
Jerome Slater’s normative treatment of Israel in the 2008–09 Gaza War spotlights an of- ten misunderstood domain of the security studies aeld: just war theory.1 This is a largely understudied area, given its normative framework of analysis in a aeld that his- torically is largely devoid of norms. My sense is that this journal may be becoming a fo- rum for the reintroduction of this framework to the aeld, thanks to Slater’s article and Robert Pape’s call for a revised standard for humanitarian intervention.2 As a student of the ethics of war, I welcome this development. But precisely because just war theory is understudied, it is still highly prone to oversimpliacation and abuse. Slater regretta- bly engages in both in his attempt to apply it to the conduct of Israel in the Gaza War.
Nuclear Negotiations with Iran (PDF)
Paul R. Pillar, James K. Sebenius, Michael K. Singh, Robert Reardon
James Sebenius and Michael Singh are to be commended for advocating rigor in the analysis of international negotiations such as the one involving Iran’s nuclear pro- gram.1 Although they describe their offering as a neutral framework for analyzing any negotiation, they are not at all neutral regarding the negotiations with Iran; and they present conclusions that derive directly from speciac substantive assumptions, espe- cially about Iranian objectives. The authors repeatedly describe their assumptions as “mainstream,” implying that they are uncontroversial and that any differing ones are too extreme to be worth considering. For an assumption to reside within the main- stream of popular and political discourse about Iran, however, does not make it cor- rect. Sebenius and Singh do something similar with assumptions about U.S. interests, while sliding silently between the descriptive and the prescriptive in a way that fails to contrast actual policies with possible ones that would be consistent with those interests. Many readers’ principal takeaway from their article will be that a zone of possible agreement probably did not exist as of the time of their writing and probably will not exist unless the United States takes steps toward going to war with Iran. That answer, however, given the questionable assumptions on which it is based, is very likely wrong.
Reviewers for Volume 37 (PDF)
From April 1, 2012, to March 31, 2013, International Security received 275 article manuscripts. International Security relies heavily on the evaluations and advice of external reviewers in making its editorial decisions. The editors thank the reviewers listed below for their invaluable assistance. As in previous years, we are recognizing outstanding reviewers for the exceptional quality, quantity, and timeliness of their reviews. Outstanding reviewers are denoted with an asterisk