Search Results

This chapter probes questions regarding how nuclear weapons or nuclear postures affect crisis dynamics, by examining whether there is variation in states' decisions to escalate or de-escalate a crisis as a function of nuclear posture. That is, within a crisis, the chapter considers if some nuclear postures deter states from conflict escalation better than others. In answering this question, this chapter uncovers the mechanisms responsible for the relationship between regional nuclear postures and deterrence outcomes, ensuring that the correlations established in the statistical analysis are not just spurious but are real and causal. To do this, the chapter explores the findings from the large-n analysis in more fine-grained crisis settings.

This chapter introduces brokered bargaining as a three-actor model that explains patterns of state behavior in regional crises in a unipolar global setting. The chapter presents ten propositions that are posited to collectively shape crisis behavior of the United States and other strong states acting as third-party mediators and of regional rivals. Crisis behavior of regional rivals ought to be marked by a constant tension between their incentives to pursue their maximalist objectives and their compulsion not to defy the third party completely given its power to tilt the crisis decisively against them. The third party would seek to heighten the antagonists’ sensitivity to its preference for de-escalation ahead of their ideal crisis outcomes. Brokered bargaining unpacks the processes and mechanisms that underpin this trilateral interaction. The last part of the chapter presents the methodology applied to the case studies in the next section of the book.

Drawing on the case studies, this chapter examines the applicability of brokered bargaining in South Asia’s first decade of overt nuclearization and its implications for crisis stability. In each crisis, the concern about escalation forced the United States and other strong states to engage, largely unsolicited, and use a mix of rewards and threats with the regional rivals to achieve de-escalation. Both India and Pakistan eagerly engaged the third-party and oscillated between manipulating the risk of war and deferring to its preferences to gain its support. The process encompassing this dynamic interaction explained both the specific choices and the overall crisis behavior of the three actors. Escalation risks due to the “moral hazard problem,” the “multiple-audience problem,” and the peacetime policy choices of the antagonists and the United States were present.

This chapter examines the 2001–2002 military standoff that kept India and Pakistan on the verge of war for ten months. Brokered bargaining characterized crisis behavior of the rivals and the U.S.-led third party. India threatened to use military force but pulled back at critical junctures as the United States acted as a guarantor of Pakistan’s promises of curbing cross-border terrorism and raised India’s costs of defying third-party demands to de-escalate. Pakistan promised retaliation against India and harmed the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan by withdrawing forces from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, but this “autonomous” behavior was trumped by its propensity to oblige the United States by accepting some responsibility for anti-India terrorism and acting tangibly against militants. The chapter also analyzes the several risks of escalation introduced by India’s and Pakistan’s misperceptions of the third party’s leverage over the opponent.

This chapter surveys the literature on nuclear crises. It begins by summarizing the Cold War treatment of these episodes, highlighting the centrality of bilateral deterrence and models such as “brinkmanship” in creating expectations for nuclear crisis behavior. Even though third-party actors remained important as superpower allies during the Cold War, literature during this period suffered from a two-actor bias flowing from the global hegemony of the superpowers. Post–Cold War literature tends to account for regional nuclearization and unipolarity but in summarizing this body of work, the chapter identifies that there is still insufficient knowledge of the various factors at play in regional nuclear crises.

This chapter examines the 2008 Mumbai crisis and shows that brokered bargaining characterized crisis behavior of the rivals and the U.S.-led third party. In a situation that could have boiled over given the spectacular nature of the terrorist attacks that triggered the crisis, India, Pakistan, and the United States exhibited an even greater sense of familiarity with the opportunities and limitations associated with the trilateral bargaining framework. Despite threatening military action at times, India relied almost exclusively on the United States to pursue its crisis objectives. Without boxing it in completely, the United States pressured Pakistan and forced it to take actions against terrorists believed to be linked to the attacks, and used this to pacify India. The centrality of the third-party strand of crisis management helps explain the prudence both sides exhibited in avoiding brinkmanship.

This chapter addresses the general applicability of brokered bargaining beyond South Asia, focusing on four prototypes of rivalries: between countries that are considered friends of the unipole (futuristic crisis scenarios involving Israel versus a nuclear Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or Egypt); between a friend and foe of the unipole (Israel versus a nuclear Iran); between a foe of the unipole and an ally with formally extended deterrence guarantees (Korean peninsula); and between a friend and a presumptive great power rival of the unipole (India versus China). The discussion establishes the similarities and differences of these prototypes with the South Asian cases. While each presents a somewhat distinct set of challenges for third-party actors, the fundamental crisis dynamic whereby the third party works to secure de-escalation without seeking to alienate either conflicting party completely and the antagonists feel compelled not to defy it outright remains valid in each case.

This chapter examines the 1999 Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan, and establishes that what may otherwise be construed as a classic limited war where major conflict was avoided due to nuclear deterrence was in reality a display of brokered bargaining. This entailed the United States and other major powers ignoring Pakistan’s effort to manipulate the risk of war and its pleas for support to help terminate the crisis while it was in possession of forcibly occupied territory in Indian Kashmir. They deemed Pakistan’s unilateral withdrawal to be the most realistic and efficient way of ensuring crisis termination. India reacted militarily to Pakistan’s provocation but kept its actions limited to retain international goodwill and get the third party to make efforts to ensure Pakistan’s withdrawal. The chapter also analyzes the several risks of escalation introduced due to India’s and Pakistan’s misperceptions of the third party’s outlook toward the crisis.

This chapter surveys how ordinary people reacted to the Great Recession. It introduces and elaborates on three themes emerging from the ten original essays that follow. First, voters were very likely to punish whatever party was ruling at the time of the recession, regardless of its ideology. No single ideological grouping including extremists has benefitted consistently from the Great Recession so far. Second, citizens were surprisingly unlikely to change their opinions during the crisis. Opinions on issues ranging from the Euro, to immigration, to redistribution remained surprisingly stable. Finally, with few exceptions, the Great Recession did not produce a wave of intense protest against poor economic performance. Mobilizations were generally focused on austerity packages and corruption rather than the recession per se.

In Chapter 7, we evaluate the trajectory of neoclassical realist research. We begin by engaging other approaches to international relations and foreign policy that utilize domestic political variables or seek to reach across paradigmatic lines or levels-of-analysis and explain how our research program differs from them. We then address a number of lines of criticism that have been leveled against our approach over the past few years and explain either why they miss the mark, or how we have responded to them. We conclude with a discussion of our vision for the future of Type III neoclassical realist research and particularly promising avenues of inquiry.

Chapter 4 presents the range of the dependent variables that neoclassical realism can explain, growing over time from crisis decision-making, foreign policy responses, and grand strategic adjustment in the short- to medium-term to international outcomes in the medium- to longer- term and structural change in the long term. During this time, historical events can make counties collapse while other countries rise to power. It then delimits the scope of neoclassical realist theory by discussing what cannot be explained by the approach. Finally, it presents our first cut at linking the different intervening variables to specific dependent variables to assist in neoclassical realist theory building.

The Introduction lays out the mission of the book—to make a case for neoclassical realist theory of international politics, rather than simply an approach to the study of foreign policy. It lays a foundation for a neoclassical research that focuses on events, which shape foreign policy. It explains why neoclassical realist theory should explain foreign policy, international outcomes, and structural change more effectively than structural realist, liberal, and constructivist alternatives. The Introduction concludes with an overview of the book that highlights the material discussed in each chapter and provides a detailed discussion of research design and procedures used by theorists of international relations.

The chapter begins with a discussion of neoclassical realist theory and its improvement on structural realism as a means of explaining the foreign policy and grand strategic responses of states to external challenges and opportunities. It starts with an overview of structural realism and its implications for the foreign policy choices of states in an anarchic international system. It then identifies four key shortcomings of the structural realist approach and explains how two distinct types of neoclassical realism sought to rectify them. Type I neoclassical realism sought merely to fix structural realism by using domestic-level intervening variables to explain away empirical anomalies for structural realist theories. Type II neoclassical realism used systemic stimuli, moderated by domestic-level intervening variables, to inform an approach to foreign policy more generally, since—except in rare circumstances—structural realism does not provide enough information to predict national strategic choices.