POL 202 Int. Relations Lecture 8 Outline of Last Lecture I. War is puzzlingII. Why do they do war?III. Mexican American WarIV. Wars occur:I. Bargaining failureV. Core of the analysisI. Definition of warII. Definition of interstate warIII. Definition of civil warIV. ConflictsOutline of Current Lecture I. War and PeaceA. The Bargaining Rangea. When it failsB. Do Wars Happen by mistake?a. Poor information from one anotherb. Wars incomplete informationi. Capabilities definitionii. Resolve definitioniii. In a total war, states mobilize all of their resourcesiv. In a limited war states fight with less than their full potentialv. When states have incomplete information about the capabilities and/or resolve their opponents, bargaining may failC. Communicating Resolve: The Language CoercionD. Communicating Resolvea. Mechanismsi. Brinksmanshipii. Tying handsiii. Paying for PowerCurrent LectureI. War and Peacea. The Bargaining Rangei. Any division of a good inside of bargaining range gives both states more than they expect to get from fightingii. In theory, there are bargains that both states would prefer to war-range of deals always exist1. Why do wars happen despite the logic?2. War occurs when the bargaining parties fail to reach an agreement3. Bargaining can fail when:a. There is incomplete informationb. Commitment to terms of deal is questionablec. Disputed good is hard to divideb. Do wars happen by mistake?i. When states have poor information about one another’s willingness and ability to go to war, two mistakes are possible1. A state confronted by demands may mistakenly yield too little or not at all2. A state may demand too much under the mistaken belief that the other side will accedeii. Wars from incomplete information1. Two broad classes of unknownsa. Capabilities: the states physical ability to winb. Resolve: a state’s willingness to fight2. In a total war, states mobilize all of their resources3. In a limited war states fight with less than their full potential4. When states have incomplete information about the capabilities and/or resolve their opponents, bargaining may faila. Risk-return tradeoff: a tradeoff between trying to get a good deal and trying to minimize the possibility that war will break out5. Incentives to misinterpret and the problem of credibilitya. A question that arises in crisis bargaining is whether the messages a state sends credibilityb. A credible threat is a threat that the target believes will be carried outi. The target state must believe that the threatener’s expected payoff from that war justifies its demandsc. Credibility refers to the targets beliefs, not the actual intentions of the state issuing the threatd. What credibility to achieve?i. Carrying through on threats is costlyii. Conflicting interests lie at the heart of the bargaining interactione. Incentives to misrepresenti. For example: in the case of Iraq invading Kuwait, it made sense for the US to hide its strongest cardsii. In other cases, states may hide weakest cards-acting as if they have strong hand in hopes that the others will fold6. Communicating Resolve: The Language Coerciona. In 1950, N Korea invaded S Korea in an attempt to unify the country under communist ruleb. Despite a warning from China, the US crossed into N Korea.China responded by sending 600,000 troops into the Korean Peninsula, leading to three more years of fightingc. The Chines government was making an extended deterrentthreati. The US though that China was simply bluffingd. For threats to be credible, they have to be costly in such a way that the sender would only make the threat if they really intended to carry it out7. Communicating Resolvea. Mechanisms for making threats credible:b. Brinksmanshipc. Tying handsd. Paying for Poweri. Brinksmanship: the “slippery slope”1. Thomas Schelling: While it was understood that no state would bring about its own destruction by starting a total nuclear war, weapons could be used for diplomatic effectthrough the strategy of brinksmanship2. In Brinksmanship crisis, each side moves further down the slippery slope until one side decides to give in or both fall together3. It is willingness to risk war that separates the resolved from the bluffersii. Tying Hands:1. States can send credible signs of their willingness to fight by making threats in a way that would make backing down difficult2. Audience costs: negative repercussions that arise in the event that a leader does not follow through on a threata. May come from the international audience and/or the leaders own country3. An example: in a famous scene from Homers Odyssey, the main character, Odysseus asks to have his hands tied to the mast of the ship as they sail past the sirens4. When the leaders expose themselves to the audience costs, they are tying their own hands5. Tying hands separates the resolute from irresolutea. Both brinksmanship and hand tying are strategies form communicating resolve6. Yet there is also the risk that war may be inevitable if each side eliminates its ability to compromiseiii. Paying for Power:1. Spending to increase visible capabilitiesa. Reduces cost and time to mount threats2. Costly actions can demonstrate resolvea. Berlin airlift, 1948-498. Incomplete Information: Summarya. The harder it is for states to learn about each other’s capabilities and resolve, the more sever the problem of incomplete informationb. Incomplete information can be overcome if states can find costly ways to signal their