Deterrence by diplomacy / Anne E. Sartori.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sartori, Anne E., 1966-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Diplomacy.

Deterrence (Strategy).

Physical Description:

x, 164 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2005]

Summary:

Why are countries often able to communicate critical information using diplomacy? Why do countries typically use diplomacy honestly, despite incentives to bluff? Why are they often able to deter attacks using merely verbal threats? International relations theory is largely pessimistic about the prospects for effective diplomacy, yet leaders nevertheless expend much time and energy trying to resolve confiicts through verbal negotiations and public statements. Deterrence by Diplomacy challenges standard understandings of deterrence by analyzing it as a form of talk and reaches conclusions about the effectiveness of diplomacy that are much more optimistic.

Anne Sartori argues that diplomacy works precisely because it is so valuable. States take pains to use diplomacy honestly most of the time because doing so allows them to maintain reputations for honesty, which in turn enhance their ability to resolve future disputes using diplomacy rather than force. So, to maintain the effectiveness of their diplomacy, states sometimes acquiesce to others' demands when they might have been able to attain their goals through bluffs. Sartori theorizes that countries obtain a "trade" of issues over time; they get their way more often when they deem the issues more important, and concede more often when they deem the issues less important.

Deterrence by Diplomacy departs from traditional deterrence theory also in its implications about how states can increase the credibility of their threats. Traditional theory suggests that by fighting over small issues states can show resolve to fight over large ones. This book, which develops its arguments about effective diplomacy through a game-theoretic argument and tests the resulting implications using statistical analyses, points to an alternative road to credibility: states can make their threats more credible by sometimes honestly acquiescing when they do not consider the issues important enough to be worth a fight-in other words, by not crying "wolf."

Contents:

Three Misconceptions About Diplomacy 6

How Can a State Communicate That an Adversary Has Misjudged Its Resolve? 12

Part II How Bluffs Can Hurt a State's Diplomacy, and Honesty Provides the Ability to Communicate 17

Chapter 2 The Failure of Chinese Diplomacy, 1950 19

The Chinese Attempt at Deterrence 22

The U.S. Dismissal of China's Threats as Bluffs 26

Would the United States and China Have Fought if China's Threats Had Been Credible? 30

Why Did the United States Dismiss China's Threats As Bluffs? 32

Chapter 3 A Reputational Theory of Diplomacy 43

Reputations for Honesty and Reputations for Resolve 44

Audience Costs, Cheap Talk, and Diplomacy 49

The Game-Theoretic Model 52

Effective, Cheap Diplomacy 56

Part III Evidence That Honesty Matters 73

Chapter 4 Reputations for Honesty and the Success of Diplomacy 75

Central Empirical Implications of the Formal Model 77

Determining Empirical Implications of the Theoretical Model 78

Data and Methodology 81

The Escalation of International Disputes: Tests of the Theory 93

Robustness of the Empirical Results 99

Chapter 5 The Broader Importance of Reputations for Honesty 111

The Effect of the Defender's Reputation on States' Decisions to Begin Militarized Disputes and to Attempt Deterrence 112

The Role of the Military Balance 114

Appendix A Characterization of the Equilibrium 131

Factorization 136

Choosing Thresholds So That Each Player-Type Prefers Its Equilibrium Strategy to Other Strategies Played in Equilibrium 139

Checking That No Player Prefers to Deviate to a Strategy No Type Plays in Equilibrium 141

No Player Prefers to Deviate at a Node Other Than the Player's First Node in the Stage Game 145

Appendix B The Impact of Communication on War and on Welfare 146

Appendix C Implications of the Theory 149

Appendix D The Effects of Power Status, Contiguity, and Democracy 151.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [153]-160) and index.

ISBN:

0691116997

OCLC:

56493908