International politics in quotes - part II (2020)

Alliances & Treaties

We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual and those interests it is our duty to follow (Viscount Palmerston)

There is only thing that is worse than fighting with allies, that is fighting without them (Winston Churchill)

We must hang together, or we will surely hang separately (Benjamin Franklin)

Les traités, vous voyez, sont comme les jeunes filles et les roses: ça dure ce que ça dure! (Charles de Gaulle)

Power

Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short (Thomas Hobbes)

Macht ist jede Chance, innerhalb einer sozialen Beziehung den eigenen Willen auch gegen Widerstreben durchzusetzen (Max Weber)

International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power (Hans Morgenthau)

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both (Niccolo Machiavelli)

The strong do as they please, the weak suffer as they must (Delian dialogue)

Si vis pacem, parabellum (attributed to Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus)

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun (Mao Tse-tung)


Strategy & Diplomacy

The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and expedite its occurrence (variably attributed to Talleyrand and Bismarck)

Politics is the art of the possible (Otto von Bismarck)

Strategy is the process whereby political will is translated into military action (Andrew Wilson)

Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of the condition chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand (Karl Marx)

Events, dear boy, events (Harold Macmillan, responding to the question what a PM most fears)

Don’t interrupt your enemy when he is making mistakes (Napoleon)

Divide et impera (Philip of Macedonia)


War & Peace

Der Krieg ist also ein Akt der Gewalt, um den Gegner zur Erfüllung unseres Willens zu zwingen

(Carl von Clausewitz)

Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln (Carl von Clausewitz)

La guerre, c’est une chose trop grave pour la confier aux militaires (Georges Clemenceau)

Il est plus facile de faire la guerre que la paix (Georges Clemenceau)

You know, you never beat us on the battlefield. Response: That may be so, but it is also irrelevant (Colonel Harry Summers speaking to Vietnamese official during peace negotiations)

The purpose of war is to make a better peace (Basil Liddell-Hart)

I have no way to defend my territory but to extend it (Catherine the Great)

Cognition, affection & (self-) deception

Pleikus are like streetcars; if you miss one, another will come along shortly (McGeorge Bundy, referring to justifications for war, Pleiku is a town in Vietnam where a US helicopter came under Vietcong attack)

The first casualty when war comes is truth (Hiram Johnson)

On ne ment jamais tant qu’avant les élections, pendant la guerre et après la chasse (Georges Clemenceau)

Outrage is not an ineffective emotion in advancing the national interest (Ryan Haas)

La politique ce n’est qu’une certain façon d’agiter les peuples avant de s’en servir (Talleyrand)

Well, Lyndon, they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I’d feel a whole lot better if just one of them had run for sheriff once (House Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX) to LBJ after LBJ extolled the brilliance of the members of JFK s cabinet aka the “best and the brightest”)

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we dislike (Oscar Wilde)

I have heard that hard work never killed anyone. But I say why take the chance? (Ronald Reagan)

The rise of geoeconomics & the return of gunboat diplomacy (2020)

Narrowly defined, gunboat diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of naval power. More generally, gunboat diplomacy evokes the image of European and US war ships besieging the ports of weaker countries in an attempt to extract economic concessions from them. Commodore Perry and his black ships famously opened Japan to US trade in 1853, ending its two centuries of isolationism. Less well-known, Commodore Shufeldt forced Korea to negotiate a bilateral trade treaty with US in 1882, but only after a modernising Japan had resorted to its own gunboat diplomacy to impose an unequal treaty on Korea in 1876.

Gunboat diplomacy was also a fairly common feature of international intercourse, and not just in Asia. From Anson’s “visit” to Canton in the mid-18th century and the Opium Wars in the mid-19th century to the so-called Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1995, when President Clinton sent an aircraft carrier group through the strait to deter Chinese use of force, China often faced the sharp edge of Western naval power. Often, but not always, gunboat diplomacy sought to extract economic concessions and privileges. China was forced into granting foreigners extraterritorial rights and into ceding both territory and tariff autonomy. Britain, Germany and Italy imposed a naval blockade on Venezuela in 1902 in order to force the country to pay its debt to private bondholders. And, of course, Teddy Roosevelt’s big stick diplomacy  in the guise of the infamous Roosevelt corollary (1904) to the Monroe Doctrine (1823) led the United States to intervene repeatedly in countries in the Western hemisphere, on several occasions to enforce debt repayments. 

Economic statecraft refers to the use of economic tools in pursuit of political ends. Gunboat diplomacy can be thought of as the use of military means in pursuit of economic ends, though in practice it can also involve political ends. While gunboat diplomacy has gone out fashion, economic statecraft seems to be experiencing a major revival. Both the United States and China are increasingly resorting to foreign trade, investment and technology policies in in pursuit of narrow or general political-diplomatic goals. Washington, for example, restricts technology exports to China in the name of national security. China restricts travel to Korea in order to signal its displeasure of Seoul’s decision to install a new missile defence system. 

None of this is really new. Embargoes and export controls have been around for a long time. In the History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides recounts how Athens imposed a trade embargo on Sparta’s ally Megara. The allies instituted naval blockades against the central and axis powers during WWI and WWII and the US sought to deter Japanese expansion in Asia through the use of trade and financial sanctions in the run-up to Pearl Harbor. Nonetheless, the importance of economic statecraft has increased with respect to Sino-US relations.

Geoeconomics is not replacing geopolitics, contrary to Edward Luttwak’s prediction three decades ago. “Geoeconomics is displacing geopolitics. The methods of commerce are displacing military methods – with disposable capital in lieu of firepower, civilian innovation in lieu of military-technical advancement, and market penetration in lieu of garrisons and bases. States (…) will not disappear but reorient themselves towards “geoeconomics” (Luttwak 1990). Geoeconomics is an admixture of the logic of conflict with the methods of commerce. Rather geoeconomics is becoming more important in the context of intensifying geopolitical competition between the US and China. A high degree of international economic interdependence gives both Beijing and Washington ample opportunities to exercise economic statecraft and pursue geoeconomic policies.

States can exploit asymmetric interdependence in an attempt to deter or to coerce. By manipulating the flow of goods and services, capital, people (exit bans) as well as non-material item such as data and knowledge, states can exercise leverage. By threatening to restrict such flows, a state can impose costs on the targeted (stick). By promising to facilitate such flows, a state can offer benefits (carrot). An asymmetric relationship lends itself to leverage – whether in pursuit of economic and broader political ends.

The post-WWII international regime sought to de-politicise economic relations by way of multilateral rules that were meant to limit the relative power of economically powerful states and by way of providing smaller countries with reassurances that they will not get exploited. In other words, principles such as reciprocity and non-discrimination and rules such as tariff binding were meant to mitigate asymmetric interdependence. By the same token, a weakening of the rules-based international economic order allows for the politicisation, securitisation and even weaponisation of interdependence (Farerell & Newman 2019).

The China-US relationship has moved from cooperation to competition and even conflict or what has been referred to as 'managed enmity' (Feigenbaum 2020, Jaeger 2020). China’s international economic integration combined with its greater power and more extensive interests has made Beijing more assertive. This has alerted Washington. The increasing geopolitical competition between the US against the backdrop of economic interdependence creates opportunities, even incentives to resort to economic statecraft and play the geo-conomic game.

Sino-US economic relations are also increasingly, if thus far only partially subservient to security considerations. In the 1970s, economic relations were an afterthought as far as the Sino-US relationship was concerned. The purpose of the Mao-Nixon opening was geostrategic and squarely aimed at the USSR. After the initiation of Chinese economic reform in the late 1970s and particularly after the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, economics became a more prominent factor in Sino-US relation. Over the past decade or so, economic cooperation has increasingly begun to be overshadowed by an emerging security competition. In fact, economic relations are increasingly seen by both Beijing and Washington through the prism of strategic competition. Contrary to Luttwak’s prediction, geopolitics remains a central aspect of Sino-US relations, but economic intercourse is increasingly becoming ‘geoeconomised’.

Ever since the US became powerful enough to have interests in and project to Asia, it has had fairly constant interests: prevent the emergence of a hegemonic power in East Asia and access to Asian markets, requiring in turn free (or non-discriminatory) trade and freedom of navigation. China’s continued economic and political rise has led the US to resort to geoeconomics. While initially unclear whether Washington was resorting to economic statecraft vis-à-vis China in order to (1) level the playing field, (2) increase bilateral leverage in order to extract greater concessions or (3) prevent China from weakening US economic and technological leadership, it is now fairly clear that the latter is the main driver of US policy towards China, not least because it enjoys bipartisan support (Jaeger 2019). 

Washington shares both economic and political concerns with respect to Chinese economic policies. Concerns relate to IPR (cyber-theft, forced transfer), reciprocal market access with respect to trade and investment (including regulatory barriers) and the role played by government supported SOEs, to name just the most important ones. These issues certainly make for an un-level playing field. 

From a short-term welfare perspective, it is at first difficult to understand why a country should be upset if another country sells cheaper products or overpays for assets. But the concern is of course that in oligopolistic markets producers once they reach dominance may be able to exploit their market power for both economic and non-economic purposes. If subsidised exports eliminate foreign competition, producers will have more pricing power after the fact. If the acquisition of foreign assets allows a foreign producer to bottle up strategic supplies or critical technology, it gains potential economic and political leverage. The risk is heightened even more if the producer does not operate on the basis of market principles and is influenced by political considerations, advertently or inadvertently. Economically, such concerns are particularly relevant in cases where supply is inelastic, subject to political rather than market calculus and/ or where goods are characterised by increasing returns to scale and are not reverse-engineerable. Externalities and security spillovers will increase concerns further. Under these circumstances, economic rents accrue, market power is considerable and political leverage is significant.

Put differently, extreme asymmetric interdependence or outright dependence translates into both heightened economic and political sensitivities and vulnerabilities. The same logic applies to the provision of many international public goods such as an international currency, freedom of navigation, public health, financial stability, free trade and so on (Jaeger 2020). Those who provide such goods in a quasi-monopolistic manner accrue economic rents and gain economic-political leverage (e.g. dollar as international currency). No wonder that Washington is concerned about Chinese state capitalism and its ambitious development policies with respect to international public goods (e.g. digital silk road, Made in China 2025, China Standard 2035), its push into emerging technologies (e.g. AI, quantum computing, biotech, composite material) and the creation of parallel international institutions circumventing US-dominated regimes (e.g. AIIB, BRI, renminbi internationalisation). Washington is of course inadvertently contributing to China’s push to reduce its vulnerability vis-à-vis US goods and institutions by exploiting China’s dependence on them. Decoupling in critical areas is likely precisely because both Washington and Beijing are seeking to leverage their position where asymmetric interdependence is in their favour and de-couple where it is not. 

Washington is pursuing a geoeconomic strategy vis-à-vis China and is quite prepared to weaponise interdependence. A few semi-random observations. The US can only resort to use geoeconomic measures so many times before China will make to reduce its vulnerability. The sum of all geoeconomic measures does not amount to a coherent strategy. The US has thus far failed to do a proper cost/ benefits analysis and assess the probability of success. For many of the measures to be truly effective, they require third-party support lest they risk third-party spoilers weakening the effectiveness of US measures. If the US continues to resort to geoeconomics, China will redouble efforts to de-couple, thereby undermining US leverage and power. This will be all the more the case if China begins not only to provide public goods itself but to garner a greater following of consumers.

All of this is to say that geoeconomics is in full swing. Multilateral, non-discriminatory, largely de-politicised economic relations are giving way to more politicised, power-based economic and financial relations. The purpose of maintaining economic relationship is not to generate absolute economic welfare but relative economic, security and strategic gains and/ or to minimise sensitivity and vulnerability vis-à-vis one’s geostrategic competitor.

What about gunboat diplomacy? It is swinging, too, if less visible so. Few states these days send naval forces to extract economic concessions. While economics and security have never been completely dissociated, even within alliances, both the US and China will increasingly be engaging in linkage politics, if less visibly so than during the second half of the 19th century. With geopolitical competition increasing and hence rules-based multilateral cooperation weakening, power and especially military power and security will affect international economic relations – and particularly Sino-US economic, financial and trade relations. After all, Japan and Korea were quite willing to quickly negotiate a trade deal with the US. Korea may or may not think twice before antagonizing China politically lest it incurs Beijing’s economic wrath. In short, both gunboat diplomacy and geoeconomics will remain a central and prominent feature of international politics for the foreseeable future.

Foreglow vs afterglow - The domestic politics of international ascendance & decline (2020)

The United States overtook Britain as the world’s leading economic power in the 1870s. But it took another seven decades and two world wars for the United States to take its place as the world’s most powerful state. Meanwhile, it took Great Britain about the same amount of time to retrench from its erstwhile dominant position. Emerging economically and financially exhausted from two world wars, the 1956 Suez Crisis and the retreat from East of Suez in the late sixties marked the symbolic end of Britain’s global great power position. 

Great powers often rise and decline with lags. What explains these lags? Robert Gilpin laid out the economic reasons for the rise and fall of hegemonic states in his masterly War and Change in World Politics (1981). Paul Kennedy examined the historical record in detail in his equally masterly Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987). Both scholars ultimately linked the rise/ fall to a strengthening/ weakening economic base. As their economies strengthen, states are able to expand their power until they face imperial overstretch. More often than not, they then fail to adjust their international position and suffer relegation, often in the wake of great power war. 

The afterglow hypothesis offers one explanation as to why great powers fail to adjust in a timely manner to the changing international distribution of power. It posits that the forces that drove a state to international dominance were locked into domestic institutions that subsequently prevent timely adjustment during the decline phase (Brawley 1999, Krasner 1982). It is tempting to propose the “foreglow hypothesis”. Rising states similarly need to overcome interests embedded in domestic institutions before they end up exercising international power commensurate with their potential. In other words, afterglow helps explain why declining powers adjust too late (or not at all). Foreglow helps explain why rising powers lag in converting potential into actual power. 

The “glow” hypotheses put a particular emphasis on the role of domestic institutions, including bureaucracies. Various institutional and bureaucratic actors are closely tied to the international position of the hegemonic state. For example, the Bank of England pushed for Britain to re-join the gold standard after WWI (supported the City of London). The Imperial Defence Staff was not surprisingly reluctant to dismantle the British Empire and retreat from its global position. Domestic interests were closely tied to Britain’s international position. Eisenhower would have called it the military-industrial complex. Similarly, domestic institutions may slow down a state’s rise. During the 19th century, the slave-owning South and the North were often at loggerheads over US territorial expansion, particularly in the Caribbean. Lacking a sufficient congressional majority, the US government was on occasion unable to push forward with territorial annexations. It is not only domestic institutions and interests that help slow down adjustment and ascendancy. 

By the same token, economically powerful states may need to create the tools to exercise power in first place. “Trading states” like Germany and Japan may have significant military potential due to their advanced economy and indigenous technology. They simply have not endowed themselves with the military tools to exercise greater power. Japan’s pacificist constitution and former prime minister Abe’s unsuccessful attempts to change it is an obvious example. The US, for example, did not have anything resembling a modern navy until well into the last quarter of the 19th century, even though it had already overtaken Britain economically.

Declining states – already feeling vulnerable – may be reluctant to retrench in an attempt to preserve their credibility and their reputation. Given that there is always uncertainty about the real balance of power as well as the willingness of adversaries to incur costs, declining states are tempted to maintain their commitments and thus fail to adjust. They may also hope that weakness proves temporary if they manage to hold out long enough. If a residual of uncertainty attaches to the balance of power, it may be rational to take a gamble and not adjust, not least because adjusting rather than standing one’s ground may also encourage adversaries to push even harder. This may have been the calculation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914 when it risked a war with Russia following the assassination of the archduke. 

By comparison, a rising power may not feel any urgent need to exercise its power, particularly if it involves uncertain costs and risks. Rising powers, unless they are challenged, may simply decide to stay the proverbial course. Things are bound to move its way. US policymakers frequently took this view with regard to various annexation targets during the second half of the nineteenth century. Not feeling vulnerable like a declining state, a rising state feels a much more limited need to “up-adjust”. With their reputation rising, the need to prove It is arguably also less urgent.

Cognitive biases like the endowment effect, loss aversion and the sunk cost effect may also make it harder for a declining state to adjust its position. The endowment effect leads decision-makers to overvalue what they own. Loss aversion and sunk costs make them reluctant to cut their losses (if they have already occurred any) and, if anything, to double down. Incidentally, this may be why strategic adjustment typically involves a new government or even a new political regime. A new leadership is less invested in the status quo and, acting more rationally, is more willing to accept already incurred losses. By comparison, the rising state is not faced with losses but rather with foregone gains if it does not exercise its increasing power. It is psychologically easier to forego gains than incur losses. No wonder that rising and declining states respond in very asymmetric ways to a changing balance of power.

Domestic decision-makers in declining states have also little incentive to retrench in terms of personal-political interests. Few political careers and few historical legacies are built on retrenchment and successfully managing decline. Maybe some historical legacies are, but political careers are not. Charles de Gaulle oversaw Algerian independence and Gorbachev the dismantlement of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe. Both statesmen faced coup attempts. After all, a rational, forward-looking policy of retrenchment is easily exploited by domestic opponents, who play the nationalist and jingoistic card. By comparison, political leaders in rising states have substantially more room for maneuver, even if they, too, are sometimes forced to fend off domestic forces that demanding more aggressive policies. Against their will, McKinley was forced into the Spanish-American War and Bismarck was forced into annexing Alsace-Lorraine. (Probably urban myths; but myths are very illustrative.)

Culture, elite socialization and ideas may affect both retrenchment and expansion. Narratives may make it difficult for political leaders in rising powers to resist calls for a more hawkish foreign policy. Germany’s stab-in-the-back legend after WWI, France’s revisionism after the Franco-Prussian war with respect to French Alsace-Lorraine or contemporary China’s discourse about the century of humiliation victimhood make it more difficult for policymakers to resist exercising power. By the same token, post-WWI French pacifism and US discourse about the need to avoid foreign entanglement may have unduly constrained the two countries’ rise, or at least more forceful foreign policies during the inter-war period. Culture, history and memory may matter. How much they matter relative to material interests is a historical or policy question. Elite socialization and elite change can also constrain or accelerate a state’s shift towards more forceful policies. After Bismarck stepped down, a new generation of policymakers took over Imperial Germany’s foreign policy. The political outlook of post-war German and Japanese elites, having suffered catastrophic defeat, was completely different from that of their predecessors. No doubt, material factors mattered. But this does not mean that elite turnover is irrelevant.

None of this is meant to suggest that systemic-level factors do not matter. Domestic factors in so far as they mediate international pressure for adjustment – whether retrenchment or expansion – are important. Rising powers may generally be less constrained than declining powers in terms of their strategic position, the need to defend the status quo and room for strategic maneuver. Nonetheless, rising states when faced with security competition or threats to its “vital” interests may also quickly become subject to very similar systemic pressures than declining states do. It may not be the shifting balance of power that affects a rising state’s foreign policy as much as the balance of (perceived) threat (Walt 1985). In other words, the distribution of power and the balance of threat do matter, too. And a thorough understanding of a state’s rise and fall, including why states typically fail to adjust in a timely matter, require an analysis of both domestic and international variables. 

Intentional stance & explanation in international affairs (2020)

“The Sources of Soviet Conduct” by George Kennan is one of the most famous articles about international politics ever written. Kennan attributed Soviet aggressiveness in international affairs to Russian nationalism and neurosis, but also saw it as basically not aligned with the Russian people. (Read: not the people are our enemy, but its rulers.) This is a perfect example of what Kenneth Waltz would later call a ‘second image’ account. It is the nature of the domestic political regime that accounts for, for example, the propensity of a state to engage in armed conflict. Waltz (1959), of course, concluded that it was the third image (self-help international system) that accounted for inter-state war rather than the second (state) or first (man) image. In International Relations theory, this has come to be known as the level of analysis problem. This is also an issue quite familiar to psychologists.

The so-called fundamental attribution bias describes the tendency of agents to attribute other people’s behaviour to their nature or internal qualities, while attributing their own behaviour to external constraints. In the case of Kennan, the agent was the Communist regime, not the Russian people. By contrast, the US had sought post-war international cooperation but was forced into superpower competition by external circumstances (Soviet expansionism), or so the established Western narrative went. Psychological experiments have shown that people attribute an adversary’s (malicious) behaviour to their (evil) nature, but rationalise their own (often exact same) behaviour as being forced upon them by circumstances (including others’ behaviour). To paraphrase Talleyrand: this attitude is worse than a moral misjudgement, it is a mistake. Predicting as well as influencing another party’s behaviour requires one to understand what drives it.

Misunderstanding what drives an adversary has been a frequent source of US foreign policy mistakes. North Vietnam did not give in to US deterrence by punishment after the US began to bomb North Vietnam. US decision-makers were surprised. Vietnam lost 5-10% of its population during the war, while the US lost 50,000 soldiers. (As my Professor Fred Halliday once pointed out: there is moving memorial commemorating the 50,000 American lives lost; but there is no memorial commemorating the two million or so Vietnamese lives lost, at least in not in DC.) Similarly, FDR’s decision to tighten economic sanctions and move the Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor not only failed to deter Japan from further expansion in Asia; it actually prompted the attack on the US. Of course, foreign policy makers, like ordinary people, sometime miscalculate because they fail to understand the other party’s calculus. But how do we, and how can we, be sure that we understand the other party’s calculus? Both LBJ and FDR misunderstood North Vietnam and Imperial Japan’s calculus.

Intentionality figures very prominently in understanding, explaining and predicting others’ behaviour. Economists proposed the concept of revealed preferences. What a person does is necessarily a reflection of its interests or utility function. Observing a person’s behaviour over time reveals this person’s preferences and intentions. But this is too simplistic. After all, going to the gym is may not be my prime goal; it may just be a mean to staying fit or looking good. In other words, the ultimate goal or preference and therefore intention can never be known with certainty. Maybe it can be guessed from others do or say. However, especially in antagonistic contexts, the other party may engage in an action that is meant to mislead about her real and/ or/ stated preferences, goal and intentions. For actions to be epistemically useful, they need to be interpreted and an observer needs to ascribe meaning to them. This creates a further problem. Sometimes (often?), the meaning of an action differs across context or between different observers or across cultures. Interpretation is observer and context dependent. Once you have formed a view about another person’s character (nature) or intentions or preferences, based on empirical evidence or prejudice or whatever, the person’s action will likely be interpreted accordingly. Cognitive dissonance, another cognitive bias, makes it psychologically difficult to be judicious, in addition to the epistemic problem of ‘knowing’ what drives or motivates the other person’s behaviour.

This does not fatally weaken the presumption of purposeful, intentional, goal-directed behaviour. It does suggest though that the assumption/ presumption is to be made judiciously and thoughtfully. Graham Allison (1971) made this point famously in his study of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The rational-actor model assumes rationality and intentionality. This raises the “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail” problem. What if the other party does not act rationally? Allison famously proposed the “organizational process” and “governmental politics” models as alternatives to the rational-actor model. These models help account for certain Soviet actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis that the rational-actor model failed to explain or rationalise. The point, of course, is this. Not all observed behaviour is purposeful and intentional. Upon learning of the death of the Turkish ambassador at the Congress of Vienna, Metternich is supposed to have said: “I wonder what he meant by that”. Anthropomorphising the state by presuming rationality and intentionality often works, but on occasion it fails badly – whether as an explanation or a predictive tool. It is difficult enough what the rationale or the intention is. But sometimes there simply is no intention or rationale behind an action or a behaviour.

Human cognition seems to be hard-wired to attribute – or at least to look for – intentionality, rationality as well as causality. Intentionality is then regarded as causality. Humans have a tendency to generate more or less coherent narratives where there are often really only disjointed facts. If nothing seems to make sense, they invoke a hidden hand (aka conspiracy). The even do this where alternative account are perfectly coherent. Human seek to make sense and if there is not sense, they tend to impose sense (Brown et al. 2014). Humans also look for and believe they have found causality where there is only randomness (Kahneman & Tversky 1973). From an evolutionary point of view, this is easy to understand. Reducing complex to simple patterns and reducing complex phenomena to simplistic narratives often offer ‘good-enough’ guidelines. The resulting heuristics can even be more efficient from a cost-benefit point of view (e.g. shadow in the deep grass in the savannah). It does not matter whether or how accurate simplified models or heuristics are (Gigerenzer 2007Kahneman 2013). What it matters is that they are not detrimental to evolutionary success. Intentionality is one model we use frequently and, on average, successfully. Epistemically it is nonetheless a difficult, even problematic concept.

First, intentionality is a tricky concept, philosophically speaking. Daniel Dennett (1987) put it well: “The intentional stance is the strategy of interpreting the behaviour of an entity (…) by treating it as if it were a rational agent who governed its ‘choice’ of ‘action’ by a consideration of its ‘beliefs’ and ‘desires’”. Note that this is a stance, a way of looking and understanding behaviour. This is precisely why humans see intentionality where there occasionally is none. They attribute meaning and intentionality to random events. Humans impose patterns where there are none. They presume intentionality even if there isn’t any. The intentional stance attributes beliefs and desires to agents and assumes that their actions reflect these beliefs and desires. From the actions one can infer, so the argument goes, the intentions based on beliefs and desires.

Second, another agent's intentions can never be established with certainty - and this assumes that an actor has intentions in the first place This is problematic at several levels. Motives and desires are easy to come by (to assume, presume, project). Why did she read a book? Because she was curious – even if the real reason was to impress her dinner party guests. Curiosity is a plausible motive. But then curiosity can in principle explain any action. So explaining actions in terms of motives is or can be problematic. We may simply the wrong intention to another person’s actions. Moreover, it may be well-nigh impossible to find out what the actual reason/ intention behind reading the book was. And maybe there no (conscious) intention behind it at all. After all, we don’t have access to another person’s so-called qualia. Last but not least, even if curiosity was that what led her to read the book, does this really constitute an explanation in an epistemological sense? Does the answer to a why question constitute an explanation ever? As Jeffrey Kasser points out, is to say that instinct led the turtle to go back to the sea after hatching really an explanation? Is this not like Voltaire’s quip about the cause of why opium makes you sleepy? Because of its sleep-inducing qualities. 

Third, to the extent that intentionality is tied to the concept of rationality, things become more complicated, conceptually and empirically. Rationality is about means and end. It typically involves assumptions about well-behaved (transitive) and stable preferences. It often assumes maximisation as opposed to satisficing. It often disregards issues such as information costs, bounded rationality, misperception, strategic interaction (where concealing what one wants is often desirable). Actors may also modify their goals for all kinds of reasons over the course of time. In short, the standard assumption of rationality are extremely restrictive and rarely encountered in the real world. Worse, outside narrow, controlled experiment, it may be impossible what change in the underlying assumptions may account for the observed modified behaviour. While this sort of skepticism affects all models, it does raise the question how epistemically useful the intentionality model (or presumption) is.

Fourth, analysts are biased in terms of attributing action to dispositional or contextual factors depending on who performs the action (fundamental attribution error). Often this bias is compounded by the in-group vs out-group bias. Analytically, it is difficult to understand why we would see others as being motivated by qualitatively different factors than ourselves. Evolution may be to blame (Greene 2014). Fifth, whose intention is it anyway in the case of complex or collective social entities? As Allison suggested, state behaviour is often produced by organisational or bureaucratic factors and this casts doubt on the rationality assumption. Not being privy to internal deliberations, all we observe (JFK observed) was Soviet behaviour. And often cognitive dissonance does allow to rationalise behaviour as rational even though it is not and/ or is not intended to be (sic!). 

In short: analysts tend to attribute beliefs, desires, intentionality and rationality to state behaviour. This is generally a good place to start. It is also an easy place to start. But ontological, epistemic and pragmatic problems counsel caution as well as the judicious use of the rationality presumption/ model. To what extent intentionality provides a good explanation – or indeed any explanation – in part depends on what constitutes an explanation (Jaeger 2020). If predictive accuracy is the standard, the model may make the right prediction for the wrong reason. If the cause (intention) cannot be observed or otherwise ascertained, a whole range of intentions (causes) may be invoked to explain (rationalise?) behaviour. The fact is that sometimes there is no intention, conscious or unconscious, yet analysts happily attribute the behaviour to an intention and hence indirectly to underlying beliefs and desires. This is what Dennett refers to as ‘intentional stance’. The intentional stance is psychologically ubiquitous, but epistemically shaky. Recognising this may represent progress. We have come a long way. After all, not too long ago, we used to attribute eclipses and floods to intentionality.

Some thoughts on the law of unintended consequences (2020)

The story may be apocryphal. Se non è vero, è ben trovato. The British colonial government in India was concerned about venomous cobras. It therefore decided to offer a bounty to locals for every cobra they would catch. Initially, the number of cobras fell. But then business-minded locals began to breed cobras in order to continue receiving rewards. As soon as the British government found out what was going on, it discontinued the policy. With cobras offering no further rewards, the locals released the cobras and the cobra problem ended up being worse than before. The policy intervention inadvertently modified incentives and changed behaviour that led to a perverse outcome. Unintended consequences need not be perverse. They can also be adverse in terms of causing costs unrelated to the original objective or intended outcome. Unintended consequences can also be beneficial (e.g. invisible hand).

Robert Merton (1936) has termed this phenomenon the “law of unintended consequences” (Or more precisely: “The Unintended Consequences of Purposive Social Action”). Other examples include a seatbelt mandate that leads to increased traffic-related deaths. Drivers feel safer, leading them to drive more recklessly (so-called risk compensation). The law of unintended consequences often pops up in cases of quantification-based management (Muller 2018). Not only are what is measured and what is meant to be targeted not completely congruent. The focus on one (quantifiable) target may lead to a modification of behaviour in order to better meet the quantitative rather than the intended target. This is also known Goodhart’s law: when a measure becomes a target, it cases to be a good measure.

Merton attributed the failure to anticipate unintended consequences to a variety of causes: (1) ignorance, (2) error in analysis, (3) immediate interest overriding long-term interests, (4) basic values prohibiting action that would prevent adverse longer-term outcomes and (5) self-defeating prophecies (where a solution is found before the problem occurs). More broadly, unintended consequences may be unavoidable in the context of complex systems, where outcomes cannot be controlled (“nature”). Unintended consequences may also be due to analytical ‘errors of analysis’. A failure to evaluate counterfactuals, to take into account the targeted party’s perceptions and interests and/ or to anticipate second- and third-round effects can lead to unintended, albeit in principle avoidable consequences (“epistemic”). Relatedly, unintended consequences may also be due to psychological biases, including self-deception and stupidity (“psychology”). Again, correcting for biases should in principle help avoid unintended consequences or at least make them predictable.

Normal accident theory, for instance, postulates that in complex systems characterised by non-linearity and tight coupling accidents and mistakes are unavoidable (Perrow 1999). This view has not gone unchallenged. That said, complex systems do exhibit behaviour that is difficult, even impossible to predict with any degree of probability. While not a magic fix, a sensitivity to initial conditions and an acknowledgement of the existence of non-linearities may make decision-makers more aware of the potential pitfalls of certain courses of actions. By limiting over-confidence, it may also help limit psychological sources of mistakes. If the system is truly complex, even all of this will fail to help decision-makers avoid unintended consequences.

World War I may be attributed to complexity, non-linearities and tight coupling. The action of one individual (Serbian nationalist assassinating the Austro-Hungarian crown prince and his wife) triggered a string of events (tightly coupled actions) that ultimately led to the death of 20 million people. Relatedly, the so-called “security dilemma” may be thought of in systemic, but perhaps not complexity terms. Here the consequences of action are unintended, but relatively easy to anticipate. If country A increases its military power, opposing country B will do so, too, in turn leading country A to increase its military power further. 

“Blowback” is an example of maybe ignorance, maybe immediate interests overring longer-term considerations causing unintended and perhaps unanticipated consequences. The US decision to support fundamentalist militants to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan reflected a desire to weaken the USSR. However, when the occupation ended, the militants set their sights on destabilising US allied governments in the region (Johnson). Maybe policymakers did not anticipate such a turn of events. Maybe they favoured short-term expediency over longer-term and admittedly somewhat uncertain adverse consequences.

The increase in China-US tensions seems to have led to greater animosity and a greater sense of vulnerability on both sides (Jaeger 2020). This much, while perhaps unintended, could have been anticipated. But Sino-US tensions have also arguably spilled over into Sino-Indian relations and led to a significant increase in bilateral frictions. While perhaps inevitable, this is leading to a (tighter) coupling between Sino-US and Sino-Indian relations, thereby giving rise to the geo-political construct of the Indo-Pacific. One can only speculate why Beijing is willing to adopt a more assertive stance vis-à-vis India (if this is indeed what is happening) given that an unintended, but easy-to-anticipate consequences is a closer US-Indian strategic partnership.

US support for China’s international economic integration led to the emergence of China as a strategic competitor. While China’s economic development was perhaps anticipated, its speed and impact almost certainly were not. China’s emergence as a geopolitical rival was neither intended nor anticipated. The anticipation (or hope?) that China might become a responsible stakeholder may be interpreted as stupidity, error of analysis or as an example of immediate interests overring longer-term strategic considerations. The latter is perhaps more applicable to Nixon’s opening of China rather than the post Cold War US policy encouraging China’s integration into the global economy.

The Truman administration considered launching a pre-emptive nuclear war against the USSR. An unintended, but anticipatable consequence of not launching such an attack was the emergence of the USSR as nuclear. This would be a clear-cut example of basic values prohibiting a policy and thereby leading to an unintended, but anticipated and, from the US point of view, adverse outcome – at least in material and power terms.

Or to take the Munich Agreement. Prime Minister Chamberlain’s decision to cede the Sudeten areas to Germany in 1938 averted a military conflict. Only detailed historical research can reveal why Britain decided not to stand its ground. The decision is often chalked down to stupidity. After all, it improved Germany’s geo-strategic position tremendously. Then again, the decision did buy Britain time to ramp up its armament production and – which would prove absolutely vital – strengthen its air force and air defence system (Kennedy 1992). Maybe the Munich agreement is an example of an unintended consequence, namely Chamberlain’s belief that it would bring “peace for our time”. But it may also have been an expedient but deliberate short-term decision to avoid war in the short term, while fully recognising that it would strengthen Germany incomparably. In this case, the decision brought about consequences that were unintended but (largely) anticipated. 

Unintended and unanticipated consequences can often be attributed to cognitive biases. The US neither anticipated nor intended the limited military intervention to transmute into a full-scale war, let alone one it would lose. The US had just defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The US was not a war-weary and economically weak France. The unintended consequence of losing the war was not anticipated. The US may have felt it had no choice but to intervene given the belief in the domino theory. This, however, would only explain why the US got involved rather than explain why it failed to anticipate the unintended consequence of defeat. Unintended consequences as far as defeat was concerned were not seriously evaluated.

Pearl Harbor was the unintended and unanticipated consequence of a more hawkish US policy towards Japan. Tightening US economic sanctions and moving the Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor were not intended to provoke an unanticipated Japanese attack on the US naval base. (It may have sought to provoke Japan to attack US forces in the Philippines). Here the unintended consequences were not due to short-term expediency, not self-deception, but instead may be attributed to cognitive biases and/ or the ability to put oneself in the other party’s shoes. Ultimately, cognitive biases and group biases led the US failure to anticipate that Japan, instead of being deterred by hawkish US policies, would respond by launching a pre-emptive against the US.

None of this is meant to suggest scholars and practitioners are invariably incapable of dealing with the “law of unintended consequences”. Think of, for example, the reluctance of Northern European EU member-states to agree to permanent financial transfers during the euro crisis a decade ago. The Northerners did – correctly, one may argue – anticipate moral hazard and its potentially negative longer-term consequences for euro area stability. Or maybe the domestic politics of some Northern European states did not allow them to agree to permanent financial transfers. Again, this is for historian to figure out.

It is extremely important to think about “purposeful social action” (aka policies and policy decisions) in systemic terms and in terms of the law of unintended consequences. This is something that comes more natural to ecologists, biologists and engineers, and maybe certain stripes of sociologists. In spite of concepts like systems and bureaucracies featuring in prominent International Relations theories, the concept of unintended consequences is somewhat under-appreciated, under-studied and, importantly, under-taught. Students of international politics and foreign policy practitioners would do well to familiarise themselves with complexity theory, unintended consequences and cognitive biases. This should allow scholars to provide better explanations and policymakers to make better decisions – or at least to make decisions whose consequences are less unintended and/ or better-anticipated.

Dis/ advantages of strategic dis/ ambiguity (2020)

What is strategic ambiguity? Here are a few examples. The United States maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity with respect to Taiwan (Haass & Sacks 2020). Israel maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity with respect to its nuclear weapons status. Strategic ambiguity is a policy where a state leaves purposefully vague how it might respond to another state’s behaviour. This vagueness creates uncertainty as well as ambiguity in the mind of the party the policy is directed at. Ambiguity leaves a state purposefully uncertain about another state’s policy. 

Ambiguity makes it more difficult, perhaps impossible to calculate risks by creating Knightian uncertainty. A policy of strategic ambiguity may also leave ambiguous not just the probability but also the type of policy response. This makes it even harder for the other party to predict the policy response. Usually, a policy of strategic ambiguity aims to have a deterrent effect by making it difficult, perhaps impossible to calculate the expected costs and benefits of an action. In the case of Taiwan, whether or not the US will come to the defence of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack is meant to deter a Chinese attack on the island. In the case of Israel, whether or not it possesses nuclear weapons is meant to deter an attack by its opponents. 

But why would ambiguity be preferable to an ironclad commitment to pursue a certain course of action? For example, why is US ambiguity preferable to an outright guarantee to intervene on behalf of Taiwan in case of a Chinese attack? And what does Israel gain by leaving its nuclear status ambiguous? After all, the US has made less ambiguous defence commitments to other countries in Asia. And both Pakistan and India have been forthcoming about their status as nuclear powers. 

Explaining why a policy of strategic ambiguity comes about is different from an evaluation of its strategic benefits. Ambiguity often is necessary; otherwise there may not be an agreement in the first place (Iklé 1964). The Sino-US rapprochement would not have been possible, had it not been for the ambiguous stance towards Taiwan. Had Washington maintained an ironclad Taiwan security guarantee, no agreement would have been reached. An ambiguous formulation was necessary to make the so-called third communique possible. Sometimes ambiguity may also be advantageous in terms of avoiding international criticism. This may have contributed to Israel’s decision to maintain a policy of strategic ambiguity. A state can then largely avoid the costs of dis-ambiguity, while largely reaping most of its benefits. Israel’s opponents are unlikely to risk all-out war even if there is only a slight chance of Israel retaliating with nuclear weapons. (In fairness, Israel’s policy is called ambiguous. But it is its official policy rather than its de facto nuclear status that is ambiguous.)

What are the strategic benefits of strategic ambiguity relative to dis-ambiguity? Let’s start with some game theory. Threats and promises aim to alter the other party’s expectations of the issuing party’s future actions. Promises commit one to reward the other party and threats threaten to punish it in the event of pre-specified actions. In order for promises and threats to be effective, they need to be credible. There are different mechanisms to enhance the credibility of one’s commitments (e.g. doomsday machine in Dr. Strangelove). This is particularly useful when a threat may not appear to be credible. For example, the US threat to retaliate against the USSR in case of a Soviet conventional attack on Western Europe was thought to lack credibility. After all, the USSR could legitimately doubt that the US would be willing to provoke a devastating attack on the United States in an attempt to defend its European allies by attacking the USSR. Thomas Schelling famously introduced the notion of a “threat that leaves something to chance” (Schelling 1960). Such a threat is credibility-enhancing. Similarly, the doomsday machine increases the credibility of nuclear deterrence. An unambiguous, irreversible commitment to pursue a course of action conditional on the action of the party is precisely what enhances credibility. This has its obvious problems.

Dis-ambiguity may create a stronger deterrent effect than ambiguity provided the relevant commitments are credible. But it also forced the party pursuing a policy dis-ambiguity to make good on its threat, lest it loses credibility. If the stakes as well as the risk of misperception and miscalculation are high, this is a policy a state may not want to adopt. This is of course one of Schelling’s major insights: credibility can be increased by reducing flexibility.

A corollary is that ambiguity makes it more difficult to undermine the other party’s credibility. At the same time, it affords the opponent an opportunity to adopt salami (or cabbage) tactics that make it more challenging for the deterring party to respond. If the lines are not explicit, the other party may probe. The probed party has less of a credibility problem due to a lack of explicit commitments. But if it maintains a general instead of a specific commitment, it risks a weakening of its position if it fails to push back. Commitments, credibility and flexibility are closely inter-linked. 

By limiting the role of credibility, ambiguity provides flexibility at the cost of reduced deterrence. Nonetheless, leaving one’s opponent guessing can be a sufficiently powerful tool to put in place a sufficient level of deterrence, even if explicit deterrence is more powerful. The problem with ambiguity is that a policy of ambiguity may be perceived as an unwillingness to enter commitments and therefore as strategic weakness. Much depends on the degree to which the opponent is risk averse. If very risk averse, ambiguity will probably work. If adventurous, ambiguity may help bring about the conflict that was meant to be avoided. This is where psychology prevails over rationality. Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes understood this difference.

The questions of ambiguity, credibility and flexibility are relevant in the context of the emerging Sino-US antagonism. China and the US look like two freight trains that are inexorably moving towards each other (Allison 2017). Both sides have laid down some red lines (e.g. China vis-à-vis Taiwan independence; US vis-à-vis its commitment to come to the defence of Taiwan). With regard to the more immediate friction in the East and South China Sea, however, the US seems to have avoided (or failed) laying down red lines. Both China and the US have taken to ignoring or at best protecting other’s action (e.g. island building vs freedom of navigation operations). Neither side has drawn a (explicit) red line and continue to pursue a policy of ambiguity. While this may help avoid confrontation, it also allows for a further deterioration of the situation in the sense that both sides will continue to push their policies absent unambiguous and credible red lines laid down by the other side. Ambiguity offers both sides a degree of tactical flexibility. Yet it also fails to stabilise the situation by drawing unambiguous red lines that might lead the conductor to bring the freight train to a stop rather than steer it towards collision. 

This is a highly reductionist account of emerging Sino-US competition. It nonetheless offers insights worth exploring further. After all, was it not the existence of – for the most part – red lines that contributed to the relative stability of Cold War superpower competition? Food for thought.

Darwin, Lamarck, Waltz & the theory of international politics (2020)

The history of the world is but the biography of great men, Thomas Carlyle wrote. Carlyle allowed for the possibility that the great men were guided by divine inspiration. Carlyle was heavily influenced by German idealism and Hegel, of course, famously thought he had seen the world spirit on a horseback when he saw Napoleon. ‘Great men history’ allow for a very narrow analytical focus. It is also a bit of a misnomer, as by no means all great or consequential people were men. Think of Cleopatra or Elizabeth I. More sensibly, Karl Marx pointed out: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please, they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past”. It is perhaps best left to Marxist scholars to figure out this statement can be squared with the view (or assumption) that the history is the history of class struggle. But the quote makes an important point. As far as international politics is concerned, it is rarely very interesting to understand a state’s behaviour from the point of view of great men (or women) without incorporating the ‘circumstances’ under which states operate.

Waltzian neo-realism emphasises the crucial importance of the international state system for the explanation of state behaviour. Neo- or structural realism shares many similarities with the microeconomic concept of (perfect) market competition (Waltz 1979). A perfectly competitive market means that all firms are price-takers and if they fail to withstand competition, they go out of business. Markets need not be perfectly competitive. Some markets are oligopolistic (great powers) and others monopolistic (empire). In the same way the market structure shapes the behaviour of companies, the international state system shapes the behaviour of states. The anarchical structure of the international state system means that states have to take care of their own security (self-help system). If states fail to do so, they may fail to survive – or at least they stop being a great power. In extremis, states suffer extinction. Empires tend to subdue other states and incorporate them into their system of rule or governance structure. But empires are not required for states to vanish from the map. While Poland succumbed to its imperial neighbours in the late 18th century, East Germany succumbed to non-imperial West Germany two centuries later. Historically, many empires and civilisations have disappeared, but not necessarily and not predominantly due to inter-state competition (Diamond 1997, Harper 2018).

Universal empire (or world government) has historically been impossible to establish. A somewhat competitive state system was operative throughout most of history. Quasi-universal empires emerged in certain parts of the world (e.g. China, Rome), but even they faced competition over the long run and, on one way or another, succumbed to rival states or (non-state) military competition. The failure to establish such an empire that would have subverted the anarchical state system was perhaps due to the logistic limits of political control (e.g. horse speed), centrifugal forces and/ or other states’ counter-balancing behaviour. The competitive (non-imperial) structure of the European international system has also been credited with European states’ emergence as world-conquering powers (Kennedy 1987). Political and military competition also made a major contribution to the rise of the modern, sovereign nation-state (Giddens 1985, Tilly 1992). Moreover, peace, war and stability has been linked to the structure of the international system with bipolarity typically seen as creating greater stability and certain types of multi-polarity increasing the risk of war (Waltz 1964, Deutsch & Singer 1964, Mearsheimer 2001). One does not need to be completely convinced of the veracity of these accounts in order to accept the import role the international system plays in states’ behaviour.

It is nevertheless equally difficult to deny that non-systemic factors are important. Nationalism undoubtedly often plays a role in the emergence of new states as well as the disappearance of existing states. At least, it seems to have done so in the past two centuries. The international system may be a major enabling or constraining factor on whether nationalism has an effect or not. After all, it was no coincidence that Poland re-emerged as a state after WWI, but Kurds, who seem themselves as a nation, have thus far failed to have a state of their own. At the same time, nationalism may affect the international systems by making it too costly to annex other states. Admittedly, there is also the post-1945 norm of sovereignty and territorial integrity that may have undermined great powers predilection for territorial expansion. Technology and economics may also matter in this respect. The point is that variables other than international state system have explanatory value. The international does matter, however. Does it matter in a way similar to role natural selection plays in biology?

What, if anything, has Charles Darwin’s model of evolution have to say about international politics?Darwinism offers an explanation of the origins of species and human descent. (Upon learning of Darwin’s claimthat man descended from apes, the Bishop of Worcester’s wife is to have said: “Let us hope it is not true. If it is, let us hope it will not be become generally known”. The story is likely apocryphal.) But equally importantly, it offered a framework for understanding a whole range of biological phenomena that hitherto had been difficult to account for – or at least difficult to account for in unified way. “Nothing in biology makes sense, except in light of evolution”, Theodosius Dobzhansky famously observed. If that is the case, the theory of evolution might should be expected to offer interesting insights in other areas of human inquiry. Indeed, evolutionary concepts have been applied with good success in – amongst other areas – linguistics, sociology, anthropology (obviously), ideas, fashion, even epistemology. 

Karl Popper initially rejected Darwin’s theory of evolution as un-scientific. (He later changed his mind.) This is not the place to discuss what makes science ‘science’ – and Popper’s falsificationism has its share of problems, as do all other philosophical (rational-reconstructionist) accounts of science. Darwinism does propose interesting hypotheses about what underpins change, stability and survival. Whether the theory and related hypotheses are falsifiable in a strict sense is secondary as long as Darwinism is taken to be a heuristic tool. It is a theory that is logically consistent, fruitful in terms of implications and the empirical evidence is consistent with its validity in the biological realm (Walt 2001). It is true that the theory evolution provides ‘just-so-stories’, that is, an “untestable narrative explanation” (Gould & Lewontin 1979). But then, most history writing and no small part of the social sciences rely on what are ultimately narrative explanations (Jaeger 2020).

Darwinism is based on three fundamental assumptions (or mechanisms): (1) variation, which is random; (2) inheritance; and (3) natural selection, which is non-random. Natural selection leads to adaptation, that is, the ability to survive and reproduce (fitness). Differential reproductive success is a reflection of how well-adapted something is. It does however not automatically follow that all features of an organism are adaptations. And not all changes are due to natural selection. Genetic drift happens all the time (and tends to have a greater impact in smaller populations). It is difficult to prove that a specific trait is an adaptation or simply an “exaptation”. Exaptation can take the form of pre-adaptations or so-called spandrels. Pre-adaptation refers to an adaptation that later comes to fulfil a different function/ adaptation. A spandrel is simply a by-product of an adaptation that is itself not directly due to adaptive selection (Gould & Lewontin 1979). 

Neo-Darwinism, by and large, incorporates genetics into the Darwinist framework. This represents a significant advance, but it has also led to Darwinism being selectively challenged by, for example, epigenetics and symbio-genesis. Darwinism is not so much a settled scientific theory, but a field of lively intellectual debt and scientific research. What is the unit natural selection selects on? Molecular structures, genes, epi-genes, cells, organisms (phenotypes), behaviour, groups, species? Darwinism does not allow for genetic ‘change’ during an individual’s lifespan, but epigenetics seems to be challenging this notion (up to a point) by allowing for changing gene activity and expression (but not alterations in the DNA sequence). Epigenetics also focuses on changes of phenotypical heritable traits. Epigenetics suggest that inheritance and specifically the role played by genes in terms of heritable phenotypical traits is more complicated, including at the ‘cellular’ level. is where it becomes complicated, including conceptually. One’s own behaviour and even our ancestors’ experiences may at least affect the way genes are expressed. Is Lamarckism staging a comeback? In addition to Lamarckism, orthogenesis (innate drive for change) and saltationism (massive sudden mutations) offer distinctly non-Darwinian accounts of evolutionary change. They are widely rejected in biology these days, but may offer frameworks that provide interesting insights in other areas of social inquiry. Last but not least, there is the issue of gradual vs rapid change within a broadly Darwinian framework (Gould 2007). Whether or not these approaches offer good explanations of biological phenomena is secondary for our purposes. Primarily, they offer theoretically interesting and somewhat neglected ways to think about international politics.

So how epistemically useful is Darwinism (and other accounts of biological change) as a framework for thinking about international politics? At one level, the attempt to appropriate Darwinism appears deeply problematic. Variation and reproduction as mechanisms do not seem apply in the case of international politics. Variation is not random and reproduction in the sense of generating new organisms is, at best, extremely rate in international politics. Variation happens, although in a much less random fashion, and the persistence of a state that experiences significant changes in its domestic characteristics may perhaps be interpreted as reproduction in a very broad sense. Of course, Darwinian variation is blind and it does not (or is not supposed to) take place within the lifespan of a single organism. But perhaps variation and reproduction can be appropriated in a loose way. States experience non-random, because generally purposeful changes of their domestic characteristics, while reproduction might be interpreted as (continuous) survival over time. Perhaps a bit of a stretch, but let’s whether this is epistemically interesting. 

Natural selection appears to be a very relevant concept. The international state system can help account for characteristics or behavioural traits as adaptation or selection pressure. Certain traits of a state can be interpreted as adaptations. And unlike in the case of biology, the historical record may make the question of whether a specific trait is an adaptation (rather than exaptation) easier to settle. Most states have armies. Epigenetics might also be re-purposed. If one regards a certain historical-collective experience as an adaptation, then maybe, just maybe a recent experience may lead the experience being activated or “expressed”. Russia experienced foreign aggression in two world wars and during the post-WWII Western intervention in the Russian civil war. After having acquired a long-range nuclear arsenal, the USSR may have felt more secure than Imperial Russia or the Stalinist USSR. But may, just maybe a deteriorating geopolitical position after the demise of the USSR led to the expression of existing genes, that is, the Russian state (incl. security apparatus or siloviki). Maybe Lamarckism or simply Waltz’s structural realism offer less contrived ways of accounting for the same phenomenon. The goal is not so much to offer the ‘best’ explanation but to explore how epistemically interesting Darwinian concepts are when applied to international politics.

The concept of punctuated equilibrium is also very interesting (Gould 2007). In fact, the concept, in addition to path dependence, was appropriated by historical institutionalists a long time ago. After all, states typically do not and cannot re-invent themselves completely. Path dependence constrains certain developmental paths and makes certain outcome virtually impossible. An economically backward country will not, cannot transform itself into an economically and technologically advanced country overnight. The domestic DNA limits the range of short-term and perhaps even long-term outcomes. Adaptationist pressure may do the same. In order to remain a great power, certain reforms may be necessary. Domestic instability may weaken the international position of a state and knock them out of great power competition. But an adaptationist logic, perhaps, leads many of them to re-emerge much strengthened (e.g. Napoleonic France, Nazi Germany, post-Mao China more gradually). Historical institutionalism is, after all, a kind of functionalism and incudes other concepts like critical junctures and system concepts like feedback and returns to scale (Pierson 2000, 2004). Again, changes may be very purposeful (non-random) from the start (e.g. Meiji Restoration, Prussian post-Napoleonic reforms). Not only were they a direct response to international selection pressures. But successful reform was conditioned on the existence of favourable domestic institutional and ideational characteristics (e.g. efficient bureaucracy, [arguably] militaristic ideology) whose absence may have precluded successful domestic reform and international rise.

Last but certainly not least, if the nature of environmental pressure changes, different adaptations are bound emerge. The Hobbesian conditions of the 1930s favoured states with strong military forces, while the relatively peaceful ‘western’ post-WII order ultimately selected for economic success. In other words, trading states could thrive in a way that they could not have in the 1930s. Germany and Japan became trading states thanks to reduced external military pressure under the US security blanket. If the world is again becoming more Hobbesian, then both Japan and Germany are maladapted. Think Japanese constitution or Germany’s foreign trade dependence. Success defined less as survival but as survival as a ‘great power’ will force them to adapt to increased security competition. If they do not, they will not ‘survive as great powers’. Fitness, loosely defined, varies with changing environmental pressures.

A short comment like this cannot do justice to the manifold ways a theory as rich as Darwin’s theory of evolution (and its cousins) may usefully inform our understanding of international politics. Darwinian concepts do not apply one-to-one to international politics. But Darwinian (and related) ideas deserve greater attention and should become part of the analytical tool box of international relations scholars and international affairs analysts. Granted, the concepts may feel abstract, that is, too far removed from the familiar, interest- and power-oriented analysis of day-to-day international politics. (Then, of course, all concepts are abstract.) But abstraction is interesting precisely because it forces analysts look at the world from a different, unfamiliar angle and on the of differentness familiar premises. This often proves very fruitful, even if the higher degree of abstraction does not generate precise or even accurate predictions and even if it leaves 'under-explained' phenomena it is supposed to be able to explain. Darwinian (and related) concepts and theory may at first appear to be too abstract and too impractical to have be of practical relevance in international politics. Nevertheless, the suggest and point to a higher-level logic that cannot but enrich more pedestrian, down-to-earth, day-to-day analysis as well as our broader understanding of international politics..

Advanced trade politics & policy analysis (2020)

The analysis of trade, trade policy and trade politics is relatively straightforward. Standard economic theory suggests that free trade is welfare maximizing (under a standard set of assumptions) and that changes to a country’s trade policies have distributional and, by implication, political effects. Countries are better off if they liberalise foreign trade. But there are exceptions. Relaxing some of the standard assumptions and allowing for increasing returns to scale, oligopolistic market structures, network effects and so on, new trade theory demonstrates how trade protectionism can be welfare-enhancing. This the exception that proves the proverbial rule. The general point stands, though, that free trade improves countries’ welfare in aggregate. This then raises a number of interesting questions.

Why should country A care if country B subsidises its exports or sells them at discounted prices? At first sight, this seems to imply a loss to country B and a gain for country A. At second sight, if the subsidies drive the import-competing companies/ sectors in country A out of business and country B then becomes a monopolistic producer, country A may yet suffer economic losses over the longer term. After all, markets are not always competitive and they are not always not frictionless (that is, when a company/ sector goes out of business, the reallocation of the factors of productions leads to a friction-related adjustment costs). It so happens that US concerns over technological leadership are to a significant degree concerned with competition in ‘winner-take-all’ (in addition to dual use technology) technologies. 

Another potential effect of underpricing exports is that it allows the exporting country to build up productive capacity and accelerate economic development. This can and does have important international political consequences. This effect is roughly equivalent to the subsidy provided by an ‘undervalued’ currency (so-called Bretton Woods II). To the extent that trade policy becomes strategic in the sense of the government pursuing broader economic and non-economic goals and doing so by using non-market practices to price out/ out-compete actual and potential rivals, free trade is not necessarily the best policy response. Incidentally, this why the EU legalistic and rules-based approach to international trade (and investment) is ill-equipped to deal with more strategic national-security and economic-development-strategy-driven policy of its peers, the United States and China. This is one of the reasons why the EU has equipped itself with trade defense instruments (European Commission 2020). This supplements that EU’s toolkit, in addition to WTO-compliant instruments like countervailing and anti-dumping tariffs, safeguards and national security exceptions. 

Standard political economy models predict that producers will face greater incentives to mobilise for or against free trade than consumers. The domestic politics of trade policy helps understand why tariff bindings have a two-fold purpose. Not only do they commit countries to (1) predictable (maximum) levels of import duties. But they also help (2) insulate a country’s trade policy from domestic political pressure, especially demand for protection. Safeguards need to be understood as escape clauses helping to balance international commitments with domestic political support for and sustainability of trade. Understandably, these escape clauses often prove contentious and none more so than the national security exception. All international trade creates sensitivity and vulnerability (Keohane & Nye 1977). In principle, almost any good goods be considered essential to national security. The scope to invoke a national security is significant, perhaps too significant. It is also worth noting that restricting trade is not a panacea. In addition to economic efficiency losses, protecting certain sectors and relying exclusively on domestic production may ironically increase risk due to diminishing diversification of supply, at least relative to a situation where a country sources a particularly good from a number of foreign suppliers and countries.

Reciprocity in international trade negotiations is crucial, for it allows the negotiating governments to mobilise domestic free-trade-oriented export interests to offset the domestic political pressure from import-competing, protectionist interests. Incidentally, this is why the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act (RTAA) did (amongst other things). Rather than let Congress, beholden to import-competing, protectionist societal interests, set external tariffs, the RTAA enabled the executive to negotiate reciprocal tariff reductions, thereby brining pro-liberalisation domestic interests into the domestic political game. In a similar vein, the creation of the Office of the US Trade Representative (as an executive agency) wrested trade negotiations from the State Department in an attempt to force US trade negotiators more narrowly on trade rather than broader foreign policy goals and thereby pay greater attention to economic as opposed to broader political goals of trade agreements. Today, the relative greater importance of behind-the-border trade barriers and related regulatory issues mean that Congress almost invariably needs to get involved, even if it delegates trade negotiations to the executive through Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).

The modern history of international trade began with the famous Cobden-Chevalier Treaty in 1860. It was the first treaty to introduce the most favoured nation principle. This principle combined with a host of subsequent bilateral trade agreements effectively created a multilateral free trade system through bilateral agreements. The post-WWII General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) regime, which was supposed to be replaced by the International Trade Organization (ITO) but was not, was based on three fundamental principles: reciprocity, MFN (non-discrimination) and national treatment. This differed from the pre-WWI international trade regime. Crucially, as mentioned above, GATT allowed for exceptions. A subset to GATT members could form free trade area and therey disregard MFN. Scholars and historians continue to disagree what led the US, having initially insisted on exceptionless multilateralism, to accept this exception (e.g. US-Canada, future European integration and hence trade discrimination, British system of imperial preferences), in spite of the Britain’s commitment to the Atlantic Charta.

It is not surprising that multilateral trade liberalisation has effectively come to a halt. Given the large number of WTO members, their increased heterogeneity and the societally and politically more controversial issues related to trade liberalisation (not so much tariffs, but rather behind-the-border issues, including environmental, labour, investment protection issues etc.). No wonder regional trade agreements or issue-specific plurilateral agreements have gained greater importance. Low overall levels of tariffs, especially in advanced economies, also helps explain why the notion of level playing field is important these days. 

Level playing field is a bit of an opaque concept. It broadly refers to fairness. Fairness itself is fairly complex even under the best or simplest of circumstances. Generally, level playing field refers to issues and policies such labour, state aid, taxation & competition, subsidies and environmental standards. With tariffs at very low levels, differences in regulation are seen as giving one country or the other an unfair advantage. Precisely this issue is currently rearing its head in the context of the Brexit negotiations, especially given the objective of zero-tariff/ zero-quota access. Speaking of which …. Britain’s greaer dependence on the EU market than vice versa means that Britain has more to lose in the event of more restriced market access. The EU will also suffer welfare losses, but relatively less so. Relatedly, if the UK leaves the EU without an FTA in place, it will not be able to only reduce its tariffs on EU imports only. MFN means it is not allowed to discriminate in favour of EU imports. It can of course lower all its WTO tariffs to zero. But this means it will have nothing to offer in terms of tariff reduction in future trade negotiations with the EU or any other WTO member. It would continue to be able to offer concessions related to non-tariff barriers, of course.

Upon leaving the EU, the UK faced a choice between a customs union, a free trade agreement and WTO rules. A customs union provides Britain with zero tariffs access to the EU and imposes common external tariffs on industrial goods. A free trade area provides it with zero tariffs on trade with the EU but allows it to retain the ability to set own external tariffs vis-à-vis third countries. A default to WTO rules/ MFN terms would provide Britain with more limited access to the EU, but greater flexibility in terms of international trade policy. (International trade lawyers have raised the possibility that the UK could invoke a derogation to the MFN principle and temporarily maintain preferences (vis-à-vis the EU) until a new trade agreement is in place, similar to the continued existence of ‘imperial preferences’ post-WWII.) It is worth nothing though that a customs union typically applies to (industrial) goods only. Staying in the customs union would therefore have allowed Britain to strike services trade agreement with non-EU countries. A drawback of staying in the customs union, however, is that Britain would have adjust its tariffs in response to the EU signing trade deals with third parties, while the third party, signing an agreement with the EU (and not the customs union) is not obligated to extend preferences to the UK. In other words, a customs union severely constrains UK trade policy, at least as far goods trade is concerned. Moreover, moving from a single market (with by and large mutual recognition) to a less integrated customs union is a vexed issue because of regulation and, by extension, customs procedures and checks. Even if bilateral trade is based on zero-tariff, zero-quota access, goods crossing the border encounter friction and this leads to increased costs (time and money). Given just-in-time delivery and intricate supply chains, this may even put at risk entire supply chains and sectors, not to mention the issues related to inversion, intermediate vs finished inputs, rules of origin and cumulation (whether bilateral, diagonal or full) in case of a free trade area.

The creation of free trade areas raises the issues of trade creation, trade diversion and trade deflection. Trade diversion occurs when, due to regional trade liberalisation like FTAs, a switch occurs from a more efficient to a less efficient producer. This translates into welfare losses. Trade creation, on the other hand, occurs when trade liberalisation (free trade area or customs union) leads to a switch to a more efficient producers (welfare gain). A similarly sounding but originally unrelated concept is trade deflection, which describes a situation where the imposition of tariffs on a country’s export (e.g. China) leads the country to divert its export to third countries (e.g. China exporting steel to Europe and Japan after the imposition of US tariffs). Closely related is the question of fungibility. If, for example, China retaliates against US tariffs by imposing tariffs on (or stops buying) soy beans from the US and switches to Brazil as a supplier, and assuming soy beans are a fungible commodity, two things should happen: Brazil can presumably charge higher prices to China (sort of monopsonistic effect) and US exporters may have to accept lower prices if they manage to divert their exports to the markets that Brazil serviced previously. The picture becomes more complicated if the seasonality of production, transport costs, elasticities and the duration of existing supply contracts are taken into account. Clearly, non-fungible exports are vulnerable and sensitive to import restrictions (e.g. gas transported through pipelines) giving the importer potentially more leverage. 

The existence of international supply chains has made the volume of gross exports an inadequate measure of trade sensitivity. Strictly speaking, the economic effect of trade measures can be derived from calculating the value-added embedded in exports. If a country imports all of the components of a good that it then exports, the domestic value-added will be much smaller than if all the components had been produced locally. Neither gross nor net exports are the right way to measure the impact on economic growth, even though net exports comes a little closer.

Last but not least, the distinction between protectionism and domestic regulation can be difficult to make and it is bound to be politically contentious in practice. Regulations may translate into market access restrictions and/ or they can raise price of a good. Exporters negatively affected by domestic regulations will regard them as protectionist measures (even though principle of national treatment applies). Moreover, if Europe exports no digital services to the US, then a European digital tax will look like protectionism from the US point of view. Reciprocity may or may not help solve that sort of issue. Similarly, EU regulation may also of protectionism, but may simply be a reflection of societal or political preferences (e.g. data protection). In other words, it can be difficult, even impossible to distinguish between protectionism and regulation. And some sort of reciprocity or compensation will likely be required for the injured party not to take retaliatory action (e.g. French digital tax and tariffs on French wine).