Preventing Enemy Coalitions: How Wedge Strategies Shape Power Politics
TL;DR: The wedge strategies that are likely to have significant effects use selective accommodation (concessions, compensations, and other inducements) to detach and neutralize potential adversaries.
Abstract: States use wedge strategies to prevent hostile alliances from forming or to disperse those that have formed. These strategies can cause power alignments that are otherwise unlikely to occur, and thus have significant consequences for international politics. How do such strategies work and what conditions promote their success? The wedge strategies that are likely to have significant effects use selective accommodation—concessions, compensations, and other inducements—to detach and neutralize potential adversaries. These kinds of strategies play important roles in the statecraft of both defensive and offensive powers. Defenders use selective accommodation to balance against a primary threat by neutralizing lesser ones that might ally with it. Expansionists use selective accommodation to prevent or break up blocking coalitions, which isolates opposing states by inducing potential balancers to buck-pass, bandwagon, or hide. Two cases—Great Britain's defensive attempts to accommodate Italy in the late 1930s a...
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors define system effects as "the sum of the effects of the actions taken by multiple actors", where an actor's effect is more than the sum of all the effects taken by other actors.
Abstract: System effects often stand in the way of attempts to come up with simple explanations of politics. Systems are often characterized by nonlinearities, where an effect is more than the sum of the effects of the actions taken by multiple actors. Another system effect is feedback, where the effect of actions is to amplify the problem the actions are intended to solve. There may also be indirect effects, where an incidental aspect of an action becomes more important (to other actors) than the primary intention; contingencies, such that an effect is not inevitable but depends on idiosyncratic or even anti-strategic initial actions; interaction effects, where the behavior of an actor changes the environment of action, so that other actors do not respond as anticipated; and unintended consequences, where the long-term or secondary effects of an action differ from the intended effect. Each of these system effects can frustrate scholarly attempts to understand political behavior using simple models of acti...
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors employ the concept of smart power to construct an analytical framework for assessing wartime alliance management, arguing that the coerciveness with which an alliance leader wields hard power towards actual or prospective allies should vary inversely with the amount of soft power it possesses.
Abstract: This paper employs the concept of smart power to construct an analytical framework for assessing wartime alliance management. It makes two arguments. First, wartime sources of soft power differ from those obtaining during peacetime. Second, the coerciveness with which an alliance leader wields hard power towards actual or prospective allies should vary inversely with the amount of soft power it possesses. The smart power framework illuminates three types of alliance management failure. The paper’s key contentions are illustrated with examples furnished from the record of US alliance leadership since World War II.
14 citations
13 citations
TL;DR: The authors discusses the bilateral ties that have been forming between Israel and its periphery, that is, Greece, Cyprus, Azerbaijan and South Sudan, and draws a comparison to Israel's previous relations with Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia, concluding that despite the dividends that can be gained from security, economic and energy cooperation, its value compared to that of its predecessor is lower based on their instability, domestic issues and lower levels of regional or international influence.
Abstract: This article discusses the bilateral ties that have been forming between Israel and its periphery – that is, Greece, Cyprus, Azerbaijan and South Sudan – and draws a comparison to Israel's previous relations with Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia. It considers the contribution of those partnerships at the security-intelligence and economic level and suggests its potential impact in the political arena. This research concludes that, despite the dividends that can be gained from security, economic and energy cooperation, its value compared to that of its predecessor is lower based on their instability, domestic issues and lower levels of regional or international influence.
12 citations
Cites background from "Preventing Enemy Coalitions: How We..."
...For further reading seeWolfers (1968), Walt (2009) and Crawford (2008, 2011)....
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TL;DR: Policymakers should not fool themselves into thinking that there are easy, low-cost alternatives to keeping the threat of opportunistic aggression at bay as mentioned in this paper. But they do not have the resources to implement these alternatives.
Abstract: Policymakers should not fool themselves into thinking that there are easy, lowcost alternatives to keeping the threat of opportunistic aggression at bay.
11 citations
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Book•
01 Jan 1960
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a theory of interdependent decision based on the Retarded Science of International Strategy (RSIS) for non-cooperative games and a solution concept for "noncooperative" games.
Abstract: I. Elements of a Theory of Strategy 1. The Retarded Science of International Strategy 2. An Essay on Bargaining 3. Bargaining, Communication, and Limited War II. A Reorientation of Game Theory 4. Toward a Theory of Interdependent Decision 5. Enforcement, Communication, and Strategic Moves 6. Game Theory and Experimental Research III. Strategy with a Random Ingredient 7. Randomization of Promises and Threats 8. The Threat That Leaves Something to Chance IV. Surprise Attack: A Study in Mutual Distrust 9. The Reciprocal Fear of Surprise Attack 10. Surprise Attack and Disarmament Appendices A. Nuclear Weapons and Limited War B. For the Abandonment of Symmetry in Game Theory C. Re-interpretation of a Solution Concept for "Noncooperative" Games Index
7,845 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1972
TL;DR: In this paper, a theory of international politics, describes the struggle for political power, and discusses balance of power, international law, disarmament, and diplomacy. But this theory does not consider the role of women in international politics.
Abstract: Offers a theory of international politics, describes the struggle for political power, and discusses balance of power, international law, disarmament, and diplomacy.
3,179 citations
TL;DR: The authors show that there will exist negotiated settlements that rational states would mutually prefer to a risky and costly fight under very broad conditions, under the assumption that states have both private information about capabilities and resolve and the incentive to misrepresent it.
Abstract: Realist and other scholars commonly hold that rationally led states can and sometimes do fight when no peaceful bargains exist that both would prefer to war. Against this view, I show that under very broad conditions there will exist negotiated settlements that genuinely rational states would mutually prefer to a risky and costly fight. Popular rationalist and realist explanations for war fail either to address or to explain adequately what would prevent leaders from locating a less costly bargain. Essentially just two mechanisms can resolve this puzzle on strictly rationalist terms. The first turns on the fact that states have both private information about capabilities and resolve and the incentive to misrepresent it. The second turns on the fact that in specific strategic contexts states may be unable credibly to commit to uphold a mutually preferable bargain. Historical examples suggest that both mechanisms are empirically plausible.
3,062 citations