The Logic of Positive Engagement 9780801463013

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
1. The Failures of External Coercion
2. A Parallel Bias
3. A Framework for Analysis
4. Foundations of Success and Failure: Libya, Cuba, and Syria
5. The Challenge of North Korea and Iran
6. Final Thoughts
References
Index

Citation preview

THE LOGIC OF POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT

A volume in the series Cornell Studies in Security Affairs edited by Robert J. Art, Robert Jervis, and Stephen M. Walt A list of titles in this series is available at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

THE LOGIC OF POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT Miroslav Nincic

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 2011 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2011 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nincic, Miroslav. The logic of positive engagement / Miroslav Nincic. p. cm. — (Cornell studies in security affairs) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-5006-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. United States—Foreign relations—1945–1989. 2. United States— Foreign relations—1989– 3. Economic assistance, American. 4. Economic sanctions, American. 5. International relations. 6. Diplomacy. 7. Security, International. I. Title. II. Series: Cornell studies in security affairs. JZ1480.N56 2011 327.73—dc22 2011011614 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing

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Contents

Preface

vii

1. The Failures of External Coercion

1

2.

A Parallel Bias

32

3.

A Framework for Analysis

58

4.

Foundations of Success and Failure: Libya, Cuba, and Syria

91

5.

The Challenge of North Korea and Iran

127

6.

Final Thoughts

169

References Index

187 205

v

Preface

This book examines the promise and pitfalls of positive engagement (the use of diplomacy and material inducements) as a way of influencing the behavior of regimes considered threatening to the United States and the international community. My interest flows from the disappointing record of policies tilted toward threats and sanctions when dealing with such regimes. Military force, although sometimes suitable for undermining the capabilities of refractory adversaries, has (both in the form of threats and in the form of actual military intervention) an unimpressive record of altering policies. At the same time, most of the literature on economic sanctions judges such measures as rather ineffective. The lackluster record of coercive and punitive policies notwithstanding, the assumptions behind such policies are rarely challenged by political scientists, who with some exceptions have invested little effort in examining alternatives. Academic indifference is all the harder to account for since other social sciences, especially sociology and social psychology, have exhibited roughly equal interest in rewards and punishments as paths to behavior modification. One of my tasks in this book is to account for why policymakers and political scientists are so loath to consider alternatives to generally ineffectual policies. Further, it offers a theoretical framework within which to study the possibilities for positive engagement, a framework that I apply to five instances of U.S. efforts to alter the policies of adversary regimes. The failure of negative sanctions does not imply the necessary success of positive inducements, as the conditions for a favorable outcome in either case are restrictive. With respect to the latter, our starting point is a closer look at two purposes that positive incentives could serve. The first is to offer an adversary some concession intended to produce a desired counterconcession. The objective is a trade involving policy changes on the target’s side; inducements offered in this spirit play out in the context of what I call the exchange model. Our task is to determine what objectives can most plausibly be attained in this fashion and what conditions bode best for success. The second aim of positive inducements is more ambitious: to change the other side’s basic motivations so that bribes and punishments eventually become less necessary. The purpose is not so much to promote a trade as to catalyze a thorough overhaul of relations by altering the other side’s policy priorities. Inducements offered with this purpose partake of what I call the catalytic model. I examine the logic behind the conceptions of vii

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PREFACE

positive inducements associated with these two models and the conditions for success or failure in both. Success in the exchange model requires, above all, that inducements be of a magnitude sufficient to offset incentives to undesirable behavior on the target’s part. I explain why it is often very difficult in the U.S. political context to offer concessions that are objectively sufficient, and I examine the circumstances within the target country that make it more or less receptive to an exchange of concessions—a condition of latent regime instability boding best for such receptivity. With regard to the catalytic model, I explain how domestic change could be encouraged by modifying, from outside, the structure of politically relevant interests and preferences within the target state. I survey a few historical instances where such catalysis was a partial purpose of positive engagement, and I explain why regime instability, even more than in an exchange context, is a requirement for successful inducements with a catalytic intent. I apply this theoretical framework to illuminate the conditions for the successful use of inducements in five countries whose policies have been considered especially objectionable by the United States. In working on this book, I have benefited from the insights and comments of several scholars including Etel Solingen, Larry Berman, Arthur Stein, Donna Nincic, Robert Litwak, and an anonymous reviewer. I also acknowledge the valuable research assistance of Kali Rubaii.

THE LOGIC OF POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT

1 THE FAILURES OF EXTERNAL COERCION

In this book I aim to improve our understanding of the methods by which foreign policy objectives may be pursued, especially those that involve core national interests. I focus, in particular, on the value of positive inducements directed at regimes regarded as adversaries by the United States and as renegades by significant parts of the international community. Positive inducements are not expressions of beneficence, nor are they instruments of “soft” power, meant to entice others to identify with one’s policies by virtue of the moral authority one enjoys (Nye 2004). Positive inducements are tools of external leverage, designed to advance the nation’s interests, and a grasp of their promise and limitations implies a fuller understanding of the range of foreign policy options. My interest stems from the disappointing record of a predominantly coercive U.S. approach to dealing with those nations whose interests and values clash with its own. It is deemed appropriate to deal with friends via rewards and engagement; by contrast, we expect to confront foreign adversaries with punitive pressures. When positive incentives, on occasion, do find their way into the mix of policies, they tend to be a weak adjunct to a core coercive thrust; and often they are resorted to both tepidly and late in the game, after the failures of established policy have been extensively absorbed. The assumption in favor of negative pressures rarely is challenged from within the academic community, and international relations scholars have invested little effort in examining alternative policy strategies. (This academic indifference is hard to account for given that other social science disciplines, especially sociology and social psychology, have exhibited roughly equal interest in rewards and 1

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punishments as means of behavior modification.) This theoretical indifference is reflected in empirical research. Extensive datasets of military activities and economic sanctions are readily available, but one searches in vain for anything comparable with regard to rewards and incentives. A dominant lack of interest notwithstanding, isolated instances of positive inducements have occasionally appeared in a few interstices of scholarship. The psychologists Thomas Milburn and Daniel Christie have observed, with respect to international rivalries, that “in contrast to rewards, threats and punishments supply less information about what behavior is desired, lead to a narrower range of performance (involving less innovation between the parties), lead often to the appearance of older, earlier learned, more primitive behavior, and lead to more dislike of each party by the other, thus hindering the development of cooperation” (Milburn and Christie 1989, 626). There has been a limited awareness that in interactive situations mutual cooperation can be encouraged by strategies of positive reinforcement. At the height of the cold war, Charles Osgood (1962, chap. 5) argued that such reinforcements would produce de-escalatory Soviet behavior, and he urged limited unilateral initiatives in that spirit. Robert Axelrod (1984) demonstrated that stable cooperation among adversaries linked by a “shadow of the future” is best promoted by a tit-for-tat strategy: noncooperative moves should evoke a response in kind, but so should cooperative gestures. In this vein, Alexander George has advocated combining rewards and punishments as a way of extracting concessions from “outlaw” states (George 1993, chap. 4). The cupboard is not entirely bare, but, for reasons dealt with in the following chapter, recognition of a potential role for positive incentives is rare within both academic and policymaking communities. An entire segment of foreign policy strategies has thus escaped careful scrutiny. Since the incentive to contemplate alternative paths is inversely proportionate to the value of those one is accustomed to tread, we begin by asking how effective have been the traditional tools of negative pressure at achieving their purpose. Do they habitually solve the problems they are meant to address and attain the policy objectives for which they are intended? Negative pressures can be arrayed along a continuum, ranging from diplomatic criticism to military force and including, between the extremes, subversive intervention and economic sanctions. The effectiveness of a foreign policy tool cannot be clearly assessed in all cases. Diplomatic criticism can be public or not, and it may be couched in terms that muddy its import. Subversion, if successful, is covertly conducted, while failures are more likely to become known than are instances of success. In any case, the two most widely used means of negative pressure against adversaries in U.S. foreign policy, and those on which the highest hopes apparently are placed, are economic and military coercion. It is hard to think of any country challenging core norms or interests to which the

THE FAILURES OF EXTERNAL COERCION

3

United States is committed that has not faced economic retribution of some sort. Sanctions are, quite simply, the premier tool of coercive leverage in the nation’s foreign policy (and are broadly used in the context of multilateral institutions as well). Because of its costs and risks, military force is less often applied, but it serves a purpose—perhaps its main purpose—through the mere possibility that it would be; defense outlays represent the largest single slice of the government’s discretionary spending. If economic sanctions and military power do a creditable job of achieving their purpose, especially if they do so at an acceptable cost, there may be little reason to consider alternative forms of international leverage. The incentive to use alternatives should increase with evidence of their ineffectiveness. What, then, does the record indicate?

Military Force For many, the use of force and the threat of war are the ultimate tools of leverage in international politics. “The ultima ratio of power in international relations is war,” claimed E. H. Carr (1946, 109). In another view, “military power is not a last but a pervasive resort. In a balance of power system that still includes a majority of not free countries, military power not only defends national security, it underwrites the stability that a global economy requires and validates a national and international diplomacy without which there could be no international negotiations” (Nau 2002). Armed force is an instrument of foreign policy in which the United States has a commanding lead, a lead arguably greater than that attributable to its global economic position or its moral authority. In any case, it is an instrument of foreign policy on which the country has much relied, leading us to inquire just how effectively military coercion has promoted America’s foreign policy goals. The question of the ends to which military force can be applied must first be addressed.

The Three Functions of Military Force One useful distinction assigns three major functions to military power. The first is defense, that is, repelling foreign aggression. The second is deterrence, or ensuring through threatened retaliation that acts against the country’s national interest and security are not attempted. The third is compellence,1 that is, causing an

1. To the best of my knowledge, the term “compellence” was introduced into the political science vocabulary in 1966 by Thomas Schelling in Arms and Innocence (69).

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adversary to do something it otherwise would not do by threatening or imposing pain and destruction or by destroying a capacity to do harm.2 While lines separating these categories are not always clear-cut, distinctions tend to rest on whether the proximate target of military force is an adversary’s capacity or intent. Intent is usually shaped by threats, capacity by the application of force. From this perspective, defense tends to be all about capacity. The adversary’s intent to commit aggression has not been discouraged (or else defense would be unnecessary); what remains is to deny the adversary the ability to pull it off. Successful defense is about fighting, about destroying enough of the force involved in the aggression to ensure that it fails. By contrast, deterrence is all about intent. Its purpose is to affect the other side’s calculations: conveying that aggression’s costs would be too high, or its likelihood of success too low, to make it worthwhile. Most often, as in the case of nuclear deterrence during the cold war, the threatened cost involves retaliatory damage exceeding any benefits the aggression could provide. If defense is necessary, deterrence has failed: intent could not be discouraged and now capacity must be destroyed. With compellence the idea is to coerce the other side into doing something it otherwise would not do, meaning that either purpose or capacity, or both, may be targeted, and that threats or applied force could be involved. When compellent threats target intent, the overlap with deterrence is evident. But, while deterrence aims to discourage the adversary from doing something it would otherwise do, compellent threats seek to make it undo, or stop doing, something it already has done (e.g., to force Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait or Slobodan Milosevic to abandon his depredations in Kosovo). Deterrence is employed until the provocation occurs; compellence is activated once it has occurred.3 In the first case, the aim is to avoid employing force; in the second case, the idea is to use it. As Robert Art has explained, “deterrence . . . employs force peacefully. It is the threat to resort to force in order to punish that is the essence of deterrence. A deterrent threat is made precisely with the intent that it will not have to be carried out” (Art 1980, 6). Compellence can also have a facilitative purpose, to create a shield behind which desirable political objectives (e.g., democratization or nation building) can be conducted. The idea here is to prevent those who oppose the desired goal from blocking its attainment, and facilitation tends to be about capacity. Thus, once military intervention

2. A related taxonomy by Robert Art adds a fourth function, “swaggering,” whose aim is “to enhance the national pride of a people or to satisfy the personal ambitions of the leader” (Art 1980, 10). As this is not directly related to a foreign policy purpose, it will not be dealt with here. 3. As Schelling puts it, “The threat that compels rather than deters often requires that the punishment be administered until the other acts, rather than if he acts” (1966, 70).

THE FAILURES OF EXTERNAL COERCION

5

destroyed Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, the residual function of U.S. troops was to deal with local forces opposed to the political order envisaged by the United States. Given the three purposes for which military force can be employed, how often in U.S. experience have these goals been achieved?

A Mixed Record Though not abysmal, the record falls short of justifying the nation’s very extensive reliance on this instrument of foreign policy. D EF EN S E

Because the nation, throughout its history, has been exceptionally free of foreign aggression, there is in the U.S. case little basis for gauging the effectiveness of military force for national defense. Its size, power, and quasi-insular position have made the United States a discouraging target for hostile foreign forces, and (discounting skirmishes with British troops during the War of 1812) there has been no need to repel foreign attack.4 If political subversion was at times feared during the cold war, an actual Soviet assault with conventional forces was never seriously feared. Nuclear attack was, at times, regarded as possible, but aside from brief conceptual flirtations in the late 1950s and the 1960s with an antiballistic missile system (Chayes and Weisner 1969) and with a space-based antimissile system during the early Reagan years (Drell, Farley, and Holloway 1984) the Soviet nuclear threat was addressed via deterrence, not defense.5 One could stretch the concept of defense to include the protection of friends or allies. Twice since World War II, the United States has applied its military power to that end: when North Korean forces stormed into South Koreas in June 1950 and again in January 1991, following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Both interventions achieved their immediate goal: North Korean forces soon were repelled

4. The Japanese aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, because it was so swift and unexpected, produced little in the way of an active defense. 5. During most of the cold war, nuclear deterrence was guided by the doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD) (Nincic 1981, chap. 5). It assumed that a Soviet first strike could best be deterred by ensuring that the United States could ride out such a strike with sufficient remaining nuclear firepower to launch a retaliatory second strike against Soviet cities and economic facilities, one that would impose an amount of damage offsetting any advantage to be gained from the first strike. In turn, this required deploying a substantial portion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal in a mode that would survive a first strike, that is, mainly submarines.

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THE LOGIC OF POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT

beyond the 38th parallel,6 and Iraqi troops were expelled from Kuwait. But success must also be measured with reference to ultimate consequences, not merely immediate objectives. In these terms, the record is more debatable. In the Korean case, the decision to intervene plunged the nation into a war whose costs and duration exceeded anything that had initially been expected, and it included an expansion of objectives that were never attained.7 The 1991 military action against Iraq did not, from Washington’s perspective, remove the threat from that quarter, and it provided the context for the 2003 decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein, a war with debatable achievements and a great human toll. Though rarely undertaken, extended defense must be evaluated with respect to success or failure with great caution. Although classifying this as defense plainly involves a semantic stretch, some have taken the concept to include preemptive action against targets that threaten U.S. troops or citizens abroad.8 The overlap with compellence is considerable; an example is provided by the attacks, involving both limited troop incursions and missiles, during the summer and fall of 2008 against al-Qaeda targets in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Another instance was the attack by U.S. troops in October 2008 against a target in Syria suspected of involvement in troop flows into Iraq. It is hard to determine what contribution such attacks have made to the overall military goal involved, but their net effect must consider the political and diplomatic costs of civilian casualties and the resentment caused by violations of foreign territory (see, e.g., New York Times 2008a). As the BBC observed regarding both the Pakistan and Syrian incursions, “whether or not the mission is successful, the actual effect in both cases has been to shore up local and regional animosity against America and the West” (BBC World News 2008a). The verdict on defense rests on a very limited empirical foundation. In the clear case of territorial defense, no alternative to military force exists, but the kinds of threats involved are threats that the United States has not seriously faced. In cases involving a semantic extension of the concept of defense, the record regarding the value of military force is murky. Judgments depend on whether one focuses on immediate attainments or longer-term consequences. In some cases at least, the goals involved might have been accomplished, at lower ultimate cost, by

6. U.S. goals under Gen. Douglas MacArthur expanded to defeating Communism in North Korea and, in the general’s departure from his orders, U.S. military action seemed intended to destroy the Maoist regime in China. Neither expanded goal was even approximately attained. 7. For good overviews of the Korean War, consult Hastings (1987) and Halberstam (2007). 8. According to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, any action of this sort directed against those abetting terrorism or acquiring illicit weapons of mass destruction should come under the heading of self-defense (New York Times 2008b).

THE FAILURES OF EXTERNAL COERCION

7

using other policy instruments that could have obviated the need to engage in a variant of expanded defense by foreign policy strategies that precluded the development of the threats against which the military intervention was directed. D ET ERREN C E

Judgments as to the effectiveness of deterrence are problematic for very different reasons. Because defense has generally been unnecessary in the U.S. case, a record of success cannot easily be established on the basis of historical experience. With deterrence, the problem is of a logical rather than empirical nature. While it would be easy to demonstrate a failure of deterrence (an assault has occurred), it is much more difficult to establish its success. The absence of failure does not necessarily imply success, since the fact that no assault has occurred may or may not be due to the deterrent threat. Here we are dealing with counterfactual (“what if ”) propositions, and statements that deterrence has worked are only as believable as the antecedent plausibility that that an assault would have occurred absent the retaliatory threat. Unless this plausibility is compellingly argued, no fully credible claim on behalf of deterrence can be made, yet such arguments rarely are encountered. Byman and Waxman observe that “recent, apparent U.S. failures to coerce mask a great deal of unobservable but nevertheless successful coercion—often in the form of deterrence of provocation in general or of particular military action during the course of disputes” (Byman and Waxman 2002, 230). While this may be true, the statement rests on no developed argument that such provocations would otherwise have occurred. Counterfactual statements can, of course, be useful. In small-n studies (i.e., those with a small number of cases) involving negative degrees of freedom, counterfactual statements can take the place of empirical comparisons of cases with varying values on predictor and outcome variables (Fearon 1991). Absent factual data, however, reliance on counterfactuals does not remove the obligation to marshal a strong argument based on empirical or logical inference to stand in for the missing factual evidence. Any claim about the success of deterrence depends, therefore, on the credibility of the counterfactual claim. Because such arguments have very rarely been advanced in any systematic fashion, the possibility that deterrence works is not sufficient grounds for assuming its effectiveness, or for neglecting other paths to similar policy ends. C O MPEL L ENC E

Because the success of deterrence cannot generally be proven, the argument for the effectiveness of U.S. military force must rest on the record of compellence. The primary purpose of compellence is to alter, by force, an existing state of affairs in pursuit of a policy objective. During the cold war, its usual intent was to

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keep a country in some geostrategically important part of the world from being absorbed into the Communist camp, which included removing from power those regimes whose apparent (even if not certain) leftist sympathies made them, from Washington’s point of view, potential Soviet friends or allies. At times, as in Guatemala in 1954 or Iran in 1953, that aim was pursued through subversion. Occasionally, as in Lebanon in 1958 and the Dominican Republic in 1965, military means were employed. In the post–cold war period, however, armed force has served a broader array of purposes: from humanitarian intervention (Somalia 1992–93) to pursuing a global war on terror (Afghanistan 2001). Compellent threats also have been used, for example, against the Milosevic regime in Yugoslavia in 1998 and 1999, and with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, both in 1990 and prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. How effective has military compellence been? Where threats are concerned, a firm answer would require that all instances be publicly known, whereas it is unlikely that they are. On the basis of what we do know, the verdict on threats is not encouraging. Overt threats of U.S. military action did not cause Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait after the 1990 invasion or, more than a decade later, to provide arms inspectors unfettered access to Iraqi territory. Milosevic, was unmoved when told that his Kosovo policies would, unless reversed, lead to a Western military response.9 Tehran has shown no inclination to abandon its nuclear program despite U.S. insistence that all options, including military force, were on the table (New York Times 2008b). Although the United States, exercising its rights under the Panama Canal Treaty, mounted a show of force in Panama in the summer and fall of 1988 intended to intimidate Manuel Noriega into changing his behavior, this produced no effect on that leader who, several months later, was dealt with by direct military intervention. Two circumstances explain why many threats fail. The first is that they are not always taken seriously. When Saddam Hussein was threatened with military action after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, he seems not to have believed that the Unites States and its allies considered their interests deeply enough involved to warrant their resort to armed force (Mazaar 1993, 39–40). Similarly, when Richard Holbrooke and Gen. Michael Short threatened imminent military action, Milosevic commented, “I’m sure the bombing will be very polite.” When the general disagreed, the Yugoslav leader insisted, “Yes, I understand,

9. In October 1998, following an “activation order” authorizing NATO to undertake air strikes against Yugoslavia if it did not comply with its demands concerning Kosovo, Richard Holbrooke and Gen. Michael Short were dispatched to Belgrade to impress Milosevic with the gravity of the threat. Apparently, however, he failed to acknowledge that anything beyond entirely symbolic military action would be undertaken (Sell 2002, 303).

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but I’m sure the Americans will bomb with great politeness.” (Sell 2002, 203). Second, even when threats are made credible, the political costs of yielding to U.S. military pressure may be too great—especially for regimes that base their legitimacy on a readiness to stand up to the international powers-that-be, and for leaders whose charisma often stems from their brash defiance of foreign threats. If threats alone often are unsuccessful, what happens when the United States actually employs armed force for compellent ends? There are various ways of determining the thresholds at which military intervention actually begins, but if operational use of military force abroad for a duration of at least twentyfour hours and/or during which shots are fired is accepted as a reasonable criterion, and if it is further appreciated that the purpose of an intervention may change over the course of the operation, then table 1.1 provides a list of relevant instances of military intervention associated with a defined policy purpose. As noted, some U.S. interventions witnessed a change in their aims. The goal of repelling the North Korean invasion of South Korea of June 1950 was

Table 1.1 YEAR

1950 1950 1950–53 1958 1965 1964–68 1968 1968–75 1975 1980 1982 1983 1983 1985 1986 1989 1991 1992 1994 1995 1999 2001 2003

U.S. Military Interventions since World War II COUNTRY

OUTCOME

Korea Korea

S F

Lebanon Dominican Republic Vietnam

S S F

Vietnam

F

Iran hostage Beirut Beirut Grenada Libya Libya Panama Persian Gulf Somalia Haiti Bosnia Yugoslavia Afghanistan Iraq

F S F S F A S S F S S S A A

Note: S, success; F, failure; A, ambiguous or uncer tain outcome

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achieved by September of that year. The remaining war period was associated with an escalation of U.S. policy objectives, which included the defeat of Communism in North Korea and even in China, and with difficulties in settling on ceasefire terms (e.g., Rees 1964). The 1965 decision to engage in active military operations in Vietnam was justified by the goal of defeating the Vietcong-led insurgency and providing South Vietnam with a democratic future (Berman 1982, chap. 1). By 1973 the much weaker goal of “peace with honor” replaced these ambitious political objectives (Los Angeles Times 1973). Similarly, the Multinational Force in Lebanon, created under the Reagan administration in 1982 to oversee the withdrawal of Palestinian forces from Beirut, did just that. But the assassination of President Bashir Gemayel and the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps created additional exigencies, and a new Multinational Force was dispatched to Beirut. The U.S. objective of eliminating Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was, after discovery that there were none, transformed into the goal of bringing stable democracy to Iraq. It could be argued that there were other instances of transformed purposes, and, while acknowledging that policy objectives often evolve, these examples provide instances of an unanticipated escalation of an intervention’s initial purpose.10 Based on this list of interventions, what judgment can be made about the effectiveness of U.S. military compellence? In the second column of table 1.1, I indicate whether an intervention’s stated objective was achieved (S), not achieved (F), or whether the outcome must be regarded as ambiguous (A). Thus, for example, there is no question that the 1983 intervention in Grenada, meant to depose the leftist Maurice Bishop government and rid the island of Cuban and Soviet influence, fully achieved its aim. By contrast, U.S. troops withdrew from Beirut before their political objectives involving the stability of the Beirut government had been attained. The impact of the 1986 attacks against Libya, designed to punish it for its involvement in the bombing of the Berlin discotheque and to deter further support of terrorism was less clear:11 they did not produce a short-term

10. The 2003 intervention in Iraq is a difficult case. Its stated purpose was to deal with weapons of mass destruction being developed by Saddam Hussein. As no evidence of such programs could, in the event, be found, the stated purpose could not logically be achieved. One could argue that the real goal was to get rid of Saddam Hussein and bring a stable democracy to Iraq. The first part was achieved, but not, at the time of this writing, the second. The question, then, is whether these can be thought of as separate goals or whether they should be considered two aspects of the same purpose. 11. As President Reagan explained, “Preemptive action against his terrorist installations will not only diminish Colonel Qaddafi’s capacity to export terror, it will provide him with incentives and reasons to alter his criminal behavior” (New York Times, 1986).

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effect on Qaddafi’s behavior but may, in the view of some, have had a beneficial long-term impact.12 The record, then, is mixed—neither abysmally bad nor outstandingly good. In ten of the twenty purpose-defined interventions the policy goal succeeded. In seven instances a verdict of failure must be recorded. In the three remaining cases, two of which—Iraq and Afghanistan—have reached no resolution at the time of this writing, neither outright success nor clear failure may be claimed. On this evidence, the odds of outright success are no better than even. How this is judged depends on such things as prior expectations, tolerance for costs, and appraisal of alternatives, but the record is less glowing than what could have been expected from the most powerful of all nations. In any case, as has been observed, “the experience of the United States and other strong powers suggests that objective, qualitative measures of power seldom determine foreign policy success or failure” (Byman and Waxman 2002, 18). This creates what David Baldwin has termed the “paradox of unrealized power” (1979, 163), and we ask why does not military strength ensure success more often?

The Limits of Military Strength There are at least three reasons why the United States cannot predictably defeat its adversaries and achieve its policy goals. To begin with, there is the matter of asymmetric motivations and political will. When the United States (or other major powers) fight abroad they usually do so for ends that are, from their perspective, limited. What is at stake is a discrete policy goal affecting some aspect of the national interest, not its core purposes. National survival, political survival, and territorial integrity never are involved. The adversary, by contrast, often does fight for existential reasons, to avoid national or political collapse, not for an objective involving foreigners but for one central to the regime’s purpose and existence. Thus, the importance of the war in Vietnam or in Iraq was of much less significance to the United States than it was to the Vietcong or to the Baathist rebels. The asymmetry of stakes implies a differential willingness to suffer and

12. As of the early years of the new millennium, Qaddafi had indeed rejoined the international community and abandoned support for terrorism, and it may be that the 1986 attacks had an impact on this decision. At the same time, the U.S. State Department (1986, 36) reported that, while Qaddafi’s involvement in terrorist activity declined somewhat in 1986 and 1987, he showed no credible signs, at the time, of reforming. In 1988 the State Department labeled Libya the third most active state sponsor of terrorism. It has, moreover, been questioned whether the lull in Libya terrorist activity was attributable to the U.S. military raids or to the regime’s greater care to disguise its involvement in such activity (e.g., Zimmerman 1987, 219).

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is every bit as important as relative physical power in the ability to prevail. A far different cost tolerance results from this asymmetry (Rosen 1972; Record 2005). As Andrew Mack explained the position: The relationship between the belligerents is asymmetric. The insurgents can pose no direct threat to the survival of the external power because . . . they lack an invasion capability. On the other hand, the metropolitan power poses not simply the threat of invasion, but the reality of occupation. . . . It means, crudely speaking, that for the insurgents the war is “total,” while for the external power it is necessarily “limited.” (1975, 181) Beyond this, strategy matters as well. One careful study of the reasons why powerful states sometimes lose wars emphasizes the consequences of strategic asymmetries. In this view, either one or both sides can pursue “direct” strategies involving open and frontal engagements. Alternatively, they can opt for “indirect” strategies: for the weaker side, this usually means guerrilla warfare, for the stronger side, it implies “barbarism,” which attacks the other side’s political will by targeting civilian populations. When, as often is the case, the strategic interaction combines “direct” strategies on the strong side with “indirect” ones on the weaker side, the stronger is most likely to lose (Arreguin-Toft 2005). “Barbarism” is inaccessible to the strong because they often are democracies, with little tolerance for wanton civilian destruction. Because this constrains strategic choices, many U.S. military successes have involved situations where indirect strategies were impossible (e.g., Panama in 1989) or irrelevant (e.g., Yugoslavia in 1999) for the weaker side. A third reason why success can elude superior military power is the frequent mismatch between the two. Where the only—or at least the primary—barrier to attaining the policy goal is the opposition of forces that can be destroyed physically, then U.S. military action may be the necessary and sufficient condition for success. Thus, it could be assumed that all that stood in the way of Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait after the 1990 invasion was the ability of Iraqi forces to defeat those of Kuwait and that offsetting this ability with superior U.S. military power would guarantee attainment of the policy goal (Iraqi withdrawal). But, where obstacles to the policy objective are not of a sort that respond to military force, there is little reason to expect success. The danger is to assume that military force can solve problems that do not yield to physical coercion and destruction. According to one scholar, the problem stems from a “ ‘vision of war’ that see[s] the enemy as a target set and believe[s] that when all or most targets have been hit, he will inevitably surrender and American goals will be achieved” (Kagan 2003, 27). Another analyst laments

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what he considers an “American tendency to separate war and politics—to view military victory as an end in itself, ignoring war’s function as an instrument of policy” (Record 2005, 24). Thus, defeating the armed forces of Saddam Hussein was not a sufficient condition for creating a democratic and politically stable Iraq, nor was the destruction of al-Qaeda’s infrastructure in Afghanistan in 2001 sufficient to terminate its brand of international terrorism. Policy goals often depend on political, economic, or cultural conditions that cannot be coercively altered—a realization that is now shaping U.S. approaches to Taliban challenges in Afghanistan. Even where U.S. force is a necessary but not sufficient condition for goal attainment, outright failure or an ambiguous outcome usually is the product. It is sometimes argued that the probability of such results increases when the military action is unilateral rather than multilateral. While multilateral action, especially that authorized by the UN Security Council, carries greater legitimacy and implies that the costs of intervention will be shared, it is not a panacea, since coercive diplomacy is harder to carry out when it involves a coalition rather than a single state, while its unity of purpose may be “fragile” (George and Simons 1994, 273). Where military force is logically apposite to the policy goal, conditions for success remain restrictive. Our ten instances of success are defined by the very specific and limited nature of the goals set for the interventions, and by the inability of the adversary to mount a credible resistance, either because of the enormous discrepancy in power between the parties (e.g., Panama in 1989 or Grenada in 1983) or because air power alone was involved (e.g., Bosnia in 1995 or Yugoslavia in 1999). These are not circumstances that can generally be expected. Even where outright failure is avoided, the costs, in blood, treasure, and political support of military intervention can be great, both for the United States and the country on behalf of whose assumed interests the operation is conducted. This does not imply that the benefits, when the operation is successful, cannot outweigh the costs. Sometimes they do, but not always. But when the intervention fails in its policy objective, as is often enough the case, none of its costs can be justified. Our focus here is on the possibility of forcing changes by military means in the policies of other nations that are objectionable or threatening to the United States. If policy goals and priorities cannot be changed in this manner, the remaining need is to destroy or degrade the adversary’s capacity to do harm, especially when weapons of mass destruction are involved. Occasionally, this will represent a necessary and justified use of armed force, but very little in the record of U.S. military intervention in recent decades has involved this imperative. The only intervention that was justified by a need to rid a rogue state of nuclear and chemical weapons programs, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, turned out to be based on a false claim as there were no such programs. In any case, such decisions

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must rest not just on the magnitude of the apparent stakes and the ineffectiveness of alternative policies, but on the likelihood that force will achieve its goals, since even the highest stakes and the failure of other policies does not commend military coercion where a dubious chance of success is coupled with significant collateral costs. Two cases of particular current consequence are those involving the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea. If the verdict on the effectiveness of force is, at best, mixed, one could conclude that it should be reserved for cases in which the stakes are unambiguously high and where other forms of pressures, such as economic sanctions, have failed to deal with the threat. While both cases probably meet these standards, it is an indication of the value of compellent force that in neither has military action seemed feasible.

Iran and North Korea Few would deny that a nuclear-armed Iran, especially under its current leadership, would threaten international peace and stability. The regime’s uranium enrichment program has acquired significant momentum, suggesting that a full nuclear capability may become a real contingency. Political leaders at various points on the U.S. political spectrum have declared this unacceptable and insist that a military option must remain on the table. At the same time, and independently of whatever benefits threats may have for diplomatic negotiations, most serious analysts conclude that the costs and risks of taking military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities are unacceptably high. A large part of the problem lies with the manner in which the uranium enrichment facilities seem to be dispersed and located: in some cases, they are deep underground and beyond the reach of conventional munitions. By many estimates, at least two dozen facilities would have to be destroyed (and perhaps considerably more) to put a stop to the nuclear program. Destroying some of the underground plants, such as the heavily fortified gas centrifuges at Natanz, located at least thirty feet underground, with five thousand–pound laser-guided bunker busters, carried by B-2 bombers, might be possible; and even tactical nuclear weapons have been considered (Washington Post 2006). Still, success could not be guaranteed; especially as not all of the relevant facilities are known to U.S. or Israeli intelligence (Albright, Brannan, and Shire 2008). Sometimes it is argued that it would suffice to retard and disrupt the nuclear program, buying time for a political solution; but it is just as likely that military action that was only partially successful would lead to an accelerated nuclear effort, producing a nuclear-armed Iran sooner than if there had been no military attack.

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In any case, the prospect of retaliation would loom large. Iran could rely on commando actions to sink a number of ships in the Strait of Hormuz, effectively blocking the strait and disrupting international oil supplies. Even if it did not do so, halting its own exports (approximately four million barrels daily) would increase world oil prices significantly, with attendant economic implications. In addition, resort to force against Iran could cause a spike in anti-Americanism in the Middle East and elsewhere in the developing world, adding major diplomatic consequences to the economic costs. Iran’s influence on Islamic forces in Iraq might disrupt U.S. efforts to bring its intervention in that country to a politically successful conclusion; at the same time, Tehran’s grip on organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad could bring about waves of suicide bombings against Israel, further fueling instability in the Middle East. Finally, Iran’s possession of a mediumrange missile capability might place both Israel and other U.S. allies in the region at considerable retaliatory risk. The main threat currently involves the Shahab-3 missile, with a range of two thousand kilometers. Tested in July 2008 in the context of the Great Prophet III war games, and again in May 2009, it has Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt within range, and an adviser to the Supreme Leader warned that it would be used against Tel Aviv in the event of a military strike against Iran (BBC World News 2008b). An improved missile, with a comparable range, the Sajjil-2, was tested in December 2009 (BBC World News 2009a). Under the circumstances, it seems wise to consider ways in which the objective of denuclearizing Iran might be obtained through positive inducements and finding ways to alter regime priorities by reintegrating that country into the international community. The prospects for successful military action against North Korea, another nation engaged in significant acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, are no better. Unlike Iran, North Korea actually has twice tested a nuclear device (in 2006 and 2009), and it was estimated in 2009 to have between four and seven nuclear bombs (Nikitin 2009, 4). Coupled with its ballistic missile delivery capabilities, the threat of significant retaliation could not be dismissed. Pyongyang’s Nodong missile has a one thousand km range and may be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead (BBC World News 2009a). The Taepodong-1 could reach U.S. bases in Okinawa, while the range of the Nodong-B (2,500–3,200 km) is even greater (Hildreth 2006). Although its single test was not wholly successful—it failed in May 2009 to place a satellite in orbit—the nuclear-capable Taepodong-2 has a theoretical range of 5,000–6,000 km, which might, with suitable modifications, allow it to reach Alaska, Hawaii, and parts of the U.S. West Coast. The military option is highly unattractive, even aside from the possibility that nuclear weapons would be used. North Korea’s army of 1.2 million, along with

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80 percent of its conventional firepower, is concentrated near the demilitarized zone bordering South Korea. This includes some eight thousand artillery systems, two thousand tanks, five hundred 170 mm Koksan guns, and two hundred multiple-launch rocket systems that may be armed with chemical weapons (Hildreth 2006). Greater Seoul accounts for almost half of South Korea’s population and lies within reach of these weapons. Although there are plans to destroy much of this capability in the early phases of fighting, the “tyranny of location” (Washington Post 2003) means that very many South Koreans might die before this is achieved. To these costs could be added possible retaliatory missile strikes against U.S. regional allies, such as Japan; possibly even Hawaii and Alaska. According to the Strategic Studies Institute, “Washington and Seoul cannot overthrow the North Korean regime by force or destroy its strategic military assets without risking devastating losses in the process” (Scobell and Sanford 2007, 131). Threats that rely on no reasonable expectation of military action are pointless. The obvious constraints on U.S. use of force against North Korea means that other tools of leverage are needed for dealing with Pyongyang. The overall conclusion is that, while armed force sometimes achieves its objectives, success with an acceptable long-term cost is not likely. In many cases, even those involving very significant stakes, the resort to force is undesirable or infeasible. The nation’s economic and technological advantages make reliance on military tools of foreign policy a natural development, buttressed by a supportive political reward structure and established assumptions about policy options. At the same time, many U.S. foreign policy goals cannot be attained unless a broader range of tools of international leverage come to be considered.

Economic Sanctions Where wealthy nations are concerned, no method of dealing with adversaries is more often encountered than economic sanctions, defined as leverage that stands to make their target worse off economically relative to some accepted baseline unless it complies with the initiator’s demands. Belief in the value of such sanctions was captured early in the twentieth century by President Woodrow Wilson. A nation boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender. Apply this economic, peaceful, silent, deadly remedy and there will be no need for force. It is a terrible remedy. It does not cost a life outside the nation boycotted, but it brings pressure upon the nation that, in my judgment, no modern nation could resist. (quoted in Carter 1988, 9)

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Were Wilson’s judgment correct, the wealthiest country on earth would need few other tools of foreign policy when the interests and values of other nations collide with its own. Since, however, most of the literature casts doubt on his optimistic assertion, closer scrutiny of this ubiquitous tool of foreign policy is required. This involves three steps: a survey of the fruits that sanctions are expected to yield, a description of the causal processes behind their anticipated benefits, and, most important, a look at the record and its verdict on the value of sanctions. The most obvious objective of sanctions is to change the target’s policies. The economic pain, it is reckoned, will be weighed by decision makers against the benefits of the objectionable behavior, and the latter will be abandoned. Two causal mechanisms may encourage this outcome. First, the culpable government, succumbing to the problems caused by the sanctions and under pressure from those within society who suffer most, may abandon the policies that led to the economic punishment. A simple cost-benefit calculus, including the domestic political consequences of the economic hardships, produces the desired change of behavior: whether this behavior involves ill-treatment of its own people, externally aggressive conduct, pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, or support for international terrorism. Second, assuming the first mechanism fails, it may lead to the removal of the recalcitrant government. The hope, here, is that the domestic deprivations caused by the sanctions and the political authorities’ refusal to change course would cause politically potent segments of the society to rise against their leaders, ensuring their removal and replacement by those whose priorities are internationally more acceptable. In either case, the baneful policies are abandoned as a result of economic coercion. Since the rationale behind economic sanctions appears sensible, and since they are so extensively used, it is surprising to find such a strong consensus on their ineffectiveness. Few studies or none praise their performance. Richard Haass, former foreign policy official and currently head of the Council on Foreign Relations, has estimated that “with a few exceptions, the growing use of economic sanctions to promote foreign policy objectives is deplorable . . . the problem with economic sanctions is that they frequently contribute little to American foreign policy goals while being costly and even counterproductive (Haass 1997, 17). Another observer commented that “it is a paradox of policymaking that economic sanctions are so often imposed in the pursuit of U.S. foreign policy objectives with so little apparent success” (Gavin 1989, 34). Yet another has said that “economic sanctions are a policy instrument with little, if any, chance of achieving much beyond making policy-makers feel good about having done something for a particular domestic community” (Fisk 2009, 65).

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To the extent that observers disagree, the point of discord is on just how badly economic sanctions perform; some argue that sanctions usually fail in their direct policy goal, while others claim that they almost always do. Probably the most widely quoted work in the former category is Economic Sanctions Reconsidered (1990) by Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot (hereafter, HSE). While their book finds no great virtue in economic sanctions, it concludes that, under certain restrictive conditions, they can be useful. The authors initially examined 115 instances of economic sanctions applied between 1914 and 1990 and reported success in 34 percent of the cases, a figure that remains stable in updated editions.13 Given the scope of the work, it became “the bedrock study on the effectiveness of economic sanctions” (Pape 1997, 92) that informed much of the national debate on the value of this foreign policy instrument. That economic sanctions stand a one-in-three chance of attaining their primary objective would not normally be deemed a strong endorsement. How many other policy tools would be recommended on the basis of such mediocre performance? Even this number, however, is dismissed by those who hold that economic sanctions almost never work and who find many problems with the HSE book. One problem is that some of the included cases of economic sanctions lack an obvious political dimension. These involve such things as investment wars and retaliation for unfair trade practices. Such purely economic disputes are not what we are interested in here. With politically driven cases the record is even less impressive. The most thorough re-examination of the data found that Economic Sanctions Reconsidered is “seriously flawed.” Practically none of the claimed 40 economic successes of economic sanctions stands up to examination. Eighteen were actually settled by direct or indirect use of force; in 8 cases there is no evidence that the target made the demanded concession; six do not qualify as instances of economic sanctions; and 3 are indeterminate. Of HSE’s 115 cases, only 5 are approximately considered successes. (Pape 1997, 93) A defense of Economic Sanctions Reconsidered was mounted by one of the book’s authors (Elliot 1989), but the critique was refined, confirming the conclusion that only 4 percent of the sanctions surveyed achieved their end (Pape 1998). If this result is accepted, a successful economic sanction is an extremely rare event. Another line of critique leveled against the HSE volume has focused on the authors’ approach to causal modeling, observing that, here, the relation between

13. The most recent (third) edition is Hufbauer, Schott, Elliot, and Oegg 2009.

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a sanction’s success and its various statistical predictors (e.g., prior trade relations, the gravity of the target’s existing economic predicament) is treated in bivariate fashion and that, consequently, one cannot make ceteris paribus statements of the kind that can be made when an outcome is conditioned by more than one cause. When, however, these predictors are combined into a multivariate model, most of the relations hypothesized by the authors become statistically insignificant (Drury 1998). In most conceptions of the benefits of sanctions, the causal link between economic pressure and policy change is the assumed need of governments to avoid the risk to their tenure from the economic dissatisfactions caused by the sanctions-induced deprivation (Nincic and Wallensteen 1983). The question is whether sanctions do, in fact, threaten instability in a way consistent with their purpose. The most careful study of the issue hypothesizes that “because pressure threatens destabilization, leaders would have an incentive to avoid it” (Marinov 2005, 565). While Marinov finds evidence that destabilization does sometimes occur, he does not inquire whether this instability produces the desired policy change. Even if one is ready to assume that it does, one of the author’s most important conclusions is that pressures most likely to produce instability are those directed at democracies—the very sort of regime whose policies are least likely to be feared and punished. Another author concludes that economic sanctions are effective at altering nuclear policies only if the target and the initiator of the sanctions have friendly relations (Helfstein 2010). Again, this is the very scenario in which negative pressures are least likely to be necessary. The record, while debated at the margins, provides little support for those who champion economic sanctions. Even the findings of Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot depict, at best, a glass two-thirds empty. That glass gets no fuller when we move from large data-analytic studies that include sanctions of no great political import to a consideration of cases of particular political significance. Thus, we note that U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba, first imposed in 1962 and further strengthened by the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, represent a concerted multidecade effort that has left the Castro regime’s position unaffected. Although, prior to 1962, more than two-thirds of Cuba’s foreign trade was with the United States, the sanctions caused no altering of Cuban policies and simply drove the regime into the Soviet Union’s embrace. The sanctions were augmented between 2003 and 2008 by a European Union program of economic restrictions, to no obvious further avail. In fact, one could argue that the embargo actually strengthened the regime by conveying the image of the country being beleaguered by a powerful hostile foe, and thus increasing citizens’ solidarity with a government that

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might otherwise have been more vigorously opposed.14 Sanctions also made it possible to blame the country’s economic condition on U.S. pressures rather than on regime failures. It could be claimed that sanctions have, at least, undermined Cuba’s capacity to export revolution, as recent decades have seen little in the way of such attempts, but it is difficult to know how much Cuba’s diminished international activism can be attributed to the deradicalization that most ideologically based regimes eventually experience and to a realization that attempts to export revolution are rarely successful. Eventually, the Castro regime’s failures will lead to its collapse, but it may be that sanctions have delayed, rather than accelerated, this demise (Kaplowitz 1998). Even if it were claimed that sanctions were instrumental to that collapse, a foreign policy instrument that took over half a century to produce its effect cannot be considered effective. U.S. economic sanctions against Iran date from 1979, the year of the seizure of U.S. diplomatic hostages in Tehran. Lifted following release of the hostages, the sanctions were reimposed by the Reagan administration in 1987, with a new embargo on the importation of Iranian goods and services. This was reinforced in 1995 with the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which prohibited U.S. participation in the country’s petroleum development. The purpose, in both cases, was to deal with Tehran’s involvement in international terrorist activities. Considering that in subsequent decades Iran continued to be listed by the U.S. Department of State as one of the world’s most active sponsors of terrorism, the sanctions cannot have produced their desired policy outcome. The acknowledgment by Tehran in 2003 of a previously clandestine uranium-enrichment program was a further major grievance against the government of Iran. In 2007 sweeping new U.S. measures were decreed. These were followed by three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions. To date the Iranian side has not yielded on the nuclear issue. In any case, a December 2007 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office questioned the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions against Iran since 1987 (U.S. GAO 2007). Few countries except Cuba have been subjected to as broad and long-lasting an array of sanctions as has North Korea. Sweeping prohibitions on economic transactions have been based on the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act, North Korea’s listing as a state sponsor of terrorism, U.S. actions against specific North Korean companies and other companies suspected of involvement in Pyong-

14. Even former presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan (a fervent anti-Communist), observed in 1999 that “because of the siege mentality our embargo has created insider Cuba, our sanctions may today be the main pillar of Castro’s power” (New York Times 1999).

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yang’s money-laundering operations, as well as a variety of Japanese sanctions, and, following the 2006 test of a nuclear device, sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council. As I argue in chapter 5, virtually every significant policy concession granted by North Korea was obtained by positive inducements, not punishment, whereas times of intense economic sanctions and other forms of external coercion have produced some of the most egregious instances of that country’s international misbehavior. North Korea provides no credible evidence for the effectiveness of economic coercion. Because of the two regimes’ deplorable human rights records economic sanctions have been applied against both Burma and Sudan, thus far to little avail. Burma’s military dictatorship dates back to 1962. International outrage at the junta’s repressive policies increased after 1990 when the rulers’ overturned the results of the first democratic election since the armed forces grabbed power. U.S. sanctions have been in place since 1997, and they were further tightened in 2007, while the European Union has imposed parallel sanctions. Still, the military rulers have shown no inclination to loosen their grip. Sudan, accused of abetting genocide in the Darfur region, has been the target of both UN and U.S. sanctions, which have not induced the nation’s leaders to relent. Two relatively recent and very visible cases may not be as damning with regard to sanctions as those just reviewed, but the evidence is mixed and conclusions must be qualified. In the Yugoslav case, the claim that international economic sanctions with a strong multilateral component were responsible for the country’s economic misery, and thus for the regime’s collapse (Los Angeles Times 2000; Kacsur 2003), cannot be blithely accepted. Most Yugoslavs were frustrated with their economic predicament, but if foreign pressures were responsible for Milosevic’s electoral defeat, it is hard to disentangle their impact from that of the NATO bombing campaign in the spring of 1999, and from the emergence of a credible alternative in the form of Vojislav Kostunica. Even assuming that the sanctions contributed to Milosevic’s 2000 downfall, they may well have strengthened his hold on power through much of the 1990s by amplifying the feelings of nationalism on which his rule depended. By implying a “cultural identity of guilt [sanctions] were bound to be counterproductive, reinforcing the very loyalties and political appeals they were aiming to deny” (Woodward 1995, 291). As a dissident Yugoslav journalist explained, “with the help of sanctions and the growing power of the patriarchal conservative Serbian villages [Milosevic] is slowly becoming the embodiment of the national identity in many Serbs’ minds” (Matic 1994, 291). The claim of standing up to a hostile world did bolster Milosevic’s popularity during this period. Sanctions may have helped him win the 1992 presidential elections. Milan Panic, the pro-Western businessman opposed to the regime’s excesses, ran against Milosevic in a campaign that urged moderation

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and accommodation with the international community. Though polls indicated that he could win a fair election (Sell 2002, 203), ultimately he lost. The defeat has been attributed, in part, to the November 17 UN decision to strengthen its sanctions against Yugoslavia, which undermined Panic’s position and vindicated Milosevic in his claim that the outside world was ganging up on Yugoslavia (Sell 214). The bottom line is that, while sanctions may have contributed to the desired political change in 2000, they also made it less likely for Milosevic to fall earlier. The Libyan case is less problematic. By 2005 Qaddafi had stopped supporting terrorism; he had also given up his quest for weapons of mass destruction and had turned over two Libyan nationals involved in the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. He also expressed a desire for full reintegration into the international community. Although some have claimed that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 scared the Libyan leader into reforming his behavior (e.g., Safire 2003), economic concerns, not fear of military attack, seem to have guided his thinking. Qaddafi had been the target of a range of economic sanctions. In 1982, because of Libya’s involvement in terrorism and weapons of mass destruction programs, the United States had banned oil imports from, and some exports to, that country, and followed that with an almost total embargo in 1986. Additionally, in 1996 the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act sought to punish foreign firms investing in oil and natural gas development in Libya. Following Libya’s implication in the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am airliner, the UN Security Council imposed further sanctions. A case could be made that, by the later 1990s, a realization that economic difficulties were undermining the regime’s domestic position, coupled with an apparent shift in Qaddafi’s own ideological convictions, ultimately made the difference (Nincic 2005, 132–33). Although it was not so much the sanctions, most of which had been imposed in the 1980s, but the promise of their removal, a subtle but meaningful difference, that did the trick, the fact remains that this is a plausible case of economic pressures ultimately attaining their desired objective. The claim will be subjected to closer scrutiny in chapter 4.

Why Sanctions Fail Since sanctions rarely work, their feeble record must be accounted for. Early and conventional thinking about the logic of sanctions assumed that if the pain of economic deprivation would tend to encourage a change of policies, then the greater the deprivation, the more probable the change (e.g., Barber 1979). This straightforward reasoning assumes that decisions are guided by a direct costbenefit analysis and that the target’s incentives are invariant under the sanctions.

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The empirical record does not support this simple view. A related study surveyed the impact of sanctions against regimes that violate some core international norms. Examining the impact of economic punishment against nine regimes guilty of WMD acquisition, support for terrorism, territorial aggression, or egregious violations of human rights,15 suggests that sanctions are considerably less effective if they are comprehensive than if they are partial (Nincic 2005, chap. 5); in other words, the heavier the sanctions the less likely the desired policy change. Why is this the case, given the intuitive plausibility of the reasoning on which economic coercion rests? One explanation is that political developments associated with sanctions often neutralize their desired impact: the target regime’s incentives are endogenous to sanctions and may change once they are applied, which often strengthens their commitment to the misbehavior. One of the first social scientists to explain this was Johan Galtung, who criticized what he termed the “naive theory of economic welfare,” which held that the likelihood that a regime will fall apart is approximately proportionate to the extent of the country’s economic suffering. There are reasons why this view may be completely wrong when the economic problems result from sanctions (Galtung 1967). External economic pressure often is accompanied by a variety of political developments, the most important of which is a “rally” phenomenon, as people cluster around a government beleaguered by hostile foreigners. The bottom line, in many cases, is that “trade sanctions can function like a neutron bomb, destroying the economy, wreaking misery on the general population, but leaving the political establishment intact. Worse, trade sanctions can even bolster support for the targeted government by appearing to be a heavy-handed impingement upon sovereignty prerogatives” (Lavin 1996, 141). As Galtung observed, if the regime’s political position actually improves as a result of the pressures, a desire to perpetuate such benefits bolsters whatever incentives caused the misbehavior in the first place. Beyond the rally effect, economic sanctions—like all forms of external pressure—can help the government by enabling it to link its domestic opposition to hostile foreigners, claiming they share political interests that harm the country. This can delegitimize the opposition and justify, in the eyes of many, curbing its freedom of action. Thus, it could be argued that Milosevic benefited during the early and mid-1990s from the economic sanctions against Yugoslavia. Castro’s domestic position probably also gained as a result of U.S. coercion. The hard-line Iranian regime has

15. These included Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan (under the Taliban), Yugoslavia (under Milosevic), and Sudan.

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almost certainly been helped by the sanctions provoked by the country’s nuclear program, which it claims is for peaceful purposes. As the director of a Tehran research institute explained, “Iranians are united not because of activities by the Iranian regime, but because of the U.S. position. . . . Now all Iranians believe we must promote our activities as a sign of independence” (Washington Post 2004). It also is important to consider that domestic economic interests can be driven in two directions. Some segments of society may, as a result of economic privations, withdraw their support for the regime whose conduct has brought on the sanctions, impelling it to abandon that behavior. At the same time, new clusters of interest, tied to the persistence of the regime, may emerge as sanctions open new opportunities for economic gain to those who can profit from attendant shortages and dislocations. Black and grey markets thrive, as powerful players carve out monopoly or near-monopoly positions in the provision of scarce products and as smugglers realize large profits on goods that are scarce but price inelastic. Those who engage in legitimate production but who previously suffered from foreign competition might find their position improved, as long as the market does not wholly collapse. Such activity can be defined as rent seeking (Buchanan 1980, 4); rent seekers need political allies to maintain their profitable situation, which encourages such newly enriched groups to join forces with the military and police, thus strengthening the base of regime support. As former UN Secretary General Kofi Anan has pointed out, “those in power often transfer the costs to the less privileged, but perversely often benefit from such sanctions by their ability to control and profit from black market activity, by controlling the distribution of limited resources, and by exploiting them as a pretext for eliminating domestic sources of political opposition” (Anan 2000). This sort of outcome was described by Elizabeth Gibbons, who was the UNICEF representative to Haiti when sanctions were imposed in 1991 to force the military rulers to reinstate the elected president and reestablish democracy: The Haitian army, by seizing control of the black market in embargoed goods, especially fuel, was also to realize huge windfall profits, creating a strong, perverse, incentive to continue sanctions. Sudden wealth also increased the military’s independence from patrons in the business elite, thereby making it less susceptible to pressure emanating from that quarter. In addition, control of the black market may have helped to produce resources the army needed to create and maintain the paramilitary group, FRAPH, which, from 1993, was skillfully deployed throughout Haiti to carry out its massive campaign of terror, rape, and murder against the population. (Gibbons 1999, 231)

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There is yet a third way in which sanctions can buttress a regime’s position. Many regimes, especially those designated as rogues or renegades, come to power on claims of an elevated ideational mission involving ideological, religious, or ethnonationalist objectives. As a general rule, even regimes that manage to whip up considerable societal fervor for the values they espouse discover that, after a few years, enthusiasm wanes, especially if people must confront an arduous daily struggle for subsistence. However, this waning can be delayed or even reversed where there is a popular perception that the values, which may have been only partially embraced by the society, are threatened by hostile foreigners; this encourages a recommitment to the regime’s ideational agenda and strengthens its political position (Nincic 2005, chap. 5). In this additional way, foreign economic pressure can bolster the structures of political power it was meant to undermine.

The Outlook for “Smart Sanctions” If sanctions rarely produce their desired effect, implying—especially when they are comprehensive—political consequences contrary to their intent, a solution can be to target the pressure more narrowly and effectively. The goal remains to offset the regime’s incentives to misbehavior by counterincentives in the form of costs to the misconduct, but it avoids economic pain to the society at large. Not only are the undesirable human costs of economic isolation avoided, so are counterproductive political developments, such as rally effects prompted by popular resentment at painful external pressures and the encouraging of rentseeking interests committed to supporting the regime. The idea is to make the political leadership alone bear the costs of the sanctions, targeting benefits and transactions that specifically affect its welfare. “Smart sanctions” thus “offer the possibility of concentrating coercive pressure on decision-making elites, while minimizing the humanitarian and third-party damage” (UN, Department of Political Affairs 2000, 18). Following this logic, when the failure of comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq, along with their heavy human toll, became apparent, the solution would be to shift to smart sanctions, which would limit trade restrictions to purchases of weapons and dual-use equipment while avoiding further damage to the economy as a whole (Lopez 2001). Smart sanctions can involve arms embargos, travel restrictions on the political elite and their families, restrictions on access to luxury goods and products that otherwise benefit the regime’s coercive apparatus (e.g., police and communications equipment) and, most important, controls on the international financial flows on which the regime’s position depends. An example of this are the U.S. sanctions directed at Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and

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complemented by U.S. and UN Security Council sanctions aimed at regime personalities engaged in missile trade and terrorist activities. UN sanctions, following North Korea’s nuclear test of 2006, included exports of luxury goods to Pyongyang political elites. European Union measures against the Milosevic government in Yugoslavia encompassed travel bans on the nation’s leadership. The Burmese government has endured travel and financial restrictions from the United States. Sanctions against Sudan’s regime have included boycott of companies owned or controlled by the Khartoum government. The most powerful form of smart sanctions generally involves targeted financial sanctions, since financial resources are the foundation of elites’ personal economic interests and, in many cases, their ability to rule. The aim is to localize and freeze the assets of specific individuals and entities in international financial markets, an enterprise fraught with generally surmountable technical challenges.16 While comprehensive sanctions are a blunt instrument requiring limited specialized knowledge about the details of the target economy’s operation, targeted financial sanctions demand a detailed and deeper grasp of the financial and economic profile of the targeted elites and their institutional links to the outside world: information about trading associates, the manner in which commercial operations are financed, investment partners, correspondent banks, and so forth. World financial markets are complex, but globalization and reliance on computerized electronic transfers makes it theoretically possible to monitor the movement of funds and track the identity of the owners. Experience in tackling money-laundering operations may be helpful. In fact, smart financial sanctions present a more manageable challenge, since their targets are a restricted number of individuals and companies, while criminal money laundering may involve an open-ended set of individuals and companies. Theoretical possibilities aside, it is difficult to gauge just how much can be expected from smart sanctions. One problem is that, since both targeted and comprehensive sanctions are often used, it is difficult to disentangle them when attempting to compare their respective effectiveness. U.S. sanctions directed at the assets of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and individuals involved in terrorism and missile trade (instances of smart sanctions) coexist with the more comprehensive sanctions against Iran enacted in 1995 and 1996. U.S. financial and travel restrictions against Burmese officials (smart sanctions) have simply supplemented the 1997 general investment ban and the 2003 restrictions on imports from Burma. Restrictions on exports of luxury goods that benefit the

16. An extensive discussion of some of these challenges can be found in the proceedings of the two Interlaken seminars on targeted UN financial sanctions (Wallensteen et al. 2003).

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North Korean elite went hand in hand with a variety of other sanctions, including those mandated by the Trading with the Enemy Act. The dust has not settled on the debate regarding smart sanctions, and while a firm judgment awaits a richer store of evidence, they seem to lack sufficient bite and be too easily circumvented and to have a record no better than that of comprehensive sanctions (Lopez and Cortright 2004; Tostensen and Bull 2002). As yet, there is no instance of a state that has significantly altered its policies as a result of smart sanctions alone. The bottom line with economic sanctions is that they do not amount to disincentives offsetting fixed incentives to regime misconduct, since these incentives themselves often are modified by the sanctions, meaning that there may be more that must be offset as a result of the sanctions. This undermines the theoretical foundations on which sanctions rest and, by implication, their practical effectiveness.

Targeting Capacity Perhaps this discouraging record may be improved if sanctions, despite doing little to alter the unsavory target objectives, can at least undermine a regime’s capacity to act on such aims. This is not, however, an easy case to make. It rests on the assumption that nefarious capacity can be undermined by weakening economic foundations. But this is not necessarily so. Were the objectionable regime’s purpose to obtain economic leverage over those, outside its borders, whose behavior it wished to influence, sanctions could make a difference. But this would assume that the undesirable policies did not rank too highly on the regime’s priorities; otherwise they probably would escape resource cutbacks, which would instead affect other goals and activities. It would, for example, be difficult to argue that Iran’s ability to engage in subversive activities through Hezbollah and other agents has been measurably affected by foreign sanctions. Sometimes the regime’s capacity to do harm is not closely linked to economic conditions. A policy of ethnic cleansing, for example, is not intimately dependent on the state of the economy. On the other hand, it could be argued that acquisition of weapons of mass destruction is the sort of objective that can be prevented by appropriately designed sanctions. For example, it has been reasonably argued that in the case of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, UN-enforced sanctions were instrumental in preventing a revival of the WMD programs that had been dismantled following the 1991 Gulf War (Lopez and Cortright 2004). The case has some merit; however, it was not the sanctions alone that were effective, but also the intrusive inspections by UN weapons inspectors (UNSCOM) and the International

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Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the steps they took to destroy Iraq’s capacity to make WMDs. It probably is true that sanctions alone, if flawlessly conceived and enforced, could prevent acquisition of the material and technology needed to produce nuclear weapons. But as North Korea and Iran have demonstrated, not too much faith should be placed in the likelihood that perfectly effective sanctions can be implemented. Where chemical and biological weapons are concerned, the modest materials and infrastructure required to manufacture them would make economic sanctions an unlikely barrier to their acquisition.

The Symbolic Purpose The purpose of extensive U.S. reliance on economic coercion cannot be fully grasped if it is conceived only as leverage meant to force policy change. Understanding improves when the aim of sanctions is shifted from the area of practical effects to the field of the symbolic, meant less to weaken the target government than to strengthen the initiator’s. Invoking sanctions displays a readiness to confront bad regimes, casting the government as decisive and forceful while demonstrating, to the general satisfaction, that evil is not unpunished. According to the Council on Foreign Relation’s Richard Haass: Economic sanctions are popular because they offer what appears to be a proportional response to challenges in which the interests at stake are less than vital. They are also a form of expression, a way to signal official displeasure with a behavior or action. They thus satisfy a domestic political need to do something and reinforce a commitment to a norm, such as respect for human rights or opposition to weapons proliferation. (Haass 1997, 75) Even where no practical gain can realistically be expected, sanctions often provide symbolic gratifications. As President George W. Bush explained in the Cuban case, “the sanctions our government enforces against the Castro regime are not just a policy tool, they are a moral statement” (BBC World News 2001a). At times, sanctions can gratify specific and politically potent constituencies—as with the embargo against Cuba. Further, and unlike armed force, sanctions rarely are very costly for the United States, since the target usually is not a major economic partner. In exceptional contrary cases, as with the U.S. grain embargo against the Soviet Union after it invaded Afghanistan, the economic costs to Americans can lead to a

17. Similarly, when UN sanctions against white rule in Rhodesia deprived the U.S. economy of metals imports from the country, the 1971 Byrd Amendment introduced an exception allowing their importation.

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rapid abandonment of the sanctions. (The grain embargo was dropped in 1982, as farming interests complained and as midterm congressional elections loomed.)17 Of all the ends that sanctions can plausibly be intended to promote, it is the political-symbolic that are most effective—in the short term at least (Nincic and Wallensteen 1983, 8). But this has little to do with broader conceptions of the national interest. Where definable foreign policy objectives are concerned, most sanctions fail their stated purpose. *** When considering how best to deal with adversaries and deciding between two classes of action that are partially incompatible, making a final decision requires a comparison of relative effectiveness and costs. This is difficult where one class of policies is rooted in extensive practice while the other is a generally untried alternative. Were the record of coercive policies very strong, the comparison with hypothetical alternatives might be unnecessary, but this is not the case. Where the aim of coercive pressure is to force a change in policies, the record is bleak; neither military force nor economic sanctions are very likely to work. If, instead, the objective is to degrade the adversary’s capability (almost always a military capability) to do harm, armed force may indeed be useful, but a similar claim cannot be made on behalf of sanctions. Even if the argument focuses on capability, it cannot ignore the collateral costs and risks implied by military action. For many of the currently dominant foreign threats, the costs and risks are reckoned too great to justify action. Justification for such an extensive and exclusive reliance on instruments of coercion gets weaker with scrutiny. Accordingly, the consideration of hypothetical alternatives appears increasingly justified. Additional arguments can be marshaled. One further reason for considering alternatives to traditional methods of dealing with those we dislike is the prospect of shrinking domestic support for the use of force. Although moments of genuine crisis will almost certainly find domestic backing for decisive action, not many situations rise to that level, while the threshold at which the public deems claims of dire threat credible may have increased in recent years. In the 1980s and 1990s, reversing a Vietnam-related trend, the American public seemed willing, once again, to get involved in foreign imbroglios, a willingness further roused by easy victories in Grenada and the 1991 Gulf War. For the foreseeable future, however, attitudes will more probably reflect experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. With Iraq, resentment at being misled about the stakes involved, and the frustrating and costly experience of the war’s early years, has fostered distaste for similar experiments elsewhere. The sense of wallowing in a quagmire in Afghanistan could amplify reluctance— especially as memories of 9/11 fade and a terrorist threat against the homeland

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seems increasingly remote. In any case, Americans have become leery of military entanglement in Afghanistan (e.g., Gallup 2009). Economic sanctions, because of their symbolic value and generally low costs, should face less opposition, but abundant evidence of their ineffectiveness could fuel growing cynicism regarding their ultimate value. All in all, domestic support for externally directed coercion is more likely to wane than to wax. A second reason for contemplating other strategies of international leverage is that America’s relative edge in coercive capacity very probably will decrease over time, and the logic of international relations will reflect a modified distribution of capabilities. For the foreseeable future, the United States will remain the world’s economic and military leader, but the gap separating it from other aspiring powers may narrow. On the one hand, the expansion of the European Union and the deepening of economic and political cooperation within it portend (despite the EU’s recent difficulties) the rise of a possible challenger, one with somewhat different international priorities. More immediately apparent, the shift of relative wealth from West to East, and the parallel growth of the economic power of China and India, alters America’s economic position. The National Intelligence Council forecasts, “Few countries are poised to have more impact on the world over the next 15–20 years than China. If current trends persist, by 2025 China will have the world’s second-largest economy and will be a leading military power,” while “Indian leaders will strive for a multipolar system, with New Delhi as one of the poles.” (National Intelligence Council 2008, 29, 30). Thus, the area where the United States can exercise coercive power could well be shrinking. The nation’s economic position will also reflect the dollar’s declining role, as it moves from being the world’s reserve currency to only one among several playing that role. Finally, while the unchallenged U.S. military position rests, in large part, on its technological advances, especially in the area of information technology, the information revolution will eventually be diffused, allowing other nations to obtain some capabilities now exclusively enjoyed by U.S. armed forces. Because the freedom of action enjoyed by the United States will be more restricted in a multipolar world in which it is first among equals than it was in a unipolar world, it may be necessary to expand the range of tools with which international challenges are met. Further, too extensive a reliance on coercive methods is counterproductive in ways that are not always grasped. Illuminating in this regard is a study on the effectiveness of force, rooted in rigorous game-theoretic analysis, by Roger B. Myerson, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics (Myerson 2007). Observing that U.S. military threats and deterrence are effective only to the degree they are believed by rivals, he demonstrates that their credibility erodes if promises of rewards are not also taken seriously, which, in turn, requires a reputation for

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restraint. By implication, restraint and an ability to make credible promises of a positive sort may actually improve the effectiveness of force. A parallel reasoning may apply to economic coercion. For all of these reasons, a closer look at alternatives to threats and negative pressures is required. In subsequent chapters I will argue that for inducements to work certain conditions must be met both on the part of the initiator and of the target (i.e., both on the supply and the demand side). From the perspective of the former, the inducement offered must be sufficient and credible given the magnitude of the counterconcession expected. (Inducements rarely are sufficient.) From the perspective of the latter, the inducement must address a domestic political need, which is more likely when the regime is experiencing a situation of some political instability. First, however, we must look at what obstacles traditionally have stood in the way of such an effort.

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Since threats and punishments have not reliably advanced the nation’s foreign policy goals, their performance cannot account for their dominance. Nor, given the value of established approaches, can the academic disinclination to consider other strategies be explained by a presumption of their redundancy. We thus have to ask whether the predilection for negative pressures is rooted in circumstances unrelated to their practical value. Is it instead grounded in the dynamics by which policymaking and academic communities are driven? Although the bias operates with comparable force in both realms, its sources are not identical in the two, and each must be considered within the framework of its own logic. Independent causal paths notwithstanding, an absence of bias (or one tilted in the other direction) in either of the two arenas would make it harder to justify the leaning within the other. This chapter explores the causes of the parallel tilt, examining the reasons for the unwillingness to entertain positive incentives, and it asks how a different disposition might be encouraged.

Bias in the Political System The case for a bias within the political system is easily made, since regimes considered hostile to U.S. interests almost always are dealt with by threats and punishments. At the same time, the U.S. proclivity to rely on negative pressures has not been shared by most other democracies, which are more willing to explore constructive engagement. The reluctance of many democracies to endorse military 32

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action against Iraq until its possession of chemical and nuclear weapons was credibly established is still vividly remembered. It is less widely appreciated that the European Union has engaged Cuba both diplomatically and economically. The EU accounts for a third of that country’s trade, the bulk of its foreign investment, and more than half of its tourist traffic,1 and virtually every EU member maintains diplomatic relations with Havana. At the same time, the EU has consistently criticized Castro’s human rights record and has sought access to the country’s political opposition and other elements of its society. Canada, too, has maintained uninterrupted diplomatic relations with Havana, while a number of commercial ventures link the two economies. At the same time, and like the European Union, it has criticized Cuba’s treatment of its citizens. Normal diplomatic relations between Canada and Iran, suspended after 1980, were reinstated in 1988, and normal economic relations govern those areas not covered by UN-mandated sanctions. The EU, too, complies with UN Security Council resolutions on Iran, and it maintains targeted sanctions of its own, but these sanctions have been balanced by occasional incentives packages designed to nudge Tehran away from its nuclear ambitions. The EU as a whole, and most member countries, maintain normal channels of diplomatic communication with Tehran. While the EU suspended plans to offer North Korea improved access to its market, it has provided significant food aid and supported improved agricultural production in North Korea. Unlike the United States, most major powers, including China and Russia, maintain normal diplomatic relations with the Kim Jong-il regime. The current U.S. proclivity to use force rather than positive incentives when dealing with its adversaries is apparent not only when the United States is compared with other moderately powerful countries in recent times; it may also be compared with imperial powers in the past. Thus, during the period between the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) and World War I, France showed a clear disinclination to go to war. With regard to Great Britain, historians as distinguished as Paul Kennedy (1983) and Paul Schroeder (1976) have argued that, for a significant part of its imperial history, British policy was based on a pragmatically flexible and conciliatory strategy, on a positive conception of appeasement, viewed by Kennedy as “the policy of settling international (or, for that matter, domestic) quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be bloody, and possibly very dangerous. It is in essence a positive policy” (1983, 17). In any case, it would be difficult to argue that a predilection for punitive policies toward refractory regimes applies to other major powers and democracies

1. “EU Relations with Cuba,” http://ec.europa.eu/development/regionscountries/country_profile.

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to the degree that it does to the United States. Why is this inclination so evident in the U.S. case?

The Sources of the Bias While very little scholarship has sought to account for the bias, an analytic perspective that stresses the importance of path dependence and critical junctures offers some guidance. Though the term sometimes is loosely used, “path dependence” in the social sciences has a meaning beyond the observation that “history matters” (Pierson 2000; Mahoney 2000; Goldstone 1998). It implies that large consequences often follow from seemingly small events in a situation where several paths seem initially possible. Timing and sequence are important. (Particularly consequential are events in the early stages of a historical sequence.) Once path-dependent development is set in motion, events at one moment, by altering the conditions under which subsequent events occur, make certain sequences more likely than others (although they may have been equally probable earlier in the process). Path dependence does not allow infinite historical regress, but starts from a condition, often referred to as a “critical juncture,” initially allowing for several contingencies (“multiple equilibria”) and whose outcome cannot easily be accounted for by the theoretical assumptions that make sense of subsequent developments. With the first steps along one path and away from the critical juncture “it becomes progressively more difficult to return to a prior point when multiple alternatives were still available” (Mahoney 2000, 513). There are several reasons why, with time, certain outcomes become increasingly likely relative to others; the most commonly invoked being the logic of “increasing returns,” where actions of one type, taken at some juncture, make it increasingly difficult or costly to change direction, so that higher returns are secured by maintaining the course (or sequence) than by altering it (Pierson 2004, chap. 1).2 Why might a sequence be driven by increased returns? According to Mahoney (512–26), this could happen in four ways. First, the returns on a chosen course of action could appear attractive on the basis of a rational cost-benefit analysis (“utilitarian explanation”). Second, the sequence that replicates the initial outcome could be maintained if it performs a valuable function for the overall system (“functional explanation”). Third, the outcome may become entrenched by serving the interests of powerful political actors (“power

2. Another mechanism behind path-dependent development may be the “reactive sequence,” wherein one event implies the other without any assumption of positive feedback (Mahoney 2000, 526–35). The progression of an arms race is an example.

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explanation”). Fourth, the sequence may appear appropriate for ethical reasons (“legitimation explanation”). These explanations are not mutually exclusive, and any subset could apply to a particular sequence. Not every policy encountered over a lengthy span of time must amount to a path-dependent sequence: the policy could recur simply because the objective circumstances thought to make it instrumentally necessary have themselves recurred during that period. While this case is much easier to make of a policy characterized by at least a few successes, even a routinely unsuccessful policy could, implausibly but just conceivably, rest on a flat learning curve with non– path dependent roots. Unlikely though this possibility may seem, it cannot be completely dismissed. With the above in mind, accounting for an outcome in path-dependent terms involves, from our perspective, three steps: (1) identifying the critical juncture at which time several outcomes were possible, that is, finding the genesis of the subsequent historical sequence; (2) specifying the outcomes that, from this initial position, become especially likely; and, (3) providing an explanation for the developing sequence. In other words, if the bias toward negative sanctions is to be accounted for, the critical juncture must be identified, the initial steps on the path of negative sanctions traced, and the explanation for the development provided. I suggest that, in the U.S. case, the roots of this strategic preference were planted during the very early years of the cold war. The initial period following World War II (i.e., 1945–48) represented a critical juncture during which a variety of foreign policy approaches were available. President Truman ultimately selected a strategy of assertive confrontation with predominantly punitive tools. The perceived political and electoral advantages of such policies made them hard to abandon once their value came to be accepted by a large part of the U.S. political community. The reason for this general acceptance had much to do with assumptions pervasive in social and political culture (legitimation explanation) and the interests of powerful political players (power explanation). The bias toward punitive policies, rooted in this critical juncture in cold war history, came to apply more generally to adversaries encountered in the post–cold war period.

A Critical Juncture and the Cold War’s Legacy The years between the end of World War II and the congealing of the cold war amounted to a critical juncture in U.S. political history, as a variety of foreign policy strategies could have taken hold at that time. President Roosevelt himself, while harboring no illusions about either Stalin or Soviet Communism, hoped that the wartime alliance between the two powers could foster postwar collaboration or, at least, mutual tolerance (Fleming 1961, 256). When he stepped into

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office in 1945, Truman was surrounded both by advisers who, like William Leahy, Averell Harriman, and James Forrestal, held a Manichaean view of the Soviet Union, and by those, like Henry Stimson and Henry Wallace, who believed that a modus vivendi between Moscow and Washington was possible (Fleming 1961, pt. 2). Although the president struggled with conflicting advice in this regard (Miscamble 2007, esp. chap. 7), the hard-liners prevailed. In any case, Soviet behavior in the postwar years could have been accounted for in a variety of ways, and the intense cold war rivalry was not, at the outset, inevitable. Several Soviet actions (the 1945 events in Poland, the Dardanelles crisis of 1946, the Prague coup in 1948) caused understandable consternation in Washington, but they need not have been deemed evidence of a thrust for global domination. Soviet moves could have been viewed as a defensive response to a traumatic history of invasions from the West. In 1812 Napoleon launched 600,000 troops against Russia, penetrating as far as Moscow, which the Russians evacuated and burned rather than leave to the invading forces. The French were ultimately repelled, but at an enormous human, economic, and psychological cost. The twentieth century provided grounds for further trauma. When Kaiser Wilhelm II declared war on Russia in June 1914, industrially backward Russia was no match for the German military machine, a disadvantage compounded by Czar Nicholas II’s military ineptitude. Russia suffered enormous casualties, and German forces pushed the country’s borders almost as far back as its western boundary of the eighteenth century. The Brest-Litovsk treaty, terminating Russia’s involvement in the war, included German occupation of large parts of Russia, while Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states fell under German control. The lessons of an exposed western flank were impressed on the Russians by World War II, with Hitler’s determination to secure additional “living space” for the Germanic race at the expense of Russia and Poland. On June 22, 1941, Germany and its Axis allies launched 190 divisions across the Soviet border in Operation Barbarosa. German troops quickly encircled Leningrad, and by November they had reached Moscow’s suburbs. The war left almost 27 million Soviet citizens dead (Ellman and Maksudov 1994). Thus, while Soviet behavior in the immediate postwar period could have been seen as evidence of aggressive expansionism, another explanation was possible. In each of the wars mentioned, an enemy from the West penetrated deeply into Russia’s heartland, exacting an immense human and economic toll. In each instance, especially after the Nazi invasion, it was decided that engaging the enemy deep inside Russian territory was too costly and that the major line of defense had to be pushed westward. Pressing the political borders outward was, from that perspective, a prophylactic measure (occupying territory from which an attack might otherwise be launched), and it also made it possible to defeat an

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enemy before it penetrated too deeply. Thus, behavior from which ambitions of global domination were inferred could, just as reasonably, have been interpreted as a defensive strategy with limited geopolitical import. In any case, the state of Soviet capacity at the time hardly seems to have justified the fears expressed: the country’s economy was devastated by the war, while its military forces had been significantly demobilized (Blacket 1962, 242). For these reasons, the years immediately following World War II could be considered a critical juncture, during which several paths briefly lay open. However, as initial steps along one path were taken, increasing political (especially electoral) confrontational behavior set in motion a development making future resort to tough actions and postures more probable, metastasizing to a conviction that conciliatory stances toward adversaries entailed unbearable domestic political costs. The fate of Henry Wallace, who as a 1948 presidential candidate of the Progressive Party campaigned against the policy of containment on a platform that several decades later would have been described as “détente,” provided the first inkling of this development. He was castigated by his major party opponents as an appeaser, and eventually accused of being a stooge for the American Communist Party (Walton 1976, esp. chap. 5). At the same time, Truman’s assertiveness toward Moscow—expressed in the 1947 Truman Doctrine, which presaged containment, and, during the 1948 electoral campaign, by the Berlin airlift—endowed him with a forcefulness appealing to an electorate scared of Soviet global ambitions, and it helped propel him to electoral victory. The 1952 election confirmed many of the lessons of 1948. Though Truman did not run for reelection, Republican contenders made his foreign policy a hot campaign issue, as they accused the administration of inviting South Korea’s invasion by its lack of firmness (Divine 1974, esp. chap. 2). Claiming that Eastern Europe had been abandoned at Yalta and Potsdam, they charged that the Democrats lacked the backbone to stand up to Moscow. Pamphlets by the Republican National Committee declared: “We can thank the political party in power that one-third of people in the world are now under Communist domination” (Divine 44). Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower claimed that the Democrats had been willing to “barter away freedom in order to appease the Russian rulers” (Divine 53). Criticizing containment as “defensive” and “futile,” John Foster Dulles, a senior Republican foreign policy adviser who became secretary of state in 1953, declared that the Republicans would liberate Eastern Europe through a “rollback” of Soviet influence—to be achieved by unspecific means. Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson did not debate the adequacy of containment, but when he ventured that patriotism was about loving America, not hating Russians, Eisenhower rapidly branded him an appeaser, while Republican vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon described him as a “PhD

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from Dean Acheson’s cowardly school of Communist containment” (Brinkley 1993, 263). Eisenhower’s victory reinforced earlier lessons on where electoral advantage resided, and, via the demonstrated political returns, set the tilt of the nation’s political reward structure. The fear of appearing “soft” on adversaries and of being tarred with the label “appeaser” when seeking positive engagement established thick roots. While the themes that define a political culture stand in sharpest relief at election time, they are felt in the daily rough and tumble of political life, and the premium placed on an appearance of manly boldness, as opposed to faint-hearted conciliation, came to define the political reward structure. On the one hand, leadership came to be equated with toughness in the public eye. On the other hand, the resulting foreign policy choices virtually ensured that relations with the Soviet Union, and the nation’s subsequent adversaries, would be tense because of another path-dependent process, one that can be characterized as a “reactive sequence,” implying the self-reinforcing feedback of hostile actions and reactions and making conciliatory moves politically even more hazardous. As the cold war unfolded, the bias came to mold the nation’s electoral politics. Although Republicans entered the 1960 presidential race with what seemed a politically unassailable position on foreign policy, John F. Kennedy chose to make it a leading theme of his campaign. Exploiting feelings of national vulnerability in the wake of the launching of the first satellite, Sputnik, by the Soviet Union, he contended that the Eisenhower-Nixon administration had presided over a decline in America’s military power, and he attacked presidential candidate Nixon’s vice presidential record as one of “weakness, retreat, and defeat” (New York Times 1960a). Nixon retaliated by accusing Kennedy of faintheartedness on Quemoy and Matsu—which amounted, he claimed, to a willingness to abandon the islands in the Taiwan Strait to the Chinese Communists (New York Times 1960b). Foreign policy postures continued to be enmeshed in political calculus. In 1972, for example, Nixon described Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern’s plan to withdraw from Vietnam as “un-American,” the Republican platform proclaiming this an “act of betrayal” (American Presidency Project 2009). By 1976 the cold war was back on the central political agenda. This time, Ronald Reagan led the assault. In his unsuccessful bid to deny the Republican nomination to Gerald Ford, he denounced détente and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Ford responded by declaring that détente would no longer be part of his vocabulary and by abandoning efforts to secure the SALT II treaty. Although Democratic contender Jimmy Carter was inclined to take more than one stand on such issues, he avoided the stigma of dovishness by asserting that the Ford administration had been far too accommodating in its arms talks with

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Moscow.3 In 1980 the challenge was again launched from the hawkish end of the political continuum, as candidate Reagan charged that President Carter’s policy, by “bordering on appeasement,” had encouraged the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, while the Republican Party’s platform, in a significant departure from Nixon and Kissinger’s stress on “essential equivalence” in strategic power, called for a decisive margin of military superiority over the Soviet Union (e.g., New York Times 1980). The post–cold war era, while not regularly justifying the saber brandishing of previous years, confirmed assumptions about how political and electoral advantage are sought. Foreign policy and national security dominated the 2004 presidential campaign, as George W. Bush and John Kerry each claimed they would conduct the global war on terror more forcefully than the other. In 2008 Barack Obama, close to securing his party’s nomination, announced his readiness to sit down and discuss differences with Iran. His Republican opponents reacted quickly, with President Bush comparing a willingness to negotiate with Nazi appeasement (New York Times 2008c). In Republican candidate John McCain’s opinion, this “shows that Senator Obama does not have the knowledge, the experience, the background to make the kind of judgments that are necessary to preserve the nation’s security” (Huffington Post 2008). The intersection of competitive national politics and foreign policy indicates that assertive stances, including a readiness to deal punitively with adversaries, has been reinforced by the outcome of key national elections, where the lessons of 1948 and 1952 made the political choices of subsequent years far more likely than they otherwise might have been. Although the initial steps within the pathdependent process were by no means inevitable, the subsequent reinforcement that made combative attitudes the politically favored position was almost certainly rooted in attributes of U.S. politics and society.

Two Mechanisms of Reproduction A path-dependent process favoring punitive foreign policy strategies was set in motion, and two specific reinforcing mechanisms (“mechanisms of reproduction”) have ensured that it would sustain itself well beyond the critical juncture in which it originated. In terms of Mahoney’s four sources of path dependence, two have been especially significant: the “power” explanation and the “legitimation” explanation. The power explanation suggests that a sequence of behavior is reproduced because it serves the interests of powerful political players. In the

3. The 1972 election is described in Pomper (1977).

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present case, contenders for top political office have often sought electoral advantage by positioning themselves on the tougher and more assertive side of foreign policy choices. Our brief survey of cold war and post–cold war developments illustrates the bias. The fact that political gains have tended to follow professions of toughness may be accounted for by the legitimation explanation, which has viewed harsh treatment of adversaries as ethically just and proper. David Garland, in his seminal work on social punishment, observed that “like all habitual patterns of social action, the structures of modern punishment have created a sense of their own inevitability and of the necessary rightness of the status quo” (Garland 1990, 3). This is as true where foreign policy and world politics are concerned, making it necessary to highlight the social assumptions behind the concept of punishment. Grounded in notions of retributive justice, a simple and intuitively appealing assumption is that it is morally proper to punish those who are “bad”; they deserve harsh treatment (Rachels 1997). This conviction rests on the desire for balance, or equivalence, that permeates many individual moralities. At the same time, it can run counter to an assumed utilitarian strain in U.S. culture, which makes the net impact of an action the criterion on which its ethical qualities are judged, not the (in utilitarian terms) irrelevant claims of balance and equivalence. There are several ways of justifying punishment in retributive terms. The simplest, because it can be claimed to have a biblical source, is lex talionis (“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”). If the need for balance is scripturally ordained, no further justification is needed. An analytically more complex justification for retribution, closely associated with the thinking of Emile Durkheim ([1933] 1964; Hart 1967), emphasizes the expressive function of punishment and the contribution it makes to social solidarity by enforcing, through common measures of censure, shared assumptions of right and wrong. However most people would justify a retributive conception of justice, it probably is psychologically rooted in a desire for equilibrium in which “badness” and punishment are naturally associated. The contrary could produce the discomfort of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957; Cooper 2007), which would trigger mechanisms for restoring the cognitive equilibrium. Another ethically rooted case for punishment maintains that conciliatory gestures encourage bad behavior by depriving it of costly consequences. There are two, related, concerns: one involves the issue of “moral hazard,” the second the danger of appeasement. Even if not explicitly articulated, such concerns may color popular thinking, thus discouraging constructive engagement of adversaries. The concept of moral hazard refers to the prospect that a party if insulated from the consequences of hazardous behavior may be less likely to eschew it (Dembe and Boden 2000). A typical instance is that of a fully insured motorist

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who is more willing to drive dangerously than one who is uninsured. Closer to our concerns, it has been suggested that external military intervention to stop the ravages of civil war could make such wars more likely, because weaker parties, expecting foreign support to offset their opponent’s strength, would be more inclined to initiate fighting (Crawford 2004; in a related vein, see Luttwak 1999). By extension, it could be reasoned that a policy that withholds punishment from international malefactors encourages their misbehavior, something that, governments may fear, would weaken their justification of conciliatory gestures. A related notion is that of “appeasement,” whose unsavory connotations include memories of British chancellor Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler in Munich in allowing Germany to annex Czechoslovakia. The notion is often invoked to urge a focus on punitive policies, implying that anything less would encourage ever more egregious misconduct. Thus, George W. Bush (as well as John McCain) described Barack Obama’s willingness to talk to Tehran as appeasement redolent of Munich, much as John Foster Dulles energetically equated policies of containment with appeasement. In justifying, in 1991, the war against Iraq, George H. Bush observed that “together, we have resisted the trap of appeasement, cynicism, and isolation that gives rise to tyrants” (New York Times 1991). Despite the dubious relevance of the Munich analogy (e.g., May 1973), the political risks of being tarred as an appeaser do not appeal to prudent politicians, even though such accusations generally distort the meaning of the term. According to Hans J. Morgenthau, “we speak of appeasement when a nation surrenders one of its vital interests without obtaining anything worthwhile in return” (Morgenthau 1951, 137). Appeasement is not the semantic equivalent of conciliation; the term applies only where such gestures fail, whereas there is no credible evidence, advanced by either politicians or academics, that inducements are ineffective or counterproductive.4 We simply have not taken the trouble to find out. Concern about ethical balance, moral hazard, and appeasement are strengthened by a popular culture, such as that of the United States, that generally applauds toughness when dealing with reprobates (Newfield 2006). The artifacts that permeate culture affect popular expectations. Patrick Regan, for example, has shown that consumption of war toys and war movies increases peoples’ estimate of the value of force in international relations (Regan 1994). As David Baldwin has observed, “negative sanctions have become psychologically linked with such characteristics as courage, honor, and masculinity. Soldiers, not diplomats, symbolize masculine virtues. . . . It is ‘honorable’ to fight but ‘dishonorable’ to try to buy one’s way out of a fight” (Baldwin 1971, 34).

4. On the logic of appeasement, see Rock (2000).

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Thus, both the “power” and “legitimation” explanations account for the pathdependent momentum we are interested in—while a Soviet-American “reactive” sequence, including the arms race and attempts at mutual containment, flowed from and reinforced it. Yet few assumptions are so indelibly imprinted on the political fabric as to make change inconceivable, and we must ask how such a bias, once established, might be altered.

The Context of Change History offers as many examples of paths abandoned as trails blazed, yet this is little recognized in the literature. Although studies of path dependence offer several views on how political behavior and institutions are reinforced, along with an abundance of related empirical studies, they have less to say about the mechanisms whereby these sequences sometimes shift or reverse direction; yet hints can be found within the logic of the theory. If the genesis of a path-dependent process is found in an initial critical juncture, then a change should also find its origin in a new concatenation of circumstances, one brought about by causes located outside the theoretical framework that had accounted for the original sequence and that creates a new critical juncture. Two ways in which a new critical juncture may be formed suggest themselves. In one scenario, the sequence accounting for the slanted policy encounters another, largely independent sequence that, when it comes to intersect with the former, undermines the logic by which it had been driven. The uncertainty thus created makes alternative paths possible; a new path, if taken, can lead in a different direction. Thus, it might be that circumstances proper to a major U.S. adversary, but exogenous to the context within which the pathdependent sequence was formed, change the regime’s character such that it can no longer be considered an enemy. For example, the reforms launched by Mikhail Gorbachev have often been credited with starting a chain of events that, along with the Soviet system’s many internal contradictions, culminated in the USSR’s collapse. The nature of America’s cold war adversary changed significantly in the process, making it difficult to maintain a pattern of US saber rattling. It would have been hard, given Gorbachev’s reforms and arms control initiatives, for U.S. presidential candidates to campaign on a platform of anti-Soviet bellicosity in 1988. It would have been ludicrous in 1992 to have attempted a cold war–like crusade against Boris Yeltsin’s Russia. Similarly, Qaddafi’s altered political priorities in the late 1990s made it hard to justify his continued demonization. The reasons for the developments within the Soviet Union and Libya may or may not be related to U.S. policy toward them; they are, in any case, exogenous to the logic by which the path-dependent process

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is driven within the United States. Let us call this the exogenous model of path reversal. A second model—call it the endogenous model—accounts for altered policy directions by forces imbedded within the circumstances that drove the original path-dependent sequence, especially the political reward structure. Most significant, in this regard, is the legitimation explanation, whose foundations are not as simple as the previous discussion may have implied. While it often seems natural to consider punishment morally desirable, the justification cannot for very long avoid an empirical argument. While Americans think politically around general principles, their thinking is also molded around pragmatic judgments. As historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. observed, the American political character is a blend, on the one hand, of principle and ideology, and, on the other hand, of practice and experimentation, a duality that affects foreign policy judgments as well (Schlesinger 1986, chap. 3). Thus, a utilitarian philosophy steeped in the logic of consequences has provided much of the theoretical justification for liberal democracy. It is, along with the pragmatism of William James, who maintained that judgments about truth could not be disentangled from judgments about utility (James [1807] 1981), the closest there is to a coherent American political philosophy. The public judges politicians, and they judge themselves, by how successful their policies are, not just by the abstract principles they claim to stand for. Sustained practical failure rarely is forgiven in the name of general principle. Accordingly, judgments of foreign policy performance must rest on assessments of the policy’s effectiveness, viewed from both a tactical and a strategic perspective. At the tactical level, one can inquire whether the policy accomplishes the direct, and in most cases finite, task that it sets for itself. If not, then it is a failure, and alternative policies eventually must be considered. At the strategic level, one might ask not just whether it does the immediate job, but also whether it is compatible with broader national objectives. If not, then it may no longer be justified merely because it advances its proximate and limited aim. With regard to present concerns, a punitive policy may be deemed unproductive or counterproductive in two cases: it may not work, or it may impede the attainment of some broad or more important objective. T H E TAC T I C A L C O N TE XT

Under what conditions will failure at the tactical level encourage a change of policy? To begin with, the inability to attain one’s objective must have meaningful consequences. Even when threats and sanctions do not alter the behavior at which they are directed, they may be maintained simply because failure is not very costly, while they continue to gratify an abstract sense of what is appropriate. One could, for instance, argue that the many decades of sanctions and ostracism

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to which Cuba has been subjected ought to have demonstrated their fruitlessness. At the same time, security and economic costs of the failed policies have been relatively low, while they catered to the political preferences of certain segments of the electorate (e.g., the Cuban expatriate community). Where the costs of failure are modest, the political reward structure might not force policy change. Sometimes, however, these costs are high, as when the unproductive pressures against Pyongyang—until the mid-1990s, and, again, during George W. Bush’s first term—failed to discourage North Korea from crossing the nuclear threshold. At such times, policies may be reconsidered: as when Washington was led to consider positive inducements to check the nuclear challenge. When evidence of costly failure cannot be ignored, political returns to toughness decrease; a new critical juncture is formed, and a change in course becomes possible. THE STRATEGIC CONTEXT

A similar outcome might emerge from a different type of policy calculus. Whether or not punitive pressures against a specific regime are effective, they might stand in the way of a larger strategic goal. A prime example within the foreign policy context is the adage “My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” which implies that a regime that previously had been dealt with harshly might become the object of constructive engagement once it is viewed as the adversary of a nation one fears even more. The movement toward engagement with China in the early 1970s began with a U.S. perception that the Soviet Union was the greater of the two threats and that inducements for Beijing would be politically justifiable if Moscow’s power could be offset by drawing China toward the U.S. side. The greater strategic purpose, however, need not be to counter a rival’s power. For example, a comprehensive Middle East peace has been a condition for a variety of U.S. international objectives (e.g., secure oil supplies). At times, progress on peace seemed to require Syrian goodwill, and U.S. policy toward Syria, which has been accused of abetting international terrorism, has occasionally been amicable for that reason. Thus, concatenations of strategic needs may create—at least with regard to a particular country—a new critical juncture, interrupting the path-dependent sequence that had produced the slanted policies.

The Academic Bias The academic disinclination to study positive incentives has developed in parallel with the political bias considered above, but in response to different forces. Often, the assumptions and reasoning of social scientists is, like that guiding policymakers, a product of path dependence. Conditions that encourage adoption of an

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academic paradigm may, at some point, be part of a critical juncture, but the costs of challenging established assumptions rise once initial choices are made. Full membership in the academic community assumes adoption of its core premises, and, as a rule, little dialogue occurs outside these boundaries, where the risks of professional rejection may be considerable. There also are practical reasons not to stray far outside the accepted borders of established scholarship. Empirical information (e.g., major datasets) collected within normal research programs is a foundation from which research projects can conveniently proceed. Peer evaluation operates smoothly only within established intellectual confines. Moreover, by working on related questions within a set of commonly accepted assumptions, scholars come to be included in sequences of citations and countercitations, which benefit the visibility of all. The inertia of positive returns attaches social scientists to the roads most traveled; candid scholars recognize this as part of their professional existence. At the same time, these paths are not wholly deterministic, since sooner or later matters of logical validity, empirical verity, and practical value must be addressed. Paradigms that perform badly eventually are challenged by rival assumptions; new critical junctures are created within scholarship and new paths may be explored, however long this takes. One useful way of viewing the process of eventual paradigm change is provided by Imre Lakatos, who, like Thomas Kuhn, argued that theories rarely are rejected just because their premises appear untenable (Lakatos 1970). Rather, most have a “hard core” of assumptions and hypotheses considered irrefutable, in the sense that they cannot be challenged without opting out of the research program. The research programs reflect these assumptions, and they can be either “progressive” or “regressive,” depending on their ability to produce new insights. The hard core is shielded by two sets of rules. The first, the “negative heuristic,” defines this core by specifying which assumptions and hypotheses are unassailable. The second, the “positive heuristic,” indicates how the research program may expand and develop consistent with the hard core’s premises. Thus, the research program establishes a “protective belt” of generalizations and assumptions subject to a range of permissible modifications in light of the evidence. If observational evidence is at odds with the hard core, the explanation and remedies are to be found in the protective belt. By adjusting that protective belt, the theory can be adapted to imply a product that continues to resemble itself, but without some of the problems and inconsistencies previously displayed— allowing it to remain part of the research program, with a family resemblance ensured by the negative heuristic shielding its hard core. If the protective belt permits the theory to yield new findings, the research program remains “progressive”; if not, the program is “regressive,” and should be abandoned. For example,

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Marxism may be considered as a research program, whose initial prediction of a rising rate of surplus value extracted from labor in response to declining rates of profit, and of a correspondingly intensifying class conflict, was not validated by the beginning of the twentieth century. Lenin’s Imperialism (1916) tried to demonstrate that profit rates could be maintained without increasing the rate of surplus value extraction. With the aid of additional assumptions (a protective belt), Lenin sought to rescue the essence of Marxist political economy from falsification by events. By most standards, this body of thought had entered its regressive stage. Eventually, failures become too obvious to be overlooked, and the academic returns to challengers begin to exceed those expected by scholars traveling welltrodden paths. The juncture at which such a departure appears may be a critical juncture. We must, however, recognize the intellectual roots of the academic bias in the study of the means of foreign policy.

Academic Paradigms and the Study of Positive Incentives Major academic paradigms within the social sciences are defined by (1) their key empirical assumptions, and (2) the ontological lenses through which they view their subject matter. Both have tilted research away from the study of positive engagement. In international relations scholarship, the empirical postulate around which most debate revolves concerns the nature and mutability of the drives behind international behavior. The empirical choice has been whether to accept that political reality compels states to exist in a condition of permanent insecurity, making the acquisition of power their desperate and overriding aim, power being defined almost exclusively in terms of coercive capacity. Academics embracing such assumptions are referred to as political realists; for several decades, theirs has been the doctrine shaping most scholarship and guiding many leading policymakers. A belief in realism’s empirical claims leaves little room for a consideration of how the incentives of states could be modified and, consequently, for a concern with the promise of positive incentives. The second category of issues receives less attention. Ontology is the branch of philosophy that addresses the abstract character of reality: the basic categories and entities that define it and the relations between those categories and entities.5

5. The subject matter of ontology is discussed in Heil (2003).

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Ontological lenses are logically distinct from empirical assumptions, but, like the latter, they can obscure as much as they illuminate. The main ontological issue, here, involves the choice between structure and agency.6 In international relations, most often, agents are states engaged in purposive behavior. Structures furnish the context within which they pursue their ends, and they generally include norms as well as formal or informal institutional arrangements: in other words, those aspect of the political context that have pattern and stability and that states must take into account when considering what ought to be and can be done (Hays 2002, chap. 3). The relevance to present concerns is this: the role of positive or negative sanctions in foreign policy is properly examined from the perspective of agency; theories that neglect agency can shed little light on the choice of foreign policy strategies or on the conditions of their effectiveness. In many ways, then, agency should enjoy causal priority. It involves the ends and means of action; the structures by which agents are constrained do not come into being absent agency.7 If empirical and ontological premises define major theoretical perspectives on international relations, neither realism nor neoliberalism has encouraged an examination of positive inducements as strategies of external leverage. The empirical assumptions of political realism have inhibited this by virtue of their factual claims. The liberal challenge to realism, while making no empirical claims that preclude a reliance on inducements, adopt an ontological framework that is almost exclusively structural, whereas the study of either punishments or rewards is analytically subsumed under agency. Both perspectives have been the objects of path-dependent development; it may be time for a new critical juncture, one that opens new intellectual paths.

The Legacy of Realism According to the classical variant of realist doctrine, fundamental human impulses shape the conduct of statesmen; this theme pervades much political philosophy. Niccolò Machiavelli, the Renaissance precursor of much realist thinking, judged human nature as “insatiable, arrogant, crafty and shifting, and above all else malignant, iniquitous, violent, and savage” (1965, 736). This condition

6. The connection between structure and agency is part of a vigorous debate in international relations scholarship (e.g., Wendt 1987; Dessler 1989), with particular attention to the way in which one conditions the other (e.g., Giddens 1979). 7. Even if agency shapes structures, this may not have been its explicit intent. Language and its rules, for example, are structures that, to a very large extent, evolve as a result of actions that did not have the development of these rules as their purpose.

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was considered immutable; as one early American realist observed, “human nature has not changed since the day of classical antiquity” (Thompson 1985, 17). Often, these drives and their potential for conflict imply a corollary impetus: the need for power. Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian and political realist, maintained that “the inability of human beings to transcend their own interests sufficiently to envisage the interests of their fellow men as clearly as they do their own makes force an inevitable part of politics” (Niebuhr 1932, 6). Such beliefs guided the thinking of Hans J. Morgenthau, an intellectual founder of classical political realism. His starting observation was that “political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature” (Morgenthau 1954, 4). According to one of these “objective” laws, an insatiable lust for power is an “elemental bio-psychological drive.” An “aspiration for power . . . is an all-permeating fact which is of the very essence of human existence” (Morgenthau 1948, 42, 312). This drive projects itself into the behavior of statesmen; it follows that “the main signpost that helps political realism to find its way through the landscape of international politics is the concept of interest defined in terms of power” (Morgenthau 1954, 5). Power in the realist perspective is, emphatically, of a “hard” kind, capable of imposing pain and destruction on those who threaten one’s interests. As one influential realist expressed the position: “In international politics . . . a state’s effective power is ultimately a function of its military forces and how they compare with the military forces of rival states” (Mearsheimer 2001, 55). Although most realists allow for limited international cooperation, the range of such possibilities is restricted, and a power-based calculus defines it. Since the drives behind political behavior are unchangeable, there is little point in trying to alter them. No room is allowed for positive inducements as tools of behavior modification. The only feasible aim is to counter other nations’ abilities to act on their predatory impulses in order to insure that they do not have enough relative power to do so successfully. This is a key empirical claim, and much of the validity of the classical realist position hinges on its credibility, a credibility subject to two crippling criticisms. First, there is no evidence that power-seeking behavior is a major impetus to either individual or state behavior: the statement that “all men lust for power” (Morgenthau 1962, 42) simply is incorrect. Second, there is no reason to think that any foreign policy drive is immutable. The proposition that power seeking is an “elemental bio-psychological” drive has been thoroughly discredited; no scientific evidence has ever been found to support the assertion (Winter 1973), while the claim that the pursuit of power is an end in itself, as well as a means for attaining that very end, is little more than an egregious tautology. There is good reason to think of power, in interpersonal and international relations, as a useful means to an end, but nobody other than

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classical realists seriously suggests that it is an end in itself. According to one particularly thorough study of political realism, “states simply do not, even as a rough approximation, seek (only) power” (Donnelly 2000, 46). Moreover, any goal instrumental to some “ultimate” end must logically cede to aims and means that, at any juncture, prove better suited to its attainment: implying that incentives, as long as they are associated with means, may be externally modified by manipulating the path toward their ultimate end. This suggests that if conflicts of interest arise among nations, they are most likely to revolve around the means of pursuing final ends that, at some level of abstraction, most nations share (e.g., national security). The claim, then, that biological drives behind state behavior cannot be modified refers mainly to drives that there is little need to modify. What one seeks to change are the incentives that lead others to rely on means that are threatening; when different means prove more conducive to the overriding end, the objectionable incentives can, indeed, be changed. If the claim that states pursue interest defined as power cannot be sustained by ideas of innate bio-psychological drives, we can assume that the impulses behind foreign policy behavior are not constant—especially if they involve means to an end. If they are not, they may be externally malleable. The remaining question is whether they can best be modified by negative sanctions or positive inducements. The intellectual shortcomings of classical realism have led scholars to revise some of its core propositions in a way that preserved the theory’s essentials: an assumption that the international system is one of latent insecurity, best managed by acquiring and properly managing power. “Neorealists” have tried to create a Lakatosian protective belt of modified assumptions preserving the paradigm’s hard core. This revisionist stratagem has been to root the need for power not in human drives but in the structure of the international system and the pervasive security dilemma it implies. The leading theorist of neorealism, or structural realism as it is sometimes called, has been Kenneth Waltz; his Theory of International Politics (1979) provides its theoretical underpinnings. Here, it is not only the factual claims but also the chosen ontological perspective that bars considering the role of positive incentives in international politics. Power is the condition for survival in an anarchical international system, that is, one without a government (Waltz 1979, 126). The primary purpose of government, in a widely accepted Hobbesian logic, is to ensure the security of the members of society who, without a government to perform that function, would be in a permanent state of conflict with one another.8 Self-help is the rule in a state of

8. “During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man against every man” (Hobbes 1986, par. 8).

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anarchy, and the pursuit of power is the inevitable consequence, according to the neorealists. Thus, even if nothing within nations encourages predatory behavior, insecurity is rooted in the system’s structure. Most important from our perspective, there is no chance that positive engagement could modify the impulses of states, which flow from structural dictates. The situation cannot be altered, it can only be managed by an appropriate distribution of international capabilities. (A bipolar system is best in Waltz’s view.) This, however, is not an accurate description of the international condition: there is a vast discrepancy between the inferences drawn by structural realism from the absence of world government and what is commonly experienced at the international level. Most important, absence of common government need not imply a world where nations cower in permanent insecurity, while countries that worry obsessively about their security appear few and far between. Thus, it is hard to believe that Belgium, Sweden, or Italy harbor such anxieties. There is no evidence that Mexico or Paraguay experience much fear. Security dilemmas do not guide the policies or Bulgaria or Botswana, of Slovenia or Tunisia. The mere absence of common political authority need not imply a Hobbesian world (Milner 1991; Masters 1964), and the question then is why at times and despite a typical absence of pressing security concerns some states do fear each other. As Randall Schweller has argued, “what triggers security dilemmas under anarchy is the possibility of predatory states existing among the ranks of the units of the system” (Schweller 1996, 91). Anarchy itself cannot explain why such states sometimes emerge or why, even in the absence of objective cause, countries sometimes feel threatened. There are two basic reasons why one nation might fear another. First, if the two are linked by a real or perceived conflict of interest; where gains by one side mean corresponding losses for the other, the relationship’s zero-sum quality could convince each that the rival will seek a predatory advantage, creating a security dilemma. In a second type of fear-inducing situation, one party perceives the other as being domestically driven to seek confrontation. For example, it might appear that the other side’s economy requires the added military production occasioned by war or that domestic instability could lead that government to seek a “rally round the flag” effect by provoking armed confrontation, even absent an objective conflict of interest. If variable security concerns are generally rooted in one or the other of these conditions, then the circumstances that produce them must be variable, not constant, making them amenable to policy manipulation. This implies a question very different from those that occupy political realists: How can objective conflicts of interest be resolved or avoided by acting on the goals that states pursue? We ask how something that appears to be a zerosum situation could be transformed into variable-sum forms. If perceptions are

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the problem, we ask how enemy images can be transcended and misperceptions corrected? And, throughout, we ask how much can be achieved by inducements rather than by threats and coercion. Because the empirical assumptions on which the realist edifice rests fail to carry conviction, more plausible ones are required. But even credible empirical analyses that bar an independent role for agency would be of limited value. Thus, like its classical predecessor, neoliberalism sheds no light on the matter of how international leverage could most effectively be exercised.

The Neoliberal Critique and the Structural Perspective The flaws of dogmatic realism could not be obscured for long, and, in the 1970s, an assault was launched. Most challengers marched under the banner of neoliberalism, which recognizes that states, like individuals, do not labor in an immutable security dilemma that they can barely manage; that they are fundamentally rational, responding to a variety of motives, some of which are complex; and that they are capable of learning, which allows them to ascend to a higher plane of social and political existence. Common to various types of neoliberalism is the conviction that security dilemmas and associated power-seeking behavior can be transcended, even under conditions of international anarchy, by structures that provide new opportunities for the pursuit of interests and impose new limitations on the manner of that pursuit, even in the absence of common political authority. This is a frontal assault on the view that state motives are both base and fixed, and it lays a foundation on which a discussion of positive incentives in international relations might be built. But absent any meaningful role for agency in international relations, even acceptable empirical assumptions cannot shed much light on what most concerns us here. There are three principal, and mutually compatible, strands of neoliberalism in international relations. The first and most prominent is the institutionalist variant, which holds that formal and informal institutions can promote improved cooperation and a common sense of purpose among nations. The second is concerned with structures of international economic relations, globalization in particular, and the associated opportunity costs of conflict among economic partners. The third, under the title of the democratic peace, focuses on the impact of domestic political arrangements and suggests that security dilemmas vanish within communities of liberal democracies. Institutional liberalism emphasizes the role of common organizations in promoting habits of cooperative international behavior. Such organizations can embody intricate institutional arrangements, or they can rest on looser, partly implicit rules of cooperation; what characterizes them all is continuity and a

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structured pattern of operation. At a minimum, the principal reasons for security dilemmas can be mitigated in an appropriate institutional context. An early form of liberal institutionalism originated with Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye’s Power and Interdependence, which argued that cooperation under anarchy could flourish with international interdependence, structured through international regimes that are defined as “networks of rules, norms, and procedures that regularize behavior and control its effects” (1977, 17; see also, Krasner, 1983). Subsequent developments have amplified the analytical premises of liberal institutionalism, but realists have remained unconvinced. John Mearsheimer, for example, has argued that an institution’s performance simply reflects the balance of power among its members, that it has no causal impact independent of power considerations. Accordingly, “institutions have minimal influence on state behavior and thus hold little prospect for promoting stability in a post-Cold War world” (Mearsheimer 1994–95, 7). But it is hardly sensible to claim that the European Union or the World Trade Organization have not had a significant impact on the behavior of most of their members, that an expanded NATO has not shaped recent developments in inter-European relations, or that the International Atomic Energy has made no difference on the issue of nuclear proliferation. The main reason why the neoliberal position generally is vindicated by recent history is that, while not neglecting the need to take power calculations into account,9 it rests on a less simplistic theoretical edifice than realism and on empirical claims that reflect more adequately the realities of international existence. Within the realm they govern, institutions define mutual rights and obligations, generally offering remedies when the rules are violated. Institutions promote interstate cooperation in a variety of other ways, as well. They improve the flow and quality of communication between members. Part of the information provided concerns the intents and priorities of the parties, the resources (e.g., military expenditures) they can bring to bear on their pursuit, and the rate at which they are prepared to trade off one interest for another, minimizing misunderstandings and facilitating the coordination of activities toward shared ends, such that many state interactions can be characterized as coordination games (Snidal 1985; Stein 1983). An important type of information concerns the distribution of relative benefits from the common enterprise—reducing worries about uneven gains that stoke many state anxieties (Keohane and Martin 1995, 45–46). To the extent that institutions help resolve distributional issues, the realist argument is undermined further (Martin and Simmons 1998, 737–39; Lepgold and Nincic 2001, chap. 6). 9. As Keohane and Martin point out (1995, 42), “institutions make a significant difference in conjunctions with power realities.”

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Despite the theoretical sophistication and empirical plausibility of its claims, the value of this neoliberal contribution is limited by what it fails to account for. The theory itself tells us little about the conditions under which institutions emerge; it is not enough to know how they perform their functions, if the initial conditions behind their creation are not accounted for. Two observations are relevant. The first is that their creation results from successful agency. Thus, U.S. policy guided by Woodrow Wilson’s vision stood behind the creation of the League of Nations, while the absence of an American commitment to that institution is a large part of the reason for its ultimate failure. Similarly, the creation of the European Economic Community had much to do with the decision of France and Germany to forge bonds of mutual interdependence (initially, via the European Coal and Steel Community) that would preclude the kind of destruction that twice in the first half of the twentieth century ravaged the European Continent, and beyond. Robert Keohane recognizes that “institutions change as a result of human action, and the changes in expectations and process that result can exert profound effects on state behavior” (Keohane 1989, 10), but he has little to say about the process, or characteristic mechanisms, through which institutions are created, abandoned, or modified. The second observation is that effective institutions rarely are established between enemies. As Keohane and Martin point out, “institutionalists only expect interstate cooperation to occur if states have common interests” (1995, 39). Common interests cannot be viewed merely as the product of institutions, since substantial cooperation is required for their creation. This can, at an initial point, owe little to institutional pressure. Here, again, we require a focus on agency, on the preferences of states and the tools of foreign policy that they apply to their pursuit. This is recognized by leading liberal institutionalists (e.g., Keohane and Martin, 1995, 47), but more needs to be known on the matter. Not only must a grasp of the mechanisms of institutional creation be rooted in a study of agency, but, since membership in common institutions assumes some prior level of shared interests and ability to communicate, an understanding of the conditions that explain the transition from mutual hostility to a minimal level of comity and shared purpose is needed. It is here that the study of positive inducements, as a method of transcending adversarial relations, can make an important contribution. A second variant of neoliberal thinking emphasizes the benefits of economic interdependence for international cooperation—the scope for which has increased in tandem with globalization, one of the most consequential structural developments in international relations. International anarchy can be managed through networks of interdependence among societies, with their welfare contingent on continued fruitful interactions. Like theories of an institutional peace, belief that

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trade can deter conflict has roots in the Enlightenment. While brief allusions to a possible link between trade and peace have been found in the work of Kant, more explicit connections are found in Montesquieu’s writings, in particular the claim that “the natural effect of commerce is to encourage peace” (Montesquieu [1748] 1989, 46). The trade-peace link was further argued at the time of the industrial revolution and the steam-powered expansion of international commerce, in what Geoffrey Blainey termed the Manchester school (Blainey 1973, chap. 2). Ascribing behavioral consequences to stable and explicitly patterned relationships, the commercial peace theory proceeds from a structural position, but, unlike liberal-institutionalism, the focus is on structures of interest rather than norms and institutions. This view on cooperation under anarchy reflects what we know about most countries, where concerns about material welfare typically claim much more societal attention than do anxieties about national security. The implications for international cooperation are apparent. What seems intuitively plausible has been confirmed empirically. William Domke (1988) found that trading partners were unlikely to engage in conflict. Solomon Polachek similarly found that trade tends to dampen conflict (1982). The most compelling contribution in this area has been that of John Oneal and Bruce Russett (Oneal and Russett 1997, 1999; Oneal et al. 1996), who examine the link between interdependence and conflictual behavior.10 Their conclusion is that the inverse relationship between the two is stable, even when a number of conditions that are ceteris paribus are controlled for; the relation also applies to capital flows and monetary cooperation (e.g., Gartzke, Li, and Boehmer, 2001).11 Although all the dust has not settled on the trade-conflict issue, the claim that trade promotes peace has much support. As with liberal institutionalism, the propositions involved display an analytic complexity and empirical credibility lacking in the realist paradigm. These virtues notwithstanding, the structural framework of the theory of a commercial peace makes it incapable of accounting for, within its own terms of reference, much that we wish to know. How do political cooperation and economic interdependence reinforce each other? What is the optimal sequencing of political and economic links? Could it be argued that the former naturally precede the latter, as was the case, for example, in relations between the United States and China when relations began to improve, initially with Nixon and Kissinger; Vietnam and its former adversaries; France and Germany after World War II; Russia and the European Union after the cold war;

10. In this view, conflictual behavior is measured in terms of “militarized international disputes.” 11. For additional work on the trade-conflict relation, see Gowa (1994) and Papayoanou (1999).

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and so forth? If so, how much of an improvement in relations between erstwhile adversaries is needed for a takeoff in economic relations to follow? Most relevant to present interests, we know little about how initial economic inducements might bring political relations to the level of a self-sustaining sequence of positive interdependence. Structure without agency fails to produce a full understanding of the mechanisms by which cooperation may be initiated and sustained absent common political authority. The failure is one of misguided ontological perspective, not, as with realism, of empirical misstatement. A third strand of the liberal critique—again favoring a structuralist explanation—concerns the democratic peace theory. The assumption is that not all nations respond identically to the international situation in which they find themselves, that the nature of the country’s political system makes a difference, and that democracies behave differently from autocracies. Most important, democracies are less prone to engage in war, at least with each other: so a world populated by democracies would be one in which states had little to fear from each other. Like the other versions of the liberal critique, theories of the democratic peace also are rooted in the Enlightenment. While most scholars refer to Kant’s argument that the incidence of conflict would decrease if political power were based on elections and an independent parliamentary body and rulers were held accountable for their wars (Kant [1795] 1983), a somewhat earlier version of the theory was offered by the marquis de Condorcet (1847). Best known by political scientists for his “jury theorem” and “Condorcet equilibrium,” he also argued that international peace required a proper basis of domestic political authority. People (unlike monarchs) are inherently peace loving, making it important that their preferences prevail. International treaties, especially military alliances, should be required to have legislative ratification to ensure they contain no nefarious intent. War should require a declaration by the legislature, and new elections should follow their conclusion, allowing voters to ratify or not the legislature’s decision. The effect would be a substantial reduction in the amount of international conflict. Contemporary political science has largely confirmed that democracies, while not inherently more peaceful, rarely fight each other.12 Although nothing approaching a comprehensive review of the vast body of relevant research in this area is possible, representative scholars include Doyle (1983), Russett (1993, 1995), Russett and Oneal (2001), Maoz and Abdolali (1989), Owen (2005), and Ray (1995). Assumptions of the democratic peace have found their way into political discourse. As President Bill Clinton observed in his 1994 State of the 12. By one early reckoning, “the absence of wars between democracies comes as close as anything we have to an empirical law in international relations” (Levy 1988, 654).

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Union Address, “Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don’t attack each other” (Clinton 1994). President George W. Bush agreed, maintaining that, “the reason I am so strong on democracy is democracies don’t go to war against each other. . . . I’ve got great faith in democracies to promote peace” (BBC World News 2004). Empirical evidence indicates that many realist assumptions could be laid to rest in a world populated by democracies. But, as with the institutionalist and globalization schools, we are presented with only part of the picture. Democracy is a structural feature of domestic politics, and the worldwide distribution of democracies is a structural property of the international system. But we lack an understanding of how democracies can alter the behavior of other states. Also, we are just beginning to understand how democratic development may be encouraged or discouraged through the actions of other nations. For example, is it possible to advance democracy by actions that work from the top down such as by replacing the political leadership that stands in its way? Or is it better to encourage democratic development from the bottom up, by promoting the social and economic conditions on which structures of interest and power compatible with democracy rest? The first perspective is consistent with international coercion (e.g., militarily removing those who stand in the way of democratic transformation). The second is far more consonant with a positive engagement that seeks to encourage the emergence of the desired interests and preferences. In any case, these are not questions that could be answered by neglecting agency.

Improving the Protective Belt Neither the realist doctrine nor its neoliberal challengers tell us how the behavior of refractory states could be modified through policies stressing positive engagement rather than threats and punishments. What is needed is a perspective that, like classical realism, focuses on agency but which, like neoliberalism, believes that even the self-interested drives behind state behavior can yield cooperative behavior, while unwelcome conduct can be altered through noncoercive policies explicitly designed for that purpose. A starting point may be to recognize that much of international relations theory, and certainly that part dealing with tools of foreign policy, has entered, from a Lakatosian point of view, a “regressive stage.” At this juncture, a significant redirection of intellectual energies is needed. *** In this chapter I have tried to account for the tendency of both the policymaking and the academic communities to neglect the role that positive induce-

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ments can play in altering the behavior of adversaries, and to indicate some ways in which this omission could be remedied. Bias within the policymaking community is rooted in the early postwar years; it can be traced to the budding conviction that toughness toward adversaries is preferable to conciliatory policies, a conviction, based on widely held assumptions regarding the virtues of punishment. That political science has contributed so little to our understanding of positive engagement is attributable to the stranglehold that political realism had for decades over our thinking and also to its major challenger, neoliberalism, which has an ontological position favoring structural explanation—whereas understanding a new foreign policy strategy requires a focus on agency. My main concern in this book is to encourage a closer connection, through appropriately designed theory and research, of the academic endeavor to the world it purports to reflect. As I have argued elsewhere (Nincic and Lepgold 2001; Lepgold and Nincic 2005), scholarship can have an impact on the thinking of policymakers, especially when, rather than being self-referential, it seeks to illuminate existing international challenges. The academic world–policymaking feedback loop remains dimly perceived. To the extent that the acceptability of policy strategies depends on their practical effectiveness (both absolutely and relative to alternative strategies), the challenge is to suggest how, and under what conditions, they could serve a useful foreign policy purpose. The immediate task is to acknowledge the shortcomings of the paradigms by which it traditionally has been guided and to develop a basis for understanding both the prospects and limitations of positive inducements in international affairs.

3 A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS

Even if a shift of strategy away from sticks and toward carrots were considered by anyone wishing to alter the behavior of another state, there is no a priori guarantee that this would advance the nation’s aims more successfully than punitive measures, and we need to grasp the circumstances that increase or decrease the outlook for effective engagement. This, in turn, requires an analytic framework within which to organize the empirical inquiry—a framework of concepts and propositions that helps identify the questions to be asked and from which hypotheses, to be confronted with the evidence of case studies, might be drawn. Given a better understanding of the conditions for the successful use of inducements, and relying on our knowledge of the junctures at which resistance to their use may be overcome, we improve considerably our appreciation of the role they can and cannot play in international relations. The starting point is a closer look at two purposes that positive incentives could serve. Both rely on similar instruments and can be pursued in tandem, but they are, in terms of their ultimate aims and mechanisms, logically distinct. The first possible intent is to offer an adversary some concession intended to produce a desired counterconcession. The purpose is to effectuate a trade resulting in the target’s altered conduct, and inducements offered in this spirit play out in the context of what I will call the exchange model. The analytic task is to determine what objectives can most plausibly be attained in this fashion and what conditions are most conducive to success. The second aim is more ambitious: to change the other side’s basic incentives, such that bribes and punishments ultimately become unnecessary. The purpose here is not to promote a trade but to catalyze 58

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a thorough overhaul of relations. Inducements offered with this purpose occur in the context of what I will term the catalytic model. Much of this chapter will be devoted to a discussion of the logic behind the conceptions of positive incentives associated with these two models and to the conditions for success or failure in both. Each begins with a critical juncture that makes new policies possible.

Elements of the Exchange Model: Incentives as Trading Carrots Here, the usual purpose is a specific quid pro quo: an exchange of finite and more-or-less balanced concessions to the mutual benefit of both sides, wherein, from each side’s subjective perspective, the benefits of the exchange outweigh the costs of the reciprocating gesture. Nothing beyond the particular quid pro quo is expected. Reciprocal concessions can be made within the same issue area, or moves in one area may be rewarded by gestures in another. Bilateral reductions of strategic arsenals during the U.S.-Soviet SALT process illustrate the former; European offers of economic assistance to Iran to induce it to abandon programs capable of yielding nuclear weapons exemplifies the latter. In neither case was it expected that the other side would fundamentally alter its goals and priorities beyond what was implied by the particular quid pro quo: a finite objective (e.g., a reduction in Soviet ICBMs, an Iranian commitment to abandon uranium enrichment) is sought in such contexts, with no necessary broader expectations.1 More ambitious, but still within the terms of the exchange model, may be not the exchange of discrete favors and inducements but repeated concessions intended to convey one’s own benevolent nature with the goal of altering the overall character of the other side’s behavior and requiring no immediate reciprocation.2 The same effect could be produced by a single, unilateral grand gesture that impresses the adversary by its sincerity and goodwill. While this strategy is situated somewhere between the exchange and catalytic models, its logic lies closer to the former, since it involves no basic change in the other side’s political character, merely in its perception of one’s own side, and since reciprocation is merely deferred. There is very little in the historical record to guide our understanding of the promises and pitfalls of this latter strategy. A modest body of experimental research suggests that repeated conciliatory moves, though not assuring

1. Even here, a catalytic transformation generally would be welcomed; it’s just that it usually is not expected. 2. Deborah Welch Larson has argued that repeated unilateral gestures may be needed on one side to launch a process of bilateral cooperation (1987, 56–57).

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a favorable result, may be more effective than a strategy of pure reciprocation (tit for tat) at eliciting cooperation from an adversary (Lindskold and Collins 1978; Lindskold, Walters, and Koutsourais 1983; Patchen 1987). Still, the difficulties of generalizing from the experimental setting to that of actual reality are considerable, and our scant experience with this approach at transcending adversarial relations offers little empirical evidence from which to draw lessons. Single examples of modest and unilateral conciliatory gestures can be found, but little of the scope suggested above. One minor example was President Kennedy’s speech of June 1963 at American University, in which he called on the Soviet leadership to engage in mutually beneficial nuclear test–ban negotiations, in which he declared that despite U.S. difficulty with Communism, “we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements—in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and acts of courage” (Kennedy 1963). Kennedy further offered, as a unilateral gesture, to suspend U.S. nuclear tests in the atmosphere. Productive negotiations ensued, yielding a treaty prohibiting aboveground nuclear tests. This was an example of a major and initially unilateral gesture that produced welcome results, and we can speculate on the further developments such an approach might have portended had Kennedy not been assassinated and Khrushchev ousted. Still, examples of this sort are hard to find. The problem is that it is difficult, in terms of any country’s domestic politics, to offer concessions to a rival without some assurance of immediate reciprocation. The risk that these concessions will be pocketed with nothing to show but a strengthened adversary generally makes the gamble politically unpalatable. In any case, what the gesture’s initiator deems ample evidence of disinterested goodwill often falls far short of what its recipient so perceives. Even when an inducement is offered, its value tends to fall considerably short of the counterconcession demanded, and it often is doubted whether either concession or counterconcession will reliably be delivered. Thus, while in theory it may be possible to alter an adversary’s general policy orientation through a series of unilateral moves that provide evidence of good intentions while making the other side dependent on the benefits of continued goodwill, not much should be expected in this regard: political obstacles loom too large, the likelihood that the one making the gesture will be castigated by political opponents for jeopardizing the national position are too great. Consequently, our examination of the exchange model will focus on the use of positive incentives in the context of an explicit and limited quid pro quo.

The Politics of Quid Pro Quo In most circumstances we deal with two parties—one desiring a change in the other side’s policies via an exchange usually sought in the face of the latter’s initial

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recalcitrance.3 The purpose of inducements offered by the initiating party is to offset the benefits the other side draws from its objectionable conduct: the aim is not so much to alter its incentives and priorities as to add to its decisional calculus the prospect of some reward whose value exceeds the benefits derived from the misbehavior. The idea, then, is to “buy” cooperation with direct inducements or side payments. Let us begin by surveying the broad categories of inducements that may be available for this purpose. T Y PES O F I N DU C E M E N TS

There are many ways of classifying possible inducements, and, though categories suffer from overlap and fuzzy boundaries, a threefold classification captures available choices. Within this typology, the first sort of inducement is of a symbolic nature, designed, not to confer a tangible benefit but to stoke the other side’s sense of identity and the regard it is granted by others. This can encompass no more than a willingness to accept the adversary as a valid negotiating partner; it can include official visits and diplomatic recognition, improving the regime’s international image as a respected player on the international game board, providing it, in turn, with benefits that include psychological gratification from the evidence that it “belongs,” an ability to pursue its international interests more effectively, and a boost to its domestic legitimacy and position. In this way, for example, an important desire on North Korea’s part, in the context of negotiations on its nuclear program, has been to gain the status and recognition implied by a U.S. willingness to treat it as a bilateral partner. By the same token, withholding symbolic gratifications from rivals and adversaries, even to the extent of barring all discourse, is a form of pressure frequently encountered. The refusal, during much of the George W. Bush administration, even to speak to many disliked regimes is an extreme expression of this inclination. The second type of inducement is political, distinguished from the symbolic by offering an explicit and direct—rather than intangible and indirect—political gain to the other side. This could involve something that party had sought as part of the purpose behind its objectionable behavior. For example, Iran could

3. Even when more than two nations are involved, they often coalesce into two parties, one urging the policy change, the other initially resisting it. With an expanding international consensus on desirable norms of political behavior, the recalcitrant side tends to find few friends, as the size of the two coalitions tends to be quite lopsided. Thus, with the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, the bulk of the international community is arrayed against them, although, in the Iranian case, a small number of nations support Tehran’s right to a “peaceful” nuclear program. Although the regime responsible for the censured behavior sometimes manages to enlist the support of one or more meaningful international players in its efforts to avoid drastic punishment (e.g., China’s opposition to significant sanctions against the government of Sudan, complicit in the Darfur genocide, or against North Korea), the desirability of policy change rarely is questioned by these players.

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be allowed a limited program of uranium enrichment in exchange for credible guarantees that it would not develop weapons-grade nuclear fuel. The concession could also assume the form of a political benefit not directly related to the object of mutual contention. For instance, the European Union encouraged Serbia to accept full independence for Kosovo in exchange for a slightly accelerated track to EU membership. The third sort of inducement is economic, including such benefits as improved access to foreign markets, as well as sources of aid and investment. In the case of widely ostracized adversaries, usually this means restoring economic privileges enjoyed by most nations but withheld, in that nation’s case, by a program of sanctions. With regard to specific goods likely to elicit concessions, it appears that access to technology is particularly attractive to most recipients (Long 2000). It seems, too, that nondurable goods have the highest long-term value as carrots, creating a continuous demand that the other side is in a position to satisfy. By the same token, many capital goods, especially those that replicate the sender’s industrial capability within the recipient, have the least long-term effect (Crumm 1995, 32–33). Access to sources of international finance, both private and public, has proven to be a powerful inducement. Some additional observations can be made regarding the value of economic incentives. The benefits to the recipient cannot be viewed solely in terms of their marginal utility; total utility also must be considered, including anticipated long-term effects (Long 1996, chaps. 6 and 7). Moreover, it is desirable to discover (by analogy with auction markets) the recipient’s “reservation price,” that is, the lowest price acceptable in exchange for the behavior adjustment (Foran and Spector 2000). One example of the use of economic carrots in exchange for political concessions might be the West German policy of Ostpolitik. This policy was intended, in the conception of political leaders such as Egon Bahr and Willy Brandt, to encourage Soviet and East German acquiescence in détente in exchange for aid, trade benefits, and a recognition of Europe’s post–World War II borders. Other examples will be discussed in later chapters. One virtue of offering economic over symbolic and most political concessions is that economic value tends to be similarly interpreted by most nations, implying less scope for miscalculating the interest such concessions hold for the other side and making it easier to calibrate economic inducement to the desired counterconcession—and, also, to what the domestic political context will allow. Much as economic tools are widely used in the context of punitive policies, so they appear as a logical component of positive engagement. In relations between international adversaries, however, gestures and countergestures are rarely economic (or symbolic) on both sides of the quid pro quo, since the counterconcessions demanded of the perceived transgressor are almost

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always political. The EU offered Iran economic inducements to halt its nuclear weapons–related programs. Libya was tendered a variety of economic concessions to curtail its support of international terrorism. President Kennedy’s American University speech offered, inter alia, a symbolic gesture (recognition of the Soviet peoples’ considerable achievements) in exchange for a political countergesture (good faith negotiation for a treaty banning atmospheric nuclear tests). And so forth. That concessions and counterconcessions are almost always of different sorts makes it difficult to rely on the kinds of heuristics that are generally used in bargaining to find an equilibrium solution: since standard guidelines such as “fairness” or splitting the difference are difficult to apply when dissimilar goods are involved, and especially difficult when the parties are adversaries. In any case, the political concessions demanded almost always involve a substantial surrender of some policy objective on which the adversary’s claim to legitimacy, or its sense of mission, have come to depend, and this implies that the concession itself must be commensurably substantial. T H E NAT UR E O F TH E PRO B LE M

I address the problem, first, by specifying some formal aspects of the exchange model and, then, by describing the conditions that determine the possibility of quid pro quos between an initiator, say the United States, and an adversary foreign regime. The exchange model’s formal structure springs from a rough conception of how the utilities of the parties reflect various solutions to the exchange (figure 3.1). Assuming a world of two players, A and R, the horizontal axis reflects the utilities that various solutions would hold for R, and the vertical axis does the same for A. If a solution is to be minimally acceptable to the parties, it must lie to the right and above point K. Points to the left of Br fall short of the utility R derives from persisting in its misbehavior.4 Points of lesser value than Ba fall short of whatever utility (e.g., avoiding the accusation of appeasement) A derives from not seeking the quid pro quo. Any point in the area KLP is jointly preferable to no quid pro quo. Short of the boundary LP both sides are capable of enhancing their utilities, although not necessarily to the same extent. It is only on that frontier (LP) that no unrealized gains remain (this is, then, the efficiency frontier), and any movement within KLP toward the efficiency frontier stands to benefit both sides. However, movements upward and to the left within KLP confer relatively greater benefits to A; movements in the contrary direction imply relatively

4. This is related to the concept of “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA) (Fisher and Uri 1981, chap. 6).

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L

Utility of solutions for player A

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BA

K

P BR

Utility of solutions for player R FIGURE 3.1. The Foundation of Political Exchange

greater benefits for R. (Once the efficiency frontier is reached, any further movement along it implies that one side’s gain means the other side’s loss.) The empirical question is whether some solution is achievable in practice and, if so, where within the range of conceivable bargains (the KLP area) the actual solution will rest. In the context of our present concerns, the answer depends on several political conditions. Let us focus, for the moment, on the situation as it presents itself to R (the adversary regime). The prospect for a successful exchange vanishes unless A’s promised inducement creates (considering its counterincentives) utility superior to BR. Once such a minimal value is established, any further concession by A is likely to evoke some corresponding counterconcession by R. A first step, then, is to establish, conceptually, what will determine the location of point BR and, therefore, the type and minimal level of inducement that a country such as the United States must offer for there to be any chance of a beneficial exchange. B R A N D T HE D O M E S TI C PO LI TI C A L C ALCU LU S

We must begin by considering the implication to R of not responding to A’s concession (i.e., of staying the course) while appreciating that the implications that matter most are those that affect the regime’s domestic political standing. Political scientists increasingly appreciate the predictive and explanatory lever-

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age on a nation’s foreign policy choices that can be had by rooting them in the logic of domestic political interest. This is not surprising since attaining and retaining power is the natural purpose of most politicians, on which any less self-serving policy aims depend. At virtually every point in a regime’s trajectory, its principal goal is to maintain and improve its grip on power. Accordingly, a central question is what happens to the regime’s position if it opts not to respond to the inducement. An elementary mistake is to assume that, from the target’s perspective, the alternative to the welcome benefits implied by inducements is the unwelcome consequence of negative pressures. This assumption is unwarranted, since, as we have seen, external threats and punishments sometimes produce considerable political benefits for their targets, bolstering the political standing of the regime and its leaders. The question is whether positive inducements can do so as well and, if so, under what conditions. As I argued in chapter 1, foreign pressures can strengthen a regime’s position because people often rally to their government’s side in the face of external threats, partly because they feel imperiled by the hostile foreigners, leading them to close ranks with their leadership, partly through the normal operation of ingroup/out-group dynamics. Despite their distaste for their regime and leaders, a common foreign threat often stimulates a search for national unity. Further, many regimes considered particularly objectionable to the United States and much of the international community found their claim to rule on the pursuit of a seemingly elevated—ethnonationalist, religious, or ideological—program (Nincic 2005, chap. 3). A vociferous foreign reaction is equated, in many local eyes, with an attack on the regime and its program, making both appear internationally consequential, often magnifying the domestic esteem in which they are held. Further, threatening behavior by foreign powers can help the incumbent regime by weakening the position of its domestic opposition, not only because of the rally effect, but also because the stigma of wittingly or unwittingly abetting hostile foreigners often clings to the opposition of an externally besieged regime. Perhaps the most durable consequence of foreign hostility lies in the concrete structures of power its promotes, favoring the formal and informal institutions of governance whose job it is to evaluate and respond to foreign threats (e.g., intelligence agencies, the armed forces, and elements of a military-industrial complex), which come to claim a lion’s share of budgetary resources and a dominant place within the pecking order of government organizations. These institutions are likely to be firm supporters of a regime whose policies have created the context for their own privileged position, while their resources (and coercive capacity) make them a particularly valuable pillar of regime support. Because of this, the

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course of refractory international behavior can yield attractive political returns to those in power, returns sustained by established institutional structures, normative assumptions, and policy expectations. We also observed (chapter 1) that the economic isolation often imposed on adversaries can shape economic interests in a manner counterproductive to the goals the sanctions are designed to serve. As commercial exchange with the international community is curtailed, rent seekers emerge to benefit from the resulting scarcities; illicit or semilicit wealth is created, and it often is shared with the organs of state power, especially the security services, creating additional sources of vested interest in bolstering the regime whose policies have made these gains possible. Thus, the regime might find that its domestic political position gains more from not responding to the external concession and maintaining the established pattern of foreign hostility. Other considerations can influence its decision (e.g., the extent of international support it might have for defying the United States), but the domestic political calculus will usually loom large. When might a cooperative stance appear politically more beneficial than a confrontational posture, that is, when might a new critical juncture emerge? As long as pugnacious policies result in, or are compatible with, regime stability, there is little reason to change course. If, however, instability sets in despite these policies, then the attractiveness of noncooperation recedes and steps to mend the regime’s international position become more appealing. Now the political benefits of continuing to pursue the internationally objectionable course must be considered relative to the advantages of possible quid pro quos; such benefits very much depend on the type and magnitude of the concessions offered. The problem, as we have seen, is that it is politically difficult from the initiator’s standpoint to offer significant inducements to an unsavory regime. Thus, even assuming that political conditions within the adversary nation might, in principle, create the possibility of a quid pro quo, the concession might fall short of what objectively is needed. This problem can be viewed from two perspectives: the magnitude of the proffered inducement and the credibility of promises being kept. T H E I S S UE O F S U FFI C I E N C Y

There generally is little latitude in the behavioral change required of the other side: what typically is demanded is that it give up a pursuit that has been declared central to its political purpose. Thus, support for international terrorism abroad may appear to endow the regime with a transcendental political purpose, while the pursuit of nuclear weapons may help it forge a sense of national identity as shaped by its ideational mission (Hymans 2006). A considerably wider range of possibilities applies to the concessions offered than to those demanded of the other side. Because of this, there are few objective measures of what an appro-

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priate inducement should amount to, making it more likely that too little will be offered than too much. Part of the dilemma is that it is genuinely difficult, for both political and psychological reasons, to initiate significant steps in the direction of a mutually beneficial quid pro quo. Any use of carrots with regard to a nation that has been vilified tends to encounter much domestic political resistance, as charges of appeasement and “rewarding” bad behavior are raised.5 In many democracies, the United States included, foreign policies become entangled in domestic political contests, while we know that charges of “softness” can be a strategy for gaining electoral and other advantage. Political rhetoric may also be founded on the fear that certain inducements might strengthen the adversary’s capabilities to do harm without modifying its basic goals, making it an even greater threat than before. That problem is magnified by the social psychology of loss aversion, especially as seen in the light of prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky 1979, 1984; Thaler 1980; Levy 1992), which shows, not only that people are risk averse with regard to gains and risk seeking where losses are concerned, but that their value functions are considerably steeper with regard to losses than gains. The tendency to place greater value on goods possessed than on equivalent goods not yet acquired often is compounded by an overvaluation of current possessions, termed the “endowment effect” (Kahneman, Knetch, and Thaler 1991), which enhances not only the desirability of what one owns but the pain of forsaking it. An implication with regard to present concerns is that international negotiations can be inhibited by the fact that even if the parties try to meet each other halfway, each will experience more displeasure from what it is called to give up (its “loss”), while overestimating its value, than pleasure at what the other side has agreed to forego (its “gain”), decreasing both sides’ willingness to make concessions. Moreover, if decision makers are, as prospect theory points out, largely risk averse, and if cooperative moves are regarded as politically, and otherwise, risky (Berejikian 2004, 51–52), then considerable counterincentives are needed to make the risk acceptable. Accordingly, inducements have to be very substantial for the game to be worth the candle, but, for understandable reasons, they usually fall quite short of the counterconcessions demanded. T H E N EED F O R C R E DI B LE C O M M I TM E NT

Credible commitment is an obvious precondition for successful cooperation. Even when incentives deemed acceptable by the adversary are offered in

5. In the United States, especially during much of the administration of George W. Bush, even speaking with an adversary such as Iran or Syria was often considered an inappropriate “reward” to bad behavior.

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exchange for its promised counterconcessions, mutual distrust, as well as a realization that both sides’ domestic politics might not permit them to deliver on their pledges, may mean that the exchange will not be consummated. More academic work has been devoted to the matter of credible threats than credible promises, especially in the literature on military deterrence. We do, however, appreciate that credibility depends partially on the transparency of national political systems (Cowhey 1993, 320), a transparency lacking in most renegade regimes. In any case, research indicates that credible commitments of a cooperative sort are more readily established in dyads consisting of either democracies or autocracies (Leeds 1999), again not the situation being considered here. The opacity of the adversary’s political system and domestic political resistance to concessions within one’s own are the main obstacles to credible commitment in the sorts of cases we are examining. The credibility of the commitment required determines whether the utility of an exchange exceeds BR, and, once a serious search for agreement is underway, whether a mutually satisfactory solution will be found. Once problems of sufficiency and credible commitment have been resolved, the parties enter the realm of possible solutions, and the question is precisely where, within the KLP area, a quid pro quo will be located. A number of problems are apparent. Neither party is apt to have a firm grasp of the other side’s utility schedule, especially when the latter is a renegade regime—an adversary whose values are alien and politics opaque. Additionally, either side may have but a murky appreciation of what is politically acceptable on its own side, while the play of domestic politics can make such understandings quite unstable. For example, what was acceptable with regard to North Korea at the beginning of the George W. Bush administration was very different from what was deemed acceptable in its waning days. Thus, while the KLP area in figure 3.1 describes the set of theoretically possible outcomes, it may be difficult to delineate that area in practice, or to identify the range of possibilities within which the ultimate solution might lie. Occasionally, a variety of heuristics helps limit such uncertainties—a shared sense of fairness might guide the parties to a solution (Young 1991) or they may rely on some rule of thumb, such as splitting the difference. But these heuristics presuppose a shared frame of reference, which is less likely to be encountered when the relationship links the United States to its major adversaries than when the parties share common norms.

The Relevance of Political Disequilibria Even where the inducements initially proffered by one side are significant and credible, internal political conditions will determine the other’s receptivity to the

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offer. While benefits from external threats and pressures are enjoyed by certain segments of its society, others bear their costs. Within the logic of the political system, the former often act as the essential and sufficient pillars of support for the government. When this is the case, inducements are less likely to work than when traditional pillars become wobbly. Accordingly, meaningful responses from the other side could be sought in two contexts. In one, the regime rests on a stable and established equilibrium of domestic forces in which the influence of those who benefit from the regime’s policies outweighs the power of those who suffer their consequences. Where the policies that injure or offend other members of the international community benefit the regime’s essential supporters, it has little incentive to mend its ways, and few inducements stand to yield a meaningful counterconcession. The second situation assumes that the balance of domestic political influence and preferences is in flux: while the regime remains in place, its position is not as secure as once it was, and traditional sources of support no longer suffice to ensure its grip on power. We are not assuming that the political system has been fundamentally transformed—if so, strategic quid pro quos probably would be unnecessary— but that, in the context of the existing regime, the old equilibrium has become shaky and some of the legs on which regime support rested now are wobbly. Stable equilibrium has yielded to unstable equilibrium,6 and the regime must reassess the strategy most likely to keep it in power. It may have to find new ways of consolidating its traditional supporters or, more likely, cultivate fresh sources of support, whose interests are better served by international cooperation than confrontation. The regime now seeks to maintain its position—and, perhaps, a vestige of its ideational mission—by gratifying a new set of interests; a new critical juncture takes shape. If, therefore, the outlook for quid pro quos is bleak when the other side enjoys stable political equilibrium, prospects improve with growing instability. From the standpoint of broad societal support, a substitute for whatever rally effects the foreign threats helped generate would have to be found in a surge of popular gratifications at the foreign concessions provided. Symbolic gestures, such as diplomatic recognition and external praise for the regime’s changed policies, might give it additional legitimacy by demonstrating that even its erstwhile critics show it respect. Realistically, though, such symbolic gestures do not have as vivid a meaning to most people as do foreign threats, and they rarely generate as powerful a political response. To stand any chance of bolstering the regime’s

6. In physics the concept of stable equilibrium implies that a body (or structure) subject to minor disruption is likely to return to its initial position or state; a situation of unstable equilibrium implies that it would not.

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position, symbolic gratifications would have to be very sizable: here, problems of sufficiency and of political equilibriums intersect. In any case, there is little reason to expect that such gestures as state visits or diplomatic recognition would matter much to the traditional, hard-line supporters, and, if symbolic incentives are to be at all effective, this must be at a juncture when other forms of symbolism on which the government’s legitimacy depended have lost their luster. As usually happens with time, major ideological or ethnoreligious fervor eventually is spent, and rallies round the flags become weak. Those, generally from the educated middle class, for whom international respectability is important, may value the new symbolic gestures far more than did the traditional elites, while at the same time, their support matters more to the regime under the evolving political conditions. When we move from broad swaths of popular feeling to specific sources of group and institutional support, the outlook for meaningful changes in policy remains weak as long as the regime’s established sources of support stay firm. New symbolic concessions rarely have much net value for the traditional elites, and other incentives may fare no better. The regime continues to rely on the support of the organs of state power, such as the security and intelligence services, that thrive best when the country is externally besieged, and it is hard to see why such bodies would back policies that alter political conditions that had benefited them, even if the regime as a whole were granted some political boon, for example, a territorial concession, continued control of an ethnic minority, or some form of foreign nuclear cooperation. Their corporate interests would usually matter more to them than such achievements, and these interests have, as a rule, been formed under assumptions of external hostility and pressure. There are few alternative enticements that could be offered to those, within the misbehaving nation, who have traditionally benefited from tension. For purely political inducements to be effective, it is necessary (1) that those who could profit from them should not have any offsetting incentives, and (2) that these groups should be ones whose political support most matters. The second condition, in turn, assumes a state of unstable political equilibrium: the regime may be tempted to alter course only when the interests and values of groups that care little about foreign concessions seem less valuable to regime survival than the preferences of those that do care. The same applies to rent-seeking groups that profit from the artificial scarcities created by economic sanctions and that cannot be expected to act in a way that harms their interests. They are not easy to mollify by relaxed sanctions, and they know how to profit from externally induced scarcities, often in a symbiotic relation with state security organs. To them, a significantly liberalized economic environment might mean nothing but threats and difficulties. If their support, along with that of relevant bureaucracies, suffices to sustain the

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regime, that regime has little reason to alienate them with policies that gratify foreign powers at the expense of their interests. Assuming stable political equilibrium, sustained by domestic forces benefiting from the existing state of affairs and not requiring that the regime court other support, the outlook for positive inducements is correspondingly bleak. A weakened regime and political leadership portend better for the desired quid pro quo. To the extent that the regime’s previous policies had acquired a path-dependent character, a situation of unstable equilibrium might form a new critical juncture. The critical juncture could stem from the external measures, which, through the costs they impose on the society, alter the balance of power between those that benefit from the external pressure and those that suffer from its consequences. But the new political reality might also result from circumstances purely internal to the nation (economic mismanagement, the difficulty of maintaining high levels of ideational mobilization over the long term, and so forth). In either case, new ways of warding off major political challenges need to be found, and alternative sources of support conciliated, even at the risk of estranging traditional political allies. Unstable equilibrium opens new possibilities for desired quid pro quos, as the range of meaningful incentives expands. The quest for new supporters, and attempts to neutralize old sources of opposition, imply that previously ignored interests must be addressed: interests that may benefit from the external inducement. It becomes increasingly necessary to conciliate those groups, even at the expense of jeopardizing old supporters. At the moment when regime incumbents reckon that attracting new sources of support matters more than conciliating old ones, or when they decide that old sources can best be gratified by new methods, meaningful possibilities for external leverage appear: economic openings and diplomatic and symbolic overtures matter more to the regime than before. It is at the point of transition from stable to unstable equilibrium that positive inducements show promise, but considerable time might elapse before that juncture is reached. Domestic political circumstances determine the effectiveness of inducements in the context of both exchange and catalytic models, but they are not equally relevant to both at all stages of a deteriorating political equilibrium. The political uncertainty facing the regime usually begins with an awareness of a growing gap between the expectations it has created and the performance it can boast. Tangible—usually economic—promises have not been met while the claims of the legitimizing narrative appear increasingly threadbare. Although significant opposition to the regime has not yet mobilized, worries about that possibility appear. This is a stage of latent instability: the government may estimate that some pressing domestic problems might be alleviated with appropriate external

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concessions (e.g., in the North Korean case, the economic problems caused by energy shortages and the legitimacy issues associated with an absence of international recognition), allowing it to stanch an erosion of political support. In exchange for the help, the regime might offer a meaningful counterconcession, although the likelihood of serious domestic transformations and fundamentally altered priorities remains low. Where active political opposition has mobilized, a situation of manifest (not latent) instability is created: traditional sources of support can no longer ensure the regime’s survival, and it may be necessary to seek support from those whose interests and beliefs have clashed with the regime’s traditional backers. If the position of these challengers can be bolstered by better links to the international community, the regime may have no choice but to embrace policies that promote such links. At that stage in the regime’s political fortunes, inducements may begin to operate within the logic of the catalytic model. Whenever the political equilibrium becomes unstable, in a latent or manifest way, incentives to cooperate can be expected to increase along with heightened responsiveness to positive incentives.7 One study of international leverage vis-à-vis aggressors suggests that “when aggression is motivated by perceived opportunity to make gains at reasonable cost and risk, threats, not promises, are the appropriate means of influence” (Davis 2000, 5). But when that behavior is driven by a sense of vulnerability, promises are the more effective path to behavior modification, while threats may be counterproductive. If vulnerability is defined as regime instability, then the reasoning applies to the present hypothesis. Another way of looking at this is from the perspective of prospect theory. As Jeffrey Bezerjikian points out, states operating in the domain of losses are more risk acceptant than those operating in the domain of gains, and more likely to seek negotiated deals with their adversaries. To the extent that negotiation (i.e., a potentially cooperative gesture) is regarded as risky, then a state operating in the frame of losses should be more willing to accept a novel approach associated with some risk (Bezerjikian 2004, 52). The implication, for our purposes, is that a politically vulnerable regime is more likely to perceive itself in the domain of losses and be more inclined to act cooperatively.8

7. Because regimes may be accustomed to varying degrees of instability, their thresholds of tolerance to such also may vary. Thus, one that has never been challenged may respond quickly to any evidence of latent instability, while one accustomed to some disequilibrium might act only when instability becomes manifest. 8. This is, of course, the opposite of the argument that regimes in the domain of losses are most likely to lash out at adversaries.

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Elements of the Catalytic Model At this point, we move away from the exchange model, with its emphasis on leverage and discrete objectives, to consider more fully the model within which the overall interests and objectives of former adversaries are brought in line with those of the bulk of the international community, such that, on important matters, quid pro quos become unnecessary. The restructuring of a rival’s internal order from without has, in the past, typically been attempted by coercive methods, usually subversion (e.g., the Congo of Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro’s Cuba) or outright military intervention (e.g., Iraq, Grenada) or both (again, Cuba). History records fewer cases of internal transformation pursued through positive engagement aimed at encouraging socioeconomic and political interests that urge altered regime behavior. This could involve segments of the educated middle class who desire a greater share of political power as well as better opportunities for cultural and educational exchanges with other countries, the West in particular. It may include portions of the country’s youth who wish to be part of an international youth-oriented culture. It could encompass economic actors who stand to benefit, not from rent-seeking activities in a climate of economic isolation, but from commercial and entrepreneurial activities in a liberalized economic setting, and who require access to international markets, sources of investment, and so forth. It might also include those simply weary of the country’s status as an outcast. The question is whether and how such interests can be promoted from outside. The starting point is to recognize that much as a country’s domestic order can influence the course of its foreign policies, so can the country’s international position and relations shape that order, meaning that a causal process leading to the abandonment of objectionable policies as a result of domestic political transformation may be initiated from outside. A realization that the socioeconomic and political systems of nations often reflect their international position has taken firm root in political science, manifesting itself at several levels of scholarship. Important and early light in this area was cast by the Dependencia school, most active in the 1970s, which maintained that socioeconomic stratification and resulting patterns of political authority in many developing societies are determined by their location within an international economic order shaped by colonial history (Frank 1967; Cardozo and Falleto 1979). In a related vein, Immanuel Wallerstein (1974) argued that capitalism, as it developed in the fifteenth century, implied an international economy with a core, a periphery, and a semiperiphery. Because the first required a strong state, the second a weak one, and the third a hybrid form of state, the structure of domestic political power mirrored its international economic counterpart.

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Moving from economics to security, it has been shown that the strength of most states and the centralization of political authority within them increases when the state is experiencing a tense and threatening international environment (Thompson 1996). More generally, as Peter Gourevitch has argued, “in using domestic structure as a variable in exploring foreign policy, we must explore the extent to which the structure itself derives from the exigencies of the international system” (Gourevitch 1978, 882–83). Two categories of exigencies matter most from Gourevitch’s perspective: those flowing from the international distribution of political power, and those connected to the international distribution of wealth. These, in turn, have a large role in determining the political institutions and social forces within it. While the international impact on domestic conditions may be viewed at the level of structural properties, it also has been identified at the level of interactive behavior. An influential metaphor was offered by Robert Putnam, who characterized international negotiations as a two-level game: “At the national level, domestic groups pursue their interests by pressuring the government to adopt favorable policies, and politicians seek power by constructing coalitions among these groups. At the international level, national governments seek to maximize their own ability to satisfy domestic pressures, while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreign developments.” (Putnam 1988, 434). Statesmen thus play the game of politics on two game boards, one national and the other international. The two political spheres shape each other’s constraints, and it is at their intersection that policy is set. The foundation for the catalytic model, then, is a realization that domestic political arrangements often reflect properties of the international system and of the state’s position within it, and that much as national foreign policies affect that system, so can events originating within the international system impel or constrain foreign policies.

Positive Engagement and Catalytic Incentives: The Record Statesmen, like scholars, have understood for some time that the distribution of power and wealth within a society can be influenced by constructive engagement from outside, that this can affect a country’s political order and, by extension, its international posture. For example, it has been argued that the repeal of the Corn Laws by Britain in 1846 strengthened the hand of Southern and Western agricultural interests in the United States, who, benefiting from free trade, were now better positioned in their struggle against the protectionist industrial interests of the Northeast. In turn, an international movement toward free trade bolstered Britain’s international position (James and Lake 1989). More recently, the

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realization that helpful U.S. initiatives could affect the internal dynamics of other countries in a manner consistent with America’s own interests competed, unsuccessfully, with traditional power-based notions of how adversaries and potential adversaries should be dealt with. A major initiative of modern U.S. diplomacy, the Marshall Plan (1948), was premised on the belief that the cold war’s outcome depended on thwarting Communism’s success in West European nations, which required that socioeconomic conditions hospitable to political radicalism be discouraged. The link between economic hardship and ideological extremism was revealed during Europe’s Great Depression and with the initial difficulties that most European countries had during their postwar recovery. The unemployment this portended, troubled many U.S. observers, whose worries were exacerbated by evidence of social unrest in Germany, the power of Communist parties in economically floundering France and Italy, and the Greek civil war, which pitted conservatives and monarchists against the Communist-led National Liberation Front (Lafeber 1993, chaps. 2 and 3). Anxieties reached a high pitch with Czechoslovakia’s fall to Soviet control in 1948. The expectation behind the Marshall Plan was that a substantial infusion of U.S. economic assistance, along with encouragement for inter-European economic cooperation, would fuel recovery and a buoyant middle class that would be averse to political extremes and totalitarianism (Hogan 1987). In the post-Stalin years, the geopolitical competition shifted from Europe, where the balance of power seemed set, to the more fluid conditions of the developing world. The Cuban Revolution fanned fears of Communist subversion in the Western hemisphere. A pressing imperative was to discourage socioeconomic conditions favorable to leftist sympathies; the Alliance for Progress was part of the response. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. recalled, “the Alliance for Progress represented the affirmative side of Kennedy’s policy. The other side was his absolute determination to prevent any new state from going down the Castro road and so giving the Soviet Union a second bridgehead in the hemisphere” (Schlesinger 1965, 773). The doctrine behind the Alliance rested on the thinking of what Schlesinger called the “Charles River School” of “action intellectuals” (Smith 1991, 76), who believed that democracy in much of the developing world required socioeconomic reform, which it was America’s duty to encourage. The Kennedy administration worried that vast structural inequality, most starkly evident in patterns of land ownership, created the foundation for the rule of narrow, and inherently antidemocratic, elites.9 “It seemed obvious that democracy entailed such things

9. According to JFK presidential adviser Theodore Sorensen, “what disturbed [Kennedy] most was the attitude of that 2 percent of the citizenry of Latin American who owned more than 50 percent of the wealth and controlled most of the political-economic apparatus” (1965, 525).

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as a decline in class polarization thanks to a growing middle class, and the incorporation of the working class into politics through an open, competitive electoral process for offices in a governmental system run under sacrosanct constitutional procedures” (Smith 1991, 75). If reforms were not vigorously pursued, inequality and dictatorship would lead to radicalization of the dispossessed and disenfranchised, making it easier for Communism to gain a regional foothold. The 1961 Punta del Este conference that created the Alliance, declared that its goal was “establishing and consolidating the institutions of representative democracy,” which required “programs of comprehensive agrarian reform” to remedy “unjust structures and systems of land tenure and use.” It also called for “fair wages and satisfactory working conditions,” and the need to “reform tax laws. Demanding more from those who have most . . . to redistribute the national income in order to benefit those who are most in need.” The success of these programs called not only for political pressure but also for financial assistance from abroad, as the United States initially pledged $20 billion in financial assistance to Latin America for this purpose. The term “constructive engagement” came into use (Smith 1991, 77), and, if a heading for the doctrine were required, it would be provided by what Samuel Huntington described as the “all-good-things-gotogether” theme in U.S. liberal thinking (Huntington 1968, 5).10 Ultimately, the Alliance for Progress was not a great success. It may not have been suitably designed and, in any case, Washington too frequently chose to entrust the anti-Communist crusade to antidemocratic forces. But, at least in its original conception, it embodied the belief that constructive engagement could have a catalytic effect on the political order of nations by encouraging new patterns of power and preference, with welcome consequences for the broader international objectives of the United States. Although these cold war initiatives demonstrated awareness that external engagement could encourage desirable domestic developments, currently applicable lessons are not obvious. Apart from the fact that patterns of international interdependence, and thus avenues by which domestic politics can be shaped from abroad, are far different from what they were then, the task itself is now of another sort. The purpose during the cold war was prophylactic: to prevent within countries developments that might lead to a political order benefiting international Communism. The aim with regard to regimes that currently most worry the United States is not to maintain but to reverse their status quo. The mechanisms behind the two pursuits may be subtly different, since what is required to avoid an undesired international development may not always

10. On the all-good-things-go-together thesis, see also Packenham (1973, 123–26).

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overlap with steps needed to promote one that is desired but as yet unattained. Still, policies conducted while the cold war was in full swing do not exhaust our experience with constructive engagement. The link between domestic conditions and external conduct was acknowledged, and another attempt was made during the transition from the cold war to the post–cold war period, in what are sometimes referred to as the West’s “third wave” initiatives (Huntington 1992). As the Soviet Union lost its grip on its former satellites, and then disintegrated, the imperative was to ensure the adherence of the breakaway parts to more widely accepted, Western-based norms. The perceived connection between democratic reform in these countries and U.S. security was expressed most clearly in the Clinton administration’s policy document entitled A National Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (White House 1995), which advocated a “national security strategy of engagement based on enlarging the world community of secure, democratic and free market nations.” Efforts along these lines paralleled the initial cracks in the Soviet empire, with initiatives such as the Support for East European Democracy (SEED) program, established in 1989, which provided funds to support democratic institutions and programs, private-sector growth, health-care reform, and so forth. The aim was to bolster those within former Soviet-controlled areas that were committed to priorities compatible with those of the political West. Much of the efforts to strengthen, within Eastern Europe, the position of those most firmly committed to democratic norms came from international organizations that many of these countries wished to join. The European Union and NATO were especially influential. On the one hand, the values of these organizations began to penetrate the countries, and democratic forces within saw their own legitimacy increase accordingly. At the same time, interests that by their nature would benefit from membership, notably commercial groups desiring access to broader European markets and sources of capital and military establishments desiring links to NATO, acquired ever more central positions within the body politic. In any case, the conditions for membership in such institutions encouraged the internal adjustments of values and interests. In 1993 the EU articulated the so called Copenhagen criteria, which recognized the right of eastern and central European countries to join the EU if they had stable, democratic institutions guaranteeing the rule of law, and as long as they promoted human rights, respect for minorities, and a stable market economy. The prospect of EU membership has been a powerful catalyst to democratic and economic reforms, consolidating and probably accelerating welcome domestic developments (e.g., Pridham, Herring, and Sanford 1997; Sharman and Kanet 2000). At the same time, NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) program required that participating states adhere to a Framework Document that established their commitment to democracy,

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international law, and the peaceful settlement of international disputes.11 Such commitment was a first step to full NATO membership, strengthening the position of those within the states’ political and military structures who desired affiliation, while fortifying their own commitment to democratic practices. At this time, twelve PfP participants have become full members. The criteria for participation and eventual membership are credited with promoting democratic transitions. Even in countries that have not attained full membership, the program has produced desired results. For example, in Serbia (which joined the program in 2006), it is estimated to be helping guarantee civilian control over military and security forces (Kotsev 2007); conditions for NATO membership also ensured that civil-military relations would be established along criteria consistent with democracy in Bulgaria and Romania (Zulean 2004). European nations undertook other, less vigorous and successful, democracypromotion initiatives. An example was the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, originally known as the Barcelona Process, which was launched in 1995 to promote prosperity and democracy, as well as security and stability, in the Mediterranean region. This included association agreements at the bilateral level, some foreign assistance, and, most notably, the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area. With a dozen regional members, some from volatile countries in the Middle East, the program is not considered a great success (Yacoubian 2004)—and few new democracies have emerged as a result. To a certain extent the economic incentives may have been insufficient, and no political conditionality was attached. More significant, much of the regional membership involved relatively stable authoritarian regimes with no particular desire to accommodate groups whose interests and values coincided with those the EU wished to advance.

Analogy and Its Limits International efforts to facilitate democratization after Communism’s collapse demonstrate that international initiatives can condition domestic values and interests, with beneficial effects on international attitudes. Still, the success stories described here represented challenges less substantial than those posed by the countries considered in this book. Like the earlier purpose behind the Marshall Plan and the Alliance for Progress, the third wave initiatives that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse sought not so much to transform established political orders and deeply entrenched policies as to encourage domestic developments that already had some momentum

11. For a discussion of the Partnership for Peace program, see John Borawski (1995).

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in order to maintain an existing pattern of international allegiance. The goal of actual political transformation is more formidable: more has to be altered, while domestic resistance to change usually is much firmer. The difference becomes even starker when we consider the basis on which many renegade regimes establish their right to rule. I have written previously that most of the regimes that since the end of the cold war engaged in particularly objectionable conduct have claimed legitimacy on the basis of extreme ideational (ethnonationalist, religious, or ideological) missions whose “elevated” nature was believed to exempt them from normative expectations common to most other nations (Nincic 2005, chap. 4). At the same time, powerful domestic groups, such as economic rent seekers and military and security services, often develop vested interests in these policies, supporting the governments behind them. By implication, the domestic position of such regimes may imply behavior that most of the international community finds objectionable. This was not the situation encountered by third wave initiatives, directed, as they were, at countries that had pretty much forsaken ideology as a basis for regime legitimacy. (Hardly anyone seriously believed in the promise of communism any more.) If the primary goal is to alter external behavior via internal transformations, then both the challenge and the promise increase to the extent that the objectionable behavior is, as is often currently the case, domestically rooted. The task is more difficult, and the conditions for its success are more restrictive. Analogical limitations aside, conditions supporting political transformation can originate outside the nation, and, with regard to the regimes of greatest concern to the United States, we ask how these conditions might best be created. Our interest is in positive inducements, offered in the spirit of constructive engagement and designed to alter the domestic political-reward structure facing the regime. This is not to say that the regime’s total collapse would be unwelcome. With many current renegades, hopes have been expressed that a major convulsion might flow from a realization, within the nation, that the regime was a dismal failure whose removal was long overdue, and that its abrupt ouster would follow. Sometimes this happens, as evidenced by Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979, by the 1986 removal of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, by the 1991 overthrow of the Siad Barre regime in Somalia, and by the ouster of Milosevic in Yugoslavia in 2000, for example. Yet two observations must be offered. The first is that the implosion of one objectionable regime does not assure its replacement with a significantly better one. The second is that it is hard to find any instance of regime collapse induced by positive engagement from abroad. It has been suggested that, occasionally, inducements might act as “poison” carrots, promoting social forces that ultimately remove the old regime (Bracken 1993), and, while I will address this possibility, it does not rest on much past experience.

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Accordingly, our primary aim is to ask whether objectionable regimes can be successfully transformed, rather than abruptly destroyed, through constructive international efforts. Can one modify the rules of the domestic political game the regime must play, such that its incentives to behave improve? We continue to assume that the dominant incentive of any regime is to maintain or strengthen its grip on power. This requires tending to the interests and preferences of groups whose support is most consequential, and it means establishing a plausible, hopefully compelling, case with the country’s population for one’s right to rule. The key, then, to understanding objectionable regimes is to appreciate how their behavior is connected to expected consequences for their domestic position and how this connection can be affected from abroad, so that notions about where the greatest political returns are located can be revised. Because every political system is defined, in one famous political scientist’s words, as the business of determining “who gets what, when, [and] how,” (Lasswell 1936), it is most usefully viewed as a configuration of interests and values that are catered to in approximate proportion to a person’s or group’s power. The regime must manage this configuration in a manner that optimizes its own position, playing on and responding to shifting interests, values, and power within the body politic, so as to assure necessary support from those who, at any given juncture, matter most. The aim, from the U.S. point of view, is to create positive engagement via inducements that bolster the power of domestic clusters of values and interests that are inclined to urge improved regime behavior. The more that political leadership depends on the support of such groups, the greater their leverage over the regime and the better the prospects for desired policy transformations. Let us consider the possibilities with regard to interests, values, and power. I N T ERES TS

Interests, especially of an economic sort, are formed around available paths to gain: to stimulate new centers of interest, new paths to gain must be found. We have seen how international sanctions and isolation can benefit rent seekers determined to perpetuate the state of affairs on which their weal depends. By implication, bolstering those whose interests prosper from normal commercial activity means encouraging a free flow of goods and capital, both within the country and between it and foreign economies. Since politically unfettered access to transnational economic opportunities benefits those who have the inclination and ability to act on them, interests associated with market-driven gains are likely to press for governmental policies conducive to such openings. The goal, from the international community’s perspective, is to bolster these interests by encouraging such expectations. As access and opportunities are provided, groups that

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have pressed for them may become voices the regime cannot afford to ignore. A mutually reinforcing cycle linking interests and policies may occur with access to foreign markets and capital continuing to expand and further strengthening the position of those credited with improving economic conditions for the nation as a whole. In an illuminating body of work dealing mainly with the challenges of nuclear nonproliferation efforts, Etel Solingen has argued that a key to understanding the course of nuclear policy is to grasp its effect on domestic groups and their institutional payoffs and trajectories. She points out that domestic political coalitions pursuing economic liberalization seem more likely to embrace cooperative nuclear arrangements than their inward-looking, nationalist, and fundamentalist counterparts. . . . “Liberalizing” coalitions rely heavily on the global economy and on the political support of major powers within institutions involved in managing international economic relations. Such reliance makes these coalitions more receptive to security arrangements that can strengthen external economic ties as well as their own domestic position. (Solingen 1995, 210) Inducements can affect the other side’s political resocialization in yet another way. If concessions encourage domestic liberalization, nudging the regime to seek support among liberalizing elites, the economic transition also often entails problems and dislocations. For example, a decrease in politically motivated subsidies might sharply increase the cost of living, while a rise in unemployment is the frequent consequence of transitions to open markets. Economic and other assistance could help cushion the hardships, checking political resistance to the regime’s new course and making it less likely that it would backslide. Examples of these political realities are apparent across a broad spectrum of regimes. It could be argued that Egypt’s move away from the Soviet Union and toward the political West, its decision not to pursue acquisition of nuclear weapons (although one might have expected it to), and its peace agreement with Israel had roots in this sort of situation. One of President Anwar Sadat’s early efforts involved reducing the power of statist forces (mainly the military and publicsector bureaucracies) ascendant under Nasser that were stifling the economy. Toward this end, he launched the policy of infitah (Arabic for “open door”) in 1974 to promote private (including foreign) investment and market-oriented reform. Part of the purpose was to consolidate support for the regime among the country’s landed gentry, business groups, and also recently enriched state elites seeking new sources of capital and outlets for their wealth in liberalized economic conditions. The infitah reforms stimulated “a bourgeoisie thriving on international connections and tertiary activities” (Hinnebusch 1993, 160). This

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was associated with a restoration of diplomatic relations with the United States that had occurred in the previous year and the launching, in 1975, of U.S. foreign aid programs. Egypt has since become the second leading recipient of U.S. economic assistance (after Israel); it also is an active participant in the EuroMediterranean Partnership. The situation appears to be that “these increasing links to, and dependence on, foreign sources of national income mean that Egypt’s freedom of choice has been restrained by norms and rules dictated by the international system and the United States” (Gawdat 2007, 27). Not only do international economic opportunities create corresponding interests, but links to the international system may also tie the hands of domestic actors who would oppose reform, through the obligations and rules they create, thus ensuring perpetuation of liberalizing policies. In this way, for example, pro– free trade forces in a country may benefit from the “hand tying” attendant on membership in such organizations as the World Trade Organization (Goldstein 1998). Economic interests are not the only ones that must be considered if support for government policies consistent with broader norms of acceptable behavior is to be encouraged. The needs and concerns of the various elements of the state apparatus—military and security forces, in particular—must be addressed. Even if they themselves cannot ensure the regime’s domestic position, their resistance can doom fundamental change. Again, foreign initiatives are able to make a difference. The Egyptian military’s access to arms and supplies superior to those previously furnished by the Soviet Union probably solidified its support of economic reform. At another level, international organizations wishing to curtail military resistance to political change can, as NATO has demonstrated with regard to several eastern and central European nations, accomplish two things. They can address whatever external security fears continue to disturb these groups by providing suitable guarantees against foreign aggression, and they can see to it that the military, as the link to the international organization, continues to enjoy a position of sufficient standing (if little political power) within the country (Pevehouse 2002, 527–28). In this regard, too, the Partnership for Peace program has done a good job. N O RMS A N D VA LU E S

Values, here, are principled beliefs that serve as a guide to behavior and a measure, beyond pure self-interest, against which to weigh the merit of actions. Once values acquire a consistent following, they become social norms that constrain and channel policies. At the same time, values are not necessarily independent of interests; the nature of the relation between them has long been debated by social scientists, the traditional position assigning causal priority to interests. The cur-

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rent inclination, however, is to accord norms an important, and at times quasiindependent, causal role. While a traditional Marxist, operating in a historicalmaterialist framework, might maintain that dominant societal values merely rationalize prevalent economic interests, and though a diehard realist might claim that value-based norms should be “viewed as by-products, if not epiphenomenal adjuncts to, the relations of force and the relations of production” (Ruggie 1998, 105), the sentiment among some of the best current political scientists is that the discipline has suffered the consequences of neglecting the role of ideas and norms (e.g., Goldstein and Keohane 1993; Yee 1996). The emerging consensus, too, is that normative values often reflect interests—if they legitimize the pursuit of certain interests, or if certain interests and values are naturally associated (e.g., as in the frequent belief that free markets and democratic practices are mutually implied), or else because they partake of a shared social meaning (Wendt 2000, chap. 3). Because regime policies usually mirror normative assumptions held by important segments of society, any attempt to affect the substance of the policies benefits from an ability to influence those norms. Further, since interests and principled beliefs are mutually constitutive, attempts to shape interests will, at times, carry over into the realm of values, making the tools of economic-interest modification act also as instruments of normative influence. It may be that the policies that benefit the educated commercial middle classes, by improving the position of a predominantly liberalizing segment of the population, will also increase the authority of liberalizing political and social norms, constraining governmental policies accordingly. More specifically, constructive engagement that draws domestic political actors into international networks of shared normative meaning may, through a process of socialization, transmit the normative assumptions held by much of the international community into the various folds of the political system whose policies it seeks to moderate. Contemporary scholarship has sharpened our understanding of the social mechanisms that drive world politics, and we now know more than once we did about such issues as the socialization of states to human rights norms (e.g., Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999), as well as the role of international organizations in promoting domestic normative change (e.g., Finnemore and Sikkink 1998) and their impact on democracy promotion (e.g., Pevehouse 2002). There also is a foundation of empirical knowledge as to how specific political groups are socialized. To pursue, from another angle, an example we already have considered: the Partnership for Peace program was intended in large part to socialize the military elites of formerly Communist countries to norms of democratic governance, and especially of civilian supremacy over military leadership:

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“By interacting with military leaders of other states who subscribe to these types of doctrines, military elites in autocratic or recently autocratic states are more likely to internalize these doctrines, making them more likely to accept full democracy” (Pevehouse 2002, 528). At a more general level, the values a society or its components adopt determines how that society will conceive its identity. Identities, in turn, determine which interests should be sought, and they help define a desirable in-group counterpoised against a less well-regarded out-group (Risse and Sikkink 1999, 9). Because identities limit the range of permissible policies, they can influence a country’s international conduct. To the extent that an estimable in-group shares the values of a broader human community, these policies stand to be generally acceptable to other countries. By allowing significant domestic actors to associate with and absorb this broader identity, the desired policy objective is advanced. P OW ER

A social actor’s power, as political scientists usually define the term, refers to its ability to induce another actor to do something it otherwise would not do (e.g., Dahl 1963, 17). In our case, it is the adversary regime whose behavior we wish to change. Since an effective way of achieving this is through the domestic pressures the regime and its leaders encounter, it is useful to bolster the power of actors whose own interests and values require a change of governmental course. A measure of this power is provided by their ability to lead the government to abandon its objectionable policies in favor of policies that both these groups, and much of the international community, consider preferable. The question involves what that power depends on and how it may be buttressed by constructive engagement from abroad. The two issues are intertwined. The power of groups desiring a change of governmental course depends, most significantly, on how crucial they are to the functioning of their society. Thus, if overall national welfare is to be linked to interests seeking reconnection to international markets, then groups like the nation’s commercial bourgeoisie and technical intelligentsia become engines of the nation’s economic growth, fortifying their position within the country. Various feedback loops operate here, beginning with access to international economic opportunities: the greater this access, the better the chances for economic improvements. The greater the improvement, the more links between economic elites and various segments of civil society are apt to expand, along with the range of those whose welfare requires that these groups function effectively. The greater this range, the harder it is for government to ignore the interests of those who deliver prosperity and the more it finds itself bound to policies that such groups, in pursuit of their own interests, seek to

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impose. Their ability to influence policy is thus promoted by creating the conditions of their success.12 The power of those who would reorient their government’s conduct also depends on the extent to which their values come to permeate broader segments of society, making it harder for government to pursue contrary policies. These values must be expected to compete with those on which political authorities initially based their claims to legitimacy: values involving such things as extreme ethnonationalism, ideological extremism, or religious fundamentalism. For liberal values associated with tolerance, democracy, and international cooperation to prevail in this competition, various conditions must be satisfied. First, there should be sufficient overlap between those with whom one’s interests are domestically enmeshed and those whose values one considers adopting. To the extent that the two intersect, then action designed to create the required configuration of domestic interests should also produce a beneficial structure of domestic values. In addition, other nations should appear friendly and supportive rather than gratuitously threatening. If so, a system of values with which a large part of humanity identifies will do better in the domestic ideational competition. Under such circumstances, citizens may begin to judge their own government’s legitimacy by how other nations treat it, which depends, in turn, on its adherence to common rules and expectations (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 903). Domestic political power can be viewed from a related angle, that of the traditional sources of the regime’s support: the less valuable or available their backing, the greater the government’s need to turn to emerging social forces, improving the latter’s ability to shape governmental policy. To an extent, conditions that make the assistance of liberalizing elites increasingly valuable to the regime also imply a declining need or ability to rely on traditional sources of support and legitimacy. For example, while history demonstrates that the mobilizing potential of ideological, ethnonationalist, or religious goals can be powerful in the short term, it also teaches that mass fervor is exhausted in the medium to long run, to be replaced with more mundane material and practical concerns. Although zeal can be reignited (at least temporarily) if dominant values appear threatened by hostile foreigners, the tendency is for ideational passion to wane with time. When this occurs, a new basis of political support must be found. It is not just a matter of a declining need to rely on the old sources, it also is a matter of the latter’s continued willingness to support the regime. Rent-seeking elites tend to back policies that ensure continued national isolation because they

12. In an article relevant to our current concerns, Rippsman and Levy (2008) have argued that business interests in Britain and Germany had desired to avoid a war between their two countries; however, they lacked the political clout needed to make the difference.

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benefit from this state of affairs. If foreign openings create new avenues for market-based gain, their privileged economic position slips away. Any development that decreases the country’s isolation also reduces their stake in the government’s survival, leading political authorities to seek new supporters and shifting power toward the newer elites. To some extent, then, the domestic balance of power can be affected from abroad.

The Continued Relevance of an Unstable Equilibrium Although constructive engagement can, in theory, reshape its target’s policies, the move from theory to practice may never occur. Two categories of conditions matter here: (1) the willingness of the United States to initiate the use of positive incentives, and (2) the receptivity to such incentives on the part of the target regime. The previous chapter outlined the circumstances under which the U.S. bias against positive engagement with adversaries could be neutralized. We saw that, at times, even strongly path-dependent policies can be reversed, as when their sustained failure ultimately undermines the rationale for their continued use, despite a lingering impact of the legitimation argument and power-related pressures. It also is possible that an intersecting path, in the form of a sequence exogenous to the logic that had produced the path-dependent policy tilt, could nullify that logic and end the bias. Where long-standing policies are not driven by path dependence, resulting instead from recurring independent decisions, the reasons behind the series may be exogenously undermined and policies can change. Even if a policy based on carrots rather than sticks becomes the chosen strategy, latent receptivity on the other side is required for their success. Constructive diplomatic gestures must be accepted: an offer to resume trade is fruitless unless the willingness to do so is mutual; even foreign aid presupposes that the intended benefactor would welcome the assistance, but this is not invariably so. Even assuming the target’s receptivity, inducements must be capable of activating a catalytic process. The position of liberalizing forces within the country cannot be strengthened unless some political space for their development has been created. Appropriate political conditions are required, and it is significant, from the point of view of positive incentives and constructive engagement, that the same preliminary condition is needed both for the effective use of quid pro quos and for the successful initiation of the catalytic enterprise, namely, evidence that the regime is experiencing an unstable political equilibrium. As with the exchange model, power holders who face no meaningful domestic challenges cannot be expected to exhibit the required attitudes. They have little reason to want altered relations with external adversaries: hostile foreigners do not threaten their position; the very opposite may be true. Trade aid, diplomatic

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gestures, and such have limited utility to a wholly secure regime. Benefiting from stable and sufficient support, it has no incentives to grant maneuvering room to elements of civil society whose policy preferences diverge from its own and those of its stalwart supporters. But the regime may display the needed receptivity if the political equilibrium that governs its existence becomes unstable, particularly as the disequilibrium moves from the latent to the manifest stage. When fissures spread within the political edifice, when traditional supporters can no longer be placated, when rumblings are heard from groups and organizations until then quiescent, when rifts appear within ruling cliques, then a new approach to fortifying the regime’s position becomes necessary. Not only is it more likely that the favors offered by foreign powers will be desired, but, as new sources of support must be developed, the likelihood that there would be a controlled opening of the political space they require increases (Przeworski 1991, 57). Under the circumstances, the outlook for successful inducements, with both the exchange model and the catalytic mode, improve with an unstable political equilibrium. In the former case, latent disequilibrium should suffice; in the latter case, a manifest form may be necessary. Where engagement as a path to catalytic change is concerned, it is possible that inducements offered to the country by the regime could also, or instead, take the form of direct engagement with civil society (e.g., tourism, scholarly contacts, and so forth), producing some of the desired domestic political effects. Wherever possible, this certainly should be considered: the problem is that, in the case of authoritarian (e.g., Iran) and totalitarian (e.g., North Korea) regimes, direct access to the civil society may be very difficult or virtually impossible to obtain. As pointed out, when quid pro quos are the goal, conditions of success depend not only on the domestic political situation of the target regime but, just as much, on the ability of the nation offering the inducements to make them substantial and credible enough to offset the costs to the target of responding adequately. When a fundamental transformation of regime policies and priorities is the purpose, credibility is less of an issue (the catalytic inducement either operates or it does not), but sufficiency is crucial. Both the magnitude of the concession and its relevance to the transformation one seeks to produce must be assured, for the interests and values one seeks to galvanize must desire the benefits implied by the inducement.

Exchange and Catalysis, Carrots and Sticks: Points of Intersection Although success in both exchange and catalytic models depends on propitious conditions within the target, their policy purpose is different—finite concessions

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versus political transformation—and it is interesting to inquire to what extent the two purposes could be pursued in tandem. There is, in principle, no reason why they should not be compatible to the extent that an incentive offered to an adversary as part of a quid pro quo could help catalyze domestic political transformation. Thus, a trade concession offered in exchange for a specific security concession that also galvanizes local commercial interests could, as a secondary consequence, promote a structure of domestic preferences within the other side’s political system that eventually takes care of the security problem. At the same time, there is a limit to the pursuit of such dual purpose. Incentives offered as part of a specific exchange package normally involve an expectation of short-term reciprocation, and, because that may or may not be forthcoming, inducements offered within the logic of the exchange model might be withheld within the terms of the catalytic model, one purpose precluding the other. It is, at the same time, apparent that political and cultural pressures will always militate against an exclusive reliance on positive incentives when dealing with unsavory adversaries. It is far more likely that, if such incentives are used, they will complement rather than supplement the punitive measures usually employed. It is then worth asking whether positive and negative pressures might successfully work in tandem in the context of the exchange model. The answer might be affirmative if the regime’s utility schedule remained invariant. But we know that the utilities (interests and preferences) that initially conditioned the misbehavior can be affected by foreign responses. Much as punishments may be viewed as a cost, they may also, as a result of the impact they have on domestic politics, become a political boon to the regime. Unless the carrots are substantial indeed, which, for reasons we have examined, they rarely are, the net incentive to persist in the objectionable behavior may be strengthened as a result of the hybrid U.S. policy. From the catalytic perspective, however, it is conceivable that negative and positive sanctions could be used symbiotically, in the hope that the former might encourage the domestic dissatisfaction and instability that, subsequently, makes the latter more effective. The prospect is interesting inasmuch as negative pressures may, counterproductively, strengthen the regime’s position only in the short to medium term. In the longer term, sustained material deprivation and international ostracism can have an enervating effect, sapping the society of enthusiasm for its leaders and producing rifts within the leadership itself. But this line of reasoning can be taken just so far. The problem is that the ground lost during the phase when the state’s political authorities actually are bolstered may be ground lost during the precise phase when its consequences are gravest, when the regime is most dangerous.

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Further, and assuming that coercive pressures do produce the required unstable political equilibrium, a strategy based on negative sanctions might be hard to abandon. The natural argument within the nation conducting the punitive policies involves the wrong-headedness of abandoning a course of action that has managed to shake up the objectionable regime. It is often claimed that it is much better to turn the screws even tighter, so as to expedite that regime’s demise. The problem is that one cannot extrapolate directly from the regime’s political difficulties to its implosion or radically transformed policy orientation. Apart from the fact that, as we have seen, many unpalatable regimes remain remarkably stable even in the face of sustained external pressure (e.g., Cuba and North Korea), those that sometimes experience domestic problems aggravated by external sanctions (e.g., Iran, Burma) often respond to their predicament with tightened political control and increased political repression, creating a relatively long-term situation of political stasis, where there is neither significant motion nor development and which perpetuates a state of affairs that might have been beneficially altered through a change of external attitudes. Policy-relevant scholarship should alert decision makers opting for the simultaneous use of sticks and carrots to the possible cross-purposes implied by this strategy. Finally, one must consider that positive inducements might attain an exchange goal but not a catalytic objective, or the other way around, with consequences for subsequent strategies. The proximate goal of policymakers is more likely to be exchange than catalysis, and their interest in incentives might not extend beyond the attainment of the immediate quid pro quo—decreasing the likelihood that a longer-term change in the other side’s priorities would be spurred. If the exchange objective is not realized through positive engagement, it is especially unlikely that continued positive engagement would enjoy domestic political support. Yet, in many ways, the two goals are logically independent; one could even argue that a failure to secure the desired counterconcession often makes it more important to try to influence the other side’s long-term priorities—as, for example, in the case of failed attempts to induce it to abandon a nuclear weapons acquisition program. *** I have outlined an analytic framework within which to cast an empirical analysis. The previous chapter indicated some of the obstacles, many domestic, to the use of positive inducements by the United States and the conditions under which those obstacles might be overcome. This chapter has offered concepts and hypotheses regarding the circumstances under which such incentives, if employed, might be successful. Putting the two categories of considerations together, and reducing continuous probabilities to dichotomous contingencies, four possibilities are indicated (table 3.1). First, it may be that domestic obstacles

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Table 3.1

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Positive Incentives and the Policy Possibilities DOMESTIC OBSTACLES TO U.S. EMPLOYMENT

POSITION OF TARGET REGIME

Stable equilibrium Unstable equilibrium

PRESENT

Policy paralysis Missed opportunity

OVERCOME

Frustration Success

from the sender’s perspective no longer exist, while, from the target’s, the political conditions for receptivity to inducements are met. These are the conditions associated with success (within either the exchange or the catalytic model). Second, it may also be that the necessary conditions from both perspectives are unmet, in which case inducements are neither attempted nor sought (whereas negative pressures may do little to advance policy goals), producing a situation of policy paralysis. However, third and fourth, the required conditions may be satisfied only from one of the two perspectives—the sender’s or the target’s. If the former, inducements may be attempted with no success ( frustration); if the latter, what might well work will not be tried (missed opportunity). Now that we have a broad theoretical framework within which to build our discussion of positive incentives, we turn to an analysis of the promise and pitfalls of relying on such strategies with regard to a number of regimes whose conduct has, from the U.S. perspective, been especially transgressive. While egregious misbehavior cannot be demonstrated to the same extent in all cases, each of the regimes involved has, in its own way, been branded a renegade by the United States. My goal here is to discuss the viability of positive engagement toward those whom successive presidential administrations have regarded as particular thorns in their sides.

4 FOUNDATIONS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE: LIBYA, CUBA, AND SYRIA

Having described the limitations of coercive pressures, and having distinguished the purposes positive inducements may serve, the constraints on their use, and the conditions on which their effectiveness hinges, we now confront theory with observed reality—to gauge the analytic utility of the proposed conceptual framework and the accuracy of the predictions that flow from its hypotheses. The method guiding the empirical work follows the nature of the task at hand. A large data-analytic exercise would not suit our purpose, since the relevant universe restricts the number of countries or regimes we wish to study. Our analytic framework may have a broader application, but the intent is not to understand the use to which positive inducements might be put in any international interaction. The purpose, here, is to understand how a nation such as the United States, with a very broad array of foreign policy tools and capabilities, can use inducements to alter the agendas of adversaries accused of flouting both U.S. interests and widely embraced norms of international behavior. While one could quibble at the margins on the set of nations meeting that description, five have been of particular recent concern to the United States—a number more suitable to the techniques of structured, focused comparison than large-n statistics. The former approach has the added advantage of giving context and meaning a bigger explanatory role than would otherwise be possible, of engaging in “thick” rather than “thin” description, and of drawing both general theoretical implications and the policy implications appropriate to individual cases. The primary criterion for case selection, then, is relevance to one’s research objective. Beyond that, choice of cases should not prejudge conclusions. Con91

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trary to some thinking, a small number of cases need not imply a significant likelihood that findings will be biased (Collier and Mahoney 1996), but it does call for significant variance in the values of the variables on which the analysis is based. There must be variance on the outcome variable (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, chap. 4): in this case, the behavior of the target regime. Such variation is present in each of our five cases. Variation in the predictor variables also is needed (George and Bennet 2004, 83–85), especially in the strategies employed to deal with these regimes and in the internal political conditions they encounter. This, too, is encountered in our cases. The method employed here is that which Alexander George has termed structured, focused comparison (George 1979). Structured in the sense that the comparison addresses a standard and theoretically derived set of variables that guide empirical analysis across the set of cases. Focused in that it is designed to answer a very limited number of questions—generally of a causal nature. Against this theoretical-methodological backdrop, within-case analyses focus on the processes and mechanisms that have accounted for the success and failure of positive engagement as opposed to coercive pressure. In turn, this requires attention to how policies and responses have unfolded within the context of the theoretical premises that have been advanced. As David Collier has observed, “within-case comparisons are critical to the viability of small-N analysis and have implied the need ‘to historicize the social sciences’ ” (Collier 1993, 8, 110). I begin in this chapter by focusing on the levers that the United States has deployed in its efforts to confront the objectionable behavior of the regimes of three countries—Cuba, Libya, and Syria. While their conduct has been disruptive and annoying, and while each has been thought by Washington to embody the qualities of a renegade regime, none has represented a major recent threat to the United States or the international community. In the next chapter, we will turn our gaze to two regimes that, by most standards, have represented, and continue to represent, a significant and possibly imminent danger to the United States and the international community: North Korea and Iran.

Sources of Success: Libya The Libyan case offers a stark example of successful recourse to inducements within an exchange that produced important benefits for the United States. It also furnishes some indications of how achievements based on pragmatic quid pro quos could be consolidated with that country’s improved integration in international commercial and other flows. I trace the relevant developments with reference to the analytic framework developed in the previous chapter. Qaddafi’s

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altered priorities were, as I will argue, largely the result of domestic problems creating an “intersecting path,” which, through the regime’s response, undermined the logic on which America’s Libya policy—which had also acquired a path-dependent character—was predicated.

Qaddafi’s About-Face In the years preceding the Qaddafi regime, Libya was considered a quiescent member of the international community, with little direct involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict and a conservative and generally pro-Western foreign policy. When Qaddafi grabbed the reins of government, the narrative that justified the new regime’s right to rule assumed two strands. The first was pan-Arabic nationalism, a cause that stirred the emotions of many Libyans, warming them to the new order. The second was a vision of popular democracy, in which citizens would rule themselves without intermediaries in a “state of the masses” (Jamahiriya). This yielded Qaddafi’s attempt at a comprehensive political doctrine, grandly titled the Third Universal Theory and enshrined in his Green Book (Qaddafi 1976). The foreign policy counterpart of domestic political radicalism was an ambitious attempt to project the leader’s vision beyond Libya’s borders, which came to involve terrorism and a quest for weapons of mass destruction. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Qaddafi emerged as one of the leaders most reviled by successive U.S. presidential administrations, and Libya was the object of measures ranging from economic sanctions to the 1986 bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi. Given Qaddafi’s record, many were surprised when he renounced his most egregious past policies, a reversal concretized in December 2003 with his declaration forswearing Libya’s nuclear program. Several years earlier he had repudiated terrorism, and a few weeks after the December declaration, Libya became party to the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s Additional Protocol, which permits intrusive inspections of nuclear facilities. The George W. Bush administration eagerly claimed credit for this development, attributing it to the salutary effect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq earlier in the year and to Qaddafi’s fear that he would be next unless he mended his ways. According to the president, “speaking clearly and sending messages that we mean what we say, we’ve affected the world in a positive way. Look at Libya. Libya was a threat. Libya is now peacefully dismantling its weapons programs” (New York Times 2004a). In William Safire’s view, “Colonel Qaddafi took one look at our army massing for the invasion of Iraq and decided to get out of the mass-destruction business” (Safire 2004a). Vice President Cheney exulted that “five days after we captured Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi came forward

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and announced that he was going to surrender all of his nuclear materials to the United States” (New York Times 2004b). These claims are unconvincing. Although Qaddafi’s conciliatory moves followed the invasion of Iraq, no causal connection is evident, since the Libyan leader’s metamorphosis preceded this event by several years, and his December 2003 announcement was the culmination of a long diplomatic process, involving a strong dose of positive inducements. Flynt Leverett, a senior Clinton State Department official, and Martin Indyk, assistant secretary of state at the time, separately described the sequence of events (Leverett 2004; Indyk 2004), explaining that, as early as 1999, Qaddafi’s representatives undertook secret discussions with U.S. and British diplomats on normalizing relations. From the outset, the Libyans agreed to put everything on the table: offering to surrender their WMD programs, expressing a readiness to cooperate in the campaign against al-Qaeda, and a willingness to end their support for “rejectionist” groups in the Middle East. The initial condition for reconciliation set by Britain and the United States was Libya’s assumption of responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and surrendering to international authorities the responsible parties. Tripoli’s compliance led, in 1999, to the suspension of UN sanctions against Libya; in 2003, they were officially lifted. Unilateral U.S. sanctions were maintained until 2005, pending both verified WMD disarmament and Libyan compensation of the Lockerbie victims’ families. Tripoli complied, and in 2006 diplomatic relations were restored. The process was driven by inducements offered in a quid pro quo. Negotiations reflected the exchange model’s assumptions, as political concessions by Libya were matched by political and economic counterconcessions on the part of the United States and the United Nations. Since the removal of sanctions was a major carrot, it could be argued that economic pressures were the ultimate cause of Libya’s about-face. The challenge, then, is to compare a plausible hypothetical scenario of what would have transpired in the absence of punitive sanctions to the trajectory actually experienced, which provides a basis on which to judge the value of the sanctions.

The Impact of Sanctions Tripoli’s stances on the Middle East and involvement with terrorism triggered an escalating series of punitive responses. In 1978 President Carter banned military equipment sales to Libya; a year later, the country was officially designated a state sponsor of terrorism, barring it from most U.S. economic assistance. In 1982 President Reagan embargoed crude oil imports from Libya and restricted sales

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of sophisticated oil and gas technology and equipment. To this were added, a few years later, a comprehensive trade embargo and freeze of Libyan government assets in U.S. banks. In 1996 the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act was passed, which discouraged foreign investment in the petroleum sector. By most standards, this battery of measures was ineffective. The bulk of Libya’s oil and oil-related exports, barred from the U.S. market, were redirected to Western Europe, with little loss of revenue. The 1986 freeze on Libya’s assets cannot have hurt the economy much, since less than 2 percent of its overseas liquid investments came under U.S. jurisdiction (Economist Intelligence Unit 1986, 13). The trade ban made it harder for Libya to upgrade oilfield technology, but the stagnation through much of the 1980s and the early to mid1990s had at least as much to do with low global prices for crude oil (figure 4.1). The country also suffered from the ravages of Qaddafi’s economic experiments, whereby the private sector was virtually dismantled with private ownership of commerce and the means of production replaced by public ownership and a public distribution system. These measures were designed, in principle, to end exploitation; their effect was to cripple productive activity. Even if it is believed that sanctions hurt the economy, the sanctions’ policy goals were elusive. Tripoli remained obstructive on Middle East peace, and its commitment to terror included attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports in 1985, the 1986 bombing of a Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. servicemen, and the 1988 attack on Pan Am Flight 103 (and a similar attack on the French UTA 772 airliner in 1989). The 1986 U.S. bombing raids on Libya in retaliation for the discotheque attack likewise had little immediate effect, since the Pan Am and UTA incidents occurred after and despite the military action. The regime continued to pursue its nuclear program. A light water research reactor and a nuclear power reactor were acquired from the Soviet Union in 1981; these were used to conduct research on uranium enrichment and plutonium separation, work concealed from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Qaddafi also sought (unsuccessfully) to acquire a larger Soviet 440 megawatt reactor (Bowen 2006, 32). If unilateral measures had little impact, UN-mandated sanctions had a stronger bite. In response to the Lockerbie bombing, the UN Security Council in 1992 decreed a total arms and air embargo on Libya, banned the sale of petroleum equipment to it, and froze its government assets abroad. Because they were comprehensive, these sanctions made it difficult for Libya to substitute one market for another; the embargo on petroleum-related equipment hobbled efforts to renew and modernize the increasingly decrepit technology on which national oil extraction relied. One could argue that the combination of UN and U.S. sanctions gave the international community the leverage that made the subsequent quid pro quos possible.

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It remains, then, to consider how the regime might have behaved had there been no unilateral or multilateral sanctions. The conclusion that Libyan depredations would have been even worse assumes that regime misconduct is propelled by fixed incentives to behave badly, which punitive counterincentives of sufficient magnitude can offset. The problem is that such incentives rarely are fixed but are shaped by the responses they evoke, so that, as a result, there may be less or more that ultimately must be offset, raising the possibility that punishments actually can be counterproductive. Sanctions may indeed have bolstered Qaddafi’s domestic position, the international response validating some claims of his legitimizing narrative. As Dirk Vanderwalle, a leading student of Libyan politics, observed, “within its ideological framework, the confrontation with the West became a self-fulfilling prophecy [the regime] eagerly embraced as a vindication of its own ideological stance. It became a rallying point around which the revolution could be deepened internally” (Vanderwalle 2006, 99). Still, regime inclinations eventually shifted, and we must ask what accounted for Libya’s decision to abandon internationally disruptive policies. A plausible answer is that this was dictated by the need for a new basis for the regime’s legitimacy.

Rising demand; Low spare capacity; Weak dollar; Geopolitical concerns

Nominal dollars per barrel

120

Nigerian cutoff

100

Hurricanes Dennis, Katrina, and Rita in Gulf of Mexico

80

Hurricane Ivan in Gulf of Mexico PdVSA worker’s strike in Venezuela and Iraq War worries

60 Iraq invades Kuwait

40

OPEC cuts quotas; Rising demand Inventory build

20 Saudi Arabia abandons swing producer role

Asian economic crisis

9/11 Attacks

0 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 Year Refiner Acquisition Cost of Imported Crude Oil (IRAC) FIGURE 4.1. Crude Oil Price History. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy

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Domestic Challenges and Revised External Priorities By the late 1980s, the regime’s ability to sustain its position on the basis of a rentier economy was compromised. Neither oil prices (figure 4.1) nor Libyan GNP recorded meaningful growth during this period, although the country’s population grew rapidly. In 1980, GDP per capita was 5,574 dinars; five years later it had fallen to 4,047 dinars; by 1995 it had declined to 2,553 dinars.1 As Luis Martinez has observed, “the political consequence of economic stagnation was that the revolutionary regime could no longer count on domestic political quietude purchased via the provision of basic welfare” (Martinez 2007, 97). While economic problems mounted, the two main strands of the regime’s legitimizing narrative—Arab nationalism and the Third Universal Theory—became increasingly threadbare. Venerating Egypt’s Nasser and eager to assume his mantle on behalf of the pan-Arabic cause, Qaddafi sought unification with several Arab nations, but none of his seven projects toward that end succeeded.2 At the same time, Libya’s unwillingness to join the 1973 war against Israel chilled relations with Egypt and Syria, while the Camp David Accords terminated cooperation with Cairo. By the 1980s, Arab nationalism was pretty much abandoned as a pillar of the legitimizing narrative. The narrative’s second strand was the political vision of direct democracy in a “state of the masses.” This implied direct and delegated citizen participation in the political process through the People’s Congresses and People’s Committees, and an equitable distribution of wealth. The Jamahiriya vision of equality and attenuated hierarchy, reflected a tribal ethos; in an ideal implementation, it may have been popular, but it was tarnished by a less-than-idyllic reality. While economic disparities were reduced, the private sector’s collapse undermined living standards and prospects for growth, leaving equality in poverty as a feeble foundation for regime legitimacy. Furthermore, the myth of direct democracy failed to carry conviction, as it was soon apparent that real power resided with Qaddafi and a narrow circle of his intimates—the Forum of Companions of Qaddafi (Vanderwalle 2006, 119). The Revolutionary Committees became the regime’s main arm; manned by young and motivated cadres, they functioned as a security apparatus and vehicle for local indoctrination and mobilization (Library of Congress 1989, chap. 4). To this power structure were

1. Data are from IMF/Econstats. See http//WWW.IMF/Econstats/Libya/IMF/World Economic Outlook. 2. These were the 1969 unification schemes with Egypt and Sudan, the 1971 project with Egypt and Syria, with Egypt again in 1972, with Algeria in 1973, with Chad in 1981, and with Morocco in 1984.

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added various layers of intelligence and security services.3 The chasm between Jamahiriya theory and observed practice is unlikely to have escaped the notice of many Libyans. Even these problems might have been manageable had the Islamic establishment stood behind the regime. It did not. The Green Book philosophy ¶ clashed with property rights and commerce, both endorsed by the Quran, and clerics were not impressed when Qaddafi responded that “The Green Book is the gospel. The new Gospel. The gospel of the new era, the era of the masses” (Fallaci 1979, 17). Relations with the Islamic establishment were further compromised by the Libyan leader’s rejection of the Hadith, the collected sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, considered by most Islamic scholars as a source, along with the ¶ Quran, of their religious belief. Most ominously from a clerical standpoint, Qaddafi declared that the relationship between God and man required no caste of priestly intermediaries (St. John 1983, 476). The reaction made itself felt by the 1980s (Joffe 1988). The Islamic Liberation Party and the Muslim Brotherhood emerged as committed sources of opposition. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which made its first appearance in 1995 (Martinez 2007, 61), declared Qaddafi un-Islamic and pledged to topple him. The organization is reputed to have attempted, on several occasions, to assassinate the Libyan leader (Naval Postgraduate School 2009) and to have planned the 2003 Casablanca suicide bombing, which killed at least forty-one people and injured one hundred (BBC World News 2003). It repeatedly clashed with Libyan security forces in the Benghazi region (Gambill 2005).

The Incentive to Change The regime’s domestic difficulties prompted tentative reforms in the late 1980s, including limits on the power of the unpopular Revolutionary Committees and steps toward economic liberalization. The ban on retail trade was rescinded; private shops and farmers markets reappeared (Vandewalle 2006). Professionals could now pursue their private practices; the state’s monopoly on imports and exports was lifted. A reduction in state-owned enterprises, and in the number of public employees, was proposed in 1990. New laws theoretically allowed jointstock and private companies. Had these reforms been fully implemented, significant interests associated with market activities might have emerged, rejecting political radicalism and

3. The Libyan army, never fully trusted by Qaddafi, is not usually regarded as a major pillar of his power structure.

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welcoming integration into the international economy. Pressures to abandon foreign adventurism might have been felt more than a decade before the regime’s final about-face. But the reforms languished, at least partly because of uncertainties and economic pressures implied by the 1992 multilateral sanctions. According to Martinez, the “process of economic liberalization came to a halt . . . with the United Nations Security Council’s decision to impose sanctions on Libya” (Martinez 2007, 17). Vandewalle, invoking one of Libya’s top policymakers, concludes that “reform of the economy was unlikely to take place under the difficult circumstances that resulted from the sanctions” (Vandewalle 2006, 166). If these assessments are correct, the process of liberalization, with its welcome foreign policy implications, was, in fact, retarded by the economic punishment. The regime’s difficulties were not alleviated during the 1990s. In addition to attempted military coups (Martinez 2007, 93–95), radical Islamists became more assertive, and there were reports of frequent clashes with regime security forces (Takeyh 2000, 127). Unemployment rates reached 30 percent, as the population’s average age dropped in 2004 to twenty-four (CIA 2009)—adding the problem of student unrest to the threat of Islamist and military discontent. (New York Times 2004c). As Solingen has explained, “the declining legitimacy of Qadhafi’s inwardlooking model revived domestic groups interested in ending international isolation” (2007, 222). Under these circumstances, a need to conciliate the international community probably was felt, and Libyan conduct was no longer as refractory as it had been. In 1999 Qaddafi denounced terrorism (BBC World News 1999), closing Libya’s terrorist training camps and expelling a number of suspected terrorists. Libyan obstructionism in the Middle East abated, as Qaddafi recognized the Palestinian Authority as the sole legitimate voice of the Palestinian people. But the regime’s record at the time was not unblemished, as this also was a period of accelerated nuclear programs and attempts to acquire associated material and technology from A. Q. Khan’s Pakistan-based network. From 1999 to 2002, Libya progressed down the gas-centrifuge path to enriched uranium (Bowen 2006, 39–41). Mixed messages went hand-in-hand with a likely realization that the regime’s domestic position was not as secure as once it was. With a restive army, an Islamist opposition, a faltering economy, and an ever-younger population, a new foundation of support was needed. By the mid-1990s, there were signs of a rift between pragmatic moderates, who urged economic reforms and foreign investment, and radicals with values steeped in the revolutionary decades (Takeyh 2001, 65–66). The former gained the ear of Qaddafi, who, in an early move to bolster domestic support, purged the Revolutionary Committees, increasingly despised by the Libyan public. There also were increasingly vigorous moves in the direction of economic reform, and a

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more pragmatic approach to both domestic and foreign policy became apparent. In 1999 secret negotiations with the United Kingdom and the United States were launched, followed, in 2000, by Qaddafi’s declaration that he had abandoned the anti-imperialist struggle in favor of more conventional priorities. “Now is the era of the economy, consumption, and investments,” he proclaimed. “This is what unites people irrespective of language, religion, and nationalities” (Takeyh 2001, 66). In Libya, as elsewhere, changing domestic circumstances implied the possibility of reformed external behavior, assuming appropriate incentives. Ultimately, a combination of domestic and international pressures must be considered when accounting for the Libyan volte-face (Braut-Hegghammer 2008); no monocausal explanation is satisfactory.

The Two Models and Libya’s Future The Libyan experience casts light on the exchange and the catalytic models. With regard to the former, it provides a lucid example of how inducements can work. Finite demands were made of the regime, both with regard to the Lockerbie affair and WMD programs. The concessions offered Libya were similarly specific and carried the promise of economic reengagement with traditional European trading partners and the United States. Some probing, especially on the Libyan part, was needed to clarify what sufficient concessions on its part would be, which would have been difficult absent negotiations. Discussing quid pro quos made it possible to ensure the credibility of commitments, especially once Libya agreed on intrusive WMD verifications measures, and once compensation was disbursed in the case of the Lockerbie settlement. Broader questions with less conclusive answers are involved where catalytic effects are concerned. There is no doubt that economic links with other countries and reforms to the Libyan economy were reciprocally strengthened. Following Qaddafi’s 2003 declaration, foreign trading partners and investors galvanized several sectors of the Libyan economy. Major investors included Italy, France, Britain, and the United States. The bulk of foreign investment has gone into the hydrocarbons sector, which continues to account for some 95 percent of the country’s export earnings and 60 percent of GDP (CIA 2008). Some investment, both foreign and domestic, has also bolstered the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, which is partly intended to develop tourism (Forbes 2008). This has been coupled with reforms designed to adapt the socialist economy to the new economic realities, including privatization (which, so far, has not affected the oil and natural gas sectors). The banking system has been reformed and state subsidies reduced. Libya has applied for World Trade Organization membership. The regime hopes that the new eco-

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nomic approach will ensure Libya’s future welfare; integration into the global economy is crucial to its plans. Plainly, economic reforms have political implications. As Qaddafi pointed out: “As long as money is administered by a government body, there would be theft and corruption . . . if we do not establish [capitalism], it would be dangerous and would leave things in the hands of the ruler” (Financial Times 2008). Still, political reform has lagged behind economic change. Despite talk of improving the penal code and abolishing the regime’s much-feared People’s Courts, the former has not been done and the latter have been replaced by the, similarly conceived, State Security Appeals Court (Abrahams 2008). Human rights have not appreciably improved, and there is no talk of replacing the existing structures of power with authentically democratic institutions. Although some within Libya, including Saif al-Islam, Qaddafi’s son, have urged a more authentic democracy, the current structure of political authority makes it unlikely that the country’s international posture will soon reflect the preferences of its most liberal segments. Rather, the hope is that this posture will be aligned with the economic interests of those empowered by the reforms and reflect the links forged with foreign economies. Despite efforts at diversification, oil and natural gas continue to dominate the economy. Here, Libya remains an attractive venue for foreign investment, because of its relatively low costs of oil production, its proximity to European markets, and its largely unexplored and underexploited petroleum resources. Oil output (in 2003 1.3 million barrels per day) increased to 1.8 million barrels per day in 2008, and is expected to reach 3 million barrels per day by 2013 (AME Info 2008). The appointment of former prime minister Shokri Ganem, an energetic reformer, to head the National Oil Corporation (NOC) indicated a desire to let nothing interfere with this goal. Another economic area that requires cordial relations with the rest of the world is tourism, which may emerge as a significant segment of the non-oil economy, with the vested interests this implies. Although no more than 130,000 tourists currently visit Libya each year, the hope is that, with proper infrastructural development and advertising, the figure might reach 10 million; considerable investment is being made toward that end (BBC World News 2005a; Bangs and Eltaye 2007). Almost all of the infrastructure projects are funded by way of the country’s substantial foreign assets, and some $66 billion have been allocated for infrastructure projects between 2010 and 2012 (Financial Times 2010). The concessions extracted from Libya have resulted from sufficient and credible quid pro quos, and discrete exchanges may be all that the short-term will offer. However, expanding and solidifying these gains in the longer term requires more fundamental regime transformation. The changing composition of the

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nation’s economy, with its implications for the character of emerging Libyan elites, creates avenues by which the desired changes could be encouraged from abroad, especially since evolving economic structures generally produce their appropriate political counterparts. The goal is to solidify, as much as possible, Libya’s links to the international economy and the position of those who are committed to those links. The positive inducements of recent years, and appropriate future initiatives in this direction, are the surest guarantee against political backsliding, particularly on the part of those within Libya who remain wedded to earlier priorities.

Limits of Learning: Cuba For almost half a century, Cuba has suffered punitive U.S. policies, and although the major rationale for such policies—its association with Soviet geopolitical goals—vanished along with the cold war, the policies have outlasted their rationale by two decades. The Cuban case illustrates the force of path-dependent developments, and it sheds valuable light on the impact of negative sanctions. Of the cases in this book, it is here that such pressures were applied most persistently and with the most consistent record of failure. It is a case in which U.S. strategy can less convincingly be accounted for by foreign policy objectives than by the grip that domestic politics exerts on the conduct of external affairs. It is also the only one of our five cases where the outlook for catalytic inducements precedes the outlook for significant quid pro quos. The Cuban case is also unusual in the extent of the relative invariance that has surrounded it. U.S. policy has had fewer meaningful shifts than in most of the other instances examined here, while Cuban behavior has not registered changes as apparent as those that could generally be found elsewhere. Where change has occurred, as when Havana abandoned its efforts at promoting revolutionary upheaval in Latin America, this probably had more to do with the cost and ineffectiveness of such attempts than with U.S. sanctions and threats. The overall political values espoused by the regime have not evolved much over the decades, whereas the most loudly touted U.S. goal—bringing democracy to Cuba—has not been advanced by coercive measures. A major condition determining the effectiveness of positive inducements—manifest domestic political disequilibrium—has not been evident since the 1959 revolution, although indications of latent equilibrium have at times surfaced. Occasional and modest shifts in circumstances that could affect Cuban behavior have, nevertheless, been recorded. The latter years of Henry Kissinger’s foreign policy and the early phases of the Carter administration saw a willingness to seek

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a modus vivendi with Havana, but at a time when, according to our assumptions, there was little reason to expect that such approaches would be well received by Castro (the outcome identified as frustration in chapter 3, table 3.1). By contrast, the regime’s economic difficulties in the early 1990s, and the attendant risks for regime legitimacy, could have led it to consider concessions in exchange for significant U.S. economic favors, but the U.S. response was to tighten, not loosen, coercive measures (the outcome identified as missed opportunities). The Cuban case thus sheds limited light on the promise of positive inducements, while providing ample lessons on the return that can be expected from consistently applied negative pressures.

The Punitive Pressures Phase Although Castro did not immediately embrace Communism or an alliance with Moscow, his domestic policies made Washington uneasy. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959, which nationalized all land and was followed by the expropriation of major U.S. agricultural and mining properties, excited Eisenhower administration forebodings. By March 1960, the president approved covert action and economic sabotage to deal with the threat (Welch 1985, 48–49). The signing of a Soviet-Cuban trade agreement in February 1960 further stoked U.S. fears. By mid-October a second nationalization law effectively ended private (domestic and foreign) commercial ownership; the United States responded with its first ban on all U.S. exports to Cuba excepting food, medicine, and medical equipment (Morales and Prevost 2008, 48); two months later, it cancelled the Cuban sugar quota.4 Diplomatic relations were severed in 1961, along with an expanded trade embargo: eventually, even shipments of food and medicine to Cuba were stopped. On January 31, 1961, under U.S. pressure, the Organization of American States (OAS) expelled Cuba from its ranks, while legislation was passed banning U.S. aid to any country that offered assistance to the Castro regime. Economic sanctions were not the only form of pressure. The Bay of Pigs invasion involved 1,300 Cuban mercenaries, trained, equipped, and transported to Cuba by the Central Intelligence Agency with the task of toppling the regime. After three days of clashes with Cuban forces, the invaders were soundly defeated,5 embarrassing President Kennedy and driving Cuba yet deeper into the Soviet

4. The quota was an agreement, dating from 1934, that granted Cuba a fixed percentage of the U.S. sugar market. 5. For discussions of the invasion, see Jones (2008) and Lynch (1998).

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embrace. Operation Mongoose was launched in November 1961 to coordinate a plethora of covert U.S. activities against the Cuban regime, including several attempts to assassinate Castro (Bohning 2005, chap. 6). The Kennedy-era measures had a clear purpose: to overthrow the Castro regime. “The primary and long-term goal of the embargo has been the ouster of Cuban President Fidel Castro,” observed Donna Rich Kaplowitz (1998, 3). Many within the administration considered this well within the U.S. grasp (Brenner 1988, 13–14). Given Cuba’s economic dependence on the United States prior to the revolution, considerable political damage to Castro was expected to follow the economic difficulties suffered by the Cuban people, especially when coupled with covert pressure. A second important goal was to reduce Cuban ability to make trouble abroad through the deterrent effect of the punitive measures and by making it materially harder for Castro to export his revolution. The former objective depended on creating conditions within Cuba that would turn the Cuban people against Castro. This goal was not achieved. As a subsequently declassified CIA report of 1966 admitted: “The chances for a radical change in leadership in Cuba are remote. . . . Barring Castro’s death or disability, the present regime will maintain an unassailable hold on Cuba indefinitely” (CIA 1966, 16). Nor did the Kennedy-era measures stop Castro from attempting to export revolution. Socialist internationalism was deemed integral to the regime’s revolutionary legacy, with foreign interventionism, in the spirit of activities spearheaded by Che Guevara, the core of its self-designated international mission. The 1960s were a period of active Cuban internationalism, and U.S. pressures did less to alter the regime’s international ambitions than to strengthen its domestic position. A generally acknowledged consequence of U.S. hostility was a “rally round the flag” effect to Castro’s political benefit. Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations concludes that, at the time, U.S. military and covert pressures “did far more to bolster the revolution’s popular status than to sow domestic discord and doubt about its viability” (Sweig 2009, 87). It has similarly been observed that “Cuban efforts to rally public opinion behind its anti-embargo have been a consistent and successful aspect of Cuban domestic policy” (Kaplowitz 1998, 49). Few scholars of Washington’s Cuba policy disagree.

A Tentative Shift U.S. coercive policy during this first wave had failed, but it was not yet firmly set in a path-dependent logic, and the pragmatic spirit of détente in the early-1970s encouraged a revised approach. A 1973 agreement between the United States and Cuba addressed the issue of airline hijacking, and the following year Secretary of State Henry Kissinger held secret talks with Fidel Castro with the objective

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of improving bilateral relations (Smith 1987, 93). In July 1975 the United States supported an OAS resolution allowing individual members to decide whether to reestablish relations with Havana; minor adjustments to the sanctions regime were introduced. These steps could have presaged a more substantial sequence of concessions and counterconcessions, but Cuban activity in Africa blocked further progress. Several groups vied for preeminence in the Angolan struggle for independence. Initially, the United States favored the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA). South Africa and China (and eventually the United States) backed the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), while the USSR and Cuba supported the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). When the FNLA launched its forces against the MPLA, Cuba dispatched 230 military advisers to the latter’s aid, a contingent soon augmented to defend the capital, Luanda, from South African forces. Ultimately, the MPLA gained control of most of the country, and the Nixon administration demurred from further cooperative gestures toward Cuba. Despite Cuba’s involvement in Angola, the Carter administration was willing to consider conciliatory steps. A group of influential congressional leaders visited Havana and observed that the embargo had “long outlived its usefulness as a weapon against the Cuban government” (U.S. Congress 1977). Modest gestures followed. Restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, and on remittances by Cuban Americans, were eased. In 1978 an agreement on maritime boundaries and fishing rights was signed (New York Times 1978). While full diplomatic relations were not restored, the two countries opened “interest sections” in the Czechoslovakian embassy in Washington and the Swiss embassy in Havana, respectively, as a foundation for future communication. A turning point could have been reached, but Havana’s response precluded further progress. The presence of Cuban troops in Africa rankled, especially as their numbers increased during the Carter years. Not only had the military presence in Angola expanded, but it had extended to Ethiopia. Washington also accused Havana of supporting proindependence forces that had invaded Zaire’s Shaba Province (which would have torn Zaire apart). National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski declared that, because of Cuban interventionism in Africa, normalization of relations had become “impossible” (New York Times 1977a). Why did Castro not respond more positively to the U.S. overtures? Probably because their importance to the regime never came close to matching the ideologically legitimizing benefit of promoting revolutionary values abroad, while many of the regime’s natural opponents had fled to the United States. In any case, new trading partners soon were found, and commerce with the Communist bloc expanded. The Soviet Union and its allies absorbed much of the sugar

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barred from the U.S. market, and in 1972 Cuba joined the Soviet-led Council on Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) (Hamilton 1989, 47–51). Moscow became an important source of economic subsidies to the island. Cuban absorption into the Soviet bloc was, thus, a consequence of U.S. coercive pressures. In any case, by the 1970s, a number of Latin American countries, notably Chile (under Allende), Argentina, and Peru had established diplomatic and economic contacts with Havana, while Mexico had never participated in the multilateral embargo. Canada, too, was quite willing to trade with Cuba. Independently of its international economic position, the regime seemed to enjoy the support of most of its citizens (Dominguez 1978, 218–21). Partly, this stemmed from a rally effect attending U.S. hostility, partly it was because the welfare of most poor Cubans compared favorably with that of impoverished Latin Americans elsewhere. The regime may also have calculated that its revolutionary legitimacy would have suffered more from caving in to Washington’s preferences than from the loss of whatever marginal economic benefits normalized relations would ensure.6 Under the circumstances, restraint would have required far more than token U.S. concessions, and Castro declared that the economic embargo had to be lifted completely before serious negotiations could be undertaken with the United States, while Cuba’s role in Angola was not negotiable (New York Times 1977b). Thus, the only juncture at which U.S. policymakers showed an inclination to mend fences with Castro produced few tangible results. In any event, the election of Ronald Reagan to the U.S. presidency, who during his campaign had urged a much tougher line on Cuba, ended the brief promise of a relaxation of Washington’s Cuba policy.

The Second Wave of Coercive Measures While subversive pressures against Cuba were restrained by Congressional legislation in the 1970s, anti-Castro campaigns on a diplomatic and economic plane intensified under President Reagan. At the same time, according to the assumptions developed in this book, this was a period when, unlike the previous period, some progress could have been achieved with positive inducements. Declining global sugar prices made the 1980s a difficult decade for Cuba and might have increased Havana’s receptivity to quid pro quos. In 1982, in a preliminary open-

6. According to one observer, “Cuba’s international exploits helped tie a new national identity at home to a noble social project abroad; international missions became a huge part of revolutionary Cuba’s national consciousness and garnered for the island tremendous support in far-off corners of the world” (Sweig 2009, 106).

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ing to the capitalist world that reflected its economic problems, a new investment law was adopted that allowed foreign companies a 49 percent share in ventures with Cuban partners (New York Times 1982a). But Reagan was implacable, blaming Cuba for much of the revolutionary activity in Central America, El Salvador in particular. The travel ban, lifted by the Carter administration was reinstated and harsher controls on third parties trading with Cuba instituted (Dominguez and Prevost 2008, chap. 4). In 1983 Radio Martí was established as a tool of psychological warfare. Although generally considered politically ineffective, it made resumption of dialogue very difficult. On the whole, the Reagan measures achieved little. They did not advance democratic reform, and although Castro’s foreign interventionism was checked by economic problems, the latter had far more to do with the country’s foreign exchange shortages caused by sharp declines in global prices for sugar (Cuba’s principal source of hard currency) than with Reagan-era policies (Kaplowitz 1998, 135). The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war geopolitical struggle minimized the national security implications of a Communist regime at America’s doorstep, and it may have been thought of as a critical juncture for U.S. policy. The Soviet Union’s demise ended its economic subsidies to Cuba, and the country entered a difficult period. Between 1989 and 1992, its trade with former Comecon partners declined by two-thirds, whereas it had relied on them for four-fifths of its imports (Kaplowitz 1998, 145). In 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev ended the $4–5 billion annual subsidy to the Cuban economy, along with the Soviet military presence on the island. Between 1990 and 1993, the economy contracted by at least 33 percent (Sweig 2009, 127), as the country entered what came to be called by the Cuban government the “Special Period.” Social services were curtailed, food rations were cut, and electricity was only sporadically available. Gasoline vanished. As dismal economic conditions threatened the regime’s legitimacy, Castro might have welcomed U.S. concessions that addressed his domestic problems. From Washington’s point of view, however, the regime’s difficulties were seen as a prelude to its total collapse, if only it could be squeezed even more. That this expectation was not borne out, despite Cuba’s dire economic predicament, says much about the ineffectiveness of sanctions—especially since the regime could not plausibly have blamed its problems on a foreign enemy! Although George H. W. Bush found it hard to reverse the stance he had endorsed as vice president, it is less clear why President Clinton did not change the course of America’s Cuba policy at this juncture. The reason was rooted in electoral calculation. Vigorously courting the Cuban vote, he urged a hard line on Castro during the 1992 campaign, making it difficult, though not impossible, to change U.S. policy during his years in office. The payoff of such a change may not have been seen as offsetting the costs of angering anti-Castro

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voters, especially as Cuba policy progressively slipped out of presidential and into congressional hands (Vanderbush and Haney 1999). One manifestation was the passage in 1992 of the Cuba Democracy Act (also known as the Torricelli act, after its principal congressional sponsor). The law reimposed the ban (lifted in 1975 by President Carter) on trade with Cuba by foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies. Such trade had expanded since 1975, and the bill was intended to clamp shut one of the regime’s economic safety valves. It further prohibited foreign ships that traded with Cuba from docking at U.S. ports (U.S. Department of State 1992). The expressed aim was to bring down the Castro regime, something that Congressman Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) confidently claimed would be achieved “in a matter of weeks” (Sweig 2009, 164). Not surprisingly, the added pressure did little good. Cuba dealt with its difficulties with a series of modest reforms. On the political side, the constitution as amended in 1992 guaranteed freedom of religion, removing a source of political alienation in a heavily Catholic country, and modest steps were taken toward decentralizing political authority. The number of political prisoners declined during this period.7 Multiple candidates were allowed to run in elections (as long as they were members of the Communist Party). On the economic side, in addition to seeking expanded trade and investment with non-Comecon countries (Spain and China, in particular), the command economy was relaxed by reforms in 1993 and 1994 (Betancourt 1999). Private dollar holdings were legalized and the national currency made convertible. State farms became workerrun cooperatives, with farmers owning their own crops and bank accounts. Farmers markets were introduced, where surplus agricultural produce could be sold at market prices. A very limited private sector was created in the form of small home-based restaurants, bed-and-breakfast establishments, repair services, taxi services, and similar activities. The constitution now encouraged joint ventures with foreign companies (the state retaining a majority share of any joint venture), a policy strengthened by a 1995 law on foreign investment. Although isolated signs of political unrest appeared during the Special Period,8 and while it seems that economic hardship caused some public disillusion with the regime, many Cubans probably blamed their problems on the United States. Still, very little space was opened for political debate, and, a declining number of political prisoners notwithstanding, the human rights situation remained deplorable.

7. For a discussion of Cuban treatment of political prisoners during the 1990s, see Human Rights Watch (1999). 8. In 1994 there were reports of riots in Havana (Independent 1994).

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By the mid-1990s, the Cuban economy was on its feet again, as new sources of trade and investment were found and as the tourist industry gained momentum. The opportunities that the withdrawal of Soviet support had offered for effective U.S. engagement with Havana were fading. At this juncture, with no clear rationale in terms of policy expectations, the Helms-Burton act of 1996 (passed, like the Torricelli Act, in an election year, and prompted by the shooting down by Cuban MIGs of two planes operated by the anti-Castro organization, Brothers to the Rescue)9 sought to deter other countries from investing in Cuba and further decreased the president’s discretionary ability to calibrate sanctions to movements in Cuban behavior. It also legislated a completely improbable set of conditions under which sanctions could be lifted: Fidel and Raul Castro would have to leave office, a free press and unions would have to be ensured, Cuba’s government would have to be restructured, and free elections would be required. Such measures advanced no geopolitical purpose and carried no serious expectation of toppling the regime: the only plausible target was the American electorate.

The Turning Point The original purpose of U.S. punitive policies toward Cuba vanished with the end of the cold war, but they continued to be propelled by considerable path dependence, and a revised rationale was sought for sticking with them. Attempts were made to link Cuba to terrorism,10 the basis being the presence on Cuban soil of members of the Basque separatist organization ETA, Puerto Rican separatists, and U.S. Black Panthers. But this was not a strong indication of Havana’s support of terror anymore than the presence of Nazi refugees in Brazil and Argentina has indicated current support for Nazism. In any case, after the 9/11 attacks, Cuba adhered to all twelve United Nations resolutions against terrorism. While preparing for the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration also suggested that the Castro regime might be developing a biological weapons capability (New York Times 2002a), a charge that was soon proven mistaken (New York Times 2002b). By the turn of the millennium, it had become apparent that America’s Cuba policy was driven primarily by a combination of domestic political calculus and a general conviction that unsavory leaders should be treated harshly. As pointed out in chapter 2, a path-dependent process can be reproduced by a logic of legiti-

9. Brothers to the Rescue was a Miami-based anti-Castro organization formed by Cuban exiles in 1991; their planes made repeated incursions into Cuba airspace. On February 24, 1996, two of their planes were shot down by the Cuban air force. As these planes were unarmed, the incident was bitterly condemned in the United States, and the incident encouraged adoption of the Helms-Burton act. 10. Cuba has been on the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1982.

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mation, based partly on a retributive logic, and by one that stresses the “moral hazard” of failing to confront bad behavior. A domestic political calculus also can reproduce it. In the case of America’s Cuba policy, an intersecting process— the end of the cold war—challenged this path-dependent sequence of policies. Although the forces that sustained the process resisted this challenge, a conclusion steeped in the utilitarian logic of consequences and the cumulative evidence of policy failure could not indefinitely be dismissed. A 2009 staff report of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recognized that after 47 years . . . the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of “bringing democracy to the Cuban people,” while it may be used as a foil by the regime to demand further sacrifices from Cuba’s impoverished population . . . we must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests. (U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations 2009, v) Castro’s retirement from active leadership in 2006 and the 2008 U.S. election opened prospects for policy change. During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to reconsider the U.S. stance toward Havana, as did future secretary of state Hillary Clinton (BBC World News 2009b). In April 2009, Raul Castro expressed a willingness to discuss a broad range of issues with Washington (BBC World News 2009b). Although President Obama extended the sanctions for another year, he also took measures to end restrictions on the ability of CubanAmericans to visit and send money to family in Cuba (New York Times 2009a). In June 2009, the Organization of American States, with no U.S. opposition, ended Cuba’s suspension.

Positive Incentives and Transitional Politics Ultimately, the impact of positive incentives will depend on the evolution of Cuban politics. The biggest incentive the United States can offer is to dismantle its economic embargo. If legal obstacles to economic engagement were removed, meaningful commercial and investment links could be expected to follow the natural course of material interests. A number of state-to-state agreements, in areas such as migration and counternarcotics, could be expected. The prospect of the Castro regime being suddenly overthrown is remote. There is no organizational basis for an armed revolt, whereas the previously cited Senate staff report recognized that “the internal opposition does not appear sufficiently well developed to precipitate a negotiated transition, while external opposition efforts have been proven peripheral” (U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign

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Relation 2009, 2). A groundswell of popular opposition leading to the regime’s removal cannot realistically be expected, despite the country’s problems. There are obvious causes for dissatisfaction with the nation’s economic predicament, which, while an improvement over the Special Period, still leaves many Cubans both destitute and aware of how much better many other societies are doing. In addition, some resentment may flow from growing inequalities produced by the dollarized economy, as those associated with tourism or who receive remittances from relatives abroad enjoy a much higher standard of living than those who labor without these advantages. Growing inequalities overlap with an emerging racial divide (Gonzales and McCarthy 2004, chap. 4). Still, these problems alone are not likely to produce a popular revolt. The state’s coercive apparatus and penetration of Cuban society remains strong. Moreover, and unlike the case of the Soviet Union’s East European allies, there may be some lingering commitment to original revolutionary goals, while solidarity with the regime has benefited from decades of U.S. hostility. Also, there is less scope for incentives conditional on specific regime policies than for those that could catalyze domestic change. In a post–cold war era, no major foreign policy concessions from Havana are needed, and charges of sponsorship of terrorism and WMD programs have always lacked substance. This leaves issues of human rights and progressive democratization as objects of quid pro quos, but few expect that such conditionality would yield much: the regime has always rebuffed such possibilities, and, from its perspective, the value of U.S. economic concessions is unlikely to outweigh that of secure political control. The most likely scenario is one of progressive transition, led by segments of the ruling establishment in alliance with nascent technocratic and economic elites who could benefit from improved ties with the United States. Change is most likely to be driven by preferences from within the regime, whose main institutional pillars—the Communist Party and the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR)—are likely to remain in place, at least in the short to medium term. At the same time, the evolution of the Cuban economy, plus a relatively high level of education and skill within the population, imply that expanding segments of Cuban society may find their interests better served by integration into globalized networks of commercial activity than by outdated ideological shibboleths. Prospects for reform depend less on the outcome of a competition between these interests and those of the regime than on the opportunities for common cause between forces within the governing establishment and emerging economic interests. The growing diversification of the Cuban economy is the key to such possibilities. Once almost exclusively dependent on exports of sugar and nickel for

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hard currency, it has moved in directions consistent with a new pattern of international relations. Industry has become a larger part of the economy, including light industry and the petroleum refining and petrochemical sector. (Cuba now has four oil refineries.) In 2006 manufacturing accounted for 13.8 percent of GDP, agriculture and mining together only 5.6 percent (Economist Intelligence Unit 2007). Tourism has become a leading economic sector and source of convertible currencies. Some two million foreigners visit Cuba each year (Havana Journal 2006). Furthermore, Cuba is emerging as a significant presence in global biotechnology, as biotech has become the second-largest source of hard currency earnings, behind nickel but ahead of tourism (Economist, 2003). Focused around an area known as Havana’s Western Scientific Pole, the sector has over one hundred R & D facilities and pharmaceutical centers, and over 150 patents for new drugs and treatments, with major foreign investors, including GlaxoSmithKline (Inclan 2009). These economic sectors depend on a well-educated and potentially affluent segment of Cuban society, that is, people who, in most contexts, favor liberalizing reform. Further, the promise of beneficial engagement with domestically catalytic effects is encouraged by the interests of an important element of the regime also possibly being involved. During the Special Period, economic circumstances required reductions in the size of the FAR, as the Cuban military establishment lost much of its international role. New responsibilities were sought for it, and Raul Castro, as defense minister, began entrusting military officers with economic responsibilities. The model was China’s Peoples’ Liberation Army, which had successfully carved out an economic role for itself. Military officers turned businessmen played a pivotal role in China’s embrace of elements of a market economy, and “[China] is comparable to Cuba in terms of revolutionary experience and government and as a model of party/civil-military relations, economic reform . . . and institutional involvement in the civilian economy” (Mora 2002, 7). According to one estimate, the FAR may now be involved in more than 60 percent of the economy (Wall Street Journal 2006); it has a hand in the lucrative tourist industry, owning Gaviota SA, which, in turn, owns 20–25 percent of Cuba’s hotel rooms in partnership with foreign investors. It runs the Aerogaviota airline and controls TRD Caribe SA, a chain of four hundred retail stores that accept only foreign currencies. The FAR also has its hand in the citrus and tobacco industries (Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies 2006). The military-economic nexus provides a reason for thinking that interests directly connected to the regime and to dynamic segments of the Cuban economy might benefit from economic engagement with the United States. Not at the price of immediately abandoning the political system of which they are the product, but as being willing to make the required economic adjustments, along

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with the initially limited political changes, whose cumulative long-term implications are very desirable. This is not likely to result from explicit quid pro quos but from what the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has termed “sequenced engagement.” The idea is to make each U.S. step contingent on opportunities for catalysis, rather than on explicit counterconcessions. Engagement would encounter domestic political resistance within the United States, but less so than in the past. Most Americans realize that coercion has failed, and generational changes within the Cuban-American community have diminished the strident voice of those who fled Cuba. According to a poll conducted in April 2009 by Bendixen and Associates, 67 percent of Cuban Americans now support removing all restrictions on travel to Cuba (New York Times 2009b). Nationally, too, popular sentiment has swung in favor of reengagement. In a 2009 poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, 70 percent favored lifting the travel ban, 69 percent supported reestablishing diplomatic relations, while 71 percent agreed that increased trade and travel are more likely to lead Cuba toward openness and democracy than to strengthen the Communist regime (PIPA 2009). Even the conservative Weekly Standard has published an article arguing that “the U.S. government should be negotiating for incremental transition, because even the smallest reforms will fuel popular expectations for more change” (Loyola 2007, 5). At present, then, the situation promises successful engagement, including U.S. readiness to depart from a path-dependent policy rut and a situation of latent receptivity within Cuba, albeit one more favorable to catalysis than major and immediate quid pro quos.

Promise of Pragmatism: Syria The Syrian case, like the other two, illustrates the limited return generally yielded by punitive pressures, and it points to the prospects for positive engagement, assuming propitious political conditions within the target country. Since 1970, under the leadership of Hafiz al-Assad and, after his death, his son Bashar alAssad, the Syrian regime has been a source of domestic stability and a frequent thorn in the side of the United States and other nations in the Middle East. Independence for Syria (from France), achieved in 1946, ushered in decades of upheaval and instability, marked by frequent military coups and cabinet changes. (Between 1946 and 1956 there were twenty different cabinets and four different constitutions.) The Ottoman era and French mandate did not leave the country with a strong sense of Syrian identity, while the trauma of defeats

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in the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel and the loss of the Golan Heights, along with the collapse of its ill-fated union with Egypt, exacerbated national anxieties and resentments. Assad thus came to power in a context of sectarian and political division (Kessler 1987, chap. 2), and the regime dealt with the situation with an authoritarian institutional structure that sought to create a common Syrian ideational framework. Unlike many other Middle East regimes, Syria’s could not base its legitimizing narrative on claims of an Islamic mission. Although most Syrians are Muslims, 74 percent are Sunni, while the Assads themselves are Alawi (an offshoot of Shiism), which, together with the Druze, accounts for only 16 percent of the population (CIA 2009). Under the circumstances, Islam has not been declared the state religion, and regime legitimacy was sought in the Ba’ath ideology of Arabism and nominal socialism (Kessler 1987, 25, 26). While it is not clear how deeply socialism’s roots ever penetrated Syrian society, Arabism, with a strong anti-Israeli component, has been a theme around which the regime has mobilized support for its rule. The Ba’ath Party, vested with power by the constitution, holds a twothirds majority in the Syrian parliament, along with the several smaller parties that the regime has allowed making up the other third. The highly personal rule of the Assads has required the absence of opposition parties, direct control of the instruments of state coercion, and an unwillingness to be constrained by human rights considerations. At the top of the regime’s foreign policy goals are offsetting Israel’s power and securing the return of the Golan Heights (Hinnebusch 1991; International Crisis Group 2004). Syria’s entanglement in Lebanon had been directly linked to the need to counter Israeli military presence in southern Lebanon, and to controlling the Bekaa Valley to protect Syria’s western flank from an Israeli invasion; its backing of Hezbollah has also had the purpose of keeping Israel off balance. Support for Hamas is intended to deny Israel a secure position in the West Bank and Gaza. There seems little reason to doubt regime claims that its WMD program is meant to deter Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Since the return of the Golan Heights and the need to counter Israel’s military superiority rank near the top of Damascus’s priorities, the regime must estimate that the more power it acquires, the greater its leverage and chances of success (see, Perthers 2004, chap. 3). Syria has also had problems with neighbors other than Israel, which explains its quest for regional power. Turkey and Syria, which share a common border, have quarreled over Hatay Province (acquired by Turkey in 1938 but considered part of their national territory by most Syrians), over water, and over Syrian support for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). These differences are not presently at the forefront of bilateral relations, which recently have improved, but they may well lurk in the background. Relations with Iraq were tense during

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Saddam Hussein’s days; distrust between the two countries remains, and Iraq has accused Syria of facilitating subversion within its borders. Relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been strained over Syria’s regional ambitions, especially since the assassination of Lebanese former prime minister Rafic Hariri in 2005. Accordingly, problems with neighboring Muslim countries also account for the regime’s search for paths to international leverage and, in part, for its closeness with Iran.

The Record of U.S. Policies In Syria, as in most countries, the external goals of foreign policy are entangled with the imperative of strengthening the regime’s domestic position. Absent obvious economic or social accomplishments the need is especially pressing. External hostility and the struggle with Israel have provided justification for authoritarian rule and national unity. New foreign policy achievements would bolster regime legitimacy. The question is whether the actions of the United States could help determine which achievements the regime would consider best suited to this purpose. In the past, positive incentives have played but a modest role in Washington’s policy toward Syria, and very few of its policy objectives involving that country have been attained. For most of the past three decades, U.S. aims have had several intertwined strands. Encouraging a helpful Syrian stance toward Middle East peace has been inextricably connected to the goal of Lebanon’s sovereignty. A constructive role in the fight against terror has not been separable from problems with the regime’s links to Hezbollah and Hamas, nor to Syria’s WMD programs. U.S. goals have been complex and multidimensional, its policies torpid and one-dimensional; apart from the ambiguous Lebanese withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, they have not achieved their major aims. Nor has Syria effectively promoted its own interests. The Golan Heights, captured in the Six-Day War, remain in Israeli hands; the country has endured semi-isolation and the awkwardly defensive posture and uncomfortable alliances that have been the basis for its security. The Syrian case, like the other cases examined in this book, underscores the limited value of punitive pressures while providing insight into the circumstances in which engagement is a viable alternative.

The Two Phases Syria’s international relations fall into two phases: an initial period, beginning with the 1961 collapse of the nation’s brief union with Egypt and lasting until

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the early 1980s, and the subsequent period. The former was a time when Syria’s international significance stemmed mainly from its role in Arab-Israeli affairs, and it is in that light that Washington viewed it. Although diplomatic relations between the two countries were ruptured after the 1967 war, they were reestablished soon after the Yom Kippur War when Henry Kissinger, eager to draw Syria into the peace process (and concerned with keeping it outside the Soviet orbit), mediated the disengagement of Syrian and Israeli forces in 1974. Syria’s international role eventually became more complex, boding ill for Washington’s regional goals. Concerned that instability would increase Israel’s presence in Lebanon, the Assad regime began intruding in the latter’s political life in 1976. Initially concerned with avoiding an uncontrolled civil war that would invite substantial Israeli military presence in Lebanon, Syria intervened on behalf of the beleaguered Maronite Christians, and later transferred its support to Palestine Liberation Organization forces in Lebanon (Hinnebusch 2002, 153–56). By the 1980s, Damascus had become a major force in Lebanese politics, credited with helping bring the civil war to an end in 1990. Its influence in Lebanon was strengthened by an alliance with Hezbollah, a Shiite organization that has been blamed for the truck bombing of the Beirut U.S. Marine barracks that killed 220 servicemen in 1983. Even after Israel’s withdrawal in 2000 from southern Lebanon, Syria maintained its military presence in that country. The regime has also vigorously backed Palestinian Hamas, created in 1987 to resist Israeli rule in the occupied territories and to establish an independent Islamist state in the West Bank and Gaza. Although Hamas has relied mainly on Saudi financial support, it also has benefited from Syrian political and logistical backing. Mainly because of its links to Hezbollah and Hamas, Syria has been branded a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Department ever since the list was created, though it has not been directly involved in any terrorist operations since 1986. Finally, Washington has been concerned with Syria’s efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Damascus has not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 and is suspected of having a chemical weapons program as a deterrent to Israeli nuclear arms. It is thought to have produced sarin, tabun, VX, and mustard nerve agents.11 There is no firm evidence of a biological weapons program, but activities related to nuclear weapons acquisition have been suspected. Although it is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the regime seems to have been using an undeclared nuclear reactor, apparently supplied by North Korea. The reactor was bombed and destroyed by Israel on September 6,

11. From http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/syria/index.html.

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2007; the Bush administration estimated that it was “not intended for peaceful purposes” (New York Times 2008d). Syria also has a large missile inventory, with several hundred short- to medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles, acquired partly from North Korea. By the 1980s Syria had joined the group of those considered rogue regimes by the United States, and subsequent U.S. policy has sought to alter the regime’s behavior, even to encourage its removal through punitive means. Despite occasional indications of improved relations during this period, as when Syria participated in the U.S.-led coalition to oust Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait in 1991, major differences between the two countries were not resolved. With George H. Bush’s presidency, relations reached a new low. Despite its preferences for diplomatic and economic pressure, the United States has occasionally resorted to military measures, as when in 1983 President Reagan authorized the bombing of Syrian positions in Lebanon (New York Times 2003) and when in October 2008 U.S. troops in helicopters penetrated four miles into Syria to target a network channeling foreign fighters into Iraq (Washington Post 2008). Still, economic sanctions have been the preferred U.S. policy tool. Although some economic aid was directed to Syria in the 1970s, very little has been given since 1981. With the launch of the list of state sponsors of terrorism, the provisions of the Export Administration Act of 1979 has made it difficult to license the exports of goods and technology valued at more than $7 million to Syria, while the earlier International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976 made a termination of aid mandatory. Subsequent legislation prohibited sales of military equipment to Syria and further barred aid to countries not complying with UN Security Council sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (OFAC 2009). The Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, signed into law by President Bush in 2003, required the president to impose penalties on Syria—which could range from curtailing trade and investment relations to a ban on landing in or flying over the United States by its aircraft—unless it stopped supporting terrorist organizations, ended its occupation of Lebanon, abandoned its WMD programs, and ceased all involvement with subversive activity in Iraq. Only food and medicine were excluded from the sanctions. Provisions of this act have been used to target the assets of individual members of the Assad regime’s inner circle, including senior Syrian officials involved in Lebanon affairs. In addition, under Section 311 of the 2001 Patriot Act, U.S. financial institutions were required to sever relations with the Commercial Bank of Syria, which was suspected of involvement in money laundering for terrorist groups. These measures have done little to change Syrian behavior. While the regime withdrew its forces from Lebanon in 2005, and though the UN Security Coun-

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cil’s stance along with sanctions may have made a difference in its decision to pull out, it is unlikely that Damascus believed the withdrawal alone would end U.S. sanctions. The regime may simply have calculated that the military involvement was too costly, politically and financially, whereas intelligence assets maintained in Lebanon could ensure continued involvement in its political life. There has been no indication that Syrian links to Hezbollah and Hamas had been weakened after 2003. Nor is there any evidence that the government’s chemical weapons programs have been abandoned, while the nuclear program appears to have gained momentum, as exemplified by the nuclear reactor destroyed by Israeli forces in 2007. Some particularly egregious activities, such as Syria’s apparent involvement in the assassination of Hariri, occurred in 2005, well after the Syria Accountability Act and other economic sanctions had been in force. Why were the sanctions incapable of altering the regime’s priorities and behavior? Partly because their bite was never very strong and partly because the behavior they were designed to discourage was close to core regime needs and objectives. The disincentives provided by the sanctions, in short, never outweighed the incentives behind the objectionable policies. U.S. investments in Syria have been effectively curtailed (Sharp 2009, 16), and this has, inter alia, harmed the country’s energy production. On the other hand, the impact on Syrian trade has been minimal. U.S. commodity exports to Syria are exempted from the sanctions legislation, meaning that America’s chief export to that country— cereals—remains unaffected. In any case, Syria has more important commercial partners than the United States. Many of its imports and exports involve the European Union (especially Germany and France) and regional trading partners (especially Turkey and Saudi Arabia). The former accounts for some €3.5 billion of imports, and the approximate equivalent in exports, while an EU-Syria association agreement was signed in 2008.12 Syria also has a free trade agreement with Turkey. Most important, support for Hamas and Hezbollah and acquisition of chemical and biological weapons, have mattered more to Damascus than whatever marginal benefits it might derive from better economic relations with the United States. Weapons of mass destruction are considered a necessary “force equalizer” vis-à-vis militarily superior and nuclear-armed Israel (Washington Post 2003). Support for Hezbollah is essential to the protection of perceived interests in Lebanon, and it is a means of pressure on Israel. Syria’s relation with Iran provides

12. From http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/html/113451.htm.

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leverage over hostile Arab countries, Israel, and the United States. Backing for Hamas justifies the claim that the regime ardently promotes Arab interests in the Middle East. The opacity of Syrian politics and the difficulty of estimating popular sentiment make it unclear whether U.S. sanctions have produced the sort of rally effect witnessed in other countries. Still, as has been observed, “the regime weathered the storm, sought to mobilize domestic support by exploiting public patriotism and forging an, at times uncomfortable, alliance with domestic Islamists, while waiting out the Bush administration” (Yacoubian and Lassensky 2008, 22). Although the Bush administration had branded Syria an “outpost of tyranny,” advancing maximalist demands as a condition for easing sanctions, the 2008 presidential transition opened the prospect of positive engagement. Indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria, facilitated by Turkey, had already been launched. With the signing of the 2008 Doha agreement, the Lebanese peace deal brokered by Qatar, relations with Lebanon were on an even keel. The European Union had just signed its association agreement with Damascus. French president Sarkozy visited the country, while Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah welcomed Bashar al-Assad to Riyadh in a context of steadily improving relations (Financial Times 2009). Under these conditions, the Obama administration declared its willingness to place bilateral relations on a new path. In March, Secretary of State Clinton dispatched two senior U.S. officials (Daniel Shapiro of the National Security Council and Jeffrey Feltman of the State Department) to Syria to undertake “preliminary conversations.” In June the president announced that, after a four-year hiatus, a U.S. ambassador would be sent to Damascus. The following month, the administration informed President al-Assad that the United States would seek to ease U.S. sanctions, which would expedite the process for obtaining exemptions to the commercial restrictions. Yet, continued concern about Syria’s links with Hezbollah, to which it allegedly transferred Scud missiles, has impeded further progress in bilateral relations. Despite some movement by Damascus toward stopping the infiltration of foreign militants into Iraq, President Obama decided to renew sanctions against Syria for another year. Within this framework of unsettled relations, it is necessary to ask what, within the frame of reference established in this book, could be expected from an effort at positive engagement? Two issues are involved. The first concerns the likely receptivity of the Syrian regime to incentives offered by the United States. This, in turn, would depend not only on the nature and magnitude of U.S. concessions but also on how they affect the regime’s domestic position. The second issue involves the impact incentives

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could have, assuming the regime is receptive to engagement: Is regime transformation a feasible goal? Or must the aim be limited to discreet policy quid pro quos?

Regime Stability and the Appeal of Engagement Opinions vary as to the stability of the Assad regime, but few consider it imminently imperiled. One of its most apparent problems is the stagnant state of the nation’s economy, which may be less and less able to meet the material needs of a population growing at an annual rate of 2.3 percent (CIA 2009). In 2005 an inefficient public sector employed 73 percent of the labor force, while generating only 33 percent of GDP (Prados and Sharp 2005, 9). The military and intelligence establishments absorb 40–50 percent of the national budget (Sharp 2008, 4). Government subsidies for oil and other basic commodities also account for a large portion of government revenues, leaving little for infrastructural development and education. Some economic reforms notwithstanding (state subsidies have been reduced, a Damascus stock exchange was opened, bank interest rates have been cut), the economy retains a semisocialist character. Despite its association with the European Union, it is not an active participant in the globalized economy. Despite modest mineral and agricultural sectors, the economy has relied heavily on oil production, which accounts for 40–50 percent of state income and 60–70 percent of export revenues (Sharp 2008, 5). At the same time, domestic oil output has declined since its peak in 1996, while domestic consumption has grown. The country became a net oil importer in 2007 (Sharp 2008, 5). It is hard to paint an optimistic picture of Syria’s economic future. Political unhappiness is, at present, more latent than manifest. The educated and secular members of Syrian society, organized for some time in the loosely knit and reformist Civil Society Movement (Wieland 2006, chap. 8), appeared a potential source of opposition, but the movement’s Damascus Declaration, calling for political reform and free speech, has had little resonance within Syrian society (Macaron 2008). A second possible source of opposition is ethnically based. Syria’s Kurds are its largest ethnic minority (7–10% of the population); they inhabit agriculturally rich areas that also contain some of the country’s best oil and gas fields. Yet, Syrian Kurds, unlike their Iraqi counterparts, have not agitated for political independence; they seek, instead, improved civil rights and cultural autonomy (Cheriff 1992, 148–62). Some vulnerability springs from the Assads belonging to the Alawi sect of Islam in a predominantly Sunni nation; for this reason, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was once perceived as a major threat to the regime. Actively resisting secular authority, it was involved in assassination plots against regime figures

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when Syria intervened in Lebanon on behalf of Maronite Christians. The late 1970s saw a flurry of terrorist activity that has been blamed on the organization, culminating in June 1980 in a failed assassination attempt against President Hafiz al-Assad. The military responded by killing between five hundred and one thousand members and allies of the Brotherhood in the prison of Palmyra, and membership in the organization became punishable by death. In 1982 a Brotherhood-instigated insurrection in the predominantly Alawite town of Hama led to the town’s bombing by Syrian forces and the death of some ten thousand people (New York Times 1982b). This event is generally considered to have marked the Muslim Brotherhood’s defeat in Syria. Although some of its members operate in exile, it no longer is a significant force in the nation’s political life (Prados and Sharp 2005, 15). In order to muster added support to deal with the increased U.S. pressure during the George W. Bush years, the regime reached out to moderate Brotherhood elements abroad, and it has been reported that “anti-Americanism and the isolation of the regime are bringing pan-Arabists and Islamists closer together” (Wieland 2006, 107). At the same time, there has been little effort to bring into the corridors of power, or even the arena of political discourse, those who urge political reform and a restrained foreign policy. President Bashar al-Assad’s succession portended a more open political climate, and the regime tolerated a measure of criticism in 2000 and 2001. By the end of 2001, however, the regime cracked down on overt opposition, ending the brief Damascus Spring (Houri 2009, 1). Since then, there has been little talk of significant political or economic reform. As of 2010, the regime does not feel seriously imperiled. The support of the Ba’ath Party, as well as of the military, police, and intelligence establishments, should enable it to deal with the existing opposition. This implies that there is little likelihood that the regime would create political space within which liberalizing forces could operate with the goal of adding them to a coalition of supporters of a somewhat reformed regime. They do not seem to be sufficiently badly needed; traditional sources of support appear, for the moment, to suffice. Even though conditions are not ripe for external incentives to catalyze political change in Syria, they could still serve a purpose in an exchange context. The enhanced commitment of traditional supporters, especially under discouraging economic conditions, would certainly benefit the regime, and any foreign policy concessions attainable at an acceptable price might be welcome. Such achievements would also make it harder to mobilize opposition against the Assad regime. As Yacoubian and Lassensky point out, “although Syria’s isolation and internal challenges are not serious enough to topple the government, they do provide an impetus for the regime to engage” (2008, 12).

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There is a counterpart incentive on the U.S. side. Evidence of failed economic pressures and diplomatic isolation is plain enough, and resistance to conciliation is less deeply rooted than in other cases. The wide public opprobrium that a state like Iran encounters is less pronounced in Syria’s case, partly because of the more limited media attention it has received. Unlike the case of Cuba, there is no politically potent émigré community within the United States to oppose conciliatory moves. The rationale for U.S. engagement is grounded in realpolitik, and was spelled out by a “senior official” in Washington commenting on the reestablishment of bilateral diplomatic relations: “It’s a reflection of Syria being a pivotal country in terms of achieving a comprehensive peace in the region.”(New York Times 2009c). Similarly, U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell explained that “Syria has an integral role to play in reaching a comprehensive peace” (BBC World News 2009c). Syria’s influence with Palestinians (directly and via Hamas), its links to Hezbollah, and its recent mediated negotiations with Israel make it either a potential spoiler or facilitator in this region. As sanctions have not deterred it from playing the former role, the United States may try, by way of inducements, to nudge it to perform the latter. The potential for disruptive activity in Iraq by agents originating from Syria, even if they do not act at the regime’s behest, furnishes another reason to explore the promise of positive engagement. It is, in any case, a necessary participant in the war on terror, a role that, outside of the context of Palestinian resistance, it has been willing to play.13 From the U.S. standpoint, then, there are prospects for beneficial quid pro quos. Specific goals related to the broad objectives are: (1) to discourage, with Syrian help, actions by Hamas that would make a political path to an independent Palestinian state more difficult; (2) to discourage, with the assistance of Damascus, activities by Hezbollah that would undermine the stability of Lebanon; (3) to decrease Syria’s interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction; (4) to weaken the links between Syria and Iran; and (5) to increase Syrian efforts to prevent infiltration of hostile agents into Iraq. What, from the Syrian perspective, would be an appropriate inducement for cooperation in these areas? It is as necessary to keep the major purposes of Syria’s foreign policy in view, asking how they could be made compatible with U.S. interests. There is little doubt that foremost among these objectives is national and regime security, which, in turn, are largely viewed through the prism of relations with Israel. Few objectives loom as large as dealing with a perceived Israeli threat and regaining

13. Following the 9/11 attacks, Syria gave the United States what Colin Powell apparently described as a “treasure trove” of information on al-Qaeda (Rabil 2006, 131).

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the Golan Heights, formally annexed by Israel in 1981.14 It is through the prism of this need that potential inducements should be viewed, especially since the 2008 Doha agreement has, for the time being at least, removed Lebanon from the top of the regime’s pressing external concerns. While the Golan Heights have some military significance—a high ground from which Israel can monitor Syrian movements—it has a wider regional significance. For Syria, it is an integral part of the homeland; its loss is regarded as a national dishonor. The region is also economically valuable. Rainwater from the Golan catchment feeds the Jordan River, providing a third of Israel’s water supply (BBC World News 2009d). The land is fertile, with vineyards, orchards, and fields for grazing cattle. Currently, some twenty thousand Syrians (mostly Druze) live on the Golan Heights, as do a comparable number of Israeli settlers. Although a Syrian-Israeli agreement on the region was almost reached in 1999 and early 2000 (Ross 2004, chaps. 5, 7), a final deal foundered on the extent of Israeli withdrawal: Syria wanting a pullback to the June 4, 1967, line, Israel insisting on the 1923 border. The latter, drawn between the Palestine Mandate and the French Mandate for Syria, would have placed a considerably larger portion of the Sea of Galilee (a freshwater lake) in Israel’s hands. Israeli settlements have also impeded an agreement. Though President Bush actively opposed negotiation on Golan (deeming any talks a reward to the regime), toward the end his presidency the two sides undertook renewed negotiations, with Turkish mediation. Under the circumstances, a major inducement to Syrian good behavior may be U.S. engagement in the Syria-Israel dialogue with the purpose of ensuring resolution of the Golan Heights issue, especially since the broad outlines of an arrangement have emerged from earlier negotiations (Haaretz.com 2009). From the Syrian regime’s perspective, the boost to domestic legitimacy afforded by this achievement would be great, and meaningful concessions could be expected in return, especially since, with a successful outcome, Israel would no longer appear as threateningly malignant. With improved Israel-Syria relations, the perceived need for WMDs would decline. A more circumspect stance toward Hamas and Hezbollah might also follow, as might increased distance from Tehran. Since these are interests Israel and the United States share, it is reasonable to encourage Israeli accommodation on the Golan Heights. This is an instance of an explicit and sufficient quid pro quo that does not, in and of itself, portend a major transformation of the regime’s priorities. However, even that might be achievable in the more distant future. In the short term, the most effective inducements to Syria are likely to be political, but durable long-

14. The annexation has not been internationally recognized.

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term advantages call for economic gestures. The state of the Syrian economy requires expanded foreign investment, and the current sanctions regime makes it difficult for American companies to respond. One counterproductive consequence has been the strengthening of Syria’s economic ties to Iran. Mild efforts at privatization, along with an appropriate climate of bilateral relations, has lead to a vigorous infusion of Iranian capital into Syria. In 2006 it was reported that “from car manufacturing plants and a proposed $2 billion industrial zone for Iranian business, to plans to overhaul urban transportation systems, Iranians are charging into Syria, looking to cash in on a recent privatization push (New York Times 2007a). That year, Iran’s investment amounted to $400 million, making it, after Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the third largest investor in the country. In January 2008, the Iranian media announced that the two countries would construct a joint oil refinery, capable of refining 140,000 barrels a day, giving Iran the ability to refine much more of its own crude oil (International Oil Daily 2009). If the goal is progressively to peel Syria away from Iran, alternative sources of capital dependence are needed. In addition, U.S. backing for Syria’s bid to join the World Trade Organization—Syria applied for membership in 2001—might reinvigorate the latter’s tentative stabs at political and economic liberalization. Economic liberalization is likely to benefit much of the Sunni business elite, whose feelings toward the regime currently are mixed (Prados and Sharp 2005, 6–7). If the commercial bourgeoisie’s role in the economy comes to displace that of the stagnant state sector, its political support would become increasingly valuable to the regime, and its interests would be more likely to tilt toward participation in a globalized economy rather than radical regional policies. The prospect for ultimate reform should be boosted further by a return of the Golan—improved relations with Israel would undermine a major justification for repressive rule by the Alawite minority and encourage those who seek a political opening and further economic reform (International Crisis Group 2009, 25). *** Though chapter 6 will provide a more thorough discussion of the conclusions to be drawn from our empirical analyses, the cases examined in this chapter support and further illuminate the hypotheses implied by our analytic framework. They demonstrate that punitive measures rarely manage to modify a target regime’s major policy priorities. Libya’s misbehavior survived decades of U.S. sanctions. While Syria’s conduct has zigzagged in both desirable and undesirable directions, Damascus has been relatively insensitive to U.S. censure and penalties. Cuba endured half a century of U.S. punishment, including sanctions, covert subversion, and an invasion attempt without fundamentally altering its priorities

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or political system. When Havana’s behavior did change, as with regard to support for leftist revolution in Latin America, this is more plausibly attributed to the low return on its internationalist campaigns than to U.S. threats. The failure of coercion is a virtual constant across our case studies, but successive administrations have drawn few lessons regarding alternative strategies. To some extent this has been because policies settled into a path-dependent groove that could generally be accounted for by a “power” explanation and a “legitimation” explanation—the latter, in turn, resting on values and assumptions imbedded in the political culture. When positive inducements have nevertheless been attempted, they have claimed only an inconsistent record of success. With Libya, the one attempt to shape a policy around carrots brought significant political concessions from Qaddafi. The modest overtures to Cuba in the late 1970s elicited no favorable response from Havana. In the Syrian case, very little in the way of inducements has been considered by Washington, although the prospect for major quid pro quos now are considerable. Although we recognize that coercive policies, by themselves, very rarely change an adversary’s overall objectives, we know less about the promises and limitations of positive engagement. It follows that it is time to reverse our academic priorities—focusing more on the circumstances that determine the effectiveness of carrots rather than sticks. In this regard, our exercise in comparative case study supports the two major expectations implied by chapter 3’s analytic framework. First, inducements are far more likely to draw a receptive response from regimes when the foundations supporting their rule become shaky and when what is being offered may help buttress those foundations. The second expectation, in a sense a corollary of the first, is that inducement must be of a magnitude sufficient to offset whatever value the objectionable policies have traditionally had for the regime. At the same time, domestic political constraints make it difficult for U.S. administrations to offer more than symbolic gestures toward adversaries, so this condition rarely is met. Accordingly, little that seems acceptable in terms of the U.S. political context may be sufficient given the domestic political equilibrium faced by the target regime. The fact that coercive measures seem the only option does not mean that they can do no harm. On many occasions, punitive pressures have not only been ineffective but clearly counterproductive to ultimate U.S. objectives—increasing the other side’s commitment to the unwanted policies. The three case studies also shed some light on the forces that sustain U.S. commitment to punitive policies and on the conditions that allow altered policies to be tried. Not all instances of persistent behavior are the result of a pathdependent process, as this is generally defined. It could be argued that U.S. policy toward Syria has been based on pragmatically conceived decisions that,

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recurrently, incline Washington toward carrots rather than sticks. In the other two cases, however, path dependence had long constrained U.S. options, indicating that breakout requires an inordinately sustained record of policy failure (as with Cuba) or else (as in the case of Qaddafi’s very stark reversal) an intersecting path that knocks policy from its established rut. Neither encourages flexibly effective responses to evolving political conditions on the other side, conditions that affect receptivity to inducements, if only these could be offered. Finally, while it would appear that where positive inducements are concerned prospects for exchange naturally precede prospects for catalysis, the Cuban case shows that the order can be reversed.

5 THE CHALLENGE OF NORTH KOREA AND IRAN

North Korea and Iran now top the list of states deemed a thorn in the side of the international community and of the United States in particular. The most serious issue is their relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons, as well as of a delivery capability that makes them a regional threat and, with the development of long-range rocketry, dangerous on an extended scale. A critical test of the value of positive inducements must involve their applicability to particularly stark threats, so this chapter will evaluate the circumstances under which they could discourage the most threatening aspects of Tehran’s and Pyongyang’s policies, either via possibilities for mutually desirable quid pro quos or through beneficial catalytic effects.

The North Korean Challenge The North Korean experience demonstrates, once again, (1) the relative inefficacy of threats and punishments as methods of modifying the behavior of objectionable regimes; and (2) that positive inducements work best when the regime’s domestic standing is, or seems likely to be, undermined and where inducements can help deal with its problems. At the same time, it illustrates the difficulties encountered by U.S. policymakers seeking to forge paths in North Korea policy.

Evidence Relating to the Exchange Model The evidence, in this regard, is stark: almost all progress toward curbing North Korea’s nuclear programs has stemmed from positive inducements in the context 127

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of finite but mutually beneficial quid pro quos; threats and sanctions, typically, have pushed the regime closer to a full nuclear weapons capability. THE FIRST QUID PRO QUO AND ITS POLITICAL CONTEXT

Early grounds for optimism rested on the 1994 Agreed Framework, which, if bilaterally implemented, might have ended the nuclear programs of greatest concern to the United States. Pyongyang promised to freeze operation and construction of its two graphite-moderated reactors, which could produce weapons-grade plutonium, and of its plutonium reprocessing facility, which was suspected of being part of a covert nuclear weapons program. In exchange, North Korea was to receive two proliferation-resistant light water reactors (LWRs), furnished by an international consortium called the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), the initial members of which were the United States, Japan, and South Korea. Pending delivery of the LWRs, the United States would supply North Korea with 500,000 tons of heavy fuel annually to compensate for lost energy production. North Korea promised to rejoin the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (from which it had withdrawn in March of that year) and accept IAEA inspections of areas of potential nuclear activity. Both sides pledged not to nuclearize the Korean Peninsula, thus addressing Pyongyang’s concern about the possible reintroduction of nuclear weapons into South Korea.1 The two countries further agreed to move toward normalized political and economic relations, and several additional North Korean concessions followed. On October 6, 2000, the United States and North Korea issued a joint statement declaring that “international terrorism poses an unacceptable threat to global security and peace, and that terrorism should be opposed in all its forms” (U.S. Department of State, Office of the Spokesman 2000). In 2001 Pyongyang indicated it would ratify the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression and Financing of Terrorism (BBC World News 2001b). There also were welcome moves with regard to missile systems. North Korea had obtained tactical missiles from the USSR as early as 1969 and subsequently embarked on its own program of SCUD-based missile development. This yielded a variety of short-range missiles (capable of striking most areas within South Korea) as well as a mediumrange missile (the Nodong) with a 1,000 km range, while a two-stage missile (Taepodong-1) with a 2,200 km range was tested in 1998 with a flight over Japan. This missile was improved to yield the Taepodong-2, with a range of between 5,000 and 6,000 km. In 1999, however, North Korea agreed to a moratorium on further missile testing.

1. The United States had formally removed all of its nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991.

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In an unfolding of the exchange logic, President Clinton, in September 1999, rewarded the missile-testing freeze with an easing of economic sanctions.2 New levels of cooperation now seemed possible. In 1999 Washington worried that an underground site at Kumchang-ri might be used to revive the dormant nuclear program: the regime consented to U.S. inspections, dispelling Washington’s concerns about the site (New York Times 1999a). In October 2000, Madeleine Albright became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Pyongyang. The policy of controlled engagement, based on cautious reciprocity, was formalized in the Perry report. In 1998 former secretary of defense William Perry became U.S. policy coordinator for North Korea, charged with a comprehensive review of U.S. policy toward that country. The declassified version of his report, made public in September 1999,3 urged maintenance of the Agreed Framework and its broadening through a policy of engagement designed to acquire “complete and verifiable assurances” that Pyongyang had abandoned its nuclear weapons program and ceased missile testing. Toward that end, Perry argued in the report, the United States, Japan, and South Korea should reduce the international pressures bearing on North Korea “in a step-by-step and reciprocal fashion.” In exchange for the regime’s concessions on weapons, the U.S. would move (as provided in the Agreed Framework) to normalize political and economic relations. At the same time, the report threatened an unspecified “heavy penalty” should the other side reject this path. Making it clear that the policy was premised on an exchange model, the report specified that the strategy “neither seeks, nor depends upon . . . a transformation of the DPRK’s internal system for its success.” For both Washington and Pyongyang, the Agreed Framework marked a departure from past assumptions and trajectories. In the U.S. case, the fear of a nuclear-armed North Korea, along with a realization of the futility of past pressures and of the unacceptable risks of direct military action, created the rudiments of a new critical juncture. Although it remained contingent, given the state of domestic political pressures, it encouraged some precarious steps down a previously untrodden path. In the North Korean case, glimmerings of latent regime instability similarly encouraged a few halting strides in a new direction. Although the Agreed Framework ultimately collapsed, the conditions that made it possible were rooted in political dilemmas facing Pyongyang and its realization that these called for a reconfigured relationship with the outside world. By the 1990s Pyongyang had cause to worry about the regime’s long-term position.

2. Trade in non–dual use items was allowed, as was travel by U.S. citizens to North Korea. 3. See William J. Perry, Review of United States Policy toward North Korea: Findings and Recommendations, http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eap/991012_northkorea_rpt.html.

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LATENT INSTABILITY

The main, perhaps sole, pillar on which the Kim Jong-il regime has asserted its right to rule is its unique ideology and the enormous benefits the nation supposedly would glean by adhering to its tenets. It follows from the central legitimizing role of the associated narrative that a widening gap between reality and ideological promise could threaten the foundations of the regime’s legitimacy. No country has ever been so deeply in thrall to a specific ideology. Qaddafi’s Third Universal Doctrine or Ayatollah Khomeini’s version of political Islam and “rule of the jurisprudent” were radical bodies of thought, but they lacked the total grip on societal existence of the North Korean ideology. Virtually nothing in that country’s life has escaped ideological penetration, and there is no country in the world where citizen access to competing ideas and information has been so thoroughly blocked. Thus, “the North Korean brand of ideology has been inflated beyond what was found in the heyday of Stalin and Mao” (Oh and Hassig 200l, 12). The ideology, called Juche, is an amalgam of Stalinism, Confucianism, and an extreme call to national self-reliance. It combines elements of Marxism-Leninism with eclectic contributions by Kim Il-sung and, later, Kim Jong-il.4 From Marxism-Leninism, it derives its analysis of the ills of capitalism and its description of the inevitability and general outlines of a communist society. From Stalinism, it draws its reverence for autocratic centralism and a command economy. Still, the ideology’s Marxist-Leninist component has, with time, become a subordinate part of the total, whereas the Kim contribution, involving indirect (though unacknowledged) reliance on some Confucian themes, formed its dominant premises. With Juche, self-reliance is the only path to self-realization, requiring that society should form an organic entity with an appropriate structure of political authority. The need for self-reliance is grounded in the perception of a hostile outside world harboring predatory designs on North Korea (Park 2002, chaps. 2, 9), whereas external dependence implies dangerous vulnerabilities. These convictions were fortified by a sentiment of ideological exceptionalism, as Kim Il-sung was repelled by Soviet political “revisionism” under Khrushchev and his successors and by the post-Maoist reforms in China (French 2005, 31). Self-reliance requires that the society itself should form an organic whole that gives meaning to the parts, making it an immortal political-social body. A conviction, shared with traditional Confucian thought, is that individuals acquire their meaning only as part of the societal whole, which functions akin to a human organism. Accordingly, people must play their assigned roles in a collectively

4. For a discussion of Juche, see Park (2002).

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beneficial and rigidly fixed structure of authority. A related Confucian theme equates the political system to the family: “In this context, the North Korea political system, the Party, or the whole of the political-social body, has replaced the traditional family as the beneficiary of virtuous and honorable behavior” (Park 2002, 65). The notion of body-politic qua family implies another Confucian notion—that of the patriarchal authority, in which “the leader is an extension of the family and therefore is to be paid the same respect and filial piety that a Confucian child would pay to his or her true father” (Park 2002, 67). In his capacity as head of family, the leader—Kim Il-sung was called the Great Leader; Kim Jong-il, the Dear Leader—is the “brain” (noesu) of the political-social body (Park 2002, 34)—the source of its ideas and will, on which all else depends. This assumption implied a departure from the Marxist premise that a society’s political and ideational superstructure rests on its economic infrastructure (forces and relations of production). With Juche, the causal order is reversed—the idea shapes the social reality, and ideas originate with the leader. Located at the head of the body politic, a beneficiary of filial piety and a source of the collectivity’s existence, the leader is essential to the survival of this organic entity—a powerful legitimizing premise for the Kim dynasty—especially since the hereditary principle is a natural corollary of the patriarchal family. The leader’s legitimacy is further boosted by his image as creator of this virtuous philosophy, the original prophet of an ideology that serves as the foundation of a secular theocracy. According to official pronouncements, “Juche is a gift bestowed by the Kims to North Korea’s people” (French 2005, 43). The fruit of adherence to Juche is an earthly paradise where “people are enjoying a happy life to the full, without any worries about food, clothing, medical treatment and education. There is no better ‘paradise’ and no better ‘land of perfect bliss’ than our country” (Kim Il-sung, quoted in French 2005, 27). The perfection that is Juche endows North Korea with a “historical mission to save humanity from capitalist materialism, consumerism, decadent culture, and moral decay,” North Korea being a “special place and its people a ‘chosen people’ ”(Park 2002, 47, 70). Under the circumstances, it is natural that other societies should envy North Korea and that their leaders should view it with fear and hostility. The extent to which the regime itself believes in Juche may be debated, but it has certainly been at the core of its legitimizing narrative. If the ideology promises its people an earthly paradise, considerable vulnerabilities follow: failings of the apparently infallible doctrine undermine the core argument for the regime’s right to rule, leaving few legitimizing reeds on which to cling. If Juche is the gift that keeps on giving, then the regime’s legitimacy depends on some plausible correlation between promise and performance, implying that serious doubts about the ideology’s premises could have massive

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political implications. Given the scope of its pretensions, a growing cleavage between perceived reality and ideological claims comes as no surprise. Though few North Koreans, even within the political elite, presently have access to information enabling them to contrast the dictatorship and destitution they face with conditions in those parts of the world they are taught to revile, they can compare the trajectory, which they have been led to expect, to the reality they face. Cumulatively, as other societies have demonstrated, the gap between promise and performance cannot forever be ignored; tipping points are reached at which faith in official rhetoric abruptly collapses. That gap has been widening in North Korea, causing some concern to the regime by the early 1990s—when a search for external assistance was initiated at the price of some compromises with regard to weapons programs. Let us examine some of the sources of these discrepancies. One reason for the increasing gap was the disintegration of the Soviet Union and its political-military bloc, while, in China, the reforms of Deng Xiaoping and his successors challenged the premises of a system that, like the North Korean, had placed great faith in the command economy coupled with exhortations to massive popular development efforts. As Marxism-Leninism had from the outset been one of the pillars of the regime’s legitimizing narrative, its international collapse, the claims of revisionism directed at its leading powers notwithstanding, undercut part of the foundation on which the regime’s position rested. Juche further assumed maximum economic self-sufficiency, which required a highly mobilized economy that emphasized heavy industry, the whole intended to produce both welfare and independence. Initially, the regime’s economic approach seemed vindicated. The 1947–48 plan saw a 54 percent surge in industrial production, while the 1948–49 plan registered a 38 percent increase (French 2005, 77). Until the mid-1970s North Korea outpaced South Korea in terms of growth rates and GNP per capita. From Pyongyang’s perspective, this demonstrated the triumph of political will, roused by the inspirational resolve of the leader and demonstrating the transformative potential of great ideas. In the 1950s, mobilization campaigns took the form of the Chollima Movement (Buzo 1999, chap. 2), akin to Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the Soviet Stakhanovite drives. Yet the inability to encourage growth based on increased productivity (intensive as opposed to extensive growth), as well the particular irrationalities associated with the regime’s economic mismanagement, ultimately brought economic growth to a halt. Ominously, the 1961–67 plan was extended by an additional year for its targets to be met. The regime’s inability to generate sufficient investment initiated a brief search for foreign loans to enable them to buy plants and equipment from Western Europe and Japan, but credit was withheld as Pyongyang soon proved unable to repay. What little trade existed was reduced to a trickle. By the late 1970s, energy

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capacity was falling, industrial production ceased to grow, and fertilizer shortages undermined agricultural production. Chronic shortfalls in power input were a consequence of the country’s outdated generating capacity and poor maintenance (Nanto 2006). At the same time, the country’s two major rivals—South Korea and Japan—left North Korea increasingly far behind in their wake. North Korea was forced to rely on Soviet economic assistance—placing it in a state of dependence at odds with Juche. By 1990 the country relied on the Soviet Union for most of its coal and oil, as well as for a third of its steel (French 2005, 98). With the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, this prop to the North Korean economy was pulled out from under it and the economy nose-dived. The government admitted its failure to meet the Third Seven-Year Plan. Food shortages had been first reported in the mid-1950s, at the time of agriculture’s forced collectivization; they reappeared in the 1970s. The government’s response was to tighten central planning, virtually assuring that yields would continue to fall. Agricultural production dwindled further in the 1980s. By 1990 and 1991, citizens’ food rations were cut amid appeals to the UN’s World Food Programme for help. The “land of perfect bliss” seemed increasingly remote, which cast a pall on the regime’s ideologically founded promises. North Korea’s international position fared as badly. By 1990 Russia, and in 1992 China, had established diplomatic relations with Seoul, and a traditionally isolated country became even more so. There was no sign of the respect and admiration that North Korea expected from the rest of the world. The regime’s problems led to attempts to bolster legitimacy, but through apparently incompatible means. On the one hand, self-reliance and a deterrent capacity seemed more important than ever, although it implied confrontation with the outside world. On the other hand, the economic predicament—especially the energy shortfalls—could not be mitigated without outside help, requiring some externally conciliatory moves. The solution was to use the nuclear threat to acquire needed assistance and, if possible, some symbolic acknowledgments. The nuclear program could be used as leverage to acquire needed foreign assistance, which would help with its economic problems. It could induce the United States and others to negotiate with it, establishing it, after all, as a consequential international player. If these weapons could be used to obtain guarantees of nonaggression from outside, they would also achieve another important purpose of bolstering the regime’s position. COLLAPSE OF THE AGREED FRAMEWORK, THE SECOND QUID PRO QUO, AND THE LEGACY OF PUNITIVE PRESSURES

The regime’s internal difficulties, plus the fact that it had something to bargain with, made the outlook for positive engagement better than ever before. The

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consequences of a nuclear-armed North Korea, and the absence of a credible military responses to the threat, encouraged the United States to consider acting on the emerging possibilities; this created a minor critical juncture in Washington’s Korea policy. Despite domestic political opposition from Republican hardliners,5 the Clinton administration was resolved to act. This willingness made possible the Agreed Framework of 1994. From the North Korean regime’s perspective, establishing economic relations would have meant an end to sanctions, better prospects for trade, reduced obstacles to investment, and, thus, a chance to address some of the nation’s most glaring economic problems. Diplomatic recognition by the United States would have provided a much-desired show of respect for the Kim Jong-il regime, with attendant domestic benefits. Improved relations also would have mitigated security fears—another success to chalk up to the regime’s credit. The solution, then, to Pyongyang’s problems was, paradoxically, to weaken another of Juche’s pillars by acquiring, and then bargaining away, its nuclear program in exchange for the desired concessions. But the gamble could pay off only if the economic and symbolic rewards were immediate and sufficient. They were not. Domestic political obstacles prevented serious movement by the Clinton administration on such agreement objectives as restoring diplomatic relations and removing economic sanctions. The obstacles were grounded in the dubious domestic political returns involved. With the Republican capture of both houses of Congress in 1994, a raw partisan element was added to the situation. Conservative hard-liners complained of North Korean blackmail, claiming the Agreed Framework rewarded Pyongyang’s threatening behavior, encouraging it (and other regimes like it) to continue resorting to extortionary measures. Thus Richard Perle declared that “the basic structure of the relationship implied in the Framework Agreement is a relationship between a blackmailer and one who pays a blackmailer” (Perle 2003). Former secretary of state James Baker also characterized the Clinton administration’s approach to North Korea as “a policy of appeasement” (New York Times 1999b). Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chided the administration about the agreement (New York Times 1995a), while Senator John McCain claimed that the president was propping up the regime through the energy assistance provided for by the Agreed Framework (New York Times 1995b). It was difficult to get the congressional support and funds needed to deliver the promised 500,000 tons of oil annually. Only for the fiscal year 1999 did Congress provide the full $35 million requested by the Clinton administration

5. For a discussion of some of this opposition, see Sigal (1998, 162–67).

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(Arms Control Association 1998). Invitations to bid for construction of light water reactors were not issued by KEDO until 1998, while construction of the first reactor began only in 2002. Even after the partial lifting of sanctions, North Korea remained one of the few countries not granted normal trading relations. Its exports were subject to the so-called Column 2 duty rates of the SmootHawley Tariff Act of 1930. (These tariffs are highest for labor-intensive products, such as textiles, in which North Korea could conceivably be competitive.) The U.S. gestures fell far short of what Pyongyang had been expecting and did little to offset its domestic problems. If concessions embodied in the Agreed Framework had, from Pyongyang’s perspective, the goal of shoring up the regime’s position, its interest in the agreement faded as that end was not being achieved. In October 2002, in response to U.S. concerns, North Korea admitted the existence of a clandestine program for enriching uranium that had been initiated some time before (an admission later repudiated). KEDO then suspended oil deliveries, while, now, President Bush effectively withdrew from the agreement and delivered his “axis of evil” speech. A five-year period of renewed threats and punitive pressures was launched. This shift in U.S. policy allows us to compare the effectiveness of negative pressure to that of positive engagement, a comparison that finds few virtues in the former: the North Korea that emerged from the renewed confrontation five years later was, by just about any measure, a country more threatening than it had been before. At the same time, what progress there was at mitigating the North Korean nuclear threat resulted from a renewed willingness to offer meaningful inducements. Confrontational U.S. moves included attempts to haul North Korea before the UN Security Council, significant military maneuvers in South Korea, and the boarding (by Spanish troops, at U.S. urging) of a North Korean ship transporting Scud missiles to Yemen (an act that Pyongyang branded an “act of piracy”). President Bush, in his State of the Union speech in January 2002, castigated North Korea as a “repressive regime [whose] people live in fear and starvation.” North Korea reacted to the breakdown in relations by restarting, in December 2002, its Yongbyon reactor, expelling IAEA inspectors, and quitting the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty. In February 2003, it also abandoned its 1999 moratorium on missile tests. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called for a regime change in North Korea (Daily Telegraph 2003), which in June had scrapped its 1992 agreement with South Korea on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Tentative six-party talks,6 launched in 2003, scudded along with major interruptions and no conclusive agreement for two years. This was, among other things,

6. The parties were North Korea, South Korea, China, Russia, Japan, and the United States.

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a period of strife between, on the one hand, administration hard-liners, led my Vice President Dick Cheney, whose major goal was complete regime change in North Korea,7 and moderates, generally identified with Secretary of State Colin Powell, who genuinely sought a verifiable agreement with Pyongyang. The latter did not have the upper hand at the time, and little progress on the nuclear issue was made. Relations between the two countries were peppered with petulant rhetoric. In August 2004, George Bush described Kim Jong-il as a “tyrant”; Kim retaliated by calling the U.S. president an “imbecile” and a “tyrant that puts Hitler in the shade” (New York Times 2004d). Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice designated Pyongyang as one of six “outpost[s] of tyranny,” (BBC World News 2005b), which led it to suspend participation in the six-party talks. Two months later, North Korea shut down its nuclear reactor and extracted irradiated fuel rods for reprocessing to plutonium. Soon afterward, they fired a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan. Given the obvious failure of the confrontational approach, a new tack was attempted. This allows us, once again, to compare the relative merits of punitive and inducement-based strategies. In 2005 South Korea agreed to provide North Korea with food aid and significant amounts of electricity. Responding to a longstanding North Korean demand for security assurances, President Bush declared that the United States had no intention of attacking that country (BBC World News 2005c). Soon thereafter, Pyongyang reversed its obstructionist course by offering to abandon its nuclear reactors and to rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the United States would provide it with a light water reactor. The two countries were back to square one with regard to the Agreed Framework, but this achievement was almost immediately torpedoed by U.S. allegations (apparently substantiated) that North Korea was trafficking in drugs and counterfeiting U.S. dollars. To deal with this, Washington pressured international banks, particularly the Banco Delta Asia of Macau, to cease doing business with Pyongyang. North Korea responded that it would resume operating its nuclear reactors. In July 2006, North Korea test fired seven missiles, including the long-range Taepodong-2. South Korea suspended food aid, and the UN Security Council, at U.S. urging, imposed sanctions on the regime. North Korea responded with its first nuclear test (apparently, a one-megaton weapon) in September. The six years following the Albright visit to Pyongyang had, with brief interludes, been years of negative pressures that exacerbated the threat they were intended to control. In final acknowledgment that punitive policies had not

7. One account of negotiations at this time described the hard-liners’ strategy as “ensuring the U.S. position was so unyielding that the result would either be North Korean capitulation or a breakdown of the entire process.” (Chinoy 2008, 194).

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worked, Washington switched, once again, to incentives, and, predictably, North Korean concessions followed. For the first time during this period, the United States engaged (parallel with the six-party talks) in bilateral discussions with the North Koreans, and economic incentives were again on the table. President Bush expressed a willingness to provide North Korea with $25 million in food aid. The 2005 North Korean offer regarding the nuclear facilities was revived, and in February 2006 a new agreement was reached. Pyongyang agreed to shut down its Yongbyon reactor and plutonium reprocessing facility “for the purpose of eventual abandonment.”8 In addition, the regime promised to provide an inventory of all its nuclear (including uranium enrichment) programs by the end of 2007. The other five parties would furnish the country with an immediate 50,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil, followed by another 950,000 once the facilities were disabled. At the same time, steps would be taken to improve bilateral relations: Washington would initiate the process of removing North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and of exempting it from the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act. Once the United States removed restrictions on Korean funds with the Banco Delta Asia of Macau another major impediment to agreement was gone. An accord very much like the initial Agreed Framework of 1994 was finally reached, but not before North Korea had strengthened its military position and only after diplomacy and quid pro quos had replaced confrontational pugnacity. Progress has since been made, but it has not been smooth. Pyongyang failed to provide a full list of its nuclear facilities by the end of 2007. When this was done in June 2008,9 Washington freed North Korea from the restrictions of the Trading with the Enemy Act and removed it from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Why were U.S. inducements finally offered by the Bush administration, after they had been firmly rejected during the initial years of his presidency? The departure from the path followed for decades, and briefly interrupted in the mid1990s, had little to do with what we have called (chapter 2), the exogenous model of path reversal, based on improved North Korean conduct. The change occurred within the logic of the endogenous model and an altered strategic calculus, as the political benefits of punishing North Korea began undermining the pragmatic goal of avoiding a nuclear-armed adversary (especially one equipped with significant delivery capability). Even so, the balance between the two drives was not decisively tilted in the utilitarian direction: while the outlines of a potentially new

8. For the text of the agreement, see “North Korean Denuclearization Action Plan,” http://www. state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/february/80479/. 9. In the view of some, the statement provided was not complete, since it focused on plutonium facilities and made little (if any) mention of uranium enrichment facilities.

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critical juncture could be discerned, it was not yet decisively formed. On the one hand, there could be little doubt that the North Korean nuclear threat was growing, and that threats and sanctions were not achieving their goal. In 2008 fully 55 percent of the U.S. public considered the nuclear program a “major” threat; another 32 percent agreed that it was a minor threat (Pew 2008). Yet the political system had not agreed on the appropriate response. Neoconservative opponents continued to insist that the quid pro quos amounted to appeasement: a “putrid payoff ” in one estimate (Podhoretz 2007, 7), “capitulation” in another (Bolton 2008, 19). Within Congress there was a consensus on the gravity of the threat but little agreement on whether the compromises offered by the administration were appropriate. Even among Republicans, there was unease, as Michigan’s Peter Hoekstra, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, complained that “a decision seemingly has been made that it is more important for the White House to reach a legacy agreement than to get to the bottom of North Korea’s nuclear efforts” (CQ Homeland Security 2008, 16). Thus, a favorable domestic political response to conciliatory moves could not be assured; despite the threat’s magnitude only very hesitant concessions were made. Why were the U.S. inducements, nevertheless, well received by Pyongyang at that juncture? Probably because its legitimacy dilemma had further deepened, making foreign goodwill and assistance even more necessary to the regime’s domestic standing than they had been in the early 1990s. A path-dependent sequence, whereby external pugnacity and nuclear ambitions were driven by mechanisms of reproduction internal to North Korean politics—especially, the established basis for political legitimacy and the interests of the country’s national security establishment—clashed with the need to deal with new threats to regime legitimacy rooted in its glaring economic failures. A critical juncture appears to have been formed, allowing for a meaningful new policy path. The collapse of the Soviet Union firmly cut the economy off from one of its major lifelines, and even China assumed a less concessional attitude in its dealings with the regime (International Crisis Group 2006, 3). Energy shortages, after deliveries of KEDO heavy fuel oil had stopped and the country’s own coal production had reached a plateau, further contributed, along with a badly deteriorating capital stock, to a slowdown in industrial production (the sector of activity on which growth most depended). Agricultural output dropped even further with the—partly climate-caused—famines of 1995 and 1996.10 The government was forced to appeal to the international community; the World Food Program was invited to open an office in Pyongyang in 1996. By 2003 North

10. The socioeconomic and political impact of the famine is discussed in Naitson (1999).

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Korea had entered its ninth consecutive year of famine, with the World Food Program feeding almost 20 percent of the population (French 2005, 124). This was a far cry from the self-reliant abundance that Juche had promised. Although overall growth indicators improved between 1999 and 2005, the trend reversed itself in 2006 (the year in which the final agreement was reached) when the economy stood at 22.2 trillion won according to an estimate by the South Korean Central Bank—18 percent below its 1989 levels (International Herald Tribune 2007). The problems had led, in 2002, to the regime’s first modest economic reforms and attempts to attract foreign investment to the moribund economy, further increasing the need for helpful international engagement. Military spending of approximately 50 percent of GNP (Pan 2006) created an insuperable obstacle to meaningful domestic capital formation. The prospect of reducing the military burden must have weighed heavily in Pyongyang’s estimate of the desirability of an accord. Since 2008, North Korean behavior has regressed. In 2009 it expelled IAEA inspectors and, in 2010, engaged in limited military provocations against South Korea, while displaying, for the first time, a uranium enrichment facility. An initial problem was the different interpretation by Pyongyang and Washington of the former’s commitments on nuclear verification. In the U.S. view, the agreement was to allow inspectors to take soil and nuclear waste samples, while North Korea maintained that it had consented only to let U.S. inspectors visit the Yongbyon plant. Pending resolution of the difference, the United States discontinued fuel aid to North Korea in December 2008. Further stoking tensions, newly elected South Korean president Lee Myung-bak ended his predecessor’s “sunshine policy,” with its unconditional food and fertilizer aid and trade concessions, making future aid contingent on progress with regard to nuclear matters. Since then, the Kim Jong-il regime has rejected foreign food aid, and on April 5, 2009, it tested its Taepodong-2 missile, which crashed into the Pacific after a two thousand mile flight (New York Times 2009e). The UN Security Council condemned the launch and tightened sanctions imposed after North Korea’s 2006 missile tests. Pyongyang then boycotted the six-party talks and restarted its partially disabled Yongbyon reactor, hinting at further nuclear tests. On May 25, a second nuclear device was tested, followed by a spate of missile tests, and when South Korea joined the International Proliferation Security Initiative, North Korea declared it would abandon the truce that officially ended the Korean War. The regime’s overreactions can be interpreted in several ways. In the past, it has practiced brinkmanship to position itself high on the U.S. and international agenda and to improve its negotiating leverage; the election of a new U.S. president may have made this particularly desirable. More significant, Pyongyang probably feared that Kim Jong-il’s August 2008 stroke had created an impression

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of national vulnerability, which it was eager to dispel. It also is likely that the provocative behavior was linked to the politics of leadership transition and the need to secure the support of the military establishment for Kim Jong-il’s recently designated successor, his youngest son, Kim Jong-un.11 Most important, intensely provocative behavior implies that, for the time being at least, the regime may have decided that the rewards of positive engagement are too uncertain and that its best prospects lie with conciliating the nation’s powerful armed forces rather than a new set of economic interests. Some retaliatory U.S. action was politically unavoidable. On June 12, the UN Security Council, with Russian and Chinese backing, decreed toughened sanctions against North Korea, including a broader ban on arms sales and inspection of North Korean ships suspected of carrying banned cargo (Washington Post 2009c). Pyongyang retorted that in addition to renewed plutonium production it would begin enriching uranium, threatening a “thousand-fold” retaliation against the United States and its allies if provoked (BBC World News 2009e). A few conciliatory measures on the South Korea side eventually led to a softening of Pyongyang’s truculence. In September, Lee Myung-bak proposed a “grand bargain,” in which nuclear disarmament would be rewarded with security guarantees and new economic aid (BBC World News 2009e). The following month, Seoul offered to provide ten thousand tons of corn in its first instance of food aid in two years; in December this was supplemented with swine flu aid in the form of vaccines. The change in South Korea’s tone was followed by the North’s announcement that it might return to the six-party talks, as long as they were preceded by meaningful bilateral talks with the United States. In December U.S. envoy Stephen W. Bosworth visited North Korea, reporting that, while no specific deal had been reached, the two countries agreed on the need to reconvene the six-party talks and to carry out the 2005 agreement on North Korea’s nuclear programs—although Pyongyang has insisted that a lifting of sanctions should precede resumption of the talks. However, North Korean behavior soon deteriorated. In an astonishingly provocative act, a South Korean naval vessel, the

11. In addition, the promotion, in April, of Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law to the National Defense Commission (the most powerful group in the nation) can be interpreted as an attempt to secure military support in case Kim’s health fails. As Japanese foreign policy analyst Yoichi Funabashi observes in his book about the second round of U.S.–North Korean bargaining: “If Kim Jong-il wishes to maintain a hereditary system, his position vis-à-vis the military will necessarily be weaker, because he will need the military’s endorsement. Moreover, the closer the time gets to the passing of power, the less effective Kin might become in terms of the military (2007, 459).”

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Cheonan, was torpedoed on March 26, 2010, almost certainly by North Korea, near the maritime border between the two countries; the sinking cost the lives of forty-six South Korean sailors.12 Predictably, additional sanctions were imposed on Pyongynag by the UN Security Council; these were soon supplemented by further U.S. measures. North Korea’s increasingly truculent stance may be a product of Kim Jongil’s political calculations. The inability to provide the most basic foundations of national prosperity, the ever-present possibility of famine, the ideology’s growing lack of credibility, and the current absence of a middle class that could be mobilized on behalf of an authentic program of liberalizing reform has led the regime to make the military establishment the cornerstone of its political support. Since the military-first policy announced by Kim Jong-il in 1998, the armed forces have come to supplant the Korean Workers’ Party (the Communist Party) as the country’s dominant political institution, while the National Defense Commission has eclipsed the Politburo as the regime’s supreme decision-making body. As a study by the Congressional Research Service observed: “The military-first policy places the army ahead of the working class for the first time in the history of North Korea’s so-called revolutionary movement” (Nanto and Chanlett-Avery 2009, 23). Pyongyang’s confrontational policies, especially its nuclear and longrange missile tests, have been interpreted as an attempt to gratify the priorities of the institution on which the regime’s position now most depends. At the same time, military support is crucial to the North Korean leader’s plans eventually to transfer power to his son Kim Jong-un. Thus, the 2010 appointment of Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law, Jang Song-taek, as vice chairman of the National Defense Commission (the regime’s de facto number two post)—is often interpreted as a step toward ensuring support for this power transition (e.g., New York Times 2010). Ultimately, further progress along the path to nuclear disarmament will involve some measure of positive inducements. But even if temporary moderation is secured, the regime’s volatility portends an uncertain future, especially since nuclear knowledge has been acquired and the weapons themselves are unlikely to be abandoned. While reciprocal concessions may curb the immediate North Korean threat, the long-term outlook depends on the regime’s political future, and, moving from the exchange model to the catalytic model, we ask whether positive engagement can transform the regime itself to a point where quid pro quos of this sort are less and less necessary.

12. Pyongyang has vehemently denied responsibility. However, forensic evidence, in the form of parts of a torpedo perfectly fitting North Korea schematics, was recovered near the site of the sinking.

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Positive Engagement and the Catalytic Model The manner in which a catalytic process could affect North Korea’s political development depends on how one estimates the regime’s ultimate viability: whether one believes that it can salvage part of its character by a program of progressive reforms that relieve some of its most glaring contradictions, or whether its implosion has become inevitable. In either scenario, external engagement is apt to play a beneficial catalytic role. T H E S C ENA R I O O F C O N TRO LLE D R E FO R M

Since both carrots and sticks produce domestic political consequences, and judgments on the value of concessions are formed within a structure of domestic interests and values, it is these that inducements must affect to encourage nascent interests and values that drive the regime toward improved international conduct. The challenge is to anticipate the possible turns that North Korea’s political future might take so as to maximize the prospect for desirable developments. Barring total regime implosion, a scenario that would produce considerable regional dangers, a plausible path for North Korea has been that traveled by several other Communist countries and sometimes referred to as “market-Leninism.” Positive inducements may nudge the regime along this course, reducing its need to cater to traditional political supporters while enhancing the political significance of those who benefit from economic liberalization and the opportunity for foreign contacts. Market-Leninism allows for the maintenance of centralized political command while pairing it with market liberalization, the hybrid producing domestic interests that press for integration into the international economy. While China furnishes the leading model of market-Leninism, an example more closely relevant in terms of scale to North Korean conditions is that of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In 1986 Vietnam’s Sixth Party Congress undertook a program of market reforms known as Doi Moi (renovation), which ushered in free-market mechanisms, economic deregulation, and private ownership of farms and companies (Boothroyd and Nam 2000). Foreign investment was promoted, much of it coming from the expatriate community in Europe and the United States. As with China, Vietnam’s economy has become one of the fastest growing in the world. Although the dominant role of the Communist Party remains unquestioned, priorities have shifted away from conventional ideological objectives to the welfare aims of most modern societies. A wholly nonconfrontational stance has also come to characterize the country’s foreign policy. Within months of the 1991 Paris Agreements that addressed Vietnam’s role in Cambodia, Hanoi established diplomatic and commercial links with the Association of Southeast

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Asian Nations (ASEAN) and with most of the countries of Europe and Northeast Asia. Diplomatic relations with the United States followed in 1995, and the country joined the World Trade Organization in 2006. Secretary of Defense William Cohen visited Hanoi in 2000, while his successor, Donald Rumsfeld, called on the government on three occasions, praising its “amazing economic achievements,” amid talk of defense cooperation (New York Times 2006). President Bush himself visited Vietnam in 2007, when it hosted the meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The outlook for a similar scenario in North Korea will depend largely on whether prospects for change are encouraged by bolstering, though opportunities for international cooperation, the position of those who would most benefit from this development. A successfully negotiated deal on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs that provided the country with access to the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank, as well as World Trade Organization membership, could spur meaningful market reforms and create substantial new opportunities for gain. As those who desire market reforms and foreign economic opportunities become more important to the political authorities, and as reform is validated by economic success, nuclear weapons lose their rationale within both the legitimizing narrative and the regime’s political calculus. This assumes, however, foreign willingness to remove obstacles to the country’s integration into the world economy, and a conducive domestic political climate. The latter requires that the regime not fear that economic liberalization would result in a loss of political control and that external security fears would no longer justify nuclear programs: both expectations benefit from a receptive international environment. International economic opportunities and domestic reform have a chickenor-egg quality, but the regime has undertaken a limited amount of the latter in the hope that the former would follow. Pyongyang’s 1984 joint-venture law opened possibilities for foreign investment, while a 1986 policy allowed enterprises to retain 20 to 50 percent of earnings above their required contribution to the government (Harrison 2002, 31). In 1991, after Kim Jong-il visited China, the regime announced the creation of a free trade and investment area in the Rajin-Sonbong area. Although the idea was to create an important container port and hub for export industries, little foreign interest followed due to poor infrastructure, difficult transportation, and bureaucratic interference. The more recent Kaeson Industrial Park near the demilitarized zone fared better, attracting some South Korean investment. In 2002, Pyongyang announced additional reforms, including an increase in official prices (bringing them closer to prices on the black market) and wages, increased scope for private farming, and a slightly decentralized system of industrial and agricultural management (Nanto 2006). Further measures encouraging informal local markets and small-scale business were

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adopted in 2004 (Economist 2004). The regime continues to express an interest in Vietnamese-style economic reforms, and, in a November 2007 visit to Vietnam, Kim Jong-il publicly expressed his admiration of Doi Moi (Daily NK 2007). Modest reforms notwithstanding, the economy remains mired in structural incongruities and misplaced priorities. The military-first policy, directing so large a share of the budget to the military, continues to stifle domestic capital formation and infrastructural reconstruction, while continued bureaucratic difficulties and political uncertainties discourage significant foreign investment. The deterioration of the country’s physical stock has not been reversed, while declining energy production (one reason for the pursuit of a nuclear energy– generating capability) continues to hobble serious recovery. Every aspect of the transportation infrastructure appears to be crumbling. What growth has been recorded in recent years was fueled by unilateral transfers from China and South Korea, rather than by increased agricultural and industrial production. Apart from the matter of political will and concern that significant economic reform could be politically perilous, a major problem involves the imprint of history, where decades of colonization by Japan followed by sixty years of Stalinist economics have not furnished bureaucrats or ordinary citizens with the skills and understanding required to cope with the challenges of a market economy. Neither the education system nor the living memory of most North Koreans provides the training and expectations needed to function in a competitive and productive setting. There are other reasons why Vietnam’s success might not be replicated in the North Korean context. A great boost to the influx of foreign capital from Vietnam came from its substantial expatriate community in the West, the United States in particular. North Korea can count on nothing of the sort. Also, because much of North Korea’s economy is involved in heavy industry, reforms would be more disruptive than in an economy with a large agricultural sector, where structural changes could be introduced more easily. Although new elites stand to benefit most from market-Leninism and a progressive integration into the international system, some old elites may also discover advantages. As Selig Harrison observes, “North Korean leaders have watched the sons of Deng Xiao Peng in China grow wealthy overnight running giant import-export companies. North Korean generals, in particular, are aware that their counterparts in the armed forces of China, Indonesia, Thailand, and other Asian countries have claimed a profitable role in economic development” (Harrison 2002, 38). The point is that what Harrison calls the “smell of money” factor affects not just the expected reformist groups but perhaps also those who gained control of productive assets under the old regime, assets that could provide a source of considerable corporate and individual profit under liberalized economic conditions.

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The chances that North Korea would march down an authentic marketLeninist path where economic interests moderate policies, are no better than fifty-fifty. The task is to improve the odds—at least, to ensure that they do not deteriorate. In this regard, it must be appreciated that none of the welcome developments exhibited in Vietnam would have been feasible absent significant possibilities for economic interaction with the outside world, or had the regime felt threatened by hostile foreign forces. Active international engagement could also be beneficial in the North Korean case. There, as elsewhere, foreign trade and investment should build domestic interests pressing for reintegration into the international community while weakening the arguments on which political hard-liners build their platforms. A report on North Korea by a task force convened by the Asia Society urged that “the United States should adopt a long-term strategy of economic engagement with North Korea.” North Korea’s attitude toward the world is closely related to the underlying structure of its domestic political economy. . . . Encouraging a more open and market-friendly economic growth strategy would benefit the North Korean people as a whole and would generate vested interests in continued reform and opening, and a less confrontational foreign policy. (Asia Society, Center on U.S.-China Relation 2009, 5) Access to international interactions would also make it harder for the regime to block flows of information from abroad, which would expand awareness within the country of the benefits of democratic capitalism and undermine the political mythology with which the regime’s vast system of political indoctrination has inculcated its people. It is unclear how a policy of economic strangulation and coercive threats would advance these goals. THE SCENARIO OF REGIME COLLAPSE

It could, of course, be argued that controlled regime transformation is neither feasible nor particularly desirable, that the regime is so steeped in evil that its complete dismantling is the only worthy objective. This is a conviction that permeates segments of the U.S. political system. On a visit to Tokyo former UN ambassador John Bolton asserted that “the only desirable objective is the collapse of the North Korean regime” (Japan Times 2007). The precise mechanisms that would produce this breakdown are never spelled out, but because apparently solid dictatorships sometimes implode, we should consider both the consequences of collapse and how these circumstances might be influenced from abroad. Let us assume that attempts at regime perpetuation through modest reforms fail, because the hard steps are not taken, because structural obstacles to reform prove insuperable, and because the international community does little to help

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ensure its success. Famine might well reappear.13 Massive failures of governance could no longer be masked by the regime’s propaganda—it might lose its reason for being in the eyes of a large segment of North Korean society and crumble under the weight of its monumental failures. If this does happen, the manner of the implosion would matter very much, as it could involve either a “soft” or “hard” landing. A soft landing assumes that, while the regime ceases to exist, the North Korean state survives as a functioning entity: stable political authority emerges from the ruins; the new regime enjoys considerable legitimacy and is committed to fundamental political and economic change, as well as to a conciliatory foreign policy. With a hard landing, regime collapse spells the destruction of effective political authority. No functioning state emerges from the wreckage; amid the absence of a consensus on central governance, the military establishment fragments, the bureaucracy disintegrates, anarchy erupts, and North Korea assumes the attributes of a volatile failed state. Brutal and apparently stable regimes can, given certain catalysts, abruptly loose their grip on power. Thus, the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines and the regime of Shah Reza Pahlavi in Iran collapsed with surprising suddenness, as the foundations on which their authority rested caved in and as new contenders for power came forth. In both cases, public disaffection thrust itself into national politics—with massive antiregime rallies and elite groups maneuvering for the succession. Sometimes, demands for political change hinge on substantial political events—as with Ukraine’s Orange and Lebanon’s Cedar revolutions, but the political catalyst can seem rather minor, as with the 1989 riots in the Romanian city of Timos¸oara that preceded the collapse of the Ceaus¸escu dictatorship. The uniqueness of the North Korean regime notwithstanding, some parallels with the Romanian situation are instructive. There we also encountered a massively repressive Communist state that rested on a personality cult (Ceaus¸escu’s appellations included “Leader” and “Genius of the Carpathians”), amid rigid control of all aspects of political, economic, and civic life. The regime retained an outward gloss of stability, but massive public riots erupted in 1989; levels of violence reached unexpected heights, while elements of the military leadership quickly inserted themselves into the succession struggle, abandoning allegiance to the Communist dictatorship. An unexpected catalyst could make public frustrations erupt in North Korea as well, with fragmenting governmental unity, bureaucratic paralysis, and a massive discrediting of the Stalinist/Juche myths. At the same time, the Romanian case is encouraging in its aftermath. After a year of semistable rule by the National Sal-

13. The best book on this issue is Haggard and Noland (2007).

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vation Front, the country hit its political stride, with credible democratic institutions and effective economic reforms. In 2004 Romania joined NATO and, three years later, the European Union. If this example illustrates how the Kim regime could expire, the analogy has its limits. In Romania there was, prior to the collapse, sufficient differentiation among political and economic elites to ensure credible and sufficiently legitimate actors to carry out needed reforms. And, the prior regime’s repressiveness aside, a fair grasp of the virtues and mechanism of democratic capitalism had penetrated the country. With no semblance of a modern civil society or of a latent and semiorganized opposition and without the foundations of a functioning economy, the hard-landing model is probable, meaning that a regime’s collapse would spawn a wholesale breakdown of governance and extended periods of internecine violence and regional instability. The collapse of Mobutu Sese Seko’s regime in Zaire and Mohamed Siad Barre’s in Somalia illustrate the possibilities, and the Kim dictatorship’s downfall could produce pathologies similar to, but with far graver international consequences. From the perspective of North Korea’s long-suffering people, the consequences of a hard landing might include the collapse of agricultural production and, if weather conditions replicate those of several years in the 1990s, starvation on an even greater scale. The crumbling of command authority in a military that is more than one million strong, and especially for the special operations forces accustomed to privileged treatment, might lead regional commanders to assume the attributes of competing warlords, fighting for their share of whatever remains of shrinking economic resources. If they had in their hands chemical and biological weapons, the risks would be enormous. The prospect of nuclear warheads coming under the control of such warlords boggles the mind. From the perspective of South Korea (which feels very uncomfortable with any scenario of the Kim regime’s collapse), the problems are enormous. Aside from the remote possibility of regional commanders undertaking independent military action against it, South Korea faces the threat of massive inflows of refugees, as well as the long-term, perhaps crippling, costs of reabsorbing the northern half into a unified, democratically governed and capitalist Korea. China, too, might have to deal with considerable refugee pressure across its own long border with North Korea. From the U.S. standpoint, a hard landing could require a powerful military presence in North Korea to stabilize an explosive situation. Most of this burden would fall on the U.S. Pacific Command. Unilateral U.S. action might be unacceptably threatening to China, which would have reasons for wanting its own military presence in that country, so solutions of unprecedented complexity and delicacy would have to be devised. These could include a joint U.S.-Chinese

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stabilization force, or possibly a joint NATO-Chinese force, either variant implying daunting political and logistic challenges and requiring legitimation by the United Nations. Should the United States remain militarily entangled in Afghanistan and Iraq, the difficulties begin to seem insurmountable. Given the unpalatable hard-landing alternative, how could the likelihood of a soft landing be maximized? The requirements, here, are very similar to those that bolster the outlook for a market-Leninist scenario. The emergence of a credible structure of political authority requires the rudiments of a civil society, the promise of a sustainable economy, and a segment of society sufficiently acquainted with the mechanisms of free markets. All of this necessitates foreign help. As the conditions for a soft landing cannot wholly be developed after collapse, international engagement is needed not only at that juncture but, if the proper foundations are to be laid, in the years preceding the collapse. If a policy of strangulation were to precipitate, rather than postpone, the regime’s implosion, it would make a hard landing more likely, and we must ask whether either a stable dictatorship with some chance of a market-Leninist transformation, or else collapse in the form of a soft landing, would not be preferable. The bottom line is that, whether the future offers a North Korea with unchanged concerns and priorities, a Kim-lite regime embracing market reforms, or complete regime destruction, the national interest of the United States, and the interests of the international community, are apt to be best served by a policy of positive engagement—whether or not it produces immediate benefits within the exchange model. The obstacles to this policy are significant, but they are more firmly linked to an estimate of what, within the U.S. context, is politically feasible than to the probable impact that policy is apt to produce. A major problem is the perception that with the North Korean regime seen as being fundamentally bad, positive engagement would seem like a moral hazard, appeasement, and rewarding “evil.” But the ethical issue may be misstated, since the values between which tradeoffs must be decided are those, on the one hand, of offering concessions to a regime one dislikes and, on the other hand, of saddling the world with the threat that the regime would continue to pose. If the ultimate virtue of foreign policy is service to the national (and international) interest, the moral dilemma easily resolves itself.

Iran: Quid Pro Quos and the Problem of Asynchronous Policies The record of U.S. policies toward Iran indicates not only that unrelieved threats and pressures rarely achieve their objectives, but also that regime political needs

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create opportunities for positive inducements. One window of opportunity for meaningful quid pro quos briefly opened during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency. However, this did not coincide with a similar critical juncture on the U.S. side, and the exceptional occasions when inducements might have made a difference were not acted on; instead, concessions were offered when, from the perspective of the regime’s legitimacy needs, the window of opportunity had temporarily closed, that is, they were no longer needed. This, then, amounted to the cell in table 3.1 designated “missed opportunity.” At the same time, some level of latent instability is inherent in Iran’s political system in the social and economic problems with which the regime is saddled, and a redistribution of political power in Iran conducive to less threatening policies could be encouraged within the logic of the catalytic model.

Nuclear Programs and Punitive Pressures Iran’s uranium enrichment program has been just one of several thorns in Washington’s side: its disruptive stance toward the Middle East peace has been a continuous irritant, while support of Hezbollah and Hamas has made it, according to the U.S. State Department, the world’s “most active state sponsor of terrorism” (U.S. Department of State 2006). Following the 1983 marine barracks bombing by Hezbollah, with which Tehran was apparently complicit (CNN 2003), President Reagan labeled Iran a sponsor of terrorism, making it ineligible for foreign assistance. In 1987 the U.S. military was involved in encounters with Iranian forces, including strikes on Persian Gulf oil platforms. In 1987 a ban was imposed on imports from Iran, including oil. The Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act, signed into law in October 1992, prohibited the sale of “dual-use items” (having both a civilian and military application), a measure largely directed against Iranian WMD programs. Secretary of State Warren Christopher referred to Iran as an “outlaw state” (New York Times 1995c). National Security Adviser Anthony Lake placed Iran within an unsavory group of “aggressive and defiant . . . backlash states,” against whom vigorous containment was required (Lake 1994). In 1995 President Clinton issued Executive Order 12957, banning U.S. contributions to the development of Iranian petroleum facilities. In 1996 the Senate passed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, meant to discourage European investment in Iran’s energy sector. Yet punitive measures did not produce the desired effect. Iran continued to be listed in the State Department’s annual reports as a major supporter of international terrorism, while its stance toward Middle East peace had not, from Washington’s perspective, improved at all. Most significant, this also was the time when Iran accelerated its efforts to acquire nuclear fuel.

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The failure of sanctions and bluster notwithstanding, President Bush increased the level of both. His 2002 State of the Union address declared that the United States “would not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most dangerous weapons.” The National Security Strategy of the United States (2002)14 allowed for military force to be used preemptively against U.S. foes, while the president declared that “all options are on the table” to prevent Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons (BBC World News 2006a). Plans for contingency strikes against Iran revealed that they extended beyond nuclear sites, encompassing most of the country’s military infrastructure (BBC World News 2007a), including surgical strikes against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (AFP 2007). Aircraft carrier battle groups were deployed to the Persian Gulf. From the poor success of economic sanctions under the administration’s predecessors, it was concluded that they should be further intensified. Following Iran’s failure to comply with an earlier resolution demanding that it suspend all uranium-enrichment activities, the UN Security Council, in 2006 and at U.S. urging, banned trade with Iran of all items useful to its uranium enrichment program. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refused to back down, and Iran began producing nuclear fuel on an industrial scale (New York Times 2007b). Five months later, the Security Council intensified its sanctions, banning arms exports from Iran and imposing a freeze on the assets of individuals and entities involved in the nuclear program. Tehran responded by reaffirming its right to “peaceful” nuclear energy and threatening to stop cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency. In March 2008 the Security Council, again at U.S. urging, imposed a third wave of sanctions, including asset freezes and travel restrictions on top regime officials. Iran declared that it would ignore the sanctions (BBC World News 2008c). Yielding to pressure from Washington, European officials agreed, in February, to widen a ban on financial transactions with Iran (New York Times 2007c), while the United States took further steps of its own to squeeze the regime and its main sources of support. Accusing the Revolutionary Guards, especially its Quds Force, of being the main force behind Iran’s nuclear program and its major supporter of terrorism, Washington blocked its financial accounts and other assets within U.S. jurisdiction (New York Times 2007d). The administration then pressed for a wider-reaching set of multilateral sanctions. Again, Tehran’s response was unrepentant. Attempts to use Hamas and Hezbollah to further Iranian regional ambitions did not relent. Obstructionism in Iraq, where Iran was accused of furnishing improvised explosive devices to the

14. The text can be found at http://whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html.

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rebels, was supplemented by apparent efforts to arm the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan (BBC World News 2007b). Most important for our present purposes, the uranium enrichment program continued unabated, although there is evidence that programs to weaponize the fuel were discontinued in 2003 (Director of National Intelligence 2007). Supreme Leader Ayatollah Syed Ali Hoseyni Khamenei, probably referring to Iran’s terrorist links and its leverage with some Shiites in Iraq, warned that his country would target U.S. interests worldwide if it came under attack, claiming that the Revolutionary Guards had test fired missiles that could sink “big warships” in the Persian Gulf, toward which a second U.S. aircraft carrier was then heading (Washington Post 2007a). Shrugging off decades of threats and sanctions, Tehran, like North Korea, became more, not less, of a problem. As threats to a regime’s domestic position often portend its increasing openness to appropriate inducements, there have been stages in U.S.-Iranian relations when receptivity to such inducements has been exhibited, confirming key premises of this book. However, political disincentives within the United States meant that these moments were not seized, and the window of opportunity soon closed. A new critical juncture in foreign policy strategy requires that the failure of current strategies should be evident and costly and that this realization permeate the political community, such that most of its members are more likely to reward than to censure the altered strategy. Tentative movements notwithstanding, such developments never took firm root during this period. Toward the end of the Clinton presidency, willingness was expressed to move away from the Dual Containment Strategy15 and to relax sanctions, which would allow the importation of Iranian carpets and pistachios, while Secretary of State Albright, in a speech to the Iranian American Council on March 17, 2000, declared that “we must be willing to deal directly with each other as two proud and independent nations and address on a mutual basis the issues that have been keeping us apart” (U.S. Department of State 2000). But these gestures were modest and tentative, and, given resistance within the Republican-controlled House and Senate, not much more could have been offered. Problems of credible commitment were exacerbated by an Iranian perception that the Clinton presidency had pretty much run its course and that in the event that Republicans seized control of the White House, the conciliatory gestures might be overturned. Indeed, when the election brought George H. Bush to the presidency, U.S. policy again became strident, and it is only toward the end of his second term, with the realization that Tehran’s nuclear program had progressed to a dangerous point and that

15. Directed simultaneously at Iraq and Iran.

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sanctions and threats were not working, that a tentative willingness to consider diplomacy and inducements was again expressed. By the time of this juncture, however, the Iranian regime had become less receptive to positive incentives than it had been earlier, while the U.S. gestures were quite modest, as divisions within the political community made it unlikely that conciliation would be domestically rewarded. For the most part, the Bush administration resisted any form of engagement. Vice President Cheney clung to the view that regime change was the proper policy and even assumed the possibility of military confrontation (New York Times 2007e). Opposition to conciliatory moves also was evident within the legislative branch: in 2006 Congress passed the Iran Freedom Support Act, which provided funds for democracy promotion (essentially, regime change) and extending the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act. Almost two-thirds of Americans surveyed expressed support for “tough sanctions” (Pew 2006). Thus, as regards both learning curves and domestic politics, there was insufficient impetus toward a new critical juncture in U.S. policy. As a result, positive gestures have generally been too modest to evoke much interest from Tehran, though they were most evident precisely when not much responsiveness could have been expected.

The Legitimacy Challenge and Opportunities for Quid Pro Quos Although the regime’s confrontational stance has been supported by the political reward structure established after the Islamic Revolution, creating the sort of path dependence that makes the risks of changing policy seem greater than those of staying the course, incipient challenges to the regime did create a window of opportunity within which a new critical juncture could have formed. As with North Korea, the regime’s legitimizing narrative was rooted in a proclaimed ideational mission, claiming for it a unique place in the course of history. With Iran, too, the narrative began to lose its credibility, at the same that sluggish economic growth underscored the regime’s disappointing performance. As with North Korea, problems with regime legitimacy opened opportunities for positive engagement, but, in this case, the opportunities were not acted on. The essence of the legitimizing narrative was religious. The idea that the government was in God’s hands vested absolute authority in the Prophet Muhammed, the infallible imams (successors of Muhammed), and the faqihs, clerical guardians, who were bearers of temporal and spiritual authority pending the arrival of the Mahdi or messiah to rule the affairs of humanity. In the meantime, the “government of God” had thus far been established in a single “redeemer nation,” Iran, making it the “only true Islamic independent country and the only depository of

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the essence and message of God” (Hunter 1998, 132). The concept of velayat-e faqih (rule by the jurisprudent) endowed clerics with supreme political and civilian authority. The religious and the political were intertwined, while the country’s position in Islam’s vanguard implied an important international role. The regime’s duty was to promote, initially within the area of Iran and the Middle East and subsequently on a broad international scale, a theocratic vision that, within an Islamic context, was perceived as universally applicable. The mantle of international religious leadership was supplemented by a powerful mission on behalf of social justice. For Ayatollah Khomeini, the world was divided into two camps—the arrogant exploitive powers (mustakberine) and the downtrodden (mustazefin)—a distinction separating those who adhere to the path of Satan and disbelief from those who stick to God’s true course. From this follows the partition into Dar-ul-Islam (the realm of Islam, of peace and enlightenment) and Dar-ul-Harb (the realm of nonbelief, war, and corruption) (Hunter 1998, 128–30). Iran would deal with the Mustakberine with militant vigor. The notion of an elevated historical role may have appealed to many Iranians, conscious of the influence their country had enjoyed during various historical periods. This unique mission placed regime and country at the forefront of an international Islamic revolution whose goal was to spread the message and build a coalition of the socioeconomically and religiously oppressed. The interests of the poor and downtrodden were enjoying far more attention than before, albeit within a generally capitalist context, creating a “healthier and more desirable society through an equitable distribution of wealth, and greater social welfare for the disenfranchised, disposed, and deprived masses” (Amuzegar 1993, 18). This is the narrative that furnished the ideational foundation for the regime’s legitimacy. As in the North Korean case, it created expectations for the average citizen’s welfare and for the country’s position on the international stage. In the Iranian case, too, the expectations were hard to meet, while its nuclear programs, implying both economic and more broadly international benefits, offered the regime a partial solution to the legitimacy dilemma. Consequently, inducements in a context of quid pro quo would have had to provide the regime with ways, at least as effective as the nuclear programs, of addressing its political dilemma.

Challenges to Legitimacy and Opportunities for U.S. Engagement Some sources of instability are inherent in the regime’s architecture and, especially, its claims to legitimacy. The interests and ideational preferences that had been suppressed were never fully demobilized. The force that brought the Islamic regime to power—zeal rooted in a radical conception of Islam—has lacked, like

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most ideational drives, the ability to sustain itself over the long haul in the face of failures and frustrations of a more tangible sort. The economy, pairing a large (but not exclusive) focus on the petroleum industry with an ambiguous relation to market forces, has not generated the combination of social justice and growth originally expected of it. The firmest basis for the regime’s position has been the post-1979 institutional structure, which pretty much guarantees that, in any clash of political priorities, those espoused by the clerical authorities will prevail. But institutional structures cannot indefinitely fend off social and economic dissatisfaction, and a sustained need to thwart opposition indicates precarious stability. In this regard, and virtually since the Islamic Revolution, the regime has faced some measure of latent instability. By the 1990s, what had been latent became amply manifest, with loud demonstrations of domestic dissatisfaction and with the electoral victories of political reformists. Roughly around 2005, however, major challenges were fended off, and the political disequilibrium receded to latent proportions. Because Islamic fundamentalists like Khomeini argued that society’s spiritual core atrophies when in thrall to excessively material preoccupations, outright wealth production has never been a major goal of the Islamic Revolution (Beeman 1983, 192). Still, no regime retains support for long if people’s basic material aspirations are frustrated, and notions of economic and social justice permeate Islam. Although the Islamic Revolution devastated the economy, one of its first moves was to raise the minimum daily wage by 167 percent (Hiro 1985, 151). Nationalization of banks, insurance companies, and, later, a number of manufacturing facilities provided the government with the means to pursue redistributive policies. The Islamic constitution created a three-sector economy: the state sector (encompassing major industries and services, as well as foreign trade), the cooperative sector (concerned with production and distribution according to “Islamic criteria”), and a private sector (limited to small-scale agriculture and manufacturing activities). The state sector is dominant; state monopolies cover basic industries and services protected from foreign competition by the rule prohibiting the import of goods that could be produced domestically in sufficient amounts. In addition, merchant associations with close ties to conservative factions are encouraged, while elements of the regime’s coercive apparatus carve out positions of economic power and privilege. These are not the defining features of a dynamic, market-oriented economy. By the time of Khomeini’s death in 1989, much of the initial Islamist fervor of 1979 had spent itself. To some extent, the extreme pitch of Islamic passion in the republic’s early days left more room for decline in passion than further accretion of it. This may not have been critical to the regime’s position had the Islamic

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Republic’s first decade seen greater movement toward economic betterment in a context of social justice. While the regime did its best to control outright poverty, economic performance was disappointing by any standard. The implosion of the private sector with the nationalizations and the emigration of the entrepreneurial cadre, the minimal economic management skills of the clerical elite, the initial emphasis on economic autarchy, and the crippling war with Iraq ensured the withering of domestic investment and international trade.16 Writes economic historian Hashem Pesaran: Over the period 1978–88, the real output and investment fell by average annual rates of 1.8 percent and 6.6 percent respectively, while the total real consumption expenditures had remained largely stagnant, with population growing at around 3.2 percent to 3.9 percent per annum. . . . The unprecedented falls in output and investment were accompanied by a widening gap between the official and the black (or ”free”) market exchange rates, and rapidly rising prices. (Pesaran 2000, 64) Iran also did not assume the international role Khomeini had considered its due. While its pariah status within that segment of the international community dominated by the United States is unlikely to have reflected too badly on the regime with its public, the fact that few other nations in the region, even those with sizable Shiite populations, were willing to consider the Islamic Republic a desirable model was more disappointing, while its subversive efforts at establishing regional dominance were unsuccessful. Riots by Iranian pilgrims in Mecca, apparently orchestrated by the Revolutionary Guards (Katzman 2002), produced no result other than the rupture of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. An attempted coup in Bahrain that would have installed a Shiite cleric, resident in Iran, as head of a theocratic state on the Iranian model, failed. By the time of Khomeini’s death in 1989, Iran’s foreign policy had achieved virtually none of its objectives (Takeyh 2006, 65). Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s elevation to the presidency in 1989 reflected a need for change. Committed to the clerical regime, but understanding that its legitimacy required tangible accomplishments, he initiated ultimately unsuccessful efforts at economic liberalization and attracting private investment, while easing restrictions on the country’s cultural life (allowing, for example, radio and television to broadcast Western music). Still, there were signs of public disaffection. The year 1992 witnessed major unrest at Tehran University, where students

16. It is estimated that, in its final years, the war with Iraq was consuming 70% of Iran’s revenues (Ehsani 1994, 17).

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resisted a government-appointed dean. Workers at the Tehran oil refinery went on strike (New York Times 1992a), and work stoppages were reported elsewhere. Voters in the parliamentary elections of 1992 appeared far more concerned with economic than religious issues. The ideational basis of legitimacy suffered along with its material component. As one voter complained, “The more difficult the economic situation gets, the more people lose their religious beliefs. . . . I don’t think any of the promises of the revolution have been met” (New York Times 1992b). Second thoughts about the regime were voiced by some of its former supporters. These included Abdol Karim Soroush of Tehran University, who, in earlier years, had enthusiastically backed the regime’s attempts to assert its control over that academic institution; he now argued that religion could, and should be, made compatible with democracy and pluralism. Another influential cleric, Mohsen Kadivar, chastised the ruling mullahs for creating an “Islamic kingdom” rather than a republic, arguing that the current order actually strayed from proper religious norms (Slavin 2007, 110). The Association of Militant Clergy emerged as a major critic of the regime’s antidemocratic tendencies. The 1997 presidential elections did not favor the themes touted by the clerical power structure. According to one survey, only 15 percent of the voters considered it important to confront the West’s “cultural onslaught” and resist détente with the United States (Fairbanks 1998, 18). The candidate favored by the Supreme Leader, Hodjatoleslam Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, was defeated by the reformist Mohammad Khatami, who, four years later, won an even larger portion of the popular vote. Although the eight years of his presidency were marred by successful efforts by hard-liners to undermine his policies,17 signs of deteriorating regime legitimacy were plentiful, culminating most vividly in the 1999 weeklong antigovernment student demonstrations that included burning pictures of the Supreme Leader (PBS 1999). The regime was now facing instability of a manifest sort, making it more receptive to gestures from abroad that could mitigate of its domestic problems. A first indication was Rafsanjani’s move to offer the U.S. firm Conoco a billiondollar contract to develop two Iranian offshore oil fields. This would have been the first contract awarded to a foreign entity for oil field exploration and development since the 1979 revolution (Estelami 1999, 6). It also represented an overture from which some leverage over Tehran’s behavior might have been gained; but it was almost immediately rebuffed by President Clinton, who, under pressure

17. For example, the Guardian Council vetoed 111 of the 297 bills Khatami had approved over the course of his presidency (Slavin 2007, 116).

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from a Republican-controlled Congress, issued an executive order barring U.S. citizens from investing in or managing oil development projects in Iran (Slavin 2005); this critical juncture on the Iranian side encountered no reflection in a corresponding development on the U.S. side. With Khatami’s election to the presidency, new opportunities for rapprochement appeared. In his inaugural address, he declared himself willing to entertain “relations with any state that respects our independence” and called for a “dialogue of civilizations” (Khatami 1998, 150). He even praised American civilization, steeped as it was in a Puritan ethic “whose vision and characteristics, in addition to worshipping God, was in harmony with republicanism, democracy, and freedom. . . . We feel that what we seek is what the founders of the American civilization were also pursuing four centuries ago” (CNN 1998). While criticizing U.S. policy toward Iran, he expressed regret over the hostage episode and recommended, as a first step on the path to reconciliation, an exchange of “professors, writers, scholars, artists, journalists, and tourists.” While intrigued by these possibilities, the Clinton administration was afraid of making insufficiently requited concessions to Iran, especially since Khatami’s overture was not mirrored by regime hard-liners. State Department spokesman Barry Rubin, welcoming the prospect of a dialogue, announced that the United States would use it to raise concerns about Iranian behavior, specifically its support of terrorism, its WMD programs, and its opposition to the Middle East peace process. Khatami had hoped for a tangible concession, rather than a forum for criticizing Iran; he refrained from further gestures toward the United States, and regime hard-liners were the beneficiaries. Another opportunity appeared in the wake of 9/11. Khatami condemned the terrorist attacks, large Iranian crowds turned out to hold candlelit vigils for the victims, and sixty thousand spectators respected a minute of silence at Tehran’s soccer stadium. When the United States took military action against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, Iran offered to cooperate. It allowed U.S. pilots in distress to land on Iranian soil; it supported Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, America’s major military ally within that country; and it helped devise a broad-based government to replace the Taliban (Slavin 2007, 197–98). Tehran expected U.S. reciprocation; instead, a few weeks later, President Bush, reacting to Israel’s discovery of a consignment of Iranian weapons intended for Palestinian groups, described Iran as part of the “axis of evil.” As the BBC reported, “Hard-liners in Iraq, scarred by the past, cited Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s dictum that any friendship between the U.S. and Iran was like between a wolf and a sheep” (BBC World News 2006b). Still another chance for progress presented itself in May 2003, following the successful U.S. march into Baghdad. The new overture took the form of a letter,

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apparently endorsed by Khomeini, suggesting an agenda for comprehensive talks between the two countries. Tehran offered to put just about everything on the table, including its WMD programs and its obligation of full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the issue of Iranian support for terrorism, and its attitude toward the Middle East peace process. For its part, the United States should discuss a halt in its hostile behavior, repeal economic sanctions, and recognize Iran’s “legitimate security interests” in the region.18 The letter apparently had the support of the highest levels of the country’s political hierarchy (presumably Khamenei himself). However, the offer was never seriously considered by the Bush administration (Slavin 2007, 205). In a further gesture of improved flexibility, and responding to pressures by the EU-3 (France, Britain, and Germany, representing the European Union), Iran suspended uranium enrichment for nine months and agreed to allow snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities. Flynt Leverett, senior director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, who also served on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff during President Bush’s first term, has explained: In the aftermath of the 9–11 attacks, Khamenei approved Iranian cooperation with the United States, including a direct and authoritative diplomatic channel, to unseat the Taliban. Iranian diplomats who dealt with U.S. counterparts during this period indicated that there was interest in Tehran in using this cooperation to effect a broader opening to the United States. In 2003—when the Islamic republic was not yet spinning centrifuges and enriching uranium—Khamenei sought to initiate a diplomatic process aimed at resolving differences between the two nations. The Bush administration consistently refused to respond. (Leverett 2006, 2) This, however, was the last juncture at which the regime’s domestic uncertainties impelled it toward a cooperative stance. If, at the time, Iran was receptive to positive engagement, the circumstances behind this receptivity were not immutable, and, by 2005, the regime’s domestic position seemed to be strengthening. That year, Iran’s presidential election was won by the virulently anti-American and socially conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, running on a platform of economic populism, had benefited from the reformists’ inability to improve the welfare of most Iranians. To the extent that economic difficulties were partly caused by U.S. sanctions, he and other hard-liners were their direct beneficiaries. The election meant that the reformist challenge to the regime was, for the

18. The full text of this letter is provided in the appendix to Slavin (2007, 230–32).

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foreseeable future, suppressed. Other circumstances also bolstered the regime’s position, offsetting in some ways the loss of legitimacy attendant on the initial failures of the Islamic Revolution. While the Bush administration expected that U.S. victory in Iraq would weaken the Iranian regime, the opposite occurred. In the east, the Taliban’s ouster by the United States removed a government with whom Tehran had nearly gone to war in the 1990s. In the west, the invasion of Iraq eliminated an even greater threat to Iran’s security. The U.S.-organized elections brought to power the Shia majority, many of whose leading representatives had spent their exile years in Iran. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, with close links to Tehran, became a major political player in Iraq, amid talk of an emerging Shiite Crescent in the Middle East. Iran’s position further benefited from the improved status of the Hezbollah following its performance battling Israeli forces in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. When Hamas came to power in Gaza, yet another Iranian ally came to control a politically vital position in the Middle East. It is likely that the regime’s domestic standing benefited accordingly. Just as counterproductively from Washington’s perspective, the government’s position gained from its resistance to U.S. pressures to abandon its nuclear program, a program that many Iranians viewed “as a symbol of national pride and a substitute for the lost fervor of the Islamic Revolution” (Slavin 2007, 32). Time magazine reported that as the confrontation with the United States developed in 2004 “millions of Iranians are avidly following the showdown on Iranian TV talk shows, and the ruling clerics have earned more popular support than they have in years. Even Iranians who dislike the mullahs are showing pride at the idea of Iran becoming an atomic power” (Time 2004, 46). Some polls indicated that over 80 percent of Iranians backed the goal of atomic energy (Abedin 2006, 6). President Khatami closed ranks with the hard-liners, asserting his country’s right to nuclear power, while some Iranians reacted to U.S. pressure by arguing that the U.S. threat actually required atomic weapons (Takeyh 2006, 159). In this climate of improved regime stability in Iran and declining need for foreign concessions, the United States and its allies finally made their overtures. In October 2004, the EU-3 group informed Washington of its intention to offer Tehran a package of incentives to freeze its uranium enrichment activities (U.S.A. Today 2004). The United States tentatively backed the European position, announcing, in March 2005, that it might endorse Iran’s application to join the World Trade Organization and allow it to purchase American spare parts for its commercial aircraft (HT Media 2005). In June of the following year, the United States, France, China, Britain, Germany, and Russia offered Tehran a set of inducements to suspend its nuclear programs. These included the prospect of WTO membership and aircraft spare parts, as well as an offer to provide Iran with

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light water (and relatively proliferation-proof) reactors, for which the uranium would be enriched outside of Iran. The six countries also proposed to improve Iranian access to U.S. and European agriculture goods (Washington Post 2006b). With the regime’s position bolstered, Tehran emerged inflexible. Ahmadinejad declared, “Whether you negotiate or not, whether you frown at us or not, and whether you stay beside us or turn you back on us, the Iranian nation will not retreat from its path of developments and achievement of advanced technology” (Washington Post 2006). On the one hand, the inducements came several years too late to address a domestic predicament; on the other hand, they may not have appeared very substantial to Tehran. The offer of light water reactors whose fuel would be enriched outside of Iran (in Russia) appeared only to increase its dependence on foreign powers; whereas the removal of U.S. objections to membership in the WTO was swaddled in qualifications.19 Even had the incentives been offered years earlier when the regime faced a credible challenge from the reformists, they would have had to offset whatever political benefits the nuclear programs provided the regime, and these were not trivial. To begin with, they offered a solution to some economic problems, since the deteriorating petroleum infrastructure (largely a result of sanctions) caused significant decline in oil production, making it hard to respond both to domestic needs and export opportunities. The hope was that nuclear energy could be used to meet domestic needs, allowing the country to export more oil and thus generating larger foreign currency revenues that could be plowed back into economic growth. Further, the acquisition of an ability to make nuclear bombs at short notice would have addressed the perceived U.S. threat—especially as it was remarked how gingerly the United States dealt with a nuclear-capable North Korea. Finally, U.S. opposition to the nuclear programs fueled a rally-roundthe flag effect, benefiting the regime’s domestic position. Considerable incentives would have been required to offset these benefits. At a time of relatively stable political equilibrium, they would have had to be greater still. In October, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported that Iran had launched new uranium enrichment operations. The regime had previously operated a single “cascade” of 164 gas centrifuges, but it had now added a second cascade, ignoring a UN Security Council call for suspension of such activities. Iranian officials said they would soon have 3,000 centrifuges operating (enough, eventually, to produce the fuel for several nuclear

19. Secretary of State Rice stated that after Iran was allowed to apply it would still have to meet the conditions brought up in negotiations on accession, and that the United States would have to agree to the accession separately (HT Media 2005).

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weapons each year), a threshold that ElBaradei confirmed Iran had crossed (New York Times 2007c). In March 2008, at U.S. urging, the UN Security Council imposed additional sanctions on Iran in response to its nuclear program; these included asset freezes and travel bans for Iranian officials. All Iranian responses have been unrepentant and inflexible. The record indicates that, though punitive pressures have little to show for decades of use, regime openness to positive engagement improves with challenges to its domestic position, deteriorating, once again, as challenges are removed. In any case, if inducements are to offer the prospect of significant quid pro quos, they must be of a nature and magnitude that makes up for whatever benefits the weapons programs offer for domestic legitimacy and national security.

The Catalytic Model and the Iranian Challenge In terms of possibilities for externally spurred catalytic change, there are few ways in which Iran and Korea can meaningfully be compared. North Korea’s insulation from the world stands in sharp contrast to Iran’s integration into many of its flows. An advanced and complex economy,20 and a relatively developed civil society, are characteristics of a society that, prior to the Islamic Revolution, had used the West as an important model. Networks of interest and values that desire full integration into the international community exist alongside groups whose inclination lies in the opposite direction. The question is whether the position of the former can be bolstered from outside at the expense of the latter, and whether the original legitimizing narrative can be revised to endorse better behavior. Although no simple taxonomy can encompass the full complexity of Iran’s political life, major distinctions can be captured by a tripartite division, distinguishing traditional conservatives, pragmatic conservatives, and genuine reformers (Takeyh 2006, esp. chap. 2). The original founders of the Islamic Revolution have, since 1979, been firm believers in the supremacy of religious over secular authority, in the teachings of Ayatollah Khomeini, and in the premise of an Iranian mission on behalf of international Islam. Control of the Supreme Leader’s Office and the Guardian Council have ensured their dominance over the regime’s institutions; control of the armed forces, the Revolutionary Guards, especially, guarantees their control of the regime’s coercive apparatus. But Iranian conservatives are not as monolithic as they once appeared. There remains a strong core of traditional conservatives, with an inflexible commitment to the country’s nuclear

20. In addition to the petroleum, major sectors of economic activity include a developed service sector, automobile manufacturing, consumer electronics, the petrochemical industry, tourism, and agriculture.

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program, little interest in meaningful economic reforms, and no great desire to be part of a globalized economy. But another group, the pragmatic conservatives, can no longer be ignored. Though they display continued fealty to the Islamic Revolution’s basic objectives and to its institutional structure they understand the threats to regime legitimacy. To deal with these challenges they wish to ease international pressure on the regime, while reforming the economy, so that it could absorb the country’s ever-growing labor pool. Apart from the two brands of conservatives, there remains a tier of authentic reformers, including many of the nation’s leading economists and business people and large segments of university youth, who want the voice of the people to dominate that of the political clergy and who desire true market reforms. The social base of the reformers is, potentially, the largest, and it may be that the long term will favor their power. During the late 1990s and very early 2000s the major cleavage in the political system separated hard-liners from reformers. This may have been a brief period when an unstable domestic political equilibrium boded well for the effectiveness of positive inducements. But failure to bring meaningful change during the Khatami years has discredited the movement in the eyes of many Iranians, while the Guardian Council’s refusal to allow many reformists to run for office,21 has blocked their access to institutional power. In the medium term, it appears that the course of Iranian politics, including its nuclear programs, will be determined by the competition between traditional and pragmatic conservatives within the current institutional structure.22 The question is what will determine their relative position within that structure, and to what extent could this be influenced by external engagement. The position of pragmatic conservatives has improved as several prominent figures, long considered traditional conservatives, have joined their ranks. In addition to former president Rafsanjani, these now include Ali Larijani, presidential candidate in 2005 and Iran’s former nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, also a former nuclear negotiator, Muhammad Qalibaf, mayor of Tehran, and even Mohsen Rezaii, former commander of the Revolutionary Guards. Within the Majlis (the Iranian parliament) pragmatic conservatives are associated principally with the Executives of Construction Party (founded by Rafsanjani) and the Moderation and Development Party. For the most part, they urge restraint with regard to nuclear policies, the privatization of state enterprises, and an openness to international economic opportunities (Takeyh and Gvosdev 2004).

21. Some two thousand candidates, mostly reformist, were barred by the regime’s Guardian Council from running in the March 2008 parliamentary elections. Thus reformist candidates were on the ballot in only 106 of 290 districts (Human Rights Watch 2008). 22. See “New Parliament, New Policies,” Economist, February 2, 2008.

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Pragmatic conservatives have challenged Ahmadinejad’s policies, Rowhani charging that they were turning increasing numbers of nations against Iran while failing to address its economic problems (International Herald Tribune 2007). In January 2007, 150 legislators criticized his economic policies; another 50 called on the president to appear before parliament to answer questions about his nuclear policies. A newspaper controlled by Larijani complained that Ahmadinejad’s defiant rhetoric made it harder to resolve the nuclear-induced crisis (New York Times 2007f). More recently, in 2008, Rafsanjani, castigated the president’s failure to reduce the country’s reliance on oil revenues and to enact constitutionally mandated privatization plans (Guardian 2008). Many of the assumptions and recommendations endorsed by the pragmatic conservatives imply a revision of the Islamic Revolution’s original legitimizing narrative. While the Iranian political leadership is accustomed to instability of a latent form, manifest instability opens political assumptions to revision, and new critical junctures become possible, though not inevitable. In the short term, it is not only the challenge from genuine reformers but a growing rift between conservative factions that will determine how manifest the instability becomes. In turn, the outcome of any tug-of-war between pragmatic and traditional conservatives will depend on the inclinations of dominant economic actors. In addition to the public and private sectors, a significant portion of Iran’s economy—up to 20 percent of national GNP23—is controlled by organizations called bonyads. Nominally charitable organizations run by the clerical establishment, their assets mushroomed with the 1979 revolution, as the wealth of the shah and followers was turned over to them. They possess huge holdings, enjoy a privileged fiscal position, publish no public accounts, and typically answer only to the Supreme Leader. They often enjoy preferential access to the banking system, giving them an edge when competing with firms from the private sector. The wealthiest bonyad is the Shrine of Imam Reza, which functions both as a religious center and as a business conglomerate owning mines, textile factories, a bus factory, a pharmaceutical plant, an engineering company, a bakery, and dozens of other properties (Wall Street Journal 2007). Not only are they wealthy, but major bonyads enjoy independence from government supervision (no official auditors review their books). Many also are closely associated with leading pragmatic conservatives, Rafsanjani and his family especially. Responding to this situation, President Ahmadinejad has shored up the position of the Revolutionary Guards as a political counterweight subject to his control, and he has done much to enhance their economic power. Often benefiting

23. Klebnikov (2003).

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from no-bid government contracts, the Guards have carved out important positions in the construction industry, oil and gas development, and farming. According to one study, the engineering arm of the Revolutionary Guards (Ghorb) is one of Iran’s largest contractors; its finances are, conveniently, audited by a firm owned by itself. It also enjoys privileged credit through its connections to publicly owned banks (Alfoneh 2007, 1). In 2006 the National Oil Company of Iran gave Ghorb a no-bid contract to develop the South Pars gas field, one of Iran’s most valuable projects. In addition to its legitimate business, and through its control of the country’s borders, the Revolutionary Guards are suspected of operating a network of unauthorized docks and border posts that are implicated in up to 60 percent of illegal imports into the country (Alfoneh 2007, 5; Buzbee 2007, 1), which are a major source of funding for the Revolutionary Guards. These semilicit and illicit paths to profit have annoyed many within the private sector who labor without these privileges. In addition, business interests of the Revolutionary Guards often compete with those of the larger bonyads, such as the Shrine of Imam Reza (Wall Street Journal 2007), which creates incompatible interests rooted in the political contexts within which the different economic actors operate. In this regard, it is likely that many of the larger bonyads are torn in two directions: on the one hand, they benefit from the lack of transparency and occasional fiscal privileges they are allowed; on the other hand, they often compete with those, like the Revolutionary Guards, that are directly supported by the state. To the extent that many bonyads encompass modern and potentially dynamic enterprises, they would benefit from direct access to international economic opportunities. The Wall Street Journal (2007) reported that the Shrine of the Imam Reza was looking abroad to find foreign investors for joint ventures. Although many of these opportunities would be regional to the Middle East, it is possible that the nuclear programs might drive many Persian Gulf nations away from Tehran and into Washington’s embrace (Takeyh and Gvosdev 2004, 42). One could then reason that one of the aims of positive engagement should be to strengthen the position of those, both within the legitimate private sector and the bonyads, who prefer the market-economic path, along with its political corollaries, over statist economics, thus contributing to a new equilibrium of political forces. At the same time, as international threats and isolation typically benefit state strength, they also improve the position of the principal agents of state power such as the Revolutionary Guards.24 Obviously, the power of the bonyads

24. It does not follow that indiscriminate sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards would promote a desirable political result (Sadjadpour 2007). The point is that there is some evidence that divisions exist even with the Guards themselves: Larijani and Qalibaf are former Guard functionaries,

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could not offset that of the Guards, but they could become part of a coalition urging greater regime restraint on matters that concern much of the international community. By implication, liberalization alongside possibilities for international engagement could strengthen the hand of pragmatic conservatives within the power structures of Iranian politics; continued punitive pressures would, in all likelihood, favor the position of traditional conservatives and their allies. It further is necessary to recognize that Iran’s clerics are not a monolithic force, that the velaya-e faqih imposed by Khomeini was not the model preferred by all members of the mullah class, within which there is evidence of dissent. At the revolution’s outset, Grand Ayatollah Shariatmadari criticized the granting of ultimate political authority to the Supreme Leader while followers of Ayatollah Montazeri have questioned the wisdom of a system that places religion at the service of government (Slavin 2007, chap. 8). For many younger Iranian clerics, the appropriate model is that advocated by Iraq’s Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who believes that while Islam should inform all aspects of social life, the proper position of clerics is outside government. Thus, even within the clerical elite rifts may appear with the potential for broader coalitions that could dampen regime excesses. But, again, they are least likely to become evident in an atmosphere of external threat and hostility.

The Choice Much as Ahmadinejad’s ascent to the presidency in 2005 consolidated hard-line rule at the expense of conciliation with the outside world, developments several years later could have opened new fissures within the Iranian power structure along with new opportunities for external engagement. Although no specific proposals were offered Tehran, Barack Obama had campaigned for the presidency on a foreign policy platform of engagement with America’s traditional adversaries, including Iran. This could well have weakened the hand of the most conservative and virulent within the clerical establishment. As Karim Sadjadpour, Iranian expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, remarked, “Whereas

while Moshem Rezi, who has for years advocated reconciliation with the United States, is the organization’s former commander. Parallels with Gorbachev’s reform movement in the Soviet Union may be appropriate: while some KGB leaders were inveterate cold warriors, others (including Vladimir Putin) could, from the vantage point of their positions, clearly grasp the system’s weaknesses and the need for serious reform. At the same time, while many Guardsmen benefit economically from a climate of international crisis with its possibilities for illicit economic gain, others, especially those associated with the Revolutionary Guard’s aboveboard economic activities, might be tempted by the money to be had from fuller access to international economic opportunities.

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the Bush administration united Iran’s disparate political factions against a common threat, Obama’s overtures have accentuated the deep division and incongruities among Iran’s political elites” (BBC World News 2009f). With President Obama’s stance placing Iranian hard-liners on the defensive, the June 2009 presidential election revealed new political fissures. Almost universally recognized as fraudulent, Ahmadinejad’s 63 to 34 percent win over his main challenger, reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, was vocally and massively contested. Despite Khamenei’s demand that the election results be immediately recognized, massive demonstrations erupted, followed by thousands of arrests; demonstrations erupted even months after the election. Powerful members of the clerical establishment had backed Mousavi, including former president Rafsanjani and major conservative figures like Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and Tehran mayor Muhammad Qalibaf. After the disputed election, a leading group of religious leaders, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom, declared the new government illegitimate, which undermined the authority of the Supreme Leader, whose word was not supposed to be open to debate. Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University, described this as “the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic Republic” (New York Times 2009d). Even Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, possibly the country’s most influential cleric, in an open communication to the BBC, lamented: There are some sincere individuals in the country among some sections of the government who are committed to Islam and to the interests of the country and the revolution. Unfortunately, those people are not the ones who take the major decisions. The current decisions, which are being taken by the minority faction that is in power, are mainly against the interests of the country, and are not in keeping with Islamic principles and values. (BBC World News 2009g) A potentially threatened regime position was, however, soon bolstered by international developments. The United States revealed in September 2009 that Iran had been secretly building an underground uranium enrichment plant, with a three thousand centrifuge capacity, near Qom. Western leaders reacted strongly, amid renewed talk of “crippling” sanctions. Without the Qom issue, President Obama’s earlier calls for dialogue and engagement could have made it hard to build a rally effect around claims of a foreign threat. But confrontation with the United States, traditionally a major pillar of regime rule, has “paid huge dividends to the ruling ayatollahs and helped them survive three tumultuous decades in power” (Milani 2009, 47). With the new bone of contention, the regime could choose between conciliating its opponents with policy moderation or relying

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on the established methods of shoring up support. The second path, coupled with intensified repression by the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij (a militia organization), was the regime’s first choice—particularly since major opposition figures, including Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi (also a candidate in the 2009 presidential election), along with most Iranians, consider the nation’s nuclear program both peaceful and necessary. Under the circumstances, Tehran turned U.S. objections to its program into an emotional national cause (Milani 2009, 51), even printing the atomic symbol on its 50,000 rial bills. One day after the U.S. House of Representatives approved sanctions targeting exports of refined oil to Tehran (Washington Post 2009), the regime announced it had proof that opposition leaders had tried to instigate an antigovernment revolt, and, in a move consistent with a desire to stoke tensions, it test fired its medium-range and solid-fueled Sajjil-2 rocket, a weapon that has Israel and U.S. Persian Gulf troops in its range (BBC World News 2009a). Another indication that a reactive sequence of threats and counterthreats serves its political purpose: after China and Russia supported the IAEA’s rebuke of Iran over the Qom uranium enrichment facility, Tehran declared that it would build ten more such plants, and apparently withdraw from that body (Time 2009). At the moment, power in Iran seems to have shifted from the clerical elite to the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, which strengthens the regime’s ability to deal repressively with its critics, while it shows no indications of abandoning its nuclear efforts. Frustrated by the lack of progress, the UN Security Council approved, in June 2020, a fourth round of sanctions, while the U.S. Congress legislated additional measures against companies and individuals linked to the nuclear program. Still, a situation of manifest instability generally is the best juncture at which to dangle significant inducements, and President Obama’s decision to abandon his halting interest in engagement, while understandable in terms of domestic politics, may have encouraged the clerical regime to choose the path of domestic repression coupled with nationalistic mobilization over that of attempting to conciliate political opponents: both by providing an opportunity for a rally effect and by ensuring that few gratifications, economic or other, were externally available for mollifying opponents. In the long run, nationalistic mobilization and massive repression cannot compensate for legitimacy erosion fueled by economic deprivation, regime mendacity, and frustrated desires for freedom. If it is to survive, the regime eventually will have to broaden its support base and build its legitimacy on more than a willingness to confront the United States. Ultimately, as with North Korea, the most likely path to regime transformation will originate from within the system, while the hand of political moderates is more likely to be strengthened by positive engagement than by pugnacity and punishment that encourages the regime’s

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traditional ways of bolstering its power. U.S. policies that bolster the political position of those who prefer a conciliatory stance toward the outside world are likely to lead to a new critical juncture, with an altered expectation of where the greatest domestic political rewards lie, thus increasing the likelihood that new paths will lead to a reintegration of Iran in the international community. *** In this chapter I have sought to apply my theoretical framework to examine positive inducements as instruments of foreign policy designed to alter the more objectionable aspects of North Korea’s and Iran’s international conduct. I have indicated two paths by which inducements might achieve their objectives, one operating within the context of the exchange model, the other within the more ambitious aims of the catalytic model. In either case, success depends on domestic political circumstances within the recipient nation, in which an unstable regime equilibrium along with a shift in U.S. policy toward utilitarian priorities and away from the morally rooted logic of punishment bodes best for success. In both instances, threats and sanctions have produced counterproductive results: strengthening, rather than weakening, commitment to nuclear programs and other objectionable behavior. In the case of North Korea, it is only when concessions have been offered in a context of quid pro quo that significant progress has been achieved; at the same time, Pyongyang’s interest in concessions can be linked to the domestic challenges facing the regime. In the Iranian case, receptivity to inducements has also been greatest when domestic political stability seemed most tenuous and decreasing as stability has improved. Unfortunately, U.S. incentives to Iran have been offered during the latter, not former, periods, virtually ensuring that significant counterconcessions would not be offered. Ultimately, it may be that positive incentives will play their most significant role in a catalytic context; it is possible that external incentives might eventually have a transformative effect on the two countries’ political systems, such that quid pro quos would become less necessary in the future. The immediate outlook in the Iranian case is less good than once it was, and any domestic transformation encouraged by external gestures and concessions is likely to operate as a result of a reform from within the regime rather than by encouraging its removal and replacement. Most important, assumptions about what is apt to change the behavior of refractory regimes must be revised and new models of the logic behind international influence examined.

6 FINAL THOUGHTS

In this book I have considered the value of positive engagement as a strategy for altering the policies and priorities of regimes considered hostile to U.S. interests and, in some cases, to those of the international community as well. Until quite recently little consideration has been given to such strategies by those entrusted with the conduct of the nation’s external affairs. When contemplated, they have generally been considered an incidental appendage to a core policy of negative pressures. International relations scholarship has followed political practice with its focus on sticks rather than carrots as tools of foreign policy. I have tried to trace the reasons for this parallel bias, inquiring into ways of rectifying the slanted emphasis. At the same time, a major portion of this book has been devoted to discussing the conditions for successful inducements, if only the political obstacles to their use could be overcome. Conditions must be propitious on both the demand and the supply side, and this chapter will summarize my conclusions, add a few observations, and indicate promising areas of future inquiry.

The Limits of Negative Pressures A strong justification for lopsided reliance on negative pressures when dealing with adversaries would rest on the effectiveness of such measures, eliminating any need to consider alternatives. To the extent that the aim is to alter the objectives that stand behind an adversary’s policies, however, that justification fails dismally. Neither military coercion nor economic sanctions can boast impressive 169

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achievements. Although the former sometimes attains its aims, the prospects of success are not impressive. Threats rarely evoke their desired response, while the actual deployment of military force abroad produces mixed results: the odds of an outright success being, on the basis of the evidence examined here, no better than even. It must also be appreciated that the human and material toll of armed interventions may be, and generally is, high, and the costs must be weighed against the expected benefits. In some cases, as with North Korea and Iran, the probable costs are so high as to make their use an unacceptable option, independently of the outlook for achieving immediate goals. The record of economic sanctions is weaker still. If policy or regime change is the aim, the only possible argument is whether they fail virtually all the time or just most of the time. Sanctions can even be counterproductive—increasing the adversary’s incentive to behave in the objectionable manner. We have outlined the reasons why the regime’s domestic support can benefit from external economic pressures, and, while, in the long run, sustained economic deprivations tends to undermine a regime’s position, this may take a very long time—inviting the question of whether the tendency to discard policies that could attain their end faster and at lesser cost can be justified. In any case, the harm done in the short to medium term by the punitive policies cannot be assumed to compensate for the fact that, in the fullness of time, they may attain their original goal. In some cases, negative pressures target the other side’s capacity to do harm, not its priorities; where this is the case, a different judgment on their effectiveness may be necessary. For example, it is apparent that the sanctions endured by Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War made it difficult for Saddam Hussein to pursue a nuclear weapons program (Lopez and Cortright 2004). Yet, as the examples of North Korea and Iran demonstrate, it may not be possible to control capabilities, whereas, if intentions are modified, capabilities become less dangerous. In a considerable majority of instances, in any case, the stated aim regards intentions and priorities, not capabilities, and, here, no encouraging conclusions are justified. Under the circumstances, other explanations for the prevalence of negative pressures are needed, and we have considered how the lopsided preferences could be accounted for, both with regard to policymakers and academics.

Positive Incentives and U.S. Politics From the political system’s perspective, the predilection for threats and punishments has been shaped around a path-dependent process whose roots in a critical juncture are traceable to the initial years of the cold war. Subsequently, this predilection has been generalized to nations other than the Soviet

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Union but also considered America’s foes, with the assumption that the proper response in such cases is punitive and coercive. It seems that the process has been principally driven by two mechanisms of reproduction: legitimation and power. In the first case, the propelling force has been a conviction that the chosen behavior is legitimized by beliefs about what is right and proper—in this case, by the tenet according to which bad parties deserve to be treated harshly, a tenet rooted in a desire for balance, or equivalence, that permeates many systems of morality. At the foreign policy level, legitimation has also been linked to the premise that withholding punishment from malefactors encourages their misbehavior (a variant of the “moral hazard” argument) and that it amounts to “appeasement,” a concept with unpalatable historical connotations. The pathdependent sequence has further been reinforced by “power” dynamics, that is, that leaders appear to benefit from hostile behavior toward adversaries, political rewards for toughness generally exceeding those granted to politicians choosing a conciliatory stance. In the U.S. case, a conviction that the political reward structure favors punitive policies appears grounded in the early years of the cold war and in the electoral lessons drawn at that time. Finally, once a pathdependent sequence favoring punitive policies is launched, it may be (and often is) strengthened by a “reactive” sequence in which adversaries deal with each other in a pattern of tit-for-tat hostility, confirming them as implacable enemies in each others’ eyes. The bias exhibited by policymakers encounters a parallel slant within the academic community, and its source is located in the dominant doctrines by which the discipline has been guided. Both classical and structural realism, assuming an immutability of state priorities in international affairs, discard the possibility of beneficially affecting an adversary’s underlying incentives. Neoliberalism, while allowing for evolving national incentives, adopts a predominantly structural perspective, leaving little room for consideration of agency, whereas it is only from the standpoint of agency that the choice of foreign policy tools can adequately be understood and the implications of these choices fruitfully analyzed. This present book points to several paths by which the bias in the policymaking and academic communities could be overcome. In principle, weakening the mechanisms by which it is reproduced could transcend this bias. Since the legitimation explanation lies at the heart of the problem, it is conceivable that the impulse requiring the bad to be punished and appeasement shunned could eventually be weakened by revised normative conceptions that abandon, as various ethical systems have, the lex talionis principle. It is increasingly recognized that over the long haul accepted moral principles are subject to change by adapting to society’s evolutionary needs (e.g., Hauser 2006). The precise mechanism by which this could be accomplished in the case at hand, however, is unclear, and if

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such change were to be possible in this context, it is unlikely to occur within any politically relevant time frame. However, the policy preferences of Americans, like those of most people, are driven by pragmatic as well as ethically rooted imperatives, and strategies that consistently fail to attain their objectives must eventually be reconsidered, even if they had their origin with prevalent notions of right and wrong. They may fail from a tactical point of view by systematically missing their mark, or they may fail at a strategic level by undermining broader and more important national objectives. In the Cuban case, most notably, close to half a century of consistently pursued and glaringly unsuccessful coercive strategies has ultimately produced the conclusion, articulated at various points on the political spectrum, that punishment is unlikely to attain its goals, any more so in the future than in the past. The Cuban example, however, also shows that it can take decades before the lessons of failure are absorbed—especially when powerful political interests militate against learning. To some extent, the realization that the previous administration’s policies vis-à-vis Iran and North Korea had consequences opposite to those desired may have encouraged the Obama administration to seek engagement with these two countries, as well as others (such as Syria, Sudan, and Burma); but, probably because the record of failure has been much longer with Cuba, the shift away from a policy based solely on sticks may be more easily accepted in that instance. Learning does eventually occur, but path-dependent sequences are not quickly and easily overcome just because their policies fail. At times, broader strategic objectives may lead to the abandonment of long-accepted policies, as with the need to enlist Syria in the cause of Middle East peace, but such a situation is not often encountered. A path-dependent development can also be overcome as a result of the effects of another sequence that, though largely unrelated to the initial sequence of concern, effectively nullifies the latter’s logical justification—as when Gorbachev’s reforms made most cold war policies seem irrelevant or when Qaddafi’s decision to abandon his most egregious policies made continued U.S. hostility pointless. A newly emergent sequence in another area may, as it has in the above instances, involve an abrupt change in the other side’s stances. But it could also involve the appearance of a new and more important U.S. foreign policy priority, one associated with a need to bring policy toward the initial adversary in line with this higher priority. An expanding threat of international terrorism could, for example, lead to a need to conciliate former adversaries who could effectively contribute to the global war on terror. Even when the path-dependent logic has been undermined by external events, any U.S. presidential administration contemplating a shift to positive engagement must consider the prospect of domestic opposition. Since this opposition

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may undermine a president politically, a change of course is most likely undertaken by a president whose substantial credits in other areas (e.g., economic performance) make him or her less politically vulnerable. It is, for example, easier to absorb the political risks of a redefined foreign policy when the economy is buoyant and unemployment is low. Similarly, the risks are more easily borne by a president with a large electoral mandate, or by one who does not face an imminent judgment at the national polls. Thus, bold moves are more likely to be seen at the beginning of a first term in office, when major elections appear distant, or in a second term, when reelection is not an issue. The main thing to note is that, while no single mechanism challenging a path-dependent sequence is particularly likely to emerge, the existence of several potential such mechanisms means that no sequence driving punitive foreign policies need endure indefinitely, as has been confirmed by several of our case studies. In each case, it is important to identify the various conditions and processes that make positive engagement politically possible and to anticipate the junctures at which this might occur. At that point, it is useful to consider the purpose and forms that could characterize a strategy of positive engagement.

Exchange or Catalysis As there are two categories of objectives (exchange and catalysis) on behalf of which positive inducements can be employed, we might ask which of the two would be the natural focus of a revised foreign policy? The evidence in this book suggests that the preference, initially at least, would be to secure explicit policy objectives via politically acceptable quid pro quos. This is not surprising: the other side generally presents a very specific threat to U.S. interests and values. Removing the threat implies a tangible accomplishment on the part of the administration that achieves this: one that is easily recognized, that probably would be rewarded, and that can be achieved within a politically relevant time frame. Accordingly, most foreign policy addresses clearly identifiable objectives, and positive inducements are offered in a spirit of quid pro quo. Political catalysis, on the other hand, is an aim with amorphous contours and whose achievements are uncertain: they may take some time to secure and, in any case, the process operates via mechanisms so complex that they lie outside the ken of most observers. A discount rate naturally is applied to future gratifications, especially since the paths leading to the achievement may be too intricate for credit to be confidently claimed by the incumbents responsible for the choice of strategy. Under the circumstances, political decision makers are likely to grasp the potential for catalysis only as it is revealed through the effects of policies

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pursued in a framework of finite exchanges, as the impact of external concessions on the other side’s power structure, or as a pattern of societal interests and preferences is progressively revealed. Thus, the United States initially dangled the prospect of normalized trade relations in front of Vietnam in order to encourage Hanoi to withdraw its forces from Cambodia, which it had invaded in 1978; eventually, though, catalytic opportunities revealed themselves and were acted on. By 2001 the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement made trade concessions conditional on market reforms, while granting Vietnam inclusion in the Generalized System of Preferences is being considered in terms of its impact on human rights and labor rights (Manyin 2009). A similar pattern may be present with regard to other cases considered in this book. While the original exchange aims must be respected, in the sense that one cannot keep moving goal posts, it often is recognized that the initial concessions, and others that follow from those that were part of the original quid pro quo, might encourage domestic change that would reduce the need for future pragmatic exchanges. Thus, with regard to Libya, a former State Department official has urged that the United States explore ways in which relations in the areas of trade, culture, science, and education could be used to spur the development of independent civil society organizations and media (Dunne 2008). The danger, as pointed out earlier, is that a failure to attain an exchange goal will cause the withdrawal of all domestic support for positive engagement, thus ensuring a failure to attain any catalytic objective. This development is especially unfortunate where the failure to produce a desired quid pro quo makes the other side even more dangerous than it was before.

The Nature of Concessions and Counterconcessions The key concession demanded from the other side invariably involve policies found threatening or objectionable that they are required to abandon in response to the inducement. This often involves a nuclear program (North Korea, Iran, Libya) or support for terrorist activities (Iran, Syria); occasionally the demand is to sever an unwelcome foreign affiliation (e.g., Syria’s links to Iran); sometimes the demand is even (as in the case of Cuba) to institute major domestic political changes. The required concessions are both political and, from the perspective of what has most mattered to the regimes, very substantial. The initial inducement offered by the United States could, in a spirit of quid pro quo, also be political—for example, a nonaggression treaty with North Korea,

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diplomatic recognition for Cuba—but this rarely is the case. Domestic politics make it difficult to offer political carrots, which often are considered symbolically laden rewards for bad behavior. When such inducements are offered, they necessarily appear rather minor considering what is demanded in exchange. Instead, the United States tends to offer, if it offers anything at all in its opening move in the game, some economic favor—generally the removal of a trade sanction, or perhaps a promise of economic assistance in exchange for the political counterconcession. Rarely is the initial inducement nearly as substantial as the political counterconcession that is demanded, which indicates that the condition of sufficiency is hard to meet. In the North Korean case, the provision of fuel oil and the promise of a proliferation-proof nuclear power plant probably fell short of the security and prestige value of a credible nuclear arsenal. From the Iranian perspective, the rather modest trade concessions proposed in 2003 by the European Union, and at one point by the United States, failed the same test, especially given the popular support for the country’s nuclear program and the legitimizing effect that standing up to the United States on this issue seemed to have. At the same time, the benefits of lifting comprehensive UN sanctions may well have compensated, from Qaddafi’s standpoint, for giving up a nuclear program that had not progressed very far and whose ultimate prospects seemed, in any case, rather bleak. One problem, of course, is that it is not easy to determine whether a concession and a counterconcession are equitably matched. In what way, for instance, can it be said that commercial or financial payoffs would offset the security and status associated with the possession of a nuclear weapon? Nor, from another perspective, was it immediately apparent why the unfreezing of a relatively small sum of North Korean money ($25 million) held in the Banco Delta Asia of Macau should have led North Korea to resume negotiations on its nuclear program in 2008, nor how much it felt threatened by the implications of this action for its access to international banking or, indeed, its financial future. Ultimately, the only way to establish the relative attractiveness of dissimilar favors is through progressive calibration, achieved through sometimes protracted negotiations (as in the Libyan case). We grasp that a negotiator’s “bottom line” often is discovered in the process of searching for a negotiated solution (Lax 1985), while the expectations of the bargaining parties involve adaptation based on a learning process of mutual interaction (Cross 1977). Thus, it is useful to relinquish the notion that negotiations themselves amount to a “reward” and accept what should be self-evident: that they are the basis on which mutually beneficial exchanges must rest. Serious negotiations, however, assume that both sides already have accepted some level of engagement. At least on the basis of our case studies, it seems that

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while one-time economic concessions may induce the other side to abandon some aspects of its external behavior, they rarely have much of an effect on domestic political structures and priorities. Nor are they likely to lead the adversary to abandon any policy benefiting the regime’s domestic legitimacy—such as the nuclear enrichment program in the Iranian case. These are changes that positive engagement can produce, if at all, through catalysis, not by quid pro quos. Thus, the path-dependent logic behind the preference for negative pressures against adversaries may, under certain conditions, be undermined. Further, the initial purpose of engagement stands to be a beneficial and fairly specific quid pro quo, an objective that may be extended once catalytic possibilities are more fully revealed. Finally, even the quest for a quid pro quo may be undermined by lack of a common numéraire linking naturally dissimilar concessions and counterconcessions: a common measure of value can, as a rule, only emerge inductively, through the mutual calibration afforded by negotiations. At this point, it is useful to shift focus and ask what conclusions can be drawn regarding the conditions within the target country on which a successful use of positive incentives rest.

Incentives and the Conditions of Effectiveness The theoretical framework guiding much of our analysis has accounted for conditions for successful incentives from both the initiator’s and the target’s perspectives. The inducement must be such that the target’s incentive to bad behavior is offset or, in the case of catalysis, effectively altered. Because misbehavior typically has a substantial political purpose, the carrot offered must be correspondingly large. And because constraints on the initiator’s side limit the magnitude of allowable concessions, it is particularly important to understand when the target’s commitment to its objectionable policies may be more or less strong. One of this book’s central arguments has been that this commitment recedes when the regime’s domestic position shows signs of instability: when the support of those groups on whose backing the regime has traditionally relied is no longer readily available or when it does not suffice to neutralize challenges from previously quiescent quarters. When regime equilibrium reaches a point of at least latent instability, positive incentives could serve two complementary purposes. First, they could provide gratifications to the regime’s traditional supporters (e.g., desired symbolic gestures, possibly economic benefits in which they could share), resulting in their improved support for the regime. Somewhat more plausibly, the inducements might benefit new political elites (e.g., an educated middle class weary of the country’s isolation, commercial interests desiring to benefit from integration into a globalized economy), decreasing their opposition

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to a regime previously considered an obstacle to their aspirations. This does not necessarily imply major changes in domestic configurations of power, nor can one expect that behavior would improve beyond the assumptions of the specific quid pro quo, but, within that context, it should increase the likelihood of the desired counterconcession. Of course, this assumes that those in power reckon that potential benefits to their position achieved by external confrontation buttressing traditional sources of support fall short of those obtainable by conciliating new sources of support, a calculus that will depend, in part, on how far possible new groups have been alienated from the regime, that is, whether reconciliation is, in principle, possible. It may be, for example, that in the Iranian case the regime considers conciliation with its natural opponents outside the realm of political possibility. Beyond specific exchanges, a point may be reached at which the regime considers adopting a significantly altered pattern of priorities, such that future quid pro quos become much less necessary. Instability has increased, old solutions prove ineffective as traditional political calculations are reversed—radically different solutions to the regime’s predicament must be found. To the extent that some path dependence guided previous policies, a new critical juncture may have formed. The aim, at that juncture, is to bolster the power and support of clusters of values and interests that stand to press for the regime’s improved external behavior. It no longer is a matter of acquiring a specific counterconcession but of encouraging a profound reconfiguration of priorities made possible by the regime’s predicament. The interests of rent seekers are replaced by those of groups desiring free markets; true believers in the regime’s original legitimizing narrative are displaced by those with more liberal ideals. As I argued at various points in this book, because foreign policy behavior is intimately connected to dominant domestic values and priorities, transformation of the latter inevitably produces an alteration of the former. The goal is not just to open new opportunities for emerging elites but also to cushion the impact of change on some of those who, in the short term at least, are its victims. Thus, liberalizing economic reforms often leads to increased unemployment, especially during the phases of economic transition, which implies resistance to the changes; to the extent that foreign economic concessions can mitigate such consequences, they reduce opposition to the change. The concerns of the military and of domestic security elites may also have to be addressed—as was the case with the military personnel of previously Communist-bloc countries participating in NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. Further, links to the international community, through the rules and obligations they involve, can tie the hands of those inclined to oppose the changes (Goldstein 1998). For example, Serbia’s Stabilization and Association Agreement with the European Union precludes any slackening of the country’s

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effort to track down Serbian war criminals, even on the part of the security forces that undertake the task reluctantly. Because interests and values are mutually conditioned, national political resocialization may follow as new elites are drawn into international networks of shared normative meaning.

The Nature of Moderate Elites An assumption imbedded in our analytic framework was that the adversary, often considered a rogue state or renegade regime, has a domestic setting within which there are traditional elites who are rooted in the original legitimizing narrative and who have interests linked to those of the misbehaving regime, and that alongside them there are “liberalizing” elites who are moderate, outward oriented, and supporters of open markets and international trade. The notion, here, is that the greater the regime’s need to conciliate the latter, the better the outlook for positive incentives and improved behavior. However, our case studies have indicated that this distinction fails to capture the manner in which elite preferences can be structured, and the assumptions of the analytic framework should accordingly be revised. In this regard, it is interesting to note the unexpected manner in which the character and interests of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces have evolved. The FAR, once the spearhead of revolutionary activism, has become a major participant in the nation’s economic life; it is worth noting the military’s presence in economic sectors that could benefit from better integration into the international economy and improved relations with the United States. As outlined in chapter 4, the Cuban military is now involved with as much as 60 percent of the nation’s economy, owning 20–25 percent of Cuba’s hotel rooms in partnership with foreign investors; it also controls a chain of foreign currency retail stores and an airline. It thus seems possible that the FAR could develop intersecting interests with groups involved in tourism or, say, in the modern and very outward-oriented biotech industry. Improved relations with the United States could, thus, appear desirable to an organization that once was at the forefront of Cuba’s Marxist revolution. Under changing circumstances, a very traditional elite has evolved in an unexpected direction, a movement that could be encouraged with the proper external inducements. In Iran we saw that the bonyads (nominally charitable organizations administered by the clerical elite) seized much of the assets of the deposed shah and his followers. Although established to promote core regime priorities, some of the biggest bonyads have evolved into a combination of religious establishments and business conglomerates, encompassing dynamic enterprises that could benefit from improved contact with the international business community. Thus, an

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institution linked to some of the most radical facets of the Islamic Revolution may find that its interests lead it to side with forces of moderation. This obviously is not part of a liberalizing elite spawned in natural opposition to the regime. Much more speculatively, one might consider the evolving interests of North Korea’s armed forces, which, according to a report by the Washington Post (2009), have “grabbed nearly complete command of the nation’s state-run economy and staked out a lucrative new trade in mineral sales to China.” The army had earned hundreds of millions of dollars in missile sales to India, Pakistan, Syria, and other nations, but, as a result of UN sanctions barring such sales, it is now focusing on exports of raw materials. The country’s mineral wealth is substantial, while the military appears to have elbowed out other ministries and the Korean Worker’s Party to take control of the hard currency–earning sectors. While not imminent, the day may come when the regime’s main coercive pillar concludes that its interests require better access to a variety of international economic partners. This would assume some diversification of the economy, perhaps spurred by joint ventures with South Korea and encouraged with concessions offered in a catalytic spirit. The point is that simplistic divisions into hard-line and liberalizing elites sometimes makes it hard to recognize emerging structures of interest. In turn, this may obscure the fact that groups regarded as diehard adversaries can become promising partners for positive engagement. Mischaracterization of politically relevant segments of the other side’s political system, of their developing interests and aspirations, naturally undermines the effectiveness of associated policies. Our understanding of how the hard-line organization’s interests might evolve remains murky. But three observations suggest themselves. First, the transformation does not occur on the watch of the generation that founded the organization—at the earliest, it may happen with its next generation. Second, the original mission should no longer seem either pressing or possible (here, positive engagement can help). Third, new ways of promoting the organization’s interests must be found (here again, constructive engagement can make a difference).

When Nothing Seems to Work If threats and punishments often fail in their goals, it would be wrong to assume that positive engagement must succeed by default. In fact, there are circumstances when neither carrots nor sticks are likely to be productive. As I have argued throughout this book, inducements, even if objectively substantial, succeed only within a defined range of political circumstances. Sufficiency of the concession and unstable or declining support for the regime in the target country, coupled with the likelihood that the concessions could help consolidate its support, are

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a necessary (though not always sufficient) condition for success, in either the exchange or catalytic context. However, a weak or weakening regime may not portend successful engagement even if associated with significant inducements. It could be that earlier regime policies had so thoroughly alienated or decimated all but the hardest core of its supporters that there is no chance of enlisting significant new groups to the beleaguered regime’s side. If so, foreign concessions may not help the latter bolster its domestic standing by enabling it to capture additional sources of support. New social groups with some aspiration to political influence could eventually emerge, but, in the short term, increased coercion may be the regime’s only way of ensuring its grip on power, and there is little other nations could offer that would make a difference. It could also be that the potential political benefits to be drawn from adverse foreign reactions to regime policies (e.g., rally effects) have been exhausted, although traditional supporters still back the regime in a politically demobilized country. Here, too, neither positive nor negative measures may make much of a difference. Much as one cannot assume that the failure of negative pressures implies that positive engagement would be more successful, ineffectiveness of the latter does not imply effectiveness of the former: there are simply circumstances when nothing is likely to work, at least in the short term. At the same time, an inability to get a political quid pro quo from a refractory regime (the initial goal of most positive inducements) does not imply that longer-term catalytic benefits would not follow from positive engagement. Thus, even if there is no available way of inducing North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear programs (failure of the exchange logic), it is still useful to promote, through positive engagement if necessary, ultimate changes in regime priorities that would make living with the two nuclear-armed states less dangerous (relying on a catalytic logic). Here, the collision between what is objectively necessary and what is possible in terms of domestic politics becomes especially stark. A threat that cannot be mitigated either by carrots or sticks must, nevertheless, be addressed. Where this is the case, strategies of containment and deterrence must be considered.1 Thus, measures that seek to block regime access to the means of building nuclear and other unacceptable weapons may (as with Iran and North Korea) be necessary, as may be clear signals about the responses that aggression would provoke. But it is important to preserve, whenever possible, a distinction between policies directed at ensuring that some capacity cannot be acquired or used and policies that seek to impose pain as a path to policy change. It is the latter, especially, that bolsters the regime’s position while entrenching

1. With regard to Iran, see Lindsay and Takeyh (2010).

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its policies. Although this is a matter of degree, the former are less likely to have these, wholly undesirable, effects. It is, as previously observed, a matter of striking the proper balance between policy objectives that sometimes work at crosspurposes. The best that scholarship can offer policymakers is an awareness of when objectives may be incompatible and policies counterproductive. Having invested so little effort in identifying conditions underlying the successful use of incentives, we barely grasp the political complexities that must be considered when designing appropriate foreign policy strategies, making it much less likely that desired ends could be attained. Accordingly, the challenge becomes one of promoting the development of requisite knowledge, some of which, at least, must originate within institutions whose job it is to create new knowledge.

Improved Academic Understanding Under what circumstances might the lack of academic interest in positive inducements yield to a greater concern with such tools of foreign policy? The answer lies in the incentives by which international relations scholars (and political scientists more generally) are driven. There are two possibilities here. It may be that academics will begin to consider the policy relevance of their work and display a greater interest in being useful. At the same time, coming to realize that negative pressures are at best partially effective, they could shift their focus from tools of compulsion to alternative policy strategies. The second possibility is that, independently of the practical uses of scholarship, it becomes evident that the theoretical perspectives by which their work has been guided provide an incomplete, sometimes erroneous, picture of the world. Concerns with scientific accuracy and completeness, rather than with policy relevance, would then lead them to pursue new avenues of inquiry.

The Issue of Relevance While policymakers are not avid consumers of academic theory and research, scholarship sometimes does project itself into the corridors of power.2 This can happen in two ways. The link between the academic and policymaking communities may be demand driven—a pressing problem initiates a call for analysis

2. For a further discussion of the manner in which this can occur, see Lepgold and Nincic (2001, chap. 3), and George (1993).

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that would help address it. Or else, the link may be supply driven: here, acquired knowledge precedes a policy challenge; scholarly understanding helps to characterize the problem as well as contribute to its solution (Lepgold and Nincic 2001, chap. 3). Furthermore, paths that bring knowledge to the attention of decision makers may be direct and singular (a straight path from scholar to policymaker), or they may be multiple and indirect (operating, say, via interest groups or the media). A demand-driven connection is more likely to be associated with the former path; one that is supply driven tends to imply the latter. In the first case, the link would connect policymakers to think tanks, major universities, and, occasionally, to individual academics with relevant expertise (e.g., specialists on Iranian politics). In the supply-driven case, lawlike propositions or particular analytical methods may be discovered before a problem to which they are applicable emerges (as when game theoretic models eventually came to be applied to problems of nuclear deterrence). In some cases, the very realization that a problem exists may stem from scholarly work (e.g., the issue of crisis instability in cold war nuclear studies). In both supply- and demand-driven cases a link between academic work and policy needs is established, and while it is useful to consider the ways in which such connections could be improved (e.g., Wilson 2000), the precondition for any significant social-scientific contribution is for scholars to address, at some level of abstraction, issues that do bear on foreign policy challenges. The problem is that even if the gap between the focus of academic endeavors and the reality of political practice becomes very apparent, it is not probable that professional scholars would revise their assumptions and research priorities in an effort to bring scientific knowledge in line with observed reality and policy needs. Much of the reason why academic insights are not frequently sought within the corridors of power is that policy relevance has not, at least in recent decades, been much of a priority within the academic community, whose analytical efforts often appear self-referential and disconnected from the concrete world. For a long time, concern about effective public policy was reflected in the academic study of politics. For example, the American Political Science Association was founded in part to “bring political science to a position of authority as regards practical politics” (Gunnell 1993, 68). The concern of political scientists and international relations scholars for practical politics declined in the 1960s, with the professionalization of political science and as the social-scientific movement gained momentum. One consequence has been the tendency of scholars to evaluate their academic achievement by the extent of similarity between their methods of research and those of the natural sciences and much less by the extent to which their work addresses substantively important issues. Under the circum-

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stances and in many cases, the driving intellectual issues are of a methodological, not substantive, nature (Lepgold and Nincic 2005, 13), which means that disconnects with reality cause little discomfort so long as the methods employed enjoy peer approbation. As one scholar prophetically explained it, “it is no longer necessary to test the relevance of research findings by their significance as possible solutions to practical problems” (Easton 1968, 296). Standards of academic evaluation that elevate methods over substance are unlikely, except coincidentally, to generate knowledge and expertise that is policy relevant either via demand- or supply-driven paths. Schools of public policy tend to reverse the priorities found in most departments of political science or international relations, but such schools form a small part of the social science community. Accordingly, it is not very likely that a greater focus on positive inducements would spring from a concern with policy relevance.

The Issue of Scientific Truth and Completeness At least two sorts of forces drive scholarly output in the social sciences. On the one hand, the paths pursued are assumed to follow concerns of a logical and empirical nature. On the other hand, these paths are often fully comprehensible only by reference to the sociology of academic life—particularly to the reward structures by which it is characterized. From the former perspective, it makes sense that causal variables that fail to produce the outcomes imputed to them should lead to qualms about the theoretical perspectives in which they are imbedded. The faulty causal hypotheses should be qualified, modified, or abandoned. But this may not happen for several reasons linked more closely to the sociology of academic life than to the epistemological assumptions behind scientific discovery. As pointed out in chapter 2, the assumptions and frameworks within which most scholars operate have a path-dependent quality that often resists revision in light of evidence. Graduate students are usually encouraged to follow the interests of their academic advisers, which implies a continuity of scholarly priorities that is inconsistent with major innovation. Once dominant perspectives take hold, academic advancement usually is achieved by operating within their confines. Peer-reviewed publications tend to reflect the criteria most commonly accepted by the discipline. Academic visibility often requires a lively record of citations by other scholars, citations that are most easily acquired by those integrated into research programs that have been widely adopted. Professional concerns and the growth of scholarship are thus connected by ambiguous links, many of which encourage stubborn continuity even in the face of explanatory and predictive failures.

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As I have argued, the major theoretical paradigms that have shaped scholarship in international relations—realism and neorealism on one hand, neoliberalism on the other—offer little guidance for the study of positive inducements in foreign policy. Their hold on scholarship may have more to do with sociological than scientific considerations. They provide the intellectual framework within which much academic life and career building occurs, but, as pointed out in chapter 2, they have serious explanatory deficiencies. Realism and its offshoots assume constant-state motivations, with the corollary that all that can be done to discourage aggressive practices is to deny the other side the needed edge in power. Neoliberal thinking, while recognizing that priorities and motivations can evolve, focuses almost entirely on the structures that make this possible. Largely ignoring the issue of agency, this doctrinal perspective is not in a position to illuminate the manner in which explicitly designed policies could alter the motivations of adversaries. Yet, for most scholars, operating outside the confines of major paradigms is a risky path to professional success. If the purpose is to consider how the incentives of other nations, adversaries in particular, can be modified, then realism provides no particularly useful guidance. The assumptions behind liberalism are somewhat more promising, but this assumes modifications within the doctrine. Here, a total “paradigm shift” is not required, since liberalism is perfectly compatible with the academic reorientation we have in mind, as long as its assumptions are cast at both the level of structure and that of agency. Thus progress can be more easily envisaged from the perspective of Imre Lakatos (1970) than that of Thomas Kuhn (1962). Similarly, as I have suggested, the sociology of academic life virtually precludes Karl Popper’s logic of falsificationism (Popper 1972), where theories and hypotheses are abandoned once disconfirmed by the evidence. For Lakatos, on the other hand, science is guided by research programs, collections of theoretical claims and research techniques sharing a common core of assumptions. The premises of liberalism have become, for many scholars, a research program that, like most such programs, encounters a number of anomalies—in our case, the limitations of explanation based principally on the impact of structure. Like other such programs, it is entitled to develop a “protective belt” of auxiliary hypotheses permitting it to deal with certain deficiencies and anomalies while maintaining the integrity of its core assumptions (especially the assumption that the incentives of states can evolve). But, unless these auxiliary hypotheses produce new insights, the research program will be “degenerative” rather than “progressive.” From the perspective of our present interests, the failure to account for ineffective negative pressures and the prospects for positive inducements is a failure that could be remedied by reemphasis on agency, leading to what Lakatos (1970) called a “problem shift” that reorients the research program in a new and beneficial direction. Much of

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this may be countenanced by the academic reward structure, as it is a matter of perfecting an existing paradigm. Thus, even in the absence of a concern for policy relevance, an effort to save the paradigm from a “degenerative” future could produce scholarship capable of addressing issues regarding the real world of international relations.

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Index

Abdolali, Nasrin, 55 Abedin, Mahan, 159 Abrahams, Fred, 101 Afghanistan, 8, 9, 11, 23, 28, 29, 30, 31, 39, 151, 157 Agency, 47, 51, 53, 55 – 57, 171, 184 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 150, 158, 163, 165 – 66 Alawi muslims, 114, 120, 124 Albright, David, 14 Albright, Madeleine, 129, 136, 151 Alfoneh, Ali, 164 Alliance for Progress, 75, 76 Amuzegar, Jahangir, 153 Anan, Kofi, 23 Anarchy, 50 – 54, 146 Appeasement, 38, 40, 41, 63, 67, 134, 138, 148, 171 Arreguin-Toft, Ivan, 12 Art, Robert, 4, 5 Asian Development Bank, 143 Asia Society, 145 Assad Bashar al, 114, 119, 120, 121 Assad Hafiz al, 114, 120, 121 Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), 143 Axelrod, Robert, 2 Bahr, Egon, 62 Baker, James, 135 Baldwin, David, 11, 41 Banco Delta Asia, 136, 137, 175 Baradei, Mohamed el, 160, 161 Barber, James, 22 Barcelona Process, 78 BATNA, 63 Bekaa Valley, 114 Bennett, Andrew, 92 Berejikian, Jeffrey D., 67 Berman, Larry, viii, 10 Bishop, Maurice, 10 Blacket, Patrick, 37 Boden, Leslie, 40 Boehmer, Charles, 54 Bohning, Don, 104 Bolton, John, 138, 145

Boothroyd, Peter, 142 Borawski, John, 78 Bosnia, 9, 13 Bosworth, Stephen, 140 Bowen, Wyn, 95, 99 Bracken, Paul, 79 Brandt, Willy, 62 Brannan, Paul, 14 . Braut-Hegghammer, Malfrid, 100 Brenner, Philip, 104 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 105 Buchanan, James, 24 Buchanan, Pat, 20 Bull, Beate, 27 Burma, 21, 26, 89, 172 Bush, George H., 41, 118, 123, 135, 136, 137, 143, 150, 151, 157, 158 Bush, George W., 28, 39, 41, 44, 56, 61, 68, 93, 107, 118, 121 Byman, Daniel, 7, 11 Buzbee, Sally, 164 Buzo, Adrian, 132 Byrd Amendment, 28 Cambodia, 142, 174 Cardozo, Fernando, 73 Carter, Barry, 16 Carter, Jimmy, 38, 39, 94, 105, 108 Castro, Fidel, 20, 23, 33, 73, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110 Castro, Raul, 109, 112 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 99, 100, 104, 114, 120 Chamberlain, Neville, 41 Chanlett-Avery, Emma, 141 Chayes, Abram, 5 Cheney, Dick, 93, 136, 152 Cheriff, Ismet, 120 China, Peoples Republic, 10, 30, 33, 44, 54, 61, 105, 108, 112, 130, 132, 133, 135, 138, 142, 143, 144, 147, 159, 167, 179 Chinoy, Michael, 136 Christie, Daniel, 2 Christopher, Warren, 149 Clinton, Bill, 55, 56, 107, 129, 149, 151, 156 Clinton, Hillary, 110, 119 205

206

INDEX

Cold War, 2, 4, 5, 7, 35, 36, 38, 40, 42, 54, 75, 76, 77, 79, 102, 107, 109, 110, 170, 171, 172, 182 Collier, David, 92 Condorcet, Marquis de, 52 Containment, 37, 38, 41, 42, 180 Cooper, Joel, 40 Corn Laws, 74 Cortright, David, 27, 170 Counterfactuals, 7 Cowhey, Peter, 68 Crawford, Timothy, 41 Critical juncture, 34, 35, 37, 39, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 59, 66, 71, 107, 129, 134, 138, 149, 151, 152, 157, 168, 170, 177 Cross, John G., 175 Crumm, Eileen, 62 Cuba, 10, 19, 20, 28, 33, 44, 73, 75, 89, 91, 92, 102, 103, 104, 110, 111 Agrarian Reform Law, 103 Angola involvement, 105, 106, 107 Bay of Pigs invasion, 103 Carter administration and, 102, 105 Clinton, Bill, 107 – 8 Cuba Democracy Act, 108 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 107 Helms-Burton Act, 19, 109 Military-economic nexus, 112 Obama, Barack, 110 Operation Mongoose, 104 Public opinion on, 113 Reforms, 108 Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), 111, 112 – 13 Ronald Reagan, 106, 107 Soviet Union and, 75, 106, 107, 109 Special Period, 107 Terrorist involvement, 109 – 10 Zaire involvement, 105 Dahl, Robert, 83 Darfur, 22, 61 Davis, James, 72 Dembe, Allan, 40 Democratic peace, 51, 55 Deng Xiaoping, 132 Dependencia school, 73 Dessler, David, 47 Détente, 38, 62, 104, 156 Deterrence, 3 – 5, 7, 30, 68, 182 Diplomacy, vii, 3, 13, 75, 137, 152 Divine, Robert, 38 Doha Agreement, 119, 123 Doi Moi, 142

Dominican Republic, 8, 9 Dominguez, Jorge, 106, 107 Domke, William, 54 Donnelly, Jack, 49 Doyle, Michael, 55 Drell, Sydney, 5 Drury, Cooper, 19 Druze, 114, 123 Dulles, John F., 37, 41 Dunne, Michele, 174 Durkheim, Emile, 40 Easton, David, 183 Egypt, 15, 81, 82, 97, 114, 115, 155 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 37, 38, 103 Elliot, Kimberly Ann, 18, 19 Ellman, Michael, 36 Estelami, Hooman, 156 European Union, 19, 21, 26, 30, 33, 52, 54, 62, 75, 77, 78, 82, 118, 119, 120, 147, 150, 158, 177 Export Administration Act, 117 Fairbanks, Stephen, 156 Fallaci, Oriana, 98 Falleto, Enrique, 73 Farley, Philip, 5 Feltman, Jeffrey, 119 Festinger, Leo, 40 Finnemore, Martha, 83, 85 Fisher, Roger, 63 Fisk, Daniel, 17 Fleming, Denna, 35, 36 Foran, Virginia, 62 Ford, Gerald, 38 Forrestal, James, 36 France, 33, 53, 54, 75, 100, 113, 118, 158, 159 Frank, Andre G., 73 French, Paul, 130, 131, 132, 133, 139 Funabashi, Yoichi, 140 Galtung, Johan, 23 Gambill, Gary, 98 Garland, David, 40 Gartzke, Eric, 54 Gates, Robert, 6 Gavin, Joseph, 17 Gemayel, Bashir, 10 George, Alexander, 2, 13, 92 Germany, 36, 41, 53, 54, 75, 85, 118, 158, 159 Gibbons, Elizabeth, 24 Giddens, Anthony, 47 Golan Heights, 114, 115 Goldstein, Judith Patrick, 82, 84, 177

INDEX

Goldstone, Jack, 34 Gonzales, Edward, 111 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 42, 65, 107, 172 Gourevitch, Peter, 74 Gowa, Joanne, 54 Greek Civil War, 75 Grenada, 9, 10, 13, 29, 73 Guatemala, 8 Guevara, Che, 104 Gulf War 1991, 9, 27, 29, 170 Gunnell, John, 182 Gvosdev, Nikolas, 162, 164 Haass, Richard, 17, 28 Haggard, Stephan, 146 Halberstam, David, 6 Hamas, 15, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123, 149, 150, 159 Haney, Patrick, 108 Hariri, Rafic, 36, 115, 118 Harriman, Averell, 36 Harrison, Selig, 143, 144 Hart, Herbert, 40 Hassig, Ralph, 130 Hastings, Max, 6 Hauser, Marc, 171 Heil, John, 46 Helfstein, Scott, 19 Helms, Jesse, 134 Herring, Eric, 77 Hezbollah, 15, 27, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123, 149, 159 Hinnebusch, Raymond, 81, 114, 116 Hiro, Dilip, 154 Hobbes, Thomas, 49, 50 Hoekstra, Peter, 138 Hogan, Michael, 75 Holbrooke, Richard, 9 Holloway, David, 5 Houri, Nadim, 121 Hufbauer, Gary, 18, 19 Human Rights Watch, 162 Hunter, Shirene, 153 Huntington, Samuel, 76, 77 Hussein, Saddam, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13, 23, 27, 93, 115, 117, 166, 170 Hymans, Jacques, 66 Indyk, Martin, 94 International Atomic Energy Agency, 52, 95, 158, 160 International Monetary Fund, 143 International Proliferation Security Initiative, 139

207

Iran, 8, 9, 14, 20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 33, 39, 61, 67, 79, 87, 89, 92, 95, 115, 118, 122, 124, 127, 146, 148, 153, 156, 157, 158, 165, 168, 170, 172, 175, 176, 177, 180, 182 Association of Militant Clergy, 156 Basij, 167 Bonyads, 163, 178 Guardian Council, 156, 161, 162 Iran Freedom Support Act, 152 Missile capacity, 15 Nuclear program, 14, 24, 59, 61, 63, 150, 159, 160, 174 Obama, Barack, 141, 165, 166, 167 Political elites, structure, 161 – 63, 165, 166 Reagan, Ronald, 149 Regime stability and legitimacy, 14, 159, 167 Revolutionary Guards Corps, 24, 150, 150, 155, 164 Terrorism, 149, 150, 158, 174 UN Security Council sanctions, 20, 33, 150, 160, 161, 167 Velayat-e faqih, 165 Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act, 149 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), 20, 22, 95, 152 Iran Freedom Support Act, 152 Iraq, 5, 6, 8, 12, 15, 25, 27, 28, 41, 114, 115, 117, 119, 120, 122, 148, 149, 150, 151, 155, 157, 159, 165, 170, 174 U.S. invasion, 9, 10, 11, 13, 22, 23, 29, 33, 73, 93, 94, 96, 109 Israel, 14, 15, 81, 82, 93, 97, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123, 124, 157, 159, 167 James, William, 43 Joffe, George, 98 Jones, Howard, 103 Juche. See Korea, North Kacsur, Charles, Jr., 21 Kadivar, Moshen, 156 Kagan, Frederick, 12 Kahneman, Donald, 67 Kanet, Roger, 77 Kant, Immanuel, 54, 55 Kaplowitz, Donna Rich, 20, 104, 107 Karroubi, Mehdi, 167 Katzman, Kenneth, 155 Kennedy, John F., 38, 60, 63, 75, 103 Kennedy, Paul, 33 Keohane, Robert, 52, 53, 83, 92 Kerry, John, 39 Kessler, Martha N., 114 Khamenei, Seyed Ali, 151, 158, 166

208

INDEX

Khatami, Mohhamad, 149, 156, 157, 159, 162 Khomenei, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 130, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 161, 165 Kim Il-sung, 130, 131 Kim Jong-il, 33, 130, 131, 134, 136, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 147 Kim Jong-un, 140, 141 King, Garry, 92 Kissinger, Henry, 39, 54, 102, 104, 116 Klebnikov, Paul, 163 Knetsch, Jack, 67 Korea, North (North Korea), 10, 14, 15, 16, 20, 23, 28, 33, 44, 61, 68, 87, 90, 92, 116, 117, 127, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 145, 147, 148, 151, 152, 153, 160, 161, 167, 168, 170, 172, 174, 175, 179 Agreed Framework, 128, 129, 134, 136, 137 Bush, George W., 135, 136, 137, 150 Cheonan, 141 Chollima Movement, 132 Famine, 138, 139, 141, 146, 147 Juche ideology, 130 – 31 Kaeson industrial park, 143 Korean Peninsula Development Organization (KEDO), 128, 135, 138 Military-first policy, 141, 144 Military spending, 139 Missile programs, 136, 139 National Defense Commission, 141 Nuclear plants, 135, 137, 139 Nuclear weapons program, 15, 26, 135, 138, 174 Regime collapse possibility, 145 – 47 Soviet collapse, 138 Terrorism, 137 U.S. sanctions, 20, 140 Korea, South, 5, 9, 16, 37, 128, 129, 132, 133, 135, 136, 139, 140, 144, 147, 179 Korean War, 6, 139 Kostunica, Vojislav, 21 Kotsev, Nikolai, 178 Krasner, Stephen, 52 Kuhn, Thomas, 45, 184 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), 114 Kuwait, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 96, 117 Lafeber, Walter, 75 Lakatos, Imre, 45, 49, 184 Lake, Anthony, 149 Lake, David, 74 Larijani, Ali, 162, 163, 164 Larson, Deborah Welch, 59 Lassensky, Scott, 119, 121 Lasswell, Harold, 80

Lavin, Franklin, 23 Lax, David, 175 League of Nations, 53 Leahy, William, 36 Lebanon, 8, 9, 10, 114, 115 – 19, 121 – 23, 146, 159 Leeds, Brett, 68 Lepgold, Joseph, 52, 57, 181, 182, 183 Leverett, Flynt, 94, 158 Levy, Jack, 67, 85 Lex talionis, 40, 171 Li, Quan, 54 Liberalism (and Neoliberalism), 47, 51, 56, 57, 171, 184 Libya, 9, 10, 11, 22, 23, 42, 63, 91, 92, 93, 94 – 99, 100 – 102, 124, 125, 174, 175 Economic problems, 97, 99, 101 Foreign investment, 100, 101 Jamahiriya, 93, 97, 98 People’s Courts, 101 Reforms, 98 – 99 Revolutionary Committees, 97, 98 Sanctions against, 94 – 95 Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, 98 Long, William, 62 Lopez, George, 25, 27, 170 Loyola, Mario, 113 Lutwak, Edward, 41 Lynch, Graystone, 103 Macaron, Joe, 120 MacArthur, Douglas, 6 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 47 Mack, Andrew, 12 Mahoney, James, 34, 39, 92 Maksudov, S., 36 Manyin, Mark, 174 Maoz, Zeev, 55 Marcos, Ferdinand, 79, 146 Marinov, Nikolay, 19 Market Leninism, 142 Marshall Plan, 75, 78 Martin, Lisa, 52, 53 Martinez Luis, 97, 98, 99 Marxism, 46, 130, 132 Masters, Roger, 50 Matic, Veran, 21 May, Ernest, 41 Mazaar, Michael, 8 McCain, John, 41, 134 McCarthy, Kevin, 111 McGovern, George, 38 Mearsheimer, John, 48, 52 Milani, Mohsen, 166, 167

INDEX

Milburn, Thomas, 2 Military (armed) Force (coercion), vii, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10 Compellent function, 7, 8 Defensive function, 5, 6, 7 Deterrent function, 5, 6 Reasons for limited effectiveness, 11 – 13, 14 – 15 Milner, Helen, 50 Milosevic, Slobodan, 4, 8, 21, 22, 23, 26, 79 Miscamble, Wilson, 36 Mitchell, George, 122 Montazeri, Hussein Ali, 165 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, 54 Mora, Frank, 112 Moral hazard, 40, 41, 110, 148, 171 Morales, Esteban, 103 Morgenthau, Hans J., 41, 48 Morocco, 97 Mousavi, Hossein, 166, 167 Munich analogy, 41 Muslim Brotherhood, 98, 121 Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), 5 Myerson, Roger B., 30 Myung-bak, Lee, 139, 140 Naitson, Andrew, 138 Nam, Pham Xuan, 142 Nanto, Dick, 133, 141, 143 Nateq-Nouri, Ali Akbar Hodjatoleslam, 156, 166 National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), 105 National Intelligence Council, 30 Nau, Henry, 3 Negative pressures, 1, 2, 19, 31, 32, 44, 65, 88, 89, 103, 136, 169, 170, 176, 180, 181, 184 Newfield, Christopher, 41 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 48 Nincic, Miroslav, 5, 19, 22, 23, 25, 29, 52, 57, 65, 79, 181, 182, 183 Nixon, Richard M., 37, 38, 39, 54, 105 Noland, Marcus, 146 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 8, 21, 52, 77, 78, 82, 147, 178 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, 93, 116 Nye, Joseph, 1, 52 Obama, Barack, 39, 41, 110, 119, 165, 166, 167, 172 Oh, Kongdan, 130 Oneal, John, 54, 55 Ontology, 46, 47, 49, 55, 57 Organization of American States, 110 Osgood, Charles, 2

209

Packenham, Robert, 76 Pakistan, 6, 23, 99, 179 Palestine Liberation Organization, 116 Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 15 Pan, Esther Han, 139 Panama, 8, 9, 12, 13 Panic, Milan, 21, 22 Papayoanou, Paul, 54 Park, Han, 130, 131, 143 Partnership for Peace, 77, 78, 82, 83, 177 Path dependence, 34, 35, 39, 42, 43, 44, 86, 93, 109, 126, 138, 152, 177 Patriot Act, 117 Perle, Richard, 134 Perry, William, 129 Perthers, Vokr, 114 Pesaran, Hashem, 155 Pevehouse, Jon, 83, 84 Philippines, 79, 146 Pierson, Paul, 34 Podhoretz, John, 138 Polachek, Solomon, 54 Pomper, Gerald, 39 Popper, Karl, 184 Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), 10 Powell, Colin, 122, 136 Prados, Alfred, 120, 121, 124 Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), 113 Prevost, Gary, 103, 107 Pridham, Geoffrey E., 77 Prospect theory, 67, 72 Przeworski, Adam, 87 Putnam, Robert, 74 Qaddafi, Muammar, 10, 11, 22, 42, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 125, 126, 130, 172, 175 Qalibaf, Muhammad, 162, 164, 166 Rabil, Robert, 122 Rachels, James, 40 Rafsanjani, Akbar Hashemi, 155, 156, 162, 163, 166 Rally effect, 23, 25, 50, 65, 69, 104, 106, 119, 166, 167, 180 Ray, James, 55 Reagan administration, 5, 10, 20 Reagan, Ronald, 38, 39, 94, 106, 107, 117, 149 Realism (and Neoliberalism), 46 – 50, 51, 52, 55 – 57, 171, 184 Record, Jeffrey, 12 Rees, David, 10

210

INDEX

Rent seeking, 24, 66, 79, 80, 177 Retributive justice, 40 Rezaii, Mohsen, 162 Rice, Condoleeza, 136, 160 Ripsman, Norrin, 12 Risse, Thomas, 83, 84 Rock, Stephen, 41 Romania, 78, 146, 147 Roosevelt, Franklin S., 35 Ropp, Stephen, 83 Rosen, Steven, 12 Ross, Denis, 123 Rowhani, Hasan, 162, 163 Rubin, Barry, 157 Ruggie, John, 83 Russett, Bruce, 54, 55 Sadjadpour, Karim, 164, 165 Safire, William, 22, 93 SALT II treaty, 38, 59 Sanctions, economic, vii, 2, 3, 14, 16, 21, 22, 33, 35, 41, 43, 44, 49, 62, 89, 93 – 96, 99, 102, 103, 109, 110, 117, 118, 124, 128, 129, 134 – 36, 139, 140, 150, 151, 158, 161, 166, 167, 168, 175 Adversary capacity, 27, 28, 170 Arguments against, 22, 23, 24 Defined, 16 Failures of, vii, 17, 18, 19, 20, 29, 107, 122, 138, 150, 169, 170 Objectives, 127 Public opinion on, 152 Rent seekers’ benefits, 66, 70, 80 “Smart,” 25, 26 Symbolic, 28, 29, 30, 88 Saudi Arabia, 15, 96, 115, 116, 118, 124, 155 Schelling,Thomas, 3, 4 Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr., 43, 75 Schott, Jeffrey, 18, 19 Schroeder, Paul, 33 Schweller, Randall, 50 Security dilemma, 49, 50, 51 Serbia, 21, 62, 78, 177 Sell, Louis, 8, 9, 22 Shapiro, Daniel, 119 Shariatmadari, Mohammad Kazem, 165 Sharman, Jason, 77 Sharp, Jeremy, 118, 120, 121, 124 Shire, Jacqueline, 14 Short, Michael, 8 Shrine of Imam Reza, 163, 164 Sikkink, Kathryn, 83, 84, 85 Simons, William, 13 Sistani, Ali al-, 165

Six Party talks, 136 Slavin, Barbara, 156, 157, 158, 159, 165 Smith, Tony, 75, 76 Smith, Wayne, 105 Snidal, Duncan, 52 Soft power, 1 Solingen, Etel, 81, 99 Somalia, 8, 9, 79, 147 Sorensen, Theodore, 75 South Africa, 105 Spector, Leonard, 62 St. John, Ronald B., 98 Stein, Arthur, 52 Stevenson, Adlai, 37 Structure, 47, 50, 55, 74 Structured focused comparison, 91 Subversion, 2, 5, 73, 75, 124 Sudan, 21, 23, 26, 61, 97, 172 Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, 159 Sweig, Julia, 104, 106, 107, 108 Syria, 6, 23, 44, 67, 90, 92, 97, 113, 114, 115, 116, 119, 120, 122, 124, 125, 172, 175, 179 Ba-ath Party, 114 Damascus Spring, 121 Hamas and, 118, 122 Hezbollah and, 118, 122 independence of, 113 Middle East peace, 118, 122, 123, 172 Muslim Brotherhood in, 120, 121 Regime stability, 121 Sanctions against, failure of, 118, 119 Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, 117 Takeyh, Ray, 99, 100, 155, 159, 161, 162, 164, 180 Taliban, 13, 23, 151, 157, 158, 159 Thaler, Richard, 67 Third Wave initiatives, 78, 79 Thompson, Kenneth, 48, 74 Tit-for-tat, 2, 171 Torricelli, Robert, 108, 109 Tostensen, Arne, 27 Truman, Harry S., 35, 36, 37 Truman Doctrine, 37 Turkey, 114, 118, 119, 124 Tversky, Amos, 67 Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), 105 United Nations, 94, 99, 109, 148 United States, vii, viii, 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 19, 22, 26, 28, 30, 33, 34, 41, 43, 54, 63,

INDEX

64, 65 – 68, 74, 76, 79, 82, 86, 89 – 92, 94, 100, 103, 104 – 6, 108 – 13, 115, 117 – 19, 122, 123, 127, 128, 129, 133 – 37, 139, 140, 142 – 45, 148, 150, 151, 155, 156 – 60, 165, 166, 167, 174, 175, 178 United States Department of State, 11, 109, 116, 119, 149, 158 Ury, William, 63 U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act, 20, 27, 137 Vanderbush, Walt, 108 Vandewalle, Dirk, 96, 97 Velayati, Ali Akbar, 16 Verba, Sidney, 92 Vietnam, 9, 10, 11, 29, 38, 54, 142 – 45, 174 Wallace, Henry, 36, 37 Wallensteen, Peter, 19, 26, 29 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 73

211

Walton, Richard, 37 Waltz, Kenneth, 49, 50 Waxman, Matthew, 7, 11 Weekly Standard, 113 Weisner, Jerome, 5 Welch, Richard, 103 Wendt, Alexander, 47, 83 Wieland, Carsten, 120, 121 Wilson, Ernest J., 182 Wilson,Woodrow, 16, 17, 53 Winters, David, 48 Woodward, Susan, 21 World Trade Organization (WTO), 159, 160 Yacoubian, Mona, 78, 119, 121 Yee, Albert, 83 Yugoslavia, 8, 9, 12, 13, 21, 22, 23, 26, 79 Zulean, Marian, 78