International Relations pt 2

How to Counter an Insurgency (Article)

Materiel

Sanctuary

Information

US Counterinsurgency Doctrine

Places heavy emphasis on influencing human factors

Commander’s Emergency Response Program

Berman, Shapro and Felter Hypothesis

Small, conditional, community driven projects are likely to reduce violence

Maoist Revolutionary Warfare

Phase 1: Organize rural bases

Phase 2: Extend violence against government weak points

Phase 3: Destroy government forces in pitched battles once strong enough

Overlooked Technology

Conventional warfare

Symmetric non-conventional warfare

Affect of International System on Military Dimension of Civil War

Changes relative power of contestants

Conventional Civil War

High military tech of the state, high military tech of the rebels

Successful Military Coup

Low military tech of the state, high military tech of the rebels

Irregular Civil War

High military tech of the state, low military tech of the rebels

Symmetric Nonconventional Civil War

Low military tech of the state, low military tech of the rebels

Cold War Impacts on Insurgency

Superpower Support: training and motivation

Revolutionary Beliefs: power of beliefs well understood by counterinsurgents

End of Cold War Impacts

Decline of rebel capacity

Decline of state capacity

Breakup of multinational empire (more free arms available)

How Civil Wars End

On the battlefield

Ending Civil War Security Dilemma

Adversaries cannot retain separate, independent armed forces in a period of intense vulnerability

Factors that Shape Violence During Civil Wars

The technology of both the state and of the rebels shape the type of war that is fought

Information sharing is key to determining the intensity of violence on the insurgent end

Major Civil Wars

Palestine

Sahel

Myanmar

Sudan

Ethiopia

Tigray

Civil War and Major Power Competition

Most fighting and dying happened in civil wars during the Cold War due to proxy conflicts

Civil War

Contested incompatibility that concerns government or territory with the use of armed force of which one party is the government and causes at least 25 battle related deaths in a year

Causes of Civil War

Grievance: political or economic inequality

Greed: lootable resources

State weakness and rough terrain

How to Counter Insurgency (Lecture)

Repression

Aid and good governance (addressing grievances, raising opportunity costs, supporting local allies, improving info)

Past Ways to End Civil War

UN Peacekeeping

NATO in Kosovo

Those Most Concerned about Climate

Global South

Invisibility of Climate Change

Climate Change isn’t real because it is a natural fluctuation of the Earth’s temperature

Predictors of Climate Change Attitudes

Political Affiliation

Gender

Religiosity

Elite Driven Partisanship

Complex scientific content makes judgement difficult, so people look for elite cues

Issue Attention Cycle

People pay attention to climate issues when they are most affected, then drive for change wanes as time passes

Commons

Rivalrous + nonexcludable

Rational Self Interest

No incentive for restraint because benefits are concentrated and costs diffuse

Why Cooperation on Climate Change is Difficult

The scientific information has proved to be dense and confusing

Disinformation (especially along party lines)

The threat does not seem imminent

Many feel their freedoms are being infringed upon

Issue Attention Cycle

Costs

Climate Change

Significant changes over time

Human activities are the main driver

US top emitter since the industrial revolution

Energy firms emit

Future Climate Trajectory

2ft sea level rise

8/10 largest cities flooded

100+ million climate migrants

37% exposed to extreme heat waves

36% exposed to extreme severe rain

Drought risk doubles

Declining crop yields

Increase in mosquito range by 10-30%

Climate Good News

Renewables beating fossil fuels

Solar energy is promising

Reaching peak of emissions

Divestments

Climate Costs of War

Reconstruction

Military Equipment

Airplanes

Climate Change Reshapes International Politics

Competition in the Arctic with possibility of northwest passage

Climate Conflict Nexus: farmer herder conflict, drought/desertification

Mass migration

Development and foreign aid

Challenge of Tackling Climate Change

Tragedy of the commons

Prisoners dilemma

Free rider problem

Collective Action problems

Time horizon

Unevenly distributed costs

Paris Climate Agreement

Nationally determined contributions

Name and shame enforcement

Climate Green Fund

Global Stockake

Obama Policy on Climate Change

2009 Copenhagen Accord (cutting emissions costs in rapidly growing countries)

2010 Deepwater Horizon Spill (fracking revolution)

2015 Paris Climate Agreement

Trump Policy on Climate Change

Fears of cheating + relative gains led to the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement

Climate change denial (conspiracy made by Chinese)

Advisors linked to corporate energy

Asset Ownership

Policy making clash between owners of climate forcing and climate vulnerable assets

Climate change and policies revalue assets dynamically

Need to Compensate Losers

Climate forcing asset holders seek compensation for decarbonization

Crosspressured groups seek investment in adaptation

Public supports mitigation

Past Climate Change Cooperation

1979: Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (acid rain mitigation)

1987: Montreal Protocol (close ozone hole)

1991: Acid Rain Treaty (US-Canada emissions cooperation)

1992: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Regime Complex for Climate Change

Institutions working together to fight

Polycentricity: overlapping, local governance (cities making changes), community monitoring

Social norms/morality

Mutual coercion

Climate Institutions

Shadow of the future (expectation of reciprocity)

Monitoring (sharing info about compliance)

Prospect of punishment

More Wealth, More Jobs? (Goodman 2016)

Ordinary laborers borne costs and suffer joblessness and economic anxiety

Damage has accelerated erosion in free trade

ex. Farmers led Brexit

Trade Attitudes

Factor of Endowments Approach

Specific Factors Approach

Sociotrophic attitudes

Factor of Endowments

Trade benefits individuals whose own factors of production that are in abundant supply relative to the remainder of the world

Holders of US labors have negative attitude towards trade

Specific Factors Approach

An individuals attitudes toward trade will reflect characteristics in the industry they work in

In US, export oriented industries support (tech), non traded industries support (teachers) and import competition industries oppose (car manufacturing)

Sociotrophic attitudes

People care about how free trade affects their community, shapes attitudes

Time Inconsistency

Before a new policy is adopted, beneficiaries are incentivized to promise compensation, but once policy is in place, they have little interest in following through

Does Free Trade Benefit Everyone?

No. Only highly skilled workers and countries with specialized exports. Those countries highly integrated in globalization have some losers, especially those in competition with other export countries of their product.

Globalization

Spread and flow across borders of trade and transactions, capital and investments, people and jobs, and information and knowledge

Threats to Trade

Houthi (pirate) attacks

Suez Canal Incidents

Panama drought lowered sea level

2018 trade war with China

Rise of Free Trade

Increased since 2005

Drop in tariff rate post WWII

More free trade agreements (although increasing backlash recently)

Global supply chains dominate '(rise of intermediate vs final goods)

Underpins post WWII international world order

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Transforms into WTO

Between US and Brits

Who Benefits From Free Trade

Everyone in the aggregate

US Free Trade Benefits

Contributed 2.1 trillion to the US economy

Enhanced productivity from comparative advantage and economies of scale

Lower prices→ economies of scale

Reduced gender wage gap, improved labor rights, environmental standards (virtuous cycles)

Tariffs

Regressive taxes on consumers

Hurt low income people the most

Low Support in US

Supported by less than half of republicans and less than ¾ of democrats

Since end of Obama admin. less free trade efforts (turned away from NAFTA, TPP)

Lobbying from losers

Ricardo Model of International Order

Leads to specialization of production

Leads to trade opportunities (trade surplus)

ex. Morocco w/ wine; US w/ tech; low income countries have advantage with labor

Comparative Advantage

Country’s ability to produce a particular good or service at a lower opportunity cost than other producers

US Losers

Individuals in the manufacturing sector because labor costs are high and there is a decline in manufacturing employment

Created by China shock

Losses felt in swing states (rust belt)

Consequence of Trade Related Job Losses

Opioid deaths

Military recruitment

Income inequality and poverty

Partisanship

Diffuse Beneficiaries vs Concentrated Victims

Winners can’t mobilize because they don’t suffer concentrated costs like losers, benefits are diffused

Similar to climate change mitigation problem

Embedded Liberalism (Ruggie)

Embed economic policies with social policies to compensate those harmed by policies

Hard to pull off

ex. Trade adjustment assistance

Why Compensations is Hard

Stigma of welfare programs

Retraining may mean having to move for a new job

Time inconsistency

Contemporary Trade Issues

Trump Trade Wars

Automation

Decoupling and derisking (reduce trade dependence in the event of being cut off)

Weaponized Interdependence (Farrell and Newman)

Bipolarity and Aid (Dunning)

Receiving countries enjoy greater leverage, because power withholding aid could mean losing clients to other powers

Donors trade off costs of lack of democratic reform against benefit pf retaining African clients and may still provide aid to autocrats

Donor must be willing to enforce conditions on aid for it to promote democracy

Aid Works (Sachs)

Public health successes as a result of aid

Can foreign aid promote development?

Can hinder the development of economies because the governments are less responsive to the people (not the source of money, power)

Civil wars are likely because the prize (control over money) is high and discontent is common

Foreign aid has made progress in the realm of health by decreasing infant mortality rates and death by preventable diseases

Aid democratization

Foreign Aid

Public assistance with a grant or concessional component administered to promote development

Foreign Aid Examples

Emergency relief

Education

Public health

Good governance

Economic reform

Transport

Security assistance

Rise in Aid

Japanese→ Asia

Europe→ Middle East

US→ Subsaharan Africa

Only 6 countries hit percentage target goal

Millennium Development Goals

2.5 trillion annual cost to meet

End poverty and hunger

Universal primary education

US Aid

Peace and security main forces

Spend most in countries with clear geostrategic interest

Less than 5% discretionary spending

Cost of DOGE Cuts

140k deaths since

Disproportionately affects Subsaharan Africa and Southeast Asia

If through 2025, I million die of HIV

Loss of contracts going to US businesses

Significant instrument of soft power

Public Attitudes on Foreign Aid

Perceptions of amount spent out of touch

Broadly supportive of specific efforts

Aid in American Foreign Policy

Hoover relief aid for Belgium

Marshall Plan: US needs to rebuild because it needs that markets for production

Useful in countering Soviet threat

Soviet and Russian Aid

Gave during cold war

Heavily involved in Sahelian Africa

Security clients do no vote against them in the UN

Aided Asia

China Foreign Aid

Investing ins South Africa, Latin America and Africa

Currying favor with former US security clients and in US back door

Debt Trap diplomacy: most aid in form of predatory lending

Belt and Road Initiative

Countries that received Chinese funding defended Uyghur detentions

Aid Effectiveness

Principal Agent relations

Moral hazard

Adverse selection

Fungibility

Aid conditionality

Structural Adjustments and Washington consensus

Principal Agent Relations

Conflict over interests/priorities emerge when agent undertakes actions on behalf of principal because of competing interests or asymmetric info

Moral Hazard

Provision of insurance raises likelihood of the event being insure and reduces the incentive for the insure party to take preventative actions

Recipient governments face little incentive to pursue development promoting policies if they know the donors will continue to give them aid so long as they remain poor

Easterly ‘01: poor held hostage

ex. Marcos regime in the Philippines

Adverse Selection

Asymmetric info raises likelihood that insurers underwrite risky policies

Recipient governments have more info about nature of problems

Afghan government had info about whether government was corrupt or Taliban a hard actor to fight

Fungibility

The ability of a good or asset to be interchanged with other goods or assets

Cash is fungible; money may be given for schools or hospitals but is used for other things instead

ex. arms could be given to Pakistan to fight insurgents which they then use to fight India instead

ex. US gave money to Mali that was being used to insulate the power of the leader instead

Aid Conditionality

Policy conditions and accountability mechanisms attached to aid

Induce recipient governments in desired ways

Audits es. Uganda given money to continue liberal refugee intake policy and US demanded audits

Human Rights (certify progress, do not certify progress, or override system and give money anyway)

Nonproliferation ex. US aid to Pakistan cut in ‘90s because investment in nuclear proliferation

Structural Adjustment

Structural Adjustment and Washington Consensus

Washington Consensus: standard reform package

Liberalization of trade

Privatization of state enterprise

Deregulation

Tax reform

Fiscal policy discipline

Complaint that this is neocolonialism

Case Against Foreign Aid

Aid breeds dependence

Aid is not effective at spurring economic growth

Perils of Unearned Income

Corruption

Nontransparency and despotism

Undeserved credit claiming

Waste and bureaucracy

Economic distortion ex. US requires UN to buy American wheat and corn for assistance in other countries

Neocolonialism

Perils of Unearned Income (Deaton and Easterly)

Nontaxed revenue enables leaders to forgo taxing the citizenry, which results in decreased demand for representative democracy and good governance

Aid Corruption

Some elites siphoning off a share of aid for personal consumption

Undeserved Credit Claiming

Local politicians claim credit for aid to lock in political advantages

Case for Foreign Aid

Aid works for worthy outcomes

The moral case

Buying Hearts and Minds

Exchange Rates (Broz and Frieden)

Exchange rates affect all other prices and therefore public opinion

Fixed rate system preferred by international banks and export oriented people

Free floating preferred by labor

Global Financial Systems

Gold Standard: fixed rate, exchanged gold for currency, lacked independent monetary policy

Bretton Woods Monetary Order: modified fixed rate, currency fixed to USD and USD fixed to gold, national goats could change exchange rate, no capital mobility by discretionary monetary policy

Floating regime: members can benefit by committing to a common standard on payments and exchange restrictions

Appreciate or Depreciate

Competitiveness vs purchasing power

Appreciation

Increases purchasing power and reduces competition

Reduced exports but cheaper imports

Risk of deflation

Depreciation

Encourages exports, expenditure

US claims this is a tactic of China

Inflation risk

Countries Can Only Implement 2 or 3

Developing Countries: free capital flow, fixed exchange rate

China: sovereign monetary policy, fixed exchange rate

Highly Developed: free capital flow, sovereign monetary policy

Asia Financial Crisis

Thailand had fixed exchange rate tied to USD and open to international capital

Investors get wind that Thai banks can’t service obligation and go into speculative attacks

Government runs out of foreign exchange resources and abandons the fixed exchange rate

Solutions: capital controls, raising interest rates

How States Manage Monetary Policies

Through fickle cooperation in the international sphere

Unholy Trinity

Exchange rates

Capital controls

Policy autonomy