Learn: GOV 312L Test 2

What is politics and what are two central components of it?

The use of authority to allocate scarce resources. Two central components are authority and allocation.

Political Order

stable patterns of regularities of social behavior induced by authority relationships and/or coercion

How does violence shape political order?

Violence (deployment of threat of it) is often necessary for enforcement of directives. Hobbes Leviathan social contract: individuals surrender some of their freedom to the gov for some order

Coercion Dilemma

gov or organization storng enough to enforce its directives is also strong enough to leverage authority for its own gain

Coercion Dilemma and Domestic Politics

Example: police on 6th street at 2AM enforcing authority in attempt to maintain order but can also abuse its power and target certain people or be corrupt.

Coercion Dilemma and International Politics

There’s no overarching gov like with states. America does set up international orgs to govern the world. Without a hegemon things get more disorderly, but at the samwe time the same country could abuse its power and invade in the middle east etc.

What role did international organizations play in constraining US miiltary power?

America doesn’t make itself weaker. Instead, it self-regulated through international organizations like NATO that makes decisions unanimously but the strongest member is still the US. US could still call all the shots but it put itself in NATO to prevent itself from calling all the shots. This addresses the coercion dilemma internationally after WWII and US unipolarity.

Ikenberry and US military power in Iraq

Ikenberry interrogates Amer power. If the UN and allies say no to Iraq but America continues military action, is US military power sufficiently regulated despite it being an “indispensable nation?”

How can war change the internal political order of states?

territorial transfers shift resources and people, refugee flows. Strengthening govs and states: leveraging security threats and fear of conquests to raise taxes, expand admin bureaucracy, impose new restrictions on political participation to weaken dissent. Can trigger revolution (Ex: WWI and Russia'; US/Iraq)

What is war and what is the criteria?

The military contest among competing coercive orgs that meets some threshold of death or destruction. At least 1000 soldier casualities.

Fundamental Puzzle of War

If war is so costly, why do states go to war instead of compromising?

Divide the Dollar Game, Bargaining, & War Relationship

It would be natural to divide a dollar or state in half. Person who gets 20% is still better off than someone who gets nothing. However, power politics shift influence the division game making it difficult to avoid conflict and disagreement. Both sides always want more than half leading to war.

Primary components for explaining war

Some conflict of interest provokes demands by at least one state to change a status quo political order. Demands trigger a bargaining process bw adversaries that then enables decisions for war or compromise. The bargaining model treats war as bargaining failure.

Expected Utility Theory

predicts who is most likely going to win the war. Helps understand deicions for war and peace during the bargaining stage because states that have more likely chance of winning have more bargaining leverage and are less likely to make concessions

Private Information in War

knowledge abotu parameters (capability and resolve) held by only one of the adversaries. Private info can lead to war because more difficult for sides to make accurate predictions of each others resolve and capabilies.

Examples of costly signals

Costly signals reveal private information and avert war. Can foster peace by conveying credibility of threats. Ex: moving troops closer to an enemies border

Private Information and First Persian Gulf War

Kuwait miscalculated Saddam Hussein’s intentions. Kuwait and regional actors viewed Iraq’s aggressive posture and troop build up as a bluff or an exaggeration designed to extract economic leverage rather than a genuine intent to conquer. Kuwait refused to make deep financial or oil concessions, leading to Iraq to launch a full scale invasion on Kuwait.

Declining Powers & Preventative Wars

Declining powers launch preventative wars against rising powers because of the committment problem and it thinks it will be weaker 10 years from now while the opponent is stronger.

Commitment Problem

challenges political organizations face in upholding their obligations within any peace settlement over time - states may fight a war in the present because they doubt whether an adversary will continue to honor the future terms of a peace settlement.

Committment Problem & WWI

power shifts, decline and reocvery of Russia after the 1905 revolution, arms race on land: Russia, germany, and france, loss of ottoman territory in Europe, Rise of Serbia. Preventative war: Austria-Hungary fight preventative war against Russia

Commitment Problem & WWII

Germany began to become too powerful, shifting the power in Europe. Launch of German rearmament program (1933). Commitment problem expects states to fight preventative wars (GB and France had to back up Poland when Germany began to feel emboldened)

Great Power

A subset of states in international system w greater inlfuence and resources. Large poplulation, territory, high military capabilities generates leverage. Gloabl interests beyond territory.

What were the main pillars of the peace settlement after WWI? How did Woodrow Wilson influence the international system in 1919?

National self-determinism (new states and anti-imperialism), support for democracy, collective security through League of Nations

What were the main elements of the peace settlement after World War II and how did the United States influence the political order after 1945

Democracy promotion and support (Marshal Plan Aid), National building in Germany and Japan (reintegrated into Western order), Collective security through NATO, creation of new international orgs, new international order around globalization

What is polarity?

Defiens the relative distribution of capabilities among great powers by establishing the level of threat that each power poses to other great powers and influences the dynamics and stability of military alliances.

How did bipolarity affect the competition between the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War?

Bipoliarity stabilizes the coalitions between the US and Soviet Union. Nuclear deterrence and MAD made direct military conflict bw the states too costly. Prioritized competition bw the rival systems of US democratic and Soviet Union communism.

What explains the absence of great power war since the mid-20th century?

Globalization, nuclear deterrence, proxy wars,

Political challenges of alliances?

Political alliances face are burden-sharing disagreements, entrapment, and moral hazard risks, divergent threat perceptions, and domestic political shifts like rising populism. Allies can opt to not help in a war. Allies can switch sides during a war. Large differences in capabilities.

Explain the circumstances during the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Trump failed to prove relations with Russia. Biden aligned himself with NATO. Russia built up military along Ukraine borders. Russia has performed badly because NATO has donated funds for military equipment and intelligence.

Why has the United States and its Western allies supported Ukraine in its war with Russia?

Ukraine as front line of Russian containment. Defending democracy and international norms. Deterring other authoritarian regimes (namely China)

Power transition theory

holding that shifts in the distribution of capabilities among great powers provoke wars that fundamentally alter the larger international political order.

The decline of a leading state can destabilize the international system by activating the commitment problem. The rising state faces a commitment problem with respect to future international order.

how can power transition theory be used to understand the evolution of the maritime disputes in the South China Sea?

China’s claim of the 9 dash line and their building of artificial islands is causing a transition of power. This transition worries the US that China will possibly close off the South China Sea which is important for trade. This will alter the international political order

Sources of the committment problem in civil wars

shifts in the internal distribution of political or military power. Withdrawal of support from external patron, democratization, emergence of social movement or political party, ethnic imbalances, risk of tyranny of majority. state can punish or fine the losing side in civil wars so the side that is growing weaker fights a preventive war

According to the reading (Section 12.3), what is the moral hazard problem? How can this concept help to explain how the prospect of intervention from a third party (like the United States) might increase incentives for combatants to take risks that could prolong civil conflicts?

Moral hazard problem is one party fights harder because they believe in assistance from outside forces. Basically make risky moves because they can be bailed out by another country. Ex: Syrian rebels against Assad regime believed in more American help.

According the reading (Section 12.6), what is the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine?  Explain the relationship between the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and national sovereignty.

Make sure citizens are afforded basic physical integrity rights. Intervening in civil war in another country may help but it also challenges the sovereignty of that nation. If the gov can’t afford these rights to their citizens, they forfeit their sovereign rights of non-intervention and self-determination.

How can we use the commitment problem to build an explanation for the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861?

The south no longer believes any promises by the North to respect the state's right to preserve slavery. Southern states secede and form Confederacy.

 Deterrence

can be the use of threats, punishment, or denial strategies to stop unwanted behavior, whether in criminal justice or international security.

Successful deterrence rests on…

Second Strike Capability: possessing a sufficient number of nuclear weapons so that all of them cannot be destroyed in the first strike by an adversary. Enough nuclear weapons survive to launch a retaliatory strike

If opposing nuclear powers possess secure second-strike capabilities, then…

Mutually Assured Destruction: condition in which competing nuclear powers each possess a second-strike capability and any nuclear war would result in the mutual destruction of both sides exists

what is the problem of credibility in nuclear deterrence?  Explain why the effectiveness of deterrent threats depends on credibility.

The stability of MAD depends on the credibility of threats – adversary must believe that threats will be carried out. The effectiveness of deterrence threats depends on credibility for that reason. If nuclear attack breaks out, incentives change.

Extended deterrence

using the threat of nuclear retaliation to protect an ally or strategic country from military threats. For instance, US threatened to use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union if it attacked NATO allies in Western Europe. France and UK were not certain of US commitment and developed their own nuclear program.

Credibility is based on what two concepts?

Capabilities: the ability to carry out a threat

Resolve: the will to carry out the threat

States demonstrate credibility in nuclear deterrence by proving both its capability (the physical power to inflict unacceptable damage) and its result (the willingness to follow through on threats despite potential catastrophic costs).

Brinkmanship

a strategy of aggressive risk-taking just short of direct conflict during a crisis. By deliberately sliding toward a situation where an accident or miscalculation could trigger a nuclear exchange, a state convinces its adversary that it is willing to accept extreme danger rather than back down.

Tripwire Forces

small military units stationed in allied territory or flashpoints. These forces are too small to successfully fight off a full-scale invasion, meaning their primary function is political: if attacked, their immediate deaths will ensure domestic or political pressure for a massive, retaliatory response.

“The Threat That Leaves Something to Chance”

concept builds on brinkmanship; instead of maintaining total, rational control over a conflict, a state introduces an element of uncontrollable risk. This forces the opponent to back down because they cannot guarantee the crisis will not spiral out of control.

Public Pronouncement

public, binding threats issued by elected leaders because democratic leaders face immediate domestic political costs – such as looking weak to voters or risking their re-election if they retreat – making public pledge acts as an institutional “hand-tying” mechanism that locks them into following through.

National Missile Defense

National missile defense (NMD) is designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. If NMD is effective, it could undermine an adversary’s second strike capability and threaten MAD. 

Nuclear Proliferation and its Problems

Nuclear proliferation is when states develop nuclear weapons because they not trust the credibility of extended deterrence. Recent proliferators have fewer nukes and are less likely to possess secure, second-strike capabilities. Domestic instability of nuclear proliferators increases chances of accidents, spread to terrorist groups, and regional nuclear arms araces. 

Terrorism

Goal: terrorism is a political act and perpetrated to achieve a political goal

Target: terrorism targets non-combatants and is designed to provoke fear in a wider audience than its immediate victims

Nature of perpetrator: non-state actors (or individuals influenced or inspired by them) are the principal perpetrators of terrorism rather than states

Terrorist leaders: strategic focus rooted in use of terrorist attacks to influence the behavior of the states they oppose

Terrorist’s Dilemma

undamental tradeoff terrorist groups face bw organizational communication/cohesion and security from detection

Broader gloabl patterns in terrorist attacks?

increased and grown more lethal since 9/11, yet they remain predominantly local rather than transnational. Most incidents occur outside Western democracies, concentrated heavily in non-Western states experiencing active civil wars, political instability, or weak state development.

3 Strategies Terrorist Orgs Use

Provocation, Spoiling, Outbidding

Provocation

 prompting an overreaction such as Al Qaeda;s 9/11 attack on US

Spoiling

Undermining peace negotiations such as Hamas attack to undermine Isreali-Palestinian peace talks

Outbidding

using violence to compete for followers such as ISIS vs Al Qaeda

Types of Counterterrorism

Defensive measures (law enforcement, incresed security like TSA), Domestic intelligence (collecting data on citizens to detect terrorist activities)

Dilemma of Counterrorism

Balancing protection of individual security and liberty

Why are terrorist organizations hard to deter?

Terrorist organizations are hard to deter because unlike states, they lack a “home address.” Drone strikes and other means produce collateral damage that could increase local support. Targeted pleaders could be replaced by more radical ones

Describe how the attack on 9/11 lead to the US invasion of Afghanistan

Bush and advisors considered war right away and made no discrimination bw terrorists and states that harbor them. Quickly talked to determined to strike Al Qaeda, given sanctuary in southern Afghanistan by the Taliban in return for substantial financial support. Bush faced pressure from within administration to go to war against Iraq right away after 9/11. Weapons of mass destruction

9/11 to Afghanistan to Iraq

Iraq part of Axis of Evil and key enemy of US. The war in Afghanistan was an attempt to destroy the terrorist organization that attacked the US and punished the state that harbored Al Qaeda. The war in Iraq demonstrates another aspect of foreign wars as counterterrorism –  the chance to address the root causes of terrorism

What are tradeoffs associated with using external military force abroad such as in Afghanistan and Iraq to counter terrorism? 

Both wars showed that the US intervened in civil conflicts it did not fully understand. Casualties and damage in target states can increase local support for terrorist organizations. These wars were costly in numerous other ways: can damage international reputation and alliance relationships, can hurt economy and domestic political support, overstretch military and take attention away from other threats, difficult to find an exit strategy

Who are the Houthi militants and where do they operate from?  What is the political relationship with Iran? 

Group of Shia Islamists based in western Yemen

Part of Iran-backed “axis of resistance” with Hamas and Hezbollah against Isreal, US, and the West

Describe the recent military activities of the Houthis and their territorial gains.  How do they threaten Saudi Arabia?  How have they destabilized global oil markets?

of the civil war in Yemen

Recent attacks started in July and Houthi fighters quickly captured large areas of territory 

This included territory near the Bab al-Mandab strait, which the Houthis started to close to Saudi oil exports

Where is the Bab al-Mandeb Strait?  Describe its commercial and military significance in the current war in the Middle East.

Crucial for Saudi oil exports

Another leverage point for Iran and its allies to threaten global energy trade and push prices higher.