International Relations 10 - Selected Topics

Announcements

Final exam: Monday, May 12, 4:00-7:00pm, PA 101
- 50 multiple choice questions
- 2-4 short answer questions
  - Short answer will focus on the last third of the class
  - Cumulative short answer
  - Choice for short answer questions
  - No length requirement
  - Instructions will be shared in advance
Elizabeth’s review session next week, extra office hours also.

Selected Topics

AI/Technology and the Military
President Trump’s Foreign Policy, Tariffs, and Financial Markets
Sports and International Politics
World Leaders’ Interactions
Course Recap

AI/Technology and the Military

How is AI used in the military?
- Surveillance and intelligence
  - Satellite and drone imagery, process data
  - Detects threats, targets, identify patterns
- Autonomous and semi-autonomous systems
  - Vehicles (unmanned aerial vehicles) – AI for navigation, target recognition, decision-making
  - Track targets, guide munitions, prioritize threats
- Cyber defense and offense
  - Detecting and responding to intrusions
  - Automated penetration testing, vulnerability discovery, malware
- Command, control, decision support
  - Modeling battles, recommending actions, predict enemy responses
- Simulations and training
- Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS): “killer robots”
Key Arguments Against
- Problems with autonomous weapons: “Technologies that change their own behaviour or adapt their own programming independently can’t be used with real control.”
- Different from other weapons
  - Decisions about use are taken out of human hands, unclear who is responsible
  - Who judges proportionality, necessity? Who can explain decisions?
  - Dehumanizing
  - Profiling reinforces inequality
  - Equally susceptible to mistakes
- Impossible to slow down
Key Arguments In Favor
- Hammes: "Autonomous weapons are the moral choice."
- “It is morally imperative for the US and other democratic nations to develop, field, and, if necessary, use autonomous weapons.”
- Not different from other weapons
  - Decisions about use are still made by humans, commanders are still responsible
  - Not less dignified than being killed by conventional weapons
  - Equally susceptible to mistakes
- Moral imperative to protect US troops, help achieve likelihood of victory
- Impossible to slow down
Implications for the likelihood of conflict
- Conflict more likely?
  - Lower political costs – less human and financial loss
  - Accelerates decision-making, so more potential for accidents and escalation
  - Big first-strike advantage (preventive war)
  - Arms racing – worsens security dilemma
- Conflict less likely?
  - Strengthen deterrence by improving surveillance, early warning, and missile defense systems, making surprise attacks less viable
  - Targeting makes accidents and mistakes less likely, reducing the likelihood of escalation
  - Better modeling can make the costs of war more clear – reducing willingness to fight
Implications for the deadliness of conflict
- Conflict more deadly?
  - No moral hesitation about targeting
  - More speed and scope of destruction
  - Potential for large-scale civilian harm by targeting critical infrastructure
- Conflict less deadly?
  - Targeting: precision and proportionality, avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage
  - Reduces the number of humans on the battlefield: “robot on robot” instead of “human on human” fighting
  - Models could shorten wars by clarifying relative power balances early
Is this different from other military technologies?
- The logic of deterrence
- The costliness of war
- Norms, international law

President Trump's Foreign Policy, Tariffs, and Financial Markets

Trump Foreign Policy
- Ukraine: End conflict immediately, direct talks with Russia, major concessions for Ukraine
- Fentanyl: Retaliation, pressure on Mexico, China, and Canada
- Israel and Gaza: Initial ceasefire, no further progress, unwilling to put much pressure on Israeli administration, floated idea of US-managed territory in Gaza
- Acquiring new territory in Greenland, Panama?
- Collective security: Critiques of NATO allies, no membership for Ukraine
- After earlier withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal, creating a new deal (that sounds like it will be the same)
Ashford: “Four Explanatory Models for Trump’s Chaos”
1. Return to realpolitik (realism): Identifying threats, strategic interests, pressuring allies to increase collective security commitments, end commitment in Ukraine through negotiated settlement, refocus on Western hemisphere
  - Fails to explain policy on Israel, reduced spending on State/USAID, undermining the dollar and trade relationships - losing soft power
2. Influence of domestic politics (in some senses, liberalism): Benefiting political constituencies and wealth donors
  - Fails to explain policy on Israel
3. Return to early Trumpism/conventional neocon Republicanism: Sovereignty, hawkishness, unilateralism, interventionism
  - Fails to explain policy on Israel
4. Conflicting factions: "Confusion and chaos of Trumpian foreign policy are due partly to the divergence between factions inside the administration as they contest for appointments and influence over policy."
  - Role of other political actors, e.g., Congress, advisors?
Tariffs
- Last class, we talked about the trade war with China – but what about other countries?
  - Current Chinese tariffs on US exports are $147.6\%$ , US tariffs on Chinese exports at $124.1\%$ according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics
  - $10\%$ tariffs on most other countries, higher rates announced on other countries but currently paused
  - Importers must pay the tariff – some will eat the cost, some will pass on to consumers
- Arguments:
  - Threatened tariffs as leverage on foreign governments
  - Actual tariffs will boost US manufacturing and protect jobs, weaken China, encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, increase investment by companies in the US, eliminate trade deficits
  - Income from tariff revenue to fund other projects
  - Johnson: Inherent contradiction
  - National security justification
Tariffs on cars
- Many car industry supply chains cross borders
Tariffs: Impacts so far
- Uncertainty! Volatility!
- IMF cut global growth forecast
- JP Morgan predicts US recession
- Stock market crashes
- Value of US dollar decreases relative to other currencies (depreciation) – not considered a safe asset
  - Increasing yields on Treasury notes, falling bond prices (means expectation of inflation)
Likely effects?
- Prices passed through to consumers (estimates of 2000-$4000 per year)
- Only $8\%$ of Americans work in manufacturing: unlikely to have large effects on the labor force more than $1$ or $2\%$ .
- Fed might raise interest rates in response to inflation
- Other countries seeking trade deals with the US – administration has set a target of 90 deals in 90 days
- Raise revenue? “the long run achievement of goals like bringing a lot of investment into the United States to replace the imports is going to undermine the goal of raising revenue”
- Goals unlikely to be accomplished quickly
- Where is the WTO?

Sports and International Politics

Are international sports political?
- Apolitical – athletic competitions
- Cooperative
  - Opportunities for leaders to meet on the sidelines and form alliances
  - Ping Pong Diplomacy between US and China in 1971
  - DPRK and ROK meeting at 2018 ROK Olympics
- Sports as arenas to carry out conflict
  - Boycotts by Western states of 1980 Moscow Olympics over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Soviet retaliation of boycotting 1984 Los Angeles Olympics
  - Terrorist attack on Israeli athletes in 1972 Munich Olympics
  - Banning South Africa from international support as a sanction of apartheid policies
  - Engendering nationalist or populist feelings, propaganda tool
  - Hitler’s Olympics in Berlin, 1936
- TANS use to highlight human rights abuses
  - 2022 World Cup in Qatar
Sports Washing
- Sportswashing: the practice of reputation-laundering in the hopes that a cleaner national image will translate into soft power
- Distract from or hide negative reputational dimensions
  - Russia in 2008, 2014 distracting from invasions
  - China and Saudi Arabia distracting from HR violations
Sport and Soft Power
- Soft power: the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payment (Joseph Nye)
- Investing in sports is a common way for developing countries to announce their arrival on the global stage
- Sports as arenas to develop soft power
  - Saudi soccer
  - Beijing Olympics 2008
Sports and International Political Attitudes
- Can exposure to celebrities from stigmatized groups reduce prejudice?
  - Mohamed Salah, a visibly Muslim, elite soccer player.
  - Hate crimes in the Liverpool area dropped by $16\%$ compared with a synthetic control after Salah joined Liverpool F.C.
  - Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of posting anti-Muslim tweets relative to fans of other top-flight clubs.
2026 World Cup

World Leaders' Interactions

Do world leaders matter?
- Realists: states behave the same
- Liberals: different types of states act differently
- But what about the importance of individual heads of states- their experiences, personalities, and relationships?
Leader characteristics
- Military experience
- Age
- Birth order
- Education
- Gender
Leader Interactions
- Different types of leader interactions
  - Bilateral meetings
  - Gift giving
  - Meeting in international organizations
- In person or virtual? Advantages and disadvantages of each
  - Easy, access
  - Ability to communicate
  - Building trust, social bonding
Formality
Example: Indonesia
- “On November 8th, less than three weeks into the top job, Mr Prabowo jetted off on a six-country world tour. The outing revealed a man desperate for the approval of his counterparts, over-confident in his own abilities and poorly counselled by a circle of novice advisers”
What else have we learned?
- Causes of war: miscalculation, bargaining
- Leaders’ incentives in fighting wars for survival
- Leaders’ incentives (or lack of incentives) to negotiate over climate change

Course Recap

Puzzles: from the first week of the semester’s The Economist
- Can Donald Trump maintain Joe Biden’s network of Asian alliances?
- After 15 months of hell, Israel and Hamas sign a ceasefire deal
- How the AfD got its swagger back
- An initiative so feared that China has stopped saying its name (“Made in China”)
- Marco Rubio will find China is hard to beat in Latin America
- Iran is vulnerable to a Trumpian all-out economic assault
Course feedback
- Official course eval