IR Chapter 3 Part 2 Notes
Exam logistics and content overview
Exam registration and scheduling
Morning class received emails about exam registration opening; reflection on how the semester already feels almost done.
Sign-up window: anytime on the day of the exam or up to the Thursday after the next Thursday; last available slot around 03:15 in the day. Sign up before 03:15 to secure a slot.
Exam duration: 1 hour 15 minutes, same as in-class period.
Attendance on exam day: not required to attend the class; you can take the exam off-campus or in another room; the instructor will not be present in the room if you’re in the exam session.
Where to find content and preparation resources
Content about the exam is available in the course content/review: exam description, links to schedule, content, and practice questions.
The practice questions section includes material that resembles the multiple-choice portion of the exam and helps students gauge structure of questions.
InQuizitive readiness: guidance to understand exactly what the exam questions will look like.
Student questions and instructor clarifications
Danielle asks whether chapter overviews posted in the module would be helpful in addition to the book; answer: they’re okay to use; they come with the book but are not authored by the instructor.
Advice: chapter overviews give sense of big concepts; students should dig deeper into other material to master specifics (e.g., flashcards need updating).
Abstract: what causes war to start (bargaining model overview)
War as a bargaining problem: two sides expect a war outcome that splits a pie of value; war costs reduce the pie, so the war outcome is less than the potential pie.
Visual framing: the pie represents total value; the dotted line represents costs of war that erode the value gained if war occurs.
Key comparison for each side: the value obtained from the status quo vs the value obtained if war happens.
The status quo share for a side is from the current position to its right boundary on the diagram; the war outcome share is the portion of the pie the side would obtain after war costs are accounted for.
Core quantities and notation (conceptual)
Let the total pie value be V.
Status quo payoff for side A: SA; status quo payoff for side B: SB = V - S_A.
If war occurs, the war outcome allocations are WA and WB with WA + WB = V - D, where D represents the total war costs (the value lost due to fighting).
Net payoffs after costs (rough representation): side A gets WA - DA, side B gets WB - DB, with DA + DB = D (costs borne by each side).
Why war still occurs: incomplete information, commitment problems, and indivisibility
Incomplete information: uncertainty about probability of victory and resolve (how determined each side is to fight or back down).
Commitment problems: even if a bargain is reached today, future power shifts or incentive to renegotiate can undermine future credibility of promises.
Indivisibility: some goods cannot be split without losing value, leading to winner-take-all outcomes rather than shareable bargains.
Gulf War as a focal example of incomplete information and costs
Saddam Hussein considered invading Kuwait; uncertainty about US resolve to defend Kuwait affected calculations.
Resolve: the degree of determination or willingness to back down; synonyms include ambition, intention, stubbornness.
Costs to Iraq from the Gulf War:
Military losses: between 60,200 soldiers lost (Iraq).
Territorial concessions: Iraq renounced territorial claims as part of postwar terms.
Demilitarization: Iraqi military force never fully recovered to pre-Gulf War strength.
Economic sanctions and reparations: financial damages financed by oil revenues.
Costs to the coalition and U.S.: approximately 61{,}000{,}000{,}000 (61 billion) in direct war costs; coalition deaths around 290.
Kuwait's costs: significant damage to oil infrastructure, civilian displacements, and large-scale resettlement needs.
Conceptual framing of incomplete information in bargaining
Probability of victory: if both sides misestimate each other’s chances, bargaining ranges can be misaligned; if one side believes it will win a large share, it may reject plausible bargains.
Perceived resolve: if one side believes the other is highly resolved, it may be less willing to accept offers that seem temporary or precarious.
Visualization: bargaining range shifts left/right with changing probability of victory or with changes in perceived resolve.
Signaling difficulties: bluffing about resolve or probability of victory is common, and misrepresentation can sustain or deter conflict.
Signaling and credibility: how to communicate willingness to go to war
Three main signaling tools discussed:
1) Brinksmanship: elevating the risk of conflict to frighten the other side into concessions (e.g., Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis).
2) Tying hands: making public commitments or irreversible actions to constrain future flexibility (public statements, legal obligations, audience costs).
3) Pay for power (costly signaling): incurring upfront costs to demonstrate commitment and capability (military buildup, demonstrated resource allocation).
Cuban Missile Crisis as a signaling case
The U.S. used brinksmanship by threatening nuclear escalation to force the Soviets to remove missiles from Cuba.
Conceptual question: why would the Soviet Union believe the U.S. would actually initiate nuclear war over missiles in Cuba?
The credible signaling challenge: both sides faced incentives to bluff; leaders may exaggerate resolve because misrepresentation can be strategically advantageous.
Mechanisms to credibly signal:
Public commitment (audience costs): making threats or commitments visible to domestic and international audiences.
Demonstrated capabilities or mobilization (military signaling) to alter perceived probability of victory.
Pay-for-power signals: prior investments or costs to show willingness to sustain pressure.
Audience costs and legal obligations as commitment devices
Audience costs: public statements raise reputational costs if a leader backs down (e.g., red lines, tariff threats).
Legal obligations: formal alliances (e.g., NATO Article 5) create binding expectations, though they are not always perfect commitments.
Examples discussed:
Barack Obama’s 2012 red line on chemical weapons in Syria and the subsequent backlash for perceived credibility issues when not followed through.
Donald Trump’s tariff threats framed as public commitments; critics argued about follow-through credibility.
George H. W. Bush’s Kuwait defense and the perceived role of public signaling in his decision to follow through.
Pay for power / sunk costs signaling
Pay upfront costs to signal resolve and reduce the perceived value of backing down (e.g., military mobilization, reserve activation).
Russian actions prior to the Ukraine crisis cited as possibly signaling willingness to endure costs to extract concessions; critics question credibility of such signaling when costs are extreme.
Commitment problems and sources of power shifts
Why credible commitments fail in international contexts compared to domestic contracts (no police force to enforce terms).
Three sources of power shifts that can create credible commitment problems:
Bargaining over strategic assets (e.g., nuclear weapons): acquiring a strategic asset shifts the balance of power, making concessions less credible after acquisition.
Preventive war: one side anticipates future power shifts and chooses to fight now to prevent being dominated later.
Example discussion: Japan before WWII (Pearl Harbor) as a preventive action due to anticipated shifts in power and resource access; Germany and USSR in WWII discussions as a preventive case.
Preemptive war: equal-power scenarios where the first strike confers a clear advantage; the fear of being attacked first discourages waiting for bargains.
Israel’s 1967 war and the broader discussion of preemption in international crises.
Distinction between preventive and preemptive war
Preventive war: driven by long-term shifts in relative power; a weaker-but-rising side may threaten to gain advantage in the future, prompting the stronger side to strike now.
Preemptive war: not driven by long-term shifts; instead, the rationale is to strike first to deter or deny the other side's expected advantage if both sides are equally capable in the near-term.
Illustration: in preventive cases, the power balance changes over time, making future bargains less favorable; in preemptive cases, the decision relies on the immediate first-mover advantage rather than an expected shift in power.
Indivisibility and its implications for war
Indivisible goods cannot be split without losing value, leading to winner-take-all outcomes.
Common example: Jerusalem/holy sites in Israeli-Palestinian disputes; disputes over sanctified spaces where compartilhar is hard to agree upon.
Arguments about divisibility: some scholars argue that even sacred sites can be divided through shared visitation rights or arrangements, while others contend there are fundamental non-divisible values at stake.
Ukraine conflict and the bargaining model
Attendance quiz question: which factor best explains the cause of war in Ukraine within the bargaining framework?
Options discussed included incomplete information about probability of victory or resolve vs indivisible territorial claims.
The class discussion suggests focusing on commitment problems, incomplete information, and indivisibility as key lenses; Ukraine case can be analyzed through the lens of credible commitments and whether any deal would satisfy both sides given future incentives.
Practical and ethical implications for the theory
Misrepresentation and bluffing: both sides have incentives to misrepresent their true resolve or probability of victory; this can prolong conflict or deter peaceful bargains.
Improving credibility: signaling strategies aim to align beliefs with actual intent, potentially reducing unnecessary wars; mechanisms include audience costs, legal commitments, and costly signaling.
Policy relevance: understanding brinksmanship, tying hands, and sunk-cost signaling helps analysts interpret international crises and mitigation strategies.
Quick recap of key terms and concepts
Bargaining model of war: war as a costly instrument to settle disputes over a pie-valued good.
Incomplete information: uncertainty about winning chances and resolve; creates misaligned bargaining ranges.
Commitment problems: difficulty in enforcing future bargains due to shifts in power or incentives to renegotiate.
Indivisibility: non-divisible goods that can lead to war rather than negotiated division.
Strategic asset: assets that, once acquired, shift the balance of power and alter bargaining outcomes.
Preventive war: conflict driven by anticipated future power shifts.
Preemptive war: conflict triggered by first-strike advantage in an environment of perceived immediate threat.
Signaling tools: brinksmanship, tying hands, pay for power (costly signaling).
Audience costs and legal obligations: mechanisms to credibly commit to future behavior.
Next steps and logistical notes
The instructor will begin a deeper dive into the content of the exam next week and will formally introduce the exam topics.
Students should review the exam description page and practice questions to familiarize themselves with the structure of questions, especially the multiple-choice portion.
Attendance is optional on exam days; students may attend in class or take the exam in the designated room elsewhere, as the instructor may not be present in the exam room.
The attendance quiz will be administered; late attendance is allowed in some cases; consult the instructor for excused absences or special circumstances.
Quick reminders for practical exam prep
Revisit the three signaling techniques (brinksmanship, tying hands, pay for power) and be able to identify examples in historical cases.
Be able to distinguish between preventive and preemptive war, with clear example frameworks.
Understand how incomplete information shifts bargaining ranges and how signaling interacts with credibility and audience costs.
Review the Gulf War case for concrete numbers and outcomes to illustrate the real-world costs of war.
Final reflection prompts for study
How would you model the payoffs for each side given a specific pie value, cost of war, and estimated war outcomes? Write the equations for net payoffs for each side.
Choose a historical crisis and analyze it through the lens of incomplete information, commitment problems, and indivisibility. Which factor best explains the outbreak of war or the persistence of crisis?
Compare and contrast preventive vs preemptive war using a real or hypothetical scenario. What signals would be most credible in each case, and why might a state choose one strategy over the other?