February 12, 1998 // 17.423 // Causes & Prevention of War
Van Evera & Mendeloff
NATIONAL MISPERCEPTION AND THE CAUSES OF WAR
I. HOW COMMON IS MISPERCEPTION? HOW DANGEROUS? (IS IT ALWAYS DANGEROUS?)
Sometimes misperceptions prevent war, e.g., if states are insecure but don't
know it they may refrain from wars they might start if they knew the truth.
However, it's often true that misperceptions on either side of the reality
baseline raise the risk of war, e.g.:
-- Exaggerating or underestimating others' hostility can cause war.
-- False optimism or false pessimism can cause war.
II. THREE PARADIGMS OF NATIONAL MISPERCEPTION: PSYCHOLOGY, OPACITY, COZENOLOGY
III. HYPOTHESES FROM PSYCHOLOGY (from Jervis 1968, Jervis 1976, in course
notes)
A. "Attribution theory"--states tend to attribute their own aggressive
behavior to their situation, while attributing others' aggressive
behavior to their innate disposition. (Hence states see their own
nasty conduct as excused by necessity, while others' nasty conduct is
unprovoked and unjustified.)
B. A related syndrome: states tend to ascribe others' good behavior to
their own efforts to make the other behave well, and to blame others'
bad conduct on the other's innate disposition. (Jervis 1968, hypo #11.)
C. Belief perseverance--states are slow to absorb new facts & realities
that clash with their elite's existing beliefs. (Jervis 1968, hypos
#1, #2.)
D. States tend to exaggerate the shared character of information, hence
to exaggerate the effectiveness of communication. Hence they are
unaware of their own and others' misperceptions. (Jervis 1968, hypos
#5, #6, #12.)
E. States tend to infer too much from isolated or unique events, and to
mis-apply domestic analogies to international politics.
F. States tend to exaggerate the centralized/disciplined/coordinated
character of others' behavior. (Jervis 1968, hypo #9.)
Question: can you think of competing non-psychological explanations for any
of these misperceptions (e.g., misperceptions B, C, or F?)
IV. HYPOTHESES FROM ORGANIZATION THEORY #1: GOVT. BUREAUCRACIES AND PRIVATE
ORGANIZATIONS AS THE SOURCES OF ELITE AND PUBLIC MISPERCEPTION
A. "Militarism"--"professional military organizations' desire to
preserve/protect their organizational interests causes them to infuse
civilian society with organizationally self-serving, war-causing
ideas." The professional military & associated agencies and
industries as causes of misperception.
1. What organizations want: size & wealth, conservation of
"essence," autonomy, control of "task environment," prestige.
2. Why militaries are willful and powerful actors--why they want to
shape national perceptions, and why they can.
a. Professional militaries are willful because:
-- military officers have only one potential employer, hence
they are especially concerned about its welfare.
-- militaries demand a lot from society--lots of money, plus
draftees' time--and must constantly justify these demands.
-- militaries have natural political enemies, e.g., peace
groups, pacific religious organizations, etc., who dislike
the military's task, and must be countered.
-- militaries have turbulent "task environments."
-- military careers are very competitive, have enforced early
retirement.
b. Professional militaries have considerable domestic political
capability because they possess:
-- a monopoly of information and expertise.
-- a monolithic internal character & a hierarchic internal
structure.
-- a vast workforce.
-- great prestige.
3. What perceptions do militaries (sometimes) purvey? The web of
military misperceptions. (Debating this: Samuel Huntington &
Richard Betts v. Bernard Brodie, Martin Kitchen, Joseph
Schumpeter.)
a. "Others are hostile"--others' hostility is exaggerated.
b. "Bandwagoning is common, threats make others more compliant"
(Admiral Tirpitz's risk theory, Gen. LeMay.)
c. "Conquest is Easy" (European armies, 1914; European air
forces, 1930s; US Strategic Air Command & the Soviet
Strategic Rocket Forces, 1950-1980s.)
d. "Striking first pays off" (Russian army, 1914; Japanese
military, 1941).
e. "Windows are common and large" (German & Austrian army, 1914;
British Navy 1898; French & Prussian armies, 1867; LeMay 1962.)
f. "Empires are valuable, resources are cumulative" (U.S.
Admiral A.T. Mahan; Prussian army, 1871.)
g. "War is cheap, healthy, beneficial" (European militaries,
1914; Gen. Daniel Graham 1979.)
h. Optimism in wartime (U.S. military in Indochina; Japanese
military in WWII.)
i. "Escalation is the answer" in wartime (German military 1917;
US military in Korea, Vietnam.)
4. What states are prone to "militarism?" (Big states; isolated
states; insecure states; states whose militaries form a separate
society.)
5. How could the militarism hypothesis be tested? (What predictions
does it make? Does history seem to confirm or disconfirm them?)
B. Other domestic organizations: the foreign policy bureaucracy; foreign
lobbies (the China Lobby, the Egestaens); businesses (United Fruit
Company, Gov. Dinwiddie); etc.
V. HYPOTHESES FROM ORGANIZATION THEORY #2: STATES & SOCIETIES AS ORGANIZATIONS
A. National Mythmaking: self-glorifying, self-whitewashing & other-
maligning myths.
1. Nationalism and nationalist mythmaking in education -"value
infusion" and the "non-guilt complex" -Philip Selznick, Carleton
Hayes. "Elites' desire to persuade publics to support the regime,
pay taxes & join the army causes them to purvey myths that glorify
state & national institutions."
a. Three types of myth:
i. Self-glorifying myths--"we're brilliant, ingenious,
chosen by god. We invented all the world's better
mousetraps!"
ii. Self-whitewashing myths--"we've started no wars,
committed no crimes!" E.g., Germans in 1920s ("we
didn't start WWI--Britain did!"); Turkish denial of
Turkish murder of Armenians; Soviet denial of
responsibility for Cuban Missile Crisis (they called it
"The Caribbean Crisis"); Croatian denial of Croat mass
murders during WWII; Arab & Israeli mutual myths of
innocence.
iii. Other-maligning myths--"our neighbors are culturally
inferior/aggressive/dangerous."
b. Why are myths purveyed? They make citizens contribute more
to the nation--pay taxes, join the army, etc. They also
bolster the political power of illegitimate elites.
c. A short history of mythmaking. Chauvinist mythmaking peaked
in Europe during 1870-1945; it then diminished. (Why?)
2. "Orwellian" myths, "social imperial" myths, & "diversionary war"
myths--"our neighbors are out to get us, so you better back the
government!"
3. Can nationalist myths be cured? If so, how? (Start "Amnesia
International"?)
B. "Non-self-evaluation" by states and societies: "the wish of the
powerful to stifle criticism leads societies to punish those who
evaluate dominant policies and ideas; hence evaluation is scarce and
inferior." ("National Auto-lobotomization.") Relevant works: Irving
Janis, Groupthink; Aaron Wildavsky, "The Self-Evaluating Organiztion."
1. Non-evaluation in government bureaucracy
a. Punishment of "whistle blowers"--Robert Fitzgerald and the
C5A, Billy Mitchell, the "China Hands," etc.
b. Motives for expunging evaluators; the clash between
requirements of sound policy formulation and sound policy
implementation. Dissenters make policy implementation
difficult, so they are purged in advance--which injures
policy formulation.
2. Non-evaluation in the press and academe. See, e.g., Robert Lynd,
Knowledge for What? German scholars were "fleet professors"
before 1914; honest historians (Hermann Kantorowicz and Eckert
Kehr) were hounded out of Germany after 1918; Fritz Fischer was
attacked in 1960s for truth-telling about World War I; the "China
hands" were fired in the U.S. in the late 1940s and early 1950s
for speaking truths about China's Chiang Kai Shek regime.
Results: consider the many follies and folly-makers lionized by their
peoples: Napoleon, Ludendorff, the Schlieffen plan (not even assessed
until 1956).
C. "Non-strategy": "States tend to leave national grand strategy & basic
foreign policy vague, or fail to frame it at all." Results:
-- Less learning (e.g., U.S. policy in Asia didn't learn & adjust
following the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s.)
-- Less storing of knowledge (by 1965 the U.S. forgot what it learned
about Vietnam in 1954.)
-- Explaining is more difficult (Britain failed to explain its policy
to Germany before 1939, hence Hitler miscalculated.)
VI. THE "SPIRAL MODEL" VERSUS "DETERRENCE" (OR THE "DETERRENCE MODEL," OR THE
"MUNICH MODEL"): CHOOSING BETWEEN HARD-LINE POLICIES AND APPEASEMENT, AND
THE DANGERS THAT FOLLOW FROM WRONG CHOICES
A. Defining the spiral model and the deterrence model. What are they?
B. Explaining spirals:
1. Can psychological dynamics explain spirals? (See IIIA, IIIB
above).
2. Can nationalist mythmaking explain spirals?
C. What conditions determine whether carrots or sticks work better?
1. Is the other an aggressor state or a status quo power? (And:
does it see itself as the aggressor or not?)
2. Are the other's claims legitimate or illegitimate? (And: does
it see its claims as legitimate or not?)
3. Is the other weak or strong?
4. Will the concessions demanded by the other strengthen its
ability to commit further aggression?
VII. THE ART OF DIPLOMACY
A. The dangers of unsettled disputes
B. Framing claims: blackmail v. backscratching
VIII. 14 MORE CAUSES OF WAR AND PEACE: Culture, Gender, Elite personality
disorder, Democracy, Social Equality & Social Justice, Nationalism, Minority
Rights & Human Rights, Prosperity, Interdependence, Revolution, Communism,
Capitalism, Imperial decline and collapse, Cultural learning, Religion, Polarity
of the International System.
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