Intro to IR Roundup: Nukes, Migration, Syria and IR Research

Today is the first day of fall 2016-17 classes. I usually teach Intro to International Relations in the fall, but am out of my routine due to a conference I'm organizing. However, I thought I'd post several good sound bytes which I would have offered to students had I been kicking off class with a dose of current events and international crises.

Syria: Why is the war so damn long and bloody. It's gets more violent by the day. Drawing on IR

 AFP/Getty Images

research, Max Fisher of the New York Times provides a run-down of some of the factors contributing to the ugly nature of the Syrian war. The usual suspects like multiparty factions and ethnic/sectarian divisions. But a big culprit appears to be foreign sponsorship/intervention. As Fisher writes:

"Foreign interventions that were intended to end the war ...have instead entrenched it in a stalemate in which violence is self-reinforcing and the normal avenues for peace are all closed...Whenever one side loses ground, its foreign backers increase their involvement, sending supplies or air support to prevent their favored player’s defeat. Then that side begins winning, which tends to prompt the other’s foreign backers to up their ante as well. Each escalation is a bit stronger than what came before, accelerating the killing without ever changing the war’s fundamental balance."

Intervention: Recent interventions (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) have left us pondering the costs of such intervention.  Anne Applebaum asks what the costs of non-intervention have been in Syria in terms of total deaths, the refugee crisis, the destabilization of the region, and security threats in Europe . Of course, intervention could have made all of this even worse. Fareed Zakaria earlier argued that it was probably best for the U.S. not to intervene, but it could/should have done much more on humanitarian assistance, even if it rightfully chooses not to pursue humanitarian intervention. Part of the problem may be the politicization of aid.

Nuclear Weapons: Obama is toying with the idea of changing U.S. strategic doctrine by declaring a no first use nuclear weapons policy. Some pros and cons of a first no use policy are outlined by the WSJ.  While reducing nukes sounds good in theory, Stephen Sestanovich of CFR pushes back against this change.

Migration: Want to know the difference between migrants and refugees. A CFR video and backgrounder explains here.

Russia, Turkey, and IR Paradigms

In a nod to ideological alliances, Anne Applebaum argues that dictators will choose other dictators at the end of the day and cites Turkish President Recep Erodgan's recent meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin as an example. Despite Turkey's membership in NATO, Edrogan has used the military coup to crackdown on even the slightest potential for opposition.  As Applebaum writes:

(Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press)

Geostrategic, military and even historical calculations should make Turkey and Russia antagonists. But their meeting illustrates something that many Western politicians and “realist” thinkers find difficult to understand: that ideas and ideology sooner or later trump “interests.” If Turkey were still a democracy, Erdogan would be looking to his Western allies to help him push back against Russia. But contact with the West also means contact with Western ideas. Dependence on the West means dependence on states that believe in the legal norms which Erdogan wants to repress, states that might support the people Erdogan wants to lock up.

Victory for constructivists? Does this really mean ideas trump interests? Well, Turkey's move does indicate the power of ideas. But ideas too reflect particular interests. What's important here (for IR students) is the relationship between ideas and interests and whether in the case of Turkey and Russia, ideas are defining actors' interests.

What Psychology Tells Us About Dispelling Worldviews

Apparently it's difficult. This piece by David Ignatius on why facts don't seem to matter for Trump supporters is apt for my own research on contrasting views between peace activists and policymakers. In fact, trying to persuade the other and convincing them why they're wrong (or you're right) seems particularly onerous if the research of this 1979 study, "Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence" stands correct. It appears that attempts to debunk myths even has the potential opposite effect of reinforcing myths.

So applied to the politics of peace, activists are socialized at an early stage to hold particular views about nukes, bases, drones etc...As they interact with policymakers, who themselves are socialized into viewing peace through a different lens (i.e. realist, liberal international etc...), neither side cedes ground in trying to understand the facts. The result is polarization of views.

I'm going to need to find some collaborators in psychology and sociology to help me out here.

What Psychology Tells Us About Dispelling Worldviews

Apparently it's difficult. This piece by David Ignatius on why facts don't seem to matter for Trump supporters is apt for my own research on contrasting views between peace activists and policymakers. In fact, trying to persuade the other and convincing them why they're wrong (or you're right) seems particularly onerous if the research of this 1979 study, "Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects ofPrior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence" stands correct. It appears that attempts to debunk myths even has the potential opposite effect of reinforcing myths.

So applied to the politics of peace, activists are socialized at an early stage to hold particular views about nukes, bases, drones etc...As they interact with policymakers, who themselves are socialized into viewing peace through a different lens (i.e. realist, liberal international etc...), neither side cedes ground in trying to understand the facts. The result is polarization of views.

I'm going to need to find some collaborators in psychology and sociology to help me out here.

IPR Conference on Declining Trust in Social and Political Life

National Catholic Reporter finally came out with an article featuring a conference I organized on rebuilding (or really declining) trust. This was something I started two years ago as I felt like I was being bombarded by news stories screaming mistrust, declining trust etc...in our political system, among ethnic and racial minorities, between police and black youth, and in our institutions. To help me make sense of all this, I started a series of informal brownbag lunches which eventually led to the conference. To find out why trust is broken and how we get it back, watch our conference!

Worldviews, Beliefs, and Psychology

So apparently, neither Trump nor Clinton supporters will change their minds according to this study. More relevant to my research is the reasoning outlined below:

As much as we like to think that we use reason to evaluate evidence and come to conclusions, “It really goes back assward, a lot of times,” said Peter Ditto, a psychologist at University of California, Irvine. “People already have a firm opinion, and that shapes the way they process information.” We hold beliefs about how the world works and tend to force new information to fit within these pre-existing narratives. Psychologists call this motivated reasoning, and it means that once people have thrown their support behind Trump or Clinton, they will tend to downplay or ignore things that paint their candidate in a bad light.

In a similar vein, once activists (i.e. anti-war groups) adopt a particular position about nukes, drones, bases etc....they rarely change minds and adopt the alternative view often represented by government officials.

Donald Trump's Foreign Policy Views

I almost never sign on-line petitions, but recently put my name on an open letter penned by Ali Wyn. I rest my case with this recent interview between Donald Trump and the New York Times.

I've pasted part of the transcript below, and two things strike me which are worth bringing up the next time I teach Intro to Int'l Relations, and also for research on the politics of peace. First, Trump fails to realize that maintaining alliances and troops abroad are in our own interest, not just that of allies. Even if allies aren't paying their full share in dollar terms, by hosting U.S. troops, they are contributing to the liberal international order advanced by all previous U.S. administrations since WWII. It's the free-rider problem that Trump is concerned with, but even then, we permit a degree of free-riding b/c to not supply military power in certain parts of the world would in the long-run hurt our interests.

Second, his comments on Korea evokes arguments raised by the political left: reunification may have happened without U.S. presence. He also questions notions of peace. For instance, we claim that U.S. presence brought about peace, yet we see a hostile, nuclear North. Maybe Trump is right. But this is all counterfactual thinking, and we could equally plausibly argue that the absence of U.S. forces may have resulted in a second Korean War (started by either the North or South), or have led to greater provocations from North Korea.

Here's a portion of the transcript with relevant parts highlights.

SANGER: So what we want to do is pick up where we left off in March

. We were listening to Speaker Ryan last night, and he presented a much more traditional Republican, engaged internationalist view of the world. One in which he said that the United States would never lead from behind. In our conversation a few months ago, you were discussing pulling back from commitments we can no longer afford unless others pay for them. You were discussing a set of alliances that you were happy to participate in.

TRUMP:

And I think, by the way, David, I think they will be able to afford them.

SANGER:

They may be.

TRUMP:

We can't.

SANGER: But I guess the question is, If we can't, do you think that your presidency, let's assume for a moment that they contribute what they are contributing today, or what they have contributed historically, your presidency would be one of pulling back and saying, "You know, we're not going to invest in these alliances with NATO

, we are not going to invest as much as we have in Asia since the end of the Korean War because we can't afford it and it's really not in our interest to do so."

TRUMP:

If we cannot be properly reimbursed for the tremendous cost of our military protecting other countries, and in many cases the countries I'm talking about are extremely rich. Then if we cannot make a deal, which I believe we will be able to, and which I would prefer being able to, but if we cannot make a deal, I would like you to say, I would prefer being able to, some people, the one thing they took out of your last story, you know, some people, the fools and the haters, they said, "Oh, Trump doesn't want to protect you." I would prefer that we be able to continue, but if we are not going to be reasonably reimbursed for the tremendous cost of protecting these massive nations with tremendous wealth - you have the tape going on?

SANGER:

We do.

HABERMAN:

We both do.

TRUMP:

With massive wealth. Massive wealth. We're talking about countries that are doing very well. Then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, "Congratulations, you will be defending yourself."

SANGER:

That suggests that our forward deployments around the world are based on their interests - they're not really based on our interests. And yet I think many in your party would say that the reason that we have troops in Europe, the reason that we keep 60,000 troops in Asia, is that it's in our interest to keep open trading lines, it's in our interest to keep the North Koreans in check, you do that much better out away from the United States.

TRUMP:

I think it's a mutual interest, but we're being reimbursed like it's only in our interest. I think it's a mutual interest. ...

SANGER:

We were talking about alliances, and the fundamental problem that you hear many Republicans, traditional Republicans, have with the statement that you've made is that it would seem to them that you would believe that the interests of the United States being out with both our troops and our diplomacy abroad is less than our economic interests in having somebody else support that. In other words, even if they didn't pay a cent toward it, many have believed that the way we've kept our postwar leadership since World War II has been our ability to project power around the world. That's why we got this many diplomats --

TRUMP:

How is it helping us? How has it helped us? We have massive trade deficits. I could see that, if instead of having a trade deficit worldwide of $800 billion, we had a trade positive of $100 billion, $200 billion, $800 billion. So how has it helped us?

SANGER:

Well, keeping the peace. We didn't have a presence in places like Korea in 1950, or not as great a presence, and you saw what happened.

TRUMP:

There's no guarantee that we'll have peace in Korea.

SANGER:

Even with our troops, no, there's no guarantee.

TRUMP:

No, there's no guarantee. We have 28,000 soldiers on the line.

SANGER:

But we've had them there since 1953 and --

TRUMP:

Sure, but that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be something going on right now. Maybe you would have had a unified Korea. Who knows what would have happened? In the meantime, what have we done? So we've kept peace, but in the meantime we've let North Korea get stronger and stronger and more nuclear and more nuclear, and you are really saying, "Well, how is that a good thing?" You understand? North Korea now is almost like a boiler. You say we've had peace, but that part of Korea, North Korea, is getting more and more crazy. And more and more nuclear. And they are testing missiles all the time.

SANGER:

They are.

TRUMP:

And we've got our soldiers sitting there watching missiles go up. And you say to yourself, "Oh, that's interesting." Now we're protecting Japan because Japan is a natural location for North Korea. So we are protecting them, and you say to yourself, "Well, what are we getting out of this?"

SANGER:

Well, we keep our missile defenses out there. And those missile defenses help prevent the day when North Korea can reach the United States with one of its missiles. It's a lot easier to shoot down from there --

TRUMP:

We've had them there for a long time, and now they're practically obsolete, in all fairness.

SANGER:

Relatively new missile defenses would allow us --