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.