Does the US foreign policy operate on Hobbesian theory?

Great Debates
1

I was reading Pinker’s Better Angels of our Nature, where he talked quite a bit about a mix of Hobbesian philosophy and game theory. Basically, the idea goes, when you are competing for resources, the safest approach is for everyone to think you are an extremely aggressive hawk. But bold claims call for bold back-up, so nobody is going to believe you are a hawk unless you occasionally go apeshit on someone who challenges you. Indeed, the theory goes, in order to be secure a hawk needs to appear batshit insane, and demonstrate it’s willingness to rain down completely disproportionate pain on anyone.

As I read this, a lightbulb went off in my head. Who does that? Who lashes out nearly at random, demonstrating that it is dangerous and mildly mentally unstable? They are talking about us, aren’t they? That’s why we went to Afghanistan and Iraq, isn’t it? It was about time for us to remind people that we will will unpredictably smite people who catch our eye in a bad way.

And with a pile of friends at Georgetown’s public policy programs, I know exactly who loves these kinds of philosophies- the people who do and will run our country.

So, am I on to something? Is our foreign policy being decided by guys who read a little too much game theory and got some ideas in their head? Are we making a direct effort to operate on these rules?

2

I don’t think there was any mystery about this. My first thought on hearing about 9/11 wasn’t, “Oh the humanity! All those poor people.” It was, “Well someone just put his home country on the list to be blown up.”

3

My first thought: “They” are going to get a blowback unlike any they could ever imagine.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

4

No. That would vastely oversimplify the reasons we go off to war.

And I think you are looking at game theory in the wrong way. Nobody makes important, complex decisions by sketching out a Prisoner’s Dilema or Nash Equilibrium scenario on a whiteboard other than maybe some nerds in some thinktank somewhere. But these sort of game theories are useful for simplifying complex problems for making predictions.

5

Sometimes we do things that way; Nixon did think somewhat in game theory terms; “I call it the Madman theory”.

Of course, you turned out to be wrong; Saudi Arabia didn’t get blown up at all.

6

There’s a much better strategy for the prison yard that is international relations: The 800 pound gorilla. If you’re simply so overwhelmingly powerful that no one poses any real threat to you, the need to convince others you’re dangerously violent goes away. At least since the end of the cold war, that’s where we are.

You don’t need to go deep into game theory or anything like that to explain Afghanistan and Iraq. The reasons are right there on the surface. We went into Afghanistan because that’s where Bin Laden was. The Bushies wanted to go to Iraq right away, but obviously the American people wouldn’t have stood for it.

As for Iraq, I think we went in there for a variety of reasons. I think Cheney and Co, and the ideologues at places like Heritage and PNAC really thought the war would be a good thing for America and the world. Democracy would spread, Saddam would go etc etc. Of course it wouldn’t hurt that oil reserves would be in the hands of a friendly government, that a threat to Israel would be removed, and that we would have a large mid-east base for future operations. Of course, things didn’t work out that way, but that’s stupidity for you. As the cliche goes, Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.

7

I think it’s closer to the old saying (slightly modified for this situation): When the biggest, fanciest tool you have is a hammer, it’s extremely tempting to treat every problem as if it were a nail.

8

I don’t think US foreign policy operates that way. Conservative US foreign policy as represented by the likes of Cheney, Bolton et al operates that way. Apart from the Iraq fiasco I would dispute the idea that US foreign policy is about rampant militarism. On the contrary, the US is quite cautious about using military force and generally likes to build a strong coalition of allies and get UN or some other multilateral backing. The first Gulf War fought by HW Bush is much more typical of US military interventions in the last 25 years than the one fought by his son.

9

Foreign Policy operates well outside of Conservative/Liberal lines. Internal politics need not have anything to do with it, as evinced by the sudden and remakable transformation of Obama’s international policies once he was sitting in the big chair.

In general, firegn policy breaks down along three lines:

Realist: We assume that everyone is rationally self-interested. We work for mutually-beneficial deals whenever possible, but know that cooperation isn’t guarranteed and often not in our best interest. We don’t blame the other guy for his honest self-seeking. We’d prefer to avoid war but it may be necessary.

Think of this as Bismark’s way. It’s a pragmatic non-theory. (Realists in practice are driven by ideals and often quite stupid.)

Idealist: Everyone would be much better off working together, so we’ll push constantly for that. People really want what’s best, and they’ll get it if an authentic representative (not always democratic) government exists. Governments can be trusted to keep their word in an international system.

Think of this as Woodrow Wilson-ism writ large. (Idealists in practcie are often really pragmatic and often quite stupid).

There are other conceptions, of which Constructivism is the msot important, but I’d refer you to these wiki pages for more, because it’s tedious and annoying.

Now, the most interesting thing you might note that is neither party has a particularly deadlock on either. Cheney, from what I recall, is more of a Realist, while Bush was more heavily influenced by Idealists. Older conservatives tend to be cold-eyed Realists, while younger ones are more willing to be Idealistic. In Lberals, I think the process reverses, and I see older Idealist liberals conflicting with younger Realists.

10

This is the question. Maybe they do.

I know a lot of people in Georgetown’s foreign policy programs, which is pretty much a feeder into the State Department. The thing is that this is something I could really picture. They read some political theory, they read some Stephen Pinker books, and they decide they’ve figured it out.

The “madman” theory is exactly what I am talking about.

11

Afghanistan was not lashing out at random. A nation was hiding a group of people who had masterminded an attack that had killed thousands of Americans.
Iraq was not lashing out at random. Americans had been enforcing the no fly zone there for almost a decade, there had been multiple UN resolutions, and regime change had been the official US policy for five years before the invasion.
Nations have reputations and for years the United State’s reputation was that they did not have the stomach to fight so there was no danger in attacking them. Afghanistan and Iraq were part of changing that reputation but they were chosen specifically for their roles in exporting terror and defying the US and the amount of pain rained down was no where near what could have been rained down.

12

smiling bandit beat me to it, but I think the Bismarckian/Realist vs. Rousseau/Idealist camp is more useful in analyzing U.S. Foreign policy decisions.

I have never worked at a think tank or the state department but I’ve taken lots of graduate level foreign policy courses and read a lot of political philosophy, and both in the academic community and by my own readings of American history I think the Realist vs. Idealist discussion is both more useful in explaining American actions and also the more common approach within academia.

I’m not going to dispute that some guys who work for the State Department read books on game theory, I mean I think there’s probably enough books on the game theory aspects of the Cuban Missile Crisis to fill a library all by itself.

But I don’t know that just because these people read about that stuff that they actually make decisions this way. Especially because you’re talking about the highest level decisions. State Department “policy nerds” might be applying these sort of tactics in “high level” negotiations where they are given some leeway to operate independently. But for the very highest level of decisions, above and beyond ambassadors talking to each other but instead when we’re talking about decisions as to who to bomb and invade, those decisions realistically aren’t made by the State department. Further, I think a careful reading of history will show that the State Department’s involvement in such matters ranges from minimal to “significant” based solely on the personal relationship between the SecState and the President (who is the real decider in such matters.)

Powell and Bush didn’t have the best relationship, so the State Department was relatively “outside” on Bush’s military invasion decisions. I’m not saying Powell had no access and no pull, but he clearly wasn’t the guy making the decisions.

Henry Kissinger and Nixon were best buds, so Kissinger had a lot of pull and was a big part of the decision making process.

But anyway, if you look at the United States since 1895, I’d argue that almost every President we had was more of a foreign policy idealist than a foreign policy realist. I don’t believe any President is 100% one way, but most American Presidents have made foreign policy decisions that are idealist in nature, not realist. The two big exceptions in my mind would be Richard Nixon and Theodore Roosevelt, both of whom are very Bismarckian in foreign policy. Nixon and Roosevelt were about the best interests of the United States.

The most idealist President we had was probably Woodrow Wilson, he got us involved in WWI for essentially no reason aside from his belief that democracies must stick together against despots. In terms of human and economic losses versus gains, WWI was probably the worst American war. Because we achieved virtually nothing because of it and lost over 100,000 soldiers and tons of money.

Bush was actually an idealist, not a realist. I think Bush genuinely wanted to go to war in Iraq because he felt Saddam was a bad guy and it was the right thing to do. I think Bush used realist justifications for war (threat from WMD) but I think his prime motivation was actually idealist in nature. Neo-conservatives by their nature are not realists, but idealists. A true realist would be opposed to invading Iraq because there is no way you could view it as a material gain for the United States to invade Iraq.

I think both idealists and realists would support the invasion of Afghanistan. Where the paths diverge is how they would handle the aftermath. The realists would, once al-Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan were blown away, advocate for basically leaving Afghanistan to its own devices. The position myself and Vice President Biden have taken on Afghanistan is after we initially invaded our job should have been to basically maintain the ability to strike at training camps and such, but we shouldn’t have a ground presence. The issue of warring warlords vying for control would be one we wouldn’t get involved in, and we should be just as willing to support and negotiate the Taliban as any other group. Idealists on the other hand will feel we have a moral obligation to try and rebuild Afghanistan.

That’s where you can clearly see that Bush was not a realist. A realist would not have stayed in Afghanistan, further, a realist would not have advocated for strategies like the surge or etc. If Bush was genuinely convinced Iraq was a threat and needed to be invaded out of realist concerns, then once that threat was eliminated he would not have fought so hard to remain involved in Iraq. I think Bush felt a personal responsibility to try and help the Iraqi people, and that makes him an idealist not a realist.

It’s probably obvious but I don’t think much of idealism, but it is definitely how many leaders have made decisions, definitely American leaders.

I’m not sure I’ve seen any evidence whatsoever we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq to advance the notion that “we’re dangerous and shouldn’t be messed with.”

13

I actually agree with Oliver Stone’s presentation of Bush in the movie “W”, I think Bush really is a guy who felt he was doing the right things for the right reasons, and that he was easily manipulated by members of his administration.

The Presidencies of William McKinley and George W. Bush have a lot in common.

McKinley was personally opposed to going to war with Spain and trying to seize Cuba and the Philippines. McKinley didn’t think it was the right thing to do, and he wasn’t a true imperialist. Theodore Roosevelt felt that Spain needed to be attacked essentially because they were weak, and we’d be able to secure significant overseas possessions from Spain. Roosevelt wanted a war with Spain because he wanted to expand American power. McKinley didn’t want a war with Spain because he felt it wasn’t morally acceptable to just invade and steal land from another power.

However McKinley was successfully manipulated. He bought into the idea that the U.S.S. Maine was sunk by the Spanish, he also was moved by the Yellow Journalism of the day which exaggerated Spanish abuses in Cuba. Eventually McKinley was convinced that we had to go to war with Spain, as a matter of moral principle, because of their mistreatment of Cubans and Filipinos.

A lot of casual observers of the McKinley Presidency and the Bush Presidencies would think both men were basically warmongering imperialists. But a deeper view shows that both McKinley and Bush essentially had a paternalistic, idealist view on the world and both had to be privately convinced on those lines that their wars were the “right thing” morally speaking. I think in both the McKinley and Bush Presidencies powerful elements within the administration were wanting war for very different reasons. These reasons are the ones that the public typically use when they wish to explain Bush and McKinley’s actions. But I think both Bush and McKinley were essentially “weak” but moral men who were easily convinced of things and manipulated.

Once we actually won the Spanish-American War, the same elements that advocated for the war were not happy that McKinley was really going to give Cuba its independence. They assumed we would keep Cuba as a territory and that eventually it would become a state even, after many years of being developed by American businessmen who would profit from this activity. But McKinley was serious in his idealistic support for Cuban freedom and independence, and that’s why Cuba didn’t become an American territory. When it came to the Philippines, McKinley’s first instinct was to grant them independence as well. But in the case of the Philippines the elements within his administration were able to convince McKinley that the Filipinos were not yet sophisticated enough to govern their own affairs. So by appealing to McKinley’s paternalistic idealism, they were able to convince them that Filipinos needed us running their country, with the ultimate goal being some day we could let them be independent once they were more sophisticated.

14

I would add Bush the 1st to that list. Being basically sober and pragmatic made him too boring to stay in office, but I think he’d had enough experience with setting up dictators and fiddling around in other countries from his time in the CIA that by the time he became President, he realized things like that it wasn’t worth taking over Iraq.

15

What you describe is a very simple costly signaling game. A classic exploration of this kind of game is the Beer-Quiche game of Cho & Kreps in 1987.

There is indeed one “equilibrium” in which all possible players, whether dove-like or hawk-like, go apeshit every so often and punish other players even if it is against their interest at some point in time to do so. They punish in order to be able to make credible threats. But for a variety of good reasons, the costly signaling game is not a very good model of international relations in general though it may describe certain very specific mechanisms quite well.

16

I don’t know about your ‘friends’ (sounds like you have a lot of hate towards these people), but for myself and a lot of the people I know in my foreign policy grad program, game theory in international relations is completely inadequate for the multipolar world of the 21st century.

Also, it’s a big jump to think that America invaded Afghanistan and Iraq because it was time to lash out at random. What evidence would you say suggests it was that instead of retribution, spreading democracy, oil, or all the other reasons people have said?

17

I dare not ask what program you are in, because this is risible.

18

Naw, they are decent people who I respect as human beings, but I can see where there is room for group
think. Part of this is also inspired by the rantings of a very drunk public official I sat next to on a flight. He told me some horrific stories of stunts he pulled in other countries…and, wow.

Anyway, I just read the book and something clicked. From hindsight, the madman theory explains a lot of rather inexplicable decisions rather neatly. And books based on this lines of thinking are popular among the sorts of rational, educated people who make policy. I’m sure it’s not an official doctrine, but I would not be surprised if it isn’t an influence.

19

A better one than yours.

Cool, please explain the fall of the Soviet Union using only game theory (and for bonus revisionist points explain why no IR game theorists saw it coming).

20

A question for the OP. Can you explain what Hobbesian means in this context? I’ll admit I haven’t read Leviathan but from what I’m aware of it’s an argument for an absolutist government not an argument for an aggressive foreign policy. Hobbes wasn’t advocating war; he was saying was war was inevitable unless we took strong measures to avoid it.