Deliberate Provocation and Signaling Resolve in Interstate Crises

• In Event: Diplomacy and Security

Abstract

Can states signal their resolve in interstate crises by engaging in deliberately provocative behavior? If so, how? Conventional wisdom has it that states should minimize the “provocativeness” of their threats and actions during crises in order to achieve their goals of coercive diplomacy. To be sure, states may pursue a strategy of deliberate provocation to incite or “goad” an opponent into an overreaction, and in some instances, states may even provoke others deliberately to start a war – Bismarck deliberately provoked France into hastily launching the Franco-Prussian War. But existing research inadequately addresses whether engaging in deliberately provocative actions during crises can signal resolve and FACILITATE coercive diplomacy. Recent instances in which President Trump used insulting language to refer to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, and the many instances in which North Korea engaged in provocative behavior to apparently demonstrate their mettle imbues a new sense of urgency to address this puzzle. This paper develops a formal game-theoretic model that modifies the standard crisis bargaining model to allow for states to engage in deliberately provocative behavior. It finds that states can indeed signal their resolve through deliberate provocations by taking a risk of tying their opponent’s hands; yet, because signaling resolve through deliberate provocations is less efficient than signaling resolve through standard hand-tying signals, the strategy is rational for states such as personalist regimes that have a hard time raising audience costs. These findings are illustrated with case studies on the Quemoy/Taiwan Crises of 1954, 1958, and 1995, which draw on Chinese language sources.

Author

• Hyun-Binn Cho, Harvard University