foreign policy orientation, strategic interaction, and the initiation of international crises

Foreign Policy Orientation, StrategicInteraction, and the Initiation of

International Crises

JAMESMEERNIK

University of North Texas

In recent years, scholars studying U.S. foreign policy and the diver-sionary use of force have begun to focus more attention on when foreignregimes time crises with the U.S. Many argue that U.S. domestic con-ditions play a role in this. I argue that these models should take intoconsideration the foreign policy relationship between foreign govern-ments and the U.S. I develop a theory of crisis initiation that considersthe foreign policy orientation of states that may initiate a crisis with theU.S., and second, when the crisis may occur. I argue that by virtue oftheir foreign policy orientation, some regime leaders will be more likelythan others to initiate a crisis with the U.S. Those regimes that are eitherclosely aligned with the U.S. or closely identified with anti-U.S. interestswill be much more likely to initiate crises with the U.S. than those whoseforeign policy interests do not lead to such intimate ties of friendship orenmity. I develop and test hypotheses predicting what regime charac-teristics will be predictive of crisis initiation and when such crises arelikely to occur. The results demonstrate that regime type matters morethan U.S. domestic conditions in predicting where and when crises in-volving the U.S. will take place.

Empirical research on the use of force by American presidents began principally byinvestigating the linkage between domestic, political, and economic conditions inthe U.S. and the likelihood presidents would use military force overseas (e.g., Ost-rom and Job, 1986; James and Oneal, 1991; Morgan and Bickers, 1992; James andHristoulas, 1994; Meernik, 1994; DeRouen, 1995, 2000; Meernik and Waterman,1996; Wang, 1996; Yoon, 1997; Fordham, 1998a, b; James and Rioux, 1998). Whileinitial findings seemed to demonstrate that presidents did engage in diversionaryuse of force, increasingly research in this area has questioned these findings. Morerecently, scholars have begun to argue that one principal reason why the evidencefor diversionary behavior is so weak is because of ‘‘strategic interaction’’ (Smith,1996a, 1996b, 1998; Leeds and Davis, 1997; Meernik, 2000, 2001; Clark, 2003).Simply put, other states are dissuaded from initiating a crisis against the U.S. whenthe president is experiencing difficulties at home, for fear of provoking a diver-sionary retaliation. This new area of inquiry regarding the causes of internationalcrises expanded our understanding of presidential foreign policy decision makingby making clearer how president’s choices are shaped by the actions of externalactors. Yet, we must wonder if our focus on the impact of domestic conditionswithin the U.S. on the occurrence of international crises has led us to ignore theextent to which other factors predict the initiation of international crises involving

r 2005 International Studies Association.Published by Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.

Foreign Policy Analysis (2005) 2, 165–179

the U.S. In particular, do factors pertaining to nation-states that might initiate acrisis, such as their foreign policy orientation, influence the probability of suchevents occurring? In fact, I argue that it is necessary to consider both which types ofnation-states are likely to initiate crises, and when these nation-states might provokea crisis in order to determine both where and when crises begin. Models of strategicinteraction may well be underspecified if they focus solely on conditions within theU.S. More generally, it is also time to begin the development of a broader theory ofcrisis initiation that will allow us to determine if certain types of states are morelikely than others to initiate crises. Therefore, the twin purposes of this paper are tobetter understand the influence of the timing of international crises, especiallyregarding strategic interaction with the U.S., and to begin to understand the effectsof foreign state characteristics on the occurrence of these events.

I develop here a theory of crisis initiation that considers principally the foreignpolicy orientation of nation-states that may initiate a crisis with the U.S. I argue thatby virtue of their foreign policy orientation some nation-states will be more likelythan others to initiate crises with the U.S. Those nation-states that are either closelyaligned with the U.S. or closely identified with anti-U.S. interests will be much morelikely to initiate crises with the U.S. than those whose foreign policy interests do notlead to such intimate ties of friendship or enmity. I argue that the type of politicaland military/security policies pursued by states will be highly predictive of theirpropensity for conflict involvement. Nonetheless, if some nation-states are moreprone to initiate crises than others, their propensity for dispute involvement is notlikely to be constant across time. It is also possible that these states time the initiationof crises to take advantage of domestic and political conditions inside the U.S. Inaddition to considering where international crises might occur, we must also ac-count for when and why nations might strategically time crisis initiation. I develophere a more comprehensive model of international crisis initiation that considersboth the extent to which characteristics particular to nation-states and conditionspeculiar to the U.S. make crises more likely.

The development of this theory of crisis initiation will help us address severalinterconnected puzzles in the literature on international crises, strategic interaction,military intervention, and U.S. foreign policy. First, do regimes strategically timecrisis initiation, and if so, when are they most likely to initiate a crisis? Some arguethat nation-states time crisis initiation to avoid periods when U.S. presidents aremore likely to retaliate with a diversionary use of force. Others contend that nationswill be more likely to precipitate crises when U.S. domestic and political conditionsare hurting the president under the assumption that presidents will be preoccupiedduring such times, and therefore less likely to respond. By developing a morecomprehensive theory and empirical test of crisis initiation, we will be able to obtainmore informed answers to this puzzle. Second, if regimes do not strategically timecrises, what factors determine when crises are initiated? Ultimately, I argue that theprobability that a nation-state will initiate a crisis is more likely because of its ownforeign policy interests, specifically the nature of its relationship with the U.S. Toaddress these issues, I develop this paper accordingly. First, I describe my theory offoreign policy orientation and crisis initiation. Second, I discuss the literature link-ing U.S. domestic and political conditions to crisis initiation. Third, I describe otherfactors that may affect crisis initiation. Fourth, I discuss the measurement of all thevariables. I then assess the results, and conclude by suggesting how research in thisarea should proceed.

Foreign Policy Orientation and the Initiation of Crises Involving the U.S.

While it may be impossible to account for all the reasons that might lead a particularregime to initiate a crisis involving the U.S., I contend that it is possible to develop ageneral theory of crisis initiation that incorporates the most important theoretical

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factors. Specifically, I argue that the foreign policy orientation of a potential crisisnation vis-a-vis the U.S. will contribute substantially toward the likelihood that thenation will initiate a crisis that involves the U.S. Regimes and their leaders in theconduct of their foreign policies make choices regarding the most effective methodto advance a mixture of both external and internal policy preferences. Among themost critical policy choices a regime makes is its foreign policy orientation vis-a-visthe dominant power in the system. By foreign policy orientation, I mean the degreeto which a regime defines itself in opposition to or in common cause with the U.S.politically. I contend that the greater the intensity of the foreign policy orientationof a nation toward the U.S.Fwhether evidencing a greater degree of cooperationor conflictFthe greater the likelihood a regime will initiate a crisis that will involvethe U.S. Henceforth, it should be understood that I am analyzing the potential forall nationsFU.S. friends, enemies, and neutralsFto initiate crises involving theU.S. Thus, the initiation of a crisis does not mean that the crisis action taken directlythreatens or challenges the U.S. Rather, I am interested in all crises that affect U.S.interests, regardless of who initiates the event. Enemies may threaten the U.S. (e.g.,the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War) and friends may involve the U.S. in their crises(e.g., the U.K., France, and Israel during the 1956 Suez crisis). In either case,because the crisis affects U.S. interests, it becomes involved as a crisis participant. Inthe analysis section, I do distinguish between the crisis initiation proclivity of stateswith whom the U.S. sides and states against whom the U.S. sides.

In one sense, there is nothing inherently novel in this theoretical assertion for wewould expect that states that interact a great deal will have more opportunities forinvolvement in crisis politics. I believe, however, that the substance of a nation’sforeign policy rather than its level of interaction with the U.S. is a more criticalfactor in explaining crisis initiation. Indeed, the U.S. may have little foreign policyinteraction with a nation (perhaps because it is seeking to isolate it [e.g., China earlyin the Cold War]), but may become involved in crises with it because of that nation’sdegree of hostility toward the U.S. Conversely, the U.S. may engage in a wide anddeep range of political interactions with another state while the tenor of the re-lationship may be mostly neutral or ‘‘non-partisan’’ in tone with little reason forcrisis politics (e.g., perhaps Nigeria). Therefore, I argue that the quality of a nation’sforeign policy orientation toward the U.S. is more important than the quantity of itsinteractions.

Foreign Policy Orientation and External Security

Foreign policy orientation with or against the U.S. may be pursued both for ex-ternal security reasons and for internal political reasons. First, we are likely to findthat foreign policy orientation vis-a-vis the U.S. is determined in part by externalsecurity considerations. Researchers generally argue and find that many interna-tional crises and wars occur in large part because of the divergence of foreign policyinterests among states (Bueno de Mesquita, 1981; Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman,1992; Brecher and Wilkenfeld, 1997; Reed, 2000). Some regimes may perceive thattheir security is jeopardized by the hegemon’s security interests if the U.S. poses athreat to a regime’s military, economic, or political influence locally, regionally, orinternationally. Those states whose foreign policy orientation indicates considerabledivergence between their national interests and the policies of the U.S. should bemore likely to initiate crises involving the U.S. in order to lessen the threat posed bythe U.S. Indeed, when we conceive of states initiating international crises involvingthe U.S. (especially in models of strategic interaction) we tend to think in terms ofstates whose interests are hostile to the U.S.’s. Many international crises undoubt-edly involve such adversarial competition, but hostile regimes are not the only oneswhose interests can be furthered through crisis politics.

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Those states whose foreign policy orientation evidences substantial compatibilityvis-a-vis the U.S. should be more likely to initiate crises involving the U.S. in orderto increase the amount of security provided by the U.S. Nations that maintain goodrelations with the U.S., and may depend on the U.S. for security guarantees andregime protection may also have substantial interests that contribute to an in-creased propensity for crisis initiation. Their close ties with the U.S. signal an apriori American interest and commitment to such regimes, and hence these statesmay initiate a crisis against a third nation in the expectation that the U.S. will cometo their assistance. Regime leaders may believe that given their close ties and co-operation with the U.S., they enjoy a free hand in the international arena and thusact to maximize their interests in the expectation of U.S. backing (e.g., Israel per-haps). Furthermore, the very closeness of this relationship may be threatening toother regimes and create additional opportunities for conflict.

Foreign Policy Orientation and Internal Security

While the importance of international policy differences in crisis proclivity shouldnot be underestimated, we should also highlight the role such differences play inthe internal politics of these regimes and how these forces may make crisis initiationmore likely. First, it stands to reason that the foreign policy utility some regimesmight gain by becoming involved in a crisis with the U.S. would be more than offsetby the improbability of winning such a dispute given the tremendous power of theU.S. and its global military reach. Some utility other than potential internationalforeign policy gains is likely making initiation of such crises an attractive policyoption, especially in the case of adversaries. I suggest that the gains made by someregime leaders in maintaining power as a result of an adversarial relationship withthe U.S. provide incentives for some states to initiate crises. As we have learnedfrom research on ‘‘in-groups’’ and ‘‘out-groups,’’ there is increased solidarityamong people in the face of an external threat (Simmel, 1955; Coser, 1956). To theextent that a regime can justify its own hold on power because of the need forstrong and unified leadership given the ‘‘threat’’ posed by the U.S., the greaterthe enmity between that regime and the U.S., the more solid the regime’s control ofthe state. Thus, pursuing an adversarial relationship with the U.S. helps maintainthe regime in power in order to ‘‘protect’’ the nation. One thinks of Cuba underCastro, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Yugoslavia under Slobodan Milosevic, andNorth Korea under its Communist regime as states whose very identities were oftendefined by their adversarial relationship with the U.S., and whose regime leadersused the ‘‘U.S. threat’’ to bolster their hold on power. Thus, in addition to theforeign policy utility to be derived from challenging the U.S., there is domesticpolicy utility as well to be enjoyed, often regardless of the crisis outcome. States withsubstantial foreign policy differences should have a significantly higher degree ofinterest in initiating international crises that involve the U.S.

Foreign policy orientation toward the U.S. will also influence domestic politicswithin a friendly regime. The American ties will no doubt serve some interests well,especially those whose power and/or wealth may depend on U.S. protection. Wewould expect that regime leaders who represent such interests will seek to maintainthe U.S. security umbrella and rely upon it on occasion when their influence isthreatened. But while such dependence upon a patron state may protect a regimefrom opposing factions within the state to some extent and for some time, the verycloseness of the relationship may also provoke hostility among those disenfran-chised by the current regime. The regime’s cozy relationship with the U.S. may alsoinspire complacency among the leaders and contempt for the opposition that en-courages further unrest. The greater the perception that the U.S. is complicit in thepolicies (e.g., those involving human rights, the economy, politics) pursued by the


regime that harm the interests of the opposition, the greater the likelihood the U.S.will be drawn into power struggles between the regime and the opposition. TheU.S. may intervene to protect the regime in power or to insure a transfer of powerto some group viewed as more favorable to its interests or less hostile than othergroups (e.g., in Latin America throughout the Cold War). Nonetheless, the close-ness of such ties may itself be a source of instability and crisis with the nation.

Therefore, I expect a curvilinear relationship between foreign policy orienta-tion and the likelihood of crisis initiation. Those states whose foreign policy ori-entation vis-a-vis the U.S. is the most (dis)similar should be the most likely to initiatecrises involving the U.S. Those states in the middle of this continuum should be theleast likely to initiate crises.

Hypothesis 1: The greater the difference/similarity in a state’s foreign policy orientation incomparison to the U.S., the greater the likelihood it will initiate a crisisinvolving the U.S.

When Crises Happen: Strategic Interaction and the Timing of Crisis Initiation

The extant research on strategic interaction (Leeds and Davis, 1997; Smith, 1998;Meernik, 2000, 2001; Clark, 2003) is principally concerned with the effect thepolitical and economic situation within the U.S. exercises on the willingness offoreign actors to instigate a crisis. Some argue that the probability of crisis initiationdeclines as the incentives for a diversionary use of force increase as the crisis in-itiator postpones action until the president is less likely to use force (Leeds andDavis, 1997; Clark, 2003). The literature on strategic interaction argues that theU.S. should be most likely to intervene in such crises when the president’s politicalfortunes and the national economy are deteriorating, or when national elections areapproaching (Leeds and Davis, 1997; Clark, 2003 [but see Smith (1998), who qual-ifies such hypotheses as contingent upon the perceived and actual competence of thechief executive]). During such times, presidents would prefer to use force to distractthe public from their domestic woes, rally support behind their leadership, andincrease their chances of remaining in power. Yet, because foreign actors are aware ofthe incentives presidents have for using force during such periods, they refrain fromacting and thus present few such opportunities for diversionary activity.

On the contrary, it is also possible that foreign leaders may believe that when thepresident is suffering in the polls or the U.S. economy is deteriorating, he will betoo consumed by his problems at home to be bothered with troubles abroad. HenryKissinger commented on this opportunism of foreign leaders when he analyzedwhy the Soviets threatened to intervene in the 1973 Yom Kippur War during a timeof domestic upheaval in the U.S. He writes, ‘‘I could not avoid the conviction thatNixon’s evident weakness over Watergate had not a little to do with the Politburo’swillingness to dare so crass a challenge’’ (Kissinger, 1982, p. 584). Furthermore, ifwe believe that foreign leaders prefer to initiate crises against incompetent leaders,with whom presumably their chances of success are greater (Smith, 1998), whatbetter indication could they have than the American people’s own assessment oftheir chief executive? While foreign leaders may perceive that presidents possesscertain incentives to use force for diversionary purposes when they are down in thepolls or blamed for the ill health of the economy, on balance it may be that suchpresidents are better targets, especially for regimes whose interests are opposed tothe U.S. and wish to avoid U.S. involvement. If the choice is between initiating acrisis when the president is incompetent, distracted, and weakened, and when thepresident is competent, focused, and strong, the former would seem to be pref-erable. Therefore, I posit two contrasting hypotheses to represent each of thesetheoretical arguments.

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Hypothesis 2a: Strategic interaction: As domestic conditions in the U.S. worsen, the prob-ability that a regime will initiate a crisis involving the U.S. will decrease.

Hypothesis 2b: Exploiting weakness: As domestic conditions in the U.S. worsen, theprobability that a regime will initiate a crisis involving the U.S. willincrease.

Control Measures

Together with those determinants of crisis initiation discussed above, I also includetwo other factors in the model. First, I control for the military capabilities of states.Conventional international relations theories typically maintain that the greater themilitary advantage possessed by a state, contingent upon the utility to be derivedfrom a successful challenge, the more likely that state is to initiate a crisis. As I amonly examining the occurrence of crises relevant to the U.S., I utilize a measure ofeach foreign nation’s military capabilities. It is also important to account for theinherent proclivity of regimes to become involved in crises. As research on endur-ing rivalries as well as research on civil wars shows, the same regimes seem toaccount for a substantial proportion of these events (Goertz and Diehl, 1993, 1995;Bennett, 1998). Whether these crises are related, as some research contends, orwhether their frequency can be accounted for simply by the laws of probability(Gartzke and Simon, 1999) is not an issue here. I am suggesting that there is eithersome inherent, perhaps unmeasured, propensity for regimes to become involved incrises, or a temporal dependence among crises such that once an initial crisis oc-curs, subsequent crises become more likely. In addition, research on the use ofmilitary force by the U.S. tends to show that the U.S. is more apt to take action incrises involving states it has targeted previously (Meernik, 1994, 2001). Oncethe U.S. begins a pattern of being drawn into crises by a stateFwhether friendor foeFthe tendency may be for such events to develop their own sort of self-perpetuating logic. Whether such crisis interaction continues because of the inter-ests of the initiator state in reducing the threat posed by the U.S. or increasing thesecurity provided by the U.S., or simply because the issues at stake have not beenresolved, there is reason to believe that prior involvement in disputes with the U.S.will lead to future dispute involvement.

Hypothesis 3: As the number of a regime’s military personnel increases, the probability ofcrisis initiation increases.

Hypothesis 4: The more often presidents have used force in or against a regime in theprevious five years, the more likely that nation will initiate a crisis.

Measurement

I analyze the initiation of international crises by foreign governments that ulti-mately involve the U.S. Because I am interested in understanding which nationsare more likely to initiate crises and when, the spatial universe of cases consists of allnations, while the temporal universe is potentially infinite. Regimes can choose toinitiate a crisis at almost any time. I choose to limit the temporal dimension fromwhich I predict crisis initiation, however, to the nation-year. Therefore, for all na-tions of the world for which data are available, I predict how many crises a regimeinitiates in any given year between January 1960 and December 2000. I choose thisperiod because most of the new nations of the world became independent in theearly 1960s after decolonization. Before this period there were substantially fewernations that might initiate crises vis-a-vis the U.S. I use the Militarized Interstate


Dispute (MID) data set1 (Ghosn and Palmer, 2003) to measure crisis initiation(targets of crisis initiators are not included). I considered using the InternationalCrisis Behavior2 (Brecher and Wilkenfeld, 1997) data set in order to maximize thegeneralizability of this analysis, but because these data do not include many of thecrises involving U.S. limited uses of force, I elected to use a more comprehensivedata set (see also Fordham and Sarver, 2001). Because I am interested in whether agiven nation is a crisis participant, I make use of the MID’s actor-level data. Everynation that is coded as a crisis initiator is included in the measure and all crisesinitiated by a nation each year are summed to create the dependent variable.

I measure the foreign policy orientation of a regime using three measures. First Iuse data on voting similarity in the United Nations (UN) between a regime and theU.S. from Gartzke, Jo, and Tucker’s UN voting behavior data.3 This variable rangesbetween ‘‘–1’’ (perfect disagreement) on General Assembly roll call votes to ‘‘1’’(perfect agreement). This variable is a tau-b correlation. I expect that those regimesthat exhibit the greatest differences in UN voting and those nations that exhibit thegreatest similarity should be most likely to initiate crises with the U.S. I square thismeasure to capture the expected curvilinear relationship. The first coefficientshould be negative, while the squared variable coefficient should be positive. Sec-ond, to measure the military alignment of a regime, I use Bueno de Mesquita’sKendall tau-b indicator of the similarity of a regime’s alliance portfolio with thesystem’s leaderFin this case the U.S. This measure ranges from ‘‘1’’ to ‘‘� 1,’’indicating more or less similarity in alliance membership. These data are obtainedfrom the EUGENE Program (Bennett and Stam, 2003). I expect that those regimesthat exhibit the greatest differences and those regimes that exhibit the greatestsimilarities with the U.S. will be the most likely to initiate crises. I also square thismeasure to capture the expected curvilinear relationship. The first coefficientshould be negative, while the squared variable coefficient should be positive. Third,I use Polity IV data on democracy ratings to measure the extent to which a nation’sform of government resembles the U.S.’s. I expect that the more democratic theregime, the less likely it will initiate crises involving the U.S.

I measure domestic conditions within the U.S. using three variables: (1) thepresident’s annual average approval rating; (2) the U.S. annual average unem-ployment rate; and (3) the U.S. annual average inflation rate.4 Presidential ap-proval ratings are measured using data from the Gallup Polls and the Roper Pollsfor more recent years.5 Unemployment data are available from the Department ofLabor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics web page.6 Inflation data are from the Con-sumer Price Index data downloaded from the Department of Commerce’s Bureauof Economic Analysis web page.7

I measure a nation’s military capabilities using data from the Correlates of WarProject’s National Materials Capabilities Index. Specifically, I measure military ca-pabilities as the number of military personnel in the thousands and lag this variableone year in order to reduce the possibility that crisis initiation and size of the armedforces are reciprocally related. I measure prior U.S. uses of force directed toward

1 Data are available at http://cow2.la.psu.edu/.2 Data are available at http://www.icbnet.org/Data/index.html.3 These data can be found at http://www.vanderbilt.edu�rtucker/data/affinity/un/similar/.4 Presidential election periods perfectly predicted noncrisis months and so I was not able to use such a variable.

Stata 8.0 forces out all such variables from these types of MLE models given the lack of variation in an exogenousvariable across all levels of the endogenous variable.

5 I use presidential approval ratings obtained from the Gallup organization web site at http://www.gallup.com for

all years to create a monthly average. Since accessing this web page originally, however, the Gallup organization hasnow begun to charge users for access to their data. Other organizations, however, such as Roper (http://roperweb.ropercenter.uconn.edu/), do provide these same data.

6 The website is http://stats.bls.gov/top20.html.7 The website is http://www.bea.doc.gov/.

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each nation by counting the number of crises involving a regime in the previous fiveyears in which the U.S. used military force vis-a-vis that regime. I expect a positiverelationship. In the MID database, all instances where the U.S. scored at least a ‘‘3’’on the Hostility Level measure (displays of force, uses of force, and war) are counted.

Analysis

I utilize a random effects Poisson model using the program Stata 8.0. I use thePoisson model because the data are a count of the number of crises initiated by anation each year. This model is preferred because of the cross-sectional element ofthe data and recurrence of individual nations throughout the period under studythat may cause heteroskedasticity in the estimates. In general, the results of themodels indicate that the type of regime where a potential crisis takes place matters agreat deal more than when such a crisis might occur.

We see in Table 1 that support for the hypotheses regarding the importance offoreign policy orientation is mixed. As evidenced in the negative coefficient for themilitary alignment variable and the positive coefficient for its squared measure, wefind that those regimes whose military alignments are most dissimilar and mostsimilar to the U.S. are most likely to initiate crises. The test of joint statisticalsignificance does not, however, indicate that the coefficients are jointly distinguish-able from zero. The squared measure of political orientation is not statisticallysignificant, although the two coefficients are jointly statistically significant. Thosestates whose U.N. voting behavior is most divergent from the U.S. and those stateswhose interests are more similar are most likely to initiate crises involving the U.S.Either their divergent foreign policies lead to foreign policy differences and hos-tility, or their strategic compatibility leads to closer ties, which come with their ownrisks of crisis. Yet both types of regimes may come to depend upon the intensity oftheir relationship with the U.S. to maintain power, and thus may become even morelikely to initiate crises to secure their dominance. Hostile regimes may dependupon an adversarial relationship with an external enemy to keep their domesticopponents united behind their leadership, while friendly states use their cooper-ative relationship with the U.S. to fend off challenges from domestic opponents andadvance foreign policy interests against neighboring states.

The more democratic a regime is, the less likely it is to initiate crises. In keepingwith previous research on the international behavior of democratic and autocraticstates, we find that the less democratic a nation, the more conflict prone it is (Ben-oit, 1996; Prins and Sprecher, 1999). Democracies tend to be peaceful with eachother (Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman, 1992; Maoz and Russett, 1993). This find-ing also supports Huth’s (1998) research that finds major powers are more likely tointervene in conflicts when they share the same type of polity with a state that isthreatened by a third, politically dissimilar nation.

Although foreign policy orientation matters when predicting crisis initiation, thetiming of international crises appears to bear little relationship to domestic con-ditions in the U.S. The lack of statistical significance among these coefficients pro-vides little justification to believe that U.S. domestic conditions exercise a statisticallydiscernible effect on crisis initiation. Rather, foreign regimes may time crisis in-volvement to exploit local opportunities for advantage that may have little or norelationship to the vicissitudes of American public opinion or U.S. macroeconomics.The potential to catch an opponent off guard or the desire to seize a militarycapability advantage may both dictate the specific timing of foreign crises.

The number of military personnel in a nation is strongly related to crisis in-volvement. Nations that maintain sizable numbers of men and women in the armedforces are much more likely to become involved in crises. Either because they areseeking a military advantage, or because their neighbors fear their intentions, asizable defense establishment leads to more crisis activity. Given the U.S.’s stated


desire to prevent the emergence of any power that might rival its own, its interest insuch nations is to be expected.8 Prior uses of force by the U.S. involving a particularnation also increase the likelihood that the same nation will again initiate a crisis.Once the U.S. begins using force against a regime, that regime becomes more likelyto become involved in additional crises and thus begins something akin to a conflictspiral between the two nations. The continual militarized disputes between the U.S.and Cuba in the 1960s, Libya in the 1980s, and Iraq and Yugoslavia in the 1990sprovide ample evidence of this.

Next, in order to provide a more rigorous test of the model, I reran the initialestimates using probit instead of Poisson analysis. The reader will recall that I usedPoisson analysis because the endogenous variable is a count measure of the numberof times states initiate crises each year. It would be useful, however, to determine ifstates might be divided simply into those that initiate crises in a given year, andthose that do not. It may be that once a state crosses the threshold from being aquiescent member of the international community to a crisis initiator, the major andcritical division between states has occurred. To investigate this possibility, I reranthe model in Table 1 using random effects probit analysis. The estimates are pro-vided in Table 2. Generally the results are similar to what we just saw although thejoint tests of statistical significance for the military alignment measure of foreignpolicy orientation are statistically significant rather than the test for the U.N. votingmeasure. The indicators of democracy, military personnel, and prior U.S. crisisbehavior vis-a-vis the states remain statistically significant and in the predicteddirection. The measures of the U.S. economyFinflation and unemploymentFremain statistically insignificant. The presidential popularity measure is, however,negative and statistically significant. States are more likely to initiate a crisis thelower the president’s popularity.

The reader will recall that this analysis combines crises initiated by states whomthe U.S. ultimately sides with and whom the U.S. sides against. Thus, it would beuseful to distinguish the impacts of the exogenous factors on the propensity of thesetwo types of states to initiate crises. Before proceeding, however, a word of cautionis in order. We should not necessarily assume that states the U.S. sides with arefriends and those it sides against are adversaries in the more general sense of those

TABLE 1. Predicting Regime Crisis Initiation, 1960–2000Random Effects Poisson Model

Variable Coefficient Standard Error t Statistic p Value

Political orientation � 0.4183 0.1745 � 2.40 .017Political orientation2 0.4582 0.3298 1.39 .165n

Military alignment � 0.4877 0.4737 � 1.03 .303Military alignment2 1.4348 0.8168 1.76 .079#

Regime polity � 0.0243 0.0085 � 2.86 .004U.S. prior uses of force 0.1587 0.0403 3.93 .000Regime military personnel 0.0008 0.0001 4.48 .000U.S. president’s popularity � 0.0054 0.0039 � 1.37 .172U.S. unemployment 0.0374 0.0254 1.47 .142U.S. inflation � 0.0208 0.0144 � 1.44 .149Constant � 1.9953 0.3233 � 6.17 .000

N ¼ 4529.Wald w2 ¼ 72.7, p ¼ o.0001.nJointly statistically significant (w2 ¼ 6.67, p ¼ o.01).#Not jointly statistically significant.

8 The ‘‘United States National Security Strategy’’ report states that, ‘‘our forces will be strong enough to dissuadepotential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing or equaling the power of the UnitedStates.’’ http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/wh/15430.htm

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words. In any particular crisis, the U.S. may side temporarily with an adversary orsome state with which it does not enjoy good relations for short-term, tactical rea-sons (as the U.S. occasionally sided with the U.S.S.R. or the PRC in opposition tothe other during the Cold War). Similarly, the U.S. may side against a state withwhich it does enjoy good relations, perhaps because it opposes particular regimeleaders (e.g., the Dominican Republic in 1965 and Panama in 1989 were both U.S.allies whom the U.S. invaded). In order to execute this analysis, I created two newendogenous variables. The first measures the number of crises initiated each yearby states whom the U.S. ultimately sides with in these situations. The second meas-ures the number of crises initiated each year by states that the U.S. ultimately sidesagainst in these events. I term the former, ‘‘crisis allies,’’ and the latter, ‘‘crisisadversaries,’’ in order to avoid continual usage of the wordier description of suchstates. The unit of analysis for each set of estimates is the same as in Tables 1 and2Fthe nation-state-year for all nations for which there are data in the period of1960–2000. The estimates are provided in Tables 3 and 4.

We see straightaway that distinguishing between crisis allies and crisis adversariesreveals important differences in the crisis propensity of both types of states. First,

TABLE 2. Predicting Regime Crisis Initiation, 1960–2000Random Effects Probit Model


Political orientation � 0.2403 0.1296 � 1.85 .064Political orientation2 0.3320 0.2508 1.32 .186#

Military alignment � 0.2356 0.3612 � 0.65 .514Military alignment2 1.0234 0.5983 1.71 .087n


N ¼ 4529.Wald w2 ¼ 67.3, po.0001.nJointly statistically significant (w2 ¼ 6.74, po.01).#Not jointly statistically significant.

TABLE 3. Predicting Regime Crisis Initiation by States Whom the U.S. Sides Against, 1960–2000Random Effects Poisson Model


Political orientation � 2.4285 0.7106 � 3.42 .001Political orientation2 3.1354 1.4515 2.16 .031n

Military alignment 0.5202 1.6135 0.32 .747Military alignment2 3.1046 2.6944 1.15 .249nn

Regime polity � 0.0748 0.0377 � 1.98 .048U.S. prior uses of force 0.2000 0.1291 1.55 .121Regime military personnel 0.0007 0.0007 1.03 .304U.S. president’s popularity 0.0225 0.0168 1.33 .182U.S. unemployment � 0.0248 0.1255 � 0.20 .843U.S. inflation 0.1401 0.0564 2.48 .013Constant � 8.1036 1.4224 � 5.70 .000

N ¼ 4529.Wald w2 ¼ 34.9, po.0001.nJointly statistically significant (w2 ¼ 16.9, po.01).nnJointly statistically significant (w2 ¼ 10.4, po.01).


however, we find that those states with whom the U.S. sides in crises are more likelyto initiate such events the closer their foreign policy orientation to the U.S., asmeasured by UN voting similarity, like we found previously. Analogously, thosestates with which the U.S. sides against in crises are more likely to initiate suchevents the more different their UN voting patterns. Both sets of coefficients werejointly statistically significant in Tables 3 and 4. We also see that foreign policyorientation as measured by alliance similarities is jointly statistically significant in thecase of states against whom the U.S. sides (Table 4), although given that neithercoefficient alone is statistically significant, we should not put too much emphasis onthese results. Interestingly, the Polity 4 ratings of democracy do not predict thepropensity of crisis allies to initiate events, but do help explain the likelihood thatstates whom the U.S. sides against will initiate crises (Table 3). The less democraticthe state, the more likely it will initiate a crisis that will involve the U.S. against it.Generally, the theory of foreign policy orientation is supported in these sets ofanalyses. The more political component of foreign policy orientationFUN votingsimilarityFprovides the better explanation of crisis initiation than the more mil-itary componentFalliance similarities. It may be that the UN voting data provide amore sensitive measure of foreign policy orientation that can better reflect evolvingand short-term fluctuations in U.S. relationships with other states that help predictcrisis onset.

Interestingly, while the coefficients for both the lagged defense personnel meas-ure and the previous U.S. crisis behavior indicator are positive in both sets ofestimates, they are statistically significant only in the case of states that initiate criseswhom the U.S. ultimately sides with (Table 4). States with large militaries and stateswith whom the U.S. has used military force previously are more likely to initiatecrises in the present that ultimately involve the U.S. on their side. The latter findingis especially interesting for it seems to suggest that as the U.S. uses force more oftenin conjunction with some state, the more likely such states are to involve the U.S. intheir future problems. One thinks of U.S. allies that come to depend upon U.S.support, such as Zaire, many Central American nations, and even West Germanyduring the Cold War. Israel, both during and after the Cold War, represents an-other possible illustration of this phenomenon. Thus, while states whom the U.S.has sided against in the past certainly provoke their share of international crises thatinvolves the U.S., these enduring ‘‘rivals’’ may, in some respects, not be quite asnumerous as the enduring ‘‘allies.’’

TABLE 4. Predicting Regime Crisis Initiation by States Whom the U.S. Sides With, 1960–2000Random Effects Poisson Model


Political orientation 3.4133 1.0208 3.34 .001Political orientation2 � 0.9990 1.3940 � 0.72 .474n

Military alignment 0.1123 1.1322 0.10 .921Military alignment2 0.2532 1.6190 0.16 .876#


N ¼ 4529.Wald w2 ¼ 165.7, po.0001.nJointly statistically significant (w2 ¼ 17.1, po.01).#Not jointly statistically significant.

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The impacts of U.S. domestic, political, and economic indicators on the crisisbehavior of states also reveal some interesting tendencies. Crisis allies especiallyseem more likely to time the initiation of international incidents to coincide withdifficult times for U.S. presidents. As U.S. unemployment increases and as pres-idential popularity decreases, states with which the U.S. ultimately sides are morelikely to initiate crises (Table 4). Perhaps because such states would tend to seek U.S.involvement in a crisis in order to protect their interests, they initiate such eventswhen they believe presidents will be more likely to respond with a diversionary useof force. This finding then provides some support for the strategic interactionhypothesis, although in a rather unexpected fashion. As most studies of strategicinteraction and the diversionary use of force assume that the states that initiatecrises are doing so against the U.S. or some other nation, the general expectation isthat these crisis initiators wish to avoid a U.S. response. Few studies in this field ofresearch,9 to my knowledge, consider the possibility that some states that initiatecrises do so to encourage a U.S. response. This finding points to the vital importanceof distinguishing between crisis allies and crisis adversaries and their differingpreferences regarding the desirability of U.S. involvement.

Yet, although crisis allies tend to seek U.S. involvement during times when theU.S. domestic political environment is conducive to a diversionary use of force,crisis adversaries do not evidence any clear and consistent preferences for partic-ular U.S. political conditions in initiating crises. However, the coefficient for themeasure of U.S. inflation is statistically significant and positive in Table 3 amongstates the U.S. sides against, which would indicate that such states are more likely toinitiate events when the cost of living is increasing in the U.S. I would like to offerone possible explanation for the more general difference in results between thecrisis allies and crisis adversaries. Perhaps the reason why crisis allies are more aptto strategically time crises is because they are better aware of U.S. domestic, po-litical, and economic conditions. If many or most such states do tend to enjoy betterrelations with the U.S. in general, they may have more access to information aboutthe U.S. political scene and have more experience in interpreting such information.On the other hand, if crisis adversaries tend not to enjoy good relations in general,the quality and quantity of their information about the U.S. political environment,and their sophistication in deciphering it, may be relatively deficient. Thus, itsutility in decision making regarding the timing of crisis initiation may be limited.These findings about the differing crisis initiation behaviors between ‘‘crisis allies’’and ‘‘crisis adversaries’’ call for increased and more focused research.

Conclusion

Our understanding of U.S. foreign policy and the use of the military has improvedsubstantially in recent years as more research has been conducted on the inter-relationship between presidential decision making on the use of force, and theopportunities provided by the international environment. The present effort buildsupon that research agenda and expands our understanding in several ways. First,we see that the spatial aspect of crisis onset matters more than the temporalelement. Foreign policy orientation plays a substantial role in determining whereconflicts arise, while domestic conditions in the U.S. matter less. Previous researchon strategic interaction had highlighted the importance of these conditions, but hadnot tested to determine the influence exerted by the characteristics of foreign statesin the initiation of crises. More specifically, we discover that those nations mostsimilar and dissimilar to the U.S. are the most likely to become involved in crises.We must also be mindful of the role likely played by internal forces in both friendly

9 Certainly other studies, particularly those that focus on extended deterrence, study the propensity of states tobring their allied protectors into crises (see Huth and Russett, 1984, 1993; Huth, 1988b, 1998).


and adversarial regimes. The intensity of the relationship with the U.S. may sparkopposition in the former if regime opponents view the regime leaders as mereclients of the hegemon (one thinks of many of the insurgencies that developed inLatin America during the Cold War [especially Cuba in the late 1950s or Nicaraguain the 1970s], or present day Saudi Arabia). Regimes hostile to the U.S. may cometo depend upon this adversarial relationship as a means to unite an otherwisehostile population.

The relationship between domestic conditions within the U.S. and the initiationof international crises is more complex. When we do not distinguish between statesthe U.S. sides with and those it sides against in crises, U.S. domestic conditionsappear to exercise little influence in producing more international incidents. Yet,when we do distinguish between these two types of states, we find that among statesthe U.S. ultimately sides with in crises, there is a marked propensity to initiate suchcrises when the prospects for what we might consider to be a diversionary use offorce are greater. States against whom the U.S. sides do not exhibit such clearpreferences. Ultimately, these findings demonstrate once again that future researchon crisis initiation needs to focus much more on the types of states that initiate crisesand their foreign policy interests.

I see two concerns that ought to generate future research in this area. First, asjust mentioned, we should investigate in more detail the political and military in-terests of foreign regimes that affect their timing of crisis initiation. We need abroader understanding of not just the types of foreign states that initiate crises (andhow they are influenced by U.S. domestic conditions), but also why they elect toinitiate crises at particular points in time for their own national interests. Ourmodels that focus principally upon the impact of U.S. conditions on crisis timing aremarkedly limited in this regard. For example, we would suspect that many regimes’leaders would wait until the military balance favors their challenge, or until theyhave sufficient support from their military (Dassel and Reinhardt, 1999). Thesepossibilities deserve greater exploration. Second, we need to better understand whysome states become involved in enduring crisis relationships with the U.S. whetheras friends or enemies. Earlier I suggested that some states use their adversarialrelationship with the U.S. to unite their government and citizens, while others usetheir friendly relationships to protect themselves from challengers. More researchon the internal dynamics of crisis initiators and the utility they derive from con-fronting the U.S. needs to be undertaken in order to better understand their crisisinitiation interests.

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