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Abstract States' Responding Behavior in Conflict ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: STATES' RESPONDING BEHAVIOR IN CONFLICT: ASYMMETRIC RESPONSE AND STRATEGIC CONFLICT AVOIDANCE Ho Youn Koh, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016 Dissertation directed by: Professor Scott Kastner Department of Government and Politics State responses to external threats and aggression are studied with focus on two different rationales: (1) to make credible deterrent threats to avoid being ex- ploited, and (2) to minimize the risk of escalation to unwanted war. Given external aggression, the target state's responding behavior has three possibilities: conces- sion (under-response), reciprocation, and escalation. This study focuses on the first two possibilities and investigates how the strategic nature of crisis interaction can explain the intentional choice of concession or avoidance of retaliation. I build a two-level bargaining model that accounts for the domestic bargaining situation between the leader and the challenger for each state. The model's equilib- rium shows that the responding behavior is determined not only by inter-state level variables (e.g. balance of power between two states, or cost of war that each state is supposed to pay), but also the domestic variables of both states. Next, the strategic interaction is rationally explained by the model: as the responding state believes that the initiating state has strong domestic challenges and, hence, the aggression is believed to be initiated for domestic political purposes (a rally-around-the-flag effect), the response tends to decrease. The concession is also predicted if the target state leader has strong bargaining power against her domestic challengers and she believes that the initiating leader suffers from weak domestic standing. To test the model's prediction, I conduct a lab experiment and case studies. The experimental result shows that under an incentivized bargaining situation, in- dividual actors are observed to react to hostile action as the model predicts: if the opponent is believed to suffer from internally driven difficulties, the subject will not punish hostile behavior of the other player as severely as she would without such a belief. The experiment also provides supporting evidence for the choice of concession: when the player finds herself in a favorable situation while the other has disadvantages, the player is more likely to make concessions in the controlled dictator game. Two cases are examined to discuss how the model can explain the choice of either reciprocation or concession. From personal interviews and fieldwork in South Korea, I find that South Korea's reciprocating behavior during the 2010 Yeonpyeong Island incident is explained by a combination of `low domestic power of initiating leader (Kim Jong-il)' and `low domestic power of responding leader (Lee Myung-bak).' On the other hand, the case of EC-121 is understood as a non- response or concession outcome. Declassified documents show that Nixon and his key advisors interpreted the attack as a result of North Korea's domestic political instabilities (low domestic power of initiating leader) and that Nixon did not have difficulties at domestic politics during the first few months of his presidency (high domestic power of responding leader). STATES' RESPONDING BEHAVIOR IN CONFLICT: ASYMMETRIC RESPONSE AND STRATEGIC CONFLICT AVOIDANCE by Ho Youn Koh Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Advisory Committee: Professor Scott Kastner, Chair/Advisor Professor Paul Huth Professor Piotr Swistak Professor William Reed Professor Ethan Kaplan (Dean's Representative) c Copyright by Ho Youn Koh 2016 Dedication For my family. ii Table of Contents List of Tablesv List of Figures vi 1 Introduction1 1.1 The puzzle.................................4 1.2 Existing literature............................. 10 1.3 Plan of study............................... 19 2 A Model of Response 21 2.1 Rational modeling of conflict behavior................. 22 2.2 The model................................. 29 2.3 Predictions................................ 34 2.4 Discussion................................. 40 3 Experimental Evidence 46 3.1 Objectives of the experiment....................... 48 3.2 Experimental design and hypotheses.................. 51 3.3 Results................................... 64 3.4 Discussion................................. 74 4 A Case of Reciprocation: The 2010 Bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island 80 4.1 Background................................ 83 4.1.1 Yeonpyeong Island and the Northern Limit Line........ 84 4.1.2 Military crashes along the NLL................. 87 4.1.3 Increasing tension......................... 92 4.2 Aggression................................. 95 4.2.1 Pre-attack activities....................... 95 4.2.2 The shelling............................ 97 4.2.3 The aftermath........................... 99 4.3 Response.................................. 102 4.3.1 Possible options.......................... 103 4.3.2 Speculations about North Korea's motive............ 108 4.3.3 Final decision........................... 115 4.4 North Korea's instabilities........................ 121 4.4.1 Political instabilities....................... 122 4.4.2 Economic instabilities...................... 127 4.4.3 DPRK foreign relations...................... 131 4.5 Analysis.................................. 134 4.5.1 The assessment of motivations behind the aggression..... 137 4.5.2 The responding leader's domestic bargaining power...... 141 4.5.3 The president's distrust of the military............. 148 4.6 Discussion................................. 149 iii 5 A Case of Concession: The 1969 Shootdown of EC-121 153 5.1 Background................................ 156 5.1.1 Reconnaissance missions in East Asia.............. 156 5.1.2 The costs and benefits of aerial reconnaissance......... 159 5.1.3 Problems with the EC-121 mission............... 162 5.2 Aggression................................. 166 5.2.1 Operation Beggar Shadow.................... 167 5.2.2 The shootdown.......................... 169 5.2.3 The search and rescue...................... 172 5.3 Response.................................. 175 5.3.1 Possible options.......................... 176 5.3.2 Speculations about the DPRK's motive............. 179 5.3.3 The final decision......................... 185 5.4 North Korea's instabilities........................ 195 5.4.1 Failure of development plans................... 196 5.4.2 Political purges in the late 1960s................ 199 5.4.3 Seeking balance between Moscow and Beijing......... 201 5.5 Analysis.................................. 205 5.5.1 The US assessment of North Korea's domestic instabilities.. 205 5.5.2 The responding leader's domestic bargaining power...... 209 5.5.3 The costs of war......................... 212 5.6 Discussion................................. 214 6 Conclusion 220 6.1 Implications for future research..................... 223 6.2 Implications for the inter-Korean relationship............. 225 A Formal Model 229 A.1 The bargaining range........................... 229 A.2 The condition of strategic conflict avoidance.............. 229 A.3 Equilibrium response........................... 231 B Experimental Game 232 B.1 Procedure................................. 232 B.2 Parameters of the experimental game.................. 232 C Survey Experiment 236 C.1 The scenario of crisis........................... 236 C.2 Treatment messages............................ 237 C.3 Survey questions............................. 239 Bibliography 241 iv List of Tables 1.1 Classification of responses during militarized interstate disputes, 1993{ 2001....................................7 3.1 Treatment groups and messages..................... 57 3.2 Summary statistics of experimental parameters by response type... 67 3.3 Time-series cross-section regression for response size.......... 78 3.4 Time-series cross-section probit for choice of concession........ 79 4.1 Timeline of major events during Yeonpyeong incident......... 101 5.1 Possible options for the US response to North Korean provocation.. 177 v List of Figures 1.1 The Spectrum of Responding Strategies.................5 2.1 A two-level bargaining model of the aggression-response interaction. 30 2.2 Possible range of responses........................ 37 3.1 Predicted responding behavior...................... 51 3.2 The structure of the experimental game................. 54 3.3 Randomization of the size of aggression................. 65 3.4 Scatterplot of observed behavior..................... 66 3.5 Differences between response and aggression.............. 68 3.6 Predicted probabilities of concession................... 72 3.7 Results of survey experiment....................... 75 4.1 Yeonpyeong Island and the NLL..................... 86 4.2 Key economic indicators of South Korea, 2007-2010.......... 144 4.3 Lee Myung-bak's approval ratings, 2008-2013.............. 145 5.1 Key Economic Indicators of North Korea, 1956-1990.......... 198 5.2 Nixon's Approval Ratings in 1969.................... 211 B.1 Flowchart of the experimental game................... 233 B.2 A screenshot of the experimental game................. 234 vi Chapter 1: Introduction How does a state react to external threats or aggression? When a state is threatened or attacked by external actor(s), the response seems to be crucial in determining the rest of the interaction. This study looks into state responding behavior
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