BEYOND MILITARY POWER: THE SYMBOLIC POLITICS OF CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS TRANSFERS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY JENNIFER SPINDEL DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA MAY 2018 1 Spindel, Beyond Military Power Copyright, Jennifer Spindel, 2018 ii Spindel, Beyond Military Power For Stephanie Wall, whose love of life, desire to explore the world, and instinct to help others continues to inspire. iii Spindel, Beyond Military Power Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have possible without the support of colleagues, friends, and family – if I tried to list all of them I would likely omit some in error. You know who you are, and you have my deepest gratitude. My biggest debt is owed to my committee members. Without their continued willingness to read and comment on multiple drafts of each chapter, their patience, and their unflagging commitment to the project, I don’t know how I would have finished. First and foremost, I thank my advisor, Ron Krebs, for the motivation, for kicking my ass when I slacked (and, honestly, for kicking my ass in general), and for an unparalleled degree of thoughtfulness, investment, and kindness. He read more drafts of this project than either of us cares to admit. Ron has this amazing ability to distill arguments to their core and to identify promising nuggets of research from otherwise confused and incoherent grad student ramblings. Ron is an extraordinary scholar and mentor, and I am lucky to also call him a co-author and a friend. Working with Ron has been an absolute privilege, and I hope to one day be able to write as well as him. Ben Bagozzi stayed involved in the project even after moving halfway across the country, and continues to be the best person for explaining complex methodologies in a way that actually makes sense. Alex Montgomery deserves special acknowledgement for taking me on as a student despite having no institutional obligation. Thank you for listening to me whine about R, and teaching me how to run network models. Mark Bell joined the project in its final years, and contributed invaluable insight and guidance. I hope one day we can write the unified theory of foreign policy and weapons acquisition. Thanks for being endlessly encouraging and supportive. And to Sarah iv Spindel, Beyond Military Power Parkinson: you went above and beyond as a mentor. Thank you for teaching me how to push against boundaries in a way that can produce rigorous scholarship, for keeping me grounded, and for introducing me to your network of badass scholars. The role you have played in shaping my scholarly identity – from showing me the world of possibilities for my scholarship, to teaching me how to embrace my insanity, and, most importantly, teaching me how to drink red wine and how to unite my sci-fi and scholarly interests – is so immense that I fear I can never repay you. You will have my gratitude and my thanks. Always. I have had the privilege of working within an extraordinarily inclusive and supportive graduate community at the University of Minnesota. To all of you I am thankful, but especially Christina Farhart, Aaron Rosenthal, Lucas Franco, and Brianna Smith for our dissertation support group. You helped me find the light even on the darkest of days. Thanks to the dissertation group: Tracey, Bryan, Florencia, and Elif. Robert Ralston deserves special acknowledgement for reading innumerable (and often incoherent) drafts, and for being the best example of a graduate student support network. To Rachel Mattson and Marissa Theys, thank you for teaching me how to drink white wine; it’s been an invaluable life skill. Matt Motta, you saved my ass in Stata and R more times than I can remember. To my SWAMOS 2015 classmates, thank you for spending two weeks indulging my obsession with military strategy, weapons, and science fiction. You are a special community and I am so grateful to have met you. I especially thank Emily Gade for her support, encouragement, and enthusiasm from across the country; my gratitude to you v Spindel, Beyond Military Power cannot be fully expressed here. Thanks to Steve Biddle for confirming that wire-guided munitions are, in fact, guided by a wire. I would not be here without the tireless encouragement of my family. Mom, Dad, even though I won’t have a “real job” until I’m almost thirty, your support and belief in me has been the bedrock of my graduate career. You taught me early on the value of questioning the world around me, of trying to fearlessly approach daunting tasks, and of the importance of finding a community. Being able to escape to Vermont each summer – even for a few days – was a needed reminder that there are, in fact, more important things than reading one last article. Thanks to my younger brother, Jeff, for pursing a medical degree and initiating the race to “Doctor” status. My sister Julie ignored me until my project got “interesting” – thanks for making sure I didn’t get too lost in the weeds (or, the weapons). To my grandparents, David and Estelle Spindel, thanks for being supportive and always asking about my project, and for providing a Floridian refuge. Allen: thank you for being you, for showing me how much raw determination and dedication can accomplish. Katie, I don’t even know what to say. Our adventures in Vermont (including teaching you how to sauté an onion) helped me stay happy. To Christy and Ulrich Wall, my “other” family, there are no words. I love you. I must also thank my Colgate family, as it turns out that I played with the idea of weapons-as-communication in papers written while an undergrad. Karen Harpp, Nancy Ries, Dan Monk, Daniel Levine, and Xan Karn, thank you for the fostering the intellectual curiosity that started it all. This project would not have been possible without funding I received to conduct archival work and travel to weapons shows. At the University of Minnesota, I gratefully vi Spindel, Beyond Military Power acknowledge support from the Mixed Methods Interdisciplinary Graduate Group; Pre- Dissertation and Dissertation Research Funds from the Department of Political Science; and the Robert T. Holt Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. Thanks also to the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation, which funded a research trip to the LBJ Library, and to Lara Hall and Jenna deGraffenreid for help while there. Finally, I thank the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs, and Charlie Glaser, for a generous year of support and intellectual engagement. And unlike Branislav Slantchev, I can actually thank my (very real) cat, Poz, and Poz’s academic inspiration, Jean the Cat. vii Spindel, Beyond Military Power Abstract Why do states transfer arms to one another, and what are the effects of these weapons transfers? Conventional weapons are the weapons most commonly used in war, and states devote significant resources to acquiring them, spending an estimated $401 billion in 2014. Despite this link to conflict and economic resources, we know very little about why states seek certain weapons and not others, or the outcomes of these transfers. In contrast to arguments that conflict or economic profit guide weapons transfers, I argue that states use weapons transfers to send political signals. These signals, based on the symbolic value of the weapon, clarify—to friend and foe alike—the extent and depth of the states’ political relationship. My dissertation offers a typology of weapons and their expected effect on the receiving state’s foreign policy behavior; theorizes the circumstances under which these outcomes should be observed; and assesses this theory using case studies of US arms transfers to India and Pakistan (1954-1967), Egypt and Israel (1962-1968), and China and Taiwan (1972-1979), as well as large-n statistical and network analyses, in turn offering a novel explanation of key foreign policy dynamics. viii Spindel, Beyond Military Power Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv List of Tables .......................................................................................................................x List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xi Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1. Conventional Weapons: Known Unknowns ....................................................12 Chapter 2. Put a Ring on it: Foreign Policy Effects of Weapons Transfers ......................43 Chapter 3. Shooting for the Starfighter: US transfers to India and Pakistan, 1954-1965 ..91 Chapter 4. Of Phantoms and Mirages: Misperceived Signals and the 1967 War ............139 Chapter 5. Certain Uncertainty: Strategic Ambiguity in the Taiwan Strait .....................183 Chapter 6. Receivers Turned Suppliers ...........................................................................227 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................252 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................268 Appendix A. New Dataset and Models............................................................................280