Red Lines and Faits Accomplis in Interstate Coercion and Crisis by Daniel W. Altman B.A. International Relations Brown University, 2008 SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN POLITICAL SCIENCE AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY JUNE 2015 © Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2015. All rights reserved. Signature of Author: _____________________________________________________ ______ Department of Political Science February 10, 2015 Certified by: ____________________________________________________________ ______ Barry Posen Ford International Professor of Political Science Thesis Supervisor Accepted by: ___________________________________________________________ ______ Andrea Campbell Professor of Political Science Graduate Program Committee Chair Red Lines and Faits Accomplis in Interstate Coercion and Crisis by Daniel W. Altman Submitted to the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on February 13, 2015 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science ABSTRACT The International Relations literature has an established view of interstate crises that explains how states pursue victory in terms of signaling resolve. States make gains with credible coercive threats (compellence). In contrast, this dissertation conceives of each crisis as a strategic competition between a challenger seeking to make gains unilaterally by fait accompli and its adversary’s countervailing efforts to set red lines to deter these faits accomplis. After clarifying the neglected concepts of “red line” and “fait accompli,” the dissertation takes up two questions the literature has left unexplored: When are faits accomplis likely to occur? When are they likely to lead to war? The result is a theory of coercive conflict explaining why deterrent red lines that contain any of four weaknesses – types of gray areas, in essence – are especially vulnerable to faits accomplis. This theory is tested with two case studies – the 1948-1949 Berlin Blockade Crisis and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis – and an analysis of gray areas and land grabs in territorial crises since 1918. Making extensive use of declassified documents, the case studies show that the “game” of crises need not be a matter of convincing the adversary of one’s willingness to fight. Instead, states pursue victory by finding gray areas and other weaknesses in deterrent red lines that they can exploit to unilaterally take as much as possible – often by fait accompli – without crossing the line and overtly firing on the other side. Crises, from this standpoint, are a game of finding ways to advance without attacking. The analysis of territorial crises makes use of original data on all land grab faits accomplis since 1918. It shows first that states far more often make territorial gains by fait accompli than by coercing a territorial cession. It then focuses on the impact of geographical gray areas, which take two forms: islands located awkwardly between two core territories and border ambiguities. It finds that two-thirds of all land grabs since 1918 targeted a gray area. These gray areas render faits accomplis more effective at making a gain without provoking war and, consequently, more likely to occur. Thesis Supervisor: Barry Posen Title: Ford International Professor of Political Science Acknowledgments I would first like to thank my advisor, Barry Posen. I pursued working with Barry for three reasons. First, he would push me towards a more strategic, practical, and concrete framing of the project. Second, he would force me to fight my propensity toward dense theory-laden writing and instead pursue clarity. Third, and most importantly, he gives comments of both a quality and quantity that are unparalleled. He did all three and more. I thank him for his many, many contributions. My committee as a whole contributed immensely to the project. Ken Oye saw promise in it all the way back during my first year at MIT – long before anyone else could comprehend what I was trying to say. His support at that early stage was invaluable. Vipin Narang has been an excellent source of not just substantive comments but also my go-to source of advice on all manner of career and practical issues. Phil Haun was always the first to read my drafts and send me insightful comments. Anyone who has attended understands just how important the tight-knit grad student community is in the MIT Political Science Department and – especially – the Security Studies Program. Although I cannot possibly list everyone that I should, let me thank Noel Anderson, Lena Andrews, Mark Bell, Nathan Black, Christopher Clary, Fiona Cunningham, Jeremy Ferwerda, Tobias Harris, Chad Hazlett, David Jae, Sameer Lalwani, Marika Landau-Wells, Joyce Lawrence, Jon Lindsay, Krista Loose, Michele Margolis, Phil Martin, Andrew Miller, Nicholas Miller, Reid Pauly, Miranda Priebe, Kai Quek, Josh Shifrinson, Joseph Torigian, David Weinberg, Steve Wittels, Alec Worsnop, Ketian Zhang, and many others not named here. Among the faculty, I thank Fotini Christia, Taylor Fravel, Frank Gavin, Roger Petersen, and Steve Van Evera for their guidance and input during the process. In the broader IR community in Cambridge, I would also like to thank Monica Toft, Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Molly Roberts, Brandon Stewart, Walt Cooper, and Yuri Zhukov. I am particularly grateful to Jeffrey Friedman for being an exceptional sounding board for new ideas. I owe a debt of gratitude to the Center of International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Given the size of his contributions, I have come to see Ken Schultz as a de facto member of my committee. I thank him for both his excellent comments and his generosity with his time. Scott Sagan has gone above and beyond in finding ways to help me develop the skills to have an impact with my research, both with respect to this project and in general. I would also like to thank Lynn Eden, Jim Fearon, David Holloway, Amy Zegart, and quite a few PhD students in the Stanford Political Science Department. Many of my fellow fellows at CISAC also contributed to the project, including Neil Narang, Brad Roberts, James Cameron, Erin Baggott, Edward Geist, Jonathan Hunt, David Traven, and Rebecca Slayton. The Stanton Foundation and MacArthur Foundation each funded a one-year fellowship at CISAC without which the project would not be where it is today. Finally, I thank my family and friends for supporting me throughout this process and/or distracting me so that it took so long. My parents, Drew Altman and Pam Koch, supported me in too many ways to count, as they have throughout my life. Table of Contents Ch1: Introduction . 7 Ch2: A Theory of Red Lines and Faits Accomplis . 15 Ch3: The Conventional Wisdom: Crisis Strategy as Signaling . 43 Ch4: Gray Areas and Land Grabs in Territorial Crises . 59 Ch5: The Berlin Blockade Crisis of 1948-1949 . 90 Ch6: The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 . 134 Ch7: Conclusion . 175 Ch. 1 Introduction This book is about the interplay between two tools of statecraft: the red line and the fait accompli. Although policymakers have turned to these tools throughout history, the academic field of International Relations has dedicated surprisingly little attention to them. No accepted concepts or definitions exist. Nor do theories of when each tool tends to succeed, tends to fail, or tends to lead to war. This book contributes to filling these gaps. The importance of red lines starts with the question: When does deterrence succeed in forestalling aggression? The canonical answer is that deterrence is first and foremost about bringing to bear sufficient capability and resolve to bear to forestall an attack. This is so, but deterrence is also about drawing lines – red lines – that distinguish acceptable behavior from unacceptable transgressions that will be met with retaliation. Setting strong red lines is no simple task. It may be clear that inaction is acceptable and that an all-out invasion is unacceptable, but what of the countless shades of gray in between? What the adversary challenges the deterrent threat over a small issue that is distinctly separate from what is truly important? Is it as fully protected? During the Cold War, the United States consistently had far greater confidence in its deterrent red line protecting its NATO allies in general than in its ability to deter a Soviet military operation to seize West Berlin. What if something does not fall clearly within the deterrent red line? For years the United States sought to deter North Korea from building nuclear weapons, but did this red line extend to operating a nuclear reactor? What if there is a way to get around the line and seize what it protects without violating it? The Soviet Union may have had a credible deterrent red line against an American attack, but this line failed to extend to deterring indirect attack via the arming of Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. Just as the challenges of setting strong red lines are both considerable and under-appreciated, the strategy of the challenger seeking to undermine, bypass, or get away with violating these deterrent red lines requires renewed analysis. Some deterrent red lines fail entirely, like that of the Soviet Union in 1941 when Nazi Germany launched its surprise invasion. Others fail when the deterrer backs down under pressure, as when Britain, France, and Czechoslovakia gave up on deterring a German seizure of the Sudetenland in 1938. However, alongside these lies what may be the most common – and yet most neglected – form of deterrence failure: the fait accompli. With this strategy, challengers take a gain unilaterally, putting the deterrer in the unenviable position of having to decide between relenting to the loss and escalating in retaliation. At issue is a basic question about how states make gains in crises. Most thinking on interstate crises emphasizes coercive bargaining. For states that desire something from an adversary, the first step is to make a coercive threat demanding the concession.