Knowing the Unknown Unknowns: Misplaced Certainty and the Onset of War

International Relations (IR) theory grants a privileged place to uncertainty. In practice, however, the problem does not seem to be uncertainty but certainty: if only the decision makers would acknowledge uncertainty, conflict might somehow be avoided. We challenge the "uncertainty bias" of IR scholarship by developing misplaced certainty as a distinct and common pathway to war. By misplaced certainty we mean cases where decision makers are confident that they know each other's capabilities, intentions, or both; but their confidence is unwarranted yet persists even in the face of disconfirming evidence. We argue that misplaced certainty drives two familiar conflict pathways thought to depend on uncertainty: security dilemmas and spirals. We then conceptualize misplaced certainty, highlighting its affective dimension. Building on the work of post-Keynesian economists and economic sociologists we articulate the dynamics of certainty production and how it can go awry. Our "confidence model" of certainty can account for both the phenomenology and frequency of misplaced certainty, particularly in conflict situations, while providing social theoretical underpinnings to the Classical Realist admonition of prudence. Acknowledgments For comments on previous drafts, many thanks to Tom Dolan, Charlie Glaser, Eric Grynaviski, Jason Keiber, Joshua Kertzer, Andrew Kydd, Eric MacGilvray, John Oates, Xiaoyu Pu, Shiping Tang, Alex Thompson, Alex Wendt, and William Wohlforth. Thanks in particular to Zoltan Buzas for expert research assistance. Previous versions of this paper were presented at annual meetings of the American Political Science Association (APSA) in Toronto, Canada, 2009, and Philadelphia, PA, 2006; and at the Research in International Politics (RIP) workshop at Ohio State University. Notes Quoted in Walter Russell Mead, Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 116. Quoted in Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin, 2006), 49. For a discussion of how mutual overconfidence and positive illusions fueled this war, see Dominic D. P. Johnson, Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), chap. 8, "Iraq 2003." The most significant essay on interwar beliefs about the devastating effects of air power is Edward Warner, "Douhet, Mitchell, Seversky: Theories of Air Warfare," in Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Edward Mead Earle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943), 484–503. See Arie Kruglanski and Uri Bar Joseph, "Intelligence Failure and Need for Cognitive Closure: On the Psychology of the Yom Kippur Surprise," Political Psychology 24, no. 1 (March 2003): 75–99. See, for example, Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984). See Eliot Cohen and John Gooch, "Failure to Adapt: The British at Gallipoli, August 1915," in Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War (New York: Free Press, 1990), 133–64. Along these lines, Robert Jervis suspects that harmonious relations "are the product of routinized and highly constrained patterns of interaction more often than the result of accurate perceptions." Jervis, "War and Misperception," in The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars, eds., Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 106. See also Eric Grynaviski, "Necessary Illusions: Misperception, Cooperation, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty," Security Studies 19, no. 3 (July 2010): 376–406. See John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), 18–22; Ken Booth and Nicholas Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation, and Trust in World Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Dale C. Copeland, The Origins of Major War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000); Charles Glaser, "The Security Dilemma Revisited," World Politics 50, no. 1 (October 1997): 171–201; Robert Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma," World Politics 30, no. 2 (January 1978): 167–214; Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, "Security Seeking Under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited," International Security 25, no. 3 (Winter 2000/01): 128–61; Shiping Tang, "The Security Dilemma: A Conceptual Analysis," Security Studies 18, no. 3 (July 2009): 587–623; Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), chap. 6; Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979); and Andrew Kydd, "Game Theory and the Spiral Model," World Politics 49, no. 3 (April 1997): 371–400. In previous work, Schweller developed the role of accurate or well-placed certainty in causing conflict. When greedy aggressors exist and their intentions are known, states arm themselves, form alliances, and prepare for war. There is no need to explain these behaviors by means of uncertainty. See Randall L. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?" Security Studies 5, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 90–121. We also see misplaced certainty as an important driver of imprudent appeasement and decisions for preventive war. But in the interest of space we limit our inquiry to security dilemmas and spirals. Brian Rathbun, "Uncertain about Uncertainty: Understanding the Multiple Meanings of a Crucial Concept in International Relations Theory," International Studies Quarterly 51, no. 3 (September 2007): 533–57. Another way to understand it would be as a mistaken image. See Richard Herrmann and Michael P. Fischerkeller, "Beyond the Enemy Image and Spiral Model: Cognitive-Strategic Research after the Cold War," International Organization 49, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 415–50. We focus on security politics, but the adaptive management literature in environmental studies similarly suggests that uncertainty reveals the limits of a framework that assumes optimization is possible. For a discussion see Alexander Thompson, "Management Under Uncertainty: International Politics of Climate Change," Climactic Change 78 (2006): 7–29, at 16 ff. Jens Beckert, "Economic Sociology and Embeddedness: How Shall we Conceptualize Economic Action?" Journal of Economic Issues 37, no. 3 (September 2003): 769–87. Jonathan Mercer, "Rationality and Psychology in World Politics," International Organization 59, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 77–106. Jervis, "Introduction: Approach and Assumptions," in Psychology and Deterrence, eds., Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow, and Janice Gross Stein (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 1–12; and Jack Levy, "Political Psychology and Foreign Policy," in Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, eds., David O. Sears, Leonie Huddy, and Robert Jervis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 253–84. See Jonathan Steinberg, "The Copenhagen Complex," Journal of Contemporary History 1, no. 3 (July 1966): 23–46. The irrationality of the entire German nation's anxiety over a British preventive naval attack is astonishing: "What makes the Copenhagen complex so puzzling and intriguing is that it began to influence German policy before the Germans had a fleet worth 'Copenhagening.' Why should Britain risk international opprobrium and the dangers of major war to destroy six or seven old tubs?" Ibid., 42 (emphasis in original). Collective level thinking is routine in the work of economic sociologists, who discuss an economy's general "state of expectation," which can sometimes degenerate into a panic, where confidence in the economy suddenly disappears without necessarily any change in objective indicators, bringing the economy to a halt. Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma"; Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), chap. 3; Herbert Butterfield, History and Human Relations (London: Collins, 1951), 19–20; John Herz, "Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma," World Politics 2, no. 2 (January 1950): 157–80; Sean M. Lynn-Jones, "Offense-Defense Theory and Its Critics," Security Studies 4, no. 4 (Summer 1995): 660–91; and George H. Quester, Offense and Defense in the International System (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1977). For insightful discussions of the security dilemma and offense-defense balance theory, see Kier Leiber, "Grasping the Technological Peace: The Offense-Defense Balance and International Security," International Security 25, no. 1 (Summer 2000): 71–104; Richard K. Betts, "Must War Find a Way?: A Review Essay," International Security 24, no. 2 (Fall 1999): 166–98; and John J. Mearsheimer, "Reckless States and Realism," International Relations 23, no. 2 (June 2009): 241–56. Kenneth N. Waltz, "The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory," in The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars, eds., Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 46. Dale C. Copeland, "The Constructivist Challenge to Structural Realism," International Security 25, no. 2 (Fall 2000): 187–212; and Copeland, The Origins of Major War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000). Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 45. For a summary of offensive and defensive realist views on how states deal with uncertainty about others' intentions, see David M. Edelstein, "Managing Uncertainty: Beliefs About Intentions and the Rise of Great Powers," Security Studies 12, no. 1 (Autumn 2002): esp. 1–8. "The security dilemma," he writes, "reflects the basic logic of offensive realism" because it clearly implies that "the best way for a state to survive in anarchy is to take advantage of other states and gain power at their expense. The best defense is a good offense." The "tragedy" of great power politics is that international structure forces them to behave in offensive ways for purely defensive reasons: "Great Powers behave aggressively not because they want to or because they possess some inner drive to dominate, but because they have to seek more power if they want to maximize their odds of survival." Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 21, 35–36. Robert Jervis, American Foreign Policy in a New Era (New York: Routledge, 2005), 86. Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma," 177. If all states, because they operate in an uncertain and potentially dangerous setting, constantly sought power advantages and dominance over others, international politics would be truly nasty, brutish, and short. Prudent elites, however, base crucial decisions on probabilities, not mere possibilities. See Robert O. Keohane, "Institutional Theory and the Realist Challenge After the Cold War," in Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate, ed. David A. Baldwin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 269–300. As Alexander Wendt remarks: "Copeland is right that states must be more concerned about the future than the past, since agency is always into the future, but in moving forward they are always looking back, using what they have learned about each other to guide their actions … Not to do so would be irrational." Wendt, "Social Theory as Cartesian Science: An Auto-Critique From A Quantum Perspective," in Constructivism and International Relations: Alexander Wendt and His Critics, eds., Stephano Guzzini and Anna Leander (New York: Routledge, 2006), 50–51. Also see Wendt, "Driving with the Rearview Mirror: On the Rational Science of Institutional Design," International Organization 55, no. 4 (Autumn 2001): 1,019–49. Robert Powell, "Bargaining Theory and International Conflict," Annual Review of Political Science 5 (June 2002), 24. See Brian M. Pollins and Randall L. Schweller, "Linking the Levels: The Long Wave and Shifts in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1790–1993," American Journal of Political Science 43, no. 2 (April 1999): 431–64. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 168. Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War, 3rd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1988), 122. James Fearon and other formal theorists have extended this insight to include uncertainty regarding a state's willingness to fight or resolve. See James D. Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War," International Organization 49, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 379–414; Powell, "Bargaining Theory and International Conflict"; and Dan Reiter, "Exploring the Bargaining Model of War," Perspectives on Politics 1, no. 1 (March 2003): 27–43. For the issue of trust and uncertainty, see Andrew H. Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). The most prominent of the "others" was Robert Gilpin. See Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); and Gilpin, "The Theory of Hegemonic War," in The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars, eds., Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 15–37. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 168. This central premise—that rational people with the same information cannot reach conflicting estimates of uncertain events—is, in the words of Jonathan Kirshner, "almost certainly wrong," both "fundamentally and consequentially." Jonathan Kirshner, "Rationalist Explanations for War?" Security Studies 10, no. 1 (Autumn 2000), 144, 148. As Kirshner points out, "experts [flush with relevant, symmetrically available information] can look at the same information and disagree over the likely outcome of football games. In international relations, there is a dramatically smaller amount of information (even assuming both sides share it), while the number of decision points over which the experts must make judgment calls rises markedly. Surely we should see even more disagreement in this setting." Ibid., 149–50. It is no mystery, therefore, why revealing information does not automatically prevent war: leaders with the same information often reach different estimates about the utility of war. Given the many difficulties in estimating the probable costs and benefits of war (the shortage of reliable data, the excess of "unknowable" information, the large number of decision points, leaders' different risk propensities), it would be remarkable if leaders actually reached the same estimates about its utility. Specifically, Fearon's rationalist explanations for war center on actors' inability to make credible commitments and incentives to misrepresent private information as well as the problem of issue indivisibilities. See Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War." Also see Robert Powell, "Bargaining Theory and International Conflict," 1–30; and Reiter, "Exploring the Bargaining Model of War." For the issue of trust and uncertainty, see Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations. A third condition that can prevent states from reaching a prewar bargain is the problem of issue indivisibility. Bargaining indivisibilities occur if the pie to be divided can only be allocated or "cut up" in a few ways and none of these allocations simultaneously satisfy all of the players. While Fearon downplayed the likely incidence of indivisible issues, bargaining model scholarship has gone on to explore the conditions under which an issue is treated, rightly or wrongly, as indivisible, especially with respect to ethnic conflict. See Reiter, "Exploring the Bargaining Model of War," 30. Ibid., 34. See, for example, James D. Fearon, "Signaling Foreign Policy Interests: Tying Hands vs. Sunk Costs," Journal of Conflict Resolution 41, no.1 (February 1997): 68–90; James D. Morrow, Game Theory for Political Scientists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Andrew Kydd, "Trust, Reassurance, and Cooperation," International Organization 54, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 325–57; and Andrew Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, "Sabotaging the Peace: The Politics of Extremist Violence," International Organization 56, no 2 (Spring, 2002): 263–96. Recently, Robert Powell has pointed out problems with the formal bargaining literature's emphasis on informational issues: "Informational problems abound in international politics, and most of the formal work on war done in the past decade has pursued an informational approach to the inefficiency puzzle. … Informational explanations and the models underlying them, however, have at least two major limitations. They often provide a poor account of prolonged conflict, and they give a bizarre reading of the history of some cases." Robert Powell, "War as a Commitment International Organization no. 1 (Winter 2006), Powell approach from informational problems to focus more on other to the inefficiency See Powell, "The of Conflict with American Political Science Review no. 2 Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security see The to (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Randall L. Schweller, and the and in Realism and State After the Cold War, eds., and Michael (New York: Columbia University Press, and Schweller, Realist Research on Not American Political Science Review no. 4 1997): See Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Eric J. "Beyond Realism and the of War Security Studies no. 4 (Summer 1997): and The of (Princeton: Princeton University Press, these two of the security Jervis two ways to the offense-defense does the state have to more or than on defensive forces to each by the other on forces that be to If the state has to on its should it it into offensive or defensive with a of is it to attack or to there an to or to the other's … The has its on … The it is to attack or to Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma," For a of this see Dan Reiter, the International Security no. 2 (Fall 1995): For the of see Thomas C. The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, chap. the structure as Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War," See F. and Press, Charles L. Glaser, "The Causes and of in Annual Review of Political ed. 3 Annual 2000), George W. "The of the in in from eds., M. and W. H. of this are most likely to occur in as this structure to the two a of the Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma," Ibid., This basic has in most discussions of the security which that it is always as a Dilemma in this is a form of the security This has at the of in the security dilemma literature about its in explanations of international conflict and war. Ibid., Jervis, the Cold War a Security Dilemma?" Ibid., Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations. See Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War," Charles Glaser, Rational Theory of International Politics Princeton University Press, Ibid., Jervis, Perception and Misperception, chap. 3; and and on International Politics (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, chap. John D. The Theory of New of Political Analysis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, Jervis, Perception and Misperception, under conditions of and uncertainty, people operate to the using as and other to and See Jervis, Perception and Origins of (Princeton: Princeton University Press, and and eds., Under Uncertainty: and (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, For the see and (New York: Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Politics, esp. chap. is to in all the or is about the future of the This is not however, for all The and the can about the future of the be and make the This is because it is that the the that the but to he or that even or or both than the is A can also explain about the future of a Arie Kruglanski and of the and Review no. 2 (April 1996): Jervis, Perception and Misperception, ff. See also Kruglanski and of the David and Journal of Economic Issues no. 4 2001): and Theory for A Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 1 (Winter esp. ff. does not necessarily to a of information might actually uncertainty. But it is to that the risk model with of uncertainty. See Robert Jervis, and with in Psychology and Deterrence, eds., Robert Jervis, Richard New Lebow, and Janice Gross Stein (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University at Mercer, "Rationality and Psychology in World In however, even IR scholarship on is have to as a of that international is See, for example, "The Politics of Perception and the of A Political Model of U.S. of International Studies Quarterly no. 3 (September for example, Perception in International University of Press, 1979); Theodore Theory and American Foreign Policy in the University of Press, and Origins of A Princeton University Press, Robert A. On (New NY: Press, As Randall the of all … it is not for not to actually which means all must have Randall "The and the of Cambridge Journal of no. 1 (March Also and Beckert, "Economic Sociology and (New NY: and Thanks to a for to this The risk and uncertainty is especially with and (New NY: and John "The Theory of Quarterly Journal of 51, no. 2 (February and and the Quarterly Journal of no. 4 and International Political Sociology 2, no. 4 and David and Economic Journal no. 1 (Winter 2000): and Theory Kirshner, "Rationalist Explanations for War?" On uncertainty, see and Theory," esp. We focus on the of the future, but our the intentions of as What we does not with certainty what we there is a and the that the state of the actors' intentions, it is See, for example, and W. as of in Intentions and of eds., and Baldwin (Cambridge, MA: Press, 2001), Rathbun, "Uncertain about For example, Kenneth and and in International International Organization 54, no. 3 and Barbara International American Political Science Review no. 4 2005): For example, of Kier of the power of the offense-defense balance is that the balance is before the See "Grasping the Technological On the of of the future see International Organization 51, no. 3 (Summer 1997): Michael and International Relations: A International Organization 50, no. 2 (Spring 1996): on and state of in and in and ed. Jack MA: 2002), The are from David who them from it is that information or change particular or the of David and Under Journal of 21, no. 3 (Spring 1999): and "Beyond Rational A of Analysis of Under The Economic Journal no. (March the of in to it as a that the of We about this of For a discussion see and and Journal of Economic Psychology 30, no. 3 (June 2009): at The of with of the of bargaining of war at 34. and uncertainty from risk risk and risk decision makers they know over they do not See and the On risk see in IR Theory," International Studies Quarterly no. 4 1997): Theory this as a of or See and Tom Theory of in in Psychology, 24, ed. (New NY: Press, The of security in and but IR scholarship has to explore it as We on Security in World State and the Security Dilemma," Journal of International Relations 12, no. 3 (September See also What do From Concept to Journal of International Relations 4, no. 2 and the for Security," Political Psychology 25, no. 5 (October From to and Security in International Relations (New NY: Routledge, A of the IR literature on security is in "The of Positive Security," Review of International Studies no. 4 (September practice, by agency we to rational See Jack and A Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, On a look it is not that in the of states, that security can be from It well be all the way But we about their for The uncertainty, and is in of social as management theory and management theory For see Security," For that both that uncertainty and anxiety and that anxiety see Joshua and and Foreign Policy A presented at the annual of the and (New NY: Press, Theory," "The of in International Journal of International Relations no. 4 2010): and See Theory," our to as a of is a of the of our of our and the this about is or it so to at a level of our It at the the more have The of our See Theory for a discussion of by the in Under The International Review of International Studies no. 1 (January 2005): We the for this We do not mean to it is to be rational in the only in the of that is On this see Beckert, "Economic Sociology and Ibid., ff. of uncertainty is a crucial of the the most often to environmental in where of cannot be known, but some are so or that they must be at all policy makers should and to Blainey, Causes of War, For a see Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War,"