What causes credibility? : reputation, power, and assessments of credibility during crises

Abstract

Year after year, Americans are told that their country's reputation is on the line. If we do not carry out our commitments, our foreign policy leaders warn, no one will believe our threats and promises in the future. This claim rests on the hypothesis, which I call the "reputation hypothesis," that tomorrow's enemies will assess America's credibility on the basis of U.S. actions today. Is the reputation hypothesis true? Will our adversaries predict our future actions by looking at today's decisions? More generally, do decision makers predict their adversaries' actions in a crisis by looking at the adversaries' previous actions? I test the reputation hypothesis against a hypothesis which I call the "power/interests" hypothesis. This hypothesis posits that decision makers assess the credibility of an adversary's threats by assessing the current balance of power and interests; commitments are credible when they support important interests and are backed up by the power to carry them out. I test these theories by studying American and British decision making during three crises. From 1958-1962, the Soviet Union and the NATO allies faced each other in a series of crises over Berlin and Cuba. I use evidence from American and British archives to discover how decision makers assessed Soviet credibility during these crises. I look for evidence that they based their assessments of Soviet credibility on past Soviet actions, and for evidence that they assessed Soviet credibility by evaluating the current balance of power and interests. The results are striking: during this period the Soviets repeatedly made threats and then backed down. But years of unfulfilled threats did not damage Soviet credibility. In fact, Soviet credibility grew from 1958-62, as the power/interests hypothesis predicts. American and British decision makers worried constantly about their own reputation, but they did not use Soviet past behavior to assess Soviet credibility. This research suggests that countries should not fight to build a reputation for credibility - threats will be credible if and only if they promote substantial interests and are backed up by sufficient power.