Whatever It Takes? Party Image, Probability, and Bluffing Resolve in Kosovo and Iraq

Abstract

Why do American presidents, when engaged in military coercion, sometimes bluff or exaggerate their resolve and other times do not? Bluffing increases the likelihood and lowers the cost of success, so a failure to bluff provides an intriguing puzzle. It is argued here that American presidents are more likely to bluff resolve when they face an opposition with a dovish public image, and when that opposition perceives a low likelihood that the adversary will call its bluff. The analysis of presidential signalling of resolve in Kosovo and Iraq supports claims by Kenneth Schultz that the opposition party has a tendency to expose presidential bluffing. I also show, however, that the opposition is significantly more likely to expose presidential bluffing when its party has a hawkish image – the public perception of the party's competence on national security and its willingness to use force – and when the opposition perceives a high probability that the bluff will be called. When the president knows the opposition is likely to expose a bluff, it makes sense for him to refrain from overstating resolve. Presidential bluffing is likely to occur when the opposition party has a dovish public image and when the opposition perceives a low probability that the bluff will be called. These findings have direct implications for American leaders and American threats to use force after the end of the George W. Bush presidency.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to Nabil Al-Tikriti, Robert Barr, Rosalyn Cooperman, Stephen Farnsworth, Benjamin Fordham, Aaron Karp, John Kramer, Jonathan Monten, and Ranjit Singh for their helpful feedback on the project. I am equally grateful to the Congressional staff members who took the time to speak with me. The University of Mary Washington's Jepson Fellowship provided valuable support for the research and writing of this article.

Notes

George W. Bush, ‘Remarks on the Anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom’, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 40, No. 12 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2004), p. 432. (Hereafter I will refer to this series as WC.)

William J. Clinton, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1999, Book One (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2000), p. 452.

Benjamin S. Lambeth, NATO's Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001), p. 22.

See, for example, Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman, The Dynamics of Coercion: American Foreign Policy and the Limits of Military Might (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 143, 146, 147.

Kenneth A. Schultz, Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Steven Rosen, ‘War Power and the Willingness to Suffer’, in Bruce M. Russett (ed.), Peace, War, and Numbers (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1972), pp. 167–83. See also Jason W. Davidson, The Origins of Revisionist and Status-quo States (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 39.

I assume that a democratic government's resolve is limited by societal resolve: that is, a democratic government can have a higher willingness to incur costs than its electorate but as time passes and costs rise, the public will choose a government in line with its preferences.

Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 30, 31.

Ibid., pp. 33, 34.

Ibid., p. 79.

Ibid., p. 46.

Schultz seeks to explain governments' threats to use force and Howell and Pevehouse's book focuses on the Congressional ability to affect the decision to use force. Neither seeks to explain signalling resolve during military coercion per se. See also James D. Fearon, ‘Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes’, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 577–92.

James D. Fearon, ‘Rationalist Explanations for War’, International Organization, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Summer 1995), pp. 395–401.

Schultz, Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy (note 5), pp. 18, 58–65.

Ibid., pp. 8, 94–5.

Ibid., p. 9.

Ibid., p. 80.

Schultz argues that the hawkish or dovish nature of the opposition party will not significantly affect its tendency to expose a bluff. Ibid., pp. 70, 101–8.

William G. Howell and Jon C. Pevehouse, While Dangers Gather: Congressional Checks on Presidential War Powers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 34–40.

Ibid., pp. 40–2.

Wesley Clark estimated 100,000 American troops would have been necessary in Kosovo, whereas the consensus by 2004 was that at least twice that many troops were necessary for Iraq (see discussion below).

For scholarship on the domestic impact on resolve signalling see Wallace J. Thies, When Governments Collide: Coercion and Diplomacy in the Vietnam Conflict, 1964–68 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).

See Arthur Sanders, ‘The Meaning of Party Images’, The Western Political Quarterly Vol. 41, No. 3 (September 1988), p. 583–99.

Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics 2005–2006 (Washington, DC, 2006), p. 151.

Andrew J. Taylor, Elephant's Edge: The Republicans as a Ruling Party (Westport: Praeger, 2005), p. 111. For Democratic party advisers see Dana H. Allin, Philip H. Gordon, and Michael E. O'Hanlon, ‘The Democratic Party and Foreign Policy’, World Policy Journal (Spring 2003), pp. 7–16.

Nicole Mellow, ‘Voting Behavior: The 2004 Election and the Roots of Republican Success’, in Michael Nelson (ed.), The Elections of 2004 (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2005), p. 78. See also John Kenneth White, The Values Divide: American Politics and Culture in Transition (New York: Chatham House, 2003), pp. 203–4.

Samantha Power, ‘The Democrats & National Security’, The New York Review of Books, Vol. 55, No. 13 (14 August 2008).

A critic might ask why I use the terms hawkish and dovish public image. First, the terms encompass the combination of willingness to use force and competence better than alternatives. Second, policymakers – even Democrats who think the perception is inaccurate – often use the terms. Third, the terms are used in the scholarly literature. See Kenneth A. Schultz, ‘The Politics of Risking Peace: Do Hawks or Doves Deliver the Olive Branch?’ International Organization, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 1–38.

For dovish parties facing this problem more broadly see Kurt Taylor Gaubatz, Elections and War: The Electoral Incentive in the Democratic Politics of War and Peace (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 57.

Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O'Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO's War to Save Kosovo (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2000).

For evidence that President Clinton recognized Milosevic's doubts about American resolve, see Clinton, Public Papers (note 2), pp. 689, 696.

Ibid., pp. 451–3.

Ibid., p. 452. See also pp. 695, 705.

Ibid., pp. 458, 460, 462, 499, 516, 552, 602, 686, 756, 820, 851, 854.

Ibid., p. 476.

Ibid., p. 648.

Andrew Taylor, ‘Senate Clears Supplemental Spending Despite Misgivings About Cost, Riders’, CQ Weekly, 22 May 1999. See also, Clinton, Public Papers (note 2), p. 823.

Daalder and O'Hanlon, Winning Ugly (note 30), p. 151.

John Norris, Collision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo (Westport: Praeger, 2005), p. 5.

Lambeth notes that the 15,000-foot ceiling was ‘eased somewhat’ in southern Kosovo. Lambeth, 48–49. Lambeth also makes the case that 15,000 to 20,000 feet is the optimal altitude for laser guided bomb attacks. Lambeth, NATO's Air War for Kosovo (note 3), p. 140.

Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), p. 183.

Lambeth, NATO's Air War for Kosovo (note 3), p. 151; Daalder and O'Hanlon, Winning Ugly (note 30), p. 126.

Daalder and O'Hanlon, Winning Ugly (note 30), p. 138.

Ibid., p. 157. See also Lambeth, NATO's Air War for Kosovo (note 3), p. 46.

On 25 May NATO agreed to double the number of troops in Albania and Macedonia from 25,000 to 50,000. Albright claims this decision was intended to signal the prospect of a ground war. Madeleine Albright with Bill Woodward, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax Books, 2003), p. 419.

See also Norris, Collision Course (note 39), pp. 77, 81, 294.

See George Packer, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).

WC 39/20, p. 588. See also WC 39/22, p. 676; 39/23, p. 729; 39/30, p. 955.

WC 39/27, p. 862. See also WC 39/27, p. 858; 39/30, p. 927; 39/31, p. 1004; 39/34, p. 1079.

WC 39/37, p. 1164. See also WC, 39/38, p. 1218 and 39/46, p. 1600.

WC 40/12, p. 432. See also 40/13, p. 438; 40/16, pp. 580–1; 40/20, p. 849; 40/23, p. 985.

WC 40/28, p. 1171; 40/36, p. 1801; 40/39, pp. 2107, 2111; 40/40, p. 2152; 40/45, p. 2786; 40/46, p. 2812; 41/4, p. 87.

WC 41/5, p. 132. See also 39/38, p. 1238.

One prewar Army briefing noted that Army experience in Bosnia and Kosovo suggested 470,000 troops would be needed for Iraq. Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), p. 79. Analysis from Combined Joint Task Force-7 in early April 2003 suggested that 250,000–300,000 troops would be necessary. Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), p. 120. See also Ricks, p. 128. See also Bob Woodward, State of Denial (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 125.

Packer, The Assassins' Gate (note 47), p. 113. See also Toby Dodge, Iraq's Future: The Aftermath of Regime Change (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), p. 9. See also James Fallows, ‘Blind into Baghdad’, The Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2004, pp. 58, 70; Packer, p. 114.

A National Security Council brief of the period supported Shinseki's assessment. Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq (New York: Times Books, 2005), pp. 284–5.

Michael E. O'Hanlon with Jason H. Campbell, ‘Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq’, 30 August 2007, Washington, DC, http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index20070830.pdf.

L. Paul Bremer, III with Malcolm McConnell, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 12. See also Woodward, State of Denial (note 54), p. 190. Rumsfeld invited James Dobbins, author of the RAND study, to discuss postwar Iraq early in 2003. Woodward, State of Denial, pp. 130–1. A version of the RAND study was published in: James Dobbins, ‘America's Role in Nation-building: From Germany to Iraq, RAND, Santa Monica, 2003.

George Tenet with Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), p. 433.

Ahmed S. Hashim, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), p. 34. See also Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 179, 187.

Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), p. 408.

In a report Rumsfeld commissioned, John Hamre said ‘the CPA is making astounding progress, but it lacks the forces, the money, and the flexibility to do the job’. Bremer, My Year in Iraq (note 58), p. 114. See also Diamond, Squandered Victory (note 56), p. 288.

Bremer, My Year in Iraq (note 58), pp. 12, 19, 357.

Ibid., p. 106 (emphasis in the original).

Woodward, State of Denial (note 54), pp. 255–6, 302.

‘Troop Level in Iraq Criticized by Powell’, The Houston Chronicle, 26 February 2005. See also Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), pp. 406–7.

WC, 39/37, p. 1164; 39/44, p. 1478; 39/51, p. 1802; 40/16, p. 583; 40/39, p. 2111; 40/42, p. 2294; 40/46, p. 2812.

Packer, The Assassins' Gate (note 47), p. 117. Army Secretary White claims Wolfowitz told him Shinseki was out of line in publicly stating an estimate at odds with that of the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), p. 97.

Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), p. 99. See also p. 100 and Thom Shanker, ‘New Strategy Vindicates Ex-Army Chief Shinseki’, The New York Times, 12 January 2007.

Woodward writes: ‘half a dozen of the general and civilians who worked most closely with Rumsfeld made it clear in interviews that Rumsfeld drove the train’. See also Dale R. Herspring, The Pentagon and the Presidency: Civil-Military Relations from FDR to George W. Bush (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), p. 382; Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Pantheon, 2006), p. 461.

Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), p. 348. See also Diamond, Squandered Victory (note 56), pp. 98, 195, 229, 330, 241, and Packer, The Assassins' Gate (note 47), pp. 245, 303.

Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), p. 144.

Ibid., pp. 122–3.

Gordon and Trainor (note 70), Cobra II, p. 493. See also. Woodward, State of Denial (note 54), p. 98.

Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), p. 320.

‘Planning and Conduct of the War in Iraq’, Hearing of the Democratic Policy Committee, The Federal News Service, Washington, DC, 25 September 2006. See also Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), p. 147.

See The Federal News Service, Planning and Conduct of the War in Iraq (note 76); also Woodward, State of Denial (note 54), p. 302.

The Federal News Service, Planning and Conduct of the War in Iraq (note 76).

WC, 39/32, p. 1039.

WC, 40/42, p. 2295.

Packer, The Assassins' Gate (note 47), pp. 117, 245. See also Herspring, The Pentagon and the Presidency (note 70), pp. 400–1.

Some I spoke with cited Rumsfeld's commitment to transformation logic in explaining his unwillingness to consider more troops (Anonymous interviews on 25 January 2007, 24 March 2007). Interviewees also suggested that the president and secretary of defence were anticipating that a significant increase would have been politically unpopular (anonymous interviews on 2 November 2006, 24 March 2007, 17 April 2007).

‘Planning and Conduct of the War in Iraq’.

Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), p. 411–12.

‘Planning and Conduct of the War in Iraq’.

On the loss of life see Bremer, My Year in Iraq (note 58), pp. 105, 185, 235.

For Iraqi doubts about American resolve see Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War (New York: Henry Holt, 2005), pp. 198, 321; Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq (note 60), pp. 91, 189, 332. See also Woodward, State of Denial (note 54), p. 301; Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), p. 344; Bremer, My Year in Iraq (note 58), p. 216.

WC, 43/2, pp. 19–23.

Michael Abramowitz and Robin Wright, ‘Bush to Add 21,500 Troops in an Effort to Stabilize Iraq’, Washington Post, 11 January 2007.

Demetri Sevastopulo, ‘Gates Expects Surge in Troops to Last “Matter of Months”’, The Financial Times, 12 January 2007. See also WC, 43/2, p. 20; 43/4, p. 62.

Michael E. O'Hanlon and Jason H. Campbell, ‘Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq’, 28 August 2008, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, http://www.brookings.edu/saban/~/media/Files/Centers/Saban/Iraq%20Index/index.pdf.

See Stephen Biddle, Michael E. O'Hanlon, and Kenneth M. Pollack, ‘How to Leave a Stable Iraq: Building on Progress’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 5 (September/October 2008). The authors cite the importance of the recent increase in Iraqi capacity and adversary mistakes as significant factors contributing to the surge's success.

Ibid. See also Anthony H. Cordesman, ‘Transferring Provinces to Iraqi Control: The Reality and the Risks’, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2 September 2008, Washington, DC, http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080902_iraq-anbar_and_provinces.pdf.

See Stanley and Niemi, Vital Statistics (note 24), p. 39.

Ibid.

‘Planning and Conduct of the War in Iraq’. While not a formal hearing, the event generated news coverage. Dana Milbank, ‘For Democrats, Welcome Words on Rumsfeld—If Not the War’, The Washington Post, 26 September 2006.

Taylor, Elephant's Edge (note 25), p. 111.

Richard Morin and David S. Broder, ‘Poll Shows GOP Leads on Foreign Policy; Democrats Favored on Domestic Issues’, The Washington Post, 17 March 1999.

John F. Harris, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House (New York: Random House, 2005), p. 126.

John F. Harris and Helen Dewar, ‘GOP Thinks Globally for Rallying Cry; Clinton Foreign Policy Is Focus of Attacks’, The Washington Post, 19 March 1999.

See Sidney Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003), 32. See also Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), pp. 439, 635.

Albright, Madam Secretary (note 45), p. 405. Clark, Waging Modern War (note 41), p. 295.

Norris, Collision Course (note 39), p. xxi.

Daalder and O'Hanlon, Winning Ugly (note 30), p. 97. See also Clark, Waging Modern War (note 41), p. 439; Albright, Madam Secretary (note 45), p. 395.

Stephen S. Rosenfeld, ‘Surprise on Kosovo’, The Washington Post, 19 March 1999.

Charles Babington and Helen Dewar, ‘President Pleads for Support; Clinton cites Hitler, “Ethnic Cleansing”’, The Washington Post, 24 March 1999.

Stephen T. Hosmer, Why Milosevic Decided to Settle When He Did: The Conflict Over Kosovo (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001), p. 110 (fn. 4).

Norris, Collision Course (note 39), p. 37.

Charles Babington and Helen Dewar, ‘Serb Aggression, US Stake Justify Strikes, Clinton Says’, The Washington Post, 20 March 1999. See also Helen Dewar, ‘Senate Considers Barring Airstrikes’, The Washington Post, 23 March 1999; Francis X. Clines, ‘NATO Opens Broad Barrage Against Serbs as Clinton Denounces Yugoslav President’, The New York Times, 25 March 1999.

Clark, Waging Modern War (note 41), p. 206. See also Lambeth, NATO's Air War for Kosovo (note 3), p. 204 (fn. 61).

Norris, Collision Course (note 39), p. 7. See also Harris, The Survivor (note 99), p. 367.

Ibid.

‘US Representative Floyd Spence (R-SC) Holds Hearing on NATO's Operation Allied Force’, House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC, 15 April 1999.

Ibid. See also comments by Maryland Republican Roscoe Bartlett and Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss during the same hearing.

‘United States and NATO Military Operations Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, 28 April 1999.

Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars (note 101), p. 645.

Albright, Madam Secretary (note 45), p. 408.

Daalder and O'Hanlon, Winning Ugly (note 30), p. 100. See also Lambeth, NATO's Air War for Kosovo (note 3), p. 15.

Albright, Madam Secretary (note 45), p. 415.

Daalder and O'Hanlon, Winning Ugly (note 30), p. 18. See also Norris, Collision Course (note 39), p. 9; Daalder and O'Hanlon, Winning Ugly (note 30), pp. 91, 298.

Clark, Waging Modern War (note 41), p. 168.

Dewar, ‘Senate Considers’ (note 109).

Charles Babington, ‘Clinton: Goal Is To Contain Milosevic’, The Washington Post, 25 March 1999.

Steven Lee Myers, ‘NATO Plan Calls for Widening Strikes on Air Defenses and Heavy Weapons’, The New York Times, 20 March 1999.

‘US Representative Floyd Spence (R-SC) Holds Hearing on NATO's Operation Allied Force’.

See testimony by Eliot Cohen in ‘United States and NATO Military Operations Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’. See also Lambeth, NATO's Air War for Kosovo (note 3), p. 24.

Taylor, Elephant's Edge (note 25), p. 111.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Packer, The Assassins' Gate (note 47), p. 44.

Taylor, Elephant's Edge (note 25), p. 112.

Anonymous Interview, 5 October 2006.

Anonymous Interview, 2 November 2006.

See Tables 3 and 4.

Phrase from anonymous interview, 24 March 2007. Similar point made in anonymous interview on 25 January 2007.

Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 259.

Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), pp. 104, 110; Woodward, State of Denial (note 54), p. 148.

Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), pp. 97, 106. See also Ricks, p. 109; Woodward, State of Denial, p. 146.

Anonymous interviews on 05/10/06, 02/11/06, 25/01/07, 24/03/07, 17/04/07. Note: those who did not raise this explanation did not express disagreement with it. (I did not include a question about probability in my list.)

Ricks, Fiasco (note 54), pp. 59–60. For Skelton's second letter, sent 18 March 2003, see Ricks, Fiasco, p. 108.

O'Hanlon and Campbell ‘Iraq Index’ (note 57).

Kenneth T. Walsh, ‘The Dems’ Security Insecurity: New Efforts to Counter the GOP Lead on National Defense', US News & World Report, 27 August 2007.

Jonathan Weisman, ‘Campaign Jousting Returns to Iraq War’, The Washington Post, 30 May 2008.

Jeff Zeleny and Megan Thee, ‘Exit Polls Show Independents, Citing War, Favored Democrats’, The New York Times, 8 November 2006; Adam Nagourney et al., ‘Democrats Turned War Into an Ally’, The New York Times, 9 November 2006.

See ‘Remarks by John McCain’, 2008 Republican Convention, 4 September Minneapolis-St Paul, http://portal.gopconvention2008.com/speech/details.aspx?id=84. See also Peter Baker, ‘The Party in Power, Running as if It Weren't’, The New York Times, 5 September 2008.

Barack Obama, ‘Remarks,’ Democratic National Convention, 25–28 August 2008, Denver, http://www.demconvention.com/barack-obama/. See also Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny, ‘Obama Selects Biden, Adding Foreign Expertise to Ticket,’ The New York Times, 24 August 2008. For more on what Democrats have and should do to improve their national security image see Power, ‘Democrats and National Security’ (note 27).