The Power to Divide

Wedge Strategies in Great Power Competition

Timothy W. Crawford

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781501754722
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Diplomatie & Abkommen

Timothy W. Crawford's The Power to Divide examines the use of wedge strategies, a form of divisive statecraft designed to isolate adversaries from allies and potential supporters to gain key advantages. With a multidimensional argument about the power of accommodation in competition, and a survey of alliance diplomacy around both World Wars, The Power to Divide artfully analyzes the past and future performance of wedge strategy in great power politics.

Crawford argues that nations attempting to use wedge strategy do best when they credibly accommodate likely or established allies of their enemies. He also argues that a divider's own alliances can pose obstacles to success and explains the conditions that help dividers overcome them. He advances these claims in eight focused studies of alliance diplomacy surrounding the World Wars, derived from published official documents and secondary histories. Through those narratives, Crawford adeptly assesses the record of countries that tried an accommodative wedge strategy, and why ultimately, they succeeded or failed. These calculated actions often became turning points, desired or not, in a nation's established power.

For policymakers today facing threats to power from great power competitors, Crawford argues that a deeper historical and theoretical grasp of the role of these wedge strategies in alliance politics and grand strategy is necessary. Crawford drives home the contemporary relevance of the analysis with a survey of China's potential to use such strategies to divide India from the US, and the United States' potential to use them to forestall a China-Russia alliance, and closes with a review of key theoretical insights for policy.

CHAPTER 1

The Theory of Selective Accommodation

The theoretical framework comprises two elements. The first, the “core” theory, is an “abstract conceptual model” that identifies the “critical variables” of the strategy and the “general logic associated with [its] successful use.”¹ It describes how selective accommodation works (when it works) and suggests conditions under which states are likely to attempt it (what I call “initiation” conditions).² The second consists of propositions about contingent conditions, and associated mechanisms, conducive to the success or failure of attempts. Like the initiation conditions, these are probabilistic. Combined, these elements offer an overarching framework to explain selective accommodation attempts and outcomes, one that is geared to the priorities of policy-applicable theory. It thus furnishes two kinds of “usable” theoretical insight: (1) a general conceptual model of the strategy of selective accommodation, and (2) generic knowledge about the conditions that favor its success.³

Because this framework does not cover all of the potential causes, actors, and interactions that may produce outcomes, and because its propositions are probabilistic, the theory’s limits are worth noting. It cannot offer a parsimonious “covering law” explanation of outcomes across the range of cases. Nor can it identify, in the linkages between attempts and their outcomes, a master intervening variable that consistently determines success and failure. In different cases, different contingent conditions will weigh more heavily in shaping developments.⁴ The framework thus anticipates “equifinality”—the possibility that “different causal pathways … lead to similar outcomes.”⁵ Moreover, even when the values of all of the elements of the theoretical framework are strongly congruent with the outcome of a case, this can only yield a “partial equilibrium” account. That is because the theory covers only a subset of the strategic interactions (involving the divider, target, and divider’s allies) that combine to produce outcomes. Thus, in each case, actors and factors outside the theory’s scope—such as the reactions of the target’s alignment alternatives, or the quality of domestic politics within key actors—may augment the explanation.⁶

Given those limitations, one can expect from the theory the following: first, to direct attention in each case to initial conditions and patterns of calculation, observable through process tracing that elucidates the divider’s decision to initiate selective accommodation; second, that the contingent conditions implicated in each case correspond to features of the policy and strategic context that are salient to decision-makers operating within it; and third, that those contingent conditions specified in each case, and the mechanisms they entail, have leverage—that is, they help explain decisions, moves, and interactions that are central to the chain of events leading to the outcome (i.e., success or failure) in each case.⁷

The Core Theory

The core theory contains the general conceptual model of selective accommodation and its basic influence formula—the use of positive incentives (e.g., promises, rewards, and concessions) to create divergent pressures on members or potential members of an opposing alliance. More specifically, the divider uses such inducements to accommodate a target “singled out for preferential treatment” in order to lure or keep it away from a more dangerous main enemy.⁸

This definition implies, indeed presumes, a broader theoretical domain—a bargaining arena in which the divider competes against others in a “bidding war” over the target’s alignment.⁹ Although rooted in that image of alliance competition, the core theory abstracts away from certain aspects of it. It does not specify the alignment goals the other bidders will seek, or which of them will bid higher, or why they will do so, or whether they can do so credibly. But it does stipulate that the target’s alignment will be determined by its assessment of the relative attractiveness of the benefits offered, which will reflect both the content and credibility of the alternative bids.¹⁰

The techniques that dividers can use to accommodate vary in their costs and utility. The costliest is appeasement (by which I mean the sacrifice of a primary interest), which is rarely used to divide. Less costly and more often used are concessions and compensation (which entail sacrifices of secondary values) and endorsement (which means extending diplomatic support for a target’s position that conflicts with that of other potential adversaries).¹¹ Whatever the form, the primary mechanism of influence is exchange: inducements are given or promised to a target in return for a desired change (or preservation) of its alignment. These accommodations will influence the target’s choices by directly shaping its leaders’ view of the relative attractiveness of compliance versus other alignment options, and/or by “catalyzing” domestic political shifts in favor of a decision to comply.¹² Either way, in the first instance, their relative value to the target is the driver.¹³

Though they can have these advantageous effects, accommodative bids are not generally cheap options—instead, they are costly and risky. Like all influence attempts involving positive incentives, when they work, the logic of exchange makes them costly.¹⁴ That is, to win (or sustain) compliance, one has to give up something, either immediately or at a promised future point, or both. Along with that cost comes the risk that one’s flexibility will convey weakness and invite more danger and demands.¹⁵ Such downsides raise the question, when are states likely to try selective accommodation? The propositions discussed next answer it.

Initiation Conditions

That selective accommodation entails costly exchange suggests two important things about when states will tend to try it. These are the deductive bases for the initiation propositions. First, there is a motive calculus: the state must face a situation pressing or threatening enough to prompt its leaders to consider giving up some things to someone who wants them, in order to get a less dangerous pattern of hostile alignment. Second, there is a means calculus: the state must believe it possesses reward power relative to the target. Beliefs that such reward power is very limited depress the motivation to try selective accommodation. Thus, for a state to initiate a serious attempt, its leaders must think they have—or can control—some things that they can manipulate and dispense which are valuable to the target. These basic ideas are fleshed out next.

MOTIVE: BELIEFS ABOUT THE TARGET’S STRATEGIC WEIGHT

A divider’s willingness to pay costs to influence the target is related to how much advantage it expects to gain by doing so.¹⁶ The concept of strategic weight captures this. The divider’s assessment of a target’s strategic weight boils down to beliefs about the potential impact of the target’s alignment on war and peace outcomes vital to the divider.¹⁷ When it believes the target’s alignment has high strategic weight, its motivation to influence the target successfully will be stronger, and so should be its willingness to make concessions to that end.

The determinants of strategic weight are varied and context-specific. They may figure in the divider’s larger deterrence or coercive strategy. If its larger goal is to deter the main enemy, then it will rank the target as a strategic heavyweight if the enemy will be (1) likely to aggress if it has the target as an ally and (2) unlikely to if it does not. If the divider’s goal is to coerce the main enemy on some issue, then it will rate the target’s strategic weight highly if the enemy will be (1) likely to stand firm if the target is its ally and (2) likely to capitulate if the target is not.¹⁸ Similarly, perceptions of a target’s strategic weight may reflect beliefs about the extent to which its alignment will delay or hasten the outbreak of war. Thus, for countries looking to “buy time” before they have to fight, keeping the target neutral or detaching it from the main enemy may be seen as a way to slow the latter down.¹⁹ A target’s strategic weight may also be reckoned in terms of how much its alignment will enable or impair the divider’s plan to fight a war. If the divider has invested heavily in a war-fighting strategy that either depends on the target’s neutrality for success or, much the same, becomes unworkable if the target joins the main adversary, then the divider will place high strategic weight on the target’s alignment.

Especially in wartime, beliefs about strategic weight will focus on the target’s “war-tipping” potential. These judgments may home in on the threats or opportunities posed by the target’s capabilities per se—and the desire to deny them to the enemy or deploy them against it. They may also reflect a positional calculus, if the target is located in a place that will enable or obstruct operations with serious consequences for prosecution of the war effort. Finally, assessments of war-tipping potential may also turn on beliefs about the knock-on political effects of neutralizing or realigning the target. Thus, the divider may perceive the target to be a war tipper because it expects that a change in the target’s alignment will trigger a series of alignment shifts that cumulatively will decide the war.²⁰

For case analysis, I condense these variations into a simple categorical variable with two values. If evidence shows that the divider’s leaders expect the target’s alignment can swing their prospects against the main enemy in any of the ways just described, then the target has “High” strategic weight. If evidence shows that the divider’s leaders do not believe that the target’s alignment will have such effects, then the target has “Low” strategic weight. Table 1 summarizes the logic.

MEANS: REWARD POWER RELATIVE TO THE T...