Uncertainty and Reassurance in International Politics

Uncertainty and Reassurance in International Politics

Shiping Tang

Singapore

Evan Braden Montgomery

Washington, D.C.

To the Editors:

In a recent article, Evan Montgomery addresses the question of how states cope with uncertainty about other states' intentions in international politics through reassurance.¹ He finds that because of a variety of constraining factors, attempts at reassurance have been rare and largely unsuccessful.

Despite arriving at the correct conclusion and raising many thoughtful questions, Montgomery's contribution suffers from three major problems. First, he incorrectly frames the relationship between reassurance and knowing others' intentions. Second, he takes reassurance as an end rather than as a means toward other ends. Third, he fails to adequately distinguish between conditions needed for initiating reassurance and those required for success.²

The Inseparability of Reassurance and Knowledge of Others' Intentions

Montgomery correctly recognizes that existing discussions on reassurance wrongly assume that a state knows another state's benign intentions before signaling its own benign intentions through reassurance: "Both [the] logic and description of reassurance appear to reflect situations of one-sided uncertainty. . . . This perspective diminishes the importance of . . . the signaling state's own uncertainty and its need to determine the adversary's preferences" (pp. 161–162).³

Montgomery fails to correct this assumption, however, because he too believes that knowledge of others' intentions must precede reassurance, and because he does not see a solution coming from the twin tasks of reassuring other states and knowing their intentions: "Not only must a signaling state endeavor to reveal its benign preferences; it must also attempt to discover whether its adversary is a security seeker" (p. 162). What Montgomery does not recognize is that signaling one's own benign intentions and knowing the other side's intentions can occur simultaneously: the two tasks are inseparable. Indeed, other than observing another state's behavior toward other states, the only way you can know another state's intentions is to signal your own benign intentions through reassurance—which is essentially an invitation toward cooperation—and then gauge its intentions from its reactions to your reassurance gestures: reassurance provides the means for distinguishing benign states from malign ones.⁴

More specifically, if you want to know another's true intentions,⁵ you extend an invitation to cooperate on a particular issue (e.g., containing a dispute). If that state reciprocates, then it is more likely to be benign. If, however, it responds by taking advantage of your goodwill, then it is more likely to be a malign state. If it dismisses your gesture as inadequate but refrains from taking advantage of it, then it can be either a malign state or a benign but fearful state.⁶

This tactic of a state signaling its benign intentions through reassurance and then gauging another's intentions from its reaction is not only logically compelling, but so intuitive that it approaches conventional wisdom.⁷ Indeed, leaders have frequently used this tactic in their dealings with each other. For instance, toward the end of World War II, the U.S. government extended invitations to Joseph Stalin to cooperate on a host of important issues (e.g., forming the United Nations and putting atomic weapons under international control), in hopes of gauging the Soviet leader's intentions toward the United States.⁸

Reassurance: A Means Toward Other Ends

Montgomery assumes that reassurance is an independent strategy when, in reality, it is usually part of a broader strategy known as engagement. More specifically, reassurance is a means toward the larger end of knowing another state's intentions and then increasing cooperation if those intentions are benign.⁹ Montgomery's faulty assumption leads to several consequences.

First, it allows Montgomery to deny some obvious rationales for reassurance. If reassurance is the end rather than the means, then there is little rationale for engaging in it when the other side may take advantage of it. Thus, Montgomery charges that "although defensive realists have focused on how security seekers can demonstrate...