Balancing for In Security: An Analysis of the Iranian Nuclear Crisis in the Light of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Year 2014, Volume: 19 Issue: 2, 113 - 138, 01.07.2014

Andreas Bock

Abstract

Israel and the US are currently balancing against Iran because both perceive a nucleararmed Iran as a threat to regional and world security. But does balancing really work? Does it reduce threat and provide security? I will use Stephan M. Walt’s “Balance of Threat” theory to address these questions. In addition to Walt’s theory, I assume that perceiving a state’s intention s as aggressive is decisive for that state being perceived as a threat. I hypothesise that balancing fails and likely backfires in that it exacerbates the security dilemma and reinforces the threat perceived by the balancing states Israel und the US . The use of balancing strategies in the current Iranian nuclear crisis would be futile and, if anything, would only strengthen the belief in Tehran that Iranian nuclear weapons are a necessary means of deterrence and self-defence

Keywords

Cuban missile crisis, “balance of threat”-theory, balancing, perception and misperception, Iranin nuclear crisis, Stephen M. Walt.

References

• I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of this analysis.
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• Power or capability is here understood as an aggregate concept that encompasses a state’s total re-sources, such as its population, industrial and military capability and technological prowess (Walt, The Origins of Alliances, p. 22).
• He, “Undermining Adversaries”, p. 161. 15 Ibid., p. 163.
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• Ibid., pp. 21-26. 22 Ibid., p. 22. 23 Ibid., p. 23. 24 Ibid., p. 24. 25 Ibid., p. 25-26.
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• about?’ I said, ‘What you’re talking about would lead to war, and I know you’re too sensible
• a man to want to have war.’ He stopped a minute and looked at me and said, ‘You’re right’.”
• (Quoted in Lebow and Stein, We All Lost the Cold War, p. 390).
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• Quoted in Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 68.
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• Also known as the Thomas theorem: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (William Thomas, The Child in America, Behavior Problems & Programs, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928, p. 572).
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• This quote stems from the movie “War Games” (1983), in which the computer program responsible for the national defence of the United States recognises that the game “Thermonuclear War” cannot be won; it therefore concludes that there is only one reasonable move: not to play. This is the basic idea of nuclear deterrence.
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• For example, by imposing sanctions against Russia or by planning to reinforce troops in Eastern European NATO member states the US and EU are balancing against Russia using strategies that are intended to improve the US and European power and security position compared to that of Moscow (part of these strategies may also be descriebed as deterrence). In short: Balancing refers to all state strategies intended to weaken the power position of the state(s) perceived as a threat.
• Bock, (Un-)Sicherheitsfaktor Atombombe eine Analyse der Krise um das iranische Nuklearprogramm; Bock “Irans Sicherheit und die Atombombe. Über Rationalität und Wahrnehmung in der Nuklearkrise”.
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• Quoted in Jervis, “Getting to Yes With Iran The Challenges of Coercive Diplomacy”.