Imagine a US president facing the following decision:
An Asian country has split into two parts. The southernmost part has a democratically elected president and a population of roughly 20 million. The northern region is controlled by the communist party and has a powerful military.
Now the northern part of the country invades the south, attempting to unify the entire country under a communist run government. How should the US government respond?
President Truman faced this dilemma in 1950. I am just barely old enough to recall when President Johnson faced a similar decision in 1965. I hope I never see a future US president face a third such decision.
When I read articles on foreign policy, I am struck by the difficulty of modeling the use of military force. We’d like to compare two counterfactuals, but in fact we rarely know what the alternatives actually look like. You might think you know whether various past foreign policy decisions worked out well or poorly, but how can we be sure? Chaos theory suggests that even a tiny change in initial conditions could have vast consequences in future years. I defy anyone to create a counterfactual for post-1917 European history if the US had not entered WWI. One can certainly create a number of plausible counterfactuals, but how could we possibly have confidence that any one alternative history is correct?
Historical events often catch even foreign policy experts by surprise. Think of the Iranian Revolution or the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now image trying to not just predict what is actually going to actually happen, but also what would have happened if history had been diverted onto an entirely different track. It’s basically impossible.
Economists also have difficulty predicting events such as the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. But at least we often know whether past policy decisions were correct or not, at least in retrospect. Economists now understand that monetary policy was too tight in 1930 and too easy in 1968. In contrast, the field of foreign policy is almost entirely up for grabs. What if we had not fought the Spanish American War? What if we had not embargoed oil shipments to Japan in the late 1930s? What if we had not fought the Gulf War in 1991? There are dozens of similar questions, and few reliable answers, even if the immediate impact of the decision is relatively clear. There is too much complexity, too many “butterfly effects”, to model anything more than the immediate impact of foreign policy counterfactuals. In some cases (such as Ukraine) even the immediate outcome was not forecast accurately, as most experts predicted a quick Russian victory.
So then what do we do?
PS. The picture on top shows Herodotus and Thucydides
PPS. Tom Friedman has an outstanding essay explaining:
Why Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan Is Utterly Reckless
But while I find the essay to be highly persuasive, how can we be sure?
READER COMMENTS
MarkW
Aug 2 2022 at 4:06pm
Friedman says, “That said, this is not the time for poking at China”. But who was poking who here? Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan is far from unprecedented. China chose to make a big deal of this visit. Might it not be considered ‘utterly reckless’ to fold under the pressure of China’s tantrum? Should we also stop doing these exercises, too, if China decides to get extra, extra angry the next time one is planned?
Scott Sumner
Aug 2 2022 at 9:14pm
No we should not stop sailing through international waters, even if China complains.
I don’t think it’s wise to antagonize China by sending our number two politician into disputed Chinese territory. I’m not saying we don’t have a right to go there, I just don’t think it’s wise.
I also don’t think it would be wise for Pelosi to meet with these Catalan politicians:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57565764
What do you think?
BC
Aug 3 2022 at 1:49am
Taiwan is arguably among our Top 4 allies in the Indo-Pacific region, right behind Japan and Australia and arguably tied with South Korea. (And, one can even argue about whether Australia is in the same “region” as Japan, Taiwan, and S. Korea.) Is Catalan among our Top 4 European allies?
Having said all that, of all the reasons that it may not be wise for Pelosi to meet with Catalan politicians, fear that it might “provoke” Spain into war is not one of them. In fact, if Spain were to warn of war or start conducting threatening military exercises over Pelosi meeting with Catalan politicians, I think that would actually raise the status of Catalan and lower the status of Spain in most people’s eyes.
Scott Sumner
Aug 3 2022 at 2:02pm
Taiwan is in no way comparable to those other allies. The US doesn’t even recognize Taiwan as an independent country. Furthermore, Taiwan spends relatively little on national defense, which suggests they have no intention of engaging in a Ukraine style war for independence.
Mark Z
Aug 4 2022 at 12:24am
You don’t think Taiwan would even bother to fight against a Chinese invasion? Most experts seem to think that a Chinese invasion would likely be the most difficult amphibious invasion in history and Taiwan has a good chance of making such an attempt so catastrophic as to make it not worth it to follow through.
Also, I think you’re overrating the significance of diplomatic formality; the current US president recently suggested the US would defend Taiwan’s independence, even if it doesn’t recognize that independence. The fact that Japan and Russia are, on paper, still at war since WW2 doesn’t mean they’re *actually* at war.
Scott Sumner
Aug 4 2022 at 1:52pm
“the current US president recently suggested the US would defend Taiwan’s independence, even if it doesn’t recognize that independence. ”
Yes, I did a post on that. I would note that his aides later backed off on that statement.
I don’t know what Taiwan would do. But if they plan to go to war to defend their region, why aren’t they building up a strong military? I’m honestly puzzled.
I would not assume the Chinese would do a Normandy style invasion. They have many other options, some not even involving war. They can make things very, very painful for Taiwan.
MarkW
Aug 3 2022 at 7:26am
I really don’t see the two situations as being comparable. Taiwan has had de facto independence for almost 75 years, while Catalan has not. The U.S. (along with its Asia-Pacific allies) has a significant interest in Taiwan — which is obviously not the case wrt Catalan. And, of course, the residents of Catalan have democratic means at their disposal for pursuing their goals.
During the past three quarters of a century, there have been many visits to Taiwan by U.S. politicians — including a previous speaker of the house. Gingrich’s Taiwan trip was a historical footnote rather than an inflection point in history, and I expect the same will prove true of Pelosi’s visit (will anybody still be talking about it next month?) Yes, China may try to invade Taiwan at some point, but I do not expect this week’s events to have any effect on the decision or its timing (Xi may be an evil authoritarian, but not appear to be an impulsive hot-head or a fool).
Scott Sumner
Aug 3 2022 at 2:00pm
“And, of course, the residents of Catalan have democratic means at their disposal for pursuing their goals. ”
I’m not sure what you mean. Spain would not recognize a democratic vote for independence in Catalonia, indeed they won’t even allow such a vote. How much do you actually know about the situation?
Garrett
Aug 2 2022 at 4:35pm
Reminds me of Bryan Caplan’s argument for pacifism, which has strongly influenced my thinking
BC
Aug 3 2022 at 2:03am
Pacifism can also cause many negative consequences. “Non-interventionist” foreign policy is still “activist” foreign policy. There is no such thing as “not doing anything”.
Non-interventionist economic policy is still a decision — a decision to allow markets to rule. We have lots of reasons to believe that markets generate good outcomes, so that’s why we actively choose to empower market participants over political actors.
“Non-interventionist” foreign policy, in contrast, does not default to anything analogous to markets. Instead of empowering market participants, non-interventionist foreign policy empowers other political actors and, if those other political actors are Chinese Communists, Putin, Iranian theocrats, and the like, then we actually have lots of reasons to believe that such actors will generate poor outcomes.
Mark Z
Aug 2 2022 at 6:03pm
It’s not just chaos theory, but that certain ideas important in econ, like the Lucas critique and EMH, apply to international relations as well. If you observe a ‘law’ of international relations or some irrational behavior, nations will exploit that law or irrationality to their own advantage and cause it to disappear. In any discipline where the agents being studied can react to your findings, even an omniscient modeler’s predictions will fail unless he keeps them to himself.
Scott Sumner
Aug 2 2022 at 9:09pm
Very good point.
Roger Sparks
Aug 2 2022 at 8:09pm
Economic parallels flow from the decisions made by banks who lend.
Banks either lend funds they control or create new money; it makes no difference. They either make the loan or not.
OTOH, the borrower either gets the money or not. If he gets the money, history flows one way; if not, another way.
And what about the financial wellbeing of the lender? Will the loan be repaid, rolled, or forgiven? Both questions flow to the future, allowing only tentative, speculative, perhaps hopeful predictions but lacking certainty.
And about the decision of the lender, deciding whether to create money or loan existing funds? History proceeds with either more money supply or the same money supply. Exactly how do we want to define ‘money supply’ and beginning at what instant in time?
Lenders seem to chart along their own unique history line, as if they were a unique sector of the economy, separate from the borrowing sector.
Michael Rulle
Aug 4 2022 at 7:06am
While counterfactual thinking is interesting in an abstract sense, I think it is a complete unknowable. I like to create an analogy to “leverage” . For example, it is “possible” that small counterfactual changes could have had enormous effects—-or conversely—-large counterfactuals could have had no effect.
I think it is certain that any counterfactual would have resulted in something different——but the big picture might not have ever changed.
One example that historians seem to all agree on is that the assassination of The Archduke Ferdinand did not “cause” WWI. Something else would have. How can they possibly know this? Or if true, would the nature of the war have been different——in a way that would have prevented Hitler? And so on.
Maybe there is something to learn from counterfactual thinking——-but predicting how outcomes would have changed is impossible to know——and
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