A few hours before the Pentagon confirmed the presence of 10,000 North Korean soldiers on Russian territory, on October 28, the new Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, expressed concern about a “significant escalation” of the war in Ukraine. While the specter of the expansion of several hot spots on the globe makes certain specialists, like researcher Robert A. Manning, say that “the world today is an extremely unstable tinderbox”, other experts do not less prestigious postulate that there are tools within the reach of decision-makers to defuse most crises… This is in any case the thesis put forward by Erik Lin-Greenberg, associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). With L’Express, he reveals the different strategies that have proven their worth, but also the most risky ones. Because Erik Lin-Greenberg is certain: “Most rational leaders try to prevent escalation.” Even Vladimir Putin? Interview.
L’Express: Between the sending of North Korean troops to Russia and the mutual strikes between Israel and Iran, many observers are worried about an uncontrollable escalation of conflicts in the world. But, according to you, there are concrete means within the reach of decision-makers to defuse most crises…
Erik Lin-Greenberg: Absolutely. It goes without saying that this requires subtle calibration on the part of decision-makers, who must both send enough signals to make their adversaries understand that they are serious, but not go too far to prevent the latter from actually make the situation worse. A number of strategies have proven successful. Starting with the one described by political scientist Austin Carson in his book Secret Wars, which consists of proceeding “behind the scenes”, that is to say keeping, if possible, the attack secret and then responding in a way that is visible to the opposing government, but not to public opinion. This strategy has a big advantage: it puts pressure on the opposing camp while avoiding public demands for escalation – which is often the case, because an attack, when made public, always arouses emotion . This is how the United States reacted after the attack on an American drone by the Iranians in 2019. Instead of responding militarily in full view of everyone, the American camp chose to carry out a secret cyber action against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Just as in the 1950s, neither Moscow nor Washington revealed that Soviet pilots were engaged in an air war against the United States over Korea, in order to avoid public pressure. .
When the adversary’s attack cannot be kept secret, what strategy remains to prevent escalation?
There is more than one! In recent months, Israel and Iran have used several of them to avoid crossing the threshold of escalation towards a wider war. After the latest Israeli strikes, for example, Iranian President Massoud Pezechkian assured that his country was not seeking war, while ensuring that he wanted to defend “the rights of the nation and the country”. This kind of speech helps signal that a country is seeking to minimize escalation. Another strategy, used by Iran in April, consists of warning the adversary of the imminence of an attack. Because giving time allows to protect property and people by giving them the opportunity to take shelter, and a form of decompression – therefore moving away from the dangerous specter of the hot reaction.
But there is also the option of demonstrating one’s capabilities to the adversary through surgical strikes that cause little damage. Israelis excel at this. They demonstrated this after the Iranian missile attack in April by hitting a specific air defense radar without causing any casualties. It is a profitable strategy, because Israel has thus highlighted its technological capabilities while showing that it can penetrate Iranian airspace. Along the same lines, the location, timing and method of attack can also be very useful in managing escalation. If Israel had assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza and not in Tehran, Iranian officials would undoubtedly have considered this action less provocative and therefore less conducive to escalation…
What are the least effective de-escalation methods?
A risky strategy is to rely on proxies… This is also the one favored by Iran in the war in the Middle East. The problem is that states can sometimes lose control over what their proxies do – particularly if their proxies have different goals than the state supporting them. The actions of a proxy can therefore sometimes lead to escalation against their sponsors. If we are to believe an investigation carried out by the New York Times, the Iranian president did not necessarily want to take significant retaliatory measures following the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. But he was reportedly pushed to do so by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and, potentially, the Ayatollah, who feared losing their reputation with their proxies, notably Hezbollah.
Listening to you, we have the feeling that the possibility of an escalation towards war is only a question of applying more or less risky strategies. Can a conflict never escape the control of decision-makers?
This idea that war could sometimes be the result of an “accident” has been widely studied by historians and conflict specialists. Christopher Clark’s book The Sleepwalkers, which postulates that countries would have entered the war in 1914 like sleepwalkers, is a model of the genre… But to imagine that presidents could find themselves forced to enter into war, pushed by their armies or their public opinions is too simplistic. Even when a red line is crossed in an attack – large numbers of deaths, significant damage – conflict is not inevitable. How else can we explain that the deaths of three American soldiers in an Iranian-backed drone strike in January did not provoke a war between Washington and Tehran? Conflicts don’t happen by accident. These are thoughtful and calculated choices.
However, at a time of significant technological progress, some of the strategies you describe, such as responding to an attack without informing the public, can be complicated…
This is true, but policymakers can still shape the narrative in a way that promotes their goals. What can prevent a leader from keeping an attack and its response secret, for example open source investigations, leaks on social networks, can also help reverse the narrative. Look at what happened after the Israeli attack on an Iranian missile site. Tehran continued to claim the attack caused minimal damage, even after commercial satellite images of the missile site were released.
That being said, managing de-escalation is still more difficult today than in the past. Besides the technological aspect, the dependence on proxies is greater and the actors involved are more numerous… Think of the Cuban Missile Crisis. At the time, Soviet air defenses shot down an American stealth plane over Cuba without Moscow’s approval, and the United States considered responding with airstrikes. Enough to lead to open war! But at the time, the leaders involved had a much greater ability than today to control when information was made public.
From L’Express, the researcher at the Stimson Center and former advisor to the State Department Robert A. Manning argued that, at a time when the United States and South Korea do not have reliable diplomatic or military channels of communication with Pyongyang, “an error of calculation or interpretation could quickly occur.” Enough to lead to an escalation… What do you do with human errors of judgment?
But I completely agree with this idea! Misinterpretations have long been a scourge of international relations. A specialist in international relations, Robert Jervis, has also published a famous book, entitled Perceptions and Misperceptions in International Politics, which deals precisely with this question: what happens when you don’t understand what your opponent is doing? This can indeed lead to escalation. But, again, even if they do not understand each other, the leaders of each camp are not condemned to the logic of infinite action-reaction. At each stage of the climb, it is possible to say stop.
Most rational leaders try to prevent escalation. As international relations scholar James Fearon said, war is a “costly lottery.” We never know in advance who will win, tons of human and economic resources are invested… The very existence of a country can be compromised. So it’s obviously better to find ways to solve a problem without going through this step.
But are all leaders rational? We cannot say that Vladimir Putin seems afraid of this “expensive lottery”…
Rationality is a difficult concept to understand in political science. Ultimately, a manager considered irrational may still seek to limit risks. Just as an authoritarian leader like Putin doesn’t want to leave his office in a body bag. He doesn’t want to go too far in this war, because he’s afraid of risking what matters most to him: his power. And that means managing the escalation of conflict. The United States and its European partners did provide tanks to Ukraine, and there was no significant escalation at that time by Russia. Just as Putin did not try to enter NATO territory. For what ? Because he knows that the nuclear threat from NATO awaits him. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, we have witnessed several moments of escalation management between Russia and Ukraine. As Putin avoids crossing certain red lines, the United States and its allies have also refrained from supplying certain weapons to Ukraine at certain times…
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