Rebutting Provocation: Decision Thresholds and Incentive Theory

The January 2016 Public Forum topic asks whether economic sanctions reduce the threat posed by Russia to Western interests. One common negative argument suggests that sanctions increase the threat posed by Russia in one of two ways: by provoking Russia into retributive action and by giving the Russian government an excuse on which to blame its policy failures.[1]

This Article argues that both arguments can be effectively rebutted solely using the offense that exists in most affirmative cases,[2] by using decision thresholds and incentive theory. Sanctions do not impact Russian interests and incentive in a vacuum; instead, sanctions likely form one part of a larger structural relationship between the West and Russia. Sanctions are a proverbial drop in a river whose flow and direction was long set before the imposition of sanctions.

Selection Effect

Sanctions are never the first step in a foreign policy decision. States that like each other – or that do not have some pre-existing level of tension – do not take the heavy-handed step of imposing coercive, economically harmful sanctions as a first measure precisely because sanctions are a serious remedy. Sanctions not only have serious material effects – the UN estimates US sanctions on Iraq slaughtered half a million children in a ten year period[3] – they also have serious symbolic effects. Sanctions symbolize that the sanctioning country believes the sanctioned country to be beyond reason and negotiation, and thus a resort to force is appropriate. As a matter of course, the sanctions themselves are often accompanied by public statements of condemnation that explain the reason for the sanctions. Sanctions thus send a relatively clear message: the sanctioned country needs punishment, and diplomatic dispute resolution is insufficient.

Because sanctions have such heavy-handed, serious implications, they are a late-game move. Tactical and diplomatic efforts – such as negotiations –have often been attempted and failed before sanctions are even considered.[4] By the time sanctions are on the table as a realistic option, there are often overt tensions between the sanctioning state and the sanctioned state. For example, the United States and Russia have been engaged in a mutual, escalating show of armed force that has repeatedly come close to war – about ten feet, at one point.[5] Sanctions are likelier to reflect hostile relationships than to produce them. By the time sanctions are introduced, the two involved countries already have a seriously soured relationship.

The distinction between reflecting tensions and producing tensions is critical to rebutting the provocation argument. If sanctions merely reflect existing tensions between the West and Russia, then Russia is already provoked. The insult and impact of sanctions is marginal when understood against the backdrop of pre-existing, rapidly escalating hostilities. Even if sanctions make Russia slightly angrier, that quantum of anger is unlikely to shift the direction of policy action. In other words, the decision to go to war with the U.S. likely does not turn on how many Russian assets have been frozen; it probably turns on how safe Russia feels from being bombed. To win the provocation argument, the negative must prove that their impacts are unique to sanctions – (1) that the status quo has not provoked Russia sufficiently to cause the impacts, (2) that sanctions provoke Russia in some way and to some degree that it has not already been provoked, and (3) that the marginal increase in provocation is likely to produce some impact. If the negative is missing even one of these components, their argument falls – Russian provocation was inevitable and not unique to sanctions.[6]

There are a variety of terms debaters can use to express this argument in rounds. Debaters could discuss the structural components of Western/Russian relations, including structurally incompatible disagreements about major global crises that make hostilities inevitable.[7] The concept of inevitability might also prove productive for affirmative debaters in cross-examination, who can ask what actions Russia took that it would not have taken but for the imposition of sanctions. Actions that were inevitable regardless of the imposition of sanctions are not caused by sanctions, even if sanctions helped them along.[8] Actions that would not have occurred without sanctions are the only actions uniquely caused by sanctions. Debaters making these responses to provocation should be ready to list other pre-existing actions that produce hostilities between the West and Russia.

Independently Sufficient Incentives

A related though distinct strain of argument examines the impact of independently sufficient incentives for Russia to act. Independently sufficient incentives are incentives that would – by themselves – motivate Russia to act, regardless of the existence of sanctions.

For a simplistic example, my favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip ice cream. If someone told me that they would give me fifty million dollars and a cup of mint chocolate chip ice cream to continue going to law school, I would definitely keep going to law school. Both the prospect of future career as a lawyer and the prospect of fifty million dollars are each independently sufficient to keep me going to law school. The ice cream is simply an extra perk to sweeten[9] the deal. The ice cream probably makes me some measure happier, but it has absolutely no effect in determining the actions I take. Whether I continue to go to law school is not dictated at all by the presence of ice cream in my life – those actions are set by the independently sufficient incentives I have, which accordingly overwhelm the negligible impact of the ice cream.

Russia’s investment in its current, belligerent foreign policy is similar to my investment in getting a juris doctor (and fifty million dollars) – significant and uncompromising. For a variety of security reasons, Russia puts a premium on having a territorial buffer zone around it, as well as having significant power projection capabilities in the region and surrounding regions. That includes what Pentagon Chief Ashton Carter has termed “nuclear saber-rattling” over the crisis in Syria.[10] Russia’s security interests in ensuring the friendly Assad regime remains in power probably set its Syria foreign policy in stone. That foreign policy sets Russia on course for a serious conflict with the U.S.[11] While sanctions might make it extra enjoyable for Russia to conflict with the U.S. over Syria, it is almost certain that Russia would follow its current course of actions regardless of whatever extra irritation is caused by sanctions. Sanctions thus do not change the course of action taken by Russia, even if they do provoke Russia, because Russia has independently sufficient incentives to act as it is regardless of sanctions.

The argument Russia backlashes using sanctions as a justificatory excuse to its domestic public is weak for the same reason: Russia has an independent incentive to exaggerate and even outright lie. The United States started the Vietnam War with a lie[12] about the attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin, which were used as a public rallying cry to support years of war in Vietnam. It is far from inconceivable that Russia would act similarly, if it chose to act against Western interests. The existence of propaganda attests to the willingness of states in general – and Russia specifically – to lie to their populations. In short, Russia does not need sanctions to demonize the West. If the governance structure in Russia wants to demonize the West, it will find a way to do so regardless of the existence of sanctions.

Conclusion

Champion debaters will think deeply about their opponents’ arguments. Many arguments levied about Russia’s foreign policy cannot withstand even cursory levels of scrutiny. This Article argues that the core negative provocation argument is one such argument. Because of their heavy-handed nature, sanctions likely indicate hostilities, rather than creating them. Further, to the extent sanctions do irritate Russia, Russia’s decisions almost certainly do not turn on the presence or absence of sanctions. Instead, they likely turn on Russia’s broader military goals and desires – it is foolhardy to suggest that Russia would abandon its desire for a territorial border zone because some citizens transiently lost access to their funds.

References

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[1] Commonly termed the “rally around the flag” effect, this portion of the argument is that political leaders seek scapegoats for their domestic policy failures, and sanctions make an easy and obvious scapegoat. The existence of a scapegoat functions to pacify otherwise angry portions of the citizenry and decreases the strength of claims against the state.

[2] While it is certainly desirable to have diversified sources of offense in the rebuttal, coverage issues may force limited or narrower responses. In those cases, it is useful to have a rebuttal that also functions as an extension of the affirmative case narrative.

[3] When I first read it, I was shocked to find out that the count of a half-million dead children was not from a fringe source. I was shocked because the idea that the United States slowly starved half a million children to death is – for any reason – horrifying and unjustifiable. Apparently such an action is horrifying, unjustifiable, and an accurate historical description of the U.S.’s 1990s foreign policy, according to the UN. People with the self-absorbed arrogance to ask why – in reference to the Middle East – “they” hate “us” have an answer: how could you not? http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/magazine/were-sanctions-right.html?pagewanted=all

[4] For example, the U.S. and Russia have consistently attempted (and failed) to negotiate an adequate solution to the crisis in Syria, and it seems unlikely that such negotiations will prove fruitful in the foreseeable future. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/19/vienna-talks-on-syria-will-fail-us-iranian-russian-interests-not-aligned

[5] Russian fighters came within ten feet of U.S. reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea which is – in airplane terms – way too close. http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/17/politics/russia-us-military-threats-rise-ukraine/

[6] The converse could also be true: provocation might have no impact. In other words, if flying bombers close to Russian airspace and literally threatening their territorial sovereignty doesn’t provoke backlash, why would sanctions?

[7] Andrej Krickovic and Yuval Weber argue, perhaps hyperbolically, that “a new Cold War with Russia is inevitable” because of structural interest conflicts that make mutual concessions impossible. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/09/30-new-cold-war-with-russia-krickovic-weber

[8] For example, sanctions might make Putin invading Ukraine that much sweeter because the invasion also defies the sanctions, but it is laughably improbable to think that the final straw for Putin was a financial pittance instead of the military threats and territorial incursions from the West. The icing on the cake does not a meal make.

[9] Literally sweetening it.

[10] http://rbth.com/2015/11/12/who-is-really-throwing-gasoline-on-rusia-us-relations_539753

[11] http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/syria-is-further-souring-us-russian-relations/538671.html

[12] Not an exaggeration – an unabashed, unqualified lie.