Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2009
Regimes are often preoccupied with maintaining their credibility. Great powers wish to convey to their allies the impression that they are not only strong but reliable. In limited adversary relationships, credibility is viewed as a resource to perpetuate and develop the more co-operative aspects of a fragile relationship. During war time, during the Cold War, or in other sharply adversarial relationships, leaders have an interest in conveying to their rivals a sense of what they consider important. Regimes also cherish credibility as part of their own self-image. There is yet another, more paradoxical, reason why credibility is valued: it can be used as a resource to achieve deception. On the occasions when statements are meant to deceive, the effort will not be effective if it is based on a reputation for thoroughgoing mendacity.
1 Thus we did not deal with such matters as Soviet oil and natural gas delivery commitments to Eastern Europe. On the change of Comecon oil prices in the aftermath of the 1963 OPEC oil price jump, see Zimmerman, William, ‘The Energy Crisis, Western “Stagflation”, and the Evolution of Soviet-East European Relations’, in Neuberger, Egon and Tyson, Laura, eds., Transmission and Response: Impact of International Economic Disturbances on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Elmsford, New York: Pergamon Press, 1980).Google Scholar
2 Zimmerman, William, ‘Distinguishing Advocacy and Policy in the Soviet Media: A Research Note’ (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Institute of Public Policy Studies, Discussion Paper No. 136).Google Scholar
3 Allison, Graham, Essence of Decision (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1971), pp. 49–51.Google Scholar
4 In this and later translations of extended quotes we have employed the Current Digest of the Soviet Press, checking the translation ourselves when necessary.
5 Leaders of communist states are far more accustomed to other, more esoteric communications.
6 Incentives for deception about nuclear war strategy are discussed in Richelson, Jeffrey T., ‘Soviet Strategic Doctrine and Limited Nuclear Operations’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, XXIII (1979), 326–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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8 An illustration of this type concerns emigration. On 14 December 1969, L. Berenshtein and M. Fridel published an article in Izvestia (‘Pod ch'iu dudku pliashut Sionisty’) which acknowledged that ‘some Soviet Jews, mainly the elderly’, were being allowed to leave the Soviet Union for Israel. When the migration began in the early 1960s the elderly were definitely over-represented. By the end of the decade the elderly represented a much lower proportion of the migrants, giving rise to Arab charges that the Soviet Union was aiding Israel by sending men and women who could fight in the Israeli army. By 1969, the statement by Berenshtein and Fridel was probably false. We are informed by Zvi Gitelman (a close student of the Soviet migration to Israel) that no age breakdown of the migrants prior to 1967 exists. For the years 1967–74 cumulative data are available, but a breakdown on a year-by-year basis is unavailable.
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