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How to entrap your protector: Reassessing entrapment in light of the Crimean War crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2024

Tudor A. Onea Open the ORCID record for Tudor A. Onea [Opens in a new window]
Tudor A. Onea*
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Department of International Relations, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkiye
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Abstract

Recent scholarship often dismisses entrapment, arguing that there are hardly any identifiable cases; and that powerful states (protectors) can sidestep it by narrowing the treaty conditions under which they have to intervene to defend their weaker allies (protégés). Consequently, alliances and partnerships are nearly always considered risk-free assets. However, this paper argues that several types of entrapment are present. The paper is foremost concerned with classic entrapment, a type referring to a purposeful effort by the protégé to drag the protector into a conflict serving primarily the protégé’s interests. The protégé entraps the protector by placing itself deliberately in danger of defeat and by manipulating the protector’s domestic audience costs. Classic entrapment is likely to succeed under two conditions: (a) when the protégé’s allegiance confers the protector an advantage in a competition against other powerful states; and (b) in informal arrangements, in which there is no clear cut-off point to the protector’s commitment. The paper provides an illustration in the Ottoman Empire’s entrapment of Britain in the crisis preceding the Crimean War. The conclusion considers classic entrapment’s feasibility in present world politics, particularly in the context of Taiwan.

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Keywords

alliancesaudience costschain-gangingcrisisentrapment
Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , First View , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The British International Studies Association.

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References

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6 The Sublime Porte is the metonym for the Ottoman Empire, derived from the Topkapȋ palace’s gate.

7 France was not entrapped. Its intervention was caused by Napoleon III’s interest in an alliance with Britain against Russia, the main obstacle to revising the 1815 status quo. William Echard, Napoleon III and the Concert of Europe (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983).

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103 Note that the statement emphasises that British audiences would feel more strongly about deserting the Porte after having provided support in the first stages of the crisis.

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121 Available at: {https://foreignassistance.gov/}; available at: {https://www.state.gov/u-s-bilateral-relations-fact-sheets/}.

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124 Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Dangerous Strait: The US–Taiwan–China Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Thomas Christensen, Taylor Fravel, Bonnie Glaser, Andrew Nathan, and Jessica Chen Weiss, ‘How to avoid a war over Taiwan’, Foreign Affairs (13 October 2022).

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126 Brendan Rittenhouse Green and Caitlin Talmadge, ‘Then what? Assessing the military implications of Chinese control of Taiwan’, International Security, 47 (2022), pp. 7–45 (p. 21).

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