This chapter presents an institutional theory of miscalculation on the road to war. The central proposition is that leaders face a trade-off between good information and political security. This trade-off is discussed in two parts. The chapter first discusses the informational constraints faced by leaders contemplating beginning an international crisis, explaining why integrated institutions that feature inclusive and open information flows tend to deliver better information to leaders. The chapter then discusses the political logic by which many leaders choose to forgo integrated institutions in favor of institutional alternatives that deliver less complete and less accurate information but provide political protection from bureaucratic punishment.

Does the US administration exercise more informal influence over the World Bank when it has less control over US bilateral aid because of opposition from Congress? Replicating four studies of the World Bank, we show that years with a divided US government account for earlier findings of informal influence. This link between donor domestic politics and the exercise of influence in multilateral settings is important for understanding informality in international organizations and provides an alternate explanation to persistent questions about the role of international organizations in the international political economy.

Between 2006 and 2010, the bilateral relationship between Australia and Japan blossomed in new and important directions. Most significantly, Australia and Japan mobilised bilateralism into regional and global spheres, representing a balancing of relations in the areas of politics and security to complement the hitherto robust history of trade and investment. In an era of new security challenges and shifting geopolitical circumstances in the Asia–Pacific region and beyond, Australia and Japan included each other in their evolving regional diplomatic strategies. At the same time, political leaders in both countries dealt with the vexed issue of Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean by playing to the charged emotions prevalent in their respective domestic constituencies, while simultaneously sending a ‘business as usual’ message between officials. The disconnect between policy-makers’ pragmatism concerning the political situation in the partner nation, on the one hand, and popular outrage stoked by media reports and official statements, on the other, undermined the momentum achieved in the broader bilateral relationship.

This chapter describes the relationships between domestic political institutions and war. Moving beyond older debates comparing democracies and autocracies, it presents a conceptual structure for differentiating among different types of autocracies. Autocracies vary as either being personalist or non-personalist, and also as being led by either military officers or civilians. Personalist regimes are less constrained by domestic audience costs, and military leaders are more likely to embrace the effectiveness and legitimacy of using force. The likely onset and outcome of conflicts vary across autocracy types. The chapter explores other ideas linking domestic politics and war, including the diversionary theory of war, coup-proofing (when autocrats take steps to reduce their risk of being overthrown in a military coup d’état), and the marketplace of ideas (when foreign policy issues can be freely debated in government and society). The chapter applies many of these ideas to a quantitative study on what kinds of political systems are more likely to win their interstate wars, and a case study of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The Strategic Value Framework introduced in this chapter offers a unified explanation, linking macro- and micro-sectoral-level changes and continuities, of what appears to be contradictory and irreconcilable forces at work within globalizing countries. It first identifies historically and institutionally rooted values, objective and intersubjective in nature, which arise from state elite responses to political and economic pressures internal and external in nature experienced during significant moments of national consolidation. The perceived strategic value orientation evolves and transforms overtime; and interacts with sectoral structures and organization of institutions. The resultant dominant patterns of market governance vary by country and sector within country and filter the relative impacts of an open economy, global norms and international organizations, resource and factor endowments, regime type and political institutions, and national characteristics and domestic structures. The Strategic Value Framework is tested and substantiated with a multilevel comparative case research design, which systematically conducts across case and within case analysis at (time, country, sector, and company). The case studies leverage historical process-tracing and triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data, including in-depth interviews with state, subnational government, business, and industry stakeholders and primary and secondary documentation collected during extensive fieldwork.

This conclusion makes two arguments. First, it contends that containment strategies need sound “theories of change,” which are predictions about how the pressures of containment will compel the target state to change its behavior without the need for war. A robust theory of change is crucial for maintaining both strategic coherence and domestic political support for containment strategies. I explore this point with a comparison of Cold War and Iraqi containment strategies in which I show that the former policy had a robust theory of change while the latter did not. Second, the conclusion argues that US foreign policy-makers, politicians, and intellectuals have long interpreted the ultimate cause of other states' behavior as stemming from the nature of their political regimes. This type of thinking, inherent to certain strains of liberalism, has often pushed the United States to pursue total solutions by seeking to fundamentally change other states' regimes, as it did with Iraq.

Chapter 8 examines the Cold War during 1984, a presidential election year. It featured a dramatic shift in US foreign policy, as the need to avert a major crisis conjoined with domestic imperatives. The pragmatists grasped the symbiosis. If his ambition of reducing nuclear arms was to be realized, Reagan would need to win a second term. His immediate political interests would be served by forging a more flexible, constructive approach with Moscow. Reagan would now emphasize the peaceful side of “peace through strength” – a candidate who could be peacemaker and statesman. The chapter provides in-depth analysis of Reagan’s move toward the center. A string of new US initiatives were undertaken without any Soviet movement: Reagan’s conciliatory address on US–Soviet relations; the pursuit of new agreements with Moscow (diplomatic and military); the reversal of Carter’s 1980 sanctions; and a White House invitation to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Although these events did not yield a major diplomatic breakthrough, 1984 witnessed a thaw in US–Soviet relations, in which the sense of fear, paranoia, and distrust were eased. Orwellian scenarios did not come to pass.

Chapter 6 covers the first three months of 1983, which featured several important developments. By the mid-point of his first term, Reagan was facing a political crisis: an economic recession, a nationwide nuclear freeze movement, sagging approval ratings, heavy defeats in the midterm elections, and waning support for his military program. To counter the freeze movement and revive domestic support, Reagan would unveil a dramatic proposal for a space-based missile defense system, to protect the United States from nuclear attack. The Strategic Defense Initiative (or, to its critics, “Star Wars”) emerged as a major development in the story of the end of the Cold War. I explain the origins of SDI, arguing that the proposal stemmed from a domestic political crisis as much as strategic one. The chapter analyzes the Soviet response to SDI and the ramifications for the Cold War, as well as discussing Reagan’s famous “Evil Empire” speech of March 1983.

Chapter 4 covers the first year of Reagan’s presidency. Living up to conservative expectations, his administration embarked upon the most hardline, anti-communist agenda in at least two decades. To compel the Soviets to negotiate on arms control, Reagan would oversee the largest peacetime military buildup in American history. But there was little evidence of any strategy to complement the buildup. The Reagan administration engaged in anti-Soviet rhetoric, rejected the idea of a summit with Brezhnev, and refused to offer any serious arms control proposals. The confrontational approach raised US–Soviet tensions during 1981. This chapter also discusses Reagan’s support for the Contras in Nicaragua, which prompted resistance from Democrats in Congress, culminating in the Boland Amendment of late 1982. Finally, the chapter analyzes the crisis in Poland, which saw the imposition of martial law amid the movement led by Solidarity (a non-communist trade union). I discuss the complex factors behind Reagan’s response: his ideological beliefs, European–Soviet trade relations, the influence of the AFL-CIO, and conservative criticism.

Chapter 5 covers the second year of the Reagan administration, and the growing public concern over nuclear war. It discusses the rise of a major grassroots movement, which called for a freeze in the production, deployment, and testing of nuclear weapons by the US and the Soviet Union. The nuclear freeze campaign soon morphed into the largest peacetime peace movement in American history. The force of the movement would make foreign policy the political liability of the Reagan administration. Public demands for a “freeze” on nuclear weapons began to elicit support from within the Democratic Party. The freeze campaign, and a broader “peace movement,” became the Democrats’ most potent political weapon against Reagan’s conservative revolution. The chapter analyzes the administration’s struggle to combat the movement, and persuade the public of the benefits of its own strategy for reducing nuclear weapons. Among other aspects, it discusses Reagan unveiling of a START initiative. By late 1982, Reagan’s policies had raised tensions with Moscow, upset NATO allies, weakened support for his arms buildup, and generated antinuclear movements across America and Western Europe.

Chapter 3 covers the period from November 1979 through to the end of Carter’s presidency. On December 24, 1979, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan brought détente to a final, shuddering halt. Together with the US response (the force of which would surprise Moscow), it marked the beginning of a “second” Cold War. It was a conflict that grew more tense, dangerous, and unpredictable over the next four years. Afghanistan followed on the heels of one of the most humiliating episodes in modern US history. The Iran hostage crisis became headline news and struck an emotional chord with the American public. As election season began, Iran and Afghanistan played into the hands of Carter’s critics, who accused him of “weakness.” The world’s number one power, so they argued, could neither stem the tide of Soviet expansion nor bring home the captive Americans. The setbacks allowed political opponents such as Ronald Reagan to declare that the pursuit of SALT had been misguided all along. With criticism mounting, Carter would stake his credibility on a vigorous, alarmist response to the Soviet invasion. It was, he claimed, “the most serious threat to world peace since the Second World War.”

Chapter 2 examines the period from January to October 1979. Domestic troubles spiralled during Carter’s third year at the White House. An economic recession, mounting inflation (resulting from a new oil crisis), and intraparty disagreements all undermined support for the president. Together they conjured images of an administration in turmoil. As the year progressed, the idea of “national weakness” gained traction – invoked by opponents of Carter’s foreign and defense policies. In 1979 Carter came under further pressure to align foreign policy with his political needs. His decision to approve the production of the MX program appeared perverse in light of everything that had preceded it. Here was a notable policy departure, veering well beyond the sort of compromise or rhetorical device that Carter had been forced to deploy earlier in his presidency. Soon after, the bungled US response to the “discovery” of a Soviet brigade in Cuba undermined relations with Moscow, just weeks after the Vienna summit. The political maneuvering, and the administration’s mishandling of the episode, damaged the prospects for ratification of the SALT II Treaty.

Chapter 1 explores the first half of Jimmy Carter’s term as president, from January 1977 through to late 1978. The end of the “imperial presidency,” increased Congressional powers, and the rise of special interest groups complicated life for the new administration. Carter entered the White House amid wide conservative opposition to détente and his pursuit of a new SALT Treaty with the Soviet Union. He began placating critics of the SALT I agreement, particularly Henry Jackson, who had the potential to mobilize discontented, conservative Democrats and independents against a second SALT agreement, as well as Carter’s bid for a second term. The president courted Jackson and acted on his advice in 1977 as he pursued arms control negotiations with Moscow. When Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev rejected the US proposals, Carter changed his approach in order to straddle the demands of his conservative critics and the need to maintain a working relationship with the Kremlin. The chapter also discusses Carter’s decision to promote the cause of human rights in Eastern Europe, the normalization of relations with China, and the quest to ratify the Panama Canal treaties in Congress.

The introduction outlines the period known as the Second Cold War, circa 1979–85. It marked the end of the détente, and escalated into the most dangerous phase of the conflict since the Cuban Missile Crisis. As fears of nuclear war were raised, so the domestic schisms deepened. The largest peacetime military buildup was challenged by the largest peacetime peace movement. I discuss the reasons for the rise in US–Soviet tensions and explain how they were eased – even before the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. The preface highlights the role of domestic politics in shaping American foreign policy during the administrations of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Both presidents changed course – Carter becoming more hawkish; Reagan more open to negotiation – by the end of their first terms, pushed by international affairs yet simultaneously incentivized by potential domestic gains to be found within their transformation. These dramatic “reversals” helped lead to the rise and fall of the last great Cold War struggle. I argue that the convergence of the international and domestic agendas (the “intermestic”) is the key to understanding US decision-making.