[Somehow I've accidentally blogged beyond the boundaries of nuclear weapons issues. Sorry.]

Niall Ferguson has an article in the current Foreign Affairs challenging traditional accounts of empire collapse as cyclical and gradual. Ferguson argues that large empires are necessarily complex: "made up of a very large number of interacting components that are asymmetrically organized." Large, complex systems, he argues, can collapse from relatively minor causes. Their end is not always tied to long-term trends, he says, and we tend to retrospectively provide evidence of looming collapse after the fact. "What matters most is that in such systems a relatively minor shock can cause a disproportionate - and sometimes fatal - disruption."

To support his view he argues that the Roman Empire, Ming Dynasty, Bourbon monarchy in France, Hapsburg Empire, Ottoman Empire, Romanov Empire, British Empire and Soviet empire all collapsed with startling suddenness. He goes on to posit that often the triggering event was an economic crisis and ends with dark warnings about America's current financial difficulties.

Ferguson's argument is arresting and outside the normal run of the mill, which is stimulating. It is certainly true that the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires disappeared suddenly after having existed for centuries. In some cases empires do seem to collapse with startling suddenness. But for the rest of his argument, Ferguson seems to have overreached. 

The Bourbon monarchy and Romanov empire did not collapse - although they did end suddenly. Both countries underwent revolutions, but other than a change in style of government, the "empire" remained essentially intact. Another objection: although France was a large and powerful nation, I'm not sure to what extent it makes sense to compare it to the other empires in these examples. Since there is an interesting Comment by Sheri Berman in the same issue that talks about the clever ways in which French rulers in the 1600s slowly centralized and unified their rule over France, it may be something of a stretch to call the France of 1789 "complex and asymmetrically organized." [No snarky comments about French bureaucracy, please.]

The British Empire also did not collapse in the sense of being overwhelmed by economic pressure or damage from a failed war. Rather it was overtaken by a worldwide shift in beliefs about what sort of colonial relationships were allowed. The fact that colonies from other countries - France, Belgium, Netherlands, and others - also emerged into freedom at the same time clearly demonstrates that this was not a British phenomenon connected with internal complexity in the British Empire's system of governance but rather a worldwide phenomenon.

Finally, the case that the collapse of the Roman Empire was sudden is difficult to make. The eastern half of the Empire certainly contracted only very slowly, contradicting Ferguson's thesis. There is also good evidence - in numbers of barbarian mercenaries hired and various other indicators - that Rome's decline was gradual and steady, even if the collapse came relatively swiftly.

Ferguson makes a good point that some empires collapse suddenly and there is often an economic component to that collapse, but (apparently) his eagerness to make a larger point leads him to do violence to the facts of history.

"Against Sloth" posts a comment wondering about reaction to the New York Times editorial recently on nuclear weapons.

Here's a link to the editorial. The Times says the posture review matters, which I think is true if you're trying to change doctrine. Not so much if you're just trying to continue the past.

The Times says that we should limit the purpose of nuclear weapons to deterring a nuclear attack on us or our allies. Most of the arguments on the side of more uses for nuclear weapons ignore the dangers of accident and escalation. Killing lots of civilians - which nuclear weapons tend to do no matter how carefully you try to use them - tends to prompt a desire for revenge. I think the Times is right and maybe doesn't go far enough.

The Times says that we should indicate a willingness to cut the number of weapons actively deployed to 1,000 (if the Russians will go down to 1,000, too). Strategically, there's not much difference between 2,200 (where we are) and 1,000. So it makes sense. I think we can go deeper, but that's me.

The Times says we should not build any new weapons or even suggest that we might. Since I think the difficulties with nuclear weapons are inherent (they're big and they spread radiation), I don't think it makes sense to tinker with variations of that same weapon.

The Times says we should take the weapons off hair-trigger alert now that the Cold War is over. This is too obviously sensible to merit comment.

Finally, they say that getting the posture review right is essential to progress on the NPT, getting ratification of a new START treaty, ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban, and negotiating with North Korea. I think the posture review only really has significance when you're changing direction. Even then, if the posture review sounds like the same old posture but you signal in other ways that you're changing course, the posture review probably wouldn't be controlling. So I think it's a little less essential than the Times does. But it matters.

One side note. The fact that the Review is delayed is good news for people who want change in nuclear weapons policy. And it follows a pattern. Obama is all about patiently letting people make mistakes. He gives them responsibility and then let's them do their best. He doesn't command the outcome from the beginning, that's the way a king acts (or a Decider) not a community organizer. But he will make you do it again if you get it wrong. 

Obama is all about responsibility. I will be surprised if the final posture review doesn't look very much like what he wanted to begin with.

Andy Grotto's excellent "Is Iran a Martyr State?" is now available on the web, here. 

Update on Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 09:09PM by Ward Wilson

Sorry. I did this in a hurry and didn't realize it's just the first part of the article. It's a good article. Worth the cost of the publication. I found my copy at a bookstore. [Of all things. Why they clutter up their shelves with this stuff instead of USA Today or Wedding Magazine, I cannot say.]

On Wednesday, February 17 at 12 noon, Ward Wilson will talk about “Exploring What Nuclear Weapons Do Best, Part II: Wars of Extermination” 

Precis:

Nuclear weapons are large, clumsy weapons that are badly matched to almost any everyday task. They are really ideal in only one role, which is killing people en masse. Having looked in depth at the limited use of this capability - i.e., using a handful of weapons to destroy one or a few cities - and found that it is unlikely to be effective, it makes sense to examine whether using nuclear weapons on a wider scale might be more useful.

Although high emotion is engendered by the threat of annihilation (which has clouded our debates and still clouds our discussions), little work has been done on the practical realities of wars of extermination. What is the history of wars of extermination? Are they common or rare? What is the likelihood of one occurring? And what, generally, are the consequences of wars of extermination? Does the victor benefit? Are their drawbacks? In short, is this a capability that it is valuable to have?

This event is open to the public.

221 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ, 2nd floor conference room. Lunch is provided.

Please RSVP gracec@princeton.edu by noon on Tuesday, February 16, if you are planning to attend so that they can order lunch appropriately.

I've been reading David R. Lake's "The Limits of Coercive Airpower" from the summer 2009 issue of International Security. It's an interesting analysis of the causes of the capitulation of Slobodan Milosevic in the conflict over Kosovo in 1998 and 1999. The Kosovo episode matters because it is often claimed by airpower advocates as clear evidence that a regime can be coerced by airpower alone.

What struck me about Lake's argument, however, was the way he talks about coercion. Here is his definition of coercion: "Coercion is the attempt to induce policy change in another entity through the issuance of threat." [Instead of "induce policy change" I would have said "take an action." By making policy the descriptor of what may be coerced you almost by definition limit coercion to governments of some sort. I think by most definitions of coercion individuals may be coerced as well.]

He goes on:

A target that does not believe it will pay a price or that fails to understand the potential consequences of noncompliance is unlikely to comply with the coercer's demands. To be effective, therefore, coercion requires that the target be able to make a rational assessment of its choices. Unless the target is concerned with the outcomes of its choices, has a preference ordering over those outcomes, and chooses policy based on anticipated outcomes, coercion is impossible.

This is a remarkable statement. Coercion is possible - by definition - only where a rational choice can be made. 

This strikes me as a peculiar definition of coercion. Mice that are trained in a lab with electrical shocks to prefer one form of behavior over another - they're rational?

William James says that human actions are usually motivated by an amalgam of thinking and feeling inextricably mixed together. My guess is that emotion plays an important role in coercion. Consider the following example: a ruler has 500 of his subjects captured. The bad guys threaten to kill one subject per day until the ruler agrees to turn over 100 pounds of gold to them. Or whatever. The ruler refuses and each day one subject is killed within sight of the ruler's walls. The ruler's resolution is strong, however. One day, however, the ruler's mother dies, it rains all day, and he falls down the stairs and hurts himself badly. The next morning, weighed down by grief, depressed by the weather, tortured by pain, the ruler submits and sends out the gold.

Did the ruler act rationally? Did the coercion work because of a rational weighing of costs? Is this scenario somehow wildly at odds with human behavior or extremely unlikely in some other way? Is this not coercion (because emotion affected the ruler's choice)?

Lake seems to be saying that any time a person chooses they are taking a purely rational action. Choice is, by definition, rational. This is not the way I understand choice at all.

Choice is the fateful selection of one action over another by a process that is as likely to be mysterious in retrospect as it was at the time. In many instances the only rational part of choosing is the rationalizing that goes on afterward in an attempt to convince ourselves that we had a reason for what we did. 

[In fact, this ex post facto rationalizing is a well-attested and closely studied phenomenon of human behavior. See, for example, chapters one and two of Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis.]

When someone says, "You're overwrought. Don't decide now. Wait until tomorrow and then see how you feel." We don't accuse such a person of talking gibberish or acting crazy. This is the sort of advice that is so unexceptional that it is a commonplace. These words make the place of emotion in decision making - and our acknowledgement of that place - clear.

 I find the way in which rational choice theorists blandly ignore considerable common sense and a fair amount of scientific research breathtaking.