Reputation for Resolve: How Leaders Signal Determination in International Politics

By Danielle L. Lupton

How do reputations form in international politics? What influence do these reputations have on the conduct of international affairs? In Reputation for Resolve, Danielle L. Lupton takes a new approach to answering these enduring and hotly debated questions by shifting the focus away from the reputations of countries and instead examining the reputations of individual leaders.

Lupton argues that new leaders establish personal reputations for resolve that are separate from the reputations of their predecessors and from the reputations of their states. Using innovative survey experiments and in-depth archival research, she finds that leaders acquire personal reputations for resolve based on their foreign policy statements and behavior. Reputation for Resolve shows that statements create expectations of how leaders will react to foreign policy crises in the future and that leaders who fail to meet expectations of resolute action face harsh reputational consequences.

Reputation for Resolve challenges the view that reputations do not matter in international politics. In sharp contrast, Lupton shows that the reputations for resolve of individual leaders influence the strategies statesmen pursue during diplomatic interactions and crises, and she delineates specific steps policymakers can take to avoid developing reputations for irresolute action. Lupton demonstrates that reputations for resolve do exist and can influence the conduct of international security. Thus, Reputation for Resolve reframes our understanding of the influence of leaders and their rhetoric on crisis bargaining and the role reputations play in international politics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781501747724

Book preview

Reputation for Resolve

How Leaders Signal Determination in International Politics

DANIELLE L. LUPTON

Cornell University Press

Ithaca and London

To Cosmin, Ann, Chris, and Bear

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. How Leaders Establish Reputations for Resolve

2. How Leader-Specific Reputations Form and Change across Repeated Interactions

3. How Contextual Factors Influence Leader-Specific Reputations

4. A Reputation for Resolute Action

5. A Reputation for Irresolute Action

Conclusion

Appendix A

Appendix B

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

2.1. Single leader survey experiment design

2.2. The effect of contextual information treatments on perceptions of resolve

2.3. The effect of leader information and contextual information treatments on perceptions of resolve

2.4. The interaction of leader statements and behavior

2.5. Additional influences on perceptions of resolve

3.1. Leader turnover survey experiment design

3.2. The effect of treatments on perceptions of resolve

Acknowledgments

This book would not be possible without the support and guidance of many people. I owe a large debt of gratitude to Joseph Grieco and Tim Büthe for their extensive and repeated feedback on various drafts of this work, as well as for their continued guidance throughout this process. Thank you also to Alexander Downes, Christopher Gelpi, Bruce Jentleson, and Peter Feaver for their many years of support.

Over the years, many other people provided invaluable feedback on portions of this book. Thank you to Bill Boettcher for his extensive comments on early drafts of the experiments presented in chapters 2 and 3. Amanda Murdie, James Scott, Thomas Preston, Wesley Renfro, and Steven Redd each gave me incredibly helpful feedback and notes on what would eventually become chapter 2. Thank you also to Keren Yarhi-Milo for reading an early draft of the manuscript and providing her comments, particularly on the theoretical contribution of the work. At Colgate, I am fortunate to be surrounded by wonderful colleagues. Thank you to Noah Dauber, Ed Fogarty, Dominika Koter, Navine Murshid, Illan Nam, and other members of the Junior Faculty Research Colloquium for their comments on the introduction and chapter 1. I also owe a great deal of thanks to Valerie Morkevičius for reading and providing extensive notes on a full draft of the manuscript before its submission. Thank you to my senior colleagues at Colgate, including Tim Byrnes, Fred Chernoff, and Nina Moore, for their support and guidance throughout this process. Thank you also to Cynthia Terrier for her assistance in many ways. Many other colleagues outside of my institution helped me with the writing of this book, whether by letting me bounce ideas off them or by providing support. This includes Jonathan Brown, Marina Henke, Jonathan Markowitz, and Eleonora Mattiaci, among others. My apologies to those whom I forgot to mention here. Thank you also to the archival staff at the Eisenhower Presidential Library for their help in locating and retrieving key documents central to the argument in chapter 4. Portions of chapter 2 were published as Signaling Resolve: Leaders, Reputations, and the Importance of Early Interactions, International Interactions 44, no. 1 (2018): 59–87, www.tandfonline.com.

I want to thank the series editors and reviewers for their extensive and constructive feedback. This book would not be what it is today without their fantastic comments, which greatly improved the manuscript. Thank you also to Roger Haydon for his detailed comments on various portions of this book and for his assistance throughout the process. This book would also not be possible without the financial support of several institutions. Thank you to the Duke University Graduate School, Duke University’s Social Science Research Institute, the Duke Program for the Study of Democracy, Institutions, and Political Economy, and the Robert K. Steel Fellowship Endowment at Duke University for funding to conduct the experiments presented in this book. Thank you also to Colgate University and Colgate’s Faculty Research Council for funding to support additional experimental surveys that served as critical robustness checks and for financial support to defray the costs of archival research. Thank you as well to the Eisenhower Foundation for its generous financial support to conduct research at the Eisenhower Presidential Library.

Finally, I would like to thank my family—to whom I dedicate this book. To my parents, Ann and Chris, thank you for always believing in me and for encouraging me to pursue my intellectual curiosity. Thank you also for all the sacrifices you have made for me. To my husband, Cosmin, thank you for your unwavering and total support. This is for you.

Introduction

Why Leaders and Their Reputations for Resolve Matter

In 1964, U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson justified the United States’ continued military involvement in Vietnam in reputational terms. Johnson feared that removing U.S. troops from the conflict would make him appear weak on national security and would injure his personal reputation for resolve, confiding to Senator Richard Russell: "If I lose it [Vietnam], I think that they’ll say I’ve lost. I’ve pulled in."¹ Johnson and his advisers further worried that any lack of firmness on America’s commitment to the war would undermine Johnson’s presidential campaign and signal weakness to the North Vietnamese and Chinese.² Indeed, U.S. decision makers during Vietnam so fervently believed in the reputational consequences of their actions that they continued to pour resources into the war, despite the mounting costs. As the conditions on the ground worsened, they believed it was even more important to signal their determination and to remain committed to their course of action. Thus, concern over reputation for resolve led U.S. policymakers to engage in an increasingly unpopular war and to continue to devote resources to a conflict they would ultimately lose.

The Vietnam War is not the only instance in which U.S. decision makers have acted to establish or preserve their reputations for resolve. In 1973, Richard Nixon viewed America’s airlift during the Yom Kippur War as a direct signal of his personal resolve in support of Israel.³ In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan believed sending military aid to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan would bolster his and America’s reputation for resolve, as it would show firmness and demonstrate our commitment to supporting those who opposed the Soviets.⁴ Thirty years later, Barack Obama framed his red line against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in reputational terms. In 2017, Donald Trump indicated he was investing in his personal reputation for resolve by sending a message to rogue states through his use of military strikes in Syria and Afghanistan, as well as in his harsh rhetoric toward North Korea.⁵

Even more so, U.S. decision makers are not alone in their belief that their reputations for resolve critically affect their ability to conduct foreign policy and achieve favorable outcomes abroad. In 1960, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru rejected China’s offer of compromise over the Aksai Chin in an effort to invest in his own reputation for firmness.⁶ In the 1980s, Soviet leaders were reluctant to end their military campaign in Afghanistan, as they feared that pulling out of the conflict would injure their personal reputations for resolve as well as that of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), echoing the logic of U.S. decision makers during Vietnam.⁷ After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian president Boris Yeltsin invested in his reputation for resolve by standing firm in direct negotiations with the United States, hoping his personal reputation could offset Russia’s recent loss of bargaining power.⁸ French president Jacques Chirac also directly put his personal reputation for resolve on the line in response to provocation against French peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast.⁹ Thus, U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger’s famous warning against underestimating or dismissing the value of reputation for resolve continues to resonate with leaders today.¹⁰

Yet, while policymakers believe their reputations for resolve matter, scholars of international politics intensely debate the extent to which reputations for resolve influence the conduct of international conflict and whether those reputations even exist to begin with. As a result, we still do not know how reputations for resolve form and what role past actions play in assessments of resolve; nor do we fully understand the extent to which such reputations meaningfully influence international politics. This book tackles both of these issues. In doing so, this book shows how leaders establish reputations for resolve through their statements and behavior, how these reputations are conditioned by the context in which leaders interact, and how these leader-specific reputations for resolve influence the conduct of international negotiations and crises.

Defining Reputation for Resolve: Why Leaders Care about Their Reputations

Leaders worry about their reputations for resolve because they believe certain reputations, such as a reputation for irresolute action, will make them and their states more vulnerable to international threats; but other reputations, such as a reputation for resolute action, will make them and their states more secure.¹¹ Broadly speaking, reputations are the subjective beliefs that actors use to predict the future behavior of others,¹² and they are rooted in the interpretation of an actor’s past behavior. Reputations, therefore, are perceptional rather than objective, and actors do not have direct control over their reputations.

While reputations are perceptions actors hold about each other, resolve is about an actor’s determination, firmness, or steadfastness of purpose.¹³ Resolute actors are those that are willing to incur costs in the pursuit of their goals. Within international security and foreign policy, these costs are most commonly—though not always—defined in terms of war fighting. Resolute actors are often characterized as those that are willing to risk war to achieve [their] objectives.¹⁴ More specifically, scholars have argued that resolute actors are those that are willing to initiate military action, to persevere in war despite mounting costs, or to inflict violence against another.¹⁵ In contrast, irresolute actors are those that are believed to be unwilling to accept these costs or to stand up to threats.¹⁶ Resolve, however, is not synonymous with obstinacy or militancy. Reputations for resolve are not purely based on an actor’s risk propensity, as demonstrating resolve should help states avoid war and propose settlements that the more resolute party finds acceptable. Yet, while we typically talk about resolve in dichotomous terms—an actor is either resolute or irresolute—actors can have varying levels of resolve and different intensities of reputation.

Reputation for resolve, therefore, is the belief others hold about an actor’s willingness to stand firm and face costs, based on that actor’s past behavior.¹⁷ And one can be more precise by clarifying whether an actor holds a reputation for resolute action or irresolute action and to what extent. A reputation for resolute action is the belief that an actor that stood firm and determined to a course of action in the past will continue to do so in the future, especially in a similar situation.¹⁸ According to deterrence theorists, actors that repeatedly follow through on their threats and promises and that stand up to international threats are perceived as more likely to maintain their commitments in the future and are viewed as more resolute and credible in their threats and promises.¹⁹ Theoretically, reputations for resolute action should make states less vulnerable to international threats and less attractive targets of aggression. If given the choice, a challenger (or aggressor) should prefer not to initiate a dispute with a target that was resolute in the past, as picking on a target with a reputation for resolute action can be risky for the challenger. Conversely, actors that repeatedly back down from international challenges or that fail to follow through on their threats will find it more difficult to convince others that their commitments are meaningful, and they will acquire reputations for lacking resolve.

Accordingly, an actor’s past behavior is indicative of its willingness to fight to protect its interests, maintain its commitments, and achieve its goals. An actor’s reputation for resolve helps others predict how that actor will behave in the future, as an actor’s past behavior reveals how characteristically resolute or irresolute that actor is.²⁰ Reputations for resolve, therefore, can help explain when international crises and disputes start, which actors are most likely to face international threats, and who will win international conflicts. Reputations for resolute action are so highly valued in principle that Thomas Schelling, the renowned deterrence theorist, famously asserted that reputation for resolve is one of the few things worth fighting for.²¹ And leaders continue to believe their reputations for resolve are influential to world politics.

The Puzzle: How Much Do Reputations Really Matter in International Politics?

Yet, despite this logic about the value of reputation for resolve and the clear importance leaders place on establishing and maintaining reputations for resolute action, the effect of these reputations is hotly and deeply debated. For decades, scholars have examined the question of how much reputations matter in international politics, but there has been no resolution to this question. Instead, the debate between reputation supporters and reputation skeptics is currently at a stalemate, leaving policymakers with little understanding of how to establish reputations for resolute action or the extent to which their reputations for resolve actually influence international politics.

On one side of this debate lie reputation supporters, who argue that reputations for resolve meaningfully impact the conduct of international security and present strong support for the underlying logic of reputation for resolve. In particular, supporters find that states that back down from international threats establish reputations for lacking resolve and are more vulnerable to international threats in the future, especially when repeated future interactions between a target and a challenger are likely.²² Before the Falklands War, for example, Britain demonstrated its unwillingness to use force to defend its colonial interests, leading Britain to establish a reputation for irresolute action, at least over colonial issues.²³ This then spurred the Argentinian Junta’s actions in the Falklands, as they believed Britain would again back down. Similarly, on the eve of World War II, Hitler took Britain’s actions at Munich as a signal that Britain, and its allies, would be unwilling to intervene in Western Europe. Just before invading Poland, Hitler reportedly told his generals, Our enemies are little worms. I saw them at Munich, suggesting a direct connection between past behavior and a reputation for irresolute action.²⁴

Supporters also find that states that demonstrate resolve by standing up to challenges are less vulnerable to international threats in the future and can issue more credible threats of their own.²⁵ Elli Lieberman, for example, argues that Israel established a reputation for resolute action during the Suez Crisis that successfully deterred Egypt from further provocation for over a decade.²⁶ States also willingly invest in their reputations for resolve, as they are less willing to capitulate to coercive threats when they believe they will be challenged again in the future.²⁷ A state that backed down in the past may even be more likely to initiate or escalate conflict in an attempt to recoup its poor reputation.²⁸ Thus, reputation supporters show a strong relationship between a state’s past behavior and its future vulnerability to international threats, confirming the logic of reputation for resolve.

On the other side of this debate, however, lies a vocal group of reputation skeptics, who broadly argue that reputations do not matter in international politics²⁹ and who criticize policymakers for their adherence to the cult of reputation.³⁰ These skeptics maintain that the costs of conflict are too high for policymakers to rely on a state’s past behavior when making decisions during international disputes. A state’s past actions, therefore, are not necessarily indicative of how it will behave in the future under a new set of circumstances. As a result, reputations and a state’s past behavior will have little effect on crisis bargaining.³¹ Instead, immediate determinants of conflict that change from crisis to crisis—such as strategic interest in an issue under dispute or relative military capability—are better predictors of how an actor will behave in a given situation.³² By focusing heavily on situational factors to explain perceptions of resolve, skeptics argue that reputations, as we traditionally think of them, do not in fact form, as these assessments are not characteristic in nature. Some skeptics even claim that reputations for resolve fail to exist in international politics because of the presence of anarchy and the necessity of states to assume the worst of each other.³³

Two prominent skeptics have most heavily influenced the conversation over the value of reputation for resolve. First, Jonathan Mercer argues the extent to which a state’s actions are attributed to the situation or to some dispositional characteristic (such as a state’s inherent level of resolve) is rooted in the observer’s relationship with that state and whether an action is considered desirable for the observer. The desirable actions of adversaries (that is, backing down) and allies (that is, standing firm) are attributed to the circumstances of a particular situation rather than that state’s characteristic disposition. Allies, therefore, may acquire reputations only for backing down, while adversaries may acquire reputations only for standing firm. Thus, reputations form only under certain conditions, and Mercer’s theory implies that policy-makers should not think there is a direct correspondence between their behavior and their reputation, contesting the underlying logic of reputation for resolve.³⁴

Second, Daryl Press maintains that assessments of resolve and credibility are driven by immediate determinants of conflict that change across crises and disputes, not by a state’s past actions.³⁵ According to Press’s current calculus theory, predictions of a state’s behavior are rooted in two key immediate determinants of conflict: power and interest. Assessments of resolve and credibility, therefore, are based on whether a state has the capability to follow through on its threats or promises and whether it has the strategic interest in doing so. States that threaten to engage in military conflicts they cannot reasonably win or states that appear to have little strategic interest at stake in a given situation are unlikely to be perceived as resolute and their threats will not be credible. Thus, for Press, it is the combination of relative power and communicated strategic interest in a particular dispute that determines assessments of resolve and credibility, not a state’s past actions.

Reputation skeptics take particular issue with the notion that backing down leads to a reputation for irresolute action and makes states more vulnerable to international threats in the future. Instead, they argue that states that back down do not suffer reputational consequences, at least internationally. Ted Hopf, for example, finds that Soviet assessments of U.S. credibility had little to do with the United States’ past behavior in peripheral regions of the world, as U.S. defeats (or victories) in the Third World did not substantively influence Soviet predictions of the United States’ future credibility.³⁶ Similarly, Press finds little evidence from World War II or the Cold War that backing down during crises negatively affects perceptions of credibility, and Mercer’s pre–World War I findings echo a similar result. Accordingly, reputation skeptics maintain that reputations for resolve have little influence on international conflict.

Skeptics, therefore, continue to argue that reputations do not matter, while supporters continue to present evidence that they do. Thus, despite decades of research on the issue and the repeated value that leaders place on establishing reputations for resolute action, we still do not know which factors are most critical to the formation of reputations for resolve or how much these reputations actually matter in international politics. Instead, we are left with important yet unanswered questions regarding whose resolve matters, how these reputations for resolve form in the first place, and what effect these reputations actually have on international security. This is disconcerting not only for scholars who want to understand the formation and influence of these reputations but also for policymakers who require strategies to make themselves and their states more secure from international threats. This, then, prompts the question: Are leaders wrong to believe that their reputations for resolve matter?

The Argument in Brief

Leaders are not foolish to believe that their reputations for resolve are important and affect their ability to achieve their foreign policy goals. While reputation supporters are correct to maintain that past actions and reputations critically influence the initiation and conduct of international conflict, the scholarly focus on the reputations of states ignores a crucial factor in understanding the role reputation for resolve plays in international politics: the reputations of individual leaders. By shifting the focus to the individual, I take a new approach to reputation for resolve, presenting a critical revision to reputational theory and challenging current approaches to reputation. In doing so, I break the stalemate between reputation supporters and skeptics, as I show that we have been looking in the wrong place to understand the formation and effects of reputation for resolve in international security.

In this book, I put forth and answer two critical research questions: (1) To what extent do leaders acquire individual reputations for resolve? (2) How do these reputations for resolve form and change across repeated interactions? Answering both of these questions is essential to identifying the conditions under which leaders acquire reputations for resolute or irresolute action, the extent to which they acquire these reputations, and how these reputations affect the conduct of foreign policy and international security. By addressing these questions, the theory I develop and test focuses on the processes by which individual leaders establish reputations for resolve from the very beginning of their tenures, illuminating the conditions under which different reputations form and further elucidating the influence of individual leaders on international politics.³⁷ In doing so, I bridge the gap between how policymakers view the importance of their reputations and how scholars primarily approach reputation for resolve.

Due to the effects of leadership transitions and the emergence of new world leaders, what leaders say and do early in their tenures crucially affects whether they acquire reputations for resolute or irresolute action and to what extent. This interaction between a leader’s early rhetoric and subsequent behavior is critical to the establishment of leader-specific reputations. Individual leaders, therefore, can acquire their own reputations for resolve that are separate from both the reputations of their predecessors and the reputations of their states. In other words, leader reputations are not equivalent to state reputations, and leaders may vary in their personal levels of resolve and in their ability to effectively communicate their resolve to outside observers.

Yet, the context in which leaders interact with each other further influences these leader-specific reputations. Here, context refers to the external conditions under which two leaders interact, and I focus on four key contextual factors identified by reputation skeptics and supporters as potentially salient to perceptions of resolve: the relative military capability of a leader’s state, state strategic interest in an issue under dispute, a preexisting state reputation for resolve, and the regime type of a leader’s state. Thus, we need to consider the influence of a leader’s own signals of resolve as well as these external factors if we want to understand how leaders acquire reputations and how the ability of leaders to convey their resolve may vary under different conditions. Indeed, leaders from certain states may find it more or less difficult to communicate their resolve and to establish reputations for resolute or irresolute action.

In testing this argument, I find that initial statements of resolve create expectations of future behavior, and leaders who fail to live up to expectations of resolute behavior acquire particularly strong reputations for irresolute action. Initial perceptions of resolve are also highly influential to later assessments of resolve, suggesting prudent leaders should work to effectively convey their determination early in their tenures. Yet, a leader’s statements and behavior are not the only influences on her reputation. Instead, both a preexisting state reputation for resolve and a state’s communicated interest in an issue under dispute consistently influence leader reputations. However, these two factors appear to be less influential to a leader’s reputation than a leader’s own statements and behavior.

Reputation skeptics, therefore, are correct to assert that state strategic interest, a key immediate determinant of conflict, can influence perceptions of resolve. However, these perceptions are predominantly rooted in a leader’s own rhetoric and past actions. Further evidence reveals that these leader-specific reputations can influence crisis bargaining and diplomatic behavior, as perceptions of a target leader’s resolve help challenger leaders decide which negotiating strategies they believe will be most successful in the future. In other words, leader-specific reputations for resolve matter during diplomatic interactions and crisis bargaining. Skeptics thus need to reconsider the value of past actions and reputations to international politics.

My argument and findings, therefore, reveal how leaders can best communicate their resolve during international interactions, how their ability to effectively convey resolve may vary under distinct conditions, and which strategies of communicating resolve are most likely to succeed in different circumstances. This, in turn, furthers our understanding of when leaders are more attractive targets of international threats based on their rhetoric, their past actions, and certain contextual factors. Not only are leaders capable of establishing independent reputations for resolve based on their conflict behavior, but their rhetoric and actions during diplomatic interactions and negotiations before international crises further influence their reputations. Accordingly, my findings expand our understanding of how broader diplomatic interactions between leaders, including at formal summits and conferences as well as across informal extended negotiations, contribute to these reputational assessments.

What leaders say, how they say it, and how they follow up these statements with concrete action profoundly and directly affect their reputations for resolve. The rhetorical and behavioral choices made by international leaders matter, as these choices directly affect how leaders view each other in terms of their resolve and how they react to each other during diplomatic interactions, negotiations, and international crises. Reputations for resolve are indeed an important element in international relations. Even more so, how leaders view each other’s resolve—and their accompanying reputations—is crucial to the conduct of international security and foreign policy.

Why Past Actions Still Matter

In arguing that a leader’s statements and past actions matter, I agree with reputation supporters that past actions contribute to reputational inferences and that reputations based on these past actions are important. Yet, given the arguments of reputation skeptics, readers may wonder why past actions should matter at all. In response, I maintain there are three critical overarching problems with the arguments, assumptions, and evidence proffered by reputation skeptics that necessitate the continued examination of the influence of past actions on international security.

First, skeptics oversimplify the logic of reputational theory, and reputation for resolve more specifically. They often pit past actions against capabilities, interests, or other situational factors, implying that either past actions or immediate determinants can influence perceptions of resolve and credibility, but that both cannot do so at the same time. Press, for example, situates his current calculus theory in opposition to the importance of past actions but fails to consider that these two approaches need not be diametrically opposed or mutually exclusive. In doing so, skeptics mis-specify the underlying logic of reputational theory. Reputation supporters do not argue that the influence of past actions necessitates that other factors are unimportant. Rather, they rightly maintain that assessments of resolve can be influenced by both dispositional and situational factors with the understanding that this inclusivity does not undermine the logic of reputation, its influence on international politics, or the role of past actions in these calculations.³⁸

Furthermore, these dispositional and situational factors can work in tandem to influence reputations, an interaction that skeptics often overlook. In particular, a state’s past actions can complement and signal a state’s interests. Yet, as Alex Weisiger and Keren Yarhi-Milo explain, reputation skeptics fail to fully consider how reputation and interests may interact or complement each other. Past actions are observable before a specific crisis and should be most influential during this time. However, once a crisis begins, information gleaned from past actions—reputations—will have been folded into the general assessment of interests, alongside other pertinent sources of information.³⁹ This can make it difficult to observe the existence and influence of a specific reputation in the case studies presented by reputation skeptics. Thus, the influence of power and interest does not necessarily negate the influence of past actions. Rather, one needs to consider a variety of factors, including past actions, to understand the formation and effects of reputation for resolve.

Second, skeptics often overstate the influence of situational factors, such as power and interest, during crisis bargaining. As Gregory Miller explains, Observers may be unaware of any constraints on an actor, thus assigning a reputation even to behavior that is situational, or they may underestimate the power of a situation and assign a reputation to another state even if situational constraints exist.⁴⁰ Similarly, such empirical reliance on the prominence of power and interest suggests this information is readily available. But as Frank Harvey and John Mitton note, Interests are not always obvious (or consistent), and a state’s willingness to use force is not necessarily clear or self-evident based on these factors.⁴¹ Indeed, the impact of immediate determinants of conflict is often outweighed by concerns about whether a state will face another crisis in the future, making a state’s past actions an important factor.⁴² In the case of Israel’s interactions with Lebanon, for example, capability and interests alone were not enough for successful deterrence. Israel’s lack of a reputation for resolve vis-à-vis Lebanon undermined its deterrence efforts against Hezbollah in the 2000s.⁴³ Similarly, relative capability and interest alone cannot explain the onset and outcome of recurrent crises across U.S.–North Korean relations, as one also needs to consider reputations for resolve, credibility, and honesty.⁴⁴

Furthermore, past actions remain influential even when there are only a few interactions between states. Such infrequent interactions may actually increase the relative influence of a state’s past actions precisely because each action contains more information about a state’s intentions.⁴⁵ Even more so, the influence of past actions and reputations may be heightened in periods of uncertainty, as this is when other information—such as that about power and interest—may be less readily available.⁴⁶ Theories that rely heavily on power and interest tend to assume these two factors complement each other without fully considering that they may actually pull in opposite directions—such as, argue Harvey and Mitton, in perceptions of U.S. credibility in Somalia and Bosnia.⁴⁷

Third, and most concerning, skeptics unduly dismiss or ignore evidence that supports the logic of reputational theory. Skeptics have largely taken their results as the definitive answer to