Journal of International Studies

Yesterday marked the 94th anniversary of one of the most significant turning points in American foreign policy history: the  Senate’s vote to reject the Treaty of Versailles . By coincidence, yesterday also saw  World Politics Review publish a piece I wrote entitled “ Backseat Driving: The Role of Congress in American Diplomacy .” Here is an excerpt to give you a flavor of the argument: Diplomacy in the American political system is frequently described as the exclusive province of presidents. Thomas Jefferson, America’s first secretary of state,  wrote in 1790 , “The transaction of business with foreign nations is executive altogether. . . . Exceptions are to be strictly construed.” A decade later, John Marshall, who would go on to become the most influential chief justice in U.S. history,  declared on the floor of the House of Representatives , “The president is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nat...

The attempt to play chicken with government operations and the nation's creditworthiness, and the shutdown and anxiety in financial markets resulting from the attempt,   already have harmed U.S. foreign relations and interests overseas . This is part of a much broader   array of major costs and damages that will be adding up for a long time. But if you are interested in avoiding an Iranian nuclear weapon—the focus of negotiations this week in Geneva—at least the way the crisis of governance in Washington ended provides a silver lining to this sorry chapter in American political history. This is because if President Obama is going to reach an agreement to keep the Iranian nuclear program peaceful and to make that agreement stick, he needs to demonstrate the ability and willingness to rein in destructive behavior in Congress that would preclude such an agreement. The administration will need Congressional cooperation to undo sanctions that were erected supposedly to indu...

The prospect of mutual disaster is a key feature of the chicken game. (Photo: theatlanticwire.com) The politics of the U.S. Congress can be harsh, but we do not usually associate it with the adversarial bargaining of international relations theory, much less with the tactics of “brinkmanship,” as Secretary of State John Foster Dulles used to call it. Times have changed. What we have been seeing in Washington these past few days is best described as brinkmanship or, in the terminology of game theory, the chicken game. Mathematicians and economists began using “game theory” back in the 1940s to examine how the strategic decisions of different players interact to shape outcomes. Different situations and their incentive structures were represented as stylized “games.” In the 1960s economist Thomas Schelling popularized the application of game theory to international politics, especially in the realm of deterrence theory, in the books Strategy of Conflict (1960) and Arms and Influen...