Book Review - Trusting Enemies: Interpersonal Relationships in International Conflict
Trusting Enemies: Interpersonal Relationships in International Conflict by Nicholas J Wheeler. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018. 384 pp., £25.49 hardcover 9780199696475
Nicholas Wheeler’s publication of Trusting Enemies comes at a welcome time in international relations. Wheeler’s manuscript is a detailed analysis of trust-building between adversaries in international politics, and begins with methodological thoroughness in exploring the philosophical foundations upon which trust exists. The manuscript methodologically outlines how interpersonal contact between rival leaders is crucial in building trust. Wheeler’s analysis is supported with three empirical case studies: the Gorbachev-Reagan partnership, and the unsuccessful efforts to build trust between India and Pakistan, and between the US and Iran.
Whilst Wheeler’s theoretical exploration of trust-building is comprehensively argued, this reviewer finds that Trusting Enemies falls somewhat short in its explanatory power about the challenges of operationalizing the process of trust-building. Two gaps are apparent. The first of these limitations concerns the issue of betrayal. Whilst Wheeler incorporates a discussion of how a state’s perception of betrayal may derail efforts at trust-building, Trusting Enemies does not fully explain the perception held by a multitude of entities that perceive US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era as a ‘writ large’ reflection of Washington’s willingness to betray its negotiating partners. This was in part the result of the failure of US foreign policy to win the peace after the Cold War. Although Gorbachev’s foreign policy won plaudits in the eyes of the international community, it is likely that he will go down in history as an anomalous example of a leader willing to accept national humiliation and political demise. Whilst Gorbachev may have been sincere in his willingness to end the Cold War, it is unlikely that he would have been willing to embark on Glasnost and New Thinking, had he the benefit of hindsight in realizing that these policies would have unleashed socio-political forces that brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev’s policies arguably opened a can of worms that he had not anticipated. The USSR’s satellite states in Eastern Europe ousted their Communist leaders, and the USSR itself disintegrated. Moreover, Gorbachev’s policies aroused anger on the part of Communist Party establishment figures, who staged the August 1991 coup attempt at Gorbachev. Worse was to come for post-Communist Russia, with economic chaos and geostrategic impotence in the face of NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. Such repeated humiliations sparked off resurgent Russian nationalism, as seen in Vladimir Putin’s adoption of a strongly assertive foreign policy and support for the separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. It is notable that Gorbachev too has voiced support for Putin’s covert deployment of Russian special forces troops in Ukraine.
Thus, the extent to which the US-led transatlantic community failed to provide Russia with a stake in a stable post-Cold War order during the 1990s has likely led to a situation in which the prospect of US betrayal is a very real fate that may befall erstwhile adversaries of the US, even when Washington is led by an Administration genuinely willing to engage in trust-building. More recently, although the Obama Administration was able to forge the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran in 2015, the Trump Administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the agreement is a reminder to other adversaries of the US that arms control agreements with Washington are subject to the unpredictable changes that arise from the vagaries of the US election cycle.
In particular, weak states such as North Korea, are faced with the gargantuan power of the US military on their doorstep, under which circumstance they have less room for maneuver. For such small, weak states, their military weakness necessitates that they seek a fallback position for their own security. Material indices of power – in other words, military strength – are a far more critical variable than interpersonal dynamics. Yet, the US prioritization of enforcing the nuclear nonproliferation regime against North Korea means that, from Pyongyang’s perspective, their already-existing nuclear arsenal is the surest means of guaranteeing regime security. In light of the fate of non-nuclear regimes such as those of Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Gadaffi of Libya, the DPRK leadership recognizes the folly of dismantling their nuclear arsenal.
A second limitation to Wheeler’s findings concerns his emphasis on repeated interpersonal contact between rival statesmen as the basis for emotional bonding to build trust. Although Wheeler’s analysis is cogently developed, there is a practical obstacle to its operationalization. Where relations with a foreign state are already characterized by hostility, the political and security establishment of a country is generally reluctant to initiate face-to-face diplomacy with an adversary, lest such diplomatic outreach is seen by the other side as a sign of weakness. Not only would this damage their own foreign policy credibility in the eyes of the international community (amongst their own allies, and also amongst other foreign adversaries), such a show of weakness would also be condemned by conservative domestic critics as ‘appeasement’ of an untrustworthy rogue state. Under such circumstances, even when statesmen may be willing to consider a long-term improvement in relations, they may add numerous hurdles for that adversary to overcome, as a means of testing the waters for a long-term rapprochement that can be convincingly ‘sold’ to foreign allies and domestic critics.
Such calculations are evident in the hesitance with which successive US Administrations stalled on holding face-to-face summits with North Korea. Whilst the geostrategic importance of the USSR and the People’s Republic of China as rival superpowers meant that summits with Soviet and Chinese leaders could be sold to critics as a sign of statesmanship in safeguarding national security, successive US presidencies have been reluctant to hold comparable summit meetings with the leaders of North Korea, to deny Pyongyang a public relations opportunity that would demonstrate North Korea’s ability to stand up to the US as an equal at the negotiating table. The US foreign policy establishment is particularly sensitive to such an outcome as it would allow other adversaries of the US to gain negotiating leverage over the US.
It would thus be a mistake to view the June 2018 Singapore Summit between President Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un as an instance of establishing an interpersonal relationship based on trust. A rather more plausible explanation was that Kim Jong Un, concerned that Trump might have been reckless enough to start a war, but also cognizant of Trump’s naiveté, chose to undertake a series of delaying tactics to stall on denuclearization, in the expectation that Trump will leave office in 2021 and thus obviate Pyongyang’s obligation to denuclearize. For his part, Trump was presumably tempted into holding the summit by his belief that a de-escalation of the crisis offered an easy path to a Nobel Peace Prize, a symbolic high profile victory to counter his administration’s mounting controversies.
That said, these limitations should not be seen as undermining the impact of Wheeler’s theoretical contribution to the literature on building trust. Wheeler’s sophisticated analysis of the process of trust-building is to be praised for its comprehensive scope. If Trusting Enemies falls short in any way, it arises from the difficulties of extracting the implications of Wheeler’s case studies for the purpose of assembling an operational strategy in international politics. Wheeler’s work thus underscores the challenges and the importance of follow-up research on the difficulties in operationalizing Confidence and Security Building Measures.
Er-Win Tan is an Assistant Professor at Keimyung Adams College, Keimyung University, Daegu, Republic of Korea.
