Can we please stop using the word “embolden” to describe American policies with respect to our enemies?
“Embolden” has become a buzz word to attack the foreign policy maneuvers of political enemies here in the United States. President Bush used to say that withdrawing from Iraq would “embolden” the terrorists–and many Democrats pushed back by arguing that in fact the Iraq War itself had “emboldened” the terrorists. Just today Mitt Romney attacked Obama for “emboldening” North Korea by trying to engage with them diplomatically.
But what does “embolden” actually mean? The dictionary definition is to make bold, to give someone courage or confidence. But in the context of a strategic environment, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense.
To see why, imagine a game of chess. At any given point in a chess match, there are a small set of moves that will move a player towards success, (good moves) and a larger set of moves that will move that player closer to failure (bad moves). So now White does something to “embolden” Black. Black, now that they are “emboldened”, starts playing more aggressively. But remember, neither the set of good moves nor the set of bad moves has changed. Will being “emboldened” make Black play better? If the his aggressive behavior causes him to pick a good move, then maybe. But aggressive behavior could just as easily cause Black to make a bad move–to allow his aggression to cloud his reason or cause him to underestimate White.
So imagine that North Korea has become “emboldened”. That doesn’t change the underlying situation, or affect whether or not building an intercontinental ballistic missile is a good idea. They will either make a good move or a bad move, and they will do so based on the international strategic environment and on their own internal preferences.
To claim that “emboldening” your enemies is a bad thing, you have to assume that they are currently making a strategic error out of an irrational fear–and that the boldness will cause them to overcome that fear. It means that Romney is essentially saying “North Korea ought to be pushing forward with development of an ICBM, because we all know we aren’t going to do anything, but until Obama came along we were successfully bluffing them!” Except I don’t think Romney actually believes any part of that.
Words have to have meaning for us to effectively communicate with each other. When politicians use words like “embolden” to attack their opponents, it strips those words of their meaning; they become weapons to beat each other up with, instead of tools to facilitate understanding. That, in turn, just makes it a little bit harder for us voters to educate ourselves and make semi-informed choices.
I have two problems with this post. First, sticking within your framework, chess isn’t a great analogy because all the pieces are visible. Think instead about hearts. In this case, your opponent doesn’t know what your cards are. Depending on your cards, some moves are better moves than others. So, depending on which cards your opponent thinks you have, the set of strategies will differ. Your behaviors will signal the type of cards that you have. If your signalling gives the wrong impression, the opponent could make a bad move – importantly, that move could be bad for both you and your opponent. It might be worse for your opponent but the game isn’t necessarily zero sum. If North Korea misreads Obama’s conciliatory behavior as a sign that the US doesn’t have the military force to get involved in armed conflict, they may be more aggressive, forcing our hand towards military action. That would be catastrophic for North Korea, but would also be fairly bad for us.
But the bigger issue here is that you’re treating states as though they’re rational actors, which works great in game theoretic simulations, but hardly describes real world leaders. Real world leaders can be emotional, unstable, irrational, and in general human. They can get biased by sunk costs, entrapment, groupthink, or overconfidence. In the real world people are afraid to back down because they’ll lose face, even though the costs can be tremendous. Some people commit suicide to avoid the embarrassment of admitting failure, which is about as game theoretically non-strategic as one can get.
I don’t think Obama’s recent behavior will embolden North Korea, but at the same time, I think it’s even less plausible that North Korea is operating within the sort of strategic framework that you’ve mapped out.
I don’t disagree with you that there are plenty of irrational factors driving state behavior. But I think that affects my point. Politicians use “embolden” like it is universally a bad thing. In fact, if one were actually “emboldening” ones enemies, that is just as likely to cause them to make a strategic error as it is to cause them to make a strategically wise decision. That is true whether or not the actors involved are rational, nor even require that the game be zero-sum.
If a politician wanted to say “action X will likely embolden North Korea to act in such-and-such of way, which would be bad for American interests”; that would be a solid argument. But to simply assert, off hand, that emboldening one’s enemies is inherently bad for American interests is wrong.