Drive It Like You Stole It: Military Aid, Arms Purchases, and Conflict Behavior

Transcription

1 Drive It Like You Stole It: Military Aid, Arms Purchases, and Conflict Behavior Jared Oestman & T. Clifton Morgan Department of Political Science Rice University 2017 Peace Science Society Conference Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 1

2 Research Question Research Question Do arms transfers promote interstate conflict? If so, how? Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 2

3 Research Question Research Question Do arms transfers promote interstate conflict? If so, how? Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 2

4 Motivation Motivation US weapons sales help outfit...forces in unstable regions on the verge of...conflict. -Federation of American Scientists 1 US military aid programs reduce the likelihood of conflict and war that could threaten the United States -U.S. Department of State 2 1 Source: 2 Source: Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 3

5 Motivation Motivation US weapons sales help outfit...forces in unstable regions on the verge of...conflict. -Federation of American Scientists 1 US military aid programs reduce the likelihood of conflict and war that could threaten the United States -U.S. Department of State 2 1 Source: 2 Source: Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 3

6 Literature Review Debate: Encouragement vs Restraint Arms transfers promote conflict (Craft and Smaldone, 2002; Pearson, Brzoska and Crantz, 1992) Heighten leader perceptions of military strength Offset costs of fighting for the recipient Arms transfers promote restraint (Kinsella and Tillema, 1995; Krause, 2004; Kinsella, 1998) Create regional and/or dyadic balances of power Deter opponents from attacking Arms dependence is associated with more cooperation and less conflict Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 4

7 Literature Review Debate: Encouragement vs Restraint Arms transfers promote conflict (Craft and Smaldone, 2002; Pearson, Brzoska and Crantz, 1992) Heighten leader perceptions of military strength Offset costs of fighting for the recipient Arms transfers promote restraint (Kinsella and Tillema, 1995; Krause, 2004; Kinsella, 1998) Create regional and/or dyadic balances of power Deter opponents from attacking Arms dependence is associated with more cooperation and less conflict Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 4

8 Literature Review Arms Dependence, Military Aid, and Cooperation Arms provided on a grant basis thought to be more conditional on good behavior (Kinsella, 1998) Yet, other studies have reveal agency problems due to fungilibity of aid (Kono and Montinola, 2013; Collier and Hoeffler, 2007) Recipients of high strategic value temper their cooperation with the donor (Sullivan, Tessman and Li, 2011) Use these resources to arm against opponents (Boutton, 2014) Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 5

9 More Motivation Motivation Ethiopia Influx of US military aid for counterterrorism Reoccuppied border with Eritrea Invaded Somalia Source: africanews.com Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 6

10 More Motivation Motivation Ethiopia Influx of US military aid for counterterrorism Reoccuppied border with Eritrea Invaded Somalia Source: africanews.com Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 6

11 More Motivation Motivation Ethiopia Influx of US military aid for counterterrorism Reoccuppied border with Eritrea Invaded Somalia Source: africanews.com Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 6

12 Contribution Contribution We disaggregate arms purchases and military aid Focus on foreign policy decisions made by the recipient The form in which arms are acquired matters Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 7

13 Theory Two-Good Theory of Foreign Policy (Palmer and Morgan, 2006) States: rational unitary actors Composite goods: Change and Maintenance Foreign policies: inputs that translate resources into goods Allocation decisions over inputs are determined by: Available resources for foreign policy Preferences over change and maintenance Relative efficiency of each input in producing good i Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 8

14 Theory Two Good Theory: Foreign policy inputs for a general good Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 9

15 Theory Two Good Theory: Foreign policy inputs for two goods Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 10

16 Theory Military Aid and Conflict Behavior Acts as a positive external shock (δ) on the recipient s arms expenditures Allows the recipient to allocate resources to other desirable policies that produce both goods H1: As the receipt of arms through military aid increases, the probability that the recipient reciprocates dispute behavior directed at it also increases H2: As the receipt of arms through military aid increases, the probability that the recipient initiates dispute behavior also increases Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 11

17 Theory Arms Purchases and Conflict Behavior Ceteris paribus, increases in arms purchases are a result of: Increased relative efficiency of that policy input in producing maintenance reduction in other maintenance inputs or... A shift in preferences for maintenance over change reduction in change inputs As efficiency in production of one good increases, the state re-allocates some resources toward the other good H3: Increases in foreign arms purchases minor decrease in the probability of dispute reciprocation H4: Increases in foreign arms purchases minor increase in the probability of dispute initiation Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 12

18 Research Design Research Design Sample: Initiation: All countries Reciprocation: Targeted disputes Estimation: Logistic regression via MLE Conflict Behavior (DV) Initiation: 1=Threat/display/or use of force at least once in year t, 0= No initiation Reciprocation: 1=Responds with threat/display/or use of force, 0= No reciprocation Data: COW Militarized Interstate Disputes Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 13

19 Research Design Research Design Military Aid (IV) Annual US Foreign Military Financing (t-1, logged) Data: US Overseas Loans and Grants Greenbook Arms Purchases (IV) Annual US Foreign Military Sales and Direct Commercial Sales (t-1, logged) Data: US Defense Security Cooperation Agency Historical Factbook Controls Resources: COW CINC score Military aid moving average (when IV=Arms purchases) US ally: ATOP Frequency of prior MIDs (when DV=Initiation) Democracy: Polity Time dependency: Cubic polynomials (Carter and Signorino, 2010) (when DV=Initiation) Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 14

20 Results DV 1. Reciprocation 2. Initiation 3. Reciprocation 4. Initiation ln(military Aid) (0.01) (0.009) ln(arms Purchases) (0.02) (0.01) Mil. Aid moving average (0.02) (0.01) CINC (5.8) (4.6) (6.24) (5.0) Democracy (0.15) (0.11) (0.18) (0.12) US Ally (0.15) (0.10) (0.16) (0.11) Prior Disputes (0.05) (0.05) Constant Num. obs p < 0.01, p < 0.05, p < 0.1 Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 15

21 Results Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 16

22 Results Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 17

23 Results Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 18

24 Results Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 19

25 Conclusion Conclusion Arms acquisitions generally affect recipient conflict behavior This is particularly noticeable when arms are subsidized through military aid Military aid acts as an exogenous shock on arms expenditure re-allocate resources toward other policies Arms purchased by the state are only weakly associated with conflict initiation Future work: Include data from non-us suppliers, account for overlap in military aid and arms purchases, identify whether such factors contribute to escalation of disputes to war. Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 20

26 Future Work Conclusion Include data from non-us suppliers Account for overlap in military aid and arms purchases Identify differences in effect on escalation to war Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 21

27 References Conclusion Boutton, Andrew US foreign aid, interstate rivalry, and incentives for counterterrorism cooperation. Journal of Peace Research 51(6): Carter, David B and Curtis S Signorino Back to the future: Modeling time dependence in binary data. Political Analysis 18(3): Collier, Paul and Anke Hoeffler Unintended consequences: does aid promote arms races? Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 69(1):1 27. Craft, Cassady and Joseph P Smaldone The arms trade and the incidence of political violence in sub-saharan Africa, Journal of Peace Research 39(6): Kinsella, David Arms transfer dependence and foreign policy conflict. Journal of Peace Research 35(1):7 23. Kinsella, David and Herbert K Tillema Arms and Aggression in the Middle East: Overt Military Interventions, Journal of Conflict Resolution 39(2): Kono, Daniel Yuichi and Gabriella R Montinola The uses and abuses of foreign aid: Development aid and military spending. Political Research Quarterly 66(3): Krause, Volker Hazardous Weapons? Effects of Arms Transfers and Defense Pacts on Militarized Disputes, International Interactions 30(4): Palmer, Glenn and T Clifton Morgan A theory of foreign policy. Princeton University Press. Pearson, Frederic S, Michael Brzoska and Christer Crantz The Effects of Arms Transfers on Wars and Peace Negotiations. Sullivan, Patricia L, Brock F Tessman and Xiaojun Li US military aid and recipient state cooperation. Foreign Policy Analysis 7(3): Oestman & Morgan Drive It Like You Stole It 22