Use of naval force in crises: A theory of stratified crisis interaction. (Volumes I-III)

Previous studies of international crises have implicitly viewed all of the political and military interactions between the two sides as a single interaction sequence. This fails to capture the complexity of crisis interaction and crisis stability. The theory of stratified interaction developed in this dissertation states that crisis interaction occurs at three levels: political, strategic, and tactical. Interactions at each level evolve separately and can independently influence whether or not a crisis escalates to war.;The objective is to develop a differentiated theory of crisis interaction cast in the form of contingent generalizations that offer discriminating explanations for the occurrence of crisis stability problems. The method of structured, focused comparison is used to conduct empirical research on two sets of historical cases. The first set consists of four case studies of United States naval operations in crises: the 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The second set consists of four case studies of peacetime attacks on United States Navy ships: the 1964 Tonkin Gulf Incidents, the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, the 1968 North Korean seizure of the USS Pueblo, and the 1987 Iraqi attack on the USS Stark.;Structured comparison of these cases reveals that the stratified interaction model provides an accurate description of international crises. Tactical-level interactions normally are not under the direct direct control of national leaders, and under certain conditions can become decoupled from the political-military objectives and strategy of national leaders. Five patterns of tactical-level interactions are identified: parallel stratified interactions, momentary decoupling, decoupling followed by disengagement, decoupling followed by tactical-level escalation, and decoupling causing escalation at the strategic or political levels. The factors that can cause decoupling of tactical-level interactions and the factors that determine whether or not decoupled interactions escalate uncontrollably to war are identified. Additionally, three political-military tensions that can arise in crises are identified: tension between the needs of diplomatic bargaining and the needs of military operations, tension between the need for top-level control of military operations and the need for tactical-level flexibility and initiative, and tension between crisis military operations and readiness for wartime missions.