No More Learning

14 Indeed, some writers assert that revolution is impossible so long as the armed forces re- tain their loyalty and cohesion. See Katherine C. Chorley, Armies and the Art ofRevolution (London: Faber and Faber, 1943); Jonathan R. Adelman, Revolution, Armies, and War: A Politi-
[22]
? A Theory ofRevolution and War
that most revolutionary movements are rapidly extinguished, and would- be revolutionaries often end up in prison, in exile, or dead. Indeed, it is per- haps more surprising that revolutions ever succeed.
The inherent difficulty of overthrowing an existing state is compounded by the familiar problems of collective action. 15 Because some of the benefits from a revolution are indivisible (once provided, they are available to all), individual citizens can profit from a revolution even if they do nothing to help bring it about. Moreover, each individual's contribution is too small to determine the outcome, so a rational actor would inevitably choose a "free ride" rather than incur the risks and costs of joining a revolutionary move- ment. Indeed, if people were motivated solely by self-interest and guided by an accurate assessment of costs and benefits, then the lack of willing partic- ipants would make revolutions impossible. 16
A number of scholars have suggested that revolutionary movements can overcome the free-rider problem by offering positive inducements or threatening negative sanctions. 17 Yet this explanation is only partly satis- fying. Although specific incentives such as food or protection may help convince uncommitted individuals to support a revolutionary move- ment, they do not explain either why individuals will risk their lives to expand the movement or how an organization gets started in the first place, before it was able to provide these benefits. Given the high proba- bility of failure and the risks that revolutionaries face, the payoffs would have to be enormous for joining a revolutionary movement to be a ratio-
? cal History (Boulder, Colo. : Lynne Rienner, 1985); Anthony James Joes, From the Barrel of a Gun: Armies and Revolutions (Washington, D. C. : Pergamon-Brassey's, 1986); and John Ellis, Armies in Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974).
15 See Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods lind the Theory of Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971); and Russell Hardin, Collective Action (Wash- ington, D. C. : Johns Hopkins University Press / Resources for the Future, 1982).
16 Applicationsofcollective-goodstheorytotheproblemofrevolutionincludeGordonTul- lock, "The Paradox of Revolution," Public Choice 11 (fall 1971); Philip G. Roeder, "Rational Revolution: Extensions of the 'By-Product' Model of Revolutionary Involvement," Western Political Quarterly 35, no. 1 (1982); Morris Silver, "Political Revolution and Repression: An Economic Approach," Public Choice 17 (spring 1974); Samuel L. Popkin, The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Revolution in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979); Michael Taylor, "RaJtionality and Revolutionary Collective Action," in Rationality and Revolu- tion, ed. Michael Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); James DeNardo, Power in Numbers: The Political Strategy of Protest and Rebellion (Princeton: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1985); Edward N. Muller and Karl-Dieter Opp, "Rational Choice and Rebellious Collective Action," AmericanPoliticalScienceReviewSo, no. 2 (1986); and Mark I. Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995).
17 See Jeffrey Race, "Toward an Exchange Theory of Revolution," in Peasant Rebellion and Communist Revolution in Asia, ed. John Wilson Lewis (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974); Joel S. Migdal, Peasants, Politics, and Revolution: Pressures toward Political and Social Change in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974); and the references in n. 16 above.
[23]
? Revolution and War
nal choice. 18 And testimony from several revolutionary leaders suggests that they did not expect to be rewarded at all. 19 According to Che Gue- vara, who lost his life trying to foment revolution in Bolivia, "Each guer- rilla must be prepared to die, not to defend an ideal, but to transform it into reality. " 20 So the puzzle remains: how do revolutionary movements convince potential members to bear the costs and risks of this activity, and how do revolutionaries sustain their commitment through pro- longed, difficult, and uncertain struggles? 21
Part of the answer lies in the possibility that participation in a revolution is motivated as much by moral commitments as by narrow self-interest. For those who believe that abolishing the present order is a moral imperative, individual benefits are secondary or irrelevant. 22More fundamentally, per- ceptions of costs and benefits ultimately rest on subjective beliefs about the consequences of different choices. If individuals believe that a revolution is possible and will bring them great benefits-irrespective of the actual pos- sibilities-they will be more likely to support it, particularly if they are also convinced that success requires their participation. 32 Revolutionary move-
18 As Charles Tilly notes, "why and how . . . the group committed from the start to funda- mental transformation of the structure of power . . . forms remains one of the mysteries of our time. " From Mobilization to Revolu tion, 203.
19 That revolutionaries are often surprised to gain power suggests that they were not mo- tivated by prospects of futUre gain. Lenin told a socialist youth group in January 1917, "We of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution," and the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega admitted that as late as July 1979, he did not expect to see the revolution succeed in Nicaragua. Ayatollah Khomeini was reportedly surprised by the speed with which the shah's regime collapsed as well. Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 1:131, 323; Robert Pastor, Condemned to Repetition: The United States and Nicaragua (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), xiv; and Marvin Zonis, "A Theory of Revolution from Ac- counts of the Revolution," World Politics 35, no. 4 (1983), 602.
20 Quoted in Robert Blackey, Revolutions and Revolutionists: A Comprehensive Guide to the Lit- erature (Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-Clio, 1982), 405.
21 "How do we account for . . . the willingness of people to engage in immense sacrifice with no evident possible gain (the endless parade of individuals and groups who have in- curred prison or death for abstract causes)? " Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Eco- nomic History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 1o-11.
22 Chamberlin describes Lenin's "intense faith" in Marxism in Russian Revolution, 1:135, 140. For a general discussion, see James B. Rule, Theories ofCivil Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 35-39.
23 Recent sodological research suggests that political organizations encourage collective ac- tion by promoting beliefs about the seriousness of the problem, the locus of causality or blame, the image of the opposition, and the efficacy of collective response. See David A. Snow, E. Burke Rochford, Jr. , Steven K. Worden, and Robert D. Benford, "Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation," American Sociological Review 51, no. 4 (1986); David A. Snow and Robert Benford, "Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Partici- pant Mobilization," in From Structure to Action: Comparing Soeial Movement Research across Cul- tures, ed. Bert Klandermans, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Sidney Tarrow (Greenwich, Conn. : JAI Press, 1988); and Jeffrey Berejikian, "Revolutionary Collective Action and the Agent-Structure Problem," American Political Science Review 86, no. 3 (1992), 652-55.
? ? A Theory ofRevolution and War
ments therefore try to convince potential members, first, that seeking to overthrow the existing order is the morally correct position; second, that doing so will bring significant benefits; and third, that the probability of success is high ifthey act.
Persuading uncommitted individuals of these "facts" is one of the princi- pal functions of a revolutionary ideology, either as a means of gaining the strength needed to challenge the old regime and overcome rival contenders for power or as an instrument for sustaining popular support and legit- imizing their subsequent right to rule. 24 Let us examine some of the forms that this all-important ideology can take.
An ideology is a normative theory of action. Ideologies "explain" prevail- ing social conditions and provide individuals with guidelines for how to react to them. In nonrevolutionary societies, for example, the dominant ide- ology discourages disobedience and free-riding by persuading citizens "to conceive of justice as coextensive with the existing rules, and accordingly, to obey them out of sense of morality," in the words of Douglass North. By contrast, "the objective of a successful counterideology is to convince peo- ple not only that the observed injustices are an inherent part of the system but also that a just system can come about only by active participation of in- dividuals in the system. " 25 Revolutionary ideologies present a critique of the current system (as Marx's analysis of capitalism did), together with a strat-
egy for replacing it. 26 In addition, North writes, a revolutionary ideology serves to "energize groups to behave contrary to a simple, hedonistic, indi- vidual calculus of costs and benefits. . . . Neither maintenance of the existing order nor its overthrow is possible without such behavior. " 27 To nourish this altruistic behavior, revolutionary ideologies tend to emphasize three key themes.
First, revolutionary groups usually portray opponents as intrinsically evil and incapable of meaningful reform. 28 This theme enhances the moral basis
24 Thus, Sandinista leader Humberto Ortega admitted having exaggerated the feasibility of revolution: "Trying to tell the masses that the cost was very high and that they should seek another way would have meant the defeat of the revolutionary movement. " Quoted in Tomas Borge et al. , Sandinistas Speak (New York: Pathfinder, 1982), 7o-71.
26 According to Mark Hagopian, "There are three structural aspects of revolutionary ideol- ogy: critique, which lays bare the shortcomings of the old regime; affirmation, which suggests or even spells out in detail that a better society is not only desirable but possible; and in re- cent times, strategic guidance, which tells the best way to make a revolution. " The Phenomenon ofRevolution (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1974), 258.
25 North,StructureandChange,53-54.
27 North, Structure and Change, 53-54. According to Ted Robert Gurr, "one of the most po- tent and enduring effects of 'revolutionary appeals' is to persuade men that political violence can provide value gains commensurate to or greater than its cost in risk and guilt. " Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 215-16.
28 Jack A. Goldstone, "The Comparative and Historical Study of Revolutions," Annual Re- view ofSociology 8 (1982), 203.
? ? ? Revolution and War
for revolutionary participation: if the current system is unjust and cannot be improved, then efforts at compromise are doomed, and revolution is the only acceptable alternative. It was this issue that ultimately separated Lenin and the Boisheviks from the "Economists" in Russia and from social demo- crats such as Karl Kautsky; where the latter believed that tsarism and capi- talism coulld be reformed, the Bolsheviks denied that compromise was possible and remained committed to overthrowing both. 29 Portraying ene- mies as irredeemably hostile can also strengthen the solidarity of the revo-
lutionary movement and enhance its discipline by making any ideological variations appear treasonous. Indeed, the tendency to view the world in Manichean terms can leave a revolutionary organization prone to fratricidal quarrels in which dissenters are castigated as traitors and blamed for any setbacks that occur. 30
This element of revolutionary ideologies is similar to the popular propa- ganda that emerges within nation-states during wartime, and for many of the same reasons. Revolutions and wars are violent and dangerous; in order to justify the costs that are inherent in both activities, leaders try to portray opponents as evil or subhuman. 31 After all, if one's enemies are truly wicked, then compromising with them would be both risky and immoral, and eliminating them forever may be worth a great sacrifice. In each case, compromise will give way to more radical solutions.
The second theme is that victory is inevitable. Arevolutionary movement will not get very far unless potential supporters believe their sacrifices will eventually bear fruit. Thus, revolutionary ideologies are inherently opti- mistic: they portray victory as inevitable despite what may appear to be overwhelming odds. To reinforce this belief, the ideology may invoke irre? sistible or divine forces to justify faith in victory. For Marxists, for example, the "laws" of history led inexorably toward proletarian revolutions and the establishment of socialism. 32 For Islamic fundamentalists, optimism rests on
faith in God. Revolutionaries may also cite the successes of earlier move- ments to sustain confidence in their own efforts; thus, the Sandinistas saw
29 Edward Hallett Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923 (New York: Macmillan, 195<>-5J), 1:11.
30 Lewis A. Coser, Greedy Institutions: Patterns of Undivided Commitment (New York: Free Press, 1974), 110.
31 For examples of this tendency, see John Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon, 1986); and John MacArthur, Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the GulfWar (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992).
32 Thus, the inaugural issue of The American Socialist, published by an obscure Trotskyite splinter group, proclaimed, "We are part of the stream' of history. We are confident of our future because we believe we have the correct understanding and tactic[s) and . . . the grit and tenacity to carry on. Do not anybody despair because of our small numbers. . . . We are like the American abolitionists of a hundred years ago. We are like Garrison and Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass and John Brown. " Quoted in Coser, Greedy Institutions,
. 111? 12.
[26]
? A Theory ofRevolution and War
Castro's victory in Cuba as evidence that their own efforts in Nicaragua could succeed. 33
Optimism can also be encouraged by dismissing an opponent's apparent superiority as illusory; Mao Tse-tung argued that "reactionaries" were "paper tigers," and Lenin described imperialism as containing both the power to dominate the globe and the seeds of its inevitable destruction at the hands of the proletariat. 34 Depicting opponents in this way is an obvious method for sustaining commitment within the movement: no matter how hopeless a situation appears to be, success is assured if the revolutionary forces simply persevere.
At the same time, the real difficulties of the struggle demand that revolu- tionary movements temper their optimism with elements of caution. Even if victory is inevitable, for instance, it may require heroic efforts and re- peated sacrifices. Such beliefs address the free-rider problem directly: if po- tential members are convinced that victory is inevitable regardless of whether they joined or not, then the temptation to let others bear the bur- dens of the struggle would be too strong. Thus, Mao warned his followers to "despise the enemy strategically while taking full acount of him tacti- cally": overcoming the enemy would require careful preparation and re- peated sacrifices, but victory was assured because the enemy was vulnerable. 35 lin the same way, Lenin warned his followers that faith in vic- tory should neither lead to overconfidence nor preclude setbacks and tacti- cal retreats along the path to power. 36
The worldview of most revolutionary movements will thus exhibit a strong tension between optimism and prudence. Two important questions, therefore, are which of these tendencies will exert the greatest influence on the perceptions and behavior of the new state, and how its external situation and the responses of other powers will affect the relative weight given to these competing imperatives.
The third key theme is an insistence that the revolution has universal meaning. Specifically, revolutionary movements often believe that the prin-
33 See the testimony in Dennis Gilbert, Sandinistas: The Party and the Revolution (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 5, 56.
34 Lenin "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism," in his Selected Works, 1:667-768.
35 Peter Van Ness, Revolu tion and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking's Supportfor Wars ofNational Liberation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 4o-41. Mao also told his followers that imperialism was "rotten and had no fUture" and "we have reason to despise them. " Yet he cautioned, "We should never take the enemy lightly . . . and concentrate all our strength for battle in order to win victory. " Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), 4:181; and Tang Tsou and Morton Halperin, "Mao Tse-tung's Revolutionary Strategy and Peking's International Behavior," American Political Science Review 59, no. 3 (1965), 89.
36 In 1919, Lenin warned, "We may suffer grave and sometimes even decisive defeats. . . . If, however, we use all the methods of struggle, victory will be certain. " Selected Works, J:41o-11.
? ? ? ? Revolution and War
ciples of the revolution are relevant for other societies and should not be confined within the boundaries of a single state. In extreme cases, the ideol- ogy may go so far as to reject the nation-state as a legitimate political unit and call for the eventual elimination of the state system itself.
That revolutionary ideologies contain universalist elements should not surprise us. If the failures of an old regime are the result of external forces such as tlhe "tyranny of kings," "capitalist exploitation," or "Western inter- ference," then action beyond the state's own borders may be necessary to eliminate these evils once and for all. Such views promise adherents an ad- ditional reward for their sacrifices: the revolution will not only be good for one's own society but will ultimately benefit others as well. Moreover, in order to attract popular support, revolutionary ideologists tend to portray their new political ideas as self-evident truths-creating a strong bias to- ward universalism. After all, how can a self-evident political principle be valid for one group but not others? Could the Jacobins argue that the "Rights of Man" applied only to the French? Could Marx's disciples claim that his inexorable "laws of history" were valid in Russia alone? Could the Iranian revolutionaries think that an Islamic republic was essential for Per- sians but not for other Muslims?
A few caveats are in order here. These ideological themes are neither nec- essary nor sufficient conditions for revolutionary success. One or more may be missing in some cases. Nor do revolutions automatically occur whenever some group adopts these ideological formulas. The likelihood of a revolutio:rll is also affected by a number of other conditions and by the old regime's abill- ity to respond to the challenge. 37 But it is striking that, as we shall see, the ide-
37 For macro theories of revolution, see Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions; and Jack A. Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press, 1991 ). On the importance of political opportunities, social networks, and mass com- munication in facilitating (revolutionary) collective action, see Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution, chaps. 3-4; Doug McAdam, "Micromobilization Contexts and Recruitment to Ac- tivism," in Klandersman, Kriesi, and Tarrow, From Structure to Action; and Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action, and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Susanne Lohmann has recently analyzed the problem of collective action as a signaling game in which decisions to rebel are based on an individual's personal "threshold ? or action" and the information he or she receives about the likelihood that others will act as welL Information indicating that the old regime has weakened will lower the ex- pected costs of protest and allow potential dissidents to send "costly" (i. e. , credible) signals of their own willingness to act. Under certain conditions, seemingly isolated acts of protest can produce a "cascade" of such information and trigger a sudden outburst of revolutionary activity.
See her article "Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989-91," World Politics 47, no. 1 (1994); as well as the related works by DeNardo, Power in Numbers; Dennis Chong, Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Mark Granovetter, "Threshold Models of Col- lective Behavior," American Journal ofSociology 83, no. 6 (1978); and Timur Kuran, "Sparks and Prairie Fires: ATheory of Unanticipated Revolution," Public Choice 61, no. 1 (1989). These per-
? ? spectives complement the focus on ideology I have adopted here. In my account, revolution-
? ? A Theory ofRevolution and War
ological programs of revolutionary movements as varied as those of the American Founding Fathers, the Russian and Chinese Communists, and the Iranian fundamentalists all incorporated variations on these three principles. Moreover, even when the social and organizational prerequisites are present, it is hard to imagine a mass revolution succeeding without some kind of ide- ological program that justifies revolt and also gives participants a reason to believe they will win. 38 In short, although the inherent difficulty of revolution and the logic of the free-rider problem do not require that revolutionary movements adopt these ideological formulas, such tenets are likely to give them an advantage over rivals who lack a similar set of ideas.
Revolutionary ideologies should not be seen as wholly different from other forms of political belief. Indeed, often they are simply more extreme versions of the patriotic ideals that established regimes use to encourage individual sacrifice. Just as states in war portray their enemies as evil, victory as certain, and their own goals as pure and idealistic ("to make the world safe for democracy," "to promote a new world order," etc. ), revolutionary movements encourage similar sacrific? s through the three ideological themes described above. Because the risks are great and the odds of success low, however, rev- olutionary movements will try to indoctrinate members even more enthusi-
astically than other states. And whereas states ordinarily abandon wartime propaganda when the conflict is over, revolutionary movements that face continued internal opposition may continue using the ideology as a mobi- lizational device even after the struggle for power has been won.
The elements of revolutionary ideology identified here will be most com- mon in mass revolutions. Because elite revolutions originate within ele- ments of the existing state bureaucracy and are usually less violent, they face less severe collective-action problems than other revolutionary move- ments. And because such revolutions ordinarily arise in response to the threat of foreign domination, elite leaders can rely primarily on nationalism to mobilize their followers and legitimize the seizure of power. As a result, elite revolutions present less fertile ground for the Manichean worldview and universalistic ambitions that mass revolutions often foster.
By definition, revolutions are conducted by movements that oppose the policies of the old regime. If they succeed in taking power, they invariably attempt to implement policies designed to correct the objectionable features of the old order. Thus, all revolutions entail the emergence of a new state
ary ideologies seek to lower the individual threshold for rebellion by portraying the existing regime as evil and doomed to defeat. In other words, revolutionary ideologies try to create conditions in which an "informational cascade" is more likely to occur.
38 According to Franz Borkenau, "if violence is the father of every great upheaval, its mother is illusion. The belief which is always reborn in every great and decisive historical struggle is that this is the last fight, that after this struggle all poverty, all suffering, all op- pression will be a thing of the past. " "State and Revolution," 74-75.
? ? ? ? Revolution and War
whose preferences differ in important ways from those of the old regime. The new government is virtually certain to adopt new domestic and foreign policies, even at the risk of provoking both internal and external opposition.
The revollutionary process will shape the perceptions of the new ruling elite as well. The ideologies of many revolutionary movements describe op- ponents as incorrigibly evil and destined for the dustbin of history. As we shall see, this trait encourages them to assume the worst about their enemies and intensifies each side's perceptions of threat. This is most true of mass revolutions, but elements of these ideas appear in elite revolutions are well.
Uncertainty and Misinformation
In the wake of revolutions, uncertainty about the balance of power grows, and so does the danger of war via miscalculation. Estimating intentions is harder, and prior commitments and understandings are called into question as soon as the new leaders take power.
Other states are equally uncertain about the new regime's true aims and its willingness to bear costs and run risks; the old regime's reputation for credi- bility, restraint, prudence, and so on is of little or no use. Thus, other states have to start from scratch in gauging how the new regime is likely to behave. The same is also true in reverse: the new regime cannot know exactly how others will respond, although it can use their past behavior as a rough guide to their future conduct. These conditions magnify the importance of ideol- ogy. Lacking direct experience, the revolutionary regime will rely on its ide- ology to predict how others will behave, while the other powers will use the same ideology as a guide to the likely conduct of the new regime.
The problem of uncertainty is not confined to relations between the revo- lutionary state and other powers. In addition, states observing a revolution cannot know how other actors in the system will respond to it. Revolutions thus exert direct and indirect effects on the foreign policies of other states, which must respond both to the new regime and to the uncertain reactions of the entire international community.
Third, revolutions exert unpredictable effects on other societies. As dis- cussed at greater length below, a central issue in the aftermath of a revolu- tion is the likelihood of its spreading to other states. The question of whether (or how easily) it will spread is of tremendous importance to both sides, yet neither side can form a reliable answer. This problem stems partly from sheer ignorance about political conditions in other countries but even more importantly from the fundamental incalculability of a revo- lutionary upheaval. As Timur Kuran has shown, an individual's willing- ness to rebel is a form of private information that cannot be reliably estimated in advance, especially when there is a threat of repression, giving the potential revolutionaries a strong incentive to misrepresent their true
? ? ? ? ? A Theory ofRevolution and War
preferences. 39 As a result, neither the new revolutionary regime nor its po- tential adversaries can obtain an accurate assessment of the odds that the revolution will move beyond its original borders, a situation creating addi- tional room for miscalculation. And because an individual's true level of support (or opposition) to the new regime cannot be directly observed, nei- ther the new regime nor its foreign counterparts can estimate either its own popularity or the likelihood of counterrevolution.
Unfortunately, the available evidence on these issues is virtually certain to be ambiguous. Amass revolution will always attract some adherents in other countries. . ,-thereby supporting the new regime's hopes and its neighbors' worries-but neither side will know if these sympathizers are merely iso- lated extremists or the tip of a subversive iceberg. Similarly, there will almost always be some evidence of internal resistance after a revolution, yet neither the new regime nor its adversaries will know how strong or widespread such sentiments are. Because these appraisals are central to each side's decisions
and yet unreliable at best, the danger of miscalculation is especially severe. To make matters even worse, the information that both sides receive is likely to be biased by the transnational migration of exiles and revolution- ary sympathizers. Revolutions invariably produce a large population of ex- iles who flee abroad to escape its consequences. 40 Many of them are members of the old regime, and therefore hostile to the revolutionary gov- ernment and eager to return to power. They tend to settle in countries that are sympathetic to their plight, where they may try to obtain foreign assis- tance for their counterrevolutionary efforts. To do so, they will portray the new regime as a grave threat to other states and will stress its potential vul- nerability to counterrevolutionary action. Moreover, despite their obvious biases, exiles are often seen as experts on conditions in their home country at a time when other sources of information are scarce, so their testimony is overvalued. 41 In much the same way, revolutionary sympathizers flock to
39 See Timur Kuran, "Sparks and Prairie Fires," and "Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the Revolutions of 1989,'' World Politics 44, no. 3 . (1991); but see also Nikki Keddie, "Can Revolutions Be Predicted; Can Their Causes Be Understood? " Contention 1, no. 2 (1992); and Jack A . Goldstone, "Predicting Revolutions: Why We Could (and Should) Have Foreseen the Revolutions of 1989-91 in the USSR and Eastern Europe," Contention 2, no. 2 (1993).
40 Yossi Shain, The Frontier of Loyalty: Political Exiles in the Age of the Nation-State (Middle- town, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press, 1989).
41 This is not a new phenomenon. As Machiavelli observed: "How vain the faith and promises of men are who are exiles from their own country. . . . Whenever they can return to their country by other means than your assistance, they will abandon you and look to the other means, regardless of their promises to you. . . . Such is their extreme desire to return to their homes that they naturally believe many things that are not true, and add many others on purpose; so that, with what they really believe and what they say they believe, they will fill you with hopes to that degree that if you attempt to act upon them, you will incur a fruit- less expense, or engage in an undertaking that will involve you in ruin. " The Prince and the Discourses (New York: Modem Library, 1950), 388-89.
[31]
? Revolution and War
the new capital after the revolution, eager to learn from its experiences, lend support to its efforts, or seek assistance for their own struggles. 42 Such groups portray their home countries as both hostile and ripe for revolution, in order to obtain external support for their efforts. In the revolutionary state, these newcomers are regarded as having special knowledge about conditions lback home, despite their obvious interest in providing a dis- torted picture. The two-way, parallel migration of exiles and sympathizers is a feature of most revolutions, and it increases the danger that each sides' perceptions and policies will be based on biased evidence.
Finally, revolutions damage the normal channels of communication be- tween states at precisely the time when the need for accurate information is greatest, hindering even more the ability of both sides to understand the infor- mation they do have. Diplomatic representatives are often withdrawn or re- placed and intelligence networks disrupted, making it more difficult for each side to determine what the other is doing and why. A shortage of adequate fa- cilities and trained personnel can also impair the new regime's ability to eval- uate others' conduct and to communicate its intentions. These various sources of uncertainty enhance the probability of miscalculation, as we shall see.
In sum, the process of revolution exerts a profound influence on the state that emerges from it, as well as its peers. Revolutions reduce a state's capabil- ities in the short term (although they often produce dramatic increases over time). Revo]utionary movements are often based on optimistic and univer- salistic ideologies that portray opponents as irredeemably hostile, and they come to power in circumstances where accurate information about capabili- ties, intentions, and future prospects is difficult or impossible to obtain. These characteristics help explain how revolutions encourage international conflict.
WHY REVOLUTIONS CAUSE CONFLICT AND WAR The Balance of Power and Windows of Opportunity
By altering the balance of power, revolutions intensify the security com- petition between states in at least two ways. First, other states may see the revolutionary state's weakness as an opportunity to improve their relative positions-either by seizing valuable territory or by seeking important diplomatic concessions-or as a chance to attack a state that was previously protected by the old regime. In either case, the revolution creates a window of opportunity for others to exploit.
42 Examples are ubiquitous: the American Thomas Paine traveled to France in the 1 790s, along with would-be revolutionaries from the rest of Europe, and socialists such as John Reed, Louise Bryant, and Emma Goldman journeyed to Russia after the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. Havana, Tehran, and Managua have been minor meccas for foreign revolu- tionaries as well.
? ? A Theory ofRevolution and War
Second, revolutions can exacerbate security competition among other states. If a foreign power becomes concerned that one of its rivals will take advantage of the revolution in order to improve its own position, the for- eign power may be forced to take action either to obtain spoils for itself or to prevent its rival from doing the same thing. Thus, the window of opportu- nity created by the revolution may inspire conflict among third parties so that they intervene, even if they have no particular quarrel with the new regimeY
Ideology, Intentions, and Spirals of Suspicion
The movements that revolutions bring to power are by definition opposed to most (if not all) of the policies of the old regime. States with close ties to the old regime will naturally view the revolution as potentially dangerous and its new initiatives as a threat to their own interests. For purely rational reasons, therefore, revolutionary states and foreign powers are likely to experience sharp conflicts of interest and to regard each other's intentions with suspicion.
In addition, actions that one state takes to increase its security-such as strengthening its military forces-will tend to reduce the security of other states. 44 The other states may consequently exaggerate the hostility or ag- gressiveness of their adversary, thereby inflating the level of threat even more. The resulting spiral of suspicion raises the odds of war, as compro- mise appears infeasible and both sides begin to search for some way to elim- inate the threat entirely. 45
Revolutionary states are prone to spirals of suspicion for several reasons.
First, as noted above, a revolutionary regime will be unsure about other states' intentions, simply because it has little or no direct experience in deal- ing with them. Lacking direct evidence, it will fall back on ideology, which in most revolutionary situations tends to portray opponents as incorrigibly hostile. 46 Thus, even a mild diplomatic dispute is likely to escalate. Conces-
43 Jennifer Bailey, "Revolution in the International System," in Superpowers and Revolution, ed. Jonathan Adelman (New York: Praeger, 1986), 19.
44 This is the familiar security dilemma identified by John Herz in "Idealist International- ism and the Secu[ity Dilemma," World Politics 2, no. 2 (1950). See also Jervis, "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma. "
45 Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), chap. 3? For important refinements to Jervis's presentation, see Charles L. Glaser, "The Political Consequences of Military Strategy: Expanding the Spiral and Deterrence Models," World Politics 44, no. 4 (1992). ;
46 Thus, at the end of World War I, Lenin predicted that , world capital will now start an of- fensive against us. " Quoted in Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 2:155-56. He also told the Third Comintern Congress in June 1921 that "the international bourgeoisie . . . is waiting, al- ways on the lookout for the moment when conditions will permit the renewal of this war" with Soviet Russia. Quoted in Leites, Study ofBolshevism, 405.
[331
? Revolution and War
sions may be viewed with skepticism, because conflict is seen as inevitable and compromise as naive or even dangerous.
Second, revolutionary regimes may harbor suspicions based on historical experience. If the revolutionary leaders are eager to redress past wrongs (as is generally the case), they will be especially wary of the foreign powers they hold responsible for earlier transgressions. Thus, Mao Tse-tung's sus- picions of the United States were based in part on past Western interference in China, and revolutionary forces in Mexico, Nicaragua, and Iran preoccu- pied themselves with the possibility of U. S. intervention for similar rea- sons. 47
Under these conditions, revolutionary regimes, assuming the worst about other states, will interpret ambiguous or inconsistent policies in a negative light. Threats and signs of opposition simply confirm the impression of hos- tility, while concessions and signs of approval are regarded as insincere ges- tures masking the opponent's true intentions. 48 Unfortunately, the other states' policies are almost sure to be ambiguous, if only because it takes time for them to decide how to respond to the new situation. This problem is compounded by the difficulty of trying to understand the new political order, by the states' ignorance of the background and beliefs of the new regime, and by the obstacles to obtaining reliable information. Even when foreign powers are not especially hostile, therefore, some of their actions and statements will probably reinforce the suspicions of the revolutionary regime.
Third, a spiral of suspicion will be more likely if the elite (or a faction within it) exaggerates a foreign threat in order to improve its internal posi- tion, exploiting it either to rally nationalist support for the new leaders or to justify harsh measures against their internal opponents. Such exaggerations will be especially effective when there is some truth to the accusations: for example, if foreign powers that had been allied with the old regime now seem to be suspicious of the new government. This tactic can be dangerous if it magnifies a conflict that might otherwise have been avoided or mini- mized, but the risk can be reduced if the revolutionary elite continues to base its policy decisions on its true assessment of others' intentions rather than the myth it has manufactured. Maintaining such fine control is tricky, however. Even if the revolutionary leadership knows the myths to be myths, the campaign may be so convincing that it becomes the basis for pol- icy. Moreover, efforts to enhance domestic support by exaggerating external threats can be self-fulfilling: if foreign powers do not recognize the real mo-
47 See Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, 4:447-50; Gilbert, Sandinistas, 153-75; and James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy ofAmerican-Iranian Relations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 96-97.
48 On the tendency to fit ambiguous information into existing beliefs, see Jervis, Perception and Misperception, 143-54.
? ? ? A Theory of Revolution and War
tive behind such a campaign, they will take the revolutionary state's accu- sations at face value and conduct themselves accordingly. If they react de- fensively-as one would expect-it will merely confirm the bellicose image that they have been given.
Other states contribute to the spiral of hostility. To begin with, they may fail to understand that the revolutionary state's version of history probably differs from their own. Revolutionary states ordinarily emphasize past in- justices, including what they regard as illegitimate foreign interference. But because all states view their own history in a favorable light, foreign powers will not understand why the new regime sees them as objects of hatred and suspicion and will consider the new state's defensive responses to be evi- dence of its aggressive character. 49 Thus, U. S. policy makers saw Chinese in- tervention in the Korean War as evidence of the expansionist tendencies of international Communism, in part because politicians such as Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who believed that U. S. policy in the Far East was in China's best interest, failed to appreciate that Western actions in the Far East had actually left a far more negative impression on the minds of China's new leaders. 50 Similar problems afflicted U. S. relations with Fidel Castro: be-
cause U. S. leaders such as President Dwight D. Eisenhower believed that U. S. policy had been largely beneficial for Cuba, they saw Castro's hostility as unjustified aggression rather than as an understandable (if excessive) re- action to past U. S. behavior. 51 Even where tangible grounds for conflict exist (as they did in both these cases), ignorance of the historical basis for suspi- cion will cause the foreign powers to misinterpret the revolutionary state's bellicosity.
Foreign powers may also start a negative spiral if the new regime's do- mestic programs affect their interests adversely. Such a situation is a legiti- mate basis for conflict, of course, but the threat will be magnified if actions taken for internal reasons are also viewed as evidence of aggressive intent. Groups whose interests are harmed (such as foreign corporations whose as- sets have been seized) may try to convince their home governments that the new regime is a threat to security, in the hope of obtaining diplomatic or military support. Thus, Castro's land reform program exacerbated the spi- ral of hostility between the United States and Cuba, and Arbenz's land re- forms in Guatemala moved the United Fruit Company to organize a public
49 Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War, vol. 2: National Misperceptions and the Roots of War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming), chap. n; and E. H. Dance, History the Be- trayer: A Study in Bias (London: Hutchinson, 1960).
50 Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War: The Nature of International Crisis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 205-16; and Jervis, Perception and Misperception, 7o-'J2. 51 Richard Welch, Response to Revolution: The United States and the Cuban Revolution,
1959-1961 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 41.
? ? Revolution and War
relations campaign that formed the backdrop for the U.