ft
IIVG Papers
Veröf f en'tlichungsreihe des Internationalen Instituts für Vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung/Globale Entwicklungen
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin
IIVG/dp 85-102
"REAGAN REVISIONISM" AND THE SOVIET-AMERICAN RIVALRY:
A SIMULATION ANALYSIS OF THREE POLICY ALTERNATIVES
by
Dale L. Smith
F e b r u a r y , 1985
Publication Series of the International Institute for Comparative Social Research/Global Developments
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin Steinplatz 2/ D-1000 Berlin 12 ’
Die in dieser Arbeit vertretenen Auffassungen sind die des Verfassers und nicht notwendigerweise die des Internationa len Instituts für Vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung/
Globale Entwicklungen.
The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and not necessarily those of the International Institute for Comparative Social Research/Global Developments.
ABSTRACT
The GLOBUS World Model is used to implement certain changes in US national security policy introduced by President Reagan in 1981. In this analysis the following changes are implemented: (1) a hardening of the US's foreign policy position with respect to the Soviet Union; and (2) a renewed emphasis on US defense spending. On the basis of these policy changes, three alternative futures are presented.
The first is a counterfactual in which the Reagan changes are assumed not to have taken place. The second two concern the duration of these changes in US policy. Are they just temporary (i.e., ending in 1988) or are they permanent changes in policy? The effects of these policy changes in the following three areas are examined: (1) the international political relations between the US and USSR;
(2) the defense and national security positions of the two superpowers; and (3) the relations between East and West and among certain third parties. Temporary implementation of the changes indicate their effects are not long lasting.
However, if these policy changes are permanent then the international political climate becomes increasingly more hostile while defense expenditures spiral upward, becoming ever-greater burdens on the two national economies.
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
Das GLOBUS-Weltmodell wurde angewendet, um moegliche Folgen der Veraenderungen der nationalen Sicherheitspolitik von Praesident Reagan (1981) zu untersuchen. Fuer die hier vorliegende Arbeit wurden folgende Veraenderungen eingebracht: 1. eine Verhaertung der US-aussenpolitischen Positionen gegenueber der Sowjetunion und 2. die Wiederaufnahme einer US-Politik, die eine Verstaerkung der Verteidigungsausgaben vorsieht. Auf dem Hintergrund dieser Veraenderungen werden drei alternative Formen zukuenftiger Entwicklungen aufgezeigt. In dem ersten Szenarium wird hypothetisch angenommen, die Veraenderungen haetten nicht stattgefunden. Die beiden weiteren Szenarien betreffen die moegliche Dauer der Aenderungen in der US-Politik. So wird gefragt, ob sie nur voruebergehend sind (bis zum Ende der Praesidentschaft von Ronald Reagan 1988), oder ob es anhaltende Aenderungen sind. Die Auswirkungen werden fuer folgende drei Bereiche untersucht: 1. fuer die internationalen politischen Beziehungen zwischen den USA und der Sowjetunion, 2. fuer den Verteidigungssektor und die nationale Sicherheit der beiden Nationen und 3. fuer die Ost-West-Beziehungen und die Beziehungen ausgewaehlter anderer Nationen. Es zeigt sich, dass bei der zeitlich begrenzten Einfuehrung der Veraenderungen keine bleibenden Auswirkungen Zustandekommen. Wenn sie jedoch auf Dauer eingefuehrt werden, bewirkt dies ein Klima der verstaerkten internationalen politischen Feindseligkeiten, wobei dadurch die Verteidigungsausgaben allerseits steigen werden,' was zugleich eine uebergrosse Belastung der Volkswirtschaften beider Nationen zur Folge hat.
INTRODUCTION
Since 1945 there has been no bilateral relationship within the international system more important than the one between the United States and the Soviet Union. As the two dominant nuclear powers, as the leaders of the world's largest opposing military alliances, and as rivals in almost every international crisis, they have, in a sense, been the international "center of gravity" for almost 40 years.
While each's actions have had consequences for the other's national as well as international policies, their impacts have gone far beyond this dyad. All levels of the international system have been in some way or at some time affected by the Soviet-American rivalry. From Latin America to Africa, the Mid-East or Asia, almost all nations have played roles - whether it be as pawns, surrogates, or allies - in this superpower drama. However, no area has been more directly affected by the actions and policies of this dyad than Europe. As the respective leaders of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the US and the USSR have sometimes involved their allies in their rivalries as well as their attempts at accomodation. At other times they have simply ignored their European allies, but in all cases the policies of the superpowers have affected wider East-West relations.
The international political climate between the two superpowers has moved in the last 40 years through various phases, from the hostile climate of the Cold War in the 1950's and 1960's to the relatively cooperative climate of detente in the 1970's. In each ease these climatic shifts
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have been preceded by explicit policy changes by one or both of the superpowers. Most recently, shifts by the Reagan administration in the national security policy of the United States have ushered in a new and relatively more hostile phase in Soviet-American relations.
The inauguration of President Reagan in January 1981 represented one of the clearest ideological shifts in the American presidency in recent memory. Many of President Reagan's foreign policy positions were significantly different from those of his predecessors - be they Republican or Democrat. One of the most important policy changes instituted by Reagan was in the area of national security. Two key aspects of his policy change were: (1) a renewed emphasis on US defense spending; and (2) a hardening of the US's foreign policy position with respect to the USSR.
Advocates of an increase in defense spending felt that such a policy change was necessary because US military capabilities had deteriorated to such an extent during the 1970's that it was no longer able to protect its vital interests throughout the world. The conventional capabilities of the US military peaked with the Vietnam war in late 1960's. The effective demobilization that followed on the end of US involvement in Vietnam produced a precipitous decline in capabilities which was halted, but not reversed, by the Carter administration. Such an absolute decline in US capabilities was accentuated by the fact that the Soviet Union had, during the same period, rapidly increased its own capabilities. In terms of an
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index of conventional military capabilities. it is clear that while US power fell at an average rate of 2% per year throughout the 1970.'s, the Soviet Union was increasing its own capabilities at an average of over 1.3% per year.1
In relative terms, this meant that from a level of near parity in 1970, US power as a percent of Soviet power declined at an average rate of over 4% per year during the decade. The sharp absolute decline, coupled with an even larger decline relative to its main international antagonist, was one of the primary arguments used by the advocates of increases in American defense spending.
The most basic reason for the hardening in the U S 's foreign policy position with respect to the USSR can be found in the clear ideological shift that accompanied the inauguration of the Reagan administration. The administration's view was that the Soviets had used to their advantage the relatively cooperative climate that existed between the two superpowers during the period of detente.
In addition, it was felt that the US's signals to the USSR during the last half of the 1970's had often been confused.
That is, the US was not clear enough in signalling its positive or negative reaction to a given Soviet action. The advocates of this policy change felt that a harder stance would more clearly define the boundaries of acceptable international behavior, thus preventing "adventurist" Soviet actions such as the invasion of Afghanistan.
While this change in US policy was a function of its relationship with the Soviet Union, ' the effects of the change had implications for the entire international system,
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and especially the East-West subsystem. Observers have often noted that the superpower dyad sets the "tone" of broader East-West relations. Certain European experiences since 1981 have made it clear just how difficult it is for countries within the two alliances to maintain relatively cooperative relationships when the climate between the two bloc leaders is abnormally hostile. The cancellation by East Germany's Honecker of his visit to West Germany is only the most recent manifestation of this effect.
Both the advocates and the critics of this change in US national security policy have debated its effects. What are the long-term implications of this change on the international political relations between the two superpowers and the two blocs they lead? Will the arms race worsen, and what will be the impact of higher defense expenditures on the two states? Will this policy change improve the security position of the United States? And finally, how do the effects differ depending on whether this is a temporary aberration in US policy or a permanent change?
To examine such questions, we will implement these changes in US national security policy within a global simulation model, GLOBUS. Our purpose will be to investigate the long-run effects that might emanate from such a policy change. The intention of this experiment is not to predict the future. GLOBUS is a theoretically-based research tool with which to investigate the possible impacts of alternative political-economic policies. It is not a forecasting model.
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The current experiment is built around three different policy alternatives. In two of the runs we will exogenously intervene in 1981 in order to introduce a set of changes .meant to replicate this change in US policy. The difference between these two runs involves how long the change in policy lasts. In one run it will remain in effect only eight years (through President Reagan's second term in office) before returning to the pre-1981 policy. In the second run the change will be permanent, lasting through the end of the simulation. The final run is the counterfactual.
In this run no intervention will be made. Rather the policy both before and after 1981 remains the same. The analysis of the differences across these three runs will focus on the effects of these US policy changes in the following three areas: (1) the international political relations between the US and USSR; (2) the defense and national security positions of the two superpowers; and (3) the relations between the two alliances and among certain third parties.
THE GLOBUS MODEL
Our experiment was undertaken within GLOBUS, a global simulation model built to examine the stresses and strains that might confront national governments into the next century. GLOBUS follows in the tradition of the global models of the 1970's, but goes beyond them by explicitly introducing politics and policy-making into the model.
While its predecessors' focussed primarily on ecological and
economic processes. GLOBUS has a political-economic focus.
Also distinguishing it from earlier global models, is its use of nation-states, rather than regions, as the primary actors and units-of-analysis within the model. While future
"stresses and strains" will occur at all levels of the system - from the sub-national to the international - it will be the abilities of the nation, and not the region, to manage these changes which will shape our future. The nation-level focus has forced us to limit the model to 25 of the most important nations in the system (see Figure 1).
Substantively the model is composed of five linked sectors:
domestic politics, domestic economics, international politics, international economics, and government resource allocation. Figure 2 illustrates the primary policies and processes each sector models and the types of issues each can address.- The reader is referred to Bremer (1984) for more detailed information about the model's evolution and current structure. This paper will focus only on the description of those structures within the international political and government resource allocation models directly relevant to the current experiment. For a full account of the structure of these two models the reader is referred, respectively, to Smith (1985) and Cusack (1985).
The international political module within GLOBUS has two functions: (1) the determination of the foreign policy position of any nation vis-a-vis each of the other 24 nations plus a rest-of-world entity; and (2) the finalization and distribution of the dyadic flows of hostility and cooperation exchanged among nations. In
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The 25-nation GLOBUS World FIGURE 1
TA7T7Cm SOUTH OPEC EAST
CAN Canada
ARG
Argentina
INS
Indonesia
CZE
Czechoslovakia FRG
West Germany
BRA Brazil
IRN Iran
GDR
East Germany FRN
France
CHN China
NIG Nigeria
POL Poland ITA
Italy
EGY Egypt
SAU
Saudi Arabia
USR
Soviet Union JPN
Japan
IND India
VEN
Venezuela-
UKG MEX
United Kingdom Mexico
USA PAK
United States Pakistan SAF
South Africa TUR
Turkey
Figure 2:
THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
IN RELATIONS TO ITS ENVIRONMENTS IN THE GLOBUS WORLD MODEL
ECONOMIC POLITICAL
F O R E IG N | DOMESTIC
G ro w th , E m p lo y m e n t,
&
P r ic e s
T a x in g
&
S p e n d in g P o lic ie s
M a s s P r o te s t
&
O r g a n iz e d V io le n c e
P o litic a l S t a b iliz a t io n P o lic y
( gov ) -
A id , Im port, S e c u r it y
ECONOMIC
&
E x c h a n g e P o lic ie s
&
F o re ig n P o lic ie s
E x p o rt, Im port,
&
C a p ita l F lo w s
M ilita r y B a la n c e ; H o s tile
&
C o o p e r a tiv e F lo w s
POLITICAL
F O R E IG N I DO ME ST IC
8
practical terms this means that the international political model must determine 1300 (=26x25x2) separate flows with each model iteration. (An attached appendix provides a brief description of the measurement of the dyadic flows of conflict and cooperation.)
The enormous dimensions of GLOBUS. as well as its long-term nature, led us very quickly to a "flow" rather than an "event" orientation in the development of the model.
The distinction here is between two broad approaches to the modeling of international interactions. The "event"
approach takes a specific dyadic event (e.g., the recalling of an ambassador) as the unit of analysis. Each event is treated as discrete and separable. The second approach merges these discrete events into a continuous flow. The general level of dyadic amity and emnity rather than the specific event becomes the focus of measurement. Both of the approaches have their partisans, and though the two approaches are often placed in competition with one another, they are not only compatible, but complementary. However, a synthesis of both an "event" and "flow" approach is an ideal which was not accomplished in this model.
Whichever approach is taken, the most pervasive finding of previous studies of international interactions is the importance of the action-reaction dynamic. That is, the single most important determinant of what one nation sends to another is its reaction to what it receives from that nation. It is this same action-reaction dynamic which lies at the core of our international political model. Despite the importance of reactivity, one of the key weaknesses of
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previous models of international interactions is their specification of reactivity, as a parameter which remains constant over time.
Since it is our hypothesis that the manner in which one nation responds to flows received from another is a function of their unique relationship, the implication of specifying reactivity as a constant parameter is equivalent to freezing that relationship. Given that the model deals with time periods in the neighborhood of thirty to forty years, to claim that relationships between states do not change over such a span is clearly untenable. Therefore, the current international political model treats reactivity as a variable which is a function of the multiple dimensions which compose an inter-nation relationship. Any relationship between two states is embedded in a multi-level e n v i r o n m e n t , and each level in this environment influences the relationship. Not only domestic factors, internal to each state, but also bilateral (i.e. dyadic) as well as multilateral or systemic factors compose the multiple levels of this e n v i r o n m e n t . Changes in any of the e n v i r o n m e n t 's levels produce changes in the inter-nation relationship and, in turn, each nation's cooperative and hostile reactivities to flows received from another. The factors in the current model which define a particular dyadic relationship, and therefore affect reactivity, are drawn from all three levels of the nations' environment and include:
(1) national conventional military capabilities;
(2) dyadic trade;
(3) overall bilateral political climate; and
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(4) inter-bloc (i.e. East-West) political climate.
A simplified representation of the determination of the cooperative and hostile flows sent by West Germany to East Germany is presented in Figure 3 as an example of the causal connnections in the model.
The second GLOBUS module directly affected by this experiment is the government resource allocation area which represents a complex budgetary process. The major linkages of the model are shown in Figure 4. Pressing in one direction are the desired expenditure levels developed within the governmental agencies for various civilian and military spending programs. Applying pressure from the other direction is the fiscal authorities' target for total spending. These competing aspirations of the various agencies and their associated bargaining power determine final spending levels.
For our present purposes we need only focus on that aspect of the process which determines desired defense expenditures. The internal factors affecting these desired levels are military factor costs and the depreciation of existing military capabilities. Its external determinants are based on an assessment of the actual, security situation faced by the state relative to its desired security level.
In assessing the security situation national decision-makers are modelled as scanning the international environment and making judgements about the hostile intentions of other states toward them. These intentions are signalled by a nation's flows of hostility and cooperation toward a specific target relative to its flows across the entire
Figure 3 :
REPRESENTATION OF ONE SIDE OF A DYADIC RELATIONSHIP IN THE
GLOBUS INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL MODULE
1 2
Figure 4:
Major Linkages in the GLOBUS Budgetary Module
international system. This assessment of hostile intent is then weighted by the states' corresponding military capabilities to produce the level of threat perceived by the national decision-makers. 2 The security situation of a state is then defined as the perceived level of threat relative to the military capabilities it has available to i t .
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SCENARIO
As stated above this change in US national security policy had two distinct dimensions: (1) a substantial increase in US defense spending; and (2) a hardening of the US's foreign policy position with respect to the Soviet Union. Correspondingly, the implementation of the policy change within GLOBUS required changes in both the government resource allocation and international political modules.
The normal functioning of the government resource allocation model was overridden to assure a 6% per annum real increase in US defense expenditures. In terms of the description provided in the previous section, both the internal and external determinants of desired* defense spending are ignored. Also, the relative bargaining power of the governmental agencies has no effect in determining the final spending level. Rather, the military gets an automatic 6% increase in its budget; this comes, of course, at the expense of other government programs. The 6% figure was chosen because it roughly corresponds to the actual
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annual growth in US defense expenditures over the last four years.
The hardening of the US's foreign policy position was more difficult to implement. Our data on international hostility and cooperation end in 1978. While we may he relatively certain that the US's posture with respect to the USSR has become more hostile and less cooperative since 1981, we have no empirical basis by which to measure the extent of that change. There are also several places in the model where one could intervene in order to produce an increase in the hostility and a decrease in the cooperation sent from the US to the USRR. For this scenario we felt that the simplest, most straightforward intervention was the best strategy. Therefore, the policy change was modeled by a substantial increase in the base level of hostility that the US sends to the USSR and a corresponding decrease in the base level of cooperation sent by the US to the USSR.
Though not shown in Figure 3, the "base level" is a constant in the determination of "desired cooperation/hostility sent." While it would have been possible to intervene at certain points in the determination of the reactivities and still have a similar effect on the flows sent, the alteration of the base levels was the most straightforward approach to achieving the desired effect.
Having decided where to intervene the next question is how large an intervention should it be? We chose a 150%
increase in the US's base level of hostility and a 60%
decrease in its base level of cooperation. Without any empirical guidelines. the amount of this change cannot
15
apriori be either justified or criticized. However, as the results will show the effect such a change has on US-USSR relations is not unreasonable. So on the basis of the results we will argue that these.changes in the two base levels are well within the realm of reason.
These three changes to the model combine to represent the overall change in US government policy which is the focus of this scenario. Two of the US's policy changes are dyadic with respect to Soviet Union, while the third is an alteration in a national policy. The changes that appear in the results are solely a function of the direct and indirect effects of these three changes; all other aspects of the model remain unaltered.
Three runs were undertaken to explore the effects of this policy change. The purpose of the first run was an examination of what might have happened had there been no policy change. That i s , there was no exogenous intervention, and US policy both before, as well as after 1981 remained the same. This run, corresponding to the counterfactual, allows us to investigate what might have occurred had the US not changed its defense and foreign policies in 1981, but rather had continued to pursue policies similar to those with which the model is initialized. Because the model is initialized with parameters estimated from data from the 1960's and 1970's, this "initial" policy can be thought of as a "long-term average." This first run provides, in a sense, a baseline against which to compare the two intervention runs, since it is assumed that the "historical average" policy remains in
16
effect for the entire run.
In the two intervention runs the issues revolve around how long such a policy change will last. Is it a permanent change in US defense and foreign policies, or is it simply an aberration from the historical average to which the US will eventually return? In both the second and third runs the above-noted changes are made in 1981. However, in the second run the change is assumed to be temporary, lasting until 1988, after which the policies return to the
"historical-average". The third run assumes that these changes in US policy are permanent - beginning in 1981 and lasting until 2010, the end of the run.
REAGAN'S REVISIONISM: POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS
The results to be examined in this section can basically be divided into three broad categories. First, we will present the effects of this scenario on Soviet-American political relations. The second area to be examined is the scenario's implications for the defense and national security situations of the two superpowers. This will include not only their power balance, but also the security situation and defense burden each faces under the three policy alternatives. The effects of this scenario beyond the superpower dyad will b e ,the final area presented. In particular, we will examine the implications for East-West relations and selected third-party effects.
In all of the time plots to be presented three runs of
17
the model are depicted and labeled in the following manner:
NO REVISION = no policy change
TEMPORARY = temporary policy change, 1981 through 1988 PERMANENT = permanent policy change, 1981 to 2010
Since our scenario is not implemented until 1981, all three runs are identical through 1980. For the next eight years (through 1988) only two lines appear on the figures because during this period both the temporary and permanent policy change runs are the same. It is only after 1988, when the temporary run returns to the "historical-average," that three separate time paths appear.
The effect of the three scenarios on the international political relations between the US and the USSR are presented in Figures 5 to 7. In the first two figures, we present the net hostile flows exchanged between the superpowers. A net hostile flow is defined as the level of hostility minus the level of cooperation sent by one to the other. With the intervention in 1981, the net hostile flow from the US to the Soviet Union (Figure 5) is seen to raise sharply from the no revision run. Given the quick adjustment speeds within the international political model such an abrupt rise is to be expected. When the policy returns to the historical average after 1988 the temporary policy change run falls just as quickly back to the level of the no revision run, remaining relatively close to that alternative for the rest of the simulation.
A similar pattern appears in Figure 6 for the net hostile flow from the USSR to the US. Even though no change was made in the Soviet model, they are responding in kind to
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FIG URE 5: NET H O STILE FLOW: USA TO USR
VZB
IIYG/GE 13 MOV 84
LEGEND
--- = N 0_ R EV ISIO N - — -TEM PORARY --- =PERMANENT
19
FIGURE 5: NET HOSTILE FLOW: USR TO USA
«20 g(l^ ^ U > 3
IIVG/GE 13 NOV 84
YEAR LEGEND
---=NQ_REVISIGN
... TEMPORARY --- =PERMANENT
2 0
the higher levels of hostility being received from the US.
However, as one would expect, the change after 1981 is not as sharp as in the US case since the Soviets are reacting to a change in American policy.
The dyadic climate between the two superpowers is shown in Figure 7 and defined as the ratio of hostility exchanged (in both directions) over cooperation exchanged. Such a composite variable provides us with an overall view of the state of Soviet-American relations. In order to illustrate more clearly the changes across the runs, the dyadic climates are presented in terms of the percent deviations from the no revision alternative. After the policy change the US-USSR climate climbs quickly to become about 10% more hostile than the no revision run, but then falls slowly to about a 4% increase. After 1988 the temporary run moves back toward the no revision level with the climate actually becoming more cooperative in the last few years of the run.
The permanent run maintains the 10% level until the mid-90's when the climate suddenly becomes 50% more hostile than the
"no revision" run. In sum, the relationship between the two superpowers becomes quickly and distinctly more hostile with this policy change on the part of the US. What is also clear ' is that once the policy returns to the historical- average so too does the US-USSR relationship. Therefore, when the policy change is only temporary, there are no long-term negative effects on the relationship once this hostile interlude has passed. It might be expected that the permanent change in policy would eventually produce a leveling-off in the levels of hostility exchanged as some
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FIG URE 7: DYADIC CLIMATE: USA <— > USR
(PERCENT D E V IA T IO N FROM 'N Q . R E V I S t Q N ' RUN]
7 .0 0 x 1 0 * - i---
6 . 0 0
5 . 0 0
4 . 0 0
3 . 0 0
2 . 0 0
1 .0 0
0 . 0 0
1 .0 0
2 . 0 0
3 • 0 0 A ! I I I I I I I I
1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 5 2 0 1 0
LEGEND
--- =NQ_REV1SIGN ...^TEMPORARY --- -PERMANENT
2 0 1 5 YEAR MB
b)u)s
(1VG/GE 13 NOV 84
22
new equilibrium is reached. This, however, is not the case, but rather a more dangerous situation occurs. An increasingly hostile climate develops between the two superpowers.
The effects of this scenario on the national security of the two superpowers is examined in Figures 8 to 12. The conventional military power balance between the two superpowers is defined as the power of the US as a percent of Soviet power, and shown in Figure 8. After falling sharply due to the US's demobilization following Vietnam, the power balance reached the 65% level in 1981 and climbed to 76% by the end of the "no revision" • run. The introduction of the policy change significantly alters the balance of military power between the two nations. The permanent policy change rapidly alters the power balance, with the US passing the Soviets at the turn of the century.
It is clear that the USSR cannot keep up with an America increasing its defense expenditures at a constant 6% per year. While the US defense expenditures have been freed from the expenditure determination process and can increase continually at this rate, Soviet defense spending remains within the normal budgeting process and must fight for each additional ruble. The bargaining power of the Soviet defense establishment relative to the non-defense budgeting authorities has been clearly increased due to the elevated levels of threat received from the US. This allows the USSR to maintain an average annual increase in defense spending of 4.9% - a hefty growth rate under most conditions, but not able to keep pace with America's 6% growth.
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FIGURE 8: CONVENTIONAL POWER BALANCE: USA-USR
YEAR LEGENO
--- = N O .R E V IS IO N
... -TEMPORARY
--- =PERMANENT
MB
G^J^u)s
[tVG/GE 13 NOV 94
24
In the case of the temporary change, the balance begins to assume a new trajectory, but falls back to the no revision level once the policy returns to the pre-1981 form.
The reason that this alternative does not make more of a difference is clearly due to the lags involved. While the US institutes its 6% growth in defense spending in 1981, the figure shows no discernible change in the balance until about 1985. The model is reflecting the real world. It takes time for increases in defense spending to be translated into increases in capabilities. So just as capabilities begin to "take-off" the policy returns in 1988 to the historical average.
To achieve such a significant change in the balance of power requires an enormous commitment of a nation's resources to defense. Often labelled the defense burden, US defense expenditures as a percent of GDP are shown in Figure 9 growing from 8.5% in 1981 to an unheard of 15.5% at the end of the permanent policy change run. On the Soviet side, Figure 10 indicates a reactionary increase from 16.5%
to a staggering 23%. For both nations the temporary policy change would increase the defense burden in the short-run, but by the end of the run the burden would have returned to approximately the no revision level.
Some voices in the Reagan administration have spoken of using US increases in defense spending to force the Soviets into an arms race that would "bury" them. The Soviets would be spending such an enormous portion of their national product on defense that both their society and economy would collapse. An interesting aspect of these results is they
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FIGURE 9 : DEFENSE BURDEN: USA
[D EFEN SE EXPEN D ITU R ES AS A PERCEN T OF GDP]
2 . 4 0 x lO 1 ---
2 . 2 0
2 . 0 0
1 .8 0
1 .6 0
1.40
1 .2 0
1 .0 0
0 . 8 0
0 . 6 0
0 . 4 0 A--- i---i---i---I---1---1---i---1--- 1—
1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 5 2 0 1 0
legend
--- =NO_REV1S[QN ...-TEMPORARY --- =PERMANENT
2 0 1 5 YEAR
G( ^ s
IIVG/GE 13 NOV 84
26
FIGURE 10: DEFENSE BURDEN: U5R
n-VG/GC 13 NOV 84
YEAR LEGEND
--- =NG_REV[SIQN ...=TEMPORARY --- =PERMANENT
indicate that while it might well he possible to push the Soviets to the point of collapse, the costs to the United States would he unprecedented in peace time. The threat to international stability of two fully-militarized superpowers would also he incalculable.
Within GLOBUS it is possible to examine the security position of a state by comparing the power of the state to the threat it perceives as being directed toward it.
Figures 11 and 12 present the security positions of the US and the USSR. As one would expect from the previous results, US security increases while the Soviet position becomes less secure with the implementation of this policy
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change. - While the US security position is not only growing, but actually accelerating, the Soviets are faced with a continual degradation in their security. This is a reasonable outcome given our permanent change scenario, though it is unlikely that the Soviets would accept such an result. A policy change on their part would be the most probable response. Just as the US altered its policy in 1981 due to a perceived decrease in its own security, one could expect the Soviets to implement a similar policy.
Such an alteration in the national security policy of the USSR is not considered in the current experiment, though it would be an interesting path to follow in a future study.
For an insight into how the various modules within GLOBUS interact Figure 11 should be examined closely.
Immediately after the policy change is implemented in 1981 the security position of the US actually decreases. At first, this may appear-to be perverse model behavior, but
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FIGURE 11: CONVENTIONAL SEC U RITY PO SITIO N OF USA
*■
CPOUER(USA) / TH REATTU SA1]
1 .2 5 X 1 0 °
1 .2 0
1. 15
1. 10
1 .0 5
1 .0 0
0 . 9 5
0 . 9 0
0 . 8 5
0 . 8 0
0 . 7 5 i --- r T - --- 1---1--- r i r
1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 5 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 5 YEAR LEGEND
---=NO_REVIS ION ...=TEMPORARY --- =PERMANENT KB
8 IBS 1IVG/EE
13 MW 84
2 9
FIGURE 12: CONVENTIONAL SEC U RITY PO SITIO N OF USR
G L OB U)S IIVG/GE 13 « V 84
YEAR LEGEND
--- =NO_REV[SIQ N ... =TEMPQRARY --- = PERMANENT
30
actually the model is responding exactly the way it should.
The policy change in 1981 produces a more hostile flow from the US to the USSR. The Soviets immediately respond to this by sending more hostility to the US which naturally increases the threat perceived by the US. At this same point, defense expenditures have also been increased;
however, the adjustment speeds in the budgeting area are naturally not as quick as in the international political area, and it takes time for defense expenditures to be translated into a stock of power. For these two reasons, the US security position decreases since for the first few years threat is increasing more rapidly than power.
The final two figures present the effects of this scenario beyond the superpower dyad. The focus here is, first, on the East-West sub-system and, second, on certain third-party effects. The East-West climate - defined as the ratio of hostility exchanged over cooperation exchanged between the group of seven Western nations and the group of four Eastern nations - is shown in Figure 13. The similarity of the shape of the curves in this figure and that of the US-USSR climate (Figure 7) is striking, but should not be particularily surprising. However, there is a significant difference in the scale. While the US-USSR climate increased immediately following the intevention by approximately 10% over the no revision run, the East-West climate increases almost 20%. This would indicate that the
"tone" of East-West relations is indeed being set by the superpowers.
The final figure presents one of many third-party
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FIGURE 13: INTER-REG IO NAL CLIM ATE: EAST - WEST
[PERCENT D E V IA T IO N FROM 'N O _ R E V 15 IC N ’ RUN]
1 .2 0 x 1 0 *
1 .0 0
0 . 8 0
0 . 6 0
0 . 4 0
0 . 2 0
0 . 0 0
0 . 2 0
0 . 4 0
0 . 6 0
0 . 8 0
/ X
n r
1965 1970 1975 1980 1985
WZB
IIVG/GE 13 NOV 84
1990 1995 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 5 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 5 . YEAR LEGENO
---= N Q _REV ISIG N ...= TEMPORARY ---^PERMANENT
G L 0
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FIGURE 14: DYADIC CLIM ATE: FRG <— > GDR
[PERCENT D E V tA H O N FRON 'N C _ R E V IS IO N ' RUN]
3 . 0 0 X I 0 1 -i---
2 . 0 0
/
\ 00
0 . 0 0
- 1 .0 0
- 2 .0 0
-3.00
4 . 0 0
5 . 0 0
6 . 0 0
7 . 0 0
1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 5 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 5 YEAR
I1VG/GE 13 NOV 84
LEGENO
--- = NO _REVISIO N ...=TEMPORARY --- =PERMANEN-T
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effects that could, have been included in these results. It is a good example of the impact that changes in the policies of one of the alliance leaders can have on two members of the opposing alliances, in this case the FRG and GLR. The climate between the two Germanys becomes immediately and significantly more hostile after the US policy change in 1981. In the temporary policy change run, the climate moves back toward the no revision level after 1988. Toward the end of the century FRG-GDR relations become very much more cooperative. This shift is probably a function of the more cooperative climate which occurs in the US-USSR dyad (see Figure 7). The permanent policy change run produces a climate that is almost always more hostile than the "no revision" run, again corresponding to the more hostile nature of the US-USSR climate in the permanent change run.
The main results from this scenario can be summarized as follows:
(1) The international political climate becomes more hostile with the Reagan-like US policy change. If the policy change is only temporary the climate will return to approximately its historical-average level, implying no long-term ill effects from such a hostile interlude. If the policy change is permanent, the climate does not appear to reach a new, more hostile, equilibrium, but rather will continue to climb - becoming increasingly more hostile. The US-USSR dyadic climate appears to set the "tone" for not only the East-West bloc climate, but also certain dyadic climates (e.g. FRG-GDR).
(2) In the area of national security it is clear that 34
this policy change leads to: the US overtaking and passing the USSR in terms of conventional military capabilities; an increase in the US's security; and a decrease in the USSR's security. These changes are only accomplished, however, if the policy change remains permanent. A temporary policy change does not produce significant long-term changes in either the power balance or the national security positions of the two nations. In order for the US to obtain this long-term increase in security and to overtake the Soviets in terms of capabilities, the price it must pay would be enormous. The defense burden in both countries would increase to unprecedented levels - probably unsustainable and certainly immensely dangerous for international stablility.
CONCLUSION
Though GLOBUS is a major improvement on its predecessors, it is still only a model - an abstract representation. While it contains many important linkages and feedbacks between economics and politics, the national and the international, it certainly contains only a small fraction of them. GLOBUS is not a forecasting model capable of predicting the future; it is a research tool capable of projecting alternative futures.
In this study the alternative futures projected were the result of implementing within GLOBUS a Reagan-like change in US national security policy. We have attempted to
capture in our scenario certain important aspects of that policy change and to examine their long-term effects on the national security policies and international political relations of the US and USSR, as well as the larger East-West system. The results indicate that not only the direction of the model's responses to this exogenous shock, but also their magnitudes appear quite reasonable. Given that our effort is part of a "first generation" of studies to implement scenarios within the GLOBUS model, our current results lead us to believe that we have a useful research tool for the further study of political-economic policy alternatives.
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NOTES
I would like to thank Tom Cusack for assistance in conducting the defense spending aspect of this study.
1. Throughout this study we will focus exclusively on conventional military capabilities; thereby ignoring the improvements in strategic capabilities which were also a part of the Reagan defense strategy. The reason for this focus is that, while represented within the government resource allocation module of GLOBUS, the strategic aspect of the defense sector is necessarily incomplete.
As the builder of that model states: "our position is that the whole nuclear area is frought with ambiguity and not susceptible, at least within the confines of our project, to any extensive and complete representation."
(Cusack, 1984b: p. 38) Given that the strengthening of conventional forces was a major, if not the major, focus of the Reagan defense plan, our non-strategic focus is not a serious weakness.
The conventional military capability index employed throughout this study is a weighted product of standardized quantities of the capital and labor employed in a nation's military sector. The index is fully described in Cusack (1984a).
2. The threat measure employed here represents an effort to assess the conventional capabilities that decision-makers might perceive as being potentially directed toward their states in light of (1) the capabilities of other states in a multi-state system and (2) the hostile intentions that these other states signal given the way they distribute their hostile and cooperative flows within the system (Cusack, 1984a).
INTENT(i->j)
THREAT(i->j) = --- * CAPABILITY(i) INTENT(i->j)
where:
n = number of states in system;
CAPABILITY = conventional capability of state i;
and INTENT(i->j) is defined as:
HSENT(i->j)
INTENT(i->j) = HSENT(i->j)* --- HSENT(i->j) + CSENT(i->j) where:
HSENT(i->j) = index of i's hostile
acts directed toward j ; and
CSENT(i->j) = index of i's cooperative acts directed toward j .
The hostile and cooperative indices are based on the COPDAB Data Set and described briefly in the appendix to this paper.
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3. Figures 11 and 12 show a deterioration in the security positions of both the US and Soviet Union in the 1970's.
If the model only dealt with this superpower dyad one might expect a zero-sum outcome; for example, a US security increase implying a Soviet decrease. In the GLOBUS model, however, the two superpowers.exist within a multilateral international system. It is not a zero-sum game. The US and USSR have international political relations with 24 other nations and what transpires in these dyads will affect the threat that each perceives and, through threat, the security position of the two superpowers.
Given that the security position of a state is defined as the ratio of its power to the threat it faces, changes in its security will depend on relative changes in power and threat. During the 1970's the threat perceived by the US and the Soviets increased, on the average, about 3% per year in our simulation. At the same time US power fell sharply. Increasing threat and decreasing power produced the precipitous decline in US security during this decade. On other hand, Soviet power increased by an average of 2.5% per year during this same period.
However, since Soviet power was not increasing as rapidly as the threat it faced, the moderate decline in their security position, as shown in Figure 12, was the result.
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APPENDIX
INDICES OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN THE GLOBUS MODEL
The indices of international conflict and cooperation are weighted, annual aggregations of conflictual and cooperative acts sent by one nation to another.
Examples of the types of events, in order of increasing intensity, which compose each index are provided below. The scale by which each event is multiplied before annual aggregation appears to the right of the event.
COOPERATIVE ACTS:
1. Minor offical exchanges;
expressions of mild verbal support. 6 2. Official support of goals, values and regime 10 3. Beginning diplomatic relations;
technological and scientific cooperation. 14 4. Granting economic loans;
establishing economic pacts. 27
5. Military, economic, or strategic support;
concluding military agreements. 31
6. Establishing a military alliance;
establishing a common market. 47
7. Voluntary unification into one nation. 92 CONFLICTUAL ACTS:
1. Mild verbal objections to
policies or behaviors. 6
2. Strong expressions of hostility; warning
of retaliation; making threatening demands. 16 3. Recalling ambassadors; increasing
troop mobilizations; boycotts 29
4. Breaking diplomatic relations;
acid to guerilla activities 44
5. Small scale military acts; imposition
of blockades; border skirmishes. 50 6. Limited war acts; sporadic shelling;
mining of territorial waters. 65
7. Extensive war acts; full scale invasions;
bombing of civilian areas. 102
All conflict and cooperation data are from:
Edward E. Azar
Conflict and Peace Data Bank (COPDAB) University of Maryland
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REFERENCES
Bremer, Stuart A.
Structure, and Berlin, IIVG/dp
(1984) "The Illustrative 84-104.
GLOBUS Model: History, Results." Science Center
Cusack, Thomas R. (1985) "Documentation for the Government Resource Allocation Module in GLOBUS." Science Center Berlin (in preparation).
Cusack, Thomas R. (1984a) "The Evolution of Power, Threat and Security: Past and Potential Developments."
Cusack, Thomas R. (1984b) "One Problem, Three Solutions: A Simulation Analysis of Alternative Western Defense Policy Options." Science Center Berlin, IIVG/dp ( f orthcoming).
Smith, Dale L. (1985) "Documentation for the International Politics Module in GLOBUS." Science Center Berlin (in p r e p a r a t i o n ) .
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