Why Leaders Lie - Mearsheimer, John J_.original_ [13]
There is a second reason why I think that inter-state lying has been uncommon: it is usually difficult to bamboozle another country’s leaders. Even when it is feasible, the costs of lying often outweigh the benefits. In other words, there are compelling reasons why we should not expect lying among states to be commonplace.
For starters, basic realist logic explains why it is difficult for leaders to get away with lying to other countries when important strategic issues are at stake. States operating in an anarchic system have powerful incentives to sometimes act in ruthless and deceitful ways to ensure their survival, and this repertoire of possible tactics surely includes lying. Former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir captured this point when he said, “For the sake of the Land of Israel it’s all right to lie.”3 Not surprisingly, almost all leaders, and even many of their citizens, recognize that international relations are governed in large part by a different set of rules than those which govern daily life inside their country. Thus, when it comes to important matters of state, they are unlikely to trust pronouncements by another government unless they can verify them.4 As former president Ronald Reagan famously warned, “Trust, but verify.” No Western leader, for example, is going to accept Iran’s claim that it is not developing nuclear weapons and leave the issue there. Instead, they will insist that the International Atomic Energy Agency be able to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities to make sure that it is not trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
The problem is especially acute when assessing another country’s intentions, which are difficult to determine with a high degree of confidence. It is much easier, although not necessarily easy, to count and assess another country’s military capabilities, which are tangible assets that can be seen by the naked eye. Intentions, on the other hand, are ultimately in the minds of policymakers, making them impossible to observe and measure, which ultimately works to diminish trust between states. Given this general lack of trust, it is difficult for leaders to get away with lying to each other when the stakes are high. Thus it is not surprising that the historical record contains hardly any examples of devastatingly effective inter-state lies.
Statesmen and diplomats are more likely to trust each other when they are dealing with issues where there would be no major strategic consequences if either side fell for a lie. In other words, leaders are usually less likely to worry about being deceived when the issue at hand involves economics or the environment—“low politics”—as opposed to national security—“high politics”—where trust is scarce.5 One might think that there would be a significant amount of lying when low politics are at play, because leaders are likely to be more trusting and thus more vulnerable to being duped. But that is not the case; there is not much inter-state lying even when the stakes are relatively low.
One reason why there is not much lying when low politics are at play is that the gains from deceiving another country are likely to be small. Of course, that is why the potential victim is vulnerable to lying: the stakes are low and thus the costs of being bamboozled are not great, so the victim lets his guard down. Another reason is that if statesmen were inveterate liars, nobody would believe anything they said, which would rob lying of its effect. Lying is only effective when the potential victim thinks that the liar is probably telling the truth. Thus, there has to be good reason for leaders to think that they are not being misled, which means that they cannot lie to each other too often without rendering lying ineffective. In short, inter-state lying must be done selectively and carefully to be useful.
A final reason is that if leaders often lied to each other, it would be almost impossible for them to interact in constructive