Reputation Isn't Everything

Abstract

Calculating Credibility: How Leaders Assess Military Threat. By Daryl G. Press Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. 240 pp., $32.50 (ISBN: 0-8014-4343-1). In Calculating Credibility , Daryl Press takes on a major issue in the field of security studies: the role of reputation in decision makers' assessments of military threats. Not only does Calculating Credibility provide a welcome addition to the surprisingly meager literature on threat perception (for earlier contributions, see Pruitt 1965; Knorr 1976; Cohen 1979; for more recent efforts, see Farnham 2001, 2003), it also touches on the debate between neorealists and their critics regarding the relative importance of material and nonmaterial interests in judging threat (see, for example, p. 27, note 70; and Waltz 1979). Press's basic proposition is that, contrary to conventional wisdom (that is, “Past Actions theory”), a state's credibility during a crisis is not assessed in terms of its “history of keeping or breaking commitments” (p. 3). Rather, in judging credibility, decision makers act according to “Current Calculus theory,” believing “threats and promises that are backed by sufficient power and serve clear interests” (pp. 8–9). Press tests his hypothesis by analyzing three case studies: (1) The series of pre-World War II crises in which the British and French appeased Adolf Hitler's Germany, (2) the three Berlin crises in which the Soviet Union confronted Britain and the United States between 1958 and 1961, and (3) the Cuban missile crisis between the United States and the Soviet Union in the fall of 1962. He finds that Current Calculus theory performs very well in all three cases, whereas Past Actions theory performs “very poorly, even though the cases stack the deck in its favor” (p. 5). Press defines “the credibility of a threat … as the perceived likelihood that the threat will be carried out if the conditions that are supposed to trigger it are met” (p. 10). Past Actions theory measures credibility in terms …