Coping with the Security Dilemma: A Fundamental Ambiguity of State Behaviour

The wording of international treaties, the language and actions of statesmen are often ambiguous, even controversial. But there is a different, more fundamental ambiguity underlying international relations; one that is independent of human nature or the cognitive limitations of decision makers but instead results from the correct adjustment of state behaviour to the uncertainties of an anarchical international system.Due to the anarchical nature of the international system — the lack of a sovereign — states can only rely on their own strength for self-defence. But self-protection often threatens other states. If a state purchases armaments, even if it claims not to have aggressive intents, there is no sovereign to enforce these commitments and there is no way of being certain that the purchasing state is telling the truth, or that it will not develop such intents in the future. The so-called security dilemma has a number of effects on state behaviour. First, states often worry about implausible threats (see e.g. British defence plans against a possible French invasion in the 1930s) and/or get caught in arms races. Second, states develop an inherent mistrust in the language of the other, requiring commitments to be firm and unambiguous in order to be credible, since ambiguity invites conflicts and renders cooperation more difficult.Still, on the one hand, instead of a world of constant mistrust, we register instances of institutionalized inter-state cooperation. On the other hand, states often choose to make commitments that are deliberately ambiguous and outperform more transparent commitments.This paper seeks to explain how states are trying to cope with the ambiguity that is the security dilemma by both signalling peaceful intents in order to facilitate cooperation and deliberately using ambiguity in their discourse. The analysis will rely on a number of examples taken from the Cold War where superpower confrontation was resolved through either of these means.