Dear Eszter,
I enjoy reading you very interesting paper on Structural Effects and Risk-Taking. I think you have been
carefully and successfully controlling the factors on which you are going to make comparative research.
My major critical and/or complementary comments are as followings:
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I don’t know what you would do with the defined and selected war cases in your future analysis. If you
are using them to test the readiness or willingness of particular leaderships to take the risks of war, one
very important thing seems to be missed. These wars in your paper are retrospectively examined. The
risks are settled and known to all. But actually, before each war, nobody is for sure how it will end up
and how many risks particular leadership is going to take to go into or to refrain from the particular
war.
You seem to argue (if I understand correctly) that UK’s risks in wars in Indonesia and Suez did not
reduce on the ground that Netherlands and France involved due to their own interests rather than due to
UK’s petitions for the sake of reducing risks. I think this argument is not fine enough, because whether
UK appealed the allies to involve in a war to reduce its risks is one thing, the fact that allies
involvement did reduce the risks is another. Actually Netherlands’s and France’s interests in these two
cases only explain why exactly it was these two countries instead of others that involved in the two
particular wars of UK. It does not explain if UK made the efforts of trying to get them involved so as
to reduce its possible risks.
At some point, you seem to argue that US’s adventure for the canal in Panama is comparable to UK’s
for Suez in Egypt, if I understand correctly. But from the viewpoint of UK’s economic and military
might vs. Egypt’s as against US’s economic and military might vs. Panama’s, I am not so sure if they
are comparable.
Also at some point, you mention that the wars were limited. I am wondering if the aims of the wars
should be examined, because perceived risks in a war are very much related to the aims of that
particular war, if Klauserwitz’s arguments on war make sense.
I am also wondering if your arguments would be stronger if you add some examinations on the GDP
per capita, Defense Expenditure per capita, etc. in all the war actors before and/or at war times.
Finally, it seems that it is the perceived risks rather than the real risks afterward that matter in making a
decision of going into or refraining from a war. From this point of view, it seems to be important to
examine the parliament or congress debates and/or minutes of the cabinet meetings on war.
I don’t know if above comments make sense. I might completely misunderstand your research and the
result. Therefore please just leave them if they are irrelevant.
Best regards,
Hairong