John Mitton

Rivals – states with acrimonious, militarized histories – often intervene on opposing sides of civil conflicts. These interventions are known to exacerbate and prolong civil wars, but scholars have yet to fully understand why states engage in them, given the significant costs and countervailing strategic interests. Why Rivals Intervene argues that rivals are driven by security considerations at the international level – specifically, the prospect of future confrontations with their rival – to intervene in civil conflicts. Drawing on a theory of rivalry which accounts for this strategic rationale, John Mitton explores three case studies: Indian and Pakistani intervention in Afghanistan, Israeli and Syrian intervention in Lebanon, and US and Soviet intervention in Angola. The book examines a range of evidence, including declassified memoranda, meeting transcripts, government reports, published interviews, memoirs of political leaders, and other evidence of the thought process, rationale, and justifications of relevant decision-makers. The book claims that the imperatives for intervention are consistent across time and space, as rivals are conditioned by a history of conflict to worry about future confrontations. As a result, Why Rivals Intervene illuminates an important driver of civil conflict, with implications for how such conflicts might be solved or mitigated in the future. At the same time, it offers new insight into the nature of long-standing, acrimonious international relationships.

Young, well-intentioned, introverted, intellectual, and socially inept, Tedmund "Ted" Strickland moves from Upstate New York to New York City. There he attends university, earns a degree in finance, and lands a plum job with a brokerage firm. He unwittingly finds himself flung into social circles he'd never willingly have entered. He had been bullied as a youth, and now manipulated as an adult. Unexpectedly, Ted receives a call from a woman he once had a crush on, the heiress Violet Naysmyth Hunter. Violet, whose husband is a poor boy from The Bronx who made good, is less than a year married. She confides in Ted about her plan to start a family. Within an hour or so of their conversation, Violet is found murdered in her Manhattan town house. Lieutenant Paton and Detective Ramirez of the NYPD are determined to apprehend Violet's killer. The crime scene shows no signs of a break-in, giving rise to the theory that the victim knew her killer. Violet's husband, cousins, servants, and friends either have a plausible alibi or lack a motive. Yet the victim and the suspects all have secrets. Further, to Paton's and Ramirez's astonishment, everything connects back to Ted. After Ted finds himself a person of interest in the death of Violet, he plots his next moves carefully. Paton and Ramirez realize they must be meticulous if they are to bring Violet's killer to justice.

When Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people in Syria, he clearly crossed President Barack Obama’s "red line." At the time, many argued that the president had to bomb in order to protect America's reputation for toughness, and therefore its credibility, abroad; others countered that concerns regarding reputation were overblown, and that reputations are irrelevant for coercive diplomacy. Whether international reputations matter is the question at the heart of Fighting for Credibility. For skeptics, past actions and reputations have no bearing on an adversary’s assessment of credibility; power and interests alone determine whether a threat is believed. Using a nuanced and sophisticated theory of rational deterrence, Frank P. Harvey and John Mitton argue the opposite: ignoring reputations sidesteps important factors about how adversaries perceive threats. Focusing on cases of asymmetric US encounters with smaller powers since the end of the Cold War including Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Syria, Harvey and Mitton reveal that reputations matter for credibility in international politics. This dynamic and deeply documented study successfully brings reputation back to the table of foreign diplomacy.

When Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people in Syria, he clearly crossed President Barack Obama’s "red line." At the time, many argued that the president had to bomb in order to protect America's reputation for toughness, and therefore its credibility, abroad; others countered that concerns regarding reputation were overblown, and that reputations are irrelevant for coercive diplomacy. Whether international reputations matter is the question at the heart of Fighting for Credibility. For skeptics, past actions and reputations have no bearing on an adversary’s assessment of credibility; power and interests alone determine whether a threat is believed. Using a nuanced and sophisticated theory of rational deterrence, Frank P. Harvey and John Mitton argue the opposite: ignoring reputations sidesteps important factors about how adversaries perceive threats. Focusing on cases of asymmetric US encounters with smaller powers since the end of the Cold War including Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Syria, Harvey and Mitton reveal that reputations matter for credibility in international politics. This dynamic and deeply documented study successfully brings reputation back to the table of foreign diplomacy.