America can help stabilize the world by clarifying its intentions with Russia and China

OPINION:

You may have noticed that tensions around the world seem to be increasing. China has ramped up its rhetoric and actions against Taiwan, an island and government that Beijing considers a renegade province. There has been a steady rise in the tempo of overflights by Chinese military aircraft over Taiwanese airspace. Russia has similarly amassed a massive army near its extensive border with Ukraine, a country that was previously a republic of the Soviet Union.

Will Russia invade Ukraine? Will China choose to attack Taiwan? What will Washington do if either of these crises results in war? The answer to the first two questions hinges on the third. Obviously, Beijing and/or Moscow do not want to confront the U.S. military, the most powerful fighting force in the world. But it is unclear whether either will have to, and that is part of the ambiguity in their calculation that actually increases the risk of war.

Washington will not commit to what it will do if leaders of our “near-peer” competitors attack nonaligned countries on their borders. Uncertainty about U.S. intentions and the resulting ambiguity about the balance of power increase the risk of war. One of the things that America can do to make the world more stable is to clarify its intentions in the event of such conflicts.

You will hear many opinions about whether war will occur in the coming months and who will — or will not — be involved. These “educated guesses” are just that if history is any guide. Perhaps half the predictions will be correct, but only in the way that a stopped clock can occasionally, briefly, tell you the time. Wars are inherently difficult to predict, mainly because of what actually causes them to occur.

There are two classical theories of escalation and conflict. Each contradicts the other. Deterrence theory suggests that war is less likely when a state threatens consequences to another for behavior they prefer does not occur (such as invading a third state). Conversely, the so-called “spiral model” makes the opposite prediction, warning that war becomes more likely when one nation makes threats that inflame passions or fears in other states.

Armed with such contradictory claims, it is little surprise that our predictions about whether nations will fight one another in the context of a given crisis are not much better than flipping a coin. Like a friend who tells you that a particular stock will rise (or fall) tomorrow, punditry about war should be treated with considerable caution. Indeed, more recent scholarship has focused on the role of ambiguity itself as one of the most important determinants of war. Not knowing what others will do or what they are willing to concede can lead nations to conflict.

But there is one thing we can say and do, that is likely to prove fruitful and correct. As a nation, we will do considerable good in the world if we strive to make our actual intentions clear. This itself is complicated and multicausal.

A nation may not know how it will react in the event of war. It may not be able to convince leaders and populations elsewhere that it is resolute. In some cases, nations lack the wherewithal to intervene at a given point in time and will have to spend time preparing, as Americans did at the start of both world wars. These are genuine challenges that must be addressed. But the sooner and more definitively a nation makes its intentions clear, and the more transparent it is of its intentions, the better we will all be.

• Erik Gartzke is a professor of political science and director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at the University of California, San Diego.