Renegades Regimes and Foreign Policy Crises

Book excerpt: The main puzzle that leads me to conceive this project is the seemingly irrational behavior of certain leaders like Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein during crises with the US. Why did they risk war with the United States, while the odds are clearly against them? Why do they sometimes escalate the crisis to the point of war and sometimes seek conciliation and settlement? Thefore the central question of this study is: what are the dynamics behind the foreign policy behavior of renegade regimes/rogue states during crises? The cases include crises with Iraq (1991), Serbia (1999), and North Korea (1994). I created a theoretical framework that brings together psychological theories of foreign policy analysis and rational choice models, and incorporates systemic and domestic constraints that leaders face to analyze their foreign policy behavior. This book is primarily directed towards researchers interested in foreign policy, international security, and rogue states. Policymakers in the foreign policy community, journalists, and people who are interested in how can we deal with emerging threats to peace and security hopefully would find this book helpful and informative.