VARIATIONS IN US AND SOVIET/RUSSIAN INTERVENTION DECISIONS DURING AND AFTER THE COLD WAR
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Abstract
In the context of the US and Soviet/Russian rivalry, we explain the ways in which domestic and international factors contributed to the intervention decisions of the policymakers in these two major powers during and after the Cold War. Using the recently updated International Crisis Behavior (ICB) dataset, we employ the ordered logit models to analyze US and Soviet/Russian interventions. While their rivalry remained constant during and after the Cold War, there was significant variation in their intervention decisions. Our results show that US policymakers are more rational and less ideological. Overall, they paid attention to both domestic and international factors. However, due to their pragmatism, they were more receptive to international strategic factors during the Cold War and to domestic factors afterwards. The foreign policy decisions of the Soviet/Russian leadership are overall driven by international strategic concerns, without much influence from domestic politics. However, during the Cold War, Communist ideology led the Soviet decision makers to sometimes make risky decisions and decisions that did not correspond with the rivalry-related considerations. After the Cold War, confirming neorealist expectations, Russian foreign policy decisions are mainly driven by international strategic considerations and its rivalry with the US.
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