TRUST AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES IN INTERNATIONAL-RELATIONS

With the end of the Cold War, we must wonder whether there were missed opportunities to regulate the arms race and global competition, which nearly bankrupted the United States and contributed to the collapse o f the Soviet Union. A missed opportunity for agreement is a situation where there was at least one alternative that the parties to a conflic t preferred or would have preferred to nonagreement. Hard-core Realist s argue that states compete for territory, arms and influence because they have conflicting national interests. Soft-core Realists maintain that such conflicts are effects of international anarchy and uncertain ty, and that states can cooperate contingent on reciprocity. I argue t hat states often fail to cooperate even when they have compatible pref erences because policy-makers make incorrect inferences about the oppo nent's motives and intentions, a process that can be illuminated by so cial psychology. I present three alternative explanations of trust and distrust in international relations-rational choice, domestic structu res, and social psychology. If policy-makers are prudent, they will as sess the other's interests in observing an agreement as well as its re putation. Often, domestic political structures encourage leaders to pr omote distrust of an external enemy to legitimize their internal rule or foreign policy. Finally, distrust may lead policy-makers to dismiss the other side's cooperative signals or proposals. Distrust can be ov ercome by making a series of step-by-step agreements in which each sid e can test the other's good faith at limited cost, or through unilater al concessions as part of a consistent policy.