Fighting for Credibility – US Reputation and International Politics Harvey

Fighting for CredibilityUS Reputation and International Politics\nAuthor(s): Frank P. Harvey, John Mitton\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: University of Toronto Press, Canada\nImprint: University of Toronto Press\nISBN-13: 9781487500757, 978-1487500757\nSynopsis\nWhen Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people in Syria, he clearly crossed President Barack Obamas \""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.\n\n 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 adversarys assessment of credibility; power and interests alone determine whether a threat is believed. Using a nuanced and sophisticated theory of rational .