Ethical traps in international relations
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Author | Mervyn Frost,Richard Ned Lebow |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117818808568 |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117818808568
International Relations
2019, Vol. 33(1) 3 –22
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117818808568
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Ethical traps in international
relations
Richard Ned Lebow and Mervyn Frost
King’s College London
Abstract
We elaborate a little noticed strategy generally used by weaker actors both in domestic and
international politics: the ethical trap. Actors who fall into such traps lose ethical standing and
influence at home as well as abroad. We explore the concept of the trap and distinguish it from
policy interventions and escalation in which there is no deliberate enticement. We document
historical instances of successful ethical trapping both within states and between them. We also
discuss traps that were not sprung. We contend that ethical traps have become an increasingly
salient feature of contemporary asymmetrical warfare both within states and internationally. We
conclude with some propositions about the global practice in which ethical traps are set and
the conditions in which they are likely to succeed and some observations about the relative
vulnerability of liberal and non-liberal regimes to these traps. This in turn says something
important about the practical consequences of ethical violations in international affairs.
Keywords
asymmetric warfare, ethical traps, ethics, foreign policy, terrorism
In the global practice of sovereign states, participant states are vulnerable to ethical traps.
These may be deliberately set by others or may emerge through an accident of interac-
tions by other states. Having fallen into an ethical trap, states become open to criticisms
by others that may result in a loss of legitimacy, influence and power. A deliberate ethical
trap is an attempt by a state, or non-state actor to entice another into acting in a manner
sharply, if not dramatically, at odds with one or more of the fundamental norms of the
global practice. It is akin to what happens in games when a player is deliberately pro-
voked to commit a foul and incur a penalty. In the global practice of states, the ethical
trap is a strategy generally adopted by weaker actors in political conflicts. It can be used
Corresponding author:
Richard Ned Lebow, Department of War Studies, King’s College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK.
Email: nedlebow@gmail.com
808568IRE0010.1177/0047117818808568International RelationsLebow and Frost
research-article2018
Article
4 International Relations 33(1)
most effectively against actors who claim high moral standing in the global practice and
are therefore vulnerable to exposure for acting in ways that contradict its core values and
theirs.
Ethical traps are a particularly salient component of asymmetrical warfare, but this
has not been satisfactorily illustrated in the literature. We explore the act of ethical trapping
and the global practice within which such action is available to participants. We distin-
guish ethical traps from other kinds of traps and from foreign policy interventions and
escalations. Ethical traps are sometime self-imposed. States can act in self-defeating
ways and fall into ethical traps that may then be exploited by others. We focus on traps
that have been deliberately set.
Our approach to this phenomenon differs from scholars who write about ethics and
rhetoric. Ulrich Sedelmeier, James March, Johan Olsen, Frank Schimmelfennig, Ronald
Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, Peter Katzenstein and James Johnson analyse rhetoric as a
political tool that international actors use, among other instruments, to advance their
interests.1 Margarita H. Petrova discusses the uses of ‘rhetorical framing and its effects
on foreign policy outcomes – specifically intra-alliance relations’. She notes that ‘“leaders”
attempt to change the framing of existing security concepts to alter the context and
thereby lower the cost of alliance cooperation’.2 Flemming Splidsboel Hansen argues
that rhetorical entrapment ‘is about the deliberate use of this built-in tension between
ethical commitments and interests. States can suffer because of earlier commitments
when other actors draw attention to these commitments and expose inconsistencies and
norm-violating behaviour’.3 Hansen assumes that ethical commitments are chosen – or
not – by stat es and in par ticular contexts. If states make such commitments they may
become vulnerable to entrapment. Our perspective is different. We acknowledge that
states may make commitments to practices or values that can come to haunt them.
However, we understand states to be constrained by ethical considerations in ways that
are more fundamental than the reference to conscious short-term ‘commitments’ sug-
gests. To be a state is to be constituted within the global practice of sovereign states. This
involves an elaborate system of mutual recognition and acceptance of mutual responsi-
bilities amon g participants. Once constituted, states are required to uphold the fundamen-
tal values underpinning the practice. Key among these is the value of the freedom which
sovereign states enjoy, together with the values inherent in international law the proto-
cols of international diplomacy, the international laws of armed conflict, international
humanitarian law, the norm against empire, and many others.
The values embedded in these practices are not such that states may decide to commit
to them or not. It is a condition of participation that states do so. As an illustration,
consider the three Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) that declared their inde-
pendence from the Soviet Union in 1991 to become recognized sovereign participants in
the practice of states. As participants, it is required of them that they uphold the many
(and complex) components of the international practice and the values made possible
by them: as indicated these include sovereignty, the norms of international law, the
internationally recognized boundaries of states, the accepted protocols of international
diplomacy, the international laws of armed conflict, and international humanitarian law
(and many others). Accepting these was not some ‘rhetorical ploy’ which, as new member
states, they were free to make or not, but was a condition of their participation, as it is for
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