The sound of silence: Power, secrecy, and international audiences in US military basing negotiations

Abstract

Why do leaders draw attention to some cooperative security negotiations but shroud others in secrecy? Previous scholarship focuses on leaders’ efforts to gain better terms of agreement either by playing their cards close to the vest at the bargaining table or by leveraging/avoiding aroused public opinion at home. Yet, in many cases, it is neither dyadic nor domestic political pressures that motivate leaders’ decisions to publicly acknowledge or conceal the occurrence of talks. This article suggests, instead, that third-party states often constitute the primary targets of official secrecy and that a state’s international power position shapes its decision to conceal or acknowledge military cooperation by affecting the size and attentiveness of international audiences, the types of assets it brings to the relationship and the benefits it seeks from cooperation. I test five hypotheses about leaders’ use of secrecy and acknowledgment through a statistical analysis of an original dataset on US overseas military basing negotiations. This analysis produces strong support for my argument.