The Image of a State As an Instrument for Comprehending a Threat in International Relations (Iran's nuclear program used as an example)

As is known, ensuring national security means protecting the state's key interests
 from external threats. However, whereas a definition of national interests
 rarely gives rise to serious differences, opinions differ among the country's
 political leaders and expert community on what the source of a threat might be
 and how much harm it might do. ... As far as current world politics is concerned, Iran's nuclear program has become a
 graphic example of differences in assessments of a potential threat. According
 to a study conducted by experts of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at
 the Monterey Institute of International Studies (Monterey, the United States),
 there are considerable differences between the prevailing views of nations on
 nuclear threats and nonproliferation strategy. For instance, assessments of
 Iran's nuclear threat vary from low (Brazil, India, Pakistan, the South African
 Republic) to high (Egypt, Germany, Israel, Spain, Sweden, the United States).
 At the same time Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea perceive the threat as
 moderate.1 Experts are not unanimous also on possible
 consequences which might arise from the creation of nuclear weapons by Iran,
 and in regard to approaches which might resolve the situation around the
 Iranian nuclear pro-gram.2 ... In practical terms such
 differences in assessing external threats above all mean that the absence of a
 common understanding hinders an effective resolution of these differences. In
 theoretical terms these differences prompt researchers to rethink the
 mechanisms that induce political leaders to adopt views on the existence of a
 potential threat posed by another country to the country's security, stability
 in the region or in the world at large. ... A.
 Smirnova,
 Cand. Sc. (Political Science), assistant professor at the Department of Social
 and Political Psychology of Yaroslavl State University named after P. Demidov.
 This article first appeared in Russian in the journal Politicheskiye
 issledovaniya (POLIS), No. 5, 2008. It was
 sponsored within the framework of a grant awarded by the President of the
 Russian Federation in support of young Russian scientists—MK 4221.2006.61. ... Intentions and Potential to Cause Harm as Threat Indicators ... Although experts differ on the timeframe of Iran's possible development of nuclear
 weapons, most of them feel Iran does not possess nuclear weapons at present.
 What is more difficult to assess is Iran's intentions. That country's
 political leadership declares that Iran's efforts in nuclear power engineering
 research and development are exclusively of a peaceful nature. Considering that
 a threat is a combination of intentions and the subject's ability to cause
 harm, it must be admitted that there is not enough reason to view Iran as a
 source of threats since “if either one of the components is lacking, there is
 no threat.”3 ... It might be assumed that the way some countries perceive Iran's threat stems
 either from a mistaken assessment of its political leaders' intentions and
 potential or else this perception is based on constructed judgments of these
 intentions and potentials. Making a conclusion on mistakes is only possible
 if the researcher has reliable documentary evidence and “the intentions of
 those who issued the threat are well established.”4
 However, the key characteristic of “the Iranian threat” is that interested
 parties seek to avert the danger linked to it before Iran's leaders have
 formulated intentions and got a chance to do harm. This situation is
 characterized by a high degree of uncertainty, and any assessments of threats
 associated with it may prove wrong. ... The assumption that intentions and the possibility to cause harm are subjective
 judgments rather than categories of the objective reality is borne out by a
 work of Kenneth Boulding, who notes the nonspecific nature of a state's
 military potential.5 This kind of potential forms a
 common threat directed against several countries at a time. It is only in the
 process of constructing a judgment concerning the existence of the
 threat that the military potential is perceived as a “targeted” potential
 directed against a particular country. ... The latter assumption makes it possible to outline a mechanism recognizing a threat
 as a constructed judgment. At the same time, considering the characteristics of
 a state's military potential, it might be assumed that the impact the variable
 denoting the possibility to cause harm makes on the perception of a threat is
 determined by other variables. This means that the abovementioned mechanism of
 perceiving a threat needs concretization by determining a combination of factors
 influencing the subject's construction of a judgment of a threat on the
 basis of assessing the military potential of another subject. ... Judgments concerning a state's intentions to cause harm may result, for instance, from
 its failure to observe rules, norms and agreements regulating relations between
 international actors.

Topic: Economic Sanctions and International Relations
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance
Domain: Social Sciences