The role of attribution in politics

Attribution is felt from either international bodies against states or individuals, or by states towards others or groups. It can be formal or informal and can dictate future policy and actions. Today, states increasingly prefer strategic ambiguity and indirect methods that complicate attribution.1 What was once an exciting prospect and show of primacy in foreign policy is now something only done out of absolute necessity or desperation. Leaders now choose to intervene through indirect measures in fear of attribution by their own citizens and the global community.

Following WWII, many states were eager to protect the rules-based order whereby democracy and sovereignty of states were respected, and liberty of people was honoured through intervention in extreme cases. This at times meant intervention by states into others (militarily or through political tools) to establish quality of life for citizens perceived at the behest of unethical acts of leaders. The U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, NATO in Kosovo, are examples of external forces intervening in a country's operations for the 'good' of the population. This concept would later be adopted formally in the 'Responsibility to Protect' principle in the United Nations in 2005.2

However, as quickly learned by intervening forces, the road following intervention is hardly clear cut. In many cases, the responsibility to protect became indistinguishable from complicity in the same unethical practices—or worse ones.3 As international actors expanded beyond state borders and ideology became one of the fastest-spreading political threats, states realised that intervention at borders was ineffective when the root of the problem is, metaphorically, in the wind. Interventionist policy proved too slow to counter modern security threats. Intervening became synonymous with being drawn into chaos.

This is a primary reason that states don't intervene in other countries' affairs to the same level as in the 1990s and 2000s.4 Some think this positive, noting that war fatalities declined dramatically through the 1990s and early 2000s. However, this decline proved temporary—by the 2010s, battle deaths increased six-fold from 2011 onwards, with 2022 becoming the deadliest year since the Rwandan genocide.5 Meanwhile, countries face criticism for insufficient interventionism in Ukraine, Palestine, and Sudan.

For better or worse, states are spooked from intervention in the name of protection. Gone are the days of 'clear-cut' conquering. Now, we have distant and indirect influencing (at least to the untrained eye). This serves both the state who might once have intervened and the future of the host state. Often, host states aren't well equipped to recover from foreign intervention—due to fragile economies and leadership, the cost of remaking war-torn countries, or intervention inconsiderate of local and regional cultural realities.

The intervening state receives attribution for rubble (literal and metaphorical) left in the host state, while host states/opposing forces receive attribution for intervening forces' losses. A dual attribution process rarely leaving positive short-term impact. Today, when states consider intervention, attribution becomes central—what long-term effect will this have on our state's reputation and leverage abroad? And by extension, our ability to protect our own?

Lessons from post-WWII interventions have contributed to isolationist state behaviour. States are more invested in their own affairs than those with little effect on their outcomes. When threats arise, indirect interventions are prioritised over military ones.6 The ways states can influence others through indirect measures vary widely: cyber warfare, economic sanctions, disinformation campaigns, AI monitoring.7

We instead allow discreet operations while navigating self-reliance at home. This inward focus has produced increasingly polarised opinions. Across 19 developed countries, 65% of citizens perceive strong disagreements between people supporting different political parties, with South Korea, the United States, Israel, France, and Hungary showing highest levels. While measured polarisation increased in approximately half of OECD countries studied recently, perceptions of division are widespread across most developed democracies.8

The relationship between foreign policy restraint and domestic polarisation is likely bidirectional. Research shows financial crises and elite behaviour drive polarisation more directly than foreign policy orientation alone,9 though absent external threats can amplify domestic divisions while polarisation prevents interventionist consensus—a reinforcing relationship.

Attribution avoidance through indirect methods creates information asymmetry that prevents democratic accountability.10 Without shared facts about state actions abroad, citizens retreat to partisan narratives, deepening polarisation on foreign policy and making future interventionist consensus politically impossible—the very strategy designed to avoid attribution accelerates the domestic divisions that make coherent foreign policy unattainable.

This attribution dynamic creates a vicious cycle for democratic foreign policy. Leaders choose indirect methods to avoid domestic political costs. These methods obscure facts citizens need for informed debate. In the resulting information vacuum, partisan narratives diverge, with political factions developing incompatible understandings of their state's foreign activities and consequences. This fragmentation makes democratic consensus on future interventions even more elusive, further incentivising indirect, deniable methods.

How attribution for foreign policy evolves in our rapidly evolving global environment will dictate both political outcomes abroad and domestic politics. In our polarised state, will we blame other parties for wrongdoing instead of facing collective attribution? Will we make more alliances to mitigate attribution risk? How will the nature of attribution continue to change with the security environment?

References

1.     Vladimir Rauta, "Proxy Warfare and the Future of Conflict: Take Two," The RUSI Journal 165, no. 2 (2020): 3; Andreas Krieg and Jean-Marc Rickli, Surrogate Warfare: The Transformation of War in the Twenty-First Century (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2019), 45–67.

2.     United Nations, "About the Responsibility to Protect," United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, accessed January 11, 2025, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/about-responsibility-to-protect.shtml.

3.     Aidan Hehir, "The Responsibility to Protect: 'Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing,'" International Relations 24, no. 2 (2010): 218–239.

4.     Andrew Mumford, Proxy Warfare (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013), 40–58.

5.     Shawn Davies, Therése Pettersson, and Magnus Öberg, "Organized Violence 1989–2022, and the Return of Conflict between States," Journal of Peace Research 60, no. 4 (2023): 692; United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, "Civil War Trends and the Changing Nature of Armed Conflict," accessed January 11, 2025, https://unu.edu/cpr/project/civil-war-trends-and-changing-nature-armed-conflict.

6.     Geraint Hughes, "Syria and the Perils of Proxy Warfare," Small Wars & Insurgencies 25, no. 3 (2014): 524–530.

7.     Michael J. Mazarr, Mastering the Gray Zone: Understanding a Changing Era of Conflict (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press, 2015), 1–23; Frank G. Hoffman, "Hybrid Warfare and Challenges," Joint Force Quarterly 52 (2009): 34–39.

8.     Pew Research Center, "Most across 19 Countries See Strong Partisan Conflicts in Their Society, Especially in South Korea and the U.S.," November 16, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/11/16/most-across-19-countries-see-strong-partisan-conflicts-in-their-society-especially-in-south-korea-and-the-u-s/; Levi Boxell, Matthew Gentzkow, and Jesse M. Shapiro, "Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polarization," Review of Economics and Statistics 106, no. 2 (2024): 557–558.

9.     Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick, and Christoph Trebesch, "Going to Extremes: Politics after Financial Crises, 1870–2014," European Economic Review 88 (2016): 227–260; Boxell, Gentzkow, and Shapiro, "Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polarization," 560–562.

10.  James D. Fearon, "Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes," American Political Science Review 88, no. 3 (1994): 577–592.