For UW political scientist Andrew Kydd, the U.S. military’s recent bombing of Iran was almost inevitable, the result of choices that both Iran and the U.S. had made years earlier.
U.S. policy is determined to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Iran’s government has incrementally increased its capacity to build nuclear weapons. In 2018, the first Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multinational diplomatic effort to slow Iran’s nuclear program. And once America discarded diplomatic efforts, it’s only means of stopping Iran’s weapons program was through miliary force.
“Given that Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA,” he says, “the military strike was basically foreseeable at that point.”
Kydd specializes in nuclear arms control, conflict resolution, and game theory, and on July 8, he’ll join a UW Now Live conversation about the recent Iran strikes with fellow political scientist Jon Pevehouse and host Mike Knetter.
My Main Area of Research Is:
The kind of research I do typically involves game theory, with is the mathematical modeling technique used to study strategic interaction, especially in economics and political science, to answer questions like, “If the other side does this, then what would the rational response to that be?” I don’t really have a special regional focus or expertise. I’m more focused on specific topics, such as the origins and conclusion of wars wherever they might be.
On the UW Now Live, I’ll Talk About:
I will go over the history of the Iranian nuclear program dating back to the early 2000s. We discovered the program around 2002, and we’ve been considering some sort of military action against the Iranian nuclear facilities ever since. That was when we invaded Iraq, and after that started to go badly, there was much less appetite for an attack on Iran. Obama negotiated a deal to cap the program in 2015, the JCPOA. Then Trump came in and ripped it up, thinking he could do better. Biden tried to renegotiate it but was unsuccessful. Then Israel forced Trump’s hand by attacking Iran itself, despite its inability to destroy the deeply buried Fordow enrichment plant. Trump then faced a choice between a limited strike to try and destroy Fordow or leaving it in place so the Iranians could still make fissile material, and decided on the attack.
The Main Point I Want Viewers to Know Is:
The main — and really only worthwhile — justification of this is as a preventive war designed to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. It has to be judged on the ability to accomplish that goal, not on whether it brings down the Iranian regime, which could bring its own problems.
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