Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics.

• Author: Harding, Russell
• Position: Book review

WHY LEADERS LIE: The Truth About Lying in International Politics

Author: John Mearsheimer

Published by: Duckworth Overlook, London, 2011, 148pp, US$21.95.

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Controversial foreign policy academic John Mearsheimer has produced a short and highly readable book on the use of lies in relations between nation-states. The impetus for this book is what Mearsheimer regards as lies used by the George W. Bush administration to initiate the war in Iraq. However, rather than producing a polemic, he uses this episode to present a typology of international lies. The book's readability is enhanced through Mearsheimer's avoidance of grand theory. Arguing from a realist perspective, Mearsheimer views lying as a legitimate instrument of statecraft for achieving a nation's interests, albeit not the preferred option in the first instance.

Mearsheimer prefaces his argument by stating that as lies are frowned upon in personal relationships, so are they frowned upon when used between states. Unlike the personal realm in which there are various formal and informal arbiters available to adjudicate whether or not lies have been told, these do not exist in the international arena. Despite this, he argues, lies are as unlikely to be told in international relations as they are in personal relationships.

Arguing from analogy, he claims that lies told in the interest of the citizenry may be excused by that citizenry in the same way as small, personal, dignity-preserving lies. For example, just as personal instances of lying including white lies of little or no consequence, such as compliments to a host despite a poorly cooked meal, may be excused, so too lies told to other states for the wider public interest are often easily forgiven by the public, such as the lie told by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 when he denied that plans were underway for the use of military intervention to free American hostages held in Tehran.

Adapting Sissela Bok's classic definition of lies, Mearsheimer confines his typology to a statement by a person who 'knows or suspects it to be false in the hope that others will think it is true'. Concealment, 'spin' or secrecy, while they may be deceptive, do not constitute lies, and are not included. Further, he confines his analysis to lies told in the wider national interest. Lies told for personal gain or to explicitly shield individual incompetent performance are not included. This leaves him with five types of lie:

* Interstate...