In late 2021, the Russian military began massing its troops on its border with Ukraine, a mobilization effort that led Western security officials to brace for a possible invasion. Although Vladimir Putin’s long-term objectives in stoking this crisis are anything but clear, Russian foreign policy over the last 20 years clearly demonstrates the importance of what Joslyn Barnhart calls “the consequences of humiliation.” Not only has Russia become more assertive under Putin’s leadership but its annexation of Crimea in 2014 also constitutes what may be one of the most significant violations of the territorial integrity norm in modern world history. In the conclusion of her book, Barnhart offers important insights into the possible sources of Russian assertiveness. As she explains, at the end of the Cold War, Western officials, primarily American, failed “to properly address Russia’s status concerns engendered by the fall of its empire” (p. 179):

Given its useful insights into the nature of political humiliation and its tragic consequences, it is a shame that The Consequences of Humiliation—or a book like it—was not available to Western leaders during the twilight of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In this book, Barnhart raises three key questions:

1. 1. What “types of international events” cause “the greatest” international humiliation?

2. 2. What impact does humiliation have on state behavior?

3. 3. What sorts of conditions make “humiliation-fueled aggression” most likely (p. 2)?

As she defines it, “humiliation” is an “emotional response to [a] perceived undeserved decline of one’s status in the eyes of others” (p. 3). In response to question 1, Barnhart explains that there are two types of events that can be expected to cause significant humiliation in world politics. First, if a state fails “to live up to international expectations of how it should perform”—for example, if a great power is defeated militarily by a weaker state—it will experience a sense of humiliation (p. 3). Second, if a state feels that its rights have been violated—if an enemy violates its sovereign airspace with flyovers—it will also likely feel humiliated.

In response to questions 2 and 3, Barnhart argues that humiliation causes states to take more assertive actions internationally and that it significantly increases the risks of armed conflict. There are several reasons why humiliated states act more assertively and aggressively on the world stage. Not only do they have domestic incentives to shore up the wounded pride of their citizens but they also have international incentives to try to maintain or reestablish their global status. In short, high-status states have greater political influence in world affairs, and so if a state hopes to retain (or reestablish) its influence, it must be conscious of its global status. To shore up their status, humiliated states are particularly likely to take assertive decisions that will boost collective self-esteem, including the use of military force. However, Barnhart argues that humiliated states do not always target their pent-up aggression at the states most responsible for their humiliation; that is, the state that recently defeated them in a war. In many cases they focus their aggression on materially weaker third parties. Weak third parties are easier to defeat than great powers, and therefore attacks against them can help restore the lost confidence and collective esteem of the state and its people. To test these claims, Barnhart uses a mixed-method approach that combines public opinion survey experiments on US citizens, quantitative analyses of conflict initiation (mostly using Correlates of War [COW] datasets), and case studies of French and German foreign policy during the Scramble for Africa in the late nineteenth century and of US and Soviet nuclear weapons policy during the Cold War.

This is an excellent book that makes several important contributions to international relations. Building on research in social psychology, Barnhart develops a theoretical framework that helps scholars understand how humiliation can encourage assertive foreign policies, including the use of military force. What is more, Barnhart deftly uses a mixed-method approach to test her theory. Rather than simply basing her argument on qualitative case studies and quantitative analyses of conflict datasets, Barnhart fielded two public opinion survey experiments to show how humiliation influences support for assertive foreign policies. In that regard, The Consequences of Humiliation provides an excellent example of mixed-method political science. Finally, as my opening comments indicate, Barnhart’s book also has important policy implications for how practitioners should deal with the consequences of humiliation in international politics.

However, there are four key issues I would like to raise with the book. First, as Barnhart notes, it focuses on the great powers and says very little about the consequences that humiliation has for weaker societies. As she explains, the great powers “not only” have “the greatest capability to engage in observable…responses to humiliating events” but they also “expect more substantial…privileges” (p. 11). Consistent with this focus on great powers, the book mostly addresses international responses to status loss. But what about states that are not in the great power club? If humiliation is a universal human emotion, which I am inclined to think that it is, what sorts of consequences does it have for low-status states? Are they less inclined to feel humiliated because they do not expect high-status treatment, or are they more inclined to feel humiliated because their sense of disrespect is likely to be so much greater than that of the great powers? Given that French policies in northern Africa entailed significant humiliation for the native populations, I was a bit puzzled as to why Barnhart limited her focus to the great powers. Indeed, I think her argument could have been applied usefully to explain anticolonial resistance movements, such as in Algeria.

Second, I think that more could be said about the relationship between humiliation and violence. First, what is it about the use of violence that satisfies people’s desire for self-esteem? Violence is certainly assertive, but as Barnhart notes, so too are other kinds of policies. Why do some people choose to deal with their humiliation with violence, whereas others choose a less violent path? What kind of psychological payoff do individuals experience when using violence to overcome humiliation, and what role do social or cultural factors play in channeling people’s sense of humiliation onto the path of violence and war?

Third, Barnhart contends that humiliated states often engage in violence against third-party actors that had very little to do with the original event that led a state to feel humiliated. As the quantitative analysis in chapter 4 shows, humiliated states tend to launch attacks against third-party states in the years after they have suffered a defeat (p. 83). What is more, they tend to target states that are militarily weaker (p. 94). As I understand her argument, Barnhart claims that humiliated states opt for these targets because they are easier to defeat militarily, and therefore attacks on these targets are likely to help restore the wounded confidence and pride of the humiliated nation. In her case study of French foreign policy in chapter 5, Barnhart explains that France decided to colonize Tunisia to make up for the wounded pride it experienced in the aftermath of its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and its loss of Alsace and Lorraine. It did this despite the fact that colonizing Tunisia made little economic, strategic, or political sense and, to be sure, entailed significant costs of occupation (pp. 118–20).

Although I do not doubt that humiliated states make such decisions, it is not exactly clear what they get out of such seemingly irrational choices, psychologically or otherwise. To put it bluntly, why would attacking a weaker third-party state shore up a humiliated state’s wounded pride? By presumption, they attack these states because it is much easier to attack them than it is to attack a great power. But if this is true, then it likely does not generate significant increases in international status. States would gain more status by defeating more powerful states, rather than less powerful states. Similarly, it is not clear how defeating a weak state in warfare will help a recently humiliated state restore its wounded confidence. I think that Barnhart could do more to explain why humiliated states make such seemingly irrational decisions, particularly given the risks that might be involved with potentially losing against a weaker state. For example, France tried to restore its past greatness after World War II by reconquering its (materially weaker) colonies in Southeast Asia, yet it ultimately lost at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

Finally, as my opening comments indicate, I think that policy makers should heed some of the insights of The Consequences of Humiliation in dealing with contentious and potentially explosive issues in international relations. But exactly how far should they to go to avoid upsetting their counterparts? For example, although US officials would be wise to avoid needlessly provoking Russia, should concern for Vladimir Putin’s pride mean that they should refrain from standing firm against Russian aggression in Ukraine or elsewhere? As Barnhart’s case study of the Scramble for Africa implicitly suggests, there is almost always someone on the losing end of a nation’s attempt to restore its pride and glory, in this particular case the African people whom France colonized. As such, how should policymakers weigh these sorts of concerns in more contemporary cases? Put another way, how can they best distinguish a legitimate grievance that requires compensation from an unjustified demand that reflects an inflated sense of pride?