Salvaging Status: Doubling Down in Russia, Egypt, and Great Britain
This chapter examines whether status concerns lead decision makers to value status more highly by looking at three separate sets of decisions: Russia's decision to aggressively back Serbia in the 1914 July Crisis, Britain's decision to collude with Israel and France in launching the 1956 Suez Crisis, and Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1962 decision to intervene in the Yemen Civil War (and continue to escalate through the rest of the decade). These cases broadly substantiate the patterns found in the Weltpolitik case—decision makers tend to value status more highly due to status concerns—while highlighting the plausibility of several new mechanisms. They also show that status concerns are not confined to European countries, great powers or states in the pre-World War I era. Finally, they reveal the other side of status concerns: state behavior designed to salvage or defend status rather than increase it.