Pre-class: Deutsch

I just want to focus on one of Deutsch's twelve "essential" background conditions: mutual predictability. On page 56, Deutsch writes:

A final condition that may be essential for the success of amalgamation may be some minimum amount of mutual predictability of behavior. Members...must be able to expect from one another some dependable interlocking, interchanging, or at least compatible behavior; and they must therefore be able, at least to that extent, to predict one another's actions. (italics added)

To my mind, mutual predictability is more essential to both amalgamated and pluralistic security-communities than Deutsch seems to let on. I think it deserves to be in the 'definitely essential' category as opposed to the 'maybe essential' category.

In either type of security-community, there must be mutual predictability. Country A must be able to reasonably assume Country B's behavior (especially its threshold for bellicosity) and vice versa. If a country cannot reasonably predict how another country will act, there is little hope of the two countries establishing, let alone pursuing, either type of security-community. Mutual predictability is arguably more essential in an age of nuclear/biological proliferation in which non-state actors theoretically could attain nuclear/biological weapons.

Take North Korea, for example. There aren't exactly a bevy of states lining up to establish either a pluralistic or an amalgamated security-community with North Korea. I would argue that one of the primary reasons for this is because Kim Jong-Il has a reputation (whether fully-deserved or not) of unpredictable action. If Kim's regime were more predictable, particularly in its treatment of nuclear technology, more states would likely be willing to establish greater ties with North Korea.