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of international lying is: which types of lies are most likely to backfire and have harmful strategic consequences?
    In sum, the
potential for blowback
is the main criterion for assessing the consequences of international lying on the home front, while the
potential for backfiring
and doing a state more harm than good is the paramount criterion in the foreign-policy realm.
THE DANGERS OF INTER-STATE LYING
     
    Inter-state lying is unlikely to cause serious trouble at home. The danger of blowback is minimal in part because leaders do not lie to each other very often. The main reason, however, is that most people understand that the rulebook for international politics is different from the one used in domestic politics. In particular, they understand that leaders sometimes have to lie and cheat in their dealings with other countries, especially when they are dealing with a dangerous adversary. For better or for worse, lying is widely accepted as a necessary, albeit distasteful, tool of foreign policy. This is why statesmen and diplomats are rarely punished whenthey get caught telling inter-state lies. In contrast, lying is generally considered to be wrong when the issue at hand is national in scope, mainly because a country’s survival is seldom at stake when domestic politics are at play.
    It might seem unrealistic to think that inter-state lying can be compartmentalized the way I describe it without encouraging or legitimizing lying on the home front. But that would be wrong; reasonably clear boundaries can be drawn that stipulate when lying is acceptable and when it is not. Remember that most of us accept the fact that there are exceptional circumstances where we are allowed to lie in our daily lives without that becoming accepted behavior in ordinary circumstances. For example, when I was a cadet at West Point in the late 1960s, there was a strict honor code, which emphatically stated that a cadet does not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do. Nevertheless, we were allowed to tell white lies—it was called “social honor”—in instances where we might hurt someone else’s feelings over a trivial matter. To cite a popular example from the time: if you went to your tactical officer’s home and his wife served a dreadful meal, it was acceptable to tell her that the meal was delicious. We clearly understood, however, that telling lies in awkward social situations like that one did not give us license to lie in other circumstances.
    As noted, the same logic applies to people bargaining over a house or car. They are allowed to lie about their reservation price—it is part of the game—but that does not mean that they are free to lie in their other matters. Inter-state politics is another well-defined domain where lying is generally considered acceptable, and where there is not much danger of spillover or blowback.
    Turning to the international consequences, there is no doubt that inter-state lying can backfire, just as any policy a state pursues can fail and harm the national interest. But thereis nothing special about this particular kind of international lie that makes it prone to backfiring, as I will argue is the case with fearmongering and strategic cover-ups. Moreover, the damage done when inter-state lying goes awry is usually not major, which is not to deny that there are some costs.
    A lie that a statesman or diplomat tells to another country can go wrong in two different ways. First, it might be exposed soon after it is told, which would obviously make it impossible for the lie to have its intended effect. But what about the consequences for the leaders who lied? They are unlikely to be severe because the incentive to retaliate would not be great, since the lie was uncovered before it could do harm to the target country, and since there are usually not good ways for the intended victim to punish the liars. One possible option is to embarrass the liar, but that is a minor punishment indeed. And that