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Structural Realism after the Cold War
Structural Realism after the Cold War
Source: International Security, Summer2000, Vol.
25 Issue 1, p5, 37p
Some students of international politics believe
that realism is obsolete.[1] They argue that,
although realism’s concepts of anarchy, self-help,
and power balancing may have been appropriate to a
bygone era, they have been displaced by changed
conditions and eclipsed by better ideas. New times
call for new thinking. Changing conditions require
revised theories or entirely different ones.
True, if the conditions that a theory contemplated
have changed, the theory no longer applies. But
what sorts of changes would alter the
international political system so profoundly that
old ways of thinking would no longer be relevant?
Changes of the system would do it; changes in the
system would not. Within-system changes take place
all the time, some important, some not. Big
changes in the means of transportation,
communication, and war fighting, for example,
strongly affect how states and other agents
interact. Such changes occur at the unit level. In
modern history, or perhaps in all of history, the
introduction of nuclear weaponry was the greatest
of such changes. Yet in the nuclear era,
international politics remains a self-help arena.
Nuclear weapons decisively change how some states
provide for their own and possibly for others’
security; but nuclear weapons have not altered the
anarchic structure of the international political
system.
Changes in the structure of the system are
distinct from changes at the unit level. Thus,
changes in polarity also affect how states provide
for their security. Significant changes take place
when the number of great powers reduces to two or
one. With more than two, states rely for their
security both on their own internal efforts and on
alliances they may make with others. Competition
in multipolar systems is more complicated than
competition in bipolar ones because uncertainties
about the comparative capabilities of states
multiply as numbers grow, and because estimates of
the cohesiveness and strength of coalitions are
hard to make.
Both changes of weaponry and changes of polarity
were big ones with ramifications that spread
through the system, yet they did not transform it.
If the system were transformed, international
politics would no longer be international
politics, and the past would no longer serve as a
guide to the future. We would begin to call
international politics by another name, as some
do. The terms "world politics" or "global
politics," for example, suggest that politics
among self-interested states concerned with their
security has been replaced by some other kind of
politics or perhaps by no politics at all.
What changes, one may wonder, would turn
international politics into something distinctly
different? The answer commonly given is that
international politics is being transformed and
realism is being rendered obsolete as democracy
extends its sway, as interdependence tightens its
grip, and as institutions smooth the way to peace.
I consider these points in successive sections. A
fourth section explains why realist theory retains
its explanatory power after the Cold War.
Democracy and Peace
The end of the Cold War coincided with what many
took to be a new democratic wave. The trend toward
democracy combined with Michael Doyle’s
rediscovery of the peaceful behavior of liberal
democratic states inter se contributes strongly to
the belief that war is obsolescent, if not
obsolete, among the advanced industrial states of
the world.[2]
The democratic peace thesis holds that democracies
do not fight democracies. Notice that I say
"thesis," not "theory." The belief that
democracies constitute a zone of peace rests on a
perceived high correlation between governmental
form and international outcome. Francis Fukuyama
thinks that the correlation is perfect: Never once
has a democracy fought another democracy. Jack
Levy says that it is "the closest thing we have to
an empirical law in the study of international
relations."[3] But, if it is true that democracies
rest reliably at peace among themselves, we have
not a theory but a purported fact begging for an
explanation, as facts do. The explanation given
generally runs this way: Democracies of the right
kind (i.e., liberal ones) are peaceful in relation
to one another. This was Immanuel Kant’s point.
The term he used was Rechtsstaat or republic, and
his definition of a republic was so restrictive
that it was hard to believe that even one of them
could come into existence, let alone two or
more.[4] And if they did, who can say that they
would continue to be of the right sort or continue
to be democracies at all? The short and sad life
of the Weimar Republic is a reminder. And how does
one define what the right sort of democracy is?
Some American scholars thought that Wilhelmine
Germany was the very model of a modern democratic
state with a wide suffrage, honest elections, a
legislature that controlled the purse, competitive
parties, a free press, and a highly competent
bureaucracy.[5] But in the French, British, and
American view after August of 1914, Germany turned
out not to be a democracy of the right kind. John
Owen tried to finesse the problem of definition by
arguing that democracies that perceive one another
to be liberal democracies will not fight.[6] That
rather gives the game away. Liberal democracies
have at times prepared for wars against other
liberal democracies and have sometimes come close
to fighting them. Christopher Layne shows that
some wars between democracies were averted not
because of the reluctance of democracies to fight
each other but for fear of a third party--a good
realist reason. How, for example, could Britain
and France fight each other over Fashoda in 1898
when Germany lurked in the background? In
emphasizing the international political reasons
for democracies not fighting each other, Layne
gets to the heart of the matter.[7] Conformity of
countries to a prescribed political form may
eliminate some of the causes of war; it cannot
eliminate all of them. The democratic peace thesis
will hold only if all of the causes of war lie
inside of states.
THE CAUSES OF WAR
To explain war is easier than to understand the
conditions of peace. If one asks what may cause
war, the simple answer is "anything." That is
Kant’s answer: The natural state is the state of
war. Under the conditions of international
politics, war recurs; the sure way to abolish war,
then, is to abolish international politics.
Over the centuries, liberals have shown a strong
desire to get the politics out of politics. The
ideal of nineteenth-century liberals was the
police state, that is, the state that would
confine its activities to catching criminals and
enforcing contracts. The ideal of the
laissez-faire state finds many counterparts among
students of international politics with their yen
to get the power out of power politics, the
national out of international politics, the
dependence out of interdependence, the relative
out of relative gains, the politics out of
international politics, and the structure out of
structural theory.
Proponents of the democratic peace thesis write as
though the spread of democracy will negate the
effects of anarchy. No causes of conflict and war
will any longer be found at the structural level.
Francis Fukuyama finds it "perfectly possible to
imagine anarchic state systems that are
nonetheless peaceful." He sees no reason to
associate anarchy with war. Bruce Russett believes
that, with enough democracies in the world, it
"may be possible in part to supersede the
’realist’ principles (anarchy, the security
dilemma of states) that have dominated practice
... since at least the seventeenth century."[8]
Thus the structure is removed from structural
theory. Democratic states would be so confident of
the peace-preserving effects of democracy that
they would no longer fear that another state, so
long as it remained democratic, would do it wrong.
The guarantee of the state’s proper external
behavior would derive from its admirable internal
qualities.
This is a conclusion that Kant would not sustain.
German historians at the turn of the nineteenth
century wondered whether peacefully inclined
states could be planted and expected to grow where
dangers from outside pressed daily upon them.[9]
Kant a century earlier entertained the same worry.
The seventh proposition of his "Principles of the
Political Order" avers that establishment of the
proper constitution internally requires the proper
ordering of the external relations of states. The
first duty of the state is to defend itself, and
outside of a juridical order none but the state
itself can define the actions required. "Lesion of
a less powerful country," Kant writes, "may be
involved merely in the condition of a more
powerful neighbor prior to any action at all; and
in the State of Nature an attack under such
circumstances would be warrantable."[10] In the
state of nature, there is no such thing as an
unjust war.
Every student of international politics is aware
of the statistical data supporting the democratic
peace thesis. Everyone has also known at least
since David Hume that we have no reason to believe
that the association of events provides a basis
for inferring the presence of a causal relation.
John Mueller properly speculates that it is not
democracy that causes peace but that other
conditions cause both democracy and peace.[11]
Some of the major democracies--Britain in the
nineteenth century and the United States in the
twentieth century--have been among the most
powerful states of their eras. Powerful states
often gain their ends by peaceful means where
weaker states either fail or have to resort to
war.[12] Thus, the American government deemed the
democratically elected Juan Bosch of the Dominican
Republic too weak to bring order to his country.
The United States toppled his government by
sending 23,000 troops within a week, troops whose
mere presence made fighting a war unnecessary.
Salvador Allende, democratically elected ruler of
Chile, was systematically and effectively
undermined by the United States, without the open
use of force, because its leaders thought that his
government was taking a wrong turn. As Henry
Kissinger put it: "I don’t see why we need to
stand by and watch a country go Communist due to
the irresponsibility of its own people."[13] That
is the way it is with democracies--their people
may show bad judgment. "Wayward" democracies are
especially tempting objects of intervention by
other democracies that wish to save them. American
policy may have been wise in both cases, but its
actions surely cast doubt on the democratic peace
thesis. So do the instances when a democracy did
fight another democracy.[14] So do the instances
in which democratically elected legislatures have
clamored for war, as has happened for example in
Pakistan and Jordan.
One can of course say, yes, but the Dominican
Republic and Chile were not liberal democracies
nor perceived as such by the United States. Once
one begins to go down that road, there is no place
to stop. The problem is heightened because liberal
democracies, as they prepare for a war they may
fear, begin to look less liberal and will look
less liberal still if they begin to fight one. I
am tempted to say that the democratic peace thesis
in the form in which its proponents cast it is
irrefutable. A liberal democracy at war with
another country is unlikely to call it a liberal
democracy.
Democracies may live at peace with democracies,
but even if all states became democratic, the
structure of international politics would remain
anarchic. The structure of international politics
is not transformed by changes internal to states,
however widespread the changes may be. In the
absence of an external authority, a state cannot
be sure that today’s friend will not be tomorrow’s
enemy. Indeed, democracies have at times behaved
as though today’s democracy is today’s enemy and a
present threat to them. In Federalist Paper number
six, Alexander Hamilton asked whether the thirteen
states of the Confederacy might live peacefully
with one another as freely constituted republics.
He answered that there have been "almost as many
popular as royal wars." He cited the many wars
fought by republican Sparta, Athens, Rome,
Carthage, Venice, Holland, and Britain. John
Quincy Adams, in response to James Monroe’s
contrary claim, averred "that the government of a
Republic was as capable of intriguing with the
leaders of a free people as neighboring
monarchs."[15] In the latter half of the
nineteenth century, as the United States and
Britain became more democratic, bitterness grew
between them, and the possibility of war was at
times seriously entertained on both sides of the
Atlantic. France and Britain were among the
principal adversaries in the great power politics
of the nineteenth century, as they were earlier.
Their becoming democracies did not change their
behavior toward each other. In 1914, democratic
England and France fought democratic Germany, and
doubts about the latter’s democratic standing
merely illustrate the problem of definition.
Indeed, the democratic pluralism of Germany was an
underlying cause of the war. In response to
domestic interests, Germany followed policies
bound to frighten both Britain and Russia. And
today if a war that a few have feared were fought
by the United States and Japan, many Americans
would say that Japan was not a democracy after
all, but merely a one-party state.
What can we conclude? Democracies rarely fight
democracies, we might say, and then add as a word
of essential caution that the internal excellence
of states is a brittle basis of peace.
DEMOCRATIC WARS
Democracies coexist with undemocratic states.
Although democracies seldom fight democracies,
they do, as Michael Doyle has noted, fight at
least their share of wars against others.[16]
Citizens of democratic states tend to think of
their countries as good, aside from what they do,
simply because they are democratic. Thus former
Secretary of State Warren Christopher claimed that
"democratic nations rarely start wars or threaten
their neighbors."[17] One might suggest that he
try his proposition out in Central or South
America. Citizens of democratic states also tend
to think of undemocratic states as bad, aside from
what they do, simply because they are
undemocratic. Democracies promote war because they
at times decide that the way to preserve peace is
to defeat nondemocratic states and make them
democratic.
During World War I, Walter Hines Page, American
ambassador to England, claimed that there "is no
security in any part of the world where people
cannot think of a government without a king and
never will be." During the Vietnam War, Secretary
of State Dean Rusk claimed that the "United States
cannot be secure until the total international
environment is ideologically safe."[18] Policies
aside, the very existence of undemocratic states
is a danger to others. American political and
intellectual leaders have often taken this view.
Liberal interventionism is again on the march.
President Bill Clinton and his national security
adviser, Anthony Lake, urged the United States to
take measures to enhance democracy around the
world. The task, one fears, will be taken up by
the American military with some enthusiasm. Former
Army Chief of Staff General Gordon Sullivan, for
example, favored a new military "model," replacing
the negative aim of containment with a positive
one: "To promote democracy, regional stability,
and economic prosperity."[19] Other voices urge us
to enter into a "struggle to ensure that people
are governed well." Having apparently solved the
problem of justice at home, "the struggle for
liberal government becomes a struggle not simply
for justice but for survival."[20] As R.H. Tawney
said: "Either war is a crusade, or it is a
crime."[21] Crusades are frightening because
crusaders go to war for righteous causes, which
they define for themselves and try to impose on
others. One might have hoped that Americans would
have learned that they are not very good at
causing democracy abroad. But, alas, if the world
can be made safe for democracy only by making it
democratic, then all means are permitted and to
use them becomes a duty. The war fervor of people
and their representatives is at times hard to
contain. Thus Hans Morgenthau believed that "the
democratic selection and responsibility of
government officials destroyed international
morality as an effective system of restraint."[22]
Since, as Kant believed, war among self-directed
states will occasionally break out, peace has to
be contrived. For any government, doing so is a
difficult task, and all states are at times
deficient in accomplishing it, even if they wish
to. Democratic leaders may respond to the fervor
for war that their citizens sometimes display, or
even try to arouse it, and governments are
sometimes constrained by electoral calculations to
defer preventive measures. Thus British Prime
Minister Stanley Baldwin said that if he had
called in 1935 for British rearmament against the
German threat, his party would have lost the next
election.[23] Democratic governments may respond
to internal political imperatives when they should
be responding to external ones. All governments
have their faults, democracies no doubt fewer than
others, but that is not good enough to sustain the
democratic peace thesis.
That peace may prevail among democratic states is
a comforting thought. The obverse of the
proposition--that democracy may promote war
against undemocratic states--is disturbing. If the
latter holds, we cannot even say for sure that the
spread of democracy will bring a net decrease in
the amount of war in the world.
With a republic established in a strong state,
Kant hoped the republican form would gradually
take hold in the world. In 1795, America provided
the hope. Two hundred years later, remarkably, it
still does. Ever since liberals first expressed
their views, they have been divided. Some have
urged liberal states to work to uplift benighted
peoples and bring the benefits of liberty,
justice, and prosperity to them. John Stuart Mill,
Giuseppe Mazzini, Woodrow Wilson, and Bill Clinton
are all interventionist liberals. Other liberals,
Kant and Richard Cobden, for example, while
agreeing on the benefits that democracy can bring
to the world, have emphasized the difficulties and
the dangers of actively seeking its propagation.
If the world is now safe for democracy, one has to
wonder whether democracy is safe for the world.
When democracy is ascendant, a condition that in
the twentieth century attended the winning of hot
wars and cold ones, the interventionist spirit
flourishes. The effect is heightened when one
democratic state becomes dominant, as the United
States is now. Peace is the noblest cause of war.
If the conditions of peace are lacking, then the
country with a capability of creating them may be
tempted to do so, whether or not by force. The end
is noble, but as a matter of right, Kant insists,
no state can intervene in the internal
arrangements of another. As a matter of fact, one
may notice that intervention, even for worthy
ends, often brings more harm than good. The vice
to which great powers easily succumb in a
multipolar world is inattention; in a bipolar
world, overreaction; in a unipolar world,
overextention.
Peace is maintained by a delicate balance of
internal and external restraints. States having a
surplus of power are tempted to use it, and weaker
states fear their doing so. The laws of voluntary
federations, to use Kant’s language, are
disregarded at the whim of the stronger, as the
United States demonstrated a decade ago by mining
Nicaraguan waters and by invading Panama. In both
cases, the United States blatantly violated
international law. In the first, it denied the
jurisdiction of the International Court of
Justice, which it had previously accepted. In the
second, it flaunted the law embodied in the
Charter of the Organization of American States, of
which it was a principal sponsor.
If the democratic peace thesis is right,
structural realist theory is wrong. One may
believe, with Kant, that republics are by and
large good states and that unbalanced power is a
danger no matter who wields it. Inside of, as well
as outside of, the circle of democratic states,
peace depends on a precarious balance of forces.
The causes of war lie not simply in states or in
the state system; they are found in both. Kant
understood this. Devotees of the democratic peace
thesis overlook it.
The Weak Effects of Interdependence
If not democracy alone, may not the spread of
democracy combined with the tightening of national
interdependence fulfill the prescription for peace
offered by nineteenth-century liberals and so
often repeated today?[24] To the supposedly
peaceful inclination of democracies,
interdependence adds the propulsive power of the
profit motive. Democratic states may increasingly
devote themselves to the pursuit of peace and
profits. The trading state is replacing the
political-military state, and the power of the
market now rivals or surpasses the power of the
state, or so some believe.[25]
Before World War I, Norman Angell believed that
wars would not be fought because they would not
pay, yet Germany and Britain, each other’s
second-best customers, fought a long and bloody
war.[26] Interdependence in some ways promotes
peace by multiplying contacts among states and
contributing to mutual understanding. It also
multiplies the occasions for conflicts that may
promote resentment and even war.[27] Close
interdependence is a condition in which one party
can scarcely move without jostling others; a small
push ripples through society. The closer the
social bonds, the more extreme the effect becomes,
and one cannot sensibly pursue an interest without
taking others’ interests into account. One country
is then inclined to treat another country’s acts
as events within its own polity and to attempt to
control them.
That interdependence promotes war as well as peace
has been said often enough. What requires emphasis
is that, either way, among the forces that shape
international politics, interdependence is a weak
one. Interdependence within modern states is much
closer than it is across states. The Soviet
economy was planned so that its far-flung parts
would be not just interdependent but integrated.
Huge factories depended for their output on
products exchanged with others. Despite the tight
integration of the Soviet economy, the state fell
apart. Yugoslavia provides another stark
illustration. Once external political pressure
lessened, internal economic interests were too
weak to hold the country together. One must wonder
whether economic interdependence is more effect
than cause. Internally, interdependence becomes so
close that integration is the proper word to
describe it. Interdependence becomes integration
because internally the expectation that peace will
prevail and order will be preserved is high.
Externally, goods and capital flow freely where
peace among countries appears to be reliably
established. Interdependence, like integration,
depends on other conditions. It is more a
dependent than an independent variable. States, if
they can afford to, shy away from becoming
excessively dependent on goods and resources that
may be denied them in crises and wars. States take
measures, such as Japan’s managed trade, to avoid
excessive dependence on others.[28]
The impulse to protect one’s identity--cultural
and political as well as economic--from
encroachment by others is strong. When it seems
that "we will sink or swim together," swimming
separately looks attractive to those able to do
it. From Plato onward, utopias were set in
isolation from neighbors so that people could
construct their collective life uncontaminated by
contact with others. With zero interdependence,
neither conflict nor war is possible. With
integration, international becomes national
politics.[29] The zone in between is a gray one
with the effects of interdependence sometimes
good, providing the benefits of divided labor,
mutual understanding, and cultural enrichment, and
sometimes bad, leading to protectionism, mutual
resentment, conflict, and war.
The uneven effects of interdependence, with some
parties to it gaining more, others gaining less,
are obscured by the substitution of Robert
Keohane’s and Joseph Nye’s term "asymmetric
interdependence" for relations of dependence and
independence among states.[30] Relatively
independent states are in a stronger position than
relatively dependent ones. If I depend more on you
than you depend on me, you have more ways of
influencing me and affecting my fate than I have
of affecting yours. Interdependence suggests a
condition of roughly equal dependence of parties
on one another. Omitting the word "dependence"
blunts the inequalities that mark the relations of
states and makes them all seem to be on the same
footing. Much of international, as of national,
politics is about inequalities. Separating one
"issue area" from others and emphasizing that weak
states have advantages in some of them reduces the
sense of inequality. Emphasizing the low
fungibility of power furthers the effect. If power
is not very fungible, weak states may have
decisive advantages on some issues. Again, the
effects of inequality are blunted. But power, not
very fungible for weak states, is very fungible
for strong ones. The history of American foreign
policy since World War II is replete with examples
of how the United States used its superior
economic capability to promote its political and
security interests.[31]
In a 1970 essay, I described interdependence as an
ideology used by Americans to camouflage the great
leverage the United States enjoys in international
politics by making it seem that strong and weak,
rich and poor nations are similarly entangled in a
thick web of interdependence.[32] In her recent
book, The Retreat of the State, Susan Strange
reached the same conclusion, but by an odd route.
Her argument is that "the progressive integration
of the world economy, through international
production, has shifted the balance of power away
from states and toward world markets." She
advances three propositions in support of her
argument: (1) power has "shifted upward from weak
states to stronger ones" having global or regional
reach; (2) power has "shifted sideways from states
to markets and thus to non-state authorities
deriving power from their market shares"; and (3)
some power has "evaporated" with no one exercising
it.[33] In international politics, with no central
authority, power does sometimes slip away and
sometimes move sideways to markets. When serious
slippage occurs, however, stronger states step in
to reverse it, and firms of the stronger states
control the largest market shares anyway. One may
doubt whether markets any more escape the control
of major states now than they did in the
nineteenth century or earlier--perhaps less so
since the competence of states has increased at
least in proportion to increases in the size and
complications of markets. Anyone, realist or not,
might think Strange’s first proposition is the
important one. Never since the Roman Empire has
power been so concentrated in one state. Despite
believing that power has moved from states to
markets, Strange recognized reality. She observed
near the beginning of her book that the
"authority--the ’power over’ global outcomes
enjoyed by American society; and therefore
indirectly by the United States government--is
still superior to that of any other society or any
other government." And near the end, she remarked
that the "authority of governments tends to
over-rule the caution of markets." If one wondered
which government she had in mind, she answered
immediately: "The fate of Mexico is decided in
Washington more than Wall Street. And the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) is obliged to
follow the American lead, despite the misgivings
of Germany or Japan."[34]
The history of the past two centuries has been one
of central governments acquiring more and more
power. Alexis de Tocqueville observed during his
visit to the United States in 1831 that "the
Federal Government scarcely ever interferes in any
but foreign affairs; and the governments of the
states in reality direct society in America."[35]
After World War II, governments in Western Europe
disposed of about a quarter of their peoples’
income. The proportion now is more than half. At a
time when Americans, Britons, Russians, and
Chinese were decrying the control of the state
over their lives, it was puzzling to be told that
states were losing control over their external
affairs. Losing control, one wonders, as compared
to when? Weak states have lost some of their
influence and control over external matters, but
strong states have not lost theirs. The patterns
are hardly new ones. In the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, the strongest state with the
longest reach intervened all over the globe and
built history’s most extensive empire. In the
twentieth century, the strongest state with the
longest reach repeated Britain’s interventionist
behavior and, since the end of the Cold War, on an
ever widening scale, without building an empire.
The absence of empire hardly means, however, that
the extent of America’s influence and control over
the actions of others is of lesser moment. The
withering away of the power of the state, whether
internally or externally, is more of a wish and an
illusion than a reality in most of the world.
Under the Pax Britannica, the interdependence of
states became unusually close, which to many
portended a peaceful and prosperous future.
Instead, a prolonged period of war, autarky, and
more war followed. The international economic
system, constructed under American auspices after
World War II and later amended to suit its
purposes, may last longer, but then again it may
not. The character of international politics
changes as national interdependence tightens or
loosens. Yet even as relations vary, states have
to take care of themselves as best they can in an
anarchic environment. Internationally, the
twentieth century for the most part was an unhappy
one. In its last quarter, the clouds lifted a
little, but twenty-five years is a slight base on
which to ground optimistic conclusions. Not only
are the effects of close interdependence
problematic, but so also is its durability.
The Limited Role of International Institutions
One of the charges hurled at realist theory is
that it depreciates the importance of
institutions. The charge is justified, and the
strange case of NATO’s (the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization’s) outliving its purpose shows why
realists believe that international institutions
are shaped and limited by the states that found
and sustain them and have little independent
effect. Liberal institutionalists paid scant
attention to organizations designed to buttress
the security of states until, contrary to
expectations inferred from realist theories, NATO
not only survived the end of the Cold War but went
on to add new members and to promise to embrace
still more. Far from invalidating realist theory
or casting doubt on it, however, the recent
history of NATO illustrates the subordination of
international institutions to national purposes.
EXPLAINING INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
The nature and purposes of institutions change as
structures vary. In the old multipolar world, the
core of an alliance consisted of a small number of
states of comparable capability. Their
contributions to one another’s security were of
crucial importance because they were of similar
size. Because major allies were closely
interdependent militarily, the defection of one
would have made its partners vulnerable to a
competing alliance. The members of opposing
alliances before World War I were tightly knit
because of their mutual dependence. In the new
bipolar world, the word "alliance" took on a
different meaning. One country, the United States
or the Soviet Union, provided most of the security
for its bloc. The withdrawal of France from NATO’s
command structure and the defection of China from
the Soviet bloc failed even to tilt the central
balance. Early in the Cold War, Americans spoke
with alarm about the threat of monolithic
communism arising from the combined strength of
the Soviet Union and China, yet the bloc’s
disintegration caused scarcely a ripple. American
officials did not proclaim that with China’s
defection, America’s defense budget could safely
be reduced by 20 or 10 percent or even be reduced
at all. Similarly, when France stopped playing its
part in NATO’s military plans, American officials
did not proclaim that defense spending had to be
increased for that reason. Properly speaking, NATO
and the WTO (Warsaw Treaty Organization) were
treaties of guarantee rather than old-style
military alliances.[36]
Glenn Snyder has remarked that "alliances have no
meaning apart from the adversary threat to which
they are a response."[37] I expected NATO to
dwindle at the Cold War’s end and ultimately to
disappear.[38] In a basic sense, the expectation
has been borne out. NATO is no longer even a
treaty of guarantee because one cannot answer the
question, guarantee against whom? Functions vary
as structures change, as does the behavior of
units. Thus the end of the Cold War quickly
changed the behavior of allied countries. In early
July of 1990, NATO announced that the alliance
would "elaborate new force plans consistent with
the revolutionary changes in Europe."[39] By the
end of July, without waiting for any such plans,
the major European members of NATO unilaterally
announced large reductions in their force levels.
Even the pretense of continuing to act as an
alliance in setting military policy disappeared.
With its old purpose dead, and the individual and
collective behavior of its members altered
accordingly, how does one explain NATO’s survival
and expansion? Institutions are hard to create and
set in motion, but once created, institutionalists
claim, they may take on something of a life of
their own; they may begin to act with a measure of
autonomy, becoming less dependent on the wills of
their sponsors and members. NATO supposedly
validates these thoughts.
Organizations, especially big ones with strong
traditions, have long lives. The March of Dimes is
an example sometimes cited. Having won the war
against polio, its mission was accomplished.
Nevertheless, it cast about for a new malady to
cure or contain. Even though the most appealing
ones--cancer, diseases of the heart and lungs,
multiple sclerosis, and cystic fibrosis--were
already taken, it did find a worthy cause to
pursue, the amelioration of birth defects. One can
fairly claim that the March of Dimes enjoys
continuity as an organization, pursuing an end
consonant with its original purpose. How can one
make such a claim for NATO?
The question of purpose may not be a very
important one; create an organization and it will
find something to do.[40] Once created, and the
more so once it has become well established, an
organization becomes hard to get rid of. A big
organization is managed by large numbers of
bureaucrats who develop a strong interest in its
perpetuation. According to Gunther Hellmann and
Reinhard Wolf, in 1993 NATO headquarters was
manned by 2,640 officials, most of whom presumably
wanted to keep their jobs.[41] The durability of
NATO even as the structure of international
politics has changed, and the old purpose of the
organization has disappeared, is interpreted by
institutionalists as evidence strongly arguing for
the autonomy and vitality of institutions.
The institutionalist interpretation misses the
point. NATO is first of all a treaty made by
states. A deeply entrenched international
bureaucracy can help to sustain the organization,
but states determine its fate. Liberal
institutionalists take NATO’s seeming vigor as
confirmation of the importance of international
institutions and as evidence of their resilience.
Realists, noticing that as an alliance NATO has
lost its major function, see it mainly as a means
of maintaining and lengthening America’s grip on
the foreign and military policies of European
states. John Kornblum, U.S. senior deputy to the
undersecretary of state for European affairs,
neatly described NATO’s new role. "The Alliance,"
he wrote, "provides a vehicle for the application
of American power and vision to the security order
in Europe."[42] The survival and expansion of NATO
tell us much about American power and influence
and little about institutions as multilateral
entities. The ability of the United States to
extend the life of a moribund institution nicely
illustrates how international institutions are
created and maintained by stronger states to serve
their perceived or misperceived interests.
The Bush administration saw, and the Clinton
administration continued to see, NATO as the
instrument for maintaining America’s domination of
the foreign and military policies of European
states. In 1991, U.S. Undersecretary of State
Reginald Bartholomew’s letter to the governments
of European members of NATO warned against
Europe’s formulating independent positions on
defense. France and Germany had thought that a
European security and defense identity might be
developed within the EU and that the Western
European Union, formed in 1954, could be revived
as the instrument for its realization. The Bush
administration quickly squelched these ideas. The
day after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in
December of 1991, President George Bush could say
with satisfaction that "we are pleased that our
Allies in the Western European Union ... decided
to strengthen that institution as both NATO’s
European pillar and the defense component of the
European Union."[43]
The European pillar was to be contained within
NATO, and its policies were to be made in
Washington. Weaker states have trouble fashioning
institutions to serve their own ends in their own
ways, especially in the security realm. Think of
the defeat of the European Defense Community in
1954, despite America’s support of it, and the
inability of the Western European Union in the
more than four decades of its existence to find a
significant role independent of the United States.
Realism reveals what liberal institutionalist
"theory" obscures: namely, that international
institutions serve primarily national rather than
international interests.[44] Robert Keohane and
Lisa Martin, replying to John Mearsheimer’s
criticism of liberal institutionalism, ask: How
are we "to account for the willingness of major
states to invest resources in expanding
international institutions if such institutions
are lacking in significance?"[45] If the answer
were not already obvious, the expansion of NATO
would make it so: to serve what powerful states
believe to be their interests.
With the administration’s Bosnian policy in
trouble, Clinton needed to show himself an
effective foreign policy leader. With the national
heroes Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel clamoring for
their countries’ inclusion, foreclosing NATO
membership would have handed another issue to the
Republican Party in the congressional elections of
1994. To tout NATO’s eastward march, President
Clinton gave major speeches in Milwaukee,
Cleveland, and Detroit, cities with significant
numbers of East European voters.[46] Votes and
dollars are the lifeblood of American politics.
New members of NATO will be required to improve
their military infrastructure and to buy modern
weapons. The American arms industry, expecting to
capture its usual large share of a new market, has
lobbied heavily in favor of NATO’s expansion.[47]
The reasons for expanding NATO are weak. The
reasons for opposing expansion are strong.[48] It
draws new lines of division in Europe, alienates
those left out, and can find no logical stopping
place west of Russia. It weakens those Russians
most inclined toward liberal democracy and a
market economy. It strengthens Russians of the
opposite inclination. It reduces hope for further
large reductions of nuclear weaponry. It pushes
Russia toward China instead of drawing Russia
toward Europe and America. NATO, led by America,
scarcely considered the plight of its defeated
adversary. Throughout modern history, Russia has
been rebuffed by the West, isolated and at times
surrounded. Many Russians believe that, by
expanding, NATO brazenly broke promises it made in
1990 and 1991 that former WTO members would not be
allowed to join NATO. With good reason, Russians
fear that NATO will not only admit additional old
members of the WTO but also former republics of
the Soviet Union. In 1997, NATO held naval
exercises with Ukraine in the Black Sea, with more
joint exercises to come, and announced plans to
use a military testing ground in western Ukraine.
In June of 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski went to Kiev
with the message that Ukraine should prepare
itself to join NATO by the year 2010.[49] The
farther NATO intrudes into the Soviet Union’s old
arena, the more Russia is forced to look to the
east rather than to the west.
The expansion of NATO extends its military
interests, enlarges its responsibilities, and
increases its burdens. Not only do new members
require NATO’s protection, they also heighten its
concern over destabilizing events near their
borders. Thus Balkan eruptions become a NATO and
not just a European concern. In the absence of
European initiative, Americans believe they must
lead the way because the credibility of NATO is at
stake. Balkan operations in the air and even more
so on the ground exacerbate differences of
interest among NATO members and strain the
alliance. European members marvel at the
surveillance and communications capabilities of
the United States and stand in awe of the modern
military forces at its command. Aware of their
weaknesses, Europeans express determination to
modernize their forces and to develop their
ability to deploy them independently. Europe’s
reaction to America’s Balkan operations duplicates
its determination to remedy deficiencies revealed
in 1991 during the Gulf War, a determination that
produced few results.
Will it be different this time? Perhaps, yet if
European states do achieve their goals of creating
a 60,000 strong rapid reaction force and enlarging
the role of the WEU, the tension between a NATO
controlled by the United States and a NATO
allowing for independent European action will
again be bothersome. In any event, the prospect of
militarily bogging down in the Balkans tests the
alliance and may indefinitely delay its further
expansion. Expansion buys trouble, and mounting
troubles may bring expansion to a halt.
European conditions and Russian opposition work
against the eastward extension of NATO. Pressing
in the opposite direction is the momentum of
American expansion. The momentum of expansion has
often been hard to break, a thought borne out by
the empires of Republican Rome, of Czarist Russia,
and of Liberal Britain.
One is often reminded that the United States is
not just the dominant power in the world but that
it is a liberal dominant power. True, the
motivations of the artificers of
expansion--President Clinton, National Security
Adviser Anthony Lake, and others--were to nurture
democracy in young, fragile, long-suffering
countries. One may wonder, however, why this
should be an American rather than a European task
and why a military rather than a
political-economic organization should be seen as
the appropriate means for carrying it out. The
task of building democracy is not a military one.
The military security of new NATO members is not
in jeopardy; their political development and
economic well-being are. In 1997, U.S. Assistant
Secretary of Defense Franklin D. Kramer told the
Czech defense ministry that it was spending too
little on defense.[50] Yet investing in defense
slows economic growth. By common calculation,
defense spending stimulates economic growth about
half as much as direct investment in the economy.
In Eastern Europe, economic not military security
is the problem and entering a military alliance
compounds it.
Using the example of NATO to reflect on the
relevance of realism after the Cold War leads to
some important conclusions. The winner of the Cold
War and the sole remaining great power has behaved
as unchecked powers have usually done. In the
absence of counterweights, a country’s internal
impulses prevail, whether fueled by liberal or by
other urges. The error of realist predictions that
the end of the Cold War would mean the end of NATO
arose not from a failure of realist theory to
comprehend international politics, but from an
underestimation of America’s folly. The survival
and expansion of NATO illustrate not the defects
but the limitations of structural explanations.
Structures shape and shove; they do not determine
the actions of states. A state that is stronger
than any other can decide for itself whether to
conform its policies to structural pressures and
whether to avail itself of the opportunities that
structural change offers, with little fear of
adverse affects in the short run.
Do liberal institutionalists provide better
leverage for explaining NATO’s survival and
expansion? According to Keohane and Martin,
realists insist "that institutions have only
marginal effects."[51] On the contrary, realists
have noticed that whether institutions have strong
or weak effects depends on what states intend.
Strong states use institutions, as they interpret
laws, in ways that suit them. Thus Susan Strange,
in pondering the state’s retreat, observes that
"international organization is above all a tool of
national government, an instrument for the pursuit
of national interest by other means."[52]
Interestingly, Keohane and Martin, in their effort
to refute Mearsheimer’s trenchant criticism of
institutional theory, in effect agree with him.
Having claimed that his realism is "not well
specified," they note that "institutional theory
conceptualizes institutions both as independent
and dependent variables."[53] Dependent on
what?--on "the realities of power and interest."
Institutions, it turns out, "make a significant
difference in conjunction with power
realities."[54] Yes! Liberal institutionalism, as
Mearsheimer says, "is no longer a clear
alternative to realism, but has, in fact, been
swallowed up by it."[55] Indeed, it never was an
alternative to realism. Institutionalist theory,
as Keohane has stressed, has as its core
structural realism, which Keohane and Nye sought
"to broaden."[56] The institutional approach
starts with structural theory, applies it to the
origins and operations of institutions, and
unsurprisingly ends with realist conclusions.
Alliances illustrate the weaknesses of
institutionalism with special clarity.
Institutional theory attributes to institutions
causal effects that mostly originate within
states. The case of NATO nicely illustrates this
shortcoming. Keohane has remarked that "alliances
are institutions, and both their durability and
strength ... may depend in part on their
institutional characteristics."[57] In part, I
suppose, but one must wonder in how large a part.
The Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente were
quite durable. They lasted not because of alliance
institutions, there hardly being any, but because
the core members of each alliance looked outward
and saw a pressing threat to their security.
Previous alliances did not lack institutions
because states had failed to figure out how to
construct bureaucracies. Previous alliances lacked
institutions because in the absence of a hegemonic
leader, balancing continued within as well as
across alliances. NATO lasted as a military
alliance as long as the Soviet Union appeared to
be a direct threat to its members. It survives and
expands now not because of its institutions but
mainly because the United States wants it to.
NATO’s survival also exposes an interesting aspect
of balance-of-power theory. Robert Art has argued
forcefully that without NATO and without American
troops in Europe, European states will lapse into
a "security competition" among themselves.[58] As
he emphasizes, this is a realist expectation. In
his view, preserving NATO, and maintaining
America’s leading role in it, are required in
order to prevent a security competition that would
promote conflict within, and impair the
institutions of, the European Union. NATO now is
an anomaly; the dampening of intra-alliance
tension is the main task left, and it is a task
not for the alliance but for its leader. The
secondary task of an alliance, intra-alliance
management, continues to be performed by the
United States even though the primary task,
defense against an external enemy, has
disappeared. The point is worth pondering, but I
need to say here only that it further illustrates
the dependence of international institutions on
national decisions. Balancing among states is not
inevitable. As in Europe, a hegemonic power may
suppress it. As a high-level European diplomat put
it, "it is not acceptable that the lead nation be
European. A European power broker is a hegemonic
power. We can agree on U.S. leadership, but not on
one of our own."[59] Accepting the leadership of a
hegemonic power prevents a balance of power from
emerging in Europe, and better the hegemonic power
should be at a distance than next door.
Keohane believes that "avoiding military conflict
in Europe after the Cold War depends greatly on
whether the next decade is characterized by a
continuous pattern of institutionalized
cooperation."[60] If one accepts the conclusion,
the question remains: What or who sustains the
"pattern of institutionalized cooperation"?
Realists know the answer.
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND NATIONAL AIMS
What is true of NATO holds for international
institutions generally. The effects that
international institutions may have on national
decisions are but one step removed from the
capabilities and intentions of the major state or
states that gave them birth and sustain them. The
Bretton Woods system strongly affected individual
states and the conduct of international affairs.
But when the United States found that the system
no longer served its interests, the Nixon shocks
of 1971 were administered. International
institutions are created by the more powerful
states, and the institutions survive in their
original form as long as they serve the major
interests of their creators, or are thought to do
so. "The nature of institutional arrangements," as
Stephen Krasner put it, "is better explained by
the distribution of national power capabilities
than by efforts to solve problems of market
failure"[61]--or, I would add, by anything else.
Either international conventions, treaties, and
institutions remain close to the underlying
distribution of national capabilities or they
court failure.[62] Citing examples from the past
350 years, Krasner found that in all of the
instances "it was the value of strong states that
dictated rules that were applied in a
discriminating fashion only to the weak."[63] The
sovereignty of nations, a universally recognized
international institution, hardly stands in the
way of a strong nation that decides to intervene
in a weak one. Thus, according to a senior
official, the Reagan administration "debated
whether we had the right to dictate the form of
another country’s government. The bottom line was
yes, that some rights are more fundamental than
the right of nations to nonintervention.... We
don’t have the right to subvert a democracy but we
do have the right against an undemocratic
one."[64] Most international law is obeyed most of
the time, but strong states bend or break laws
when they choose to.
Balancing Power: Not Today but Tomorrow
With so many of the expectations that realist
theory gives rise to confirmed by what happened at
and after the end of the Cold War, one may wonder
why realism is in bad repute.[65] A key
proposition derived from realist theory is that
international politics reflects the distribution
of national capabilities, a proposition daily
borne out. Another key proposition is that the
balancing of power by some states against others
recurs. Realist theory predicts that balances
disrupted will one day be restored. A limitation
of the theory, a limitation common to social
science theories, is that it cannot say when.
William Wohlforth argues that though restoration
will take place, it will be a long time
coming.[66] Of necessity, realist theory is better
at saying what will happen than in saying when it
will happen. Theory cannot say when "tomorrow"
will come because international political theory
deals with the pressures of structure on states
and not with how states will respond to the
pressures. The latter is a task for theories about
how national governments respond to pressures on
them and take advantage of opportunities that may
be present. One does, however, observe balancing
tendencies already taking place.
Upon the demise of the Soviet Union, the
international political system became unipolar. In
the light of structural theory, unipolarity
appears as the least durable of international
configurations. This is so for two main reasons.
One is that dominant powers take on too many tasks
beyond their own borders, thus weakening
themselves in the long run. Ted Robert Gurr, after
examining 336 polities, reached the same
conclusion that Robert Wesson had reached earlier:
"Imperial decay is ... primarily a result of the
misuse of power which follows inevitably from its
concentration."[67] The other reason for the short
duration of unipolarity is that even if a dominant
power behaves with moderation, restraint, and
forbearance, weaker states will worry about its
future behavior. America’s founding fathers warned
against the perils of power in the absence of
checks and balances. Is unbalanced power less of a
danger in international than in national politics?
Throughout the Cold War, what the United States
and the Soviet Union did, and how they interacted,
were dominant factors in international politics.
The two countries, however, constrained each
other. Now the United States is alone in the
world. As nature abhors a vacuum, so international
politics abhors unbalanced power. Faced with
unbalanced power, some states try to increase
their own strength or they ally with others to
bring the international distribution of power into
balance. The reactions of other states to the
drive for dominance of Charles V, Hapsburg ruler
of Spain, of Louis XIV and Napoleon I of France,
of Wilhelm II and Adolph Hitler of Germany,
illustrate the point.
THE BEHAVIOR OF DOMINANT POWERS
Will the preponderant power of the United States
elicit similar reactions? Unbalanced power,
whoever wields it, is a potential danger to
others. The powerful state may, and the United
States does, think of itself as acting for the
sake of peace, justice, and well-being in the
world. These terms, however, are defined to the
liking of the powerful, which may conflict with
the preferences and interests of others. In
international politics, overwhelming power repels
and leads others to try to balance against it.
With benign intent, the United States has behaved
and, until its power is brought into balance, will
continue to behave in ways that sometimes frighten
others.
For almost half a century, the constancy of the
Soviet threat produced a constancy of American
policy. Other countries could rely on the United
States for protection because protecting them
seemed to serve American security interests. Even
so, beginning in the 1950s, Western European
countries and, beginning in the 1970s, Japan had
increasing doubts about the reliability of the
American nuclear deterrent. As Soviet strength
increased, Western European countries began to
wonder whether the United States could be counted
on to use its deterrent on their behalf, thus
risking its own cities. When President Jimmy
Carter moved to reduce American troops in South
Korea, and later when the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan and strengthened its forces in the Far
East, Japan developed similar worries.
With the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the
United States no longer faces a major threat to
its security. As General Colin Powell said when he
was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "I’m
running out of demons. I’m running out of enemies.
I’m down to Castro and Kim Il Sung."[68] Constancy
of threat produces constancy of policy; absence of
threat permits policy to become capricious. When
few if any vital interests are endangered, a
country’s policy becomes sporadic and self-willed.
The absence of serious threats to American
security gives the United States wide latitude in
making foreign policy choices. A dominant power
acts internationally only when the spirit moves
it. One example is enough to show this. When
Yugoslavia’s collapse was followed by genocidal
war in successor states, the United States failed
to respond until Senator Robert Dole moved to make
Bosnia’s peril an issue in the forthcoming
presidential election; and it acted not for the
sake of its own security but to maintain its
leadership position in Europe. American policy was
generated not by external security interests, but
by internal political pressure and national
ambition.
Aside from specific threats it may pose,
unbalanced power leaves weaker states feeling
uneasy and gives them reason to strengthen their
positions. The United States has a long history of
intervening in weak states, often with the
intention of bringing democracy to them. American
behavior over the past century in Central America
provides little evidence of self-restraint in the
absence of countervailing power. Contemplating the
history of the United States and measuring its
capabilities, other countries may well wish for
ways to fend off its benign ministrations.
Concentrated power invites distrust because it is
so easily misused. To understand why some states
want to bring power into a semblance of balance is
easy, but with power so sharply skewed, what
country or group of countries has the material
capability and the political will to bring the
"unipolar moment" to an end?
BALANCING POWER IN A UNIPOLAR WORLD
The expectation that following victory in a great
war a new balance of power will form is firmly
grounded in both history and theory. The last four
grand coalitions (two against Napoleon and one in
each of the world wars of the twentieth century)
collapsed once victory was achieved. Victories in
major wars leave the balance of power badly
skewed. The winning side emerges as a dominant
coalition. The international equilibrium is
broken; theory leads one to expect its
restoration.
Clearly something has changed. Some believe that
the United States is so nice that, despite the
dangers of unbalanced power, others do not feel
the fear that would spur them to action. Michael
Mastanduno, among others, believes this to be so,
although he ends his article with the thought that
"eventually, power will check power."[69] Others
believe that the leaders of states have learned
that playing the game of power politics is costly
and unnecessary. In fact, the explanation for
sluggish balancing is a simple one. In the
aftermath of earlier great wars, the materials for
constructing a new balance were readily at hand.
Previous wars left a sufficient number of great
powers standing to permit a new balance to be
rather easily constructed. Theory enables one to
say that a new balance of power will form but not
to say how long it will take. National and
international conditions determine that. Those who
refer to the unipolar moment are right. In our
perspective, the new balance is emerging slowly;
in historical perspectives, it will come in the
blink of an eye.
I ended a 1993 article this way: "One may hope
that America’s internal preoccupations will
produce not an isolationist policy, which has
become impossible, but a forbearance that will
give other countries at long last the chance to
deal with their own problems and make their own
mistakes. But I would not bet on it."[70] I should
think that few would do so now. Charles Kegley has
said, sensibly, that if the world becomes
multipolar once again, realists will be
vindicated.[71] Seldom do signs of vindication
appear so promptly.
The candidates for becoming the next great powers,
and thus restoring a balance, are the European
Union or Germany leading a coalition, China,
Japan, and in a more distant future, Russia. The
countries of the European Union have been
remarkably successful in integrating their
national economies. The achievement of a large
measure of economic integration without a
corresponding political unity is an accomplishment
without historical precedent. On questions of
foreign and military policy, however, the European
Union can act only with the consent of its
members, making bold or risky action impossible.
The European Union has all the tools--population,
resources, technology and military
capabilities--but lacks the organizational ability
and the collective will to use them. As Jacques
Delors said when he was president of the European
Commission: "It will be for the European Council,
consisting of heads of state and government ...,
to agree on the essential interests they share and
which they will agree to defend and promote
together."[72] Policies that must be arrived at by
consensus can be carried out only when they are
fairly inconsequential. Inaction as Yugoslavia
sank into chaos and war signaled that Europe will
not act to stop wars even among near neighbors.
Western Europe was unable to make its own foreign
and military policies when its was an organization
of six or nine states living in fear of the Soviet
Union. With less pressure and more members, it has
even less hope of doing so now. Only when the
United States decides on a policy have European
countries been able to follow it.
Europe may not remain in its supine position
forever, yet signs of fundamental change in
matters of foreign and military policy are faint.
Now as earlier, European leaders express
discontent with Europe’s secondary position, chafe
at America’s making most of the important
decisions, and show a desire to direct their own
destiny. French leaders often vent their
frustration and pine for a world, as Foreign
Minister Hubert Vedrine recently put it, "of
several poles, not just a single one." President
Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin
call for a strengthening of such multilateral
institutions as the International Monetary Fund
and the United Nations, although how this would
diminish America’s influence is not explained.
More to the point, Vedrine complains that since
President John Kennedy, Americans have talked of a
European pillar for the alliance, a pillar that is
never built.[73] German and British leaders now
more often express similar discontent. Europe,
however, will not be able to claim a louder voice
in alliance affairs unless it builds a platform
for giving it expression. If Europeans ever mean
to write a tune to go with their libretto, they
will have to develop the unity in foreign and
military affairs that they are achieving in
economic matters. If French and British leaders
decided to merge their nuclear forces to form the
nucleus of a European military organization, the
United States and the world will begin to treat
Europe as a major force.
The European Economic Community was formed in 1957
and has grown incrementally to its present
proportions. But where is the incremental route to
a European foreign and military policy to be
found? European leaders have not been able to find
it or even have tried very hard to do so. In the
absence of radical change, Europe will count for
little in international politics for as far ahead
as the eye can see, unless Germany, becoming
impatient, decides to lead a coalition.
INTERNATIONAL STRUCTURE AND NATIONAL RESPONSES
Throughout modern history, international politics
centered on Europe. Two world wars ended Europe’s
dominance. Whether Europe will somehow, someday
emerge as a great power is a matter for
speculation. In the meantime, the
all-but-inevitable movement from unipolarity to
multipolarity is taking place not in Europe but in
Asia. The internal development and the external
reaction of China and Japan are steadily raising
both countries to the great power level.[74] China
will emerge as a great power even without trying
very hard so long as it remains politically united
and competent. Strategically, China can easily
raise its nuclear forces to a level of parity with
the United States if it has not already done
so.[75] China has five to seven intercontinental
missiles (DF-5s) able to hit almost any American
target and a dozen or more missiles able to reach
the west coast of the United States (DF-4s).[76]
Liquid fueled, immobile missiles are vulnerable,
but would the United States risk the destruction
of, say, Seattle, San Francisco, and San Diego if
China happens to have a few more DF-4s than the
United States thinks or if it should fail to
destroy all of them on the ground? Deterrence is
much easier to contrive than most Americans have
surmised. Economically, China’s growth rate, given
its present stage of economic development, can be
sustained at 7 to 9 percent for another decade or
more. Even during Asia’s near economic collapse of
the 1990s, China’s growth rate remained
approximately in that range. A growth rate of 7 to
9 percent doubles a country’s economy every ten to
eight years.
Unlike China, Japan is obviously reluctant to
assume the mantle of a great power. Its
reluctance, however, is steadily though slowly
waning. Economically, Japan’s power has grown and
spread remarkably. The growth of a country’s
economic capability to the great power level
places it at the center of regional and global
affairs. It widens the range of a state’s
interests and increases their importance. The high
volume of a country’s external business thrusts it
ever more deeply into world affairs. In a
self-help system, the possession of most but not
all of the capabilities of a great power leaves a
state vulnerable to others that have the
instruments that the lesser state lacks. Even
though one may believe that fears of nuclear
blackmail are misplaced, one must wonder whether
Japan will remain immune to them.
Countries have always competed for wealth and
security, and the competition has often led to
conflict. Historically, states have been sensitive
to changing relations of power among them. Japan
is made uneasy now by the steady growth of China’s
military budget. Its nearly 3 million strong army,
undergoing modernization, and the gradual growth
of its sea- and air-power projection capabilities,
produce apprehension in all of China’s neighbors
and add to the sense of instability in a region
where issues of sovereignty and disputes over
territory abound. The Korean peninsula has more
military forces per square kilometer than any
other portion of the globe. Taiwan is an unending
source of tension. Disputes exist between Japan
and Russia over the Kurile Islands, and between
Japan and China over the Senkaku or Diaoyu
Islands. Cambodia is a troublesome problem for
both Vietnam and China. Half a dozen countries lay
claim to all or some of the Spratly Islands,
strategically located and supposedly rich in oil.
The presence of China’s ample nuclear forces,
combined with the drawdown of American military
forces, can hardly be ignored by Japan, the less
so because economic conflicts with the United
States cast doubt on the reliability of American
military guarantees. Reminders of Japan’s
dependence and vulnerability multiply in large and
small ways. For example, as rumors about North
Korea’s developing nuclear capabilities gained
credence, Japan became acutely aware of its lack
of observation satellites. Uncomfortable
dependencies and perceived vulnerabilities have
led Japan to acquire greater military
capabilities, even though many Japanese may prefer
not to.
Given the expectation of conflict, and the
necessity of taking care of one’s interests, one
may wonder how any state with the economic
capability of a great power can refrain from
arming itself with the weapons that have served so
well as the great deterrent. For a country to
choose not to become a great power is a structural
anomaly. For that reason, the choice is a
difficult one to sustain. Sooner or later, usually
sooner, the international status of countries has
risen in step with their material resources.
Countries with great power economies have become
great powers, whether or not reluctantly. Some
countries may strive to become great powers;
others may wish to avoid doing so. The choice,
however, is a constrained one. Because of the
extent of their interests, larger units existing
in a contentious arena tend to take on systemwide
tasks. Profound change in a country’s
international situation produces radical change in
its external behavior. After World War II, the
United States broke with its centuries-long
tradition of acting unilaterally and refusing to
make long-term commitments. Japan’s behavior in
the past half century reflects the abrupt change
in its international standing suffered because of
its defeat in war. In the previous half century,
after victory over China in 1894-95, Japan pressed
for preeminence in Asia, if not beyond. Does Japan
once again aspire to a larger role
internationally? Its concerted regional activity,
its seeking and gaining prominence in such bodies
as the IMF and the World Bank, and its obvious
pride in economic and technological achievements
indicate that it does. The behavior of states
responds more to external conditions than to
internal habit if external change is profound.
When external conditions press firmly enough, they
shape the behavior of states. Increasingly, Japan
is being pressed to enlarge its conventional
forces and to add nuclear ones to protect its
interests. India, Pakistan, China, and perhaps
North Korea have nuclear weapons capable of
deterring others from threatening their vital
interests. How long can Japan live alongside other
nuclear states while denying itself similar
capabilities? Conflicts and crises are certain to
make Japan aware of the disadvantages of being
without the military instruments that other powers
command. Japanese nuclear inhibitions arising from
World War II will not last indefinitely; one may
expect them to expire as generational memories
fade.
Japanese officials have indicated that when the
protection of America’s extended deterrent is no
longer thought to be sufficiently reliable, Japan
will equip itself with a nuclear force, whether or
not openly. Japan has put itself politically and
technologically in a position to do so.
Consistently since the mid-1950s, the government
has defined all of its Self-Defense Forces as
conforming to constitutional requirements. Nuclear
weapons purely for defense would be deemed
constitutional should Japan decide to build
some.[77] As a secret report of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs put it in 1969: "For the time
being, we will maintain the policy of not
possessing nuclear weapons. However, regardless of
joining the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] or not,
we will keep the economic and technical potential
for the production of nuclear weapons, while
seeing to it that Japan will not be interfered
with in this regard."[78] In March of 1988, Prime
Minister Noboru Takeshita called for a defensive
capability matching Japan’s economic power.[79]
Only a balanced conventional-nuclear military
capability would meet this requirement. In June of
1994, Prime Minister Tsutumu Hata mentioned in
parliament that Japan had the ability to make
nuclear weapons.[80]
Where some see Japan as a "global civilian power"
and believe it likely to remain one, others see a
country that has skillfully used the protection
the United States has afforded and adroitly
adopted the means of maintaining its security to
its regional environment.[81] Prime Minister
Shigeru Yoshida in the early 1950s suggested that
Japan should rely on American protection until it
had rebuilt its economy as it gradually prepared
to stand on its own feet.[82] Japan has laid a
firm foundation for doing so by developing much of
its own weaponry instead of relying on cheaper
imports. Remaining months or moments away from
having a nuclear military capability is well
designed to protect the country’s security without
unduly alarming its neighbors.
The hostility of China, of both Koreas, and of
Russia combines with inevitable doubts about the
extent to which Japan can rely on the United
States to protect its security.[83] In the opinion
of Masanori Nishi, a defense official, the main
cause of Japan’s greater "interest in enhanced
defense capabilities" is its belief that America’s
interest in "maintaining regional stability is
shaky."[84] Whether reluctantly or not, Japan and
China will follow each other on the route to
becoming great powers. China has the greater
long-term potential. Japan, with the world’s
second or third largest defense budget and the
ability to produce the most technologically
advanced weaponry, is closer to great power status
at the moment.
When Americans speak of preserving the balance of
power in East Asia through their military
presence,[85] the Chinese understandably take this
to mean that they intend to maintain the strategic
hegemony they now enjoy in the absence of such a
balance. When China makes steady but modest
efforts to improve the quality of its inferior
forces, Americans see a future threat to their and
others’ interests. Whatever worries the United
States has and whatever threats it feels, Japan
has them earlier and feels them more intensely.
Japan has gradually reacted to them. China then
worries as Japan improves its airlift and sealift
capabilities and as the United States raises its
support level for forces in South Korea.[86] The
actions and reactions of China, Japan, and South
Korea, with or without American participation, are
creating a new balance of power in East Asia,
which is becoming part of the new balance of power
in the world.
Historically, encounters of East and West have
often ended in tragedy. Yet, as we know from happy
experience, nuclear weapons moderate the behavior
of their possessors and render them cautious
whenever crises threaten to spin out of control.
Fortunately, the changing relations of East to
West, and the changing relations of countries
within the East and the West, are taking place in
a nuclear context. The tensions and conflicts that
intensify when profound changes in world politics
take place will continue to mar the relations of
nations, while nuclear weapons keep the peace
among those who enjoy their protection.
America’s policy of containing China by keeping
100,000 troops in East Asia and by providing
security guarantees to Japan and South Korea is
intended to keep a new balance of power from
forming in Asia. By continuing to keep 100,000
troops in Western Europe, where no military threat
is in sight, and by extending NATO eastward, the
United States pursues the same goal in Europe. The
American aspiration to freeze historical
development by working to keep the world unipolar
is doomed. In the not very long run, the task will
exceed America’s economic, military, demographic,
and political resources; and the very effort to
maintain a hegemonic position is the surest way to
undermine it. The effort to maintain dominance
stimulates some countries to work to overcome it.
As theory shows and history confirms, that is how
balances of power are made. Multipolarity is
developing before our eyes. Moreover, it is
emerging in accordance with the balancing
imperative.
American leaders seem to believe that America’s
preeminent position will last indefinitely. The
United States would then remain the dominant power
without rivals rising to challenge it--a position
without precedent in modern history. Balancing, of
course, is not universal and omnipresent. A
dominant power may suppress balancing as the
United States has done in Europe. Whether or not
balancing takes place also depends on the
decisions of governments. Stephanie Neuman’s book,
International Relations Theory and the Third
World, abounds in examples of states that failed
to mind their own security interests through
internal efforts or external arrangements, and as
one would expect, suffered invasion, loss of
autonomy, and dismemberment.[87] States are free
to disregard the imperatives of power, but they
must expect to pay a price for doing so. Moreover,
relatively weak and divided states may find it
impossible to concert their efforts to counter a
hegemonic state despite ample provocation. This
has long been the condition of the Western
Hemisphere.
In the Cold War, the United States won a telling
victory. Victory in war, however, often brings
lasting enmities. Magnanimity in victory is rare.
Winners of wars, facing few impediments to the
exercise of their wills, often act in ways that
create future enemies. Thus Germany, by taking
Alsace and most of Lorraine from France in 1871,
earned its lasting enmity; and the Allies’ harsh
treatment of Germany after World War I produced a
similar effect. In contrast, Bismarck persuaded
the kaiser not to march his armies along the road
to Vienna after the great victory at Koniggratz in
1866. In the Treaty of Prague, Prussia took no
Austrian territory. Thus Austria, having become
Austria-Hungary, was available as an alliance
partner for Germany in 1879. Rather than learning
from history, the United States is repeating past
errors by extending its influence over what used
to be the province of the vanquished.[88] This
alienates Russia and nudges it toward China
instead of drawing it toward Europe and the United
States. Despite much talk about the
"globalization" of international politics,
American political leaders to a dismaying extent
think of East or West rather than of their
interaction. With a history of conflict along a
2,600 mile border, with ethnic minorities
sprawling across it, with a mineral-rich and
sparsely populated Siberia facing China’s teeming
millions, Russia and China will find it difficult
to cooperate effectively, but the United States is
doing its best to help them do so. Indeed, the
United States has provided the key to
Russian-Chinese relations over the past half
century. Feeling American antagonism and fearing
American power, China drew close to Russia after
World War II and remained so until the United
States seemed less, and the Soviet Union more, of
a threat to China. The relatively harmonious
relations the United States and China enjoyed
during the 1970s began to sour in the late 1980s
when Russian power visibly declined and American
hegemony became imminent. To alienate Russia by
expanding NATO, and to alienate China by lecturing
its leaders on how to rule their country, are
policies that only an overwhelmingly powerful
country could afford, and only a foolish one be
tempted, to follow. The United States cannot
prevent a new balance of power from forming. It
can hasten its coming as it has been earnestly
doing.
In this section, the discussion of balancing has
been more empirical and speculative than
theoretical. I therefore end with some reflections
on balancing theory. Structural theory, and the
theory of balance of power that follows from it,
do not lead one to expect that states will always
or even usually engage in balancing behavior.
Balancing is a strategy for survival, a way of
attempting to maintain a state’s autonomous way of
life. To argue that bandwagoning represents a
behavior more common to states than balancing has
become a bit of a fad. Whether states bandwagon
more often than they balance is an interesting
question. To believe that an affirmative answer
would refute balance-of-power theory is, however,
to misinterpret the theory and to commit what one
might call "the numerical fallacy"--to draw a
qualitative conclusion from a quantitative result.
States try various strategies for survival.
Balancing is one of them; bandwagoning is another.
The latter may sometimes seem a less demanding and
a more rewarding strategy than balancing,
requiring less effort and extracting lower costs
while promising concrete rewards. Amid the
uncertainties of international politics and the
shifting pressures of domestic politics, states
have to make perilous choices. They may hope to
avoid war by appeasing adversaries, a weak form of
bandwagoning, rather than by rearming and
realigning to thwart them. Moreover, many states
have insufficient resources for balancing and
little room for maneuver. They have to jump on the
wagon only later to wish they could fall off.
Balancing theory does not predict uniformity of
behavior but rather the strong tendency of major
states in the system, or in regional subsystems,
to resort to balancing when they have to. That
states try different strategies of survival is
hardly surprising. The recurrent emergence of
balancing behavior, and the appearance of the
patterns the behavior produces, should all the
more be seen as impressive evidence supporting the
theory.
Conclusion
Every time peace breaks out, people pop up to
proclaim that realism is dead. That is another way
of saying that international politics has been
transformed. The world, however, has not been
transformed; the structure of international
politics has simply been remade by the
disappearance of the Soviet Union, and for a time
we will live with unipolarity. Moreover,
international politics was not remade by the
forces and factors that some believe are creating
a new world order. Those who set the Soviet Union
on the path of reform were old Soviet apparatchiks
trying to right the Soviet economy in order to
preserve its position in the world. The revolution
in Soviet affairs and the end of the Cold War were
not brought by democracy, interdependence, or
international institutions. Instead the Cold War
ended exactly as structural realism led one to
expect. As I wrote some years ago, the Cold War
"is firmly rooted in the structure of postwar
international politics and will last as long as
that structure endures."[89] So it did, and the
Cold War ended only when the bipolar structure of
the world disappeared.
Structural change affects the behavior of states
and the outcomes their interactions produce. It
does not break the essential continuity of
international politics. The transformation of
international politics alone could do that.
Transformation, however, awaits the day when the
international system is no longer populated by
states that have to help themselves. If the day
were here, one would be able to say who could be
relied on to help the disadvantaged or endangered.
Instead, the ominous shadow of the future
continues to cast its pall over interacting
states. States’ perennial uncertainty about their
fates presses governments to prefer relative over
absolute gains. Without the shadow, the leaders of
states would no longer have to ask themselves how
they will get along tomorrow as well as today.
States could combine their efforts cheerfully and
work to maximize collective gain without worrying
about how each might fare in comparison to others.
Occasionally, one finds the statement that
governments in their natural, anarchic condition
act myopically--that is, on calculations of
immediate interest--while hoping that the future
will take care of itself. Realists are said to
suffer from this optical defect.[90] Political
leaders may be astigmatic, but responsible ones
who behave realistically do not suffer from
myopia. Robert Axelrod and Robert Keohane believe
that World War I might have been averted if
certain states had been able to see how long the
future’s shadow was.[91] Yet, as their own
discussion shows, the future was what the major
states were obsessively worried about. The war was
prompted less by considerations of present
security and more by worries about how the balance
might change later. The problems of governments do
not arise from their short time horizons. They see
the long shadow of the future, but they have
trouble reading its contours, perhaps because they
try to look too far ahead and see imaginary
dangers. In 1914, Germany feared Russia’s rapid
industrial and population growth. France and
Britain suffered from the same fear about Germany,
and in addition Britain worried about the rapid
growth of Germany’s navy. In an important sense,
World War I was a preventive war all around.
Future fears dominated hopes for short-term gains.
States do not live in the happiest of conditions
that Horace in one of his odes imagined for man:
Happy the man, and happy he alone, who can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.[92]
Robert Axelrod has shown that the "tit-for-tat"
tactic, and no other, maximizes collective gain
over time. The one condition for success is that
the game be played under the shadow of the
future.[93] Because states coexist in a self-help
system, they may, however, have to concern
themselves not with maximizing collective gain but
with lessening, preserving, or widening the gap in
welfare and strength between themselves and
others. The contours of the future’s shadow look
different in hierarchic and anarchic systems. The
shadow may facilitate cooperation in the former;
it works against it in the latter. Worries about
the future do not make cooperation and institution
building among nations impossible; they do
strongly condition their operation and limit their
accomplishment. Liberal institutionalists were
right to start their investigations with
structural realism. Until and unless a
transformation occurs, it remains the basic theory
of international politics.
I am indebted to Karen Adams and Robert Rauchhaus
for help on this article from its conception to
its completion. For insightful and constructive
criticisms I wish to thank Robert Art, Richard
Betts, Barbara Farnham, Anne Fox, Robert Jervis,
Warner Schilling, and Mark Sheetz. |
|
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发表于 2007-8-3 11:19:24
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