America's Strategy in World Politics

The United States and the Balance of Power

Nicholas J. Spykman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351532082
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Less than a year after the United States entered the Second World War, Nicholas Spykman wrote a book that placed the war effort in the broader context of the 1940s global balance of power. In America's Strategy in World Politics, Spykman examined world politics from a realist geopolitical perspective. The United States, he explained, was fighting for its very survival as an independent country because the conquests of Germany and Japan raised the specter of our geopolitical encirclement by hostile forces controlling the power centers of Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. Spykman warned that the United States could not safely retreat to a defensive position in the Western Hemisphere.

Spykman looked beyond the immediate strategic requirements of the Second World War, envisioning a postwar world in which the United States would help shape the global balance of power to meet its security needs. Even though Soviet Russia was our wartime ally, Spykman recognized that a geopolitically unbalanced Soviet Union could threaten to upset the postwar balance of power and thereby endanger U.S. security. Spykman also foresaw the rise of China in postwar Asia, and the likely need for the United States to ally itself with Japan to balance China's power. He also recognized that the Middle East would play a pivotal role in the postwar world.

Spykman influenced American postwar statesmen and strategists. During the Cold War, the U.S. sought to deny the Soviet Union political control of Western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. Spykman's geopolitical vision of U.S. security, supported by a balanced Eurasian land mass, coupled with his focus on power as the governing force in international relations, makes America's Strategy in World Politics relevant to the twenty-first century.

Part One

The United States and
the Balance of Power

I Power Politics and War

We both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice only enters where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.

THUCYDIDES

WITHOUT mechanical power—the ability to move mass—there can be no technology. Without political power—the ability to move men—technology cannot serve a social purpose. All civilized life rests, therefore, in the last instance on power. Yet power has a bad name, and the use of power is often condemned. In the United States the word has a connotation of evil. That exercise of force is often necessary in the pursuit of worthy objectives is regretfully accepted, but that power should become an objective in itself, a goal for individual, social, or state action, is considered both undesirable and wicked, a condemnation which is unfortunate, because it hampers a sound understanding of one of the basic aspects of all social life.

Distrust of the moral character of power which echoes out of the Christian conscience has not prevented man from pursuing it with a whole-hearted devotion. Books with twelve easy lessons on how to become powerful are eternal best sellers, and the posts that carry power are sought as eagerly as those that carry only financial rewards. In the striving for positions of influence the struggle often becomes fierce and unrefined, and many a campaign for the presidency of a ladies’ sewing circle or a Christian Endeavor Society has been embellished with all the Machiavellian tactics that the Florentine writer recommended for the conduct of princes.

Nature of Power

Human beings have invented a great variety of techniques designed to win friends and influence people. These different methods can be classified under four broad headings: persuasion, purchase, barter, and coercion, although this does not mean that every endeavor to make others do our bidding can be neatly pigeonholed into one of these categories. On the contrary it will be found that most successful policies are a judicious mixture of all four. The relative amount of each of the ingredients differs from case to case, from individual to individual, from community to community, and it is the community which defines what is acceptable and what is condemned. Where freedom and individual dignity are cherished, persuasion is more acceptable than coercion and the use of the latter is usually restricted as between individuals. The state alone, not the citizen, can legally coerce by means of the night stick, tear gas bomb, and sub-machine gun.

From an ethical point of view power can be considered only as a means to an end. It is, therefore, important that the use which is made of it should be constantly subjected to moral judgments, but to hope for a world that will operate without coercion and to decry man’s desire to obtain power is an attempt to escape from reality into a world of dreams. Man creates society through co-operation, accommodation, and conflict, and all three are essential and integral parts of social life. He works together with others for common ends and creates the instruments of government for that very purpose. He accommodates himself to his fellows by shaping his conduct in conformity to common values and by accepting the normative pressure of custom and the rules of law. But he also accepts conflict for personal gain or impersonal ideal. Strife is one of the basic aspects of life and, as such, an element of all relations between individuals, groups, and states. A world without struggle would be a world in which life had ceased to exist. An orderly world is not a world in which there is no conflict, but one in which strife and struggle are led into political and legal channels away from the clash of arms; are transferred from the battlefield to the council chamber and the court room.

For groups as for individuals there are two forms of approach to desired objectives in case of opposition and conflict, direct action and “political action.” The first means that the group acts directly upon the individuals whose co-operation is necessary to achieve the desired result. The second means that the group tries to achieve success through the use of the coercive power of the state. A great deal of modern economic life involves group struggle in the form of direct action: share croppers against landowners, farmers against milk distributors, industrial unions against trade unions, labor unions against employers, and industrial corporations among themselves. Many a western railroad and pipeline owes its present right-of-way not to a court decision but to the successful outcome of a bloody battle at strategic points between the forces of opposing companies.

An industrial dispute may start with a negotiation between an employer and a labor union. If negotiation fails, the parties may attempt mediation or accept arbitration. They may, on the other hand, refuse the peaceful solution and declare war in the form of a strike or a lockout. In that case the opponents will have tried all the possible methods of influencing each other’s behavior, including persuasion, purchase, barter, and coercion. The strength of the group will obviously influence its choice of method, but it would be a mistake to assume that power is important only in the case of coercion. On the contrary, the fact that the labor union is powerful may make a test of strength unnecessary and successful negotiation that much easier.

The union and every other group is, therefore, forced to devote itself not merely to the pursuit of its objectives but also to the constant improvement of its strength. Any association, however simple its purpose, which depends for the realization of its objectives on the actions of other men or other groups becomes involved in the struggle for power and must make not only self-preservation but also improvement of its power position a primary objective of both internal and external policy.

Labor unions, like all groups operating within the state, have an alternative method to their objective. If the direct approach is too difficult, they can try an indirect route through the legislature and attempt to obtain the use of the law-making power of the state. It iś sometimes possible to achieve rewards for labor through legislative definitions of minimum standards which cannot possibly be obtained by direct action on employers. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union may act directly through persuasion and the picketing of saloons, or it can act indirectly through the “Eighteenth Amendment.” It is to this technique in the national sphere that the term “political activity” is applied, the struggle for control of the government for the purpose of serving individual or group interest.

To the extent that private groups intend to work through government agencies they must add to their broad power objective the specific task of increasing political strength. For one particular kind of group, the political party, political power is the main object and raison d’être. It exists for the purpose of influencing public policy, and it can achieve its aim only by winning elections in competition with other political parties. The struggle for power is here so near the surface that it is easily visible, and everybody is, therefore, willing to agree that for the political party the improvement of its relative power position must be a constant endeavor. When the war chest is depleted more quickly than filled, when loyalty weakens, when organization and discipline deteriorate, the party will be on its way out, to be replaced by one of its competitors.

There are a great many instances when political action in the form of indirect pressure through the legislature is not possible. The group may be without political power because sex or property qualifications have disfranchised its members. The issue may be one in which the government cannot act because of constitutional restrictions, budget limitation, or lack of administrative agencies. In that case the group will have to choose between direct action and political activity of a special kind aimed at constitutional amendments, the extension of government power, changes in the distribution of authority, and the creation of new agencies. Political activity is then directed not at the use of the existing instruments of government but at their modification and the creation of new ones.

Groups which must operate within the power organization called the state must conduct their external policy within the limits of the permissible methods. In theory the state reserves to itself the legal monopoly of physical force, and only those forms of coercion which are free from physical violence are permitted. There are obviously wide differences in the ability or willingness of different states to enforce this principle and great variations in the same state at different times, running all the way from “perfect order” to “complete anarchy.” The government of the United States and its people have on the whole been rather lenient. Intramural gang warfare has long been tolerated as a by-product of the exuberance of urban life, and strong-arm methods have been accepted as necessary inspirational aids in city elections. The importance of physical violence in labor conflicts and in the “non-existent” class struggle is attested to by the existence of a flourishing armaments industry making tear gas bombs and other equipment and the availability of mercenary infantry for any union or employer who can afford the price. Law and fact in regard to the monopoly of violence seem to vary almost as much as law and fact in regard to other monopolies.

Order and governmental control are elements of the environment within which groups operate, and exert direct influence on their external policy. When there exists a strong government with wide powers, able to enforce its decisions, there will be effective limits on the forms which inter-group struggles can take. The indirect method through legislation will be as important as the method of direct action, and the struggle for power will not only be a struggle for direct power over groups but also a struggle for political power over government. When there is no government with wide authority and ability to enforce its decisions, there will be little restraint on the forms which inter-group conflict may take. It will then be useless to try to influence the government, and direct action must become the preferred approach until such time as the government has changed. Under those conditions the struggle for power will be primarily a struggle for direct power over other groups and only indirectly a struggle for power over the government above the groups.

Power in International Relations

In international society, as in other social groupings, there are observable the three basic processes of co-operation, accommodation, and opposition. Not only individuals and groups but also states maintain the three types of social relations. They have co-operated for common ends and created the instruments of international administration in the fields of communication and transportation without which modern international intercourse would be impossible. They have, through acceptance of common values, developed modes of accommodation by building out of custom and precedent a body of rules called international law. States have often obeyed these rules voluntarily and have been willing to adopt peaceful procedures for the settlement of disputes. But they have also accepted conflict and used coercion including war for the achievement of their national objectives.

The situation which characterizes the relations of groups within a state only in periods of crisis and breakdown of central authority is normal for the relations of states within the international society. It is the so-called sovereign independence of states, the absence of higher authority, and the freedom from external restraints that give to interstate relations their peculiar character of anarchy.

This historical state system consisting of sovereign independent units has been subject to two processes, conquest and confederation, which, if successful, might have changed its basic character. But neither process could ever achieve more than partial success. There have been strong and vigorous states which conquered their neighbors and enslaved the weak, but not even the gigantic empires of antiquity managed to absorb the states- beyond their regional control and integrate them into simple hegemonic systems. Equally unsuccessful has been the process of the delegation of power from below. There have been confederations in all historical periods, but they were always partial and limited, partial in the sense that they included only a small number of states and limited in the sense that the interstate organizations were formed for specific and usually administrative purposes. Illustrations of international co-operation and limited confederation are many, but there has never been a case of the actual transfer of military power and political authority from individual states to the organs of an international community.

The essential difference between the international community and the national community as conditioning environments for group behavior is, therefore, the absence in the former of a governmental organization capable of preserving order and enforcing law. The international community has never, in fact, guaranteed the member states either life, liberty, property, or the pursuit of happiness, whatever the paper provisions of international conventions may have stipulated. Each individual state has continued to depend for its very existence, as much as for the enjoyment of its rights and the protection of its interests, primarily on its own strength or that of its protectors.

Self-preservation used in connection with states has a special meaning. Because territory is an inherent part of a state, self-preservation means defending its control over territory; and, because independence is of the essence of the state, self-preservation also means fighting for independent status. This explains why the basic objective of the foreign policy of all states is the preservation of territorial integrity and political independence.

In addition to the primary task of survival, the foreign policy of states is directed at a great many specific objectives which can be classified in different ways. They are geographic, demographic, racial, ethnic, economic, social, and ideological in nature and include such items as: the acquisition of naval bases, the limitation of immigration, the assimilation of minorities, the search for access to raw materials, markets, and investment opportunities, the protection of the social order against disruptive alien forces, the encouragement of cultural relations, and the restriction of the trade in dangerous drugs.

The same two methods which are used in the national sphere for promoting group interests are used in the international sphere for promoting state interests. States may use the direct method, acting immediately upon other states; they may use such international organizations as exist; or they may devote their foreign policy to the creation of new instruments. The relative importance of each of these methods is, however, very different from that which prevails in the national sphere. The character of international society today makes direct power over other states far more useful than ability to influence international organizations.

At the time of the founding of the League of Nations and during its early history when it was still expected that the new organization might develop into an important agency of international government, there were many struggles for control between the large and the small powers and competition between individual states for seats on the council and the important committees. It looked for a while as if the struggle for power on the battlefield might really be transformed into a struggle for power in the council room. But when it became clear that the council room was merely a place for deliberation and the League only a forum for debate, interest lagged. It was futile to try to control a government that had no power. The foreign ministers sent their assistant secretaries and finally even these stayed home. The edifice that was to house the parliament of nations became an expensive symbol of a forlorn hope.

Direct action from state to state has remained the normal and most prevalent form of approach. It represents the most characteristic expression of foreign policy. Absence of international government is responsible not only for the significance of direct action but for the fact that there is no community restraint on the methods used. In international society all forms of coercion are permissible, including wars of destruction. This means that the struggle for power is identical with the struggle for survival, and the improvement of the relative power position becomes the primary objective of the internal and the external policy of states. All else is secondary, because in the last instance only power can achieve the objectives of foreign policy. Power means survival, the ability to impose one’s will on others, the capacity to dictate to those who are without power, and the possibility of forcing concessions from those with less power. Where the ultimate form of conflict is war, the struggle for power becomes a struggle for war power, a preparation for war.

The statesman who conducts foreign policy can concern himself with values of justice, fairness, and tolerance only to the extent that they contribute to or do not interfere with the power objective. They can be used instrumentally as moral justification for the power quest, but they must be discarded the moment their application brings weakness. The search for power is not made for the achievement of moral values; moral values are used to facilitate the attainment of power.

In this kind of a world states can survive only by constant devotion to power politics. Because power is in the last instance the power to wage war, states have always devoted considerable effort to the building of military establishments. But the relative power of states depends not only on military forces but on many other factors—size of territory, nature of frontiers, size of population, absence or presence of raw materials, economic and technological development, financial strength, ethnic homogeneity, effective social integration, political stability, and national spirit. In the struggle for power these items become important secondary objectives. They have value in themselves, and they are means to power.

The power position of a state, however, depends not only on its own military strength but also on that of its potential enemies. This means that there is a second approach to power apart from the enlargement of one’s own war equipment. Its purpose is to influence directly the power position of other states, to weaken some, to strengthen others. To achieve this aim, states are willing to use their military power not only for the protection of their own territory but also for the protection of the territory of others, not for any altruistic reasons but because the continued existence of the third state contributes to their own security.

Far back into antiquity goes the practice of strong states protecting small countries on their border against invasion from states beyond. This policy of protecting “buffer states” is a development and improvement on the old type of territorial defense by means of the creation of special frontier zones. When states have neighbors that are not weak but strong, it is the neighbor that represents the potential threat. Under such circumstances, nations have usually been willing to make an alliance with the country beyond the neighbor, to fight for the protection of that country’s territory in exchange for a reciprocal obligation. But willingness to support other states has not been motivated solely by a desire for the security of a frontier or a zone of special strategic significance, but also by a desire to stop the expansion of some great state which after further growth might become a menace. The policy is then directed at the prevention of hegemony, a power position which would permit the domination of all within its reach.

Balance of Power

The reason for such a policy lies in the lessons of history. The number of cases in which a strong dynamic state has stopped expanding because of satiation or has set modest limits to its power aims has been very few indeed. The policy which aims to restrain growing states and is known as the balance of power policy has been part and parcel of the diplomacy of all successful states. Experience has shown that there is more safety in balanced power than in a declaration of good intention. To preserve the balance requires action not only against the neighbor that becomes too powerful but also against distant states. As a matter of fact, the best period for the application of this policy is before continued expansion makes the growing state a neighbor. A hegemony that has access to the sea can become a menace to far distant shores a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION
• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE: THE UNITED STATES AND THE BALANCE OF POWER
• PART TWO: THE STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AMERICA
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• APPENDICES
• INDEX