The Cold War and After

History, Theory, and the Logic of International Politics

Marc Trachtenberg

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781400842490
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A new way of looking at international relations from a leading expert in the field What makes for war or for a stable international system? Are there general principles that should govern foreign policy? In The Cold War and After, Marc Trachtenberg, a leading historian of international relations, explores how historical work can throw light on these questions. The essays in this book deal with specific problems—with such matters as nuclear strategy and U.S.-European relations. But Trachtenberg's main goal is to show how in practice a certain type of scholarly work can be done. He demonstrates how, in studying international politics, the conceptual and empirical sides of the analysis can be made to connect with each other, and how historical, theoretical, and even policy issues can be tied together in an intellectually respectable way.These essays address a wide variety of topics, from theoretical and policy issues, such as the question of preventive war and the problem of international order, to more historical subjects—for example, American policy on Eastern Europe in 1945 and Franco-American relations during the Nixon-Pompidou period. But in each case the aim is to show how a theoretical perspective can be brought to bear on the analysis of historical issues, and how historical analysis can shed light on basic conceptual problems.

PART I

Theory

CHAPTER ONE

The Question of Realism: An Historian’s View

DIFFERENT COUNTRIES WANT different things; sometimes those desires conflict; how then do those conflicts get worked out? The basic insight that lies at the heart of the realist approach to international politics is that the way those conflicts run their course is heavily conditioned by power realities. In a world where war cannot be ruled out if conflicts are not settled peacefully, rational states are bound to be concerned with the structure of power in the sense not just of the distribution of military capabilities both actual and potential, but also of the whole web of relationships that would affect what would happen if war actually broke out. But rational states not only adjust their policies to such power realities. If the structure of power is of such fundamental importance, it stands to reason that states might well try to alter it to their advantage. That striving for power political advantage in turn might well come to dominate the system. The fact that states live in an anarchic system—that is, a system not governed by supranational authority—can therefore have a profound impact on state behavior, and some of the most central problems of international relations theory thus have to do with the importance of such “systemic” or “structural” effects in international political life.

It is commonly assumed that this concern for power, and especially this striving for power political advantage, puts states at odds with each other—that the struggle for power is a major source of conflict in and of itself. Such arguments are quite familiar. Opponents of realism have always assumed that power politics leads to conflict. Woodrow Wilson’s whole approach to international politics was rooted in assumptions of that sort, and even today such attitudes are by no means dead. One leading contemporary theorist, Alexander Wendt, thus takes it for granted that a world in which states behave in accordance with the dictates of Realpolitik is a violence-prone, kill-or-be-killed, Hobbesian world.¹ It is perhaps more surprising to find realists themselves arguing along these lines. The prevailing assumption among realists as a whole is that “mutual fear drives the great powers apart,” that “international anarchy fosters competition and conflict,” and that the “anarchic nature of international politics” encourages “cut-throat behavior among states.”²

The argument is developed in its purest form by “offensive realists” like John Mearsheimer. “The structure of the international system,” Mearsheimer writes, “forces states which seek only to be secure nonetheless to act aggressively toward each other.” “Great powers,” he says, “that have no reason to fight each other—that are merely concerned with their own survival—nevertheless have little choice but to pursue power and to seek to dominate the other states in the system.” They have little choice because they fear other states and they know that they “have to seek more power if they want to maximize their odds of survival.” But if states want to “maximize relative power,” Mearsheimer argues, they have to “think offensively toward other states, even though their ultimate motive is simply to survive.”³

The basic argument, however, is by no means limited to people like Mearsheimer. Even the “defensive realists,” those scholars of a realist bent who take a relatively moderate position on this whole set of issues, fundamentally agree that a dynamic of this sort plays a central role in international politics. To be sure, their analyses are more guarded, more hedged, more inclined to emphasize the importance of second-order or unit-level considerations—the offense/defense balance, most notably—which in their view determine how strong in practice that dynamic is.⁴ And they sometimes write in a way that suggests that security competition need not be a major source of international instability—that states will normally be satisfied with an “appropriate” amount of security, and will show little interest in reaching for more.⁵ But the comparatively mild way in which they frame their arguments should not obscure the fact that, whatever qualifications they make, even leading defensive realists believe that in an anarchic system the major powers are pushed into conflict with each other—that anarchy is more than just a permissive cause of war.

Kenneth Waltz, for example, clearly believes that anarchy breeds conflict. Waltz, the most important theorist in the defensive realist camp, developed his argument most explicitly in an important 1988 article called “The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory.” “Competition and conflict among states,” Waltz wrote, “stem directly from the twin facts of life under conditions of anarchy: States in an anarchic order must provide for their own security, and threats or seeming threats to their security abound. Preoccupation with identifying dangers and counteracting them become a way of life.” The measures states take to deal with these problems and make themselves more secure necessarily threaten other powers, who react in kind. “Some states,” he says, “may hunger for power for power’s sake.” But “neorealist theory”—and that means Waltz’s own theory—“shows that it is not necessary to assume an innate lust for power in order to account for the sometimes fierce competition that marks the international arena. In an anarchic domain, a state of war exists if all parties lust for power. But so too will a state of war exist if all states seek only to ensure their own safety.” This logic does not, of course, explain the origins of particular wars, but it does, he says, “explain war’s dismal recurrence through the millennia.” The “recurrence of war” is to be understood in structural terms: “The origins of hot wars lie in cold wars, and the origins of cold wars are found in the anarchic ordering of the international arena.”⁶ Other defensive realists share that basic view. Indeed, as one leading scholar points out, in the international relations literature more generally nowadays, the anarchic structure of international politics is “routinely cited as a root cause of or explanation for the recurrence of war.”⁷

Some traditional realists, however—not every major writer, but people like George Kennan, for example—took a very different view. They took it for granted that stability depended on the ability of states to pursue a policy framed in “realistic” power political terms. Over and over again, they stressed the point that to ignore the importance of power—to allow emotion and ideology and “impractical idealism” to dictate policy—was to court disaster.⁸ Implicit in that whole line of argument was the assumption that “realist” foreign policies—that is, policies attuned to power realities—were not the problem. But today most realists seem to assume that they are the problem, and that a system of states acting rationally in power political terms—a system of states pursuing “realist” policies, the sorts of policies the system tends to encourage—is a violent, brutal, war-prone system.

For me, this issue was particularly salient because, like those traditional realists, I had come to believe that “power politics” was not the problem—that is, I had come to believe that serious trouble developed only when states failed to act in a way that made sense in power political terms. My basic thinking in this area had taken shape as a simple by-product of ordinary historical work; I had never tried to think these issues through on a more theoretical level; and I was puzzled when it became clear to me that the prevailing view among realists today was rather different.

The aim here is thus to bring an historian’s perspective to bear on this basic problem. This does not mean that I am going to make the standard “historian’s argument” about how political scientists exaggerate the importance of the “system” and about how the problem of war and peace needs to be studied at a much lower level of abstraction. I myself believe that the “system” is enormously important—that a system based on power has a certain logic to it, and that to understand international politics, one has to have some sense for what that logic is. But how exactly does such a system work? Is it really the case that structural imperatives push states into conflict with each other? Or do things work in a very different way?

My basic point in this article is that the argument about the systemic sources of conflict is far more problematic, even in principle, than many people seem prepared to admit. But I want to take things a bit further than that. I want to argue that there are ways in which systemic forces can play a stabilizing role. And it is that argument, I think, that gives the analysis here its distinct character. The claim that anarchy breeds conflict has of course been challenged before. Scholars have argued that for a variety of reasons the effects of anarchy might be relatively mild. Some scholars have even argued that the system on balance plays a neutral role—that sometimes states find it in their interest to cooperate, and sometimes not. The argument here, however, is that systemic forces can actually play a positive role—and indeed that systemic pressures by and large have a stabilizing effect. ⁹

That view might sound somewhat unconventional today, but it is in fact rooted in ideas that have been part of the realist tradition for centuries. Why is it important to resurrect those notions, and why more generally is the argument here worth making? I think there is a gap between the sorts of policies many realists support—moderate, cautious, rooted in a concern with the stability of the system as a whole—and certain important theoretical views those same people hold. On the one hand, you have a theory that suggests at its core that a system in which states act in accordance with the dictates of Realpolitik is a violent, war-prone system. On the other hand, you have people who hold that view calling for “realist” policies—that is, policies based on power and interest, policies that are rational in terms of the imperatives of the system. It is as though you had a group of economists, firmly convinced that the free play of market forces would inevitably lead to economic collapse, nonetheless calling on everyone to act in accordance with market forces. The two levels of argument are just not in harmony with each other. But if we can see why certain basic assumptions about how a power political system works are misleading, we might be able to put those policy arguments on a firmer basis. If we can see how a system based on power has a certain stability, then we might be better able to see why policies that are rational in power political terms might make for a more peaceful world.

So let me begin in the next section by outlining the kind of thinking that lies behind the view that a system based on power is not inherently unstable—or, more precisely, the basis for the view that realist policies, policies that make sense in terms of the basic logic of the system, actually make for a relatively stable international order. In the following section, some key arguments on the other side, especially fundamental arguments about the way an anarchic system is supposed to work, will be examined. In the final section, I want to look at policy arguments, and especially at what they can tell us about the fundamental assumptions that lie at the heart of the realist understanding of international politics.

AN INVISIBLE HAND IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS?

Adam Smith, in a very famous passage, noted that an individual pursuing his own interest is “led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” “By pursuing his own interest,” Smith wrote, “he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”¹⁰ Do we see a mechanism of this sort at work in international life? Can states, in pursuing their own interests, generate a more or less stable international system? What sorts of dynamics come into play in a world of independent powers, and how do those dynamics affect the stability of the system as a whole?

One way to get a handle on such questions is to start with a bit of history and then work back to the theory. And in doing that, it makes sense to begin with one of those periods in history where there was no hegemon, where ideological concerns were of relatively minor importance in shaping foreign policy, and when there were just a handful of major powers relating to each other in a relatively closed system: namely, the classic period of European great power politics, the late nineteenth century. By looking at international politics in that period, one can hope to see far more clearly than in other cases how a system based on power works. Was this a period in which power politics was a source of instability, or did trouble develop only when the major European states put power political considerations aside and allowed other sorts of factors to shape their policy?

To a considerable degree, European statesmen in that period really did think in power political terms. Otto von Bismarck, the German chancellor from 1871 to his fall from power in 1890, is the most obvious example. In a Europe of five great states, Bismarck said, the key thing was to be one of three: “all politics reduce themselves to this formula: try to be à trois in a world governed by five Powers.”¹¹ But if being one of three was good, being one of four was even better, since one’s own country would be less vulnerable to a partner’s threat to defect. In straight power political terms, good relations with other states are a source of strength and bad relations a source of weakness. It thus makes sense to have as many friends and as few enemies as possible.

The great source of weakness in the German position after the unification of Germany in 1871 was the alienation of France that had resulted from the German annexation that year of Alsace-Lorraine. This was an albatross hung around Bismarck’s neck. It sharply constrained his freedom of action by ruling out the possibility of a combination that included both Germany and France. Germany’s partners could threaten to defect to the side of France, but Germany herself could make no counter-threat to form an alignment of her own with that power. The Franco-German antagonism, moreover, vastly complicated the problem of forming a bloc of powers that would dominate Europe. A bloc of the three eastern empires—Germany, Russia and Austria—was one possibility, but the problem here was that Germany’s two partners were themselves at odds over Balkan issues and might expect German support in their conflict with each other, perhaps threatening to go over to the side of France if they did not get it. An alignment with Britain and Austria, based on the containment of Russia, was the other possibility, but here too the drawbacks were obvious: that policy might drive Russia to the side of France; if a continental war did break out, Germany would have to bear the brunt of the fighting, given that Britain was not a land power; and Britain, an island power protected by a strong navy, would be relatively free to withdraw from the alignment, especially as new elections brought in new governments free to adopt new policies. The best Bismarck could do was to balance between those two possible alignments—to try to get Britain and Austria to balance Russia more or less on their own, to hold back from supporting that containment policy too openly, and to try to keep the wire to St. Petersburg open and thus head off a Russian alignment with France. This was not an easy policy to pursue, not least because there was no guarantee that either Britain or Russia would cooperate with it, and it was breaking down even before Bismarck fell from power in 1890.

The antagonism with France created by the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was a source of weakness for Germany. In power political terms, it had not been in Germany’s interest to annex those provinces. Yes, adding that territory gave Germany more defensible borders—a real advantage, and something that would have been even more important if Germany had opted for a defensive strategy in the west in the decades to come. And yes, bringing Lorraine with its iron ore into the Reich turned out to be one of the key factors that enabled German steel production—the heart of military power, given the military technology of the period—to rise so dramatically in the period before World War I. In narrow, purely economic terms, it is quite clear that in this case, as in so many others, conquest paid.¹²

But to focus on such points is to miss what was really important about what the new German empire did in 1871. Whatever military and economic advantages Germany got ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• The Cold War and After
• Copyright
• Preface
• Part I: - Theory
• Part II: - History
• Part III: - Policy
• Index