The Unipolar World: An Unbalanced Future

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THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

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THE UNIPOLAR WORLD AN UNBALANCED FUTURE

By Thomas S. Mowle and David H. Sacko

the unipolar world: an unbalanced future Copyright © Thomas S. Mowle, David H. Sacko, 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-10: 1-4039-7030-0 ISBN-13: 978-1-4039-7030-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mowle, Thomas S. The unipolar world: an unbalanced future / by Thomas S. Mowle and David H. Sacko. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: Unipolarity in politics and economics—Conﬂict and stability in a unipolar system—Balancing and bandwagoning in a unipolar system—Alliance patterns in a unipolar system—Binding and resistance in a unipolar system— Defensive advantage in a unipolar system—Offensive advantage in a unipolar system— Conclusion: a unipolar future. ISBN 1-4039-7030-0 (alk. paper) 1. International relations. 2. Realism. 3. World politics—1989- I. Sacko, David H. II. Title. JZ5588.M69 2007 327.101—dc22 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Macmillan India Ltd. First edition: April 2007 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

2006050219

To Leslie T. S. M. and Mom and Dad D. H. S.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures and Tables

viii

Acknowledgments

ix

Table of Acronyms

xi

1 Introduction: An Unbalanced World

1

2 Unipolarity in Politics and Economics

29

3 Conﬂict and Stability in a Unipolar System

51

4 Balancing and Bandwagoning in a Unipolar System

65

5 Alliance Patterns in a Unipolar System

87

6 Binding and Resistance in a Unipolar System

101

7 Defensive Advantage in a Unipolar System

117

8 Offensive Advantage in a Unipolar System

131

9 Conclusion: The Unipolar Future

143

Notes

167

Bibliography

197

Index

211

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5

Major Power Military Expenditures 1988–2004. Military Spending Per Capita (Military Personnel). Gross Domestic Product. Energy Consumption. GDP Per Capita (Current, PPP). High Technology Exports. Scientific Articles. Research and Development Expenditures. Net Migration. Aircraft Departures. Major IGO Membership. Total Annual Disputes and System Size. Standardized Dispute Onsets over Time. Standardized Dispute Joiners over Time. Standardized Dispute Duration over Time. Standardized Dispute Fatalities over Time.

20 20 22 22 23 23 24 24 25 26 26 57 58 59 59 60

LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Table 3.2

Summary Statistics for the Systemic Conﬂict Indicators Systemic Conﬂict During a Unipolar Era

63 63

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book developed from Tom’s last book, Allies at Odds? The United States and the European Union. The comparative theory-testing of that book required a hypothesis for how structural realism would expect the United States and European Union to react to each other—and it quickly became clear that there was no such hypothesis. Allies at Odds began to develop what has become the second hypothesis of this book, that states would bandwagon with a unipolar power rather than balance against it. This illustrated a more general problem in structural realism: its theorists had very little to say about a unipolar world. While Tom does not consider himself a realist (though, after three major research projects that all ended up supporting the notion that states behave as if realist theory is valid, he recognizes that it is a pretty darn solid theory), it seemed to him that a decent theory ought to be able to talk about the world as it is, especially if it wants to call itself “realism.” Perhaps structural realism did not apply to a unipolar situation, but it seemed fair to at least put it to the test. Such a grand effort—to complete structural realism—seemed necessary but daunting. Dave’s work involving the causes of war and international political economy pointed him to hegemonic stability theory. Right off the bat, his tack was to disentangle hegemony from unipolarity and then think about the quantitative indicators he could thrust into the process. The next step was to turn our suspicions that structural realism was missing something from random musings into what we believe is solid piece of work. The most basic questions were also the hardest—explaining the difference between unipolarity and hegemony, answering the claim that balancing was central to realist theory, and developing the analogy to price leadership that extended Kenneth Waltz’s famous analogy of oligopolistic ﬁrms. Knowing then that we were onto something, the small matter remained of developing hypotheses about the unipolar system and the behavior of states within it, and then of evaluating those theories. Working as we did on separate hypotheses, we were somewhat surprised as the book came

x

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

together that our independent work spoke to and supported the rest of the book. Structural realism works in a unipolar world. Many people have reviewed parts of this draft. Most of all, we appreciate the comments and challenges posed by Damon Coletta. We also appreciate the substantive comments made by Bill Ayres, Paul Bolt, Mark Gose, Pat James, Chris Layne, John Mearsheimer, Shah Tarzi, Jim West, and the participants of SWAMOS ’05. The ﬁnal draft was considerably improved by the diligence of our copy editor at Palgrave, Kay Mallett. We would also like to thank those who gave us more personal support through this process, including Tom’s daughters, Elyse and Kat, and his newly wedded wife Leslie; and Dave’s colleagues, friends and family, most especially Gertrude Shepherd, and Jodi and Pasquale Vittori. In addition, we should note that the views expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily reﬂect the ofﬁcial policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

TABLE OF ACRONYMS

ABM ASPA BWC CBRN CCW CD CENTO CFSP CoE CWC DSACEUR ECHR ESDP EU EUMS GDP GWOT IAEA ICC ICJ IGO INF ISAF MBT MID NAFTA NATO NPT POW SCO SEATO

anti-ballistic missile American Service-Members’ Protection Act Biological Weapons Convention chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (weapons) Convention on Conventional Weapons Committee/Conference on Disarmament Central Treaty Organization Common Foreign and Security Policy Council of Europe Chemical Weapons Convention Deputy Supreme Allied Commander—Europe European Court of Human Rights European Security and Defence Policy European Union EU Military Staff Gross Domestic Product Global War on Terrorism International Atomic Energy Agency International Criminal Court International Court of Justice international governmental organization intermediate nuclear forces International Security Assistance Force Mine Ban Treaty Militarized Interstate Dispute North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty prisoner of war Shanghai Cooperation Organization Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

xii

SHAPE SORT UNITAF UNOSOM UNPROFOR UNSC U.S. WTO

TABLE OF ACRONYMS

Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty Uniﬁed Task Force United Nations Operation in Somalia United Nations Protection Force United Nations Security Council United States World Trade Organization

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: AN UNBALANCED WORLD

I

n 1991, international politics entered a new era. For the ﬁrst time in modern history, the world was unipolar: it had only one center of economic, military, and political power: the United States. While leaders of other countries grumbled about this situation, they were slow to take signiﬁcant action to balance it. As the unipolar power, the United States has frequently disparaged and disregarded the rules of international institutions, and often ignored the preferences of its allies. It has attacked and overthrown the government of several of its adversaries. One might, therefore, expect that the United States would be facing a coalition of opponents, states opposing American power as they once opposed the rise of France, Germany, and other aspiring hegemons. Yet it does not. Yes, North Korea and Iran have pursued nuclear weapons; yes, Osama bin Laden has inspired a global network of theocratic terrorists; yes, after the United States invaded Iraq it faced strong resistance and an insurgency within that country. In the grand scope of world history, however, these are trivial events. American power remains unbalanced. To date, political science has not explained this puzzle. Constructivist and critical approaches observe the dominance of the American narrative, but do not explain why it persists despite the counternarrative of opposition.1 Clearly, the unipolar state is feared more than it is loved,2 but other princes, other states, should not be allowing American power to remain relatively unchallenged. If power is the question, then realism or liberalism should have the answer. Unfortunately, neither speaks to a unipolar world. Liberalism expects power-driven conﬂict to be mediated by intervening institutions—international organizations or regimes, free trade, or shared republican ideology. American behavior of late has not supported any of these institutions. It has turned away from international agreements on arms, human rights, and the environment while rejecting the notion that other states should have any voice in its use of power. Its record on trade is somewhat better, but it has pushed back against the World Trade Organization repeatedly while following ﬁscal and monetary policies that

2

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

have undercut other states’ exports.3 Liberals expect democracies to generally ally together against common foes.4 This prediction has been only partially fulﬁlled, as the United States and other democracies disagree over the nature of the threats and the appropriate response. No, if power is the question, one should look to realism. And looking, one ﬁnds that realism has little to say about this situation. Where constructivism does not try to explain, where liberalism does not seem not to ﬁt, the leading theory of international politics is lost because it expects a world of multiple major powers.5 Realists expect states to balance against rising powers, which would prevent a unipolar distribution of power from developing. Kenneth Waltz believed that a system with only one great power would be a hierarchy, but our system remains anarchic. Faced with this situation, realists (with the notable exception of William Wohlforth) have either argued that this is a transitory situation or have tried to recast French threats to veto United Nations resolution as a form of “soft” balancing. Richelieu would be so proud. During this unipolar period, scholarship on current international politics has tended to focus on one of three general issues. Some claim that the current distribution of capabilities in the international system is not unipolar—they say it is in fact multipolar, or perhaps the very concept of polarity is a mere relic of a pre-postmodern age.6 Others, accepting that the system seems to be unipolar, ask how long such a distribution of capabilities can last.7 Some of these, joined by many others, ask whether unipolarity is a positive development.8 The answer to this last question is usually negative, from leaders as well as from scholars. French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine argued this ﬁrst and clearest on November 7, 1999, “We cannot accept a world that is politically unipolar or culturally uniform. Nor can we accept the unilateralism of the single hyperpower. This is why we are ﬁghting for a multipolar, diversiﬁed and multilateral world.”9 European Union external relations commissioner Chris Patten said that if the European Union can develop a common foreign and security policy, “we may hope to contribute to a healthier global balance.”10 Both of those comments were made while Bill Clinton was president of the United States. Since George W. Bush took that ofﬁce, scholarship has turned to personal or factional accounts, which mostly ignore the structural element.11 These scholars evade the question that should be ﬁrst on the minds of international relations theorists: what sort of state behavior can we expect to see in a unipolar world?12 It seems to be our fate as a discipline that we ﬁght the last debate, describe the ancien système. Just when Morton Kaplan and Hans Morgenthau set forth rules for the behavior of states in a multipolar system, the golden age of realpolitik came to an end.13 In place of the

INTRODUCTION

3

ﬂuid kaleidoscope of balance-of-power politics we found the ﬁxed mirror of bipolarity: throw weights and clients, Cuba and Berlin, Afghanistan and Vietnam.14 Shortly after Waltz deduced his theory of international politics, the world shifted again—not back to the world of prior theory but to something previously unseen. Our discipline has tarried too long in the wreckage of history, spent too long trying to recover something familiar from the ruins.15 We must complete realist theory, integrating an understanding of unipolarity into our knowledge of multipolarity and bipolarity. Unipolarity opens up new and interesting areas to study, regardless of the nature of the current system. Nevertheless, we believe it is relevant today because the distribution of power in the world is unipolar, as we will demonstrate later in this chapter. We do not believe that unipolarity will last forever, but we believe it will endure long enough to be worth studying. The theory we develop in this book will help us assess the persistence of a unipolar system. The theory will also help provide an answer to the question of whether or not unipolarity is a positive development for the world. One can decide whether unipolarity is good only after assessing what it means for international politics. We leave that normative question for the ﬁnal chapter. The purpose of this book is to ﬁll a gaping hole in the structure of neorealism so that the approach can better address reality. After describing the current state of realist theory, we generate hypotheses about the politics of a unipolar world, hypotheses for the unipolar power and for the other states in the system. We evaluate those hypotheses to assess whether international behavior during the unipolar period is in agreement with realism’s expectations. The remainder of this introduction deﬁnes our terms by distinguishing between unipolarity, a power relationship, and hegemony, an authority relationship. We do not take a position with respect to American hegemony. If hegemony means controlling the world, winning every ﬁght, and being accepted as rightful ruler, then the United States is not a hegemon. If hegemony means something less than that, then perhaps the United States is a hegemon. In either case, the international system is unipolar—the United States can apply far more power to any situation than any other state in the system can. The second chapter deﬁnes the realist tradition and identiﬁes the hole at the center of structural realism. Much of contemporary realism focuses on the idea of balancing. We describe scholars’ search for examples of balancing in the unipolar system, which has led to the development of a new concept known as “soft” balancing, balancing that does not materially impede the unipolar power. This concept, and other arguments that explain the lack of hard balancing, seem alien to the core concepts of the

4

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

realist paradigm. We discuss that paradigm, demonstrating that balancing is not a core concept in realism. Balancing is a behavior of states in certain situations. The chapter goes on to deﬁne structural realism, explaining our adoption of the power-seeking variant of that paradigm. When Waltz developed structural realism in the 1970s, he used microeconomics as a metaphor for illustrating the behavior of actors in an oligopolistic power structure—states competing for power or security in anarchy were like ﬁrms competing for market share in a free market.16 He argued that there must be at least two such ﬁrms for the market to operate, just as there must be two major powers in any anarchic international system. Waltz’s theory thus excluded unipolarity. Since Waltz’s time, however, macroeconomics has evolved to cover a condition known as price leadership, in which there is one ﬁrm that is sufﬁciently larger than the others and thus can control pricing in a still-free market. This market conﬁguration is analogous to a unipolar international system. Chapters 3–8 deduce and evaluate six hypotheses of international behavior. Chapter 3 looks at stability, the frequency, intensity, duration, and size of wars and militarized conﬂicts in the international system. Waltz had postulated that a bipolar system would be more stable than a multipolar one, because it had more certainty. A unipolar system would yield even more certainty, so we hypothesize that it would be even more stable. This hypothesis is supported by empirical analysis. There have been fewer militarized international disputes in the unipolar period, disputes have been shorter, they have been less intense, and fewer states join those disputes once they begin. Chapter 4 looks at balancing and bandwagoning. While balancing is a useful policy for states to follow in most situations, it is not as helpful when there is a unipolar distribution of power. Our deﬁnition of balancing—hindering the power of a stronger state—excludes most components of “soft” balancing. Balancing coalitions are difﬁcult to form in the most optimal conditions, and they would be even more difﬁcult to form when one state is so superior in power to the others. The unipolar power’s lead also makes it difﬁcult for states to catch up through their own internal efforts. In a unipolar world, a strategy of bandwagoning, or sharing in the unipolar power’s gains, is more beneﬁcial. This hypothesis is supported by analysis. States have not formed military alliances that exclude the United States; their military spending has not kept pace with the United States, except in the case of China, which is far behind American power; states have not been developing weapons systems that target the United States, except for North Korea and Iran; and states have not physically blocked American power. Instead, they have joined alliances with the United States and have often cooperated in its military missions.

INTRODUCTION

5

Chapter 5 assesses alliance patterns. Under a bipolar conﬁguration of power, states would be likely to maintain tight alliances, for fear that a state would defect to the other bloc. This tendency contrasted with the more ﬂuid and overlapping patterns that were found during multipolar eras. Alliances in a unipolar world are more similar to those in a multipolar one. The unipolar power is not worried about defections, because there is no other bloc to join. The unipolar power also does not need many allies, as their power is not needed to bolster its own. Allies are more likely to drag the unipolar power into their own disputes than to help the unipolar power with its problems. This hypothesis is supported by analysis. Since the dawn of the unipolar era, the United States has loosened its cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It has allowed the European Union (EU) to develop an overlapping European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The United States has used ever-changing “coalitions of the willing” to pursue its military goals. Chapter 6 looks at international law and patterns of binding and resistance. With neither balancing nor alliances to restrict the unipolar power’s actions, other states are likely to try to limit its actions by developing a framework of international rules to constrain it. The unipolar power is unlikely to accept these restrictions. In other conﬁgurations of power, international law offers great powers a way to mutually restrict one another. A state may give up ﬂexibility in exchange for predictability. This beneﬁt is not present in a unipolar world. This hypothesis is supported by analysis. States have tried to increase the reach of customary law. This has not been effective, as the United States has rejected customary interpretations of international humanitarian law. States have tried to bind the unipolar power through nonconsensus rulemaking. Part of the American objection to the International Criminal Court (ICC) is based on this potential, and the United States has resisted such measures unless it can ensure a blocking vote for itself. Finally, states have denied cooperation with the United States in areas from use of land mines to criminal prosecution if the United States did not accept international constraints. Once again, the United States has resisted these attempts, though with less success than the others. Chapter 7 looks at unipolar behavior when defensive actions have the advantage over offensive actions. It deﬁnes offense-defense balance theory, which involves whether or not it is easier to attack or defend. The theory suggests that when defense has the advantage, states will be reluctant to initiate wars. This preference should be enhanced for a unipolar power, which can be safe within the status quo. This hypothesis is supported by analysis. Until September 11, 2001, the United States believed that offensive action would be difﬁcult. It did not believe other states or actors posed

6

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

a military threat, so it disregarded them. The United States also believed that offensive military action would be difﬁcult, so it avoided conﬂict where possible unless it had an overwhelming advantage. Military strategy in the Balkans involved keeping American forces far from harm’s way. Chapter 8 looks at the other side of the offense-defense balance. If states believe offense has the advantage, they are likely to initiate conﬂicts and to fear that other states are moving against it. In a world of perceived offensive advantage, states are likely to launch preemptive and preventive wars. This tendency would be enhanced in a unipolar world, where the unipolar power fears disruption of its prominent position and would believe that it could use its military strength to win easy victories. This hypothesis is supported by analysis. After September 11, 2001, the United States developed a security strategy that stretched the concept of preemption to include what many would consider preventive war. It executed this strategy against Afghanistan and Iraq, winning easy military victories but having difﬁculty with the stabilization of both countries. In the concluding chapter, Chapter 9, we review the hypotheses and our conclusion that international behavior in the unipolar world does conform to realist predictions. We consider and reject several alternative explanations and critiques, including again claims that the United States is not a unipolar power, the decreasing frequency of war in general, liberalism, the personality of George W. Bush, and the notion that the theory of unipolar politics somehow is an agent of celebrating American power. We discuss the implications of these ﬁndings for international relations theory. The ﬁndings bolster the realist paradigm against its competitors, show that structural realism remains viable in a unipolar world, and dispel the need to search for balancing where it does not exist. We discuss the implications of these ﬁndings for world politics. A unipolar world is one with more stability and certainty. Over time, especially if defense is again perceived as dominant, the goods provided by the unipolar system may allow for more specialization among states. In particular, unipolarity could lead to a reduction of overall military spending, with more resources going to more productive pursuits. This, along with the overall peace induced by unipolarity, would bring clear beneﬁts to the world. Unipolarity is reinforcing and can last for a long time if American power is not expended due to a belief in offensive dominance. Hegemony, Unipolarity, and World Politics Scholars often use the theoretical concepts “hegemony” and “unipolarity” interchangeably. This imperils their respective analytic utility. This study explicitly focuses on unipolarity, eschewing the theoretical notion of

INTRODUCTION

7

hegemony altogether. However, given the frequent sloppy interchange of these two distinct concepts, it is necessary to differentiate them.17 Although many theorists are referenced as equating hegemony with the concentration of power in one state,18 a more careful assessment of these works reveals a more speciﬁc conceptualization. While preponderant power concentration is a constituent element of hegemony, the concept of hegemony also assigns a particular role for the lead state, a role accepted both domestically and internationally. This is in contrast to unipolarity, which is simply a structural statement describing a speciﬁc power alignment. Where a hegemonic system requires the direct acquiescence of important domestic and international actors, a unipolar system does not. The only condition of unipolarity is for power in the international system to be concentrated in one state. Analytically, it has been difﬁcult to disentangle the relative effects of hegemony and unipolarity. Therefore, we turn to international relations theory to distinguish between the two concepts. This section delineates these theoretical concepts to clearly identify their similarities and differences; ﬁrst it rigorously deﬁnes hegemony and then assesses the attributes of unipolarity. Hegemony The term “hegemony” was brought into theoretical prominence by Robert Keohane’s reﬂection on Charles Kindleberger’s work.19 Derived from the Greek hegemonia, meaning leadership, hegemony immediately had a more coercive undertone to it. As it is most widely understood in world politics, hegemony signiﬁes a rare national role and a type of international system.20 It is the sum total effect of a special state, the most powerful state, on the international system, which promotes some type of stability. In contrast, the identity and behavior of the unipolar power is far less consequential. The extra theoretical baggage attached to hegemony makes the concept much more difﬁcult to work with. According to Susan Strange, theories of hegemony do not constitute a single body of homogenous or consistent ideas. They are a bundle of concepts and explanations centering on the notion of the role of the hegemon or leader, the dominant state in the international system, and the connection between the hegemon and the stability of that system.21

Scholars diverge widely on the particular theoretical deﬁnitions of hegemony. Hegemony may mean one state’s leadership in macroeconomic and perhaps political issue areas.22 It may mean dominance in agroindustrial production, commerce, and ﬁnance.23 Or, in more speciﬁc economic

8

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

terms, it may mean dominance in ﬁnance and corporate control.24 In an even more socially pervasive sense, Antonio Gramsci posits that hegemony is the control over interests and preferences, tastes, and ways of conducting the tasks of everyday life. As he said, “Hegemony is the dominance of one group or class in society, achieved not through force but rather through the consent of other groups.”25 Applying classical Gramscian terms to the speciﬁc case of world politics, hegemony in international relations is not only the domination of one state, but also the leadership of a transnational dominating class sustaining a dominant core. Thus, in addition to power, other factors are relevant to hegemony. Unfortunately, however, there is little agreement even on what constitutes hegemonic power and what those other factors are. We argue that to understand hegemony, one must think about it from the perspective of a three-part framework. First, a state must be a powerful preponderant state relative to the other major powers. Second, the foreign policy establishment of this preponderant state must have the ability and inclination to assume the position of international leadership. Finally, this position of leadership must be accepted by the other major powers. Although each theory we draw from to construct this indicator has a different perspective on the effects of hegemonic power on international governance, common overlap is discernable. Very simply, the hegemon must be the most powerful state. The power of the hegemon can be categorized into direct and indirect (or co-optive) modes. Direct power is a state’s ability to transform its resources into immediate coercive force, whereas co-optive power is more a function of a state’s overall inﬂuence rather than its sheer force.26 This is an important distinction, because before the 1980s, most operational deﬁnitions of hegemony were predicated on direct power only. The structural realist approach is focused on direct power.27 In this view, hegemony exists in the world system when the distribution of power (as material resources) is sufﬁciently asymmetrical. Structural realist theorists may disagree as to the precise constituent elements, but they all posit some conglomeration of relevant resources that necessarily confers a position of power. Military strength means direct control over adversaries and colonies, natural resources help feed an economy, fungible economic resources can be translated into military assets. However, hegemony is much more complex than the simple realist conception of unipolarity.28 While a preponderant material power base often has a high correlation with the ability to control outcomes, it is not a sufﬁcient condition for strong, effective hegemony. Co-optive power, on the other hand, considers how resources actually translate into effective power. Bruce Russett argues that the successful exercise of hegemonic power, with its ability to control outcomes, transcends

INTRODUCTION

9

the optimal relative power base in terms of material resources. An important element that assessments of hegemony typically ignored is what Russett refers to as cultural hegemony.29 As with Joseph Nye’s soft power, the cultural aspects of hegemony are inherently intangible. Soft power is a form of control that rests on the ability to establish preferences. Soft power is the power of the hegemon’s ideas and its ability to get other states to accept elements of its ideology. Nye contrasts material-based command (hard) power, which can directly change other states’ behavior, with the more ephemeral co-optive (soft) power, which can affect other states’ behavior because they want to follow the hegemon or have previously agreed to the system.30 Both types of power are facets of the ability to impose desirable outcomes. The distinction between the two lies in the nature of the behavior and in the tangibility of the resources. Co-optive power is indirect. It rests on the “attraction of one’s ideas or on the ability to set the political agenda in a way that shapes the preferences that others express.”31 Thus, the demonstration of co-optive power by a hegemon implies that it can change outcomes in the international system through means other than mobilizing its military. That is, hegemonic factors can extend beyond the range of a simple hard power base. The challenge in assessing the effect of co-optive power is to deﬁne this inherently intangible attribute. As with all forms of power, it cannot be directly observed. With hard power, this problem was addressed by observing potential forms. The operational forms of soft power are more indirect, but still empirically discernible to a relevant degree. In both cases, a theoretical framework is required in order to consider the relevant characteristics—hard and soft—of hegemony. Strange suggests that soft, co-optive power is a critical element missing from the conceptual comprehension of hegemony. She argues that material factors other than manufacturing capacity or world exports are a more appropriate measure for understanding hegemonic power. These factors include ones that are material in observation, yet have structural (or co-optive) implications and effects. For example, a signiﬁcant base of the hegemon’s power is the share of world output that is generated by its business and commerce. The strategic position of ﬁrms in terms of new technology is also critical to the vitality of the hegemon. These two economic factors are observable, yet they are theorized to have intangible soft effects. It is not just the aggregate economic welfare that might enable the hegemon to build a bigger and better military or buy another country’s allegiance. Rather, these concepts indicate the more pervasive effect of “globalization” that conditions the consciousness of international as well as domestic consumers to agree that the hegemon is legitimate, good, and desirable.32

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THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

Strange cites four major interrelated structural factors that are imperative to hegemony, focusing on factors that appear to be material in nature but also affect the degree of co-optive power. Strange’s conceptualization of hegemonic power is predicated on (1) the ability to exercise control—i.e., military power; (2) control over the system of the production of goods and services—i.e., physical goods; (3) control over the structure of ﬁnance and credit—i.e., money; and (4) inﬂuence over the acquisition, communication, and storage of knowledge, whether technical, religious, or social/ political. Each of these conceptual dimensions has two critical aspects. First is the basic capability effect: What you see is what you get in terms of hegemonic function and ability. Second is the more elusive soft co-optive aspect.33 At the conceptual stage, each of these dimensions has the potential to expand beyond pure material effects toward a broader intangible inﬂuence, depending on the speciﬁc operational indicators being measured. Our point is that certain indicators of hegemony have implications that go beyond the concrete measures. One function of hegemonic power is to maintain the international system, speciﬁcally, the security institutions and the global political economy. Depending on the degree of hegemonic power, political institutions and economic enterprises alike are affected by the hegemon’s ability to set the agenda and design international institutions, rules, and customs. While the strength of regimes, norms, and institutions can never be directly observed, in the end, they should be highly correlated with factors of hegemonic power. Hegemonic power, then, is directly related to the capability of speciﬁc attributes and is not conﬁned to a single structure. Rather, the essential ability to shape and maintain the system is found in multiple dimensions. Therefore, operationalizations should take a multidimensional approach. An intrinsic element of soft power is the willingness of the hegemon to commit to the system and the hegemon’s degree of acceptance by other states in the international system. While various components of hegemonic power indirectly measure soft power, the second and third primary elements of hegemony—the hegemon’s willingness and international acceptance—capture it directly. These elements speciﬁcally address nonmaterial attributes. The second condition of hegemony may seem self-evident or even trivial. Nevertheless, as the United States’ case indicates, this condition can outweigh hegemonic power preponderance. The most powerful state must voluntarily accept the role of international hegemon and be willing to be engaged in the international system; it does not necessarily have to accept its fate as hegemon. The domestic ruling coalition may foresee long-term catastrophe as the result of having the most prominent international role, or the politics of domestic interests may take priority.

INTRODUCTION

11

For example, following World War I, the United States achieved preponderance in the right type of resources, and other states in the international system accepted the idea of American leadership as the ﬁrst among equals. However, the United States lacked the domestic will. The prevailing perspective in U.S. foreign policy was to detach from European affairs and resist any further urges to “manage” crises not American in origin. This isolationism was protested by those in government who saw the advantages of being the systemic hegemon. However, the dominant economic coalitions in the 1920s were primarily interested in protecting American goods and saw little need for the transnationalization of business. The economic elite had little use for hegemony, and the internationalist wing of the U.S. government did not have the political power to bring its agenda forward. Kindleberger theorizes that this “hegemonic reluctance” explains the Great Depression.34 It was not until near the conclusion of World War II that the United States agreed to succeed Great Britain as the international leader. Following World War II, the U.S. government was committed to a hegemonic agenda even before the Soviet Union was seen as an ideological or strategic threat. The ruling elite had learned a lesson that it needed to “foster a world environment in which the American system can survive and ﬂourish.”35 The political imperatives in the international system had changed, as had the structural aspects of the American economy. Economically, there was great potential for transnational proﬁts. Thus, the domestic economic coalition expressed a preference for a new role of American political management of the international system.36 The dominant state must accept the leadership role of hegemony in order for a hegemonic system to arise. While some economic drawbacks are associated with hegemony,37 certain sectors may beneﬁt from an external expansionist foreign policy even while the rest of the economy suffers.38 These sectors generally have a disproportionate inﬂuence on the foreign policy establishment. However, such beneﬁts may not always be purely economic in nature. National elites gain psychological beneﬁts, as the assumption of leadership creates a great deal of pride. Factors such as the national mood, interest group coalitions, and institutional support can potentially inﬂuence the state’s desire to be hegemon. The third condition of hegemony is the acceptance and support of a dominant coalition within the international community. As Russett points out, “The exercise of hegemony depends not solely on raw physical power, but also on the shared normative perceptions about legitimate action.”39 The reaction of other key states in the international system to the hegemon’s ascension is critical to establishing hegemony. Other strong state powers in the international system may be able to prevent a

12

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

hegemon’s ascension; for example, they can resist militarily, which results in global war as in the 1940s. Such conﬂict is not likely with the emergence of a strong hegemon if a majority of the major powers see potential beneﬁts resulting from their relationship. Acquiescence from the international community to the hegemon’s legitimacy, however, does not confer ultimate authority. The hegemon does not have approval to tear through the international system for its own beneﬁt. This condition means only that other states agree that the hegemon will maintain the international system. If signiﬁcant discontent exists among enough other powers, a countercoalition would emerge to balance the ability of the hegemon to either emerge in the ﬁrst place or to manage the system. For example, Napoleon’s challenge to British hegemony failed because he did not have a large enough coalition to displace the British. Perhaps if he had had the “acceptance” of Russia, he would have succeeded. States back the hegemon (or hegemonic contender) because they have a deﬁnite interest in the international order the hegemon imposes. The hegemon effectively underwrites the global economy. As Kindleberger describes, the hegemon serves as the lender of last resort, a source of international liquidity, a market for distress goods, and coordinator of the macroeconomic system. If other states share the desire for capitalism, they have an incentive to support a hegemon that guarantees these goods.40 While the hegemonic world system is created primarily for the beneﬁt of the hegemon, it does have beneﬁts for other states. The hegemon supports the foundations of the system. It promises beneﬁts through tangible payoffs and side-payments, predicated on its material ability to do so. The hegemon is also in a unique position to use its charisma to inspire other states and to offer symbolic rewards for followers who support it. In addition, any potential blocking coalition must abide by the hegemon’s basic rules for international politics. This apparent contradiction is at the heart of Nye’s notion of co-optive power.41 If a state has already agreed to a previously set agenda, then no conﬂict ever takes place. On the other hand, without these consenting states, the hegemon faces an uphill battle in attempting to install and maintain its system. Robert Cox summarizes this point nicely, stating: The dominant state creates an order based ideologically on a broad measure of consent, functioning according to general principles that in fact ensure the continuing supremacy of the leading state or states and leading social classes but at the same time offer some measure or prospect of satisfaction to the less powerful.42

INTRODUCTION

13

Cox is heavily inﬂuenced by Gramsci; neither condemns all aspects of hegemonic rule, as other leftists do. According to Gramsci, the cultural system is the moral soul of humanity’s economic activity. Civil life must be enlightened in order to be maintained. Hegemony is one such mechanism that maintains the dominant culture and infuses it with life. Hegemony emerges when the structural power of a dominant state is set squarely in a uniquely inspiring philosophical view, and the lead state’s material capability is successfully translated into a narrative to guide the states not so materially advantaged. States follow in order to establish and maintain an operative international system. Gramsci was actually disappointed that the United States lacked an inspiring world view and the charisma necessary to make it a hegemonic leader. It was Gramsci’s perception that Europe had refused to follow the “American Way.” 43 Theoretically, hegemonic power varies along ﬁve dimensions. While these indicators are ostensibly based on capability, certain indicators also account for co-optive power. Four of these are based on Strange: military, industrial, ﬁnance, and knowledge.44 The ﬁfth indicator, international economic leadership, is derived from Kindleberger.45 The military dimension indicates the hegemon’s ability to affect outcomes via direct control (hard power). One of the most common areas of agreement among hegemonic theorists is that a hegemon must have military capability.46 At its core, hegemonic power is a function of the competitive nature of interstate politics. A hegemonic state must promote security as it stabilizes international political, economic, and military relations.47 This role is perhaps the most fundamental task associated with hegemonic governance. William Thompson presents a contemporary view of Long Cycle Theory and deﬁnes capability based on global reach; speciﬁcally, he uses the naval power of major powers.48 An indicator of military expertise is the average military expenditure per military person in addition to aggregate military expenditures. The industrial dimension indicates the hegemon’s production and manufacturing capabilities. Another important characteristic of hegemony is the ability of the hegemon’s economy to sustain a continued economic advantage. The share of world output is the base of the hegemon’s power.49 Immanuel Wallerstein argues that the hegemon’s material base for its power is in all three major economic areas: agro-industrial, commerce, and ﬁnance. Second, the strategic position of ﬁrms in terms of leading-sector technology is also critical to the vitality of the hegemon.50 Long Cycle Theory postulates that the economic growth and stability of the hegemon, particularly in terms of its possession of leading-sector industries, is the most stable form of international system.

14

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

The ﬁnance dimension indicates a form of economic dominance that is less obvious than the hegemonic advantage in economic production. Wallerstein, Strange, and Stephen Gill separately propose that a third element critical to hegemony is the accumulation of ﬁnancial power.51 Dominance over ﬁnance and credit indicates an ability to acquire purchasing power without having to earn it through trade or services. When the hegemon’s banks are responsible for a high proportion of total assets in the industrial world, it has a decided advantage. Control over ﬁnance and credit is a proxy for the hegemon’s monetary inﬂuence and is a function of the hegemon’s level of domestic capital formation and banking deposits. A basic requirement for the growth of output is the provision of plant and machinery, buildings and infrastructure. The knowledge dimension directly ties in the cultural attributes of hegemony. As discussed previously, cultural factors constitute the most prominent dimension that until now has been omitted from conceptions of hegemony. Russett claims that U.S. control over outcomes has transcended purely material forms of power.52 This lack of a material base, however, makes the task of conceptualization and measurement all the more difﬁcult. One of the primary vehicles of cultural inﬂuence is the area of information and knowledge. Inﬂuence over information and knowledge has a critical political impact; furthermore, the inﬂuence over communication and the storage of knowledge and information has been critical to the maintenance of hegemony. Industrial knowledge also has cultural ramiﬁcations. Finally, the international economic leadership dimension describes the hegemon’s macroeconomic management ability to provide economic stabilization. Kindleberger suggests that the free-rider problem in global economic management requires a hegemonic power to provide public goods such as a lender of last resort, a market for distress goods, monetary liquidity, stable exchange rates, and overall international economic coordination. Without these economic functions, the international system, particularly the economic system, degenerates into crisis (as seen in the 1930s).53 Kindleberger’s concept of hegemony, or international leadership, is the possession of sheer preponderance of relevant economic capability. Of particular importance are ﬁve sectors of the world economy where international leadership can and should be practiced. The ﬁrst task of the leading country in relation to commodity markets is to promote free trade, that is, discourage the imposition of tariffs. During periods of saturated markets, the leader should keep its markets open for imports. In times of shortage, the leader should supply the scarce goods. Hegemony is complex. An assessment of hegemonic power, international acceptance and domestic will either is incredibly intricate or is

INTRODUCTION

15

theoretician speciﬁc. Above we cull a common basis for hegemony but only after injecting over twenty theoretical conceptions. Thus, incorporating hegemony into an analysis of world politics requires not only a comprehension of the conﬁguration of power in the international system but a comprehension of the motives and behaviors of the hegemon’s ruling domestic coalition and the ruling coalition of the international system.54 Quite a task! The proper operational deﬁnition of hegemony is difﬁcult to discern and is a purpose taken up in other works.55 Unipolarity On the other hand, the concept of “polarity” is much easier to grasp. Hegemony is much more complex than the realist conception of unipolarity. A hegemonic analysis that follows from the likes of Kindleberger, Stephen Krasner, Keohane, Robert Gilpin, or Wallerstein would require more theoretical baggage and be far less parsimonious than one with the enduring realist concept of unipolarity. Throughout the realist canon, we have consistent prescriptions for diagnosing polarity, unlike hegemony. That said, the concept of polarity sometimes seems artiﬁcial and contrived. There was once hope in the study of international relations that a force with the magnitude of the sun that Newton discovered would be found. Polarity was an early candidate to clarify world politics in this manner, but conﬂict researchers failed to deliver results that would propel polarity as the “sun in international relations.”56 Waltz neatly conceptualizes polarity in about two pages and greatly beneﬁts from consistently following other political realists (e.g., Morgenthau) and foreshadowing future political realists (e.g., John Mearsheimer). This is not to say that none could quibble, but that there is far less disagreement than what we see in trying to form a similar common basis for hegemony. Waltz poses two questions to address in understanding polarity: what is a pole and what is power? In our usage, pole means a center of power in world politics, be there one, two, or three or more such centers. Polarity’s etymology, however, yields a deﬁnition much more typical of political realism’s Newtonian equilibrium-seeking roots. Merriam-Webster deﬁnes polarity as “the quality or condition inherent in a body that exhibits opposite properties or powers in opposite parts or directions or that exhibits contrasted properties or powers in contrasted parts or directions.”57 This deﬁnition of polarity belies the possibility of one pole since conceptually polarity is predicated on opposing or attracting another body. Does it make sense to conceptualize unipolarity then? Fortunately, most of astrophysics has moved well beyond the Newtonian paradigm, even though most social scientiﬁc epistemological frameworks are still predicated on Newtonian

16

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

assumptions. We consider it an empirical question whether one pole is capable of existing in the international system apart from drawing or repelling another dominant center. While Waltz poses the critical questions (poles and power), he does not offer a satisfactory answer. Ultimately, the system assigns polarity based on the number of major states, two major powers equating to bipolarity and more than two, multipolarity. Political observers assess polarity objectively, just as they would count the major ﬁrms that constitute an oligopoly. As Waltz says, “the question is an empirical one, and common sense can answer it.”58 He concludes that the international system of the 1970s was a bipolar one and that the conclusions of those writing of the bipolar world passing away in the previous decades were incorrect, requiring “odd counting” by those that did not see a bipolar system. We accept the idea that systemic polarity is based on the number of major states in international politics, that is by the states that possess an inordinate degree of state power even compared to other major powers— in Waltz’s parlance a “great power.” Just as with nominal states—“regular powers”—great powers are fundamentally deﬁned by their capabilities. Waltz stipulates that power is primarily a function of a state’s capability in several key areas, to wit, population and territory, resources, economic robustness, military strength, political stability and competence. States are superpowers if they excel in all these areas. Waltz stipulates that eminence in one but not the others is useless.59 A unipolar power is a great power, a superpower, hyperpuissant in Hubert Védrine’s memorable bon mot.60 However, isn’t the true test of power the degree that one state can impose its will upon the other despite resistance? Robert Dahl’s famous dictum indicates that power is the ability for a to get b to do something it would otherwise not do.61 Can power really be thought of as potential energy and not a dynamic process? As Gilpin states, power is also the ability to not be affected by others.62 Thus, power includes the ability to affect others more than they affect you. Power is fundamentally a relationship that depends on all those party to the interaction. It is quite easy to think that if a state gets its way, it must be powerful. This reasoning, however, is fallacious given its inherent circularity that since power equals inﬂuence, inﬂuence must surely measure power. If those states are inﬂuencing other states a great deal, they must be powerful—this is a nonstarter. Rather, as disparate scholars have agreed, it is best to deﬁne power as the potential (or capability) to inﬂuence others. This is much easier to assess and far less circular since “potential” power may be observed but not “dynamic” power. The role of unipolarity in world politics has a strong intellectual tradition. Contrary to popular belief, its foundations are ancient. Rather than using the classical Greek conception of balance-of-power politics,

INTRODUCTION

17

unipolarity draws on the Roman imperial concept of politics. The ancient Greek prescription for stability is the maintenance of a strict policy of antihegemonialism. Believing that unchecked power of a hegemonic city-state would endanger the security and even the very existence of other city-states, Greek political thought advocated against the unipolar power. The balance-of-power system was designed maximize the chance that states would survive. The Roman philosophy for stability was nearly diametrically opposite. Rather than preserving a balance of power, the Romans sought to create, consolidate and maintain a large empire, incorporating other cities or nations as they were conquered. Rome’s principal goal was Pax Romana, peace and order achieved through imperial administration—not the end of wars of conquest. The systemic stability provided by the Imperial Roman legions led to numerous advantages. Roman law maintained order throughout the empire. The standardization of currency, weights, and measures allowed commerce to ﬂourish. Roman navies protected economic transactions across the Mediterranean from pirates. Quality of life (for the Romans) was very good; no other European civilization saw this standard of education, housing, sanitation, food, and personal security again until the eighteenth century. Hegemony and unipolarity are not interchangeable terms. In fact, while they may exist at the same time, one does not imply the other. We argue that the international system is unipolar, meaning hard power is concentrated in one power. This indicates control over resources, not necessarily control over actors, events, or outcomes.63 It could also be the case that the international system be multipolar and still have one state function as the accepted system leader, such as the role the United Kingdom took during the mid to late nineteenth century. Finally, it is conceivable that hegemonic leadership may vanish but unipolarity would remain. With these different understandings of “hegemony,” we need a ﬁner scale to distinguish types of political inﬂuence—a scale that is not the same as counting poles in the system. The system with the least leadership is the classic balance system, where states align and realign freely. Hegemony is as we described above. Adam Watson formally conceptualizes the Roman tradition of governance as the most extreme form of empire. Watson’s framework represents the varying power and inﬂuence of an empire over other units. There are four distinct brands of empire according to Watson’s model of functional differential within empires: empire, dominions, suzerainties, and hegemony. Empire is the direct control of the domestic and foreign affairs of other previously autonomous political units. Dominions are less controlling where only the core controls aspects of domestic policy. Suzerainty is an international society where units acknowledge common

18

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

domestic bonds and foreign constraints on their foreign policy. Finally, in a hegemonic relationship, units are able to maintain their nominal de jure independence, but their de facto foreign policies are severely constrained by the power exercised by the imperial core.64 The theory developed here is the theory of a system with a single major power, not the theory of a system directed by a single actor. In the latter system, Waltz’s assumption of functional equivalence is vacated, and structural realism becomes more complicated. This theory—a full realist theory of hegemony—remains to be developed from hegemonic stability theory.65 The United States as Unipolar Power We contend that, as of this writing, the United States is the only pole in the international system. This conclusion can be reached from either of two directions. The simplest is to start with the end of the Cold War. There was little dissent from the conclusion that the world was bipolar in the 1980s. The Soviet Union collapsed, the United States retained its power, and none of the second-tier powers of the era have caught up with the United States.66 Thus the United States achieved unipolar status in the only way that is likely: not by outracing everyone else, but by having all of its rivals be defeated or collapse over the course of the twentieth century. The more complicated method of demonstrating unipolarity is to look closely at the standard measures of international capabilities, which is what we will do in the rest of this chapter. Among those who disagree, Nye may be the most prominent. Even if we wish to credit his soft cultural power, which realism would not, once again the United States is the largest single contributor to international taste and fashion. Samuel Huntington offers a different dissent. He deﬁnes unipolarity as a situation in which the unipolar power can act at will even against the entire rest of the world, which takes the standard understanding of a great power to a new extreme. The current system, in his view, is “uni-multipolar.”67 In the current system, a second tier of powers, including “the German-French condominium,” Brazil, and Nigeria are present. Huntington’s deﬁnition of unipolarity seems extreme, unless he were to concede that the world of the 1970s and 1980s was “bi-multipolar,” which he does not. In any case, once we begin talking about lesser powers, it is difﬁcult to tell where to stop. One could build a case that the next six ranked states are China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom. These states are closer in terms of power and international inﬂuence to Italy, Netherlands, India, South Korea, Canada, Brazil, and others than they are to the United States. Thus they must be concerned not only with each

INTRODUCTION

19

other but with possible challengers in their own regions. Consolidation of the EU, which is the one and only quick route to a power with the capacity to challenge American unipolarity, has been a constant struggle among member states seeking to preserve their inﬂuence within it, as realism would expect. Waltz contended that the international system was bipolar based on “empiricism and common sense.” We contend that the international system following 1991 is unipolar based on the same empiricism and the common sense. Waltz’s key areas for the material capability of states in assessing potential power are population and territory, resources, economic robustness, military strength, political stability and competence. An examination of the major power subsystem in 2006 indicates that seven states have some degree of the aforementioned criteria to compete on a global scale but that one state stands above the others. In military terms in both aggregate expenditure and quality personnel, the United States shines above any competitor. In economic terms, the United States dominates other major powers in relative gross domestic product, GDP per capita, research and development expenditures, and scientiﬁc articles published— these speak to both the quantity and quality of the U.S. economy. The political dimension is not as concretely measured. We argue, however, that U.S. political dominance is seen in air departures, net migration, and intergovernmental organization participation. Structural realist theorists may disagree as to the precise constituent elements of power, but they all posit some conglomeration of relevant resources that necessarily confers a position of power. Military strength means direct control over adversaries and colonies, natural resources help feed an economy, fungible economic resources can be translated into military assets. Power is primarily material capability in military affairs. There is wide agreement that this indicator starts with military expenditures. The military dimension indicates a state’s ability to affect outcomes via direct control. In addition to aggregate military expenditures, an indicator of military expertise is the average military expenditure per military person. The crux of the issue is whether the other major powers have the capability to form a counterhegemonic coalition, the primary indicator being marked increases in the size and quality of the state’s military and a related increase in military expenditures. Military expenditure data is accessible if not wholly unproblematic. The Stockholm Institute for Peace Research International publishes an annual report on reported military expenditures. While military expenditure data may not be fully reported—and for China most likely is well underreported—the data that are available still tell a very interesting story. Figure 1.1 assesses total military expenditures. The difference between the United States and the other major powers is staggering.

20

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

Even before the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the United States was intent upon maintaining a decisive advantage in military capability, both in quantity and quality. An indication of quality, apart from sheer expenditures, is given through military spending per military personnel. Figure 1.2 indicates the United States has a decided advantage. Military

Expenditures (2003 Constant $)

500000 450000 400000 350000 300000 China France Germany Japan Russia United Kingdom United States

250000 200000 150000 100000 50000

0 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year

Figure 1.1

Major Power Military Expenditures 1988–2004.

Source: Stockholm Institute for Peace Research.

300000 USA China France Germany

Expenditure Per Capita

250000

Japan USSR/Russia United Kingdom

200000

150000

100000

50000

0 1988

Figure 1.2

1990

1992

1994

1996 Year

1998

2000

Military Spending Per Capita (Military Personnel).

Source: SIPRI Yearbook 2006, Correlates of War 2004.

2002

2004

INTRODUCTION

21

personnel are a function of the numbers of military personnel on active duty, excluding reserves and many but not all paramilitary forces; and the annual monetary outlays devoted to the military sector as expressed in a common baseline currency. The two indicators complement each other by reﬂecting separate dimensions of a nation’s ability to wage war.68 The military expenditures trend data indicate that there is no state or coalition that currently could conceivably challenge the U.S. position in the international system. China is often mentioned as a possible challenger to the United States’ order in East Asia and then perhaps in the international system. As a state in this position and as a closed society they have both the incentive and ability to disguise their military spending. Even if their military spending were actually tripled, they would still be several orders of magnitude less than the United States in aggregate spending. Furthermore, this very broad-based indicator does not take into account the quality of training, ofﬁcership, and technological superiority of the American military to any possible contender. Figures 1.3 through 1.8 indicate different aspects of major power production and manufacturing capabilities. We assess the economic differences between the major powers on both an aggregate scale (with gross domestic product and energy consumption) and on a ﬁner scale (with gross domestic product per capita, strategically relevant sectors and advanced knowledge acquisition). Another important characteristic of power is the ability of an economy to sustain a continued economic advantage. The strategic position of ﬁrms in terms of leading sector technology is also critical to the vitality of major powers.69 The following ﬁgures indicate continued U.S. dominance in leading sector industries, consumption of energy, and gross domestic product (GDP). Much has been made about Chinese GDP growth, however, as ﬁgure 1.3 indicates, the United States still has an overwhelming advantage over even the next major power economy, Japan. It should be noted that the GDP comparison is based on constant 2000 dollars—this does not take into account relative purchasing powers. Therefore, the currencies of Japan, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are going to be inﬂated. Figure 1.4 gives a non-currency–based indication of economic activity with energy consumption and supports the very same conclusion: U.S. unipolarity. Per capita GDP in ﬁgure 1.5 indicates average individual wealth with GDP calculations adjusted for purchasing power parity demonstrating that the average U.S. citizen has economic power that is greatest in the international system. In total, the ﬁrst ﬁve ﬁgures present graphs that indicate the United States is ﬁrmly entrenched as the single greatest power in the international system and that even a counter-coalition of every other major power could not defeat it. Is aggregate military and economic capability the only indicators of power? Certainly not! In the following ﬁgures we consider more nuanced indicators.

22

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD 1.4E+13 USA China France Germany Japan United Kingdom Russia

1.2E+13

GDP

1E+13 8E+12 6E+12 4E+12 2E+12 0 1975

1980

1985

1990 1995 Year

2000

2005

2010

Gross Domestic Product.

Figure 1.3

Source: International Financial Statistics Yearbook, IMF 2006.

Energy Consumption

2500000

USA China France Germany

2000000

Japan Russia United Kingdom

1500000

1000000

500000

0 1975

Figure 1.4

1980

1985

1990 Year

1995

2000

2005

Energy Consumption.

Source: International Financial Statistics Yearbook, IMF 2006.

Leading sector technology provides advantages to both the economy and the military. The speciﬁc identity of leading sectors shifts from year to year and scholars identify them only in an ad-hoc manner. High technology exports, as identiﬁed by the International Monetary Fund indicate an

INTRODUCTION

23

GDP Per Capita (Current Year PPP)

40000 USA China France

35000

Germany Japan Russia

30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 Year

Figure 1.5 GDP Per Capita (Current, PPP).

High Technology Manufactures Export

Source: International Financial Statistics Yearbook, IMF 2006.

2.5E+11 USA China France Germany Japan Russia United Kingdom

2E+11

1.5E+11

1E+11

5E+10

0 1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002 2004

Year

Figure 1.6

High Technology Exports.

Source: International Financial Statistics Yearbook, IMF 2006.

economies ability to compete at the highest level and indicate the technological sophistication of particular economies. For our purposes high technology exports indicate the military and economic competitiveness of a state at the highest levels. Figure 1.6 indicates U.S. dominance again in this critical aspect of economic intercourse. The ability to continue to compete

24

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD 250000

USA China France Germany

Number of Articles

200000

Japan Russia United Kingdom

150000

100000

50000

0 1984

Figure 1.7

1986

1988

1990

1992 1994 Year

1996

1998

2000

2002

2002

2003

Scientiﬁc Articles.

Source: International Financial Statistics Yearbook, IMF 2006.

Aggregate R&D Estimates

3E+11

USA China France Germany

2.5E+11

Japan Russia United Kingdom

2E+11 1.5E+11 1E+11 5E+10 0 1995

Figure 1.8

1996

1997

1998

1999 Year

2000

2001

Research and Development Expenditures.

Source: International Financial Statistics Yearbook, IMF 2006.

is captured in ﬁgures 1.7 and 1.8 with the degree of continued investment in research and development as well as the magnitude of scientiﬁc activity. Figure 1.7 indicates that United States’ academics produce well more research then any other state. Figure 1.8 indicates that in aggregate terms U.S. corporations reinvest the most in research and development for further discoveries. Taken together, these indicate that the United States’ unipolarity is stable and is not facing an imminent economic challenge.

INTRODUCTION

25

Indicators of political stability and political competence for the major powers are less straightforward than the economic and military capabillity of states, yet through less direct means they are certainly ascertainable. Major powers, for the most part, solve questions about political stability and leadership quality as a function of rising to major power status. The United States is not going to have stability issues given its consistent place in the international hierarchy, which is also the case with the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Germany. Russia and China may have issues eventually but all major powers currently enjoy at least a modicum of governmental stability and efﬁciency of leadership—else they would not by deﬁnition be major powers. What factors effectively differentiate major powers on the political dimension then? We consider three: the degree of net migration, the number of aircraft departures and the number of Intergovernmental Organization memberships. Few issues typically invoke greater political passions then immigration. Hispanics in the United States, South Asians in England, ethnic Turks in Germany, and North Africans in France each evoke controversy in their own particular political context. The fact that others wish to migrate to a particular major power, and, that the major power is politically stable enough to receive immigrants is an indicator of that state’s political stability, albeit a very indirect indicator. Figure 1.9 indicates that the United States consistently absorbs far more people than any other major power. China continues to lose people and the other major powers have near zero net increases. These data collected by the International Monetary Fund are 7000000 6000000 5000000

USA China France Germany

Japan Russia United Kingdom

4000000 3000000 2000000 1000000 0 1975 -1000000

1980

1985

1990

-2000000 -3000000

Figure 1.9

Net Migration.

Source: International Financial Statistics Yearbook, IMF 2006.

1995

2000

2005

26

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD 10000000 USA China France Germany

9000000 Number of Departures

8000000

Japan Russia United Kingdom

7000000 6000000 5000000 4000000 3000000 2000000 1000000 0 1975

Figure 1.10

1980

1985

1990 Year

1995

2000

2005

Aircraft Departures.

Source: International Financial Statistics Yearbook, IMF 2006.

Number of IGO Membership

140 120 100 80 60 40 USA China France Germany

20 0 1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

Japan Russia UK

2005

Year

Figure 1.11

Major IGO Membership.

Source: COW IGO Data Set 2.1.

ﬁve year cumulative totals but indicate the United States is far more attractive to immigrants than the other major powers. Hispanic immigration is no less controversial and politically charged than immigration issues in Europe—we simply contend that the U.S. system is better suited to absorb and utilize those individuals.

INTRODUCTION

27

Figure 1.10 indicates annual aircraft departures from 1988 to 2004. Aircraft departures indicate the premium means of transportation and serve as a proxy for wealth, military prowess, and to a lesser degree political stability, because airliner activity requires a signiﬁcant amount of infrastructure and political coordination. Aircraft departures indicate economic wealth, given the infrastructure requirements and the commerce facilitated by air travel, and, that infrastructure is also useful to the military. The United States has over eight times the number of aircraft departures as the other major powers, among the largest margin for any power indicator considered. Finally, Figure 1.11 is the most obvious measure of external political inﬂuence, intergovernmental organization participation. This is the ﬁrst data series displayed that does not have the United States ﬁrmly in a dominant position. In aggregate numbers, the United States participates in fewer Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) than Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, although most of these memberships are related to the EU. After factoring out regional IGOs and considering only universal IGOs, the United States once again predominates. Figures 1.9, 1.10, and 1.11 each capture a different aspect of the unipolar power’s political stability and competence, be it managing immigration, the skies over its territory or its participation in an abundance of IGOs. Summary Much has been made of European angst over American diplomacy.70 Europeans, especially the citizenry, are very unhappy with American positions on Iraq, Kyoto, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and many other multilateral issues.71 Nevertheless, the United States has consistently seen its views prevail, or ignored the views of others when it has lost a vote. The United States has won a rolling immunity from the ICC for its peacekeepers and secured Article 98 exemption agreements from many states. The United States overthrew Saddam Hussein despite the French threat of a Security Council veto. Exercise of such power may well have consequences in future diplomacy, but American success in pursuing its goals in the face of the best opposition the world can offer demonstrates the reality of unipolarity. The critique by those who argue the international system is not unipolar emphasizes that the United States needs overseas bases, that its share of global trade and economics is not dominant, that it faces signiﬁcant opposition at a cultural or civilizational level. These critics make valid points, but they are in fact arguing that the United States does not have hegemonic dominance. The international system is unipolar, but it is not an empire in Watson’s terms. As we will discuss in the next chapter, the United States holds a position analogous

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to Microsoft, in which the United Kingdom is a cooperative Norton and France is a resisting Corel. Other states can either choose to accept the international stability brought by the United States, as it maximizes its interest, or face penalties for deviating from the international status quo.

CHAPTER 2 UNIPOLARITY IN POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

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enneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics is the standard text for international relations theory. It is used in almost every graduate international relations seminar, often as the ﬁrst book assigned. Waltz has earned this prominent position because his work gives us so much to debate. Epistemology, systemic theory, interdependence, Marxist theory, political theory, power, parsimony: Waltz brings them all up in a rich manner suitable for fruitful discussion. Waltz’s text gives individual instructors opportunity to emphasize different aspects of international relations. The decade after its publication in 1979 witnessed a veritable tsunami of reaction from other realists, constructivists, feminists, liberals, and others representing nearly every perspective on international relations.1 Waltz’s work united this disparate collection of scholars like no other—you might disagree with him, but you could not ignore his theory. This book argues that the international relations subﬁeld is not done with Waltz. His primary theoretical contribution, that a bipolar system is more stable than a multipolar one, is less relevant than it was during the Cold War. Yet his insight that international relations is best understood as the result of structural effects rather than state attributes remains relevant in any system. His structural realism may rightly be seen as spartan, but his systemic theory is the correct entrée into investigating the implications of a change to a unipolar system. The ﬁrst chapter established that the international system currently has a unipolar distribution of capabilities, which is not the same as saying that there is an American hegemony. This book extends Waltz’s parsimonious theory to address the politics of a unipolar system. Nearly all of the arguments made for the stability of bipolarity apply to unipolarity. Waltz’s principles, as applied to this new structure, answer the central puzzle of this book—why, despite the grumbling against the United States, there has been so little concerted effort by other states to do something about American power. The structure of the international system rewards certain types of state behavior, and balancing is not a proﬁtable activity in a unipolar system. This book develops a theory of unipolar politics to complete Waltz’s theory.

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This chapter ﬁrst lays out contemporary realist thinking about unipolarity, which includes searching for evidence of balancing in the system. Most realists argue either that a sort of “soft” balancing is occurring, or that balancing is not occurring due to factors outside realist understanding. Such conceptual stretching is tantamount to admitting that realism no longer holds, as neither explanation recognizes the primacy of material factors in determining political outcomes. This may be the case—realism may no longer be a valid approach to international politics—but realism should not surrender without putting up a stronger defense. The second portion of this chapter returns to realism’s core principles and demonstrates that balancing is not a central element of realism. Realism is an approach based on rational self-interested states. It asserts that the resolution of conﬂict between states is greatly affected by the reality of power. Because the application of military force is al ways possible, states must consider their power relative to possible opponents. Because states are assumed to want to endure as independent political units, they must try to acquire power at every turn and will attempt to dominate the international system, if feasible. Realists generally expect that the drive to dominate the international system, or in our parlance, the drive to unipolarity, will necessarily be countered by a blocking coalition. But balancing occurs under certain system conditions, which may not include unipolarity. Balancing is not an integral part of realism, but rather is a by-product of the Newtonian paradigm of equilibrium-seeking bodies that affected scientiﬁc thought throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Given our place in a post-Newtonian epistemological paradigm, rather than applying a theory of balancing to the current structure of power, realists should go back to ﬁrst principles and deduce hypotheses of behavior in a unipolar world. This is precisely what we do. Realist hypotheses for a unipolar world need not anticipate balancing. Hypotheses of such behavior will be proposed in later chapters. The third and ﬁnal portion of this chapter follows explicitly in Waltz’s footsteps, turning as he does to the analogous system of microeconomics. Waltz compared power-seeking states in an anarchic system to ﬁrms in a free market seeking market share. Informed by the best microeconomic thinking of the time, Waltz saw no market conﬁguration between an oligopoly of more than one large ﬁrm and a monopoly. Now, economists understand that there is an intermediate market structure, in which a sector has a price leader—for instance, a ﬁrm such as Microsoft, which dominates other ﬁrms without being a true monopoly. Insights from microeconomics will be used to inform some of the hypotheses derived in later chapters.

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Realists and Unipolarity Realists have minimized the possibility of a unipolar world. Waltz asserted that “two [is] the smallest number possible in a self-help system” and does not consider unipolarity.2 He implies that a system with fewer than two great powers would be a hierarchy, a system in which authority relations are deﬁned and members carry out distinct functions within the system. In this one area, Waltz was incorrect. As established in the ﬁrst chapter, the current system is unipolar but remains anarchic, a system that lacks deﬁned authority relationships and in which each member must ultimately rely on itself for survival. In itself, it is puzzling that realists did not anticipate this situation because, after all, power-seeking states have “hegemony as their ﬁnal goal.”3 It is also puzzling that, as discussed in this section, realists have tried to understand current international politics by applying concepts adopted from a multipolar or bipolar world rather than deducing original hypotheses of behavior from the structural constraints of unipolarity. Waltz’s dismissal of the possibility of unipolarity in a self-help system may have contributed to its theoretical neglect. Waltz understands the nuances of realism better than anyone, and at ﬁrst glance he, like this book, does not consider balancing to be a concept critical to realism. “Structural theory,” he wrote in 2002, “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 balancing behavior. Balancing is a strategy for survival, a way of attempting to maintain a state’s autonomous way of life.”4 In any case, “states are free to disregard the imperatives of power, but they must expect to pay a price for doing so.”5 He does, however, expect balancing to eventually occur. NATO enlargement helps to maintain American power in Europe, squashing European military power and irritating Russia. Realism did not expect NATO to survive the end of the Cold War, but realist analysis included “an underestimation of America’s folly.”6 Unipolarity, Waltz argues, is “the least durable of international conﬁgurations” because “dominant powers take on too many tasks beyond their own borders, thus weakening themselves in the long run.”7 Balancing has been slower to occur than in the past simply because there were fewer states able to balance the United States immediately after the end of the Cold War. This is changing, Waltz says, and balancing will occur.8 While Waltz begins by disclaiming the inevitability of balancing, he nevertheless builds his argument around explaining why balancing has not yet occurred and why it soon will occur. Balancing will be fully deﬁned in Chapter 3; for present purposes it is sufﬁcient to deﬁne it as actions taken that have the effect of countering the greater power of another state. A few realists argue that balancing is

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by deﬁnition impossible in a unipolar system since only poles balance;9 this is equivalent to saying that the unipolar system will endure until the dominant power decays on its own—and assumes that balancing is only an intentional act rather than an effect produced by the behavior of interacting states. Most realists, however, believe balancing will soon occur against the United States, producing a multipolar distribution of capabilities.10 This belief is particularly strong among those who assume that states balance against power,11 and it persists despite very little supporting evidence.12 The most ambitious effort to address this question, a collection of essays edited by John Ikenberry, suggests several possible explanations.13 The ﬁrst explanation is that states balance against threats rather than against power. The standard view of realism is one of balancing power: Waltz wrote, “secondary states, if they are free to choose, ﬂock to the weaker side; for it is the stronger side that threatens them.”14 Some realists believe this may be simplistic. Stephen Walt argues that states balance threats—they add considerations of “geographic proximity, offensive capabilities, and perceived intentions” to raw power when they assess their danger; this view was set forth 200 years earlier by John Jay.15 This approach suggests that balancing has been delayed because the United States does not seem dangerous to other countries. The United States is not geographically proximate to other major states, although its technological advantages enable it to attack other countries while remaining less vulnerable to attack than other countries. Because the United States clearly has the capability to exercise decisive power against other states, balance-of-threat arguments rest on perceived intentions. They rest on the idea that other states will believe that even though the United States has preponderant power, even though it could use military force, it can be counted upon not to do so. These benign intentions are signaled by past behavior and expressed most clearly through institutions, domestic and international. Institutions constrain the exercise of American power and create American obligations to commit its forces to others. Institutional constraints help to overcome anarchy, as states change their preferences based on revised assumptions about the urgency of self-help behavior.16 If the United States becomes more threatening, it would be expected to induce more balancing.17 Whatever the merits of balance-of-threat arguments in general, this speciﬁc argument seems more likely to be advanced by neoliberal institutionalists than by structural realists. Realists reject a decisive role for institutions.18 Internal regime type does not matter for realists—they do not accept the reductionist proposition that democratic states do not go to war with one another because they are democracies.19 As for international institutions, a realist would not trust that a powerful state has allowed

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itself to be constrained by paper. If institutions have any advantage for the unipolar power, it is that they provide beneﬁts to weaker states, beneﬁts that would be lost if they tried to balance. Thus the institutions constrain the other powers, not the unipolar power. While institutions may reduce the risk of the weaker state falling further behind the unipolar power, they also allow the unipolar power to “lock in” its advantages.20 The survival and enlargement of NATO, and the decision by former Soviet states and satellites to abjure nuclear weapons in favor of closer ties to Western institutions support this argument.21 A realist might accept that a state would forgo attempts at greater power in exchange for a hope of security—but that use of institutions then is the symptom of the failure to balance, not the cause. Having decided not to challenge the United States, weaker countries use institutions to try to cut their losses—institutions are a mediating variable, not a causal variable. Beyond the structural realist rejection of an institutional explanation of international politics, the balance of threat explanation for the absence of balancing is implausible because the United States simply has not acted as if it were constrained by institutions. The United States has not been the most reliable member of institutional arrangements over the past decade, and the Europeans are well aware of that.22 They do not believe the United States respects institutional limits on its power. For non-liberal states such as Russia and China, liberal institutions are even less reassuring.23 Ultimately, this explanation for the absence of balancing seems more akin to notions of a liberal security community than to realism.24 A much stronger balance-of-threat argument suggests that American power is aimed only at speciﬁc states, primarily states that it suspects support terrorism or are developing weapons of mass destruction, and thus the United States does not much threaten most other countries.25 The second explanation advanced in Ikenberry’s anthology for the absence of balancing holds that balancing is actually occurring, but via different means than in the past. For example, balancing today may take the form of status and prestige—although status and prestige did not help the EU resolve the Balkan conﬂicts of the 1990s without American military power.26 Joseph Joffe suggests that there are three types of balancing, two of which were somewhat unrecognized up to this time. While there has been very little “military-strategic” balancing, we are seeing “politicodiplomatic” balancing in the lack of support for American initiatives and attempts to bind the United States with international institutions. Most of all, we see “psycho-social” balancing, as states try to block the seduction of American soft power by claiming that the United States is morally, socially, and culturally retrograde.27 Neither of these last two involves material capabilities, which is why they have been labeled “soft” balancing.

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Soft balancing more generally includes “measures that do not directly challenge U.S. military predominance but that use nonmilitary tools to delay, frustrate, and undermine aggressive unilateral U.S. military policies.”28 Some of these tools are “international institutions, economic statecraft, and diplomatic arrangements.”29 In another version, “states that engage in soft balancing develop diplomatic coalitions or ententes with one another to balance a powerful state or a rising or potentially threatening power. The veto power that these states hold in the UN Security Council is pivotal to this strategy” because it “den[ies] legitimacy to [U.S.] policies they perceive as imperial and sovereignty limiting.”30 In yet another version, soft balancing “accepts the current balance of power but seeks to obtain better outcomes within it,” manifesting itself via diplomatic coordination.31 Once again, these arguments should seem like abominations to a realist. For the most part, these are nonmaterial forms of balancing, and thus seem to lie outside the bounds of realism. There is a large difference between noncooperation and balancing, especially when the noncooperation does not prevent action by the unipolar power.32 These behaviors could have many causes, such as economic self-interest, domestic preferences, or merely being by-products of diplomacy.33 They could even reﬂect mere conﬂicts of interest, normal politics for a realist.34 Even states that are bandwagoning try to ﬁnd the best result for themselves. In any case, noncooperation can go both ways. Since the United States ﬁnds it “much easier for it to walk away from agreements than other countries,” relative power may be understood as the “differential costs of noncooperation.”35 Most importantly, “soft” balancing threatens to stretch the concept of balancing to the point where it becomes non-falsiﬁable.36 A third explanation for the absence of balancing focuses on the “array of practical, everyday beneﬁts that the American unipolar presence spreads around the world.”37 Realists argue that this cannot last—not because the beneﬁts do not sufﬁce, but because Americans will tire of providing those beneﬁts. Indeed, even the extension of these beneﬁts in the 1990s, and even the initial response to global terrorism did not refute this belief: realists who make this argument say the American provision of international public goods has only increased the gap between American ambition and public preferences, making a retraction of those beneﬁts and a return to multipolarity even more likely.38 Charles Kupchan goes on to argue “Wohlforth, like many other scholars, makes a critical analytic error in assuming that polarity emerges solely from the distribution of power.” Polarity, in his view, also results from “the willingness of states to deploy their resources and the ends to which they deploy their resources.”39

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While this broader argument comes closer than the other explanations to this book’s understanding of unipolarity, it violates a central principle of structural realism in its attention to public opinion within the unipolar power. Kupchan’s ﬁnal comments on unipolarity cannot be left unchallenged. His claim about waning American support seems non-falsiﬁable: either the United States stops providing public goods, or it continues to provide them, making it all the more likely that it is about to stop providing public goods. It is difﬁcult to ﬁnd other realists who seriously entertain his claim that “the ends to which they deploy their resources” is relevant as a criterion for being a great power. Finally, his comment on willingness to deploy power again steps outside realist thinking; even if we accept his deﬁnition, no state is more willing to deploy its power than the United States is. If the United States was not willing to use its power, then we would have an apolar system. To some extent, these arguments begin to be made like a Procrustean bed: realists are stretching both their concepts of balancing to make them ﬁt the evidence of balancing. This is no surprise. One of the foremost scholars of realism has recently argued, “The recurrent formation of balances of power is crucial to Waltz’s theory and, to a lesser extent, to traditional realism. If this is called in question, the theory’s predictions will be off the mark, and its prescriptions may prove disastrous” in a unipolar system.40 Is this correct, however? Is balancing in fact a concept central to realism?41 To be sure, classical realism, or realpolitik, focuses on balancing power; the period from 1648’s Treaty of Westphalia to World War II is sometimes described as a balance-of-power period, rather than a multipolar one—thus focusing on the behavior of states rather than their capabilities. Furthermore, balancing was one of the recurrent systemic effects that inspired Waltz to form his structural theory. Nevertheless, an investigation of the core assumptions of structural realism demonstrates that balancing is not so central to the approach. Realism—Back to Basics Realism is an ancient intellectual approach, not a modern theory. From Thucydides and Machiavelli to Kissinger and Waltz, realists agree that international politics can be understood in rational, objective, and material terms. These realist beliefs are the foundation of many theories or hypotheses, but the approach cannot be directly proven or disproven.42 One might suppose that if different theories were repeatedly rejected, at some point it would be worth questioning the approach as a whole,43 but the basic assumptions of realism continue to have at least some face validity. First, the primary objects of study are unitary actors, pursuing goals including, above

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all, their own survival in an anarchic system. Second, the goals pursued by these political units are inherently in conﬂict with the goals pursued by other units. Third, these goals are primarily material, and the resolution of conﬂict between units is linked to material capabilities.44 As we present a short history of the approach, these themes recur in different ways. Thucydides, chronicler of the Peloponnesian War, is credited as the patriarch of realism.45 If he could be asked, he doubtless would disavow a theoretical perspective, saying that he simply tried to present the facts as he saw them—“we can rest satisﬁed with having proceeded upon the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be expected . . . the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible.”46 Thucydides strives to examine the motives of statesmen without “romance,” the “exaggerations” of the poets, or “the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth’s expense.”47 This objectivity is a recurring conceit of realism, and the source of its selfchosen name: E. H. Carr says realism places its emphasis on the acceptance of facts and on the analysis of their causes and consequences. It tends to depreciate the role of purpose. . . . Realism tends to emphasize the irresistible strength of existing forces and the inevitable character of existing tendencies, and to insist that the highest wisdom lies in accepting, and adapting oneself to, those forces and these tendencies.”48

Morgenthau concurred: realism is “a theory which tries to understand international politics as it actually is and as it ought to be in view of its intrinsic nature, rather than as people would like to see it.”49 Thucydides’ actors are city-states, whose leaders rationally pursue conﬂicting material goals based to their limited knowledge. The Delian League is not an international institution with autonomous power, but a way for Athens to collect the tribute it demands from weaker city-states.50 Alliances are formed for convenience, shifting with the times: As soon as Sparta and Athens reach a mid-war truce, the Corinthians, who had urged Sparta to war with Athens 11 years prior, now “turned aside to Argos and opened negotiations with some of the men in ofﬁce there, pointing out that Sparta could have no good end in view, but only the subjugation of the Peloponnesus, or she would never have entered into treaty and alliance with the once detested Athenians.”51 Where individuals become important—as in the intrigues of Alcibaides—the primary result is to weaken those city-states. Athens and Sparta compete over territory; even when they want peace they ﬁnd it difﬁcult to resolve their differences, and ﬁnd that coalition partners resist being told to sacriﬁce their gains for the good

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of Sparta.52 Conﬂicts are resolved based on material power, not on some extraneous principle of justice, as the Melians found at the hands of the Athenians but as the Athenians themselves soon discovered on the shores of the Assinarus.53 The principles laid out by Thucydides are mirrored in the principles of realism expounded by Morgenthau after World War II. The ﬁrst of these, “the objectivity of the laws of politics” and “the possibility of distinguishing in politics between truth and opinion,”54 precisely matches Thucydides’ approach. Realism places the highest priority on the concept of “interest deﬁned in terms of power.”55 Morgenthau approves of Thucydides’ comment that “identity of interests is the surest of bonds whether between states or individuals.”56 While the nature of both power and interest may change over time, Morgenthau warns against a preoccupation with either “motives” or “ideological preferences”: both have a tendency to blind the rational scientist to the reality of politics, leading to poor decisions such as American involvement in Vietnam or the Athenian expedition to Syracuse.57 Realism separates individual morality from state morality. The Greeks and Romans understood this, but the Christian leaders who followed the pagans argued that public and private morality should correspond.58 Quests for power had to be clothed in principle. Perhaps principle even mattered—the fate of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade was somewhat more pleasant than the fate of Melos or of Carthage after the Punic Wars. Thus the writings of Niccoló Machiavelli were scandalous. Machiavelli observed that “a man who wants to make a profession of good in all regards must come to ruin among so many who are not good.”59 For the realist, the “supreme virtue” is prudence—while there may be higher moral laws, the duty of the leader is to preserve the state.60 The leader who neglects material facts will be likely to make decisions that lead to poor outcomes. For the realist, success is its own reward—as Carr puts it, “if the American War of Independence had ended in disaster, the Founding Fathers of the United States would be brieﬂy recorded in history as a gang of turbulent and unscrupulous fanatics. Nothing succeeds like success.”61 Balancing is not, however, one of the concepts speciﬁed as central to realism. To put it another way, an absence of balancing is not prima facie evidence against realism. As Henry Kissinger has written, “theories of the balance of power often leave the impression that it is the natural form of international relations. In fact, balance-of-power systems have existed only rarely in human history.”62 He notes that these rare occurrences include the Greece of Thucydides’ era, the Italy of Machiavelli’s era, and Europe more or less from 1648 to World War II. Yet based on this limited evidence, many realists have “elevate[d] a fact of life. . . into a guiding

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principle of world order.”63 The persistence of the balance-of-power concept may also lie in its many faces: it may be a situation, a policy, or a system of international behavior.64 Returning to ancient Greece, Thucydides observed many situations where city-states explicitly advocated balancing. That is what the Corinthians were doing in encouraging the Argives to enter the war against Sparta and Athens, and it was the basis of criticizing the Spartans for waiting “till the power of [Athens] is becoming twice its original size, instead of crushing it in its infancy . . . deferring the struggle till she has grown far stronger than at ﬁrst.”65 The Mytilenians appealed to be allowed to join the Spartan side, saying “if you will frankly support us, you will add to your side a state that has a large navy, which is your great want.”66 Indeed, Thucydides believes the entire struggle is prompted by the need for balancing: “The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.”67 What was mere observation for Thucydides becomes advice from Machiavelli. He says, for example, “a prince must beware never to associate with someone more powerful than himself so as to attack others . . . for when you win you are left his prisoner.” Sometimes there is no choice, but “prudence consists in knowing how to recognize the qualities of inconveniences, and in picking the less bad as good.”68 Morgenthau elevates Machiavelli’s advice into a rule: “the aspiration for power on the part of several nations, each trying either to maintain or overthrow the status quo, leads of necessity to a conﬁguration that is called the balance of power and to policies that aim at preserving it.”69 For these realists, the balance is a form of equilibrium sought by states to increase their chances for survival and their opportunity for future gain. Nevertheless, formation of balances is only an expectation of realist theory under certain distributions of power. Balancing is an effect, not a core assumption. We quoted Machiavelli advising balancing—but ellipsed his advice to balance against power “except when necessity presses.”70 Morgenthau concludes that in the late twentieth century the absence of shared values, bipolarity, the lack of a “balancer” state, and the universality of world politics combined to “considerably impair” the balance of power as a mechanism of international politics.71 The preceding discussion has centered on classical realism, which bases its expectations on fundamental human nature. Most modern realists adopt structural or neorealism, which bases its expectations on the anarchic system in which states exist.72 There are elements of structure in Thucydides, when he says that the “real cause” of the Peloponnesian war is one that was “formally most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.”73 Thomas Hobbes, Thucydides’ translator, brought this point to the center of his

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philosophy of politics. Hobbes based his hypothetical state of nature on an anarchic world, in which there is a constant state of war, “continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”74 While such a state never truly existed for humans, Hobbes says such anarchy constitutes the international order, such that persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies and in the state and posture of gladiators; having their weapons pointing and their eyes ﬁxed on one another, that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms; and continual spies upon their neighbors; which is a posture of war.75

Hobbes’s deductions illustrate the general nature of a structural theory. Such a theory’s ﬁrst principle is the organization of the units in the structure. This may be hierarchic, in which the functions and roles of different units are speciﬁed and accepted—as in domestic politics—or anarchic, in which Waltz says, “formally, each is the equal of all the others. None is entitled to command; none is required to obey.”76 The second principle of a structural theory is to deﬁne the functions performed by each unit—but in an anarchic structure, the units cannot specialize. They must perform all the functions of a sovereign state, above all the functions that ensure their survival in a self-help system. The theory’s third and ﬁnal principle is to assess the distribution of capabilities among the units. This distribution—i.e., the polarity of the system—is the only variable in structural realism.77 Recurrent war, as well as the formation of balances, was one of the phenomena that led Waltz to argue for such a structural version of realist theory.78 Structural realism argues that international politics is strongly constrained by the structure of international politics—changes in individual leaders or the political structure of states do not overcome the basic fact that states coexist in an anarchic system.79 Domestic politics is based on the concentration of legitimate force in the hands of government—citizens in principle have recourse to law to settle disputes and seek protection. International politics, on the other hand, is based on a principle of self-help: there is nothing a state can count on for protection except itself. States thus cannot afford to specialize, as citizens may, because the system tends to weaken and punish states that become dependent on others. States generally all try to perform the same functions; the major difference is in their ability to perform those functions.80 Structural theory does not focus on the motives and intentions of its units. Still, even in the parsimony of a structural theory, the units must pursue some purpose or goal. Waltz at times suggests that power and security may both be goals, saying, “beyond the survival motive, the aims of states may be

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endlessly varied; they may range from the ambition to conquer the world to the desire merely to be left alone.”81 At other times, however, he more clearly believes that states primarily want security, saying that states “cannot let power, a possibly useful means, become the end they pursue.”82 He adds that “the ﬁrst concern of states is not to maximize power but to maintain their positions in the system.”83 This view has come to be known as defensive, or security-seeking realism. Defensive realism dominated the approach for some time, with Joseph Grieco among its leading advocates.84 This version of realism does not seem entirely consistent with the tradition of Machiavelli, but it offered a way to account for recurrent cooperation among states without conceding explanatory power to liberal theories. Defensive realism, however, would lead to a world that would be more peaceful than the one we live in. As Randall Schweller pointed out, if states all merely wanted security, then there would be no real conﬂicts of interests.85 States would have a much stronger incentive to cooperate with each other, because states would learn that they can trust each other. Security dilemmas, situations where a state’s efforts to increase its security provoke fear in other states, leading to mutual increases in weaponry without an increase in security, should not occur.86 If all states only wanted security, then all that would be needed for a lasting peace would be teaching people their errors. If all merely want security, then we can learn that all want security, and not trouble ourselves with others’ defense spending.87 Clearly this is false: there have been some states which have sought power at great risk to themselves. Schweller therefore restored Morgenthau’s distinction between the revisionist (imperialist in the original formulation) and status quo state to realist theory.88 These concepts, while preserving the realist assumption that states’ goals are in conﬂict with one another, threatened to violate another realist precept by introducing unit-level attributes. What is the difference between a revisionist and status quo state? If they have different goals, we must account for them; it is difﬁcult to do so without being reductionist—or even worse, tautological (states trying to change the system are revisionist, and states that are not are status quo). The alternative would be to assume that all states want power—and the revisionist state can be deﬁned as one that sees an expected gain from seeking more power, while the status quo state is one that sees an expected loss from seeking more power. While there may still be unit-level characteristics at work here, the realist can at least hope that system-level attributes might explain when states pursue their goal of more power openly, and when they conserve the power they already have. This approach evolved into the offensive or power-seeking variant of realism. For Colin Elman, this provided an answer to the dilemma of

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why a state would seek hegemony, or to increase its power, even though such moves are likely to promote counterbalancing. He distinguished manual expansion, which “occurs when a state makes a conscious bid for hegemony, because of the view that hegemony is the best situation for a state to be in,” from automatic expansion, which “occurs when states make incremental, localized attempts to expand, with a view to immediate opportunities.”89 Manual expansion may not be rational in the long run, but it ﬁts with state goals—and automatic expansion is very reasonable. Eric Labs elaborated further on this consequence of offensive realism. States will be opportunistic. They will try to dominate a power vacuum, and will expand their war aims if a war is going well.90 These actions will occur in the “absence of systemic and military constraints on a state during war or the belief that any constraint can be overcome at a low cost.”91 Christopher Layne sees power maximization as a cornerstone of American foreign policy, and John Mearsheimer says, “the overriding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power.”92 This does not mean that offensive realists see a world that is more war-prone than defensive realists, nor even that all states are at all times actively trying to expand their power. Expansion depends on having the means and opportunity to do so, and a comparison of costs of expansion against the expected beneﬁts. Some states may ﬁnd these elements stacked against them for long periods of time, and so may act as if they only seek security.93 At a minimum, however, states will try to maintain both their power and their potential for future growth— awaiting an opportunity to expand power in the future.94 A bipolar system discourages power expansion by the great powers, but a unipolar system encourages it. A bipolar power can expect that its internal attempts to increase power will be matched by the other bipolar power, and that external attempts to increase power will be opposed. Given the minimal improvements one can expect from trying to increase power, the costs of doing so, and the risk of a setback, in a bipolar world the two powers will primarily take advantage of small opportunities as they arise. This creates the security-seeking illusion used by defensive realists, but does not refute the assumption that states seek power when they are able to.95 Given that states pursue power as best they can, there cannot be a “strategy” of pursuing a balance of power, as in Morgenthau, nor “rules” for such as system, as in Kaplan’s earlier attempt at structural theory.96 Structural realism has no use for shared values or “holders of the balance,” as it expects balances to recur mechanistically—through diffusion of technology and imitation of the successful strategies of others.97 States seek power, not balancing—even the defensive realists say states seek security, not balancing. Balancing is simply a means to an end.

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Expectations of balancing today are based on an assumption that the patterns of the prior system will repeat. While a multipolar distribution of capabilities allows external as well as internal balancing, “signiﬁcant changes take place when the number of great powers reduces to two or one.”98 The most important of these changes, according to Waltz, was that two powers were the “smallest number possible in a self-help system,” so only internal balancing was relevant.99 If a unipolar system is not self-help, then it is not anarchic and all the theories of structural realism must be called into question unless we simply assume that the new hierarchic system will degenerate to the comforts of anarchy. Waltz’s more recent work does not go this far, and it is fairly evident that self-help continues, for the United States as well as for Iran and Iraq. If we believe anarchy persists—and it does—then we must do what Waltz does not. We must try to understand how states would behave in a unipolar system. Anarchic Orders and Price Leaders Waltz’s deductive theory is motivated by an analogy from microeconomics, which he uses to try to understand state behavior. In structural economics, one can develop theory without knowing very much about individual ﬁrms other than they all seek proﬁt and market share in a free market. Waltz’s understanding of economic thinking and reasoning followed the common wisdom of economic literature when he published in 1979. Soon, however, the prevailing wisdom in economics was altered slightly, a change that structural realist theory did not notice. If properly digested, this change allows us to extend and complete Waltz’s theory. Waltz’s structural realism analogizes international behavior to microeconomics. Firms competing in a free market represent states competing in the international system for power. Microeconomics reduces all economic interaction to ﬁrms attempting to maximize market share and thus maximize their self interest. In the same vein, states maximize their self-interest as they attempt to take full advantage of other states and acquire power. It is an apt, powerful, and parsimonious analogy. Waltz uses this useful and telling relationship throughout his Theory of International Politics, employing aspects of microeconomic theory to delineate the roles and constraints of these actors, though he uses the analogy primarily to establish the necessity of a structural theory, the existence of the international system, and which actors are most important.100 Below, we elaborate on Waltz’s use of the oligopolistic model of competition and then make the case for how this model is useful for illustrating our argument. In the most essential of terms, we will show that unipolarity can be directly compared to an oligopolistic market with a “price leader.”

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Microeconomic theory describes how an order is spontaneously formed from the self-interested acts and interactions of individual units, and then, how the market functions. First, it posits that markets come from the activities of the units (persons and ﬁrms). Essentially, when market operation is free, things are good. Frequently, however, larger (stronger) ﬁrms disrupt free competition through collusion to ﬁx prices. Thus, prices are the main dynamic in markets. As Waltz argues, this basic dynamic is very similar to the interstate system. Both the market and the state system deal with “the coaction of self-regarding units.”101 Just as states compete for power, all ﬁrms want to increase proﬁt and thus compete for this zero-sum good in a self-help world. Waltz’s theory is predicated on power distribution. In fact, the main varying factor in Waltz’s theory is the distribution of capabilities. He says this is directly analogous to the differentiation of ﬁrms into small ﬁrms (e.g., a small farmer) and larger ﬁrms (e.g., Ford Motor Company), just as we have small and larger states. In both the market and interstate cases, inequality leads to distrust. Waltz says the condition of insecurity (in a self-help system) or the uncertainty of each about the other’s future intentions and actions works against cooperation.102 Cooperation (for survival or market share) cannot be expected in either case. More importantly, though, because we have different size states and ﬁrms, we have different kinds of systems and ordering principles. From economics, we should begin to think about oligopolistic behavior, because that is most analogous to interstate politics. According to Waltz “oligopolistic markets limit the cooperation of ﬁrms the way cooperation is limited in international politics.” Like nations, oligopolistic ﬁrms must be more concerned with relative strength than with absolute advantage. So, oligopolistic competition is a good analogy for world politics. Continuing his economic analogy, Waltz says, from perfect to duopolistic competition, market structures vary mainly according to capability. Different results follow from variation in the number of major producers. The primary result being price, small actors can be destroyed by price ﬂuctuations over which they have little to no control.103 In oligopolistic systems, a smaller number of actors is better, for ﬁrms if not for consumers.104 Many “major powers” in an oligopoly lend to instability. In contrast, economic stability increases as oligopolistic sectors narrow. The likelihood of price wars lessens. The affairs of the competitors become more orderly because they can be more easily managed. These results follow from a decline in the number of major competitors. Size promotes sectoral stability and problems are easier to solve as the number who try to solve them decreases. The basic proposition is this: “as collusion and bargaining become easier, the fortunes of ﬁrms and the orderliness of

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their markets are promoted; and collusion and bargaining become easier as the number of parties declines.”105 Politically, Waltz’s analogy is the duopoly of the United States and USSR, which is stable and preferable to multipolarity on numerous levels. However, Waltz did not take his analogy far enough. Let us take another look at price leadership under conditions of oligopoly. Perfect competition, oligopoly, monopolistic competition, and monopoly are the four types of market structure in microeconomics. Oligopoly is a market structure where a few large ﬁrms dominate the entire market; they sell either identical or differentiated products. Signiﬁcant barriers exist to entry into the industry.106 Price leadership is a method used by a group of ﬁrms in the same market (typically oligopoly ﬁrms) in which one ﬁrm takes the lead in setting or changing prices, with other ﬁrms then following behind. The lead ﬁrm is often the largest ﬁrm in the industry. Price leadership is sometimes perceived as collusion, in which the ﬁrms have effectively monopolized the market. Essentially, the dominant ﬁrm sets a price and lets the small follower ﬁrms sell all they want at that price. Thus, in the parlance of microeconomics, the small ﬁrms are in a position of being a price-taker just as in perfect competition. They adjust output according to the price they face. The dominant ﬁrm then sells to the residual demand left over from the small ﬁrms. For the past half century, the reality, extent, and effect of price leadership has been debated thoroughly by economists. Jesse Markham’s “The Nature and Signiﬁcance of Price Leadership” discusses the primary issues in the debate and serves as the touchstone article that all points of this view on this debate look back to.107 As a policy, price leadership was blocked in the United States by the Supreme Court when it found American tobacco corporations in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act for setting prices. Although there was not an open (or even tacit), ﬁrm agreement between large American tobacco companies and the smaller manufacturers, the court ruled that even acceptance of a price leader was tantamount to monopolistic/oligopolistic cooperation. Thus, parallel pricing, whether by agreement or not, is illegal. Simply following a price leader is a form of unfair competition. Markham addresses the exact economic consequences of following a price leader. That is, he questions whether the court was economically justiﬁed in deciding that price leadership is equivalent to monopoly behavior. Price leadership does not happen because of collusion. It is an inevitable consequence of a particular cost or demand phenomenon. Furthermore, effective price leadership is a result of monopoly rather than a cause. In other words, like unipolarity, price leadership happens because of

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structure, not because of intent. Markham identiﬁes three types of price leadership models that identify the particular type of leadership and the extent to which each type circumvents forces of competition. Two of these models have limited heuristic value to unipolarity. The ﬁrst model includes a low-cost, high-capacity ﬁrm and one (or more) high-cost, low-capacity ﬁrms. In this case, no price can equate marginal cost with marginal revenue, so a conﬂict arises. At the end of the day, what generally ends up happening is that the price preferred by the low-cost ﬁrm is lower, so its price is preferred. The second of these models consists of at least two ﬁrms having identical cost curves but different shares in the market. With the same marginal cost curves, each ﬁrm’s relative share is different, so any ﬁrm can lead, even the smallest. This often is referred to as “barometric ﬁrm price leadership,” where the barometric ﬁrm commands adherence of rivals to his price only because his price reﬂects market conditions with tolerable promptness. In this case, the price leader is frequently, but not always, the largest ﬁrm. This ﬁrm has no power to coerce the rest of the industry and simply passes its information along to the other big three or four large ﬁrms. In essence, the leader is basically setting prices that competition is setting anyway. Markham’s third model, however, is more provocative and relevant for our purposes. By focusing on a situation where there is a single dominant ﬁrm or a partial monopolist, it more closely parallels unipolarity. In this case, industry has one large producer and a number of smaller ones. Naturally, price making falls to the large producer, and the dominant ﬁrm could set any price it chooses. Still, it sets one that maximizes its proﬁts by equating its own marginal cost with its marginal revenue. In this case, prices are more stable when one ﬁrm has 40 percent of the market.108 Markham emphatically rejects the idea that such ﬁrms should be destroyed, observing that every major industry in the American economy has been dominated by a single ﬁrm. The next ﬁfty years saw a great deal of discussion, reﬁnement, formalization, and testing of these models, with particular attention paid to this last model. From the beginning, the debate included concerns that Markham’s model was too structural, excluding market conditions and the dynamics of price leadership.109 Testing of his model demonstrated it in the automobile industry, where in the 1960s General Motors acted as a price leader for cars even though there was no evidence of explicit collusion. There merely was price convergence to the largest actor.110 This ﬁnding was later reconﬁrmed among Australian newspapers.111 In the mid-1970s, scholarship outside of economics had a great effect on the interpretation of price leadership theories. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under went a sea change in its conventional wisdom

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on oligopolistic behavior between the 1970s and 1980s. The 1970s were a decade of change in policies towards vertical restraints, preventing the accumulation of large market share by one ﬁrm. In the nexus between economics and policy, the publication of books by Richard Posner and Robert Bork rapidly created a new elite view of vertical restraints. They proposed a new conﬂuence of interests between manufacturers and consumers in regard to vertical relationships. They both questioned circumstances where vertical restraints can have an anticompetitive effect and called into question the per se illegality standard against vertical price restraints.112 Posner and Bork changed economic thinking to consider that while collusion, direct price ﬁxing, is bad, it is conceivable that price leadership has aggregate positive effects, as it applies to overall efﬁciency. Posner and Bork demonstrated that U.S. antitrust law was characterized by the pursuit of two sometimes conﬂicting goals: protecting consumers from monopolies and price ﬁxing, and protecting “small dealers and worthy men” from larger competitors. They laid the theoretical groundwork for a seminal shift in antitrust thinking—one focusing primarily on aggregate consumer welfare. Posner describes why monopolies are bad from an economic point of view, and the shape of current antitrust law. He then explains why some types of economic behavior that had previously been considered anticompetitive (such as mergers between competitors and some types of exclusive supplier arrangements) can actually enhance competition and at the least, advance consumer interests. For example, while retail behemoths such as Wal-Mart or mergers such as that between Daimler-Benz and Chrysler may be devastating to smaller competitors, they may beneﬁt consumers by generating economies of scale and lower prices. After these works were published there was considerable uncertainty on how to proceed in the Federal Trade Commission. Here were two critical appraisals of policy buttressed by sound economic work. Some embraced the new conventional wisdom and proposed a complete policy shift while some emphasized that legal standards had not changed (the American Tobacco decision was still standing), and also questioned the new wisdom. However, by 1981, antitrust policy standards had shifted sharply, and few vertical-restraints cases were brought by the federal enforcement agencies during the 1980s. Economists played a leading role in this shift, but a role not well understood at the time. Although the prosecution of antitrust cases is on the rise (FTC v. Toys “R” Us, U.S. v. Microsoft), the FTC clearly no longer sees market domination as a particularly bad thing. Literature on price leadership no longer focused on whether efﬁciency gains would be realized but rather on rigorously speciﬁed models. Yoshiyasu Ono describes a price leadership model for homogenous and heterogenous

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goods and develops several theorems that clarify why and when each ﬁrm prefers leadership or followership. He reclassiﬁes price leadership into three types: voluntary price leadership where everyone understands the beneﬁts and accepts a leader, deceived price leadership where a leader is deceived into maintaining leadership position even though it is disadvantageous, and forced price leadership where the leader stays to avoid cut-throat competition.113 Any of these models may apply to the unipolar world, depending on the reactions of other states. During the 1990s, some questioned the efﬁciency gains of price leadership. Julio Rotemberg and Garth Saloner developed a model that shows that price leadership facilitates collusion when price changes are announced by one ﬁrm and then matched by others.114 The leader earns higher proﬁts than any follower, and if information is asymmetric, the less informed ﬁrm follows the better informed. In this case, the leader may actually emerge endogenously. Rotemberg and Saloner thus demonstrated that the follower can also beneﬁt from price rigidity so prices may change infrequently. However, overall welfare may be lower under collusive price leadership. In these situations, the largest or most efﬁcient ﬁrm makes all the choices.115 This book analogizes the behavior of the unipolar power to that of the price leader in oligopolistic price setting. Our argument, however, also focuses on the roles of states that must choose to follow or to accept the consequence for not adhering to leadership. Microeconomic theory addresses these states’ motivations, too, and the price leadership model anticipates the followers’ behavior. In the perfectly competitive model, ﬁrms are all price takers. Prices are determined at the aggregate market level, and each ﬁrm, being small relative to the market, has the choice of accepting the market price or not participating. In a price leadership model, the lead ﬁrm makes a choice before the other ﬁrms. The follower ﬁrms then behave as perfectly competitive ﬁrms: their choice is either to accept the terms set by the market leader or face some kind of punishment for deviating from those terms. For example, Microsoft is often considered to be a dominant leading ﬁrm in the computer software industry. Frequently, smaller software companies, such as Corel (maker of WordPerfect), wait for the leader’s announcement of new products and then adjust their production and marketing decisions in light of Microsoft’s plan. The follower, Corel, wants to maximize proﬁts but faces the constraint of setting the same price as the leader. If Corel goes along with the Microsoft product’s price, which is artiﬁcially high, Corel enjoys the beneﬁt of higher prices for its product and the anticipation of a stable market, as markets with price leaders tend to not have price ﬂuctuations. If Corel decides to innovate and act

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on an advantage it might accrue, and prices its product cheaper than MS Ofﬁce, Microsoft can choose to retaliate or stay its course. United States antitrust policies prohibit retaliation for failure to comply with price-ﬁxing, however, this did not stop Microsoft, through most of the 1980s and ’90s, from retaliating against companies that threatened it by competing against its price. It is well documented that certain companies were targeted by Microsoft but it is often forgotten that several companies proﬁted greatly from the stability induced by Microsoft into the overall software industry. Windows Internet Explorer’s dominance makes it the most attractive target for those who want to exploit or attack browser weaknesses; this allows companies such as McAfee and Norton to concentrate their resources on that browser and maximize their proﬁts. While these companies fare well in their “ordained market niche,” companies such as Corel that directly challenged Microsoft faced sanctions from the price leader. Summary In the United States, markets that approach monopoly status, or, in particular, oligopolistic markets with a price leader are accepted in certain situations because of the stability the price leader induces. The Federal Trade Commission has allowed many large actors in particular markets to operate, provided they restrain from creating utter monopoly. The relevance of this change in the FTC’s conventional wisdom and in the economics community has been overlooked by scholars in international relations. The realist predilection to balance does not come from realist logic, it comes from Newtonian concepts of equilibrium and order, concepts that are no longer embraced by modern science.116 Economics has evolved beyond Newton; political science should as well. Realism supposes that national interest prompts a balancing reaction to any attempt by rival states to change the balance of power through alliance and war. This follows the logic of classical liberal economics rather than the internal logic of realism itself. We make the case that price stability is analogous to political stability and that balancing is not the only path to stability. Order might be found in other corners. The preceding section provides an intuitive metaphor for thinking about the beneﬁt of unipolarity from the perspective of economics. Simple power concentration lends to systemic stability. There is nothing in realist theory that holds that this should not be the case. In essence, Waltz based his theory on the Soviet Union and the United States being the “price leaders” in interstate politics during the Cold War. The power of our argument resides in its parsimony. We extend Waltz’s logic to one

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center, following economic theory, which never states that two price leaders are better than one. Rather, all indications point to one price leader being optimal for stability. Our thinking in world politics ought to reﬂect this change. The rest of this book speciﬁes and evaluates six hypotheses for this theory of unipolar politics.

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CHAPTER 3 CONFLICT AND STABILITY IN A UNIPOLAR SYSTEM

R

ealism focuses on the interaction of states pursuing power in an unregulated environment. Microeconomics, with its early theory of free markets seeking market share, continues to be a relevant source of inspiration for understanding international politics: Waltz, for instance, illustrated structural realism by analogy to ﬁrms pursuing proﬁts and market share in an economic market. While Waltz based his theory on competitive and monopolistic markets, we have described an intermediate situation—a market in which a single ﬁrm is a price leader, much larger than any competitor but lacking monopoly control. Our colleagues in economics have noted patterns of behavior common to such a market, patterns we described in the previous chapter. We maintain Waltz’s analogy to microeconomics as we begin, in this chapter, to deduce and evaluate hypotheses of international politics in a unipolar system. Hypothesis testing in realism is a tricky business. Realism is somewhat notorious for its lack of speciﬁc predictions, to the point that some argue that it is a “degenerate” theory, one of the “artifacts of the Cold War” or “simply wrong.”1 That is unfair: realism itself is not even a theory, but rather a set of assumptions about how the world works that may be accepted or rejected. Realist theories, however, remain vulnerable to such charges. Realism asserts that states act in their self-interest, yet one can take most actions and argue that they serve some short or long term selfinterest. Even the American intervention in Somalia can be cast, like any alleged act of altruism, as an apparently simple way to demonstrate that the United States took an interest in Africa in contrast to UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s claim that the West was only interested in “rich man’s wars.”2 Realism can also explain a counterproductive act of foreign policy by invoking the reasonable argument that national leaders can only act on their imperfect knowledge. For example, it might seem that it would have made sense for Stalin to enter World War II against

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Hitler while he was ﬁghting France and the United Kingdom. Remaining neutral allowed Hitler to defeat France, hold off the United Kingdom, and select a time to attack the Soviet Union anyway. Stalin’s neutrality makes more sense if you understand that Stalin overestimated the strength of French defenses and thus thought the other three powers would ﬁght each other to exhaustion. Stalin made the mistake of confusing “polarity with polarization.”3 If they fought as one, the French-British alliance might have held Germany off longer, but Hitler could attack them piecemeal and defeat one while holding the other at bay. Realism has a dual nature. It is prescriptive as well as descriptive, i.e., it seems to try to explain what states should do as well as what they actually do. The classical realists tend to emphasize the actual behavior of states, showing how they behave in the interests of the state as perceived by its leadership.4 This version of realism is particularly vulnerable to claims that it is tautological: rejection of a realist theory would need to begin by showing how states act in ways that they know is not in their best interests.5 The structural version avoids this pitfall with its systemic focus. In fact, strictly speaking, Waltz denounces the use of structural realism as a theory of foreign policy—it predicts overall patterns, but not the actions of a single state, which he compares trying to use a “theory of universal gravitation to explain the wayward path of a falling leaf.”6 Gravity, however, remains a law—it does not compel acquiescence, but it punishes those who ignore it, just as states “are likely to be rewarded for behavior that is responsive to structural pressures and punished for behavior that is not.”7 Nevertheless, realists frequently engage in policy advocacy or prediction.8 Their predictions, however, are of little use to policymakers or to theory building. Waltz has argued, for example, that “willy nilly, balances will form over time” and “if a multipolar system emerges from the present unipolar one, realism will be vindicated.”9 We concur that at some point in the inﬁnite future, a multipolar distribution of power will recur. Differential growth rates and reduced rate of return on power for the most powerful states will allow other states to narrow the relative gap between them and the United States, and states will tend to emulate qualities that have enhanced American power and avoid those that have reduced American power.10 This probable future reality, however, is not our primary concern. This book focuses instead on the more immediate future and also on the likely behavior of states as they begin to catch up to American power. Waltz argued (in 1997) that even well-meaning American policies “will at times . . . appear arbitrary and high handed to others. . . . Some of the weaker states in the system will therefore act to restore a balance and thus move the system back to bi- or multipolarity.”11 That is a clear predictive statement, even if it comes only

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three paragraphs after advising that “States’ actions are not determined by structure . . . they are free to do any fool thing they want to.” Why do we look to the international system as a guiding force? Early efforts to explain conﬂict and cooperation in world politics focused on the system level. Waltz’s well-cited discussion of the dangers of reductionist thinking aptly illustrates the realist argument for system-level theorizing. There also is a reason recognizable to the layperson as well. One of the latest popular ideas used to understand social processes is Malcom Gladwell’s “tipping point” (elucidated in his book of the same name), which he describes as the “magic moment” when an idea or trend crosses some critical threshold and spreads quickly. Gladwell focuses on the few actors that actually accelerate the spread of ideas, on how some ideas are “stickier” than others, and on the “power of context,” or the effect of environmental factors. He demonstrates how a number of relatively minor changes in a context or environment have a dramatic effect on how particular actors behave and even on how those actors deﬁne themselves.12 Context matters. We cannot understand interpersonal relationships without understanding societal mores, just as we cannot understand international relations without understanding the international system. As polarity is the dominant mode of description of the international system, we look there to describe the important contextual factors of the international system. So let us return to the preceding point and consider what fool things states are likely to do. Some realist literature seems impoverished by an inability to think beyond the concepts of balancing and bandwagoning, which may be another reason so many things were labeled “balancing” by realists in the discussion in Chapter 2. Schweller is among the few that move further, as he describes four additional types of behavior: engagement, binding, distancing (sometimes also called hiding), and buckpassing.13 Although rarely discussed, states also have the option of direct confrontation and opposition. This chapter and the ﬁve that follow it describe hypotheses for the system, the unipolar power, and other states. At the system level, we hypothesize that the system will be more stable and peaceful during a unipolar period than during either bipolar or multipolar eras. While systemic effects are not merely the sum of state behavior, some of this stability is produced by the tendency of other powers to bandwagon with the unipolar power rather than balance against it. While bandwagoning, however, those states will try to bind the unipolar power—tie it into a framework of rules and norms that restrict its autonomy of action. Not surprisingly, the unipolar power will resist such binding, and the entire framework of laws that surround it—a framework it would have supported more strongly when it had less power. At the dyadic and multilateral level as well, the unipolar power

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will prefer a looser alliance structure than other states, again a looser structure than it would have preferred when it was less dominant. Relatively powerful and secure, the unipolar power tends to bystand from (i.e., buckpass) conﬂicts when it believes defense has the advantage. Conversely, if the unipolar power suspects that other states have an offensive advantage, it acts quickly and aggressively to counter the perceived threat. Good social science is like proper detective work in that it leaves a substantive and reproducible paper trail. The paper trail we present springs from the diplomatic record, systematically collected data from the Correlates of War project, and applied logic that is merely an extension of enduring ideas in international relations. This book represents the application of a wide variety of social scientiﬁc method on ideas, data, and records already in place; our ﬁrst methods included a systematic quantitative assessment of empirical data, and we then employed a more nuanced qualitative assessment of the diplomatic record. Whereas the previous chapters examine the theoretical issues associated with unipolarity, this chapter begins to assess the effect of unipolarity in international politics. It develops and evaluates a hypothesis that a unipolar system will be more stable than other distributions of power. Hypothesis Hypothesis 1: A unipolar system is more stable and peaceful than a bipolar or multipolar system. At one time, a popular contention held that power concentration, be it bipolarity or unipolarity, was injurious to international politics for a number of reasons.14 The central idea of this power-parity thesis is that as the number of major actors in world politics increases, so does the possibility for cooperation. Cross pressures or crosscutting loyalties increase, thus, no single relationship dominates. The result is that a more pluralistic system emerges. In addition, more allies are available for collective action against a rogue state and more impartial mediators are available for negotiating peace. In a multipolar context, arms races are less tense and decisions to go to war are more difﬁcult to make, given the authority needed from allies to launch an attack. In this case, the signiﬁcance of great power conﬂict is reduced because antagonism is dispersed. Multipolarity is inherently full of ambiguity, uncertainty, and unpredictability given the number of actors. This uncertainty is the central driving force in this theory. Uncertainty thus compels and retrains states to act cautiously. Countering these contentions, David Singer and Melvin Small report, oddly enough, a negative correlation between bipolarity and war frequency.15 Bipolar periods were less war-prone in general, although once

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war started; it tended to be more violent than it was under multipolarity. The uncertainty of the nineteenth-century multipolar system led to many small political conﬂicts, but the instability was short-lived and comparatively less fatal. While this relationship stands up to reason, the statistical correlation is only weakly signiﬁcant. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita further demonstrated that many other factors mediated the relationship between polarity and stability in the international system.16 Therefore, system polarization matters, but only as a conditioning force. Waltz posited that having a smaller number of great powers in the international system promoted stability, thus, a bipolar system would be more stable than a multipolar system because of the inherent uncertainty in multipolar systems.17 His logic and illustration of “bipolar stability” applies equally well to the stability of a unipolar system. Waltz’s neorealism holds that multipolarity is actually a less stable conﬁguration of power than bipolarity. As the number of actors increases, so does the probability of conﬂict: more moving parts means more possibilities for bellicose outcomes. With more powers come more interests that must be disentangled. Simply put, the effect of uncertainty is to increase risk taking and miscalculation that lead to the onset of conﬂict. A system characterized by more than two dominant actors tends to be more destabilized. As a system moves from bipolarity to multipolarity, interdependence is likely to increase, thus increasing the number of potential conﬂictual issues. The correction of power imbalances becomes more complex because of the uncertainty involved with monitoring the actions of others. Thus, the overall probability of destabilizing warfare increases. The state of the international system conditions the propensity for conﬂict. Waltz’s argument for bipolarity being most stable is two pronged; one tenet continues to be preoccupied with balancing, but the other focuses simply on power concentration and is far more analytically powerful. Waltz argues that bipolarity engenders an easier maintenance of the balance of power, because the great powers can focus all their attention on each other. His larger point is an exposition of the merits of power concentration. A more concentrated power base in world politics leads to greater certainty and thus more stability. Simply, a power concentrated system is more certain. Superpowers (two or one) can pressure extreme elements in coalition to moderate their behavior. Minor shifts in alignment do not affect the overall balance, so the system becomes quite resilient. How exactly does polarity affect the process of conﬂict in the international system? The relationship between interstate conﬂict and polarity goes to the core of our theorizing about world politics. First, if militarized disputes are essentially disagreements caused by uncertainty in relative power balances, as Geoffrey Blainey, Harrison Wagner, and a host of other

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conﬂict theorists argue, then an external factor that affects the certainty of the outcome will affect whether the dispute occurs, the degree to which it escalates, how long it lasts and whether other states join in.18 The unipolar power has a strategic interest in all disputes and is likely to intervene and be an active participant, both diplomatically and potentially militarily. The unipolar power strongly prefers that conﬂicts of interest between other system members be resolved without threatening the system’s continued existence. States that engage in militarized coercion against the unipolar power’s interests cross a critical threshold. Even a threat of military force against one of the unipolar power’s interests signals a willingness to ultimately threaten the unipolar power and the system itself. Thus, the unipolar power perceives militarized conﬂict very distinctly from other systemic politics. Given that the security of the system—the preservation of the basic international hierarchy—is the unipolar power’s primary goal, then militarized challenges to the system are taken to be most egregious. The unipolar power deters and suppresses conﬂicts that threaten its interests. However, while the unipolar power’s concerns focus directly on its national interest, it cannot take the chance that a conﬂict that is perhaps outside the focus of its national interest will spin out of control. To be clear, the unipolar power does instigate conﬂicts, and will allow and even encourage proxy states to use force on occasion. However, the solid majority of the time, the unipolar power seeks stability. Evaluation The logical extension of the uncertainty reduction argument is that unipolar systems will be the most stable, in terms of both the onset and the hostility of interstate conﬂict. This question is amenable to a large-n quantitative analysis. A systemic analysis follows neatly the theoretical explanation of the dynamics of unipolarity. Ascertaining the effect of unipolarity on systemic stability is a necessary endeavor. However, is unipolarity alone a powerful enough force to override the myriad factors affecting the process of conﬂict? Does it have a powerful enough effect to supersede other unaccounted explanatory factors as the sun does in Newtonian physics? This phase of the study holds to the strong assumption that polarity alone does indeed yield a generally peaceful and stabilizing effect on the system. Our ﬁndings will demonstrate that a unipolar system is more stable than either bipolarity or multipolarity. Waltz deﬁnes stability as changes in the number of poles but also recognizes that stability is the avoidance of great power war, or war between the poles.19 In this sense, stability is equated to

CONFLICT AND STABILITY

57

“the absence of war between the great powers, not the absence of war in general.”20 With only one power, this interpretation of stability is met by default, but that is degenerate. We adopt a more expansive understanding of stability. Following Ted Hopf, we use the broader deﬁnition of instability originally developed by Jack Levy.21 Levy describes four ways to measure instability in international relations—the frequency, magnitude, duration, and severity of war. Frequency pertains to how many wars occur in a given year, magnitude to the number of states that join the conﬂict, duration to the temporal length of the conﬂict, and severity to the number of battle deaths. Therefore, the best unit of analysis to assess the dynamics of war during a unipolar system is the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID). A MID occurs when a state threatens displays or uses military force against another state, up to and including war. It is the essential quantitative measure of a crisis, be it a troop mobilization or a surprise attack. Figure 3.1 illustrates the distribution of the number of disputes from 1816 to 2001. The graph of all disputes is not very informative because the number of recognized states in the system has dramatically increased through time. Figure 3.1, therefore, accounts for the expansion of the international system. Obviously, as the number of states increases, the chances of having a dispute increase proportionally. Figure 3.2 accounts for changing system membership and gives an idea of the variation of conﬂict through time thorough a more standardized presentation.

Annual Observations

200

150

100

50

0 1800

1850 Total MIDs, 3.021b

Figure 3.1

1900 Year

1950

Total Number of States, year(t)

Total Annual Disputes and System Size.

Source: MID 3.02 Data Set.

2000

58

THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

Disputes Standardized by System Size

2

1.5

1

0.5

0 1800

Figure 3.2

1850

1900 Year

1950

2000

Standardized Dispute Onsets over Time.

Source: MID 3.02 Data Set.

A few patterns become apparent. The early nineteenth century was typiﬁed by relative stability, the Concert of Europe, followed by German expansionism and colonial disputes in the latter nineteenth century. Disputes escalated precipitously preceding the onset of World War I followed by a pause between the World Wars and an increase preceding World War II. The Cold War years were also relatively conﬂictual. The period following the Cold War, our current unipolar era, however, is very stable in comparison. The number of dispute onsets is an approximation of the level of conﬂict in the international system in a year, and it generally coincides with our intuition about the historical evolution of conﬂict. Assessing the other dynamics of conﬂict mentioned explicitly by Levy above, total magnitude, total dispute days and total battle deaths yields a similar pattern as dispute onset (ﬁgures 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5). Dispute days and battle deaths track very closely with the number of dispute onsets (and our intuitions about history); only the pattern for magnitude (dispute joiners) seems mildly discordant. The connection between the decline of multipolarity into a rigid bipolar system and the onset of the world wars is obvious. There is however, a connection between unipolar power and dispute frequency, magnitude, duration and intensity following the Cold War years that we aim to demonstrate in more systematic terms. A statistical analysis would reveal the empirical covariation between unipolar power and disputes. Recall that the main research hypothesis during a unipolar period is that militarized conﬂict will decrease, thus, we expect unipolar power to have a negative inﬂuence on dispute

Dispute Joiners Standardized by System Size

CONFLICT AND STABILITY

59

2

1.5

1

0.5

0 1800

Figure 3.3

1850

1900 Year

1950

2000

1950

2000

Standardized Dispute Joiners over Time.

Dispute Days Standardized by System Size

Source: MID 3.02 Data Set.

200

150

100

50

0 1800

Figure 3.4

1850

1900 Year

Standardized Dispute Duration over Time.

Source: MID 3.02 Data Set.

behavior. To statistically test this idea, we conduct an event-count analysis on the magnitude, frequency, duration, and severity of all disputes in a year from 1816 to 2001 for all states. The number of states in the system for a given year and a lagged dependent variable are also included.

Dispute Fatalities Standardized by System Size

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THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0 1800

1850

1900

1950

2000

Year

Figure 3.5

Standardized Dispute Fatalities over Time.

Source: MID 3.02 Data Set.

Sub-Hypotheses and Unit of Analysis We expect that the unipolar period, and its certainty, would be associated with less militarized conﬂict. All hypotheses in this section refer to the same unit of analysis, the system year. While the system year has a venerable tradition in the scientiﬁc study of conﬂict,22 of late there has not been a great deal of scholarly attention focused on the system-year as a unit of analysis. For our purposes, however, a system-year analysis is the appropriate ﬁrst step to assess the impact of changing the distribution of power. In this analysis, there are 185 system-years that date from 1816 to 2001 (including the world war years). The following sub-hypotheses illustrate different aspects of stability. H1a: There will be fewer militarized interstate disputes during the unipolar period. H1b: Total dispute duration will be shorter during the unipolar period. H1c: There will be fewer total dispute joiners during the unipolar period. H1d: There will be less dispute intensity during the unipolar period. Independent Variables The primary explanatory variable is simply the polarity of the international system in a given year. In Chapter 1 we discussed the empirical assessment

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61

of polarity and provided an ample argument for the current international system being unipolar. For the purposes of empirical analysis, we code the international system at unipolar from 1991 to 2001. The number of states in the system at year (t) is included to account for the heteroskedasticity induced by the varying system size in the event count models. An essential quality of the system changes through time as a result of the increase of system members. Thus, we should either standardize the event count data by system size or include this appropriate control. It is reasonable to assume that a system with many members is more likely to have more disputes than a system with fewer members. The number of annual disputes is included to control for the contamination induced by the sheer frequency of opportunities to join. Event counts for total disputes, the number of joiners, total dispute duration, and dispute intensity are all essentially count processes that ought to be assessed by count models.23 There is a great deal of debate on how to account for the threat to validity imposed by temporal dependence in the dependent variable. The incidence of armed disputes is likely to be correlated over time, as the underlying hostility between nations is likely to lead to repeat disputes. Following Brian Pollins, one solution is to include a lagged dependent variable to account for serial correlation.24 Another proposed solution is to provide a theoretical approximation of the error structure to smooth out the extreme disruptions in the time series. Our intent is to test the assumed data-generating process outside of any major shocks.25 This solution is inappropriate for our analysis, however, as we are fundamentally interested in the shocks. Our question of interest is ﬁrmly aimed at the phenomena of the rise of intense number of conﬂicts in the system. In essence, it is better to model the structure in the data than to control for it. For example, it is interesting to know the type of serial correlation (and if it is “serial” and not some other type). In addition, because we have a sense of what kind of dependence exists among the observations, we derive estimates that are more efﬁcient if this knowledge is built into the model. Measures of Systemic Conﬂict: Aggregating Disputes This section discusses the various indicators for militarized disputes mentioned in the above hypotheses. These indicators are distinct in that they seek to capture different attributes of the conﬂict process, but they are similar in that all are situated at the systemic level. The focus of this inquiry is conﬂict among states; hence, in this analysis we use the incidence and quality of Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) from 1816 to 2001. We utilize the MID 3.0 data set, which contains disputes from 1816 to 2001

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THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

and measures interstate conﬂict.26 MIDs consider not only war but all situations where an armed force was threatened or utilized by one nation against another. A MID is an incident in which a state employs an armed force or threatens to employ armed force through deployment, mobilization, or by some verbal threat. The ﬁrst indicator, the annual total of MIDs, is the sum of separate disputes that begin in a particular system year. It is hypothesized that in aggregate terms the system is more stable, in terms of fewer disputes, during unipolarity. Another primary measure of the disruptive quality of a dispute is its length in days. Total days serve as an indicator of dispute intensity to supplement the effect of total disputes. Thus, a systemic indicator for the effect of disputes is the average days of conﬂict for a dispute that began in that year. Another indicator of system conﬂict is the simple annual sum of dispute joiners including the initiator and initial target. A dispute’s having many joiners is one of the preconditions for the escalation of that dispute to a more deadly status. Thus, a second qualitative indicator of the type of dispute activity in a given year is the number of states that actively join a dispute. The ﬁnal indicator of system conﬂict is the total intensity of disputes or the total number of combatants killed in a conﬂict. Therefore, if the United States were to seize a Canadian ﬁshing boat for a month, and the United Kingdom threatened a militarized response for the incident, we would record this as one MID with three joiners that lasted for 90 (3 joiners x 30 days) dispute days with an intensity of zero. Table 3.1 reports the summary statistics for the range of systemic conﬂict. One surprising observation is the low end of the conﬂict range, that there were years in the recent international system where there was not a MID. In fact, throughout the nineteenth century, there were ﬁve years that did not have a dispute. While one might attribute this to the lack of reporting, we do see meaningful variation for the indicators to make an analysis possible. Table 3.2 indicates that unipolar power has a negative, statistically signiﬁcant effect on the number of disputes in a year, the number of dispute joiners, the number of days of battle, and the total intensity of conﬂicts. Several sensitivity analyses were conducted, but the coefﬁcient for unipolar power is stable. Essentially, the statistical analysis indicates that during times of unipolarity, there are 43.4 percent fewer disputes, 47.1 percent fewer dispute days, 37.6 percent fewer joiners, and 52.1 percent fewer casualties than in either bipolar or multipolar eras. For sake of comparison to previous eras, these estimations take into account the larger system size and the previous conﬂicts affecting the onset of future disputes (the contagion effect of conﬂict).

CONFLICT AND STABILITY Table 3.1

63

Summary Statistics for the Systemic Conﬂict Indicators

Variable

Obs

Mean

Std. Dev.

Min

Unipolarity Annual MID Onsets Annual Days of Conﬂict Annual Dispute Joiners Annual Fatalities

186 186 186 186 186

0.05 33.03 1832.37 30.06 5.61

0.23 33.97 2087.45 29.72 6.20

0 0 0 0 0

1 138 10535 139 26

Total States

186

70.00

49.41

23

191

Year

186

Table 3.2

1816

Max

2001

Systemic Conﬂict During a Unipolar Era (1) Onsets

(2) Duration

(3) Joiners

(4) Fatalities

⫺0.5694 ⫺0.6370 ⫺0.4721 ⫺0.7376 (0.2345)** (0.3017)** (0.2340)** (0.3010)** Total States 0.0078 0.0107 0.0079 0.0130 (0.0017)*** (0.0019)*** (0.0017)*** (0.0019)*** Lagged Dependent 0.0185 0.0002 0.0192 0.0115 Variable (0.0023)*** (0.0000)*** (0.0026)*** (0.0109) Dispersion Term ⫺1.1568 0.0900 ⫺1.1878 0.4040 (0.1281)*** (0.1453) (0.1302)*** (0.1583)** Constant 1.9881 6.0952 1.9551 0.6241 (0.0912)*** (0.1746)*** (0.0902)*** (0.1874)*** Observations 185 185 185 185 Log Likelihood ⫺727.89 ⫺1522.13 ⫺715.96 ⫺489.96 Proportional ⫺43.4% ⫺47.1% ⫺37.6% ⫺52.2% Decrease During Unipolarity Unipolarity

Standard errors in parentheses ** signiﬁcant at 5%; *** signiﬁcant at 1%

Summary A systemic analysis is conducted to empirically address previous literature and to ascertain the base effect of unipolarity. The results here expand and improve on previous analyses that they use a better measure and more encompassing tests. The most signiﬁcant ﬁnding was that unipolarity suppresses the incidence of all four dominant manifestations of militarized interstate disputes. This section provides evidence that polarity matters for the onset of conﬂict in the international system. Not only does power deter

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conﬂict, but it also minimizes its duration, localizes it from joiners, and prevents it from escalating. Unipolar power evinces a general ﬁeld effect, much like the sun in Newtonian astrophysics. Although all stellar bodies manifest an effect on the earth’s solar orbit, the sun remains the central, primary stabilizer. The idea that unipolar power provides stability ﬁnds support here, but it seems obvious there are other factors at work in the process. The effect of unipolar power on disputes is largely probabilistic. A strong unipolar power, the United States, implies a more stable international system, with the important caveat that you interpret stability as meaning the lack of conﬂict. The reduction in interstate war in the past ﬁfteen years is an observation not lost on prominent scholars in international relations.27 As Joshua Goldstein reports, “We probably owe this lull to the end of the cold war, and to a unipolar world order with a single superpower to impose its will in places like Kuwait, Serbia, and Afghanistan.” Others posit that the lull in conﬂict is due to the increasing pace of democratization, that the international community has become less bellicose due to the expansion of the mores of peaceful conﬂict resolution. Still others would argue that the international system has not become less conﬂict prone but that the locus of violence has shifted from the interstate to the intrastate. Despite these other conjectures our results remain clear. The unipolar world is unbalanced but far more stable than bipolarity or multipolarity.

CHAPTER 4 BALANCING AND BANDWAGONING IN A UNIPOLAR SYSTEM While stability is a property of the international system as a whole, systemlevel effects result from the combined actions of the states that constitute it. System stability indicates that states are not going to war against each other as often as in other systems and that they are not joining existing conﬂicts as often as they might. Wars and conﬂicts often arise in the context of balancing, as states try to enhance their power while blocking other states’ power. States may also join conﬂicts because they are trying to balance the possible winner, prolonging the war. The relatively low intensity of conﬂicts in the unipolar era suggests that when states do join conﬂicts, it is to bandwagon with the likely winner and to share in its gains. This chapter develops and evaluates a hypothesis that states are more likely to bandwagon with the unipolar power than to balance against it.

Hypothesis Hypothesis 2: In a unipolar world, states are more likely to bandwagon with the unipolar power than to balance against it. Balancing, very broadly speaking, is “opposing the stronger or more threatening side in a conﬂict.”1 Classical realists identify this as a speciﬁc policy,2 while structural realists claim only that balances tend to form as a result of actions states take in their own interests.3 Realists here have a fundamental dispute: Is balancing a speciﬁc behavior, or is it merely an outcome? We follow the former course, despite adopting structural realism. If balancing is merely an outcome—that the system tends toward equilibrium over time—then there is little for anyone to say about it. Indeed, we accept the argument that in the long run the international system will have a more balanced distribution of power than it does today—although, with John Maynard Keynes, we would also note that “This ‘long run’ is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.”4 Such a proposition

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THE UNIPOLAR WORLD

of eventual balance is non-falsiﬁable and thus improperly constructed.5 It is also not very useful unless one can predict that it will occur soon—and the only way to do that is to observe trends toward balancing in the world. In any case, just as most realists dabble in foreign policy, most realists also discuss balancing as a type of behavior. While we argue that balancing must be seen as a policy, this policy is not one of seeking a balanced or even distribution of power. Both Morgenthau and Kaplan adopt this incorrect view, seeing balance of power as a “system” requiring a “holder of the balance,” with the United Kingdom being the classic case. Morgenthau exempliﬁes this by quoting Winston Churchill: “It would have been easy and must have been very tempting to join with the stronger and share the fruits of his conquest. However, we always took the harder course, joined with the less strong powers . . . Thus we preserved the liberties of Europe.” All well and good, but let us listen a few moments more to Mr. Churchill: “[We] emerged after four terrible struggles with an ever growing fame and widening Empire, and with the Low Countries safely protected in their independence. Here is the wonderful unconscious tradition of British foreign policy.”6 The “holder” is not seeking a balance as a good in itself. Such balancing is a means to more power, by ensuring that one’s strongest rivals do not become even stronger, a fallback technique used by states that realize they cannot achieve dominance more directly. The nextbest strategy, then, is to ensure that no other state becomes dominant, and to gain slowly as one’s rivals exhaust themselves in direct competition. Balancing, then, is a policy of (or behavior aimed at) trying to match, exceed, or block the power of a stronger state.7 The British style exempliﬁes external balancing, the form most often connoted by the term: joining or forming a coalition to face off against another state or coalition. Balancing must be anticipatory: it does not include situations where “war is forced on the potential balancer by a direct military attack by the aggressor.”8 Balancing must also be concrete—a countering alliance would demonstrate balancing, but mere “nonaggression, neutrality, and entente pacts would not.”9 Balancing behavior can also be internal, as a state builds up its own capabilities. States tend to build up their strength in general—both their military and the socioeconomic base it depends on—so internal balancing is most apparent when the rate of growth exceeds the rate of other states’ growth, especially in military power. The state is then balancing all stronger powers by catching up with them. For the most part, these behaviors do not include those that fall under the “soft” balancing nomenclature.10 As best deﬁned, soft balancing includes “territorial denial, entangling diplomacy, economic strengthening, and signaling of resolve to participate in a balancing coalition.”11 Territorial denial, blocking another state’s power, is a form of balancing; it may be softer than

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attacking the other state, but it is a physical action. The others, however, are not balancing. Economic strengthening is a goal of all states; if it is balancing, then all states try to balance all others all the time. Diplomacy blocks the other state only to the extent that the other state chooses to allow it; the stronger state can also use diplomacy to buy time for its own plans. Signals of resolve, in the absence of actually joining a balancing coalition, accomplish nothing material. “Diplomatic ententes,” as proposed under another version of soft balancing,12 also do not materially block the other state’s action. Waltz and Morgenthau both emphasize balancing against a greater power. Walt has suggested, however, that balancing occurs against threats, rather than against power. In order to avoid trying to guess at future intentions—which realists realize cannot be known—Walt argues that states use geographic proximity, the nature of weaponry held by another state, and past aggressive behavior to assess which state they will balance against. A primary recent example would be the alliance of much of Western Europe with the United States against Soviet power. The United States was objectively stronger, but the Soviet Union was closer, contiguous, and made a habit of invading European states during the Cold War. Walt points out that the same dynamic helps explain the greater attraction of the Soviet Union for some states in Latin America and the Caribbean during this period.13 Balancing threat, rather than power, was likewise the impetus for Corinth’s appeal to Argos 2500 years ago for an alliance against the more dangerous Sparta rather than the more powerful Athens.14 John Jay feared similar alliances if the American Constitution was not ratiﬁed: Considering our distance from Europe, it would be more natural for these confederacies [of a few states] to apprehend danger from one another than from distant nations, and therefore that each of them should be more desirous to guard against the others by the aid of foreign alliances, than to guard against foreign dangers by alliances among themselves.15

Whether against power or threat, balancing implies opposition to something stronger or dangerous. A unipolar power, by deﬁnition, cannot balance. It may build up its power, seeking dominance, or it may assemble a coalition to attack a rising state whose power may threaten the status quo. Minor powers, however, can adopt a strategy of balancing in a unipolar world. Minor powers can build up their power internally, to put themselves in a better position to counter the unipolar power. Such internal balancing need not be limited to military power, because economic strength can be converted into military strength, but it would be difﬁcult to call a state’s

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actions “balancing” if it is falling further behind militarily. Minor powers can also form coalitions against the unipolar power. The European Union itself is a sort of deep coalition, as it pools the resources of all of Western and now Central Europe into a common economy. The infrequency of such balancing, either internal or external, is the driving puzzle of this book. Nothing structural prevents such a strong coalition from forming. Unipolarity is not the same as international hierarchy, in which balancing would be precluded. As powerful as the United States is, and even granted that it currently accounts for about 50 percent of global military spending, a balance could be created. Low military spending in most of the world reﬂects a choice of butter over guns, a choice that could be reversed if the political leadership in those states convinced their publics to support them. In terms of potential military power, the share of economic power is highly relevant—and here the United States has less than 50 percent of potential military power. Were Europe, Russia, China, and Japan to take it upon themselves to build a force to stop American power—rescind Eurasian basing rights and push the Americans out of the Middle East—they could do so. They do not choose to do so, however. Even though possible, this balancing coalition would be difﬁcult to create in a unipolar system. Balancing coalitions have never been quite as automatic as theory might lead us to expect. Even against Nazi Germany, the most aggressive revisionist state since Napoleonic France, Hitler’s opponents—not only the democracies, but the Soviet Union as well—did a fairly poor job of balancing Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Even after the war in Europe began, the two strongest states did not join the war against Hitler until he attacked one (the Soviet Union) and declared war on the other (the United States).16 Even when states perceive that external balancing is required or desirable, they still must ﬁnd other powers with whom to ally or bandwagon—you cannot balance all the states all the time.17 Part of the problem is that minor powers have local rivals, who may appear more dangerous than the unipolar power.18 Such local rivalries have impeded the formation of coalitions to stop the rise of great powers in the past. With unipolarity already in place, balancing would require minor powers to try to overturn the established power structure rather than merely trying to prevent the rise of a unipolar power.19 Waltz argues that “balancing is sensible behavior where the victory of one coalition over another leaves weaker members of the winning coalition at the mercy of the stronger ones,” which is the typical situation.20 With a unipolar distribution of capabilities, however, this is not applicable. With one great power, there are no coalitions to balance. There is the unipolar power, and whichever states ally with it, versus at best a much weaker

BALANCING AND BANDWAGONING

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collection of opponents. Balancing assumes that one’s weight may shift the outcome of the struggle: Secondary states, if they are free to choose, ﬂock to the weaker side, for it is the stronger side that threatens them. On the weaker side, they are both more appreciated and safer, provided, of course, that the coalition they join achieves enough defensive or deterrent strength to dissuade adversaries from attacking.”21

In the absence of being able to create such a strong coalition, balancing against the unipolar power seems more likely to result in the unipolar state’s exertion of power against the weaker one. Balancing is a high-cost policy, and one that is unlikely to succeed. In a unipolar world, a strategy of bandwagoning with the unipolar power is more rewarding than balancing. Bandwagoning is not exactly the opposite of balancing, or “supporting the stronger or more threatening side in a conﬂict.” Such bandwagoning borders on capitulation, which is rarely a good strategy for gaining either power or security—even if it secures your survival, you lose your capacity for autonomous action. Mearsheimer deﬁnes bandwagoning along those lines, describing it as “giv[ing] in to the enemy.” He says that “if a state is badly outgunned by a rival, it makes no sense to resist its demands, because that adversary will take what it wants by force anyway.”22 This is not a fair description of the concept, as he had deﬁned it himself—“a state joins forces with a more powerful opponent, conceding that its formidable new partner will gain a disproportionate share of the spoils they conquer together.”23 Bandwagoning is not surrender; bandwagoning is pursuing one’s goals by following another’s banner. Bandwagoning is better deﬁned as “joining the stronger coalition.”24 Bandwagoning is consistent with realism because it aims at increasing one’s power. States bandwagon because they wish to be on the winning side, as at the end of World War II and in the global turn toward economic liberalism in the 1990s, or, as Churchill suggested, in the hope of gaining a portion of the great power’s winnings, like jackals following a lion or wolf.25 Sometimes bandwagoning and balancing mirror each other, and it is hard to be sure which dominates. When Western European countries joined NATO, for example, they were simultaneously balancing against the Soviet Union and bandwagoning with the United States. In the absence of a Soviet threat, however, NATO becomes more clearly an agent of bandwagoning. Of course, bandwagoning can itself be a risky strategy. A bandwagoning state’s gains are merely absolute gains, whereas the state with which it is bandwagoning is gaining more in relative terms. Relative losses are

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risky in realism because your survival and freedom of action ultimately depend on your own resources. If other states gain power more quickly than you do, you are putting your own state at risk. This supremacy of relative gains over absolute gains in power is one of the characteristics that distinguishes realism from liberalism.26 A state should prefer relative gains to absolute gains that leave it further behind others. Thus, Mearsheimer argues, bandwagoning is not a great power strategy, but “a strategy for the weak. . . . Bandwagoning is employed mainly by minor powers that stand alone against hostile great powers.”27 Sometimes, however, relative gains are not possible. Bandwagoning is the most reasonable option when the alternative is to fall behind in both relative and absolute terms. A balancing strategy might argue that Hitler should have attracted allies in 1944 and 1945, trying to forestall the triumph of the United States and Soviet Union—Argentina, for example, should have declared openly for Germany rather than for the Allies. Of course this would have been foolish, as such states would have either been crushed or isolated by the victors. The same movement toward the victors can be seen in the 1815 campaign against Napoleon.28 When would a state bandwagon rather than balance? Waltz favors bandwagoning only in a hierarchical system, not in an anarchic one: “In a competition for the position of leader, bandwagoning is sensible behavior where gains are possible even for the losers and where losing does not place their security in jeopardy.”29 He implies that the bandwagoning state is “losing,” but that perverts the meaning of the term. Minor powers will perceive many of the same threats as the unipolar power does. If the unipolar power is addressing those threats, these states can join its efforts. Such states have a strong incentive to adopt the weak form of bandwagoning known as bystanding or buckpassing—allowing the unipolar power to bear the primary cost of actions that beneﬁt everyone. This collective action problem arises because the beneﬁts of defeating the threat cannot be restricted to those who help defeat it. Other beneﬁts, however, may be excludable. The unipolar power can provide a share in the spoils, or preferential access to other sources of power, to those states that join its efforts.30 Thus, the bandwagoning powers achieve gains beyond the defeat or containment of the mutual threat—and thus gain relative to the major powers that bystand instead. Bandwagoning is even a useful strategy for minor powers with respect to the danger posed by the unipolar power itself. Association with the unipolar power may allow a state to at least keep pace with the unipolar state’s power, leaving it in a better position for the future than if it fell further behind. For states that fear the unipolar power’s opposition, bandwagoning may help divert the unipolar power’s attention toward other states, and thereby gain some inﬂuence over its behavior.

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Given the prominent position of the unipolar power, in fact, there is a strong incentive to take advantage of its strength. Depending on the urgency of the threat, minor powers could beneﬁt most by bystanding (buckpassing) in favor of the unipolar power. The unipolar power would end up expending a disproportionate share of the costs, while the beneﬁts would go to all states. This action has an effect similar to that of balancing: the unipolar power suffers a small relative loss through its efforts, unless it is able to direct the gains from challenging the rising state toward itself. Once again, this strategy suggests that the minor powers will want to remain on good terms with the unipolar power to which they want to pass their burdens.31 Waltz says that balancing dominates bandwagoning because “the ﬁrst concern of states is not to maximize power but to maintain their positions in the system.”32 Setting aside the defensive assumption inherent in this statement—we believe that states seek to maximize power while being conscious in most cases of the risks of a failed attempt to seek power—this assumption does not necessarily apply in a unipolar system. In a multipolar system, if we follow Waltz, major powers do not want to jeopardize their status as major powers. If they bandwagon with the strong, they risk being consumed by that state either literally or through a loss of autonomous behavior. In a unipolar system, however, most states have less to lose. The unipolar power, to be sure, would be concerned with losing its dominance, but by deﬁnition it cannot bandwagon with much weaker powers—the unipolar power can neither bandwagon nor balance, for it has no peers. The lesser powers, however, have little to lose. Bandwagoning with the unipolar power does not create much of a security risk. The unipolar power is already militarily dominant, so the danger to weaker states is not increased much by its further gains. If one cannot ﬁght the unipolar power, then it is reasonable to try to stay off its target list. In this situation, despite the continuing need for self-help, bandwagoning is more reasonable than it might be in other situations. States seek power, and in a unipolar world bandwagoning is a better route to power than balancing. The expected gains from bandwagoning are greater than the expected gains from balancing. Directly balancing the unipolar power is risky and unlikely to succeed. This does not mean that bandwagoning is enthusiastic and unadulterated. Bandwagoning dominates out of a lack of realistic balancing options—the minor powers have little meaningful leverage over a unipolar power. There is no other great power for them to ally with, and any new great power that begins to develop will threaten the comfortable predictability of the status quo. Over time, as bandwagoning becomes habitual, this behavior could help establish a hegemonic relationship.

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Evaluation During the unipolar era, states have bandwagoned with the United States rather than balance against it. This behavior contrasts with the international relations of the previous century, when states balanced as often as they bandwagoned. Only during the heyday of British power in the mid-nineteenth century was the bandwagoning pattern similar to the one in the current unipolar world. Bandwagoning with the United States is even more startling in light of public impressions of American behavior. American policies toward Iraq and in promotion of regime change in general are threatening to some countries, and its opposition to international institutions is disturbing to others. In an April 2005 poll,33 publics in 20 of 23 countries believed it would be good if “Europe” became more inﬂuential than the United States.34 Pluralities in 16 of the 22 other countries believed the United States has a “mainly negative inﬂuence on the world,”35 while in every country, Europe was seen as having a “mainly positive inﬂuence on the world.” France was regarded as a positive inﬂuence in every country except the United States and Turkey, while Britain was seen positively everywhere except Mexico, Argentina, and Turkey. China also was held in high esteem, seen positively except in Germany, Japan, Poland, Turkey, and the United States. Of the major powers, Russia was the only one other than the United States with a negative image.36 Balancing is easier to detect than bandwagoning, so much of this section addresses the extent of that behavior. Balancing behavior includes the formation of military alliances that exclude the balanced state, military spending that at least keeps pace with the balanced state, the development of weapons systems that target the balanced state, and taking actions that physically frustrate the balanced state’s use of power. Economic growth does not in itself constitute balancing behavior, because economic growth is generally pursued by states without further justiﬁcation. This deﬁnition does not include using international law or institutions in ways that might hinder another state’s use of power, because balancing is a realist concept—law and institutions are discussed in Chapter 6. Bandwagoning behavior includes a more limited range of activities: joining alliances that include the stronger state and taking actions that physically facilitate the stronger state’s use of power. The latter includes providing basing access and participating in military operations at the stronger state’s instigation. Failure to keep pace militarily is not seen here as a sign of bandwagoning, although one would not be surprised to see that symptom associated with the general behavior. Nevertheless, just as balancing entails

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an effort to resist the stronger state’s use of power, bandwagoning entails positive efforts to enable that use of power. On that note, one must keep in mind that much of what states do cannot be classiﬁed as either bandwagoning or balancing. If Canada declines to send troops to Iraq, it is certainly not bandwagoning with the United States on that issue, but it is also not balancing. Venezuela under Hugo Chávez does not bandwagon with the United States, but Chávez’s rhetorical opposition and advocacy of alternative models of development do not in themselves balance the United States in ways that the realist approach would recognize. Both of these reillustrate the difference between hegemony and unipolarity: The United States is the unipolar power, but it does not exercise hegemony over the behavior of even its near neighbors. Balancing Behavior—Formation of Exclusive Alliances During the unipolar era, alliances against the United States have not developed among the other major powers: Russia, China, Japan, and the Member States of the European Union. Some of these states have talked among themselves, concurring with each other that they are not happy about American dominance. France and China have been particularly vocal about this, with French president Jacques Chirac traveling to Beijing in 2004, where he stated that the two countries had a “global partnership . . . founded ﬁrst of all on a common vision of the world—a multipolar world.”37 There is, however, no French-Chinese alliance to back up this partnership; overall, Chinese–European Union relations remain focused on trade with an emphasis on China’s “transition to a stable, prosperous and open country that fully embraces democracy, free market principles and the rule of law.”38 With China’s relations with Japan embedded in distrust lingering from World War II (e.g., violent anti-Japanese demonstrations in April 2005 and Chinese opposition to a Japanese seat on the United Nations Security Council), Russia is the most likely partner for China against the United States.39 As early as April 23, 1997, Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin signed a joint declaration that began by asserting that “the Parties shall strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order.”40 This followed the formation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in June 1996, which began as the Shanghai Five and included Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan (Uzbekistan joined in 2001). The SCO’s stated purpose is cross-border cooperation in security and economic issues, in particular, opposition to separatism and terrorism.41 Russia and China repeated their views in a

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joint proclamation on December 10, 1999, transmitted to the Conference on Disarmament: The two sides appeal to all countries of the world to make concerted efforts for the creation of a democratic and balanced multipolar world structure in which the different cultures would exist harmoniously, cooperate constructively and enrich each other, and in which the equality of all sovereign States would be ensured.42

Finally, on July 16, 2001, Russia and China signed a Treaty of GoodNeighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.43 This treaty, the clearest example of links between great powers that exclude the United States, is far from being a balancing mechanism. It agrees that Russia and China will not use force against each other and that they will resolve their outstanding boundary disputes peacefully. They pledge noninterference in and respect for each other’s territory, with “the Russian side oppos[ing] any form of Taiwan’s independence.” They agree not to join any blocs that target the other, nor to allow their territory to be used by other states or non-state actors against each other. They pledge mutual support for “the central role of the United Nations as the most authoritative and most universal world organization composed of sovereign states . . . and guarantee the major responsibility of the UN Security Council in the area of maintaining international peace and security.” They agree to work toward disarmament, environmental protection, human rights, and cooperation in a host of dimensions, including militarily. This is not a balancing alliance; it cannot fairly even be called an alliance at all. The United States cooperates with Russia and China on many of these same issues, Taiwan being the major exception. Most importantly, while Russia conducted a joint military operation with China in August 2005,44 its cooperation with the United States through NATO is much deeper.45 The greatest concrete opposition to American power stems from the SCO’s declaration of July 5, 2005, in Astana, Kazakhstan (Iran, Pakistan, and India sent observers to the meeting). The SCO afﬁrmed its support of “the efforts by the international coalition conducting antiterrorist operations in Afghanistan.” It noted that some members provided bases and transit rights for the operation. Then it concluded: Considering the completion of the active military stage of antiterrorist operation in Afghanistan, the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation consider it necessary, that respective members of the antiterrorist coalition set a ﬁnal timeline for their temporary use of the above-mentioned objects of infrastructure and stay of their military contingents on the territories of the SCO member states.46

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Uzbekistan followed this rather weak ultimatum by ordering the United States to evacuate its Karshi-Khanabad Air Base,47 while Kyrgyzstan seemed open to maintaining the Ganci Air Base for a longer time.48 One must consider the Uzbek move an example of balancing, encouraged by Russia and China. The SCO may develop into a true counterbalancing alliance, but as of this writing, this is not an impressive trend.49 The deﬁance of a minor state, however inconvenient, does not in itself block American operations in Central Asia. Russia’s inﬂuence in other areas waned at the same time, as a pro-Russian leader failed in Ukraine and its troops began to leave Georgia. The presence of Iran, whose nuclear programs receive Russian aid; India, with whom China has begun to repair ties; and Pakistan, the key state in American efforts in Afghanistan, as observers suggests that the SCO could expand to include some of the larger powers of the next rank—but this is a development that remains in the future; an effective alliance that included Pakistan and India would be a remarkable feat. Furthermore, just as Russia cooperates with the United States in some areas, Pakistan has supported the American search for Osama bin Laden, and India has signed an agreement to cooperate on multilateral security matters and missile defense.50 The nearest approach to external balancing against the United States may be the growth of the European Union itself. After its 2004 expansion, the EU included 25 countries, with a combined population in excess of 400 million and combined economic output that exceeds the United States’. With two seats on the UNSC and respected leadership in human rights and protection of the environment, European diplomatic proﬁle is high. The European approach to economic development is being mimicked in Africa and Latin America, and its diplomatic positions on global treaties have won converts throughout those regions. It is in Europe where France has the greatest inﬂuence, and where its calls for multipolar resistance to the United States have the most support. As early as 1996, President Jacques Chirac wanted the European Union “gradually to assert itself as an active and powerful pole, on an equal footing with the United States.”51 His foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, said on November 7, 1999, “We cannot accept a world that is politically unipolar or culturally uniform. Nor can we accept the unilateralism of the single hyperpower. This is why we are ﬁghting for a multipolar, diversiﬁed and multilateral world.”52 This call was picked up by German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who said on December 28, 1999, “Whining about U.S. dominance doesn’t help. We have to act.”53 In June 2001, Swedish prime minister Goran Persson said the European Union is “one of the few institutions we can develop as a balance to U.S. world domination.”54 His view was shared by EU external relations commissioner Chris Patten, who said during a speech on June 15, 2000,

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If there is an effort to balance against the United States, it lies primarily with Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, the states that most strongly pushed for independent European military capabilities, argued against the war in Iraq, and generally criticize American policies on multilateral issues. This “core Europe” has won few adherents, however, especially among the next-strongest Member States, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In any case, while the EU can coordinate positions different from the American, when it comes to solid action on issues important to the United States it remains divided and ineffective. In 2005, French and Dutch voters defeated the constitutional treaty proposed the previous year, a constitution that would have strengthened Europe’s ability to act as one in foreign policy as it does in economics. EU strength is akin to that of the Holy Roman Empire—it can act, albeit with great difﬁculty, to protect its prerogatives, but it cannot coordinate military action in opposition to another state. The European Union is many things—and in its own limited sphere it is far more effective than the preceding statement suggests—but it is not a balancing coalition against the United States. Finally, no discussion of balancing can be complete without mentioning the appeal of radical political Islam, exempliﬁed by Osama bin Laden’s alQaeda but replicated by cells throughout the world. Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, however, this movement has had no open state support and little tacit support. Pakistan allows it to operate in its tribal regions, Saudi Arabia allows funds to be transferred to it, and many other states permit clerics to echo its views—but al-Qaeda is not a balancing coalition recognizable to realism. It is a coalition of people, not of states.56 Balancing Behavior—Military Spending We also do not see very much internal balancing against the United States. American military power is dominant, and the gap between it and its potential rivals has not diminished (see Figure 1.1).57 In 1994, the United States accounted for 45 percent of world military spending. After dropping to 41 percent in 1999, the American total rose to 47 percent in 2003. American military spending dropped by 35 percent from 1986 to 1999, then began to increase, nearly making up the entire reduction by 2003. European military spending, in contrast, dropped 11 percent from 1987

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to 1994, and has remained essentially constant; its share of world military spending has dropped from 20 percent in 1994 to 18 percent in 2003; this was 37 percent of the American total. While Russian spending has begun to increase, in 2003 it remained lower than in 1994; based on unofﬁcial estimates, it may be as high as 15 percent of the American total.58 Japan has at least the fourth-largest national military budget, but it has also remained essentially steady throughout the period and accounts for only 5 percent of the world total—barely 11 percent of the American.59 Only China’s military strength is increasing noticeably.60 After remaining steady for many years, Chinese spending doubled from 1996 to 2003. The United States argues that China’s defense spending may be double what it ofﬁcially reports, bringing it to nearly 14 percent of the American total.61 These American numbers, however, are disputed.62 Even the RAND Corporation, in a Defense Department–sponsored study, concludes that China’s spending is only about 50 percent above its stated ﬁgures, or just over 10 percent of the American total.63 Projecting to the future, RAND expects that at worst, China’s military spending could rise to one-third of American by 2025, with Russia then reaching about 21 percent.64 No one is catching up to American military power; this analysis does not even need to probe deeper into the question of reach—these ﬁgures are primarily for armies, not for the air and naval forces needed to project power, nor the logistics needed to bring them to bear against the United States, or against interests that are not immediately adjacent to these countries.65 The EU, through its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), has developed the capacity to send military forces to the Balkans and Africa, but has not yet demonstrated that it can play a decisive role in a conﬂict—much less do without the support of the United States.66 European collective weakness may best be captured in a remark by NATO secretarygeneral Lord Robertson in October 2003, frustrated at the inability to get Europeans deployed into conﬂict despite what on paper looks like large military forces: “Setting aside the United States, 18 countries with standing armies of 1.4m soldiers and 1m reserves must be able to ﬁeld more than today’s 55,000 troops on multi-national operations without being overstretched.”67 Its diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear programs has suffered from the same ﬂaw as its Bosnian policy in the 1990s: while Europe means well, everyone knows it lacks the ability to enforce any agreements or effectively punish states for noncooperation. Besides its lack of deployable capability, another limit to European power is its lack of independence. EU missions are conducted under a regime known as “Berlin Plus.” Under the terms of that March 2003 agreement, NATO will give the EU assured access to common NATO resources, in particular the planning staff at the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers

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in Europe (SHAPE), for missions that NATO has not taken up itself. If that happened, the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander—Europe (DSACEUR) would command the ESDP mission, using a cell of the European Union Military Staff (EUMS) colocated with SHAPE in Mons, Belgium. If SHAPE or NATO resources were not available, then the EU would conduct the operation using a national planning center. Activation of an EU headquarters would be the last resort. The EU allows this NATO inﬂuence on its independence because its member states do not want to discard NATO (which would be a strong signal of balancing), and they do not want to spend the resources to develop a parallel planning headquarters. The outlier on this issue is France, which does not participate in NATO planning. Other EU member states do not endorse a strong EU military capability because they want to preserve their traditional neutrality. Balancing Behavior—Military Technology Because military spending by other countries is not keeping pace, the only way countries could individually balance the United States is through military technology—in other words, by developing and deploying nuclear weapons. China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom already had nuclear weapons when the bipolar era began at the end of 1991 (and Israel was generally assumed to have had them), but other potential opponents of U.S. policy did not. Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus surrendered their weapons to Russia, maintaining the status quo, but in May 1998 India and Pakistan deployed nuclear weapons. These weapons were not developed with an eye to the United States or even U.S. interests, but to their own conﬂict. Overall, there remains a tremendous imbalance in nuclear forces, other than those held by the United States and Russia, each of whom has between 7,000 and 8,000 warheads.68 Under the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, the strategic component of these is scheduled to drop to 2200 by the end of 2012, but there is no requirement to reduce the actual number of nuclear warheads in their arsenals.69 Many of the remaining warheads are held by American allies—France with 348, the United Kingdom with 185, and Israel with (allegedly) 200. India and Pakistan each have less than 50 nuclear weapons, with no way to deliver them against the United States, nor any particular reason to.70 As with military spending, only China joins Russia as a potential danger. While Chinese military spending was on a par with Russia’s, China has the fourth-largest number of nuclear weapons, about 400. Only about 20 of these are capable of hitting the United States, with this number expected to increase to 60 in the next 5–10 years.71 China’s nuclear decisions seem closely linked to its

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perception of what would be most helpful in its quest for regional power and its relations with the United States.72 The clearest evidence of nuclear balancing comes from the states linked by President Bush as the “Axis of Evil” in 2002. States with reason to fear American power were asserted to be developing weapons that could be used to deter or punish the United States. Iraq did not, in fact, have such a program when the United States invaded it in 2003, but Iran and North Korea not only had such programs, they accelerated them after the invasion. Iran’s nuclear program began in 1984, but it was not until August 2002 that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) became aware of the secret uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.73 France, Germany, and the United Kingdom took the lead to try to persuade the Iranians to accept international safeguards, while Iran continued to insist that it was only seeking long-term energy independence. Iran’s summer 2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad increased international concern, with even Russia and China trying to ﬁnd ways to induce compromise—Russia suggested that it would enrich reactor fuel to ensure that Iran could not divert any for its own purposes. This proposal was rejected by Iran, and as Iran tested new weapons and began enriching uranium, even Russia began to reduce its diplomatic support for Iran. North Korea has pursued nuclear weapons more openly, beginning in about 1985 and revealed in 1992.74 Negotiations from 1993 to 1994 led to an agreement under which North Korea would cease work in return for oil and some light-water reactors. These were never delivered, but after IAEA inspectors were expelled from the Yongbyong reactor in 2002, it was soon discovered that North Korea had resumed its work as early as 1997, long before the Bush administration’s rejection of the Clinton administration’s Agreed Framework.75 “Six-party” talks that included Russia, China, Japan, the United States, and the Koreas moved very slowly, with fears rising that North Korea would proliferate nuclear and missile technology and North Korea asserting that it already had the materials for several nuclear weapons.76 Both the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs clearly seem to be in response to American power. While North Korea proceeded ﬁrst, the Iranian program of weapons development seems to be the more thorough, and explicit, effort to balance the United States. Balancing Behavior—Denial of Power Ultimately, alliances and military buildups contribute only to the possibility of full balancing—blocking another country’s use of power. Given the dearth of evidence of balancing in the other categories, one cannot be surprised that American power is rarely blocked directly. Instead, we see

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so-called “soft” balancing, in which countries decline to support American initiatives, and binding, discussed in Chapter 6, in which countries use international law to limit American freedom of action. Neither of these is balancing—balancing requires more than a mere lack of support. Members of the UNSC, led by France, declined to authorize the invasion of Iraq. This may have hurt the American image of legitimacy, it may have raised the costs of American action, but it did not prevent the United States from taking action. Italy may not have allowed airdropped land mines to be used in missions launched from Aviano Air Base during the Kosovo war, but that did not prohibit other missions and would not have prevented carrierlaunched use of land mines had the United States wished to deploy them. Direct opposition to American military efforts has been minimal. What government has publicly stood up for Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi resistance? Syria has offered some safe haven for the Iraqi insurgency, though it denies it. Iran has worked to inﬂuence the future of Iraq, hoping (probably in vain) to control a Shia Arab-dominated state or successor state. Turkey stopped the United States from launching a northern campaign in March 2003. But global support for these efforts has been limited. No one sympathizes with Syria: France pushed as hard as the United States for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon in 2005, the greatest setback to Syrian power since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Oil-rich Iran gets more international support than Syria, in the form of weapons sales from China and nuclear assistance from Russia, but European opposition to Iranian ambitions is as strong as the Union can muster. And, while the Turkish move was applauded by European elites, its bid to join the EU continues to be obstructed, especially by the French. The story of other American interventions is the same. Global assistance to Taliban remnants in Afghanistan is even less than to Syria or Iran—and was nonexistent during in fall of 2001 when it might have done them some good. Pakistan’s control over its border may be weak, but that is hardly a new situation; Iran also is happy to provide havens for terrorists. No one stood up for Serbia over Kosovo; the Russian race to the Pristina airport might qualify as balancing if they had then denied its use to NATO. Yugoslavia got no more support in the mid-1990s. Other countries complain about American power, but they do almost nothing about it. Bandwagoning Behavior—Cooperative Alliances The unipolar hypothesis makes a stronger claim, however, than that balancing is slow or lacking compared to earlier eras, as the above examples suggest. It expects bandwagoning as well—something essentially absent from earlier periods. Bandwagoning, for our purposes, includes allying with the

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stronger power and assisting it in its use of power. While such behavior was present in prior eras, it was not pure: NATO allies bandwagoned with the United States, but they also balanced against the Soviet Union—and Warsaw Treaty Organization members did the same, albeit less willingly. Prussia allied itself with the United Kingdom for protection, not to aid the larger power. The unipolar hypothesis suggests that we will see pure bandwagoning—alliances that do not also balance, that provide no real protection. States have bandwagoned with the United States by maintaining alliances with it past their primary purpose. NATO’s longevity has been a bit of a puzzle for realists.77 It was formed to provide collective self-defense against an attack from the Soviet Union. With the literal demise of its adversary, it should not survive. One could argue that it will disintegrate eventually, but that seems hopelessly non-falsiﬁable. Instead, let us look at what NATO does for its members, keeping in mind that states seek power, not mere security. For the United States, NATO becomes a focal point for cooperation, and it has transformed itself into a more ﬂexible tool for intervention on behalf of joint American-European interests. States may join, if they meet certain U.S.-deﬁned criteria, or they may associate via a partnership agreement. NATO allows the United States to maintain military inﬂuence in Europe without provoking the balancing behavior that unilateral intervention would lead to. NATO blocks military competition in Europe, a competition that would not only be dangerous from the American standpoint, but that could also result in a European rival to American power.78 This concern over possible balancing was present even in the draft American Defense Planning Guidance 1994–99, which stated, “We must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” It went on to argue, however, “We must account sufﬁciently for the interests of the large industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political or economic order.”79 That goal is shared by some Europeans, who do not want to pay the costs of balancing. More importantly, NATO provides a security guarantee that allows Europe to maintain its minimal military budgets: the ﬁrst great side-payment of American unipolarity is the unilateral security guarantee it continues to offer to Europe, Japan, and a few others. To balance the United States, these states would need not only to build up military power, but also to create some military power to begin with. For the shards of the Soviet empire, NATO is a focal point for bandwagoning. The states of central Europe do not need to admit to joining with the United States; they are only joining a regional institution. Even Russia, far from trying to balance the United States, has pressed for an association with a NATO

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that has expanded to include territory that Russia had controlled for most of the past 400 years. Ten states in central and eastern Europe have joined the alliance, and the partnership for peace has given other states as far as Kyrgyzstan a seat at the table in Brussels—in other words, the core members of the SCO, the nascent balancing group, are almost all also allies of the United States at some level. France has pressed for an independent European role, but this is nothing new—France has advocated autonomy from NATO since de Gaulle. Other states, particularly the UK and the Netherlands, reject the idea of weakening NATO. Other American alliances, with Japan, South Korea, and Australia, have remained intact; only the Philippine alliance has been broken, early in this era, but even the Filipinos have now welcomed American military support against Muslim groups. Several other states have been designated “major non-NATO allies,” a category created recently to respect informal ties with states such as Pakistan, Kuwait, and Jordan. Bandwagoning Behavior—Enabling Power Reaction to the war in Iraq presents the most facile, but misleading, arguments against bandwagoning. The United States failed to win United Nations Security Council approval for its war, being opposed by Germany, France, Russia, China, and most rotating members of the council—clearly no bandwagoning there. But let us focus on the bigger picture: First, European opposition to the war was centered in only four countries, Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. Almost every other member of NATO—except Greece, Canada, and army-less Iceland—contributed troops to the mission or, in the case of Turkey, were rejected by the new Iraqi government. Japan, South Korea, Ukraine, and Australia also sent troops, along with many smaller countries. Second, all of these countries emphasized their support for the United States’ Afghan occupation by sending large contingents and in some cases even assuming command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Russia tolerated American bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan has likewise given access to its territory. It is true that Russia thereby gained a free hand in Chechnya, but it had a free hand there already, and the point of bandwagoning, after all, is to win gains through supporting a stronger power. France, Germany, Russia, Canada, and Turkey all saw value in following their opposition to the war in Iraq with concrete support for the American “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT). Regional issues provide further impetus for bandwagoning with the United States. China’s efforts to build up its military and increase its inﬂuence in East Asia have yielded movement toward the United States

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among China’s neighbors. Russian power continues to alarm its neighbors, who turn to the United States and NATO for protection. Despite recent movement toward peace, India and Pakistan remain in frequent crisis—and, like the others, look to the United States for assistance. Even the intra-EU divide over NATO and the war in Iraq includes suspicion among Member States about French and German intentions. Not only do these rivalries make a balancing coalition more difﬁcult to assemble, they also encourage states to bandwagon with the unipolar power as a way of balancing an objectively weaker, but spatially more dangerous, state. Regional concerns have also promoted cooperation with the United States on missile defense. Europeans had worried that a withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty would produce a backlash from Russia, and Chirac had appealed directly to Clinton not to withdraw during his presidency.80 But the December 13, 2001, announcement by the United States that it would unilaterally withdraw from the ABM treaty turned out to promote bandwagoning.81 British, Italian, and German ofﬁcials quickly and publicly accepted the possible need for missile defense.82 By 2002, even Russia had agreed that it and NATO would “enhance consultations on theatre missile defence . . . to analyse and evaluate possible levels of interoperability among respective theatre missile defence systems, and explore opportunities for intensiﬁed practical cooperation, including joint training and exercises.”83 These joint exercises with Russia began in spring 2004.84 The United Kingdom and Denmark have agreed to upgrade early-warning systems, and Japan, Italy, Poland, and Germany all participate in joint missile defense ventures.85 Balancing and Bandwagoning—Evaluation and Historical Comparison Despite all of the above, however, one cannot say that there is no balancing against the United States. One could argue that a Eurasian bloc is developing, anchored in Iran, China, North Korea, and Russia. That has not happened yet, however, and the embryonic bloc’s concrete actions are minimal: Iran and North Korea continue to develop nuclear programs while negotiating with the international community; China increases its military’s size and quality; Uzbekistan orders the United States to evacuate an air base; Iran meddles in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is the full extent of global behavior that would balance American power. Other likely American adversaries, however, have not made any attempt to balance—Libya made the opposite choice, giving up its nuclear program (bandwagoning) in exchange for resolution of Lockerbie-related penalties. Indeed, the dearth

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of serious American opponents can be seen in the difﬁculty of even naming likely additional candidates for nuclear proliferation. One can always argue that balancing will come, and this book does not argue that it never will—we do not argue that unipolarity is eternal. The global distribution of capabilities will become less skewed: slowly through natural differentials in economic growth and changes in the basis of power, more quickly if American power is dissipated in self-indulgence and wars of choice. When that happens, the world will be less unipolar and the conditions riper for balancing—a reinforcing pattern that may reconﬁgure the world as quickly as the Berlin Wall came down. The argument that balancing will happen in the near future will be bolstered if we ﬁnd that a decade and a half (the duration of the unipolar era at this writing) is needed before balancing begins after other shifts in power. (We choose the period of ﬁfteen years based on historic precedent, as delineated in the snapshots below.) We do not ﬁnd similar delays in the past, however. Fifteen years after the start of the bipolar era: 1960.86 The United States and Soviet Union face each other with large exclusive alliances— the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), NATO, and the Warsaw Pact. The two powers’ military spending spirals as each tries to keep pace with the other. Each seeks to increase and modernize its nuclear arsenals in hopes of gaining an advantage over the other—resigning themselves to mutual assured destruction remains a decade away. They and their allies have had military confrontations in Berlin and Korea and struggled to overthrow or defend regimes from Cuba to Greece to China. Balancing was well established. Fifteen years after Versailles reshaped European power: 1934.87 The Versailles agreement was itself an attempt to balance Germany, giving territory to France, Denmark, Belgium, and the new Poland, and stripping Germany of colonies, limiting its military, and imposing reparations on it. Britain was too suspicious of France to ally with it to balance Germany, leaving France to occupy the Ruhr in 1923 and establish alliances with Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Germany and the Soviet Union had begun military cooperation and secret rearmament following the Rapallo agreement. Japan had conquered Manchuria. By the early 1930s, defense spending was rapidly increasing across the board, especially in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union. All this before Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, withdrew from the League of Nations, and went public with German rearmament, in reaction to which France tried to solidify its alliance with the states of Eastern Europe. The lack of balancing by Britain and the United States (and the mid-1930s failure of even France to keep pace with German rearmament) during this period does not negate the quick balancing behavior of France, Germany, the Soviet Union, and the states along their borders.

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Fifteen years after mid-nineteenth-century warfare had uniﬁed Germany into a power of the ﬁrst rank: 1886.88 Bismarck creates and renews the Three Emperors’ League with Russia and Austria. Britain defends the Ottoman Empire against Russia at sea and at the Congress of Berlin, winning its base on Cyprus as a result. Italy joins a triple alliance with Germany and Austria in 1882. And the battle for African colonies has begun in earnest. Balancing continues and expands beyond Europe. Fifteen years after Napoleonic ambitions were ﬁnally stymied: 1830.89 The Concert of Europe included all the major powers, with the Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia, and Austria mostly focusing on suppressing revolution, including those that broke out that year. There was relatively little balancing yet . . . and this was also a period in which Britain established its near-unipolarity and withdrew from most European affairs (except securing Belgian independence). Britain is seen as the “holder of the balance,” but it did not conclude permanent balancing alliances with European powers, and did not intervene except in Crimea until the rise of united Germany, and economic growth in France, ended this near-unipolar period. Rather than balancing, from 1815 to 1855, “no European power tried seriously to balance against Britain, not even its supposed rivals France and Russia; all bandwagoned, seeking Britain’s alliance and partnership.”90 Nevertheless, while the British military shrunk by 45 percent by 1830, the French more than doubled, Austria’s increased by a quarter, and the respective sizes of the Russian and Prussian militaries remained stable. British naval power, however, its strategic reach, dwarfed its possible rivals, and Britain largely had a free hand colonially until the last decades of the century. Fifteen years after the Seven Years’ War placed much of the French empire under British control: 1778.91 France enlarged its navy, spending by 1780 ﬁve times what it had during the Seven Years’ War, and strengthened its ties with Spain. With the Netherlands, all three states were able to aid Britain’s North American colonies in their rebellion. Their combined navies were larger than Britain’s. Denmark, Russia, and Portugal also sign an agreement against Britain, and Prussia drifts away from its prior alliance with Britain. British success in war is swiftly followed by its near-isolation and the impending loss of its North American empire. These historical snapshots are not meant to imply anything magical about ﬁfteen-year periods. This time frame is simply one of analogy to the passage of time from the onset of unipolarity to the writing of this book— countering arguments that ﬁfteen years is too short a time to see much balancing. After every major power shift of the past 200 years, except for 1815, which most closely approximates the current one, clear and signiﬁcant balancing behavior had occurred within ﬁfteen years. Our hypothesis is that balancing will be slow in a unipolar system, and it has been slower

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than in the past. While we did not hypothesize it, it seems noteworthy that the two power shifts that resulted in the most even distributions of power—1945 and 1919—also yielded the most rapid and thorough balancing behavior. In Lakatosian terms, this is progressive. This analysis does not look directly at the years of Napoleonic dominance in Europe, because those were years of near-constant warfare, culminating within ﬁfteen years with Napoleonic defeat. It is thus hard to call France the unipolar power because the system was in ﬂux, but it approached unipolar status in Napoleon’s ﬁnal years. During this period, states tried to deal with Napoleon and did not resist him except when attacked. Napoleon created his wartime counterbalancing coalition, just as the Axis did during World War II, by attacking the neutral Soviet Union and United States.92 This history calls more general theories of balancing into question, but our research question involves balancing during peacetime, balancing in the absence of attack. Historically, states have quickly engaged in balancing behavior following a reshufﬂing of power ranking. They have done much less balancing, and more bandwagoning, since 1990. Summary We can hardly be surprised to ﬁnd this hypothesis supported by our analysis. The low level of international balancing was one of the puzzles that drove this book, and has been well-documented by realist scholars. Balancing is only found if one waters down the concept to include institutional maneuvers and statements of intent without regard to their material impact. We do not claim there is no balancing—North Korea, Iran, China, and Russia are all engaged in low levels of balancing against the United States—but that this balancing is much less than has been seen at earlier junctures of history. Bandwagoning, on the other hand, is prominent. The reluctance of a few European states to follow the United States into Iraq is neither balancing nor bandwagoning. Those same states, however, have been eager to join the United States in Afghanistan. They do not want to risk damaging their relationship with the unipolar power. In any case, the majority of NATO members joined the United States in Iraq. Members of the former Soviet bloc have been eager to join the alliance, and even Russia cooperates with it. Thus, the unipolar world is one in which bandwagoning is more prominent than balancing.

CHAPTER 5 ALLIANCE PATTERNS IN A UNIPOLAR SYSTEM

G

iven the prevalence of bandwagoning rather than balancing, one might think a unipolar system would be one ﬁlled with alliances. Deeper reﬂection, however, reveals that this is not necessarily true. Alliances are a tool of balancers, great powers who need to be able to count on one another to block the power of other great powers. Alliances are also important for states that fear they will be balanced against—they try to tie other countries to themselves to preclude the other countries from joining the other side. In a unipolar world, however, these are not major concerns for the great power. In the absence of balancing, the unipolar power does not need to tie states to itself. The unipolar power also does not need strong allies to meet the weak threats it faces. The unipolar power, like all states, prefers ﬂexibility in pursuit of power. With no need for tight alliances, and a plethora of potential bandwagoners, the unipolar power will assemble temporary coalitions as it needs them, avoiding the tight alliance patterns of the bipolar era. This chapter develops and evaluates a hypothesis regarding alliance patterns in a unipolar system. Hypothesis

Hypothesis 3: Alliance patterns in a unipolar system will be looser than they are in other conﬁgurations of power. Fundamentally, states form alliances to expand their power, promote their security, or reduce uncertainty in a particular interaction. The realist paradigm argues that “the need for security dominates, even compels, alliance choices.”1 As Erik Gartzke and Michael Simon note, a second and less comprehensive body of literature has focused on the trade-offs inherent in alliances.2 Exchanges between alliance members are not strictly limited to the aggregation of security. James Morrow observes that most alliances are between many smaller nations and a single powerful state and reports that this conﬁguration is in fact the most stable.3 While it seems obvious what the smaller nations have to gain, why does the larger state bother, as

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its security gain is negligible? The larger state seeks other beneﬁts, such as increased trade and favorable terms for arms transfers and other relevant national concerns. The questions are, Why is this alliance conﬁguration the most stable, and Does this trend hold for the unipolar power and its alliances? We believe that this conﬁguration will hold true for the unipolar power and its alliance partners and propose a dynamic through which this stability is found. The unipolar power’s alliance networks are most stable because they are the most ﬂexible. Once again, we ﬁnd another social phenomenon affected by uncertainty. Uncertainty arises from any number of factors. State leaders are likely to be uncertain about the costs of conﬂict, true capabilities, or the likelihood that an ally will come to their defense or start a conﬂict against its wishes. The unipolar power has more options and fewer restraints than other states. In a bipolar or multipolar world, a great power would gain from conﬁdence in its alliances with other powers. In fact, as Mearsheimer articulates, alliance building is an essential part of great power politics in bipolar or multipolar schemes.4 Such alliances have less to offer a unipolar power. In fact, such alliances are more likely to entrap it within the allies’ conﬂicts. At the same time, the unipolar power would have more options for loose alliances, because other states are not being tied into coalitions led by other great powers. To motivate this hypothesis, we turn to Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s work on the “tightness” of systemic polarity.5 For more than a decade, Bueno de Mesquita attempted to account for the inconceivably discrepant empirical ﬁndings of the day, ultimately deciding that structural attributes really meant little in the face of the risk propensity of decision makers. Ultimately, risk attitude would be, for Bueno de Mesquita, endogenous to alliance tightness or cohesiveness. In both the bipolar and multipolar cases, Bueno de Mesquita accepts the underlying assumption that there is a great deal more uncertainty in multipolar systems than bipolar systems. He also fails to anticipate even the possibility of unipolarity and does not include that in any theorization. The concept of alliance tightness however, is given great attention and serves to unpack our conception of unipolarity with a fairly parsimonious twist. Bueno de Mesquita explicitly considers relations within alliance blocs. He looks at the extent to which states within the same bloc actually share foreign policy goals and objectives. If states share similar foreign policy goals, the next step to bloc “tightness” is taking concrete steps and developing commitments to draw their bloc ﬁrmly together, ultimately to reduce uncertainty about each other’s goals and objectives. This reduction in uncertainty comes at a cost, however. In order to move in such lockstep fashion there must be an overall compromise in the decision-making

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calculus of both states and a subsequent loss of autonomy. In addition, writing in the particularly rosy time of détente, Bueno de Mesquita echoes Kaplan and cautions that in a bipolar setting “bloc tightness” leads to the loss of potentially friendly inter-bloc associations, and the probability of increases in wars.6 The empirical predictions of alliance tightness in bipolarity aside, Bueno de Mesquita introduces a meaningful dimension to the general concept of polarity. Considering the past, there are distinct variations not only in the number of poles in the international system (that is, is the system bipolar, multipolar, or unipolar) but also in how committed the members of the poles’ blocs are to each others’ foreign policy goals and the nature of those commitments. Tight blocs have unambiguous commitments: mutual self-defense pacts, outright alliances, military exchanges, and close domestic relationships. Looser blocs are by deﬁnition more distant and less trusting. The bottom line is that alliance bloc tightness comes with a decided opportunity cost, that is, the beneﬁt of being unconstrained. During periods of multipolarity and bipolarity, the poles, the great powers at the center of the blocs, must bind themselves to other powers. These associations vary in degree of commitment but there is always a degree of sticky cohesion to other states. During unipolar periods, the national interest of the unipolar power does not require such a degree of close commitment. To be sure, the unipolar power sets and maintains a network of alliances. Given the realities of international politics and the inherent uncertainties of the international system, it imposes a social network in the face of the possibilities of unipolarity. However, the unipolar power imposes this network with a mind to the costs of maintenance and the relative degree of certainty required. Therefore, the international network that results from the possibilities afforded by unipolarity will be loose and unconstraining. The unipolar power prefers looser alliances rather than ﬁrm commitments that needlessly tie its hands. Returning to the price leadership metaphor, balancing alliance blocs is most akin to cooperative price setting. In such a model, there clearly are marginal costs attached to the calculus of ﬁrms as they bargain to set price points. Given the existence of alternatives, the price leader cannot act unilaterally. In fact, in this case the price leader’s individual utility is compromised for the sake of keeping the bloc together, because it cannot set prices individually. However, once a ﬁrm is unilaterally powerful enough to set prices for the market, it no longer needs to bargain with other ﬁrms to do so. In this (unipolar) case, the price leader sets a price and has the most latitude to expand or contract the group of ﬁrms that follow the price. Alliances must be tightest in bipolar systems, given the zero-sum

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nature of interactions. Multipolarity allows for the most freedom of choice for individual nations. However, in both cases the states at the center of the alliance blocs are similarly constrained by other states it chooses to ally with. The unipolar power faces no such constraint and as such will move away from tight alliances and adopt loose alliance patterns. Evaluation Alliance commitments are different in the unipolar era. The unipolar power adopts looser alliance patterns than either bipolar or multipolar states. In addition, as a result of the unipolar power’s ﬂexibility, the unipolar power’s alliance partners themselves ﬁnd much more ﬂexibility in the arrangement. Alliances during bipolarity are by far the most cohesive, while multipolar alliances are far looser than those during bipolarity but not as loose as alliances involving the unipolar power. The question is: how do we demonstrate these phenomena? Bueno de Mesquita was the ﬁrst to demonstrate alliance tightness empirically as part of measuring systemic polarity, however, the quality of the nuance of alliance relations dictates a different treatment here.7 Bueno de Mesquita explicitly equates “alliance tightness” with the static concept of the “similarity in commitments” within particular alliance blocs at a particular time.8 His resulting empirical measure for the tightness of alliance blocs is essentially the sum of the similarity score relative to the number of dyads within the cluster—the degree the alliance bloc members share the precise alliance conﬁguration of the particular major power. We, rather, are interested in the ﬂexibility of alliance commitments to include the relative degree of mobility of bloc members to be able to ignore their alliance commitments as well—a concept not measurable directly or capably through indirect means. The similarity of alliance commitments does capture one element of the process, however: intra-bloc similarity. On the other hand, it neglects another critical component: ﬂexibility. Empirically we can demonstrate that the alliance patterns during the multipolar era were more heterogeneous than those during bipolarity but not nearly as differentiated as in the unipolar era. That does not address our question. In order to distinguish the relative ﬂexibility of alliance commitments, we turn to an analysis of alliance dynamics during the multipolar era of the nineteenth century, the bipolarity that follows in the latter half of the twentieth century, and the current unipolar era. Following is a comparison of three historical periods and the associated alliance relations contained therein. We draw upon the most recent instances of bipolarity and multipolarity to demonstrate the particular alliance dynamics. We seek to explain the degree of alliance commitment ﬂexibility by assessing different system dynamics on the international system in 1885, 1950, and 2002.

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Following Napoleon’s downfall, the United Kingdom clearly was globally preeminent due to their mastery of the high seas, international banking, the exchange of goods and services, and alliance politics. While this began an era of Pax Britannica, the British were by no means a unipolar power. The Russians had far more men in uniform and estimated British Gross National Product was on par with Russia, France, the Habsburg Empire, and Prussia. The Concert of Europe largely played according to a British conductor, but, the orchestra could have easily turned its back and ceased playing should it have found it necessary.9 Throughout the ﬁrst half of the nineteenth century Europe did keep in concert, at least as far as it pertains to major power coalitional warfare. However, with the relative decline of the United Kingdom, the Concert’s tune began to hit some ﬂat notes. After 1850, the specter of major power war became real, and by 1885, the United Kingdom found it could no longer dictate terms as authoritatively as it once had. While the United Kingdom still had the lead in total warship tonnage, manufacturing output and industrialization, it was facing a serious economic challenge from the United States and the beginnings of a possible military one from the newly uniﬁed Germany. Thus, in 1885 the world was clearly multipolar.10 Within the international system there were more than two primary centers of power. In this context, alliance structures were extremely uncertain and provided a great deal of ﬂexibility. In early 1885 the major powers of this multipolar era, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, and Austria-Hungary, gathered in Berlin to reach agreements on global matters including trade disagreements, navigation practices, and the effective occupation of Africa. While the United States was in attendance, and its material capability was increasing, it clearly did not want to engage in the global governance practiced by the European powers and would not be recognized to do so anyway. The Berlin Conference clearly delineates the major powers and the competing interests present in a multipolar system. Therefore, 1885 represents an excellent time to begin to discuss the dynamics of multipolar alliances. Between 1885 and 1900, as Paul Kennedy points out, there was an extreme amount of volatility in alliance diplomacy in the latter nineteenth century to precede the alliance “calciﬁcation” into a system that was functionally bipolar and that led to the onset of World War I.11 Through at least 1909 however, the system was functionally multipolar. The creation of ﬁxed military alliances was started by Bismarck in 1879 with the Austrian-German alliance to deter the Russians from advancing into areas controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Bismarck hoped to compel the Court of St. Petersburg to return to the “Three Emperor’s League” of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. Even after this had the

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desired effect, the alliance endured. In the multipolar context, Germany could extract itself easily from this relationship, but when the system evolved to bipolarity by 1914, its extrication would prove impossible and lead to the onset of World War I. In 1882, Germany and Italy signed a similar treaty in case of a French attack. Again, in the late nineteenth century these alliances were ﬂexible, malleable, and functionally loose, largely because of the independence of the United Kingdom. While a drift toward a Franco-Russo alliance was clear by the late 1880s, the role of the United Kingdom remained wholly ambiguous because there was no other continental alliance partner to bandwagon with against Germany. In 1894, the multipolar system was stable and a rough equilibrium existed between the two alliance blocs and the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom remained the state that allowed the ﬂexibility of alliance commitment in multipolarity, as an alliance with the French was not likely given the scramble for concessions in China and British occupation of Egypt in 1882. During this decade, alliance loyalties were less relevant given the impulse to colonialism and new territory acquisition. France and Russia turned to Africa and Asia. Germany began to pursue colonies through its policy of Weltpolitik. Italy was becoming enmeshed in Abyssinia, and nearly all the European powers had aspirations in South Africa, the Far East, the Nile Valley, and Persia. The United Kingdom felt severe pressure from France, Russia, Germany, and newcomers Japan and the United States. In these circumstances, and in this context, “the importance of the military clauses of the European alliance blocs seemed less and less relevant.”12 The United Kingdom began to see possibilities given the ﬂexibility inherent in the system as Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain called for an end to “splendid isolation.”13 While Chamberlain advocated an alliance with Berlin, Arthur Balfour and other ministers saw the deﬁnite need for diplomatic compromises and ﬂexibility in British policy. What followed was Anglo-American rapprochement, an alliance with the Japanese, and the beginnings of compromise with the French. While alliance patterns intersected this multipolar system, it was still situated on three dominant power bases—a system in which alliance ﬂexibility was able to be maximized. No place is multipolar alliance ﬂexibility better demonstrated than in the Russian-Japanese war of 1904. When Japan challenged Russia over Korea and Manchuria, the world did not draw in the respective alliance partners and erupt into war. Britain did not render military aid to Japan, provided France did not assist Russia; this further cemented their relationship. Anglo-French antipathy was dead, bringing a new era of friendship and alliance across the English Channel. This was the precise circumstance that led to the eventual rigidiﬁcation and change of power

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bases in the international system. Following the Japanese-Russian war, the United Kingdom’s role in the international power structure became quite ambiguous. Functionally, the United Kingdom would become an ally to France, thus creating the Triple Entente and functionally changing the international system to bipolarity. The ﬂexibility inherent during multipolarity that led to the “non-escalation” of the 1904 war would create the relationship that moved the system functionally to bipolarity. The rigidity of alliances under functional bipolarity allowed the easy escalation to great power war in 1914. The bipolar system of 1914 and later of the Cold War era was marked by an entirely different set of alliance patterns. The competition between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente and then the United States and the Soviet Union divided global politics into a vastly different array than the multipolarity of the late nineteenth century or of the ﬁnal decade of the twentieth. Whereas the nonaligned area of the international system represented an area of competition to be sure, the conﬂict over Africa and Asia was resolved between the major powers in the nineteenth century and all pressed on. In contrast, during the bipolar era contests of inﬂuence in Africa, Asia, and South America were all bloody. The reasons for conﬂict in the developing world are myriad (and, in fact, largely due to the cooperation that existed during multipolarity). But during the bipolar era contests in the developing world over regime type and resource allocation nearly all drew in the opposing international blocs and at the very least were escalated and intensiﬁed by the zero-sum nature of competition that bipolarity engendered. In this set of circumstances, the dominant major powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, did not even have the option of abandoning alliance commitments or of tolerating its partners’ shirking of their commitments. Throughout the Cold War it was obvious that the United States’ NATO allies did not contribute proportionally.14 However, when the United States chose to deploy a new system that was domestically unpopular with an ally or was presented with a strategic demand insisting upon cooperation, its allies consistently relented. They did so not only because of the potential sanctions faced by disappointing their patron but also because of the inherent constraint of the bipolar situation. A similar relationship existed between the members of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. This dynamic is well illustrated by the controversy over the introduction of intermediate nuclear forces into Europe. By the mid 1970s, the Soviet Union’s nuclear forces were on par with those of the United States and its NATO allies in Europe. When the Soviets began to upgrade its intermediate nuclear forces, the United States perceived this as a move

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from equilibrium and a decided threat to its position in Europe, both in qualitative and quantitative terms.15 The new missile system, the SS-20, had advantages in range (5,000 km), mobility, accuracy, concealment, and ease of deployment. United States policy in NATO had evolved into what was popularly known as ﬂexible response, the deployment of both conventional and nuclear arms to form a proper deterrent against any Soviet moves in Europe. In order to “re-equilibriate” the nuclear balance in Europe, the United States began to plan to deploy ground launched cruise missiles and Pershing II ballistic missiles in concert with a diplomatic effort to attempt to convince the Soviets to withdraw their intermediate nuclear forces. Strategically, the polarized political landscape of Europe demanded a balance of forces. Domestically, the polity of the Federal Republic of Germany reacted with overwhelming disdain for the NATO plan.16 Demonstrations in Germany and the United Kingdom put tremendous pressure on the ruling coalitions of Helmut Kohl and Margaret Thatcher. The United States sought negotiations with the Soviets but it insisted on intermediate nuclear forces (INF) deployments. The primary U.S. preference was for what became known as the zero option: no deployments of its forces and the removal of all SS-20s and their predecessors. This demand culminated in a walkout by the Soviet contingent on November 23. Subsequently, U.S. INF deployments were carried out as planned in the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, while preparations for deployment continued in Belgium. Ultimately talks resumed in January 1985, between U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Gromyko that led to agreements in 1986 and ultimately the INF Treaty of 1987, but the point remained that the United States was able to force deployment of this incredibly unpopular weapons system against the objection of its allies. Unipolarity brings an entirely different dimension of possibilities for alliance behavior ﬁrst for the unipolar power and then the unipolar power’s allies. As we have said, alliance structure is looser in a unipolar system than in a bipolar system and looser than even in a multipolar system. A unipolar power does not chain itself to its allies because it is questionable whether a unipolar power needs long-term allies. The INF experience also did not change the American approach to international organizations; by the end of 2002 the United States had “unsigned” the Rome Statute, derailed a biological weapons veriﬁcation protocol, and continued its battle against an independent European Security and Defense Policy. Unipolarity lends to increased ﬂexibility in the international system for both the unipolar power and its allies. After 1991, the United States participated in joint military operations in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia,

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Afghanistan, and Iraq. In each situation the coalition was exceedingly different and was constituted as a need presented itself. The unipolar power generally needs partners for certain missions, as U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stated, galling though it was to NATO members, that “the mission determines the coalition, and we don’t allow coalitions to determine the mission.”17 Prior to 1991, U.S. military operations were primarily predicated on either unilateral actions (Panama, Grenada) or conducted in the context of a preexisting military alliance. European security was all about NATO, the participants in the Vietnam War were largely determined by the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). After 1991, the new military alliances are purposive but short lived. U.S. operations in Somalia (Operation Restore Hope) saw its beginnings in the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM I). The mission developed into a broad attempt to help stop the conﬂict and reconstitute the basic institutions of a viable state. By 1992, almost 4.5 million people, more than half the total number in the country, were threatened with starvation, severe malnutrition, and related diseases. The magnitude of suffering was immense. Overall, an estimated 300,000 people, including many children, died. Some 2 million people, violently displaced from their home areas, ﬂed either to neighboring countries or elsewhere within Somalia. All institutions of governance and at least 60 percent of the country’s basic infrastructure disintegrated. The military forces tasked to support UNOSOM provided quickly incapable to provide the support necessary for humanitarian relief. President Bush responded with a decision on December 4, 1992, to initiate Operation Restore Hope, under which the United States would assume the uniﬁed command of the new operation in accordance with the Security Council resolution. The new uniﬁed task force (UNITAF) would be more aggressive than the UNOSOM personnel. The number of United States forces was expected to build to approximately 28,000 personnel, to be augmented by some 17,000 UNITAF troops from more than twenty countries. In addition to United States forces, UNITAF included military units from Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe. Flexibility was key to these countries’ evaluations of the international system, their interest, and their role in entering Somalia. UNITAF’s ultimate efﬁcacy is a story well known with the subsequent massacre of U.S. Special Forces troops predicating the U.S. withdrawal and ultimate failure of the UN mission. The point is that this unconventional force composition was able to be cobbled together in the aftermath of the Cold War due to the ﬂexibility inherent in unipolar alliance structures.

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Slavic Macedonians clashed with ethnic Albanian Macedonians after Macedonia’s separation from Yugoslavia in 1991. After renewed ﬁghting in early 2001, President Boris Trajkovski of Macedonia requested military support from NATO to enter Macedonia to provide stability. Starting on September 27, 2001, NATO forces were mandated to protect international monitors from the European Union and others overseeing the implementation of a peace plan. The operation consisted of approximately 700 troops from NATO member countries. On March 31, 2003, NATO’s peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was formally handed over to the European Union. While the United States participated, it was not clearly in charge. Flexibility. Recent U.S. operations in Afghanistan (Enduring Freedom) and Iraq (Iraqi Freedom) had two vastly differently coalitions themselves and compared to the rather conventional force structure in Macedonia and the veritable sample platter found in Somalia. Eighteen countries initially contributed forces to the follow-up to the U.S. operation in Afghanistan (the International Security Assistance Force): Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Albania, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Switzerland later offered troops.18 NATO formally took command of ISAF in August 2003. ISAF currently numbers about 9,000 troops from thirty-ﬁve NATO and non-NATO troop contributing countries. The so-called “coalition of the willing” in Iraq is of yet another composition. While the United States has provided the lion’s share of the personnel and material, troops were also provided by thirty-seven other countries: Albania, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Honduras, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Tonga, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.19 Twenty other states have provided political support usually in the form of cooperative basing agreements. Might there be a better way to evaluate the hypothesis that alliance conﬁgurations are indeed looser in the unipolar era? Bueno de Mesquita proposes a methodology to quantitatively assess the tightness of polarity.20 Bueno de Mesquita’s approach is predicated on the degree one state’s alliance commitments are similar to another state’s; negative values (bounded at -1) for this correlation, or similarity metric, mean opposite alliance

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choices and positive values (bounded at 1) mean comparable choices. Considering systemic polarity then, Bueno de Mesquita advocates the summing of these similarity scores for the major powers to ascertain the degree of alliance commitments similarity. Poles that are “tighter,” that is, with less ﬂexibility will have a higher sum of similarity scores relative to the number of country pairs considered. Alliance membership choice, unfortunately, has a great deal of inertia resulting in negligible variation. Most alliances endure for quite some time after the necessity for that relationship is far gone. Formal alliance patterns in polarity, therefore, still very much reﬂect alliance conﬁguration and the structural alliance tightness of the bipolar era. Indeed, the Correlates of War Alliance data set indicates a decided difference in alliance tightness between the multipolar and bipolar periods but relatively little difference between the bipolar period and the ﬁrst ten years of unipolarity.21 In addition, our proposed theoretical dynamic, alliance ﬂexibility, is more nuanced than Bueno de Mesquita’s broad-based time serial measure. Alliance ﬂexibility, therefore, is given a qualitative treatment in this analysis. The alliance conﬁgurations to which the United States is party are surveyed and demonstrated to be a great deal more ﬂexible than alliance of the bipolar era. The necessity of foreign troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will eventually end, and with it the necessity of the ad hoc military coalitions that initially occupied them following the displacement of the previous regimes. Afghanistan is now technically under the command NATO, a more permanent military intergovernmental organization, but the fact remains that the United States’ position in building (or joining) military coalitions was eminently more ﬂexible than in the years during the Cold War, or for that matter, than any other major power beforehand. Flexibility also allows the possibility of withdrawal from alliances where it once would have been unthinkable. Unipolarity presented the structural conditions by which the United State military found it possible to withdraw from its treaty commitments in Iceland. Early in the Cold War in 1951, the United States signed a bilateral agreement with Iceland. Since the signing of a joint defense agreement with the United States, Iceland has relied for protection on the U.S. naval presence at Keﬂavik on the southwest coast. Throughout the coming decades, Iceland’s geostrategic position for the North Atlantic and Barents Sea were invaluable for U.S. bases and for serving as the linchpin to the U.S. Navy’s underwater listening line through the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom corridor. The critical detection game played by the U.S. and Soviet navies was won by the United States in no small part due to the detection lines. Iceland provided the critical strategic base for monitoring the activities of the Soviet navy in the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea. At the end of the Cold War,

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as the United States considered repositioning its defense assets, Iceland actively lobbied to continue the presence of the United States military on its soil, which consisted of Kevlavik Naval Air Station’s contingent of F-15 ﬁghter jets and several helicopters. When the Bush administration announced in July 2003 that U.S. forces would begin to be withdrawn, Iceland convinced NATO Secretary General George Robertson to intervene and suspend the withdrawal.22 This move would only be temporary though. By March 2006, the United States renewed its plans to withdraw the remaining military forces from Keﬂavik, leaving Iceland with no substantive military defense and precipitously increasing tension between the alliance partners.23 Iceland’s economy will be affected in having 600 displaced employees and nearly $260 million less per year. Diplomatically, Iceland’s Ambassador to the United States reports that the U.S. pullout is an abrupt change from ongoing negotiations and that this change of events is deeply disappointing. What are we to make of this “abrupt decision”? Critics of the administration might say this is typical of an administration that started off as isolationist and maintained that isolationist stance even as it moved to take unilateral actions. On the other hand, the air base at Keﬂavik had outlived its usefulness and was shut-down to funnel money elsewhere to fulﬁll a greater Department of Defense priority. Our point is that the strategic relevance of a military asset is irrelevant in deciding when to honor alliance commitments. The United States could make this choice because Iceland is not likely to re-ally itself with al-Qaeda, China, and certainly not Russia. Due to the unipolar conﬁguration of power, Iceland has no other power to turn to in order to ﬁll the gap in its Gross Domestic Product and defense grid. During the bipolar era, the United States was forced to maintain all alliances because of the zero-sum nature of international politics, even alliances that provided no additional strategic advantage or alliances that would prove to be unsavory. This is no longer necessary in a unipolar system. Summary In and of itself, polarity determines nothing. As a structural condition, however, polarity has a powerful conditioning effect on the spectrum of possibilities for state decision makers. A key decision to promote security, acquire power, or cement preferences is in the decision to choose allies, be they formalized relations or understood special relationships. The ease with which these relationships are formed or broken is affected by the distribution of power and the coalitional tendency of the international system. Counterintuitively, alliances are quite ﬂuid and ﬂexible during unipolarity

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compared to the sclerotic alliance structures found during bipolarity. During bipolarity the relative distribution of power was much more certain than during multipolarity—in bipolarity one side’s gain was probably the other side’s loss. Multipolar international systems are not characterized by this zerosum perspective, with component states being far less certain that an alliance change will adversely affect their national security, which allows for more ﬂexible alliance relationships. Unipolar systems have the potential for even more ﬂexible systems of alliances. Cases from the previous decade demonstrate the ﬂexible potential for alliance formation.

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CHAPTER 6 BINDING AND RESISTANCE IN A UNIPOLAR SYSTEM

S

o far, we have established that it is very difﬁcult for states to constrain the unipolar power. Balancing is difﬁcult to achieve and likely to be disrupted by the unipolar power’s actions. Bandwagoning does not limit the unipolar power’s actions—it only encourages the unipolar power to share some of its gains. Alliances could restrict the unipolar power’s activities, but the unipolar power places less value on alliance commitments than other states do. As a ﬁnal effort, lesser powers could try to use international law to bind the unipolar power. As a realist might expect, however, the stronger power resists international law, often successfully. This chapter states, develops, and evaluates a hypothesis that the unipolar power resists international law more than great powers in other systems, while other states in a unipolar system are more likely to accept being bound by international law than states in other systems. Hypothesis

Hypothesis 4: The non-unipolar powers accept the constraints of international law more than they would in a nonunipolar era, while the unipolar power rejects such constraints more than great powers would in a nonunipolar system. International law is not a concept that many realists treat with respect. Law, rules, and norms are not material factors, so they are unlikely to affect the outcome of international disputes. International law can, however, serve one realist purpose: to make international politics more predictable. The goal of international law, or binding (to use a term more familiar in realism), is to restrict the freedom of action of another state “in the hopes of ensnaring it in a shared framework of norms and rules.”1 Binding occurs when a state seeks to “ally with the rival for the purpose of managing the threat by means of a pact of restraint.”2 States can use binding to restrain any other state whose

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power and/or behavior seems dangerous. The European institutions, as initially conceived, are a classic example of this. From its beginning, what is now the European Union aimed at restraining Europeans from being able to go to war against each other. Lord Ismay spoke famously of the triple nature of NATO: “to keep the Russians out,” a standard goal of any defensive alliance, but also “to keep the Germans down and the Americans in.”3 NATO would bind Germany to its neighbors, making it more difﬁcult for it to become an independent threat. NATO, in fact, bound all of the Europeans together: protective American presence in Europe was a prerequisite for reducing security competition among European states. In the bipolar period, NATO also bound the United States, limiting its ﬂexibility to make a separate arrangement with the Soviet Union. Binding does not guarantee any of these beneﬁts, but it helps states manage threats by making them less likely to develop without warning. Binding is a strategy open to other states as they face American power as well as peer and lesser powers. If the United States can be induced to accept the constraints of international agreements, then it would be less likely to take independent action that could be threatening to other states. This would help make the use of American power more predictable. Some states seem to be following this strategy, as they urge the United States to sign agreements such as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) or to accept the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as the ﬁnal judge of the legitimate use of military force. Binding can also be seen in economic agreements, in which the United States agrees to abide by the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and in the Kyoto Protocol, which would restrict American use of fossil fuels. Binding is an option also available to the United States: the United States can try to embed its competitors in rules as well. Acceptance of the rules signiﬁes acceptance of the status quo represented by those rules. American engagement with China in the 1990s included work to bring China into the World Trade Organization. WTO procedures would bring Chinese economic policy into agreement with international standards. The American reaction to the nuclear arsenals in the non-Russian successor states to the former Soviet Union, on the other hand, did not include concessions to any interests those countries may have had in retaining those weapons. Those states—Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus—were told to give up their nuclear weapons and join the nonproliferation regime as nonnuclear states.4 Binding is not the same as appeasement or engagement. Those strategies both involve some level of concession to the other state’s demands. Engagement is a strategy of “peaceful revision undertaken by established

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powers in an effort to accommodate the legitimate interests of a rising, dissatisﬁed power.”5 Engagement aims at altering the power-seeking rival’s calculations by reducing the gains it can expect if it tries to change the status quo. Appeasement is a strategy that tries to achieve the same goal by granting the rising power some of what it wants, thereby lessening the relative value of additional gains and inducing reluctance to sacriﬁce the gains already achieved. These gains, however, place the rising power in a position of greater power, which it can use to demand more change in the status quo. Appeasement may also lead the rising power to believe that the other states are not strongly committed to the status quo: if they yielded on one point, they might yield on others. Munich is the classic case for misguided appeasement, as Hitler was not satisﬁed with the Sudetenland, and followed the conference by occupying the rest of Czechoslovakia and launching World War II by attacking Poland.6 Appeasement is not a realistic strategy for other states to use in dealing with the United States because a unipolar power by deﬁnition cannot be a “rising, dissatisﬁed power.” While the unipolar state’s power may be increasing in absolute terms, and even in relative terms, the unipolar power is already alone in the ﬁrst rank of powers. The unipolar power dominates the international system, and for the most part the unipolar power is satisﬁed with that status quo. Indeed, the unipolar power is likely to resist change in the system because any change may threaten its position. Binding is less likely to backﬁre than appeasement, but it is also less likely to succeed. Binding promises status and future gains while yielding nothing that can be exploited. In other words, it tries to change the state’s interests and goals from immediate power to the promise of future power. There is little incentive for a power-seeking state to be bound in that way, and little incentive for it to remain bound in the future, unless some side beneﬁt is received—such as the economic aid received by the former Soviet states in exchange for giving up their inherited nuclear arsenals. Binding is a strategy more likely to work on equals or lesser powers than on a greater power. Binding encourages a state to accept constraints on its freedom of action in return for some beneﬁts. These beneﬁts would need to be signiﬁcant in order for the bound state to agree, and they would need to be rescindable in order for the bound state to remain bound. Individual states cannot offer enough beneﬁt to a stronger state for this to be an effective strategy. Binding might be somewhat more effective if accompanied by the formation of a balancing coalition—what one state cannot offer or withhold might be within the capacity of a group of states. By itself, however, binding is unlikely to be effective. The difﬁcult process of trying to get North Korea and Iran to give up their nuclear programs illustrates the limits of binding.

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A unipolar power has fewer structural constraints on its actions than it would have in a bipolar system, so it has less interest in accepting mutual constraints. This is consistent with the prior argument on alliance tightness. In a multipolar or bipolar environment, mutual binding may be useful, even given the risk that ties do not fully bind. Great powers in those systems may be uncertain about their ability to address threats, so accept restrictions on themselves if they also restrict other powers. A unipolar power, on the other hand, believes it has enough power to address threats on its own, so it is less interested in reciprocal constraints like arms control and the rules of international institutions. The unipolar power would be unlikely to make compromises needed to achieve international agreements. Nevertheless, the unipolar power may have one reason to accept being bound by other states—such acceptance might reduce the chance that other states will balance against it. The unipolar power prefers that others bandwagon with it rather than balance against it. While we have already demonstrated structural reasons why bandwagoning is more likely than balancing, the unipolar power could increase this tendency by accepting binding as a way of demonstrating that it poses little threat to other states. Michael Mastanduno has argued, “The dominant state in any international order faces strong temptations to go it alone, to dictate rather than consult, to preach its virtues, and to impose its values. . . . In a unipolar setting, the dominant state, less constrained by other great powers, must constrain itself” lest it undermine its position.7 Power-seeking can backﬁre, as the unipolar state expends its power and gives other state additional reasons to try to resist its dominance.8 One way the unipolar power could constrain itself is via international institutions, which the unipolar power can use to signal its benevolence: “if the façade of multilateralism renders the rule of an extraordinary power more palatable to ordinary powers, as it did during the Gulf War, international organizations are a strategic asset.”9 Unilateral behavior is particularly dangerous, in this view, because it would tend to provoke the security dilemma—one’s own efforts to improve one’s security leads other states to conclude that they must take action to improve their own security; in the end no one is more secure and all are more suspicious.10 Huntington argues that self-binding would also help shape a post-unipolar world by improving the odds that the other powers in the coming multipolar world would be less hostile toward the former unipolar power.11 One objection to this strategy of self-binding is that other states are not going to be fooled into ignoring the unipolar state’s power. Velvet gloves do not hide the iron ﬁst well. Even a defensive strategy requires interventions by the unipolar state, which reminds other states of its power. Another objection to self-binding is that it seems contrary to the state’s

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goals of enhancing power to the point of primacy.12 Realism’s driving assumption is that states will take advantage of opportunities to expand their power. How then can a state pass up such opportunities, or even worse, agree to limit its own power? This seems likely to happen only in rare situations, where the unipolar power accepts that others’ power will be limited as much or to an even greater extent than its own, as with the worldwide ban on chemical weapons.13 A unipolar power would not want to limit itself in hopes of winning goodwill from other states. This would only encourage other states to challenge its power. A power-seeking state would be better off displaying Machiavelli’s virtu, impressing others with its daring and power. By expanding its power, the unipolar state increases its ability to encourage bandwagoning by sharing its gains, demonstrating to potential balancers that they will gain more from joining it than ﬁghting it. The main danger to the unipolar power’s position in the system is a coalition of all other major powers, but such a grand coalition will be hard to assemble as long as some such powers are feasting on what the unipolar power casts aside. Because the unipolar power perceives little need to bind others, and little gain from binding itself, it will look to its own strength rather than to institutions and law. Price leaders, analogously, are also far less willing to accept binding than other ﬁrms. Dominant price leaders have the capacity to stand on their own and set a price of their choosing based on their own marginal cost/marginal revenue calculation. Binding price leaders is the goal of the other lesser oligopolistic ﬁrms. The essential metaphor presented from economics is intentionally not a monopoly. Monopolies imply concentration of all meaningful value such that the monopoly ﬁrm has no constraint whatsoever. Price leaders are simply the largest among the large. Binding imposes some constraint in return for a tangible beneﬁt. The bound ﬁrm must need the beneﬁt the binder is promising. Returning to the three possible conﬁgurations of price leadership, when there is one dominant ﬁrm, binding will be far less likely. However, in the case of more competitive price leadership models, there is the possibility for interaction between the leader and some large members of the market. However, as we have already established that the dominant ﬁrm model is the most relevant one for unipolarity, this case is unlikely. Evaluation While the 1990s were not accompanied by direct balancing of American power, the period included increased attempts to build international law in ways that would restrict the use of American power. These efforts also

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began to create an alternative structure of legitimacy—based on right, not might—that would devalue American power. This use of international law was qualitatively different from its use during previous eras. During the Cold War, there were few efforts to build binding multilateral international law—or such efforts did not receive major power state support. These efforts also tended to carve out exclusions for the United States and Soviet Union. Instead, during that period, the United States supported the creation of a wide range of international organizations, which regulated certain functional areas (such as telecommunications), provided a forum for discussion, and helped to solidify the status quo.14 The United Nations Security Council, while ineffective in authorizing military action during the forty years between Korea and Kuwait, helped to rein in both American and Soviet power (though both used military force many times in the interim). The end of the Cold War and the dawn of unipolarity brought two changes. The ﬁrst was the increase in efforts to create true law-making organizations—those that moved beyond traditional understandings of sovereignty to bind members without their consent. Second, the United States opted out of these efforts and of international institutions in general. Binding can occur in three ways. First, through declaration that a given point of law should be considered customary. Custom is well accepted as a basis for international law. The Statute for the International Court of Justice says the ICJ “may apply . . . international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law, [and] the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations” in addition to “international conventions . . . establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting states.”15 Second, through non-consensus rule making, in which some states parties to a convention can impose rules on all states parties, usually via weighted voting or supermajorities. Third, through one state or group of states refusing to cooperate with other states if the latter violate an agreement to which the ﬁrst state(s) is (are) not a party.16 Some of this binding is more effective from a realist perspective than others. Declarations of customary law are only as effective as their enforcement. While the principles for establishing a law as customary are somewhat hazy, it is difﬁcult to make the argument that a law is customary if the strongest power rejects it. Nevertheless, a unipolar power would not promote the application of customary laws on other states, in order to avoid establishing a principle that could be used against it. The unipolar power, the strongest, has less need for law than others. Voting-based application of rules is a stronger form of binding, since the unipolar power would need to either accept the new rule or opt out of the institution. One would expect the unipolar power to oppose such mechanisms, or to

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establish a veto power for itself in the organization. Denial of cooperation is the most effective form of binding. Even a unipolar power must work with other states to achieve its goals. If they decline to work with it due to the unipolar power’s non-ratiﬁcation of an international principle, then the unipolar power is constrained. One would expect the unipolar power to try to undermine such stances on the part of other states. Imposition of Law by Custom Customary law is deﬁned by “state practice . . . and a belief that such practice is required, prohibited, or allowed . . . as a matter of law.”17 The 1907 Hague Convention recognized that not all laws could be captured in treaty, so at the behest of Feodor Martens of Russia a clause was added stating that even if states do not adhere to the Convention, “the inhabitants and the belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience.” This principle justiﬁed what otherwise would have been ex post facto prosecutions of Germans and Japanese after World War II. As Justice Robert Jackson noted at Nuremberg, the principle that murder is unacceptable dates back to Cain in the Western tradition.18 As the Red Cross has deﬁned it, state practice is deﬁned by the ofﬁcial and public actions and statements of governments, including the claims and charges they bring against other states.19 Once a practice becomes “general,” that is, followed by the states most interested in or affected by the practice, it might reach the threshold for customary law.20 The second element of customary law is the belief that these practices are required. This belief could be seen in the justiﬁcations given for certain actions, or the justiﬁcations for the claims and charges against other states.21 If the belief is widespread that a generally followed practice is in some sense mandated, then customary law may be created. This customary law may then be held to bind states even if they have not signed a treaty commitment to follow it. Only persistent and consistent rejection of the practice, which argues against the very notion that the practice is customary, can avoid such binding. Thus deﬁned, customary law can hardly bind a unipolar power. If the single largest power in the world rejects a practice or principle, it can hardly be held as customary in law. While the United States is the only country that has not ratiﬁed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, its provisions nevertheless would not bind the United States. This deﬁnition of customary law favors the United States, but smaller countries and international institutions argue that the resolutions of international

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organizations also state principles that should be considered customary.22 This concept borders on the notion of binding by majority vote, discussed in the next subsection of this evaluation. One example of disregarding “customary” understandings, as opposed to the letter of the law, surrounded the treatment of detainees from the war in Afghanistan, being held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. When photos of prisoners were released, to public outcry, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded, “I do not feel even the slightest concern about their treatment. They are being treated vastly better than they treated anybody else over the last several years and vastly better than was their circumstance when they were found.”23 He later noted that the detainees’ handling was “humane and appropriate and consistent with the Geneva Convention for the most part.”24 In the face of international criticism, the United States modiﬁed its interpretation slightly—agreeing that the Geneva Conventions applied to the Taliban forces, but not to alQaeda members.25 Nevertheless, because Taliban forces violated provisions of the Conventions, they were unlawful combatants because “they had not carried arms openly or been part of a recognisable military hierarchy” and thus were ineligible for status as prisoners of war (POW).26 The American arguments were not satisfactory to many experts, because under Paragraph 4.A.1 of the Third Geneva Convention, “members of the armed forces of a Party to the conﬂict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces” are entitled to POW status without exception. The Taliban clearly formed such a force, and one could even argue that al-Qaeda supplements to the Taliban were as well. The United States has rejected any outside review of its position, as required for ambiguous cases by Article 5.27 Finding this interpretation insufﬁcient, the United Kingdom decided to deny cooperation with the United States, declining to turn its troops’ captives over to the United States.28 The arguments about insignia, organization, and open carry of weapons apply better to the resistance and insurgents in Iraq under Paragraph 4.A.2 of the Third Geneva Convention; treatment of such detainees under American control at Abu Ghraib has been consistent with the notion that they are not covered by customary international law. American policy has at times behaved as if it wished customary law to be imposed on others, however. India and Pakistan, for example, as nonsignatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), were completely in their rights to develop and deploy nuclear weapons; North Korea’s 2003 withdrawal from that treaty left it legally free to do the same.29 This legal point has not prevented the United States and other powers from punishing those decisions with sanctions, denial of cooperation, and pressure to reverse these violations of the nonproliferation “regime,” the

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collective norms that deﬁne state behavior. At the same time, the United States has done very little to comply with its responsibility under Article VI of the NPT to work toward disarmament—as noted in Chapter 4, the SORT treaty of 2002 does not require the United States or Russia to destroy any nuclear warheads.30 To be sure, opposition to nuclear proliferation would be a realist interest of the United States in the absence of any such regime; so one would have difﬁculty determining whether American action was based on material or legal interests. The blind eye turned to the assumed Israeli nuclear capability exempliﬁes this, as does the acceptance over time of Pakistani and Indian nuclear arsenals. Customary law has also been pushed by the United States in other areas. For example, it supports the navigation rights of the Law of the Sea, and argues that they should be considered valid for the United States even though it rejects the natural resources and dispute resolution sections of the treaty.31 The United States also argues for customary respect for intellectual property and Western notions of individual civil rights, without accepting other countries’ arguments for environmental sovereignty or group rights. Finally, the United States rejects the notion that the death penalty or even the death penalty as applied to crimes committed by juveniles violates customary law.32 At the deepest level, of course, a realist would question the relevance of binding via customary international law. As seen in the case of covert mining of Nicaraguan harbors in the 1980s, a strong state can refuse to recognize the jurisdiction of an international court (where one even exists) and suffer no material consequences. International legal bodies may not like American treatment of prisoners captured in Afghanistan, they may argue that certain Geneva provisions should be applied even if the speciﬁcs of the case do not require it, but any rulings of that sort may be disregarded by a unipolar power. Binding is only effective if it has a material impact, meaning that it is enforced by other states’ actions. Imposition of Law by Voting Rather than Consensus Economic globalization opened a new avenue for binding American policies. Traditional treaty making preserves sovereignty by ensuring that agreements apply only to signatories. Such states may have given up an element of sovereignty, but they have done so voluntarily and with the knowledge that they can withdraw. The League of Nations, for example, required consensus in its decision making. The United Nations Charter chipped away at this by making Security Council votes binding on all members. The ﬁve permanent members of the UNSC retained veto powers, however, ensuring that they could never be forced into action by

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the organization—a right they have all guarded in the context of modifying UNSC membership. Economic organizations have been designed differently. World Bank and International Monetary Fund decisions are made by a weighted vote of the funding states—the more you contribute, the more your vote counts, but your country may end up funding projects of which you do not approve. The World Trade Organization (WTO) struck more directly at the heart of sovereignty: states may protest other states’ trade policies, and WTO decisions must be complied with by its members. If they are not, the WTO can authorize retaliatory or compensatory measures by the victimized state. These WTO decisions are not controlled by states, and both the United States and European Union have been on the losing end of its rulings. This is not unusual for member states of the European Union, already bound by rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and some Qualiﬁed Majority Voting within the European Council, but it was new for the United States. Similar provisions are mirrored in the dispute resolution mechanisms of the North American Free Trade Agreement.33 Voting mechanisms have extended into other areas of international law.34 When the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) set up the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons in 1997, it was outside U.S. control—the Conference of States Parties elected the fortyone members of the Executive Committee, which in turn could recommend a Director-General and deny challenge inspections. While the United States might have expected to be repeatedly elected as a representative of the “Western and Other” group, this was not guaranteed; even as a member of the Executive Committee it could be outvoted.35 Similar provisions adhered to the Multilateral Fund of the Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting chemicals. The Fund provided transition assistance to new members; its decisions were made by a majority vote of developed and developing states. The United States had demanded a permanent seat on the committee, but did not get it: instead, the United States was assured representation by making the country a region of one state for purposes of electing representatives.36 The United States’ greatest movement away from consensus and vetoes in international law is found in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC subjects persons, not states, to penalties if they are either citizens of member states or commit certain crimes on the territory of a member state. Thus, an American who commits war crimes in Colombia would be subject to ICC jurisdiction even though his or her country is not a member. While the United States (and Colombia, depending on bilateral agreements) would have ﬁrst jurisdiction over such a case,

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the ICC could determine that the investigation was pro forma and take the case itself. As the Court came into existence in 2002, the United States reacted by vetoing renewal of the UN police-training mission in Bosnia because it did not have blanket immunity. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte said, “With our global responsibilities, we are and will remain a special target, and cannot have our decisions secondguessed by a court whose jurisdiction we do not recognize.”37 The United States suggested giving each UNSC permanent member veto power over prosecutions of its own citizens—a provision the United States had advocated unsuccessfully in the Rome Statute.38 France and Britain proposed a compromise in which the UNSC would vote one year of blanket immunity for peacekeepers from all non-ratifying states, a privilege already granted to states that had ratiﬁed. The United States accepted this after two weeks of brinksmanship.39 The next option for the United States was to seek bilateral agreements under Article 98 of the statute, protecting its citizens from being turned over to the court. President Bush signed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act (ASPA), which said U.S. government agencies could not “cooperate with the International Criminal Court, . . . extradite any person from the United States to the International Criminal Court, . . . [or] provide support to the International Criminal Court.” American forces could not be part of peacekeeping operations unless exempted from the ICC or justiﬁed by an overriding national interest, and the United States could not provide military aid to non-allied ICC states parties unless they agree to Article 98 exemptions. The ASPA even authorized military action against the Netherlands, stating that “The President is authorized to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any [American or allied person] who is being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court” for activities related to their “ofﬁcial actions.”40 American objections to the ICC ran much deeper even than this, however. Future American Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told the Senate: “Our main concern from the U.S. perspective is not that the prosecutor will indict the occasional U.S. soldier. . . . Our main concern should be for the President . . . and other senior leaders responsible for our defense and foreign policy. They are the real potential targets.”41 U.S. ofﬁcials could be investigated for their choice of strategy, as some international lawyers suggested could have been done over U.S. use of depleted uranium and targeting of water supplies during the 1999 Kosovo campaign—which did not have UN authorization.42 Bolton pointed to the deﬁnition of aggression as a problem for both the United States and Israel, and Ambassador David Scheffer, the Clinton Administrator’s lead diplomat

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negotiating the Statute, agreed. He said the United States must be able to “enforce international law [without being] subjected to spurious claims of violations of international law for having done so.”43 The crime of aggression could, in principle, criminalize American national leaders for deciding to use force.44 The deﬁnition of aggression was left to be decided later—by a 7/8 vote of States Parties, according to the statute; other crimes could be deﬁned and added by the same vote. The ICC could bind the United States by deﬁning crimes despite American objections. Imposition of Law by Denial of Cooperation International law is most effective when it prevents state action as opposed to merely criticizing such action. Because international legal bodies rarely have the ability to mandate compliance, enforcement is left to states. One way to bind states is to refuse to accept their abstention from an otherwisefollowed element of international law.45 For example, the United States is not a signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty, but states’ interpretation of it has successfully restricted American use of those weapons. The United States is not a member of the Council of Europe (CoE) or a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, but those institutions’ position on the death penalty has led European countries to refuse to cooperate with the United States in the prosecution of persons accused of terrorism. Finally, as noted above, provisions of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have led to widespread disagreements between the United States, United Nations, and States Parties to the ICC. The story of the Mine Ban Treaty is worth describing in full, as it is a classic example of this switch in legal tactics. Prior efforts at conventional arms control had been located in the Committee/Conference on Disarmament (CD). The CD, as an organ of the United Nations, made decisions by consensus; its agreements reﬂected the least common denominator. Thus the original Protocol II of the Convention on Conventional Weapons, addressing land mines, left a lot of ambiguity in some of its provisions. Land mines could not be used if their impact on civilians “would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” and with remotely delivered mines “effective advance warning shall be given . . . unless circumstances do not permit.”46 Even these limited restrictions were not accepted as late as 1993 by several major states, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy.47 After a grassroots effort to ban the production, transfer, use, or stockpiling of land mines began to gain traction, the CD revised Protocol II in May 1996. From the standpoint of activists, this was a dismal failure. The United Kingdom wanted to ban only dumb mines, not those that would

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deactivate after some time.48 The United States agreed, and also wanted to allow the use of land mines “along internationally recognized borders or in demilitarized zones.”49 France wanted to reserve the right to later use land mines if it deemed them necessary.50 In the end, the Protocol left most restrictions up to the discretion of the user. It said that “All feasible precautions shall be taken to protect civilians” from land mines.51 “The indiscriminate use of [land mines] is prohibited,” with indiscriminate including “not on, or directed against, a military objective; employ[ing] a method or means of delivery which cannot be directed at a speciﬁc military objective; or which may be expected to cause [harm to civilians] . . . excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”52 This left a lot of room for interpretation, especially as “military objectives” were also self-deﬁned: “any object which by its nature, location, purpose or use makes an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a deﬁnite military advantage.”53 This had been the typical means of multilateral arms control, and indeed of international law in general: powerful states left loopholes for themselves and put no means of enforcement in place. The 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty may have been the most notorious example, as the nuclear weapons states granted themselves permission to continue to have the weapons while agreeing not to help any other states get them.54 The only limit on their own arsenals was an agreement “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”55 The 1975 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) lacked veriﬁcation provisions; the American position continues to be that it is inherently unveriﬁable. Bilateral treaties between the United States and the Soviet Union, on the other hand, were loaded with strict binding and veriﬁcation mechanisms: the great powers would bind each other, but resisted binding by international bodies. The UN system was designed to protect sovereignty, to prevent states from being bound against their will. The Mine Ban Treaty (MBT) marked a change in this view of international law. In October 1996, ﬁfty states agreed in Ottawa to an NPT-esque “commitment to work together to ensure the earliest possible conclusion of a legally binding international agreement to ban antipersonnel mines.”56 At this point, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom all wanted to keep the work in the CD, where they could ensure that they would be able to continue using antipersonnel land mines for force protection.57 By the next spring, however, both European powers had changed

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their view of what was “the most appropriate international forum” for this effort.58 They now supported Canada, Norway, and most other Ottawa participants in negotiating a treaty outside the UN system. This was duly signed in December 1997, after American objections were set aside in September.59 Russia and China had not signed by the end of 2004, nor had many states involved in continued risk of conﬂict: India and Pakistan; North and South Korea; Iraq, Kuwait, and Iran; Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Egypt; Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia; and many others, including Finland in Europe.60 This appears to be nothing but a simple voluntary treaty, in no way binding on the United States. Interpretation of the treaty, however, has the effect of binding U.S. policy. Italy and other states interpret the MBT’s provisions as prohibiting the United States from positioning land mines for use in conﬂicts, such as in the Balkans. Turkey, ratifying in 2003, also concurs with this view.61 In practice, the United States cannot use land mines as it might wish—and movements to ban weapons the United States ﬁnds more useful, such as cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons are underway.62 Both campaigns model themselves after the land mines movement, including embedding the campaign in the CCW. These interpretations contrast with how American allies addressed the NPT. The NPT could reasonably be interpreted as prohibiting the positioning of American nuclear weapons in Europe during the Cold War— especially Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles in West Germany, Belgium, and Italy, but also other nuclear weapons in the Netherlands, Turkey, and Greece.63 These were nonnuclear weapons states, and according to Article II of the NPT, they were “not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly.” One can argue that these countries did not have “control” of the weapons . . . but “transfer” seems to include situations that do not include “control.” The NATO allies rejected this interpretation, and in the run-up to the NPT extension conference in 1995, new European Union member Sweden dropped its long-held view that such deployments violated the treaty.64 NATO and the EU continue to follow this interpretation, thus not binding the United States in this case as it does with land mines. Outside the direct area of security, European conventions have blocked American policy. All EU member states have abolished the death penalty, which is also a membership criterion for the Council of Europe (CoE) since its adoption of Protocol 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, prohibiting executions or death sentences except in wartime in 1983, with entry into force in 1985.65 On June 25, 2001, the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE passed a resolution that “requires Japan and the

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United States of America: i) to institute without delay a moratorium on executions, and take the necessary steps to abolish the death penalty; and ii) to improve conditions on ‘Death Row’ immediately, with a view to alleviating ‘Death Row phenomenon.’” The CoE threatened to revoke the two countries’ observer status if they did not do so. While such expulsion might be only a minor embarrassment from a realist perspective, it has a more concrete impact. “Death Row phenomenon” refers to Soering v. UK, July 7, 1989, in which the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that simply being on death row—awaiting death for an indeterminate amount of time—itself amounted to inhumane and degrading punishment. This precluded Soering’s extradition to the United States; since then Europeans have declined to extradite suspects unless the death penalty provisions were waived. In more recent years, this policy has been extended to include refusing to assist criminal investigations, such as that of al-Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, if the accused could face death if convicted using European-provided evidence. Globalization of the world economy may yield another way for Europeans to impose their preferences on the United States. The United States, unlike all other major industrialized states except Australia, has not ratiﬁed the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Subsidiaries of American corporations operating in signatory countries would, however, be required to meet European standards in their production techniques and in their sales. Some compliance costs thus are borne by American industry; these costs were one of the objections against the Protocol since it was completed in 1997. Summary International law is a weak means of restricting the actions of a greater power. Nevertheless, it is the only tool available to weaker powers, and so they are willing to sacriﬁce some of their own freedom of action in hopes that the limits will become mutual. This hope is in vain. The unipolar power does not believe it needs law because it can simply exercise its power, so it is not concerned about reciprocity. The United States has rejected even customary interpretations of the treatment of prisoners of war. It has resisted the new movement to build law by voting rather than consensus—while other states give up their sovereignty, the United States clings tightly to its own. The only effective binding of the United State has been to use international law to justify noncooperation with its policies. In these cases, law becomes a weak form of balancing, one in which the unipolar power continues to try to ﬁnd loopholes.

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CHAPTER 7 DEFENSIVE ADVANTAGE IN A UNIPOLAR SYSTEM

M

ost of the previous chapters have discussed unipolar paradigms in which the weaker states have the initiative: they have the choice of balancing or bandwagoning. Those states seek alliances, while the unipolar power avoids commitment. Those states try to bind the unipolar power with international law, and the unipolar power resists. The unipolar power has choices of its own. Like all states, it seeks power; like all states, it seeks to make rational choices about how to gain power. The fundamental question for the unipolar power is whether or not its expected gains outweigh the expense of seeking more power—and whether or not the actions of other power-seeking states are likely to threaten its position. Most of the time, the answers to these questions are negative: it is difﬁcult to gain power, and perhaps not worth much effort when you already have a large advantage over other states. This chapter develops and evaluates a hypothesis that during periods of defensive advantage, the unipolar power will bystand from most conﬂicts, to an even greater extent than states do under other conﬁgurations of power. Hypothesis Hypothesis 5: When the unipolar power perceives that defense has the advantage, it will bystand from external conﬂicts to a greater extent than great powers did in other eras. Balancing, bandwagoning, binding, benevolence: all of these are tendencies of the international system, but they leave the question of why states choose one of these behaviors over another unexplained. The ﬁnal two hypotheses—the one stated above and the one discussed in the next chapter—predict what the unipolar power will do, depending on its systemic context. Context is more than polarity. Context also includes the material factors that make offensive action more or less proﬁtable.

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The unipolar power, like the price leader it is analogous to, exists in a simple strategic setting. One of its goals is to preserve its market share, but that does not mean that it will be passive. It will also use its power to prevent or deter the rise of competing ﬁrms, thus, it must continue to grow and expand. While a bipolar system discourages power expansion by the great powers, a unipolar system encourages expansion. A unipolar power’s internal efforts to increase its already preponderant power discourages others from trying to match that power. A unipolar power’s external efforts to increase its power seem unlikely to be met by organized or effective balancing. This is Labs’ paradise: power vacuums appear plentiful, wars go well, and the few constraints on unipolar behavior can be overcome with minimal effort.1 As with any paradise, however, this one has its limits. Filling one power vacuum reduces the power left to ﬁll others. Wars may not all go well, constraints may require more effort to overcome than expected, and every expansion creates more quo whose status you must defend. Eventually, the unipolar power may suffer absolute losses in power, pulling it back toward the level of other states.2 By itself, this could be a very long process—Rome did not fall in a day, after all. A more immediate check on unipolar power could be the reaction of the lesser powers. Because the unipolar power has no peers, it need be concerned only with rising powers. The unipolar power must decide how to respond to such a state—by countering it, by accommodating it, or by ignoring it. Robert Jervis argues that state behavior may turn on perceptions of whether or not offensive or defensive military power has the advantage, and whether or not one can tell the difference between offensive and nonoffensive capabilities. Offensive advantage, as he deﬁnes it, means, “it is easier to destroy the other’s army and take its territory than it is to defend one’s own.” Defensive advantage, on the other hand, means, “it is easier to protect and to hold than it is to move forward, destroy, and take.”3 Jervis believes defensive advantage is the most common situation, meaning that attacks can be stopped, a unit of defensive effort costs less than a unit of offensive effort, and success does not create exploitable gains. Even states following the expectations of offensive realism would generally hesitate to launch a war in such a situation, because success would be unlikely. This situation should be relatively stable, as long as states accurately perceive it. In fact, Jervis’s hypotheses are based more on perceptions of advantage rather than some objective measure; World War I is the classic case of states wrongly believing in offensive advantage.4 Offense-defense theory is somewhat controversial within realism. For one thing, it seems rather difﬁcult to measure objectively. One may begin with trying to understand the difference between offensive and defensive weapons, given that most weapons and military techniques may be used

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for either purpose—and that offensive capability is often a necessary part of a successful defense.5 The balance can be very difﬁcult to measure, or even deﬁne.6 In addition, any number of circumstances can allow an offense to win a battle or war, even if the defense has the advantage—superior training, tactics, strategy, surprise, even luck. It would also be unclear how much defensive advantage a weaker country might need to withstand a stronger one.7 Such subjective criteria, however, are not much different from trying to assess relative power or draw the line between the weakest pole and the strongest non-pole in a multipolar system. The concept’s reliance on perception also draws criticism. Realism seems to base its theories on material facts, not psychological phenomena—and if a proposition can be based on either perception or reality, then it is incoherent.8 This is also not a strong critique, however. Many core realist concepts—balance, threat, power, security, even national interest—have elements of subjectivity and preference incorporated into them. Neither Morgenthau nor Waltz believed that national leaders choose their actions objectively. Morgenthau advises realists to learn what national leaders are thinking and saying, noting that “as disinterested observers we understand his thoughts and actions perhaps better than he . . . does himself.”9 For Waltz, structure shapes the payoffs from different choices, but it does not direct them. In the same way, beliefs about the balance would become more important than the reality, as Jervis suggested in the ﬁrst place.10 Keir Lieber’s more recent critique argues that the offense-defense balance belongs to defensive realism. If so, it would not belong in this book, which uses the power-seeking variant of realism. Lieber argues that the offense-defense scholars believe mutual defensive advantage leads to peace because both (or all) states are secure. They then are able to avoid needless weapons spending and the risk of war through misperception. He asserts that these results apply only if you believe states seek security rather than power. Power-seeking states would not be so easily dissuaded, and at the very least would seek ways to alter the balance via technology. As he notes, “where political will and strategic effort are strong enough, war will ﬁnd a way.”11 While Lieber’s caution against overexuberance on the part of arms control advocates is welcome, he too easily rejects a place for the offense-defense balance in offensive realism. Even power-seeking states consider the likelihood of success before launching a war. The offensive-defense balance is part of that calculation. Lieber argues for a very narrow deﬁnition of the offense-defense balance, based simply on technology.12 While it may be fair for a realist to exclude factors such as military posture or even nationalism, by excluding other material factors, such as exploitability of resources and geography, she or he writes out concepts such as Mearsheimer’s “stopping

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power of water.”13 If one wants to do a global study of the balance, then it may be best to exclude such local factors. But war and power are situational, not global. The error of defensive realists is simply in hoping that mutual defensive advantage will lead to lasting peace. This book does not expect such a permanent situation, because the offensive-defense balance is ﬂuid and states try to turn it in their favor. It is reasonable to include it as part of a structural theory of international politics. Most of the time, defensive advantage is present—it is more difﬁcult to win gains than to defend them.14 In this situation, then, the unipolar power will be likely to stand aside from the danger—to hide from it, or pass the burden to others. Bystanding encompasses a strategy of buckpassing, in which “a threatened state attempts to free ride on the balancing efforts of others.”15 Bystanding also includes the concept of hiding, or distancing, in which “less directly threatened states will try to distance themselves from more immediately threatened states by refusing to coordinate their diplomatic and military strategies with the latter.”16 In general, bystanding includes simply ignoring the threat or declaring neutrality . . . trying to withdraw into isolation; assuming a defensive position in the hope that the storm would blow over; or . . . seeking protection from some other power or powers in exchange for diplomatic services, friendship, or nonmilitary support, without joining that power or powers as an ally or committing itself to any use of force on its part.17

A strategy of bystanding may be adopted out of a belief that the threat will be dealt with successfully by other states. This creates a collective action problem: the beneﬁts of eliminating or containing the threat cannot be withheld from states that do not help to address the problem. Thus, each state has an incentive not to participate in a coalition that is larger than the minimum required to meet the danger. This incentive to bystand is reduced if it is possible for the blocking coalition to protect itself by channeling the threat toward the bystanding states, or if the blocking coalition would fail without one’s help. Waltz saw bystanding, which he calls buckpassing, as a major impediment to balancing, because states then let others handle security threats—ﬁguring their relative position will improve as a result. Such allies try to divert an adversary toward other targets, on the assumption that the adversary will emerge from that conﬂict spent, if not defeated. There then would be plenty of time to intervene in the war, because it should be a prolonged conﬂict. Bystanding may also be based on a belief that the danger cannot be met directly, even in combination with others. The bystander believes that it

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can initially abstain from action, thereby avoiding conﬂict. At a minimum, it gains time during which it can build its own strength. The greater hope is that the aggressive state will become satisﬁed with the status quo after it has achieved some gains, and thus stop its campaign, or that it will become weaker during the campaign. Elements of this strategy, sometimes called distancing, can be seen in Stalin’s policies in 1940, but bystanding can be seen in many policies of neutrality. The neutral state asks to be left alone by other states, hoping that they will not attack. As with buckpassing, there is a collective action problem imbedded in distancing. The state concludes that it can gain what it wants without exerting effort. The difference between buckpassing and distancing lies in the speciﬁc nature of the rational decision. A buckpasser believes it will gain without incurring costs. A distancer fears it will lose more if it incurs costs. This distinction is fairly subtle, which is why we group both behaviors under the banner of bystanding. Waltz did not expect superpowers to bystand, because they cannot pass the buck to incapable minor states.18 This assumption does not fully hold in a unipolar world, although buckpassing is still seen as unusual. A state buckpasses if it believes that the threat to itself can and will be successfully met by other states. In a bipolar world, the superpowers do not buckpass because the primary threats come from the other bipolar power—or could be exploited by the other bipolar power. The unipolar power has less to worry about on that count, so it could fairly conclude that many threats were minimal enough to allow other states to address them. This principle holds true for normal state-on-state conﬂicts, but not for threats to the system itself. A threat that is less territorial—a diffuse assault on the unipolar power and its allies—might not be able to be met by the unipolar power. While this example implies terrorism, it could also apply to environmental degradation, weapons proliferation, or resource depletion. Engagement is another option open to the unipolar power and to weaker states confronting other states. The unipolar power, vested in the status quo of the international system, may ﬁnd greater beneﬁt in slightly modifying that system rather than risking war. American acceptance of Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons is one example. While the United States preferred to maintain the status quo of ﬁve ofﬁcial nuclear powers (plus Israel, by all accounts), the addition of two more states could be accepted if India continued opening its markets and Pakistan would help the United States advance its regional goals. The United States also tried to engage North Korea on the same issue, but the effort was less successful perhaps because the North Koreans’ demands went beyond what the United States was willing to accept. Engagement can also be seen in U.S. policy toward China in the 1990s.

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In a normal world of defensive advantage, the unipolar power can bystand from most problems. Few threats are severe, and growing states are likely to run up against limits to the growth of their power before they become extremely dangerous. With defensive advantage, the unipolar power encourages states to accept the status quo, binding them to it and even engaging with them to meet some of their demands. While the unipolar power would be fairly stubborn about the nature of the status quo, if defense has the advantage it also would be conﬁdent enough in its power to not be concerned about minor threats to the system. It will not risk its blood and treasure for minimal gains when they are difﬁcult to achieve. Evaluation Our analysis so far has focused on static effects of the unipolar structure. As expected, we have found a world system which is markedly more stable than the prior multipolar or bipolar eras. The United States, as unipolar power, resists constraints—neither international law nor tight alliance structures are helpful to a unipolar power because there are no powers that it seeks to bind with the same constraints. Very few other states try to balance the United States; most try only to enmesh it in networks of international commitments. Yet American behavior has changed over this time, from one of abstention from most international conﬂicts to launching a preventive war in Iraq. This shift coincided with the transition from President Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, but the shift is not due to personality. Rather, there was a material change in the nature of the threat perceived by the United States. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, alerted American policymakers to the danger posed by non-state actors, perhaps next time armed with even more destructive weapons. This section discusses American policy up to that point, one in which it perceived a general defensive advantage. The next chapter discusses the radical shift in American military behavior when its leadership perceived that offensive power had the advantage. We recall that Jervis deﬁned defensive advantage as a situation in which militarily “it is easier to protect and to hold than it is to move forward, destroy, and take.”19 In the latter years of the Cold War, the United States generally viewed the military balance as one where defense had the advantage. In Central Europe and Korea, American and allied forces faced larger Soviet and client forces, but this caused little concern since the traditional army rule of thumb is that an attacking force should outnumber the defenders by three to one to ensure success.20 This “rule” of course only makes sense if the battle is symmetric—if both sides are using similar equipment and tactics—but that was the situation the United States faced versus the

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Soviet Union.21 Superior tactics and training may have accounted for the Israeli Defense Force’s victories in its battle against larger Arab forces.22 The Sommesque stalemate of the Iran-Iraq war further reinforced the idea that equally matched armies could make little progress against one another. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States could feel secure in the 1990s that its forces were generally sufﬁcient to protect and hold territory against any conventional attempt to destroy and take—the United States had defensive advantage in wars against other states. The fact that no country (except a few close allies) had the ability to deploy conventional military force directly against the United States reinforced the advantage it would have in more remote areas. Those other states, however, also enjoyed a certain defensive advantage against the United States. During the Cold War, the most likely American state targets had armies strong enough to make American gains difﬁcult—as was shown conclusively in the Korean War, when the United Nations force could maintain only a stalemate against the combined Chinese and North Korean force. More signiﬁcantly, American forces also had difﬁculty making headway against guerrilla armies—as had all forces since the term was coined in the Peninsular Campaign of the Napoleonic Wars. While the United States could destroy any target in Vietnam, its ultimate goals, to move forward and take territory away from the Viet Cong’s control, were frustrated. This same lesson had already been learned by the French from Indochina to Algeria, and would be again by Israel in Lebanon. The secret to insurgent success was not to protect and hold speciﬁc territory, but to protect and hold its forces and popular support. After Vietnam, the United States avoided direct involvement in insurgencies, supporting governments from El Salvador to Zaire with money, weapons, intelligence, and training, but very few soldiers. Defensive advantage was mutual. This was also true of the Soviet Union, which could not launch a successful conventional attack and had its own difﬁculties with counterinsurgency from Nicaragua to Afghanistan. Nuclear weapons of course were a bit different. Nuclear weapons could not be used to move forward and take territory, but they were highly effective at utter destruction. With no defense against them—other than the limited and untested systems allowed under the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty—nuclear weapons were and are the ultimate offensive advantage. The logic of mutual assured destruction turned that around, however. With nuclear missile submarines as a ﬁnal weapon against national populations, a nuclear strike would culminate in one’s own destruction. Nuclear weapons were an offensive advantage, but a survivable second strike force neutralized them. Nuclear weapons could be used with military impunity against nonnuclear countries, but the political consequences of such a ﬁrst strike made it impractical.

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Jervis argued that a world of mutual defensive advantage should be relatively peaceful, despite the ambiguity created by weapons that could be either offensive or defensive. The Cold War era was peaceful in terms of superpower war, but both the United States and Soviet Union intervened by proxy against each other. The stark zero-sum logic of bipolarity drove this strategy. Any gain by the Soviet Union was a commensurate loss to the United States, so the United States provided assistance where anticommunist leaders were in danger; and vice versa. These conﬂicts were protracted. It would be very difﬁcult to defeat a determined insurgency, ﬁghting for some combination of beliefs and power on home territory. At the same time, the persistence of these conﬂicts suggested that rebellious groups also lacked an offensive advantage over their governments if those governments had access to military materiel. During the Cold War, the world contained a collection of stalemated, seemingly intractable conﬂicts. The United States was not eager to openly or meaningfully join these, despite opportunities in Central America. Exceptions to this general rule did not violate the premise of defensive advantage. The United States had easily occupied Grenada and Panama during the latter part of this period, and launched raids on Libya. All these opponents were tremendously overmatched, however—defensive advantage does not mean the defense cannot be overwhelmed. The American goal in the ﬁrst two cases was to replace an unwanted (and not very popular) leader of a very weak country and then depart. The goal in Libya was simply destructive punishment, which played to the strengths of American air power. These cases exempliﬁed what came to be known as the Powell Doctrine: use overwhelming force to rapidly achieve clear objectives. From the end of the Vietnam War to the end of the Cold War, the riskiest American intervention was in Beirut in 1982.23 American troops joined French and Italian forces to safeguard the evacuation of Palestine Liberation Organization members. A week after the multinational force returned to ships offshore, Christian militiamen massacred Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camps. The multinational force returned to Beirut, but with little mission other than to maintain a presence while the Lebanese tried to get Israeli and Syrian troops to withdraw. Over the summer of 1983, the Lebanese situation became increasingly dangerous, beginning with the car bombing of the American Embassy in April. What began with small arms ﬁre escalated into a naval bombardment—and the perception that the multinational force was siding with Christian militias against Islamic ones. On October 23, truck bombs exploded simultaneously at the American and French barracks, killing a total of 297 personnel. Four months later, the multinational force was gone.

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This mission, as much as Vietnam, shaped the lesson that this kind of thing is a bad idea. In 1992 Colin Powell wrote: We must not, for example, send military forces into a crisis with an unclear mission they cannot accomplish—such as we did when we sent the U.S. Marines into Lebanon in 1983. We inserted those proud warriors into the middle of a ﬁve-faction civil war complete with terrorists, hostage-takers, and a dozen spies in every camp, and said, “Gentlemen, be a buffer.” The results were 241 Marines and Navy personnel killed and a U.S. withdrawal from the troubled area.24

Beirut also foreshadowed the inherent advantage enjoyed by offensive terror attacks, but this lesson was not drawn. The United States concluded that the Marines simply had not been given enough security, and the whole tragedy could have been avoided if they had not been there in the ﬁrst place. It was far better to strike from the safety of the air, unless ﬁghting a truly overmatched foe like Panama in 1989 or Grenada in 1983—one week after the barracks bombing. A total of forty American military personnel were killed in those two conﬂicts.25 As the Cold War ended, and as the world became unipolar, Iraq conquered and annexed Kuwait in August 1990—the ﬁrst conquest of a member of the United Nations, and the ﬁrst annexation of any country since World War II (Tibetan independence, which ended in 1950, had not been generally recognized). Because Kuwait was nearly defenseless, Iraqi success did not undermine the concept of defensive advantage. In response, the United Nations authorized an American led force to liberate Kuwait. The war was not expected to be easy.26 It was. Despite expectations of thousands of deaths, only 148 were suffered by the United States, along with 145 non-battle deaths and 467 wounded.27 By any account, this must be seen as an easy victory, with the coalition decisively defeating one of the largest and most battle-tested militaries in the world. One might have concluded therefore that offensive technology was achieving an advantage over defensive. The coalition lost no aircraft in air-to-air combat, and only seventy-ﬁve to ground ﬁre and mishaps. Iraqi Scud missiles were inaccurate, and aerial bombardment demolished organized opposition on the battleﬁeld while deeper strikes hit Iraqi political, military, and economic centers of gravity. The culminating tank battles were so one-sided that the United States called a halt to the war in the face of television reports that this war was unfair to the poor Iraqi soldiers. The lessons of Desert Storm did not immediately lead to a shift in American perceptions. The United States held a numerical advantage sufﬁcient to overcome any generic defensive advantage. The open desert terrain was nearly ideal for a combined air-land battle. Air power had been devas-

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tating, but a large number of bombs and sorties (as well as offshore missile strikes) were required per target, and these were expensive to produce. While Scuds had proven to be an inaccurate weapon, the United States was wholly unsuccessful in ﬁnding their mobile launchers, and the Patriot air defense system, hurriedly modiﬁed for an antimissile mission, had been less effective than initially stated. The war was not pursued to Baghdad, in keeping with the limits of the UN resolutions, but the United States also had no stomach for pursuing the war into the Iraqi heartland and cities, expecting a very difﬁcult campaign there. Belief in defensive advantage was reinforced in Mogadishu in 1993. American forces had landed in Somalia in early 1993, in full glare of the international media, as part of a UN-authorized humanitarian relief mission. In its initial stages, this mission went well: convoys were protected and food was delivered. Mission goals shifted during the year from a purely defensive strategy to one of defeating the military groups that had been using food as a weapon in their war. American ﬁrepower could not be effectively brought to bear in the urban landscape. After twenty-one Americans were killed and mutilated by a local mob after their helicopter went down in the city, the United States rediscovered its distaste for “ethnic” conﬂict and developed an equal distrust of United Nations missions. When the Rwandan genocide began a year later, the United States had no desire to get involved, and the Belgian government had no desire to leave its peacekeepers there. While wars continued in Africa—Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, and Congo—without major power intervention, and while bombing of Iraq continued at a steady pace, the major arena for international security concerns in the 1990s was the territory of the former Yugoslavia. Neither of the 1991 wars, the short one in Slovenia nor the longer and bloodier one in Croatia, resulted in international intervention while they were waged. The European Union insisted on its right to address the problem,28 and the United States occupied itself with the ﬁnal days of the other superpower, including the Soviet coup against Mikhail Gorbachev and the ﬁnal lowering of the Soviet ﬂag at year’s end. Ethnic violence in Yugoslavia did not appear to threaten a major U.S. interest, while tales of partizan resisters tying down Nazi armies and a quick look at the terrain (clouds, mountains, trees, and towns) suggested a much tougher battle than in Iraq.29 As the theater of war shifted to Bosnia in 1992, European perceptions of interest became much different, even if their perceptions of advantage were not.30 Europeans and Americans were equally horriﬁed by the carnage, especially as inﬂicted on civilian prisoners. As the war went on, European (and American) publics came to support intervention more than their governments did.31 The United States could remain relatively

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detached—ethnic conﬂict in the Balkans had never been an important American interest, and there was little to suggest that it was now. Europeans wanted to end the conﬂict because the ten-year descent of Sarajevo from the Olympics to marketplace mortars mocked the peaceful, postmodern borderless paradise they were creating. On a more immediate level, the conﬂict was creating refugees into Union member states already experiencing anti-immigrant politics.32 As the Europeans adopted a dual track of peace negotiations and peacekeeping forces, they complained that the United States was undermining its diplomacy. All peace plans were predicated on partition, which the Americans argued was unjust. The recognized Bosnian government rejected such plans, preferring to ﬁght and hold onto hope for intervention—making a choice reminiscent of the Melians’, but with a stronger savior across the sea.33 The United States, distrusting UN mandates, did not provide troops to the Protection Force (UNPROFOR), although it did deploy a deterrent force to Macedonia. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger (James Baker having left to lead Bush’s reelection campaign) captured the Bush Administrations philosophy in September 1992: “Until the Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats decide to stop killing each other, there is nothing the outside world can do about it.”34 George Kenney, who worked Yugoslav issues in the State Department, wrote in the November 1992 Washington Monthly that U.S. policy was to make the United States “appear active and worried about what was going on there, and at the same time not give the impression that the United States were actually ready to do anything about it. . . . The aim was . . . good relations with the public.”35 Under Clinton, the United States argued for the entirely different strategy of “lift and strike.” It proposed lifting the sanctions imposed on Bosnia and Croatia, victims in the war, while leaving them on Serbia, and also launching air strikes against Serb and Bosnian Serb positions.36 Ground forces were out of the question for the United States—Warren Christopher inspired Samantha Power by describing Bosnia as “a problem from hell for which one cannot expect a solution from anyone.” Air power was the single area in which the United States was conﬁdent of an offensive advantage; it believed that a well-armed Bosnian defense could withstand the Serbs. By the end of 1994, the United States stopped monitoring the arms embargo in the Adriatic; while it did not lift the sanctions, contemporary observers assumed that the United States was covertly helping the Croatian military.37 British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd criticized this as “leveling the killing ﬁeld,”38 prolonging the war and producing more refugees. The European mission transitioned into ﬁnding a way to chain the Americans to its policies. In 1994 they found a way,

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by invoking the one vital American interest remaining in Europe: NATO unity. NATO was allowed to conduct air strikes, with UN permission, to protect aid and enforce the no-ﬂy zones. Both times it did so, however, the Serbs responded by taking peacekeepers hostage.39 The United States agreed in December 1994 to commit 25,000 forces to either evacuate the Europeans or enforce a peace agreement if necessary.40 The end came suddenly in Bosnia. The Europeans adopted a stronger preference for air strikes after the Serbs overran the enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa in mid-1995.41 Serb forces crumbled in Croatia under a sudden counterattack, which continued into Bosnia toward Banja Luka. In the face of air strikes and ground assault, the Bosnian Serbs agreed to the Dayton Peace Accords to preserve their remaining gains.42 The United States agreed to provide a portion of the peacekeeping forces, but kept the force under NATO control, not the UN.43 While the participation of Americans in enforcing a de facto Bosnian partition may be seen as a European victory, we also observe that the “winning” strategy was the American strikes combined with an indigenous ground offensive. This minor concession on the American side—troops were committed during peacekeeping, not the more dangerous UNPROFOR intervention, and outside UN command—allowed the United States to continue driving its bandwagon of choice, NATO. President Bush showed more concern over Kosovo than Bosnia. Just before he left ofﬁce—and just as he was sending troops to Somalia—he warned, “in the event of conﬂict in Kosovo caused by Serbian action, the United States will be prepared to employ military force against Serbians in Kosovo and in Serbia proper.”44 Kosovo remained relatively calm until the Serbs stepped up action against ethnic Albanian rebels in March 1998. United Nations diplomacy failed, and one year later NATO began bombing targets throughout Serbia. President Clinton justiﬁed the attack based on a fear that the war could spread and draw in Turkey and Greece, and most of all on the basis of NATO credibility: “Imagine what would happen if we and our allies instead decided just to look the other way, as these people were massacred on NATO’s doorstep. That would discredit NATO, the cornerstone on which our security has rested for 50 years now.”45 This would be purely a NATO operation—there would be no conﬂicts with United Nations leadership as there were over Somalia and Bosnia. Furthermore, the Kosovo operation was the ﬁrst true air war, as no ground troops were committed until Serbia capitulated in June. Initial movement toward a land invasion may have helped Slobodan Milosevic decide to surrender, but the tactics revealed a continued belief that a ground war would be too difﬁcult. While the war was a coalition effort, with potential vetoes by any NATO member, the United States shaped the

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strategy and provided the vast majority of forces.46 Much as the Europeans had trapped Clinton into Bosnia ﬁve years earlier, he now trapped the Europeans. Having accepted their call for action, he placed the onus for disrupting cooperation on them—and even Greece, Serbia’s closest friend in Europe, would not jump off the wagon. Initially, it appeared that President George W. Bush would avoid engagement even more than Clinton had. Most memorably, during a campaign debate with Vice President Al Gore on October 12, 2000, he backed away from an assertive foreign policy, saying “If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us; if we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us. And our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that’s why we’ve got to be humble, and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom.” He went on to disagree with the Haitian peacekeeping mission, and held as a model the Australian-led mission to East Timor, in which the United States provided only logistical support. He looked forward to the day when Europeans would take full responsibility for the Balkans. While later events have clouded the memory of this policy, as president, Bush initially followed this strategy. In March 2001, the United States announced its forces in Bosnia would be cut by 25 percent, and that it hoped to remove most of the rest within two years.47 Two months later, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the Washington Post he was “pushing” for the withdrawal of the remaining 3,300 troops in Bosnia because “the military job was done three or four years ago,” and American forces were becoming overstretched by these missions.48 By 2001, the transformation to unipolarity was complete and clear. Perceiving a defensive advantage in ethnic conﬂicts, the United States stood aside from those outside Europe: ethnic conﬂict would not spill over into American allies, and refugees would remain far from its shores. The United States could “defend” against such conﬂicts, without putting its troops at risk on the ground. On that basis, George W. Bush campaigned on a promise to do even less “nation-building” than Clinton had. A world of defensive advantage, lacking powerful revisionist actors, is very comfortable for a unipolar power. Summary While the United States was active in international security during the ﬁrst ten years of the unipolar era, its activity was very cautious. The United States did not seem to be very concerned with potential rivals—its security policy was unfocused. It addressed crises as they arose, from Africa to the Balkans. In many cases, the United States avoided taking action at all.

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When the United States did act, it took care that its troops would not be greatly at risk, ﬂying high-altitude air missions and avoiding the deployment of ground forces into hostile environments. These actions were consistent with a belief in mutual defensive advantage. Other states were unlikely to be able to gain on the United States, but it would be costly for the United States to try to increase its advantage. The status quo was acceptable.

CHAPTER 8 OFFENSIVE ADVANTAGE IN A UNIPOLAR SYSTEM

W

hile the unipolar power may be unduly complacent in a world of defensive advantage, its actions move to the other extreme if it perceives offensive advantage. If other actors can easily damage its power, then it must act forcefully to stop that threat. If it can use its own power cheaply, then the unipolar power is likely to engage in frequent conﬂict, wars it expects to win quickly and easily. This chapter completes our theory of international politics in a unipolar era by developing and evaluating a hypothesis of unipolar behavior during times of mutual offensive advantage. Hypothesis Hypothesis 6: When the unipolar power perceives that offense has the advantage, it will initiate and intervene in external conﬂicts to a greater extent than great powers did in other eras. While defense usually has the advantage, technological advances, geography, and lack of counterbalancing can sometimes yield an offensive advantage.1 In such cases it is difﬁcult to reach veriﬁable peace agreements,2 and “war will be proﬁtable for the winner.”3 In this case, offensive realism would expect states to take advantage of opportunities to expand their power. As Jervis says, “The only route to security lies through expansion. Status-quo powers must then act like aggressors.”4 Preemptive and preventive wars become common, because “the state cannot afford to wait until there is unambiguous evidence that the other is building new weapons.”5 Diplomacy is conducted by fait accompli.6 One might expect that a unipolar power would always perceive an offensive advantage, as it is stronger by deﬁnition than any other state. This is a misunderstanding of the concept, however. Even if we consider only conventional weapons, the unipolar power may not believe speciﬁc opponents are worth attacking, either because there is little to gain from war or because

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of a combination of weaponry, geography, and other factors. Permanent offensive advantage would signal something beyond unipolarity, perhaps even as far as empire. Nuclear weapons complicate the equation further. A nuclear-armed state would indeed be able to strike a nonnuclear state with impunity, although it might not achieve “exploitable gains” as a result. In a mutual nuclear situation, on the other hand, a preemptive strike may not eliminate the other state’s response, resulting in a stalemate. Offensive advantage is not a global or one-sided phenomenon. Power is relative and situational. The unipolar power may believe that offense has the advantage, while other states may not. This need not be a difference in perception, as between the Germans and French in 1939; it may be a difference in reality. The unipolar power may have access to technology that allows it to use its military freely, or the unipolar power’s dominance may stem from an unassailable geostrategic situation. Mearsheimer’s “stopping power of water” is an example of this, enhancing American defenses while attenuating its offensive advantages.7 Eurasian states may be more willing to act as a bystander to addressing American power than if one of their neighbors were the unipolar power, because geography bestows some defensive advantages on them. American technology overcomes some of those defensive advantages, but not enough to rule out bystanding as an option. A policy of confronting, or coercing, threatening states is oddly missing from recent literature on national strategies. It is possible for states to confront a threat, not concede to its demands, and try to force it to back down in the face of superior power—“coercive diplomacy” is the standard term for this. Confrontation may have received less thought than it deserves to because it does not seem like a wise policy among equals. In a bipolar world, attacking weaker states was risky because the other superpower would be available to back up the confronted state, although this was the logic behind American interventions in Central America and the Caribbean, from Guatemala to Panama, and behind Soviet interventions among its neighbors, from Hungary to Afghanistan. In a multipolar system, the same risk was possible, but less certain: thus Austria tried to deal with its Serbian problem in 1914 via confrontation, a strategy notable for its failure. Confrontation is an option open to the unipolar power, and a rather appealing one. The distribution of power suggests that the unipolar power should be able to successfully confront and coerce another state, especially when offense has the advantage over defense—but also because it has far more military power in most cases. It would do this when the concessions of engagement seem to be too signiﬁcant or unlikely to satisfy the rising power. Unilateral confrontation has more appeal than multilateral

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approaches because the power provided by allied states may be so low as to be consumed by the efforts of coalition maintenance. It also may seem unlikely that the rising power will be able to assemble its own coalition to wield power against the unipolar power. While confrontation implies an active strategy, it also encompasses a strategy of containing a threat. Containment is a policy of not granting the rising power its demands, while denying it allies or material support. This prevents the threatening state from gaining power, and may lead it to either unwisely provoke a confrontation, or to wither into a lesser threat. In a world where revisionists have offensive advantage, however, the unipolar power cannot bystand. Such powers, if left alone, are only going to become more dangerous. The unipolar power must blast them, either literally or by forming a containing coalition that denies them any gains. The coalition has advantages and disadvantages. The prime advantage is that it distributes the cost of addressing the threat among several states. The disadvantage is that the coalition partners are unlikely to add much material strength to the effort. The unipolar power needs some partners, if only for geopolitical considerations, but it does not need many, as discussed in Chapter 5. Furthermore, potential partners have a strong incentive to buckpass to the unipolar power, making minimal contributions to the effort. This incentive can be reduced only if the unipolar power makes side payments to coalition members, encouraging their bandwagoning. The unipolar power would need to balance these side payments against the expected gain of another having another bandwagoner—there is no need to encourage more bandwagoning than necessary, only enough to forestall balancing and reduce the cost of confronting rising revisionist states. Evaluation “Everything” did not change at about 9 a.m. New York time on September 11, 2001, but comfortable assumptions about American invulnerability did. Al-Qaeda had been known for some time—it had attacked American installations in Africa and the Middle East—but it was a distant danger. Now it was here, hidden and ruthless. Terrorists possess an offensive advantage, in Jervis’s words: “it is easier to destroy the other’s army and take its territory than it is to defend one’s own.”8 Terrorist weapons are inexpensive; their targets are high-value. The September 11 terrorist attacks cost al-Qaeda less than $500,000.9 The city of New York estimates the direct physical losses at more than $21 billion; counting lost lives and indirect losses they conclude more than $80 billion lost in the city of New York alone.10 Terrorist groups operate

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in secrecy; their targets are highly visible. Defense against terrorism is so expensive that al-Qaeda leaders can hide in Central Asian caves and harm the American economy with only a few videos that they release to Arab television.11 Jervis suggested that preemption and even prevention would dominate in a world of offensive advantage—there would be little eagerness to wait for blows to fall.12 The question was: did the United States have an offensive advantage as well? Military technology had continued to advance since the wars in Kuwait and former Yugoslavia, and those wars certainly suggested that precision aerial bombardment could yield a decisive edge. American ground forces appeared lethal in open terrain, but it was unclear how well they could be brought to bear in urban or broken terrain. Nevertheless, offensive advantage or not, the United States had little choice but to retaliate against al-Qaeda and its haven in Afghanistan. One must assume that terrorists were aware of both their own advantages on offense and American reluctance to commit troops. This, along with their radical goals, could explain the brazenness of their attacks. Initial fears that the United States would meet the same fate as the Indians, the British, and the Russians in the Hindu Kush proved unfounded in fall 2001. Air power, even against a foe as primitive as the Taliban, could support an indigenous offensive. Only a relatively few American and British special forces units were needed to overthrow the Afghan government. Although almost no place on earth is further from American power than Central Asia, the United States appeared to have an offensive advantage equal to the terrorists’. The only discordant note came at Tora Bora, when Osama bin Laden and Taliban leaders escaped. American advantage over the state of Afghanistan was overwhelming, but its ability to ﬁnd individuals or an organization was more limited. As a result, 2002 dawned on a critically dangerous and unstable strategic situation. With terrorists, offense had the advantage, and offensive weapons could not clearly be distinguished by the United States. Terrorists and their plans are difﬁcult to locate and difﬁcult to stop without a disproportionate expense. A terrorist attack, especially one involving chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons, has the potential to cause signiﬁcant damage. One could even argue that successful terrorist attacks create exploitable gains in terms of recruitment to the cause. Attacks by the United States, however, were similarly difﬁcult for terrorists to stop. The United States’ adversaries had not demonstrated an ability to defeat American military efforts regardless of the expense involved in doing so. American occupation of Afghanistan also put the United States in a better position to launch operations against other terrorist targets, and even other states in the region.

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In this world of double offensive advantage, realist behavior is one of preemption or prevention. The ﬁrst strike is valued over the response, by both sides. This is not even a security dilemma; it is an actual security problem. The incentive for ﬁrst strikes by the unipolar power becomes even stronger given that the terrorists are generally not considered to be rational actors, or at best ones that do not place a healthy emphasis on survival. Deterrence is unlikely to work with such actors. Unipolarity makes the situation even more intense when we consider how democracies typically address signiﬁcant challengers. Schweller has noted that democracies either accommodate rivals if they are also democracies, or build a countering defensive coalition against non-democracies. The outlier is Israel, with the June 7, 1981, Osirak bombing and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.13 Israel was not even recognized by its neighbors, and it was not able to arrange any real military alliances with other states. While the United States does not face the Israeli strategic context, a unipolar power, by deﬁnition, has few meaningful allies to turn to. Thus the structural pressure toward a ﬁrst strike, whether one wishes to call it preventive or preemptive, is very strong.14 These theoretical perspectives were reﬂected in the National Security Strategy of 2002 (NSS02), released in September of that year. NSS02 explicitly rejects the possibility of deterrence: In the Cold War, especially following the Cuban missile crisis, we faced a generally status quo, risk-averse adversary. Deterrence was an effective defense. But deterrence based only upon the threat of retaliation is less likely to work against leaders of rogue states more willing to take risks, gambling with the lives of their people, and the wealth of their nations. . . . Traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents; whose so-called soldiers seek martyrdom in death and whose most potent protection is statelessness.15

This language compares to President Clinton’s National Security Strategy of October 1998 (NSS98): Potential enemies, whether nations, terrorist groups or criminal organizations, are increasingly likely to attack U.S. territory and the American people in unconventional ways. . . . The United States must act to deter or prevent such attacks and, if attacks occurs [sic] despite those efforts, must be prepared to limit the damage they cause and respond decisively against the perpetrators. We will spare no effort to bring attackers to justice, ever adhering to our policy toward terrorists that “You can run, but you cannot hide,” and where appropriate to defend ourselves by striking at terrorist bases and states that support terrorist acts.16

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NSS02 goes on to recast preventive war as preemptive war. For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack. Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat. . . . We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction—weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning. 17

It goes on to assert that the damage from such attacks could not be easily absorbed: The targets of these attacks are our military forces and our civilian population, in direct violation of one of the principal norms of the law of warfare. As was demonstrated by the losses on September 11, 2001, mass civilian casualties is the speciﬁc objective of terrorists and these losses would be exponentially more severe if terrorists acquired and used weapons of mass destruction.18

NSS02 concludes that national security demands striking ﬁrst: The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufﬁcient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction—and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.19

These conclusions in favor of striking ﬁrst are repeated in the 2006 National Security Strategy (NSS06). The discussion, however, is left for only a few sentences, which more closely echo NSS98: Taking action need not involve military force. Our strong preference and common practice is to address proliferation concerns through international diplomacy, in concert with key allies and regional partners. If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. When the consequences of an attack with WMD are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize. This is the principle and logic of preemption. The place of preemption in our national security strategy remains the same.20

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This document places the danger more squarely with proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, and links it to the development of missile defense.21 Afghanistan was a just action, in the words of the EU.22 Pursuit of terrorists requires preemptive strikes, dispersing their cells and capturing its members even before they act. Preventive war, on the other hand, “refers to those wars that are motivated by the fear that one’s military power and potential are declining relative to that of a rising adversary.”23 Such wars are a reaction, in other words, to a perceived shift in power, which a unipolar power must avoid. Even if the attacks were aimed at other states, the unipolar power must get involved. Because of offensive advantage, there is a real possibility that the lesser power could be defeated. In this particular case, defeat may not mean conquest—although it could, in the case of Pakistan or Saudi Arabia—but neutralization. Such defeats can then be exploited by the challenger, making it more dangerous. This actually enhances the tendency for the minor powers to buckpass. “Hiding” might work, after all, and you believe that you will be supported without having made a reciprocal commitment. Thus we should expect that states who regard themselves as primary targets of the terrorist project—the West—would chain themselves to the unipolar power, actively participating in the campaign. States affected collaterally should adopt the more passive bandwagoning strategy of buckpassing, hoping the menace is defeated without themselves becoming a target. Al-Qaeda also posed an indirect threat to the American position. Layne has called it “the counterhegemonic balancing of the very weak,” which seems reasonable on both counts.24 Certainly the movement aims to balance against American power. If it were seen as successful, it could be seen as a rallying point for others. This is limited, to be sure, by its Islamic identity. If, however, regional governments made accommodations with it at the expense of American interests, other states could again consider the possibility of balancing against the United States. Yet al-Qaeda remains a vehicle for the “very weak,” and one with less appeal for states than for the masses. It threatens regional regimes as much as it does the global situation. Layne sees evidence of American hegemony in its ability to get other states to choose its side of the war, with the help of side payments; it may be more accurate to see this as bandwagoning.25 China, Russia, and others got a free hand in their battles against “terrorists,” in return for their permissive attitude toward American power on their borders. Central Asian states no longer heard so much about human rights, and Pakistan saw its nuclear program forgiven even after revelations about the extent to which it had proliferated the technology. Rather than join the balancer, states rushed to the American bandwagon, for protection and for the receipt of tangible beneﬁts.

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Terrorism’s perceived offensive advantage also prompted some states to help the United States. Difﬁcult as it is for the United States to stop terrorist attacks, Turkey, Morocco, and Indonesia have even fewer resources and present more inviting, if less valuable, targets. The Europeans saw the Balkans as their threat, and worked to chain the United States to it. With Islamic terrorism an even greater threat, and one now with an offensive capability greater than mere refugee ﬂows, they and others rushed to chain themselves to American operations. This continued even after Iraq: Germany may have opposed the latter war, but it leads the NATO far-outof-area operation in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda was the impetus for the EU common arrest warrant, and the Europeans have ﬁlled additional missions in the Balkans to free American assets.26 Lesser powers’ behavior is in line with realist expectations, as is the Americans’. Given perceptions of mutual offense advantage, it is not surprising that the United States attacked Iraq in 2003. Many reasons were given for this attack, and many reasons may well have interacted. The most strongly articulated arguments made prior to the invasion, however, were allegations that Iraq was close to developing weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein’s regime was linked to global terrorism. These two assertions interacted to produce a realist cause for action. Links with terror alone might justify an attack, because one must preempt the terrorists’ offensive advantage. Such links were somewhat tenuous, however, because no direct ties between Baghdad and al-Qaeda were publicly disclosed prior to the attack, and bin Laden had called for the overthrow of the secular Iraqi government. Nuclear weapons alone would not seem to justify an attack, as no prior nuclear program had been targeted by the United States. A nuclear state does not gain an offensive advantage on the United States, because it would be obliterated in response. A nuclear state might gain an advantage over neighbors, although the unipolar power might step in to extend deterrence to preserve the status quo. A nuclear state with ties to terrorists, however, would pose a different problem. If that state provided nuclear weapons—or other nonconventional weapons—to terrorists, they would gain an additional capability to harm the United States while the donor could maintain plausible deniability. Arguments were also raised that Saddam could not be deterred, although such arguments required sacriﬁcing the assumption that the Iraqi leader was rational and valued survival. It would be more accurate to say that a nuclear Iraq could deter American actions, much as even the conventional North Korean rockets aimed at Seoul seemed able to deter American action there. In this situation, realism would call on the unipolar power to preserve the status quo by preventing a revisionist force—Iraq or al-Qaeda—from enhancing its offensive advantage and negating the American offensive advantage.

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Given this, why did so many prominent academic realists oppose the war, most notably in a New York Times advertisement that was joined by non-realists as well? Mearsheimer and Walt have answered this question directly. They have pointed out that their opposition had nothing to do with realism, but rather with “America’s national interest.”27 Saddam was rational, they have written, and would not attack without good reason or against an adversary he thought could retaliate—and thus he could be deterred. His “defensive” invasion of Iran, they say, had been justiﬁed by Iranian provocations and fears of future Iranian strength. His invasion of Kuwait “was primarily an attempt to deal with Iraq’s continued vulnerability,” exacerbated by “Kuwait’s refusal both to loan Iraq $10 billion and to write off debts Iraq had incurred during the Iran-Iraq war,” and Kuwaiti overproduction of oil. Saddam did not use chemical weapons against people who could retaliate. They assert that Saddam could be deterred, even if he had nuclear weapons, and would not be so foolish as to pass them along to terrorist groups, especially al-Qaeda. Repeatedly, they wonder what has changed that people such as Secretary Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor Rice are worried about Iraq in 2003 when they were not a few years earlier.28 The difference is the change in perception from defensive to offensive advantage. As we now know, of course, Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, so the war was completely unwarranted on those grounds. Mearsheimer and Walt noted, presciently, War with Iraq would fuel anti-American sentiments in the Arab and Muslim world, making it easier for bin Laden and his ilk to recruit new martyrs to their cause. War with Iraq could also destabilize the region, and ousting Saddam would force the United States to occupy and police Iraq for many years.29

Mearsheimer and Walt correctly noted the risks of war; they could also have pointed out that acting in this way would turn other states against the United States. Under the logic of offensive advantage, however, this was a risk that the United States was driven to take—and American offensive advantage might mean that it would be easy to control Iraq after the war. Similar concerns left other states less eager to attack Iraq than they had been to overthrow the Taliban. One should not make too much of this, however: while American forces dominated this operation, as they had in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Kuwait, few American allies ofﬁcially opposed the war. These states, joined by neutral and somewhat adversarial states, simply refrained from supporting a UNSC vote authorizing the war. This did not stop the war, and so is difﬁcult to label as “balancing.”

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Aid to Iraq or active prevention of the American deployment would have balanced the United States. The former does not seem even to have been considered, and the latter involved only denial of transit rights by Austria, Turkey, and a few others. Only France, Germany, and some other countries took direct action against American unipolarity, and this was limited to proposing further independence of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)—a plan dropped under later American pressure. France did not balance the United States; rather, it engaged in the old practice of buckpassing. France was not unhappy to see Saddam go, but also was not willing to help. It was perfectly willing to let the unipolar power do the work, while pointing out the dangers of the unipolar power’s unilateralism to all who would listen. European buckpassing, and less-than-eager support where offered, suggests that most European countries did not share the American perception of impending offensive advantage for Iraq. Nuclear weapons had been in their neighborhood for years; and in fact were still in Russia, not that many EU powers worried about them any more. If deterrence works, defense would retain the advantage in a confrontation with Iraq. Furthermore, hiding seemed a more reasonable strategy in this case. Al-Qaeda targeted the entire West, but Saddam’s grievance seemed mostly aimed at the United States. Because France had already distanced itself from sanctions,30 aiding the United States would make it more likely that it would become a target itself. France and Germany were most prominent in opposition to the war, while the United Kingdom was most supportive. Structural realism may have difﬁculty explaining the actions of speciﬁc countries, but it need not do so. Strong bandwagoning, tying states to the American policy, may have two motives. One is a common agreement on the nature of the threat, of the offense-defense balance, and of the likely success of hiding. The other is a hope for gain from the operation, either through direct assistance from the Americans or through raised prestige. The unipolar power can inﬂuence the interaction of these factors, keeping in mind that it need assemble only a winning coalition. Those who do not help can be punished later. This occurred after the war, as buckpassers were denied rebuilding contracts. That announcement was immediately followed by a request to those same states to forgive Iraqi debt. Conventional wisdom was that this was a foolish policy: how can one ask for help from countries you just punished? Conventional wisdom was itself foolish, for it misunderstood the motives of states for gain. With punishment levied, many states agreed to forgive that debt to avoid further punishment.31 In a similar vein, the Chilean government believed the United States penalized it by delaying signature of a free trade agreement after it said it would not support a UNSC resolution to

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invade Iraq. One year later, when Secretary of State Colin Powell asked his Chilean counterpart for troops to send to Haiti, the Chileans were eager to comply and regain favor from the Americans.32 The unipolar power has many means of getting states to bandwagon with it. In the European context, we also see the regional balancing dynamic at work. Roughly speaking, the top three European states (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) ﬁnd it difﬁcult to reach a common policy because they are competing with each other. When they do attain consensus, it provokes suspicion among the other member states. With France and Germany already linked at this point, the United Kingdom worked to ensure that the United States remained part of the European equation. The next rank of powers—the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Poland—all sided with the United States and the UK against France and Germany. Those latter states found allies mostly among the smaller member states. Once again, perceptions of offensive advantage and an impending shift in that balance prompt the unipolar power to act, bringing along whichever states join the bandwagon. The unipolar power has little choice but to forcefully defend the status quo, because it has no peer allies to share the effort. Al-Qaeda’s radical attempt at balancing attracted few state-level bandwagoners of its own, because it seemed unlikely to succeed. We will never know if more success by bin Laden would have attracted more powerful allies to his cause; his agenda was not attractive to most states and his capabilities were insufﬁcient to the task. Because Iraq threatened only the United States, if anyone, more states were able to hide from the effort; the United States had to work harder to win bandwagoning states than it had with the common terrorist threat. Thus the unipolar power’s choice: it can allow other power centers to form, diminishing its power, or it can oppose all such power centers, thus expending its power directly and through side-payments. If it perceives an offensive advantage, then it will take action quickly. Even four years later, Bush noted: 9/11 changed my look on foreign policy. . . . It said that oceans no longer protect us; that we can’t take threats for granted; that if we see a threat, we’ve got to deal with it. . . . We can’t just hope for the best anymore. . . . Knowing what I know today, I’d make the decision again. Removing Saddam Hussein makes this world a better place and America a safer country.33

A military response would be less likely in the absence of a belief in offensive advantage, and the occupation of Iraq and the long elusiveness of bin Laden suggest that American offensive advantage is less dominant than believed. Even the ﬁve years and counting between major attacks suggests

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that terrorists also have less offensive advantage than believed. Even if the response is not military, it remains up to the unipolar state to protect its power and expand it where possible. Summary When offensive power has the advantage over defensive power, war is more likely. This perception on the part of the United States has contributed to its willingness to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States observed the offensive advantage possessed by terrorist groups—an advantage they held earlier in the era, but which the United States did not recognize until September 11, 2001. It concluded that it had to preempt and prevent such attacks, and it did so. In this context, American disregard for alliances and international law became most prominent, but this period also witnessed bandwagoning with the United States. Nevertheless, assertive behavior by the unipolar power makes other states more likely to consider balancing against it. The assertion of its power also spends it. A war in Iraq might be proﬁtable if it were easy and resulted in control of the country’s oil. With neither proving to be true, the unipolar power has spent its power without gain. That policy, if repeated, would undermine unipolarity, but the policy is not self-reinforcing. If the war in Iraq is difﬁcult, then the United States will make different calculations about the utility of military action. If the United States concludes that defense has the advantage after all—even if only for its own actions, even if terrorists retain an initiative—then it will return to the policies of the ﬁrst ten years of the unipolar era. That calmer behavior will preserve American power and reduce the impetus for balancing by other states.

CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION: THE UNIPOLAR FUTURE

T

he realist paradigm purports to study the world as it is, not as one might wish it to be.1 While many people wish power were distributed in a different manner, unipolarity is real. Realism, however, has avoided studying this reality. This book ﬁlls the gap in realist theory by extending structural realism to develop a theory of unipolar politics. Our theoretical contribution draws on neorealists’ own arguments as well as principles of microeconomics. We have presented and evaluated six hypotheses of international behavior in a unipolar world that answer our fundamental research question: What are the politics of unipolarity? These answers have shed light on our secondary research question: Is unipolarity likely to persist? After reviewing these ﬁndings and reﬂecting on their implications for both theory and reality, we conclude the book by reﬂecting on our ﬁnal research question: Is unipolarity good? Summary of Theory and Findings Our studies began by distinguishing between two often-confused concepts, “unipolarity” and “hegemony.” This confusion has contributed to the belief that the world is not unipolar, on the grounds either that the United States is increasingly unpopular or that it cannot get its way in all things, from United Nations votes to implanting democracy in Iraq. Clarifying the distinctions between the terms unipolarity and hegemony is important for maintaining intelligent discourse and for developing a structural theory. These terms lie on different continua of typologies. Polarity describes the distribution of capabilities within an anarchic order. In the international system, polarity refers to the number of states whose power is signiﬁcantly greater than others. We are all familiar with the bipolarity of the Cold War era from 1946 to 1990 and with the world’s multipolarity before that. Even in the heyday of the British Empire in the early to mid-nineteenth century, British power never exceeded that of its rivals in Russia or France to the degree that American power does today.

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Unipolarity, then, is simply a situation in which the capabilities of one country greatly exceed the capabilities of any other. Hegemony, on the other hand, describes an outcome of power relationships resulting from a combination of capabilities, will, and acceptance. Hegemony lies near the lowest level of such possible relationships, an informal structure of inﬂuence less than that of an empire or dominion. With hegemony, states’ choices are inﬂuenced by the preferences of another power and by the way that power shapes the incentives and disincentives for the state. In a more extreme system of power relationships, such as empire, states’ choices are controlled by a central source; in a less extreme system of power relationships, the classic balance system, states’ choices are freer. The confusion between the terms arises because the theory of international relations has frequently explored cases of regional or subsystemic hegemony. While hegemony has never included every country in the world, more bounded patterns of political inﬂuence have persisted at many times in history. Very often, these have corresponded to a regional or subsystemic unipolarity. The Soviet Union during the Cold War presents points along this continuum. The Baltic states and other Soviet republics were incorporated into the Soviet Empire—their policies were directly controlled by the central power, even though they had been previously independent or, as in the case of the Ukrainian or Byelorussian republics, were represented in the United Nations. Soviet relations with Eastern European states varied. Using Watson’s terms, the Soviets had dominion over Romania, leaving it relatively free to pursue an independent foreign policy; they had suzerainty over Hungary, leaving it relatively free to experiment domestically but keeping it in lockstep regarding foreign policy. At the outer reaches of the region, Finland, Austria, and Yugoslavia were independent of Soviet control, but accepted limits on their foreign policy—speciﬁcally, that they must remain neutral. If one uses “hegemony” to describe all of these relations with independent states, one loses explanatory precision but the core meaning of the exercise of power remains intact. The Soviet Union was also “unipolar” within its region, but no one would have used that term to describe it. While it seems reasonable to refer to hegemony as bounded in space, polarity is a global concept—or at least, global within the span of attention given by political scientists. Regional unipolarity seems awkward in Europe, because there is no obvious place to draw the lines—one could add all of Scandinavia to the region of Soviet unipolarity without losing accuracy, but also without convincing Danes or Norwegians that the lines made sense. It might be more reasonable to have described the United States as unipolar within the Western Hemisphere, but that use of the concept still seems degenerate and meaningless: the

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United States is unipolar within a region that does not include any other powers. The American example does, however, point to another distinction between unipolarity and hegemony. American unipolarity, at least within the Caribbean basin, is incontestable (though meaningless), but its hegemony did not extend to Cuba under Fidel Castro. Academic analyses of hegemony, as described in detail in Chapter 1, have more often been subsystemic than regional. The most commonly cited examples are British and American economic hegemony. In each case, the hegemon shaped parts of the international economic system according to its own preferences, and other states accepted the system’s rules for their own beneﬁt. This hegemony was not universal; the Soviet Union led an alternative to the American model, and British hegemony was shallow in many parts of the world. Where it existed, however, hegemonic stability was seen as good because it produced beneﬁts for other members of the system, created certainty or at least anticipation of outcomes among the states in the system, and reduced rivalry and warfare. Ultimately, however, hegemons would decline in relative strength, reducing their basis of control, leading to a crisis in the system and a more or less violent collapse. These past hegemonic cycles contrast with the current world situation for two reasons. First, to the extent that American hegemony exists, it is more pervasive than any recent version. While Osama bin Laden’s salaﬁsm, Kim Il Sung’s juche (self-sufﬁciency), and Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian republic challenge liberal economics and politics, no powerful state opts out of the system. Second, previous hegemonies were led by a strong power, but not a unipolar one. Hegemony requires strength, but it also requires will and acceptance by others. The United Kingdom of the nineteenth century was not militarily dominant. Its overall weakness, and dependence on long trade lines, gave it the will to set up a system that would preserve its power and allowed other states to accept the system as nonthreatening. The beneﬁts of the system, however, undermined it by allowing Germany, France, and Russia—and the United States—to gain relative to the United Kingdom. Such gains are normal, but Britain’s small lead over its many competitors hastened the end of the system. The United States also was not militarily dominant in the bipolar system, but it was willing to expend its power against the other great power, creating again a system in which its power was accepted by many other states. Thus, hegemony and polarity have been distinct in our analyses, and they remain so. Hegemony can exist, or not, in a multipolar or bipolar system. It can also exist in a unipolar system. Perhaps, in fact, it does. It is not central to our argument, but the United States may be a hegemon as well as a unipolar power. Certainly it lies at the center of a relatively

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uncontested set of security and economic institutions. Certainly it tries to shape those institutions to serve its own interests. On the other hand, those who argue that the United States is not a hegemon can marshal strong evidence as well. Setting aside the point that the United States cannot shape all world outcomes—no hegemon has been able to get its way on all issues—one can note that American will to shape institutions waxes and wanes. Some of our hypotheses explain this, noting that a unipolar power has less need for institutions because it can shape outcomes more directly through the use of its power. Those who reject American hegemony can also note that the United States is vulnerable economically in its dependence on both foreign capital and imported energy resources. This reduces its ability to shape outcomes. Finally, one can also note that American power seems to be less well-accepted than one might expect. Acquiescence to American power may be less thorough than in prior eras, or than to British power—those are questions left for a different book. We do not care to argue whether or not the United States is hegemonic. We assert only that it is the single great power in a unipolar system. The United States is the unipolar power because it is dominant in the two major measures employed by realists. American military spending approaches 50 percent of the world total. That ﬁgure understates American military dominance. It is the only country that can deploy a signiﬁcant portion of its military power to far-ﬂung regions of the world. Its military technology is a generation ahead of others’. Its military power extends to every dimension: land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. While the American economy is less dominant, it is still far ahead of its closest competitors in Japan, China, and Germany. This advantage extends to per capita GDP, where it is far wealthier than China, the only one of its nearest competitors that is growing, and even the European Union. The only true economic rival to the United States is the European Union, whose collective GDP exceeds the American based on exchange rate conversion. The EU cannot, however, be considered a unitary actor in world politics. While it has developed a single voice on trade policy and monetary policy (for the twelve of its twenty-ﬁve members that use the euro), wielding its power requires extended intergovernmental negotiation. Effective collective deployment of its military power is even more difﬁcult, despite the development of battle groups within its European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). Not only does deployment require international agreement, but the EU has chosen to remain mostly reliant on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for its planning functions. We do not denigrate the EU. Were it to become a federation with a central government that could direct its member states’ international policy, the world’s polarity would immediately become harder to classify. This seems unlikely, however.

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The United States also enjoys the advantages that usually contribute to international power. It has the world’s third-largest population, trailing only China’s and India’s. It has the world’s third-largest land area, trailing only Russia’s and Canada’s. It has fertile agricultural lands and mineral resources—including energy, despite its dependence on imported oil. Its population is well educated, uniﬁed as a single nation, and supportive of the current type of government. Neither its government nor its private sector is notably corrupt. Its population is growing relative to other industrial and postindustrial economies, which are likely to face a demographic crunch as its workforce ages; its population is growing more slowly than China’s or India’s, which, therefore, must maintain very high growth rates to increase their economic wealth. While the United States can dissipate these advantages—its budgetary and trade deﬁcits are the most troubling problem—its overall position is stronger than its rivals’. Given that the United States is a unipolar power, it seems natural that structural realism should develop a set of hypotheses for a unipolar world. Until this book, it has not done so. As described in Chapter 2, realists have instead resisted the conclusion that the world is unipolar and sought evidence of balancing by other states. In particular, some have advanced the concept of “soft” balancing, balancing that does not balance at all. We have suggested two explanations for this. One is the belief that unipolarity may be inconsistent with anarchy. Waltz suggested as much, and his argument has powerful consequences for the paradigm. If the system is not anarchic, than all the parsimonious hypotheses of structural realism become obsolete. If the system is not anarchic, then the characteristics of the units are no longer washed out of the theory. One would have to examine the different functions performed by different states, and the study of international politics would become as complicated as domestic and comparative politics. This fear seems ill-founded, however. Unipolarity is not necessarily inconsistent with anarchy—and our prime evidence for that is the current system, both unipolar and anarchic. Realists may also expend intellectual energy looking for balancing because they believe that balancing is fundamental to the paradigm. This is a poor interpretation of realism. Realism is based on three fundamental principles: states are the primary actors in international politics, states inherently have conﬂicts of material interest, and conﬂicts are resolved based on material capabilities. Realists diverge with respect to the relative importance of structure and agency, and structural realists diverge with respect to whether states seek security or power, but all realists agree on these basic principles. Realists agree that international institutions do not have power beyond their membership and that ideology and regime type are irrelevant. These basic principles have held from Thucydides

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to Machiavelli to Mearshiemer . . . but balancing is not one of them. Power balancing is either a technique followed by states in pursuit of their own goals, or it is the inevitable result of differential gains in power and emulation of great power strategies. Neither sort of balancing need occur quickly, if at all. Differential power gains take time, especially when one power is dominant. Power balancing is a technique inconsistently and inefﬁciently tried, and it is not the only option available to states. Waltz’s emphasis on balancing was not misguided, because he was observing a common pattern recurring in periods of normal state competition. His whole model was analogous to ﬁrms competing in a free market. In a normal market, ﬁrms compete for market share, viewing other ﬁrms as rivals to be overcome. This free market contrasts with a monopolistic market, which behaves more like a hierarchic system. Waltz did not consider, however, a market in which one ﬁrm dominates the others without being a true monopoly. In this price leader model, ﬁrms accept the largest ﬁrm’s dominance and adjust their business strategy to accommodate it. In this situation, competition is replaced by stability, and ﬁrms gain from being able to specialize. Firms survive less effectively than states, as Waltz has noted,2 and their dominance is less deeply rooted, even for a price leader. Probably the best analogy to unipolar politics is the dominance of Microsoft. Firms that tried to balance Microsoft—such as Corel—were overwhelmed. Firms that bandwagoned with it—such as Norton—prospered. Our ﬁrst and simplest hypothesis was that a unipolar system would be more stable than other distributions of power. This hypothesis followed the logic of Waltz’s theory of bipolar stability. Waltz believed a reduction in the number of major powers would lead to an increase in certainty. With only two poles, each could understand the power relationship better than if each had several rivals. With no other major powers, speculation about third-party behavior becomes irrelevant. Waltz’s theory goes deeper, however, suggesting that power concentration also tends to moderate the system because the behavior of other powers is less important. In a unipolar system, these beneﬁts are enhanced. There is no uncertainty about the outcome of conﬂicts involving the unipolar power, and the unipolar power takes less interest in the outcome of other rivalries. The unipolar power’s main concern is the maintenance of the system against change. Change is in itself bad for the unipolar power, which is generally satisﬁed with the system as it exists. None of this suggests that the unipolar world will be uniformly peaceful, just that the factors that tend to lead to violent conﬂict will be attenuated. Our evaluation of this hypothesis strongly supports our expectations. We developed four measures of stability: the number of annual disputes, the number of states that join a dispute, the duration of the disputes,

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and the intensity of the conﬂicts. We found that unipolarity correlates to a reduction in every measure of instability, based on the Militarized International Dispute (MID) data set. Our second hypothesis was that a unipolar period would be characterized by bandwagoning rather than balancing. We regard balancing as a strategy of opposition to stronger states. Given the differential in power between the unipolar power and other states, and the certainty regarding how a conﬂict between them would be resolved, balancing becomes a suboptimal strategy in a unipolar system. The gap between the powers makes internal balancing unlikely to succeed very quickly. Balancing coalitions could be formed, but to be effective, they would need to include most other states in the system. Given the rivalries between some of those states, it would be very difﬁcult to assemble such a system and one would reap few rewards from the attempt. The unipolar power can punish those who try to balance, and few states can be sure they would beneﬁt from the unipolar power’s overthrow by becoming a new great power. In this situation, a strategy of bandwagoning becomes more appealing. A bandwagoning state tries to gain power by supporting a stronger state—much as Norton has by developing applications that complement Microsoft rather than challenging it. While bandwagoning is risky, because the state is accepting a position of weakness, the risk is mitigated by the state’s inherent weakness from the start. The bandwagoner has little to lose, and if it is able to share in the unipolar power’s gains, it may increase its power relative to states that do not bandwagon. Given the dislike expressed for American dominance by foreign publics and elites, this seemed like a tough hypothesis for the theory. Rhetorically, leaders and publics want the United States to be balanced. One would thus expect to ﬁnd evidence of balancing. We develop four measures of balancing behavior: formation of alliances that exclude the balanced power, military spending that matches or exceeds the balanced power, developing weapons that counter the balanced power, and taking actions that materially impede the greater power’s goals. These measures do not include “soft” balancing, rejecting measures such as denial of legitimacy on the grounds that they violate realist assumptions. Contrary to public sentiment, but in accordance with our hypothesis, we ﬁnd very little balancing. China is improving its military, and Iran and North Korea pursue nuclear weapons. Iran has interfered with American goals in Iraq. This is not extensive balancing, however, because even cooperation between Russia and China has been minimal. Instead of balancing, we ﬁnd examples of bandwagoning, which we measure by states joining alliances that include the bandwagoned power, and states taking actions that materially assist the greater power’s goals. Countries continue to want to join NATO or

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cooperate with it, and many countries have cooperated with American goals in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the development and deployment of missile defenses. This prevalence of bandwagoning rather than balancing is unusual compared with other historical periods. While structural realism expects bandwagoning in a unipolar system, it does not expect the development of strong alliances. Hence the development of our third hypothesis: that alliance patterns in a unipolar system will be looser than they are in other conﬁgurations of power. Alliances exist to provide security, or to increase certainty, among their members. Weaker states have powerful incentives to seek strong alliances, because they may thereby ensure their survival. Stronger states may also seek certainty and protection. Alliances among states of roughly equal power may help the members use their power against other states, and the alliance increases the likelihood that the state will not have to face opposition by other members of its alliance. Those other states may also be less likely to join a coalition led by a rival power. All of these gains from alliances are, of course, prospective, both because the commitment may not be fulﬁlled and because the contingency may never arise. These beneﬁts are strongest in the bipolar situation, which most closely approximates a zero-sum competition for alliance partners. In a multipolar system, great powers prefer to maintain more ﬂexibility, and they also worry about multiple rivals. A unipolar power, however, has relatively little use for allies. Such states can offer the unipolar state little additional power, and there is no speciﬁc danger they help to hedge against. Alliances are more likely to enmesh the unipolar power in local quarrels, are more likely to create commitments to defend others rather than itself, and are costly to maintain. The unipolar power needs partners for its courses of actions, but these can be obtained via bandwagoning rather than the creation of formal alliances. With no rivals, these partners cannot join other camps. The dynamics of alliance patterns in other systems of polarity are already well known. Empirical measures demonstrate that alliances are tighter during bipolar systems than during multipolar systems. Quantitative measures require deeper examination, however. Throughout the nineteenth century, alliances were relatively ﬂexible. This began to change in the century’s latter decades, as Germany and France became entrenched in their rivalry and began to try to lock in the other powers. The powers that could—the United Kingdom, United States, and Japan—tried to maintain their ﬂexibility, contributing to the uncertainty of summer 1914. While a nonaligned movement existed during the bipolar era, it included no major world powers. Only China drifted from the Soviet system into a position of near-independence, and China was not a world power by most measures through 1990. The Soviet Union and the United States created a system of strong alliances, a preference for certainty that diverged

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from prior American policy and, to a lesser extent, from historic Russian ﬂexibility as well. As a unipolar power, however, the United States began to act without depending on ﬁxed alliances. NATO continues to exist and enlarge its membership via bandwagoning, but NATO has not been central to American coalition actions except on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. The United States prefers to engage with coalitions of the willing rather than to be tied down by formal commitments and consultations with lesser powers. Alliance preferences exemplify a more general pattern of behavior in the unipolar world. Minor powers recognize that balancing is unlikely to be worthwhile, but bandwagoning leaves them somewhat at the mercy of the unipolar power’s own preferences. Like ﬁrms in a market dominated by a price leader, states seek to limit the unipolar power’s freedom of action. This “binding” is similar to “soft” balancing: it attempts to make the unipolar power’s actions more costly without actually preventing it. International law is often the tool used by smaller states to bind larger ones. From a realist perspective, this use of international law simply adjusts the expected gains of different courses of actions by institutionalizing the response of other states. Thus, our fourth hypothesis: That the non-unipolar powers accept the constraints of international law more than they would in a nonunipolar era, while the unipolar power is unlikely to accept such binding. In a nonunipolar world, great powers may accept binding if they believe that other powers are thus also bound. This increases certainty and reduces the propensity for change, which may at times be desired by a great power. The unipolar power, however, does not place the same value on binding others, because it is less worried about them and trusts in its own power if it needs it. Binding can take three forms. One is the extension of customary law against the wishes of other states. While it is difﬁcult to declare law “customary” if the largest power rejects it, the United States has begun to reject even elements of international humanitarian law that it previously accepted as customary. The United States has, however, tried to assert customary law against North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, while ignoring or accepting the Indian and Israeli ones. This selective application of customary law exempliﬁes the unipolar approach: promote what it likes, such as navigation rights or intellectual property, and ignore the rest, such as undersea resource sharing or restrictions on the death penalty. The second form of binding is imposition of international law by voting rather than by consensus. The United States accepts the World Trade Organization’s policies, though with reluctance. It helped to impose the rules on chemical weapons, though these were created during the bipolar era. American opposition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) is partly based on its reluctance to accept the idea that other states could deﬁne crimes,

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such as aggression, and prosecute them against the United States. The third form of binding is the most direct: to refuse to cooperate with the unipolar power if it does not accept international rules. Examples of this include restrictions on the American use of landmines, despite its status as a non-signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty, European refusal to openly cooperate on criminal cases that could result in execution of the defendant, and perhaps in time insistence that American companies comply with the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. While other powers ﬁnd it difﬁcult to constrain the unipolar power, in normal times, when defensive power has the advantage over offensive power, characteristics of the system itself do so. Our ﬁfth hypothesis states that when the unipolar power perceives defense as having the advantage over offensive action, it will be relatively inactive, bystanding from external conﬂicts to a greater extent than great powers did in other eras. In a world of defensive advantage, it would be difﬁcult for the unipolar state to increase its power, but it would also be difﬁcult for other states to threaten the unipolar power. The unipolar power’s strategic environment is very simple. It will slowly increase its power, reserving its direct action for rising states that are foolish enough to challenge it. Defensive advantage encourages bystanding, and the unipolar power is well positioned to let others take the risks. This behavior is reassuring to other states, since it suggests that bandwagoning is not a dangerous strategy. Defensive advantage is normal, and it described the unipolar era until September 11, 2001. The United States believed that it was not directly threatened by most international conﬂicts, so it had little need to be concerned about them. The United States also applied lessons from Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia: other states could resist American power to a remarkable degree. With little to gain and much to lose, the United States avoided getting deeply involved in Rwanda or even the Balkans. Genocide did not threaten the system. It was not, therefore, important to a unipolar power. Desert Storm was not an exception to this trend. Even if one accepts the conﬂict as within the unipolar period, Saddam Hussein’s annexation of Kuwait threatened to give a dangerous regime a partial monopoly over world oil supplies. Even in that case, however, the United States did not occupy Iraq, a war it thought would be difﬁcult in the face of popular resistance. While the United States did eventually support its European partners in the Balkans, George W. Bush’s initial policy as president was to try to reduce that commitment. Our sixth hypothesis states, however, that when the unipolar power perceives that offensive power has the advantage, its behavior is much different: it initiates and intervenes in external conﬂicts to a greater extent than great powers did in other eras. Offensive advantage is unusual and

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is limited by geography and technology. If it has offensive advantage, the unipolar power may ﬁnd a strategy of confrontation appropriate. If other states have offensive advantage, on the other hand, the unipolar power is likely to take preventive action, or at least to very broadly interpret preemption. A world of offensive advantage creates a greater possibility of system change, and the unipolar power regards rearrangements of power as negative. This active unipolar power will not reassure other states that bandwagoning is a safe strategy. They may fear to risk balancing, and thus drawing the unipolar power’s jealousy on themselves, but they will at least want to explore other options. This perceived offensive advantage on the part of other states describes the world after September 11, 2001. The United States suddenly perceived its vulnerability and moved quickly against Afghanistan. Its success there was measured against the new sense of danger, and the United States redeﬁned its national security strategy to give it the right to act against even remote dangers of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The United States created for itself the project of remaking the Middle East into an area less likely to threaten the distribution of world power. Libya seems to have capitulated to American power, giving up its perhaps remote dreams of military power. American policies have made other leaders nervous. Iran and North Korea seem to have concluded that they need to develop weapons to deter American invasion. Europeans and others came to view the United States as a dangerous country, suggesting that it should be balanced. This did not quickly lead to actual balancing behavior, but it created the conditions under which balancing would be preferred to bandwagoning. Meanwhile, the United States expended a lot of power in the Iraqi occupation. Offensive advantage creates the conditions for a rapid erosion of unipolarity.3 This book has found support for all six of these structural hypotheses. We have developed hypotheses for international behavior in a unipolar world. These are derived from realism’s own logic and the metaphor of a price leader in a free market. Our results suggest that structural realism remains a viable theory of international politics, even in a world with only one major power and very little balancing of power. After considering alternatives to our explanation, the rest of this chapter will reﬂect on what this means for the study of international politics, as well as for international politics itself. Alternative Explanations As with any theoretical argument, it is reasonable for skeptics to consider alternative explanations to those offered by a theory’s proponents. We

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have addressed the structural realists and their quest for balancing in the main narrative, and will not discuss them further at this point. Instead, we consider ﬁve other alternatives. First, that the United States is not strong enough to be considered a unipolar power. Second, that war has been fading as a tool of international politics, regardless of polarity. Third, that liberal theories better explain international politics. Fourth, that personal politics—namely, the presidency of George W. Bush—explain these results. Fifth, that these results are insufﬁciently critical of theory and power, that they instead reify and perhaps even celebrate American power. While each of these counterarguments has some merit, none of them has the full explanatory power of our theory, and none of them offers a better explanation of international politics. The ﬁrst counterargument, American weakness, has several facets.4 We have addressed these to some extent already, but they are worth returning to. In its strongest, but most absurd, form, the argument is that the United States is not able to control world events. This illustrates the confusion between the polarity scale and the hegemony/empire scale. Polarity is a description of relative capabilities, not of outcomes. Just as the Vietnam War did not prove that the United States had less power than Vietnam, Iraq does not demonstrate that Sunni Arab insurgents are stronger than the United States. Power is situational and relative. Power can be resisted when a weaker actor focuses its full effort on one point, while the stronger actor must be attentive to many interests. American difﬁculty in Iraq also ﬂows from its expansion of its goals beyond what a realist would consider reasonable. During Desert Storm, the American goal was to expel the Iraqi military from Kuwait, restore Kuwaiti independence, and disrupt Iraqi attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction. These goals were fully realist, and they were met with relative ease. The American goals in Afghanistan and Iraq were more complex. In both countries, the United States wanted to overthrow hostile governments. This was a realist goal, and the United States again succeeded. The United States sought to disrupt non-state actors who supported radical Islam; the United States had success in disrupting them but has had great difﬁculty in bringing its full power to bear on these targets. Realist theory does not address non-state actors, however; for a realist, it would be enough for the United States to block the state sponsorship that gives such groups power. The United States also tried to create govern-ments that would be democratic and legitmate in the eyes of the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a goal that is alien to realism, and one that may lie beyond the capabilities of American power. A realist would advocate that the United States impose strong friendly governments and provide them with the capacity to rule and serve American interests. American pursuit of this strange

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ideological quest for democracy makes no more sense to realists than the rabid anti-communism of the Cold War, which was opposed by realists like Morgenthau.5 More generally, American difﬁculty in these areas illustrates the dichotomy noted by Kenneth Boulding: the power to destroy is not the same as the power to create.6 The lesser version of this critique of American strength points out the weaknesses in American power.7 The United States has growing budget deﬁcits, is dependent on other countries for critical resources (especially oil), and has an immense trade deﬁcit. Americans score lower than most other industrialized democracies on quality of life indicators, including infant mortality, literacy, and life expectancy. The simplest answer to this critique is that these problems illustrate the paths by which American unipolarity may fade and other countries may gain. Just as the United States is not omnipotent, one would never expect its power to be everlasting. These indicators, furthermore, are a sampling of problems that are no worse than others’ problems, as discussed in the early sections of this chapter. All states have weaknesses and dependencies; the gaps in quality of life measures are marginal and perhaps even irrelevant from a realist perspective. The second counterargument is best captured by John Mueller’s argument regarding the “growing obsolescence of war.”8 Mueller argues that war is best understood as a social practice, like slavery or dueling. As a social practice, it may be rejected over time. Mueller argued that this has already begun happening in parts of the world, particularly Western Europe—a trend that has been under way for 200 years. The destructiveness of the world wars drove the point home for Europeans; thus, the Cold War remained peaceful for industrialized countries. Wealth became a greater goal than power. This trend will draw in the rest of the world, until the remnants of war become more like criminal activities than warfare on a large scale.9 Mueller’s assessment would explain the decreasing incidence of war, and perhaps one could stretch his concepts to suggest an expectation of bandwagoning and the use of binding in international law. Mueller’s argument does not, however, easily explain why the reduction in war is global, why the United States still views war as an acceptable use of power, why the United States resists binding, and why the United States prefers looser alliance structures. While Mueller’s premise may well apply to one of the effects of unipolarity, it cannot explain as much of international behavior as our theory of unipolar politics. The third counterargument would suggest a triumph of liberalism. Liberalism argues that institutions can mediate the imperatives of realism, making conﬂicts of interest less likely to be resolved with violence. Democracy is one of those institutions, making it less likely that two democratic states would go to war against each other; in some versions

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of the thesis, democracies are less likely to go to war at all. International organizations may also mediate conﬂict. Some of the behavior we have documented may be explained by liberalism. For example, states have begun to use international organizations and law to bind each other. As democracy spreads, war would become less common. One might even argue that democracies would not balance other democracies, thus explaining Europe’s odd complaisance in the face of American power. Like Mueller’s theory, the liberal argument leaves gaps. Even if one stretches liberal conclusions to say that democracies would not balance each other, non-democracies would still be balancing the United States. The reduction in war outpaces the growth in democracy. And as with Mueller, the unipolar power remains an outlier in its resistance to strong international institutions. Liberalism does not explain as much of international behavior as structural realism does. A fourth counterargument would explain these gaps in other theories, which center on American resistance to institutions, alliances, and law. Perhaps the outlier is Bush; without him, the United States would fall into line. Bush—aided by his neoconservative advisers—chose to act unilaterally to militarily change the world to suit the United States. This, they claim, is in strong contrast to his predecessor, and represents a choice that other leaders would not have made.10 Chalmers Johnson sees Bush’s America on a full-scale drive for empire.11 George Soros asserts that the Bush principles are: “International relations are relations of power, not law; power prevails and law legitimizes what prevails. The United States is unquestionably the dominant power in the post-Cold War world; it is therefore in a position to impose its views, interests, and values on the world.”12 These are the principles of realism and statements of structure; Bush and the neocons invented neither. These arguments seem plausible only until one reviews the actual foreign policies of Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, rather than the myth that Clinton promoted “a world order based on the rule of law,”13 a notion one may link to President Woodrow Wilson as long as one also ignores the racist, revolutionary, and unilateral aspects of Wilson’s presidency.14 American unilateralism and disregard for institutions was evident under Clinton. Clinton recommended against ratifying the ICC, did not submit the Kyoto Protocol for ratiﬁcation even after eventually signing it, declined to sign the Mine Ban Treaty, maintained American exceptionalism on the death penalty, undermined NATO in Bosnia, ignored the United Nations on Kosovo and genocide in Rwanda, and bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, and Iraq. The United States resisted binding and fostered weak alliances before Bush became its leader. Europeans criticized Clinton repeatedly over these policies; it was in this era, after all, that hyperpuissant was coined. Bush has

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carried Clinton’s policies to their logical conclusion. Bush has also been president during a shift in perceptions of the offense-defense balance. Structure explains world politics better than agency. The ﬁfth counterargument addresses the philosophy of this study rather than its details. One could argue that a text on unipolarity simply accepts existing power structures, reiﬁes them, and gloriﬁes them for the sake of advancing American power. Structural realism was accused of the same things when Waltz argued that both bipolarity and nuclear weapons were good.15 This argument is correct in that we are not engaged in critical theory. We chose to examine structural realism as it exists, trying to take it to its logical conclusion. Our primary motivation, beyond the progression of this theory, was frustration that structural realists seemed to be disregarding both the reality of unipolarity and the simple meaning of terms like balancing. When this project began, we considered it entirely possible that the outcome would be an inability to develop structural realist hypotheses for a unipolar world, or that such hypotheses would not be supported. We considered this text a challenge to the established wisdom of realists; if you read it carefully you will note that we do not agree with many active realist scholars in our understanding of international behavior. In a sense then, this work is critical, but critical of recent realists rather than of the core of the paradigm. Along the same lines, one could argue that today it is inappropriate to study the world using realism. Realism does not seem to capture reality very well, after all. Realism, if held to its own standards, ignores non-state actors and ideology. It poorly grasps globalization and all the transnational issue networks that inﬂuence states. Even its insistence that states be treated as unitary actors seems anachronistic in this age of increasing democracy, media penetration, and international capital. While these same charges have long been levied against realism, they may be valid. We are even sympathetic—how can one say, with a straight face, that without Afghanistan as a state sponsor alQaeda does not matter? Our response is what realists and structural realists always offer: we seek a parsimonious theory based on limited assumptions. The assumptions may be inaccurate without invalidating the theory. The assumptions only come into question if the reality predicted by the theory does not match the observed reality.16 We seek to explain the behavior of states in the international system. If our explanations are convincing, then our theory and its assumptions may be sound. Implications for Theory Most of this book’s implications for the theory of international relations address the realist paradigm, structural realism in particular. Its conclusions, however, also have relevance for liberal and critical approaches.

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Our goal was to complete Waltz’s Theory of International Politics by ﬁlling in the one conﬁguration of capabilities that he did not consider: that an anarchic ordering principle is not inconsistent with unipolarity. We believe that we have succeeded. As we have shown, unipolarity is not the same as hegemony; hegemony in turn is not the same as hierarchy. Structural realism remains theoretically relevant to a unipolar world, and realists can study unipolarity while remaining consistent with the paradigm’s core principles. Scholars do not need to desperately search for signs of balancing, they do not need to soften balancing beyond recognition, and they do not need to stand watch for the ﬁrst glimmering of a new multipolar dawn. Our evaluation of six hypotheses indicates that structural realism is not only compatible with unipolarity, it also has explanatory power. Structural realism continues to offer a parsimonious explanation of world politics. The structural explanation is simpler and more consistent than one based on ideology or individual agency. It explains why meaningful balancing against the United States has not occurred, despite explicit calls for it from the leaders of other states and despite the increasingly unilateral and assertive policies pursued by the United States under Presidents Clinton and Bush. It explains the growth of NATO despite the collapse of its rival and neglect by its leader. It explains the increasing support for binding international law and the resistance of the United States to that trend despite changes in American leadership and the extent of threat perceived by the Americans. It explains the differences in patterns of intervention under two different American presidents. Just as our ﬁndings bolster structural realism against less-rigorous versions of the paradigm, they also counter liberal institutional explanations of world politics. While there has been a turn toward international law by weaker powers, we explain international behavior without recourse to international institutions. The United Nations, despite its many virtues as an advocate of principles, has remained ineffective as an agent of international security. The United States has ignored the United Nations at will, and Europe has done so when it wishes as well—wholeheartedly in Kosovo, more selectively in Iraq. NATO has been a focal point for bandwagoning with the United States, even as American actions have demonstrated its preference for assembling loose ad hoc coalitions rather than being constrained by institutional rules. While NATO remains a more vibrant organization than the United Nations, the United States is transforming it into an arm of its power—NATO is effective to the extent that the United States wants it to be. Liberal belief in the impact of democracy is even more tattered than its belief in international institutions. The United States, under Clinton and especially under Bush, has demonstrated conclusively that it is willing to go

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to war, even preventive war. These projects, even the war on Iraq, were joined by many European democracies. Those states’ leaders did so despite the strong opposition of their own voting publics—fear of electoral retribution, always the most convincing mechanism for democratic paciﬁsm, did not deter their action. The divide within Europe over Iraq also highlights the fallacy that democracies will band together in major conﬂicts. Finally, our ﬁndings caution against an overexuberance of critical theory. We agree that it is important that the roots and underlying biases of theory be examined. We have ourselves taken a hard look at the bases of realism in Thucydides and Machiavelli, and separated balancing from the central canon of realists. We also concur that the basis of material capabilities may change over time. Such change must be limited, however, by the assumptions of a paradigm. One cannot argue that institutions or cultural appeal have become the basis of power and remain a structural realist. If those factors have, in fact, become more important than economic and military strength, then structural realist hypotheses will not be supported. Until that happens, however, one should not be critical of a theory for being consistent. More strongly, we caution critical theorists against claims that these ﬁndings simply support American dominance. While the ﬁnal sections of this conclusion will discuss some of the good things unipolarity brings, they also recognize that it may be better to be a unipolar power than to be a lesser power in a unipolar world. The ﬁndings do not support unipolarity; they simply recognize it. A multipolar world is not constituted by wishes that it were so; unipolarity does not go away because one ﬁnds it distasteful. This book, in fact, points to ways that unipolarity can end, or be brought to an end. One is by wasting the unipolar state’s power on unnecessary military adventures: we deﬁnitely do not argue that a unipolar power’s best course of action is to be aggressive. The other way unipolarity can be brought to an end is by minor powers setting aside their differences and domestic interests and making a concerted effort to balance the unipolar power. These other countries have the ability to bind and balance the unipolar power, restricting its actions and reducing its relative advantage. Structural incentives make it unlikely that many states will try to balance, but if they decide to construct a different world order they may do so. This possibility of balancing is one of the ways our theory is falsiﬁable. If international conﬂict increases, our theory is not supported. If states begin blocking the United States rather than helping it, our theory is not supported. We would then need to reexamine the centrality of balancing to realism. If the United States begins accepting international limits on its power and preferring tighter alliances, our theory is not supported.

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We would then need to reassess whether institutions have begun to have power over state behavior. If the United States maintains an aggressive foreign policy in the absence of reinforcement of mutual offensive advantage, our theory is not supported. We would then need to reassess whether forces of belief and ideology overwhelm necessity. Implications for Global Politics We expect that unipolarity will continue. The American perception of its own offensive advantage seems to have faded as the Iraqi occupation soured. American fears of others’ offensive advantage also seems to have lessened. The United States is likely to return to policies more consistent with perceived defensive advantage, like those followed under President Clinton. The United States will return to bystanding from distant conﬂicts, exerting its power as cheaply as possible. With this return to the normal politics of defensive advantage, the United States will stop hemorrhaging its blood and wealth, and recover its position. Other states, for their part, will quickly forget any qualms about bandwagoning, and turn away from challenging the United States. The existing minor examples of balancing are instructive in this regard. No state is more clearly trying to balance the United States than Iran. As of mid-2006, it was defying international institutions and testing new weapons. As it has done so, however, it has attracted balancers, not supporters. Iranian actions hardened European resolve against its nuclear programs, and even Russia has moved away from Iran. North Korea has also attracted few friends as it pursues a stronger military arsenal. Venezuela under Hugo Chávez has so far avoided counter-balancing by keeping his opposition to U.S. power rhetorical. If Chávez were to begin building weapons to challenge the United States, openly support the overthrow of the pro-American Colombian government by its insurgencies, send Cuban-style expeditionary forces to counter American goals, or cut oil from the world market—in other words, if he began actually balancing the United States—his neighbors and friends would begin to distance themselves from him. Our theory suggests that unipolarity creates positive, reinforcing feedback for itself—unipolarity reconstitutes itself. Unipolarity creates incentives for bandwagoning, rather than balancing. Bandwagoning reduces the appearance of offensive advantage, or the fear that other states are trying to overturn the system. With defensive advantage, the unipolar power is less active, so it appears to be more benevolent and less threatening. This reinforces the trend towards bandwagoning, and reduces the likelihood that the

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unipolar power will quickly expend its power. All of these trends reinforce unipolarity itself, making it a potentially durable structure. Nevertheless, we are not saying that unipolarity would last forever. Differential economic and demographic gains will erode the unipolar power’s advantage, regardless of state choices. The United States is, however, well positioned to maintain its advantage. Unlike other aspirants, American geography leaves it better positioned to be a true world power than any state before it. Unipolarity is likely to endure for some time, making it relevant to return to our ﬁnal research question: if unipolarity exists, is it good? Is an unbalanced world a healthy world? Normative Assessment—Is Unipolarity Good? To a Western society steeped in a history of balancing and individualism, unipolarity seems autocratic. To states with a proud past as an international actor, unipolarity seems intolerable. To those who disagree with American foreign policy goals, principles, and practices, unipolarity seems nightmarish. To those who wish to teach history and international relations, unipolarity seems Fukayamish. Some of these assessments can be reduced to questions of taste or position. In other words, American unipolarity will seem more desirable to someone who likes the United States or its policies than to someone who does not—or to put it another way, one might wonder if France, Russia, or China would so avidly desire a multipolar world if they were the unipolar power. One cannot objectively assess those opinions, so this concluding discussion will not suggest that there is anything good about American unipolarity as opposed to generic unipolarity. We limit ourselves to normative judgments that can be made with more objectivity. First among these, unipolarity produces relatively high levels of peace and stability. These lead to increased certainty in international politics, which is another way to describe security. This, ﬁnally, may free states to allocate their resources in ways that are more productive than military spending. All of these may generally be accepted as normatively good. The ﬁrst positive beneﬁt of unipolarity would be peace. A system with fewer wars and fewer casualties from war seems preferable to one with more. A unipolar system dampens the incidence of war. Unipolarity leads to certainty, which itself reduces the value of war as a policy option. Few states risk war when they believe they would lose. Open challenges to the unipolar power can have only one outcome if pushed that far. With the outcome known, the challenger attracts few followers. No one defended Afghanistan or Iraq against the United States, and no one would be likely

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to defend Iran. Not only are wars likely to be rare, they are less likely to expand and less likely to endure. This does not mean war is at an end, even wars involving the unipolar power. Violent non-state actors operate from a rationality separate from realism, one that places less value on material rewards. Mullah Omar’s Taliban in Afghanistan may not have grasped America’s military capabilities, and his symbiosis with al-Qaeda may have made it impossible for his country to avoid the war of October 2001. Saddam Hussein seems to have genuinely believed that the United States would be constrained by the soft balancing of France and Russia and the United Nations—and he too may have underestimated American military capabilities. Iran’s leadership may also follow non-realist rationality, though their pursuit of nuclear weapons ﬁts realism, and they may believe that this time, at least, the United States lacks the additional capacity to challenge them. They may be right; unipolarity is not omnipotence. The dampening of war extends also to wars that do not involve the unipolar power. Proxy wars vanish in a unipolar system, because there are no great power rivals. Wars are unlikely to attract powerful sponsors, who can prolong the wars, as in the Cold War. All things being equal, the unipolar power would prefer that wars come to an end more quickly, since war disrupts the smooth operation of the international system and could have unexpected negative consequences for the unipolar power. Wars take on their own dynamic, of course, and it would be simplistic to believe that unipolarity directly reduces the incidence of wars between smaller states—wars that can themselves devour millions of lives, most recently in the Congo. Other consequences of unipolarity may, however, tend to reduce even these wars. The second beneﬁt of unipolarity is stability. By this we do not mean merely the reduction of violent conﬂict—a common deﬁnition of stability—but conﬁdence that the future can be knowable. Much of foreign policy, much of military spending, is based on fear of the future. Other states may become more powerful, and then may try to use their power against your own state. The spiral model of arms races is only the bestknown example of this dynamic. Liberal theory argues that institutions can produce this stability, either directly through international organizations or indirectly through the expansion of democracy. Liberal theorists can point most notably to the European Union as a creator of peace—and they are right. The European Union has been a powerful source of peace and democracy and rights and a whole range of values that most Westerners at least regard as normatively good. Yet the European Union must also be examined in its structural context. European states have been the earliest and greatest beneﬁciaries of

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American power. Even in the bipolar era, the United States extended its power to dominate Western Europe through NATO. The American goal was to block Soviet power; its side-effect was to create certainty for Europe. The British, French, and Germans did not have to worry so much about their historic rivals, though for a long time they continued to do so. Smaller states also did not have to worry about each other or the larger European powers, as all were enveloped in NATO, even the non-members. Commentators such as Robert Kagan mock the Europeans for believing that they have somehow escaped the Hobbesian realist world and entered some Kantian paradise.17 This view misses the point that Europeans in fact have departed the historic world of interstate conﬂict. They have not entered a zone of total peacefulness—the 2005 Paris riots remind us of that—but they do not need powerful militaries. The European experience lies at the leading edge of unipolarity’s beneﬁts. Surveying the world, the most peaceful and democratic areas, the ones with the most effective institutions, are the areas that are most under the unipolar power’s sway. Europe is at the top, of course, but Latin America is second. The end of bipolarity, and the rivalry it sponsored, has corresponded to the most stable period of democracy and peace in the region’s history. While Hugo Chávez’s commitment to democracy is doubtful, he also is no Fidel Castro or Augusto Pinochet. East Asia also has seen a ﬂourishing of democracy, most notably in the countries closest to the United States, and its institutions are growing stronger. On the other hand, the two regions in which unipolarity has the least inﬂuence, the Middle East and Africa, are also the regions with the poorest record of effective liberalism, either internally or externally.18 Lest this sound like a paean to American benevolence, let us assure you that our argument is structural, not chauvinist. Our argument does not assert that the United States actively promotes democracy or the growth of international institutions. Rather, the structural impact of unipolarity is to create the stability and certainty that allows institutions to ﬂourish. Effective international institutions develop in an environment where states are willing to gamble with concessions to other states because they do not fear the future too much. Stability and certainty are good for business, for creating wealth, which is in turn correlated with democracy and peace. Stability and certainty makes it easier for democracy to take root, because nondemocratic forces play on fear—give up your freedom, they say, so we can keep you safe.19 In a certain world, military establishments are weaker because they are not as needed. In a certain world, antidemocratic forces have no powerful outside sponsor, and they also do not provoke other anti-democratic forces to resist them. This includes the United States. In a bipolar era, the pro-American strongman was seen as preferable to the

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possibly pro-Soviet democrat. Now, even in the case of Chávez, there is no threatening alternative model that provokes American intervention. The United States would prefer a Free Trade Area of the Americas, but it would not go to war to create it. We are describing a sort of Hobbesian bargain at the international level. Unipolarity creates an environment in which states do not fear for their lives. The liberal tradition rightly rejects the Hobbesian model of national governance, because it sacriﬁces individual freedom and autonomy. Unipolarity has a similar effect, but its normative impact is more benign. Human beings have certain sovereign rights that are limited by Leviathan. The sovereign rights of states are not so divinely inspired, however. States stubbornly cling to their freedom of action, but the pursuit of war is not a privileged right. The unipolar power creates the conditions in which states are free to prefer butter to guns, with less fear of the consequences. At the human level, this is undeniably preferable. Unipolarity creates the conditions under which human dignity is preserved and advanced in each state, even if states themselves are humiliated by their second-class status. Europe is the most notable site of such experimentation. The European Union member states are integrating their economies to a depth not seen among other sovereign states. Their common currency, with a single central bank, is only the most visible of the integration efforts. Europe not only lacks border guards; the borders themselves have become invisible. One can ﬁnd oneself back in Belgium while looking for a place to park in Maastricht, Netherlands; the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland does not seem to even be marked on some highways. The European Defence Agency has begun to coordinate national defense policies, and defense corporations have blended their operations into European companies. Under NATO’s protection, European states have begun to experiment even with specialization in military forces, relying on the institution for their future safety and ﬁlling niches for the beneﬁt of the group. Specialization. One of the brilliant aspects of Waltz’s structural theory is that the nature of the units becomes irrelevant because all units perform the same basic functions. In anarchy, all must protect themselves. Even without hierarchy, unipolarity creates enough certainty that some states can begin to experiment. Throughout human history, civilization only began to advance when agricultural surpluses enabled societies to support individuals who held specialized roles in science, the arts, philosophy, and other investments or nonmaterial pursuits. This may be true of states as well. Where states exist in a realm of surplus security, they do not have to all devote their resources to protection; where states exist in a realm where one has surplus power, they may give up their impossible dream

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of dominance. Those states can then devote more of their ﬁnite resources to other investments—medicine, sustainable energy, and improvements in basic quality of life for their citizens. Paradoxically, however, if the United States provides the role of security in this international or transnational society, it will ultimately reap fewer beneﬁts than other states because it is still devoting a large share of its resources to providing security for the system. The Unipolar Future? The optimism of the previous paragraphs ﬂows from the potential of sustained unipolarity. Unipolarity can last because three trends support it: First, in a unipolar system, states will see more gain from bandwagoning rather than balancing. Second, the unipolar system reduces the instance of war, which carries with it the possibility of system disruption. Third, in a normal world of perceived defensive advantage, the unipolar power is a calm and relaxed great power. Seeing few threats, it does not expend its power needlessly, does not engage in much warfare, and thus tends to reinforce the trend toward bandwagoning. That has not been the trend early in the twenty-ﬁrst century. While the unipolar power can be relaxed regarding most threats, including most economic issues, Islamic terrorism poses two dangers to the unipolar power and to the system as a whole. Most obviously, it is a direct challenge to the American-created world system. Radical Islam seeks to overturn the Western order; unlike other challenges, it could sustain itself (and starve the West) with oil revenues. This kind of a threat is the one threat that the United States and its bandwagoners must face directly. The second danger is indirect. Terrorism appears to have an offensive advantage, so it the unipolar power is likely to take preventive military action. In a world of perceived offensive advantage, all the reinforcing trends of unipolarity vanish. First, seeing an aggressive unipolar power, states will place more value on balancing than they otherwise would. Even if balancing is dangerous, bandwagoning might now be too risky. Second, the incidence of war increases, making systemic disruptions more likely. Third, the unipolar power itself is no longer aloof and reserved. It feels compelled to enter into wars, consuming its resources and reducing its relative power. Unipolarity cannot sustain itself in a world of perceived offensive advantage. In that light, the difﬁculty of the Iraq occupation may be the best thing that ever happened for American power. It demolished the belief in American offensive advantage, making it a bit less eager to prevent power gains by others. It took the edge off American conﬁdence in its power, making it a bit more willing to seek support from other states. It may even

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have punctured the assumption of American vulnerability, as ﬁve years passed without another successful attack in the United States or on major American facilities. The Iraqi war may have extended the unipolar world. A less-assertive United States, like that of the 1990s, is less likely to provoke balancing and more likely to encourage bandwagoning. Such behavior prolongs the system, creating a unipolar future.

NOTES

Chapter 1 1. See John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1980); James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985). 2. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses, Harvey C. Mansﬁeld trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985). 3. Clyde Prestowitz, Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 58–65. 4. Randolph Siversen and Julianne Emmons, “Birds of a Feather: Democratic Political Systems and Alliance Choices,” Journal of Conﬂict Resolution 35 (June 1991): 285–306; David A. Lake, “Powerful Paciﬁsts: Democratic States and War,” American Political Science Review 86 (1992): 24–37. 5. Stephen Walt, Taming American Power: The Global Response to American Primacy (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), is the most direct effort to address the question, but he abandons the realist approach in favor of a more eclectic one. 6. Samuel P. Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,” Foreign Affairs 78 (March/April 1999): 35–49; Joseph S. Nye, Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002); Barry Posen, “Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony,” International Security 28 (Summer 2003): 5–46; Emmanuel Todd, After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). 7. William Wohlforth, “Stability of a Unipolar World,” International Security 29 (Summer 1999): 30–31; Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security 17 (Spring 1993): 5–51; Layne, “Offshore Balancing Revisited,” Washington Quarterly 25 (Spring 2002): 172–91; John M. Owen, “Why American Hegemony Is Here to Stay,” International Politics and Society 1 (2003): 1–14; Owen, “Transnational Liberalism and U.S. Primacy,” International Security 26 (Winter 2001/2): 117– 152; Prestowitz, Rogue Nation; George Soros, Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2004); Todd, After the Empire.

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8. Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2003); Stanley Hoffmann with Frédéric Bozo, Gulliver Unbound: America’s Imperial Temptation and the War in Iraq (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littleﬁeld, 2004); Soros, Bubble of American Supremacy; Chalmers Johnson, Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004); Todd, After the Empire. It is interesting that Todd’s work is in all three of these questions—he argues that the United States is not so powerful, that its power will not last, and that while its power lasts the impact is negative. 9. Hubert Védrine, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, “Into the TwentyFirst,” speech at the opening of the IFRI Conference, Paris, November 3, 1999. 10. Christopher Patten, External Relations Commissioner, “A European Foreign Policy: Ambition and Reality,” speech to the Institut Français des Relations Internationales, June 15, 2000. 11. Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound; Hoffmann with Bozo, Gulliver Unbound; Johnson, Sorrows of Empire; Prestowitz, Rogue Nation. 12. Two of the very few exceptions are Ethan B. Kapstein and Michael Mastanduno, eds., Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies After the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), and G. John Ikenberry, ed., America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002). Walt, Taming American Power, 17, addresses the more practical question “how do you deal with American power?” 13. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 6th ed., Kenneth Thompson rev. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), 209–212; Morton Kaplan, System and Process in International Politics (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1957); Inis Claude, Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962), 90–93. 14. Discussion of the stability of bipolarity begins with Kaplan, System and Process, 22–50; and Kenneth Waltz, “Stability of a Bipolar World,” Daedalus 43 (1964): 881–909. 15. John Lewis Gaddis, “International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War,” International Security 17 (Winter 1992): 5–58; John J. Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War,” International Security 15 (Summer 1990): 5–56; Steven Van Evera, “Primed for Peace: Europe After the Cold War,” International Security 15 (Winter 1990/91):7–57; Gaddis, “The Long Peace,: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System,” International Security 10 (Spring 1986): 99–142; and Charles W. Kegley Jr. and Gregory A. Raymond, A Multipolar Peace? Great-Power Politics in the Twenty-ﬁrst Century (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994). 16. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), 106. 17. Posen, “Command of the Commons,” is one who makes this clear.

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18. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Bruce Russett, “The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony,” International Organization 39 (1985): 579–614; Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990). 19. Robert O. Keohane, “The Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes in International Economic Regimes, 1967–1977,” in Change in the International System, Ole R. Holsti et al., eds. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1980); Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929–1939, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986). 20. David Rapkin, World Leadership and Hegemony (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1990). 21. Susan Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” International Organization 41 (1987): 574. 22. Kindleberger, The World in Depression. 23. Immanuel Wallerstein, “Three Instances of Hegemony in the History of the World Economy,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 24 (1983): 100–8. 24. Strange, “Persistent Myth.” 25. Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith trans. (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971), 58. 26. Co-optive power is taken from by Nye, Bound to Lead. Nye also refers to this as “soft power,” and it is similar to what Russett, “Mysterious Case,” calls cultural power, and Strange, 1987, calls “structural power.” 27. For example, Stephen D Krasner, “State Power and the Structure of International Trade,” World Politics 28 (1976). 28. For example, Layne, “Unipolar Illusion.” 29. Russett, “Mysterious Case.” 30. Nye, Bound to Lead. 31. Ibid., 181. 32. Strange, “Persistent Myth.” 33. Ibid. 34. Kindleberger, World in Depression. 35. Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwarz, “American Hegemony—Without an Enemy,” Foreign Affairs 92 (Fall 1993): 5. 36. Kindleberger, World in Depression. 37. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987). 38. J. A. Hobson, Imperialism, A Study (Ann Arbor: University Press, 1978). 39. Russett, “Mysterious Case,” 231. 40. Kindleberger, World in Depression, 2nd ed. 41. Nye, Bound to Lead. 42. Cox, Production Power, 7. 43. Gramsci, Prison Notebooks. 44. Strange, “Persistent Myth.”

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45. Kindleberger, World in Depression, 2nd ed. 46. Krasner, “State Power”; Gilpin, War and Change; Strange, “Persistent Myth”; and William R. Thompson, On Global War. 47. Gilpin, War and Change, 35. 48. Thompson, On Global War (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988). 49. Wallerstein, “Three Instances of Hegemony”; Gilpin, War and Change; and Strange, “Persistent Myth.” 50. Thompson, On Global War. 51. Wallerstein, “Three Instances of Hegemony”; Strange, “Persistent Myth”; and Gill, American Hegemony. 52. Russett, “Mysterious Case.” 53. Kindleberger, World in Depression, 2nd ed. 54. This contradicts Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 40—he uses hegemony in a sense closer in meaning to unipolarity than to its more common usage. 55. David H. Sacko, Hegemonic Governance and the Evolution of Militarized Interstate Disputes, Ph.D. diss., The Pennsylvania State University, 2003. 56. J. David Singer and Melvin Small, The Wages of War, 1816–1965: A Statistical Handbook (New York: Wiley, 1972). 57. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 58. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 131. 59. Ibid., 130. 60. Randall Schweller, in Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of World Conquest (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 17, says “to qualify as a pole, a state must have greater than half the military capability of the most powerful state in the system.” 61. Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971). 62. Gilpin, War and Change. 63. This classiﬁcation scheme is taken from Jeffrey A. Hart, “Three Approaches to the Measurement of Power in International Relations,” International Organization 30 (Spring 1976): 289–305. 64. Adam Watson, The Evolution of International Society (London: Routledge, 1992), 107. 65. Gilpin, War and Change, established a realist variant of hegemonic stability theory for the main purpose of explaining systemic change but this contribution is frequently overlooked. Gilpin, War and Change, 28–37, addresses the motivation of the hegemon as well as the conditions that promote stability in the international system in a theory of hegemonic governance. Here, Gilpin begins speciﬁcally to address the effects of hegemonic governance on conﬂict among all states in the international system. However, he fails to carry his explanation through to its logical conclusion: the effect of the hegemon as the crucial third-party governor. 66. Wohlforth, “Stability of a Unipolar World,” 20. This observation was ﬁrst made clear in Charles Krauthammer, “Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs

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70 (Winter 1990/1): 23–33, published even before the ﬁnal collapse of the Soviet Union; Krauthammer, “Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism,” The Weekly Standard (June 4, 2001): 21–5, continues to ﬁnd it valid while Robert Kagan, in “Power and Weakness,” Policy Review 113 (June/July 2002), and Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), argues at length on its consequences for the transatlantic relationship. Among more recent critics of American foreign policy, Christian Reus-Smit, American Power and World Order (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2004), is one of the few who accepts American unipolarity, along with Walt, Taming American Power. 67. Huntington, “Lonely Superpower.” 68. J. David Singer and Paul F. Diehl, Measuring the Correlates of War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990). 69. Thompson, On Global War. 70. Kagan, “Power and Weakness” and Paradise and Power, but also David Hastings Dunn, “Myths, Motivations, and ‘Misunderestimations’: The Bush Administration and Iraq,” International Affairs 79, (2003): 279–97, and Robert Wilkie, “Fortress Europa: European Defense and the Future of the North Atlantic Alliance,” Parameters 32, (2002): 34–47, attribute this to cultural differences based on the luxury of European weakness protected by American strength. Others, such as Philip Gordon, “Bridging the Atlantic Divide,” Foreign Affairs 82 (2003): 70–83; Michael Hirsch, “Bush and the World,” Foreign Affairs 81 (2002): 18–43; Stewart Patrick, “Beyond Coalitions of the Willing: Assessing U.S. Multilateralism,” Ethics & International Affairs 17 (2003): 37–54; and Strobe Talbott, “From Prague to Baghdad: NATO at Risk,” Foreign Affairs, 81 (2002): 46–58, base this on a distinction between diplomatic approaches, and thus blame a compiled record of American unilateralism as practiced by the Bush Administration. 71. For a comprehensive review of these disagreements, see Thomas S. Mowle, Allies at Odds? The United States and the European Union (New York: Palgrave, 2004); and Prestowitz, Rogue Nation.

Chapter 2 1. This began with Neorealism and Its Critics, ed. Robert Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), and lasted through Neorealism and Neoliberalism, ed. David Baldwin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), and John Vasquez, “The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Programs: An Appraisal of Neotraditional Research on Waltz’s Balancing Proposition,” American Political Science Review 91 (December 1997): 899–912. 2. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: AddisonWesley, 1979), 136. 3. John Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001), 29.

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4. Waltz, “Structural Realism After the Cold War,” in America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power, ed. John Ikenberry (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), 64. 5. Waltz, “Structural Realism After the Cold War,” 63. 6. Ibid., 43–9. 7. Ibid., 52. 8. Ibid., 34–42, 54–62. 9. Randall Schweller, “Realism and the Present Great Power System: Growth and Positional Conﬂict Over Scarce Resources,” in Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies After the Cold War, eds. Ethan Kapstein and Michael Mastanduno (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 40. 10. For the earliest views on the subject, see Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwarz, “American Hegemony—Without an Enemy,” Foreign Affairs 92 (Fall 1993): 5–23; Layne, “Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security 17 (Spring 1993): 5–51; and Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security 18 (Fall 1993): 44–79. The expectation is sustained through the other realists discussed in this section. 11. Michael Mastanduno, “Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and U.S. Grand Strategy after the Cold War,” International Security 21 (Spring 1997): 53–63; and Eric Heginbotham and Richard J. Samuels, “Mercantile Realism and Japanese Foreign Policy,” in Unipolar Politics, 184. 12. Michael Mastanduno and Ethan B. Kapstein, “Realism and State Strategies After the Cold War,” in Unipolar Politics, 5–6. 13. Ikenberry, “Introduction,” in America Unrivaled, 5, 23–5. 14. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 126. William Wohlforth, “The Perception of Power: Russia in the Pre-1914 Balance,” World Politics 39 (April 1987): 353–81, argues that states cannot react to the actual distribution of power, but only to their leaders’ perceptions of power. Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1960), 227–33, says this “not only makes the balance of power incapable of practical application but leads also to its very negation in practice.” 15. Federalist Paper 5, in The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York: New American Library, 1961); Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 5. 16. Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983). Versions of this argument are advanced by Robert A. Pape, “Soft Balancing against the United States,” International Security 30 (Summer 2005): 9, 13–5; and T. V. Paul, “Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy,” International Security 30 (Summer 2005): 53–7. 17. Walt, Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (New York: Norton, 2005), 124–6. 18. Mearsheimer, “False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security 19 (Winter 1995); Joseph Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988): 485–507.

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19. For the democratic peace proposition, see Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), and Owen, “How Liberalism Produces the Democratic Peace,” International Security 19 (Fall 1994). For realist critiques, see Erik Gartzke, “Kant We All Just Get Along? Opportunity, Willingness, and the Origins of the Democratic Peace,” American Journal of Political Science 42 (January 1998): 1–27; and Layne, “Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace,” International Security 19 (Fall 1994). 20. Ikenberry, “Democracy, Institutions, and American Restraint,” in America Unrivaled, 214–23. 21. Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, “Realism, Structural Liberalism, and the Western Order,” in Unipolar Politics, 103–37; Mark Kramer, “Neorealism, Nuclear Proliferation, and East-Central European Strategies,” in Unipolar Politics, 385–463. 22. Thomas Mowle, Allies at Odds?: The United States and the European Union (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 23. John M. Owen IV, “Transnational Liberalism and American Primacy; or, Benignity is in the Eye of the Beholder,” in America Unrivaled, 239–59. 24. Thomas Risse, “U.S. Power in a Liberal Security Community,” in America Unrivaled, 260–83. 25. Keir A. Lieber and Gerard Alexander, “Waiting for Balancing,” International Security 30 (Summer 2005): 133–7. 26. Schweller, “Realism and the Present Great Power System,” 42–9. 27. Josef Joffe, “Defying History and Theory: The United States as the ‘Last Remaining Superpower,” in America Unrivaled, 172–7. 28. Pape, “Soft Balancing,” 10. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid., 58–9. 31. Walt, Taming American Power, 126. 32. Walt, “Keeping the World ‘Off-Balance’: Self-Restraint and U.S. Foreign Policy,” in America Unrivalled, 125–8. 33. Stephen G. Brooks and Stephen G. Wohlforth, “Hard Times for Soft Balancing,” International Security 30 (Summer 2005): 72–108. 34. Lieber and Alexander, “Waiting for Balancing,” 130–3. 35. Ikenberry, “Introduction,” 25. 36. Brooks and Wohlforth, “Correspondence: Striking the Balance,” International Security 30 (Winter 2005/6): 186–91; Lieber and Alexander, “Correspondence: Striking the Balance,” International Security 30 (Winter 2005/6): 191–6. 37. Ikenberry, “Introduction,” 24. 38. Charles A. Kupchan, “Hollow Hegemony or Stable Multipolarity?” in America Unrivaled, 77–8. 39. Kupchan, “Hollow Hegemony,” 79. 40. Schweller, “Realism and the Present Great Power System,” 37. 41. Vasquez, “The Realist Paradigm,” 903, asserts the non-centrality of balancing as well, which calls into question the relevance of his critique of realism via the balancing question.

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42. Walt, “The Progressive Power of Realism,” American Political Science Review 91 (December 1997): 932; Schweller, “New Realist Research on Alliances: Reﬁning, Not Refuting, Waltz’s Balancing Proposition,” American Political Science Review 91 (December 1997): 927; Waltz, “Evaluating Theories,” American Political Science Review 91 (December 1997): 913, seems to argue that there is a much sharper break between “Old realists” and “New realists.” He goes on to cast Schweller from the realist garden entirely (915). 43. Vasquez, “The Realist Paradigm,” reprinted along with responses of several scholars in Vasquez and Elman, Realism and the Balancing of Power, is among those. 44. This speciﬁc set is taken from Jeffrey Legro and Andrew Moravcsik, “Is Anybody Still a Realist?” International Security 24 (Fall 1999): 12–17. Concurring deﬁnitions of realism can be found in Walt, “Progressive Power,” 932; Mearsheimer, “False Promise,” 9–12; Schweller, “New Realist Research,” 927; Colin Elman and Miriam Fendius Elman, “Lakatos and Neorealism: A Reply to Vasquez,” American Political Science Review 91 (December 1997): 924; Charles L. Glaser, “Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help,” International Security 19 (Winter 1994/5): 55; Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, “Neorealism’s Logic and Evidence: When is a Theory Falsiﬁed?” in Realism and the Balancing of Power, 168. 45. For example, by Keohane, “Realism, Neorealism, and the Study of World Politics,” and by Robert Gilpin, “The Richness of the Tradition of Political Realism,” in Neorealism and Its Critics; Michael W. Doyle, Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997), 45–53. For a recent review of Thucydides and his centrality to all of realism—not merely the structural version—see Jonathan Monten, “Thucydides and Modern Realism,” International Studies Quarterly 50 (March 2006): 3–25. 46. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, in The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to The Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 1.21.1, 1.22.2. 47. Ibid., 1.22.4, 1.21.1. 48. Edward Hallett Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis: 1919–1939 (New York: Palgrave, 1939), 10. 49. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 17. 50. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 1.96, 1.99. 51. Ibid., 5.27.2. 52. Ibid., 5.17.2, 5.35.3. 53. Ibid., 5.85–116, 7.73–87. 54. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 4. 55. Ibid., 5. 56. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 1.124.1, cited by Morgenthau, in Politics Among Nations, 10–1. 57. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 7–9.

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58. Robert D. Kaplan, “Return of Ancient Times,” The Atlantic Monthly 285 (June 2000): 14–8; Augustine of Hippo, City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin, 1984). 59. Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses, trans. Harvey C. Mansﬁeld (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), chap. XV. 60. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 12–3; Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. XVIII; Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1997), 244. 61. Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, 65. 62. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 21. 63. Ibid., 21–2. 64. Inis Claude, Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962), 13–25. 65. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 1.69.4–.5. 66. Ibid., 3.14.7. 67. Ibid., 1.23.6 68. Both from Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. XXI. 69. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 187. 70. Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. XX. 71. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 359–60. 72. For a thorough intellectual history, see Doyle, Ways of War and Peace, 93–136. 73. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 1.23.6. 74. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994), 76. 75. Ibid., 78. 76. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 88. 77. Ibid., 93–101. 78. For balances, see Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 119; for war, see Waltz, Man, State, and War; both also discussed in Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 60–78. 79. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), from a different perspective, comes to a similar conclusion about order being formed by power; he places a more goal-oriented quality to such order. Stephen A. Kocs, “Explaining Strategic Behavior: International Law as System Structure,” International Studies Quarterly 38 (1994): 535–56, offers an interesting argument that behavior under anarchy is shaped by rules and law, rather than by power. 80. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 102–7. 81. Ibid., 91. 82. Ibid., 126 83. Ibid., 126. 84. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation.” 85. Schweller, “Bandwagoning for Proﬁt: Bringing the Revisionist State Back In,” International Security 19 (1994): 72–107

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86. For the classic discussion, see Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 (June 1978): 167–214. For a practical example of how arms buildups led to distrust and helped set the stage for World War I, see Robert K. Massie, Dreadnaught: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War (New York: Random House, 1991). 87. Doyle, Ways of War and Peace, 223–4. 88. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 53. 89. Colin Elman, “Horses for Courses: Why Not Neorealist Theories of Foreign Policy?” Security Studies 6 (Autumn 1996): 29. 90. Eric Labs, “Beyond Victory: Offensive Realism and the Expansion of War Aims,” Security Studies 6 (Summer 1997): 16–7. 91. Ibid., 19. 92. Layne, “Offshore Balancing Revisited,” Washington Quarterly 25 (Spring 2002): 176–7; Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 2. 93. See Stephen Van Evera, “Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War,” International Security 22 (Spring 1998): 5–43 94. Labs’s “Beyond Victory” looks at Prussian, American, and British war aims in ﬁve wars and ﬁnds that the expansion of war aims was consistently considered when states saw an opportunity to do so after a decisive victory, although the war aims did not expand if the costs were judged too high. If defensive realism were correct, then the active discussion of war aims should not have taken place (48). 95. The idea of bipolar stability begins with Waltz, “Stability of a Bipolar World,” Daedalus 43 (1964): 881–909. It continues most notably in Waltz, Theory of International Politics, and in Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War,” International Security 15 (Summer 1990): 5–56. 96. Morton Kaplan, System and Process in International Politics (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1957). 97. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 116–28. 98. Waltz, “Structural Realism After the Cold War,” 30. 99. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 136. 100. Ibid., 71–97. 101. Ibid., 71. 102. Ibid., 105. 103. Ibid., 132. 104. Ibid., 135. 105. Ibid. 106. Hal Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics, 6th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2003). 107. Jesse Markham, “The Nature and Signiﬁcance of Price Leadership,” The American Economic Review 41 (1951): 891–905. 108. George Joseph Stigler, “The Kinky Oligopoly Demand Curve and Rigid Prices,” The Journal of Political Economy 55 (1947): 432–49. 109. Robert Franklin Lanzillotti, “Competitive Price Leadership—a Critique of Price Leadership Models,” The Review of Economic Statistics 39 (1957): 55–64;

NOTES

110.

111.

112.

113. 114. 115.

116.

177

Joe Bain, “Price Leaders, Barometers and Kinks,” Journal of Business 33 (1960): 193–203. Stanley E. Boyle and Thomas F. Hagarty, “Pricing Behavior in the American Automobile Industry, 1957–71,” The Journal of Industrial Economics 24 (Dec. 1975): 81–95. William J. Merrilees, “Anatomy of a Price Leadership Challenge: An Evaluation of Pricing Strategies in the Australian Newspaper Industry,” The Journal of Industrial Economics 31 (1983): 291–311. Richard Posner, Antitrust Law: An Economic Perspective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976); Robert Bork, Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself (New York: Basic Books, 1978). Yoshiyasu Ono, “Price Leadership: A Theoretical Analysis,” Economica 49 193 (1982): 11–20. Julio J. Rotemberg and Garth Saloner, “Collusive Price Leadership,” The Journal of Industrial Economics 39 (1990): 93–111. Raymond Deneckere and Dan Kovenock, “Price Leadership,” Review of Economic Studies 59 (1992): 143–62; Eric Van Damme and Sjaak Hurkens, “Endogenous Stackelberg Leadership,” Games and Economic Behavior 28 (1999): 105–129. Schweller, “Unanswered Threats: A Neoclassical Realist Theory of Underbalancing,” International Security 29 (Fall 2004): 162, cites Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, 15, and Waltz, “Structural Realism After the Cold War,” 28.

Chapter 3 1. John A. Vasquez, “The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Programs: An Appraisal of Neotraditional Research on Waltz’s Balancing Proposition,” American Political Science Review 91 (December 1997): 899–912; Vasquez, “The New Debate on Balancing Power: A Reply to My Critics,” in John A. Vasquez and Colin Elman, eds., Realism and the Balancing of Power: A New Debate (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003), 87–109; Richard Ned Lebow, “The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism,” International Organization 48 (Spring 1994): 249–77; John Lewis Gaddis, “International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War,” International Security 17 (Winter 1992): 382. William Wohlforth, “Realism and the End of the Cold War,” International Security 19 (Winter 1994/5): 91–129, counters some of Gaddis’s arguments. 2. Cited in Walter H. Kansteiner, “Africa In the 1990s,” in U.S. and Russian Policymaking with Respect to the Use of Force (RAND CF-129-CRES), eds. Jeremy R. Azrael and Emil A. Payin (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1996). 3. Randall Schweller, Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of World Conquest (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 188. 4. Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 6th ed., rev. Kenneth Thompson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), 5.

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5. For a brief summary of the critiques of classical realism, see Robert O. Keohane, “Neorealism and World Politics,” in Neorealism and Its Critics, ed. Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 1–26. More detailed critiques can be found in Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State, and War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959) and Inis Claude, Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962), 25–27. Classical realism’s assumptions of rationality have also been criticized, including by Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), and Glenn H. Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conﬂict Among Nations: Bargaining, Decision Making and System Structure in International Crises (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977). 6. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), 121. 7. Waltz, “Evaluating Theories,” American Political Science Review 91 (December 1997): 915. 8. Colin Elman, “Horses for Courses: Why Not Neorealist Theories of Foreign Policy?” Security Studies 6 (Autumn 1996): 7–53, argues that it is legitimate to apply structural realism to foreign policy, despite Waltz’s admonitions not to. Waltz himself makes such policy predictions in “America as a Model for the World? A Foreign Policy Perspective,” PS: Political Science and Politics 24 (December 1991): 667, and “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security 18 (Fall 1993): 45–46. John Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War,” International Security 15 (Summer 1990): 5–56, and “Future of the American Paciﬁer,” Foreign Affairs 80 (September/October 2001): 46–61, and Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security 17 (Spring 1993): 5–51, go beyond their systemic predictions to predict the behavior of Germany and other states. This use of realism to look at foreign policy behavior has been labeled “neoclassical realism.” See Gideon Rose, “Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy,” World Politics 51 (October 1998): 144–172. One such predictive effort is Gunther Hellmann and Reinhard Wolf, “Neorealism, Neoliberal Institutionalism, and the Future of NATO,” Security Studies 3 (Autumn 1993): 3–43. 9. Waltz, “Evaluating Theories,” 915. 10. Layne, “Unipolar Illusion,” 8–16; Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 13, 86–8; Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 127–8; Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987); Joshua Goldstein, Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); George Modelski, Long Cycles in World Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987). 11. Waltz, “Evaluating Theories,” 916. 12. Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. 1st Back Bay pbk. ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 2002). 13. Schweller, Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of World Conquest (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).

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14. Karl W. Deutsch and J. David Singer, “Multipolar Power Systems and International Stability,” World Politics: A Quarterly Journal of International Relations 16 (1964): 390–406. 15. J. David Singer and Melvin Small, The Wages of War, 1816–1965: A Statistical Handbook (New York: Wiley, 1972). 16. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, “Measuring Systemic Polarity,” Journal of Conﬂict Resolution 19 (June 1975): 187–216. 17. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 170. 18. Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: Free Press, 1973); R. Harrison Wagner, “What Was Bipolarity?” International Organization 47 (1993): 77–106. 19. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 135. 20. Jack Levy, “Balances and Balancing: Concepts, Propositions, and Research Design,” in Realism and the Balancing of Power, eds. Vasquez and Elman, 140. 21. Levy, “Misperception and the Causes of War: Theoretical Linkages and Analytical Problems,” World Politics 36 (1983): 76–99; Ted Hopf, “Polarity, the Offense Defense Balance, and War.” The American Political Science Review 85 (1991): 475–93. 22. Singer and Small, Wages of War; Bueno de Mesquita, The War Trap (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981); William R. Thompson, On Global War (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988); Edward D. Mansﬁeld, “Concentration, Polarity, and the Distribution of Power,” International Studies Quarterly 37 (1993): 105–28. 23. An alternative is to create a ratio indicator by dividing the number of joiners by the number of conﬂicts. However, this creates worse inferential problems Glenn Firebaugh, “The Ratio Variables Hoax in Political Science,” American Journal of Political Science 32 (1988): 523–35. 24. Brian M. Pollins, “Global Political Order, Economic Change, and Armed Conﬂict: Coevolving Systems and the Use of Force,” American Political Science Review 90 (1996): 103–17. 25. Patrick T. Brandt, John T. Williams, Benjamin O. Fordham, and Brian Pollins, “Dynamic Modeling for Persistent Event–Count Time Series,” American Journal of Political Science 44 (Oct. 2000): 823–43. 26. Daniel M. Jones, Stuart A. Bremer, and J. David Singer, “Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1816–1992: Rationale, Coding Rules, and Empirical Patterns,” Conﬂict Management and Peace Science 15 (1996): 163. 27. Joshua S. Goldstein, “The Worldwide Lull in War,” Christian Science Monitor 14 (May 2002).

Chapter 4 1. Randall Schweller, Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of World Conquest (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 66. 2. Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 6th ed., rev. Kenneth Thompson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985); Morton Kaplan, System and Process in International Politics (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1957).

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3. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979). 4. John Maynard Keynes, A Tract on Monetary Reform (London: Macmillan, 1923), chap. 3. 5. See Imre Lakatos, “Falsiﬁcation and the Methodology of Scientiﬁc Research Programs,” in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, eds. Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 132–177. 6. Winston S. Churchill, speech to the Conservative Members Committee on Foreign Affairs, March 1936, quoted in Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 216. 7. These deﬁnitions are congruent with those in Schweller, “Unanswered Threats: A Neoclassical Realist Theory of Underbalancing,” International Security 29 (Fall 2004): 166. 8. Jack S. Levy, “Balances and Balancing: Concepts, Propositions, and Research Design,” in Realism and the Balancing of Power: A New Debate, eds. John A. Vasquez and Colin Elman (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003), 135. 9. Levy, “Balances and Balancing,” 135. 10. Soft balancing is also rejected by Stephen G. Brooks and William Wohlforth, “Hard Times for Soft Balancing,” International Security 30 (Summer 2005): 72–108; and Keir A. Lieber and Gerard Alexander, “Waiting for Balancing,” International Security 30 (Summer 2005): 109–39. 11. Robert A. Pape, “Soft Balancing against the United States,” International Security 30 (Summer 2005): 36. 12. T. V. Paul, “Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy,” International Security 30 (Summer 2005): 58; Stephen M. Walt, Taming American Power: The Global Response to American Primacy (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 126–7, suggests something similar. 13. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987). 14. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, in The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to The Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 5.27.2. 15. Federalist Paper 5, in The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York: New American Library, 1961). 16. Robert G. Kaufman, “To Balance or to Bandwagon: Alignment Decisions in 1930s Europe,” Security Studies 1, (Spring 1992): 417–47; Schweller, Deadly Imbalances; Paul W. Schroeder, “Historical Reality versus NeoRealist Theory,” International Security 19 (Summer 1994): 123–4; Schweller, “Unanswered Threats,” 160. 17. Eric J. Labs, “Beyond Victory: Offensive Realism and the Expansion of War Aims,” Security Studies 6 (Summer 1997): 15. 18. Walt, Origins of Alliances; Samuel P. Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,” Foreign Affairs 78 (March/April 1999): 46. 19. For a similar argument on the difﬁculty of balancing a unipolar power, see Pape, “Soft Balancing,” 16–7.

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20. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 126. 21. Ibid., 127. 22. John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2001), 163. 23. Ibid., 162–3. 24. Schweller, Deadly Imbalances, 67. 25. Schweller, “Bandwagoning for Proﬁt: Bringing the Revisionist State Back In,” International Security 19 (1994): 95–8. 26. Joseph Greico, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988): 485–507. 27. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 163. 28. Further evidence for “the collaboration of the strong” can be found in William B. Moul, “Great Power Nondefense Alliances and the Escalation to War of Conﬂicts Between Unequals, 1915–1939,” International Interactions 15 (1988): 25–44. 29. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 126. 30. Neil McFarlane, “Realism and Russian Strategy after the Collapse of the USSR,” in Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies After the Cold War, eds. Ethan B. Kapstein and Michael Mastanduno (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 228–231, describes how bandwagoning serves the interests of Russia and its leaders; his discussion implies that it would apply to China as well. 31. Jennifer M. Lind, “Paciﬁsm or Passing the Buck? Testing Theories of Japanese Security Policy,” International Security 29 (Summer 2004): 92–121, discusses this as a Japanese strategy. 32. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 126. 33. “23 Nation Poll: Evaluating the World Powers,” Program on International Policy Attitudes, April 6, 2005, http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/europe/040605/ Report04_06_05.pdf and http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/europe/040605/ Qnnaire04_06_05.pdf. 34. The exceptions were Philippines, India, and the United States. 35. The exceptions were Philippines, India, Poland, Italy, South Africa, and South Korea. 36. Turkish perceptions that all the major powers have a negative inﬂuence on the world is intriguing, but left for future research. 37. “The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2004,” Foreign Policy Online, December 2004, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2734. 38. “A maturing partnership — shared interests and challenges in EU-China relations,” Commission Policy Paper approved by the European Council October 13, 2003, 3. 39. See Jeanne L. Wilson, Strategic Partners: Russian-Chinese Relations in the Post-Soviet Era (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004); David Shambaugh, Modernizing China’s Military: Progress, Problems, and Prospects (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), 285–9, 302–4.

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40. “Russian-Chinese Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Establishment of a New International Order,” posted by Federation of American Scientists, http://fas.org/news/russia/1997/a52--153en.htm. 41. See Shanghai Cooperation Organization, http://www.sectsco.org/home. asp?LanguageID=2 and http://www.sectsco.org/fazhanlizheng2.html. 42. Reprinted by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at http://www.nti. org/db/china/engdocs/chru1299.htm. 43. Full text at School of Hawaiian, Asian and Paciﬁc Studies, http://russia. shaps.hawaii.edu/fp/russia/r_c_treaty_20010716.html. A fuller analysis is in Ariel Cohen, “The Russia-China Friendship and Cooperation Treaty: A Strategic Shift in Eurasia?” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #1459, July 18, 2001. 44. See Mark Magnier and Kim Murphy, “An Exercise Fit for Sending U.S. a Message,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2005. 45. Thomas Ambrosio, Challenging America’s Global Preeminence: Russia’s Quest for Multipolarity (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005), interprets Russian actions as attempts at balancing, mixed on occasion by bandwagoning. 46. Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Astana, July 5, 2005, SCO, posted at http://www.sectsco. org/news_detail.asp?id=407&LanguageID=2. 47. Josh White, “Uzbekistan Senate Says U.S. Troops Must Leave: Vote Backs Earlier Government Action,” Washington Post, August 27, 2005, A12. 48. Ann Scott Tyson, “U.S. Bases Are Focus on Rumsfeld’s Trip to Central Asia,” Washington Post, July 26, 2005, A14. 49. For additional discussion of the SCO, see Brooks and Wohlforth, “Hard Times,” 83–8; and Ambrosio, Challenging America’s Global Preeminence, 80–9. 50. Seema Mustafa, “Pact Opens Iraq Door for Indian Troops,” The Asian Age, July 12, 2005. 51. Anand Menon, France, NATO and the Limits of Independence, 1981–97: Politics of Ambivalence (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Macmillan, 2000), 130–3. 52. Hubert Védrine, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, “Into the TwentyFirst,” Speech at the Opening of the IFRI Conference, Paris, November 3, 1999. 53. Quoted in Ted Galen Carpenter, “NATO’s New Strategic Concept: Coherent Blueprint or Conceptual Muddle?” in NATO Enters the 21st Century, ed. Carpenter (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 21. 54. Jeremy Rabkin, “Eurojustice: An Exercise in Posing and Preening,” The Weekly Standard, September 10, 2001: 19. 55. Christopher Patten, External Relations Commissioner, “A European Foreign Policy: Ambition and Reality,” speech to the Institut Français des Relations Internationales, June 15, 2000. 56. Lieber and Alexander, “Waiting for Balancing,” 138–9. 57. Unless otherwise noted, data in this paragraph is from SIPRI Yearbook 2004, 340–365, 628–246.

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58. See International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, and “Russian Military Budget,” http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ russia/mo-budget.htm. 59. Discussion of Japanese military capabilities can be found in Lind, “Paciﬁsm or Passing the Buck?” 94–101. 60. Robert J. Art, “Correspondence: Striking the Balance,” International Security 30 (Winter 2005/6): 178–80, sees this as balancing, at least of the soft variety. 61. U.S. Department of Defense, FY04 Report to Congress on PRC Military Power, 26. 62. James H. Nolt, “The Pentagon Plays Its China Card,” World Policy Journal (Fall 2005): 25–33. 63. Keith Crane, et al., Modernizing China’s Military: Opportunities and Constraint (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2005), 134. 64. Ibid., 229. 65. See Harold Brown, Chinese Military Power (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2003). 66. See Thomas S. Mowle, Allies at Odds? The United States and the European Union (New York: Palgrave, 2004), 126–134. Brooks and Wohlforth, “Hard Times,” 91–3 concur; Art, “Correspondence,” 180–3, does not. 67. Lord George Robertson, Introductory Statement at press conference, Colorado Springs, October 9, 2003. 68. Unless otherwise noted, data in this paragraph from SIPRI Yearbook 2004. 69. Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, May 24, 2002, Art. 1. 70. For a thorough discussion of India and Pakistan, see Lowell Dittmer, ed., South Asia’s Nuclear Security Dilemma: India, Pakistan, and China (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2005). 71. SIPRI Yearbook 2004, U.S. Department of Defense, FY04 Report to Congress on PRC Military Power, 38. 72. Paul J. Bolt and Albert S. Willner, eds., China’s Nuclear Future (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2006). 73. See Robert J. Einhorn, “A Transatlantic Strategy on Iran’s Nuclear Program,” The Washington Quarterly 27 (Autumn 2004): 21–32; Wyn Q. Bowen and Joanna Kidd, “The Iranian Nuclear Challenge,” International Affairs 80 (2004): 257–76; Iran: Security Threats and U.S. Policy, Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, October 28, 2003; Roger Howard, Iran in Crisis? Nuclear Ambitions and the American Response (London: Zed Books, 2004), 89–114; Al J. Venter, Iran’s Nuclear Option: Tehran’s Quest for the Atom Bomb (Philadelphia: Casemate, 2005); Richard N. Haass, “Regime Change and Its Limits,” Foreign Affairs 84 (July/ August 2005); Kenneth Pollack and Ray Takeyh, “Taking on Tehran,” Foreign Affairs 84 (March/April 2005). 74. See Narushige Michishita, “North Korea’s ‘First’ Nuclear Diplomacy,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 26 (December 2003): 47–82; A Report on Latest Round of Six-Way Talks Regarding Nuclear Weapons in North Korea, Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, July 15, 2004; Joel S. Wit, Daniel B. Poneman, and Robert L. Gallucci, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Washington, DC: Brookings

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Institution Press, 2004); Ted Galen Carpenter and Doug Bandow, The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea (New York: Palgrave, 2004); Haass, “Regime Change.” 75. Selig Harrison, “Did North Korea Cheat?” Foreign Affairs 84 (January/ February 2005): 99–110, argues that it is not clear that North Korea really had been breaking its agreement. 76. For details of the more recent issues, see Sharon Richardson, ed., Perspectives on U.S. Policy Toward North Korea: Stalemate or Checkmate? (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006). 77. Gunther Hellmann and Reinhard Wolf. “Neorealism, Neoliberal Institutionalism, and the Future of NATO,” Security Studies 3 (Autumn 1993): 3–43. 78. The end of NATO, or at least American withdrawal from Europe, was the often-overlooked critical assumption behind Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War,” International Security 15 (Summer 1990): 5–56. 79. “Excerpts from Pentagon’s Plan: ‘Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival,’” New York Times, March 8, 1992, A14. The outcry over this leak resulted in a modiﬁcation of the published document, but there is no reason to think that the underlying approach changed. It has been maintained more clearly in the current National Security Strategy. 80. Alton Frye, “The New NATO and Relations with Russia,” in NATO Enters the 21st Century, 99–100. 81. See David S. Yost, “The U.S. Nuclear Posture Review and the NATO Allies,” International Affairs 80 (2004): 718–721. 82. David Charter, “Straw Backs Missile Defence,” The Times (London), November 21, 2001, http://www.thetimes.co.uk; David R. Sands, “Germany: Missile defense won’t hurt ties,” Washington Times, July 27, 2001, http://www.washingtonpost.com. 83. “NATO-Russia Relations: A New Quality,” Declaration by Heads of State and Government of NATO Member States and the Russian Federation, May 28, 2002. 84. “NATO and Russia to conduct joint Theatre Missile Defence Exercise,” NATO Press Release, March 9, 2005. 85. For details, see Stephen G. Rademaker, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, “America’s Cooperative Approach to Missile Defense,” Remarks to the American Foreign Policy Council’s 2004 Conference on “Missile Defenses and American Security,” Washington, DC, December 17, 2004. 86. This is quite well-known, but see for example Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987), 357–395; Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 423–593. 87. See Kissinger, Diplomacy, 218–349; Kennedy, Rise and Fall, 275–335. 88. Kissinger, Diplomacy, 137–167; Kennedy, Rise and Fall, 187–193; Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War (New York: Random House, 1991), 77–90.

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89. Kissinger, Diplomacy, 78–102; Kennedy, Rise and Fall, 151–69. 90. Schroeder, “Historical Reality,” 144. 91. Kennedy, Rise and Fall, 115–121. 92. Schroeder, “Why Realism Does not Work Well for International History,” in Realism and the Balancing of Power, 116–7; Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 100–476.

Chapter 5 1. Randolph M. Siverson and Harvey Starr, “Regime Change and the Restructuring of Alliances,” American Journal of Political Science 38 (1994): 147. 2. Michael W. Simon and Eric Gartzke, “Political Similarity and the Choice of Allies: Do Democracies Flock Together, or Do Opposites Attract?” Journal of Conﬂict Resolution 40 (1996): 617–35. 3. James D. Morrow, “Alliances and Asymmetry: An Alternative to the Capability Aggregation Model of Alliances,” American Journal of Political Science 35 (1991): 904–33. 4. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2001). 5. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, The War Trap (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981) and “Conceptualizing War,” Journal of Conﬂict Resolution 31 (June 1987): 370–382. 6. Morton Kaplan, System and Process in International Politics (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1957). 7. Bueno de Mesquita, “Measuring Systemic Polarity,” Journal of Conﬂict Resolution 19 (June 1975): 187–216. 8. Bueno de Mesquita, “Measuring Polarity,” 200. 9. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994); Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987). 10. Kissinger, Diplomacy; Edward Vose Gulick, Europe’s Classical Balance of Power; a Case History of the Theory and Practice of One of the Great Concepts of European Statecraft (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press for the American Historical Association, 1955). 11. Kennedy, Rise and Fall, 249. 12. Kissinger, Diplomacy. 13. Kennedy, Rise and Fall, 250. 14. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action; Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Harvard Economic Studies; V. 124 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971). 15. Federation of American Scientists, http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/inf/ intro.htm. 16. Christopher Bertram, “The German Question,” Foreign Affairs 69 (1990): 45–62. 17. Donald Rumsfeld, Statement on Face the Nation, September 23, 2001.

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18. ISAF, http://www.afnorth.nato.int/ISAF/index.htm. 19. Global Security, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_ coalition.htm. 20. Bueno de Mesquita, “Measuring System Polarity.” 21. Douglas M. Gibler and Meredith Sarkees, “Measuring Alliances: the Correlates of War Formal Interstate Alliance Data Set, 1816–2000,” Journal of Peace Research. Forthcoming. 22. Bradley Graham, “Iceland Presses U.S. Not to Remove Jets,” Washington Post, July 21, 2003. 23. Josh White, “U.S. to Remove Military Forces,” Washington Post, March 17, 2006.

Chapter 6 1. Steven M. Walt, Taming American Power: The Global Response to American Primacy (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 144. 2. Randall Schweller, Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of World Conquest (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 70; Paul W. Schroeder, “Why Realism Does Not Work Well for International History (Whether or Not It Represents a Degenerate IR Research Strategy),” in Realism and the Balancing of Power: A New Debate, eds. John A. Vasquez and Colin Elman (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003), 119, refers to this as “grouping.” Schroeder calls binding, along with “transcending” the problem, a non-realist strategy for addressing threats. 3. This quote has passed into the status of legend; its true source and wording may now be impossible to recover. It seems likely that Ismay said something like this, and even if he did not the sentiment has been repeated by others innumerable times. 4. Thomas S. Mowle, “Arms Control After the Cold War,” in Milestones in Strategic Arms Control, eds. James M. Smith and Gwendolyn Hall, 199–200. 5. Schweller, Deadly Imbalances, 74. 6. For a synopsis of this issue, see Stephen G. Walker, “Solving the Appeasement Puzzle: Contending Historical Interpretations of British Diplomacy during the 1930s,” British Journal of International Studies 6 (October 1980): 219–46. He argues that the British at least were under few illusions, but were trying only to buy time before confronting Hitler. See also Thomas J. Christensen and Jack Snyder, “Progressive Research on Degenerate Alliances,” American Political Science Review 91 (December 1997): 921. 7. Michael Mastanduno, “Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and U.S. Grand Strategy after the Cold War,” International Security 21 (Spring 1997): 88. A concurring argument that unilateralism tends to be self-defeating, even for powers strong enough to contemplate it, is Manfred Bertele and Holger H. May, “Unilateralism in Theory and Practice,” Comparative Strategy 17 (April–June 1998): 197–207. 8. Eric J. Labs, “Beyond Victory: Offensive Realism and the Expansion of War Aim,” Security Studies 6 (Summer 1997): 15–6. This is in fact a central dilemma for the offensive realist: if the pursuit of hegemony is self-defeating because

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it provokes a balancing response, then is it rational to pursue such a policy? See Charles L. Glaser, “Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help,” International Security 19 (Winter 1994/5): 50–90. One response to this dilemma would be to distinguish manual, or intended, expansion (which perhaps is not rational in the long run) from the automatic expansion that occurs as a state ﬁlls a power vacuum, as in Elman, “Horses for Courses: Why Not Neorealist Theories of Foreign Policy?,” Security Studies 6 (Autumn 1996): 29, and Labs, “Beyond Victory,” 11–16. Schweller, “Neorealism’s Status Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?,” Security Studies 5 (Spring 1996): 107–8, reminds us that, rational or not, there are many examples of leaders seeking expansion despite the risk it poses to the very survival of the state. 9. Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security 21 (Winter 1996): 40. 10. Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, “Security Seeking Under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited,” International Security 25 (Winter 2000/2001): 159–60. On the security dilemma, see Robert. Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 (June 1978): 167–214. 11. William Wohlforth, “The Stability of a Unipolar World,” International Security 29 (Summer 1999): 5–41; Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security 17 (Spring 1993): 5–51; Samuel P. Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,” Foreign Affairs 78 (March/April 1999): 35–49. 12. Huntington, “Why International Primacy Matters,” International Security 17 (Spring 1993): 307–22. For a countering view of the value of primacy, see Jervis, “International Primacy: Is the Game Worth the Candle?,” International Security 17 (Spring 1993): 291–306. 13. Thomas S. Mowle, Allies at Odds? The United States and the European Union (New York: Palgrave, 2004), 38. 14. John F. Murphy, The United States and the Rule of Law in International Affairs (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 2–3. 15. Statute of the International Court of Justice, Article 38. 16. This is similar to what Walt, Taming American Power, 141–3, calls “balking.” 17. Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), xxxii. 18. Howard Ball, Prosecuting War Crimes and Genocide: The Twentieth-Century Experience (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 49. 19. Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, xxxii-xxxvii. 20. Ibid., xxxvii-xxxix. 21. Ibid., xxxix-xlii. 22. Murphy, The United States and the Rule of Law, 15. 23. “Secretary Rumsfeld Roundtable with Radio Media,” Department of Defense News Transcript, January 15, 2002. 24. “Secretary Rumsfeld Media Stakeout at NBC,” Department of Defense News Transcript, January 20, 2002. 25. See Mowle, Allies at Odds, 5–6.

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26. “U.S. ‘Rewriting Rules on Prisoners,’” BBC News, February 8, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/. 27. Murphy, The United States and the Rule of Law, 310–2; Carl Q. Christol, International Law and U.S. Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004), 34–59. 28. Todd Pitman, “British Won’t Give Captured Enemies to U.S.,” Washington Times, April 30, 2002, http://www.washingtontimes.com/. 29. Text of withdrawal statement can be found at Center for Nonproliferation Studies, http://cns.miis.edu/research/korea/nptstate.htm. 30. Murphy, The United States and International Law, 209–16. 31. Ibid., 19–20, 226–45. 32. Ibid., 22–4. 33. Ibid., 49–56. 34. Ibid., 31–4. 35. Andrea de Guttry, “The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,” in The New Chemical Weapons Convention, eds. Michael Bothe et al. (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1998), 121–133. 36. Karen Litﬁn, Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 153–5. 37. U.S. Mission to the United Nations Press Release # 87 (02), June 30, 2002. 38. “U.S. Offers Court Veto Deal,” BBC News, July 3, 2002, http://news.bbc. co.uk/hi/english/world/. 39. Colum Lynch, “U.S. Wins 1-Year Shield from War Crimes Court,” Washington Post, July 13, 2002, A16. 40. H.R. 4775, 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response To Terrorist Attacks on the United States, Title II— American Service-Members’ Protection Act. 41. John R. Bolton, Senate Testimony, July 23, 1998. 42. Madeline Morris, “High Crimes and Misconceptions: The ICC and NonParty States,” in International Crimes, Peace, and Human Rights: The Role of the International Criminal Court, ed. Dinah Shelton (Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 2000), 243. 43. Bolton, “The Risks and Weaknesses of the International Criminal Court from America’s Perspective,” in United States and the International Criminal Court, ed. Madeline Morris (Durham, NC: Duke University School of Law, 2001), 171; David Scheffer, “The United States and the ICC,” in, International Crimes, Peace, and Human Rights, 206. 44. Ruth Wedgwood, “The Irresolution of Rome,” in United States and the International Criminal Court, 194. 45. For more discussion, see Murphy, The United States and International Law, 27–9. 46. Philip C. Winslow, Sowing the Dragon’s Teeth: Land Mines and the Global Legacy of War (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), 142; Stuart Maslen, “The Role of the International Committee of the Red Cross,” in To Walk Without

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Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, eds. Maxwell A. Cameron et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 83. 47. Motoko Mekata, “Building Partnerships toward a Common Goal: Experiences of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines,” in The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society, ed. Ann Florini (Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 2000), 144. 48. Winslow, Dragon’s Teeth, 135–6. 49. Mary Wareham, “Rhetoric and Policy Realities in the United States,” in Walk Without Fear, 219. 50. Philippe Chabasse, “The French Campaign,” in Walk Without Fear, 64. 51. CCW Amended Protocol II, Article 3.10. 52. Ibid., Article 3.8. 53. Ibid., Article 2.6. 54. NPT Article I. 55. Ibid., Article VI. 56. Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, News Release No. 183, October 5, 1996, http://w01.international.gc.ca/minpub/ Publication.asp?publication_id=376785&Language=E. 57. David Long and Laird Hindle, “Europe and the Ottawa Process: An Overview,” in Walk Without Fear, 256–7; Robert J. Lawson, Mark Gwozdecky, Jill Sinclair, and Ralph Lysyshyn, “The Ottawa Process and the International Movement to Ban Anti-Personnel Landmines,” in Walk Without Fear, 164. 58. EU Joint Action 96/588/CFSP. 59. Mowle, Allies at Odds, 46–50. 60. International Campaign to Ban Landmines, http://www.icbl.org/treaty/ members/non_sp. 61. Landmine Monitor Report 2004, http://www.icbl.org/lm/2004/turkey. 62. Campaign Against Depleted Uranium, http://www.cadu.org.uk/; Mennonite Central Committee, http://www.mcc.org/clusterbomb/index.html. 63. Natural Resources Defense Council, “U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe,” February 2005, http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/euro/contents.asp. 64. Bruno Tertrais, Nuclear Policies in Europe. Adelphi Paper 327 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1999), 13. 65. William Schabas, The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 221, 248; Hans Christian Krüger, “Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights,” in Abolition in Europe, ed. Council of Europe (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 1999), 69–71.

Chapter 7 1. Eric J. Labs, “Beyond Victory: Offensive Realism and the Expansion of War Aims,” Security Studies 6 (Summer 1997): 1–49.

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2. Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987). 3. Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 (June 1978): 187. 4. Steven Van Evera, “Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War,” International Security 9 (Summer 1984); Snyder, “Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984,” International Security 9 (Summer 1984); Scott D. Sagan, “1914 Revisited: Allies, Offense, and Instability,” International Security 11 (Fall 1986); Jonathan Shimshoni, “Technology, Military Advantage, and World War I: A Case of Military Entrepreneurship,” International Security 15 (Winter 1990/1). 5. Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma”; George H. Quester, Offense and Defense in the International System (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003). 6. One thorough attempt is Charles L. Glaser and Chaim Kaufmann, “What Is the Offense-Defense Balance and Can We Measure It?” International Security 23 (Winter 1998/9). 7. Keir A. Lieber, War and the Engineers: The Primacy of Politics over Technology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 27–8. 8. James W., Jr. Davis, “Correspondence: Taking Offense at Offense-Defense Theory,” International Security 23 (Winter 1998/9); Bernard I. Finkel, “Correspondence: Taking Offense at Offense-Defense Theory,” International Security 23 (Winter 1998/9). 9. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 6th ed., rev. Kenneth Thompson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), 5. 10. For general defense of the argument, see Van Evera, “Correspondence: Taking Offense at Offense-Defense Theory,” International Security 23 (Winter 1998/9), and Glaser and Kaufmann, “Correspondence: Taking Offense at Offense-Defense Theory,” International Security 23 (Winter 1998/9). 11. Lieber, War and the Engineers, 2–12 (quote on p. 6). 12. Ibid., 29–34. For a broad deﬁnition, see Glaser and Kaufmann, “What Is the Offense-Defense Balance.” 13. John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2001), 114–28. 14. A systematic measure of this is in Karen Ruth Adams, “Attack and Conquer? International Anarchy and the Offense-Defense-Deterrence Balance,” International Security 28 (Winter 2003/4). She argues for a deterrent advantage separate from defensive advantage. 15. Randall Schweller, Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of World Conquest (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 73. 16. Ibid., 71. 17. Paul W. Schroeder, “Historical Reality versus Neo-Realist Theory,” International Security 19 (Summer 1994): 117. 18. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: AddisonWesley, 1979), 141–5. See also Barry Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1984).

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19. Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” 187. 20. Trevor N. Dupuy, Understanding War (New York: Paragon House, 1987), 31–7. 21. See discussion in Paul Murdock, “Principles of War on the NetworkCentric Battleﬁeld: Mass and Economy of Force,” Parameters 32 (Spring 2002): 93–4. 22. Nadav Safran, “The War and the Future of the Arab-Israeli Conﬂict,” Foreign Affairs 52 (January 1974): 215–236. 23. See http://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF129/CF-129.chapter6. html#fn17. 24. Colin Powell, “U.S. Forces: The Challenges Ahead,” Foreign Affairs (Winter 1992/1993): 39. 25. Karl W. Eikenberry, “Take No Casualties,” Parameters 26 (Summer 1996): 109–18. 26. John Mueller, Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 45–7; Michael G. Monnett, Media Predictions in Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm (Ft Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1992). 27. Data taken from Global Security, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ops/desert_storm-stats.htm. 28. Most famously, Jacques Poos of Luxembourg announced as EU President, “This is the hour of Europe, not the hour of the Americans.” Jacques Delors, Commission President, was blunter: “We do not interfere in American affairs. We hope they will have enough respect not to interfere in ours.” Both quoted in Wayne Bert, The Reluctant Superpower: United States’ Policy in Bosnia, 1991–95 (London: Macmillan, 1997), 139. 29. Bert, Reluctant Superpower, 65–123. 30. U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said in September 1992, “Until the Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats decide to stop killing each other, there is nothing the outside world can do about it,” quoted in Richard C. Holbrooke, To End a War, rev. ed. (New York: Modern Library, 1999), 23; French President François Mitterrand observed around the same time that “these people have been ﬁghting each other for centuries,” cited in Jovan Divjak, “The First Phase, 1992–1993: Struggle for Survival and Genesis of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina,” in The War in Croatia and BosniaHerzegovina, 1991–1995, eds. Branka Magaš and Ivo Žani (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 168. 31. See Brigitte Lebens Nacos, Robert Y. Shapiro, and Pierangelo Isernia, eds., Decisionmaking in a Glass House: Mass Media, Public Opinion, and American and European Foreign Policy in the 21st Century (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littleﬁeld Publishers, 2000). 32. Warren H. Switzer, “International Military Responses to the Balkan Wars: Crises in Analysis,” in War in Croatia and Bosnia, 285; Susan L. Woodward, “International Aspects of the Wars in Former Yugoslavia: 1990–1996,” in Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia, rev. ed., eds. Jasminka Udovic´ki and James Ridgeway (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 237.

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33. Bert, Reluctant Superpower, 193–210. 34. Holbrooke, To End a War, 23. 35. Cited by Jovan Divjak, “The First Phase, 1992–1993: Struggle for survival and Genesis of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina,” in War in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, 166. 36. Ivo H. Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 15–9. 37. Sonia Lucarelli, “Europe’s Response to the Yugoslav Imbroglio,” in European Approaches to Crisis Management, Knud Erik Jørgensen (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1997), 53. 38. Quoted in David Rieff, Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 28. 39. Steven L. Burg and Paul Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conﬂict and International Intervention (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000), 146–9; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, 31–2. 40. Hobrooke, To End a War, 66–7. 41. David L. Dittman and David L. Dawkins, Deliberate Force: NATO’s First Extended Air Operation: The View from AFSOUTH (Alexandria, VA: Center for Naval Analyses, 1998), 12. 42. Tim Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force: The UN and NATO Campaign in Bosnia 1995 (Lancaster, UK: Centre for Defence & International Security Studies, 1999), 196–221; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, 114; Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (New York: Penguin Books, 1992), 650–1. 43. Beverly Crawford, “Bosnian Road to NATO Enlargement,” in Explaining NATO Enlargement, ed. Robert W. Rauchhaus (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 54–6; Bert, Reluctant Superpower, 227. 44. Eric Moskowitz and Jeffrey S. Lantis, “The War in Kosovo: Coercive Diplomacy,” in Contemporary Cases in U.S. Foreign Policy: From Terrorism to Trade, ed. Ralph G. Carter (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2002), 65–6. 45. Bill Clinton, “Statement by the President to the Nation,” March 24, 1999. 46. Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: Public Affairs, 2001). 47. “US to slash Bosnia force,” BBC, March 15, 2001, http://news.bbc. co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1222992.stm. 48. Toby Harnden and Michael Smith, “‘Push’ to Withdraw US troops in Bosnia,” The Telegraph, May 19, 2001, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/05/19/wbos19.xml.

Chapter 8 1. Stephen Van Evera, “Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War,” International Security 22 (Spring 1998): 16–21. 2. Van Evera, “Causes of War,” 11.

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3. Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 (June 1978): 189. 4. Ibid., 187. 5. Ibid., 189. 6. Van Evera, “Causes of War,” 9–10. 7. John J. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2001), 114–8. 8. Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” 187. 9. Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, The 9/11 Commission Report (Washington: Government Printing Ofﬁce, 2004), 172. 10. William C. Thompson, One Year Later: The Fiscal Impact of 9/11 on New York City (New York: City of New York, 2002), 1. 11. For further discussion, see Richard K. Betts, “The Soft Underbelly of American Primacy: Tactical Advantages of Terror,” Political Science Quarterly 117 (Spring 2002): 19–36. 12. Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” 211. 13. Randall Schweller, “Domestic Structure and Preventive War,: Are Democracies More Paciﬁc?” World Politics 44 (January 1992): 264–7. 14. For an in-depth look at the change in American security strategy, and its ramiﬁcations, see Betty Glad and Chris J. Dolan, eds., Striking First: The Preventive War Doctrine and the Reshaping of U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Palgrave, 2004). 15. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, 15. 16. A National Security Strategy for a New Century, October 1998, 7. 17. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, 15. 18. Ibid., 15. 19. Ibid., 15. 20. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, March 2006, 23. 21. Ibid., 22. 22. Conclusions and Plan of Action of the Extraordinary European Council Meeting on September 21, 2001. 23. Schweller, “Domestic Structures and Preventive War,” 236. 24. Christopher Layne, “Offshore Balancing Revisited,” Washington Quarterly 25 (Spring 2002): 182. 25. Layne, “Offshore Balancing Revisited,” 174. 26. EU Response to 11 September: European Commission Action, Memo 02/122, June 3, 2002, 2, 9. 27. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, “‘Realists’ Are Not Alone in Opposing War with Iraq,” Chronicle of Higher Education (15 Nov 2002). 28. Mearsheimer and Walt, “An Unnecessary War,” Foreign Policy (January– February 2003): 51–9. 29. Mearsheimer and Walt, “‘Realists’ Are Not Alone.” 30. Dominique Moïsi, “Iraq,” in Transatlantic Tensions: The United States, Europe, and Problem Countries, ed. Richard N. Haass (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), 134–6; Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam, 60–78.

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31. Craig S. Smith, “France and Germany Join U.S. in Effort to Reduce Iraq’s Debt,” New York Times, December 17, 2003. 32. Personal interview with a Chilean diplomat, March 2004. 33. George W. Bush, Speech on Iraq, December 12, 2005.

Chapter 9 1. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 6th ed., rev. Kenneth Thompson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), 17. 2. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: AddisonWesley, 1979), 95. 3. Robert A. Pape, “Soft Balancing against the United States,” International Security 30 (Summer 2005): 25–30. 4. See Samuel P. Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,” Foreign Affairs 78 (March/April 1999): 35–49; Joseph S. Nye, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Barry Posen, “Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony,” International Security 28 (Summer 2003): 5–46; Emmanuel Todd, After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). 5. Morgenthau, “To Intervene or Not to Intervene,” Foreign Affairs 45 (April 1967): 425–36. 6. Kenneth Boulding, Three Faces of Power (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1989). 7. Christian Reus-Smit, American Power and World Order (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2004). 8. John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books, 1989). 9. Mueller, Remnants of War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004). 10. Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2003); Stanley Hoffmann with Frédéric Bozo, Gulliver Unbound: America’s Imperial Temptation and the War in Iraq (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littleﬁeld, 2004). 11. Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004). 12. George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), 3. 13. Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound, 12. 14. Hoffmann with Bozo, Gulliver Unbound, 20–1. 15. For example, Robert W. Cox, “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory,” and Richard K. Ashley, “The Poverty of Neorealism,” both in Neorealism and Its Critics, ed. Robert O. Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). 16. Milton Friedman, ed., “On the Methodology of Positive Economics,” in Essays in Positive Economics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).

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17. Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). 18. Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2005 (Washington: Freedom House, 2005). 19. This thesis is generally known as “second image reversed.” See Peter Gourevitch, “The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic Politics,” International Organization 32 (Autumn, 1978): 881–911.

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INDEX

Abu Ghraib, 108 Afghanistan, 3, 6, 64, 74, 75, 80, 83, 86, 95, 96, 97, 108, 109, 123, 132, 134, 137, 138, 139, 142, 150, 153, 154, 156, 157, 161, 162 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 79 Algeria, 123 al-Qaeda, 76, 98, 108, 115, 133, 134, 137-41, 157, 162 American Service-Members’ Protection Act (ASPA), 111 Angola, 126 appeasement, 102, 103 Argentina, 70, 72, 96 Argos, 36, 67 Armenia, 96, 114 Athens, 36, 38, 67 Australia, 45, 82, 95, 96, 115, 129 Austria, 85, 91, 96, 132, 140, 144 Azerbaijan, 96, 114 Baker, James, 127 balancing, 1–6, 12, 16–17, 29, 3–5, 37–39, 41, 42, 48, 52, 53, 55, 65–86, 87, 88, 94, 101, 103–5, 115, 117, 118–22, 131, 133, 137, 138, 140–42, 144, 147–54, 156–62, 165–66 soft, 2–4, 30, 33, 34, 66, 67, 80, 147, 149, 151, 158, 162 bandwagoning, 4, 34, 53, 65, 68–73, 80–86, 87, 92, 101, 104, 105, 117, 128, 133, 137, 140–42, 148–53, 155, 158, 160, 165–66

Belarus, 78, 102 Belgium, 76, 78, 82, 84, 94, 95, 96, 114, 164 Berlin Plus, 77 binding, 68 bin Laden, Osama, 1, 75, 76, 134, 138, 139, 141, 145 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), 113 bipolarity alliance patterns, 90–93 defensive advantage, 124 and nuclear weapons, 157 and war frequency, 54–56 Bismarck, Otto von, 85, 91 Bolton, John, 111 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 70, 86 Bosnia, 77, 94, 96, 111, 126–29, 156 Boulding, Kenneth, 155 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 51 buckpassing, 53, 70, 71, 120, 121, 137, 140 Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, 55, 88–90, 96, 97 Bush, George H. W., 127, 128 Bush, George W., 2, 6, 79, 98, 111, 122, 129, 141, 152, 154, 156, 158 bystanding, 70, 71, 120, 121, 132, 152, 160 Canada, 18, 73, 82, 95, 96, 114, 147 Castro, Fidel, 145, 163 Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), 84

212

INDEX

Chávez, Hugo, 73 chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (weapons) (CBRN), 134 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), 110 Chile, 140, 141 China, 4, 18–26, 33, 68, 72–75, 78–84, 86, 92, 98, 102, 114, 121, 146, 149, 150, 161 Chirac, Jacques, 73, 75, 83 Christopher, Warren, 127 Churchill, Winston, 66 Clinton, Bill, 2, 122, 156 Cold War, 18, 30, 31, 48, 51, 58, 64, 67, 93, 95, 97, 106, 114, 122–25, 135, 143–45, 155, 156, 162 Colombia, 110, 160 Committee/Conference on Disarmament (CD), 112, 113 Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), 2, 76 confrontation, 53, 132, 133 Congo, 126, 162 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), 112 Corel, 28, 47, 48, 148 Corinth, 67 Council of Europe (CoE), 112, 114 Cox, Robert, 12 critical theory, 157, 159 Croatia, 96, 126–28 Cuba, 3, 84, 108, 135, 145, 160 Cyprus, 85 Czechoslovakia, 84, 103 defensive advantage, 117–30, 131, 132, 152, 160, 165 de Gaulle, Charles, 82 Delian League, 36 Denmark, 83–85, 96 Deputy Supreme Allied Commander—Europe (DSACEUR), 78 Desert Storm, 125, 152, 154

détente, 89 distancing, 53, 120, 121 Eagleburger, Lawrence, 127 East Timor, 129 Egypt, 92, 95, 114 El Salvador, 96, 123 engagement, 53, 102, 103, 121, 129, 132 EU Military Staff (EUMS), 78 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), 110, 115 European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), 5, 77, 78, 140, 146 European Union (EU), 2, 5, 68, 73, 75, 76, 78, 96, 102, 110, 114, 126, 146, 162 Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 45–48 Finland, 96, 114, 144 France, 1, 18–28, 52, 68, 72–82, 84–86, 91–95, 111, 113, 140, 141, 143, 145, 150, 161, 162 Fukayama, Francis, 161 Geneva Convention, 108, 109 Georgia, 75, 114 Germany, 1, 18–28, 52, 68, 70, 72, 76, 79, 92–96, 102, 114, 138, 140, 141, 145, 150 global war on terrorism (GWOT), 82 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 126 Gore, Al, 129 Gramsci, Antonio, 8, 13 Greece, 37, 38, 82, 84, 95, 96, 114, 128, 129 Grenada, 95, 124, 125 gross domestic product (GDP), 19, 21, 22, 98 Guantánamo Bay, 108 Guatemala, 132 Hague Convention, 107 Haiti, 129, 141

INDEX hegemon, 3, 7, 8–13, 145, 146 hegemony, 3, 6–18, 29, 31, 41, 73, 137, 143–46, 154, 158 hiding, 53, 120, 137, 140 hierarchy, 2, 25, 31, 56, 68, 108, 158, 164 Hitler, Adolf, 52, 68, 70, 84, 103 Holy Roman Empire, 76 Hungary, 96, 132, 144 Hurd, Douglas, 127 Hussein, Saddam, 27, 80, 141, 162 hyperpower, 2, 75 Iceland, 82, 96–98 Ikenberry, John, 32 India, 18, 74–78, 95, 108, 114, 121 Indochina, 123 Indonesia, 138 intermediate nuclear forces (INF), 94 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 79 International Court of Justice (ICJ), 106 International Criminal Court (ICC), 5, 27, 102, 110–12, 151, 156 International Governmental Organization (IGO), 26 international law, 5, 72, 80, 101, 105–13, 115, 117, 122, 136, 142, 151, 155, 158 International Monetary Fund, 22, 25, 110 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 82, 96 Iran, 1, 4, 42, 74–80, 83, 86, 103, 114, 123, 139, 149, 153, 160, 162 Iraq, 1, 6, 27, 42, 72, 73, 76, 79, 80, 82, 83, 86, 95–97, 108, 114, 122, 123, 125, 126, 138–42, 143, 149, 150, 152–54, 156, 158–60, 165, 166 Ireland, 96, 164

213

Ismay, Lord, 102 Israel, 78, 111, 114, 121, 123, 135 Italy, 18, 37, 76, 80, 83–85, 91, 92, 95, 96, 114, 141 Jackson, Robert, 107 Japan, 18–28, 68, 72, 73, 77, 79, 81–84, 92, 96, 146, 150 Jay, John, 32, 67 Jervis, Robert, 118, 119, 122, 124, 131, 134 Johnson, Chalmers, 156 Jordan, 82, 96 Kagan, Robert, 163 Kaplan, Morton, 2, 66, 89 Kazakhstan, 73, 74, 78, 96, 102 Kenney, George, 127 Keohane, Robert, 15 Keynes, John Maynard, 65 Kim Il Sung, 145 Kindleberger, Charles P., 11–15 Kosovo, 80, 94, 111, 128, 156, 158 Kuwait, 64, 82, 95, 106, 114, 125, 134, 139, 152, 154 Kyoto Protocol, 27, 102, 115, 152, 156 Kyrgyzstan, 73, 75, 82 Labs, Eric, 41, 118 Lakatos, Imre, 86 Law of the Sea, 109 Layne, Christopher, 41, 137 League of Nations, 84, 109 Lebanon, 80, 114, 123, 125, 135, 152 liberalism, 1, 2, 6, 69, 70, 155, 156, 163 Liberia, 126 Libya, 83, 124, 153 Lieber, Keir, 119 Long Cycle Theory, 13 Luxembourg, 76, 82, 96 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 35, 37, 38, 40, 148, 159 Martens, Feodor, 107

214

INDEX

Mastanduno, Michael, 104 Mearsheimer, John, 15, 41, 69, 70, 88, 139 Mexico, 72 microeconomics, 4, 30, 42, 44, 51, 143 Microsoft, 28, 30, 46, 47, 48, 148, 149 Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID), 57–62 Milosevic, Slobodan, 128 Mine Ban Treaty (MBT), 112, 113, 152, 156 Montreal Protocol, 110 Morgenthau, Hans, 2, 15, 36–38, 41, 66, 67, 119, 155 Morocco, 95, 138 Mueller, John, 155, 156 multipolarity, 3, 16, 34, 44, 52, 54, 55, 56, 58, 64, 89–93, 99, 143 Negroponte, John, 111 Netherlands, 18, 76, 82, 85, 96, 111, 114, 141, 164 Nicaragua, 96, 123 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 102 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 5, 12, 31, 33, 69, 74, 77, 78, 80–84, 86, 93–98, 102, 108, 109, 112, 114, 115, 128, 138, 144, 146, 149, 151, 156, 158, 163, 164 North Korea, 1, 4, 79, 83, 86, 103, 121, 149, 153, 160 Norton, 28, 48, 148, 149 Norway, 95, 96, 114 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 108, 109, 113, 114 Nye, Joseph, 9, 18 Offense-Defense Theory, 5, 6, 118, 119, 140, 157 offensive advantage, 138–42, 152, 153, 160, 165 oligopolistic, 4, 42, 43, 46–48, 105

oligopoly, 16, 30, 43, 44 Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), 138 Pakistan, 74–78, 82, 83, 95, 108, 114, 121, 137 Panama, 95, 124, 125 Patten, Chris, 2, 75 Pax Romana, 17 Persson, Goran, 75 Philippines, 96 Pinochet, Augusto, 163 Poland, 72, 83, 84, 96, 103, 141 polarity, 2, 15, 16, 34, 39, 52, 53, 55, 56, 60, 61, 63, 88, 89, 90, 96–98, 117, 143–46, 150, 154 Portugal, 85, 96 Powell, Colin, 124, 125, 141 Power, Samantha, 127 preemption, 6, 134–36, 153 preemptive war, 136 preventive war, 6, 122, 136, 137, 159 price leader, 30, 42, 44, 45, 47–49, 51, 89, 118, 148, 151, 153 Price Leadership, 4, 44–47, 89, 105 prisoner of war (POW), 108, 117 Prussia, 81, 85, 91 RAND Corporation, 77 realism, 1–4, 6, 18, 29, 30, 35, 48, 51–53, 65–67, 76, 81, 86, 87, 101, 103, 105, 106, 109, 115, 135, 138, 139, 145, 146, 153, 154, 162 classical, 15, 35–38, 52, 65, 159, 163 structural, 3, 4, 6, 8, 15, 18, 19, 29, 30–35, 38–42, 51–53, 55, 65, 69–72, 118–20, 131, 140, 145–47, 149–51, 154–59 realpolitik, 2, 35 Rice, Condoleeza, 139 Robertson, Lord George, 77, 98 Romania, 84, 96, 144 Rumsfeld, Donald, 95, 108, 129, 139 Russett, Bruce, 8, 9, 11, 14

INDEX Russia, 12, 18–28, 31, 33, 68, 72–86, 91, 92, 107, 109, 114, 137, 140, 143, 149, 160, 161, 162 Rwanda, 152, 156 Saudi Arabia, 76, 95, 137 Scheffer, David, 111 Schroeder, Gerhard, 75 Schweller, Randall, 40, 53, 135 September 11, 2001, 5, 6, 20, 122, 133, 136, 142, 152, 153 Serbia, 64, 80, 127, 128 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), 73–75, 82 Sierra Leone, 126 Slovenia, 96, 126 Somalia, 51, 94, 95, 96, 126, 128, 152 Soros, George, 156 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 84, 95 South Korea, 18, 82, 96, 114 Soviet Union (USSR), 11, 18, 48, 52, 67–70, 81, 84, 86, 93, 102, 106, 113, 123, 124, 144, 145, 150 Sparta, 36–38, 67 Stalin, Josef, 51, 52 Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT), 109 structural realism, 3, 4, 6, 18, 29, 35, 39, 41, 42, 51, 52, 66, 140, 143, 147, 150, 153, 156–58 Sudan, 126, 156 Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE), 78 Sweden, 95, 96, 114 Syria, 80, 114 Taiwan, 74 Tajikstan, 73 Taliban, 76, 80, 108, 134, 139, 162 Three Emperor’s League, 85, 91 Thucydides, 35–38, 147, 159 Treaty of Westphalia, 35 Turkey, 72, 80, 82, 95, 96, 114, 128, 138, 140

215

Ukraine, 75, 78, 82, 96, 102 Uniﬁed Task Force (UNITAF), 95 Unilateralism, 2, 75, 140, 156 United Kingdom (UK), 17–28, 52, 62, 76, 78, 79, 81, 83, 91–97, 108, 112, 113, 140, 141, 145 United Nations (UN), 2, 73, 74, 82, 95, 102, 106, 109, 111, 112, 123, 125, 126, 128, 143, 144, 156, 158, 162 United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM), 95 United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), 127, 128 United Nations Security Council (UNSC), 75, 80, 102, 109, 110, 111, 139, 140 Uzbekistan, 73, 75, 82, 83 Védrine, Hubert, 2, 16, 75 Venezuela, 73, 160 Vietnam, 3, 37, 95, 123–25, 152, 154 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 13–15 Walt, Stephen, 32, 67, 139 Waltz, Kenneth, 2–4, 15, 16, 19, 29–32, 35, 39, 42–44, 48, 51, 52, 55, 56, 67, 68, 71, 119–21, 148, 157 Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact), 84, 93 Weltpolitik, 92 Wilson, Woodrow, 156 Wohlforth, William, 2, 34 World Bank, 110 World Trade Organization (WTO), 102, 110 Yeltsin, Boris, 73 Yugoslavia, 80, 84, 96, 126, 134, 144, 151 Zaire, 123 Zemin, Jiang, 73