IRTD - Chapter 4: Structural Realism §

Class: IS405 Created Time: September 21, 2021 8:57 AM Database: Class Notes Database Last Edited Time: September 28, 2021 2:33 PM Type: Reading Notes

• Is neo-realism the same as structural realism?
• Is neo-realism designated to only structural realism or is it compiled of multiple sub theories?

Structural Realism Assumptions of the International System §

1. Great Powers are the main power in world politics in a anarchic system (without higher authority than state)
2. All states have military capability of harming another state in varying capacity (also change over time)
3. States can never be certain about the intentions of other states (leaders minds)
   • Revisionist State: wants to use force to alter balance of power
   • Status Quo State: satisfied with balance of power, doesn’t want to change it using force
4. States main and first goal is survival of Maintaining:
   • Their territorial integrity
   • Autonomy of their domestic political order
5. States are rational actors, capable of strategies to maximize their survival. [rational theory]

Why do states want power? §

1. Why do states in international anarchy fear each other?

• The anarchic system makes it so there is always the possibility of a threat and there’s no global police to protect when they attack you.
  • Great powers live in a self-help world, cant trust anybody else for your interest
• For structural realists it is the structure or architecture of the international system that forces states to pursue power

  • If there’s no higher authority to stop attacks between states, states will strengthen themselves to deter from attackers to survive

  • The only way for states to ensure security is to gain more power as a revisionist

    the more powerful a state is relative to its competitors, the less likely it is that it will be attacked

    • Or at least maintain the status quo

  • All states can’t just be a status quo state because they don’t know each other’s intention of gaining more power than them or not.

    • Safer way to make sure is to gain more power and be on top to maintain survival
• Security Dilemma: most steps a great power takes to enhance its own security decrease the security of other states
  • The perpetual security competition
  • In an anarchic world, state A may gain more power → threaten state B leading to them gaining more power → state A must then also gain more power → … →

💡 Power has two forms

• Tangible power: military might, equipment, and nuclear weapons

• Latent power: Socio-Economic power influence on the market and is able to fund for military power

  War isn’t the only way to gain power, holding large share of global wealth is also another (China’s rise)

How much power is enough? §

The divide between structural realists

Defensive Realism §

• Defensive realists (waltz) says its unwise for states to maximize thier power because the system will punish them. (referring to security dilemma?)
  • If a state becomes too powerful, other states will form coalitions to destroy you (Napoleonic France, Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany)
  • There is a offense-defense balance where offensive actions will not pay (favor defensive side)
  • Nationalism in the conquered make sure that the population always rise up
    • exploiting modern industrial economies is hard as it requires transparancy

Offensive Realism §

• Offensive realists (john) having overwhelming power is the best way to ensure one’s own survival.
  • Coalitions are inefficient to balance → vulnerable to attack
  • Some state opt for buck-passing, letting other pick sides and stay in the side lines
  • Attacker is often the winner of wars,
  • US became hegemon (19th century), Germany almost did in WW1
  • attacker has lots to gain from exploiting the occupied, new information tech also help repression in many ways
  • attacker does not need to occupy the state (annex, divide, disarm)

Irrational Great Power Behaviour §

• Is there a reliable way to determine the intentions of states?
• Defensive Realism needs additional theories of foreign policy to explain un-strategic great power behaviors outside of structural realism theory (offensive realism doesn’t need it)

  • Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

  Many defensive realists acknowledge that the great powers often behave in ways that contradict their theory. They maintain, however, that those states were not behaving ration- ally, and thus it is not surprising that Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany were destroyed in those wars they foolishly started. States that maximize power, they argue, do not enhance their prospects for survival; they undermine it.

• Both agrees that nuclear weapons have little offensive purposes, except one-sided
• the past is better described by offensive realism
  • WW1, WW2, Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany…
  • Cold War

What Causes Great Power Wars? §

Structural Realists maintains that the likelihood of war is affected by the architecture of the international system

Polarity of the System §

• In Realism it is contested whether bi-polar or multipolar systems are more peaceful
  • the cold war was relatively peaceful and 19th century Europe was also peaceful
• bipolar arguments
  • if there is more than 2 great powers there are more ways a great power war could happen
  • more equal balance of power and resource distribution and no great power alliance ganging up
  • multipolar: greater chance for miscalculation, misinformation, identifying foe and friends and relative strengths
  • only the two powers matter, not smaller states
    • no forming inefficient coalitions that is vulnerable to attack
• multipolar arguments
  • deterance: a power is less likely to be agressive knowing other great powers will join together to stop them
  • coalitions are inefficient to form but when formed is effective in defeating aggressor (Napoleonic France, Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany)
  • less hostility among the great powers in multipolarity, because they pay less attention to each great power
  • Complex interactions between wars dampens the prospects for great power war
• Unipolar argument:
  • no competition, power war, aggressor
  • smaller states follow hegemon or at least not attack it out of fear
  • Criticism on unipolar:
    • if a hegemon withdraw military troops from anywhere it will return back to competition
    • an all powerful hegemon might social engineer how politics work in other countries at the end of a rifle barrel

Distribution of Power Among Major States §

• Structural realists believes that the power ratio among great powers affect the prospect for international peace, especially between the two greatest power

• Perspective 1: If there is one preponderant power among the great powers:

  • There is no incentive for the great power to gain more power

  • Smaller great powers won’t compete with great power because the large gap

  • There could still be war among smaller powers, but the preponderant power is supposed to mitigate them

  💡 Ex: Pax Britanica: the peace before WW1

  • It was during Britain Hegemony that made it peaceful

  • Before it there was no one great power to stabilize

• Perspective 2: Preponderant powers are potential hegemons, leading them to start central wars for the position.

  • Unbalanced multipolarity, rather than balanced ones, increases the risk of great power wars

  • Balanced multipolarity won’t have central wars and less incentive to fight each other due to the similar gaps

  💡 Ex: France was a potential hegemon leading to Napoleonic War

  • Germany had two chances to become Europe’s hegemon (WW1 & WW2)

  • Britain wasn’t hegemon in Pax Britanica, it was a roughly balanced multipolar

• Why does they say different things? Was Britain hegemon or not during Pax Britanica?

  • If there are different interpretation can you explain what it was like? I don’t know it

• Which perspective are we suppoed to take when we have two, which counts as structural realism? is it two branches of thoughts in structural realism?

• What’s the difference between great power wars and central wars?

Power Shifts Lead to War §

• Changes in the distribution of power leads to wars
  • When a preponderant power encounter a rising great power who will over throw it
    • The preponderant launches preventive wars
    • The preponderant has more incentive to start the war than the rising power

💡 Ex: Germany was preponderant power before both WW1 and WW2, leading to Germany launching preventive wars that led to devastation.

The offence–defense balance of States §

• The offense-defense balance
  • if shifted to offense leads to war
  • if shifted to defense lead to peace

💡 Ex: WW2 increased number of dive bombers as the balance shifted to more offense

• Cold War: Possession of nuclear weapons made stale peace and shift to more defensive balance

Can the Rise of China Be Peaceful? §

• Different structural realists see the rise of China a different way
  • Offensive Realism: US-China competition → central war
  • Defensive Realism: US-China balance of power → peace

Offensive Realism §

• the best guarantee of survival is to become hegemon

  • global hegemony is not practical or sustainable

  • regional hegemony is possible

  💡 Ex: US attained regional hegemony in Western Hemisphere in 1898, not global hegemony.

• Regional hegemon wants to stop regions it doesn’t control from having another regional hegemon

  • It wants the uncontrolled regions to be divided and competed for among great powers and not with the regional hegemon

💡 the United States stopped 4 potential regional hegemons during its reign:

• Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, Soviet Union

• Offensive Realists says China’s next step in becoming a regional hegemony is

  • to maximize the power gap between China and its neighbors
  • to try and push US’s military presence from Asia

• Offensive realists says US’s reaction to China’s rise will be

  • to try to contain and weaken China
  • to regain control or re-balance Asia

• Offensive Realists says China’s neighbors

  • will fear China’s rise

  • will join the US in containing China’s power

  💡 Ex: Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and China all joined the United States in containing the rise of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Defensive Realism §

• Defensive Realism agrees that China will want more power, and its neighbors will join the US to contain China.
• But it doesn’t make sense for a great power to seek hegemony because its neighbors will join another regional hegemon and great powers to defeat it.
• Nuclear Weapons will be a deterrence for aggression
  • India, Russia, and US all have nuclear weapons and relatively close to China
  • Japan also can easily get nuclear weapons (US?)
  • These countries will also form a coalition to stop China if needed
• China has no incentive to conquer other Asian countries
  • China’s economic growth isn’t because of foreign endeavors
  • In the age of nationalism, there would be fierce resistance from the population if China decides to dominate them
    • The benefits is smaller than the cost of expansion
• Defensive Realism says China will aim for limited power in Asia
  • it won’t try to dominate Asia, but just to ‘make China great’
  • therefore China is easy to contain and cooperate with
• Defensive Realists still leaves open that the rise of China might not be paceful due to similar ’domestic political pathologies’ that Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany made

Other Structural Realists Perspectives §

• A Structural Realist who believes in uni-polarity for peace believes China’s rise will replace uni-polarity to bi-polarity and could lead to multi-polarity in the future. Because the number of potential war partners increases it’s more war prone.

• Some Structural Realists believes bi-polarity is more peaceful than uni- or multi- as the case with the Cold War and the lessons learned from it.

• Structural Realists who believes in preponderance peace says China’s rise will threaten the security of US who will have strong incentive launch a preventive war against China.

• Is China’s rise likely to look like Germany’s rise between 1900 and 1945?

• Does it make sense for states to pursue hegemony?

• Why was the Cold War not a hot war?

• Does it make sense to assume that states are rational?

• Is balancing a reliable deterrent against aggressive states?

• What is the security dilemma and is there a solution to it?

• Is the USA a global hegemon?

• Is unipolarity more peaceful than bipolarity or multipolarity?

• Is realism relevant in contemporary Europe?

• What is the tragedy of great power politics?