The Question of Realism:

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Dale Copeland, Alexander George, Robert Jervis, Sean Lynn-Jones, John Mearsheimer, Andrew Moravcsik, Richard Rosecrance, Stephen Van Evera, Stephen Walt, and anonymous reviewers for Security Studies for the comments they made on earlier drafts of this article. Notes 1. Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 262–66. Hobbes's original argument, an argument that dealt specifically with international politics, was laid out in the Leviathan, pt. 1, chap. 13. 2. Stephen Van Evera, "The Hard Realities of International Politics," Boston Review 17 (November–December 1992): 19; Joseph Grieco, "Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism," International Organization 42, no. 3 (summer 1988): 485; and John J. Mearsheimer, review of Roger Spegele, Political Realism in International Theory, in International History Review 20, no. 3 (September 1998): 776. Note also John J. Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security 19, no. 3 (winter 1994/95): 9; John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001), chap. 2; and Kenneth N. Waltz, "The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory," in The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars, ed. Robert Rotberg and Theodore Rabb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 43. See also the sources cited in note 7 below. I say "prevailing assumption" because there are exceptions. See, for example, Charles L. Glaser, "Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help," International Security 19, no. 3 (winter 1994/95): 50–90; Randall L. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?" Security Studies 5, no. 3 (spring 1996): 90–121; and Andrew Kydd, "Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Why Security Seekers Do Not Fight Each Other," Security Studies 7 no. 1 (autumn 1997): 114–55. 3. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 3, 21, 34. 4. Indeed, the defensive realists have been criticized for placing increasing emphasis on such nonsystemic factors. See esp. Jeffrey Legro and Andrew Moravcsik, "Is Anybody Still a Realist?" International Security 24, no. 2 (fall 1999): 5–55. 5. Waltz, "Origins of War in Neorealist Theory," 40. In context, however, the assumption here was still that rational states would seek to maximize relative power. "Excessive strength" was to be avoided because it might lead "other states to increase their arms and pool their efforts against the dominant state"—that is, because it might actually weaken a state's position in the system. Other defensive realists, however, take a clearer position and say explicitly that states "satisfice"—that they are not necessarily power maximizers but seek only the level of power sufficient for their purposes. See Barry R. Posen, "The Best Defense," National Interest, no. 67 (spring 2002): 119. 6. Waltz, "Origins of War in Neorealist Theory," 43–44. 7. James Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War," International Organization, 49, no. 3 (summer 1995): 384. It is in fact taken for granted in the scholarly literature that this view is held by neorealists of all stripes. Dale Copeland, for example, refers in passing to the "core neorealist premise that anarchy forces states into recurrent security competitions"; the assumption here is that this view is by no means limited to the offensive realists. Stephen Walt says that "the central conclusion of all realist theories—what might be termed the 'realist problematique'—is that the existence of several states in anarchy renders the security of each one problematic and encourages them to compete with each other for power or security." Andrew Kydd says that "structural realists"—and he has both offensive and defensive realists in mind—"argue that international anarchy renders states insecure, and that the search for security is the main task of states, and the main cause of conflict." Robert Kaufman notes that "realists of all persuasions agree that the quest for power and the rivalries it engenders offer the most basic explanation for the origins of war." Dale Copeland, "The Constructivist Challenge to Structural Realism," International Security 25, no. 2 (fall 2000): 188; Stephen Walt, "The Enduring Relevance of the Realist Tradition," in Political Science: The State of the Discipline, ed. Ira Katznelson and Helen Milner (New York: Norton, 2002), 200 (emphasis in original); Kydd, "Sheep in Sheep's Clothing," 114; and Robert Kaufman, "On the Uses and Abuses of History in International Relations Theory: Dale Copeland's The Origins of Major War," Security Studies 10, no. 4 (summer 2001): 180. 8. See especially George Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), chap. 4; quote at 69. 9. Terms such as "system" and "stability" are not easy to define with any precision. For a discussion, see Robert Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 5–10 (for "system") and 94–98, esp. 96 (for "stability"). For the purposes of this article, however, precise definitions are not necessary. These terms are used here in a fairly conventional way, and their meaning will be clear enough from context as well as from the examples given. 10. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library, 1937), 423. 11. Quoted in Raymond Sontag, European Diplomatic History, 1871–1932 (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1933), 22. 12. For a general analysis, see Peter Liberman, Does Conquest Pay? The Exploitation of Occupied Industrial Societies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); for a summary of Liberman's findings, see his article "The Spoils of Conquest," International Security 18, no. 2 (fall 1993): 125–53. 13. [Lord Salisbury], "The Terms of Peace," Quarterly Review 129 (1870): 540–56 (originally published anonymously). 14. Otto von Bismarck to his ambassador in Paris, 25 August 1871, cited in Allan Mitchell, Bismarck and the French Nation, 1848–1890 (New York: Pegasus, 1971), 57. Bismarck made this point many times during this period. In September 1870, for example, he told the acting French foreign minister, Jules Favre, "I am sure that very soon we will have a new war with you and we want to do so with all the advantages." Cited in Robert Giesberg, The Treaty of Frankfort: A Study in Diplomatic History (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966), 33. 15. Otto von Bismarck, Reflections and Reminiscences, 2 vols. (London: Smith, Elder, 1898), vol. 2: 235. 16. In trying to explain the limits on human aggressiveness, biologists have sometimes argued along similar lines. As George Williams, one of the great figures in modern evolutionary theory, once pointed out, "an individual who maximizes his friendships and minimizes his antagonisms will have an evolutionary advantage, and selection should favor those characters that promote the optimization of personal relationships." "I imagine that this evolutionary factor," Williams continued, "has increased man's capacity for altruism and compassion and has tempered his ethically less acceptable heritage of sexual and predatory aggressiveness." George Williams, Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 94. 17. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979), 127–28. 18. "The Terms of Peace," 553. 19. See especially George Monger, The End of Isolation: British Foreign Policy, 1900–1907 (London: T. Nelson, 1963); and Christopher Andrew, Théophile Delcassé and the Making of the Entente Cordiale: A Reappraisal of French Foreign Policy 1898–1905 (London: Macmillan, 1968). Note also the tone of one very well-known document from this period: Eyre Crowe, "Memorandum on the Present State of British Relations with France and Germany," 1 January 1907, British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914, ed. G. P. Gooch and Harold Temperley, 11 vols. in 13 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1926–38), vol. 6: 397–420, esp. 416. 20. Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, 3 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1952–57), vol. 2: 546. The Russian interior minister spoke at the time about how war would bring revolution, but "sitting at a table laden with ikons and religious lamps," crossed himself, saying "we cannot escape our fate," and then signed the mobilization decree. Ibid. See also D. C. B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (New York: St. Martin's, 1983), 108–9, 115. 21. Special Journal of the Russian Council of Ministers, 24 July 1914, and Sazonov to Strandtmann, 24 July 1914, in July 1914: The Outbreak of the First World War: Selected Documents, ed. Imanuel Geiss (New York: Scribner's, 1967), 186–88. For this characterization of Russia's Balkan policy, see Paul Schroeder, "Embedded Counterfactuals and World War I as an Unavoidable War," in "Unmaking the West: Counterfactual Thought Experiments in History," ed. Philip Tetlock, Richard Ned Lebow, and Geoffrey Parker, forthcoming, msp. 37, available at http://www.asu.edu/clas/polisci/cqrm/discussion.series.html. Russia's sponsorship of the Balkan League of 1912 is perhaps the most striking case in point. The treaty establishing this alliance, as French prime minister Raymond Poincaré noted at the time, "contained the seeds not only of a war against Turkey, but of a war against Austria as well." Quoted in Pierre Renouvin, La Crise européenne et la première guerre mondiale (Paris: puf, 1962), 173. 22. For a classic example, see Lord Castlereagh's famous State Paper of 5 May 1820, in Foundations of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902), ed. Harold Temperley and Lillian Penson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938), 48–63. 23. François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon, supplement to his L'Examen de conscience sur les devoirs de la royauté, originally written around 1700, and published (under various titles) in many editions of his works—for example, in Fénelon, Oeuvres (Paris: Lebel, 1824), vol. 23. An extract from an early English translation can be found in Theory and Practice of the Balance of Power, 1486–1914, ed. Moorhead Wright (London: Dent, 1975), 43. Note also the extracts from the writings of Defoe (1706) and Hume (1752), in ibid., 48–49, 64. Rousseau also argued along these lines. See Jean Jacques Rousseau, "Abstract and Judgement of Saint-Pierre's Project for Perpetual Peace (1756)," in Rousseau on International Relations, ed. Stanley Hoffmann and David Fidler (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 62–64. 24. Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace, 1812–22 (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1964), 144–45. 25. See especially 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 (New York: Norton, 1955), esp. pt. 2; and W. A. Phillips, The Confederation of Europe: A Study of the European Alliance, 1813–1823, as an Experiment in the International Organization of Peace (London: Longman, 1920). Kissinger's arguments, it should be noted, were developed in the context of his analysis in A World Restored of the Vienna settlement. Note, however, Paul Schroeder's discussion of the issue in "Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?" American Historical Review 97, no. 3 (June 1992): 683–706. Although Schroeder's answer to the question posed in his title is essentially "no," a careful reading of that article shows that he agrees that the peacemakers thought in terms of balance and equilibrium. His argument is that they defined those concepts rather broadly and not just in narrow balance-of-power terms, and he does not claim that balance-of-power thinking, even in the strict sense, played no role at Vienna. The sort of language that was used at the time, he writes, shows that "checking and balancing power was one element in the process of achieving an overall balance in the system" (695). 26. Woodrow Wilson, War and Peace: Presidential Messages, Addresses, and Public Papers, 2 vols. (New York: Harper, 1927), vol. 1: 129, 133, 255, 342–43, 547–48; for another reference to the Congress of Vienna, see vol. 2: 179. The passages quoted are from speeches Wilson gave during the war and in 1919. Wilson's contemptuous references here to the peacemakers a century earlier were not mere rhetorical flourishes. His hostility to the method used at Vienna came out even in private. When the New Zealand prime minister alluded to the Vienna Congress at a meeting during the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson exploded with rage. The very subject was taboo: Wilson "hoped that even by reference no odor of Vienna would again be brought into [the Paris] proceedings." Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 69 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966–1994), vol. 54: 314. 27. See especially Wilson, War and Peace, 1: 129. 28. Baruch diary, entry for 2 June 1919, Baruch Papers, Mudd Library, Princeton University. See also S. G. Millin, General Smuts, 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1936), vol. 2: 232–33. Note also Wilson's defense of the peace treaty in the speeches he gave in late 1919. That treaty, he said on 4 September, "seeks to punish one of the greatest wrongs ever done in history, the wrong which Germany sought to do to the world and to civilization; and there ought to be no weak purpose with regard to the application of the punishment. She attempted an intolerable thing, and she must be made to pay for the attempt." The same note was sounded in another speech he gave four days later: "I hear that this treaty is very hard on Germany. When an individual has committed a criminal act, the punishment is hard, but the punishment is not unjust. This nation permitted itself, through unscrupulous governors, to commit a criminal act against mankind, and it is to undergo the punishment." Wilson, War and Peace, 1: 590–91, 2: 33–34. 29. The myth persists that Wilson was the champion of a peace of reconciliation with Germany, and that Britain and France insisted on much harsher terms and forced him into disastrous compromises. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were in fact very much in line with the program Wilson had laid out in his wartime speeches, and the pre-armistice agreement with Germany was based explicitly on that program. The one point where the peacemakers clearly did violate the terms of the pre-armistice agreement had to do with the inclusion of pensions in the reparation bill. The British wanted pensions included, the French would have preferred not to include them, and Wilson sided with the British for moral reasons: he thought it was right that Germany should make amends not just for the material damage its "aggression" had caused, but for the loss of human life as well. 30. Van Evera, "Hard Realities," 19. 31. Waltz, "Origins of War in Neorealist Theory," 43–44 (for the quotations); Mearsheimer, "False Promise," 9–12; John Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War," International Security 15, no. 1 (summer 1990): 12; Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 3, 34; and Robert Jervis, "Realism, Neoliberalism, and Cooperation: Understanding the Debate," International Security 24, no. 1 (summer 1999): 49. 32. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future," 12; and Mearsheimer, "False Promise," 11. 33. Mearsheimer review of Spegele, Political Realism in International Theory, 776. 34. Van Evera, "Hard Realities," 19. Note also Martin Wight, Power Politics (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1978), 139: fear is "the prime motive of international politics." In this and the following two I the of the defensive realist view is its emphasis on the to do most with the that the to which this into realists such as Van this is the point on which I with the that anarchy but that in its on the The basic in their is not very in a or in a world where the defense is to have the in such a can be In a world where the is to be which is thought to be are thought to be and about the balance into in a The defensive realists do not the argument that the of international is in a of their analysis on a the that in just how much there argument does not as for them as it does for their offensive realist Robert Jervis, the Security World Politics no. 2 1978), esp. The basic here was not to such as cannot these to them to their he has one of his characters say in they regard them as that we can to Quoted in (Paris: puf, In however, this was not of Van Evera, "Hard Realities," 19. See also Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 49. Mearsheimer, "False Promise," and Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 33. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 3, 21, 40. this see Randall and Realism in to the End of the Cold War," Security Studies no. 3 (spring 2000): esp. One of how this of assumption is is the fact that two the point that is actually to be a see Robert and Robert Cooperation and Institutions," World Politics no. 1 in Cooperation ed. Kenneth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, and again in and The ed. David (New York: University Press, The passages in question are on and in the See, for example, Robert The of Cooperation (New York: 27. As Charles notes in his review of the it is that there are this and the world of international American Journal of International no. 2 See also Waltz, Theory of International Politics, and Jervis, "Realism, Neoliberalism, and 49. 43. See, for example, Robert Jervis, "Realism, Theory, and World Politics no. 3 1988): by and by George et and and The of Cooperation and International International Organization, no. 1 (winter by and Note also review of of in American Journal of no. that one should not the to to great power because in the world the are to with each and there is a of are much less to See, for example, classic European and (New York: in his of the how the process the First World War, and in how the of that were even in the of view at with the that are to the of power and "The great on he and by an of and would to each other their In the would be the two Germany and and on at and of and of would be the other to the and to was to be the the these or would of their of as a of which France or Germany would or a very or perhaps to the right or to the When these in the great balance of and of the had been the would to their with and and or with each other in on the The World York: Scribner's, Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Kenneth Waltz, the and War (New York: University Press, on Jervis, one should note in this context, his article by argument about the of Stanley Hoffmann a of writings on international an article on Rousseau, and a of his writings The State of War, which was also the title of one of most on international note Quoted in Power and the of Peace: Theory and Practice in the History of Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 49. Rousseau, "The State of War," in Hoffmann and Rousseau on International Relations, and Power and the of Peace, Note the in Waltz, "Origins of War in Neorealist will a of war all states seek only to their Rousseau Fénelon, the most and the most of the balance-of-power See and A Study of Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 4. Rousseau, in Hoffmann and Rousseau on International Relations, The discussion here is based on the analysis in Power and the of Peace, In of the National A of American Foreign Policy University of This was originally published in as late as was still that the world was a world war." See A. World Politics and International University Press, Waltz, "Origins of War in Neorealist Theory," and also Kenneth N. Waltz, Realism after the Cold War," International Security 25, no. 1 (summer 2000): cited in Jervis, the Cold War a Security Dilemma?" Journal of Cold War Studies 3, no. 1 (winter 2001): and cited in Jervis, and in International Politics, Note also claim that "the of world is, in itself, for earlier published in Raymond (Paris: 1951), and in Raymond ed. (Paris: were such might In his of the war but he still see a security at The and the he in would as a of Europe into of is no he that is for It is enough to that each is of the that each the of the with and to be by that or one or the other was to earlier published in Raymond (Paris: also the war in security See in and The Origins of the Cold War esp. this well-known was originally published in Foreign in For an argument from a very but on a see The Outbreak of the War University Press, esp. chap. 19. very the view that the of international in in the century was to lead to see esp. 57. meeting of July Documents on British Policy vol. 1: For the British see to 25 July in ibid., had that this was basic that it was to it from the entry for July vol. Papers, Mudd Library, Princeton University. The of to was that "we have a Europe for a time to I it is so as pointed out a quoted by to the of forces and the of and to that the in and to these forces and these The ed. (London: Macmillan, 1962), 10, quoted in Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 17. See in Geoffrey The Causes of War, ed. (New York: Press, esp. Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War," esp. Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the of University Press, 1999), esp. and chap. 2; and all Jervis, and in International von War, ed. and and Peter (Princeton: Princeton University Press, In to the passages from Rousseau to note especially the extracts in Theory and from Defoe and Hume For of the of balance-of-power thinking, see "The Balance of in and Martin Wight, Diplomatic in the Theory of International Politics (London: George and 1966), Martin Wight, "The Balance of Power and International in The of International ed. James (Oxford: Oxford University Press, and S. of the Balance of in Studies in Diplomatic History, ed. and S. (London: Longman, For the most of the early writings on this see in 16. 18. of the European balance of power in the literature from the to the of the Note also the in Gulick, Europe's Classical Balance of Power, 64. David the Balance of (1752), in Theory and 64. Ibid. in Theory and See the well-known extracts from and in Theory and and the from Rousseau, and in Power and the of Peace, Note also the European 5 vols. is of because he was one of This general it should be noted, was not new to the for example, the extract from in Theory and it in fact has in the and