The Tragedy of Great Power Politics PDF

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER University of Chicago w. W, NORTON & COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON Copyright© 2001 by John J. Mearsheimer All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Nanon & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue. New York, NY 10 1 10. The text of this book is composed in Meridien with the display set in Fumra Manufacturing by the Maple-VaiJ Book Manufacturing Group Book design by BTDnyc Producrion manager: Leela Marjamaa-Reintal Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mearsheimer. John J. The tragedy of Great Power politics I John J. Mearsheimer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-393-02025-8 I. World politics-19th century. 2. World politics-20th century. 3. Great powers. 4. International relations. I. Title. 0397.M38 2001 327. l 'Ol---dc2 l 2001030915 W. W. Nanon & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York. N.Y. 10110 www.wwnonon.com W. W. Nonon & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Strcel, London WIT lQT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 CONTENTS List of Maps vii List of Tables ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xiv ONE Introduction TWO Anarchy and the Struggle for Power 29 THREE Wealth and Power 55 FOUR The Primacy of Land Power 83 FIVE Strategies for Survival 138 SIX Great Powers in Action 168 SEVEN The Offshore Balancers 234 EIGHT Balancing versus Buck-Passing 267 NINE The Causes of Great Power War 334 TEN Great Power Politics in the Twenty-first Century 360 403 Notes 535 Index LIST OF MAPS MAP 6.1 Targets of Japanese Expansion in Asia, 1868-1945 175 MAP 6.2 Europe in 1914 185 MAP 6.3 Soviet Expansion in Eastern Europe during the Early Cold War 200 MAP 6.4 Targets of Italian Expansion in Europe and Africa, 1861-1943 204 MAP 7.1 North America in 1800 240 MAP 7.2 Westward Expansion of the United States, 1800-1853 243 MAP I.I Europe at the Height of Napoleon's Power. 1810 275 MAP 8.2 Central Europe in 1866 290 MAP 1.3 Europe in 1935 312 LIST OF TAB LES I. I The Major Realist Theories 22 3.1 Indicators of British and Russian Wealth and Population, 1830-1913 64 3.2 Indicators of French and Prussian/German Wealth and Population, 1830-1913 66 3.3 Relative Share of European Wealth, 1816-1940 71 3.4 Relative Share of European Wealth, 1941-44 73 3.5 Relative Share of Superpower Wealth, 1945-90 74 6.1 Manpower in European Armies, 1875-95 187 6.2 Relative Share of World Wealth, 1830-1940 220 7.1 Population in the Western Hemisphere, 1800-1900 241 7.2 The United Kingdom and the United States, 1800-1900 248 8.1 Populations of European Great Powers, 1750-1816 282 8.2 Manpower in European Armies, 1789-1815 284 8.3 Manpower in European Armies, 1862-70 (Wars of German Unification) 295 1.4 Manpower in European Armies, 1900-1918 (World War l) 303 l.S Manpower in European Armies, 1920-30 305 Manpower in European Armies, 1933-38 317 1.7 Size of French and German Armies after Mobilization, 1938-40 319 Manpower in European Armies, 1939-41 320 9.1 Manpower in European Armies, 1820-58 352 9.2 Manpower in European Armies, 1853-56 (Crimean War) 352 9.3 Summary of European Wars by System Structure, 1 792-1990 357 1 0.1 The Asian Balance of Power, 2000 383 1 0.2 The European Balance of Power, 2000 384 10.3 China's Economy in Perspective 398 PREFACE he twentieth century was a period of great international violence. T In World War I ( 1 9 1 4- 1 8), roughly nine million people died on European battlefields. About fifty million people were killed during World War II ( 1 939-4 5 ) , well over half of them civilians. Soon after the end of World War II, the Cold War engulfed the globe. During this con frontation, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies never directly fought the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, but many millions died in proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, El Salvador, and elsewhere. Millions also died in the century's lesser, yet still fierce, wars. including the Russo-Japanese con flicts of 1 904-5 and 1 9 39, the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War from 1 9 1 8 to 1 920, the Russo-Polish War of 1 920-2 1 , the various Arab Israeli wars, and the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. This cycle of violence will continue far into the new millennium. Hopes for peace will probably not be realized, because the great powers that shape the international system fear each other and compete for power as a result. Indeed, their ultimate aim is to gain a position of dominant power over others. because having dominant power is the best means to ensure one's own survival. Strength ensures safety. and the greatest strength is the greatest insurance of safety. States facing this incentive are xi xii T H I T R A G I D Y OF G R E AT P O W E R P O L I T I C S fated t o dash a s each competes for advantage over the others. This is a tragic situation, but there is no escaping it unless the states that make up the system agree to form a world government. Such a vast transformation is hardly a realistic prospea, however, so conflia and war are bound to continue as large and enduring features of world politics. One could challenge this gloomy view by noting that the twentieth century ended peacefully-with the end of the Cold War-and that rela tions among the great powers are quite peaceful as we begin the twenty lirst century. This is cenainly true, but predicting the future by simply extrapolating forward from the present does not make for sound analysis. Consider what that approach would have told a European observer at the stan of each of the previous two centuries. In 1 800, Europe was in the midst of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, which lasted twenty-three years (1792-18 1 5 ) and involved all of that era's great pow ers. Extrapolating fotward from that bloody year, one would have expect ed the nineteenth century to be lilied with great-power conflict. In fact, it is among the least conflictual periods in European history. In 1900, on the other hand, there was no warfare in Europe that involved a great power, and little evidence ponended that one was in the offing. Extrapolating fotward from that tranquil year, one would have expected little conflict in Europe during the twentieth century. As we know, the opposite was the case. General theories of international politics offer useful tools for anticipat ing what lies ahead. The most useful theories of this sort would describe how great powers normally behave toward each other and would explain their conduct. Useful theories would also account in good pan for how the great powers have behaved in the past, including explaining why some historical periods were more conflictual than others. A theory that satisfies these requirements and helps us look backward to understand the past should also help us look fotward and anticipate the future. In this book I try to offer a theory with these attributes. My theory, which I label "offensive realism,· is essentially realist in nature; it falls thus in the tradition of realist thinkers such as E. H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, and Kenneth Waltz. Its elements are few and can be distilled in a handful of Preface xiii simple propositions. For example, I emphasize that great powers seek to maximize their share of world power. I also argue that multipolar systems which contain an especially powerful state-in other words, a potential hegemon-are especially prone to war. These and other propositions in this book will be controversial. In their defense I try to show that the logic that underpins them is sound and compelling. I also test these propositions against the historical record. For evidence I look mainly at relations between the great powers since 1 79 2. Finally, I u s e t h e theory to forecast t h e likely future shape of great-power relations. This book was written to speak both to my fellow academics and to citi zens who are interested in understanding the central forces that drive the behavior of the great powers. In pursuit of that goal, I have tried to make m y arguments clear and easy to understand for those unsteeped in the jargon and debates of the scholarly world. I have tried to keep in mind the advice that the literary scholar Lionel Trilling once gave to the eminent sociologist C. Wright Mills: "You are to assume that you have been asked to give a lecture on some subject you know well, before an a u dience of teachers and students from all departments of a leading university, as well as an assortment of interested people from a nearby city. Assu m e that such an a udience is before you and that they have a right to know; assume that you want to let them know. Now write. " 1 I hope readers con clude that m y efforts to follow this advice bore fruit. ACKNOW LEDG MENTS lthough I am responsible for the arguments in this book, I A received a great deal of help along the way from a small army of individuals and institutions. Numerous colleagues were willing to spend their valuable time reading and commenting on the manuscript, and their fingerprints are all over this book. Almost every reader caused me either to abandon a wrongheaded argument, add a new argument, or qualify an existing argument. Indeed, I shudder to think how many foolish ideas and errors of fact would still be in this book were it not for the comments I received. Still. I did not accept all of their suggestions, and I bear lull responsibility for any remaining problems. I owe a profound debt of gratitude to Colin Elman, Michael Desch, Peter Liberman, Karl Mueller, Marc Trachtenberg, and especially Stephen Walt, all of whom not only read and commented on the entire manuscript once but also read and commented on some parts of it more than once. I am also grateful for comments provided by Robert Art, Deborah Avant, Richard Betts, Dale Copeland, Michael Creswell, Michael Doyle, David Edelstein, Benjamin Frankel. Hein Goemans, Jack Goldsmith, Joseph Grieco, Arman Grigorian. David Herrmann, Eric Labs, Karl Lautenschlager, Christopher Layne, Jack Levy. Michael Mandelbaum, Karen Mings!, Takayuki Nishi. Robert Pape, Barry Posen. Daryl Press, Cynthia Roberts, Robert Ross, Brian xiv Acknowled9menta xv Schmidt, Jack Snyder. Stephen Van Evera, and Alexander Wendt. My apologies to anyone I forgot. Thanks are also owed to a host of research assistants who worked for me over the many years it took to write this book. They include Roshna Balasubramanian, David Edelstein, Daniel Ginsberg. Andrea Jett, Seth Jones, Keir Lieber, Daniel Marcinak, Justine Rosenthal, John Schussler, and Steven Weil. A special word of thanks is owed to Alexander Downes, who is largely responsible for producing the charts in this book, and who extensively researched a variety of subjects for me. As the penultimate draft of the book was being completed, the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City selected me as its Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow for 1 998-99. This wonderful fellowship is designed to help authors complete book projects in progress. Toward that end, the Council convened a study group that met three times in New York City to discuss different chapters from the book. Richard Betts did a superb job as chair of the group, which included Robert Jervis, Jack Levy, Gideon Rose. Jack Snyder. Richard Ullman. Kenneth Waltz. and Fareed Zakaria among its members. They were never short of criticism, but almost all of it was invaluable when I wrote the final draft. The Council also arranged for me to present chapters from the book to audiences in San Francisco and Washington. D.C. They, too, provided excellent comments. After each session in New York with the Council study group, I took a taxicab to Columbia University, where I presented the same chapters to a workshop run by two graduate students. Arman Grigorian and Roiger Schmidt. The Columbia students who attended each session offered many excellent comments, which helped me improve my arguments in a variety of ways. The University of Chicago played a pivotal role in helping me write this book by providing a rich and exacting intellectual environment, as well as generous research support. A scholar could not ask for a better home. I have been especially fortunate at C hicago to have worked with a long list of talented graduate students who not only forced me to sharpen my arguments but taught me a lot about the theory and history of interna tional politics. I also wish to thank the office staff in the Political Science xvi T H I T R A G I D Y OP G R E AT P O W I R P O L I T I C S Department ( Kathy Anderson, Heidi Parker. and Mimi Walsh) for provid ing me with logistical support over the years. I would also like to acknowledge long-standing debts to four individu als who were my principal mentors when I began my career. William Schwartz introduced me to the study of international security when I was a n undergraduate at West Point; Charles Powell nurtured me when I was a graduate student at the University of Southern California; and George Quester and Richard Rosecrance were my dissertation advisers at Cornell University. I would not have made it as a scholar, and thus would never have written this book, without their backing and without the support of the institutions where they taught and I studied. For all that help, I am forever grateful. Roby Harrington. my editor at Norton, came up with the idea for this book and has worked with me on the project for longer than either he or I anticipated. His patience and wisdom are greatly appreciated. Traci Nagle did a splendid job of copy-editing the manuscript, while Avery Johnson and Rob Whiteside did a fine job overseeing the production of the book that is before you. Finally, I thank my family for providing me with invaluable moral sup port. Writing a book is usually a protracted and painful process. I liken it to having to get up day after day to wrestle with a bear for hours on end. To finally whip the bear, it helps immensely to have strong support at home as well as in the arena of intellectual combat. I was fortunate to have both. Most important, I thank my wife. Pamela, to whom I owe so much. This book is dedicated to her. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics 0 NE Introduction any in the West seem to believe that "perpetual peace" among M the great powers is finally at hand. The end of the Cold War, so the argument goes, marked a sea change in how great powers interact with one another. We have entered a world in which there is little chance that the major powers will engage each other in security competi tion. much less war, which has become an obsolescent enterprise. In the words of one famous author, the end of the Cold War has brought us to the "the end of history."' This perspective suggests that great powers no longer view each other as potential military rivals, but instead as members of a family of nations. members of what is sometimes called the "'international community. " The prospects for cooperation are abundant in this promising new world, a world which is likely to bring increased prosperity and peace to all the great powers. Even a few adherents of realism, a school of thought that has his torically held pessimistic views about the prospects for peace among the great powers. appear to have bought into the reigning optimism, as reflect ed in an article from the mid-l 990s titled "Realists as Optimists. "2 Alas, the claim that security competition and war between the great powers have been purged from the international system is wrong. Indeed, there is much evidence that the promise of everlasting peace among the T H E T R A G E D Y OF G R E AT P O W E R P O L I T I C S great powers was stillborn. Consider, for example, that even though the Soviet threat has disappeared, the United States still maintains about one hundred thousand troops in Europe and roughly the same number in Northeast Asia. It does so because it recognizes that dangerous rivalries would probably emerge among the major powers in these regions if U.S. troops were withdrawn. Moreover, almost every European state, includ ing the United Kingdom and France, still harbors deep-seated, albeit muted, fears that a Germany unchecked by American power might behave aggressively; fear of Japan in Northeast Asia is probably even more profound, and it is certainly more frequently expressed. Finally, the possi bility of a clash between China and the United States over Taiwan is hard ly remote. This is not to say that such a war is likely, but the possibility reminds us that the threat of great-power war has not disappeared. The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business, and it is likely to remain that way. Although the intensity of their competition waxes and wanes, great powers fear each other and always compete with each other for power. The overriding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power, which means gain ing power at the expense of other states. But great powers do not merely strive to be the strongest of all the great powers, although that is a wel come outcome. Their ultimate aim is to be the hegemon-that is, the only great power in the system. There are no status quo powers in the international system, save for the occasional hegemon that wants to maintain its dominating position over potential rivals. Great powers are rarely content with the current dis tribution of power; on the contrary, they face a constant incentive to change it in their favor. They almost always have revisionist intentions, and they will use force to alter the balance of power if they think it can be done at a reasonable price. 3 At times, the costs and risks of trying to shift the balance of power are too great, forcing great powers to wait for more favorable circumstances. But the desire for more power does not go away, unless a state achieves the ultimate goal of hegemony. Since no state is likely to achieve global hegemony, however, the world is condemned to perpetual great-power competition. lntrocluction This unrelenting pursuit of power means that great powers are inclined to look for opportunities to alter the distribution of world power in their favor. They will seize these opportunities if they have the necessary capa bility. Simply put, great powers are primed for offense. But not only does a great power seek to gain power at the expense of other states, it also tries to thwart rivals bent on gaining power at its expense. Thus, a great power will defend the balance of power when looming change favors another state, and it will try to undermine the balance when the direction of change is in its own favor. Why do great powers behave this way? My answer is that the structure of the international system forces states which seek only to be secure nonetheless to act aggressively toward each other. Three features of the international system combine to cause states to fear one another: 1) the absence of a central authority that sits above states and can protect them from each other, 2) the fact that states always have some offensive mili tary capability, and 3) the fact that states can never be certain about other states' intentions. Given this fear-which can never be wholly eliminat ed-states recognize that the more powerful they are relative to their rivals. the better their chances of survival. lndeed, the best guarantee of survival is to be a hegemon, because no other state can seriously threaten such a mighty power. This situation, which no one consciously designed or intended, is gen uinely tragic. Great powers that have no reason to fight each other-that are merely concerned with their own survival-nevertheless have little choice but to pursue power and to seek to dominate the other states in the system. This dilemma is captured in brutally frank comments that Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck made during the early 1 860s, when it appeared that Poland, which was not an independent state at the time, might regain its sovereignty. "Restoring the Kingdom of Poland in any shape or form is tantamount to creating an ally for any enemy that chooses to attack us, " he believed, and therefore he advocated that Prussia should "smash those Poles till, losing all hope, they lie down and die; I have every sympathy for their situation, but if we wish to survive we have no choice but to wipe them out. "4 4 T H I T R A G I D Y OF G R E A T P O W I R P O L I T I C S Although i t i s depressing t o realize that great powers might think and act this way, it behooves us to see the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. For example, one of the key foreign policy issues facing the United States is the question of how China will behave if its rapid economic growth continues and effectively turns China into a giant Hong Kong. Many Americans believe that if China is democratic and enmeshed in the global capitalist system, it will not act aggressively; instead it will be con tent with the status quo in Northeast Asia. According to this logic, the United States should engage China in order to promote the latter's inte gration into the world economy, a policy that also seeks to encourage China's transition to democracy. If engagement succeeds, the United States can work with a wealthy and democratic China to promote peace around the globe. Unfortunately, a policy of engagement is doomed to fail. II China becomes an economic powerhouse it will almost certainly translate its economic might into military might and make a run at dominating Northeast Asia. Whether China is democratic and deeply enmeshed in the global economy or autocratic and autarkic will have little effect on its behavior, because democracies care about security as much as non democracies do, and hegemony is the best way for any state to guarantee its own survival. Of course, neither its neighbors nor the United States would stand idly by while China gained increasing increments of power. Instead, they would seek to contain China, probably by trying to form a balancing coalition. The result would be an intense security competition between China and its rivals, with the ever-present danger of great-power war hanging over them. In short, China and the United States are des tined to be adversaries as China's power grows. OF F E N S I V E R E A L I S M T his book offers a realist theory o f international politics that challenges the prevailing optimism about relations among the great powers. That enterprise involves three particular tasks. Introduction I begin by laying out the key components of the theory, which I call "offensive realism." I make a number of arguments about how great pow ers behave toward each other, emphasizing that they look for opportunities to gain power at each others' expense. Moreover, I identify the conditions that make conflict more or less likely. For example, I argue that multipolar systems are more war-prone than are bipolar systems, and that multipolar systems that contain especially powerful states-potential hegemons-are the most dangerous systems of all. But I do not just assert these various claims; I also attempt to provide compelling explanations for the behaviors and the outcomes that lie at the heart of the theory. In other words, I lay out the causal logic. or reasoning, which underpins each of my claims. The theory focuses on the great powers because these states have the largest impact on what happens in international politics. 5 The fortunes of all states-great powers and smaller powers alike-are determined prima rily by the decisions and actions of those with the greatest capability. For example, politics in almost every region of the world were deeply influ enced by the competition between the Soviet Union and the United States between 1945 and 1990. The two world wars that preceded the Cold War had a similar effect on regional politics around the world. Each of these conflicts was a great-power rivalry, and each cast a long shadow over every part of the globe. Great powers are determined largely on the basis of their relative mili tary capability. To qualify as a great power, a state must have sufficient military assets to put up a serious fight in an all-out conventional war against the most powerful state in the world.6 The candidate need not have the capability to defeat the leading state, but it must have some rea sonable prospect of turning the conflict into a war of attrition that leaves the dominant state seriously weakened, even if that dominant state ulti mately wins the war. In the nuclear age great powers must have a nuclear deterrent that can survive a nuclear strike against it. as well as formidable conventional forces. In the unlikely event that one state gained nuclear superiority over all of its rivals. it would be so powerful that it would be the only great power in the system. The balance of conventional forces would be largely irrelevant if a nuclear hegemon were to emerge. 6 T H I T R A G I D Y OF G R E A T POW E R POL I T I C S My second task in this book i s to show that the theory tells us a lot about the history of international politics. The ultimate test of any theory is how well it explains events in the real world, so I go to considerable lengths to test my arguments against the historical record. Specifically, the focus is on great-power relations from the start of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in 1 792 until the end of the twenti eth century. 7 Much attention is paid to the European great powers because they dominated world politics for most of the past two hundred years. Indeed, until Japan and the United States achieved great-power sta tus in 1895 and 1 898, respectively, Europe was home to all of the world's great powers. Nevertheless, the book also includes substantial discussion of the politics of Northeast Asia, especially regarding imperial Japan between 18 9 5 and 1945 and China in the 1 990s. The United States also figures prominently in my efforts to test offensive realism against past events. Some of the important historical puzzles that I attempt to shed light on include the following: 1 ) What accounts for the three longest and bloodiest wars in mod ern history-the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars ( 1 792-1 8 1 5) , World War I ( 1 9 1 4 -1 8 ) , and World War II ( 1 939 -45) conflicts that involved all of the major powers in the system? 2) What accounts for the long periods of relative peace in E urope between 1 8 1 6 and 1 8 52, 1 8 7 1 and 1 9 1 3, and especially 1 94 5 a n d 1 990, during t h e C o l d War? 3) Why did the United Kingdom, which was by far the wealthiest state in the world during the mid-nineteenth century, not build a powerful military and try to dominate Europe? In other words, why did it behave differently from Napoleonic France, Wilhelmine Germany, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, all of which trans lated their economic might into military might and strove for E u ropean hegemony? 4) Why was Bismarckian Germany ( 1862- 90 ) especially aggressive between 1862 and 1870, fighting two wars with other great powers Introduction 7 and one war with a minor power, but hardly aggressive at all from 1 8 7 1 until 1 890, when it fought no wars and generally sought to maintain the European status quo? 5) Why did the United Kingdom, France, and Russia form a balanc ing coalition against Wilhelmine Germany before World War I, but fail to organize a n effective alliance to contain Nazi Germany? 6) Why did Japan and the states of Western Europe join forces with the United States against the Soviet Union in the early years of the Cold War, even though the United States emerged from World War II with the most powerful economy in the world and a n uclear monopoly? 7 } What explains the commitment of American troops to Europe and Northeast Asia during the twentieth century? For example, why did the United States wait until April 1 9 1 7 to join World War I, rather than enter the war when it broke out in August 1 9 1 4? For that matter, why did the United States not send troops to Europe before 1 9 1 4 to prevent the outbreak of war? Similiarly, why did the United States not balance against Nazi Germany in the 1 9 30s or send troops to Europe before September 1 9 39 to prevent the outbreak of World War II? 8 ) Why did the United States and the Soviet Union continue build ing up their nuclear arsenals after each had acquired a secure sec ond-strike capability against the other? A world in which both sides have an "assured destruction" capability is generally consid ered to be stable and its nuclear balance difficult to overturn, yet both superpowers spent billions of dollars and rubles trying to gain a first-strike advantage. Third, I use the theory to make predictions about great-power politics in the twenty-first century. This effort may strike some readers as foolhardy, because the study of international relations, like the other social sciences, rests on a shakier theoretical foundation than that of the natural sciences. Moreover, political phenomena are highly complex; hence, precise politi cal predictions are impossible without theoretical tools that are superior to 8 T H E T R A G E D Y OF G R E AT P O W E R P O L I T I C S those w e now possess. A s a result, all political forecasting i s bound to include some error. Those who venture to predict, as I do here, should therefore proceed with humility, take care not to exhibit unwarranted con· fidence, and admit that hindsight is likely to reveal surprises and mistakes. Despite these hazards, social scientists should nevertheless use their theories to make predictions about the future. Making predictions helps inform policy discourse, because it helps make sense of events unfolding in the world around us. And by clarifying points of disagreement, making explicit forecasts helps those with contradictory views to frame their own ideas more clearly. Furthermore, trying to anticipate new events is a good way to test social science theories, because theorists do not have the bene· fit of hindsight and therefore cannot adjust their claims to fit the evidence (because it is not yet available ). In short, the world can be used as a labo· ratory to decide which theories best explain international politics. In that spirit, I employ offensive realism to peer into the future, mindful of both the benefits and the hazards of trying to predict events. The V i rtues and L i m its of Theory It should be apparent that this book is self·consciously theoretical. But out· side the walls of academia, especially in the policy world, theory has a bad name. Social science theories are often portrayed as the idle speculations of head·in·the·clouds academics that have little relevance to what goes on in the ""real world. " For example, Paul Nitze, a prominent American foreign· policy maker during the Cold War, wrote, "Most of what has been written and taught under the heading of 'political science' by Americans since World War II has been... of limited value, if not counterproductive, as a guide to the actual conduct of policy."' In this view, theory should fall almost exclusively within the purview of academics, whereas policymak· ers should rely on common sense, intuition, and practical experience to carry out their duties. This view is wrongheaded. In fact, none of us could understand the world we live in or make intelligent decisions without theories. Indeed, all students and practitioners of international politics rely on theories to Introduction 9 comprehend their surroundings. Some are aware of it and some are not, some admit it and some do not; but there is no escaping the fact that we could not make sense of the complex world around us without simplify ing theories. The Clinton administration's foreign policy rhetoric, for example, was heavily informed by the three main liberal theories of international relations: 1) the claim that prosperous and economically interdependent states are un likely to fight each other, 2 ) the claim that democracies do not fight each other, and 3) the claim that international institutions enable states to avoid war and concentrate instead on build ing cooperative relationships. Consider how Clinton and company justified expanding the member ship of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the mid-i 990s. President Clinton maintained that one of the chief goals of expansion was "'locking in democracy's gains in Central Europe,"' because "democracies resolve their differences peacefully." He also argued that the United States should foster an "open trading system," because "our security is tied to the stake other nations have in the prosperity of staying free and open and working with others, not working against them. "9 Strobe Talbott, Clinton's Oxford classmate and deputy secretary of state, made the same claims for NATO enlargement: "With the end of the cold war, it has become possible to construct a Europe that is increasingly united by a shared commitment to open societies and open markets."' Moving the borders of NATO east ward, he maintained, would help "to solidify the national consensus for democratic and market reforms"' that already existed in states like Hungary and Poland and thus enhance the prospects for peace in the region. 10 In the same spirit, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright praised NATO's founders by saying that "[t]heir basic achievement was to begin the construction of the.. network of rule-based institutions and arrangements that keep the peace. " "But that achievement is not com plete,"' she warned, and "our challenge today is to finish the post-war con struction project. [and] expand the area of the world in which American interests and values will thrive." 1 1 These examples demonstrate that general theories about how the world works play a n important role in how policymakers identify the ends lO T H I T R A O I DY O P O R I AT P OW I R POLI T I C S they seek and the means they choose t o achieve them. Yet that i s not to say we should embrace any theory that is widely held, no matter how popular it may be, because there are bad as well as good theories. For example, some theories deal with trivial issues. while others are opaque and almost impossible to comprehend. Funhennore, some theories have contradictions in their underlying logic, while others have little explana tory power because the world simply does not work the way they predict. The trick is to distinguish between sound theories and defective ones. 1 2 My a i m is t o persuade readers that offensive realism is a rich theory which sheds considerable light on the workings of the international system. As with all theories, however. there are limits to offensive realism's explanatory power. A few cases contradict the main claims of the theory, cases that offensive realism should be able to explain but cannot. All theo ries face this problem, although the better the theory, the fewer the anomalies. An example of a case that contradicts offensive realism involves Germany in 1 90 5. At the time Germany was the most powerful state in Europe. Its main rivals on the continent were France and Russia, which some fifteen years earlier had formed an alliance to contain the Germans. The United Kingdom had a tiny army at the time because it was counting on France and Russia to keep Germany at bay. When Japan unexpectedly inflicted a devastating defeat on Russia between 1 904 and 1 90 5 , which temporarily knocked Russia out of the European balance of power, France was left standing virtually alone against mighty Germany. Here was an excellent opportunity for Germany to crush France and take a giant step toward achieving hegemony in E urope. It surely made more sense for Germany to go to war in 1 90 5 than in 1 9 1 4. But Germany did not even seriously consider going to war in 1 90 5 , which contradicts what offensive realism would predict. Theories encounter anomalies because they simplify reality by empha· sizing certain factors while ignoring others. Offensive realism assumes that the international system strongly shapes the behavior of states. Structural factors such as anarchy and the distribution of power, I argue, are what matter most for explaining international politics. The theory pays little Introduction 11 attention to individuals or domestic political considerations such as ideol ogy. It tends to treat states like black boxes or billiard balls. For example, it does not matter for the theory whether Germany in 1 90 5 was led by Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm, or Adolf Hitler, or whether Germany was dem ocratic or autocratic. What matters for the theory is how much relative power Germany possessed at the time. These omitted factors, however, occasionally dominate a state's decision-making process; under these cir cumstances, offensive realism is not going to perform as well. In short, there is a price to pay for simplifying reality. Furthermore, offensive realism does not answer every question that arises in world politics, because there will be cases in which the theory is consistent with several possible outcomes. When this occurs, other theo ries have to be brought in to provide more precise explanations. Social sci entists say that a theory is.. indeterminate" in such cases, a situation that is not unusual with broad-gauged theories like offensive realism. An example of offensive realism's indeterminacy is that it cannot account for why the security competition between the superpowers dur ing the Cold War was more intense between 1 94 5 and 1 9 63 than between 1 9 63 and 1 990." The theory also has little to say about whether NATO should have adopted an offensive or a defensive military strategy to deter the Warsaw Pact in central E u rope.14 To answer these questions it is neces sary to employ more fine-grained theories, such as deterrence theory. Nevenheless, those theories and the answers they spawn do not contra dict offensive realism; they supplement it. In short, offensive realism is like a powerful flashlight in a dark room: even though it cannot illumi nate every nook and cranny, most of the time it is an excellent tool for navigating through the darkness. It should be apparent from this discussion that offensive realism is main ly a descriptive theory. It explains how great powers have behaved in the past and how they are likely to behave in the future. B u t it is also a pre scriptive theory. States should behave according to the dictates of offensive realism, because it outlines the best way to survive in a dangerous world. One might ask, if the theory describes how great powers act, why i s it necessary to stipulate how they should act? The imposing constraints of 12 T H I T R A O I D Y OF G R E AT P O W I R P O L I T I C S the system should leave great powers with little choice but t o act a s the theory predicts. Although there is much truth in this description of great powers as prisoners trapped in an iron cage, the fact remains that they sometimes-although not often-act in contradiction to the theory. These are the anomalous cases discussed above. As we shall see, such foolish behavior invariably has negative consequences. In short, if they want to survive, great powers should always act like good offensive realists. The Pursuit of Power Enough said about theory. More needs to be said about the substance of my arguments, which means zeroing in on the core concept of "power." For all realists, calculations about power lie at the heart of how states think about the world around them. Power is the currency of great-power politics, and states compete for it among themselves. What money is to economics, power is to international relations. This book is organized around six questions dealing with power. First, why do great powers want power? What is the underlying logic that explains why states compete for it? Second. how much power do states want? How in uch power is enough? These two questions are of para mount imponance because they deal with the most basic issues concern ing great-power behavior. My answer to these foundational questions, as emphasized above, is that the structure of the international system encourages states to pursue hegemony. Third, what is power? How is that pivotal concept defined and meas ured? With good indicators of power. it is possible to determine the power levels of individual states, which then allows us to describe the architec ture of the system. Specifically. we can identify which states qualify as great powers. From there, it is easy to determine whether the system is hegemonic (directed by a single great power), bipolar (controlled by two great powers ), or multipolar (dominated by three or more great powers ). Furthermore, w e will know the relative strengths of t h e major powers. We are especially interested in knowing whether power is distributed more or less evenly among them, or if there are large power asymmetries. Introduction 13 In particular, does the system contain a potential hegemon-a great power that is considerably stronger than any of its rival great powers? Defining power dearly also gives us a window into understanding state behavior. I[ states compete for power, we learn more about the nature of that competition if we understand more fully what power is, and there fore what states are competing for. In short, knowing more about the true nature of power should help illuminate how great powers compete among themselves. Fourth, what strategies do states pursue to gain power, or to maintain it when another great power threatens to upset the balance of power? B lackmail and war are the main strategies that states employ to acquire power. and balancing and buck-passing are the principal strategies that great powers use to maintain the distribution of power when facing a dan gerous rival. With balancing, the threatened state accepts the burden of deterring its adversary and commits substantial resources to achieving that goal. With buck-passing. the endangered great power tries to get another state to shoulder the burden of deterring or defeating the threatening state. The final two questions locus on the key strategies that states employ to maximize their share of world power. The fifth is, what are the causes of war? Specifically, what power-related factors make it more or less likely that security competition will intensify and tum into open conflict? Sixth, when do threatened great powers balance against a dangerous adversary and when do they attempt to pass the buck to another threatened state? I will attempt to provide clear and convincing answers to these ques tions. It should be emphasized, however, that there is no consensus among realists on the answers to any of them. Realism is a rich tradition with a long history, and disputes over fundamental issues have long been commonplace among realists. In the pages that follow, I do not consider alternative realist theories in much detail. I will make clear how offensive realism differs from its main realist rivals. and I will challenge these alter native perspectives on panicular points. mainly to elucidate my own argu ments. But no attempt will be made to systematically examine any other realist theory. Instead, the locus will be on laying out my theory of offen sive realism a n d using i t to explain t h e past a n d predict t h e future. 14 T H I T R A G I D Y OP G R I A T POW I R POLI T I C S Of course. there a r e also many nonrealist theories of international poli tics. Three different liberal theories were mentioned earlier; there are other nonrealist theories, such as social constructivism and bureaucratic poJitics, to name just two. I will briefly analyze some of these theories when I look at great-power politics after the Cold War ( Chapter 1 0), mainly because they underpin many of the claims that international poli tics has undergone a fundamental change since 1 990. Because of space limitations, however, I make no attempt at a comprehensive assessment of these nonrealist theories. Again, the emphasis in this study will be on making the case for offensive realism. Nevenheless, it makes good sense at this point to describe the theories that dominate thinking about international relations in both the academic and policy worlds, and to show how offensive realism compares with its main realist and nonrealist competitors. L I B E RA L I S M V S. R E A L I S M L iberalism and realism are the two bodies o f theory which hold places of privilege on the theoretical menu of international relations. Most of the great intellectual battles among international relations scholars take place either across the divide between realism and liberalism, or within those paradigms.15 To illustrate this point, consider the three most influential realist works of the twentieth century: 1) E. H. Carr's The 1Wenty Years' Crisis. 1919-1939, which was pub lished in the United Kingdom shonly after World War II staned in Europe(1939) and is still widely read today. 2 ) Hans Morgenthau's Politics among Nations. which was first pub lished in the United States in the early days of the Cold War (19 48) and dominated the field of international relations for at least the next two decades. 3) Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics, which has dominat ed the field since it first appeared during the latter pan of the Cold War(l979).16 lntrocluction 15 All three of these realist giants critique some aspect of liberalism in their writings. For example, both Carr and Waltz take issue with the liberal claim that economic interdependence enhances the prospects for peace.17 More generally, Carr and Morgenthau frequently criticize liberals for holding utopian views of politics which, if followed, would lead states to disaster. At the same time, these realists also disagree about a number of imponant issues. Waltz. for example, challenges Morgenthau's claim that multipolar systems are more stable than bipolar systems.11 Furthermore. whereas Morgenthau argues that states strive to gain power because they have an innate desire for power, Waltz maintains that the structure of the international system forces states to pursue power to enhance their prospects for survival. These examples are just a small sam ple of the differences among realist thinkers." Let u s now look more closely at liberalism and realism, focusing first on the core beliefs shared by the theories in each paradigm, and second on the differences among specific liberal and realist theories. Li be rali s m T h e liberal tradition h a s i t s roots in t h e Enlightenment, that period in eighteenth-century E u rope when intellectuals and political leaders had a powerful sense that reason could be employed to make the world a better place.20 Accordingly, liberals tend to be hopeful about the prospects of making the world safer and more peaceful. Most liberals believe that it is possible to substantially reduce the scourge of war and to increase inter national prosperity. For this reason, liberal theories are sometimes labelled "utopian" or.. idealist." Liberalism's optimistic view of international politics is based o n three core beliefs, which are common to almost all of the theories in the para digm. First, liberals consider states to be the main actors in international politics. S econd, they emphasize that the internal characteristics of states vary considerably, and that these differences have profound effects o n s t a t e behavior." Funhermore. liberal theorists often believe t h a t some internal a rrangements ( e. g.. democracy) are inherently preferable to oth ers (e.g., dictatorship ). For liberals. therefore. there are "good" and "bad" 16 T H I T R A G E D Y OF G R I A T P O W E R P O L I T I C S states i n the international system. Good states pursue cooperative policies and hardly ever start wars on their own, whereas bad states cause con flicts with other states and are prone to use force to get their way.22 Thus, the key to peace is to populate the world with good states. Third, liberals believe that calculations about power matter little for explaining the behavior of good states. Other kinds of political and eco nomic calculations matter more, although the form of those calculations varies from theory to theory, as will become apparent below. Bad states might be motivated by the desire to gain power at the expense of other states, but that is only because they are misguided. In an ideal world, where there are only good states, power would be largely irrelevant. Among the various theories found under the big tent of liberalism, the three main ones mentioned earlier are panicularly influential. The first argues that high levels of economic interdependence among states make them unlikely to fight each other." The taproot of stability. according to this theory. is the creation and maintenance of a liberal economic order that allows for free economic exchange among states. Such an order makes states more prosperous. thereby bolstering peace, because prosperous states are more economically satisfied and satisfied states are more peace ful. Many wars are waged to gain or preserve wealth, but states have much less motive to initiate war if they are already wealthy. Funhermore. wealthy states with interdependent economies stand to become less pros perous if they fight each other. since they are biting the hand that feeds them. Once states establish extensive economic ties, in short, they avoid war and can concentrate instead on accumulating wealth. The second. democratic peace theory. claims that democracies do not go to war against other democracies.24 Thus, a world containing only democratic states would be a world without war. The argument here is not that democracies are less warlike than non-democracies, but rather that democracies do not fight among themselves. There are a variety of explanations for the democratic peace, but little agreement as to which one is correct. Liberal thinkers do agree, however. that democratic peace theory offers a direct challenge to realism and provides a powerful recipe for peace. Introducti o n 17 Finally. some liberals maintain that international institutions enhance the prospects for cooperation among states and thus significantly reduce the likelihood of war.15 Institutions are not independent political entities that sit above states and force them to behave i n acceptable ways. Instead. institutions are sets of rules that stipulate the ways in which states should cooperate and compete with each other. They prescribe acceptable forms of state behavior and proscribe unacceptable kinds of behavior. These rules are not imposed on states by some leviathan, but are negotiated by states, which agree to abide by the rules they created because it is in their interest to do so. Liberals claim that these institutions or rules can funda mentally change state behavior. Institutions. so the argument goes. can discourage states from calculating self-interest on the basis of how their every move affects their relative power position. and thus they push states away from war and promote peace. Realism I n contrast to liberals, realists a r e pessimists w h e n it comes to internation a l politics. Realists agree that creating a peaceful world would be desirable, but they see no easy way to escape the harsh world of security competi tion and war. C reating a peaceful world is surely an attractive idea, but it is not a practical one. "Realism," as Carr notes, "tends to emphasize the irresistible strength of existing forces and the inevitable character of exist ing tendencies, and to insist that the highest wisdom lies i n accepting. and adapting oneself to these forces and these tendencies. "26 This gloomy view of international relations i s based on three core beliefs. First, realists, like liberals, treat states a s the principal actors in world politics. Realists focus mainly on great powers, however. because these states dominate and shape international politics a n d they also cause the deadliest wars. S econd, realists believe that the behavior of great pow ers is influenced mainly by their external environment, not by their inter nal characteristics. The structure of the international system, which all states must deal with, largely shapes their foreign policies. Realists tend n o t to draw sharp distinctions between good" and "bad" states, because 18 T H I T R A O I D Y OP G R E A T P O W E R P O L I T I C S all great powers act according t o the same logic regardless o f their culture, political system, or who runs the government.27 It is therefore difficult to discriminate among states, save for differences in relative power. In essence, great powers are like billiard balls that vary only in size." Third, realists hold that calculations about power dominate states' thinking, and that states compete for power among themselves. That com petition sometimes necessitates going to war, which is considered an acceptable instrument of statecraft. To quote Carl von Clausewitz, the nineteenth-century military strategist. war is a continuation of politics by other means.29 Finally, a zero-sum quality characterizes that competition, sometimes making it intense and unforgiving. States may cooperate with each other on occasion, but at root they have conflicting interests. Although there are many realist theories dealing with different aspects of power, two of them stand above the others: human nature realism, which is laid out in Morgenthau's Politics among Nations. and defensive realism. which is presented mainly in Waltz's Theory ofInternational Politics. What sets these works apan from those of other realists and makes them both imponant and controversial is that they provide answers to the two foundational questions described above. Specifically, they explain why states pursue power-that is, they have a story to tell about the causes of security competition-and each offers an argument about how much power a state is likely to want. Some other famous realist thinkers concentrate on making the case that great powers care deeply about power, but they do not attempt to explain why states compete for power or what level of power states deem satisfac tory. In essence, they provide a general defense of the realist approach, but they do not offer their own theory of international politics. The works of Carr and American diplomat George Kennan fit this description. In his seminal realist tract, The 1\venty Years ' Crisis. Carr criticizes liberalism at length and argues that states are motivated principally by power consider ations. Nevenheless. he says little about why states care about power or how much power they want.'° Bluntly put, there is no theory in his book. The same basic pattern obtains in Kennan's well-known book American Diplomacy, 1900-1950. " Morgenthau and Waltz, on the other hand, offer lntrocluctlon 19 their own theories of international relations, which is why they have dominated the discourse about world politics for the past fifty years. Human nature realism, which is sometimes called "classical realism, " dominated t h e study of international relations from t h e late 1 940s, when Morgenthau's writings began attracting a large audience, until the early 1 970s. 32 It is based on the simple assumption that states are led by human beings who have a "will to power" hardwired into them at birth. n That is, states have an insatiable appetite for power, or what Morgenthau calls "a limitless lust for power, " which means that they constantly look for opportunities to take the offensive and dominate other states.i 4 All states come with a n "animus dominandi, " so there is no basis for discriminating among more aggressive and less aggressive states, and there certainly should be no room in the theory for status quo states.15 Human nature realists recognize that international anarchy-the absence of a governing a uthority over the great powers---ca uses states to worry about the balance of power. But that structural constraint is treated as a second-order cause of state behavior. The principal driving force in international politics is the will to power inherent in every state in the system, and it pushes each of them to strive for supremacy. Defensive realism, which is frequently referred to as "stru ctural real ism." came on the scene in the late 1 970s with the appearence of Waltz's Theory of International Politics. i6 Unlike Morgenthau, Waltz does not assume that great powers are inherently aggressive because they are infused with a will to power; instead he stans by assuming that states merely aim to survive. Above all else. they seek security. Nevertheless, he maintains that the structure of the international system forces great powers to pay careful attention to the balance of power. In particular, anarchy forces security seeking states to compete with each other for power, because power is the best means to survival. Whereas human nature is the deep cause of secu rity competition in Morgenthau's theory, anarchy plays that role in Waltz's theory. " Waltz does not emphasize, however, that the international system pro vides great powers with good reasons to act offensively to gain power. Instead, h e appears to make the opposite case: that anarchy encourages 20 T H E T R A G E D Y OF G R E AT P O W E R P O L I T I C S states t o behave defensively and t o maintain rather than upset the balance of power. "The first concern of states, " he writes, is "to maintain their position in the system. "'38 There seems to be, as international relations the orist Randall Schweller notes, a status quo bias in Waltz's theory." Waltz recognizes that states have incentives to gain power at their rivals' expense and that it makes good strategic sense to act on that motive when the time is right. But he does not develop that line of argument in any detail. On the contrary, he emphasizes that when great powers behave aggressively, the potential victims usually balance against the aggressor and thwan its effons to gain power.40 For Waltz, in shon, bal ancing checkmates offense." Funhermore, he stresses that great powers must be careful not to acquire too much power, because "excessive strength" is likely to cause other states to join forces against them, thereby leaving them worse off than they would have been had they refrained from seeking additional increments of power.42 Waltz's views on the causes of war further reflect his theory's status quo bias. There are no profound or deep causes of war in his theory. In particular. he does not suggest that there might be imponant benefits to be gained from war. In fact, he says little about the causes of war, other than to argue that wars are largely the result of uncenainty and miscalcu lation. In other words, if states knew better, they would not stan wars. Roben Jervis, Jack Snyder, and Stephen Van Evera buttress the defen sive realists' case by focusing attention on a structural concept known as the offense-defense balance." They maintain that military power at any point in time can be categorized as favoring either offense or defense. If defense has a dear advantage over offense, and conquest is therefore diffi cult, great powers will have little incentive to use force to gain power and will concentrate instead on protecting what they have. When defense has the advantage, protecting what you have should be a relatively easy task. Alternatively, if offense is easier, states will be sorely tempted to try con quering each other, and there will be a lot of war in the system. Defensive realists argue. however, that the offense-defense balance is usually heavily tilted toward defense, thus making conquest extremely difficult.44 In sum, efficient balancing coupled with the natural advantages of defense over I ntroduction 21 offense should discourage great powers from pursuing aggressive strate gies and instead make them "defensive positionalists. "45 My theory of offensive realism is also a structural theory of internation al politics. As with defensive realism, my theory sees great powers as con cerned mainly with figuring out how to survive in a world where there is no agency to protect them from each other; they quickly realize that power is the key to their survival. Offensive realism parts company with defensive realism over the question of how much power states want. For defensive realists. the international structure provides states with little incentive to seek additional increments of power; instead it pushes them to maintain the existing balance of power. Preserving power, rather than increasing it, is the main goal of states. Offensive realists, on the other hand, believe that status quo powers are rarely found in world politics, because the international system creates powerful incentives for states to look for opponunities to gain power at the expense o! rivals, and to take advantage o! those situations when the benefits outweigh the costs. A state's ultimate goal is to be the hegemon in the system.46 It should be apparent that both o!!ensive realism and human nature realism portray great powers as relentlessly seeking power. The key differ ence between the two perspectives is that offensive realists reject Morgentha u's claim that states are naturally endowed with Type A per sonalities. O n the contrary, they believe that the international system forces great powers to maximize their relative power because that is the optimal way to maximize their security. In other words, s u rvival man dates aggressive behavior. Great powers behave aggressively not because they want to or because they possess some inner drive to dominate, but because they have to seek more power ii they want to maximize their odds o! survival. (Table I. I summarizes how the main realist theories answer the foundational questions described abov e. ) No ankle or b o o k m a k e s the c a s e f o r offensive realism in the sophisti cated ways that Morgenthau does for human nature realism and Waltz and others do for defensive realism. For sure, some realists have argued that the system gives great powers good reasons to act aggressively. Probably the best brief for offensive realism is a shon. obscure book writ- 22 T H I T R A G E D Y OF G R I A T P O W I R P O L I T I C S T A. I L i 1. 1 The Major Realist Theories Human Nature Defensive Offe nsive Realism Realism Realism What ca uses states to Lust for power Structure of Structure of compete for power? inherent in states the system the system How much power All they can get. Not much more All they can get. do states want? States maximize than what they have. States maximize relative power. States concentrate relative power, with hegemony as on maintaining the with hegemony as their ultimate goal. balance of power. their ultimate goal. ten during World War I by G. Lowes Dickinson, a British academic who was an early advocate of the League of Nations.47 In The European Anarchy, he argues that the root cause of World War I ·was not Germany nor any other power. The real culprit was the European anarchy,· which created powerful incentives for states "to acquire supremacy over the others for motives at once of security and domination. "48 Nevertheless, neither Dickinson nor anyone else makes a comprehensive case for offensive real ism." My aim in writing this book is to fill that void. P OW E R P OL I T I C S IN L l l E R A L A M E R I C A W hatever merits realism may have a s a n explanation for real-world politics and as a guide for formulating foreign policy, it is not a pop ular school of thought in the West. Realism's central message-that it makes good sense for states to sellishly pursue power-does not have broad appeal. It is difficult to imagine a modem political leader openly ask ing the public to light and die to improve the balance of power. No European or American leader did so during either world war or the Cold I n troduction 23 War. Most people prefer to think of fights between their own state and rival states as clashes between good and evil. where they are on the side of the angels and their opponents are aligned with the devil. Thus, leaders tend to portray war as a moral crusade or an ideological contest, rather than as a struggle for power. Realism is a hard sell. Americans appear to have an especially intense antipathy toward bal ance-of-power thinking. The rhetoric of twentieth-century presidents, for example, is filled with examples of realism bashing. Woodrow Wilson is probably the most well-known example of this tendency, because of his elo quent campaign against balance-of-power politics during and immediately after World War 1.50 Yet Wilson is hardly unique, and his successors have fre quently echoed his views. In the final year of World War II, for example, Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared, "In the future world the misuse of power as implied in the term 'power politics' must not be the controlling factor in international relations. " 5 1 More recently, Bill Clinton offered a strikingly similar view, proclaiming that "in a world where freedom, not tyranny, is on the march, the cynical calculus of pure power politics simply does not compute. It is ill-suited to a new era. "' 52 He sounded the same theme when defending NATO expansion in 1 997, arguing that the charge that this policy might isolate Russia was based on the mistaken belief "that the great power territorial politics of the 20th century will dominate the 2 1 st century. Instead, Clinton emphasized his belief that enlightened self interest, as well as shared values, will compel countries to define their great ness in more constructive ways... and will compel us to cooperate. " 5 3 Why Americans D i s l i ke Realism Americans tend to be hostile to realism because it clashes with their basic values. Realism stands opposed to Americans' views of both themselves and the wider world." In particular, realism is at odds with the deep-seated sense of optimism and moralism that pervades much of American society. Liberalism. on the other hand, fits neatly with those values. Not surprising ly, foreign policy discourse in the United States often sounds as if it has been lifted right out of a Liberalism I O I lecture. 24 T H I T R A G I D Y OF G R E A T P O W I R P O L I T I C S Americans are basically optimists.55 They regard progress i n politics, whether at the national or the international level, as both desirable and possible. As the French author Alexis de Tocqueville observed long ago, Americans believe that man is endowed with an indefinite faculty of improvement. "56 Realism, by contrast, offers a pessimistic perspective on international politics. It depicts a world rife with security competition and war, and holds out little promise of an "escape from the evil of power, regardless of what one does."57 Such pessimism is at odds with the power ful American belief that with time and effort, reasonable individuals can cooperate to solve important social problems.58 Liberalism offers a more hopeful perspective on world politics, and Americans naturally find it more attractive than the gloomy specter drawn by realism. Americans are also prone to believe that morality should play an important role in politics. As the prominent sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset writes, "Americans are utopian moralists who press hard to institu tionalize virtue, to destroy evil people, and eliminate wicked institutions and practices. "'59 This perspective clashes with the realist belief that war is an intrinsic element of life in the international system. Most Americans tend to think of war as a hideous enterprise that should ultimately be abolished from the face of the Earth. It might j ustifiably be used for lofty liberal goals like fighting tyranny or spreading democracy, but it is morally incorrect to fight wars merely to change or preserve the balance of power. This makes the Clausewitzian conception of warfare anathema to most Americans. 60 The American proclivity for moralizing also conflicts with the fact that realists tend not to distinguish between good and bad states, but instead dis criminate between states largely on the basis of their relative power capa bilities. A purely realist interpretation of the Cold War, for example, allows for no meaningful difference in the motives behind American and Soviet behavior during that conflict. According to realist theory, both sides were driven by their concerns about the balance of power, and each did what it could to maximize its relative power. Most Americans would recoil at this interpretation of the Cold War, however, because they believe the United States was motivated by good intentions while the Soviet Union was not. lntrocluction 25 Liberal theorists do distinguish between good and bad states, of course, and they usually identify liberal democracies with market economies as the most worthy. Not surprisingly, Americans tend to like this perspective, because it identifies the United States as a benevolent force in world pol itics and ponrays its real and potential rivals as misguided or malevolent troublemakers. Predictably. this line of thinking fueled the euphoria that attended the downfall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. When the evil empire collapsed, many Americans (and Europeans) con cluded that democracy would spread across the globe and that world peace would soon break out. This optimism was based largely on the belief that democratic America is a virtuous state. If other states emulated the United States, therefore, the world would be populated by good states, and this development could only mean the end of international conflict. Rhetoric vs. Proctice B ecause Americans dislike realpolitik, public discourse about foreign poli cy in the United States is usually couched in the language of liberalism. Hence the pronouncements of the policy elites are heavily flavored with optimism and moralism. American academics are especially good at pro moting liberal thinking in the marketplace of ideas. Behind dosed doors. however, the elites who make national security policy speak mostly the language of power, not that of principle, and the United States acts in the international system according to the dictates of realist logic.61 In essence, a discernible gap separates public rhetoric from the actual conduct of American foreign policy. Prominent realists have often criticized U. S. diplomacy on the grounds that it is too idealistic and have complained that American leaders pay insufficient attention to the balance of power. For example, Kennan wrote in 1 9 5 1. 1 see the most serious fault of our past policy formulation to lie i n something that I might call the legalistic-moralistic approach to interna tional problems. This approach runs like a red skein through our foreign policy of the last fifty years.., According to this line of argument. there is n o real gap between America's liberal rhetoric and its foreign policy 26 T H I T R A G I DY or G R E A T P O W E R P O L I T I C S behavior, because t h e United States practices what it preaches. But this claim is wrong, as I will argue at length below. American foreign policy has usually been guided by realist logic. although the public pronounce ments of its leaders might lead one to think otherwise. It should be obvious to intelligent observers that the United States speaks one way and acts another. In fact, policymakers in other states have always remarked about this tendency in American foreign policy. As long ago as 1 939, for example, Carr pointed out that states on the European continent regard the English-speaking peoples as "'masters in the an of concealing their selfish national interests in the guise of the gen eral good,· adding that "this kind of hypocrisy is a special and characteris tic peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon mind. " 6 1 Still, the gap between rhetoric and reality usually goes unnoticed in the United States itself. Two factors account for this phenomenon. First, realist policies sometimes coincide with the dictates of liberalism, in which case there is no conflict between the pursuit of power and the pursuit of prin ciple. Under these circumstances, realist policies can be j ustified with lib eral rhetoric without having to discuss the underlying power realities. This coincidence makes for an easy sell. For example. the United States fought against fascism in World War II and communism in the Cold War for largely realist reasons. But both of those fights were also consistent with liberal principles, and thus policymakers had little trouble selling them to the public as ideological conflicts. Second, when power considerations force the United States to act in ways that conflict with liberal principles, "spin doctors· appear and tell a story that accords with liberal ideals." For example. in the late nineteenth century. American elites generally considered Germany to be a progres sive constitutional state wonhy of emulation. But the American view of Germany changed in the decade before World War I, as relations between the two states deteriorated. By the time the United States declared war on Germany in April 1 9 1 7, Americans had come to see Germany as more autocratic and militaristic than its European rivals. Similarly. during the late 1 9 30s, many Americans saw the Soviet Union as a n evil state. panly in response to Josef Stalin's murderous internal I ntroduction 27 policies and his infamous alliance with Nazi Germany in August 1 9 39. Nevertheless, when the United States joined forces with the Soviet Union in late 1 94 1 to fight against the Third Reich, the U.S. government began a massive public relations campaign to clean up the image of America's new ally and make it compatible with liberal ideals. The Soviet Union was now portrayed as a proto-democracy, and Stalin became "Uncle Joe. " H o w is it possible to g e t away with this contradktion between rhetoric and policy? Most Americans readily accept these rationalizations because liberalism is so deeply rooted in their culture. As a result, they find it easy to believe that they are acting according to cherished principles, rather than cold and calculated power considerations.65 T H E P L A N OF T H E B OOK he rest of the chapters in this book are concerned mainly with T answering the six big questions about power which I identified earlier. Chapter 2, which is probably the most important chapter in the book, lays out my theory of why states compete for power and why they pursue hegemony. In Chapters 3 and 4, 1 define power and explain how to measure it. I do this in order to lay the groundwork for testing my theory. It is impossible to determine whether states have behaved according to the dictates of offensive realism without knowing what power is and what different strategies states employ to maximize their share of world power. My start ing point is to distinguish between potential power and actual military power, and then to argue that states care deeply about both kinds of power. Chapter 3 focuses on potential power, which involves mainly the size of a state's population and its wealth. Chapter 4 deals with actual mil itary power. It is an especially long chapter because I make arguments about "the primacy of land power· and "the stopping power of water" that are novel and likely to be controversial. In Chapter 5, I discuss the strategies that great powers employ to gain and maintain power. This chapter includes a substantial discussion of the 28 T H E T R A G I D Y Of G R IAT P O W I R P O L I T I C S utility o f war for acquiring power. I also focus o n balancing and buck passing, which are the main strategies that states employ when faced with a rival that threatens to upset the balance of power. In Chapters 6 and 7, I examine the historical record to see whether there is evidence to suppon the theory. Specifically. I compare the con duct of the great powers from 1792 to 1 990 to see whether their behavior fits the predictions of offensive realism. In Chapter 8, I lay out a simple theory that explains when great powers balance and when they choose to buck-pass. and then I examine that the ory against the historical record. Chapter 9 focuses on the causes of war. Here. too, I lay out a simple theory and then test it against the empirical record. Chapter IO challenges the oft-m a de claim that international politics has been fundamentally transformed with the end of the Cold War. and that great powers no longer compete with each other for power. I briefly assess the theories underpinning that optimistic perspective, and then I look at how the great powers have behaved in Europe and Northeast Asia between 1 99 I and 2000. Finally, I make predictions about the likelihood of great-power conflict in these two important regions in the early twenty first century. T W O Anarchy and the Struggle for Power reat powers, I argue, are always searching for opportunities to G gain power over their rivals, with hegemony as their final goal. This perspective does not allow for status quo powers, except for the unusual state that achieves preponderance. Instead, the system is pop ulated with great powers that have revisionist intentions at their core. 1 This chapter presents a theory that explains this competition for power. Specifically, I attempt to show that there is a compelling logic behind my claim that great powers seek to maximize their share of world power. I do not, however, test offensive realism against the historical record in this chapter. That important task is reserved for later chapters. W H Y S T AT E S P U R S U E P O W E R y explanation for why great powers vie with each other for power M and strive for hegemony is derived from five assumptions about the international system. None of these assumptions alone mandates that states behave competitively. Taken together, however, they depict a world in which states have considerable reason to think and sometimes behave aggressively. In particular, the system encourages states to look for oppor tunities to maximize their power vis-.3 -vis other states. 29 JO T H I T R A G E DY O F G R E A T P O W l l P O L I T I C S How important i s i t that these assumptions b e realistic? Some social sci entists argue that the assumptions that underpin a theory need not con form to reality. Indeed, the economist Milton Friedman maintains that the best theories "will be found to have assumptions that are wildly inaccu rate descriptive representations of reality, and, in general, the more signif icant the theory, the more unrealistic the assumptions. "2 According to this view, the explanatory power of a theory is all that matters. If unrealistic assumptions lead to a theory that tells us a lot about how the world works, it is of no importance whether the underlying assumptions are realistic or not. I reject this view. Although I agree that explanatory power is the ulti mate criterion for assessing theories, I also believe that a theory based on unrealistic or false assumptions will not explain much about how the world works. 1 Sound theories are based on sound assumptions. Accordingly, each of these five assumptions is a reasonably accurate representation of an important aspect of life in the international system. Bedrock Assumptions The first assumption is that the international system is anarchic, which does not mean that it is chaotic or riven by disorder. It is easy to draw that conclusion, since realism depicts a world characterized by security compe tition and war. By itself, however, the realist notion of anarchy has noth ing to do with conflict; it is an ordering principle, which says that the system comprises independent states that have no central authority above them.4 Sovereignty, in other words, inheres in states because there is no higher ruling body in the international system.' There is no "government over governments. "6 The second assumption is that great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability, which gives them the wherewithal to hun and possibly destroy each other. States are potentially dangerous to each other, although some states have more military might than others and are therefore more dangerous. A state's military power is usually identified with the panicular weaponry at its disposal, although even if there were Anarchy and the Struggle for Power 31 no weapons, the individuals in those states could still use their feet and hands to attack the population of another state. After all, for every neck, there are two hands to choke it. The third assumption is that states can never be certain about other states' intentions. Specifically. no state can be sure that another state will not use its offensive military capability to attack the first state. This is not to say that states necessarily have hostile intentions. Indeed, all of the states in the system may be reliably benign, but it is impossible to be sure of that judgment because intentions are impossible to divine with 1 00 percent cer tainty.7 There are many possible causes of aggression, and no state can be sure that another state is not motivated by one of them.8 Furthermore, intentions can change quickly, so a state's intentions can be benign one day and hostile the next. Uncertainty about intentions is unavoidable, which means that states can never be sure that other states do not have offensive intentions to go along with their offensive capabilities. The fourth assumption is that survival is the primary goal of great pow ers. Specifically, states seek to maintain their territorial integrity and the autonomy of their domestic political order. Survival dominates other motives because, once a state is conquered, it is unlikely to be in a posi tion to pursue other aims. Soviet leader Josef Stalin put the point well during a war scare in 1 927: "We can and must build socialism in the [ Soviet Union ]. But in order to do so we first of all have to exist."' States can and do pursue other goals, of course, but security is their most impor tant objective. The fifth assumption is that great powers are rational actors. They are aware of their external environment and they think strategically about how to survive in it. In particular, they consider the preferences of other states and how their own behavior is likely to affect the behavior of those other states, and how the behavior of those other states is likely to affect their own strategy for survival. Moreover, states pay attention to the long term as well as the immediate consequences of their actions. As emphasized, none of these assumptions alone dictates that great powers as a general rule should behave aggressively toward each other. There is surely the possibility that some state might have hostile intentions. )2 T H I T R A G I D Y OP G R I A T P O W I R P O L I T I C S but the only assumption dealing with a specific motive that i s common to all states says that their principal objective is to survive, which by itself is a rather harmless goal. Nevertheless, when the five assumptions are married together, they create powerful incentives for great powers to think and act offensively with regard to each other. In particular, three general patterns of behavior result: fear, self-help, and power maximization. State Behavior Great powers fear each other. They regard each other with suspicion, and they worry that war might be in the offing. They anticipate danger. There is little room for trust among states. For sure, the level of fear varies across time and space, but it cannot be reduced to a trivial level. From the per spedive of any one great power, all other great powers are potential ene mies. This point is illustrated by the reaction of the United Kingdom and France to German reunification at the end of the Cold War. Despite the fact that these three states had been dose allies for almost forty-five years, both the United Kingdom and France immediately began worrying about the potential dangers of a united Germany. ' ° The basis of this fear is t h a t in a world where great powers have the capability to attack each other and might have the motive to do so, any state bent on survival must be at least suspicious of other states and reluc tant to trust them. Add to this the " 9 1 1 " problem-the absence of a cen tral authority to which a threatened state can tum for help-and states have even greater incentive to fear each other. Moreover, there is no mechanism, other than the possible self-interest of third parties, for pun ishing an aggressor. Because it is sometimes difficult to deter potential aggressors, states have ample reason not to trust other states and to be prepared for war with them. The possible consequences of falling victim to aggression further ampli fy the importance of fear as a motivating force in world politics. Great pow ers do not compete with each other as if international politics were merely an economic marketplace. Political competition among states is a much more dangerous business than mere economic intercourse; the former can Anarchy ancl the Struggle for Power )) lead to war. and war often means mass killing on the battlefield as well as mass murder of civilians. In extreme cases, war can even lead to the destruction of states. The horrible consequences of war sometimes cause states to view each other not j ust as competitors, but as potentially deadly enemies. Political antagonism, in short, tends to be intense, because the stakes are great. States in the international system also aim to guarantee their own sur vival. Because other states are potential threats, and because there is no higher authority to come to their rescue when they dial 9 1 1 , states can not depend on others for their own security. Each state tends to see itself as vulnerable and alone, and therefore it aims to provide for its own sur vival. In international politics, God helps those who help themselves. This emphasis on self-help does not preclude states from forming alliances.u But alliances are only temporary marriages of convenience: today's alliance partner might be tomorrow's enemy, and today's enemy might be tomorrow's alliance partner. For example, the United States fought with China and the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan in World War II, but soon thereafter flip-flopped enemies and partners and allied with West Germany and Japan against China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. States operating in a self-help world almost always act according to their own self-interest and do not subordinate their interests to the inter ests of other states, or to the interests of the so-called international com m unity. The reason is simple: it pays to be selfish in a self-help world. This is true in the short term as well as in the long term, because if a state loses in the short run, it might not be around for the long haul. Apprehensive about the ultimate intentions of other states. and aware that they operate in a self-help system, states quickly understand that the best way to ensure their survival is to be the most powerful state in the system. The stronger a state is relative to its potential rivals, the less likely it is that any of those rivals will attack it and threaten its survival. Weaker states will be reluctant to pick fights with more powerful states because the weaker states are likely to suffer military defeat. Indeed, the bigger the gap in power between any two states, the less likely it is that the weaker 14 T H E T R A G I D Y OP G R I AT P O W I R P O L I T I C S will attack the stronger. Neither Canada nor Mexico, for example, would countenance attacking the United States, which is far more powerful than its neighbors. The ideal situation is to be the hegemon in the system. As Immanuel Kant said, "It is the desire of every state, or of its ruler, to arrive at a condition of perpetual peace by conquering the whole world, if that were possible. "12 Survival would then be almost guaranteed. u Consequently. states pay close attention to how power is distributed among them, and they make a special effon to maximize their share of world power. Specifically. they look for opportunities to alter the balance of power by acquiring additional increments of power at the expense of potential rivals. States employ a variety of means-economic, diplomatic, and military-to shift the balance of power in their favor. even if doing so makes other states suspicious or even hostile. Because one state's gain in power is another state's loss, great powers tend to have a zero-sum men tality when dealing with each other. The trick, of course, is to be the win ner in this competition and to dominate the other states in the system. Thus, the claim that states maximize relative power is tantamount to arguing that states are disposed to think offensively toward other states, even though their ultimate motive is simply to survive. In short, great powers have aggressive intentions. 1 4 Even when a great power achieves a distinct military advantage over its rivals, it continues looking for chances to gain more power. The pursuit of power stops only when hegemony is achieved. The idea that a great power might feel secure without dominating the system, provided it has an "'appropriate amount" of power, is not persuasive, for two reasons. 1 5 First. i t i s difficult t o assess how much relative power o n e state must have over its rivals before it is secure. Is twice as much power an appropriate threshold? Or is three times as much power the magic number? The root of the problem is that power calculations alone do not determine which side wins a war. Clever strategies. for example, sometimes allow less pow erful states to defeat more powerful foes. Second, determining how much power is enough becomes even more complicated when great powers contemplate how power will be distrib uted among them ten or twenty years down the road. The capabilities of Anarchy a n d the Struggle for Power J5 individual states vary over time, sometimes markedly, and it is often diffi cult to predict the direction and scope of change in the balance of power. Remember, few in the West anticipated the collapse of the Soviet Union before it happened. In fact, during the first half of the Cold War, many in the West feared that the Soviet economy would eventually generate greater wealth than the American economy, which would cause a marked power shift against the United States and its allies. What the future holds for China and Russia and what the balance of power will look like in 2020 is difficult to foresee. Given the difficulty of determining how much power is enough for today and tomorrow, great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibili ty of a challenge by another great power. Only a misguided state would pass up an opportunity to be the hegemon in the system because it thought it already had sufficient power to survive. " But even if a great power does not have the wherewithal to achieve hegemony (and that is usually the case), it will still act offensively to amass as much power as it can, because states are almost always better off with more rather than less power. In shon, states do not become status quo powers until they com pletely dominate the system. All states are influenced by this logic, which means that not only do they look for opportunities to take advantage of one another. they also work to ensure that other states do not take advantage of them. After all, rival states are driven by the same logic, and most states are likely to rec ognize their own motives at play in the actions of other states. In short, states ultimately pay attention to defense as well as offense. They think about conquest themselves, and they work to check aggressor states from gaining power at their expense. This inexorably leads to a world of con stant security competition, where states are willing to lie, cheat. and use brute force if it helps them gain advantage over their rivals. Peace, if one defines that concept as a state of tranquility or mutual concord, is not like ly to break out in this world. The security dilemma, · which is one of the most well-known concepts in the international relations literature, reflects the basic logic of offensive )6 T H I T R A G E D Y O F G R E AT P O W I R P O L I T I C S realism. The essence o f the dilemma i s that the measures a state takes to increase its own security usually decrease the security of other states. Thus, it is difficult for a state to increase its own chances of survival with out threatening the survival of other states. John Herz first introduced the security dilemma in a I 950 anicle in the journal World Politics. " After dis cussing the anarchic nature of international politics, he writes. "Striving to attain security from... attack. [states] are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the impact of the power of others. This. in tum, renders the others more insecure and compels them to prepare for the worst. Since none can ever feel entirely secure in such a world of competing units, power competition ensues, and the vicious circle of secu rity and power accumulation is on. " 1 8 The implication of Herz's analysis is clear: the best way for a state to survive in anarchy is to take advantage of other states and gain power at their expense. The best defense is a good offense. Since this message is widely understood, ceaseless security com petition ensues. Unfonunately. little can be done to ameliorate the securi ty dilemma as long as states operate in anarchy. It should be apparent from this discussion that saying that states are power maximizers is tantamount to saying that they care about relative power, not absolute power. There is an important distinction here, because states concerned about relative power behave differently than do states interested in absolute power. 1 9 States that maximize relative power are concerned primarily with the distribution of

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