From the most remote ages onward, the peoples have perpetually assailed one another for the satisfaction of their appetites and their egotistical interests [and their fears]. I have not made this history, and neither have you. It is.
(Georges Clemenceau, December 29, 1918 quoted by Osiander 1994, 265)
A new science of politics is needed for a new world. [Tocqueville (1835) 1945, 7]
War and the possibility of war among the great powers have been the motor of international politics, not only strongly influencing the boundaries and distribution of values among them, but deeply affecting their internal arrangements and shaping the fates of smaller states. Being seen as an ever-present possibility produced by deeply rooted factors such as human nature and the lack of world government, these forces were expected to continue indefinitely. But I would argue that war among the leading great powers—the most developed states of the United States, West Europe, and Japan—will not occur in the future, and indeed is no longer a source of concern for them (Mueller 1989; also see Adler 1992; Duffield 2001; Goldgeier and McFaul 1992; Jervis 1991/1992; Mandelbaum 1998/1999; Shaw 1994; Singer and Wildavsky 1993; Ullman 1991; Van Evera 1990/1991). The absence of war among these states would itself be a development of enormous proportions, but the change goes even farther because war is not even contemplated. During the Cold War peace was maintained, but this was due to the fear that if the superpowers did not take care, they would indeed fight.
Now, however, the leading states form what Karl Deutsch called a pluralistic security community, a group among whom war is literally unthinkable—i.e., neither the publics nor the political elites nor even the military establishments expect war with each other (Deutsch et al. 1957; also see Adler and Barnett 1998; Melko 1973). No official in the Community would advocate a policy on the grounds that it would improve the state's position in the event of war with other members. Although no state can move away from the reliance on war by itself lest it become a victim, the collectivity can do so if each forsakes the resort to force.
Security communities are not unprecedented. But what is unprecedented is that the states that constitute this one are the leading members of the international system and so are natural rivals that in the past were central to the violent struggle for security, power, and contested values. Winston Churchill exaggerated only slightly when he declared that “people talked a lot of nonsense when they said nothing was ever settled by war. Nothing in history was ever settled except by wars” (quoted by Gilbert 1983, 860–1). Even cases of major change without war, such as Britain yielding hegemony in the Western Hemisphere to the United States at the turn of the 20th century, were strongly influenced by security calculations. Threatening war, preparing for it, and trying to avoid it have permeated all aspects of politics, and so a world in which war among the most developed states is unthinkable will be a new one. To paraphrase and extend a claim made by Evan Luard (1986, 77), given the scale and frequency of war among the great powers in the proceeding millennia, this is a change of spectacular proportions, perhaps the single most striking discontinuity that the history of international politics has anywhere provided.
Two major states, Russia and China, might fight each other or a member of the Community.1
One reason for the difference between my analysis and Mearsheimer's (2001) is that he focuses more on the danger of a war with Russia or China.
But, as I discuss below, such a conflict would be different from traditional wars between great powers. Furthermore, these countries lack many of the attributes of great powers: their internal regimes are shaky, they are not at the forefront of any advanced forms of technology or economic organization, they can pose challenges only regionally, and they have no attraction as models for others. They are not among the most developed states and I think it would be fair to put them outside the ranks of the great powers as well. But their military potential, their possession of nuclear weapons, and the size of their economies renders that judgment easily debatable and so I will not press it but rather will argue that the set of states that form the Community are not all the great powers, but all the most developed ones.
Other states generally seen as Western also could fight, most obviously Greece and Turkey. Despite their common membership in NATO, the conflicts of interest are severe enough to lead each to contemplate war with the other. Neither is a leading power so this does not disturb my argument, although a thought-experiment that would transform them into such states without diminishing their animosity would.
CENTRAL QUESTIONS
Five questions arise. First, does the existence of the Community mean the end of security threats to its members and, more specifically, to the United States? Second, will the Community endure? Third, what are the causes of its construction and maintenance? Fourth, what are the implications of this transformation for the conduct of international affairs? Finally, what does this say about theories of the causes of war?
CONTINUED THREATS
The fact that the United States is not menaced by the most developed countries obviously does not mean that it does not face any military threats. Indeed, even before September 11 some analysts saw the United States as no more secure than it was during the Cold War, being imperiled by terrorists and “rogue” states, in addition to Russia and China.2
This paper was completed on September 10 and the obvious question is how the next day's events affect the analysis. Although terrorism of this unprecedented magnitude is horrifying and will have a significant impact on domestic and international politics, I do not think it has the potential to be a functional substitute for great power war and be the driving force of politics. The world is not likely to unite to combat terrorism. Not only are the forms and sources of this scourge varied, but states have many other competing interests and leaders may sometimes find terrorism a useful tool. Indeed by calling for a war against terrorism with a global reach (i.e., able to kill Americans), the United States has indicated both that its narrow interests are primary and that it is hopeless if not undesirable to seek an end to all terror. The United States asks other countries to put aside their individual goals, calls on India and Pakistan to “stand down” to facilitate the campaign against Al Qaeda, and tells Israel and the PLO to stop shooting so that Muslim opinion will not be further inflamed. But these and other countries have concerns that are more important to them than combating terrorism and in a fairly short period of time previous outlooks and conflicts of interest will reassert themselves. Absent the use of nuclear weapons or large-scale biological attacks, I think, that, looking back 10 or 20 years from now, these terrorist incidents and the campaign against them will loom less large than the turning points of the 20th century, such as World War II and the end of the Cold War.
But even if I am wrong to believe that these claims are exaggerated, representing the political and psychological propensity for the “conservation of enemies” (
Hartmann 1982;
Mueller 1994); these conflicts do not have the potential to drive world politics the way that clashes among the leading powers did in the past. They do not permeate all facets of international politics and structure state–society relations; they do not represent a struggle for dominance in the international system or a direct challenge to American vital interests.
Even the fiercest foes of Russia, China, or the rogues do not see them as ready to launch unprovoked attacks against the United States or other members of the Community, let alone as out to control the world. Russia and China are not seeking to replace the United States; any clash will come out of these countries' desire for a sphere of influence and the American belief that such arrangements are inappropriate in today's world—at least for others. Thus while there are reasons why the United States might fight the PRC to protect Taiwan or Russia to protect the Baltic republics, these disputes are not like those that characterized great power conflicts over the past three centuries. The United States is defending not traditional national interests, let alone vital ones, but, in seeking what Wolfers (1962, 73–6) called “milieu goals,” upholding values such as democracy, self-determination, and rejection of coercion as a means of changing the status quo. These may be deeply held both for their intrinsic value and for their role in maintaining America's worldwide reach, but they are more akin to the concerns of imperial powers than to sources of conflict between equal major powers.
WILL THE SECURITY COMMUNITY LAST?
Predictions about the maintenance of the Community are obviously disputable (indeed, limitations on people's ability to predict could undermine it), but nothing in the short period since the end of the Cold War points to an unraveling. The disputes within it do not seem to be increasing in number or severity and even analysts who stress the continuation of the struggle for world primacy and great power rivalries do not expect fighting [Huntington 1993; Kupchan forthcoming; Waltz 1993, 2000; however, Calleo (2001), Layne (2000), and Mearsheimer (1990, 2001) are ambiguous on this point]. If the United States is still concerned with maintaining its advantages over its allies, the reason is not that it believes that it may have to fight them but that it worries that rivalry could make managing world problems more difficult (Layne 2000; New York Times, March 8, 1992, 14; May 24, 1992, 1, 14). The Europeans' effort to establish an independent security force is aimed at permitting them to intervene when the United States chooses not to (or perhaps by threatening such action, to trigger American intervention), not at fighting the United States. Even if Europe were to unite and the world to become bipolar again, it is very unlikely that suspicions, fears for the future, and conflicts of interest would be severe enough to break the Community.
A greater threat would be the failure of Europe to unite coupled with an American withdrawal of forces, which could lead to “security competition” within Europe (Art 1996a; Mearsheimer 2001, 385–96). The fears would focus on Germany, but their magnitude is hard to gauge and it is difficult to estimate what external shocks or kinds of German behavior would activate them. The fact that Thatcher and Mitterrand opposed German unification is surely not forgotten in Germany and is an indication that concerns remain. But this danger is likely to constitute a self-denying prophecy in two ways. First, many Germans are aware of the need not only to reassure others by tying themselves to Europe, but also to make it unlikely that future generations of Germans would want to break these bonds even if they could. Second, Americans who worry about the residual danger will favor keeping some troops in Europe as the ultimate intra-European security guarantee.
Expectations of peace close off important routes to war. The main reason for Japanese aggression in the 1930s was the desire for a self-sufficient sphere that would permit Japan to fight the war with the Western powers that was seen as inevitable, not because of particular conflicts, but because it was believed that great powers always fight each other. In contrast, if states believe that a security community will last, they will not be hypersensitive to threats from within it and will not feel the need to undertake precautionary measures that could undermine the security of other members. Thus the United States is not disturbed that British and French nuclear missiles could destroy American cities, and while those two countries object to American plans for missile defense, they do not feel the need to increase their forces in response. As long as peace is believed to be very likely, the chance of inadvertent spirals of tension and threat is low.
Nevertheless, the point with which I began this section is unavoidable. World politics can change rapidly and saying that nothing foreseeable will dissolve the Community its not the same as saying that it will not dissolve (Betts 1992). To the extent that it rests on democracy and prosperity (see below), anything that would undermine these would also undermine the Community. Drastic climate change could also shake the foundations of much that we have come to take for granted. But it is hard to see how dynamics at the international level (i.e., the normal trajectory of fears, disputes, and rivalries) could produce war among the leading states. In other words, the Community does not have within it the seeds of its own destruction.
Our faith in the continuation of this peace is increased to the extent that we think we understand its causes and have reason to believe that they will continue. This is our next topic.
EXPLANATIONS FOR THE SECURITY COMMUNITY
There are social constructivist, liberal, and realist explanations for the Community which, although preceding from different assumptions, invoke overlapping factors.3
Less popular in the United States is a neo-Marxist account of the need and possibilities for capitalists in the advanced industrial countries to work together to maintain their positions of dominance—what Kautsky called ultraimperialism at a time when most Marxists thought that classical imperialism would bring the European countries to fight each other. For discussions, see Gill (1990), Halliday (1994, Chap. 3), Shaw (2000, Chaps. 6–9), and Van der Pijl (1998); also see Barkawi and Laffey (1999).
Constructivism
Constructivism points to the norms of non-violence and shared identities that have led the advanced democracies to assume the role of each other's friend through the interaction of behavior and expectations.4
Wendt (1999) draws here on the social–psychological work of M. Deutsch (1973), which is not well known to political scientists. For a discussion of the central role of interactions in politics, see Jervis (1997).
In contradistinction to the liberal and realist explanations, this downplays the importance of material factors and elevates ideas, images of oneself and others, and conceptions of appropriate conduct. The roots of the changes that have produced this enormous shift in international politics among some countries but not others are not specified in detail, but the process is a self-reinforcing one—a benign cycle of behavior, beliefs, and expectations.
People become socialized into attitudes, beliefs, and values that are conducive to peace. Individuals in the Community may see their own country as strong and good—and even better than others—but they do not espouse the virulent nationalism that was common in the past. Before World War I, one German figure could proclaim that the Germans were “the greatest civilized people known to history,” while another declared that the Germans were “the chosen people of this century,” which explains “why other people hate us. They do not understand us but they fear our tremendous spiritual superiority.” Thomas Macaulay similarly wrote that the British were “the greatest and most highly civilized people that ever the world saw” and were “the acknowledged leaders of the human race in the causes of political improvement,” while Senator Albert Beveridge proclaimed that “God has made us the master organizers of the world.”5
Quoted by Van Evera (1984, 27); this article provides a thorough discussion of the relationship between nationalism and war. For a more pessimistic view, see Mearsheimer (1990, 20–21, 25).
These sentiments are shocking today because they are so at variance from what we have been taught to think about others and ourselves. We could not adopt these views without rejecting a broad set of beliefs and values. An understanding of the effects of such conceptions led the Europeans, and to an unfortunately lesser extent the Japanese, to denationalize and harmonize their textbooks after World War II and has similarly led countries with remaining enemies to follow a different path: the goals for the education of a 12-year-old child in Pakistan include the “ability to know all about India's evil designs about Pakistan; acknowledge and identify forces that may be working against Pakistan; understand the Kashmir problem” (quoted by
Kumar 2001, 29).
For constructivists, the fact that all members of the Community are democracies is important not so much for the reasons given by liberals (see below) as for the sense of common identity that the similarity in regime has generated (Hampton 1998/1999, 240–4; Kahl 1998/1999; Risse-Kappen 1995; Wendt 1999, 353–7). The formation of common identities has been central to national integration (Cronin 1999; Deutsch 1953), and it stands to reason that it plays a major role not only in keeping states at peace, but in making war unthinkable. The evidence for shared identity within the Community is hard to find, however, or at least has not been produced (Cederman 2001). Moreover, constructivists say little about when and why shared identities disintegrate, as they do when a country lapses into civil war (Arfi 1998). Ironically, the spread of democracy might diminish the importance of democratic identity. The sense that being democratic is a vital part of one's self (as an individual or as a country) may diminish if it becomes less distinctive. Being democratic is highly salient when most others are not and when adversaries are hostile to democracy; in a world that is predominantly democratic, sources of identity may be different and more divisive.
The obvious objection to constructivism is that it mistakes effect for cause: its description is correct, but the identities, images, and self-images are superstructure, being the product of peace and of the material incentives discussed below. What is crucial is not people's thinking, but the factors that drive it.6
In fact Wendt's analysis relies heavily on changed material circumstances, in contradiction to his theoretical formulation (1999, 343–66).
The validity of this claim is beyond the reach of current evidence, but what it clear is that the constructivist belief that the Community will last places great faith in the power of socialization and the ability of ideas to replicate and sustain themselves. This conception may betray an excessive faith in the validity of ideas that seem self-evident today but that our successors might reject. Constructivism may present us with actors who are “over-socialized” (
Wrong 1976, Chap. 2) and leave too little role for agency in the form of people who think differently, perhaps because their material conditions are different.
Liberalism
The liberal explanation has received most attention. Although it comes in several variants, the central strands are the pacifying effects of democracy, economic interdependence, and joint membership in international organizations (Russett and Oneal 2001).
Democracy.
The members of the Community are democracies, and many scholars argue that democracies rarely if ever fight each other.7
Although the statistical evidence is, as usual, subject to debate,
8 Jack Levy (
1989, 88) is correct that this claim is “as close as anything we have to an empirical law in international politics.”
Less secure, however, is our understanding of why this is the case. We have numerous explanations, which can be seen as competing or complementary. Democracies are systems of dispersed power, and dispersed power means multiple veto points and groups that could block war. (This seems true almost by definition, but if the accounts of former Soviet leaders are to be trusted, Brezhnev was more constrained by his colleagues than was Nixon, at least where arms control was concerned.) Related are the norms of these regimes: democracies function through compromise, nonviolence, and respect for law. To the extent that these values and habits govern foreign policy, they are conducive to peace, especially in relations with other democracies who reciprocate.
Other scholars have argued that the key element lies in the realm of information. By having a relatively free flow of intelligence and encouraging debate, democracies are less likely to make egregious errors in estimating what courses of action will maintain the peace (White 1990). The other side of the informational coin is that democracies can more effectively commit themselves and telegraph their intentions, and so avoid both unnecessary spirals of conflict and wars that stem from others' incorrect beliefs that the democracy is bluffing (although an obvious cost is an inability to bluff) (Fearon 1994; Schultz 2001; for qualifications and doubts, see Finel and Lord 2000).
The two parts of the informational argument can reinforce or be in tension with each other. If democratic processes make behavior highly predictable, then even dictatorships should be able to estimate what they will do, thereby reducing the distinctiveness of interactions among democracies. In fact, this does not seem to be the case, as the misjudgments of Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein make clear. If democratic processes do not provide totally unambiguous evidence, however, one can conclude that predictability will be high only when each side both sends and receives information clearly, thereby explaining the advantages of democratic dyads.
Finally, in a recasting of the traditional argument that democracies are less likely to go to war because those who hold ultimate authority (i.e., the general public) will pay the price for conflict, some argue that the institutional and coalitional nature of democratic regimes requires their leaders to pursue successful policies if they are to stay in office (Bueno de Mesquita, Morrow, Siverson, and Smith 1999; Goemans 2000; a related argument is Snyder 1991). Thus democracies will put greater efforts into winning wars and be careful to choose to fight only wars they can win (Lake 1992; Reiter and Stam 1998). Autocracies have a narrower base and so can stay in power by buying off their supporters even if their foreign policies are unnecessarily costly. These arguments, while highly suggestive, share with earlier liberal thinking quite stylized assumptions about the preferences of societal actors and pay little attention to how each country anticipates the behavior of others and assesses how others expect it to behave.
The explanations for the democratic peace are thoughtful and often ingenious, but not conclusive. Many of them lead us to expect not only dyadic effects, but monadic ones as well—i.e., democracies should be generally peaceful, not just peaceful toward each other, a finding that most scholars deny (but not all: Rummel 1995). They also imply that one democracy would not seek to overthrow another, a proposition that is contradicted by American behavior during the Cold War.9
For his discussion of what he deems an “important anomaly,” see Russett (1993, 120–4); for a rebuttal see Mares (2001, 102–4).
Furthermore, most of the arguments are built around dyads but it is not entirely clear that the posited causes would apply to multilateral groupings like the Community.
The more recent arguments implicitly dispute rather than fully engage older ones that focus on the obstacles to effective foreign policies in democracies: the fickleness of public opinion, the incentives that leaders have to seek short-run success at the cost of investing for the long run, the recruitment of inexperienced leaders, the parochialism that makes democracies prone to misunderstand others (Almond 1950; Lippmann 1955). Because extensive citizen participation can easily lead to emotional identification with the country, high levels of nationalism can be expected in democracies. Because public opinion has greater influence and pays only sporadic attention to foreign policy, consistency and commitments should be harder rather than easier for them. These once-familiar views may be incorrect, but they deserve careful attention.
The causal role of democracy is hard to establish because these regimes have been relatively rare until recently, much of the democratic peace can be explained by the Soviet threat, and the same factors that lead countries to become democratic are conducive to peace between them [e.g., being relatively rich and secure, resolving regional disputes (Thompson 1996)]. It is particularly important and difficult to control for the role of common interest, which loomed so large during the Cold War (Farber and Gowa 1995, 1997; also see Elman 1997; Layne 1994). But interests are not objective and may be strongly influenced by the country's internal regime. Thus the democracies may have made common cause during the Cold War in part because they were democracies; common interest may be a mechanism by which the democratic peace is sustained as much as it is a competing explanation for it (for this and related issues, see Gartzke 1998, 2000; Maoz 1997; Oneal and Russett 1999; Schweller 2000). Moreover, if democracies are more likely to become economically interdependent with one another, additional common interest will be created. But to bring up the importance of interest is to highlight an ambiguity and raise a question. The ambiguity is whether the theory leads us to expect democracies never to fight each other or “merely” to fight less than do other dyads.10
Most scholars take the latter view, but this does not mean that this is what most versions of the theory actually imply.
The related hypothetical question is whether it impossible for two democracies to have a conflict of interest so severe that it leads to war. This troubles the stronger version of the argument because it is hard to answer in the affirmative.
But would democracies let such a potent conflict of interest develop? As striking as the statistical data is the fact—or rather the judgment—that the regimes that most disturbed the international order in the 20th century also devastated their own peoples—the USSR, Germany under the Nazis and, perhaps, under Kaiser Wilhelm. One reason for this connection may be the desire to remake the world (but because the international order was established by countries that were advanced democracies, it may not be surprising that those who opposed it were not). Not all murderous regimes are as ambitions (e.g., Idi Amin's Uganda), and others with both power and grand designs may remain restrained (e.g., Mao's China), but it is hard to understand the disruptive German and Soviet foreign policy without reference to their domestic regimes.
Interdependence.
The second leg of the liberal explanation for the Community is the high level of economic interdependence, which also could facilitate a common identity (Wendt 1994, 1999, 344–9), as earlier functional theorists of integration argued (Sterling-Folker 2000, 106–7). The basic argument was developed by Cobden, Bright, and the other 19th-century British liberals. As Cobden put it, “Free Trade is God's diplomacy and there is no other certain way of uniting people in bonds of peace.”11
Quoted by Bourne (1970, 85). For a general treatment of Cobden's views, see Cain (1979). For the most recent evidence, see McMillan (1997) and Russett and Oneal (2001, Chap. 4); for arguments that interdependence has been exaggerated and misunderstood, see Waltz (1970, 1979, Chap. 7, 1999). Most traditional liberal thinking and the rest of my brief discussion assumes symmetry; as Hirschman (1945) showed, asymmetric dependence can provide the basis for exploitative bargaining.
Although the evidence for this proposition remains in dispute, the causal story is straightforward. “If goods cannot cross borders, armies will” is the central claim, in the words of the 19th-century French economist Frederick Bastiat, which were often repeated by Secretary of State Cordell Hull.
12 Hull (1948, 355, 363–5) gives his views, although not the phrase.
Extensive economic intercourse allows states to gain by trade the wealth that they would otherwise seek through fighting (
Knorr 1966; Rosecrance
1986,
1999). Relatedly, individuals and groups develop a powerful stake in keeping the peace and maintaining good relations (but for evidence that bad relations do not necessarily impede trade, see
Barbieri and Levy 1999). Thus it is particularly significant that in the contemporary world many firms have important ties abroad and that direct foreign investment holds the fates of important actors hostage to continued good relations (
Milner 1988;
Rosecrance 1986, Chap. 7). There can be a benign cycle here as increasing levels of trade strengthen the political power of actors who have a stake in deepening these ties (see, e.g.,
James and Lake 1989;
Milner 1988). Furthermore, interdependence is more politically potent than it was in earlier eras because political leaders are now held accountable for the state of the economy and will be punished for a downturn.
The liberal view assumes that actors place a high priority on wealth, that trade is a better route to it than conquest, and that actors who gain economically from the exchange are politically powerful. These assumptions are often true, especially in the modern world, but are not without their vulnerabilities. At times honor and glory, in addition to more traditional forms of individual and national interest, can be more salient than economic gain. Thus as the Moroccan crisis of 1911 came to a head, General von Moltke wrote to his wife: “If we again slip away from this affair with our tail between our legs. … I shall despair of the future of the German Empire. I shall then retire. But before handing in my resignation I shall move to abolish the Army and to place ourselves under Japanese protectorate; we shall then be in a position to make money without interference and to develop into ninnies” (quoted by Berghahn 1973, 97). Traditional liberal thought understood this well and stressed that economic activity was so potent not only because it gave people an interest in maintaining peace, but because it reconstructed social values to downgrade status and glory and elevate material well-being (Hirschman 1977, 1986, Chaps. 3, 5; Schumpeter 1934). It follows that the stability of the Community rests in part upon people giving priority to consumption. Critics decry modern society's individualistic, material values, but one can easily imagine others that would generate greater international conflict.
Of course conquest can also bring wealth. The conventional wisdom that this is no longer true for modern economies, which depend less on agriculture and raw materials than on the intricate web of skilled tasks, has been challenged by Liberman's careful study of 20th-century conquests (1996a; also see Mearsheimer 2001, 148–52; for a partial rebuttal see Brooks 1999). But the net benefit from trade might have been even greater, especially when we consider the costs of arming and fighting. It also is not clear that conquered people will provide the innovation and ingenuity that produce wealth over the long run.
Here as elsewhere, expectations are crucial and this both strengthens and weakens the liberal argument. It strengthens it to the extent that most people believe that high levels of economic exchange strongly contribute to prosperity and expect tensions, let alone wars, to decrease trade and prosperity. But it is also important that people expect good economic relations to continue as long as their country does not disturb them. Since people set their policies by the predicted future benefits, even high levels of beneficial exchange will be ineffective if a deterioration is foreseen (Copeland 1996, 1999–2000).
Interdependence will have its pacifying effect only if actors who benefit from it are powerful. American social scientists often take for granted the model of contemporary American society in which this is the case and overlook the fact it is not universal. Thus Ripsman and Blanchard (1996/1997) note that while leading businessmen in Britain and Germany opposed World War I, just as liberalism leads us to expect, they were not powerful enough to force their preferences on their governments.
There are four general arguments against the pacific influence of interdependence. First, it is hard to go from the magnitude of economic flows to the costs that would be incurred if they were disrupted, and even more difficult to estimate how much political impact these costs will have, which depends on the other considerations at play and the political context. This means that we do not have a theory that tells us the magnitude of the effect. Second, even the sign of the effect can be disputed: interdependence can increase conflict as states gain bargaining leverage over each other, fear that others will exploit them, and face additional sources of disputes (Barbieri 1996; Keohane 2000, 2001; Waltz 1970, 1979, Chap. 7). These effects might not arise if states expect to remain at peace with each other, however. Third, it is clear that interdependence does not guarantee peace. High levels of economic integration did not prevent World War I, and nations that were much more unified than any security community have peacefully dissolved or fought civil wars. But this does not mean that interdependence is not conducive to peace.
Fourth, interdependence may be more an effect than a cause, more the product than a generator of expectations of peace and cooperation. Russett and Oneal (2001, 136) try to meet this objection by correlating the level of trade in one year, not with peace in that year, but with peace in the following one. But this does not get to the heart of the matter since trade the year before could be a product of expectations of future good relations.
Short of onerous and subjective coding of large numbers of cases to establish expectations about future relations, it may not be possible to ascertain which way the causal arrow runs. Indeed, it probably runs in both directions, with magnitudes that vary with other factors. But it is clear that the economic order in the current Community was premised on the belief that these countries could and had to remain at peace. One part of the reason was the lessons of the 1930s and the belief that economic rivalries led to political divisions and wars. Another part was the perceived threat from the Soviet Union, which, as Gowa (1994) has noted, meant that the fear of relative economic gains was eased if not reversed because partners' economic growth brought with it positive security externalities. This created a situation very different from that in the early 20th century when Britain and Germany, while heavily trading with each other, feared that the other's prosperity would endanger it. As one British observer put it after a trip to Germany in 1909: “every one of those new factory chimneys is a gun pointed at England” (quoted by Kennedy 1980, 315; but also see Liberman 1996b). Post-1945 European economic cooperation probably would not have occurred without American sponsorship, pressure, and security guarantees, and close American economic relations with Japan had similar political roots.
International Organizations.
Even those who argue for the pacifying effect of common memberships in international organizations aver that the magnitude of this effect is relatively slight, at least in the short run (Russett and Oneal 2001, Chap. 5), and so my discussion is brief. The causal mechanisms are believed to be several: enhanced information flows, greater ability to solve problems peacefully, an increased stake in cooperative behavior linked to the risk of being excluded from the organization if the state behaves badly, and possibly a heightened sense of common identity (Keohane 1984; much of the literature is summarized by Martin and Simmons 1998). Harder to pin down but perhaps most important are processes by which joint membership alters states' conceptions of their interest, leading them to see it not only as calling for cooperative reciprocations, but also as extending over a longer time-horizon and including benefits to others (Jervis 1999, 2001; March and Olsen 1998).
The obvious reasons to doubt the importance of shared institutional membership are that the incentives do not seem great enough to tame strong conflicts of interest and that membership may be endogenous to common interests and peaceful relations. States that expect war with each other are less likely to join the same international organizations and political conflicts that are the precursors to war may destroy the institutions or drive some members out, as Japan and Germany withdrew from the League of Nations during the 1930s. Even with a strong correlation and reasonable control variables, the direction of causality is difficult to establish.
Realist Explanations
The crudest realist explanation for the Community would focus on the rise of the common threat from Russia and China. While not entirely implausible, this argument does not fit the views espoused by most elites in Japan and Europe, who are relatively unconcerned about these countries and believe that whatever dangers emanate from them would be magnified rather than decreased by a confrontational policy.
American Hegemony.
Two other realist accounts are stronger. The first argues that the Community is largely the product of the other enormous change in world politics—the American dominance of world politics.13
For discussions of current and future American hegemony see Sheetz 1997/98; Wohlforth 1999; Waltz 1993, 2000. In an exception to the propensity for liberals to ignore the possible pacifying effects of hegemony, Russett and Oneal (2001, 184–91) propose a rebuttal by looking at earlier eras, but these are not comparable to the current situation.
U.S. defense spending, to take the most easily quantifiable indicator, is now greater than that of the next eight countries combined (
O'Hanlon 2001, 4–5). Furthermore, thanks to the Japanese constitution and the integration of armed forces within NATO, America's allies do not have to fear attacks from each other: their militaries—especially Germany's—are so truncated that they could not fight a major war without American assistance or attack each other without undertaking a military build-up that would give a great deal of warning. American dominance also leads us to expect that key outcomes, from the expansion of NATO, to the American-led wars in Kosovo and the Persian Gulf, to the IMF bailouts of Turkey and Argentina in the spring and summer of 2001 and the abandonment of the latter six months later, will conform to American preferences.
But closer examination reveals differences between current and past hegemonies. The U.S. usually gives considerable weight to its partners' views, and indeed its own preferences are often influenced by theirs, as was true in Kosovo. For their parts, the other members of the Community seek to harness and constrain American power, not displace it. The American hegemony will surely eventually decay but increased European and Japanese strength need not lead to war, contrary to the expectations of standard theories of hegemony and great power rivalry.14
Unlike previous eras of hegemony, the current peace seems uncoerced and accepted by most states, which does not fit entirely well with realism.
Nuclear Weapons.
The second realist argument was familiar during the Cold War but receives less attention now. This is the pacifying effect of nuclear weapons, which, if possessed in sufficient numbers and invulnerable configurations, make victory impossible and war a feckless option. An immediate objection is that not all the major states in the Community have nuclear weapons. But this is only technically correct: Germany and Japan could produce nuclear weapons if a threat loomed, as their partners fully understand. The other factors discussed in the previous pages may or may not be important; the nuclear revolution by itself would be sufficient to keep the great powers at peace.
While there is a great deal to this argument, it is not without its problems. First, because this kind of deterrence rests on the perceived possibility of war, it may explain peace, but not a security community. Second, mutual deterrence can be used as a platform for hostility, coercion, and even limited wars. In what Glenn Snyder (1965; also see Jervis 1989, 19–23, 74–106) calls the stability–instability paradox, the common realization that all-out war would be irrational provides a license for threats and lower levels of violence. In some circumstances a state could use the shared fear of nuclear war to exploit others. If the state thinks that the other is preoccupied with the possibility of war and does not anticipate that the state will make the concessions needed to reduce this danger, it will expect the other to retreat and so can stand firm. In other words, the fact that war would be the worst possible outcome for both sides does not automatically lead to uncoerced peace, let alone to a security community.15
The same logic applies to the indeterminant effect of the high costs of damaging relations that is a consequence of economic interdependence, but only in attenuated form. Relations are bad when two states confront each other with nuclear weapons, but they are likely to be good under conditions of interdependence, which means that the threat to sever ties will harm relations and decrease economic activity. Thus even if the state prevails by using coercive tactics, it will pay a price for doing so. For related arguments, see Gartzke et al. (2001) and Morrow (1999).
A Synthetic Interactive Explanation
My explanation for the development and maintenance of the Community combines and reformulates several factors discussed previously. Even with the qualifications just discussed, a necessary condition is the belief that conquest is difficult and war is terribly costly. When conquest is easy, aggression is encouraged and the security dilemma operates with particular viciousness as even defensive states need to prepare to attack (Van Evera 1999). But when states have modern armies and, even more, nuclear weapons, it is hard for anyone to believe that war could make sense.
Of course statesmen must consider the gains that war might bring as well as its costs. Were the former to be very high, they might outweigh the latter. But, if anything, the expected benefits of war within the Community have declined, in part because the developed countries, including those that lost World War II, are generally satisfied with the status quo.16
Kacowicz (1998, Chap. 2) finds satisfaction with the status quo responsible for peace in several areas outside the Community.
Even in the case that shows the greatest strain—U.S.–Japanese relations—no one has explained how a war could provide anyone much gross, let alone net, benefit: it is hard to locate a problem for which war among the Community members would provide a solution.
The other side of this coin is that, as liberals have stressed, peace within the Community brings many gains, especially economic. While some argue that the disruption caused by relatively free trade is excessive and urge greater national regulation, no one thinks that conquering others would bring more riches than trading with them. Despite concern for relative economic gain (Grieco 1990; Mastanduno 1991) and economic disputes, people believe that their economic fates are linked more positively than negatively to the rest of the Community.
Of course costs and benefits are subjective, depending as they do on what the actors value, and changes in values are the third leg of my explanation. Most political analysis takes the actors' values for granted because they tend to be widely shared and to change slowly. Their importance and variability become clear only when we confront a case such as Nazi Germany, which, contrary to standard realist conceptions of national interest and security, put everything at risk in order to seek the domination of the Aryan race.
The changes over the last 50–75 years in what the leaders and publics in the developed states value are striking. To start with, war is no longer seen as good in itself (Mueller 1989); no great power leader today would agree with Theodore Roosevelt that “no triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumph of war” (quoted by Harbaugh 1961, 99). In earlier eras it was commonly believed that war brought out the best in individuals and nations and that the virtues of discipline, risk-taking, and self-sacrifice that war required were central to civilization. Relatedly, honor and glory used to be central values. In a world so constituted, the material benefits of peace would be much less important; high levels of trade, the difficulty of making conquest pay, and even nuclear weapons might not produce peace.
Democracy and identity also operate through what actors value, and may be responsible in part for the decline in militarism just noted. Compromise, consideration for the interests of others, respect for law, and a shunning of violence outside this context all are values that underpin democracy and are reciprocally cultivated by it. The Community also is relatively homogeneous in that its members are all democracies and have values that are compatibly similar. It is important that the values be compatible as well as similar: a system filled with states that all believed that war and domination was good would not be peaceful.17
For a discussion of homogeneous and heterogeneous systems, see Aron (1966, 99–124, 373–403) and Hoffmann (1961, 207–9); for evidence of the central role of common values in relations between individuals and groups, see Rokeach and Mezei (1966).
One impulse to war is the desire to change the other country, and this disappears if values are shared. The United States could conquer Canada, for example, but what would be the point when so much of what it wants to see there is already in place?
Central to the rise of the Community is the decline in territorial disputes. Territory has been the most common cause and object of conflicts in the past, and we have become so accustomed to their absence within the Community that it is easy to lose sight of how drastic and consequential this change is (Diehl 1999; Hensel 2000; Huth 1996, 2000; Kacowicz 1998; Vasquez 1993; Zacher 2001). Germans no longer care that Alsace and Lorraine are French; the French are not disturbed by the high level of German presence in these provinces. The French, furthermore, permitted the Saar to return to Germany and are not bothered by this loss, and indeed do not feel it as a loss at all. Although during the Cold War the West Germans refused to renounce their claims to the “lost territories” to the east, they did so upon unification and few voices were raised in protest. Today the United Kingdom is ready to cede Northern Ireland to the Irish Republic if a referendum in the six counties were to vote to do so.
The causes of these changes in values in general and in nationalism and concern with territory in particular are subject to dispute, as are the developments that could reverse them. In particular, it is unclear how much they are rooted in material changes, most obviously the increased destructiveness of war and the unprecedented prosperity that is seen as linked to good political relations, and to what extent they are more autonomous, perhaps following out a natural progression and building on each other. They may be linked (inextricably?) to high levels of consumption, faith in rationality, and the expectation of progress, although it is not unreasonable to argue that this describes Europe in 1914 as well. The decreased salience of territory is almost surely produced in part by the decoupling of territorial control and national prosperity, and most of the other relationships between material structures and ideational patterns are complex and reciprocal. Just as capitalism is built and sustained by precapitalist values and postmaterialism may grow from prosperity (Inglehart 1977, 1997), so the values that sustain the Community can be neither separated nor deduced from changes in the means and levels of production and potential destruction.
The obvious threat to these pacific values is an economic depression, which could also undermine democracy and weaken the links between good political relations and prosperity. If countries were to believe that the only way to halt a downslide was to disadvantage others, or even if they were to develop incompatible views about how to deal with dire economic circumstances, then not only would policies come into conflict, but the values supporting peace might erode. It is also possible that these values could change by themselves as people become bored by the rich, peaceful world and come to desire glory, honor, and extreme nationalism once again. But some changes may be irreversible: just as it is hard to conceive of slavery, torture, or dueling coming back into fashion, so the current values may be highly stable, being sustained by constant socialization and supporting the peace that serves the Community so well.18
See Jervis (1991/1992, 55), Mueller (1989, Chaps. 10 and 11), and Wendt (1999, 310–2). The movement toward women's rights and the tolerance of diversity has waned as well as waxed in many parts of the world, however, especially within Muslim countries.
The destructiveness of war, the benefits of peace, and the changes in values interact and reinforce each other. If war were not so dreadful, it could be considered as an instrument for national enrichment; if peace did not seem to bring national well-being, violence would at least be contemplated; that military victory is no longer seen as a positive value both contributes to and is in part explained by the high perceived costs of war. In parallel, expectations of peace allow states to value each other's economic and political successes. Although these may incite envy, they no longer produce strong security fears, as was true in the past. The Community may then contain within it the seeds of its own growth through the feedbacks among its elements.
Another dynamic element is crucial as well: the progress of the Community is path-dependent in that without the Cold War it is unlikely that the factors we have discussed could have overcome prevalent fears and rivalries. The conflict with the Soviet Union produced American security guarantees and an unprecedented sense of common purpose among the states that now form the Community. Since the coalition could be undermined by social unrest or political instability, each country sought to see that the others were well off and resisted the temptation to solve its own problems by exporting them to its neighbors. Since the coalition would have been disrupted had any country developed strong grievances against other members, each had reason to moderate its demands and mediate when conflicts developed between others. To encourage better relations in the future, leaders consciously portrayed the others as partners and sponsored the socialization practices discussed earlier. The American willingness to engage in extensive cooperation abroad, the European willingness to go far down the road of integration, and the Japanese willingness to tie itself closely to the United States were improbable without the Cold War. But having been established, these forms of cooperation set off positive feedback and are now self-sustaining.
IMPLICATIONS
What are the implications of the existence of the security community for international politics in the rest of the world, for how the most developed states will carry out relations among themselves, and for general theories of war and peace?
International Politics in the Rest of the World
One obvious question is why the leading powers but not other have formed a security community. The preceeding discussion implies that the outcome is overdetermined. Compared to others, the states in the Community are richer, more democratic, more satisfied with the status quo, would lose more in a war, and have a more explicit American security guarantee. Furthermore, they were the core of the anti-Soviet coalition during the Cold War, which produced benefical path-dependent results. This does not mean that other security communities will not form, but only that they are not likely to fit the pattern discussed here.
Despite the fact that war is thinkable outside the Community, it is striking that several other regions appear to be peaceful, most obviously South America.19
The reasons remain unclear but may include the role of the superpowers in controlling dangerous conflicts during the Cold War, American hegemony more recently, and the example of peace among the developed countries. Although war remains possible, even a pessimist would have to note that there is little evidence that the countries outside the Community will recapitulate Europe's bloody history. For these countries, the main security danger stems from the civil wars and insurgencies, either of which can lead to interstate war (
Herbst 2000;
Holsti 1996). These developments are beyond the scope of this article, but the obvious challenge would be to bring them and the Community into a common theory.
International Politics Within the Community
In previous eras, no aspect of international politics and few aspects of domestic politics were untouched by the anticipation of future wars among the leading powers. As Charles Tilly (1990, 74) put it, “Over the millennium as a whole, war has been the dominant activity of European states.” Much will then change in the Community. In the absence of these states amalgamating—a development that is out of the question outside of Europe and unlikely within it—they will neither consider using force against one another nor lose their sovereignty. There will then be significant conflicts of interest without clear means of resolving them. The states will continue to be rivals in some respects, and to bargain with each other. Indeed, the stability–instability paradox implies that the shared expectation that disputes will remain peaceful will remove some restraints on vituperation and competitive tactics. The dense network of institutions within the community should serve to provide multiple means for controlling conflicts but will also provide multiple ways for a dissatisfied country to show its displeasure and threaten disruption.
The fact that the situation is a new one poses challenges and opportunities for states. What goals will have highest priority? Will nonmilitary alliances form? How important will status be and what will give it? Bargaining will continue, and this means that varieties of power, including the ability to help and hurt others, will still be relevant. Threats, bluffs, warnings, the mobilization of resources for future conflicts, intense diplomatic negotiations, and shifting patterns of working with and against others all will remain. But the content of these forms will differ from those of traditional international politics.
Politics within the Community may come to resemble the relations among the United States and Canada and Australia, which Keohane and Nye (1977) described as complex interdependence: extensive transnational and transgovernmental relations, negotiations conducted across different issue areas, and bargaining power gained through asymmetric dependence but limited by overall common interests. Despite this path-breaking study, however, we know little about how this kind of politics will be carried out. As numerous commentators have noted, economic issues and economic resources will play large roles, but the changed context will matter. Relative economic advantage was sought in the past in part because it contributed to military security. This no longer being the case, the possibilities for cooperation are increased. States will still seek economic benefit, but will care about whether others are gaining more than they are only if they believe that this can produce political leverage or future economic benefits. The range of cases in which the latter is true is now thought to be fairly small, however (see, e.g., Busch 1999; Krugman 1991).
Even though force will not be threatened within the Community, it will remain important in relations among its members. During the Cold War the protection the United States afforded to its allies gave it an added moral claim and significant bargaining leverage. Despite the decreased level of threat, this will be true for the indefinite future because militarily Japan and Europe need the United States more than the United States needs them. While the unique American ability to lead military operations such as those in the Persian Gulf and Kosovo causes resentments and frictions, it also provides a resource that is potent even—or especially—if it is never explicitly brought to the table.20
Four Possible Futures.
Even within the contours of a Community, a significant range of patterns of relations is possible, four of which can be briefly sketched.
The greatest change would be a world in which national autonomy would be further diminished and the distinctions between domestic and foreign policy would continue to erode. Medieval Europe, with its overlapping forms of sovereignty rather than compartmentalized nation-states, which might dissolve because they are no longer needed to provided security and can no longer control their economies, is one model here (Bull 1977 264-76; Cerny 1993; Lipschutz 2000; Osiander 2001; Rosenau 1990; van Creveld 1999; for a discussion of how the changed environment will affect state structures and strength, see Desch 1996). Although most scholars see the reduction of sovereignty and the growth of the power of nongovernmental organizations as conducive to peace and harmony, one can readily imagine sharp conflicts, for example, among business interests, labor, and environmentalists; between those with different views of the good life; and between those calling for greater centralization to solve common problems and those advocating increased local control. But state power and interest would in any case greatly decrease and the notion of “national interest”, always contested, would become even more problematic.
A second world, not completely incompatible with the first, would be one in which states in the Community play a large role, but with more extensive and intensive cooperation, presumably produced and accompanied by the internalization of the interests of others and stronger institutions (Keohane 2000). A possible model would be the United States before the Civil War (Deudney 1995). Relations would be increasingly governed by principles, laws, and persuasion rather than by more direct forms of power (Lukes 1974; Nye 1990), a change that could benignly spill over into relations outside the Community. Although bargaining would not disappear, there would be more joint efforts to solve common problems and the line between “high” and “low” politics would become even more blurred.
In this world, the United States would share more power and responsibility with the rest of the Community than is true today. While popular with scholars (e.g., Ikenberry 2001; Ruggie 1996), at least as likely is a continuation of the present trajectory in which the United States maintains hegemony and rejects significant limitations on its freedom of action. National interests would remain distinct and the United States would follow the familiar pattern in which ambitions and perceived interests expand as power does. Consistent with the continuing concern with competitive advantages (Mearsheimer 2001), both conflicts of interests and the belief that hegemony best produces collective goods would lead the United States to oppose the efforts of others to become a counterweight if not a rival to it (Art 1996a). In effect, the United States would lead an empire, albeit a relatively benign one. But doing so would be complcated by the American self-image that precludes it from seeing its role for what it is, in part because of the popularity of values of equality and supranationalism. Other members of the Community would resent having their interests overridden by the United States on some occasions, but the exploitation would be limited by their bargaining power and the American realization that excessive discontent would have serious long-term consequences. So others might accept these costs in return for U.S. security guarantees and the ability to keep their own defense spending very low, especially because the alternative to American-dominated stability might be worse.
The fourth model also starts with the American attempt to maintain hegemony, but this time the burdens of American unilateralism become sufficient to produce a counter-balancing coalition, one that might include Russia and China as well (Waltz 1999, 2000; Layne 2000). Europe and Japan might also become more assertive because they fear not U.S. domination but the eventual withdrawal of the U.S. security guarantee. In this world, much that realism stresses—the clash of national interests, the weakness of international institutions, maneuvering for advantage, and the use of power and threats—would come to the fore, but with the vital difference that force would not be contemplated and the military balance would enter in only indirectly, as discussed above. This would be a strange mixture of the new and the familiar, and the central question is what ultima ratio will replace cannons. What will be the final arbiter of disputes? What kinds of threats will be most potent? How fungible will the relevant forms of power be?
Outlining these possibilities raises two broad questions that I cannot answer. First, is the future essentially determined, as many structural theories would imply, or does it depend on national choices strongly influenced by domestic politics, leaders, and accidents? Second, if the future is not determined, how much depends on choices the United States has yet to make, and what will most influence these choices?
IMPLICATIONS FOR THEORIES OF THE CAUSES OF WAR
Whatever its explanation, the very existence of a security community among the leading powers refutes many theories of the causes of war or, at least, indicates that they are not universally valid. Thus human nature and the drive for dominance, honor, and glory may exist and contribute to a wide variety of human behaviors, but they are not fated to lead to war.
The obvious rebuttal is that war still exists outside the Community and that civil wars continue unabated. But only wars fought by members of the Community have the potential to undermine the argument that, under some conditions, attributes of humans and societies that were seen as inevitably producing wars in fact do not do so. The cases that could be marshaled are the Gulf War and the operation in Kosovo, but they do not help these theories. These wars were provoked by others, gained little honor and glory for the Community, and were fought in a manner that minimized the loss of life on the other side. It would be hard to portray them as manifestations of brutal or evil human nature. Indeed, it is more plausible to see the Community's behavior as consistent with a general trend toward its becoming less violent generally: the abolition of official torture and the decreased appeal of capital punishment, to take the most salient examples (Mueller 1989).
The existence of the Community also casts doubt on theories that argue that the leading powers always are willing to use force in a struggle for material gain, status, and dominance. Traditional Marxism claims that capitalists could never cooperate; proponents of the law of uneven growth see changes in the relative power of major states as producing cycles of domination, stability, challenge, and war (Gilpin 1981; Kennedy 1987). Similarly, “power transitions” in which rising powers catch up with dominant ones are seen as very difficult to manage peacefully (Kugler and Lemke 1996; Organski and Kugler 1980; also see Modelski 1987; Thompson 1988). These theories, like the version of hegemonic stability discussed above, have yet to be tested because the United States has not yet declined. But if the arguments made here are correct, transitions will not have the same violent outcome that they had in the past, leading us to pay greater attention to the conditions under which these theories do and do not hold.
For most scholars, the fundamental cause of war is international anarchy, compounded by the security dilemma. These forces press hardest on the leading powers because while they may be able to guarantee the security of others, no one can provide this escape from the state of nature for them. As we have seen, different schools of thought propose different explanations for the rise of the Community and so lead to somewhat different propositions about the conditions under which anarchy can be compatible with peace. But what is most important is that the Community constitutes a proof by existence of the possibility of uncoerced peace without central authority. Because these countries are the most powerful ones and particularly war-prone, the Community poses a fundamental challenge to our understanding of world politics and our expectations of future possibilities.
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