War between countries is over? Think again.

Source: Indian Navy, CC license

Liberals and idealists have declared the end of war many times before. In 1914, many believed that economic interdependence had made war in Europe unthinkable. After WWI, it was hoped that the League of Nations would stop war. The claim that interstate war has died out has now re-emerged yet again. Less sanguine than the idealists of the past, experts like the retired British General Sir Rupert Smith and the renowned Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld argue not that war has ended, but that one type, interstate "industrial" war, is no longer. Instead, the world will fight more insurgencies and small wars against terrorists "amongst the people", to use Smith's phrase. Nuclear weapons are believed to have a limiting effect on conflict and to support the status quo. In addition, norms against violence have spread, just as globalization has reduced the need for states to fight over resources and territory. These latter points may be an effect, rather than a cause of the decline in interstate war, however. Another explanation is also possible: The structure of the international political system has shifted from multipolarity up until the World Wars, to bipolarity until the fall of the USSR, to unipolarity since. It is no coincidence that interstate wars have fallen at the same time. Unipolarity will not last forever, though. As it fades, we may see the return of interstate war.

Influential authors like historian Martin van Creveld have stated that "Large-scale, conventional war... may indeed be at its last gasp". British former General Sir Rupert Smith states bluntly that "war as a massive deciding event in a dispute in international affairs... no longer exists". The latter argues that this type of war, which he terms "interstate industrial war", has been replaced by "war amongst the people": peace-keeping and state-building operations, counterinsurgencies, and the like, to which there can be no decisive end. This has indeed been the case for conflicts since at least the US's War on Terror and both authors show that the trend has been heading in this direction since the end of WWII. Western militaries are now responding to these trends, shifting capabilities away from interstate fighting and towards fighting insurgents and other smaller groups. Trends can change directions at any time, however, if the cause of such a change is not properly identified.

Smith and van Creveld offer numerous reasons for the decline of interstate warfare, such as changing norms about violence; the rise of different sorts of identity politics based on, for example, religion; the spread of the media into the hands of private individuals able to promote their causes and connext with other would-be militants; and, perhaps most notably, nuclear weapons. Except for the spread of nuclear weapons, which have indeed had a moderating influence on international politics, the other trends noted above could just as easily be effects of a shift away from interstate war rather causes of that shift. At a time when there is no need for large-scale interstate war, there is accordingly less desire for it (norms against the use of force grow stronger). Similarly, as external conflicts lose salience, internal ones grow in relative importance, allowing grievances based on religion or ethnicity to gain greater attention. Even the democratization of the media, which is certainly not due to the recent decline in interstate war, may still not end up limiting it: When the populations involved in such wars see them as necessary (potentially for survival), images of their effects may not help stop them. One thing not offered as a reason is the shift from a multipolar structure in international politics before the World Wars, when there were multiple "Great Powers" with considerable military might, to a bipolar structure during the Cold War, to a unipolar one thereafter. If the cause has been misdiagnosed, the disease of interstate war may return unexpectedly.

Massive interstate wars could be avoided in the period leading up to WWI only by maintaining a "balance of power" between competing Great Powers, all of which were based in Europe. When one state gained in power, alliances would shift to compensate or a small war might be carried out to restore the previous balance. In the early 20th century, however, Germany became so powerful in its own right that the alliance of all other Great Powers against it was not enough to constrain it.* The two World Wars knocked most of the European powers off the list of Great Powers, leaving only two "superpowers": the Soviet Union and the United States. States throughout the world aligned with one or the other superpower and would find one or the other (or both) taking a strong interest in their internal affairs.** Interstate wars continued, but they were often indecisive (Korea and Vietnam) and of uncertain necessity (Vietnam), leading to a great deal of questions about their legitimacy. Since the Cold War, the world has been left with just one "hyperpower": the United States.*** I have argued previously that the world is still unipolar, contrary to popular belief. Read this to see why. The Iraq Wars have shown how quickly the US can win interstate wars and, in the case of the second Iraq War, how quickly it can become bogged down in a "war amongst the people". But how much of this is related to unipolarity rather than a fundamental shift in the types of wars now possible?

In times when military power is more evenly matched, states often cannot gain the decisive military victories that would pave the way towards state-building thereafter. Not only that, alliance partners could very well balk at the prospect of the balance of power then swinging too much in the other direction. If governments are left mostly in place, counterinsurgency and state-building remain the responsibility of the invaded, not their invaders. Wars with more limited objectives to restore the status quo would thus be seen as more necessary and may therefore become more common. The First Iraq War actually fit this model, though the US had the power to do much more. In a multipolar world, the US might retain that initial war-fighting capability, but would not necessarily have that choice to do more. The First Iraq War could become the rule rather than the exception. The world is militarily unipolar, but is economically multipolar already. This matters because economic strength is one critical foundation of military strength. As the wealth of other countries, like China, rises, so can their military spending and capability. The world's current unipolar structure may thus be replaced by a new bipolarity with China or, perhaps more likely, a more multipolar structure with China as a Great Power.

Though the moderating influence of nuclear weapons is not going away, the decline of interstate war has also come with the concentration of power in the hands of the United States. Other factors supposedly limiting interstate war, like changing values and increasing interdependence, may very well be the result of fewer wars rather than the cause, as the world has seemed safer for interdependence and as the declining necessity of war has allowed more peaceful values to flourish. Similarly, unipolarity has caused the US and its allies to expand the goals of wars to state-building and changing the way the world itself is ordered, giving rise to counterinsurgency and anti-terrorism operations, just as these have become more common as identity politics increase in salience in a world made "safe" for them by a lack of interstate wars. If this is the case, fewer poles may be the best explanation for fewer wars and a rise in state-building and counterinsurgency, rather than any permanent shift in war-fighting "paradigms". As the world swings back towards multipolarity, the resulting instability may give rise to new interstate wars as countries shift alliances to seek advantage and worry more about the relative power and security of their respective blocs. We should not declare victory over interstate war just yet.

*This is, of course, the simplified version of the story. Germany also felt the need to preempt the rise of Russia, was pulled into war by a weaker alliance partner, and the system of alliances had become too rigid and no longer so focused on balancing power.

** Some states explicitly refused to align with either, but this was a choice they could only make if they were deemed neutral enough, unimportant enough strategically, and didn't feel the need to ask for support from one of the superpowers.

***This, in turn, has reduced the number (because of a reduced view of their necessity) of the proxy wars common during the Cold War.

Smith, Rupert. The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World. Kindle. London: Penguin, 2012.

Van Creveld, Martin. On Future War: The Most Radical Reinterpretation of Armed Conflict since Clausewitz. London: Brassey’s UK, 1991.

Is America still the world's lone hyperpower?

Recent US failures and infighting give the impression that the US is weaker than it is.

 

 

For a moment after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was talk of the United States as the "last superpower" or even the world's "hyperpower." At the time, it seemed the US was free to shape the world as it wished because there was no longer opposition from another country nearly as powerful as itself. This feeling persisted, Blackhawk Down notwithstanding, until the US seemed unable to finish the job in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sense of decline was then intensified by the financial and economic crises of the late 2000s and the political gridlock that has ensued in the US since 2010. The rise of China, with its growing military and tougher rhetoric, also seemed to suggest that a multipolar world had arrived. If the US can't get what it wants and is continually constrained abroad, can it really be a hyperpower?

The answer is "yes," and here is why. Throughout the world, countries have two choices: ally with a regional power or ally with the United States (or both if that regional power is also a US ally--a sign in and of itself). Countries that have an affinity for (or whose economies are perhaps too closely linked with) the regional power side with that power. If others are worried, they seek closer ties with other worried countries and with the United States as a guarantor of their security and interests. The fact that this occurs in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia shows that the US is seen globally as a power that can provide extra security. There is no other country that currently does this. So while there are regional powers that challenge US authority within one part of the globe, the single solution to regional fears remains the United States. Only when that changes (e.g. China begins to be seen as an alternative to an alliance with the US and this outside of China's backyard) will the world be multipolar.

The failure of the US military to solve political problems was a sign of US hubris, foolishness, and naivete, but it was not a sign of failing US power. Political problems require political solutions. Military force can defeat an enemy or clamp down on violence, but it cannot, in the end, provide a political solution, especially if that solution is supposed to be democracy rather than an iron-fisted dictatorship. This has always been the case. Without an internal readiness and cultural preparedness for democracy, democracy cannot come about. By its very nature (since it exists at the behest of the people), democracy cannot be forced. No amount of power in the world could have changed that. (State building may bring a country to democracy over years or decades, but it is an uncertain and incredibly intensive and expensive endeavor and requires civic education and institution-building--political solutions, in other words.)

Finally, that the US cannot always get what it wants and is constrained by international politics is also not in itself a sign that the US is not a hyperpower because this misunderstands the term. All states are subject to others' influence and demands and are not free to act as they please with complete impunity. States have varying degrees of freedom of action, however, and the US is freer than others due to its power. The US can, when it chooses, act alone militarily anywhere in the world. No other country can do this (except to a certain extent, perhaps, for Russia, which is however much weaker in other respects). When France and the UK got together to support rebels in Libya, their combined power was not enough: They needed US assistance to be effective.

The US is rightly chastened by its foolhardy experiment with neoconservatism and its inflated belief in the ability of the military to solve the world's problems. It has perhaps now swung too far in the opposite direction, but this is probably also temporary. In the end, however, its underlying power and ability to affect the world has only been lightly diminished, and this more by the damage to its reputation caused by the wars in the Middle East, political infighting in Washington, and its own (faulty) acceptance of its loss of power than by any real changes in fundamentals. US power still underwrites the international system and that will continue to be the case for at least another decade or two. Beyond that, anything could happen (even including a continued unipolar world with the US at its head--or not).

Taiwan's Fate Is Sealed

Taiwan will become a de facto (and not just de jure) part of China--the only question is how

Taiwan's chances of becoming a fully independent state are essentially nill. The island is currently only recognized by a very few countries as an independent state. For most of the world, then, Taiwan is already a de jure (by law) part of China. Taiwan is de facto sovereign, however, deciding over all its own affairs. The United States has taken it upon itself to protect this state of affairs. In a series of communiques during the 1970s, the United States agreed that there was only one China and that Taiwan was part of China. The catch for China is that both it and the US agreed that neither Taiwan nor China was to decide on a change in the status quo between Taiwan and China unilaterally or by force. This means that the US cannot support Taiwanese de jure independence, but that China would theoretically be barred from "reunifying" Taiwan with the mainland by force. As long as everyone sticks to the bargain, things are OK, even if they are quite messy from an international relations or international law viewpoint.

The thing is, China expects unification with Taiwan to occur eventually and does not seem willing to wait forever for this to happen: "In 2005 China passed the Taiwan Anti-Secession Law, which commits it to a military response should Taiwan ever declare independence or even if the government in Beijing thinks all possibility of peaceful unification has been lost" (The Economist, Apr 7 2012). This seems to be rather close to violating those communiques, since the latter part, at least, would be a unilateral Chinese move toward unification. On the other hand, the US was supposed to slowly reduce its arms sales to Taiwan over time--it has not. As is distressingly often the case in international politics, a tiny political entity has the power to set a frightening chain of events into motion.

What if Taiwan were to declare independence? This came close to happening under Taiwan's President Chen in 2002, when he declared that there was "one country on either side of the Taiwan Strait."¹ Disaster was averted, however, when US President Bush began to reign Chen in, making it clear that the US's stance on unilateral changes to Taiwan's status applied to Taiwan as well as China.

The people of Taiwan eventually voted Chen out, partly out of fear that his loose talk could prompt a Chinese attack. Fear that China would attack and clear signals from Washington that the US would not back Taiwan if it declared independence should be enough to prevent it from doing so. (At least, I hope those signals from Washington are clear!)

But what happens if China decides that "all possibility of peaceful unification has been lost" and decides to forcefully annex Taiwan? At the moment, this still seems unlikely due to the US's power in the region. But China is increasing its capabilities in its backyard quite quickly. It's not a case of China needing to achieve military parity with the US. It's only a case of being able to defend itself against a US attack on its immediate coastal area including Taiwan. That is considerably easier than achieving parity. Would the US really be able, or willing, to stand up against China for the sake of Taiwan?

The US policy on the topic is "strategic ambiguity," which basically means it says it could get pissed off about a number of things, it just won't tell anyone what things would lead to which responses. The advantage of this is flexibility and the belief that this uncertainty will make the Chinese wary of provoking the US. What it actually is, in my view, is a way for the US to prevent admitting that it could not stop China from taking Taiwan if the former really wanted to, especially if China decides to do this in, say, 10 years or so when its capabilities will have grown much greater. The US is a long way from Taiwan, but China's entire military force could easily and quickly be brought to bear on the island. Over the medium to long term, there is little the US could do to stop such an occurrence. "Strategic ambiguity" is a sponginess that allows the US to convince all parties that they will get what they want and deserve, while knowing full well that this is impossible.

1.Dumbaugh, Kerry. “CRS Report for Congress.” Federation of American Scientists. 20 April 2007. 14 Jun. 2008 <http://ftp.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33684.pdf> cited in Kirchofer, Charles. “U.S. Foreign Policy and Interests Reharding Tensions in the Taiwan Strait”. Webster University, Vienna, July 10, 2008. http://www.english4you.biz/papers/taiwan.pdf.

How Structural Realism Shows America Needs a More Liberal, Multilateral Approach to Foreign Policy

By Charles Kirchofer, Dec. 17^th, 2008

I actually should be finishing work on part two of my series (if you can call something that when it only has one part) on the big issues for Barack Obama in foreign policy. Or I could work on my planned article on why the stock market is not a casino, even now. Instead, I want to take a few moments to do something unorthodox. If you were thrown off by the title of this article (thinking "what the f$!k is 'structural realism'?!"), have no fear: I'm not about to get all theoretical on you. What I will say, however, is this: there are two major schools of thought on international politics (and maybe a third or possibly fourth, depending whom you ask). These are realism and liberalism. Realists believe nation states are the central players on the international scene and that these states live in a competitive environment. Liberals believe the world is becoming ever more integrated, that NGOs, international organizations, and transnational corporations have seriously reduced the influence of nation states on world affairs, and that there is something called the "international community," whose desires may be universal and are to be put above national interests. OK, that's it for the theory. Here's the unorthodox part: rubbish, I say. I'm about to argue for a more liberal American approach to foreign policy for realist reasons. That's right: the two terms are a false dichotomy, which is why I say they're both right and therefore both wrong, which means we are free to combine reasoning from both "schools" as they fit.


The realist foundation
OK, maybe there's going to be more theory than I promised, but stay with me. Structural realism holds that the number of great powers in the world (called "poles") decide the system's structure, which, in turn, influences outcomes. For example: the world before 1945 was multipolar, with most of the great powers right next to each other in Europe. Because the competitors were next to each other and relied on each other for resources because they were all relatively small, it was very unlikely that there would be any lasting European cooperation. Indeed, though they tried, this was the case. After 1945 the world became bipolar, with the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. as the great powers. Now, with none of the great powers in Western Europe, the countries there were no longer in a position where they had to compete with each other. Cooperation was then possible. The result? The European Community and later the EU, complete with a shared currency. Liberals would say the Europeans just finally learned their lesson and learned to cooperate, but everyone thought that in the late 19th century and after WWI, too. Do ideas and public opinion matter? Sure, but I think this structural explanation explains the timing better and is the more likely underlying enabler (combined with factors the liberals point out).


Nice history lesson, so what's this have to do with anything?
Good question. The world today is no longer bipolar, it's become unipolar, or possibly multipolar. Militarily, at least, the world is definitely unipolar, with America the military superpower (it's military spending is more than the spending of the next five top military spenders combined). Good for the U.S., right? Well, not really. Realists predict that states always move toward balancing power. This would mean essentially everyone else would align against, or at the very least refuse to cooperate with, the United States. European countries may not have agreed with the Vietnam war, either, and yet cooperation remained high because the system was bipolar. It was the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. Faced with that decision, they largely stuck with the U.S. Diplomats will tell you cooperation has become more difficult. Realists would argue this process was set in motion after the fall of the Soviet Union (meaning the tendency would be present even without the Iraq war).

That said, I think we can agree the Iraq war certainly helped to ally states against the U.S. This is bad news. The U.S. was used to playing the world police force during the Cold War. It was indirectly encouraged to do so by the presence of the other pole (the U.S.S.R.), and it was also constricted by the Soviet presence, which checked U.S. power. In the 90's, the U.S. suddenly saw itself changed from a superpower to what some called a "hyperpower." With all this power sitting around, some felt it was time to use it to change the world according to their own standards, just as realists would have predicted (because there was no longer any check on American power), which is not to say they all necessarily would have recommended it (indeed, many realists spoke out against the war as being unnecessary and too risky). Hence: the Iraq War.

What does this mean for us now? Regardless of whether the world is (still) unipolar or if it has become multipolar, cooperation is likely to become more difficult. My conclusion? Start thinking like liberals. Start welcoming cooperation, rely more on "soft power" ("winning over the hearts and minds" of the world, making them want to be more like us and want to cooperate with us), encourage reform in, and support the workings of, international organizations (particularly the UN and NATO). As I've mentioned before, it's time to dust off the old-time art of diplomacy, because coercion is simply going to meet with ever more resistance and become ever more counterproductive for global and U.S. aims.

In the end, the realists accurately describe how the world works, but the liberals accurately prescribe what we should do in the current environment. So we should speak softly and be more friendly, everyone already knows we're carrying a big stick (and the realist in me would advise keeping it).