Peace For Our Time? Explaining War’s Decline

Edward Hicks, ‘Peaceable Kingdom’

The following post is taken from my recent INK article, which details the possible causes of the decline in inter-state war since 1945...

“The tide of war is receding,” President Obama proclaimed in 2011. Which is ironic, because Obama was referring to the seemingly intractable war in Afghanistan, which President Trump is set on continuing. But ultimately, Obama was right. Since the Second World War, the tide of war has receded—worldwide. Annual battle deaths have fallen 90% since 1950. War between countries has declined, the 2003 Iraq invasion being the only conflict this century meeting the criteria of a deadly inter-state war (though there remain a fair few civil wars with outside involvement). But why has full war between states become virtually extinct?

One explanation is democratisation. Between the 76-odd democratic states, peace prevails for two reasons, according to proponents of democratic peace theory such as Yale’s Bruce Russett. Firstly, politicians could simply be voted out of power if they use force against the public’s will, so the political cost of using force is greater in democracies than in non-democracies. Secondly, democracies expect to resolve domestic conflicts by compromise, leading them to “externalise” these internal norms and behave peacefully with other democracies. The last decade of relative peace may therefore be due in part to the sheer number of democracies. But inter-state war is uncommon worldwide, not just in the democratic sphere. To understand this, we need a more truly global explanation.

Such an explanation might be found in the process of globalisation, or the growing interdependence of the peoples of planet Earth. Economic interdependence has expanded apace this century, creating trade interests which do not favour war, argues Columbia University’s Michael Doyle. Maybe ‘perpetual peace’, in Kant’s famous phrase, requires commercial ties and free trade. So capitalism may be ‘a more powerful force for peace than democracy’, as academic Michael Mousseau put it.

For example, in 2014 the non-democratic regimes of China and Russia agreed a $400bn thirty-year contract to supply China with Russian gas. This economic interdependence should help to pacify relations, since commerce between countries reduces the incentive to go to war. But sometimes economic interdependence can exacerbate tensions: for instance, the EU fears that Russia will use Europe’s dependence on Russian energy to blackmail Europe, according to one recent analysis. Nevertheless, the fact that no EU member state has fought a war with Russia demonstrates the ability of some other mechanism to pacify relations.

This mechanism is liberalisation, or the creation of a liberal world order. Liberal institutions such as the EU, the OSCE and the UN employ soft power to make aggression seem more costly to a state’s reputation than pacifism. As Kant predicted, a “pacific union” is forming, established by various treaties of international law, softening normative conflicts between hostile states. These institutions also provide a home for a broad, constant conversation among nations. The development of the human rights regime has also bolstered cooperation and reduced the probability of inter-state war. The liberal world order, propped up for 70 years by the democratic, liberal-minded US, has contributed to the decline in violence between countries.

But cracks are showing in this liberal world order. Mirroring the US’s recent critiques of liberal institutions such as the EU, the UN and NATO, in 2016 China condemned a UN-mandated court’s rejection of Chinese claims to the South China Sea. From the rise of populism in Europe and the Trump-led US to the demagoguery of Putin, Erdogan and Duterte, identity-driven tribal politics within states is fuelling aggressive power politics between them. This threatens all three of the forces for peace we have discussed. The US’s democracy can hardly prevent the possibility of conflict with a rapidly growing China; in any case, the US is one of 89 countries in which the quality of democracy declined in 2017, according to The Economist. Globalisation is threatened by understandable though often misguided popular protests. And the US can hardly prop up a liberal world order which its leader views as unfair and anti-American. As the liberal empire of the post-war era retreats, so the spectre of war might advance.

But the collapse of peace is not unstoppable. Just as democratisation, globalisation and liberalisation progressively reduced conflict in past decades, they could do so in decades to come. Only by tackling inequality within and between states can we reduce the populist pressures that threaten the considerable achievements of the liberal world order. And only with awareness of the virtues of democracy, interdependence and liberal values can we make the future resemble the peaceful present rather than the conflicted past.

Image used under Creative Commons license.

Great powers, superpowers and America

Is America a superpower, or just a great power? It certainly dominates other states in its naval might, as this image of the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier demonstrates. The UK, by contrast, has 0 aircraft carriers.

A great power is a political entity which exercises significant international influence and military strength. Within a given system of polities, great powers collectively possess a near monopoly of politico-military muscle. Traditionally, the great powers of the European states system set the rules by which international relations were to be managed. For instance, following the Thirty Years War a series of treaties signed by great powers in Westphalia set down the rules of the road for great and not-so-great powers alike. Similarly, the War of the Seventh Coalition concluded in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna, which arranged a new set of rules by which international society was to be organised. After 1919, the victorious great powers – France, Britain and the United States – drew up another set of rules. Therefore, great powers, as well as possessing a monopoly over hard power, which can be used militarily, also possess a substantial amount of soft power, or the economic, diplomatic and persuasive ability to influence the behaviour of other states. Soft power may be exercised through, amongst other things, drafting and signing important treaties.

A superpower, however, does not tend to share power so diversely. Whilst a given states system may have up to 20 great powers (as is the case with the G20 in the modern states system), there will only tend to be one or two superpowers. Generally, one superpower will tend to dominate a system – if, that is, superpowers exist at all. This single superpower may incorporate other states into its own imperium or, at the very least, ‘sphere of influence’. However, as was the case during the Cold War, there may be two superpowers. A superpower, therefore, is a transcendent power on the world stage.

Nevertheless, just as different great powers may have different areas of expertise, so may different superpowers have different areas in which they exercise hegemony, or dominance. For instance, it is arguable that China is currently just an economic – rather than a politico-military – superpower. It is the largest emitter of carbon dioxide and has the second largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for a single-state entity, standing at $11.2. Although this lags behind the European Union’s GDP of $16.4T, the EU is a multistate entity, and thus does not have as much political clout as China, which has a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. Nevertheless, both China and the EU have small economies in comparison with the US, which has a GDP of $18.6T.

The US, moreover, is perhaps the only all-round superpower in 2017. Whilst the Cold War featured a clash between two superpowers  - the US and the USSR – today only the US controls its region of the world. Therefore, the US is, to use John Mearsheimer’s term, the only ‘regional hegemon’ on Earth. Whilst the Cold War was bipolar, to some extent America’s superpower status has shifted the world towards an era of unipolarity, where only one power is dominant. But America’s superpower status should not be exaggerated. Admittedly, in 2014 its economy amounted to nearly a quarter of global GDP and it spent $596B on defence on 2015, which was more than double China’s total of $215B. Nevertheless, even if it is a global superpower, the US is certainly not a global hegemon. To be a hegemon, as Mearsheimer and R. Harrison Wagner acknowledge, America would need to be able to defeat any combination of other powers in a given confrontation. But as its military spending in 2014 amounted to only 43% of the global total, this would not be enough to defeat all other states combined. Perhaps, therefore, the US remains a modest superpower, without the capacity to exercise total global dominance. Far from it: the US was unable to stop Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, as well as the seizure of Mosul by so-called Islamic State three months later.

Nevertheless, the global reach of the US, although not characteristic of a global hegemon, is certainly characteristic of a superpower. Whilst America’s soft power has declined – particularly following President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord on 1 June 2017 – its hard power remains intact. After the Syrian government launched the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack on 4 April 2017, the US launched a Thomahawk cruise missile strike three days later. Syria has not dared to launch any chemical attacks since. Thus the US is capable of using targeted unilateral force with devastating effect.

On balance, therefore, the US remains a superpower to this day. But it nevertheless ‘has been in a state of almost continuous relative decline since the end of World War II’ (Antony Best et al, 2015). It is certainly a great power, and retains its superpower status thanks to its being ahead of any other state in crude economic, political and military terms. Nevertheless, in none of these areas does it exercise hegemony. Even America’s status as the world’s only regional hegemon may soon be cast away by a resurgent Middle Kingdom. America may be a superpower, but it is far from an unlimited one.

Word of the Week: Norms

Alexander VI: the normative Pope? (Creative Commons)

Traps and Norms

In previous posts, I have tried to investigate the underlying explanation for the Thucydides trap, or the hypothesis that, when a rising power confronts a ruling power, war becomes quite probable. This week, I ask which theory of international relations offers the best explanation for one particular case of peace enduring, despite the fact that a rising power (Spain) confronted a ruling power (Portugal) in the late 15th century AD. This is one of the Belter Center's 16 examples of the Thucydides trap. I find that social norms appear to play a part in explaining why the Thucydides trap did not spring in this particular case. 

Norms are patterns of behaviour. They have a descriptive element and a prescriptive element. One the one hand, norms describe patterns of behaviour, e.g. the respect that European states demonstrated for the Pope. On the other hand, norms prescribe patterns of behaviour, e.g. the respect that European states thought they ought to demonstrate for the Pope. Employing the constructivist theory of international relations, I argue that norms restrained the warlike tendencies of the Thucydides trap in the late 15th century. Nevertheless, there are many other possible explanations for why peace endured between Spain and Portugal against the odds, which I shall look at shortly. But first, before I look at the explanation for peace between Portugal and Spain, it's worth briefly describing how close Portugal and Spain got to war, and what they did to avoid it.

Portugal and Spain

In the late 15th century, Portugal, the 'ruling power' (according to Professor Allison's schema) began to feel threatened by the 'rising power' that was the Catholic monarchy of Ferdinand and Isabella, who had in 1469 united the crowns of Castile and Aragon. Since the days of Henry the Navigator, the mid-15th century Portuguese prince with exploratory ambitions, Portugal had aspired to be the world's dominant sea power. But now its neighbour was on the rise. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella completed their reconquest of the final emirate of the Iberian peninsula - Granada. That same year, Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492 with Spanish backing, after being spurned by Portuguese King John II. The balance of power 'changed almost overnight', and Portugal and Spain were set to fall into Thucydides's timeless trap.

However, the trap did not spring, and peace endured between Portugal and Spain. In 1494, Pope Alexander VI helped negotiate the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal, giving Portugal access to India and Africa whilst giving Spain access to most of the Americas, as the dividing line between the Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence was the 46th meridian. Generally, lands discovered west of the meridian were to be Spanish, whereas lands discovered east of the meridian were to be Portuguese. It turned out that Portugal had pulled the short straw and got the worse end of the deal. Nevertheless, it provided the Portuguese with some comfort that the Spanish would recognise their territorial rights, allowing both powers to remain comfortable with their respective spheres of conquest.

Explaining the peace

How was the Thucydides trap avoided? This is difficult for the offensive realist, since one would presume that, if Spain really wanted to become hegemonic at sea, it would want to displace Portuguese power totally rather than reaching a compromise. Perhaps for the defensive realist the Treaty of Tordesillas makes sense, as it clearly delineated the limits of Spanish power, thus making Portugal comfortable that the balance of power remained in equilibrium. Thus the theory of  defensive (structural) realism offers the more convincing realist case on why the Thucydides trap did not have the effects that it had on Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BC. Perhaps what makes realism most convincing is that King John II was unprepared for another war with Spain.

But structural realism only looks at part of the picture.  Indeed, Portugal and Spain were trying to enhance their security in the Treaty of Tordesillas. But they were also trying to exploit the new world for prestige, and Tordesillas was not just a security treaty but also a 'charter of empire', allowing each power to go about conquering foreign lands unhindered (Disney, 2009). This supports classical realism, since prestige was more important than power in preventing the descent to war. 

Social constructivism has some backing. Spain was exhausted from its conquest of Granada and fearful of a repetition of the Wars of the Castilian Succession of 1475 - 79. This made Spain wary of war, due to its internal inhibitions and sentimental constraints on going to war again. Perhaps Isabella and Ferdinand thought that they could not justify yet another protracted war to their people. Nevertheless, this idea is, in the end, a flawed one: from 1500 to 1504, Spain was fighting with France for control of Naples, which was a fight that Spain won. Spain was, therefore, not prepared to stay at peace for the sake of peace. More realistic is the final possibility, from societal constructivism.

According to societal constructivists, like classical realists, inter-state sociology is important. Ideas such as prestige, respect, extravaganza and magisterial authority are far more significant than money, resources and power according to societal constructivists. The fact is that the international society of the time was oriented around papal authority. As such, when Alexander VI demanded a settlement, Spain and Portugal felt compelled, as fellow Catholic powers, to conform to the demands of their international society. They wanted to be good Christian members of Christendom, so did what they could to avoid war. The norm of Christian behaviour, in the end, may have been what drove Portugal and Spain to unite. 

As economic interdependence was not at its heights in the 15th century, and as neither Portugal nor Spain was democratic, the liberal theories of economic interdependence and democratic peace can be brushed aside. Therefore, on balance, the strongest three theories emerging from this case are:

Defensive (structural) realism;

Classical realism;

Societal constructivism.

Indeed, these three theories can be complementary, and no one of them need take precedence over the others. The material factors underpinning defensive realism, for instance, may be compatible with the sociological take of constructivists. Both survival and ideas were on the agenda of Spain and Portugal, suggesting that defensive realism, classical realism and societal constructivism can all offer lessons for explaining Thucydides's trap. 

Restraints on the trap

The norms of prestige and good behaviour, seen through these last two theories, were perhaps, therefore, the most important causes of peace in the Iberian peninsula. This means that the Thucydides trap, at least in this case, can be restrained by circumstances in which 

(a) war is unfeasible or unwinnable in the perception of both sides, 

(b) war risks decreasing, rather than increasing, the prestige of either state, or

(c) international society is structured in such a way that war would violate fundamental norms of good behaviour.

Which one of these circumstances has the greatest effect on restraining the Thucydides trap is a subject for future posts, when I hope to look at some of the Belfer Center's other case studies. As Professor Allison's team does not put immediate emphasis on theories such as constructivism, I hope that my analysis provides a broader look at what the mechanisms are for restraining the Thucydides trap. Providing an explanation for the age-old trap perhaps might prove useful for policymakers, who must avoid it ensnaring the United States and China. The alternative, if the historical record is reliable, is war.

References

Disney, A.R. (2009), A history of Portugal and the Portuguese empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harvard Thucydides’s Trap Project (2015 onwards), ‘Thucydides’s Trap Case File’. Available online at: http://www.belfercenter.org/thucydides-trap/resources/case-file-graphic

Word of the Week: Bipolarity

Perhaps bipolarity is more complex than cartoons such as this one, depicting Khrushchev and Kennedy at the height of Cold War tensions, tend to suggest. 

Bipolarity is generally used as a shorthand for a bipolar balance of power: the relative stability achieved when two states, or coalitions of states, have equivalent economic or military might. A system might be bipolar if states are polarised into two coalitions of states. And a system might possess a balance of power if the two coalitions have equivalent powers. Thus a bipolar balance of power promotes stability and, to some degree, peace. If two states, or coalitions of states, have equivalent powers, then they are less likely to challenge one another militarily, since this would risk large-scale retaliation. In this way, a bipolar balance, as structural realists such as Kenneth Waltz claim, makes pre-emptive strikes unlikely. This, in turn, makes war unlikely.

However, there is more than one type of balance of power. In his Theory of International Politics, Waltz claimed that the history of international relations could be divided into two halves. In the first half, up to 1945, the international system was multipolar. There were many centres of power, many opposing coalitions of states, and many individual states which had the capability of forming coalitions. From the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the defining value of international politics was state sovereignty. This was demonstrated by the maxim ‘cuius regio eius religio’, first coined at the Peace of Ausburg (1555) and approximately meaning ‘to each prince, his own religion. Therefore, no state ought to become so powerful that it could influence the ‘religio’ or sovereignty of other states. This means that a multipolar balance of power defined the world up to 1945, since states made sure that any potential hegemon – or dominant power – was counterbalanced by a coalition of other states committed to the balance of power.

In contrast, during the Cold War, according to Waltz, there was a bipolar balance of power. This is what made the Cold War unique. Whereas after the First World War no two states were vastly more powerful than all the others, after the second there was an approximate balance of power forming between the Soviet Union and the USA. So the USA and the USSR formed opposing coalitions which divided the world in two. These coalitions, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, succeeded in giving each power the military capability to deter the other from launching a first strike. This system of deterrence prevented any one centre of power from challenging the other, thus ensuring a continuation of the balance of power. This is exemplified by Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which says that ‘an armed attack against one or more of [the parties] shall be considered an attack against them all’. The bipolar balance between the USA and the USSR thus contributed to the polarisation which characterised the Cold War. But it also led to stability by reducing the incentive for launching a first, or pre-emptive, strike.

However, on balance it does not seem that the Cold War provided a perfect balance of power. Firstly, the balance of power was assymetrical, and thus was not a true ‘balance’ at all. The economic might of the USA outweighed that of the USSR, but, conversely, the USSR was on the verge of establishing hegemony over Europe. The USSR, in other words, was geopolitically secure, and was able to defend its 13 international borders partly by the threat of nuclear deterrence. The USA, on the other hand, was economically and militarily secure. As R. Harrison Wagner notes in ‘What Was Bipolarity?’, the balance of power during the Cold War is difficult to define, as the Cold War was different in practice from what it was meant to be in structural realist theory. A particular reason for this ambiguity was the asymmetrical distribution of power in practice.

Secondly, bipolarity suggests that only two states mattered during the Cold War. But it is clear that even the weaker states had a degree of freedom, making the system perhaps vaguely resemble a multipolar one. Even if the Cold War was bipolar, perhaps it was only weakly bipolar. However, Arthur Lee Burns suggests that the Cold War was characterised by bipolar tensions at the nuclear level, since only the USA and the USSR had enough nuclear weapons to each act as a ‘global-deterrent power’. By being able to deter military action against themselves through the threat of nuclear weapons, Burns suggests that the system was strongly bipolar, as only the USA and the USSR mattered in a nuclearized world. Nevertheless, Burns and Waltz, as well as other supporters of the bipolar view, fail to notice that even weak states without nuclear weapons mattered. After all, the Korean and Vietnam wars were fought for the sake of allies – namely, Korea and Vietnam – by both the USSR and the USA, who supported opposite proxies in the wars. Thus Stephen Walt says that the Cold War was a ‘competition for allies’. The Cold War, in other words, was not perfectly bipolar – even the weak states mattered. Rather, the Cold War was weakly bipolar, as peace, although made vastly more probable by the new balance of power, was never guaranteed.

The Cold War provided a bipolar balance of power in more ways than one. Nevertheless, the system in reality was more nuanced and multifaceted that structural realists make it out to be. Perhaps even the Cold War, one of the few examples in world history of a (weakly) bipolar system, may not be completely unique.

Word of the Week: Explanations

Figure 1: Professor John Mearsheimer, whose theory may explain the Thucydides trap (Creative Commons)

Explaining Thucydides

My post entitled Word of the Week: Trap discussed Graham Allison's (2015) concept of the Thucydides trap. Derived from classical Greek historian Thucydides, this states that  when a rising power confronts a ruling power, the probability of war is raised significantly. In subsequent posts, I'll consider some examples given by Allison's team at the Belfer Center. When I do so, a central question will be: why did war occur or not occur in this case? What, in other words, are the conditions for the Thucydides trap springing, and what are the trap's causal mechanisms that actually lead to war? The Thucydides's trap gives a hypothesis, or a relationship between (a) a rising power confronting a ruling power and (b) war. But it does not give an explanation for why there is such a relationship. Theory comes in two parts: (1) hypothesis-testing and (2) explaining the hypothesis (Brown & Ainley, 2009: 203). In this post, I examine the broad theories of international relations, in the hope that one or more might provide the explanation we need. 

Different theories, different explanations 

The three main theories of international relations can be subdivided as follows (a couple of these terms are my own):

(1)  Liberalism

a.    Economic interdependence

b.    Democratic peace

(2)  Realism

a.    Classical

b.    Structural

                        i.    Defensive

                        ii.   Offensive

(3)  Constructivism

a.    Social

b.    Societal

Figure 2: Three theories of international relations

I'd like to analyse each of these theories in turn, asking what they can tell us, if anything, about the possible explanations for the Thucydides trap.

International relations as a formal discipline kicked off in the 20th century with the theory known as liberalism (Brown & Ainley, 2009). The likes of Norman Angell claimed that 'Europe's Optical Illusion' was its unfounded belief in the utility of war. For Angell, the economic interdependence in Europe had made war redundant. Economic prosperity and interconnectedness, for Angellian liberals, could lead to peace. Optimism was at its greatest in the lead-up to the First World War (Coker, 2015). This notion of economic interdependence as the cornerstone of liberalism has some statistical grounding (Mousseau, 2000). For liberals of this persuasion, war between great powers is to be explained by a collapse of economic interdependence or by the world economy in general, which might be their way of framing the Thucydides trap.

After the First World War broke out, a second breed of liberalism began, in order to account for the sometime breakdown of peace in apparently prosperous times. For President Woodrow Wilson, America's declaring war on Imperial Germany on 6 April 1917 was intended to create a post-war world 'safe for democracy'. Wilson's dream was Immanuel Kant's, of an international society of peaceful democracies (Russett, 1995; Kant, 1970 [1795]). This is known as the democratic peace thesis. But that vision nearly collapsed with the Second World War, as the apparently pro-democracy League of Nations was found futile in the face of fascism. For democratic peace liberals, therefore, the Thucydides trap might be framed as a circumstance where two states clash due to their undemocratic values. At the very least, even if just one state is nondemocratic, then the chance of war war between the two states vastly increases. 

Nevertheless, after the Second World War shook liberal optimism, a school of thought known as realism came to the rescue. Realists believe that the world is anarchic. So states have no choice but to behave in a rational-egoistic, or calculating and selfish, way. Realist thinkers range from Hans Morgenthau and E.H. Carr to Kenneth Waltz and John J. Mearsheimer. What unites them is a common belief in the primacy of survival above all other interests of a state. But there's a key division to be made between classical realists and structural realists. 

While classical realists such as Morgenthau (1948) emphasise the importance of human nature in creating Machiavellian world politics, structural realists look not to human agents but instead to the supra-human structures of world politics. For structural realists, anarchy is what drives rational egoism, whereas for classical realists human nature is what makes states so provocative. For classical realists, the rise of Athens and similar powers is to be explained in terms of the personal ambition of leaders such as Pericles. However, for structural realists, the Thucydides trap can be framed as a structural contest between two competing powers, rather than a personality contest. 

Nevertheless, even structural realists are divided on what the result of this rational egoism is: perhaps states merely seek to protect themselves by using defensive measures (defensive realism), or perhaps they seek to actively dominate their regions, following John J. Mearsheimer's dictum that it is 'Better to Be Godzilla than Bambi' (offensive realism) (Mearsheimer & Brzezinski, 2009). Defensive realists such as Kenneth Waltz would tend to emphasise an upending of the balance of power as the cause of the Thucydides trap. Offensive realists, on the other hand, would argue that superpowers clash when they both want to become hegemonic, or dominant. The mutually exclusive aims of great powers are what would precipitate the Thucydides trap for an offensive realist. 

However, it has been argued that the realist orthodoxy is being reshaped by constructivism (Brown & Ainley, 2009). Alexander Wendt has taken a lead in promoting social constructivism, or the theory that both liberal and realist ideas - such as, say, the democratic peace and anarchy - are socially constructed. Wendt points out that that there is 'no such thing as a "logic of anarchy" per se', since anarchy literally means 'without rule', so it is 'nothing'. As 'nothings cannot be structures', Wendt argues that anarchic systems are 'a function of social structures, not anarchy' (Wendt, 2010: 308 - 309). Therefore, anarchy is not a structure, as the realists maintain. Rather, 'anarchy is what states make of it' (ibid.: 377). Thus social constructivists such as Wendt believe that, whether the world is liberal or realist in character, at the end of the day social structures take precedence over realist structures. Therefore, if the Thucydides trap has any truth for the social constructivist, it would be due to a perception of an inevitable war, whether or not such a perception is objectively valid. 

Constructivists, unlike liberals and realists, tend to agree on some key principles. They agree, for instance, on the primacy of norms and ideas over material factors such as raw, unencumbered anarchy. Nevertheless, although they do not differ much from social constructivists, what I term societal constructivists put emphasis on subtly different phenomena. According to societal constructivism, commonly known as 'English School' constructivism, there is evident societal variation in traditions of anarchy. Some international societies, for instance, tend to lack anarchy, such as the Roman Empire and Napoleon's dominions, whereas in other cultures, such as the ancient Sumerian and Hellenistic (Greek) societies, anarchy is the cornerstone of social interaction at the state level (Watson, 2009). 

Societal constructivists essentially agree with the social constructivists that anarchy is what states make of it. But they emphasise the ability of systems to change and reform over time, and they therefore take a more historical look at the evolution of international society. In that respect, societal constructivists have many similarities with classical realists, who draw much influence from thinkers ranging from Thucydides himself to Machiavelli. Societal constructivists, in turn, are influenced by Hugo Grotius (Heywood, 2015), as well as by David Hume (Mayall, 2000). For societal constructivists, the Thucyides trap might be triggered in a society in which violence is the norm, but could equally be avoided in a society in which peace rewards states with more respect and appreciation than war. 

So, having gone through the sub-theories and noting that they can count as theories in themselves, it's worth giving an alternative version of Figure 2:

(1) Economic interdependence liberalism

(2) Democratic peace liberalism

(3) Classical realism

(4) Defensive (structural) realism

(5) Offensive (structural) realism

(6) Social constructivism

(7) Societal constructivism

Figure 3: Seven (sub-)theories of international relations

Next week, I'll apply these theories to the Belfer Center's first case study of the Thucydides trap: Portugal and Spain in the late 15th century. I find that liberalism doesn't quite work in explaining why the Thucydides trap didn't spring and peace endured. Defensive realism and the constructivist theories seem to be the most convincing in this case. Ultimately, looking at cases as old as the Portuguese-Spanish rivalry is vital in order to check the possible explanations for the trap, which may prove to be the defining issue of our time. After all, the consequences of sleepwalking into the trap, and the ensuing US-Chinese war, may prove catastrophic (Coker, 2015).  

References

Angell, Norman (1909), 'Europe's optical illusion', London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent.

Brown, Chris, & Ainley, Kirsten (2009), Understanding international relations, Basingstone: Palgrave Macmillan.

Coker, Christopher (2015), The improbable war: China, the United States & the logic of great power conflict, London: Hurst & Company.

The Economist (2017), 'Lessons from the first world war', 6 April. Available online at: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21720275-and-why-america-should-remember-them-now-lessons-first-world-war
Harvard Thucydides’s Trap Project (2015 onwards), ‘Thucydides’s Trap Case File’. Available online at: http://www.belfercenter.org/thucydides-trap/resources/case-file-graphic

Heywood, Andrew (2015), Global politics, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kant, Immanuel (1970), Kant’s political writings, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brzezinsk, Zbigniew, & Mearsheimer, John J. (2009), ‘Clash of the titans’, Foreign Policy, October 22. Available online at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/22/clash-of-the-titans/

Mayall, James (2000), World politics: Progress and its limits, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Morgenthau, Hans (1948), Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace, New York: Alfred P. Knopf.

Mousseau, Michael (2000), 'Market prosperity, democratic consolidation, and democratic peace', Journal of Conflict Resolution, 44(4), 472-507.

Russett, Bruce (1995), Grasping the democratic peace: Principles for a post-Cold War world, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Tsygankov, Andrei P., & Tarver‐Wahlquist, Matthew (2009), 'Duelling honors: Power, identity and the Russia–Georgia divide', Foreign Policy Analysis, 5(4), 307-326.

Watson, Adam (2009), The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis Reissue with a new introduction by Barry Buzan and Richard Little, Routledge.

Wendt, Alexander (2010 [1999]), Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Word of the Week: Norms #1

Alexander VI: the normative Pope? (Creative Commons)

Traps and Norms

In previous posts, I have tried to investigate the underlying explanation for the Thucydides trap, or the hypothesis that, when a rising power confronts a ruling power, war becomes quite probable. This week, I ask which theory of international relations offers the best explanation for one particular case of peace enduring, despite the fact that a rising power (Spain) confronted a ruling power (Portugal) in the late 15th century AD. This is one of the Belter Center's 16 examples of the Thucydides trap. I find that social norms appear to play apart in explaining why the Thucydides trap did not spring in this particular case. 

Norms are patterns of behaviour. They have a descriptive element and a prescriptive element. One the one hand, norms describe patterns of behaviour, e.g. the respect that European states demonstrated for the Pope. On the other hand, norms prescribe patterns of behaviour, e.g. the respect that European states thought they ought to demonstrate for the Pope. Employing the constructivist theory of international relations, I argue that norms restrained the warlike tendencies of the Thucydides trap in the late 15th century. Nevertheless, there are many other possible explanations for why peace endured between Spain and Portugal against the odds, which I shall look at shortly. But first, before I look at the explanation for peace between Portugal and Spain, it's worth briefly describing how close Portugal and Spain got to war, and what they did to avoid it.

Portugal and Spain

In the late 15th century, Portugal, the 'ruling power' (according to Professor Allison's schema) began to feel threatened by the 'rising power' that was the Catholic monarchy of Ferdinand and Isabella, who had in 1469 united the crowns of Castile and Aragon. Since the days of Henry the Navigator, the mid-15th century Portuguese prince with exploratory ambitions, Portugal had aspired to be the world's dominant sea power. But now its neighbour was on the rise. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella completed their reconquest of the final emirate of the Iberian peninsula - Granada. That same year, Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492 with Spanish backing, after being spurned by Portuguese King John II. The balance of power 'changed almost overnight', and Portugal and Spain were set to fall into Thucydides's timeless trap.

However, the trap did not spring, and peace endured between Portugal and Spain. In 1494, Pope Alexander VI helped negotiate the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal, giving Portugal access to India and Africa whilst giving Spain access to most of the Americas, as the dividing line between the Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence was the 46th meridian. Generally, lands discovered west of the meridian were to be Spanish, whereas lands discovered east of the meridian were to be Portuguese. It turned out that Portugal had pulled the short straw and got the worse end of the deal. Nevertheless, it provided the Portuguese with some comfort that the Spanish would recognise their territorial rights, allowing both powers to remain comfortable with their respective spheres of conquest.

Explaining the peace

How was the Thucydides trap avoided? This is difficult for the offensive realist, since one would presume that, if Spain really wanted to become hegemonic at sea, it would want to displace Portuguese power totally rather than reaching a compromise. Perhaps for the defensive realist the Treaty of Tordesillas makes sense, as it clearly delineated the limits of Spanish power, thus making Portugal comfortable that the balance of power remained in equilibrium. Thus the theory of  defensive (structural) realism offers the more convincing realist case on why the Thucydides trap did not have the effects that it had on Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BC. Perhaps what makes realism most convincing is that King John II was unprepared for another war with Spain.

But structural realism only looks at part of the picture.  Indeed, Portugal and Spain were trying to enhance their security in the Treaty of Tordesillas. But they were also trying to exploit the new world for prestige, and Tordesillas was not just a security treaty but also a 'charter of empire', allowing each power to go about conquering foreign lands unhindered (Disney, 2009). This supports classical realism, since prestige was more important than power in preventing the descent to war. 

Social constructivism has some backing. Spain was exhausted from its conquest of Granada and fearful of a repetition of the Wars of the Castilian Succession of 1475 - 79. This made Spain wary of war, due to its internal inhibitions and sentimental constraints on going to war again. Perhaps Isabella and Ferdinand thought that they could not justify yet another protracted war to their people. Nevertheless, this idea is, in the end, a flawed one: from 1500 to 1504, Spain was fighting with France for control of Naples, which was a fight that Spain won. Spain was, therefore, not prepared to stay at peace for the sake of peace. More realistic is the final possibility, from societal constructivism.

According to societal constructivists, like classical realists, inter-state sociology is important. Ideas such as prestige, respect, extravaganza and magisterial authority are far more significant than money, resources and power according to societal constructivists. The fact is that the international society of the time was oriented around papal authority. As such, when Alexander VI demanded a settlement, Spain and Portugal felt compelled, as fellow Catholic powers, to conform to the demands of their international society. They wanted to be good Christian members of Christendom, so did what they could to avoid war. The norm of Christian behaviour, in the end, may have been what drove Portugal and Spain to unite. 

As economic interdependence was not at its heights in the 15th century, and as neither Portugal nor Spain was democratic, the liberal theories of economic interdependence and democratic peace can be brushed aside. Therefore, on balance, the strongest three theories emerging from this case are:

Defensive (structural) realism;

Classical realism;

Societal constructivism.

Indeed, these three theories can be complementary, and no one of them need take precedence over the others. The material factors underpinning defensive realism, for instance, may be compatible with the sociological take of constructivists. Both survival and ideas were on the agenda of Spain and Portugal, suggesting that defensive realism, classical realism and societal constructivism can all offer lessons for explaining Thucydides's trap. 

Restraints on the trap

The norms of prestige and good behaviour, seen through these last two theories, were perhaps, therefore, the most important causes of peace in the Iberian peninsula. This means that the Thucydides trap, at least in this case, can be restrained by circumstances in which 

(a) war is unfeasible or unwinnable in the perception of both sides, 

(b) war risks decreasing, rather than increasing, the prestige of either state, or

(c) international society is structured in such a way that war would violate fundamental norms of good behaviour.

Which one of these circumstances has the greatest effect on restraining the Thucydides trap is a subject for future posts, when I hope to look at some of the Belfer Center's other case studies. As Professor Allison's team does not put immediate emphasis on theories such as constructivism, I hope that my analysis provides a broader look at what the mechanisms are for restraining the Thucydides trap. Providing an explanation for the age-old trap perhaps might prove useful for policymakers, who must avoid it ensnaring the United States and China. The alternative, if historical record is reliable, is war.

References

Disney, A.R. (2009), A history of Portugal and the Portuguese empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harvard Thucydides’s Trap Project (2015 onwards), ‘Thucydides’s Trap Case File’. Available online at: http://www.belfercenter.org/thucydides-trap/resources/case-file-graphic