Chapter
5. International Relations
Last updated 10-21-2010
Copyright 2008-10 Robert
E. Botsch
Treaties
are like young girls and roses. They last while they last. Charles de Gaulle
OUTLINE
I. Defining
the area of study
A. International Relations
B. International Studies
C. International Politics
E. International Organizations and International Law
F. Foreign Policy
II.
International Actors in the world community
A. Individual Actors
B. National Actors
C. Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO's)
D. Intergovernmental Organizations (IGO's)
E. Terrorist Organizations and/or Patriotic Fronts
F. Multinational Corporations (MNC's)
III.
International politics versus internal state politics
A. How different
B. Why different
IV. The
concept of power in International Relations
A. Elements of power
1. Human resources
a. Numbers‑‑less
important
b. Qualitative characteristics‑‑more
important
1) education
2) economic skills
3) culture and ideology‑‑nationalism
4) unity and morale
2. Material resources
3. Organizational capabilities
4. Leadership skills
B. Foreign aid‑‑military and/or
economic
1. As a tool for power
2. Normative considerations‑‑Why
give foreign aid?
C. The distribution of power in the world‑‑changing
realities
1. Balance of power politics
2. Tight Bi‑polar System
3. Loose Bi‑polar System
4. A "Uni-polar" World?
D. Power rationally wasted‑‑the
arms race
E. Lines of conflict
1.
2.
3.
4.
F. Revolutionary power
TEXT
I. Defining the area of study‑‑Areas
of study associated with International Relations
International relations is an extremely
broad area. Sometimes it gets lumped together with another area, comparative
politics. That is the case at many small schools where one or two professors
have to cover both areas. However, at larger schools international relations is
an autonomous area that is sometimes even separate from the political science
department. At many schools you can get a separate degree in something like
International Studies or International Relations. Because of this distinction
and because they are conceptually different, we will separate international
relations and comparative politics. Nevertheless, you should understand that
they are closely related. They are related in the sense that understanding the differences
among cultures and political systems‑‑comparative politics‑‑helps
in understanding the interrelationships among nations‑‑international
relations.
Regardless of how political scientists deal
with these areas, most people are thoroughly confused in talking about
international relations. People are so confused that they either disregard this
area of life completely (what does it matter to me who is killing whom in Sudan
or Lebanon or in Bosnia or in Somalia or in Haiti or in Rwanda or in Kosovo or
in East Timor or in Afghanistan or in Iraq – what else is new), or they attempt
to understand what happens elsewhere by applying American values and rules of
domestic politics (why can't they just have an election in Haiti or Somalia or
Gaza or Iraq or Afghanistan to decide who will run the country?). At the same time in the post 9-11 world, most
Americans realize that what happens in the rest of the world can affect us,
whether we like it or not.
What I want to do in the first part of
this chapter is introduce you to some of the terminology that is sometimes used
to describe international relations and its subareas. You will be learning some
new terms and some new things about the world around you. I think you will find
international relations both interesting and rewarding. Being able to deal with
other nations that are growing more powerful and more independent may even be
critical to the long term security of the
A. International Relations
We might define this term as encompassing
the ongoing relationships between international actors. It is extremely
broad in scope including any kind of relation that may exist. International
relations includes such diverse relations as trade and the Olympics to the
nuclear arms limitation talks between the
B. International Studies
This term is often applied to multidisciplinary
programs of study at universities that prepare a student for an active
career in the international arena. USC Columbia has such a program that uses
this title. In such a program, one would study language, politics, culture,
history, geography, literature, business and a variety of other topics. This is
the broadest term, covering not only the relations aspect, but also area
studies (where you focus on one particular area of the world‑‑like
C. International Politics
This term is much more limited in scope
and refers to only those relationships that are political in nature. Of
course, if you define politics as broadly as we have in this course, we would
still be including a very broad range of relationships.
D. International Organizations
and International Law
A great deal of emphasis is placed on the
study of international organizations and law by those in the field of
international relations. Most average citizens pay little attention to these
areas and usually scoff at the value of international laws and organizations.
Nevertheless, both international organizations and law can and do play an
important role in the world today. World‑wide problems such as pollution,
nuclear proliferation, trade, famine, the use of common air and water space as
well as the heavens, and the protection of migratory animals often require an
internationally coordinated effort.
Certainly such groups as the United
Nations often fail and certainly nations often ignore international laws (see
the quote by de Gaulle at the beginning of this chapter). If you wish to take a
moralistic approach here, all nations share in the blame. Americans were fond
of saying that the
In 1995 the
Perhaps the problem is not with such
entities as the
Before we go on, you should know a few things
about the United Nations if you are to be intelligent consumers of
international news. Let's start with the legal basis and structure. The United Nations is really nothing more
than a treaty with 192 members who signed the treaty. Any one could withdraw
at any time they want. The organization started with just 51 members and has
grown throughout the years (see the UN page on growth at http://www.un.org/Overview/growth.htm.)
At the center of the U.N. is the General Assembly. This is a very weak
legislative type body in which each member state has a single vote and a
representative who speaks for that nation and casts that vote. In this body,
much like the U.S. Senate, all nations are equal in voting power, regardless of
size or wealth or population. Its major weakness is that it cannot pass laws
like other legislatures. The General Assembly can only pass resolutions and
make recommendations. It meets for about two months each year beginning in
September.
The most important part of the U.N.
is the Security Council. The U.N.
Charter makes it responsible for "prompt and effective action...for the
maintenance of international peace and security." The Security Council has
15 members five of which are permanent. These "perm five" consist of the major powers of the world‑‑at
least they were the major powers at the time the U.N. was created at the end of
WWII: The U.S., Britain, France, the U.S.S.R. (now replaced by a smaller and
very much weaker Russia), and China (originally Nationalist China on Taiwan,
but now mainland China, the People's Republic of China‑‑the PRC).
The remaining 10 members serve for 2 year terms and are elected by the General
Assembly. In order to pass a motion, the Security Council requires 9 votes.
However, on important votes, none of the perm five can cast a "no"
vote if the vote is to pass. In effect they have veto power over all key votes.
During the Cold War period following WWII up until the 1990s, the conflict
between the
This method of representation and method
of voting recognize that the perm five are so important that the U.N. could not
be effective if any of them opposed action. So the rules require their
representation and their support. If you remember Crick's law of politics, you
might say that these rules distribute power in relation to the importance of
each of the nations for the success and survival of the U.N.
While the identity of the perm five made a
lot of sense following WWII, it makes less sense today. The two major losers in
WWII‑‑Germany and Japan‑‑are arguably much more
important in the world today than several of the current perm five members. At
some point in the future the U.N. must recognize this new reality. If not, the
U.N. may find that it cannot effectively function on matters these economic
superpowers oppose. It will have violated Crick's law (which states that
for any organization to be successful, the powers of the members must be in
proportion to their importance in that organization – you should have seen this
in trying to allocate power in the Baltakian Convention simulation!).
The last major organ of the U.N. is the
office of the Secretary General. He
or she is responsible for carrying out the policies passed by the U.N. and
overseeing the day‑to‑day administrative affairs of the U.N. The post
involves a great deal of delicate negotiation among members over whom the
General Secretary has no real power to use force. The General Secretary has
little more than the power of persuasion. Upon the recommendation of the
Security Council, the General Assembly chooses the General Secretary. The
current Secretary General is Ban Ki-moon, a career UN diplomat from
The U.N. has a number of other special
agencies, such as the International Court of Justice, the U.N. Children's Fund
(UNICEF), the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization,
the Universal Postal Union, and the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO). In 1984 the
On balance, the U.N. is a necessary
organization in a world where interactions among nations happen so frequently
and in so many areas that we need a permanent structure for dealing with those
interactions. (You may remember that this rationale is similar to Locke's
argument about why people created government as an improvement over the state
of nature.) Ad hoc arrangements would not be practical any longer. When major
powers agree, the U.N. can be effective in stopping aggression, as in the case
of the Iraqi invasion of
However, the U.N. suffers all of the
inherent defects of a confederal form of government. It can only do
those things on which all major members agree. If major members are
unwilling to take sufficient risks, the U.N. can do little. Such was the case
in ending the horrible ethnic violence in and around
To learn more about current activities and
elements of the UN, visit its website at http://www.un.org/english/.
E. U.S. Foreign Policy
Many schools teach courses that focus on international
relations and comparative government from the focus of
II. International Actors in the world
community
In discussing international politics, we
must consider much more than how nations get along with each other. Nations are
just one kind of actors‑‑many other entities are active in the
world. What I want to do here is discuss a variety of other possible actors and
raise some significant issues and problems that concern each type of actor.
A. Individual Actors
Individual people can often play an
important role in international politics‑‑even those individual
people who do not represent any other kind of unit. Quite obviously presidents
and prime ministers and ambassadors are individuals who play important roles.
However, a significant number of private individual actors can affect the
course of events in world affairs either by acting or being acted upon. Victims
of terrorism might better be seen as unwilling pawns, but the statements they
make both literally and symbolically can have a great impact.
When former officials of high standing
such as George H. W. Bush or Jimmy Carter make statements on foreign affairs,
people and current world leaders listen. Carter does a lot of work through the
Carter Center,
located on the Emory University campus. Independent actions by internationally
respected men like Carter can have a dramatic effect on world events, as we saw
in his personal intervention in
As mentioned earlier, in late 1997 Ted
Turner announced that he was going to give a billion dollars to the U.N for
humanitarian activities over a ten year period--a hundred million a year. That
represents about a third of his wealth at the time. He clearly is an
international actor.
International currency trader George Soros
is an international actor in several ways. His financial trading has made him
billions, sometimes angering national banking institutions, like the Bank of
England, from whom he made a quick billion when he correctly anticipated a
falling pound. He borrowed pounds from the bank. The he used the pounds to buy
German marks, which increased in value. Then he bought back cheaper pounds to
repay the loan and had a billion left over. Soros also gives away hundreds of
millions of dollars, especially to eastern European nations. His aid to some
nations in 1996 was more than
B. National Actors
There are about 200 nation‑states in the world that fit into this category.
Notice that I said nation‑states, not just nations. Sometimes the term nation refers to a people with a distinct culture and heritage
that exist within some state but do not have the status of a state in
international affairs. We could speak of the Cherokee nation within the
In most of the other cases we have nations
that do not have the status of states. For example, the Serbian nation within
the state of
The most current examples are
Disagreement exists over just who
should be counted as nation-states, as political recognition by the rest of
the nation‑states of the world is a highly controversial political
question. For example, the nation‑state of
Under the leadership of President
Nixon, we made the first moves toward the recognition of PRC as
C. Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO's)
These are groups and associations that
are not sponsored by any nation‑state or group of nation‑states
that can and do play an important role in international affairs. Examples
include such groups as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Green Peace, the
Cousteau Society, Doctors Without Borders, and thousands of religious
organizations. The International Women's Conference held in the late summer of
1995 in China had in attendance hundreds of representatives from NGO's
concerned with women's issues, including the one we shall now discuss.
The Catholic Church is an interesting case
of a religious group that would usually be considered an NGO that has the legal
status of a state in the world community (notice that I didn't say "nation‑state").
This is because the Catholic Church is located in
D. Intergovernmental
Organizations (IGO's)
The groups and associations that are
formed by two or more nation‑states also play a very significant role
in the world. All of you are familiar with such groups and organizations as NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization‑‑which is comprised of the U.S. and its military
allies in Europe), the European Union
(the economic and political association of Great Britain and mainly European
nations that is growing out of the old Common Market, which was purely an
economic arrangement), OPEC (the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), and the largest of them all,
the U.N. (United Nations). About 200 of these organizations exist in the world
today. As you can see from the above short list, they affect everything from
the price of gas that you put into your car to the military bases of the
E. Terrorist Organizations and/or Patriotic Fronts
Given the horrific events of September 11,
2001, this is a difficult subject to discuss dispassionately. Nevertheless, the
nature of this kind of international actor depends largely on your point of
view.
Let me give you this example. What would
you call a group that purposely destroyed private commercial products, spread
rumors and propaganda, ambushed soldiers, and endangered the lives of those
civilians with whom they disagreed politically? If you were on the receiving
end of all or any of this, you would probably call them all kinds of names I
should not print. Almost certainly you would consider them terrorists. The
history books you read in primary and secondary school classes called them the
"Sons of Liberty," a highly patriotic group of good Americans who
helped found the nation. From the British point of view, they were despised
traitors who irresponsibly engaged in terrorist activities.
Was the PLO (the Palestine Liberation Organization) a terrorist group or a
patriotic front? How about Hamas, a competitor Palestinian group to the
PLO that is even more extreme in words and actions? Certainly to those who suffer from their acts they are
terrorists, but to those who feel that they were driven from a homeland that
was rightfully theirs, they are patriots who must use whatever means are
necessary to regain what is theirs and punish those who wronged them. A similar
kind of statement can be make about the IRA
(the Irish Republican Army) in
Were the horrific acts of September 11,
2001 acts of terrorism? Most certainly virtually all Americans and indeed, most
of the people of the world, would consider the killing of thousands of
civilians to be acts of terror. Most would use even more extreme labels, like
atrocity or crimes against humanity or simply pure evil. Yet, to some people
who are radical Islamic fundamentalists,
Who is right depends on whose values you
hold to be your own and who writes the history books. When the Zionists were
fighting in order to create the state of
Knowing all this does not make us any less
angry when we or our friends are the victims. But understanding may help us in
coping. And cope we must, because acts of terrorism will certainly be a
political fact of life for a long time to come.
I know this sounds suspiciously close to
the idea that might makes right. That idea does have a kernel of truth to it, despite
Socrates' answer to Thrasymachus (do you remember that?). Another professor I
know argues that the analysis I presented here is too simple, that it engages
in too much moral relativism. He wants to draw a moral line. He feels a
legitimate moral distinction can be made between terrorists and freedom
fighters. His argument is along the lines of Machiavelli's economy of violence.
Terrorists are more indiscriminate in their killing whereas freedom fighters
try and limit their targets of violence to those on the other side. So they
might not randomly kill shoppers in a store, but they might bomb a hotel in
which military advisors to the other side were staying. They would go to some
pains to minimize hurting those who play no role in the conflict. They would
certainly not use plane loads of civilians to destroy high rise buildings of
civilians, though they might ram an empty jet into the Pentagon. Of course,
almost anyone plays some indirect role. For example, as American taxpayers, we
paid for the shells shot by the USS New Jersey in
Despite the problems of drawing any line,
it would certainly be easier to cope with the dangers of the day with some kind
of clear line. Can we make a distinction between “collateral damage,” in which
civilians are killed incidentally in actions aimed against military targets and
when civilians are the primary targets of destruction? In fact, we do make this
distinction in nearly every military act we take on as a nation. In only a few
cases were the civilian populations the direct targets of American military
action – like the dropping of atomic bombs on cities in
Some
analysts make a distinction between "old terrorism" and "new terrorism."
Old
terrorism may have taken civilian lives, but the object was to persuade
some governing authority to change their behavior. The IRA was trying to drive
the British out of
The new terrorism, on the other
hand, is not aimed at changing behavior so much as it is aimed at pure and
simple annihilation. The enemy is seen as evil and must be eliminated at all
costs. No change in behavior would be enough to stop these actions.
This may be closer to what we see in the
Regardless of whether we see terrorists as
pure evil or as enemies who must be controlled and eliminated where possible,
we will have to deal in some way with these entities for as long as we can see
in the future. It seems to me that our challenge is to do this without our
destroying the very institutions of democratic tolerance and individual freedom
that they wish to destroy. Some would say that we are doing just that in giving
the president the power to declare someone a terrorist and then hold them
indefinitely and even torture them without any legal recourse or
protection.
F. Multinational Corporations
(MNC's)
Most of you probably didn't think about
MNC's as international actors, but they are and they are very very important.
To give you an idea of how important, the largest MNC's have more material
assets than all but about the wealthiest 14 nation‑states. When the
chief executive officer (called the CEO) of ITT or Royal Dutch Shell speaks,
leaders of nations listen.
The largest of these organizations can
play political hardball with the best of nations. When the elected
socialist government
In 1990 some critics of American Middle
East policy charged that the U.S. was more interested in protecting the
interests of the oil companies than in repelling aggression or in protecting
American interests. Some liberal and conservative critics make this
charge. Can we conclude that what is
good for Exxon is good for
One of the most important issues facing
nation‑states is the nature of their evolving political relationship with
MNC's. What obligations do MNC's owe to the nations that host them? Do they
have any obligation to be concerned about the welfare of the people of the
nations from which they extract natural resources? Should they share technology
and promote education and use natives in higher skilled jobs as opposed to
bringing in their own people? What obligations do MNC's have to the nations in
which they are based? Should an American based and owned MNC sacrifice profits
in order to protect the national interest of the
We only have time to touch on these
questions here. We should note that of course MNC's have to take into account
political factors as well as economic factors. Few governments can afford to
idly sit by and watch jobs and resources leave their nation with little given
in return. You can be sure that the struggle will continue. If you want to know
more, I would urge you to consider taking some courses in international
relations or in international economics.
III. International politics versus
internal state politics
Many people want to approach the international
arena with the same political understandings that works for them in the
internal politics of their own nation. The underlying basis of international
politics is vastly different from the basis of politics within most nation‑states.
A. How different
We can state the differences quite simply.
No one has sufficient legal or moral authority in the international arena to
force all or even the most important actors to comply with the law.
International politics is by its very nature anarchic‑‑each
actor is relatively free to play by their own set of rules‑‑IF they
have the power to make them stick. (We will turn to the question of
measuring power shortly.) The end result of both these differences is
almost constant conflict. Even though conflict is a fundamental
characteristic of the internal politics of any state, it is usually more severe
and constant in the international arena.
B. Why different
Anarchy is explained by the fact that within
a nation the central government can enforce settlements of disputes because of
its monopoly of power. If you or some group refuses to go along, you can be
fined, imprisoned, or even put to death if the question is important enough. No
central authority exists with enough power or legitimacy to make their
decisions stick in international affairs. The example of the
Even lesser nations can defy international
law if their defiance does not violate any vital interest of the powerful
members of the world community. The Bosnian Serbs largely ignored U.N. and NATO
threats in their war of "ethnic cleansing" against the Bosnian
Muslims. The Serbs knew that no one was willing to make the sacrifice to force them
to stop their outrageous behavior. Finally in the late summer of 1995 the Serbs
came to the negotiating table after the NATO allies began sustained bombing of
their military. But the exception proves the rule--an army of only about 80,000
defied all the world's military powers with armies of millions for several
years.
The reason for so much conflict is also
partly explained by the lack of a central authority who can make settlements stick
for all parties involved. But on a more fundamental level, the conflict is a
result of the fact that the world consists of many diverse groups that have
drastically different ideologies resulting in many different and conflicting
notions of justice. What is justice for the Israelis is injustice for the
Palestinians. What is seen as free market democratic capitalism by the
Conflict is also the result of actions
taken by leaders‑‑some purposeful, some mistaken, and some just
plain foolish. Leaders may miscalculate the powers of their opponents. What
they thought would be an easy victory may be nearly impossible.
Examples of this are most plentiful and
most tragic. The
Leaders may not always act rationally.
They may be blinded by ideological beliefs, religious beliefs, or simply mental
illness to take actions that are self‑destructive and self‑defeating.
The antics of some of these leaders make
interesting stories, but their impact can be quite real and devastating for
those near them. In today's world
where more and more nations have access and use of nuclear weapons and other
weapons of mass destruction, irrational actions and/or ideological blinders can
make the unthinkable very real and important to us all. Is anything in the
world worth blowing up the world for? To the irrational or the ideological
religious zealot who looks only to the hereafter, the answer may,
unfortunately, be "yes."
If you think about all of this, you should
not be surprised that Machiavelli saw the world as chaotic with only temporary
periods of peace brought about by truly skillful politicians. This was true
when he penned this idea. It is still true today.
IV. The concept of power in
International Relations
Because the power of a nation is so important
in determining who can make their definition of justice stick in the world
arena, those who study international politics must be very sensitive to the
power of international actors. Not only must they attempt to measure the power
that actors have, but they must also be sensitive to changing powers. We will
focus our attention here to the power of nation‑states, but with a little
thought you could apply these same measures to other actors in the
international arena.
A. Elements of power
1.
Human resources
Here we are considering the people in a
nation‑state or in any organization. We must consider both quantity and
quality.
a. Numbers‑‑less
important
Certainly the number of people a nation has
can be a very big plus in creating power. A nation can do a lot of
things with a lot of people. It can occupy land. That is something that
the nation of
Nations can also create armies with
people‑‑assuming the people are willing, a big assumption that we
will examine shortly. However, with modern weapons, large armies are less
important than they used to be.
People are required to run an economy
and build the infrastructure of a nation:
roads, dams, factories, power plants, railroads, airports, and public
buildings.
Unfortunately, large numbers of people
are more often a liability than a plus in determining power. Unless they
have the desired qualities‑‑which is unusual‑‑they
create a drain of scarce resources and many political problems when they
exist in large numbers in a small area. If you think about it, most of the
poorest nations of the world suffer from too many people relative to their
other resources rather than too few. That is why
b. Qualitative characteristics‑‑more
important
Political leaders are more concerned about the
qualities of the populations they do have than their numbers, and rightly so.
For if they have the proper qualities, they can overcome either the lack of
numbers or an excess in numbers.
1) education
Generally speaking, the more educated the
population, the more powerful the nation‑state. Education increases many
capabilities of a nation, especially those that depend on technology. The most
obvious example here is nuclear weapons‑‑education and the
technology that depends on education allowed a few nations to develop and build
this ultimate weapon. It lends its possessors such great military power that it
becomes irrational to directly attack them. Spending money on education is really
spending money on defense.
Studies in recent years have revealed that
increasing education is one of the best ways of decreasing numbers. More
specifically, increasing the education of women may be one of the most
effective methods of birth control! We are not talking about just sex
education, but education in general. You see, education opens up other
possibilities for self-support than just submitting oneself to ones husband.
2) economic skills
Certainly this goes hand in hand with
education, but differences exist. One could have a population that has
only limited formal education, but still has economic skills that could add to
ones power. Third world nations that are beginning to emerge as industrial
nations possess populations that have work habits that are compatible with the
demands of modern industry. These habits include things like coming to work on
time on a daily basis, deferring to authority, understanding how to follow
directions, and some experience with technology and working with machines. In
fact, these fundamental skills have enabled some of these nations to beat more
educated nations in basic manufacturing. Why? Part of the explanation is that a
relatively less well educated but still educated population does not expect the
kinds of high wages that populations with very high education expect. This
is why the textile industry moved from
3) culture and ideology‑‑nationalism
Culture and ideology play a very important
role in determining a nation's power. I mention both of these factors because they
are not necessarily compatible. If culture and ideology conflict, then the
nation certainly has internal problems that will result in a loss of power.
For example, a democratic ideology that stresses popular participation
exists most easily within a culture that allows some individual autonomy.
Democracy becomes much more difficult if the population values family, kinship,
tribal, and/or regional ties more than tolerance. (
Even
in the
In other nations that are industrializing,
traditional religious values are in direct conflict with the values fostered by
modern technology. The revolt of religious authorities against the threats
posed to their leadership by western technology is one important explanation
for the revolution that overturned the Shah in
Perhaps the best example of a nation
trying to have it both ways today is
Perhaps the most important kind of
ideology for a nation's power is the ideology of nationalism. As mentioned
earlier, many students of international politics consider nationalism to be
the most powerful force in the world today‑‑more powerful than
communism, capitalism, or any of the religious movements in the world today. By
nationalism we simply mean placing devotion to ones state above all other
loyalties. When these loyalties are joined with religious loyalties and ethnic
loyalties, one has a force that is potent indeed. This is the kind of fanatical
commitment that led young boys in
You might ask what role nationalism is
playing in our on-going low level conflicts in
4) unity and morale
If a nationalistic ideology is held by
virtually all of the population in a nation, then leaders will have an
easier time in mobilizing their populations behind their policies. They
will have to expend fewer political and material resources in dealing with
internal dissent. They will also have a wider range of policies from which
they can choose in the first place. A nation whose population is confident
that they can be successful in their dealings with other nations is also more
powerful in the sense that the people are more likely to follow their
leaders in risk‑taking policies.
As you should know from the history you
have read about heady nationalist days of the early 1960s, being united and confident
and willing to pay any price any place can also get a nation into trouble.
Remember, Machiavelli warned about the dangers of over‑extending
yourself. Nationalism is an ideology that can be blind one to reality as
well as strengthen.
2. Material resources
Many things fall into this category:
fuels, raw materials, capitol, a state's infrastructure (we defined this
earlier), and perhaps even geography could be included. In this sense,
geography has served the
3. Organizational capabilities
Even if a nation has resources, a large
and capable population, and a supportive ideology, the nation must also have
the capability of organizing and mobilizing all these resources. What that
requires is a bureaucratic network and skilled people to run the
network. An intelligence and military bureaucracy is required to gain,
analyze, and rationally decide how to use information about adversaries in the
world.
Even though organizational capability is
an essential element in a nation's power, a danger inevitably accompanies
this capability. When President Eisenhower left office in 1960, he warned
the nation about what he called the "military
industrial complex." He was talking about the alliance of military
bureaucracy with the corporate bureaucracy to form an interest group that is
powerful enough to lead the nation into an arms race for the sake of profits
and promotions. More generally speaking, any bureaucracy may have self‑interests
that can come into conflict with the national interest. The more well‑developed
and sophisticated the bureaucracy, the better able it is to rationalize the
nation's interest to fit its own interest. Critics of the Iraq War would likely
cast Halliburton (Vice President Cheney’s former employer) in the role of the
industrial side of the complex today.
4. Leadership skill
One of the most important determinants of
a nation's power is the political skill of its leadership. All that you learned
earlier in the course from Machiavelli about the skills required of a
"good" prince are relevant here. The better the leaders are at
making realistic evaluations, at divorcing themselves of emotion, at
recognizing and taking good advice, at talking to allies and friends, at
remembering facts and details about the world, at understanding the fears and
limits of their own people and of their allies and enemies, at playing roles in
the drama of political theater, and at doing whatever is necessary at the right
time, the more powerful a nation will be.
Unfortunately, this is one area where
the
Our ambassadors and diplomats and advisors
change too frequently and rarely have any long‑standing of deep
knowledge of the nation or culture with which they must deal. Few can read
or speak the language of the natives where they serve. This ignorance prevents
us from understanding and communicating. It also insults the people we wish to
persuade. The message it conveys is that we really do not care. If we did, we
would take the time to learn to communicate with others in their own
tongue.
This is an area where the
B. Foreign aid‑‑military and/or economic
Whether to give or not to give
foreign aid, how much to give, in what form it should be given,
and what we should expect in return have all long been extremely
controversial questions in U.S. foreign policy.
We should note at the outset that despite the
controversy of these questions, the
These figures haven't changed much in
recent years. In late 1997 Jimmy Carter made a speech in which he said the
1. As a tool for power
The usual justification for foreign
aid is that it gains prestige and cooperative behavior for the giving nation.
Unfortunately, little evidence exists that this is indeed the case. One
study looked at votes in the U.N. and foreign aid given and found no
significant relationship‑‑buying votes on the international level
is tougher than it is in domestic politics!
One of the greatest single foreign aid
gifts in modern history was the building of the Aswan Dam for
If this is the case, then why bother?
The answer is that you should bother precisely because the results are
unclear‑‑aid may occasionally do some good for the giver nation‑‑you
just can't be sure. (The Marshall Plan that put Europe back on its feet
economically following WWII is an example of a great success‑‑such
a great success that the
2. Normative considerations‑‑Why
give foreign aid?
Normative considerations provide an
additional set of reasons to give foreign aid. Of course normative reasons are
based on questions of good and bad—moral values. The Judeo‑Christian
ethical values of the West urge us to give help to those who need it
whether or not the help does any political good. To expect something in return
violates these values. We could argue about whether the aid should be given on
an individual voluntary basis or on a national basis where the individual
taxpayer has little say (the stuff of political theory courses). But under
these normative values, but the fundamental obligation to give remains.
Let me end this discussion with one brief
note. If we give on a normative moral basis, we should not expect gratitude
in return. From the point of view of many people in poor nations, we are only
returning a small part of the resources that we have robbed from the world in
building our economic empire. To others, the gifts are simply a reminder of the
disparity between their standard of living and our standard of living. If you
can't understand this, try and think about how much you appreciate the birthday
gift that some relatively wealthy relative gave you. You probably wondered why
they did not give you more and at the same time you resented their wealth.
C. The distribution of power in the world‑‑changing
realities
The chances of living in relative peace
to a large degree depend on the distribution of power in the world. Great
imbalances tempt stronger nations to conquer weaker ones. This has been
especially true since the birth of nationalism in which whole nations are
mobilized in a great cause to demonstrate and expand their greatness. What I
want to do in this section is give a brief and simplified account of how power
has been distributed in the world since the rise of nationalism.
1. Balance
of power politics
The first great military expression of
nationalism was the success of Napoleon.
He mobilized the masses of
I want to digress here for a moment to
talk about how nationalism changed the
nature of warfare. If you are fighting against a nation that has organized
and mobilized its entire nation and economy in a war effort, then the soldiers
are not your only legitimate targets. The whole population becomes your
targets, which you must destroy or immobilize if you are to succeed.
Nationalism led to the invention of total
war (meaning that whole nations were supporting the effort rather than
merely hired professional soldiers). The nuclear bomb can be seen as the
ultimate weapon in the total wars fostered by nationalism because they are able
to destroy an entire nation.
In any case, you may have read in your
history books about Napoleon's demise at
We might define this balance of power in
terms of two conditions. First, a relatively equality powers must exist in
which nations have no great outstanding grievances against each other. No
grievance makes them have no great desire to threaten each other. This is why
the terms of the peace must afford all major parties some satisfaction—even
those that lost a war. Perhaps Tallyrand's greatest achievement was in
protecting the interests of France, the aggressor and nation that lost the war.
Second, and as a result of the first condition, nations must seek to limit
the conflicts that they have with each other. Finally, when conflicts
endanger the balance of power that exists, nations must create alliances to
restore the balance.
As we noted above, these conditions held
until roughly the middle of the 1800s, but then began to crumble until most of
the nations of the world were dragged into world‑wide wars. One might
view the world wars as efforts to restore a balance, but they might also be
viewed as results of failures to maintain the balance in the first place.
Certainly, the failure of the League of Nations and the humiliation of
2. Tight Bi‑polar System
The destruction and devastation of WWII
and the invention of the nuclear bomb led to a new political reality in which
classical balance of power simply could no longer work because many
relatively equal powers no longer existed in the world. For a short while,
the Americans had a monopoly on nuclear power in a greatly damaged world. But
within a short period, the Soviet Union (the
We might describe this system as the tight bipolar system. It was
characterized by having two superpowers
that had a monopoly on nuclear weapons and who were so strong that all the
rest of the world could not have defeated either of them. These two
superpowers divided the world up into spheres
of influence and expended great amounts of resources to maintain,
expand, and block the expansion of the other. Most conflicts in the world were either
the result of tensions between the two or were increased by the tensions
between the two. However, conflicts were limited by the fact that a balance of terror existed between the
two that made trying to directly attack each other irrational. This
situation characterized the distribution of power in the world from roughly the
late 1940s through the 1950s. But realities were changing.
3. Loose
Bi‑polar System
As nations rebuilt their economies and
developed technological capabilities, nationalism began to reassert itself
in international politics. The alliances that both superpowers had so
carefully built began to crumble.
Within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, nations began
to question the leadership and reliability of the U.S. France, partly as an
expression of national pride, felt she must have her own nuclear force. Why?
The French did not believe that the
Many third and fourth world nations, sometimes
called "southern nations," began to stress that their position was nonaligned, that is, not in alliance
with either the first or second worlds. The assumption of the
Moreover, the nuclear monopoly was no
more. The nuclear club, that is,
those nations who either had or had the capabilities to quickly have nuclear
weapons, began to quickly expand. (See chart below. Source:
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
Iran: program slowed down after 1979 but believed to continue (IAEA report 11/10/03)
and more recently suspected of being in the process of building nuclear facilities
capable of producing sufficient weapons grad materials for nuclear weapons in
2008-9.
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
The issue of nuclear proliferation—the spread of nuclear weapons—was one on which both of the superpowers could
agree. Both the
In sum, we can see that what we have
labeled as the loose bipolar system describes a distribution of power in the
world that made conflict more likely and more dangerous. Instead of just
the superpowers and their allies, the world had many more independent actors
who pursue their own goals as defined by their own ideologies.
4. A "Uni-polar" World?
In 1990 after the break up of the Soviet
empire, President George H.W. Bush started talking about a "new world
order." The idea was to make the UN stronger and combine the new economic
interests of all nations into a world economy. All nations would become
interdependent and have a stake in peace and stability. The interest of most
all nations then becomes avoiding wasteful military conflicts.
Would this combined interest be strong
enough to check the aggressive nationalistic aims of many peoples all over the
globe wanting to have their own states that embrace their own particular
culture? It was strong enough to check the expansionist aims of
However, in recent years the world
community has stepped in to stop the bloodshed in Kosovo and in
Some scholars describe this new world as uni-polar, that is, having only one
superpower. To the extent that the
But the extent of the
Indeed, the international system is in a
period of transition. About the best that can be said of this new world is that
it is safer in the sense that smaller nations are no longer in danger of being
dragged into a nuclear conflict between two major superpowers. But it is
perhaps even less stable in that more conflicts are likely to break out as the
old superpowers are no longer capable of keeping their old allies and religious
and nationalistic fanatics under control.
D. Power rationally wasted—the arms
race
Those who study international politics
necessarily spend a great deal of time studying arms races and nuclear arms
strategy. This subject matter can be highly complex and filled with jargon, as
experts overwhelm their audiences with terms and words that they do not
understand like "mutually assured destruction (the MAD strategy),"
"MIRVing," and "throw‑weights." Many average citizens
began to get concerned and involved in these questions to an extent that they
never had before in the 1980s.
Why average citizens became so involved is
an interesting political question. One
columnist, Meg Greenfield, speculated that she felt something like a homeowner
dealing with an aggressive roofer. When the roofer told her that she needed a
new roof, she deferred to his expertise and said go ahead. When he told her
that this wasn't good enough and strongly recommended a second roof on top of
the existing one, she still didn't question him. But she began to wonder at the
third and fourth roof. When he came back and told her she had to have a fifth
and sixth, she said enough was enough and decided that a good dose of common
sense was just as good as all of his supposed expertise. How many times did we
need to be able to kill all of the Russians to deter their government from
attacking us? When former Secretary of State Dean Rusk spoke at
USCA in the Spring of 1984, he made a similar statement. He said that he
sometimes wondered if the good people of his home in
In
any case, citizens did get involved and the resulting nuclear freeze movement played a significant role in the 1984
presidential campaign‑‑not in terms of the outcome, but in
terms of how the winner portrayed himself and how he set his agenda for his
last term. Poll after poll showed that this was the one issue on which the
incumbent was most vulnerable. The Reagan campaign spent a great deal of
resources in creating the image of peacemaker for their candidate. When he
proposed a new missile to be deployed, he even called it the "peacemaker." And
President Reagan placed a very high priority on successful arms negotiations
with the Soviets in his second term. Whether or not this effort was sincere
or not may be irrelevant‑‑it was solid Machiavellian politics,
and it worked!
Was a never‑ending nuclear arms
race inevitable? Were we in danger of adding so many roofs to the house
that it would someday collapse from the sheer weight of it all? Would we build
so many nuclear arms that their accidental use would someday be almost a
certainty? These were all vital questions until the collapse of the
These questions are not as vital today,
though we are aware of the great strain that military spending places on our economy
and of the difficulty of making a smooth transition to lower military spending.
(If you don't believe this, ask someone living in
As long as we were uncertain about what
the other side was doing, we felt we had to build as many weapons as we could
in order to be certain that we have a retaliatory force left if the other side
should strike first. However, when both sides perceived that the other was
not a threat and that the race was not winnable and an unbearable burden,
the race proved not to be inevitable. Arms reductions seemed to be a simple
matter of trust along with verification so that each side knows what the other
is doing. However, as you should understand quite well by now,
establishing trust is rarely a very simple matter. (Do you remember the Money
Game and the War and Peace game?)
E. Lines of Conflict
In describing the conflicts that exist in
the world, nations are often grouped together. One frequently used set of terms
refers to the first, second, third, and even a fourth world. As the following
discussion shows, some of these terms no longer make sense. Nevertheless, you
should be familiar with the terms, because you will see some of them, most
commonly the "third world," still used by the media and by diplomats.
Little agreement and precision surrounds
the usage of these terms. The terms greatly overlap by taking into account
slightly different combinations of characteristics. We shall organize our discussion
around the various "worlds" and note similar and related divisional
terms as we proceed.
1.
This term refers to industrial
democracies that exist mainly in Europe and North America, but also include
a few other nations such as
2.
This term generally referred to what
used to be the communist nations. This included the
With the break up of the Soviet empire the
distinction between the first and second worlds has changed. Many of those
nations in the second world are making dramatic moves toward democracy with
mixed economies. To the extent that they become industrialized democracies they
will become part of the first world. A number of them, such as
3.
The third world makes a distinction mainly
on economic grounds and includes those nations that are beginning to develop
a significant industrial capacity. Developing
nations is a very similar terms that generally describes the same group.
China, North Korea (South Korea has developed so much in recent years that it
may be considered a first world nation today), India, Mexico, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan are all examples of third world nations. However,
with its growing economic might,
You should note that the above list of
examples differ from each other in many ways. Some are quite rich
(from an abundance of natural resources rather than industrial development) and
some are quite poor. Some are democracies to varying degrees (
Some nations, like
With the disintegration of the second
world and the reason for having a first world in question (that is, balancing
the military power of the second world), most observers agree that the most
important force in the world is nationalism, not capitalism or communism.
Many observers, including this one, argued that nationalism was more important
than the struggle between capitalism and socialism long before there was any
sign of the Soviet break up. Nations in the third and fourth worlds have sought
help wherever it is available for a long time. They were more interested in
help than in strong friendship or ideological commitment to either the first or
second worlds.
These nations were often quite successful
in playing the
While no one can play the Soviets off
against the
4.
The fourth world also identifies nations on
purely economic grounds. Here the commonality is simply extreme poverty.
Fourth world nations have a per capita (that means per person) yearly income of
around a few hundred dollars. Americans, with a yearly per capita income of
well over twenty thousand, have a difficult time even imagining such total
poverty. We have recently become more aware of it with the publicity of the
famine in African nations such as
Another term that is often used to include
both third and fourth world nations is the South.
When those in international relations talk about North/South conflict or tensions, they are not talking about the
Mason‑Dixon line, but rather about economic conflicts between poor
nations (most of whom exist in the Southern hemisphere of the globe) and the
relatively wealthy nations (most of whom exist in the Northern hemisphere of
the globe).
Most political observers now argue that
the North/South conflict is a more important one that is the East/West
conflict, which preoccupied
F. Revolutionary power
One of the most problematic areas of
American foreign policy is in deciding how to deal with revolutionary movements
in third and fourth world nations. American policy makers often seem to be in a
"catch 22" situation where
no matter what they do, they lose. This is what happened in
Both choices are bad. If they support
the usually corrupt autocratic regime that is in power, they waste
resources in support of an undemocratic loser.
On the other hand, if
Anytime you pursue a secret foreign
policy, you run the risk that it will become known and hurt you. For example,
late in the 1992 presidential campaign the public learned that the
Even if the
The
This rather surprising finding can be explained
in terms of how reform affects people's perception of their deprivation and
their expectations. As long as things are hopelessly bad, most people
usually adjust and survive‑‑human beings are amazingly adaptable
creatures. Of course all don't, but ruthless regimes can usually deal with the
few who do not without too great an expense. However, when changes are made
that give the masses hope, all of the pent‑up frustration is transformed
into rapidly rising expectations that no government can expect to meet. Soon
governments that hoped to quell dissent with moderate slow reforms are
overwhelmed by a mass revolution.
Political scientists call this a revolution of rising expectations in
which the politically important deprivations are relative to what people
expect, not to any absolute standard. Therefore, one of the most
revolutionary things you can do in a nation is to introduce hope, whether by
political reform or by simply introducing people to the rest of the world and
better ways of life through the mass media (all this takes is a radio
station and a few transistor radios).
If you think about it, this idea of a
revolution of rising expectations applies rather well to the situation in the
republics of the former
Should the
Even taking the moral high ground and
rejecting all ties with corrupt regimes has risks. The popular masses who take
over may hate us and try to destroy us.
The major point here is that all
possible policies have risks. The
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