INTR13/71/72-310R. James Ferguson © 2005

Week 12:

The New International Relations -

From Crisis Management to Strategic Governance

Topics: -

1. Political Realism as the Lessons of Conflict

2. Adaptive Change in Strategic Thought: From Human Security Towards Humane Governance

3. Diversifying Pragmatism in the 21st Century

4. Bibliography and Further Reading

1. Political Realism as the Lessons of Conflict

Realism has provided some genuine insights into the international system, and remains an important safeguard against 'wishful thinking' and 'utopian idealism', both of which can lead to disastrous failures in international policy, e.g. in the construction of European affairs after World War I. As we saw in lecture 2, the realist tradition in international relations is based on the very real experiences of conflict in human affairs, and in the centrality of power in global politics. This tradition was well established in ancient thinkers, both East and West. In ancient Greece, the historian Thucydides wrote one of the first realist accounts of the dire necessities of state leadership amid the problems of complex alliance systems and endemic warfare (concerned with the 5th century Peloponnesian War). Similar problems emerged in early China (8th-3rd centuries B.C.), and realist thought would strongly colour (though not dominate) Chinese thinkers such as Sun Tzu and Sun Ping, and eventually even influence modern leaders such as Chairman Mao (Sun 1991). Likewise, a realist tradition would emerge early in Indian thought in the type of statecraft recommended by Kautilya (for a range of such early systems of international relations, see Watson 1992). Interestingly enough, Chinese statement from 770 B.C. onwards tried a combination of statecraft, diplomacy, and defensive wars to limit the power of aggression, but this could generate a stable multi-state system (Creel 1970; Walker 1953).

Empire builders, of course, often relied on economic, military and religiously-defined power to create and hold their extended territorial states, e.g. the Macedonians, Romans, Chinese, the Muslim Caliphates, Persian, Mongolian, Spanish and British empires. In different ways, each of these empires relied on military, economic and political power to maintain themselves, though religious elements were often also used to launch phases of expansion or maintain ideological dominance. In the modern period, combinations of transition from earlier kingdoms, military ability, political opportunism, and nationalist aspiration have been used to create modern states, e.g. Germany and Italy, or to fragment existing states into smaller new states, e.g. as in region of former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. Nation-building then, often relies on the realist use of force, alongside the cultural forces of nationalism and the politics of national identity.

We can review some of the key layers of the realist position in international relations, which include:

  • The effort to look at actual 'real' situation in the world, including negative aspects.
  • An emphasis on power, and augmentation of power in international relations.
  • An emphasis on the state as the key actor in international relations.
  • An emphasis on national interests as the basis for the motivation of leadership groups.
  • An emphasis on behaviour and outcomes, not ideas.
  • A reliance on a negative view of human nature as being essentially self-interested
  • An emphasis on elite leadership, plus a mobilised mass following, though genuine participation is often limited.
  • Ideas and values are often used to support the regime, and thus are accorded a real but subordinate role in power formation and utilisation (see Morgantheau 1985).
  • An emphasis on strategy and power projection in the international system.

At the same time there are real dangers in becoming addicted to a narrow realist position, which has now emerged as an ideology justifying the status quo. When survival or power dominance is at stake, or relative position within economic and diplomatic hierarchies, then self-interest may be both misunderstood and far from enlightened (for such psychological factor during periods of crisis, see Farrar 1988; Morganthau 1985). This means that leaders may over-react, in part due to domestic political pressures and the need to gain support within democracies. The result was anything but a sober and realistic assessment of their situation. In such conditions, assessments of power and power balance may also become distorted. The key point, moreover, is that under conditions of intense conflict, excessive fear or hope, the realist use of power may not always just based just on rational assessments - a range of other factors including nationalism, stereotyping and demonisation may be brought into play, e.g. the range of such mis-perceptions in the public arena in relation to the cultures of Iraq and Iran, in part drawing on 'Persian' stereotypes (see Seymour 2004).

In the same way, much of the international relations discipline today, though rightly concerned with strategic conflicts, political realism, and international competition, has been conditioned by the experiences of World War II and the subsequent experience of the Cold War period. Many institutions for global governance, e.g. the UN, UNSC, the IMF, World Bank and related agencies were born out of this period, and sought to promote peace, trade and one vision of development, but conditioned by the experience of war and the leadership of a core group of victor nations. In spite of some reform, extension and adaptation, e.g. of international financial institutions and new emphases on environment and development via UN conferences and agencies, it is not certain that these overlapping agencies can effectively implement the tasks they have set themselves, e.g. global financial stability, 'weak sustainability environmentally or the Millennium Development Goals (see lectures 6, 7, 11). Nor is it certain that Inter-Governmental Agencies (IGOs) are well suited to the needs of the 21st century, including the diffuse transnational challenges of international terrorism, civil war, refugees and labour flows, economic instability, transboundary environmental problems or conflict over key resources (see Le Billon 2005; Klare 2002).

In other words, the intense and largely negative experiences of earlier periods have influenced the judgement of many practitioners in foreign policy, international governance and international institutions. The experiences of all thinkers and actors, of course, influence their judgement and the assumptions used in analysis. But in some cases this experience can be so intense that it conditions people to carry forward models from an appropriate setting to new settings where they are no longer appropriate. A few areas where this has learning under new conditions has not occurred, or only evolved slowly, can be listed: -

  • The collapse of the Soviet Union has sometimes been viewed as signalling the end of Communism and Socialism globally, and end of ideologically driven conflicts and history (Fukuyama 1992). As a result, some have turned to look at China and argue that the same forces will fragment the People's Republic of China, or at least in the medium lead to the end of its unique political system and increasing pressure for democracy (for such expectations, see Terrill 2005; Schell 2004; Segal 1994; Segal and Goodman 1994). The two cases, however, are not that analogous: not only is Communism in China affected by what Deng Xiaoping called 'Chinese Characteristics', but China has much stronger ethnic cohesion with minorities less dominant in most of their homelands (92% of China is ethnic Chinese). Furthermore, 'institutional learning' (for this approach, see Haas 2000) would suggest that the Chinese leadership and many people in China have learnt from observing what happened in the Soviet Union and will intentionally avoid such transformations, allowing economic transition and greater political openness but no immediate transition into a democracy with opposition parties (for these issues see Schell 2004; Nathan 1993a & 1993b; Nathan & Shi 1993). For China itself, only Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan are likely to exhibit such trends politically, and the PRC has relative power preponderance within Tibet and Xinjiang itself. Some economic and cultural decentralisation is underway, is not likely to force rapid transition (for the problems of 'monoculturalism' in China, see Dreyer 1999). Furthermore, by allowing economic reform, the regime has managed to meet some of the needs and expectations of key segments of the population (beginning with the 'peasants'), thereby avoiding extreme political destabilisation. A similar path has been unevenly pursued with the cautious economic reforms and preparing for a future collective leadership in Cuba (see Robinson 2000), but followed by a harsh clamp down in the regime through late 2002-2004, suggesting increased pressure on the Castro government. We cannot directly move from the Soviet and Eastern Europe experiences to universal arguments concerning the fate of communism, socialism and other regimes (Palmer 1997). More generally, PRC has mobilised elements of culturalism, nationalism, and economic growth to support its regime domestically, while using elements of soft and hard power to gradually assert itself regionally and in global affairs (see lectures 4 & 5). On this basis, it will be very difficult to either contain China, or to directly 'absorb' it into the existing regime of international norms and institutions.
  • Containment and competitive policies can also run along too-well grovved channel. Tensions between the US and PRC, for example, tend to work along a cycle of mutual interests (trade, WTO entry for China, PRC support in easing the North Korea crisis through 2003-2005), then diverge as incidents remind the two leaderships of their different view of world order. The temptation to use the past strategy of containment, however, exists, because the strategy was seen (from one point of view) to work against an even stronger opponent, the USSR. It seems that the view of China as a 'strategic competitor' may have been reduced over the last decade (Bei 2001; Quinlan 2002), but have been resurrected in the last few years as China's diplomatic and military leverage seem to have increased in the wider Asia-Pacific through 2003-2005). Here, simplistic lessons from the past may have dangerous implications, including a possible round of military re-armament in the region, as well as regional diplomatic competition. Rather different lessons seem to have developed in the prospects for a strengthening India as a regional nuclear power, with the US and China moving to cautiously accommodate this new reality, though serious concerns over nuclear proliferation remain even as India moves to provide greater safety of its nuclear power programs (for these issues and the Convention on Nuclear Safety, see Tellis 2002; Xinhua 2005a; Nason 2005). US policy here through 2000-2005 may be simple power-balancing, or a more powerful concept of tiered multipolarity where new powers are allowed to emerge so long as they are partially incorporated in a network of IGOs and do not directly threat US-coalition dominance (Ferguson 2003).
  • Other thinkers have taken the lessons from world wars and global competition in the military arena and simply applied them to the economic arena. Thus, visions of intensified competition in trade, investment and fiscal flows have led to efforts to increase trade and reduce the negative impact of trade deficits, debt default, market collapse, liquidity squeezes, and currency crises. This loose pattern of governance now partly run through several institutional arrangements such as GATT, WTO, the IMF, and the Bank of International Settlements, BIS (see Roberts 1998; Spence 2004). In spite of reform of the IMF, World Bank and BIS through 1998-2005, and the efforts of the G8 (2002-2005) and the United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development (March 2002) it is not certain that even with increased resources that these institutions can ensure national, regional and global financial stability due to the increase flow and speed of financial networks in the 21st century (see lecture 6).
  • Countries such as India and China, precisely because of their growing economic strength, are viewed as sources of future threat but are themselves threatened by growing needs that can only be sustained by an international agenda. In this context, it is true that there now exists greater competition for strategic resources such as oil, gas (e.g. in the Persian Gulf, Caspian Sea region, South China Sea, as well as specific pressures on Nigeria and Venezuela), fisheries, and even over control of river waters, as in the case of Syria and Turkey.). Likewise, hot conflicts over resources might subject victors to penalties that might make resource extraction much less profitable (see Klare 2002), but elsewhere resource conflicts over diamonds, timber and to some degree oil have heightened internal conflicts, e.g in Sierra Leone, Angola, and Nigeria (Le Billon 2005). In the long run, however, there may be a nexus between resource conflict, poor environmental protection, and reduced human security.
  • Likewise, competitive advantages can be gained through leverage applied through groups such as the WTO for those countries better suited to work with these institutional norms, e.g. tensions between Indian and the U.S. and China and the U.S. over trade liberalisation, piracy and non-tariff barriers. This can be viewed as a kind of 'war of norms' (Bell 2000) in which affluent countries deeply engaged in the international system since the end of World War II have a distinct advantage over poorer or less involved states. A wider, more diffuse conflict between the 'North and South' has been waged, first over issues of fair economic development and debt relief, but now over issues connected with protecting the environment, and fair trade and investment policies. Likewise, globalisation managed 'from above' by advanced nations and strong institutions has begun to be challenged by organised solidarity 'from below' which demands a say in how the life of local communities is managed (see Herod et al. 1997; Brecher et al. 2002). Globalisation, then, has become a highly contested area in terms of both economics, cultural commodities and human rights in the broader sense (see Stiglitz 2002). What has begun to emerge from these analyses is that trade and economics does not always have to be played out in a zero-sum game (I win, you lose), but can take a wide variety of forms, including mutual wins in a growing world economy with strong legal regulation (positive-sum or win-win games). However, wider cross-impacts and the issues of accountability and responsible for negative impacts (on the poor, vulnerable local communities and the environment) have not yet been consistently allocated in the current pattern of global governance (see lectures 5, 6, 8, 11).
  • The realist paradigm has also been 'ported across' into the area of culture and religion. Here cultures, civilisations, and religious are viewed as potential causes of conflict and for intensifying regional wars along fracture lines, e.g. in former Yugoslavia with its religious divides, the Middle East and South Asia (see lecture 4; Huntington 1993; Huntington 1996). As we have seen, there are some exaggerations to this claim, especially since cultures are adaptive, and civilisations and religions can engage in productive dialogue and mutual cross-fertilisation (see Küng 1997; Küng 1991; Ahluwalia & Mayer 1994). Culture is important, including differences between various strategic cultures, but once again their interaction cannot be viewed accurately through the narrow conceptions of game theory or zero-sum games. Attempts to invoke new 'crusades' or 'jihads' are hard to sustain and not very credible in the modern period, even with the heightening over tensions since through 2001-2005. However, these tensions have been sustained by continued patterns of high-profile violence, attendant security clamp-downs (e.g. in the US, UK, France, and to a lesser extent Australia), and distrust of religious ideology. The down-side of this may be more marginalisation for Islamic communities and the further collapse of multiculturalism as a viable option in countries such as the UK and Australia.

Putting these issues another way, although the lessons of war and competition are important, they are not the only lessons which can be learned from the events of the twentieth century. Crisis management 'after the fact' has been one way that institutions have adapted to deal with conflict, ranging from military containment, coercive diplomacy, to long-term sanctions. Fortunately, these types of lessons have been useful, but have been complemented by a wider range of options which are proactive as well as reactive. New ideas drawn from 'the new institutionalism', from constructivism, from cultural and strategic studies, and cosmopolitan theories of governance (see lecture 11) have begun to suggest the way the international system is shaped by patterns of engagement among organisations and creative human activity (see Herod et al. 1997; Henderson 1998; Hudson 1997; Hasselbladh 2000; Narine 1998). Here, some realist theories have been adapted quite effectively to incorporate IGOs, NGOs, international civil movements, and an extension of the notion of power into areas of dialogue, persuasion, and institutional building. We can see this clearly in a couple of examples.