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Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies After the Cold War, by Ethan B. Kapstein and Michael Mastanduno (eds.)
Michael Mastanduno and Ethan B. Kapstein
Since 1989, the world’s great powers have been struggling to chart a course through the changed political landscape. That landscape is shaped by two prominent features. On the one hand, the United States dominates the terrain as the only superpower, in possession of superior capabilities and able to advance its particular interests across a wide range of political, military, and economic issues. On the other hand, a new set of challenges and challengers has forced scholars and policymakers in every country to raise uncomfortable questions about the national interest and the direction of international policy. The emergence of China as a great Asian power, for example, must be of concern to its neighbors, just as an erratic Russia remains a global worry. Since no foreign government can rely on Washington to respond to every crisis, and since the United States will not be the world’s leader forever, states must retain some independent capacity for action. There will likely be any number of regional issues in which the United States will choose not to exercise its power, and in some cases a group of countries might even seek to balance against the United States. The end of the Cold War has brought with it the emergence of new strategic dilemmas for nation-states; governments have no choice but to calculate their national interests in this international environment and muster the resources needed to advance them.
This volume was written as an initial effort to understand how states are actually navigating the end of the Cold War. In that sense its purpose is largely empirical: to analyze and explain the “grand strategies” of important actors in the contemporary international system. We seek to answer such questions as: What are the likely patterns of conflict and cooperation in relations among the major nation-states? How have these major powers—the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, China, France—defined and pursued their national interests in the absence of the overwhelming yet somehow reassuring constraint of the Cold War? And how are smaller powers—especially those of central and eastern Europe, which have so often been in the crucible of world politics—responding? The book addresses these questions through chapters that focus both on the contemporary international system and on case studies of particular nation-states.
The second purpose of this book is theoretical: to see whether we can make any general statements about the state behavior we have observed, or at least develop arguments for future testing drawn from our current understanding of foreign policymaking. In particular, we explore the question of the extent to which the intellectual construct known as “realism,” with its emphasis on international anarchy, insecurity, and the state, helps to illuminate contemporary world politics. We focus on realism not only because it remains the dominant paradigm in the study of international relations, but also because it has come under increasing attack by a battery of scholars. 1 Realism’s critics believe that it is particularly ill-equipped to account for international politics in a new world characterized by the improbability of war among great powers, the declining significance of territorial acquisition, the spread of liberal democracy and interdependent market economies, and the growing importance of non-state actors. 2 Still, no alternative paradigm now stands ready to take realism’s place. 3
To date, several volumes have appeared that use the end of the Cold War primarily as a vehicle for engaging in “paradigm wars”—conceptual debates over the relative merits of realist versus other explanatory frameworks. 4 Although we draw on those debates, it is not our purpose to recapitulate them. Rather, our emphasis is on the fit between theoretical propositions drawn from the realist framework and the preliminary empirical evidence offered by the post-Cold War world. 5
The end of the Cold War, of course, has provided students of international relations with a unique opportunity to engage in the testing and refinement of various theories. It is not often that a global “systemic shock” occurs which affects nearly all the actors on the world stage at the same time. 6 Realist theories rely heavily on the structure of the international system—the distribution of power—as the key factor in accounting for foreign policies and international outcomes. The collapse of the Soviet Union represented a major change in the international structure, and almost every government has had to reconsider if not change its foreign policies as a result. If realism provides a worthwhile explanatory framework, then propositions derived from it should yield insights about state strategies and behavior in light of this shift in the global distribution of power.
The overall assessment of the chapters below is that the much-anticipated death of realism is premature. Realism remains a powerful and valuable explanatory framework, the end of the Cold War notwithstanding. Most of the contributors find some variant of realism helpful in understanding the foreign policy predicaments of particular states. This holds for the advanced states of the capitalist world, as well as for the states of the former communist world. And, it applies in the arena of foreign economic policy as well as in what is usually considered realism’s traditional preserve—national security policy.
Randall Schweller, for example, draws on classical realism to advance an argument about positional competition among states under conditions of scarcity. Jonathan Kirshner looks to the tradition of both liberal and mercantilist writings to generate “the political economy of realism,” i.e., a set of core realist propositions that may be tested against developments in the post-Cold War world economy. Daniel Deudney and John Ikenberry, in a more critical vein, offer what they term structural liberalism as an alternative to realism to account for peace among major powers after the Cold War. Eric Heginbotham and Richard Samuels propose the idea of “mercantile realism”—a variant of realism that focuses mainly on the role of economic policy in national strategy—to explain Japanese behavior, while Iain Johnston looks to “identity realism,” or the way in which elites define or construct the external environment, to explain Chinese behavior. Michael Mastanduno draws on classical and structural realist arguments to develop a “balance-of-threat” explanation of U.S. security strategy after the Cold War. For Neil MacFarlane, Joseph Grieco, and Michael Loriaux, state calculations of power and interest in Russia, Germany, Japan, and France have evolved and in particular historical and geopolitical contexts, shaping “path-dependent” strategies that have been influenced but not overwhelmed by the end of the Cold War. For Mark Kramer, the end of the Cold War has meant a whole new set of strategic dilemmas for governments in central and eastern Europe and efforts to resolve them through the development of alliance relationships with the West. Finally, in his effort to explain post-Cold War outcomes in the international political economy, Ethan Kapstein draws on the arguments of hegemonic stability theory as articulated by realist thinkers such as Robert Gilpin and Stephen Krasner. 7
Collectively, these chapters remind us that realism is a research program, bound by a core set of shared assumptions, rather than a single theory. Our authors focus primarily on the distribution of power, relative position, and the role of the state and state calculations of power and interest in deriving explanations of foreign policy behavior. They are less concerned with regime type, shared values, international institutions, or interest group politics as independent sources of state strategies and international outcomes. 8 However, several authors do move beyond an exclusive emphasis on material capabilities and take seriously the contribution of nonmaterial factors in shaping foreign policy. Johnston’s emphasis on cultural identity, Loriaux’s reliance on the emergence of shared norms, and Mastanduno’s concern with threat perception and response constitute salient examples. The authors in this volume find the realist framework valuable but also prove willing to broaden or look beyond it, drawing on the insights of other research programs in their efforts to develop better explanations for state behavior.
Existing realist arguments, however, do not all fare equally well. Indeed, the realist theory that receives the least empirical support is currently the most prominent one in the international relations literature—the neorealist balance-of-power theory associated with the work of Kenneth Waltz and his followers. 9 Specifically, we find little evidence of military balancing by the major powers of Europe and Asia against the world’s only superpower. The chapters below demonstrate unequivocally that the predictions and behavioral expectations plausibly derived from Waltz’s theory do not square, thus far, with the behavior of the major powers after the Cold War.
But this critical questioning of Waltz’s version of balance-of-power theory is not tantamount to a rejection of the realist tradition. Neorealism does not define the entire paradigm, even though critics and proponents sometimes treat it that way. The contributors to this volume draw largely on the richness of classical realism, with its focus on the factors shaping foreign policy as opposed to those that determine international outcomes, and most of them have combined classical realism’s insights with a systemic perspective in an effort to construct effective explanations of state behavior. Indeed, this volume could be viewed as part of the ongoing effort to elaborate an alternative realist vision, one that goes inside the “black box” of state decisionmaking to explore how foreign policy officials conceive of the international environment and their place within it in order to calculate and pursue national interests. 10
Not surprisingly, no single theory or explanation emerges from this volume as a clear alternative to Waltz’s seminal contribution. Instead, the chapters cluster around two realist arguments that emphasize different aspects of the post-Cold War international order. Together, they provide a compelling picture of the forces influencing foreign policymaking today.
The first argument centers on what might be called unipolar politics. Neorealist balance-of-power theory typically underemphasizes unipolarity, treating it as an inevitably brief transition to yet another era of multipolar balancing. 11 Yet the chapters demonstrate that a principal foreign policy challenge for each of the states analyzed, including the United States, is to adjust their strategies to the emergence and possible endurance of a unipolar distribution of power. Some states have been determined to “bandwagon” with the United States and rely on American power for their security into the foreseeable future. Others, such as China and Russia, want to hedge their bets; nonetheless, they have been more inclined since 1990 to seek integration into the political and economic institutions of the U.S.-dominated international order rather than try to weaken or undermine that order. What is most striking, in the context of neorealist balance-of-power theory, is the reluctance of other major powers to engage in an individual or collective strategy of balancing against the preponderant power of the United States in an effort to create an alternative international order.
The absence of balancing at the core of the international system does not imply the absence of conflict among major powers. Our second realist argument emphasizes the importance of positional competition among states beyond the realm of military security. For realists, positional competition is an enduring consequence of an anarchical international system. Although major powers currently may not be competing militarily, positional conflicts over resources, markets, prestige, and political influence are prevalent and will persist. Several of the chapters analyze the strategies that different states have devised in an effort to improve their standing in international economic competition, influence weaker neighbors, or compete for international respect and prestige.
At first glance, these two arguments offer clashing visions of the contemporary international system. The image depicted by unipolar politics is one of cooperation among the major powers, as others accept the reality of American hegemony, recognize the high costs of challenging that hegemony, and adapt their strategies to make the most of their position in the new structure. This image portrays the United States, for its part, as acting to preserve its dominant position by reassuring and integrating potential challengers.
In contrast, the vision offered by positional competition is of an ongoing struggle for power and international influence that could eventually spill over from the relatively benign forms it is taking at present to the more traditional forms of military and territorial competition among major powers. This is world politics of the bare knuckles variety, in which each state seeks to maintain if not improve its position in the hierarchy.
Yet these images need not be mutually exclusive. Cooperation and competition among major powers may coexist uneasily. As stated at the outset, there is no guarantee that the present dominant position the United States enjoys will last forever. Prudent governments will seek to bandwagon with the United States while still maintaining some independent capacity for action, either through the mustering of internal resources or through the cultivation of regional or global relationships. This is the very tightrope that states must now walk, as they seek to avoid alienating Washington while pursuing their particular interests. Washington, in turn, faces the ongoing problem of pursuing its own interests without triggering the formation of a balancing coalition against it.
Can the major powers cross these tightropes without falling? The analyses contained in this volume suggest that the contemporary order may be stable for the time being, but that the walk will continue to be a delicate one. Russia’s leaders, for example, are somehow seeking both accommodation with the West and the restoration of Russian hegemony in the former Soviet area. This latter effort, however, could prove threatening to the West or at least contentious in terms of Western interests and values. Similarly, China is striving for deeper integration into the world economy, but at the same time its leaders gain political benefits from depicting the country’s security environment as threatening and hostile. Their willingness to act on that image, for example against Taiwan or in the south China Sea, generates regional insecurity and prompts confrontation with the United States. Germany and France are struggling to maintain the prudent cooperation that served them so well during the Cold War, but now without the glue of the external security threat and in the face of significant economic and social pressures at home as the costs of European integration seem to mount. Japan’s leaders have been anxious to preserve the positive aspects of the Cold War status quo, but they face economic stagnation, trading partners who are less willing to accept asymmetrical market arrangements, and a United States whose security guarantee necessarily seems less certain without the Cold War. Finally, the United States, the most important player in the system, is trying to preserve its unipolar position through a global engagement strategy. U.S. officials, however, face a public and Congress that have proven reluctant to support military intervention, skeptical of foreign assistance, and anxious about America’s role in the global economy.
The rest of this chapter expands on the themes introduced above. The next section reviews the realist research program and criticisms of neorealism raised in the volume’s chapters. The following two sections elaborate the arguments of positional competition and unipolar politics.
The Realist Research Program and Neorealist Theory After the Cold War
Realism contains a set of core assumptions from which a variety of hypotheses and explanations can be generated. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, there is no single “theory of realism,” and realism per se cannot be tested, confirmed, or refuted. A recent and serious scholarly attempt to test “realism” as opposed to particular realist theories found that the “scientific study of realism is difficult because it is not often specific enough to be falsifiable.” 12 Particular realist theories, however, can and should be constructed specifically enough to be falsifiable. 13
The following set of assumptions are generally accepted in the chapters below as providing the foundation for the realist research program in international relations. First, the most important actors in international politics are “territorially organized entities”—city-states in antiquity, and nation-states in the contemporary era. 14 Nation-states are not the only actors on the current world scene, but realists assume that more can be understood about world politics by focusing on the behavior of and interaction among nation-states rather than by analyzing the behavior of individuals, classes, transnational firms, or international organizations.
Second, realists assume that state behavior can be explained as the product of rational decisionmaking. As Robert Keohane puts it, for the realist “world politics can be analyzed as if states were unitary rational actors, carefully calculating the costs of alternative courses of action and seeking to maximize their expected utility, although doing so under conditions of uncertainty.” 15 States act strategically and instrumentally, in an arena in which the “noise level” is high. The problem of incomplete information is compounded because states have incentives to conceal or misrepresent information to gain strategic advantage. Consequently states may miscalculate, but not so frequently that they call into question the rationality assumption. 16
Third, realists emphasize the close connection between state power and interests. States seek power (defined both as relative material capabilities and relative influence over outcomes) in order to achieve their interests, and they calculate their interests in the context of the international environment they confront. While all states seek power, it is not necessary to assume that states seek to maximize power. Not every state needs or wants nuclear weapons, for example. Similarly, although security and survival are the highest priority in terms of state interest, there is no need to assume that states always strive to maximize security at the expense of other goals. States pursue an array of interests; the key point for realists is that in defining the so-called national interest, state officials look “outward,” and respond to the opportunities and constraints of the international environment.
Fourth, realists believe that relations among states are inherently competitive. While states compete most intensely in the realm of military security, they compete in other realms as well, particularly in economic relations. To say that states “compete” means that states care deeply about their status or power position relative to other states, and that this concern guides state behavior. Competition is a consequence of anarchy, which forces states ultimately to rely on themselves to ensure their survival and autonomy. This does not imply cooperation is impossible, only that states will approach cooperative ventures with a concern for the impact of those ventures on their relative power positions. 17
Waltz’s balance-of-power theory, often labeled neorealism, remains the most prominent realist theory of international relations. As such, it provides the starting point for analysis in most of our chapters. At its core is an argument about international interactions and their outcomes; it is not explicitly a theory of foreign policy, or why states act the way they do. Waltz’s approach is systemic and his model is parsimonious. He posits that international systems are anarchic as opposed to hierarchic and that states are functionally similar rather than differentiated. The key independent variable is international structure, or the distribution of capabilities across states. From this, Waltz derives the hypotheses that (1) states will balance against a preponderant power, (2) balances of power will inevitably form and recur, and (3) bipolar or two-power systems will be less war-prone and more stable than multipolar ones. 18
Waltz’s contribution has been extraordinarily influential, shaping the realist research agenda for almost two decades and inspiring scholarship and debate on an array of fundamental issues including the stability of international systems, the causes of alliances, and the nature of international theory itself. As is the case for any major social science contribution, the theory has also attracted considerable criticism. Some fault the theory for positing an overly narrow conception of international structure, and for being incapable of explaining the all-important problem of international system change. 19 Others point out that Waltz provides little systematic evidence for his central claim of the recurrence of balancing, and relies instead on selected illustrations that tend to confirm his expectations. 20 Paul Schroeder’s recent survey of European diplomatic history, for example, casts doubt on the empirical validity of Waltz’s claims. 21
Given the centrality of Waltz’s argument, and the obvious temptation of testing it in the setting of a unipolar system, virtually all of the chapters do so against the available evidence compiled since the end of the Cold War. The result is a strong consensus that neorealist balance-of-power theory does not provide an effective explanation either for the behavior of particular states or for their interactions regionally or globally. For example, Johnston’s chapter finds no evidence that China is developing forces to balance the United States, or that it is seeking to coordinate its diplomacy with possible U.S. adversaries in the same way that it sought coordination against the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s. Rather than reducing its economic dependence on the United States, China is increasing it, and Chinese behavior in Asia has hardly prompted other states to weaken their security ties to the United States. MacFarlane argues that the most developed parts of Russian cooperation with the West lie in the realm of security, notwithstanding the provocative prospect of NATO expansion. Rather than pursue balancing against the United States, Russia’s leaders have emphasized a “strategic partnership” with America in which Russia is de facto the subordinate partner. Russia has even sought assistance from the United States in dismantling its nuclear weapons—hardly the stuff of balance-of-power theory.
In their chapter, Heginbotham and Samuels argue that Japan has embarked on a long-term path of downsizing its military forces, even though defense budgets and military capabilities elsewhere in East Asia have been growing rapidly. Faced with the prospect of an increasingly powerful China, Japan seems inclined neither to seek regional allies who will balance against China nor to develop an independent nuclear capability. Instead, it continues to rely heavily on its bilateral security treaty with the United States.
In the context of Europe, Michael Loriaux finds the striking absence of balancing by France against the power of a resurgent and reunified Germany. Mark Kramer shows that, contrary to the expectations and explicit predictions of some neorealists at the end of the Cold War, the states of central Europe and especially Ukraine have foresworn reliance on nuclear weapons, the most potent capabilities available to them to balance Russian power. And, in accounting for German and Japanese regional strategies, Joseph Grieco demonstrates that changes in polarity—the key variable in neorealist theory—do not correlate with changes in state behavior.
Proponents of neorealist balance-of-power theory might counter that Waltz’s intention was to explain international outcomes, not the foreign policies of particular states. Waltz, in fact, makes that point explicitly. 22 Yet, if balancing behavior is to be a systemic outcome, at least some, if not all, major powers need to be engaged in it. Or, as Johnston notes, “while one single-country test of neorealist propositions is not sufficient to confirm or undermine neorealist claims, neorealists ought to be concerned about the cumulative implications of many single-country tests.” 23 The post-Cold War evidence to date is fairly clear at both the national and the systemic levels—other states are not balancing the preponderant power of the United States.
Neorealists might respond that it is too soon to tell, and that balancing behavior will emerge eventually. For example, the European Union’s effort to create a common currency, the “euro,” arguably could be conceived as an attempt to create a balance against U.S. financial hegemony. The revival of bilateral diplomacy between Russia and Japan, or Russia and China, could develop into closer relationships based on a shared anxiety about U.S. preponderance. Leaving aside the fact that the most prominent neorealists have predicted a fairly rapid transition to multipolar balancing, the “too soon to tell” point is a fair one. The evidence from the post-Cold War world can only be preliminary at this stage, and therefore it would be highly imprudent to abandon or discard Waltz’s theory. 24 The initial experience of the post-Cold War system, however, does suggest that it is sensible to develop and explore additional hypotheses and propositions. This volume’s contributors take up that challenge and in so doing they elaborate two realist images of the contemporary international system that are not centered around military balancing among the great powers.
Positional Competition After the Cold War
The traditional realist image of the international system emphasizes security competition among greater and lesser powers under the ever-present threat of war. States engage in internal and external balancing to ensure survival and protect their autonomy. Wars occur because there is no higher authority to prevent them, and because powerful states at times view the use of force as a viable instrument to gain territory, extend political influence, or establish hegemony over other states in the system.
Relations among the great powers after the Cold War may offer a very different picture. Nuclear weapons and highly destructive conventional ones have made the costs of war among them almost prohibitive. Great powers, even in circumstances of intense conflict such as the Cold War, have sought to avoid direct military confrontation. The acquisition of territory by force is no longer considered a legitimate “right” of great powers, and in any event territorial acquisition is arguably less valuable as advanced economies have become more knowledge- and technology-based than natural-resource-based. 25 Ideological competition among great powers has also waned, notwithstanding the “clash of civilizations” hypothesis. 26 In sum, even if the probability of war has not dropped to zero, the present-day international environment is one in which fundamental threats to state survival and the prospects of “hegemonic war” among great powers appear exceedingly remote.
Is realism still relevant in a world that lacks the proximate threat of a great power military conflict? Contributors to this volume answer in the affirmative by returning to a core realist premise—the persistence of positional competition among states in an anarchic environment. If military competition is de-emphasized, states will compete for power and influence in other realms and over other values.
The clearest depiction of present-day politics as positional competition among great powers is offered by Schweller. He argues that the key concept for understanding international competition is scarcity rather than security. The great game of world politics is a struggle for control over scarce prizes, such as political prestige, technological primacy, or influence over neighboring states. In some international environments “security” may be a scarce commodity, but in others it may not be. Schweller argues that neorealism’s overriding emphasis on security as the driving force of state behavior is misleading, and he questions the explanatory power of neorealism when survival is not at stake. He finds that the real struggle among great powers today is in the economic arena, and that differences in national economic growth rates, instead of dampening positional competition, actually exacerbate it. 27
Heginbotham and Samuels offer a version of this general argument in devising their explanation for Japanese strategy. Their model of mercantile realism expects policymakers to routinely assign primacy to economic and technological power in calculations of state security. They expect state officials over the long-term to pursue economic primacy even in the absence of military security concerns, and in some cases even at the expense of military security. Japan is the paradigmatic case of the mercantile realist state. Heginbotham and Samuels argue that Japanese mercantile strategy has its origins in the international environment of the nineteenth century, and has taken on the attributes of a “strategic culture” which has evolved and continues to inform national strategy in the post-Cold War environment.
The theme of positional competition outside the military realm runs through other chapters as well. Kirshner’s realist theory of political economy predicts that multilateral economic cooperation will falter and that the world economy will become increasingly regional. Regionalism allows great powers to take advantage of interdependence while retaining autonomy and exploiting asymmetries in size and power. MacFarlane sees Russia’s determination to regain control over the former Soviet Union as driven in part by a need to reestablish a sphere of political influence befitting of great power status. Similarly, Johnston argues that China’s regional ambitions reflect a desire for respect and recognition as a great power. Mastanduno argues that America’s shifting position in the international security and economic structures led it during the early 1990s to be more sensitive to positional competition in its economic relations with other advanced industrial states.
An emphasis on positional competition broadens the realist research agenda at the level of both foreign-policy analysis and international systemic outcomes. Since states must engage in multiple arenas (political, economic, military) simultaneously, positional competition highlights the complexity of state objectives and the tradeoffs state officials face as they seek to attain them. 28 Japan’s leaders confront the problem of retaining a stable security environment after the Cold War (in effect, of dampening positional security competition), so that Japan can once again compete effectively in the economic arena. For the United States, the challenge is to maintain or improve its position in international economic competition without jeopardizing its legitimacy as the world’s political and military leader. The tradeoff for Russia is how far to expand its regional influence without compromising its global economic and security strategy of extracting benefits through integration into the U.S.-led economic and security institutions. How states conceive of and manage these and similar tradeoffs across objectives is an important aspect of statecraft and one that has been understudied by realists as well as international relations scholars more generally.
Similarly, the sources or motives underlying state behavior in positional competition are a rich area for exploration. The mercantile realism put forth by Heginbotham and Samuels may provide a good model for Japan’s behavior, but an important next step would be to formulate a more general argument that could be tested against other cases. Why do some states fit the mercantile realist profile while others do not? Schweller depicts positional competition as the norm in international relations, but why do different states choose to focus their efforts in one arena of positional competition as opposed to another? Nuclear weapons, for example, bring power and prestige in the international system, yet as Kramer and others have shown, many states within reach of that capability have chosen to forego it. 29
Questions of why and where states compete are complemented by those of how they compete: which instruments of policy are most useful, and in which arenas? Are sources of power fungible across issue-areas? 30 To take a seemingly nonrealist example, several authors in this volume highlight the importance of international institutions as instruments of statecraft. Loriaux, for example, shows that both Germany and France have manipulated the institutions of the European Union to pursue economic and security goals. Grieco explains the variation in the extent to which Germany and Japan rely on institutions, and Mastanduno points to the use of institutions by the United States to dampen the incentives for other states to balance its preponderant power. As a self-conscious realist, John Mearsheimer has recently argued that international institutions have only a marginal impact on systemic outcomes. 31 If this is so, why then do so many states use institutions as instruments of foreign policy?
At the systemic level, the image of positional competition directs attention to the international economy and to the links between the economic and security systems. Under what circumstances does international economic competition seriously damage multilateral economic cooperation? This is an important question that has taken on new life in recent years. Deudney and Ikenberry see multilateral economic cooperation as institutionalized and robust; positional competition can take place without harming the overall economic system. Most realists tend to be more pessimistic, especially if institutions are malleable and prone to manipulation by states. To the extent that economic cooperation is a function of international security commitments, the future is even more in doubt. 32 As Kirshner argues, the post-Cold War setting offers an ideal environment for testing these and other competing claims.
An important related question is, under what circumstances does economic conflict spill over into international security conflict? Contemporary realists have only begun to address this question systematically, drawing on the rich experience of the 1930s, the pre-World War I environment, and earlier periods in the history of the state system. 33 The answers developed will prove crucial to our understanding of the prospects for great-power peace over the coming decades.
Finally, realists have devoted hardly any attention to whether the concepts familiar in the study of positional competition in the military realm are useful in understanding positional competition in the economic realm. Do states balance economic power, as they do military power? Are there economic security dilemmas, and the technological equivalent of arms races? Heginbotham and Samuels introduce these possibilities; a rich opportunity for realist political economy awaits.
The Politics of Unipolarity
The structure of the contemporary international system is unipolar. 34 The United States leads its competitors by a wide margin in overall military capabilities and the ability to project its forces globally. Its defense spending is greater than that of all the other great powers combined. It also remains the world’s dominant power economically, even if by a lesser margin than during the first two decades of the cold war. Its corporations remain at the cutting edge of nearly every military and consumer technology. The large size of its domestic market, its generous resources endowments, and its “soft” power attributes, such as its ideological and cultural appeal and language, assure that no other power is currently in a position to rival the United States.
The more contentious question is, how much does unipolarity matter? Neorealists and a variety of nonrealists may find common ground in answering “not very much.” Neorealists expect unipolarity to give way quickly to multipolarity as other powers move individually and collectively to balance the preponderant power of the United States. For liberals, the distribution of power is far less important than the degree of institutionalization and the domestic identity of states in accounting for foreign policy behavior and international outcomes. Unipolarity is similarly a less salient explanatory factor for those who hold the more pessimistic belief that the future of international relations portends a clash of civilizations or the widespread disintegration of the nation-state.
In contrast, many of the contributors to this volume hold that the distribution of power in general, and unipolarity in particular, matter a great deal. The unipolar distribution of power shapes state behavior, and in ways not anticipated by Waltz’s balance-of-power theory. Instead of responding by balancing, states are adjusting in various ways to the reality of a U.S.-centered international system.
Grieco’s chapter provides a strong example. He shows that American hegemony has been decisive in shaping Japanese and German preferences for regional institutionalization during the Cold War and after. U.S. power, he argues, set these two major states on highly different trajectories regarding their interest in regionalism. These trajectories are still in evidence today and are being reshaped by U.S. power after the Cold War. America’s strong preference for “open regionalism” in East Asia, for example, has done much to discourage Japan from crafting or cooperating in exclusionary political and economic arrangements.
Kramer demonstrates that Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have been so determined to bandwagon with the U.S.-led NATO alliance that they have shaped their foreign and defense policies in pursuit of this priority goal. Each state has renounced an independent nuclear capability, yet has also expressed a willingness to have U.S. nuclear weapons placed on their soil if that would facilitate entry into the alliance.
Even Deudney and Ikenberry’s chapter, which self-consciously puts forth a nonrealist argument, tends to concede the importance of the unipolar distribution of power. The authors argue that the absence of serious political or economic conflict among Western states is a function of what they label structural liberalism, or the institutionalization of a system of consensual and reciprocal relations among participating states. Yet they find that this system remains remarkably Washington-centered. American hegemony is so essential to the maintenance of the system that it is built into their definition of its essential features. For example, they argue that the “penetrated” character of U.S. hegemony facilitates cooperative relations by giving other states a say in how policies are developed at the core of the system.
Other examples abound. France, after failing to gain European support for more independent West European defense initiatives, has deepened its participation in the American-led NATO structure. 35 Germany and Japan have crafted long-term security strategies around an American military presence on their soil and in their regions. Russia abandoned its traditional ally, Iraq, and followed the American-led coalition during the Gulf War, and subsequently accepted an arrangement whereby Russian forces served under U.S. command in the implementation of the Bosnian peace accords. In the “near abroad,” where Russian foreign policy generally has been assertive, Russian leaders have proceeded cautiously in relations with countries of particular strategic or political interest to the United States, such as the Baltic states.
Unipolarity is shaping the behavior of all the major players in the system, including the United States. Mastanduno’s chapter shows that U.S. officials have responded to the new distribution of power by devising strategies to preserve America’s dominant position. These include efforts to engage status quo-oriented states, confront revisionist states, and use multilateral institutions to reinforce the perception that America’s preponderant power is not being exercised arbitrarily or in a threatening manner. In the concluding chapter, Kapstein argues that outcomes in the international political economy continue to reflect Washington’s preferences in the trade and financial issue-areas, and he notes that an increasing number of states are seeking to join existing regimes that still reflect U.S. power and purpose.
A unipolar distribution of power thus offers the prospect of cooperative relations among major powers, as other states, some eagerly and some more grudgingly, recognize the high costs of challenging U.S. hegemony and the potentially considerable benefits of going along in the U.S.-dominated system. But will this unipolar system persist, and for how long? At this stage there can be no definitive answer to that question.
Still, it is possible to sketch the types of challenges that must be addressed by the American state if the unipolar “moment” is to endure. Here we focus on two obvious suspects. The first set of challenges emerges from the stresses and strains associated with American domestic politics. The second set results from strategic choices made by other states—choices that may be influenced by U.S. behavior. The preservation of unipolarity requires U.S. officials to manage these twin challenges simultaneously.
Managing Domestic Constraints
It could be argued that one’s vision of contemporary international politics must be directly tied to one’s vision of American politics. To be sure, the United States has been affected by international politics. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the nation into the Second World War, while Soviet actions in postwar Europe forced the creation of the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But, to a remarkable degree over the past half-century, U.S. officials have been able to shape international politics to their liking. For example, as Deudney and Ikenberry discuss, the development of free trade and monetary regimes reflected American preferences for a liberal economic order, one in which prosperity, stability, and peace among advanced industrial states formed a virtuous triangle.
Why did the United States pursue an “open” as opposed to “closed” economic policy after World War II? A variety of interest groups were in favor of a return to protectionism, but U.S. officials moved policy in a different direction. The realization of America’s dominant economic position, coupled with the need to create an anti-Soviet coalition, created strong incentives within the state and society for a liberal trade policy. 36 Both state and internationalist business elites came to appreciate the role that exports might play in the American economy and in cementing U.S. alliance systems. These internationalist interests prevailed, and over the ensuing decades Washington led the world in the creation of regimes that progressively liberalized trade so that it could serve as an important source of global economic growth. Domestic opposition to free trade was bought off by side-deals with powerful interests (e.g. the international textile agreement), through direct worker compensation, and by a system of administrative remedies that channeled demands for protection away from the political arena. 37 Indeed, the trade regime even endured the shift from an American economy that once generated trade surpluses to one that has had chronic deficits, and has been strengthened by the completion of the transformation of the GATT into the potentially more powerful WTO.
Yet, the past two decades have also witnessed the emergence of new challenges to America’s liberal consensus from several different quarters. 38 During the 1970s, traditional manufacturing industries harmed by international competition (e.g., steel and autos) led the charge in lobbying for trade protection. During the 1980s, there were those who believed that America’s liberal trade policy toward Asian developmental states was inappropriate and unfair to American industry, and that the U.S. manufacturing base was being “hollowed out” by mercantile competitors who relied on business-government partnerships. Samuel Huntington, for example, wrote that “America and Japan are engaged in an economic cold war . . .[and] Japan has been doing better than we in that war.” 39 During the 1990s, the populist concern has emerged that trade with less developed countries subjects American workers to a different form of unfair competition—that of cheap labor, poor working conditions, and lax environmental standards. The intense U.S. debate over NAFTA, lingering concern over the threat of the WTO to U.S. “sovereignty,” and the failure of the Clinton administration to obtain “fast track” trade negotiating authority in 1997 reflect this sentiment.
To date, these challenges have been weathered and a winning coalition in favor of a more explicitly nationalist or protectionist trade policy has not been formed. Over the long term, however, the threat will be kept alive by large merchandise trade deficits and the persistence and, it would appear, worsening of economic inequality in the United States. As the gap between have and have-nots increases, political pressure will continue to be directed outward at an international economy that seems to many to be responsible for perpetuating and exacerbating domestic economic problems. 40
American officials must withstand or deflect these pressures if they seek to preserve America’s dominant global position. If instead they succumb and turn the U.S. economy inward, other governments facing similar pressures will be tempted to do the same. The ensuing economic conflicts would make it difficult for U.S. officials to induce other states to participate in an American-centered system, and could lead to a resurgence of great power economic and geopolitical competition. In their efforts to counter these domestic pressures, U.S. officials have the advantage of being able to mobilize those societal interests, such as multinational corporations, that benefit most from openness and interdependence. 41 But, compared to their Cold War predecessors, they will find it more difficult to invoke external security threats to build political support at home for economic openness and a U.S. leadership role in the liberal world economy.
We should expect sustained domestic pressure on America’s strategy of international political leadership as well. Robert Tucker has recently observed that the “great issue” of current U.S. foreign policy is “the contradiction between the persisting desire to remain the premier global power and an ever deepening aversion to bear the costs of this position.” 42 Although risking American lives in faraway places for the purpose not of meeting an identifiable threat but of maintaining “stability” around the world may make sense to U.S. foreign policy officials, the American public has become increasingly reluctant to bear the economic-political costs of a global engagement strategy after the Cold War. In the face of domestic and congressional pressure, administration officials have struggled to maintain the defense and foreign assistance budgets and to protect funds for the day-to-day operations of overseas U.S. embassies. More ambitious initiatives, such as the equivalent of a “Marshall Plan” for Russia and Eastern Europe, are simply out of the question. On the political side, the lingering of the so-called Vietnam syndrome has combined with a sense of security and relief prompted by the collapse of the Soviet threat to produce an extreme unwillingness on the part of the U.S. public to tolerate even minor casualties in armed conflicts.
One response by American officials to these constraints has been to emphasize economic burden-sharing in foreign policy commitments. The Bush administration set the standard: during the Persian Gulf war, it extracted contributions from other coalition members with a zeal and effectiveness that led some to speculate that America made a net profit on the intervention, and others to characterize U.S. forces as mercenaries. 43 The Clinton administration’s 1994 deal on nonproliferation with North Korea obliges Japan and South Korea to pick up a significant part of the cost of providing alternative energy sources to North Korea. Clinton officials have also made clear that they expect European states to bear the burden of Bosnian reconstruction. 44
A second response has been to emphasize “pragmatism” in military interventions. Foreign policy officials have been most concerned to avoid excessive commitments, minimize costs and casualties, and develop “exit strategies” even at the risk of leaving unfinished business. In Somalia, for example, the Clinton administration moved quickly from a humanitarian mission to a more ambitious nation-building exercise, but abruptly ended its efforts after taking relatively light casualties in a firefight. In Bosnia, the Bush and Clinton administrations delayed direct intervention until 1995. Since intervention, Clinton officials have responded to domestic pressure by setting deadlines for withdrawal, but have extended those deadlines in the face of evidence that the Bosnian situation is far from stabilized.
Thus far, American officials have managed to maintain adequate public support for international leadership after the Cold War. But, as Mastanduno’s chapter argues, in the absence of a central strategic threat this domestic challenge is likely to persist. The current intervention in Bosnia can still sour, and future interventions are inevitable if the United States continues to pursue global engagement and take primary responsibility for regional stability. Yet, it is hard to imagine that the domestically acceptable Persian Gulf formula—clear threat, low casualties, quick settlement, ample external support, and financing—can be replicated across a series of regional crises. Domestic political support could quickly evaporate should a regional crisis turn bloody, leading perhaps to an “agonizing reappraisal” of America’s extensive post-Cold War international commitments.
Global Challenges
U.S. officials seeking to preserve their unipolar advantage must look outward as well as inward. Is any serious challenger to U.S. hegemony with the necessary combination of formidable capabilities and global ambitions likely to arise?
There is little evidence to date of a single power or group of powers rising in the near future. 45 Take the case of Japan, widely feared during the 1980s as a pretender to economic and eventual political hegemony. But during most of the 1990s Japan’s economy has been unable to rebound from a deep recession, and it has yet to develop the kind of military power needed to defend its own much less other Asian sea (and air) lines of communication. Japan also faces some potentially serious security concerns of its own in East Asia. As Heginbotham and Samuels argue, these have led it to reemphasize the importance of its bilateral alliance with the United States rather than pursue an independent much less a globally ambitious foreign policy. U.S. officials, for their part, have reinforced this direction in Japanese policy by reaffirming and strengthening the bilateral security alliance.
With the Japanese challenge suspended at least for now, the rise of China has loomed especially large. But foreign policy analysts in the United States and abroad may have exaggerated the Chinese “threat” to the international order. China’s expected, rapid rise to economic dominance is based on questionable assumptions regarding the current size of its economy and, even more problematic, its ability to retain political stability and domestic cohesion over an extended period of time. 46 China is becoming increasingly dependent on the international system, and especially the United States, for food, fuel, capital, technology, and export markets. To the extent that it continues to pursue a policy aimed above all at economic growth, its foreign policy options will be constrained. China’s leaders would act more aggressively in international politics at their peril, for it would threaten the country’s continued access to needed economic and technological inputs. U.S. officials have sought to reinforce this point more positively, by downplaying human rights concerns and by promising China economic and political benefits in exchange for what the United States judges to be responsible foreign policy behavior.
What about Russia? In contrast to China, it is quite possible that western analysts have understated its power potential. Russia continues to possess the largest army in Europe (even if its performance is questionable), has a still oversized defense industrial base, and an economy rich in human capital. Russia has significant disputes with the United States and Western Europe over such issues as NATO expansion and the containment of Iraq, leading to domestic pressures for an independent and sometimes conflictual foreign policy. Could Russia reemerge as a global challenger?
Again, the answer for the foreseeable future would appear to be in the negative. As MacFarlane’s chapter shows, Russia seems to have accepted a subordinate role globally while it pursues regional hegemony. Russia’s requirements for IMF assistance, and for Western capital and technology, have led it to seek compromises with the United States over many issues of mutual concern. During 1996 and 1997, for example, despite all of their public protests, Russia’s leaders managed to find a face-saving formula for accepting NATO’s eastward expansion. They also settled for a subordinate role under U.S. command in the Bosnian peacekeeping effort, and have tried to walk a delicate line between improving relations with Iraq and cooperating with the U.S.-led effort to repress Iraq.
Finally, one could conceivably view the European Union as a challenger to the American-dominated international system. Its population, technological potential, and gross national product could provide the basis for a strong military and economic power, were it truly united. As noted above, the European monetary union, with its creation of the “euro” as a common currency, could be viewed in part as a continental effort to balance against America’s financial hegemony.
But the EU is far from playing the role of a superpower. Most obviously, it continues to lack a unified foreign and defense policy, making it incapable of defending itself, much less projecting power overseas. Europe’s most powerful state, Germany, has defined its post-Cold War security in terms of continued dependence on the military power and presence of the United States. Further, years of economic recession are taking their toll, sapping a great deal of public support for the European project. For its part, U.S. policy continues to support European integration, on the condition that it does not compromise the lead role of NATO and the United States in European security affairs.
What about a collective response to American hegemony? Here, too, possibilities exist but near-term prospects are remote. The relationship between China and Japan is constrained by historical resentments and the potential for economic and territorial disputes. Each state seems to rely on the United States to keep the other at bay. Japan and Russia have economic complementarity but long-standing territorial disputes, and both would be wary of alienating the United States. Talk of a Russian-Chinese alliance surfaces from time to time, but most analyses see little possibility given the current configuration of power and interests.
Overall, then, it would seem that for some time the United States will face a world without any significant challenge to its hegemonic position. As Mastanduno’s chapter argues, hegemonic challengers could emerge more quickly if U.S. officials fail to manage domestic constraints or succumb to the tendency to exercise foreign policy power arbitrarily or unilaterally. And, one could conceive of an entirely different array of global problems that would test Washington, ranging from the “clash of civilizations” to ozone layer depletion. But presumably such problems would test other countries as much if not more than the United States. For example, the further spread of Islamic fundamentalism would be of particular concern to Western Europe, and a renewed energy crisis would jeopardize European and east Asian economies more than that of the United States. Indeed, a world of “nontraditional” threats might even play to the United States, further increasing its “lead” over potential challengers.
Conclusion
The authors contributing to this volume all accept the profound changes that have occurred in the international system, including globalization, democratization, the receding prospect of great power war, and the emergence of the United States as the sole superpower. In light of these changes, many scholars argue that world politics are experiencing a seismic shift, and that paradigms other than realism are needed to understand contemporary international relations. However, the chapters that follow show that the traditional language of politics and the factors of direct relevance to realism—anarchy, the power and interests of states, and positional competition—still provide a powerful conceptual framework for analyzing state behavior.
This is not to dismiss the insights of other perspectives. On the contrary, several authors combine traditional realist arguments with an emphasis on nonmaterial factors such as state identity and threat perception in accounting for state behavior after the Cold War. By doing so, they sacrifice the parsimony of neorealism, but regain the richness of a classical realism that was all but forgotten in a simpler world with its narrow focus on the military capabilities of the superpowers. 47 More important, they open the door to a better understanding of the international political environment in which states are making their strategic choices, for good or for ill.
Endnotes
Note 1: See, for example, John A. Vasquez, “The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Programs: An Appraisal of Neotraditional Research on Waltz’ Balancing Proposition,” American Political Science Review 91 (4) (December 1997): 899–912; Charles W. Kegley, Jr., “The Neoidealist Moment in International Studies? Realist Myths and the New International Realities,” International Studies Quarterly 37 (2) (June 1993): 131–46; Richard Ned Lebow, “The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism,” International Organization 48 (Spring 1994): 249–78; and John Lewis Gaddis, “International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War,” in Sean Lynn-Jones and Steven Miller, eds., The Cold War and After: Prospects for Peace (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993): 323–88. For one reaction, see Robert G. Gilpin, “No One Loves a Political Realist,” Security Studies 5 (1996): 3–28. Back.
Note 2: Ole Holsti argues that realism’s “deficiencies are likely to become more rather than less apparent in the post-cold war world.” See Holsti, “Theories of International Relations and Foreign Policy: Realism and Its Challengers,” in Charles W. Kegley, ed., Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the Neoliberal Challenge (New York: St. Martin’s, 1995), 35–65, quote at p. 57. Back.
Note 3: Ethan Kapstein, “Is Realism Dead? The Domestic Sources of International Politics,” International Organization 49 (4) (Fall 1995): 751–74. Back.
Note 4: David Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); Kegley, ed., Controversies in International Relations Theory; and earlier, Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). Back.
Note 5: Previous efforts to assess the empirical utility of realism include John A. Vasquez, The Power of Power Politics: A Critique (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1983), and Frank W. Wayman and Paul F. Diehl, eds., Reconstructing Realpolitik (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994). See also Benjamin Frankel, “Restating the Realist Case: An Introduction,” Security Studies 5 (1996): ix-xx, and the other essays contained in the special issue of that journal devoted to an analysis of realism. Back.
Note 6: We acknowledge our intellectual debt to Peter Katzenstein, ed., Between Power and Plenty: Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), which similarly examined the impact of a systemic shock—the energy crisis of 1973–74—on the foreign policies of various states. Back.
Note 7: Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), and Stephen D. Krasner, “State Power and the Structure of International Trade,” World Politics 28 (Fall 1976): 317–47. Back.
Note 8: The clearest exception is the chapter by Deudney and Ikenberry, which focuses on regime type and shared values as primary explanatory factors. Back.
Note 9: Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), and, as applied to the post-Cold War era, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security 18 (2) (Fall 1993): 44–79. See also Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security 17 (4) (Spring 1993): 5–49. Back.
Note 10: For example, Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). For a review essay of representative works, see Gideon Rose, “Soft Realism: A Review Essay,” (unpub., April 7, 1996). A strong argument that neorealism needs to develop theories of foreign policy is Colin Elman, “Horses for Courses: Why Not Neorealist Theories of Foreign Policy?” Security Studies 6 (1996): 7–53. Back.
Note 11: Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion,” and Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics.” Back.
Note 12: Wayman and Diehl, Reconstructing Realpolitik, p. 26. Back.
Note 13: As Patrick James reminds us, two theories from within the same research program may compete with each other, and the evidence at some point may lead to one theory surviving while the other is falsified. See James, “Neorealism as a Research Enterprise: Toward Elaborated Structural Realism,” International Political Science Review 14 (2) (1993): 127. See also Stephen G. Brooks, “Dueling Realisms,” International Organization 51 (3) (Summer 1997): 445–477, for a useful effort to differentiate among strands of realist theory. Back.
Note 14: Robert O. Keohane, “Theory of World Politics: Structural Realism and Beyond,” in Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics, and Gilpin, “Richness of the Tradition,” 304–5. Back.
Note 15: Keohane, “Theory of World Politics,” 165. Back.
Note 16: John Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security 19 (3) (Winter 1994–95): 9. Back.
Note 17: Joseph Grieco, Cooperation Among Nations: Europe, America, and Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). Back.
Note 18: Waltz, Theory of International Politics. Back.
Note 19: See Barry Buzan, Charles Jones, and Richard Little, The Logic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); Steven Forde, “International Realism and the Science of Politics: Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Neorealism,” International Studies Quarterly 39 (2) (June 1995): 141–60; Alexander Wendt, “Constructing International Politics,” International Security 20 (1) (Summer 1995): 71–80; John G. Ruggie, “The False Promise of Realism,” International Security 20 (1) (Summer 1995): 62–70; and Robert W.’Cox, “Social Forces, States, and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory,” in Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics, 204–54. Back.
Note 20: Keohane, “Theory of World Politics,” 172. Back.
Note 21: Paul W. Schroeder, “Historical Reality vs. Neorealist Theory,” International Security 19 (1) (Summer 1994), 108–148. Back.
Note 22: Waltz, Theory of International Politics. Back.
Note 23: Iain Johnston, “Realism(s) and Chinese Security Policy in the Post-Cold War Period,” this volume. Back.
Note 24: Of the contributions below, only Schweller’s argues explicitly that neorealist theory should be abandoned. Other contributors are more circumspect, and some find at least some empirical support for the theory. Mastanduno, for example, finds Waltz’s framework helpful in understanding U.S. intervention and international economic strategies after the Cold War, even though it is less helpful in explaining the broader U.S. security strategy. Nonrealist critics of Waltz, of course, have been more certain that the theory should be discarded. Back.
Note 25: Though, for a contending view, see Peter Lieberman, Does Conquest Pay? The Exploitation of Occupied Industrial Societies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). Back.
Note 26: Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). Back.
Note 27: Schweller’s argument echoes that of V. I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, and Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Back.
Note 28: A classic effort is William Domke, Richard Eichenberg, and Catherine Kelleher, “The Illusion of Choice: Defense and Welfare in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 1948–1978,” American Political Science Review 77 (1) (March 1983): 19–35. Back.
Note 29: See, for example, Mitchell Reiss, Without the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). Back.
Note 30: David Baldwin, “Power Analysis and World Politics: New Trends vs. Old Tendencies,” World Politics 31 (January 1979): 161–94, and Robert J. Art, “American Foreign Policy and the Fungibility of Force,” Security Studies 5 (Summer 1996): 1–36. Back.
Note 31: Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions.” Back.
Note 32: Joanne Gowa, Allies, Adversaries and International Trade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Back.
Note 33: See, for example, Dale Copeland, “Economic Interdependence and War,” International Security 20 (1996): 5–41. Back.
Note 34: See Joseph Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affaris 70 (1) (1990–91); and Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion.” Back.
Note 35: Robert J. Art, “Why Western Europe Needs the United States and NATO,” Political Science Quarterly 111 (1) (Spring 1996): 1–39. Back.
Note 36: See, for example, Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1975); Robert Pollard, Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985; and Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992). Back.
Note 37: I. M. Destler, American Trade Politics: System Under Stress (Washington: Institute for International Economics, 2nd. ed., 1992). Back.
Note 38: Robert Lawrence and Charles Schultze, eds., American Trade Strategy: Options for the 1990s (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1990); Jagdish Bhagwati and Hugh T. Patrick, Aggressive Unilateralism: America’s 301 Trade Policy and the World Trading System (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990); Paul Lewis, “Is the U.S. Souring on Free Trade?” New York Times, June 25, 1996, D1. Back.
Note 39: Samuel Huntington, “Economic Power in International Relations,” (Princeton University: Center for International Studies, Research Program in International Security, Monograph Series #1, 1993), 12. See also Huntington, “Why International Primacy Matters,” International Security 17 (4) (Spring 1993): 68–83. Back.
Note 40: Ethan B. Kapstein, “Workers and the World Economy,” Foreign Affairs 75 (3) (May–June 1996). Back.
Note 41: Helen Milner, Resisting the Protectionist Temptation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ). Back.
Note 42: Robert W. Tucker, “The Future of a Contradiction,” The National Interest (43) (Spring 1996): 20. Back.
Note 43: U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Ways and Means, Foreign Contributions to the Costs of the Gulf War, hearings, 102nd Congress, 1st session, July 31, 1995. Back.
Note 44: Christopher Wren, “The G.I.s Don’t Carry a Marshall Plan,” New York Times, Dec. 17, 1995, 14. Back.
Note 45: For further elaboration of this argument, see the chapter by Kapstein. Back.
Note 46: “How Poor is China?,” The Economist, October 12, 1996, 35–36. Back.
Note 47: Robert G. Gilpin, “The Richness of the Tradition of Political Realism,” International Organization 38 (1984): 287–304. Back.
Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies After the Cold War
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