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On Security, by Ronnie D. Lipschutz
Barry Buzan
Overview: The State as a Malleable Id(entity)
There can be no question that the object we refer to when we use the term "state" is not fixed in character. The essential meaning of the term refers to autonomous, territorially organized political entities in which the machinery of government is in some sense recognizably separate from the organization of society. States are distinguished from tribes and other less complex forms of "stateless societies" by this differentiation of the political from the societal. Within this definition lies a very wide array of possible sociopolitical constructions, though there will always be a relationship between rulers and subjects, a territorial domain of some sort, and a societal realm (or realms) as well as a political one. In most, but not all, cases there will also be relations with other autonomous political entities. Where this is so, states will face security problems arising from the interplay of threats and vulnerabilities among them.
Beyond these basics, there can be virtually infinite diversity in how the internal components of the state are constructed and arranged. The relationship between rulers and subjects can range from remote and detached at one end of the spectrum (imperial China, Tsarist Russia), to close and strongly connected at the other (contemporary Scandinavia). Similarly, the structures of government and society may be quite distinct (Chinese-controlled Tibet) or tightly interwoven (USA). It is uncommon, except in colonies, to have a complete divorce between government and society, but very common for large sections of society to be alienated from the government, as in Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Canada, Iraq, Turkey and many others. Government, society, and territory can have long and deep connections (Japan), or they can be superficial and ephemeral (Jordan, Yugoslavia, Chad). How society, government and territory are organized depends heavily on the nature of the prevailing social and material technologies, and on the relationship between the holders of coercive power and the holders of capital. 1 It may also depend on how the state came into being: in Giddens's typology, whether it is classical (France), colonized (United States), postcolonial (Nigeria) or modernizing (Japan). 2
How states relate to each other depends, inter alia , on the ease of movement between them which, in turn, is a function of geography and technology. Historically, the limits of technology have meant that strategic interaction (i.e., military, bulk trade, mass migration) has been easiest among neighbors, though low-volume, high value, long distance trade (e.g., the silk roads) has been possible among states with no political relations. 3 Relations also depend on whether states are bound together by significant economic activity, and whether their domestic constructions and activities are perceived by others as more threatening or more supportive. As Little notes, states face a double security dilemma, with rulers having to handle linked mixtures of domestic and external threats both to themselves and to their state/society. 4
One assumption underlying this chapter is that differences in internal construction have a substantial impact on how states define threats and vulnerabilities, and therefore on the whole construction of the security problematique. Given their fundamental character, all states (or at least all of those that are embedded in an international system--and it is only these that will be discussed here) will share bottom line security concerns about the maintenance of their territorial base and their political autonomy. If the threat is of external armed attack aimed at seizing territory or resources, or overthrowing the government, then, within the limits of resources, conceptions of security will tend to be similar in all states, and the effect of internal differences will be pushed into the background. Beyond that bottom line, however, internal differences can have radical effects on the construction of security, affecting both the breadth of the security agenda (what kinds of actions--military, political, economic, societal, environmental--are perceived as threats), and the definition of priorities for security policy.
Some insight into this security problematique can be gained by examining the historical sociology of the state, which is the purpose of the section that follows. Subsequent sections seek to apply that insight to two sets of circumstances, one real and one speculative. The first, in the third section of the chapter, is the contemporary "new world order"("NWO") following the ending of the Cold War. The second, in the section following that one, is what I have elsewhere labelled "mature anarchy." The idea in that section is to speculate about the nature and, indeed, the relevance of the state and security under those conditions. 5 The general question in these two sections is: If international society becomes very strong, and international relations is dominated by a dense web of shared rules, does the security problematique or, perhaps, even the state itself, fade away? These are big questions, and this is a short essay. I can therefore only paint in broad brush-strokes and my intention is no more than to open up a line of thinking.
A Historical Sociology of State, System, and Security
For all states, the security problematique has two faces, internal and external. States can be just as thoroughly disrupted and destroyed by internal contradictions as they can by external forces. These two environments may function more or less separately, as when an internally coherent state is threatened by aggressive neighbors (Britain vs. Nazi Germany, Japan vs. United States), or when an unstable state disintegrates largely on its own initiative (the Roman Empire, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Soviet Union). They may also work together, as when internal divisions provide opportunities for intervention by outside actors (China during the 1930s, Pakistan in 1971, Lebanon after 1976). Any attempt to construct a historical sociology of security has, therefore, to take into account the changing quality of both the internal construction of states and the nature of the external environment formed by their relations with each other. It would be convenient if one had to hand a coherent orthodoxy about the history of the state on which to draw. It would be even more convenient if this orthodoxy came as an evolutionist account in which a clear pattern of developmental stages offered a framework within which to explore the security issue. But as Smith points out, neither is the case. 6 There is an extensive body of work, but it is divided into evolutionists and discontinuists, and there is no single dominant scheme or pattern.
On the domestic front, it might be argued that the leading states have been evolving (very unevenly, and not, until recently, in a smooth progression) toward higher levels of internal integration. For much of the 5,000-year history of the state, this integration has been about the mechanisms of territorial control and about increasing the cohesion of the ruling elite. 7 Recently, it has been more about linking rulers to people, and state to society and territory. 8 Compare, for example, the absolute monarchies of Europe and Asia, or the despotic empires of ancient and classical times, with contemporary democratic nation-states. In absolute monarchies, the state was little more than the personal property of the ruler. 9 It provided a measure of order and security for those within it, though it may also have been a major source of insecurity for them. The people were subjects rather than citizens. There was little in the way of sociopolitical integration except that provided by the coercive and extractive powers of the ruler. People and territory were added to or subtracted from any given state quite casually. Boundaries changed according to the fortunes of war, the balance of power, and the manipulations of dynastic marriage and succession. In such a state, security concerns focused very much on the interests of the ruling family.
The development of the modern state has taken place within the shell of territorial sovereignty provided by the absolutist one. This process occurred first in the leading European states, and spread from there to a few others in the Americas and Asia. A substantial majority of the current states have not completed this process, and some have barely begun: Many of the products of decolonization are still "quasi-states," enjoying external recognition but not yet having succeeded in establishing internal sovereignty. 10 At least four major additions to the basic absolutist state can be identified. One was the development of an administrative bureaucracy to manage the state. As it developed, this both extended the powers of government and created a state establishment considerably broader than the ruling family. Second was the rise of an independent commercial class. This increased the resource base of the state, but also created a more complex class structure as well as centers of power and interest within the state that were separate from the traditional dynastic ruling establishment. 11 Third was the invention of nationalism as an ideology of the state. This transformed the people from subjects into citizens. It welded government and society together into a mutually supportive framework, and it strengthened the bond between a state and a particular expanse of territory. As Mayall argues, the rise of nationalism changed not only what states were, but also many aspects of how they related to each other. 12 Fourth was the introduction of democracy. This institutionalized the transfer of sovereignty from ruler to people implicit in nationalism, and made the state actually as well as notionally representative of its whole citizenry.
Seen in this perspective, the state is a concept whose content has undergone a remarkable expansion. The most advanced states have steadily fused government and society, in the process becoming much deeper, more complex and more firmly established constructs than either their predecessors or contemporary "weak" states (those with low levels of sociopolitical cohesion 13 ). They have expanded not only to incorporate, but also to represent, an ever-widening circle of interests and participants. Their functions and capabilities have expanded along with their constituency, until the state has become involved in all sectors of activity, and responsive to all sectors of society. Because of their broader constituencies, powers, and functions, the security interests of such "strong" states are much more extensive than those of their absolutist ancestors. They share the basic worries about independence and integrity common to all states but, in addition, they include concerns about territory, citizens, welfare, economy, culture and law that would hardly have registered with the absolute monarchs of yesteryear.
In domestic perspective, then, the advanced modern state appears to have grown much more solid and deeply rooted. Compared with its ancestors, it is an altogether more developed entity, much better integrated with society, much more complex and internally coherent, much more powerful (in terms of its ability to penetrate society and extract resources from it), and much more firmly legitimized. Along with this development, and stemming from it, is a much more comprehensive security agenda. States have now to worry not just about their military strength and the security of their ruling families, but also about the competitiveness of their economies, the reproduction of their cultures, the welfare, health and education of their citizens, the stability of their ecologies, and their command of knowledge and technology. On this basis, it seems quite reasonable to ask how the state as the core referent object for security has changed. What is at first sight more difficult to explain is why there is so much questioning of the viability and relevance of the state as a referent object for security. Whole literatures (interdependence, world society, transnationalism) are largely built on the supposition that the state is a fading force in international relations. If the leading states have become so much more powerful and inclusive, why should they still not be at the center of security thinking and policy?
One answer to this puzzle is found in the external environment of states, which has not been standing still as the state has evolved. Two features of this environment have themselves been evolving rapidly since the onset of the industrial revolution: the interaction capacity of the system 14 and international society . 15
By the term "interaction capacity," I mean the technological and organizational factors that determine what volume and what quality and type of goods and information can be moved between states, and at what range and speed. During the last two centuries, interaction capacity has grown enormously. Huge volumes of information can now be transferred almost instantaneously from one part of the planet to any other, and huge volumes of goods likewise flow around it. Myriad organizational networks exist to facilitate and sustain these movements. For individual states this development poses both threats and opportunities. Invasions or attacks can come swiftly from thousands of miles away. Economic and financial developments on other continents can have major local effects. Societies, cultures, and environments are all under intense pressure from global flows of language, style, information, goods, pollutants, diseases, money, propaganda, entertainment, and people.
These threats are accompanied by opportunities. Military and economic assistance can arrive quickly if needed. Global sources of finance, information, and markets are available to assist economic development. It is becoming impossible for states to isolate themselves from these flows. Even major attempts by semicontinental states, such as the Soviet Union and China and, to a lesser extent, India, have failed spectacularly. Isolation means relative poverty, backwardness, and, eventually, weakness. But engagement means loss of control over much of social, economic, and political life, and the massive penetration of state and society by outside forces that frequently have disruptive effects.
By international society, I take Bull and Watson's classic definition:
[A] group of states (or, more generally, a group of independent political communities) which not merely form a system, in the sense that the behaviour of each is a necessary factor in the calculations of the others, but also have established by dialogue and consent common rules and institutions for the conduct of their relations, and recognise their common interest in maintaining these arrangements. 16
The bottom line of international society is that states accord each other mutual recognition as legal equals. In doing so, they lay the foundation for international law, diplomacy, regimes, and organizations. They also create a society of states in terms of shared identity: Each accepts the others as being basically the same type of entity. 17 Since decolonization, a rudimentary international society of mutual recognition has covered virtually the entire international system. In regions where interaction capacity is high and longstanding, groups of states have established very dense networks of common rules and institutions for the conduct of their relations. The most spectacular example of this is the European Union (EU), where the level of integration may be approaching confederation and there is some question about the continued existence of sovereign states. International society therefore does cover the whole planet, but it does so very unevenly. There is a complex array of circles of international society, some defining regional or cultural groupings (the EU, the Arab League), and some forming concentric patterns in relation to the core of leading capitalist states, among which there is a dense network of rules and institutions. This core leads the development of international society for the whole system, but it also maintains its own exclusivity. Many countries in the periphery resist, in varying degree, the attempt by the core to impose its own "standard of civilization" 18 on them (China, India, Brazil, Iran, Mayanmar/Burma, and so on) The line between international society and the hegemony of the capitalist core can sometimes be difficult to draw. 19
The development of international society is a response both to the general problem of disorder in an anarchic system, and to the specific problems created by the increase in interaction capacity. In many ways, international society is supportive of state security. It provides the legitimation of external sovereignty and some legal protection against aggression. It also provides ways for states to deal with some of the threats and opportunities arising from increased interaction capacity. Participation in frameworks of rules and institutions gives states some power to shape their environment, and provides a greater element of stability and predictability than would otherwise be the case. But international society can also threaten states. It limits their freedom of action, seems to subordinate them to larger bodies, and may erode their distinctive identity. Many states in the periphery feel threatened by international societal norms (e.g., human rights, democracy, nuclear nonproliferation) coming from the center that go against either their own political and cultural identity, or what they perceive as their foreign policy rights and interests. Less powerful and weaker states are more vulnerable to this type of threat, but as reactions against the process of European integration show, the intensification of international society can threaten even quite powerful strong states. 20
Both interaction capacity and international society have been increasing in scale and scope and, in doing so, have greatly expanded the menu of threats and opportunities that states face in their international environment. The most obvious example of this is the way in which increasing interaction capacity allowed Europeans to bring their military, political, economic, and cultural power to bear on all of the other peoples and civilizations of the planet between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. 21 It is also important to note that these developments have been driven by the activities of the leading states in the system. This has important consequences, given the persistence of dramatic levels of unequal development among states themselves. Unequal development means that states of very different capacities all have to face an international environment created by those with the highest level of development and power. Late developers exist in an international system whose activity and structure have been set by those that developed earlier. This makes their whole position vis-à-vis their international environment radically different from that faced by the earlier developers. For late developers, the influence of the international system and other states is much more powerful in relation to their own level of development than was the case for the early developers.
Taking these domestic and systemic themes together suggests a dialectic. On the one hand, there is an expanding, consolidating and deepening "strong" state that defines the leading edge of power and development in the international system. On the other, there are developments at the system level that seem to threaten the state as such with erosion or even dissolution. One key element in this contradiction is that strong states allow their strong societies considerable latitude to pursue boundary-crossing activities. The strong system is, in many ways, simply the result of powerful states and societies projecting themselves beyond their boundaries in myriads of economic, cultural, political, and military ways. Thus, system-level factors weigh much more in the balance than they used to, but (some) states are also more solid and dense. Where does this dialectic lead? On the surface, it seems to point toward something along the lines of pluralistic security communities or "republics," where these simultaneous strengthenings can create the conditions for a new synthesis. For some countries, notably the leading cohort of strong states, this may be the case.
But remember that most states in the system do not fit the "strong state" evolutionary model sketched above or, if they do, they are still in the earlier phases of it. This fact changes the balance of the dialectic. The international environment, driven by the leading states, is changing for all states. But not all states have undergone the deepening and consolidating developments of the leading few. Many states are of recent origin. They have not acquired cultures, leaderships, bureaucracies, identities, or class structures that are adapted to either their territory or to statehood itself: Think of Somalia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Sudan, the Philippines, and many others. Nationalism (and therefore democracy) divides rather than unites them. Their governing machinery is weak and poorly integrated with society. Their economies are stagnant and dependent. Although a few are making developmental gains on the leading states, and some are at least keeping pace, many are falling relatively further behind. Some African states are incapable even of maintaining basic infrastructures of road and railway. Yet these "weak" states also have to live in this greatly-expanded and expanding international environment, and the balance between it and them is much more lopsided. For weak states, the penetrative effects of the international system have increased much more than the development of the state. Through decolonization, the system imposed existence and definition on many of them, and still holds some of them in place. 22 It penetrates their domestic life and constrains their foreign policy behavior to a degree not experienced by the older classical, colonized, and modernizing states during their formative stages.
It is not at all clear how states develop under these conditions--or even whether they can. But neither it is clear what happens if they fail to develop. The problem of security and the state is thus not a single one. A spectrum of states exists, differentiated by radically different degrees of development and consolidation as states. These states all face a single international environment (albeit with substantial regional variations--see below), but some do so from a position of relative strength and some from a position of relative, and indeed absolute, weakness. An understanding of this dialectic between state and system, and the influence on it of uneven development is, it seems to me, a precondition for thinking about the security problematique in the "new world order" and beyond.
The Security Problematique in
the "New World Order"
The term "new world order" (NWO) had a brief vogue, though there was, and is, little agreement about what it means. Its use reflects a desire to capture the apparently big changes in some of the main patterns of international relations. The easiest element is the structural change caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union. This was a double change, in that it ended not only the four decades of bipolarity in the distribution of power, but also the ideological cleavage of the international system between communist and capitalist blocs. One immediate consequence has been a great lessening of military tensions and threats among the major powers. This has taken the spotlight from military power as the core determinant of international order and security, and opened up more space for the operation of economic, political, and societal forces. It has also triggered a search to identify the new international political structure. Is it unipolar, empowering the United States? Or does the decline in military concerns redefine what constitutes a great power, and so point toward a revival of multipolar forms? Or is polarity analysis itself now less appropriate than a center-periphery model of international system structure? 23
Or is this the wrong set of questions? Are we looking at an even deeper change, which has been long in the making, and of which the ending of the Cold War is only a minor element, albeit important because it removed the major obstruction blocking the view? Rosenau labels this possibility "postinternational politics." 24 He sees the changes in interaction capacity as having themselves reached system-transforming levels in the decades since the Second World War, and posits a global system simultaneously occupied by, and in some senses divided between, a state-centric world of "sovereignty-bound" actors, and a "multicentric" world of "sovereignty-free" actors. In this view, the "NWO" is new not because the state system has a new structure, but because "international" relations can no longer be understood adequately using an analytical framework that defines the system in terms of states.
In both of these views, the normative rhetoric of former President Bush about revitalized U.S. hegemony has been the least interesting aspect of the concept of a "NWO." There is some leeway for making a "NWO" through policy choices, but the main game is trying to understand the consequences of structural changes. It needs also to be noted, however, that the deep political structure of the system has not changed. Anarchy remains the organizing principle, and the state remains the primary unit. The force of these deep structures can be seen in the proliferation of new states attending the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union. The international system still contains many familiar patterns. The disintegration of the Soviet empire echoes earlier disintegrations of Austria-Hungary and Rome. American worries about economic decline are recognizably similar to the experiences of ancient Athens and nineteenth-century Britain. The phenomenon of mutual threat arising from different cultural and political systems affected the ancient Greeks and Persians in much the same way as it operated between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and as it now operates between the West and both China and parts of the Islamic world. Even contemporary images of "barbarians at the gates" have many (and more literal) historical precedents. 25
There are nevertheless some quite striking changes in the international security problematique consequent upon the ending of the Cold War. In the light of the argument about the uneven development of states, it should come as no surprise that the security consequences of the "NWO" are different for different groups of actors. One way to cut into this question is to see the "NWO" system as broadly structured in center-periphery terms, and then to look separately at the security problematique for each. At either extreme on this divide, there are serious questions about the survival of the existing framework of states.
The Center
With the ending of the Cold War, the center has become multipolar, but is dominated by a single coalition of the major capitalist powers (North America, EU, Japan). This coalition is a security community in that none of its members expect or prepare for a military threat from other members. It does not face serious military threats from semiperiphery powers, and no major external military challenge seems likely for some considerable period. Most of the Cold War challengers are now eager to associate with or even join this club, and even China is anxious to stay on reasonable terms with it. The major questions for this coalition are: (1) How well will it be able to consolidate itself as a single security entity; 26 and (2) will it take a relatively isolationist or a relatively interventionist posture toward the rest of the system?
There is little reason to think that the capitalist coalition will succumb to the Leninist fate of falling into conflict over the redivision of the global market, now that its external challenger has been seen off. Economic competition there will doubtless be--and it may possibly be quite fierce, as global surplus capacity in many industries begins to bite, and as the instabilities of financial liberalization disrupt both the welfare state and the trading order. 27 But the prosperity of the capitalist powers and their economic processes are now so deeply interdependent that the potential costs of full-blown neomercantilism act as an effective deterrent. Capital itself is substantially internationalized and no longer offers the strong possibilities for dominant nationalist coalitions that it did before 1945. The military option of competing for empires in 1930s fashion is ruled out not only by costs and dangers of modern warfare, but also by changes in attitudes toward imperialism, and by stronger capabilities for resistance in the periphery.
The interesting question goes more in the other direction: How far will interdependence go in shifting the referent object for security away from individual states and toward larger collective entities? These entities might take various forms: security communities, international societies, "republics," common markets. There are two clear options here: First, that such consolidation takes place regionally, or second, that it takes place over the entire capitalist coalition. These options are not mutually exclusive; it is possible to have elements of both simultaneously. The EU is the clearest example of both the regional approach and the dissolving of individual national securities into a larger political entity. In some areas of the economy and border controls, the EU is already beginning to function as a security entity (migration, trade). Military command remains national, but there is a rising awareness that military security makes sense only in European terms. Foreign and military policy integration are still controversial, though cooperation and coordination are becoming the norm, and the Maastricht Treaty makes it a commitment. Underlying this hesitancy is a fairly rapid erosion of national military industries. Even France is abandoning the idea of an essentially national arms industry, and the consequence is that no European country can any longer contemplate a self-contained national military mobilization.
It is possible that the regional level will dominate as far as the emergence of multinational security entities among the capitalist states is concerned. Europe, North America, and, possibly, parts of East Asia could become regional blocs for purposes of both economic and military security. It is also possible that the whole of the capitalist coalition could, in some sense, become a coordinated security entity. The existence of a capitalist security community would be considerably reinforced if military industries became significantly integrated across regional blocs rather than within them. There are some signs of such a development in, for example, American dependence on Japanese components, and in some patterns of corporate integration within the industry. The denationalization of the arms industry, and its integration across the capitalist coalition, would be a major step toward constituting the capitalist core as a single security entity. In theory, the same logic applies to the economic sector. Attempts at collective economic management, through such instruments as the G7, might be seen as foreshadowing a move toward seeing the international economy as a single entity on whose well-being the security of all depends. In the economic sector, however, the pressure for competition is large and the potential for instability is high. This will tend to limit the degree of integration.
The other security question affecting the core is to what extent it wants or has to intervene in the periphery? Will its own integration make it more inward looking, or will it seek to exert increased control over the periphery? Isolationism could result from preoccupation with internal restructuring, plus both a perceived lack of threat from the periphery and a measure of despair that anything can be done for it. The norm against overt intervention remains strong as a basic ordering principle of international society. Western states are sensitive to the charges of imperialism that many in the periphery are still prepared to make and, in the more chaotic and underdeveloped parts of the periphery, not much can be done without intervening on a scale sufficient to justify the charge. There is also much valid concern about the cost of doing anything meaningful, and much hesitation caused by a lack of any proven means of transferring development effectively. There certainly does not seem to be a path to development that enables non-Western societies to modernize without putting into serious jeopardy the cultural heritage that their political sovereignty is supposed to protect.
Interventionism could result from ideological consensus, a dominant power position, and a desire to enforce some of the standards of Western international society (human rights, nuclear nonproliferation, pluralism, market economics, environmental protection) on a global scale. Given the chaos in places such as Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, and ex-Yugoslavia, there has already been extensive discussion as to whether the nonintervention norm can and should be overridden for human rights purposes, even during and after interventions couched in these very terms. This is the beginning of a very slippery slope leading to obligations to provide welfare and order so massive that they would constitute a kind of (institutional) recolonization. In different ways, developments in Somalia, Haiti, Bangladesh, and Cambodia all illustrate a drift toward using international institutions as a vehicle for a kind of recolonization in circumstances with which indigenous state structures are unable to cope. If this type of interventionism is to be significant, then one major problem facing the capitalist core is how it should organize itself for a global management role. Indeed, the seemingly endless conflict in Bosnia has revealed profound confusion about how the various organizational machineries available to the center should relate to each other. The UN Security Council, NATO, CSCE (lately renamed the "Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe"), WEU, the EU, and the G7 have no clear sense of either their mandate or their interrelationship for the collective core management of the "NWO."
Particularly urgent is the question of the UN Security Council, which is the prime forum for global security management, and which is in serious danger of slipping badly out of alignment with the new distribution of power. If the Cold War had been a hot one (and had anybody survived), then there would have been no question that the defeat of the Soviet Union would have triggered major reforms in international institutions, as happened after the First and Second World Wars. The remarkable achievement of a peaceful transformation in the power structure has, however, come at the cost of institutional continuity in the UN. The central problem is the nonrepresentation of Japan, Germany, and the EU among the permanent members of the UNSC. The resultant distortion overrepresents Britain and France, excludes two of the major financial supporters, and overemphasizes the hegemonic role of the United States. There is a real danger that, unless this problem can be solved, the security management function of the UNSC will be either delegitimized (seen as a tool of the U.S.) or crippled by underfunding. One key to this solution lies in the EU, which needs to face the very difficult issue of sorting out its own identity for this purpose. The stakes in any reformulation of permanent membership of, and veto power within, the UNSC are high, and can be expected to attract strong pressure from major periphery powers such as India and Brazil.
The Periphery
In some parts of the periphery, most notably Africa and the Middle East, the question of dissolving states could also arise, but in a much less orderly and benign way than in the EU. In places where the state is still very weak, where its prospects for development are poor, and where there are strong social forces challenging the present configurations, the existing frameworks could dissolve. State boundaries in these two regions are mostly both of recent origin and arbitrary design. They are held in place less by their local roots than by the conventions of international society about the sanctity of boundaries. The possibility that such boundaries will dissolve is more likely if the center takes a hands-off view of the periphery than if it remains engaged. The prospect of dissolving states is not a pretty one, no matter how arbitrary and shallow the existing arrangement. A repeat of the relatively peaceful Soviet experience of dissolution--which is, in any event, proving more violent than seemed likely in 1992, as seen in the Russian "invasion" of Chechnya--is unlikely in Africa and the Middle East. Sticking with the existing state structures does not look likely to solve problems of either economic or political development. Abandoning them points toward violent restructuring, with not much obvious possibility of improvement in the overall condition. The sickening long-term chaos in Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Angola, Mozambique, Rwanda and, to a lesser degree, in a growing number of other countries, offers a somber vision of the possibilities.
It simply is not clear what political structure would best serve the needs of these regions. They are caught in the overpowering grip of an advanced international system, and do not appear to have the domestic social and political resources to consolidate a viable position within it. Many of them are losing ground, in the sense that their internal development is not keeping pace with an ever-more invasive international system. Taken individually, most are threatened more by internal than external security problems but, taken collectively, these weak states are threatened by their inability either to disengage from, or to deal with, an international system designed and driven by the leading-edge states. It is difficult to apply security logic to weak states, and a case can easily be made that such states are as much or more a definition of the problem than they are a meaningful referent object for security. That said, however, and as witness the situations in ex-Yugoslavia and the Caucasus, it is not at all clear that the collapse of existing states, or the emergence of new ones, would result in improved security for the societies and peoples of these regions. Neither is it clear that institutional recolonization would improve their condition. In the periphery, powers of resistance to occupation, or indeed government in any form, are high. And, were UN intervention to occur in these places and come to be seen as the "colonial projects" of the Security Council powers, it would quickly become as unsustainable as were the dying days of European imperialism.
Asia
In Asia, the consequences of the "NWO" are rather different from the extremes of center and periphery. The forcible transplantation of European state structures has, broadly speaking, worked in Asia. Most of the states there look viable and many of them have integrated successfully into the global capitalist economy. The transplantation of Western values, however, has been much less successful, and there is increasing assertion of the difference of Asia from the West in terms of attitudes toward liberal ideas such as human rights, democracy, and cultural openness. With the ending of the Cold War, and the pulling back of Russian and American power from the area, room is now available for the states of the region to work out their own pattern of relations for the first time since the onset of Western domination during the nineteenth century. There is a real possibility that something like a classical balance-of-power system could emerge in Asia. The region is remarkably poor in local regimes and institutions, and remarkably rich in unresolved disputes, strong nationalisms, and historical rivalries, fears, and hatreds. In contrast to Europe and North America, Asia lacks any well-developed regional "international society." It contains states with very different degrees of development, very different cultures, and very different political ideologies. Many countries within the region have begun to respond to the ending of the Cold War by increasing their military strength. In a number of alarming ways, parts of Asia begin to look like nineteenth-century Europe: A dense cluster of powerful states, industrialization producing rapid shifts in absolute and relative power, unresolved rivalries and territorial disputes, strong nationalisms, and some states on the verge of collapse. 28
There is some possibility that a new and voluntaristic version of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere might emerge under Japanese leadership. Incentives for this would rise if the center moved more toward regional blocs than toward a wider pattern of capitalist integration. If so, such a sphere would have to have at least a security regime, perhaps with states adopting versions of Japan's non-offensive defense policy. But even in its best version, this will still be a much looser arrangement than what is happening in Europe, and it begs the still almost unasked question of how the region's two big powers, China and Japan, are going to relate to each other in the new era. As underlined both by the eagerness of the Koreans and others to continue raising Japan's wartime conduct as an issue in current relations, and by the unwillingness of the Japanese to deal with this issue openly, huge obstacles to regional Japanese leadership remain. 29 Real military rivalries are still entirely possible in many parts of Asia. In several states (India, Pakistan, North Korea), nuclear options lie close to the surface, and in several others (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan), the technological and financial base exists to create them quickly if need be. For Asia, there is a worrying prospect that the "NWO" will be a journey "back to the future" of classical anarchic international relations, albeit constrained by the military and economic conditions of the early twenty-first century. If that is the case, then Asian security agendas will be primarily national, military, and power-orientated, although shot through with ties of economic interdependence.
Depending on one's point of view, there are cases for and against encouraging such a development. The case against is that a balance-of-power Asian subsystem would be dangerous for the rest of the world because of the possibility of spillover. There is also a moral point to be made about not promoting retrograde behavior. The case in favor is that classical insecurities in Asia would sap some of its economic vitality, and give a breathing space to Europe and America. It might also be argued that a balance of power stage is somehow a "natural" development for Asia, paralleling similar developments in Europe when the modern state was consolidating itself there. The downside to this is that it was precisely the fierce competition among the European states that not only equipped them to go out and take over most of the rest of the world, but also generated the thirty years of global crisis and war during the twentieth century.
The Security Problematique
in the "NWO": Conclusions
For all of the countries enmeshed in the "NWO," one key to the security problematique can be found in the question of how open or closed states try to be in relation to the international system. When the system is strong in relation to the units, as it now is, this is a central question. The degree of openness or closedness sought by a state defines what is perceived as a security problem, and what is not. 30 Very open states will resist attack, but will also try to make themselves militarily transparent and nonthreatening to others. They will impose few restrictions on the flow of political ideas, though they will treat intervention in their political life as a threat. They will by and large be completely open to economic and social transactions, posing relatively few restrictions on the movement of people, goods, money, entertainment, style, and suchlike. For open states, the security agenda will be narrow, because most types of interaction are not seen as threatening. The Netherlands provides a good example of this posture.
A very closed state, by contrast, will see most types of interaction as threatening. Few examples remain, but Myanmar/Burma and North Korea still come close to this ideal type. Closed states are usually trying to protect or promote a culture or an ideology that is seen as vulnerable to corruption by contact with other ideas and practices. Governments in such states may, of course, simply be trying to protect their own power base, as in Myanmar/Burma and North Korea. From this perspective, the national security agenda includes not only military attack and political subversion, but almost all political contact, and a very wide range of economic and social transactions as well. Iran and other strongly Islamic states see Western entertainment and styles as threatening (viz the ban on satellite dishes in Iran). For a long time, the old Soviet Union also tried to keep Western ideas and culture at bay (and one sees some of the more-extreme Russian nationalists now arguing along similar lines). China's leadership fears the creeping influence of ideas about human rights and political pluralism.
In the "NWO," the costs of extreme closure are very high, but so are some of the costs of extreme openness. Many states have legitimate fears about the ability of their cultures and traditions to withstand full exposure to powerful outside forces. Increasingly, even powerful states are questioning their ability and willingness to withstand too much economic openness. Societal reactions against the integration process in Europe, focused around the Maastricht treaty, suggest the character and force of these fears, and point to the use of the state to protect society against the pressures of internationalization. 31 Economic openness exacts a high cost in continuous pressures for domestic adaptation. It provides the considerable benefit of economic efficiency and global markets, but it does not treat losers kindly. Sometimes the system booms but, as a whole, it is vulnerable to painful downturns and crises.
Security agendas in the "NWO" will be very much set by how states respond to the cost-benefits of openness and closure. It seems likely that neither extreme will be attractive to more than a few states. For many of those states for which military threats have declined, threats in trade, finance and production, and fears of migration and erosion of identity may well stimulate some degree of closure in the economic and societal sectors.
The Security Problematique in a Mature Anarchy
If international society becomes very strong, and international relations is dominated by a dense web of shared rules, does the security problematique and, indeed, the state itself, fade away? This question presupposes an international system composed of strong states. But however one defines the "NWO," it is clear that, at the present stage of history, the member states of the international system are far too mixed in their quality as states for us to be able to treat the state-system relationship in such a uniform manner. As argued above, the unevenness of political, economic, and societal development between weak and strong states creates very different security problematiques in different parts of the system.
To think about the security problematique in a "mature anarchy," one needs to construct a model. By the term mature anarchy, I mean a system of strong states (in terms of high levels of sociopolitical cohesion), embedded in a well-developed international society (a dense network of mutually agreed norms, rules and institutions). It also seems likely, though not absolutely necessary, that a mature anarchy would only develop in a system with high interaction capacity. In one sense, the model represents a fusion between liberal and realist visions of the international system: It keeps states as the basic unit, but contains the security dilemma within a liberal-inspired "non-violent conflict culture." 32 As I will show, however, mature anarchy does not necessarily incorporate the whole liberal agenda of openness and interdependence, and it depends on avoiding the dissolution of the state. Thus, a mature anarchy could also be composed of relatively closed states. The model depends on the maintenance of a deep structure of anarchy as its foundation. In speculating about this model, it is useful to keep in mind what was said about the EU, and the West generally, in the previous section. The EU is the closest example we have of what a mature anarchy looks like in practice, albeit on a subsystemic scale. More loosely, the West (roughly speaking the OECD states) is also beginning to display some important qualities of a mature anarchy, most notably in its status as a security community, and in its sustained attempt to manage the global economy.
If we imagine development along these lines incorporating the entire international system, what would the security problematique look like --or would it exist at all? Would states themselves dissolve, as the EU example seems to suggest? Does mature anarchy necessarily point to political (con)federation along EU lines or is the EU case dominated by the particular need to form a European superstate in relation to the rest of the international system, and therefore not relevant to a global-scale mature anarchy which would experience construct a model. By the term mature anarchy, I mean a system of sno such structural pressure? It is perhaps suggestive that within the EU, the process of aggregation at the macro level is being accompanied by rising demands for autonomy from nationalities and regions previously embedded in larger states. Would the lifting of military and political threats within a mature anarchy likewise cause a devolutionary shift?
If the concept of mature anarchy is to have any interest, one has to suppose that it represents a real structural alternative to both world government and extreme liberal-anarchist visions of stateless world society. This presupposes two things: First, that the development of a strong international (and, to some extent, world) society still needs a political structure and, second, that the desire for political autonomy remains strong enough on cultural and/or ideological grounds to continue to legitimize states. Both these suppositions appear plausible. The only alternative to world government or international anarchy is no government at all. There are no signs as yet to suggest that human society can conduct itself on a large scale without any government (that is, as a primal anarchy). And given the massive historical legacy of cultural diversity, and the continued robustness of national identity, nationalism, and xenophobia, there would seem to be no political ground on which to establish world government. The continuity of a deep structure of international anarchy for a long time is therefore a reasonable premise.
Thinking about mature anarchy in terms of the balance between politics (state) and society is helpful. Strong states require a close interweaving of state and society, by definition. Mature anarchy requires a well-developed international society (between states) which, in turn, requires at least some measure of world society (among individuals). 33 Where society is strong and relatively autonomous, it limits the functional requirement for state activity. In a strong state, and therefore also more widely in a mature anarchy, it might thus be argued that security is the only legitimate function of the state . In other words, the legitimacy of state action would be confined entirely to the sphere of security. Such an approach of course focuses on the legitimate scope of the security agenda itself. If the purpose of the state is to protect its distinct society, then the security agenda can legitimately range across the military, political, societal, economic, and environmental sectors.
But, as argued above, what ultimately counts as a security issue depends on whether states and their societies wish to be relatively open or relatively closed. The pursuit of closure casts a wider range of things as potential security threats than does the acceptance of openness. The consequences of openness may well cause reactions in favor of closure. Openness and closure are not undifferentiated, and it is useful to see them in relation to a potential set of security sectors: military, political, economic, societal and environmental. Although the EU model suggests that mature anarchy is about increased openness and interdependence, this is not logically the only form that mature anarchy could take.
One can also imagine a mature anarchy of relatively closed units whose relationship was based on the cultivation of their own differences in a context of agreed "live and let live" rules for the conduct of their security relations. A mature anarchy that was relatively open across all sectors would tend to dissolve, or at least to penetrate profoundly, both states and societies. By definition it would reduce military security concerns, and also those elements of economic insecurity that concern restrictions on access to resources and markets. But, as the EU experience suggests, openness can create societal and economic insecurities as a consequence of greater vulnerability to competition. It might also shift some of the remaining security functions either up to other entities on a larger scale, or down to more micro-level ones, as also seems to be happening in Europe. Military openness would mean not only high levels of transparency, but also substantial internationalization of military forces, and integration of military-industrial capabilities. Political openness means allowing all ideologies and parties to compete in one's own political space. Economic openness means allowing market forces and actors to operate relatively freely, and on equal terms, throughout the system. Societal openness means allowing relatively free movement of people within the system, and not blocking the flow of information, style, fashion, art, entertainment, and suchlike between cultures. It would also require accepting common standards for human rights. Environmental openness would mean, inter alia , accepting common standards for pollution control. Contemplating the scenario that this list implies suggests a very high degree of global cosmopolitanism. Such a development is neither likely in the foreseeable future, nor is it a necessary condition for a mature anarchy. It is not remotely sustainable or politically achievable under present international conditions of uneven development.
A relatively closed global mature anarchy would require large units. It would therefore have either to suppose a whole series of EU-like regional federations, re-creating the state on a higher level, or else a series of regional communities of states, each of which was relatively open within itself, and relatively closed without. (Shades of Huntington's civilizational view of the future, though in a much more benign perspective!) 34 In the military sector, a mature anarchy presupposes that there would be no serious external military threat, since the whole system would be a security community. In a closed system, high levels of transparency and the adoption of nonoffensive defense policies would work against the security dilemma, even though states would retain military independence. Economic closure, or at least a rather partial and selective openness, would require large units in order to sustain acceptable levels of efficiency. The purpose of relative closure would be to reduce the intense pressures for adjustment and cultural disruption that come from a global market, and to bring the management requirements of the international economy more into line with available resources (and the tolerance of populations). Even large units would have strong incentives to cooperate on projects where only global economies of scale could produce economic viability, for example, fusion power and space exploration. Political closure might reflect a mixture of ideological and cultural difference (a theocratic Islamic subsystem, a domestically more hierarchical and less pluralistic Asian subsystem). Societal closure would mean restrictions on the movement of people and, perhaps, of ideas. Environmental closure may not be an option, since it would undermine the security community if it endangered the planetary ecosystem.
Extremes of openness and closure are probably not sustainable but, nevertheless, a broad spectrum of possible constructions for mature anarchy is conceivable. The picture can be made more complex by envisaging different degrees of openness and closure for different sectors, though a deeper investigation may suggest that the economic sector links and drives the others, and that all of the sectors move together on the open-closed scale, albeit not necessarily in tight lockstep. As openness increases, the security agenda should both shrink and move away from states. Closure adds to the security agenda and reinforces the state.
Mature anarchy thus does not necessarily mean the demise of either security concerns or the state. In theory it could mean both, but the "NWO" does not take us very far toward such a condition. The huge disparities of uneven development indicated by the center-periphery structure stand as a major blockage to any sort of global mature anarchy. The existence of a substantial proportion of humankind in weak states means that a strong international society cannot escape having a center-periphery structure with its hegemonic or even quasi-imperial qualities. Weak states cannot fulfill their role in a mature anarchy, and their existence in any quantity therefore prevents its formation on a planetary scale. Uneven development has been a persistent feature of the international system for all of history and, as the discussion of center and periphery in the previous sections suggests, shows no sign of loosening its grip. Its persistence might prevent any possibility of a global-scale mature anarchy if large swaths of very weak states persist. It would certainly prevent the more open versions. Closed versions might be thinkable, despite large disparities in degrees of development, if the weaker states were powerful enough and strong enough as states to establish an independent presence, rather as China and India have done. This would offer the possibility of a system of "live and let live" blocs or superstates, cultivating their differences in an overall environment of low threat. The problem here is how to construct such large entities and make them stable. Even the EU project is confronted with serious dilemmas of nationalist reaction against further integration, and is hard put to find the historical, societal, and political resources necessary to create a larger European identity. 35 The disintegration of the Soviet Union has destroyed another possible model, and there are no convincing signs that Pan-Arab, or Pan-African, or Pan-Islamic sentiments are anything like strong enough to weld together the regional units necessary for a relatively closed mature anarchy.
Mature anarchy simply may not be available on a global scale in the foreseeable future. If uneven development is a powerful and permanent feature of the human condition, then it may not be available for a rather long time, at least until the weaker parts of the system are strong enough to hold their own. What is available are quite high degrees of mature anarchy within, and possibly between, several regions. The problem, as Goldgeier and McFaul put it, is how this liberal core and realist periphery are to relate to each other. 36 In the periphery a wide range of security problems will dominate the agenda of states. Within the core, a much less militarized and ideological set of security relations seems possible, with security logic focusing primarily on economic, societal, and environmental agendas. Since it is the strong states that generate the strong international system, it seems most unlikely that the mutual insecurities of a dialectic of dominance and subordination will be avoidable in relations between center and periphery.
Note 1: Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1, A history of power from the beginning to A.D. 1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and the European State A.D. 990-1990 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990). Back.
Note 2: Dennis Smith, The Rise of Historical Sociology (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), p. 152. Back.
Note 3: Barry Buzan and Richard Little, "The Idea of International System: Theory," International Political Science Review 15, no. 3 (1994): 231-55; Barry K. Gills and Andre Gunder Frank, "World System Cycles, Crises and Hegemonial Shifts, 1700 B.C. to 1700 A.D.," Review 15, no. 4 (1992): 621-87; Philip D. Curtin, Cross Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Back.
Note 4: Barry Buzan, Charles Jones, and Richard Little, The Logic of Anarchy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), Section II. Back.
Note 5: Barry Buzan, People, States, and Fear (Hemel Hempstead, U.K.: Harvester Wheatsheaf/Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1991, 2nd ed.), pp. 175-81, 261-5. Back.
Note 6: Smith, The Rise of Historical Sociology . Back.
Note 7: Mann, The Sources of Social Power. Back.
Note 8: Ole Wæver, Barry Buzan, Pierre Lemaitre, and Morten Kelstrup, Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe (London: Pinter, 1993), ch. 2. Back.
Note 9: Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: Verso, 1974). Back.
Note 10: Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Back.
Note 11: Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and the European State. Back.
Note 12: James Mayall, Nationalism and International Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.) Back.
Note 13: Buzan, People, States and Fear , ch. 2. Back.
Note 14: Buzan, Jones, and Little, The Logic of Anarchy , ch. 4; Buzan and Little, "The Idea of International System." Back.
Note 15: Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (London: Macmillan, 1977); Adam Watson, The Evolution of International Society (London: Routledge, 1992); Buzan, People, States, and Fear , pp. 166-74; Barry Buzan, "From International System to International Society: Structural Realism and Regime Theory Meet the English School," International Organization 47, no. 3 (1993): 327-52. Back.
Note 16: Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, eds., The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 1. Back.
Note 17: Buzan, "From International System to International Society." Back.
Note 18: Gerrit W. Gong, The Standard of "Civilisation" in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984.) Back.
Note 19: James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, "A Tale of Two Worlds: Core and Periphery in the Post-Cold War Era," International Organization 46, no. 2 (1992): 467-92. Back.
Note 20: Wæver, et. al., Identity, Migration ; Barry Buzan, "International Security and International Society," in International Society After the Cold War , a Millennium book, forthcoming. Back.
Note 21: William H. McNeill, The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963). Back.
Note 22: Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-states . Back.
Note 23: Goldgeier and McFaul, "A Tale of Two Worlds." Back.
Note 24: James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), esp. chs. 1, 10, 16. Back.
Note 25: McNeill, The Rise of the West . Back.
Note 26: On this point, see the thoughtful "Survey of Defence in the 21st Century," The Economist , September 5, 1992. Back.
Note 27: Richard Stubbs and Geoffrey Underhill, "Global Issues in Historical Perspective"; Eric Helleiner, "From Bretton Woods to Global Finance: A World Turned Upside Down"; and Michael Webb, "Understanding Patterns of Macroeconomic Policy Coordination in the Postwar Period," in Richard Stubbs and Geoffrey Underhill, eds., Political Economy and the Changing Global Order (Toronto: McClelland and Steward, 1994). Back.
Note 28: Barry Buzan and Gerald Segal, "Rethinking East Asian Security," Survival 36, no. 2 (1994): 3-21. Back.
Note 29: Barry Buzan, "Japan's Future: Old History Versus New Roles," International Affairs 64, no. 4 (1988): 557-73. Back.
Note 30: Barry Buzan and Gerald Segal, "Introduction: Defining Reform as Openness," in Gerald Segal, ed., Openness and Foreign Policy Reform in Communist States (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 1-17. Back.
Note 31: See Ole Wæver's contribution to this volume; and Ole Wæver, et al., Identity, Migration . Back.
Note 32: Egbert Jahn, Ole Wæver, Pierre Lemaitre, European Security: Problems of Research on Non-Military Aspects (Copenhagen: Centre for Peace and Conflict Research, 1987, Copenhagen papers number 1), p. 55. Back.
Note 33: Buzan, "From International System to International Society." Back.
Note 34: Samuel T. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 73, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 22-49. Back.
Note 35: Anthony D Smith, "National identity and the idea of European unity," International Affairs 68, no. 1 (1992): 55-76. Back.
Note 36: Goldgeier and McFaul, "A Tale of Two Worlds." Back.
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