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Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of World Conquest
1998
7. Conclusions
Most of what has been written about World War II features highly descriptive and often elaborate investigations of the internal decisionmaking processes of the Great Powers with the individual, state, and/or society as the unit(s) of analysis. Far less has been written about the structure of the interwar system and its impact on the origins and outcome of the war. The obvious reason for this bias is the consensus among historians and political scientists that Hitler alone was responsible for World War II. The less obvious reason is the widespread belief that structural properties change at a glacial pace and are not subject to control by statesmen. Hypotheses derived from third&-;image theory typically pertain to general systemic properties and state behavior. Structure, it is said, does not determine outcomes but rather works to keep them within narrow ranges. 1 It explains meta–history, the driving forces of global change and continuity, and not particular historical events.
Those of us who believe that systemic properties are often decisive in explaining international behavior recognize the partial truth of these arguments but respond that structural properties have not been measured with sufficient precision and that the links between unit–level and structural causes have not been specified with enough clarity. As presently conceived, structural theories cannot explain specific historical outcomes, and they claim no ability to do so. Consequently, there have been precious few structural analyses that connect a theoretical discussion of polarity (or any other structural variable) to a concrete historical case. Instead, empirical tests of structural theories typically employ data–based, quantitative techniques. In search of statistically significant correlations, these studies dredge highly aggregated data, across centuries, places, and cases in an inductive attempt to establish measures of association among various structural variables (e.g., polarity, polarization, the concentration of capabilities) and systemic war proneness. 2 Leaving aside the problem of unspecified scope conditions, identification of such correlations is, to be sure, a worthwhile endeavor, particularly with respect to improving our ability to make accurate predictions. If the ultimate goal of scientific research is explanation, however, understanding the connections between “cause” and “effect” is of greater theoretical and prescriptive value.
Structure alone, however, can take us only so far in the search for sequences of cause and effect. Structural explanations are, as Waltz asserts, “indeterminate because both unit–level and structural causes are in play.” 3 To explain outcomes, then, we must uncover and map out the internal dynamics of various international systems, that is, the interactions between unit–level and structural causes. Singer is right in saying that “unless one can illuminate the decisional links between environmental conditions and the behavior of the nations making up the system, any model of systemic effects on the incidence of war must remain less than complete . . . even if the statistical associations to date between system structure and war were both consistent and robust—which they certainly are not.” 4
The failure of existing structural theories to generate precise and falsifiable propositions that exhibit some degree of predictive accuracy should not, however, lead us to abandon systemic study in favor of unit–level theory. The cure for weak systemic theories is not to ignore the effects of structure on behavior and outcomes but rather to create better systemic theories. Such progress requires greater precision in the measurement of structural conditions and more attention to unit inputs and variations, such that outcomes are indeed codetermined by unit–level and structural causes. 5
In this spirit, the present study attempts to enhance the predictive and explanatory power of neorealist theory by adding two variables: the inequalities of power among the Great Powers and their level of satisfaction with the status quo. These refinements transform neorealism from a theory of international politics to one of foreign policy. The amended theory, which I call balance–of–interests theory, yields more varied and determinate predictions about system dynamics and state behavior and richer explanations of concrete historical cases than does Waltz’s theory. Moreover, its design captures realism’s traditional concern with the power and interests of states. These gains come at a price, however: the revised theory is admittedly far less elegant than Waltz’s. Nevertheless, a theory built on only two elements is quite parsimonious by any standard.
Structure as Relative Inequalities
In contrast to Waltzian neorealism, in which the structure of the international system is determined by counting the number of Great Powers, this study defines structure not just by the number of poles but also by the differences in their relative sizes. This more refined measure of structure allows for nuanced hypotheses about international politics and state behavior and makes it possible to differentiate systems of the same polarity according to differences in their precise power configuration. In Waltz’s own words, “inequality is what much of politics is about. The study of politics, theories about politics, and the practice of politics have always turned upon inequalities, whether among interest groups, among religious and ethnic communities, among classes, or among nations.” 6
Yet most balance–of–power theorists, including Waltz, have overlooked the important effects of power inequalities on system stability and the foreign–policy choices of individual countries. By defining polarity as the number of Great Powers in the system, neorealism ignores the uneven distribution of capabilities among the Great Powers themselves, treating structures of the same polarity as if they were all of a piece. The bottom line is that structural theorists have paid insufficient attention to the definitions and measurement of international structure. The debatable quality of the measurement of the critical variables is important for several reasons.
First, imprecise measurement tends to homogenize structures that would otherwise be recognized as significantly different. Since there can be no explanation without covariation between the putative cause and the phenomenon that is being explained, an unrefined measure of structure necessarily results in static theory and, by extension, indeterminate and often nonfalsifiable hypotheses, which cannot be used to explain changes over a relatively short span of time. Given these limitations, the main line of attack against neorealism is that it does not explain very much. Waltz himself admits that the predictions yielded by his theory are so general as to be nonfalsifiable: “Because only a loosely defined and inconstant condition of balance is predicted, it is difficult to say that any given distribution of power falsifies the theory.” 7 By lumping all non–bipolar systems under the rubric of multipolarity, neorealism defines out of existence much of its potential explanatory power. Specifically, Waltz claims that the polarity of the system has changed only once since the birth of the modern state system in 1648. Thus, his theory cannot explain any variation in behavior and outcomes prior to 1945, when the system was supposedly multipolar, or during the bipolar era that commenced after World War II.
I say “supposedly multipolar” because no study of World War II prior to this one has attempted to measure accurately the distribution of capabilities among the Great Powers. The structural analyses that do exist merely posit that the system was multipolar, without first defining what constitutes a pole, specifying how to measure capabilities, and then crunching the numbers to validate the postulated structure. When these crucial tasks are performed, the late interwar system is revealed to be tripolar and not multipolar (four or more poles) as is commonly assumed.
Second, consistent with the realist image of international politics, balance–of–power theory counsels statesmen to identify and prioritize the national interests according to any changes that occur in the relative distribution of power. Thus, a faithful model of the theory requires precise measurement of the capabilities of the relevant states; in more technical terms, it requires, at a minimum, interval scale measurement. Neorealism’s independent variable, polarity, is an ordinal scale measure that simply distinguishes Great Powers from non–Great Powers. This kind of rough measure is perfectly fine for Waltz’s purposes. But we should not forget that the relatively new concept of polarity did not appear in pre–Waltzian discussions of the balance of power. Instead, traditional realists focused on the relative distribution (balances and imbalances) of capabilities among particular states and coalitions rather than on the number of Great Powers in the system. As Morgenthau writes: “The historically most important manifestation of the balance of power . . . is to be found . . . in the relations between one nation or alliance and another alliance.” 8 Traditional realists viewed capability not as a systemic attribute but rather as a unit property or a relationship between states and/or coalitions, e.g., the potential outcome of military interaction. 9 In short, a rough measure such as polarity misses much of the logic of balance–of–power theory.
Finally, more precise measurement would quickly dispel the myth that structure changes at a glacial pace. As this study has attempted to show, the relative capabilities of the Great Powers underwent major shifts during the interwar period. For the first decade and a half after World War I, the international system was unipolar, with the United States as the lone pole. By 1934, Stalin’s industrialization drive had elevated the USSR to a polar status equal to that of the U.S., and the system was thereby transformed to one of bipolarity. By 1936, Hitler’s domestic consolidation of Nazi power and revision of Versailles’ limitations on German rearmament propelled Germany to polar status. This created an unbalanced tripolar system, with the U.S. and the USSR still significantly stronger than Nazi Germany. By 1938, Hitler’s acceleration of Germany’s rearmament program once again transformed the system from one of unbalanced tripolarity to equilateral tripolarity. Aside from these transformations of international structure, important changes were taking place at the non–polar level. In 1913, for instance, Japan held a 4.4% share of total Great–Power resources, less than one–third of the capabilities controlled by Britain (14.1%). By 1938, its share of capabilities (9.3%) almost equaled Britain’s (10.5%). While Japan more than doubled its percentage share of total Great–Power resources, Britain and France found themselves heading in the opposite direction. From 1890 to 1938, Britain’s percentage share of total Great–Power capabilities shrank from 21% to 10.5%, while France’s share dropped from 12.7% to a mere 6.9%.
One conceptual aspect of system structure should be particularly noticed, for future reference and because of its significance to the argument at hand: polarity must not be equated with the concept of polarization, which describes “the closeness of attachments with a system’s alliances and the degree to which a system’s coalitions stand apart from one another.” 10 To begin with, alliances are not states and so they cannot be considered poles; as Waltz puts it: “Even with the greatest of external pressure, the unity of alliances is far from complete.” 11 Further, polarization is one of the behaviors that we seek to explain by means of structural causes; to treat polarization as if it were the structure of the system is to confuse causes with their effects.
I mention the difference between polarity and polarization because, in the context of the present study, it is especially tempting to break the rules. Recall that, in the relevant model (viz., equilateral tripolarity with two revisionist poles), two revisionist poles would gang up and partition the third (status quo) pole. But this is not what happened: Germany and the Soviet Union did not gang up on the United States. Yet, if we were to ignore the difference between polarity and polarization it is possible to view the Anglo–French combination as the third (status quo) pole. Then, the prediction is indeed correct. The story of World War II becomes one of “shifting tripolarity” as follows: From 1936 until the Fall of France in 1940, the system was tripolar with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and an Anglo–French combination as the three poles of the system; from June 1940 to the end of World War II, the system remained tripolar with the Anglo–American bloc replacing the Anglo–French one as the third pole.
The problem with this story is that it makes precisely the mistake that Stalin made: it treats British and French capabilities as if the whole were the sum of its parts. This view is not only nonsystemic in logic but also disconfirmed by the historical evidence. Britain did not see its fate tied to France’s and so distanced itself from its neighbor. Far from constituting a pole, the so–called Anglo–French combination was an alliance in name only. As A. J. P. Taylor points out:
| The practical test of an alliance is the military planning which goes with it. Staff conversations were held between Great Britain and France immediately after the German move into the Rhineland. They lasted five days and lapsed. No more were held until February 1939. France did not get increased security or strength from the alliance with Great Britain. Rather she got an ally who was ceaselessly holding her back for fear that the alliance might have to become effective—not that the French needed much restraining. 12 |
Moreover, if we treat Britain and France as a pole, why not do likewise with respect to the Axis partners? This would be absurd, of course, since there was virtually no coordination at all among the Axis powers, which largely explains why they lost the war. In short, we must not confuse structure with behavior; polarity with polarization.
State Interests
The interests, or motivations, of states, whether they are revisionist or status quo, is the other element, along with the relative capabilities of the Great Powers, of balance–of–interests theory. Just as microeconomic theory assumes that firms seek to maximize profits, a theory of international politics must assign some goal(s) to states. 13 In social systems, structure constrains and provides opportunities for purposeful, rational action. The effects of structure cannot be known, however, unless we first posit what it is that states desire.
Recognizing the necessity of goal–driven behavior, neorealist theory allows for the full range of state motivations, “from the ambition to conquer the world to the desire merely to be left alone.” 14 Because it does not incorporate this wide variation in state aims as a model–based feature, however, neorealism treats state interests as if they were inconsequential for a theory of balance of power. This book argues otherwise. In determining alliance dynamics and system stability, it matters whether the state is revisionist or status quo; that is, whether it values what it covets more than what it possesses or is satisfied with what it already has and seeks only to maintain its possessions. In essence, the distinction is one of maximizing security or power. I do not mean to suggest that power and security are always mutually exclusive goals; to the contrary, power often enhances security and vice versa. There is, as Reinhold Niebuhr says, “no possibility of drawing a sharp distinction between the will–to–live and the will–to–power.” 15 I do mean to suggest that the purpose of power is not always security and that accumulations of power do not always bring greater security. Power can be used to threaten others or to make them more secure; to take resources or to defend them; to prevent others from achieving their goals or to assist them in realizing them.
In the final analysis, states are less concerned with power imbalances than they are about who holds power. Interests, not power, determine how states choose their friends and enemies. Revisionist states will readily side with the dominant state or coalition if they believe that its goal is to overturn the established order to their advantage. Status–quo states will favor the more powerful state or coalition if they believe that its goal is to preserve the peace and stability of the system. Thus, Grey of Fallodon explained why, from 1886 to the end of the century, Britain “did not attempt to create any counterpoise to the strongest group [the Triple Alliance]; on the contrary, the British Government sided with that group":
| . . . there was, I think, a belief that the power of the Triple Alliance made for stability and therefore peace in Europe; that France and Russia, though militarily the weaker, were the restless Powers, while the Triple Alliance was on the whole contented. The conclusion I would draw is that Great Britain has not in theory been adverse to the predominance of a strong group in Europe when it seemed to make for stability and peace. To support such a combination has generally been her first choice; it is only when the dominant Power becomes aggressive and she feels her own interests to be threatened that she . . . gravitates to anything that can be fairly be described as a Balance of Power. 16 |
By varying the system’s composition of revisionist and status–quo states, systems of the same structure (distribution of capabilities) are predicted to behave quite differently. Further, the relationship between state interests and structure, on the one hand, and system stability and alliance dynamics, on the other, is not a linear one. Instead, the combined impact of structure and unit interests on system stability and the alliance behavior of states often produces counterintuitive outcomes. For example, a system composed of a majority of revisionist states may be just as stable (or more so) than one with a majority of status–quo states, depending on the precise power configuration and the mix of revisionist and status–quo states. For all these reasons, we must distinguish states according to their level of satisfaction with the status quo. I chose to do this by means of five categories: unlimited–aims and limited–aims revisionists, indifference toward the status quo, and soft and staunch supporters of the status quo.
In evaluating the usefulness of balance–of–interests theory, particularly as an alternative to Waltzian neorealism, the question is: Do the gains in predictive and explanatory power outweigh the losses in terms of additional complexity. Obviously, I believe that they do. Waltz’s theory predicts that states balance and nothing else. State behavior differs only in the way balancing is accomplished: under multipolarity, alliances are an essential mechanism for balancing power; under bipolarity, the poles balance each other by relying on their own capabilities rather than the capabilities of allies. 17 Waltz’s emphasis on the differences between external and internal balancing provides many useful insights about the stability of multipolar and bipolar systems. But history is replete with examples of states that did not respond to greater power by balancing against it. Moreover, Waltzian neorealism ignores altogether state responses to opportunities in their environment. It is a theory about how states react to threats and under what circumstances these responses are more or less likely to trigger systemwide war.
In contrast, this study identifies eleven distinct state behaviors, which include in addition to balancing: buckpassing, distancing, engagement, binding, holding the balance, and jackal and several other forms of bandwagoning. I then presented a typology based on state interests and capabilities that categorizes states as either wolves, lions, lambs, jackals, owls, hawks, doves, foxes, or ostriches. The combination of state interests and relative capabilities tells us a great deal about what kind of behavior to expect from various types of states; whether they will respond to threats and opportunities in their environment and how they will do so. Rather than reiterating all of these behaviors and how they played themselves out during the interwar period and World War II, I will briefly summarize the more salient hypotheses and findings.
Bandwagoning: Birds of a Feather
States do not always have an incentive to check greater power; sometimes their interests are better served by joining the stronger side. I have argued that bandwagoning rather than balancing is the characteristic behavior among revisionist states because their primary goal is to transform, not maintain, the system. System stability is a virtue only for those states that are content with the status quo; political disorder serves the interests of those states that are dissatisfied with the system they have. By working to throw the system into disequilibrium, bandwagoning states can hope to make gains even if they wind up on the losing side—which would be unexpected from their perspective, since, by definition, bandwagoning means joining what appears to be the winning side. Moreover, to the extent that the goal of revisionist states is to maximize power and not security, it makes sense for them to join the side with greater resources. Both motivations for bandwagoning are embodied in Italy’s traditional jackal policy of trailing the lion in the hope of picking up the scraps it leaves behind.
It should be pointed out, however, that jumping on the bandwagon of a stronger revisionist power is a risky strategy. The smaller revisionist state becomes a satellite of its more powerful ally and a target for stronger status–quo adversaries. Regardless of which side wins the war, the smaller revisionist state may lose its autonomy and possibly its very existence. Yet, despite the logic of these arguments to balance greater power, the prospect of making gains by joining the revisionist side often proves irresistible for revisionist states. Seeking to maximize their power, not security, revisionist states tend to be risk–acceptant, rather than risk–averse, actors. Thus, Mussolini, tempted by gains in North Africa and Central Europe, readily jumped on the German bandwagon, though this meant a precarious satellite status for Italy. The Italian leader reasoned that aligning with Britain and France would offer Italy still less room for maneuver, while at the same time, it would make Italy an inviting target for German aggression.
Distancing
In addition to the formation of alliances through balancing and bandwagoning behavior, this study identifies a third type of response to threats: distancing, or no coalition. This hypothesis posits: When the military strength that the status–quo alliance is able to muster is inadequate to deter or defeat the aggressor(s), less directly threatened status–quo powers will distance themselves from available allies that are more immediate targets of the aggressor(s). I have argued that Britain’s policy toward France during the period 1938 to 1940 is an example of distancing. Because the sum total of Anglo–French military strength was at the time less than that of Germany, Britain did not seek an alliance with France and was unwilling to commit more than a token number of troops for Continental defense. Instead, Britain distanced itself from France and adopted the dual policy of engagement and rearmament. Chamberlain believed that the success of his dual policy would prevent war with Germany, while failure would at least buy time for Britain to mobilize its domestic and imperial resources; that is, the policy would improve Britain’s capacity to deter German aggression and, if deterrence failed, to defend against an attack. Thus, Britain devoted its scarce resources not to land forces for the defense of France but to the production of fighter squadrons and anti–aircraft equipment for home defense. As the rearmament programs of Britain and France began closing the gap in Germany’s military lead, Britain drew closer to France and began to stand up to Hitler. That the gap was never entirely closed explains why Britain did not do more to aid France.
Defensive and Predatory Buckpassing
A state may also choose, in response to a threat, to try to direct the enemy’s aggression elsewhere in the hope that it will become embroiled in a war of attrition. When the motives for employing this strategy are purely defensive, then it is what is commonly referred to as “buckpassing,” that is, the attempt to ride free on the balancing efforts of one’s allies. The U.S. policy of letting Britain and the Soviet Union do its fighting for it in 1940–41 is an example of buckpassing. Even though it had not yet been attacked and was not an immediate target of Nazi aggression, U.S. security ultimately depended on the defeat of Third Reich and the prevention of either German or Soviet hegemony over the European Continent. These goals could not be accomplished without active American participation in the war.
It is important to note that buckpassing implies the existence of a collective good, without which it cannot be said that a nation is riding free on the efforts of others. Thus, because an alliance between the U.S. and Britain, and later with the Soviet Union, would have been strong enough to balance Germany and the other Axis powers, it was a collective good. By contrast, the combined strength of Britain and France in 1940 was not sufficient to balance Germany, and so, I have argued, there was no collective good.
When the motives for directing the adversary’s energies elsewhere also include aggrandizement, to make easy territorial gains after both sides have bled each other white, then it is what I call predatory buckpassing. When one of three equally powerful poles plays this type of strategy, it is a fox in the role of the “abettor,” instigating conflict between the other two members of the tripolar system for its own expansionist purposes. This was Stalin’s strategy in 1939–40. Believing, incorrectly, that the combined strength of France and Britain was equal to that of Germany, and thus that Britain and France formed a third (status quo) pole in Europe, Stalin signed the nonaggression pact with Hitler to steer Nazi aggression westward after Germany crushed Poland. The predatory motivations behind Stalin’s move were to destroy the status quo, gain easy spoils in Eastern Europe and Finland, and instigate a war of attrition among the capitalist powers—a war the Soviets would initially sit out and that would eventually bring about world revolution.
Stalin’s decision for benevolent neutrality toward Germany was also partly motivated by survival instincts. The Soviet leader may have come to the conclusion, in 1939, that Germany would inevitably overrun Poland, in which case, if the Soviets signed a pact with Britain and France, they would find themselves fighting Germany prematurely and without help. An accurate reading of the power situation, however, dictated a pact with Britain and France in 1939. Had the Soviet dictator understood the relative power situation in the West, he would have known that France would fall, sooner rather than later. Consequently, he would have realized that, with or without a pact with France and Britain, Soviet Russia would inevitably have to fight Germany, in which case, it would have been better for the Red Army to have the hope of French and British assistance than not to have this possibility.
Instead, misreading the power situation and thus buoyed by high hopes for unearned spoils, Stalin proceeded to guard the rear of his mortal enemy, Hitler, when the latter was engaged in disposing of the Soviet Union’s last potential Continental allies in Western Europe. Meanwhile, the Soviet dictator was busy seizing worthless territory from Finland and Romania, earning their hostility and the Red Army a reputation for weakness.
The French army’s swift collapse dashed Stalin’s dream of easy conquests in a postwar period when the rest of Europe would be exhausted. More important, Stalin’s blunder in postponing the the day of reckoning with Germany (instead of balancing against it in 1939—40) nearly cost the Soviet Union its very survival. Despite Hitler’s indecisive military strategies of 1941, the Wehrmacht destroyed almost half of the Red Army as it had been in June 1941. As Trumbull Higgins observes, “a little more professionalism and tank production on the part of the Germans might well have achieved a final decision against the Red Army before winter and the Siberians had arrived.” 18
The Size of Alliances
Alliances concluded among dissatisfied powers are offensive; their purpose is to revise or entirely overthrow the status–quo order. Alliances among satisfied powers are essentially defensive; their purpose is to deter an aggressor or, if deterrence fails, to repel an attack. From these two simple statements, it is possible to deduce a good deal about the size and composition of revisionist and status–quo alliances.
Revisionist Alliances: The Minimum Winning Coalition
Revisionist states seek minimum winning coalitions. This is because the purpose of offensive alliances is to maximize one’s share of the spoils of victory. Superfluous members, those beyond what is required for victory, will only diminish each member’s share of the winnings. Moreover, because the expansionist goals of revisionist states may overlap or conflict with each other (e.g., one state wants to make gains in a theater that another wants to remain stable), revisionist leaders will try to keep their offensive coalition small to simplify military strategy and prevent needless squabbles over the gains from conquest. Hence, revisionist states desire a coalition just strong enough to defeat the target, and no stronger.
Ideally, revisionist states would like to avoid coalitions altogether. By isolating weaker victims and fighting alone, a revisionist state is able to choose the timing, place, and means of attack and, more important, it need not share any of the spoils of its victory. It is not surprising, therefore, that Hitler desperately wanted an alliance with Britain: “Germany as the strongest military power in the world, Britain as the strongest naval power, would represent the most gigantic force in the world.” 19 With Britain as its main ally, Germany could keep all future Continental winnings. The Anglo–German alliance never came to pass, however, because Britain, desiring only to maintain the status quo without having to fight for it, wisely refused to become Hitler’s junior partner at any price.
Realizing that an alliance with Britain would not be forthcoming, Hitler needed allies on the Continent. Yet, consistent with the logic of the minimum winning coalition, the Führer wanted only benevolent neutrality from the Soviet Union and Italy during the German campaigns of 1939–40. For both offensive and defensive reasons, Hitler sought to avoid coalition warfare, as occurred in 1914, by waging short wars against isolated targets that the Wehrmacht could easily overrun. The fewer the number of states actively participating in the fighting, the more Germany would gain and the less likely that other status–quo states would join the conflict against Germany.
With these goals in mind, Hitler’s main concern prior to the German invasion of Poland was to secure a promise from Mussolini that Italy would continue its military posturing to keep the British guessing as to Italy’s real intentions to the very last moment. After the attack against Poland, the Duce informed Hitler at their meeting at the Brenner Pass in March 1940 that active Italian intervention would be contingent upon Germany military successes against the west. (True to his word, Mussolini declared Italian belligerency only after the French collapse in June 1940.) Thus, Hitler designed his wars against Poland and Western Europe knowing that his two continental allies, Italy and the Soviet Union, would remain neutral.
Another danger of large alliances for revisionist powers is the greater risk of entrapment by weaker coalition members, who sometimes unilaterally initiate undesired conflicts (from the revisionist leader’s perspective) that threaten to squander resources, disrupt the unity of alliance, and unite hitherto neutral countries against the revisionist coalition. For example, after the Fall of France, Mussolini seriously considered attacking Yugoslavia but was discouraged by Ribbentrop, who pointed out: The Axis is engaged in a “life and death struggle with England,” and it would be “inadvisable to tackle any new problem at all that did not absolutely have to be tackled in connection with this effort to crush England.” Ribbentrop went on to say:
| From the purely political standpoint, such a new seat of conflict in the Balkans would in certain circumstances start a general conflagration. How would it affect Hungary? How would Greece react, etc.? Above all, however, it should be remembered that Yugoslavia has close relations with Russia. Moscow, ever mistrustful, would then in certain circumstances be brought into the picture even though only diplomatically, and in the end Germany would be forced again to shift troops to the east. This she does not consider advisable. 20 |
Mussolini’s ambitions were only temporarily contained. By September, the Italians learned through the press of the dispatch of German units to Romania. Angry at not being consulted by Hitler over the German occupation of Romania and fearful that his ally was growing too strong, Mussolini unilaterally launched an offensive against Greece, declaring: “Hitler always faces me with a fait accompli. This time I am going to pay him back in his own coin. He will find out from the papers that I have occupied Greece. In this way the equilibrium will be reestablished.” 21 When the Italian forces stalled, German troops had to be diverted from operation Barbarossa to Greece.
The stormy relationship between Hitler and Mussolini typifies intra–alliance politics among revisionist states. Contradictory and often competing revisionist goals severely limit the possibility for coordinated action among such states, which explains why offensive alliances tend to be small or crumble under their own weight. Thus, in late 1940, Hitler’s halfhearted attempt to put together a Continental coalition to partition the British Empire failed because he could not reconcile the competing territorial ambitions of France, Spain, Italy, the Soviet Union, and Japan.
Status–Quo Alliances: Large, Inclusive Coalitions
In a balance–of–power system, one would expect status–quo alliances to be larger than the minimum winning coalition. This is because the alliance “gain” (viz. maintenance of the status quo) satisfies all the members of the alliance. 22 Moreover, the purpose of status–quo alliances is not to make gains from conquest but to deter or, should that fail, to defeat expansionist states or coalitions. For obvious reasons, large, overpowering alliances best serve the purposes of deterrence and defense against would–be aggressors. The larger the alliance, the less likely the status quo will be challenged and the less cost to each member of balancing against the threat. Recognizing that free–rider problems are said to be inescapable in large coalitions, it makes sense to form a coalition that is far stronger—not equal to or slightly greater than—the revisionist threat. Then, if some members do less than their fair share, as expected, the status–quo alliance will still be strong enough to fulfill its purposes. When the expansionist threat is large, moreover, there is less temptation among members of the status–quo alliance to “free ride” with respect to their alliance commitments. “International coalitions,” Jervis observes, “are more readily held together by fear than hope of gain.” 23
Articulating this notion that alliances meant to deter will only succeed if they assemble overwhelming force, Strausz–Hupé and Possony write:
| Why did the British–French guarantee of Poland and Romania of April, 1939, fail to avert the Second World War? The answer is that . . . the military strength which the alliance was able to muster was inadequate to deter the aggressor. Germany could . . . reasonably hope that she could win the war, . . . Alliances which do not assemble superior military power, or which do so only on paper because some of the allies have no readily available military strength, cannot be counted upon to avert war. This guarantee is given only by alliances which assemble overwhelming force. 24 |
Further, the unity of the status–quo alliance is only as strong as the members’ shared belief that, in combination, they are far stronger than the opposing revisionist coalition; status–quo alliances tend to fall apart at the first sign of weakness in confronting the enemy (states will adopt distancing policies). Hence, the Little Entente collapsed, for all intents and purposes, and Belgium declared neutrality in 1937, after France’s timid response to Hitler’s remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936. In this regard, we must be careful not to confuse size in terms of the numbers of members in the alliance with overall strength in terms of their combined resources.
Knowing that war means certain defeat, aggressors are unlikely to disturb their neighbors. This is why Woodrow Wilson championed a community of power over a balance of power. The general moral of this book, so far as it has one, is that the formation of a large status–quo coalition could have prevented both World Wars. But this would have required a peacetime American military presence in Europe or, at the least, the active engagement of the U.S. in European affairs. That this did not occur, that the U.S. behaved as an ostrich when it alone among the status–quo powers had the capability to act as a lion, was the decisive factor; it was the “dog that didn’t bark in the night.”
Implications for the Post–Cold War World
From 1989 to 1992, the unprecedented rate of peaceful change made the task of political forecasting as difficult as trying to paint a moving train. 25 Since then, the pace of change has slowed and the outlines of a new, post–bipolar system have begun to take shape. Some observers, let us call them geoeconomists, see clear signs that the emerging post–Cold War world is again becoming tripolar with the United States, Germany, and Japan as economic poles—each in control of a sizable regional bloc. 26 The growing list of members in this new geoeconomic school of thought includes President Clinton, who, at the Tokyo summit in July 1993, spoke of “a tripolar world driven by the Americas, by Europe, and by Asia.” 27
According to the geoeconomic view, the international system has recently undergone a great transformation from simple bipolarity to organized complexity that has shattered the system’s structure into two separate parts: a unipolar security structure led by the United States and a tripolar economic one revolving around Germany, Japan, and America. Thus, Thurow declares: “In 1992 there is one military superpower, the United States, standing alone, and three economic superpowers, the United States, Japan, and Europe, centered on Germany, jousting for economic supremacy. Without a pause, the contest has shifted from being a military contest to being an economic contest.” 28 Supporting this notion of a “bifurcated system,” Leonard Silk writes:
| If the collapse of the Soviet Union has made the once bipolar world “unipolar” with respect to military power, it has become “tripolar” economically, with the United States, Japan and Germany (or, in regional terms, North America, the Pacific Rim and the European Community) bound together in a complex relationship, both rivalrous and interdependent like a tempestuous marriage. |
Depending on the way the ménage à trois behaves, the relationship may split apart or strengthen and mature. Threesomes are inherently unstable, however; the immediate danger, the Japanese believe, is that the Americans and Europeans will gang up on them. 29
Geoeconomic logic rests on the assumption that military power with respect to the industrialized powers is no longer important, and should be devalued as a marker of superpower status in the post–Cold War world. The era when Great Powers tried to amass land empires has passed. The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its empire, while Japan and Germany were emerging as economic superpowers of the twenty–first century by deemphasizing their military capabilities and focusing instead on export–led strategies to promote economic growth. This divorce between “the 500–year–old linkage between economic and military capability as the path to predominance in world politics” suggests to John Lewis Gaddis “that a fundamental tectonic shift has taken place in what is required to gain influence in the world: that the old path of using economic capacity to build military strength no longer produces the results it once did; and that it may indeed have reduced, rather than adding to, the influence of those nations that have persisted in following it since the end of World War II.” 30
Simply put, “geoeconomics is turning geopolitics and all warfare into a provincial phenomenon.” 31 As evidence, the geoeconomists point out that national security is increasingly being defined in economic rather than military terms; that the primary task of national intelligence involves economic rather than military espionage; 32 and that, today more than ever, scholars, leaders, and citizens alike appreciate the links between security and economic issues and conceive of political power more in terms of its economic than its military dimension. Typifying this new awareness of the interactions between economic and security concerns, Leslie Gelb points out that “in the absence of the Soviet military threat, the Americans, West Europeans and Japanese have lost incentives to set aside economic differences. As a result, economic conflicts have become the most pronounced source of tension between nations, and disputes are becoming more difficult to resolve.” 33
As this passage suggests, geoeconomists do not forecast the end of Great–Power rivalry in the post–Cold War world. But their competition will be for world markets not territory, and as such it will be “played out in boardrooms and courtrooms, not on battlefields or in command and control centers.” 34 Specifically, the Big Three will be engaged in a fierce, zero–sum game to gain supremacy in seven key industries: microelectronics, biotechnology, the new materials–science industries, telecommunications, civilian aviation, robotics plus machine tools, and computers plus software. But, as Thurow argues: “No one gets killed. . . . The winner builds the world’s best products and enjoys the world’s highest standard of living. The loser gets to buy some of those best products —but not as many as the winner.” 35
The problem with the geoeconomic “tripolar” view is that it commits the common mistake of conferring polar status on certain states by emphasizing their strengths and ignoring their weaknesses. Japan and Germany are civilian powers that show little enthusiasm for acquiring military or political power commensurate with their economic capabilities. 36 States cannot be said to be polar powers when they have only some of the capabilities required for such exalted status. Great powers of the first rank must score high on all of the characteristic items: economic capability, military strength, population and territory, resource endowment, and political stability. As Waltz warns: “The economic, military, and other capabilities of nations cannot be sectored and separately weighed. States are not placed in the top rank because they excel in one way or another.” 37
In light of their past experiences with militaristic policies, Japan and Germany are unlikely to become first–class military powers. Indeed, they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by challenging America’s military supremacy, which has served them well for more than five decades. Likewise, the United States, for its part, has no interest in promoting, directly or indirectly, the remilitarization of Japan and Germany.
The real danger to America’s global predominance is not the emergence of Japan and Germany as full–fledged superpowers but rather the far more likely scenario that China and Russia will rise to polar status. Unlike Japan and Germany, China and Russia are both continental–sized, nuclear powers with enormous military and economic potential. Added to this, both have exhibited the political will—and expressed their intention —to challenge U.S. hegemony. At their April 1996 summit meeting, for instance, Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin joined in denouncing American “hegemonism” in the post–Cold War world. 38 Of the two countries, China appears to be the one that will pose the more immediate challenge to a new Pax Americana. China is not yet a true pole or a full–blown revisionist power. But its coercive diplomacy against Taiwan, its use of force against Vietnam in the Spratly Islands, and its claims to sovereignty over the South China Sea do not inspire confidence that it will attempt to satisfy its grievances solely through peaceful means. Indeed, China’s recent behavior is consistent with a rising, dissatisfied power—one that may be preparing to launch a serious challenge to the status quo in the near future.
National security, as Bernard Brodie wrote years ago, is an extremely expansible concept, and so there is always a potential danger associated with the possession of enormous resources. 39 The distribution of capabilities, by itself, tells us only part of the story about the current nature or future course of international politics. Equally important are the goals to which those capabilities are put to use: whether power and influence is used to manage the system or to destroy it; whether power is used to threaten states or make them more secure.
For the moment, great concentrations of power reside, with the exception of China, in pro–democratic, peaceful hands. But, in contrast with capabilities, goals can change in a hurry. This is not always a bad thing, as the recent agreements in the Middle East and the demise of the Soviet Union illustrate. By the same token, we should not be surprised that many citizens in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics fear that the Russian bear is not dead but “simply in hibernation, waiting only for a good poke from some fire–breathing nationalist like Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky to come roaring back to expansionist life.” 40 Precisely because intentions can change, history is far from over, and bold predictions of a Kantian peace are not only naively optimistic but dangerously foolish
Endnotes
Note 1: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 73. Back.
Note 2: For a thorough review of these studies, see Patrick James, “Structural Realism and the Causes of War,” Mershon International Studies Review, vol. 39, Suppl. 2 (October 1995), pp. 181–208. Back.
Note 3: Waltz, “A Response to My Critics,” p. 343. Back.
Note 4: Singer, “System Structure, Decision Processes, and the Incidence of International War,” p. 8. Back.
Note 5: These points are intelligently discussed in Timothy J. McKeown, “The Limitations of ‘Structural’ Theories of Commercial Policy,” International Organization, vol. 40, no. 1 (Winter 1986), pp. 43–64. Back.
Note 6: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 142. Back.
Note 8: Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 137. Back.
Note 9: ee Glenn H. Snyder, “Process Variables in Neorealist Theory,” Security Studies, vol. 5, no. 3 (Spring 1996), p. 180. Back.
Note 10: James, “Structural Realism and the Causes of War,” p. 197. Back.
Note 11: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 167. Back.
Note 12: Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, pp. 113–114. Back.
Note 13: Keohane, “Theory of World Politics,” p. 173. Back.
Note 14: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 91. Back.
Note 15: Reinhold Neibuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (New York: Scribner’s, 1932), p. 42. Back.
Note 16: Grey of Fallodon, Twenty–Five Years, pp. 5, 8. Back.
Note 17: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 168. Back.
Note 18: Higgins, Hitler and Russia, p. 278. Back.
Note 19: Hitler, “Memorandum by Hewel of Conversation at the Berghof Between the Führer and Mr. Pirow, South African Minister of Defense and Commerce,” November 24, 1938, DGFP, Series D, vol 4, p. 341. Back.
Note 20: Ribbentrop letter to Ciano, August 15, 1940, as quoted in McSherry, Stalin, Hitler, and Europe, vol. 2, p. 176. Back.
Note 21: The Ciano Diaries, 1939–1943, edited by Hugh Gibson (New York: Doubleday, 1946), pp. 299–300. Back.
Note 22: See Sheehan, Balance of Power, p. 57. Back.
Note 23: Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” p. 204. Back.
Note 24: Robert Strausz–Hupé and Stefan T. Possony, International Relations: In the Age of the Conflict Between Democracy and Dictatorship (New York: McGraw Hill, 1950), pp. 231–232. Back.
Note 25: For a fascinating discussion of why prediction is so difficult in world politics, see Robert Jervis, “The Future of World Politics: Will It Resemble the Past?” International Security, vol. 16, no. 3 (Winter 1991/92), pp. 39–73. Back.
Note 26: See Lester Thurow, Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe, and America (New York: Morrow, 1992); Jeffrey E. Garten, A Cold Peace: America, Japan, Germany and the Struggle for Supremacy (New York: Times Books, 1992); Theodore H. Moran, “An Economics Agenda for Neorealists,” International Security, vol. 18, no. 2 (Fall 1993), pp. 211–215; Jeffrey T. Bergner, The New Superpowers: Germany, Japan, the U.S. and the New World Order (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991); Leonard Silk, “Some Things Are More Vital Than Money When It Comes To Creating the World Anew,” New York Times, September 22, 1991, Section 4, p. 2; Jeffrey A. Hart, Rival Capitalists: International Competitiveness in the United States, Japan, and Western Europe (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1992). Back.
Note 27: President Clinton, “Address to students and faculty at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, July 7, 1993,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, vol. 4, no. 28 (July 12, 1993), p. 486. Back.
Note 28: Thurow, Head to Head, p. 14. Back.
Note 29: Silk, “Some Things Are More Vital Than Money,” p. 2. Back.
Note 30: John Lewis Gaddis, “Tectonics, History, and the End of the Cold War,” Paper From the Mershon Center Project (Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University, 1992), pp. 5,7. Back.
Note 31: Edward Luttwak, “Obsession,” The New Republic, February 24, 1992, p. 13. See, also, Richard Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986); and Theodore H. Moran, “International Economics and U.S. National Security,” in Charles W. Kegley, Jr and Eugene R. Wittkopf, eds., The Future of American Foreign Policy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), pp. 307–318. Back.
Note 32: See Peter Schweizer, “The Growth of Economic Espionage: America is Target Number One,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 75, no. 1 (January/February 1996), pp. 9–14. Back.
Note 33: Leslie H. Gelb, “Fresh Face,” New York Times, December 8, 1991, Section 6, p. 54. Back.
Note 34: James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, “A Tale of Two Worlds: Core and Periphery in the Post–Cold War Era,” International Organization, vol. 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992), p. 468. Back.
Note 35: Thurow, Head to Head, p. 23. Back.
Note 36: Hans W. Maull, “Germany and Japan: The New Civilian Powers,” in Richard K. Betts, ed., Conflict After the Cold War: Arguments on Causes of War and Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1994), pp. 492–504. Back.
Note 37: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 131. Back.
Note 38: William Kristol and Robert Kagan, “Toward a Neo–Reaganite Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 75, no. 4 (July/August 1996), p. 20. Back.
Note 39: Bernard Brodie, War and Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 345–349. Back.
Note 40: 40. Steven Erlanger, “East Europe Watches the Bear, Warily,” New York Times, October 21, 1994, p. A1. Back.
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