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CIAO DATE: 2/99
Security and Development in the Lens of Complexity Theory: The Baltic and Russia, A.D. 1000 to 2000 *
Department of Political Science
Boston University
International Studies Association
40th Annual Convention
Washington, D.C.
February 16–20, 1999
Abstract
This paper suggests how basic concepts of complexity theory can be applied to international relations and—as a test case—to analyze security and development issues in the Baltic states and Russia. Complexity theory suggests ways to assess the fitness of states—defined as the capacity to cope with complex challenges. Fitness depends not just on material strength relative to changing conditons but also on a capacity for self-organization. Societies that are too rigid or too chaotic lack this capacity. Complexity theory’s emphasis on coevolution reminds us to analyze actors in relation to each other and to their common environment.
The overall fitness of the three Baltic states improved in the 1990s as they coped constructively with complex challenges and as Russia’s potential for aggression receded. Indeed, Russia’s fitness declined as the country moved from excessive order to chaos. Deep problems undermined Russia’s capacity to make the transition to democracy, a market economy, and constructive membership in the international community.
Complexity theory enhances our ability to describe and understand the past and present, but has less utility for projecting alternative futures or prescribing policy.
Introduction
How can we conceptualize security and development issues facing small, recently reemerged Baltic states and their large, long established neighbors? The dominant theories of international relations (IR) explain little. Realism and neorealism are blunt tools for exploring the nuances of politics and economics in the Baltic region. 1 The many varieties of humanistic idealism, economic liberalism, and legalism, however, do little or no better. They can be weak reeds if push comes to shove—if great powers again threaten to trample the amber coast. 2 Let us ask what insights may come from complexity theory, particularly as developed by scholars who have worked at the Santa Fe Institute in recent decades.
This essay suggests how basic concepts of complexity theory can be applied to the study of international relations and—as a test case—to understand security and development issues in the Baltic states and Russia. The essay focuses on what Russians call pribaltika—the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea. “Balts,” for this paper, means Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, even though other peoples live on Baltic shores—Russians, Poles, Germans, Danes, Swedes, and Finns. 3 Old Prussians and other peoples have also lived in the pribaltika, only to disappear or merge with others. We tend to remember the sometime winners—Vikings, Teutonic Knights, Hanseatic merchants, and today’s Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians—rather than Rugians and former cult centers such as Arkona. 4
This paper surveys security and development trends in pribaltika over the past thousand years; analyzes them in more detail for the 1980s and 1990s; and considers some alternative futures. It argues that, so far as we understand the past millennium, today’s Baltic peoples—Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians—and their Russian neighbors have seldom dealt constructively with complex challenges of security and development. This pattern changed for the first time in the late 1980s and 1990s as Balts responded very effectively to the prospects of regained independence. Russia’s fitness, on the other hand, declined in the 1990s as the country shifted from the ills of a rigid hierarchy to those of virtual anarchy.
Complexity theory provides categories that help us comprehend past and recent trends, even though the theory has little predictive or prescriptive value. Despite its limitations, complexity theory can enlarge our vision and complement other approaches to the study of international relations and Baltic security. 5 The theory suggests that not just rugged individualism but a capacity for cooperation at home and abroad—self-organization and mutual aid—is a weighty factor in survival and prosperity. 6
What Is Complexity Theory?
Developed by scholars from various disciplines, complexity theory is a theory of theories that offers a new interpretation of evolution—physical, biological, and societal. Let us summarize some key concepts of complexity theory, particularly as articulated by Stuart Kauffman and other scholars—from Nobel physics laureate Murray Gell-Mann to Nobel economics laureate Kenneth Arrow—who have interacted at the Santa Fe Institute. 7 These scholars anchor complexity theory to eight or nine basic concepts: Fitness, emergence, self-organization, agent-based systems, the edge of chaos, coevolution, fitness landscapes, self-organized criticality, and punctuated equilibrium. Let us summarize these concepts and then ask whether they add useful tools to IR analysis.
Fitness
Complexity theory modifies Darwin’s emphasis on natural selection as the key to evolution. It portrays fitness as an ability to cope with complexity, a capacity to survive challenges and make the most of opportunity.
Emergence and self-organization
Evolution is shaped not only by Darwinian selection. Complexity theory maintains that fitness depends not only on luck—a good fit between genetic mutation and environment—but on self-organization. Evolution often gives rise to “emergent properties”—holistic phenomena richer than the sum of their parts—even their genes and chemical ingredients. Evolution manifests “order for free.” This could but need not imply a Creator or grand Watchmaker.
Agent based-system
This is a system in which independent agents, each following a few rules, self-organize to form an emergent phenomenon without central direction from above. Thus, many species interlock in a coral reef and provide one another protection from predators, temperature extremes, and strong currents. Without planning, they cooperate for mutual gain. Like the coral reef, every durable ecosystem is an emergent phenomenon.
The edge of chaos
Fitness, says complexity theory, is found at the edge of chaos. To be more precise, it is located at the top of a bell-shaped curve leading toward chaos and rigid order. Move too far toward either pole, and you lose fitness.
Coevolution
No individual or species evolves alone. Each coevolves with others and with their shared environment. 8 A change in any one actor or their environment can alter the fitness of multiple actors. This idea is implicit in systems theories such as chaos theory.
Self-organized criticality
Balanced between order and chaos, a fit being is like a sandpile which, if one more grain of sand is added, may collapse in an avalanche. This fragile equilibrium is called self-organized criticality. Avalanches follow a bell curve—many small avalanches and some large ones
Fitness landscapes
Complexity theory suggests that coevolution can be mapped as a rugged landscape in which each actor’s fitness appears as a peak. The relative and changing fitness of each organism is shown as a peak rising or falling as a consequence of coevolution. As in an arms race, the peaks of a predator and its prey may gain or decline according to changes in their offensive and defensive capabilities. If attackers increase their speed or lethal weapons, the fitness peak of the prey will drop. If individuals among the prey population acquire characteristics that reduce their vulnerability, their peak will rise.
Punctuated equilibrium
Complexity theory borrows and incorporates concepts from many disciplines. One key idea is the theory of punctuated equilibrium. It holds that evolution is marked by surges of speciation and avalanches of extinction. 9 Species often develop quickly, endure with little change for a long time, and then die out suddenly—not gradually. Thanks to mutation and self-organization, some members of the species may find a niche and hang on to it. 10 When their environment changes, they must adapt or disappear. The complexity theory notion of fitness helps account for punctuated equilibrium.
Complexity Theory and IR
The main value of complexity theory for IR and comparative politics may be its way of looking at and classifying reality. Let us survey how the basic concepts of complexity theory sharpen our tools for understanding IR.
Fitness and IR
“Fitness” is a more comprehensive and deeper concept than “power” or “influence,” the foci of IR realists and neorealists. 11 Realists tend to define power by material assets—“How many divisions has the pope?” What is the GDP of the Vatican? 12 Fitness comes closer to the true purpose of politics, as understood by many political theorists, than power or influence.
Fitness is shorthand for societal well-being at home and abroad. This view denies that the purpose of foreign policy is to dominate other societies; to gratify the psychic needs of power hungry individuals; to benefit a ruling class; to divert the masses from economic and other problems; to amass rockets and tanks for parades across Red Square; or to possess more autos per capita than any other country. Some individuals and groups may lust for military power, material wealth, and influence. But achievement of such goals is not fitness. Their pursuit can even undermine a society’s true fitness.
Fitness implies a utilitarian view of politics: The goal of politics should be to achieve the greatest well-being for the greatest number of people. This view assumes that people band together politically for many reasons, but that their ultimate goal is—or should be—to achieve greater fitness, the ability to meet challenges and take advantage of opportunities at home and abroad.
A similar perspective underlies the Human Development Index developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). While the IR realist focuses on a state’s material power and influence, the UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) targets the ability of states to expand choices for their members. The HDI ranks states by their achievement in physical health (longevity), education (years of school), and material wealth per capita (power purchasing parity). The HDI can be and has been refined to include other measures such as gender equality. The HDI can trace changes in societal fitness over time. 13
Domestic fitness and HDI scores can be destroyed by external agents. To be fit, every society must acquire an ability to neutralize or repulse threats from outside. Complexity theory cannot assess comparative risks, for they depend on time and place. But the logic of complexity theory warns against devoting more resources to external defense than required by present and foreseeable dangers. It warns against imperialist ventures likely to sap domestic strength.
Emergence and Self-Organization in IR
Strong on generalities, complexity theory is weak on specifics. It gives little instruction on how to achieve fitness. The most detailed advice offered by complexity theory is to cultivate many communication nodules with vibrant links (not too many, not too few) between and among them. This, of course, is precisely what dictatorships wish to avoid! 14
Complexity theory says little about the value of independent cultures or human rights. We might infer that homogeneity has helped Japan’s fitness while heterogeneity has benefited the United States. One could infer that the United States “melting pot” has derived fitness from the blend of cultures and genes—e pluribus unum. But it is not clear that this example can be emulated elsewhere. Complexity theory in this case can neither prescribe nor predict.
Complexity theory cannot advise whether international security will benefit more from unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar politics. It merely counsels: “Not too chaotic—not too rigid.” But this advice does not enlighten policy-makers who wonder whether the only superpower should serve as world policeman or retreat to Mount Olympus. Some grand theories attempt to answer such questions, but they spur more debate than consensus. 15
Agent-based Systems and IR
Complexity theory reminds us that vast systems can be built from the bottom-up by independent actors. 16 Unlike insects and fishes, humans may utilize reason to promote their objectives.
But complexity theory does not say what is the optimum scale or hierarchy of organization. Should North, Central, and South Americans go it alone, cooperate regionally, or devote their efforts to a universal international organization? If they decide to cooperate beyond their borders, should their ties depend upon one vote for each entity or upon the hegemon’s initiatives? Complexity theory cannot answer these questions because it is too general; also, it has no way of prioritizing the values of individual actors relative to collective interests. It cannot answer “for whom” or “how.” It contains no standard by which to decide whether Scots should remain within the United Kingdom or become independent. Nor can it say whether minority cultures such as Basques can flourish better within national structures (Spain) or in larger entities (European Union). Of course all manner of realists and idealists will also disagree on these points.
Complexity theory can say little about basic issues confronting the United States and other developed economies. If Americans wish to have a competitive economy, should they bar Microsoft from packaging its software with its operating system? What is the tradeoff between large-scale efficiency and unfettered competition? Is America fit because of its individualism or its welfare state? If the answer is “both,” is there an optimal balance? For a society to be fit, should women go out or stay at home? Complexity theory has no answers for these questions, but neither do other grand theories of IR or development—at least no answers that elicit wide consensus.
Coevolution and IR
The very word “coevolution” reminds us that world affairs are in flux. No society, no state—no organism—evolves alone. Each society interdepends with some other societies and with their shared environment. If one gains or loses fitness, this will impact its neighbors’ fitness. The idea of dynamic, relative power is central to both realism and neorealism. But many realists and neorealists downplay the dependency of states on their shared environment. Because the environment shapes and is shaped by IR, the biosphere can be viewed as a distinct level of IR analysis. 17
Fitness landscapes and IR
The greater an actor’s fitness, the higher its peak. As a country loses fitness, is peak declines. When this happens, its people may wander in the valley, looking for ways to rebuild their country’s fitness.
This concept is evocative but problematic. Fitness among humans is multidimensional. To show fitness properly, one would need to display a separate landscape for each element of fitness. A fitness peak for humans would have to show not just domestic but also external fitness—relative to threats from within and without. Domestic fitness could be reduced to a separate number, such as the HDI score, but this would oversimplify. There can be huge variations in HDI within countries—by region, gender, race, age, and other divisions.
Another issue is scale: How can one portray the changing security relationship between a large and a small country? No matter what happens within or between Taiwan and mainland China, the former will be a speck next to the latter. A nuclear arsenal in Taiwan might achieve deterrence, but would not neutralize China’s other assets.
Self-organized Criticality and IR
This concept warns us that societies are often more fragile than they appear. The domestic order and international position of any country can resemble a sandpile which, if one more grain of sand is added, collapses in an avalanche. To use another metaphor, even the strong may buckle from some “last straw.”
Punctuated Equilibrium and IR
We know that societal change often occurs at intervals of varying lengths. Change sometimes comes at a fast and furious pace, stabilizes for many years, and then resumes again for a short time.
But caveat emptor: Punctuated equilibrium is a concept based on geologic time. No one can say how long are the ups and downs of human life. We dare not impose some preconceived categories upon the cycles of human history, as did Arnold Toynbee. He argued, for example, that the typical rhythm by which civilizations die is three and one-half beats: rout-rally, relapse-rally, relapse. 18 But how do we define a major “rout” or “rally”? Some scholars think that Western civilization died during World War I or—if not then—surely during World War II. But did the 20th century experience two destructive World Wars or just one? Toynbee escapes by saying there was not yet a universal civilization to rout. 19
The difficulty in applying punctuated equilibrium to IR is also illustrated by Germany’s ups and downs in the 20th century. Germany rose before 1914; declined after 1918 and then rebounded in the 1920s. It suffered from the Great Depression and then rebounded in the mid-1930s. Hitler’s Third Reich menaced the world and then suffered total defeat in just seven years. Less than a decade later, however, Germany took off toward a peaceful prosperity lasting more than half a century. These zigs and zags, ups and downs defy any expectations of punctuated equilibrium.
Security and Development in the Baltic Region
Let us apply complexity theory concepts to security and development problems that have faced the Baltic peoples and their neighbors to the east and west, south and north.
Fitness and the Baltic
For a thousand years or more, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians have seldom coped well with complex challenges. 20 Balts generally failed to maintain their independence and preferred way of life. 21 For most of the past millennium Balts wasted their few assets by feuding among themselves and not taking advantage of opportunities in the region and the world. 22 To be sure, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians survived—with pride and awareness of a certain national identity. 23 This is a major achievement, given that many other peoples and cultures along the Baltic coast and elsewhere in Europe virtually disappeared. 24
Russia—the largest and one of the most richly endowed countries in the world—has seldom used its assets constructively. Russia’s fitness suffered more than it gained from Soviet rule, even though Russia was at the center of an empire. 25 Post-Soviet Russia has failed to achieve a stable democracy, a productive economy, or a constructive position in world affairs. Some cities and regions such as Novgorod and Nizhnii Novgorod have done well, but the country as a whole has gone from bad to worse on many dimensions. 26
Fitness, of course, has to be measured against local conditions. The cards have usually been stacked against Balts—small peoples located at crossroads between larger ones, some of them at the cutting edge in literacy, science, and technology. However Balts were not alone in these respects. Swiss cantons were small and backward relative to the Hapsburgs. Still, practicing mutual aid and self-organization, the Swiss achieved independence at roughly the same time that Balts were subjected to foreign domination, and generally maintained their independence into the 21st century—keeping their distance even from the European Union. Balts also fared worse than other small peoples—for example, Danes, Belgians, Dutch—who maintained their culture and independence for many centuries in the face of powerful neighbors.
Emergence and Self-Organization and the Baltic
Chaos between and among Balts has helped outsiders to divide and conquer. For most of recorded history Balts have suffered from disorganization that helped outsiders—Vikings, Christian missionaries and knights, Hanseatic merchants, Baltic barons, Russian tsars and commissars—to impose and maintain their own versions of order.
Russia has generally been far weaker than the sum of its parts. Benefiting little from bottom-up emergence, Russia’s organization has usually been from the top-down. Autocrats have imposed order within Russia and, for long period, through the Russian empire.
What is the proper relationship between the Baltic societies reemerged since 1991 and the Slavic and other minorities in their midst? The U.S. melting pot offers little guidance to Estonia and Latvia where only one or two millions speak the main local tongue. Indeed, Baltic cultures are threatened not just by Slavic speakers (mainly Russians) speakers in their midst but by the external enticements of American English.
Nor can complexity theory advise the Slavic speakers in the Baltic whether they should assimilate, strive to be bicultural, or pursue some other option. 27 Complexity theory does imply, however, that failure by majorities or minorities to cope with ethnic and cultural complexity can degrade the fitness of wholes as well as parts.
Agent-based Systems and the Baltic
The best example of an emergent property in the Baltic was the self-organization and mutual aid practiced by merchants of the Hanseatic city-states for many centuries. To call their relationship a “league” exaggerates, however, because the Hansas had no formal constitution and only ad hoc institutions. But their cooperation arose from below—the actions of independent agents. They put together military forces adequate to beat back the Danish king, but their strength wilted as Amsterdam and then the larger and better organized nation-states overwhelmed city-states such as Hamburg, Lübeck, and Danzig. The Hansas also failed because, secure in their familiar routines, they failed to master such innovations as double-entry bookkeeping.
An even deeper weakness was that the Baltic Barons were an upper class of exploiters who failed to integrate Balts in a value-creating enterprise for mutual gain. Imperial hegemony imposes order from above—the antithesis of cooperation by independent agents. From the 12th century to the 20th, some Balts “bandwagoned”—allied with powerful outsiders rather than resisting them. Latvian tribes, for example, aligned with the Sword Brothers for protection against Lithuanians. Some Balts became part of the ruling apparatus set up by Baltic barons, Russians tsars, Soviet Commissars, and Nazis. On the whole, however, the imperial relationships established by outsiders over Balts won little local support. Domination by non-Balts rested not on consensus or persuasion but on command and coercion. When imperial rule faltered, there was little native support to sustain it.
Beginning in the late 1980s, the three Baltic republics, virtually for the first time in their history, demonstrated a capacity for self-organization at home, regionally, and internationally. Each began to master the transition from Soviet satrapy to political democracy, market economy, and constructive participation in the international community. 28
When the Soviet empire disappeared, Balts were determined to act as independent agents. Confident and self-reliant, they shunned any ties with the Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States, sought or accepted by all other former Soviet union-republics.
Russia has shown little capacity for self-organization. The largest country in the world, one of the richest in human and natural resources, falls apart. Its HDI collapses along with its capacity to defend itself from external threat. Long-time parts of the Russian Federation, such as Tatarstan, increasingly act like independent agents.
The Edge of Chaos in the Baltic
A confluence of natural selection and self-organization helped Balts achieve greater fitness in the 1990s. The larger environment confronting the Balts was extremely favorable. East-West tensions had diminished; the Soviet empire had evaporated; Western Europe and North America welcomed and supported Balts’ reemergence as independent actors. The time was ripe and Balts made the most of it.
Why did Balts made the most of the new freedoms in the 1990s while Russians did not? Complexity theory does not by itself answer this question, but the theory at least gives us names for what happened. Russia spun from the malaise of rigid order into the malaise of chaos. Balts, however, emerged from the ancient regime of top-down, imperial commands with an ability to deal with extremely complex challenges at home and internationally.
As noted earlier, complexity theory gives few suggestions on how to achieve fitness, but it is clear on what to eschew. A fit society should avoid both the rigid hierarchy and the outbursts of anarchy that have characterized Russia for centuries. 29
Coevolution in the Baltic
Balts, Russians, and other peoples who live along the Baltic Sea are interdependent—mutually vulnerable. Interdependence is a fact of life. What people do with it is up to them. They can attempt to exploit one another or cooperate for mutual gain. 30
If post-Soviet Russia were friendly and a good trading partner for the Baltic republics, the fitness of each actor could improve. Instead, Yeltsin’s Russia has sought to use its control of energy supplies as a political weapon; imposed heavy tariffs on trade with the Baltic republics; and sought to build or use ports in Russia or Finland rather than in Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. In the 1990s Balts became richer in spite of Russia—not thanks to it. But the mounting problems in Russia’s economy have not just impeded but retarded Baltic economic development. In the 1998-1999 Russians could not pay even for Baltic foodstuffs they needed.
Russia’s economic weakness aggravates some shared problems. In 1998-1999 Estonia stopped providing water and sewage treatment to Ivangorod, across the river from Narva, because Russians did not pay their utility bills. Untreated sewage poured into the Narva River—a threat to the health of Estonians as well as Russians, indeed, to all peoples on the Baltic Sea.
Environmental pollution reduces the fitness of Balts, Russians, and others who share the Baltic coasts. The residues of Soviet-style industrialization and militarization remain in the Baltic lands as well as Russia—often flowing into the Baltic Sea. The costs of cleaning radioactive and other hot spots properly would be enormous.
The perspective of coevolution could—or should—shape security policy in the Baltic. Since Russia posed less of a military threat in the 1990s, the external fitness of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania improved. Looking ahead, however, most Baltic leaders wanted to join an expanded NATO to ensure that, if Russia again threatened, the West would protect the Baltic republics. Indeed, Western support for the eastward expansion of NATO assumes that Russia may some day again menace its neighbors.
Those who support NATO expansion and Baltic membership in NATO ignore that Russia’s foreign policy will coevolve with NATO and their shared environment. They ignore that NATO expansion may well push Russia to become more aggressive. A more enlightened policy would seek to avoid rekindling militarism, paranoia, xenophobia, and imperialism in Russia. If efforts failed to reintegrate Russia with the West, and if Russia again organized to menace its western neighbors, there would be considerable advance notice. To declare Russia’s former satellites and satrapies as NATO members—without even placing Western troops on their soil—pointlessly antagonizes the Kremlin and weakens liberal voices in Russia.
Fitness Landscapes
Fitness in IR is multidimensional. As a result, fitness in IR is difficult to display as a single landscapes. Also, as noted before, the scale of some actors defies comparison.
We no longer think of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as tiny appendages to the Soviet empire. Instead they may be thought of as parts of Central Europe, Northern Europe, or simply Europe. The security peak of each Baltic state rose in the 1990s. Each peak rose in part because Balts began to build their own defense forces, to participate in the Partnership for Peace, and to take part in some institutions of a united Europe. But the main reason was that the peak of Russian military-imperial capacity declined. Still, Russia is so large relative to the Baltic states that any depiction of their relative strength would change very little from 1985 to 2000. No conceivable changes in fitness would change the reality that—on every dimension of material power—Russia towers over the Baltic republics.
It is difficult to represent even the economic-social performance of each Baltic republic by a single peak. The overall shape of the Baltic economies improved in the late 1990s, but the biosphere remained highly stressed. The GDP per capita increased in each Baltic republic in the late 1990s, but the oldest and weakest elements of society were left behind.
Russia’s economic performance in the 1990s was easier to plot. Except for a limited number of nouveaux riches, most Russians lived much worse than they did in previous decades—male life spans declining by five or more years. Despite these trends, a map of natural resources would show Russia as rich and Balts as poor.
Self-organized Criticality and the Baltic
Baltic fitness may be more fragile than it appears. On the whole, Balts were blessed by a favorable circumstances and some luck in the 1990s. But their nascent democracies also faced nested tangles of exacting challenges: continued Russian military presence for some years; Russian economic warfare, including intermittent suspension of energy flows; demonstrations by Slavic dissidents; severe infighting among Baltic politicians, including Communists and anti-Communists; bank failures; corruption and naiveté among the new political and economic élites; mafia networks, both local and transnationally linked to Russia; an unsure and sometimes dispirited populace; much moral and material support from the West but also occasional Western pressures to change citizenship and other laws.
Had some of these problems been more intense, had more of them been urgent at the same time, had they been joined by some other problem—for example, a natural catastrophe like those that beset Central America in 1998—the fragile equilibrium underlying the Baltic miracle could have collapsed. Of course a fit society can cope with multiple challenges. But the resilience of Balts was uncertain in the 1990s. And we still do not know if some extra grain of sand might collapse the emergent structures of self-rule.
Many challenges also confronted Russia in the 1990s—their variety and intensity eroding the very foundations of the country’s fitness. If challenges intensify, the Russian Federation could splinter. Chaos may beget chaos, destroying hopes for self-organization.
Punctuated Equilibrium and the Baltic
However tentatively we accept the theory of punctuated equilibrium, this concept reminds us that neither progress nor regress is likely to continue indefinitely. Political and economic progress in the Baltic will not occur in a straight line. Relapses and long lived plateaus are likely. They may set the stage for another advance...or a dramatic retreat. Progress is possible—perhaps even likely—but not foreordained. A glance to the West recalls that movement toward European unity has occurred in jumps and starts for more than half a century.
Nor can anyone know how long Russia will decline. An earlier “Time of Troubles” lasted from 1598 to 1613. The current reign of chaos has not yet run even half that long. If post-Communist Russia operates on the same time scale, Russians in 2000 will face nearly another decade of great suffering, and the rest of the humanity a prolonged threat to world security. If punctuated equilibrium is the rule, Russia may still be in a kind of free fall. Things may get worse before they get better. When Russia stabilizes, the country may not recover quickly; it may face a long “walk in the valley” before its peak moves upward.
Baltic Interdependence
Success in life depends not just on individual strength and on luck but on a capacity for cooperation. This insight was expressed in Petr Kropotkin’s book, Mutual Aid, written at the end of the 19th century to rebut Social Darwinists who glorified the slogan “survival of the fittest.” Kropotkin drew his conclusions from his analysis of the evolution of all life forms—from insects and Siberian moose to medieval guilds and modern cooperatives. 31 A similar conclusion arises from studies at the Harvard Business School that endorse “value-creating” as a more useful orientation in negotiation than “value-claiming.” 32 The contribution of self-organization for mutual gain to fitness is reiterated by complexity theory. A thousand years of Baltic history shows that imperial hegemony and anarchy are bad for fitness. Among humans the capacity to meet complex challenges arises from creative cooperation liberated from the polar excesses of rigid order and anarchy.
Endnotes
*: Prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 16–20, 1999. Back.
Note 1: Realism and neorealism do not explain, for example, how a “Singing Revolution” could help subvert a putative superpower. See Walter C. Clemens, Jr., “Who or What Killed the Soviet Union? How Three Davids Undermined Goliath,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 3, 1 (Spring 1997), pp. 136–58. Back.
Note 2: The West’s refusal, led by Washington, to recognize Soviet annexation of the Baltic republics upheld international law and morality, but did not save the Balts from a half century of alien rule. Back.
Note 3: Latvian and Lithuanians are Indo-European “Baltic” languages, while Estonian is Finno-Ugric. Other Baltic peoples speak Indo-European Germanic or Slavic tongues. Back.
Note 4: On Arkona, see Anna Sucharska, “Arkona,” miesiecznik poswiecony kulturze i sztuce: zarys problematyki (Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawn, Nauk, 1986); on Rugen, see Ingrid Schmidt, Götter, Mythen und Brauche von der Insel Rugen (Rostock: Hinstorff, 1997). Back.
Note 5: The utility and limitations of complexity theory were assessed also by Hayward R. Alker and Simon Fraser, “On Historical Complexity: ‘Naturalistic’ Modeling Approaches from the Santa Fe Institute,” paper delivered at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, August 31, 1996. Some themes of Alker and Fraser parallel the call for a “jumping together” of ethics, life sciences, social sciences, and aesthetics in Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Knopf, 1998). Back.
Note 6: For background, see Special Issue: Evolutionary Paradigms in the Social Sciences, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3 (September 1996); for applications and an extensive bibliography, Joshua M. Epstein and Robert Axtell, Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science from the Bottom Up (Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 1996). Back.
Note 7: Research on complexity at the Santa Fe Institute is summarized in Roger Lewin, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos (New York: Macmillan, 1992). Stuart Kauffman’s major works are The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) and At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). For a skeptical view of complexity theory, see John Horgan, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1996), chaps. 5–9. For a more balanced appraisal, see the “Edge of Chaos” and many relevant entries in Ian Marshall and Danah Zohar, Who’s Afraid of Schrödinger’s Cat: All the Science Ideas You Need to Keep Up with the New Thinking (New York: Morrow, 1997).
The Santa Fe Institute, founded in 1984, publishes the journal Complexity. Recent Institute working papers include Martin Shubik, “Game Theory, Complexity, and Simplicity Part I: A Tutorial” (98–04–027); Melisa Savage and Manor Askenazi, “Arborscapes: A Swarm-based Multi-agent Ecological Disturbance Model” (98–06–056).
Complexity theory has stimulated many essays by political scientist Robert M. Axelrod, who has worked at the Santa Fe Institute. Axelrod’s focus, however, has been on solving complex problems by a variety of methods rather than on applying complexity theory as developed by Kauffman et al. See Robert M. Axelrod, The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Cooperation (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997) and his paper “Advancing the Art of Simulation in the Social Sciences,” International Conference on Computer Simulation and the Social Sciences, Cortona, Italy, September 22–25, 1997. Back.
Note 8: Kauffman places all life in the context of coevolution. See also Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson, Genes, Mind, and Culture: the Coevolutionary Process (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); Martin A. Nowak et al., “The Arithmetics of Mutual Help,” Scientific American, Vol. 272, No. 6 (June 1995), pp. 76–81. Back.
Note 9: See Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: the Burgess Shale and Nature of History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989). Back.
Note 10: Punctuated equilibrium arises because the entire universe is expanding. Ours is a nonequilibrium universe with multitudes of free energy. Like the universe, earth’s biosphere is a nonequilibrium system, shaped by the flux of solar radiation. The order we perceive in life reflects both low-energy equilibrium forms and dissipative structures—living whirlpools that import and export matter and energy. Back.
Note 11: For realism, see Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1948 and later editions); for neorealism, see Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979). Back.
Note 12: A more refined view distinguishes between tangible and intangible assets. Not two but three kinds of power are spelled out by Joseph Nye: hard power—the ability to coerce and command; soft power, the ability to persuade and coopt; and conversion power, the ability to use hard and soft power to carry out policy objectives. (Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power [New York: Basic Books, 1990]. Nye and other scholars point out that power is not identical to influence. Some actors can achieve great influence with little power; some with great power register little influence. Back.
Note 13: See United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report (New York: Oxford University Press, annual). Back.
Note 14: The Internet poses a major problem for leaders in countries such as Syria and China who seek to promote commerce and science but who also want to retain control over communications and information. Back.
Note 15: See, e.g., “ International Organization at Fifty: Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics,” special issue of International Organization, 52, 4 (August 1998). Back.
Note 16: See also Epstein and Axtell, Growing Artificial Societies. Back.
Note 17: See Walter C. Clemens, Jr., Dynamics of International Relations: Conflict and Mutual Gain in an Era of Global Interdependence (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), chapters 1 and 14. Back.
Note 18: Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (2 volume abridgement: New York: Oxford University Press, 1947–1957), Vol. 1, 548–54; Vol. 2, 270–74. Back.
Note 19: Toynbee, A Study of History, 1, 552. Toynbee also allows that some civilizations may seem to follow a two, four, or even five beat rhythm. Ibid., 1, 549. Back.
Note 20: For analysis and bibliography of the Baltic crusade, see William Urban, “Victims of the Baltic Crusade,” Journal of Baltic Studies, 29, 3 (Fall 19998), pp. 195–212. There are many excellent studies of the Hansas, but mostly from a Western European or Nordic standpoint. There are excellent monographic histories of individual Baltic states, such as that by Toivo Raun, Estonia and the Estonians (2d ed.; Stanford CA: Hoover Institution, 1991), but not on all three Baltic states. On the first period of their independence, see Georg von Rauch, The Baltic States: The Years of Independence, 1917–1940 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1995). Back.
Note 21: In the Middle Ages Lithuanians did better than Estonians or Latvians. Even before Christian missionaries and knights landed on the Baltic coast, Lithuanians were hegemons in their neighborhood. The bullied and exploited their neighbors to the west and north. In the 13th century Lithuanian tribes formed a united polity that fought off the Teutonic Knights. This entity in the 14th century grew into one of Europe’s largest and most powerful states, extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Imperial expansion, however, undermined Lithuania’s language and culture. Lithuania’s cultural identity weakened due to a mix of internal and external pressures. The official language of expanded Lithuania was not a Baltic tongue but Slavic—Belarussian—a lingua franca for a polity that included more Slavs (largely Christian) than Lithuanians (largely pagan). Soon Lithuania allied and then merged with Poland to form a mighty Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This alliance cost Lithuania its pagan faith and led to polonization of the ruling classes, who embraced not just Roman Catholicism but the Polish language. Lithuanian society was also shaped by contacts with Kurland to the north. Lithuania’s class structure came to emulate that of the Baltic barons—Germans in Kurland. Back.
Note 22: For a masterful summary, see William Urban, “Implications of the Past for the Future of the Baltic States,” Lituanis, 37, 4 (1991), pp. 65–74. Back.
Note 23: Anatol Lieven, The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Walter C. Clemens, Jr., Baltic Independence and Russian Empire (New York: St. Martin’s, 1991). Back.
Note 24: Most of the Germans who for centuries dominated both town and agricultural life in today’s Estonia and Latvia departed after World War I or just before World War II. The Jewish communities that thrived in Riga, Vilnius, and elsewhere in the Baltic countries were nearly exterminated in the 1940s. Though some Jews remained in Poland, that country became virtually judenrein in the 1960s. Low German culture in Pomerania and Mecklenburg has been weakened. Linguistic and cultural minorities such as the Kashubians and Ingrians have also nearly disappeared. See however Kaarina Ylonen, Religion and Ethnicity: The Renaissance of the Ingrian Church after the End of Communist Rule (Tempere: Research Institute of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, 1998). One of the oldest Kashub texts is Der kleine Catechissmus D. Martini Lutheri. Deutsch und Wendisch gegen einander gesetzt (Cologne: Bohlau, 1958), with appendices from the Old and New Testament as published in Danzig in 1643. Back.
Note 25: Communism exterminated a large fraction of Russia’s elites along with millions of ordinary Russians; undermined Russian culture and environmental quality; cut off Russia from the realms of free thought, free enterprise, and democratic politics. Back.
Note 26: Nicolai N. Petro, “The Novgorod Region: A Russian Success Story,” University of Rhode Island, December 1998. Back.
Note 27: How Russian settlers respond to life in Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, and Kazakstan is analyzed in David D. Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1998). Slavic speakers have adapted differently in different regions of Estonia. For example, integration is twice as likely in the university city of Tartu as in Lasnamäe. See Tiit Tammaru, “Regional’nye razlichiia adaptatsii russkikh i faktory, vliiaushchie na adaptatsiiu,” Raduga [Tallinn], 1 (1998), pp. 121–36. Back.
Note 28: Walter C. Clemens, Jr., “The Baltic Reborn: Challenges of Transition,” Demokratizatsiya, 6, 4 (Fall 1998), pp. 710–33. Studies sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme, however, underscore the severe problems of the elderly—indeed, for many persons over 40 or 50 years old who have not been integrated in the new way of life. A separate Human Development Report is published for each Baltic republic in Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius. Back.
Note 29: Russia’s Primary Chronicle relates that Russians invited in Varangians to bring order. Back.
Note 30: See Clemens, Dynamics of International Relations. Back.
Note 31: Petr Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution [1902] (Boston: Extending Horizons, 1955). On a visit to North America, Kropotkin saw the Harvard Cooperative Society as an exemplar of mutual aid. Back.
Note 32: David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius, The Manager as Negotiator: Bargaining for Cooperation and Competitive Gain (New York: Free Press, 1986), pp. 30–31; see also Howard Raiffa, The Art and Science of Negotiation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982). Back.
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