Great Power Politics: Not Dead, Just Napping

I recently read John Mearsheimer’s book, The Tradegy of Great Power Politics.  I knew going into it that it wasn’t going to be a reading I would disagree much with.  Mearsheimer is a refreshing read in an age of over-the-top Anglo-Saxon flattery and quixotic statements about global peace and cooperation.  Mearsheimer is an ardent realist in an optimistic age.  Through his historical evaluation of great power politics, he easily demolishes any hint of truth to the optimistic view of geopolitics.

In his book, Mearsheimer defends his position by evaluating the course of great power politics since the Napoleonic period.  His main goal throughout the book is to show how states operating in an anarchical international system consistently follow a realist behavior trend.  Driven by a sense of fear and uncertainty and an innate desire to survive, great powers are always seeking to maximize their relative levels of power at the expense of other states with hegemony being the end goal.  States only cooperate when absolutely necessary to survive or in order to improve their relative positions of power.  An idealist notions of geopolitics that views international relations as a potentially peaceful or cooperative venture run into one major problem:  the structure of the system prevents states from ever setting aside their own selfish desire to be as secure as possible vis-a-vis other states.  In a world absent of an international governing body, power politics are the choice model, every time.

I want to follow-up on this reading with a brief remuneration of the realist logic, as it applies to the 21st century world order.  Obviously, much of my analysis is taken from Mearsheimer’s book.  Also, I’ll admit upfront, in case you didn’t know, that I consider myself a realist.  I think it’s quite difficult to argue that international politics are driven by anything other than pure power politics.  Although things have changed significantly, the introduction of democratic states, the rise in influence of non-state actors, and the increasing importance of soft power, I can’t see how any “idealist” paradigm can stand the assault of history – recent or past.

It’s a common belief in academia, particularly in the West, that international politics underwent a fundamental transformation with the end of the Cold War.  The old realist adage that security competition and conflict are the defining features of great power politics came tumbling down with the wall.  President Clinton captures this optimistic sentiment the best.  In a 1992 speech he declared that “in a world where freedom, not tyranny, is on the march, the cynical calculus of pure power politics simply does not compute.  it is ill-suited to a new era.”

Not hardly.  I think the inaccuracy of this statement is rather well established.  The central claim to this statement is that since the Cold War ended great power politics suddenly vanished and states suddenly gave up their concerns about the balance of power and their desire to maximize their power vis-a-vis other states.  This belief and all accompanying justification can be thrown out on its face.  The emergence of the 21st century world order didn’t bring about a fundamental transformation of the system’s inherent structure.  The international system is still an anarchic structure, and it is this anarchy that drives a state’s behavior.  There is no world government or global arbiter to oversee the actions of states and enforce laws.  Nuclear weapons, although an outstanding deterrent and great instrument of stability, hasn’t and won’t prevent conflict – even between nuclearized states.  In a system void of a central, governing body, there is only one rule:  power.  In such a system, fear and uncertainty trump any notion of peace and cooperation.

Since the fundamental structure of the system remains unchanged, it’s absurd to think that the behavior of the various actors within it would suddenly alter their centuries-long methods and practices.  States still fear one other and seek to gain power at the others’ expense. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent reconfiguration of eastern Europe at the end of the the Cold War certainly caused a major shift in the global distribution of power, but that’s about it.  The structure of the international system remains the same: states seek to maximize their relative levels of power at the expense of others, with hegemony as the end goal.

Here we are now, some 18 years after the dissolution of the bi-polar, sometimes hot, mainly Cold War.  With the exception of a few misguided ventures into the Middle East and central Asia (no minor events, indeed), why hasn’t their been any great power conflict in the 21st century?  Does that mean that perhaps the system did undergo a fundamental change?  Not hardly.  We’re just experiencing the relative calm that comes as a result of a relatively balanced power system.  We’re experience the fruits of a balance of power.  Europe remains bipolar, with Russian and the United States as the major powers; Northeast Asia is a balanced multipolar system, china, Russia, and the United States being the principal actors there.  Stability in these regions are supplemented by nuclear weapons, the presence of hundreds of thousands of U.S. forces (probably evidence enough to suggests that fear and uncertainty, not trust, still drives state behavior), and the relative weakness of China and Russia.  It’s good for now, but it doesn’t ensure everlasting peace – and it certainly doesn’t mean we’ve reached an epoch of peaceful cooperation and renunciation of great power power politics, as some like to believe.

Despite the hopeful optimism, the realist approach doesn’t just share root word with reality, it actually reflects it.  As Mearsheimer says, “the real world remains a realist world.”  Get used to it.