security studies reader_1.pdf

NATIONAL SCHOOL OF POLITICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE

STUDIES

STRATEGIC STUDIES READER

LECTURER RADU-SEBASTIAN UNGUREANU

RADU - ALEXANDRU CUCUTĂ

BUCHAREST

2013

1. State and

Sovereignty

Diplomacy

THE DIALOGUE BETWEENSTATES

ADAM WATSON

CHAPTER IIIAims and Policies of States

We established in the last chapter that states or political entities whichwish to retain their independence, whether within their existingboundaries or by forming a community or union with some of theirneighbours, are fated to communicate with other states and unionsoutside their own. This negotiation between political entities whichacknowledge each other’s independence is called diplomacy.

What then do states (including communities and unions of states)want of one another? What, as economists say, are their demands oneach other and on the system? Each independent political entity hascertain goals or objectives which it—or more specifically its government—wishes to achieve, certain things which the government and perhapsthe people also wish to say and do. These goals, which reflect the valuesof the people, may be publicly proclaimed, or they may be unspokenand perhaps only half consciously held. Sometimes a governmentproclaims goals which are quite different from those it actually pursues.Because this is the language of politics, much is written about thepolicies of leaders and political parties and governments in terms oflong-term goals. But a goal is something outside you, something fixedand immovable, at the end of the road or the other side of the field.Goals certainly come into the diplomatic dialogue between states, andespecially into that part of it which is conducted in public. But whatalmost all states ask of one another in their day-to-day relations, whatthey discuss and negotiate with one another about most of the time, aretheir more immediate needs and requirements, and their responses topressures and circumstances. Indeed, a government’s responses topressures, its manner of coping with problems not of its own choosing,usually go far in determining its external policy. Of course the policiesof a government are modified by its long-term goals and objectives, andits responses determined by its values: though often much less thangovernments like to proclaim.

A large number of the problems which confront a government, andmost of the political goals of a ruler or a party, are inward-looking anddomestic. Similarly, the day-to-day policies of a government are mainly

concerned with the internal affairs of the state which it governs. Thereason why governments value independence so highly is because theywant to be able to take these internal decisions themselves. In themodern world the government is the ultimate and decisive authorityinside a state; and as the power of the state (that is, the government)over all activities within it increases, so it becomes more absolute inthe sense that its decisions determine what shall happen in matters thatare within its control. More particularly, inside its own domain agovernment can make laws and issue edicts, in the expectation that theywill be generally obeyed, even if sometimes grudgingly; and it hasmeans of law enforcement to compel those who disobey. But in so faras the problems which face a government are due to causes outside itsboundaries, in so far as what other states do affects its problems, andindeed its policies and its goals, and in so far as its policies affect otherstates, we say a government has a foreign policy. Aussenpolitik(outward policy) is the useful German term. In the field of outwardpolicy the position of a government is entirely different from itsposition at home. A state is not normally strong enough, or for a numberof reasons is unable or unwilling to use its strength, to coerce otherstates to behave as it wishes. And since if it did, the other statesconcerned would not be meaningfully independent, we may broadlysay that by definition an independent state is compelled to negotiateand bargain with other states on all matters where the policies of otherstates affect its own. Sometimes negotiation fails, of course, and statesresort to force. But not all the time, and not with all other states. Mostof the time states further their interests, and make their demands on thesystem and respond to its pressures, by negotiation.

There have been periods of history when the political entities in acertain area had so little contact with one another that they hardly hadneed of outward policies. But the more closely knitted together a systemor society of states is, and the more interdependent the individual statesin that society are, the more each will be affected by the outwardpolicies of the others, and the more obliged it will be to take account ofthem and to enter into a dialogue with them, whether it wants to or not.The world as a whole has never been so closely knit, so interdependent,as it is today. Consequently there is today more diplomacy, and it ismore complex, than ever before.

It is a matter of common observation that the interests and principles,and the goals, of states differ: that each state has a distinct outwardpolicy. Only in imaginary models designed by political scientists forthe purposes of study do all the states in a system have the same policytowards each other. The main reason for these differences is that theoutward policy of each state is largely determined for it by the needs ofthe area concerned and of the people who live there. Thus, for instance,

22 DIPLOMACY

every government of Mauritius will be concerned to sell its sugar at agood price; every government of Russia will want to ensure safe passagethrough the straits out of the Black Sea; every government of Britain hasto ensure imports of huge quantities of food and raw materials. But thereis also an area in the outward policy of any state which is notdetermined in this way but open to choice. This area of choice variesaccording to the circumstances of each state, and is usually much morelimited than is often supposed; but it receives a great deal of attentionprecisely because it is a matter of choice, and therefore of controversy.Choices are possible about some long-term goals, but more usually theyinvolve decisions about reactions to external events and pressures, andmethods of responding to them, including ultimately involvement inwar.

Every state, whether comparatively insulated from others or highlyinterdependent, is above all concerned to preserve the right and abilityto take its own decisions, that is its independence. This is not to say,of course, that every state or political entity wishes to stay exactly as itis, in composition and territorial extent. Certain small states, andespecially their populations, are willing to merge into a larger, equallyindependent state. Sometimes quite large countries want to do this,especially where the populations feel that they belong to the samenation or group. The German and Italian states pooled theirindependence and their sovereignty in the nineteenth century to formtwo large nation-states. Perhaps the Arab states, or those of WesternEurope, may do the same tomorrow, and agree to share in thedecisionmaking processes of a larger state. Indeed from ancient timesmany groups of similar states have merged or formed unions in orderto defend their collective independence more effectively. Similarly,groups or nations which are incorporated in existing states like theUnited Kingdom or India, may have the will and the opportunity tosecede and to form smaller states on their own. In all these cases, newstates emerge, and the desire to preserve independence from other stateswhich people consider to be outside their own entity remains as before.

The desire of every political entity to look after its own interests andtake its own decisions arises from the fact that the interests of differentstates and groups differ. It is wholly false to suppose that the interestsof different groups of people do not, or need not, ever conflict. If stateswere replaced by other structures, these conflicts of interest wouldremain. However, this does not mean that interests are irreconcilable.Interests can be harmonized, or reconciled, or fairly divided by consent,as well as maintained in the teeth of opposition. What this means isthat, to take our first example, the people of Mauritius, who live mainlyby producing sugar, want to get as many other goods as possible inexchange for their sugar. In Western economic terms they want as high

AIMS AND POLICIES OF STATES 23

a sugar price as they can get; whereas the foreigners who consume thesugar and export manufactured goods in return want to pay no morethan they have to. Sugar may be an easier issue to settle than oil, but itis the principal export of many countries today, and a great deal ofnegotiation and bargaining, a great deal of diplomacy, goes intodetermining sugar prices and quotas. In this as in all the other issues ofmodern diplomacy, each state concerned wishes to take its owndecisions and defend its own interests. For instance, the major practicaljustification of the independence of small, underdeveloped countriesfrom colonial and neo-colonial rule is that their interests are not as wellserved by leaving their vital decisions in the hands of others.

The principal concern of each state, then, is to preserve its ownindependence. In a system of states where the policy of each affects theothers, many states recognize that they have a joint interest inmaintaining their independence; and they come to see in theindependence of their fellow members the means to preserve their own.It is not necessary that every state should attach importance topreserving the independence of every other state, nor that it shouldformally recognize all other states as having the same moral right to aseparate existence as it claims for itself. For example, governmentscommitted to national unification are apt to consider certain existingstates to be entities which are destined to disappear, either byabsorption or by partition. But even in the case of revolutionaryregimes, and especially those on the defensive, the maintenance ofone’s own independence is soon seen to involve some recognition ofthat of others (though not necessarily all others). It is clearlyshortsighted of a state to concern itself with the preservation of its ownindependence only, while a more powerful neighbour establishes itsdomination over other states, for sooner or later its turn is likely tocome, and it may not be strong enough to withstand alone thatincreasingly powerful neighbour. From this practical and vitalinvolvement in the independence of other states, the concept developsthat states have a general right to be independent, and that those whichwant to exercise this right have an interest in supporting each other inasserting it. So states in systems come to recognize that the mutualacceptance of the principle of independence, even with exceptions, isa necessary condition of a society of states, and that diplomaticintercourse between them must therefore be based on this acceptance.Recognition of independence, where it exists, both in practice and ofright, is a prerequisite of diplomacy. For a state must recognise thatother states are able and entitled to take their own decisions if it is tocommunicate and negotiate with them effectively about how they willact.

24 DIPLOMACY

The independence of all the states in a system is compatible, just aswithin a state the rights of political parties are compatible with oneanother. This concept of compatibility is important for all collectivediplomacy, and it applies to other aspects of international life whichmost states regard as highly desirable, though they are not prerequisitesof a diplomatic dialogue, as independence is. For instance, peace andsecurity are not essential preconditions of diplomacy. Diplomacy canbe very active even in wartime: within an alliance, and with neutrals,and between the warring states in order to bring the war to an end. Peaceand security are not the same; and though they are bracketed togetherin the Covenant of the League of Nations and in the U.N.Charter, eventhere concepts like ‘enforcing the peace’ and ‘military sanctions’ clearlyillustrate that the maintenance of security may require the capacity andthe perceived will to use military force. But peace and security are likeindependence in that they are also compatible. Every state can work forthem without denying them to other states; and diplomacy can aim toestablish and maintain them on a universal and collective basis.

Therefore when we say that in an international society or system ofstates independence, and peace, and security are compatible, we meanthat broadly speaking the states which desire these conditions can allattain them at once. Similarly we may say by extension that there is awide range of issues where the interests of states differ and indeedconflict, but where solutions can be found which both parties find it intheir interest to accept. For instance, if we take again the issue of sugar,there is a price at which it is in the interest of the seller to sell and thebuyer to buy. Since trade is mutually beneficial, the interests of thebuyer and seller are opposed but not incompatible. If all the states in asystem, all the political entities in an international society, had onlycompatible purposes, diplomacy would involve a great deal of hardbargaining, and perhaps some ill feeling between competitors, but therewould be no serious threat to peace and order in the internationalcommunity.

However, in the real world not every state, and certainly not everyactive political entity, has peaceful and compatible aims and policies.There are at present and always have been a number of states, and ofpolitical entities that do not quite have the international position ofrecognized states, which consider that the world is wrongly orderedand is unjust either in general or in some particular. They do so for anumber of reasons. They may have revolutionary governments, or atleast governments who consider it their duty to change the way inwhich other states are governed (e.g., to spread communism, ordemocracy, or a religion like Islam). Or another state may occupyterritory which they consider ought rightfully to be theirs. Or they maydemand equal opportunities for trade and expansion which other states


monopolize (this was the complaint of Japan between the two worldwars). Or they may be rebel movements that wish to set up new andindependent states or gain control of existing ones. All these aims anddemands, and other similar ones, have been considered legitimate, andindeed heroic and praiseworthy, by different peoples at different times.So far as diplomacy is concerned, what matters is that all of them areincompatible with the interests and demands of some other state orstates.

There are two great difficulties about incompatible demands. Thefirst is the ‘subjectivity’ of controversial values. Independence, andpeace, and the price of sugar, are for practical purposes objectivelydefinable. Diplomats talking about such matters have no great difficultyin agreeing what is meant, even though concepts like independence andpeace are not absolutes but mean rather different things in differentcontexts. Some incompatible demands are equally definable, especiallyconcrete ones like claims to territory. But a demand for justice, a pleafor a wrong to be righted, are based on subjective judgements, on whichthere is normally no agreement. The state against which the demand ismade will probably regard it as unjust, using other criteria which arealso controversial. For instance, if we take the dispute between theUnited Kingdom and Spain about Gibraltar, both sides have criteria oftheir own, according to which they are in the right. A decision by theInternational Court that Gibraltar is legally British would not convincethe Spaniards; and votes by the General Assembly of the U.N. in favourof Spain have not convinced the British. The second and even greaterdifficulty about incompatible demands derives from the fact that wherea state or political entity feels very strongly about what it considers tobe an injustice, it or at least certain of its members tend to resort toviolence in order to correct the wrong. This is especially true when thecriteria or values on which one state or group bases its claim are notuniversally accepted. The history of Palestine over the last sixty yearsis a good illustration of this difficulty.

If peace were to be the supreme goal of all states, and there were tobe no recourse to war or other forms of violence in order to right wrongsor to change the world, then only those wrongs could be righted andonly those adjustments made which a state could be induced to acceptwithout the use of force. It is true that the values of states change; andthat a state may sometimes be persuaded to yield by argument, becauseits government and people acknowledge the justice of the case broughtagainst it. For instance, imperial states may freely, and without the useof force, grant independence to colonies—as Britain, France, Spain andother countries have done. Or a state may be induced to give way byother member states of the international system applying pressure shortof force, such as economic sanctions. But in practice such changes are

26 DIPLOMACY

limited. The renunciation in advance of the use of force in order to righta proclaimed ‘injustice’ is recognized in practice as a diplomaticformula weighted heavily in favour of the status quo. So peace, theexclusion of violence by one political entity against another, isessentially the policy of satisfied states, weak states and states whichconsider that the changes they really care about can be achieved bydiplomacy and the help of their friends without recourse to violence.

Peace, then, does not mean a condition in which there are no conflictsbetween the needs, demands and goals of states, for these are alwayspresent. It means—in the United Nations Charter, for instance, and incommon usage—a condition where states and political entities do notuse violence against one another in pursuit of their incompatible goals.War is a highly concentrated and specialized form of violence betweenstates. It is usually on a much larger and deadlier scale than other formsof violence, and is also usually subject to certain rules and conventions,like the treatment of prisoners, which other forms of internationalviolence do not respect. But like other forms of planned and organizedviolence it is a means to an end. Political entities do not resort to forcefor pleasure, though some individuals may enjoy the thrill andexcitement of violence and war. They resort to force in order to attaina political goal: for instance, in order to correct what they consider anunjust or unfair situation, or to defend what they consider just and rightagainst violence by others.

In order to understand this crucially important aspect of internationalaffairs, and the role which diplomacy can play in it, we must thereforenext examine in more detail, first, subjective ideas of justice, and theconflicts to which incompatible ideas of justice give rise; and then thegeneral relation of diplomacy to force.


the oxford handbook of

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POLITICAL

INSTITUTIONS......................................................................................................................................................

Edited by

R. A. W. RHODES

SARAH A. BINDERand

BERT A. ROCKMAN

1

c h a p t e r 7

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T H E S TAT E A N D

S TAT E - B U I L D I N G...................................................................................................................................................

bob jessop

The state has been studied from many perspectives but no single theory can fully

capture and explain its complexities. States and the interstate system provide a

moving target because of their complex developmental logics and because there

are continuing attempts to transform them. Moreover, despite tendencies to reify the

state and treat it as standing outside and above society, there can be no adequate

theory of the state without a wider theory of society. For the state and political system

are parts of a broader ensemble of social relations and neither state projects nor state

power can be adequately understood outside their embedding in this ensemble.

1 What is the State?

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This innocuous-looking question challenges anyone trying to analyze states. Some

theorists deny the state’s very existence (see below) but most still accept that states

are real and provide a valid research focus. Beyond this consensus, however, lies

conceptual chaos. Key questions include: Is the state best deWned by its legal form,

coercive capacities, institutional composition and boundaries, internal operations

and modes of calculation, declared aims, functions for the broader society, or

sovereign place in the international system? Is it a thing, a subject, a social relation,

or a construct that helps to orient political action? Is stateness a variable and, if so,

what are its central dimensions? What is the relationship between the state and law,

the state and politics, the state and civil society, the public and the private, state

power and micropower relations? Is the state best studied in isolation; only as

part of the political system; or, indeed, in terms of a more general social theory?

Do states have institutional, decisional, or operational autonomy and, if so, what

are its sources and limits?

Everyday language sometimes depicts the state as a subject—the state does, or

must do, this or that; and sometimes as a thing—this economic class, social

stratum, political party, or oYcial caste uses the state to pursue its projects or

interests. But how could the state act as if it were a uniWed subject and what could

constitute its unity as a ‘‘thing?’’ Coherent answers are hard because the state’s

referents vary so much. It changes shape and appearance with the activities it

undertakes, the scales on which it operates, the political forces acting towards it, the

circumstances in which it and they act, and so on. When pressed, a common

response is to list the institutions that comprise the state, usually with a core set of

institutions with increasingly vague outer boundaries. From the political executive,

legislature, judiciary, army, police, and public administration, the list may extend

to education, trade unions, mass media, religion, and even the family. Such lists

typically fail to specify what lends these institutions the quality of statehood. This is

hard because, as Max Weber (1948) famously noted, there is no activity that states

always perform and none that they have never performed. Moreover, what if, as

some theorists argue, the state is inherently prone to fail? Are the typical forms of

state failure properly part of its core deWnition or merely contingent, variable, and

eliminable secondary features? Finally, who are the state’s agents? Do they include

union leaders involved in policing incomes policies, for example, or media owners

who circulate propaganda on the state’s behalf?

An obvious escape route is to deWne the state in terms of means rather than ends.

This approach informs Weber’s celebrated deWnition of the modern state as the

‘‘human community that successfully claims legitimate monopoly over the means

of coercion in a given territorial area’’ as well as deWnitions that highlight its formal

sovereignty vis-a-vis its own population and other states. This does not mean that

modern states exercise power largely through direct and immediate coercion—this

would be a sign of crisis or state failure—but rather that coercion is their last resort

in enforcing binding decisions. For, where state power is regarded as legitimate, it

can normally secure compliance without such recourse. Even then all states

reserve the right—or claim the need—to suspend the constitution or speciWc

legal provisions and many states rely heavily on force, fraud, and corruption and

their subjects’ inability to organize eVective resistance.

112 bob jessop

Building on Weber and his contemporaries, other theorists regard the essence of

the state (premodern as well as modern) as the territorialization of political

authority. This involves the intersection of politically organized coercive and

symbolic power, a clearly demarcated core territory, and a Wxed population on

which political decisions are collectively binding. Thus the key feature of the state is

the historically variable ensemble of technologies and practices that produce,

naturalize, and manage territorial space as a bounded container within which

political power is then exercised to achieve various, more or less well integrated,

and changing policy objectives. A system of formally sovereign, mutually recog-

nizing, mutually legitimating national states exercising sovereign control over large

and exclusive territorial areas is only a relatively recent institutional expression of

state power. Other modes of territorializing political power have existed, some still

coexist with the so-called Westphalian system (allegedly established by the

Treaties of Westphalia in 1648 but realized only stepwise during the nineteenth

and twentieth centuries), new expressions are emerging, and yet others can be

imagined. For example, is the EU a new form of state power, a rescaled ‘‘national’’

state, a revival of medieval political patterns, or a post-sovereign form of authority?

And is the rapid expansion of transnational regimes indicative of the emergence of

global governance or even a world state?

Another inXuential theorist, the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci, deWned

the state as ‘‘political society þ civil society;’’ and likewise analyzed state power in

modern democratic societies as based on ‘‘hegemony armoured by coercion.’’ He

deWned hegemony as the successful mobilization and reproduction of the ‘‘active

consent’’ of dominated groups by the ruling class through the exercise of political,

intellectual, and moral leadership. Force in turn involves the use of a coercive

apparatus to bring the mass of the people into conformity and compliance with the

requirements of a speciWc mode of production. This approach provides a salutary

reminder that the state only exercises power by projecting and realizing state

capacities beyond the narrow boundaries of state; and that domination and

hegemony can be exercised on both sides of any oYcial public–private divide

(for example, state support for paramilitary groups such as the Italian fascisti,

state education in relation to hegemony) (Gramsci 1971).

Building on Marx and Gramsci, a postwar Greek political theorist, Nicos

Poulantzas (1978), developed a better solution. He claimed that the state is a social

relation. This elliptical phrase implies that, whether regarded as a thing (or, better,

an institutional ensemble) or as a subject (or, better, the repository of speciWc

political capacities and resources), the state is far from a passive instrument or

neutral actor. Instead it is always biased by virtue of the structural and strategic

selectivity that makes state institutions, capacities, and resources more accessible to

some political forces and more tractable for some purposes than others. Poulantzas

interpreted this mainly in class terms and grounded it in the generic form of the

capitalist state; he also argued that selectivity varies by particular political regimes.

state and state-building 113

Likewise, since it is not a subject, the capitalist state does not, and indeed cannot,

exercise power. Instead its powers (plural) are activated by changing sets of

politicians and state oYcials located in speciWc parts of the state in speciWc

conjunctures. If an overall strategic line is discernible in the exercise of these

powers, it is due to strategic coordination enabled through the selectivity of the

state system and the role of parallel power networks that cross-cut and unify its

formal structures. Such unity is improbable, according to Poulantzas, because the

state is shot through with contradictions and class struggles and its political agents

must always take account of (potential) mobilization by a wide range of forces

beyond the state, engaged in struggles to transform it, determine its policies, or

simply resist it from afar. This approach can be extended to include dimensions

of social domination that are not directly rooted in class relations (for example,

gender, ethnicity, ‘‘race,’’ generation, religion, political aYliation, or regional

location). This would provide a bridge to non-Marxist analyses of the state and

state power (see below on the strategic-relational approach).

2 The Origins of the State and

State-building

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State formation is not a once-and-for-all process nor did the state develop in just

one place and then spread elsewhere. It has been invented many times, had its

ups and downs, and seen recurrent cycles of centralization and decentralization,

territorialization and deterritorialization. This is a rich Weld for political

archeology, political anthropology, historical sociology, comparative politics,

evolutionary institutional economics, historical materialism, and international

relations. Although its origins have been explained in various monocausal ways,

none of these provides a convincing general explanation. Marxists focus on the

emergence of economic surplus to enable development of specialized, economic-

ally unproductive political apparatus concerned to secure cohesion in a

(class-)divided society (see, classically, Engels’ (1875) Origins of the Family, Private

Property, and the State); military historians focus on the role of military conquest in

state-building and/or the demands of defense of territorial integrity in the expan-

sion of state capacities to penetrate and organize society (Hintze’s (e.g. 1975) work

is exemplary; see also Porter 1994). Others emphasize the role of a specialized

priesthood and organized religion (or other forms of ideological power) in giving

symbolic unity to the population governed by the state (Claessen and Skalnik

1978). Feminist theorists have examined the role of patriarchy in state formation

114 bob jessop

and the state’s continuing role in reproducing gender divisions. And yet other

scholars focus on the ‘‘imagined political communities’’ around which nation

states have been constructed (classically Anderson 1991).

The best approach is multicausal and recognizes that states change continually,

are liable to break down, and must be rebuilt in new forms, with new capacities and

functions, new scales of operation, and a predisposition to new types of failure. In

this context, as Mann (1986) notes, the state is polymorphous—its organization and

capacities can be primarily capitalist, military, theocratic, or democratic in character

and its dominant crystallization is liable to challenge as well as conjunctural

variation. There is no guarantee that the modern state will always (or ever) be

primarily capitalist in character and, even where capital accumulation is deeply

embedded in its organizational matrix, it typically takes account of other functional

demands and civil society in order to promote institutional integration and social

cohesion within its territorial boundaries. Whether it succeeds is another matter.

Modern state formation has been analyzed from four perspectives. First, the

state’s ‘‘historical constitution’’ is studied in terms of path-dependent histories or

genealogies of particular parts of the modern state (such as a standing army,

modern tax system, formal bureaucracy, parliament, universal suVrage, citizen-

ship rights, and recognition by other states). Second, work on ‘‘formal constitu-

tion’’ explores how a state acquires, if at all, its distinctive formal features as a

modern state, such as formal separation from other spheres of society, its own

political rationale, modus operandi, and distinctive constitutional legitimation,

based on adherence to its own political procedures rather than values such as

divine right or natural law. Third, agency-centered theorizations focus on state

projects that give a substantive (as opposed to formal) unity to state actions and

whose succession deWnes diVerent types of state, for example, liberal state,

welfare state, competition state. And, fourth, conWgurational analyses explore

the distinctive character of state–civil society relations and seek to locate state

formation within wider historical developments. Eisenstadt’s (1963) work on the

rise and fall of bureaucratic empires, Elias’s (1982) work on the state and

civilization, and Rokkan’s (1999) work on European state formation over the

last 400–500 years are exemplary here.

3 Marxist Approaches to the State

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Marx’s and Engels’ work on the state comprises diverse philosophical, theoretical,

journalistic, partisan, ad hominem, or purely ad hoc comments. This is reXected in


the weaknesses of later Marxist state theories, both analytically and practically, and

has prompted many attempts to complete the Marxist theory of the state based

on selective interpretations of these writings. There were two main axes around

which these views moved. Epiphenomenalist accounts mainly interpreted state

forms and functions as more or less direct reXections of underlying economic

structures and interests. These views were sometimes modiWed to take account of

the changing stages of capitalism and the relative stability or crisis-prone nature

of capitalism. Instrumentalist accounts treated the state as a simple vehicle for

political class rule, moving as directed by those in charge. For some tendencies

and organizations (notably in the social democratic movement) instrumentalism

could justify a parliamentary democratic road to socialism based on the electoral

conquest of power, state planning, or nationalization of leading industrial sec-

tors. Others argued that parliamentary democracy was essentially bourgeois and

that extra-parliamentary mobilization and a new form of state were crucial to

make and consolidate a proletarian revolution. Frankfurt School critical theorists

examined the interwar trends towards a strong, bureaucratic state—whether

authoritarian or totalitarian in form. They argued that this corresponded to

the development of organized or state capitalism, relied increasingly on the

mass media for its ideological power, and had integrated the trade union

movement as a political support or else smashed it as part of the consolidation

of totalitarian rule.

Marxist interest revived in the 1960s and 1970s in response to the apparent ability

of the Keynesian welfare national state to manage the postwar economy in

advanced capitalist societies and the alleged ‘‘end of ideology’’ that accompanied

postwar economic growth. Marxists initially sought to prove that, notwithstanding

the postwar boom, contemporary states could not really suspend capital’s contra-

dictions and crisis-tendencies and that the state remained a key factor in class

domination.

The relative autonomy of the state was much debated in the 1970s and 1980s.

Essentially this topic concerned the relative freedom of the state (or, better, state

managers) to pursue policies that conXicted with the immediate interests of the

dominant economic class(es) without becoming so autonomous that they could

undermine their long-term interests too. This was one of the key themes in the

notoriously diYcult Miliband–Poulantzas debate in the 1970s between an alleged

instrumentalist and a purported determinist, respectively. This controversy

generated much heat but little light because it was based as much on diVerent

presentational strategies as it was on real theoretical diVerences. Thus Miliband’s

(1969) work began by analyzing the social origins and current interests of

economic and political elites and then proceeded to analyze more fundamental

features of actually existing states in a capitalist society and the constraints on its

autonomy. Poulantzas (1973) began with the overall institutional framework of

capitalist societies, deWned the ideal-typical capitalist type of state (a constitutional

116 bob jessop

democratic state based on the rule of law), then explored the typical forms

of political class struggle in bourgeois democracies (concerned with winning

active consent for a national-popular project), and concluded with an analysis

of the relative autonomy of state managers. Whilst not fully abandoning

his earlier approach, Poulantzas later argued that the state is a social relation

(see above).

The best work in this period formulated two key insights with a far wider

relevance. First, some Marxists explored how the typical form of the capitalist

state actually caused problems rather than guaranteed its overall functionality for

capital accumulation and political class domination. For the state’s institutional

separation from the market economy, a separation that was regarded as a necessary

and deWning feature of capitalist societies, results in the dominance of diVerent

(and potentially contradictory) institutional logics and modes of calculation in

state and economy. There is no certainty that political outcomes will serve the

needs of capital—even if (and, indeed, precisely because) the state is operationally

autonomous and subject to politically-mediated constraints and pressures. This

conclusion fuelled work on the structural contradictions, strategic dilemmas, and

historically conditioned development of speciWc state forms. It also prompted

interest in the complex interplay of social struggles and institutions. And, second,

as noted above, Marxist theorists began to analyze state power as a complex social

relation. This involved studies of diVerent states’ structural selectivity and the

factors that shaped their strategic capacities. Attention was paid to the variability

of these capacities, their organization and exercise, and their diVerential impact on

the state power and states’ capacities to project power into social realms well

beyond their own institutional boundaries. As with the Wrst set of insights, this

also led to more complex studies of struggles, institutions, and political capacities

(see Barrow 1993; Jessop 2001).

4 State-centered Theories

.........................................................................................................................................................................................

The Xourishing of Marxist state theories in the 1970s prompted a

counter-movement in the 1980s to ‘‘bring the state back in’’ as a critical explanatory

variable in social analysis. This approach was especially popular in the USA and

claimed that the dominant postwar approaches were too ‘‘society-centered’’ be-

cause they explained the state’s form, functions, and impact in terms of factors

rooted in the organization, needs, or interests of society. Marxism was accused of

economic reductionism for its emphasis on base-superstructure relations and class


struggle; pluralism was charged with limiting its account of competition for state

power to interest groups and movements rooted in civil society and ignoring the

distinctive role and interests of state managers; and structural-functionalism was

criticized for assuming that the development and operations of the political

system were determined by the functional requirements of society as a whole.

‘‘State-centered’’ theorists claimed this put the cart before the horse. They argued

that state activities and their impact are easily explained in terms of its distinctive

properties as an administrative or repressive organ and/or the equally distinct-

ive properties of the broader political system encompassing the state. Societal

factors, when not irrelevant, were certainly secondary; and their impact on state

aVairs was always Wltered through the political system and the state itself.

The classic statement of this approach is found in Evans, Rueschemeyer, and

Skocpol (1985).

In its more programmatic guise the statist approach advocated a return to

classic theorists such as Machiavelli, Clausewitz, de Tocqueville, Weber, or

Hintze. In practice, statists showed little interest in such thinkers, with the partial

exception of Weber. The real focus of state-centered work is detailed case studies

of state-building, policy-making, and implementation. These emphasize six

themes: (a) the geopolitical position of diVerent states in the interstate system

and its implications for the logic of state action; (b) the dynamic of military

organization and the impact of warfare on the overall development of the state—

reXected in Tilly’s claim that, not only do states make war, but wars make states;

(c) the state’s distinctive administrative powers—especially those rooted in its

capacities to produce and enforce collectively binding decisions within a centrally

organized, territorially bounded society—and its strategic reach in relation to all

other social sub-systems (including the economy), organizations (including

capitalist enterprises), and forces (including classes) within its domain; (d) the

state’s role as a distinctive factor in shaping institutions, group formation,

interest articulation, political capacities, ideas, and demands beyond the state;

(e) the distinctive pathologies of government and the political system—such as

bureaucratism, political corruption, government overload, or state failure; and

(f) the distinctive interests and capacities of ‘‘state managers’’ (career oYcials,

elected politicians, and so on). Although ‘‘state-centered’’ theorists emphasized

diVerent factors or combinations thereof, the main conclusions remain that there

are distinctive political pressures and processes that shape the state’s form and

functions; give it a real and important autonomy when faced with pressures

and forces emerging from the wider society; and thereby endow it with a unique

and irreplaceable centrality both in national life and the international order. In

short, the state is a force in its own right and does not just serve the economy or

civil society (Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985).

Their approach leads ‘‘state-centered’’ theorists to advance a distinctive inter-

pretation of state autonomy. For most Marxists, the latter is primarily understood

118 bob jessop

in terms of the state’s capacity to promote the long-term, collective interests of

capital even when faced with opposition—including from particular capitalist

interests. Only in exceptional and typically short-lived circumstances can the state

secure real freedom of action. Neostatists reject such a class- or capital-theoretical

account and suggest that it is usual for the state to exercise autonomy in its

own right and in pursuit of its own, quite distinctive, interests. Accordingly, they

emphasize: (a) state managers’ ability to exercise power independently of (and even

in the face of resistance from) non-state forces—especially where a pluralistic

universe of social forces opens signiWcant scope for maneuver; and (b) the ground-

ing of this ability in the state’s distinctive political resources and its ability to use

these to penetrate, control, supervise, police, and discipline modern societies.

Neostatists also argue that state autonomy is not a Wxed structural feature of

each and every governmental system but diVers across states, by policy area, and

over time. This is due partly to external limits on the scope for autonomous state

action and partly to variations in state managers’ capacity and readiness to pursue

a strategy independent of non-state actors.

The extensive body of statist empirical research has generally proved a fruitful

counterweight to one-sided class- and capital-theoretical work. Nonetheless four

signiWcant lines of criticism have been advanced against neostatism. First, the

rationale for neostatism is based on incomplete and misleading accounts of

society-centered work. Second, neostatism itself focuses one-sidedly on state

and party politics at the expense of political forces outside and beyond the state.

In particular, it substitutes ‘‘politicians for social formations (such as class or

gender or race), elite for mass politics, political conXict for social struggle’’

(Gordon 1990). Third, it allegedly has a hidden political agenda. Some critics

claim that it serves to defend state managers as eVective agents of economic

modernization and social reform rather than highlighting the risks of authoritari-

anism and autocratic rule. Fourth, and most seriously, neostatism involves a

fundamental theoretical fallacy. It posits clear and unambiguous boundaries

between the state apparatus and society, state managers and social forces, and

state power and societal power; the state can therefore be studied in isolation from

society. This renders absolute what are really emergent, partial, unstable, and

variable distinctions. This excludes hybrid logics such as corporatism or policy

networks; divisions among state managers due to ties between state organs and

other social spheres; and many other forms of overlap between state and society.

If this assumption is rejected, however, the distinction between state- and

society-centered approaches dissolves. This in turn invalidates, not merely the

extreme claim that the state apparatus should be treated as the independent

variable in explaining political and social events, but also lesser neostatist claims

such as the heuristic value of bending the stick in the other direction or, alterna-

tively, of combining state-centered and society-centered accounts to produce the

complete picture.


5 Foucauldian Approaches

.........................................................................................................................................................................................

If state-centered theorists hoped to bring the state back in as an independent

variable and/or an autonomous actor, Foucault aimed to undermine the analytical

centrality of the state, sovereignty, or law for power relations. He advanced three key

claims in this regard. First, state theory is essentialist: it tries to explain the state and

state power in terms of their own inherent, pre-given properties. Instead it should

try to explain the development and functioning of the state as the contingent

outcome of speciWc practices that are not necessarily (if at all) located within, or

openly oriented to, the state itself. Second, state theory retains medieval notions of a

centralized, monarchical sovereignty and/or a uniWed, juridico-political power. But

there is a tremendous dispersion and multiplicity of the institutions and practices

involved in the exercise of state power and many of these are extra-juridical in

nature. And, third, state theorists were preoccupied with the summits of the state

apparatus, the discourses that legitimated sovereign state power, and the extent of

the sovereign state’s reach into society. In contrast Foucault advocated a bottom-up

approach concerned with the multiple dispersed sites where power is actually

exercised. He proposed a microphysics of power concerned with actual practices

of subjugation rather than with macropolitical strategies. For state power is dis-

persed. It involves the active mobilization of individuals and not just their passive

targeting, and can be colonized and articulated into quite diVerent discourses,

strategies, and institutions. In short, power is not concentrated in the state: it is

ubiquitous, immanent in every social relation (see notably Foucault 1980a,b).

Nonetheless Foucault did not reject all concern with the macrophysics of state

power. He came to see the state as the crucial site of statecraft and ‘‘governmen-

tality’’ (or governmental rationality). What interested him was the art of govern-

ment, a skilled practice in which state capacities were used reXexively to monitor

the population and, with all due prudence, to make it conform to speciWc state

projects. Raison d’etat, an autonomous political rationality, set apart from religion

and morality, was the key to the rise of the modern state. This in turn could be

linked to diVerent modes of political calculation or state projects, such as those

coupled to the ‘‘police state’’ (Polizeistaat), social government, or the welfare state.

It was in and through these governmental rationalities or state projects that more

local or regional sites of power were colonized, articulated into ever more general

mechanisms and forms of global domination, and then maintained by the entire

state system. Foucault also insisted on the need to explore the connections between

these forms of micropower and mechanisms for producing knowledge—whether

for surveillance, the formation and accumulation of knowledge about individuals,

or their constitution as speciWc types of subject.

Foucault never codiWed his work and changed his views frequently. Taking his

ideas on the ubiquity of power relations, the coupling of power-knowledge, and

120 bob jessop

governmentality together, however, he oVers an important theoretical and empir-

ical corrective to the more one-sided and/or essentialist analyses of Marxist state

theory and to the taken-for-grantedness of the state that infuses neostatism. But his

work remains vulnerable to the charge that it tends to reduce power to a set of

universally applicable power technologies (whether panoptic surveillance or

disciplinary normalization) and to ignore how class and patriarchal relations

shape the state’s deployment of these powers as well as the more general exercise

of power in the wider society. It also neglects the continued importance of law,

constitutionalized violence, and bureaucracy for the modern state. Moreover,

whatever the merits of drawing attention to the ubiquity of power, his work

provided little account of the bases of resistance (bar an alleged ‘‘plebeian’’ spirit

of revolt). More recent Foucauldian studies have tried to overcome these

limitations and to address the complex strategic and structural character of the

state apparatus and statecraft and the conditions that enable the state to engage in

eVective action across many social domains.

6 Feminist Approaches

.........................................................................................................................................................................................

While feminists have elaborated distinctive theories of the gendering of social

relations and provide powerful critiques of malestream political philosophy and

political theory, they have generally been less interested in developing a general

feminist theory of the state. In part this reXects their interest in other concepts that

are more appropriate to a feminist theoretical and political agenda and their

concern to break with the phallocratic concerns of malestream theory (Allen

1990; MacKinnon 1989). The main exception in the Wrst wave of postwar state

theorizing was Marxist–feminist analyses of the interaction of class and gender in

structuring states, state intervention, and state power in ways that reproduce both

capitalism and patriarchy. Other currents called for serious analysis of the state

because of its centrality to women’s lives (e.g. Brown 1992). This is reXected in

various theories about diVerent aspects of the state (Knutilla and Kubik 2001

compare feminist with classical and other state theories).

Some radical feminist theories simply argued that, whatever their apparent

diVerences, all states are expressions of patriarchy or phallocracy. Other feminists

tried to derive the necessary form and/or functions of the patriarchal state from the

imperatives of reproduction (rather than production), from the changing forms

of patriarchal domination, from the gendered nature of household labor in the

‘‘domestic’’ mode of production, and so on. Such work denies any autonomy or


contingency to the state. Others again try to analyze the contingent articulation of

patriarchal and capitalist forms of domination as crystallized in the state. The best

work in this Weld shows that patriarchal and gender relations make a diVerence to

the state but it also refuses to prejudge the form and eVects of this diVerence.

Thus, ‘‘acknowledging that gender inequality exists does not automatically imply

that every capitalist state is involved in the reproduction of that inequality in the

same ways or to the same extent’’ (Jenson 1986). An extensive literature on the

complex and variable forms of articulation of class, gender, and ethnicity in

particular state structures and policy areas has since revealed the limits of gender

essentialism. This ‘‘intersectional’’ approach has been taken further by third wave

feminists and queer theorists, who emphasize the instability and socially con-

structed arbitrariness of dominant views of sexual and gender identities and

demonstrate the wide variability of masculine as well as feminine identities and

interests. Thus there is growing interest in the constitution of competing, incon-

sistent, and even openly contradictory identities for both males and females, their

grounding in discourses about masculinity and/or femininity, their explicit or

implicit embedding in diVerent institutions and material practices, and their

physico-cultural materialization in human bodies. This has created the theoretical

space for a revival of explicit interest in gender and the state, which has made major

contributions across a broad range of issues—including how speciWc constructions

of masculinity and femininity, their associated gender identities, interests, roles,

and bodily forms, come to be privileged in the state’s own discourses, institutions,

and material practices. This rules out any analysis of the state as a simple expression

of patriarchal domination and questions the very utility of patriarchy as an

analytical category.

The best feminist scholarship challenges key assumptions of ‘‘malestream’’ state

theories. First, whereas the modern state is commonly said to exercise a legitimate

monopoly over the means of coercion, feminists argue that men can get away with

violence against women within the conWnes of the family and, through the reality,

threat, or fear of rape, also oppress women in public spaces. Such arguments have

been taken further in recent work on masculinity and the state. Second, feminists

critique the juridical distinction between ‘‘public’’ and ‘‘private.’’ For, not only does

this distinction obfuscate class relations by distinguishing the public citizen from

the private individual (as Marxists have argued), it also, and more fundamentally,

hides the patriarchal ordering of the state and the family. Whilst Marxists tend to

equate the public sphere with the state and the private sphere with private property,

exchange, and individual rights, feminists tend to equate the former with the state

and civil society, the latter with the domestic sphere and women’s alleged place in

the ‘‘natural’’ order of reproduction. Men and women are diVerentially located in

the public and private spheres: indeed, historically, women have been excluded

from the public sphere and subordinated to men in the private. Yet men’s

independence as citizens and workers rests on women’s role in caring for them at

122 bob jessop

home. Moreover, even where women win full citizenship rights, their continuing

oppression and subjugation in the private sphere hinders their exercise and enjoy-

ment of these rights. A third area of feminist criticism focuses on the links between

warfare, masculinity, and the state. In general terms, as Connell (1987) notes, ‘‘the

state arms men and disarms women.’’

In short, feminist research reveals basic Xaws in much malestream theorizing.

Thus an adequate account of the state must include the key feminist insights into

the gendered nature of the state’s structural selectivity and capacities for action as

well as its key role in reproducing speciWc patterns of gender relations (for attempts

to develop such an approach, see Jessop 2004).

7 Discourse Analysis and Stateless

State Theory

.........................................................................................................................................................................................

Some recent discourse-analytic work suggests that the state does not exist but is,

rather, an illusion—a product of political imaginaries. Thus belief in the existence

of the state depends on the prevalence of state discourses. It appears on the political

scene because political forces orient their actions towards the ‘‘state,’’ acting as if it

existed. Since there is no common discourse of the state (at most there is a

dominant or hegemonic discourse) and diVerent political forces orient their action

at diVerent times to diVerent ideas of the state, the state is at best a polyvalent,

polycontextual phenomenon which changes shape and appearance with the politi-

cal forces acting towards it and the circumstances in which they do so.

This apparently heretical idea has been advanced from various theoretical or

analytical viewpoints. For example, Abrams (1988) recommended abandoning the

idea of the state because the institutional ensemble that comprises government can

be studied without the concept of the state; and the ‘‘idea of the state’’ can be

studied in turn as the distinctive collective misrepresentation of capitalist societies

which serves to mask the true nature of political practice. He argues that the ‘‘state

idea’’ has a key role in disguising political domination. This in turn requires

historical analyses of the ‘‘cultural revolution’’ (or ideological shifts) involved

when state systems are transformed. Similarly, Melossi (1990) called for a ‘‘stateless

theory of the state.’’ This regards the state as a purely juridical concept, an idea that

enables people to do the state, to furnish themselves and others with a convenient

vocabulary of motives for their own (in)actions and to account for the unity of the

state in a divided and unequal civil society. Third, there is an increasing interest in


speciWc narrative, rhetorical, or argumentative features of state power. Thus case

studies of policy making suggest that state policies do not objectively represent the

interests located in or beyond the state or objectively reXect ‘‘real’’ problems in the

internal or external environments of the political system. Policies are discursively-

mediated, if not wholly discursively-constituted, products of struggles to deWne

and narrate ‘‘problems’’ which can be dealt with in and through state action. The

impact of policy-making and implementation is therefore closely tied to their

rhetorical and argumentative framing. Indeed, whatever the precise origins of the

diVerent components of the modern state (such as the army, bureaucracy, taxation,

legal system, legislative assemblies), their organization as a relatively coherent

institutional ensemble depends crucially on the emergence of the state idea.

Such discourse-theoretical work clearly diVers from state-centered theorizing

and Foucauldian analyses. On the one hand, it rejects the reiWcation of the state;

and, on the other, it highlights the critical role of narrative and rhetorical practices

in creating belief in the existence of the state. This role is variously deWned as

mystiWcation, self-motivation, pure narrativity, or self-description but, regardless

of standpoint, discourses about the state have a key constitutive role in shaping the

state as a complex ensemble of political relations linked to society as a whole.

8 The ‘‘Strategic-relational

Approach’’

.........................................................................................................................................................................................

An innovative approach to the state and state-building has been developed by Jessop

and others in an attempt to overcome various forms of one-sidedness in the Marxist

and state-centered traditions. His ‘‘strategic-relational approach’’ oVers a general

account of the dialectic of structure and agency and, in the case of the state, elaborates

Poulantzas’s claim that the state is a social relation (see above). Jessop argues that the

exercise and eVectiveness of state power is a contingent product of a changing

balance of political forces located within and beyond the state and that this balance

is conditioned by the speciWc institutional structures and procedures of the state

apparatus as embedded in the wider political system and environing societal rela-

tions. Thus a strategic-relational analysis would examine how a given state apparatus

may privilege some actors, some identities, some strategies, some spatial and tem-

poral horizons, and some actions over others; and the ways, if any, in which political

actors (individual and/or collective) take account of this diVerential privileging by

engaging in ‘‘strategic-context’’ analysis when choosing a course of action. The SRA

124 bob jessop

also introduces a distinctive evolutionary perspective into the analysis of the state and

state power in order to discover how the generic evolutionary mechanisms of

selection, variation, and retention may operate in speciWc conditions to produce

relatively coherent and durable structures and strategies. This implies that oppor-

tunities for reorganizing speciWc structures and for strategic reorientation are

themselves subject to structurally-inscribed strategic selectivities and therefore

have path-dependent as well as path-shaping aspects. For example, it may be neces-

sary to pursue strategies over several spatial and temporal horizons of action and to

mobilize diVerent sets of social forces in diVerent contexts to eliminate or modify

speciWc constraints and opportunities linked to particular state structures. Moreover,

as such strategies are pursued, political forces will be more or less well-equipped to

learn from their experiences and to adapt their conduct to changing conjunctures.

Over time there is a tendency for reXexively reorganized structures and recursively

selected strategies and tactics to co-evolve to produce a relatively stable order, but this

may still collapse owing to the inherent structural contradictions, strategic dilemmas,

and discursive biases characteristic of complex social formations. Moreover, because

structures are strategically selective rather than absolutely constraining, there is always

scope for actions to overXow or circumvent structural constraints. Likewise, because

subjects are never unitary, never fully aware of the conditions of strategic action,

never fully equipped to realize their preferred strategies, and may always meet oppos-

ition from actors pursuing other strategies or tactics; failure is an ever-present

possibility. This approach is intended as a heuristic and many analyses of the state

can be easily reinterpreted in strategic-relational terms even if they do not explicitly

adopt these or equivalent terms. But the development of a strategic-relational research

programme will also require many detailed comparative historical analyses to work

out the speciWc selectivities that operate in types of state, state forms, political

regimes, and particular conjunctures (for an illustration, see Jessop 2002).

9 New Directions of Research

.........................................................................................................................................................................................

Notwithstanding declining interest in the more esoteric and abstract modes of state

theorizing, substantive research on states and state power exploded from the 1990s

onwards. Among the main themes are: the historical variability of statehood (or

stateness); the relative strength or weakness of states; the future of the national state

in an era of globalization and regionalization; the changing forms and functions

of the state; issues of scale, space, territoriality, and the state; and the rise of

governance and its articulation with government.


First, interest in stateness arises from growing disquiet about the abstract

nature of much state theory (especially its assumption of a ubiquitous, uniWed,

sovereign state) and increasing interest in the historical variability of actual states.

Thus some theorists focus on the state as a conceptual variable and examine the

varied presence of the idea of the state. Others examine the state’s diVerential

presence as a distinctive political form. Thus Badie and Birnbaum (1983) usefully

distinguish between the political center required in any complex social division of

labor and the state as one possible institutional locus of this center. For them, the

state is deWned by its structural diVerentiation, autonomy, universalism, and

institutional solidity. France is the archetypal state in a centralized society; Britain

has a political center but no state; Germany has a state but no center; and

Switzerland has neither. Such approaches historicize the state idea and stress its

great institutional variety. These issues have been studied on all territorial scales

from the local to the international with considerable concern for meso-level

variation.

Second, there is growing interest in factors that make for state strength. Intern-

ally, this refers to a state’s capacities to command events and exercise authority over

social forces in the wider society; externally, it refers to the state’s power in the

interstate system. This concern is especially marked in recent theoretical and

empirical work on predatory and/or developmental states. The former are essen-

tially parasitic upon their economy and civil society, exercise largely the despotic

power of command, and may eventually undermine the economy, society, and the

state itself. Developmental states also have infrastructural and network power and

deploy it in allegedly market-conforming ways. Unfortunately, the wide variety of

interpretations of strength (and weakness) threatens coherent analysis. States have

been described as strong because they have a large public sector, authoritarian rule,

strong societal support, a weak and gelatinous civil society, cohesive bureaucracies,

an interventionist policy, or the power to limit external interference (Lauridsen

1991). In addition, some studies run the risk of tautology insofar as strength is

deWned purely in terms of outcomes. A possible theoretical solution is to investi-

gate the scope for variability in state capacities by policy area, over time, and in

speciWc conjunctures.

Third, recent work on globalization casts fresh doubt on the future of national

territorial states in general and nation states in particular. This issue is also raised

by scholars interested in the proliferation of scales on which signiWcant state

activities occur, from the local, through the urban and regional, to cross-border

and continental cooperation and a range of supranational entities. Nonetheless

initial predictions of the imminent demise of the national territorial state and/or

the nation state have been proved wrong. This reXects the adaptability of state

managers and state apparatuses, the continued importance of national states in

securing conditions for economic competitiveness, political legitimacy, social

cohesion, and so on, and the role of national states in coordinating the state

126 bob jessop

activities on other scales from the local to the triad to the international and

global levels.

Fourth, following a temporary decline in Marxist theoretical work, interest has

grown in the speciWc forms and functions of the capitalist type of state. This can be

studied in terms of the state’s role in: (a) securing conditions for private proWt—

the Weld of economic policy; (b) reproducing wage-labor on a daily, lifetime, and

intergenerational basis—the Weld of social policy broadly considered; (c) managing

the scalar division of labor; and (d) compensating for market failure. On this

basis Jessop (2002) characterizes the typical state form of postwar advanced

capitalism as a Keynesian welfare national state. Its distinctive features were an

economic policy oriented to securing the conditions for full employment in a

relatively closed economy, generalizing norms of mass consumption through the

welfare state, the primacy of the national scale of policy-making, and the primacy

of state intervention to compensate for market failure. He also describes the

emerging state form in the 1980s and 1990s as a Schumpeterian workfare postna-

tional regime. Its distinctive features are an economic policy oriented to innovation

and competitiveness in relatively open economies, the subordination of social

policy to economic demands, the relativization of scale with the movement of

state powers downwards, upwards, and sideways, and the increased importance of

various governance mechanisms in compensating for market failure. Other types

of state, including developmental states, have been discussed in the same terms.

Fifth, there is interest in the changing scales of politics. While some theorists are

inclined to see the crisis of the national state as displacing the primary scale of

political organization and action to the global, regional, or local scale, others

suggest that there has been a relativization of scale. For, whereas the national

state provided the primary scale of political organization in the Fordist period of

postwar European and North American boom, the current after-Fordist period is

marked by the dispersion of political and policy issues across diVerent scales of

organization, with none of them clearly primary. This in turn poses problems

about securing the coherence of action across diVerent scales. This has prompted

interest in the novelty of the European Union as a new state form, the re-emergence

of empire as an organizing principle, and the prospects for a global state

(see, for example, Beck and Grande 2005; Shaw 2000).

Finally, ‘‘governance’’ comprises forms of coordination that rely neither on

imperative coordination by government nor on the anarchy of the market. Instead

they involve self-organization. Governance operates on diVerent scales of organi-

zation (ranging from the expansion of international and supranational regimes

through national and regional public–private partnerships to more localized

networks of power and decision-making). Although this trend is often taken to

imply a diminution in state capacities, it could well enhance its power to secure

its interests and, indeed, provide states with a new (or expanded) role in the

meta-governance (or overall coordination) of diVerent governance regimes and


mechanisms (Zeitlin and Trubek 2003 on Europe; and Slaughter 2004 on the world

order).

Interest in governance is sometimes linked to the question of ‘‘failed’’ and

‘‘rogue’’ states. All states fail in certain respects and normal politics is an important

mechanism for learning from, and adapting to, failure. In contrast, ‘‘failed states’’

lack the capacity to reinvent or reorient their activities in the face of recurrent state

failure in order to maintain ‘‘normal political service’’ in domestic policies.

The discourse of ‘‘failed states’’ is often used to stigmatize some regimes as part

of interstate as well as domestic politics. Similarly, ‘‘rogue states’’ is used to

denigrate states whose actions are considered by hegemonic or dominant states

in the interstate system to threaten the prevailing international order. According to

some radical critics, however, the USA itself has been the worst rogue state for

many years (e.g. Chomsky 2001).

10 An Emerging Agenda?

.........................................................................................................................................................................................

There is a remarkable theoretical convergence concerning the contingency of the

state apparatus and state power. First, most approaches have dethroned the state

from its superordinate position in society and analyze it as one institutional order

among others. Marxists deny it is the ideal collective capitalist; neostatists no

longer treat it as a sovereign legal subject; Foucauldians have deconstructed it;

feminists have stopped interpreting it as the patriarch general; and discourse

analysts see it as constituted through contingent discursive or communicative

practices. In short, the state is seen as an emergent, partial, and unstable system

that is interdependent with other systems in a complex social order. This vast

expansion in the contingency of the state and its operations requires more con-

crete, historically speciWc, institutionally sensitive, and action-oriented studies.

This is reXected in substantive research into stateness and the relative strength

(and weakness) of particular political regimes.

Second, its structural powers and capacities can only be understood by putting

the state into a broader ‘‘strategic-relational’’ context. By virtue of its structural

selectivity and speciWc strategic capacities, its powers are always conditional or

relational. Their realization depends on structural ties between the state and its

encompassing political system, the strategic links among state managers and other

political forces, and the complex web of interdependencies and social networks

linking the state and political system to its broader environment.

128 bob jessop

Finally, it is increasingly recognized that an adequate theory of the state can only

be produced as part of a wider theory of society. But this is precisely where we Wnd

many of the unresolved problems of state theory. For the state is the site of a

paradox. On the one hand, it is just one institutional ensemble among others

within a social formation; on the other, it is peculiarly charged with overall

responsibility for maintaining the cohesion of the formation of which it is a part.

As both part and whole of society, it is continually asked by diverse social forces to

resolve society’s problems and is equally continually doomed to generate ‘‘state

failure’’ since many problems lie well beyond its control and may even be aggra-

vated by attempted intervention. Many diVerences among state theories are rooted

in contrary approaches to various structural and strategic moments of this para-

dox. Trying to comprehend the overall logic (or, perhaps, ‘‘illogic’’) of this paradox

could provide a productive entry point for resolving some of these diVerences and

providing a more comprehensive analysis of the strategic-relational character of the

state in a polycentric social formation.

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1980b. Power/Knowledge. Brighton: Harvester

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20: 9 46.

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149 73.

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2004. The gendered selectivity of the state. Journal of Critical Realism, 2: 207 37.

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tives. London: Zed.

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the Role of the State in Third World Countries, ed. J. Martinussen. Roskilde: Roskilde

University Centre.

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University Press.

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1978. State, Power, Socialism. London: Verso.

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of Stein Rokkan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Oxford: Oxford University Press.

130 bob jessop

ISSUES IN INTERNATIONALRELATIONS

Second Edition

Edited by Trevor C. Salmon and Mark F. ImberWith the assistance of Trudy Fraser

CHAPTER 3

On SovereigntyGabriella Slomp

There is widespread agreement that sovereignty is a so-called master noun of inter-national relations. However, there remains disagreement concerning the meaning, roleand significance of sovereignty in the twenty-first century.

State sovereignty can be invoked to defend a people’s right to establish an identityand to protect autonomy and self-determination against external interference. On theother hand, state sovereignty can equally be responsible for enabling bad governments tocommit domestic atrocities, and even genocide, with impunity.

Phenomena such as liberation movements, nationalism and humanitarian interven-tion are also related to issues of sovereignty and indirectly paint a picture of modernsovereignty. For example, interventions in Iraq (1991) and Somalia (1993) reveal ageneral mistrust that state sovereignty does enough to protect state citizens; inter-national failure to later intervene in conflicts in Rwanda and Bosnia in the mid-1990ssuggests a revival of the idea of inviolable state sovereignty (perhaps as a consequence ofthe lack of success of previous interventions); international commitments in Kosovo andEast Timor in 1999 expose another crisis of the sovereignty idea, probably followingguilt feelings for not intervening in Rwanda, and so forth. The contemporary relevanceof sovereignty cannot be underestimated, and consequently to understand the meaningof sovereignty enhances any understanding of international affairs. This chapter willprovide an explanation of sovereignty, and will analyse the implications of state sover-eignty on international relations. First, the works of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbeswill be used to explain the definition and purpose of sovereignty. Second, there will be aconsideration of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-century responses to classicaltheories of sovereignty, paying particular attention to the views of Immanuel Kant.

33

Third, sovereignty will be considered in terms of three adjective-pairs – external andinternal, legal and political, hard and porous.

TOWARDS A DEFINITION

According to Aristotle, the definition of any object – be it a knife, a flute, or the state –requires a consideration of the object’s function or purpose. A blade with a handle maylook like a knife, but cannot be defined as such if it is made of sugar and water because itwould not be able to fulfil any of the basic functions of being a knife. Bearing in mindAristotle’s advice, any definition of sovereignty must first establish when and for whatpurpose sovereignty entered the world of politics and penetrated the political discourse.The philosophical issue of what came first, the egg (the concept of sovereignty) or thechicken (the reality of the sovereign state) is second to understanding if there was ever atime when there was no egg and no sign of a chicken.

On the origins of sovereignty there are, as with almost everything in InternationalRelations, different schools of thought. Primordialists believe that the concept of sover-eignty always existed with precursors in ancient writers such as Aristotle, Polybius andDionysius of Halicarnassus. Dionysius is noted by Jean Bodin for having ‘touched on allthe principal points of sovereignty’ (Bodin [1576] 1992: 47). The concept of sover-eignty, though not the word itself, is also found in the writings of Ulpian, Augustine,Dante, Ockham, Marsilius and Machiavelli. Modernists, however, believe that sover-eignty is a modern phenomenon linked to the birth and growth of the nation state inthe seventeenth century and was first theorized by Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes.

Taking either a primordialist or modernist perspective, there can be no argument thatthe formulation of state sovereignty offered by Bodin and Hobbes formed the founda-tions of the theory and practice of sovereignty that was endorsed during the Westphalianperiod. Why did Jean Bodin devote four chapters of Six livres de la Republique to thedefinition and discussion of sovereignty? Why did Thomas Hobbes provide detailedexplanations of the need for state sovereignty throughout his political writings? A brieflook at the historical circumstances in which Bodin and Hobbes were writing can helpto explain their concern with this issue and shed light on the notion of sovereignty thatthey developed.

PURPOSE AND MEANING OF STATE SOVEREIGNTY ACCORDINGTO JEAN BODIN

Jean Bodin (1530–1596) witnessed the bloody religious wars that affected Europe in thesixteenth century and observed how the authority of monarchs was constantly chal-lenged on internal and external fronts. In particular, being a Frenchman, Bodin wasconcerned with the predicament of France that had suffered a four decades long civilwar as a consequence of the Reformation. Bodin published Six livres de la Republique in1576, four years after the massacre of Huguenots, with the intention of providing atheoretical explanation as to why the power of the king was the only way to promote thepeace and unity of the state. Bodin was intellectually close to a group of political

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thinkers known as Politiques who were similarly concerned by the implications ofreligious intolerance and eager to defend French identity regardless of religious dis-agreement. Historians such as George Sabine see the Politiques as among the first in thesixteenth century to envisage the possibility of tolerating several religions within a singlestate. Sabine remarks that the Politiques, although mostly Catholic themselves, wereabove all nationalists and advocated holding together French nationality even thoughunity of religion had been lost. Bodin shared the concerns of the Politiques and pointedout that regardless of differences in religion and in customs, the unity of a politicalcommunity is guaranteed by the acknowledgement of a common sovereign. State sover-eignty was seen by Bodin as a vehicle for internal cohesion, order and peace and suchqualities, in turn, were needed for a so-called just commonwealth.

From George Sabine to Preston King, and from M.J. Tooley to Julian Franklin,generations of interpreters have argued that Bodin’s theory of sovereignty containsmany ambiguities and even contradictions. However, it is worth considering Bodin’sdefinitions that: ‘Sovereignty is the absolute and perpetual power of a commonwealth’(Bodin [1576] 1992: 1). Bodin goes on to distinguish between the attributes and thecharacteristics of the sovereign power. The primary attribute of Bodinian sovereignty isthe power to give laws ‘without the consent of any other, whether greater, equal, orbelow him’ (Bodin [1576] 1992: 56). Bodin explains that the other attributes of sover-eignty – the power to declare war and to make peace, the power to appoint magistratesand officers, the power to levy taxes and so on – are all consequences of the position ofthe sovereign as legal head of state (Bodin [1576] 1992: 48).

Additionally, in order to enable the sovereign power to perform all the above tasks,Bodin ascribes to the sovereign power a long list of characteristics. First, the sovereignpower is described as absolute in the Latin sense of the word, ab legibus solutus (orunbound by the law). Bodin explains that sovereignty cannot be restricted by lawbecause the sovereign is the source of the law:

[A] king cannot be subject to the laws . . . Thus at the end of edicts and ordinanceswe see the words, ‘for such is our pleasure’ which serve to make it understood that thelaws of a sovereign prince, even if founded on good and strong reasons, depend solelyon his own free will.

(Bodin [1576] 1992: 12–13)

Second, sovereignty is unconditional: ‘sovereignty given to a prince subject to obliga-tions and conditions is properly not sovereignty or absolute power’ (Bodin [1576] 1992:8). Third, sovereignty is unaccountable just as the king is not accountable to his sub-jects. However, Bodin does point out that God and natural law impose limits on thepower of the sovereign, and hence sovereign power is not arbitrary. Accountability toGod prevents rulers from forgetting about their mission to promote the well-beingof the commonwealth. Fourth, sovereignty is indivisible. Although Bodin preferredmonarchy to other forms of government, he believed that sovereignty can lie in a personor an assembly. For Bodin, the important point is that sovereignty cannot be dividedbetween different agencies but must reside in one single place, whether it be king,assembly, or populace. Finally, Bodinian sovereignty is humanly unlimited and irrevoc-able or perpetual: ‘Sovereignty is not limited either in power, or in function, or in length

ON SOVERE IGNTY

35

of time’, (Bodin [1576] 1992: 3) and ‘the law is nothing but the command of asovereign making use of his power’ (Bodin [1576] 1992: 38). Hence any limits imposedon the power to command cannot be but extra-legal. Bodin concludes that ‘he isabsolutely sovereign who recognizes nothing, after God, that is greater than himself ’(Bodin [1576] 1992: 4).

Bodin defined sovereignty as the absolute, unconditional, indivisible, unlimited,unaccountable and irrevocable power to make, interpret and execute the law. Bodinargued that all the sovereign’s other powers (to make peace, to wage war, to tax, to makecoins and so on) were derived from this single law-making power. He believed that onlysuch a formidable and supreme power would be able to protect the commonwealth frominternal and external enemies and to provide order and peace. By formulating the firsttheory of state sovereignty of the modern age, Bodin revealed a great historical sensitiv-ity to the growing importance of the nation state.

PURPOSE AND MEANING OF STATE SOVEREIGNTY ACCORDINGTO THOMAS HOBBES

Just as Bodin had first-hand experience of the civil war in France, so Thomas Hobbes(1588–1679) witnessed the English civil war. Distraught by what he saw and at timesfearing for his own life, Hobbes realized that without order or peace there is little muchelse that can function in a society. Hobbes understood that in a civil war as much as in astate of nature, there is:

[N]o place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently noCulture of the Earth; no Navigation . . . no commodious Building . . . no account ofTime; no Arts; no letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, anddanger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

(Hobbes [1651] 1991: 89)

Bodin had observed that ‘wrong opinion leads subjects to revolt from the obediencethey owe their sovereign prince’ (Bodin [1576] 1992: 19) and similarly Hobbes blamesignorance about the function of the sovereign power as the main cause of civil disobedi-ence and civil strife. In Behemoth, Hobbes explains that the English Civil War occurred

BOX 3.1 BODINIAN SOVEREIGNTY

• Absolute• Unconditional• Indivisible• Unlimited• Unaccountable• Irrevocable

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36

because people had false beliefs and wrong opinions about their political obligations.Hobbes claims that bad teachers, bad priests and bad parliamentarians had taken advan-tage of the people’s lack of understanding of the purpose of the sovereign state. InLeviathan, Hobbes writes: ‘The End of the institution of Sovereignty [is] the peace ofthe subjects within themselves, and their defence against a common Enemy’ (Hobbes[1651] 1991: 150). Hobbes explains that sovereign power can be acquired by force, orcreated by institution but that the rights and consequences and ends of sovereignty arethe same in both cases. Hobbes echoes Bodin and argues in favour of absolute,unlimited, irrevocable, humanly unaccountable, inalienable and indivisible sovereignty.For the sake of security and peace, Hobbes recommends that the ‘Sovereign Power . . . isas great, as possibly men can be imagined to make it’ (Hobbes [1651] 1991: 144).Hobbes concedes that such a power could be dangerous but never tires to highlight itsadvantages in terms of security and protection:

And though of so unlimited a Power, men may fancy many evill consequences, yet theconsequences of the want of it, which is perpetuall warre of every man against hisneighbour, are much worse

(Hobbes [1651] 1991: 144–5)

As Bodin condemned resistance and claimed that ‘it is not licit for a subject to contra-vene his prince’s laws on the pretext of honesty and justice’ (Bodin [1571] 1992: 33), soHobbes argues that a citizen only has the right to resist if the sovereign endangers his life(Hobbes [1651] 1991: 151). But whereas Bodin is happy to list the various character-istics of the sovereign power without offering a supporting argument, Hobbes tries tojustify in some detail each and every one of those characteristics. For example, Hobbesattempts to offer a rational explanation for ascribing unlimited power to the sovereign.He points out that, by nature, we have the right to use all available means for self-defence. In spite of this right, in a state of nature or during a civil war, our life is inconstant danger. We enter the political state with a view to entrusting the sovereign withour defence and security. As the end of the sovereign power is the protection of our lifeand the preservation of peace, it would be irrational to impose restrictions on thesovereign as this would limit its ability to protect our survival. Hence, sovereign powermust be unrestricted and from a Hobbesian perspective, there is no escape fromunlimited sovereign power: ‘And whosover thinking Soverign Power too great, will seekto make it lesse; must subject himselfe, to the Power, that can limit it; that is to say, to agreater’ (Hobbes [1651] 1991: 145).

In summation, Hobbes ascribes to sovereign power all the attributes and character-istics listed by Bodin. Moreover, using a more forceful and unambiguous argument thanBodin, Hobbes spells out that the sovereign provides protection in exchange of obedi-ence and that therefore absolute protection requires absolute obedience to an absolutesovereign power.

SOVEREIGNTY AND THE PROTECTION/OBEDIENCE FUNCTION

Hobbes and Bodin both agree that the purpose or function of state sovereignty is toprovide protection for citizens or subjects in exchange for obedience. For the sake of

ON SOVERE IGNTY

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protection from internal and external enemies, both Bodin and Hobbes ascribe abso-lute, indivisible, unlimited, inalienable, unaccountable, irrevocable power to the sov-ereign, be it located in a man (monarchy), in an assembly (aristocracy) or in thepopulace (democracy). The protection/obedience principle forms the foundation ofthe Bodinian and Hobbesian concept of the sovereign state. Indeed, for Hobbes, astate that cannot provide protection cannot command obedience and hence is not astate at all. Furthermore, regardless of any differences in size, wealth or power, allsovereign states rely on the protection/obedience principle as the formative identifierof statehood.

From Hobbes to the modern era, the protection/obedience principle has remainedthe main function of the sovereign state by political thinkers and philosophers frommany different ideological backgrounds. Realist writer Hans Morgenthau, as well asphilosophers linked with liberalism and cosmopolitanism such as Immanuel Kant haveall embraced the protection/obedience principle of state sovereignty. Marxists such asAntonio Gramsci and Nationalists such as Carl Schmitt have also endorsed theHobbesian principle. Indeed, Carl Schmitt famously stated in The Concept of thePolitical that: ‘The “protego ergo obligo” is the “cogito ergo sum” of the state’ (Schmitt[1927] 1996: 52). In other words, Schmitt claims that as much as the Cartesiandictum ‘I think, therefore I am’, captures the identity of the individual, so the motto‘I protect, hence I oblige’ captures the essence of the sovereign state.

IMMANUEL KANT ON SOVEREIGNTY

From the seventeenth century onwards there exist two main debates related to theBodinian–Hobbesian concept of sovereignty. Philosophers and political theorists suchas Benedict Spinoza, John Locke and J.S. Mill engaged with the problem of what thestate ought to provide domestically in exchange of obedience, while lawyers andjurists such as Grotius, the Salamanca School, Christian Wolff and Emeric de Vatteladdressed the issue of whether and how an international system of sovereign statescould enable each state to protect its own citizens (Brown 2002: 30–3).

An outstanding contributor to both debates was Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). IfHobbes were placed at one end of the ideological spectrum, Kant would occupy theother, and hence Kant’s take on sovereignty is particularly relevant. Indeed, while

BOX 3.2 PROTECTION AND OBEDIENCE

Hobbes and Bodin both argue that the state’s protection requires the citizen’sobedience.

• Sovereignty provides the basis of the modern legal view that all states have equalrights in international relations, or ‘sovereign equality’

• The duty of the state to protect its citizens is shared by a wide range of contempor-ary political ideologies of left and right

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Hobbes is associated with absolutism and realism, Kant is regarded as one of thefounding fathers of liberalism and of cosmopolitanism.

First, as argued by Richard Tuck and Howard Williams, Kant attempted to combinethe Hobbesian notion of sovereignty with a theory of limited constitutional govern-ment. In an essay entitled On the Common Saying: ‘This May be True in Theory, but itdoes not Apply in Practice’ Kant challenges Hobbes’s view that the state can protect onlythe life of its citizens. Disagreeing with Hobbes, Kant contends that a sovereign stateought to protect basic human rights such as freedom, equality and independence of theindividual (Kant 1991: 74). Additionally, Kant also challenges the Hobbesian claim thata state operating in an international system characterized by anarchy (derived from theGreek, lack of arche, or rule) can adequately protect its citizens.

For Hobbes, domestic politics and international politics are independent spheres.Hobbes saw his own political theory as a solution to civil war and to the problem ofdomestic political disorder. He did not, however, believe that there was a solution topotential international anarchy. Indeed, in Leviathan, Hobbes promises eternal peacedomestically but does not envisage the end of inter-state wars. Against Hobbes, Kantinsists that the international and domestic political orders are, in fact, closely linked. Itfollows that the stability and justice of one is dependent on the stability and justice ofthe other. In his 1784 essay Idea for Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose Kantstates that ‘the problem of establishing a perfect civil constitution is subordinate to theproblem of a law-governed external relationship with other states, and cannot be solvedunless the other is also solved’ (Kant 1991: 52).

While Kant accepts the Hobbesian principle that the function of the sovereign state isto provide protection in exchange for obedience, he expands the list of rights that thestate is supposed to protect and argues that only a federation of republican states, andnot a system of totally independent states, can offer true protection, security and per-petual peace. Of course, doubts have been raised about Kant’s view that Hobbesiansovereignty is compatible with liberal principles and international institutions. Indeedmany scholars have maintained that the doctrine of state sovereignty is inimical to thevery notion of international law. In the realist camp, Hans Morgenthau has argued that‘sovereignty is consistent only with a weak, non-interventionalist international legalorder’ (Morgenthau 1950: 246). At the other end of the spectrum, David Held haspointed out that the greatest obstacle to the development of international democracy isthe idea that states are sovereign and that international institutions may limit theirsovereignty.

BOX 3.3 IMMANUEL KANT

• Kant’s writing greatly enlarges the range of citizen’s rights that the sovereign stateshould protect

• Kant creates a strong connection between order and stability as practised internallyand order and stability at the international level

• For some modern authors sovereignty remains the basis of international order, forothers it is an obstacle to international order

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39

THE LOCATION OF SOVEREIGNTY

The notion of sovereignty developed by Bodin and Hobbes is often associated with theabsolutist monarchies that dominated Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-turies, but during this time questions were also raised regarding whether or notsovereignty must lie in a single body, as Hobbes and Bodin claimed, or whether itcould be divided. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the disagreementdeveloped into a discussion of whether sovereignty was best located in a king, anassembly or the whole people. By the twentieth century, however, the debate shiftedtowards the question of whether it was possible or desirable for one such body to existat all. Many writers pointed out that the belief that sovereignty lies in a single place orbody was being increasingly undermined by the experience of pluralist societies.Simultaneously, a growing number of thinkers from different ideological perspectivesclaimed that the diffusion and fragmentation of power in pluralistic societies is super-ficial and that systems of checks and balances only hide the concentration of powerwithin liberal democracies.

From Carl Schmitt to Giorgio Agamben, it has been argued that in an emergency orthe case of exceptional danger – from either inside or outside the state in the form ofterrorism or any other lethal threat – the location of supreme sovereign power becomesunambiguous. These writers believe that in any state – liberal or totalitarian – we canfind the true location of sovereign power by looking at the will responsible for the finaldecision-making. The opening sentence of Carl Schmitt’s study of the concept ofsovereignty is very well-known: ‘Sovereign is he who decides on the exception’ (Schmitt[1922] 1985: 5)

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL SOVEREIGNTY

It is often said that one of the characteristics of modernity was the creation of greatdichotomies such as nature vs. artifice, private vs. public, reason vs. passion and so on. Itis therefore not surprising that sovereignty – regarded by many as a quintessentiallymodern concept – is predicated on a dichotomous inside/outside principle.

Internal sovereignty is the supreme power that the state has over its own citizenswithin its own borders or the supreme decision-making and enforcement authority in aspecific territory and towards a population. Conversely, external sovereignty embodiesthe principle of self-determination and implies that in international relations each stateis in a position of independence vis-à-vis all other states. External sovereignty refers toand assumes the absence of a supreme international authority. In a nutshell, ‘the doc-trine of sovereignty implies a double claim; autonomy in foreign policy and exclusivecompetence in internal affairs’ (Evans and Newnham 1998: 504).

Internal and external sovereignty may not be mentioned specifically in classicalinternational relations texts, but the concepts exist nonetheless. Both Bodin andHobbes suggest that domestic and external sovereignty, although distinct, stand andfall together – a view that can also be found in earlier writers such as Machiavelli.Bodin explains that internal disorder fosters external attacks. Hobbes too stresses thata state afflicted by internal discord is vulnerable to attacks from external enemies;

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similarly, when the external sovereignty of a state is in crisis, its domestic sovereigntycould also be challenged because the citizens may want to submit to a stronger statethat is more capable of protecting them from external enemies.

Internal sovereignty is said to go hand in hand with domestic hierarchy and verticalorder, whereas external sovereignty implies equality and the possibility of horizontaldisorder. Hobbes explains that equality among agents (be they ‘natural men’ or ‘artificialmen’, i.e. states) brings about confrontation, conflict and ultimately war because everyagent tries to dominate every other agent. In the political state the sovereign powerintroduces inequality between the rulers and the ruled and the resulting hierarchyensures order and peace (Hobbes [1651] 1991: 238). Hobbes illustrates this inequalitywith the following image:

As in the presence of the Master, the Servants are Equall, and without any honour atall, so are the Subjects, in the presence of the Soveraign. And though they shine somemore, some less, when they are out of his sight; yet in his presence, they shine nomore than the Starres in presence of the Sun.

(Hobbes [1651] 1991: 128)

In international relations, however, all agents remain in a state of equality and the resultis a situation of potential horizontal disorder or anarchy. Hobbes famously describesinternational relations thus:

But though there had never been any time, wherein particular men were in a condi-tion of warre one against another; yet in all times, Kings, and Persons of Soveraigneauthority, because of their Independency, are in continuall jealousies, and in the stateand posture of Gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on oneanother; that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their King-domes; and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War.

(Hobbes [1651] 1991: 90)

In previous centuries attention was predominantly focused on internal sovereignty, butduring the twentieth century external sovereignty has occupied central stage. Indeed, incontemporary times, issues related to the external sovereignty of states raise not just veryheated debates among scholars but also deep disagreements within the internationalcommunity. The external sovereignty of states is fiercely defended as the right of peoplesto define their own identity and to shape their own future free from external interfer-ence. External sovereignty, however, can be criticized on the grounds that it can beseriously abused. For example, events in Kosovo and Rwanda raised serious questionsconcerning whether or not there exists a moral duty to question the external sovereigntyof states when atrocities are committed within their borders.

The distinction between external and internal sovereignty aims at attracting attentionto the issues of self-determination and to the independence of states. The concept ofexternal sovereignty raises high feelings both from the supporters of nationalism andfrom the supporters of universal human rights and of humanitarian intervention.

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LEGAL AND POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY

In addition to the internal/external dichotomy, there exists another distinction betweenlegal and political sovereignty. Originally articulated by the nineteeth-century thinkerA.V. Dicey there remains much disagreement concerning the meaning of legal andpolitical sovereignty and their relationship.

Legal or de jure sovereignty is said to differ from political or de facto sovereignty asmuch as the concept of authority differs from the concept of power. Legal sovereignty isbased on the right to command, political sovereignty instead is based on the power toensure compliance. The former has much to do with the law; the latter has to do withforce. In textbooks, legal sovereignty is sometimes exemplified (Heywood 1994: 90)with reference to Bodin. In particular, interpreters draw attention to the fact that Bodinwas very keen to offer an account of sovereignty in terms of legal authority and tooppose the Machiavellian argument that princes are not bound by promises in theirinternational dealings. Conversely, political sovereignty is sometime elucidated (Hey-wood 1994: 91) by reference to Hobbes and his view that the sovereign has the monop-oly of coercive power. Hobbes’s remark that ‘there is scarce a common-wealth in theworld, whose beginnings can in conscience be justified’ (Hobbes [1651] 1991: 486) isoften cited to support the claim that he believed that sovereignty is about force.

No careful reader of Hobbes or Bodin, however, could deny that both their writingsreference both legal and political sovereignty and that the difference between the twowriters is mainly one of emphasis. Indeed Hobbes, like Bodin, believed that sovereigntyis not just about power and force but also about authority, legality, and legitimacy.However Bodin, like Hobbes, pointed out that the origin and foundations of common-wealths lie in force and violence. Most thinkers agree that neither political nor legalsovereignty constitute a viable form of sovereignty on their own. As observed by Anto-nio Gramsci, political sovereignty based entirely on the monopoly of coercive power isnot sufficient ground for a regime to last. This is why, for example, both Hitler andMussolini were keen to claim the legality and legitimacy of their regimes. Conversely,legal sovereignty without the ability to enforce a command ‘will carry only moralweight, as the peoples of the Baltic States – Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania – recognizedbetween their invasion by the Soviet Union in 1940 and their eventual achievement ofindependence in 1991’ (Heywood 1994: 92). Indeed, the political/legal distinctiondoes not describe two different types of sovereignty but two facets of the samephenomenon, and as such the value of the political/legal distinction is mainlyheuristic and analytical in that it highlights the multi-layered nature of the concept ofsovereignty.

BOX 3.4 THE LOCATION OF SOVEREIGNTY

• Sovereignty may be vested in a monarchy, in an elected government or the wholepeople (popular sovereignty)

• Sovereignty has both internal and external dimensions

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42

HARD SOVEREIGNTY VERSUS POROUS SOVEREIGNTY

There is also a distinction to be made between porous and hard sovereignty, with thetwenty-first century experiencing a very different type of sovereignty to that describedby Bodin and Hobbes. Globalization theory suggests that the boundaries of states arepermeable, and that the line of demarcation between the internal and external spheres ofa state’s existence has also become blurred. Consequently, there exists the argument thatthe notion of sovereignty will eventually be abandoned as a result of integrative devel-opments such as the EU. For many scholars, the idea of state sovereignty is alreadyanachronistic as a result of developments in human rights regimes, in internationalnorms and in international law. Twenty-first-century economic interdependence andthe power of multinationals also feed into the discussion that state sovereignty is becom-ing a nostalgic memory. All such claims to the erosion of sovereignty are to some extentwell grounded. What is less convincing is the view that there once existed a timewhen sovereignty was truly impenetrable. Consider, as an example, the following remarkby Bodin:

For if we say that to have absolute power is not to be subject to any law at all, noprince of this world will be sovereign, since every earthly prince is subject to the lawsof God and of nature and to various human laws that are common to all peoples [lexomnium gentium communis]

(Bodin [1576] 1992: 10, emphasis added)

Bodin repeatedly supports the idea that human laws common to all peoples (jus gen-tium) served to limit and restrain sovereigns in international affairs. Moreover, thecontention that the twenty-first century is experiencing the demise of sovereignty isexaggerated:

The continued relevance of the idea of sovereignty in international affairs is testifiedby the fact that at the political level it remains the primary organizing principle ofworld politics. Since sovereignty implies constitutional independence from otherstates, a decentralized international system will always have recourse to some suchideas.

(Evans and Newnham 1998: 505)

BOX 3.5 SOVEREIGNTY IN REVIEW

• Sovereignty has both political and legal dimensions• The worst dictatorships will seek a legal justification• Claims that sovereignty is being eroded or penetrated are associated with global-

ization and interdependence• Claims to statehood, and the emergence of over twenty new members of the

United Nations since 1990 suggest that sovereign statehood remains a powerfulgoal for those who do not already possess it

ON SOVERE IGNTY

43

CONCLUSION

Bodin and Hobbes first developed the principle of state sovereignty as a result of theirexperiences of war and their desire to protect states from religious interference, as well asinterference from the emperor and from other potential external and internal enemies.A superficial reading of Bodin and Hobbes suggests that a state system predicated ontheir notion of unlimited, indivisible, and absolute sovereignty would imply that sover-eign states are the ultimate judges in their own cases, have an absolute right to go to waras they please and can treat their own citizens as they want. In this respect historians andInternational Relations scholars such as Krasner (1999) and Brown (2002) have pointedout that states were never able to act in such a way. A more careful reading of Bodin andHobbes suggests that their notion of state sovereignty is much subtler than is generallyacknowledged. Neither Bodin nor Hobbes identified sovereign power with arbitrarypower – for both Bodin and Hobbes the function of state sovereignty (and its justifica-tion) was the protection of the well-being of the commonwealth. This important insightneeds to be revisited not only for a fairer assessment of Bodin and Hobbes but, moreimportantly, because it can enrich current debates on sovereignty and humanitarianintervention.

In contemporary times there seems to be widespread consensus among scholars that acommitment to human rights conflicts with the principles of state sovereignty. Indeed itis often pointed out that in order to protect human rights one has sometimes to violatestate sovereignty; and vice versa, that the respect of the state for sovereignty maysometimes imply the impossibility of preventing domestic injustice. However, thefounding fathers of the concept of sovereignty maintained a very different approach.Although the notion of human rights (as we currently understand it) was foreign toBodin and Hobbes, they both maintained that state sovereignty had one specificfunction: the protection of citizens. In other words, both Hobbes and Bodindefended state sovereignty not for its own sake but as a vehicle to protect the life ofpeople, and a state that commits atrocities against its own citizens, arguably, does notdeserve its own sovereignty.

REFERENCES

Agamben, Giorgio (2005) State of Exception, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Bodin, J. (1992) On Sovereignty, edited and translated by J. Franklin, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.Brace, L. and Hoffman, J. (1997) Reclaiming Sovereignty, London: Pinter.Brown, C. (2002) Sovereignty, Rights and Justice: International Political Theory Today,

Cambridge: Polity.Dicey, A. V. (1885) Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution.Evans, G. and Newnham, J. (1998) The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations,

London: Penguin Books.Held, David (1995) Democracy and the Global Order, Cambridge: Polity Press.

GABRIELLA SLOMP

44

Heywood, A. (1994) Political Ideas and Concepts: An Introduction, Houndmills:Macmillan.

Hobbes, T. (1991) Leviathan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Kant, I. (1991) Kant’s Political Writings, edited by H. Reiss, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.Krasner, S.D. (1999) Sovereignty: Organised Hypocrisy, Princeton: Princeton University

Press.Morgenthau, H.J. (1950) Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 2nd

edn, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Schmitt, C. (1996) The Concept of the Political, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Schmitt, C. (1985) Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty,

Cambridge: MIT Press.Weber, C. (1995) Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State and Symbolic Exchange,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Walker, N. (ed.) (2003) Sovereignty in Transition, Oxford: Hart.Walker, R.B.J. (1993) Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory, Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press.

USEFUL WEBSITES

For Bodin see: http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/comninel/courses/3020pdf/six_books. pdf

For Hobbes’ Leviathan see: http://www.uoregon.edu/∼rbear/hobbes/leviathan.html

ON SOVERE IGNTY

45

2. Great

Powers and

the Security

Dilemma

SAGE LIBRARY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

VOLUME I The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen

@SAGE Publications Los Angeles London New Delhi Singapore

"National Security" as an Ambiguous Symbol

Arnold Wolfers

S tatesman, publicists and scholars who wish to be considered realists, as many do today, are inclined to insist that the foreign policy they advocate is dictated by the national interest, more specifically by the

national security interest. It is not surprising that this should be so. Today any reference to the pursuit of security is likely to ring a sympathetic chord.

However, when political formulas such as "national interest" or "national security" gain popularity they need to be scrutinized with particular care. They may not mean the same thing to different people. They may not have any precise meaning at all. Thus, while appearing to offer g ~ ~ i d a n c e and a basis for broad consensus they may be permitting everyone to label whatever policy he favors with an attractive and possibly deceptive name.

In a very vague and general way "national interest" does suggest a direction of policy which can he distinguished from several others which may present theniselves as alternatives. It indicates that the policy is designed to promote demands which are ascribed to the nation rather than to individuals, sub-national groups or mankind as a whole. It emphasizes that the policy subordinates other interests to those of the nation. But beyond this, it has very little meaning.

When Charles Beard's study of The Idea of National Interest was puh- lished in the early years of the New Deal and under the impact of the Great . . Depression, the lines were drawn differently than they are today. The question at that time was whether American foreign policy, then largely economic in scope and motivation, was aimed not at promoting the welfare interests of the nation as a whole but instead at satisfying the material interests of powerful sub-national interest or pressure groups. While it was found hard to define what was in the interest of national welfare or to discover standards by which to measure it, there could be no doubt as to what people had in mind: they desired to see national policy makers rise above the narrow and special economic interests of parts of the nation to focus their attention on the more inclusive interests of the whole.

Source: I'olrtlc-'11 Scicnce Q~rczrterly, I.XVII(4) (1952): 48 1-502.

16 The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

Today, the alternative to a policy of the national interest to which people refer is of a different character. They fear policy makers may be unduly concerned with the "interests of all of mankind". They see them sacrificing the less inclusive national community to the wider but in their opinion chimeric world community. The issue, then, is not one of transcending narrow group selfishness, as it was a t the time of Beard's discussion, but rather one of according more exclusive devotion to the narrower cause of the national self.

There is another difference between the current and the earlier debate. While it would be wrong to say that the economic interest has ceased to attract attention, it is overshadowed today by the national security interest. Even in the recent debates on the St. Lawrence Seaway, clearly in the first instance an economic enterprise, the defenders of the project, when seeking to impress their listeners with the "national interest" involved, spoke mainly of the value of the Seaway for military defense in wartime while some opponents stressed its vulnerability to attack.

The change from a welfare to a security interpretation of the symbol "national interest" is understandable. Today we are living under the impact of cold war and threats of external aggression rather than of depression and social reform. As a result, the formula of the national interest has come to be practically synonymous with the formula of national security. Unless explicitly denied, spokesmen for a policy which would take the national interest as its guide can be assumed to mean that priority shall be given to measures of security, a term to be analyzed.' The question is raised, therefore, whether this seemingly more precise formula of national security offers statesmen a meaningful guide for action. Can they be expected to know what it means? Can policies be distinguished and judged on the ground that they do or do not serve this interest?

The term national security, like national interest, is well enough established in the political discourse of international relations to designate an objective of policy distinguishable from others. We know roughly what people have in mind if they complain that their government is neglecting national security or demanding excessive sacrifices for the sake of enhancing it. Usually those who raise the cry for a policy oriented exclusively toward this interest are afraid their country underestimates the external dangers facing it or is being diverted into idealistic channels unmindful of these dangers. Moreover, the symbol suggests protection through power and therefore figures more frequently in the speech of those who believe in reliance on national power than of those who place their confidence in model behavior, international cooperation, or the United Nations to carry their country safely through the tempests of international conflict. For these reasons it would be an exaggeration to claim that the symbol of national security is nothing but a stimulus to semantic confusion, though closer analysis will show that if used without specifications it leaves room for more confusion than sound political counsel or scientific usage can afford.

The demand for a policy of national security is primarily normative in character. It is supposed to indicate what the policy of a nation should be in

"National Security" 17

order t o be either expedient - a rational means toward an accepted end - or moral, the best o r least evil course of action. The value judgments implicit in these normative exhortations will be discussed.

Before doing so, attention should be drawn to an assertion of fact which is implicit if not explicit in most appeals for a policy guided hy national security. Such appeals usually assume that nations in fact have made security their goal except when idealism o r utopianism of their leaders has led them to stray from the traditional path. If such conformity of behavior actually existed, it would he proper to infer that a country deviating from the established pattern of conduct would risk being penalized. This would greatly strengthen the norn~ative arguments. The trouble with the contention of fact, however, is that the term "security" covers a range of goals so wide that highly divergent policies can be interpreted as policies of security.

Security points to some degree of protection of values previously acquired. In Walter Lippmann's words, a nation is secure t o the extent to which it is not in danger of having to sacrifice core values, if it wishes to avoid war, and is able, if challenged, to maintain them by victory in such a war.' What this definition implies is that security rises and falls with the ability of a nation t o deter an attack, o r to defeat it. This is in accord with common usage of the term.

Security is a value, then, of which a nation can have more o r less and which it can aspire to have in greater o r lesser measure.' It has much in common, in this respect, with power o r wealth, two other values of great importance in international affairs. But while wealth measures the amount of a nation's material possessions, and power its ability to control the actions of others, security, in an objective sense, measures the absence of threats to acquired values, in a subjective sense, the absence of tear that such values will be attacked. In both respects a nation's security can run a wide gamut from almost complete insecurity o r sense of insecurity a t one pole, t o almost complete security o r absence of fear a t the other.-'

The possible discrepancy between the objective and subjective connotation of the term is significant in international relations despite the fact that the chance of future attack never can be measured "objectively"; it must always remain a matter of subjective evaluation and speculation. However, when the French after World War I insisted that they were entitled to additional guarantees of security because of the exceptionally dangerous situation which France was said t o be facing, other Powers in the I.eague expressed the view that rather than t o submit t o what might be French hys- terical apprehension the relative security of France should be objectively evaluated. It is a well-known fact that nations, and groups within nations, differ widely in their reaction to one and the same external situation. Some tend to exaggerate the danger while others underestimate it. With hindsight it is sometimes possible t o tell exactly how far they deviated from a rational reaction to the actual o r objective state of danger existing a t the time. Even if for n o other reasons, this difference in the reaction to similar threats suffices to make it probable that nations will differ in their efforts to obtain

18 The Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

more security. Some may find the danger to which they are exposed entirely normal and in line with their modest security expectations while others consider it unbearable to live with these same dangers. Although this is not the place to set up hypotheses on the factors which account for one or the other attitude, investigation might confirm the hunch that those nations tend to be most sensitive to threats which have either experienced attacks in the recent past or, having passed through a prolonged period of an exceptionally high degree of security, suddenly find themselves thrust into a situation of danger." Probably national efforts to achieve greater security would also prove, in part at least, to be a function of the power and opportunity which nations possess of reducing danger by their own effort^.^

Another and even stronger reason why nations must be expected not to act uniformly is that they are not all or constantly faced with the same degree of danger. For purposes of a working hypothesis, theorists may find it useful at times to postulate conditions wherein all states are enemies - provided they are not allied against others - and wherein all, therefore, are equally in danger of attack.' But, while it may be true in the living world, too, that no sovereign nation can be absolutely safe from future attack, nobody can reasonably contend that Canada, for example, is threatened today to the same extent as countries like Iran or Yugoslavia, or that the British had as much reason to be concerned about the French air force in the twenties as about Hitler's Luftwaffe in the thirties.

This point, however, should not be overstressed. There can be no quarrel with the generalization that most nations, most of the time - the great Powers particularly - have shown, and had reason to show, an active concern about some lack of security and have been prepared to make sacrifices for its enhancement. Danger and the awareness of it have been, and continue to be, sufficiently widespread to guarantee some uniformity in this respect. But a generalization which leaves room both for the frantic kind of struggle for more security which characterized French policy a t times and for the neglect of security apparent in American foreign policy after the close of both World Wars throws little light on the behavior of nations. The demand for conformity would have meaning only if it could be said - as it could under the conditions postulated in the working hypothesis of pure power politics - that nations normally subordinate all other values to the maximization of their security, which, however, is obviously not the case.

There have been many instances of struggles for more security taking the form of an unrestrained race for armaments, alliances, strategic boundaries and the like; but one need only recall the many heated parliamentary debates on arms appropriations to realize how uncertain has been the extent to which people will consent to sacrifice for additional increments of security. Even when there has been no question that armaments would mean more security, the cost in taxes, the reduction in social benefits or the sheer dis- comfort involved has militated effectively against further effort. It may be worth noting in this connection that there seems to be no case in history in which a country started a preventive war on the grounds of security - unless

I I C ~ * "National Security" 19

Hitler's wanton attack on his neighbors be allowed to qualify as such - although there must have been circumstances where additional security could have been obtained by war and although so many wars have been launched for the enhancement of other values. Of course, where security serves only as a cloak for other more enticing demands, nations or anlbitious leaders may consider no price for it too high. This is one of the reasons why very high security aspirations tend to make a nation suspect of hiding more aggressive aims.

Instead of expecting a uniform drive for enhanced or maximum security, a different hypothesis may offer a more promising lead. Efforts for security are bound to be experienced as a burden; security after all is nothing but the absence of the evil o f insecurity, a negative value so to speak. As a consequence, nations will be inclined to minimize these efforts, keeping them at the lowest level which will provide them with what they consider adequate protection. This level will often be lower than what statesmen, military leaders or other particularly security-minded participants in the decision-making process believe it should be. In any case, together with the extent of the external threats, numerous domestic factors such as national character, tradition, preferences and prejudices will influence the level of security which a nation chooses to make its target.

It might be objected that in the long run nations are not so free to choose the amount of effort they will put into security. Are they not under a kind o f compulsion to spare no effort provided they wish to survive? This objection again would make sense only if the hypothesis of pure power politics were a realistic image of actual world affairs. In fact, however, a glance at history will suffice to show that survival has only exceptionally been at stake, particularly for the major Powers. If nations were not concerned with the protection of values other than their survival as independent states, most of them, most of the time, would not have had to be seriously worried about their security, despite what n~anipulators of public opinion engaged in mustering greater security efforts may have said to the contrary. What "compulsion" there is, then, is a function not merely of the will of others, real or imagined, to destroy the nation's independence but of national desires and ambitions to retain a wealth of other values such as rank, respect, material possessions and special privileges. It would seem to be a fair guess that the efforts for security by a particular nation will tend to vary, other things being equal, with the range of values for which protection is being sought.

In respect to this range there may seem to exist a considerable degree of uniformity. All over the world today peoples are making sacrifices to protect and preserve what to them appear as the minimum national core values, national independence and territorial integrity. But there is deviation in two directions. Some nations seek protection for more marginal values as well. There was a time when United States policy could afford to be concerned mainly with the protection of the foreign investments or markets of its nationals, its "core values" being out of danger, or when Britain was extending its national self to include large and only vaguely circumscribed


"regions of special interest". It is a well-known and portentous phenomenon that bases, security zones and the like may be demanded and acquired for the purpose of protecting values acquired earlier; and they then become new national values requiring protection themselves. Pushed to its logical conclusion, such spatial extension of the range of values does not stop short of world domination.

A deviation in the opposite direction of a compression of the range of core values is hardly exceptional in our days either. There is little indication that Britain is bolstering the security of Hong Kong although colonies were once considered part of the national territory. The Czechs lifted no finger to protect their independence against the Soviet Union and many West Europeans are arguing today that rearmament has become too destructive of values they cherish to be justified even when national independence is obviously at stake.

The lack of uniformity does not end here. A policy is not characterized by its goal, in this case security, alone. In order to become imitable, the means by which the goal is pursued must be taken into account as well. Thus, if two nations were both endeavoring to maximize their security but one were placing all its reliance on armaments and alliances, the other on meticulous neutrality, a policy maker seeking to emulate their behavior would be at a loss where to turn. Those who call for a policy guided by national security are not likely to be unaware of this fact, but they take for granted that they will be understood to mean a security policy based on power, and on military power at that. Were it not so, they would be hard put to prove that their government was not already doing its best for security, though it was seeking to enhance it by such means as international cooperation or by the negotiation of compromise agreements - means which in one instance may be totally ineffective or utopian but which in others may have considerable protective value.

It is understandable why it should so readily be assumed that a quest for security must necessarily translate itself into a quest for coercive power. In view of the fact that security is being sought against external violence - coupled perhaps with internal subversive violence - it seems plausible at first sight that the response should consist in an accumulation of the same kind of force for the purpose of resisting an attack or of deterring a would- be attacker. The most casual reading of history and of contemporary experience, moreover, suffices to confirm the view that such resort to "power of resistance" has been the rule with nations grappling with serious threats to their security, however much the specific form of this power and its extent may differ. Why otherwise would so many nations which have no acquisitive designs maintain costly armaments? Why did Denmark with her state of complete disarmament remain an exception even among the small Powers?

But again, the generalization that nations seeking security usually place great reliance on coercive power does not carry one far. The issue is not whether there is regularly some such reliance but whether there are no

"National Security" 2 1

c~gn~frcant d~fferences between natrons concerning t h e ~ r over-c~ll c h o ~ c e of the means upon which they place their trust. The controversies concerning the best road t o future security that are so typical o f coalition partners a t the close of victorious wars throw light on this question. France in 19 19 and all the Allies in 1945 believed that protection against another German attack co~rld he gained only by means of continued military superiority based on German military impotence. President Wilson in 191 9 and many observers in 194.5 were equally convinced, however, that more hope for security lay in a conciliatory and fair treatment of the defeated enemy, which would rob him of future incentives t o renew his attack. While this is not the place to decide which side was right, one cannot help drawing the conclusion that, in the matter of means, the roads which are open may lead in diametrically opposed directions.The choice in every instance will depend o n a multitude of variables, including ideological and moral convictions, expectations concerning the psychological and political developnients in the camp of the opponent, and inclinations of individual policy makers."

After all that has been said little is left of the sweeping generalization that in actual practice nations, guided by their national security interest, tend to pursue a mif form and therefore imitable policy of security. Instead, there a re numerous reasons why they should differ widely in this respect, with some standing close to the pole of complete indifference to security or coni- plete reliance on nonmilitary means, others close to the pole of insistence on absolute security or of complete reliance on coercive power. It should be added that there exists still another category of nations which cannot be placed within the continuum connecting these poles because they regard security of any degree as an insufficient goal; instead they seek to acquire new values even a t the price of greater insecurity. In this category must be placed not only the "mad Caesars", who are out for conquest and glory a t any price, hut also idealistic statesmen who would plunge their country into war for the sake of spreading the benefits of their ideology, for example, of liberating enslaved peoples.

The actual behavior o f nations, past and present, does not affect the nor- niativc proposition, t o which we shall now turn our attention. According to this proposition nations are called upon to give priority t o national security and thus to consent to any sacrifice of value which will provide an additional increment of security. It may be expedient, moral o r both for nations to do so even i f they should have failed t o heed such advice in the past and for the most part are not living up t o it today.

The first question, then, is whether some definable security policy can be said t o he generally expedient. Because the choice of goals is not a matter of expediency, it would seem t o make no sense t o ask whether it is expedient for nations to be concerned with the goal of sec~rrity itself; only the means used to this end, so it would seem, can he judged as to their fitness - their instrumental rationality - to promote security. Yet, this is not so. Security, like other aims, may he an intermediate rather than a n ~ll t imate goal, in which case it can be judged as a means to these more ultimate ends.

2 2 T h e Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

Traditionally, the protection and preservation of national core values have been considered ends in themselves, a t least by those who followed in the footsteps of Machiavelli or, for other reasons of political philosophy, placed the prince, state or nation at the pinnacle of their hierarchy of values. Those who do so today will be shocked at the mere suggestion that national security should have to be justified in terms of higher values which it is expected to serve. But there is a large and perhaps growing current of opinion - as a matter of fact influential in this country for a long time - which adheres to this idea. We condemn Nazis and Communists for defending their own totalitarian countries instead of helping to free their people from tyranny; we enlist support for armaments, here and in Allied countries, not so much on the grounds that they will protect national security but that by enhancing such security they will serve to protect ultimate human values like individual liberty. Again, opposition in Europe and Asia to military security measures is based in part on the contention that it would help little to make national core values secure, i f in the process the liberties and the social welfare of the people had to be sacrificed; the prevention of Russian conquest, some insist, is useless, if in the course of a war of defense a large part of the people were to be exterminated and most cities destroyed.I0

While excellent arguments can be made to support the thesis that the preservation of the national independence of this country is worth almost any price as long as no alternative community is available which could assure the same degree of order, justice, peace or individual liberty, it becomes necessary to provide such arguments whenever national security as a value in itself is being questioned. The answer cannot be taken for granted.

But turning away now from the expediency of security as an intermediate goal we must ask whether, aside from any moral considerations which will be discussed later, a specific level of security and specific means of attaining it can claim to be generally expedient.

When one sets out to define in terms of expediency the level of security to which a nation should aspire, one might be tempted to assume that the sky is the limit. Is not insecurity of any kind an evil from which any rational policy maker would want to rescue his country? Yet, there are obvious reasons why this is not so.

In the first place, every increment of security must be paid by additional sacrifices of other values usually of a kind more exacting than the mere expenditure of precious time on the part of policy makers. At a certain point, then, by something like the economic law of diminishing returns, the gain in security no longer compensates for the added costs of attaining it. As in the case of economic value comparisons and preferences, there is frequently disagreement among different layers of policy makers as to where the line should be drawn. This is true particularly because absolute security is out of the question unless a country is capable of world domination, in which case, however, the insecurities and fears would be "internalized" and probably magnified. Because nations must "live dangerously", then, to some extent, whatever they consent to do about it, a modicum of additional

4 I "National Security" 23

but only relative security may easily become unattractive to those who have to bear the chief burden. Nothing renders the task of statesmen in a democracy more difficult than the reluctance of the people to follow them very far along the road to high and costly security levels.

In the second place, national security policies when based on the accumulation of power have a way of defeating themselves if the target level is set too high. This is due to the fact that "power of resistance" cannot be unmistakably distinguished from "power of aggression". What a country does to bolster its own security through power can be interpreted hy others, therefore, as a threat to their security. If this occurs, the vicious circle of what John Herz has described as the "security dilemma" sets in: the efforts of one side provoke countermeasures by the other which in turn tend to wipe out the gains of the first. Theoretically there seems to be no escape from this frustrating consequence; in practice, however, there are ways to convince those who might feel threatened that the accumulation of power is not intended and will never be used for attack." The chief way is that of keeping the target level within moderate bounds and of avoiding placing oneself in a position where it has to be raised suddenly and drastically. The desire to escape from this vicious circle presupposes a security policy of much self-restraint and moderation, especially in the choice of the target levef." It can never be expedient to pursue a security policy which by the fact of provocation or incentive to others fails to increase the nation's relative power position and capability of resistance.

The question of what means are expedient for the purpose of enhancing security raises even more thorny problems. Policy makers must decide how to distribute their reliance on whatever means are available to them and, particularly, how far to push the accumulation of coercive power. No attempt can he made here to decide what the choice should be in order to be expedient. Obviously, there can be no general answer which would meet the requirements of every case. The answer depends on the circumstances. A weak country may have no better means at its disposal than to prove to stronger neighbors that its strict neutrality can be trusted. Potentially strong countries may have a chance to deter an aggressor by creating "positions of strengthv. In some instances they may have no other way of saving themselves; while in others even they may find it more expedient to supplement such a policy, if not to replace it, by a policy intended to negotiate their opponent out of his aggressive designs.

The reason why "power of resistance" is not the general panacea which some believe it to be lies in the nature of security itself. If security, in the objective sense of the term at least, rises and falls with the presence or absence of aggressive intentions on the part of others, the attitude and behavior of those from whom the threat emanates are of prime importance. Such attitude and behavior need not be beyond the realm of influence by the country seeking to bolster its security. Whenever they do not lie beyond this realm the most effective and least costly security policy consists in inducing the opponent to give up his aggressive intentions.


While there is no easy way to determine when means can and should be used which are directed not at resistance but at the prevention of the desire of others to attack, it will clarify the issue to sketch the type of hypotheses which would link specific security policies, as expedient, to some of the most typical political constellations.

One can think of nations lined up between the two poles of maximum and minimum "attack propensity", with those unalterably committed to attack, provided it promises success, at one pole and those whom no amount of opportunity for successful attack could induce to undertake it at the other. While security in respect to the first group can come exclusively as a result of "positions of strength" sufficient to deter or defeat attack, nothing could do more to undermine security in respect to the second group than to start accumulating power of a kind which would provoke fear and countermoves.

Unfortunately it can never be known with certainty, in practice, what position within the continuum one's opponent actually occupies. Statesmen cannot be blamed, moreover, if caution and suspicion lead them to assume a closer proximity to the first pole than hindsight proves to have been justified. We believe we have ample p o o f that the Soviet Union today is at or very close to the first pole, while Canadian policy makers probably place the United States in its intentions toward Canada a t the second pole.

It is fair to assume that, wherever the issue of security becomes a matter of serious concern, statesmen will usually be dealing with potential opponents who occupy a position somewhere between but much closer to the first of the two poles. This means, then, that an attack must be feared as a possibility, even though the intention to launch it cannot be considered to have crystallized to the point where nothing could change it. If this be true, a security policy in order to be expedient cannot avoid accumulating power of resistance and yet cannot let it go at that. Efforts have to be made simultaneously toward the goal of removing the incentives to attack. This is only another way of saying that security policy must seek to bring opponents to occupy a position as close to the second pole as conditions and capabilities permit.

Such a twofold policy presents the greatest dilemmas because efforts to change the intentions of an opponent may run counter to the efforts to build up strength against him. The dangers of any policy of concessions, symbolized by "Munich", cannot be underestimated. The paradox of this situation must be faced, however, if security policy is to be expedient. It implies that national security policy, except when directed against a country unalterably committed to attack, is the more rational the more it succeeds in taking the interests, including the security interests, of the other side into consideration. Only in doing so can it hope to minimize the willingness of the other to resort to violence. Rather than to insist, then, that under all conditions security be sought by reliance on nothing but defensive power and be pushed in a spirit of national selfishness toward the highest targets,

1 1 1 "National Security" 25

it should be stressed that in most instances efforts to satisfy legitimate demands of others are likely to promise better results in terms of security." That is probably what George Kennan had in mind when he advised policy makers to use self-restraint in the pursuit of the national interest. While in the face of a would-be world conqueror who is beyond the pale of external influence it is dangerous to be diverted from the accumulation of sheer defensive power, any mistake about his true state of mind or any neglect of opportunities to influence his designs, where it has a chance of being successful, violates the rules of expediency. It should always be kept in mind that the ideal security policy is one which would lead to a distribution of values so satisfactory to all nations that the intention to attack and with it the problem of security would be minimized. While this is a utopian goal, policy makers and particularly peacemakers would do well to remember that there are occasions when greater approximation to such a goal can be effected.

We can now focus our attention on the moral issue, if such there be.I4 Those who advocate a policy devoted to national security are not always aware of the fact - if they do not explicitly deny it - that they are passing moral judgment when they advise a nation to pursue the goal of national security or when they insist that such means as the accumulation of coercive power - or its use - should be employed for this purpose.''

Nations like individuals or other groups may value things not because they consider them good or less evil than their alternative; they may value them because they satisfy their pride, heighten their sense of self-esteem or reduce their fears. However, no policy, or human act in general, can escape becoming a subject for moral judgment - whether by the conscience of the actor himself or by others -which calls for the sacrifice of other values, as any security policy is bound to do. Here it becomes a matter of comparing and weighing values in order to decide which of them are deemed sufficiently good to justify the evil of sacrificing others. If someone insists that his country should do more to build up its strength, he is implying, know- ingly or not, that more security is sufficiently desirable to warrant such evils as the cut in much-needed social welfare benefits or as the extension of the period of military service. I h

Many vivid examples of the moral dilemma are being supplied by current controversies concerning American security policy. Is a "deal with fascist Spain" morally justified, provided it added an increment to our security, though principles valued highly by some were being sacrificed? Should we engage in subversive activities and risk the lives of our agents if additional security can be attained thereby? Should we perhaps go so far as to start a preventive war, when ready, with the enormous evils it would carry with it, if we should become convinced that no adequate security can be obtained except by the defeat of the Soviet Union? In this last case, would not the exponents of amoralism have some moral qualms, at least to the point of rationalizing a decision favoring such a war by claiming that it would serve

26 T h e Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

to satisfy not primarily an egotistical national demand for security but an altruistic desire to liberate enslaved peoples? It is easier to argue for the amorality of politics if one does not have to bear the responsibility of choice and decision!

Far be it from a political scientist to claim any particular competence in deciding what efforts for national security are or are not morally justified. What he can contribute here is to point to the ambiguities of any general normative demand that security be bought at whatever price it may cost. He may also be able to make it more difficult for advisers or executors of policy to hide from themselves or others the moral value judgments and preferences which underlie whatever security policy they choose to recommend or conduct.

The moral issue will be resolved in one of several ways depending on the ethical code upon which the decision is based. From one extreme point of view it is argued that every sacrifice, especially if imposed on other nations, is justified provided it contributes in any way to national security. Clearly this implies a position that places national security at the apex of the value pyramid and assumes it to constitute an absolute good to which all other values must be subordinated. Few will be found to take this position because if they subscribed to a nationalistic ethics of this extreme type they would probably go beyond security - the mere preservation of values - and insist that the nation is justified in conquering whatever it can use as Lebensraum or otherwise. At the opposite extreme are the absolute pacifists who consider the use of coercive power an absolute evil and condemn any security policy, therefore, which places reliance on such power.

For anyone who does not share these extreme views the moral issue raised by the quest for national security is anything but clear-cut and simple. He should have no doubts about the right of a nation to protect and preserve values to which it has a legitimate title or even about its moral duty to pursue a policy meant to serve such preservation. But he cannot consider security the supreme law as Machiavelli would have the statesman regard the ragione di stato. Somewhere a line is drawn, which in every instance he must seek to discover, that divides the realm of neglect, the "too-little", from the realm of excess, the "too much". Even Hans Morgenthau who extols the moral duty of self-preservation seems to take it for granted that naked force shall be used for security in reaction only to violent attack, not for preventive war.

Decision makers are faced with the moral problem, then, of choosing first the values which deserve protection, with national independence rank- ing high not merely for its own sake but for the guarantee it may offer to values like liberty, justice and peace. He must further decide which level of security to make his target. This will frequently be his most difficult moral task though terms such as adequacy or fair share indicate the kind of standards that may guide him. Finally, he must choose the means and thus by scrupulous computation of values compare the sacrifices, which his choice of means implies, with the security they promise to provide.

\\ oiicr\ "National Security" 27

It follows that policies of national security, far from being all good or all evil, may be morally praiseworthy or condemnable depending on their specific character and the particular circumstances of the case. They may be praised for their self-restraint and the consideration which this implies for values other than security; they may instead be condemned for being inadequate to protect national values. Again, they may be praised in one instance for the consideration given to the interests of others, particularly of weaker nations, or condemned in another because of the recklessness with which national values are risked on the altar of some chimera. The target level falls under moral judgment for being too ambitious, egotistical and provocative or for being inadequate; the means employed for being unnecessarily costly in other values or for being ineffective. This wide range of variety which arises out of the multitude of variables affecting the value computation would make it impossible, and in fact meaningless, to pass moral judgment, positive or negative, on "national security policy in general".

It is this lack of moral homogeneity which in matters of security policy justifies attacks on so-called moralism, though not on moral evaluation. The "moralistic approach" is taken to mean a wholesale condemnation either of any concern with national security - as being an expression of national egotism - or of a security policy relying on coercive and therefore evil power. The exponent of such "moralism" is assumed to believe that security for all peoples can be had today by the exclusive use of such "good" and altruistic means as model behavior and persuasion, a spirit of conciliation, international organization or world government. If there are any utopians who cling to this notion, and have influence on policy, it makes sense to continue to disabuse them of what can surely be proved to be dangerous illusions.

It is worth emphasizing, however, that the opposite line of argument, which without regard for the special circumstances would praise everything done for national security or more particularly everything done for the enhancement of national power of resistance, is no less guilty of applying simple and abstract moral principles and of failing to judge each case real- istically on its merits.

In conclusion, it can be said, then, that normative admonitions to conduct a foreign policy guided by the national security interest are no less ambiguous and misleading than the statement of fact concerning past behavior which was discussed earlier. In order to be meaningful such admonitions would have to specify the degree of security which a nation shall aspire to attain and the means by which it is to be attained in a given situation. It may be good advice in one instance to appeal for greater effort and more armaments; it may be no less expedient and morally advisable in another instance to call for moderation and for greater reliance on means other than coercive power. Because the pendulum of public opinion swings so easily from extreme complacency to extreme apprehension, from utopian reliance on "good will" to disillusioned faith in naked force only, it is particularly important to be wary of any simple panacea, even of one that parades in the realist garb of a policy guided solely by the national security interest.


Notes

1. Hans Morgenthau's In Defense of the National Interest (New York, 1951) IS the most explicit and impassioned recent plea for an American foreign policy which shall follow "but one guiding star - the National Interest". While Morgenthau is not equally explicit in regard to the meaning he attaches to the symbol "national interest", it becomes clear in the few pages devoted to an exposition of this "perennial" interest that the author is thinking in terms of the national security interest, and specifically of security based on power. The United Stares, he says, is interested in three things: a unique position as a predominant Power without rival in the Western Hemisphere and the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe as well as in Asia, demands which make sense only in the context of a quest for security through power.

2. Walter Lippmann, U. S. Foreign Policy (Boston, 1943), p. 51. 3. This explains why some nations which would seem to fall into the category of status

quo Powers par excellence may nevertheless be dissatisfied and act very much like "imperial- ist" Powers, as Morgenthau calls nations with acquisitive goals. They are dissatisfied with the degree of security which they enjoy under the status quo and are out to enhance it. France's occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 illustrates this type of behav~or. Because the demand for more security may induce a status quo Power even to resort to the use of violence as a means of attaining more security, there is reason to beware of the easy and often self-righteous assumption that nations which desire to preserve the status quo are necessarily "peace-loving".

4. Security and power would be synonymous terms if security could be attained only through the accumulation of power, which will be shown nor to be the case. The fear of attack -security in the subjective sense - is also not proportionate to the relative power position of a nation. Why, otherwise, would some weak and exposed nations conslder themselves more secure today than does the United States?

Harold D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society (New Haven, 1950), def~n- ing security as "high value expectancy" stress the subjective and speculative character of security by using the term "expectancy"; the use of the term "h~gh", while mdicating no defin- ite level, would seem to imply that the security-seeker aims at a position in which the events he expects - here the continued unmolested enjoyment of his possessions - have considerably more than an even chance of materializing.

5. The United States offers a good illustration and may be typical in this respect. For a long time this country was beyond the reach of any enemy attack that could be considered probable. During that period, then, it could afford to dismiss any serious preoccupation w t h security. Events proved that it was no worse off for having done so. However, after this happy condition had ceased to exist, government and people alike showed a lag in their awareness of the change. When Nicholas J. Spykman raised his voice in the years before World War I1 to advocate a broader security outlook than was indicated by the symbol "Western Hemisphere Defense" and a greater appreciation of the r6le of defenswe mtlitary power, he was dealing with this lag and with the dangers implied in it. If Hans Morgenthau and others raise t h e ~ r warning voices today, seemmgly treading in Spykman's footsteps, they are addressing a narlon which after a new relapse into wishful thinking in 1945 has been rad~cally disillusioned and may now be swinging toward excessive security apprehensions.

6. Terms such as "degree" or "level" of security are not intended to indicate merely quantitative differences. Nations may also differ in respect to the breadth of their security perspective as when American leaders at Yalta were so preoccupied with security agalnst the then enemy countries of the United States that they failed or refused to consider future American security vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. The differences may apply, instead, to the time range for which security is sought as when the British at Versailles were ready to offer France short-run security guarantees while the French with more foresight ins~sred that the "German danger" would not become acute for some ten years.

7. For a discussion of this working hypothesis - as part of the "pure power" hypothesis - see my article on "The Pole of Power and the Pole of Indifference" in World Pol~tics, vol. IV, No. 1. October 1951.

"National Security" 29

8. Pvlyres S. Mcl lougal ("Law and Peace" in the Amermm /o~irtznl of lntcrn~7tron~zI 1 . ~ 7 ~ : vol. 46. No. 1, January 19.52, pp. 102 e t seq.) rightly criticize\ Hans Morgenthau ( and George t i en tun tor what t iennan himself wrongly believes t o he h ~ s o w n point o t view in the matter; see fn, 15 rr~frtr) for his failure t o appreciate the rhle which non-power methods, such as legal procedures and moral appeds , may a t times successfully play in the pursuit of security. But ~t i \ s u rp r~s lng how llrrle aware McDougal appears t o be of the d~sappoinr ing modesry of the con t r~hu t ions which these "other means" have actually made t o the enhancement of security and the quite insignificant c o n t r ~ b u t ~ o n s they have made to the promotion of ch.inges of the s ta tus quo. T h ~ s latter failure signif~es that ther have heen unable t o remove the m ~ i n c~luses of t he attacks which security-minded peoples rlghtly fear.

9. On the problem of security policy (Sicl~erheitspolrt~k) with special reference to "collective secur~ty" see the comprehensive and illuminating study of Heinrich Rogge, "Kollektivsicherheit Buendnispolitik Voelkerhund", Theorre der natzonulerz ttnd rnternntionizlctr S~cherhcrt (Berlin, 19371, which deserves attention despite the fact that ~t was written and puhl~shed in N u t Germany and bean J distinctly L'revisioni~t" slant.

10. Raymond Dennett goes further in making the generalization that, "if economlc pressures become great enough, almost any government, when put t o the flnal test, will rnoder,~te o r ahan- don a ool~tical association" (such as the alliance svstern of the United States with its usefulness t o nation,d security) "if only an alteration of policy seems t o offer the possibility of maintaining o r .~chievitig living standards ,idequate enough t o permit the reglme to survive". "Danger Spots In the Pattern of American Security", In World Politzcs, vol. IV, No. 4, July 19.52, p. 449.

I I. N o t everyone agrees that this can be done. Jeremy Benrham wrote that "measures of mere self defense are naturally taken for projects of aggression" with the result t h ,~ t "each ninkes h a t e t o hegin for fe ,~r of heing forestalled." Prmczples of Internatronal 1 . a ~ ~ . Essay IV.

12. T h e Quakers , in ,I book on T b r Unrted Stntrs m d th r Sol& Urzion: Some Quczkrr Propos'11s for Prncr ( N e w Haven, l 949) , p. 14, state that "it is highly ques t~onab le whether securlty c,ln be achieved in the tnodern world through an a t tempt t o estahllsh ,111 overwhelming preponderance of military power." This can be read to mean that 3 less a m b ~ r ~ o u s milit'lry target than overwhelming preponderance r n ~ g h t be a means o f achieving security.

13. As A.D. Lindsay puts it, "The search for perfect security ... defeats its o w n ends. Playing for safety 1s the most dangerous way to live." Introduction t o T h o m a \ Hobbes, /.~1'1~7t/~dl2, p. XYII.

14. O n the moral problem in international r e l a t~ons see 11iy article o n "St :~tesmansh~p J I ~

Mora l Choice" in World Politics, vol. I, N o . 2, January 1949, pp. 176 et seq.. especially p. 18.5. In one of h ~ s most recent statements o n the subject, Reinhold Nlehuhr, T ~ J L , I ro~zy of

A t t ~ c v ~ c m Hlstory ( N e w York, 19451, points specifically t o the moral problem ~nvolved in security policy - "no imperiled nation", he writes, "is morally able t o dispense with weapons which might insure its sul-vivd" (p . 39) .

15. It IS not w ~ t h o u t irony that of the t w o authors w h o have rrcently come o u t tor a policy of the national interest, the one, George F. Kennan, w h o calls for a policy of n a t ~ o n a l self- restraint and humility, ~ ~ s u a l l y ~dent l f ied with morality, should deny "that state behavior is '1

fit subject for moral judgment" (Amerrcan DlpIomi7cy. 1900-1950, Chicago, 1952, p. IOO), while the other, H a n s Morgenthau (op. cit.), calling for a policy of ~ ~ n a d u l t e r ~ l t e d national ego- tlsm, claims t o speak In the name of morality.

16. It would he unrealistic t o assume that ~ o l i c v makers divide their attention strictlv . ,

between ends a n d means and only after having chosen a speclf~c target level as heing morally iustified decide whether the means by which ~t can be a t tamed are morally acceptable. Moral judgment is more llkely t o be passed o n the t o t a l ~ t y of a course of action which embraces both the desired end , ~ n d the means which lead to it.

Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma

Robert Jervis

I. Anarchy and the Security Dilemma

T he lack of an international sovereign not only permits wars to occur, but also makes it difficult for states that are satisfied with the status quo to arrive at goals that they recognize as being in their common

interest. Because there are no institutions or authorities that can make and enforce international laws, the policies of cooperation that will bring mutual rewards if others cooperate may bring disaster if they do not. Because states are aware of this, anarchy encourages behavior that leaves all concerned worse off than they could be, even in the extreme case in which all states would like to freeze the status quo. This is true of the men in Rousseau's "Stag Hunt." If they cooperate to trap the stag, they will all eat well. But if one person defects to chase a rabbit - which he likes less than stag - none of the others will get anything. Thus, all actors have the same preference order, and there is a solution that gives each his first choice: (1) cooperate and trap the stag (the international analogue being cooperation and disarmament); (2) chase a rabbit while others remain at their posts (maintain a high level of arms while others are disarmed); (3) all chase rab- bits (arms competition and high risk of war); and (4) stay at the original position while another chases a rabbit (being disarmed while others are armed).l Unless each person thinks that the others will cooperate, he himself will not. And why might he fear that any other person would do something that would sacrifice his own first choice? The other might not understand the situation, or might not be able to control his impulses if he saw a rabbit, or might fear that some other member of the group is unreli- able. If the person voices any of these suspicions, others are more likely to fear that he will defect, thus making them more likely to defect, thus making it more rational for him to defect. Of course in this simple case - and in many that are more realistic - there are a number of arrangements that

Source: World Politics, 30(2) (1978): 167-214.

lerv15 Security Dilemma 13 1

could permit cooperation. But the main point remains: although actors may know that they seek a common goal, they may not be able to reach it.

Even when there is a solution that is everyone's first choice, the international case is characterized by three difficulties not present in the Stag Hunt. First, to the incentives to defect given above must be added the potent fear that even if the other state now supports the staus quo, it may become dissatisfied later. N o matter how much decision makers are committed to the status quo, they cannot bind themselves and their successors to the same path. Minds can be changed, new leaders can come to power, values can shift, new opportunities and dangers can arise.

The second problem arises from a possible solution. In order to protect their possessions, states often seek to control resources or land outside their own territory. Countries that are not self-sufficient must try to assure that the necessary supplies will continue to flow in wartime. This was part of the explanation for Japan's drive into China and Southeast Asia before World War 11. If there were an international authority that could guarantee access, this motive for control would disappear. But since there is not, even a state that would prefer the status quo to increasing its area of control may pursue the latter policy.

When there are believed to be tight linkages between domestic and foreign policy or between the domestic politics of two states, the quest for security may drive states to interfere pre-emptively in the domestic politics of others in order to provide an ideological buffer zone. Thus, Metternich's justification for supervising the politics of the Italian states has been summarized as follows:

Every state is absolutely sovereign in its internal affairs. But this implies that every state must do nothing to interfere in the internal affairs of any other. However, any false or pernicious step taken by any state in its internal affairs may disturb the repose of another state, and this conse- quent disturbance of another state's repose constitutes an interference in that state's internal affairs. Therefore, every state - or rather, every sovereign of 3 great power - has the duty, in the name of the sacred right of independence of every state, to supervise the governments of smaller states and to prevent them from taking false and pernicious steps in their internal affairs."

More frequently, the concern is with direct attack. In order to protect then~selves, states seek to control, or at least to neutralize, areas on their borders. But attempts to establish buffer zones can alarm others who have stakes there, who fear that ind desirable precedents will be set, or who believe that their own vulnerability will be increased. When buffers are sought in areas empty of great powers, expansion tends to feed on itself in order to protect what is acquired, as was often noted by those who opposed colonial expansion. Balfour's complaint was typical: "Every time I come to a discussion - at intervals of, say, five years - I find there is a new sphere which we


have got to guard, which is supposed to protect the gateways of India. Those gateways are getting further and further away from India, and I do not know how far west they are going to be brought by the General Staff.""

Though this process is most clearly visible when it involves territorial expansion, it often operates with the increase of less tangible power and influence. The expansion of power usually brings with it an expansion of respon- sibilities and commitments; to meet them, still greater power is required. The state will take many positions that are subject to challenge. It will be involved with a wide range of controversial issues unrelated to its core values. And retreats that would be seen as normal if made by a small power would be taken as an index of weakness inviting predation if made by a large one.

The third problem present in international politics but not in the Stag Hunt is the security dilemma: many of the means by which a state tries to increase its security decrease the security of others. In domestic society, there are several ways to increase the safety of one's person and property without endangering others. One can move to a safer neighborhood, put bars on the windows, avoid dark streets, and keep a distance from suspicious-looking characters. Of course these measures are not convenient, cheap, or certain of success. But no one save criminals need be alarmed if a person takes them. In international politics, however, one state's gain in security often inadvert- ently threatens others. In explaining British policy on naval disarmament in the interwar period to the Japanese, Ramsey MacDonald said that "Nobody wanted Japan to be in~ecure ."~ But the problem was not with British desires, but with the consequences of her policy. In earlier periods, too, Britain had needed a navy large enough to keep the shipping lanes open. But such a navy could not avoid being a menace to any other state with a coast that could be raided, trade that could be interdicted, or colonies that could be isolated. When Germany started building a powerful navy before World War I, Britain objected that it could only be an offensive weapon aimed at her. As Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, put it to King Edward VII: "If the German Fleet ever becomes superior to ours, the German Army can conquer this country. There is no corresponding risk of this kind to Germany; for however superior our Fleet was, no naval victory could bring us any nearer to Berlin." The English position was half correct: Germany's navy was an anti-British instrument. But the British often overlooked what the Germans knew full well: "in every quarrel with England, German colonies and trade were ... hostages for England to take." Thus, whether she intended it or not, the British Navy constituted an important instrument of c o e r ~ i o n . ~

11. What M a k e s Cooperat ion M o r e Likely?

Given this gloomy picture, the obvious question is, why are we not all dead? Or, to put it less starkly, what kinds of variables ameliorate the impact of anarchy and the security dilemma? The workings of several can

It 1 c Security Dilemma 133

be seen in terms of the Stag Hunt or repeated plays of the Prisoner's Dilemma. The Prisoner's Dilemma differs from the Stag Hunt in that there is no solution that is in the best interests of all the participants; there are offensive as well as defensive incentives to defect from the coalition with the others; and, if the game is to be played only once, the only rational response is to defect. But if the game is repeated indefinitely, the latter characteristic no longer holds and we can analyze the game in terms similar to those applied to the Stag Hunt. It would be in the interest of each actor to have others deprived ;f the power to defect; each would be willing to sacrifice this ability if others were similarly restrained. But if the others are not, then it is in the actor's interest to retain the power to d e f e ~ t . ~ The game theory matrices for these two situations are given below, with the numbers in the boxes being the order of the actors' preferences.

STAG HUNT PRISONER'S DILEMMA

COOPERATE DEFECT COOPERATE DEFECT

4 1 COOPERATE

3 DEFECT R

We can see the logical possibilities by rephrasing our question: "Given either of the above situations, what makes it more or less likely that the players will cooperate and arrive at CC?" The chances of achieving this outcome will be increased by: ( I ) anything that increases incentives to cooperate by increasing the gains of mutual cooperation (CC) and/or decreasing the costs the actor will pay if he cooperates and the other does not (CD); (2) anything that decreases the incentives for defecting by decreasing the gains of taking advantage of the other (DC) and/or increasing the costs of mutual noncooperation (DD); (3 ) anything that increases each side's expectation that the other will cooperate.'

The fear of being exploited (that is, the cost of CD) most strongly drives the security dilemma; one of the main reasons why international life is not more nasty, brutish, and short is that states are not as vulnerable as men are in a state of nature. People are easy to kill, but as Adam Smith replied to a friend who feared that the Napoleonic Wars would ruin England, "Sir, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.""he easier it is to destroy a state, the greater the reason for it either to join a larger and more secure unit, or else to be especially suspicious of others, to require a large army, and, if conditions arc favorable, to attack at the slightest provocation rather than wait to be


attacked. If the failure to eat that day - be it venison or rabbit - means that he will starve, a person is likely to defect in the Stag Hunt even if he really likes venison and has a high level of trust in his colleagues. (Defection is especially likely if the others are also starving or if they know that he is.) By contrast, if the costs of CD are lower, if people are well-fed or states are resilient, they can afford to take a more relaxed view of threats.

A relatively low cost of CD has the effect of transforming the game from one in which both players make their choices simultaneously to one in which an actor can make his choice after the other has moved. He will not have to defect out of fear that the other will, but can wait to see what the other will do. States that can afford to be cheated in a bargain or that cannot be destroyed by a surprise attack can more easily trust others and need not act at the first, and ambiguous, sign of menace. Because they have a margin of time and error, they need not match, or more than match, any others' arms in peacetime. They can mobilize in the prewar period or even at the start of the war itself, and still survive. For example, those who opposed a crash program to develop the H-bomb felt that the U.S. margin of safety was large enough so that even if Russia managed to gain a lead in the race, America would not be endangered. The program's advocates disagreed: "If we let the Russians get the super first, catastrophe becomes all but certain."'

When the costs of CD are tolerable, not only is security easier to attain but, what is even more imporant here, the relatively low level of arms and relatively passive foreign policy that a status-quo power will be able to adopt are less likely to threaten others. Thus it is easier for status-quo states to act on their common interests if they are hard to conquer. All other things being equal, a world of small states will feel the effects of anarchy much more than a world of large ones. Defensible borders, large size, and protection against sudden attack not only aid the state, but facilitate cooperation that can benefit all states.

Of course, if one state gains invulnerability by being more powerful than most others, the ~ r o b l e m will remain because its security provides a base from which it can exploit others. When the price a state will pay for DD is low, it leaves others with few hostages for its good behavior. Others who are more vulnerable will grow apprehensive, which will lead them to acquire more arms and will reduce the chances of cooperation. The best situation is one in which a state will not suffer greatly if others exploit it, for example, by cheating on an arms control agreement (that is, the costs of CD are low); but it will pay a high long-run price if cooperation with the others breaks down - for example, if agreements cease functioning or if there is a long war (that is, the costs of DD are high). The state's invulnerability is then mostly passive; it provides some protection, but it cannot be used to menace others. As we will discuss below, this situation is approximated when it is easier for states to defend themselves than to attack others, or when mutual deterrence obtains because neither side can protect itself.

The differences between highly vulnerable and less vulnerable states are illustrated by the contrasting policies of Britain and Austria after the

l e r ~ ~ s Security Dilemma 135

Napoleonic Wars. Britain's geographic isolation and political stability allowed her to take a fairly relaxed view of disturbances on the Continent. Minor wars and small changes in territory or in the distribution of power did not affect her vital interests. An adversary who was out to overthrow the system could be stopped after he had made his intentions clear. And revolutions within other states were no menace, since they would not set off unrest within England. Austria, surrounded by strong powers, was not so fortunate; her policy had to be more closely attuned to all conflicts. By the time an aggressor-state had clearly shown its colors, Austria would be gravely threatened. And foreign revolutions, be they democratic or nationalistic, would encourage groups in Austria to upset the existing order. So it is not surprising that Metternich pro- pounded the doctrine summarized earlier, which defended Austria's right to interfere in the internal affairs of others, and that British leaders rejected this view. Similarly, Austria wanted the Congress system to be a relatively tight one, regulating most disputes. The British favored a less centralized system. In other words, in order to protect herself, Austria had either to threaten or to harm others, whereas Britain did not. For Austria and her neighbors the security dilemma was acute; for Britain it was not.

The ~~ltirnate cost of CD is of course loss of sovereignty. This cost can vary from situation to situation. The lower it is (for instance, because the two states have compatible ideologies, are similar ethnically, have a common culture, or because the citizens of the losing state expect economic benefits), the less the impact of the security dilemma; the greater the costs, the greater the impact of the dilemma. Here is another reason why extreme differences in values and ideologies exacerbate international conflict.

It is through the lowering of the costs of CD that the proposed Rhodesian "safety net" - guaranteeing that whites who leave the country will receive fair payment for their property -would have the paradoxical effect of making it more likely that the whites will stay. This is less puzzling when we see that the whites are in a multi-person Prisoner's Dilemma with each other. Assume that all whites are willing to stay if most of the others stay; but, in the absence of guarantees, if there is going to be a mass exodus, all want to be among the first to leave (because late-leavers will get less for their property and will have more trouble finding a country to take them in). Then the problem is to avoid a self-fulfilling prophecy in which each person rushes to defect because he fears others are going to. In narrowing the gap between the payoff for leaving first (DC) and leaving last (CD) by reducing the cost of the latter, the guarantees make it easier for the whites to cooperate among themselves and stay.

Subjective Security Demands. Decision makers act in terms of the vulnerability they feel, which can differ from the actual situation; we must therefore examine the decision makers' subjective security requirements."' Two dimensions are involved. First, even if they agree about the objective situation, people can differ about how much security they desire - or, to put it more precisely, about the price they are willing to pay to gain increments of security. The more states value their security above all else (that is, see a


prohibitively high cost in CD), the more they are likely to be sensitive to even minimal threats, and to demand high levels of arms. And if arms are positively valued because of pressures from a military-industrial complex, it will be especially hard for status-quo powers to cooperate. By contrast, the security dilemma will not operate as strongly when pressing domestic concerns increase the opportunity costs of armaments. In this case, the net advantage of exploiting the other (DC) will be less, and the costs of arms races (that is, one aspect of DD) will be greater; therefore the state will behave as though it were relatively invulnerable.

The second aspect of subjective security is the perception of threat (that is, the estimate of whether the other will cooperate)." A state that is predisposed to see either a specific other state as an adversary, or others in general as a menace, will react more strongly and more quickly than a state that sees its environment as benign. Indeed, when a state believes that another not only is not likely to be an adversary, but has sufficient interests in common with it to be an ally, then it will actually welcome an increase in the other's power.

British and French foreign policies in the interwar years illustrate these points. After the rise of Hitler, Britain and France felt that increases in each other's arms increased rather than decreased their own security. The differing policies that these states followed toward Germany can be explained by their differences on both dimensions of the variable of subjective security." Throughout the period, France perceived Germany as more of a threat than England did. The British were more optimistic and argued that conciliation could turn Germany into a supporter of the status quo. Furthermore, in the years immediately following World War I, France had been more willing to forego other values in order to increase her security and had therefore followed a more belligerent policy than England, maintaining a larger army and moving quickly to counter German assertiveness. As this example shows, one cannot easily say how much subjective security a state should seek. High security requirements make it very difficult to capitalize on a common interest and run the danger of setting off spirals of arms races and hostility. The French may have paid this price in the 1920's. Low security requirements avoid this trap, but run the risk of having too few arms and of trying to con- ciliate an aggressor.

One aspect of subjective security related to the predisposition to perceive threat is the state's view of how many enemies it must be prepared to fight. A state can be relaxed about increases in another's arms if it believes that there is a functioning collective security system. The chances of peace are increased in a world in which the prevailing international system is valued in its own right, not only because most states restrain their ambitions and those who do not are deterred (these are the usual claims for a Concert system), but also because of the decreased chances that the status-quo states will engage in unnecessary conflict out of the quest for security. Indeed, if there were complete faith in collective security, no state would want an army. By contrast, the security dilemma is insoluble when each state fears

It I \ I Security Dilemma 137

that many others, far from coming to its aid, are likely to join in any attack. Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, was setting a high security requirement when he noted:

Besides the Great Powers, there are many small states who are buying or building great ships of war and whose vessels may by purchase, by some diplomatic combination, or by duress, be brought into the line against us. None of these powers need, like us, navies to defend their actual safety of independence. They build them so as to play a part in world affairs. It is sport to them. It is death to us."

It takes great effort for any one state to be able to protect itself alone against an attack by several neighbors. More importantly, it is next to impossible for all states in the system to have this capability. Thus, a state's expectation that allies will be available and that only a few others will be able to join against it is almost a necessary condition for security requirements to be compatible.

The main costs of a policy of reacting quickly and severely to increases in the other's arms are not the price of one's own arms, but rather the sacrifice of the potential gains from cooperation (CC) and the increase in the dangers of needless arms races and wars (DD). The greater these costs, the greater the incentives to try cooperation and wait for fairly unambiguous evidence before assuming that the other must be checked by force. Wars would be much more frequent - even if the first choice of all states was the status quo - if they were less risky and costly, and if peaceful intercourse did not provide rich benefits. Ethiopia recently asked for guarantees that the Territory of Afars and Issas would not join a hostile alliance against it when it gained independence. A spokesman for the Territory replied that this was not necessary: Ethiopia "already had the best possible guarantee in the railroad" that links the two countries and provides indispensable revenue for the Territory." l 4

The basic points are well known and so we can move to elaboration. First, most statesmen know that to enter a war is to set off a chain of unpre- dictable and uncontrollable events. Even if everything they see points to a quick victory, they are likely to hesitate before all the uncertainties. And i f the battlefield often produces startling results, so do the council chambers. The state may be deserted by allies or attacked by neutrals. Or the postwar alignment may rob it of the fruits of victory, as happened to Japan in 1895. Second, the domestic costs of wars must be weighed. Even strong states can be undermined by dissatisfaction with the way the war is run and by the necessary mobilization of men and ideas. Memories of such disruptions were one of the main reasons for the era of relative peace that followed the Napoleonic Wars. Liberal statesmen feared that large armies would lead to despotism; conservative leaders feared that wars would lead to revolution.


(The other side of this coin is that when there are domestic consequences of foreign conflict that are positively valued, the net cost of conflict is lowered and cooperation becomes more difficult.) Third - turning to the advantages of cooperation - for states with large and diverse economies the gains from economic exchange are rarely if ever sufficient to prevent war. Norman Angel1 was wrong about World War I being impossible because of economic ties among the powers; and before World War 11, the U.S. was Japan's most important trading partner. Fourth, the gains from cooperation can be increased, not only if each side gets more of the traditional values such as wealth, but also if each comes to value the other's well-being positively. Mutual cooperation will then have a double payoff: in addition to the direct gains, there will be the satisfaction of seeing the other prosper.'"

While high costs of war and gains from cooperation will ameliorate the impact of the security dilemma, they can create a different problem. If the costs are high enough so that DD is the last choice for both sides, the game will shift to "Chicken." This game differs from the Stag Hunt in that each actor seeks to exploit the other; it differs from Prisoner's Dilemma in that both actors share an interest in avoiding mutual non-cooperation. In Chicken, if you think the other side is going to defect, you have to cooperate because, although being exploited (CD) is bad, it is not as bad as a total breakdown (DD). As the familiar logic of deterrence shows, the actor must then try to convince his adversary that he is going to stand firm (defect) and that the only way the other can avoid disaster is to back down (cooperate). Commitment, the rationality of irrationality, manipulating the communica- tions system, and pretending not to understand the situation, are among the tactics used to reach this goal. The same logic applies when both sides are enjoying great benefits from cooperation. The side that can credibly threaten to disrupt the relationship unless its demands are met can exploit the other. This situation may not be stable, since the frequent use of threats may be incompatible with the maintenance of a cooperative relationship. Still, de Gaulle's successful threats to break up the Common Market unless his partners acceded to his wishes remind us that the shared benefits of cooperation as well as the shared costs of defection can provide the basis for exploitation. Similarly, one reason for the collapse of the Franco-British entente more than a hundred years earlier was that decision makers on both sides felt confident that their own country could safely pursue a policy that was against the other's interest because the other could not afford to destroy the highly valued relationship.I6 Because statesmen realize that the growth of positive interdependence can provide others with new levers of influence over them, they may resist such developments more than would be expected from the theories that stress the advantages of cooperation.

Gains from Exploitation fDCI

Defecting not only avoids the danger that a state will be exploited (CD), but brings positive advantages by exploiting the other (DC). The lower these

lcri i i Security Dilemma 139

possible gains, the greater the chances of cooperation. Even a relatively satisfied state can be tempted to expand by the hope of gaining major values. The temptation will be less when the state sees other ways of reaching its goals, and/or places a low value on what exploitation could bring. The gains may be low either because the immediate advantage provided by DC (for example, having more arms than the other side) cannot be translated into a political advantage (for example, gains in territory), or because the political advantage itself is not highly valued. For instance, a state may not seek to annex additional territory because the latter lacks raw materials, is inhabited by people of a different ethnic group, would be costly to garrison, or would be hard to assimilate without disturbing domestic politics and values. A state can reduce the incentives that another state has to attack it, by not being a threat to the latter and by providing goods and services that would be lost were the other to attempt exploitation.

Even where the direct advantages of DC are great, other considerations can reduce the net gain. Victory as well as defeat can set off undesired domestic changes within the state. Exploitation has at times been frowned - upon by the international community, thus reducing the prestige of a state that engages in it. Or others might in the future be quicker to see the state as a menace to them, making them more likely to arm, and to oppose it later. Thus, Bismarck's attempts to get other powers to cooperate with him in maintaining the status quo after 1871 were made more difficult by the widely-held mistrust of him that grew out of his earlier aggressions.'-

The variables discussed so far influence the payoffs for each of the four possible outcomes. To decide what to do, the state has to go further and calculate the expected value of cooperating or defecting. Because such calculations involve estimating the probability that the other will cooperate, the state will have to judge how the variables discussed so far act on the other. To encourage the other to cooperate, a state may try to manipulate these variables. It can lower the other's incentives to defect by decreasing what it could gain by exploiting the state (DC) - the details would be similar to those discussed in the previous paragraph - and it can raise the costs of deadlock (DD). But if the state cannot make DD the worst outcome for the other, coercion is likely to be ineffective in the short run because the other can respond by refusing to cooperate, and dangerous in the long run because the other is likely to become convinced that the state is aggressive. So the state will have to concentrate on making cooperation more attractive. One way to do this is to decrease the costs the other will pay if it cooperates and the state defects (0). Thus, the state could try to make the other less vulnerable. It was for this reason that in the late 1950's and early 1960's some American defense analysts argued that it would be good for both sides if the Russians developed hardened missiles. Of course, decreasing the other's vulnerability also decreases the state's ability to coerce it, and opens

140 T h e Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

the possibility that the other will use this protection as a shield behind which to engage in actions inimical to the state. But by sacrificing some ability to harm the other, the state can increase the chances of mutually beneficial cooperation.

The state can also try to increase the gains that will accrue to the other from mutual cooperation (CC). Although the state will of course gain if it receives a share of any new benefits, even an increment that accrues entirely to the other will aid the state by increasing the likelihood that the other will cooperate. l 8

This line of argument can be continued through the infinite regressions that game theory has made familiar. If the other is ready to cooperate when it thinks the state will, the state can increase the chances of CC by showing that it is planning to cooperate. Thus the state should understate the gains it would make if it exploited the other (DC) and the costs it would pay if the other exploited it (CD), and stress or exaggerate the gains it would make under mutual cooperation (CC) and the costs it would pay if there is deadlock (DD). The state will also want to convince the other that it thinks that the other is likely to cooperate. If the other believes these things, it will see that the state has strong incentives to cooperate, and so it will cooperate in turn. One point should be emphasized. Because the other, like the state, may be driven to defect by the fear that it will be exploited if it does not, the state should try to reassure it that this will not happen. Thus, when Khrushchev indicated his willingness to withdraw his missiles from Cuba, he simultaneously stressed to Kennedy that "we are of sound mind and understand perfectly well" that Russia could not launch a successful attack against the U.S., and therefore that there was no reason for the U.S. to con- template a defensive, pre-emptive strike of its own.''

There is, however, a danger. If the other thinks that the state has little choice but to cooperate, it can credibly threaten to defect unless the state provides it with additional benefits. Great advantages of mutual cooperation, like high costs of war, provide a lever for competitive bargaining. Furthermore, for a state to stress how much it gains from cooperation may be to imply that it is gaining much more than the other and to suggest that the benefits should be distributed more equitably.

When each side is ready to cooperate if it expects the other to, inspection devices can ameliorate the security dilemma. Of course, even a perfect inspection system cannot guarantee that the other will not later develop aggressive intentions and the military means to act on them. But by reliev- ing immediate worries and providing warning of coming dangers, inspection can meet a significant part of the felt need to protect oneself against future threats, and so make current cooperation more feasible. Similar functions are served by breaking up one large transaction into a series of smaller ones.20 At each transaction each can see whether the other has cooperated; and its losses, if the other defects, will be small. And since what either side would gain by one defection is slight compared to the benefits of continued cooperation, the prospects of cooperation are high. Conflicts and wars

I I Security Dilemma 14 1

among status-quo powers would be much more common were it not for the fact that international politics is usually a series of small transactions.

How a statesman interprets the other's past behavior and how he projects it into the future is influenced by his understanding of the security dilemma and his ability to place himself in the other's shoes. The dilemma will operate much more strongly if statesmen do not understand it, and do not see that their arms - sought only to secure the status quo - may alarm others and that others may arm, not because they are contemplating aggression, but because they fear attack from the first state. These two failures of empathy are linked. A state which thinks that the other knows that it wants only to preserve the status q ~ ~ o and that its arms are meant only for self-preservation will conclude that the other side will react to its arms by increasing its own capability only if it is aggressive itself. Since the other side is not menaced, there is no legitimate reason for it to object to the first state's arms; therefore, objection proves that the other is aggressive. Thus, the following exchange between Senator Tom Connally and Secretary of State Acheson concerning the ratification of the NATO treaty:

Secretary Acheson: [The treaty] is aimed solely at armed aggression. Senator Connally: In other words, unless a nation . . . contemplates, medi- tates, or makes plans looking toward aggression or armed attack on another nation, it has no cause to fear this treaty.

Secretary Acheson: That is correct, Senator Connally, and it seems to me that any nation which claims that this treaty is directed against it should be reminded of the Biblical admonition that 'The guilty flee when no man pursueth.'

Senator Connally: That is a very apt illustration. What I had in mind was, when a State or Nation passes a criminal

act, for instance, against burglary, nobody but those who are burglars or getting ready to be burglars need have any fear of the Burglary Act. Is that not true?

Secretary Acheson: The only effect [the law] would have [on an innocent person] would be for his protection, perhaps, by deterring someone else. He wouldn't worry about the imposition of the penalties on himself."

The other side of this coin is that part of the explanation for detente is that most American decision makers now realize that it is at least possible that Russia may fear American aggression; many think that this fear accounts for a range of Soviet actions previously seen as indicating Russian aggressiveness. Indeed, even 36 percent of military officers consider the Soviet Union's motiv- ations to be primarily defensive. Less than twenty years earlier, officers had been divided over whether Russia sought world conquest or only expansion."

Statesmen who do not understand the security dilemma will think that the money spent is the only cost of building up their arms. This belief removes one important restraint on arms spending. Furthermore, it is also likely to lead states to set their security requirements too high. Since they do not


understand that trying to increase one's security can actually decrease it, they will overestimate the amount of security that is attainable; they will think that when in doubt they can "play it safe" by increasing their arms. Thus it is very likely that two states which support the status quo but do not understand the security dilemma will end up, if not in a war, then at least in a relationship of higher conflict than is required by the objective situation.

The belief that an increase in military strength always leads to an increase in security is often linked to the belief that the only route to security is through military strength. As a consequence, a whole range of meliorative policies will be downgraded. Decision makers who do not believe that adopting a more conciliatory posture, meeting the other's legitimate grievances, or developing mutual gains from cooperation can increase their state's security, will not devote much attention or effort to these possibilities.

On the other hand, a heightened sensitivity to the security dilemma makes it more likely that the state will treat an aggressor as though it were an insecure defender of the status quo. Partly because of their views about the causes of World War I, the British were predisposed to believe that Hitler sought only the rectification of legitimate and limited grievances and that security could best be gained by constructing an equitable international system. As a result they pursued a policy which, although well designed to avoid the danger of creating unnecessary conflict with a status-quo Germany, helped destroy Europe.

Geography, Commitments, Beliefs, and Security Through Expansion

A final consideration does not easily fit in the matrix we have been using, although it can be seen as an aspect of vulnerability and of the costs of CD. Situations vary in the ease or difficulty with which all states can simultaneously achieve a high degree of security, The influence of military technology on this variable is the subject of the next section. Here we want to treat the impact of beliefs, geography, and commitments (many of which can be considered to be modifications of geography, since they bind states to defend areas outside their homelands). In the crowded continent of Europe, security requirements were hard to mesh. Being surrounded by powerful states, Germany's problem - or the problem created by Germany - was always great and was even worse when her relations with both France and Russia were bad, such as before World War I. In that case, even a status-quo Germany, if she could not change the political situation, would almost have been forced to adopt something like the Schlieffen Plan. Because she could not hold off both of her enemies, she had to be prepared to defeat one quickly and then deal with the other in a more leisurely fashion. If France or Russia stayed out of a war between the other state and Germany, they would allow Germany to dominate the Continent (even if that was not Germany's aim). They therefore had to deny Germany this ability, thus making Germany less secure. Although Germany's arrogant and erratic behavior, coupled with the desire for an unreasonably high level of security

IPIL II Security Dilemma 143

(which amounted to the desire to escape from her geographic plight), com- pounded the problem, even wise German statesmen would have been hard put to gain a high degree of security without alarming their neighbors.

A similar situation arose for France after World War I. She was committed to protecting her allies in Eastern Europe, a commitment she could meet only by taking the offensive against Germany. But since there was no way to guarantee that France might not later seek expansion, a France that could successfully launch an attack in response to a German move into Eastern Europe would constitute a potential danger to German core values. Similarly, a United States credibly able to threaten retaliation with strategic nuclear weapons i f the Soviet Union attacks Western Europe also constitutes a menace, albeit a reduced one, to the Soviet ability to maintain the status quo. The incompati- bility of these security requirements is not complete. Herman Kahn is correct in arguing that the United States could have Type I1 deterrence (the ability to deter a major Soviet provocation) without gaining first-strike capability because the expected Soviet retaliation following an American strike could be great enough to deter the U.S. from attacking unless the U.S. believed it would - suffer enormous deprivation (for instance, the loss of Europe) if it did not strike." Similarly, the Franco-German military balance could have been such that France could successfully attack Germany if the latter's armies were embroiled in Eastern Europe, but could not defeat a Germany that was free to devote all her resources to defending herself. But this delicate balance is very hard to achieve, especially because states usually calculate conservatively. Therefore, such a solution is not likely to be available.

For the United States, the problem posed by the need to protect Europe is an exception. Throughout most of its history, this country has been in a much more favorable position: relatively self-sufficient and secure from invasion, it has not only been able to get security relatively cheaply, but by doing so, did not menace others.14 But ambitions and commitments have changed this situation. After the American conquest of the Philippines, "neither the United States nor Japan could assure protection for their territories by military and naval means without compromising the defenses of the other. This problem would plague American and Japanese statesmen down to 1941 ."" Further- more, to the extent that Japan could protect herself, she could resist American threats to go to war if Japan did not respect China's independence. These complications were minor compared to those that followed World War 11. A world power cannot help but have the ability to harm many others that is out of proportion to the others' ability to harm it.

Britain had been able to gain security without menacing others to a greater degree than the Continental powers, though to a lesser one than the United States. But the acquisition of colonies and a dependence on foreign trade sacrificed her relative invulnerability of being an island. Once she took India, she had to consider Russia as a neighbor; the latter was expand- ing in Central Asia, thus making it much more difficult for both countries to feel secure. The need to maintain reliable sea lanes to India meant that no state could be allowed to menace South Africa and, later, Egypt. But the


need to protect these two areas brought new fears, new obligations, and new security requirements that conflicted with those of other European nations. Furthermore, once Britain needed a flow of imports during both peace and wartime, she required a navy that could prevent a blockade. A navy sufficient for that task could not help but be a threat to any other state that had valuable trade.

A related problem is raised by the fact that defending the status quo often means protecting more than territory. Nonterritorial interests, norms, and the structure of the international system must be maintained. If all status-quo powers agree on these values and interpret them in compatible ways, problems will be minimized. But the potential for conflict is great, and the policies followed are likely to exacerbate the security dilemma. The greater the range of interests that have to be protected, the more likely it is that national efforts to maintain the status quo will clash. As a French spokesman put it in 1930: "Security! The term signifies more indeed than the maintenance of a people's homeland, or even of their territories beyond the seas. It also means the maintenance of the world's respect for them, the maintenance of their economic interests, everything in a word, which goes to make up the grandeur, the life itself, of the nation."26 When security is thought of in this sense, it almost automatically has a competitive connotation. It involves asserting one state's will over others, showing a high degree of leadership if not dominance, and displaying a prickly demeanor. The resulting behavior will almost surely clash with that of others who define their security in the same way.

The problem will be almost insoluble if statesmen believe that their security requires the threatening or attacking of others. "That which stops growing begins to rot," declared a minister to Catherine the Great."" More common is the belief that if the other is secure, it will be emboldened to act against one's own state's interests, and the belief that in a war it will not be enough for the state to protect itself: it must be able to take the war to the other's homeland. These convictions make it very difficult for status-quo states to develop compatible security policies, for they lead the state to conclude that its security requires that others be rendered insecure.

In other cases, "A country engaged in a war of defense might be obliged for strategic reasons to assume the offensive," as a French delegate to an interwar disarmament conference put it.28 That was the case for France in 1799:

The Directory's political objectives were essentially defensive, for the French wanted only to protect the Republic from invasion and preserve the security and territory of the satellite regimes in Holland, Switzerland, and Italy. French leaders sought no new conquests; they wanted only to preserve the earlier gains of the Revolution. The Directory believed, however, that only a military offensive could enable the nation to achieve its defensive political objective. By inflicting rapid and decisive defeats upon one or more members of the coalition, the directors hoped to rupture allied unity and force individual powers to seek a separate, peace.29

1 , r Security Dilemma 145

It did not matter to the surrounding states that France was not attacking because she was greedy, but hecause she wanted to be left In peace. Unless there was some way her neighbors could provide France with an alternate route to her goal, France had to go to war.

Il l . Offense, Defense, and the Security Dilemma

Another approach starts with the central point of the security dilemma - that an increase in one state's security decreases the security of others - and exam- ines the conditions under which this proposition holds. Two crucial variables are involved: whether defensive weapons and policies can be distinguished from offensive ones, and whether the defense or the offense has the advantage. The definitions are not always clear, and many cases are difficult to judge, but these two variables shed a great deal of light on the question of whether status-quo powers will adopt compatible security policies. All the variables discussed so far leave the heart of the problem untouched. Rut when defensive weapons differ from offensive ones, it is possible for a state to make itself more secure without making others less secure. And when the defense has the advantage over the offense, a large increase in one state's security only slightly decreases the security of the others, and status-quo powers can all enjoy a high level of security and largely escape from the state of nature.

When we say that the offense has the advantage, we simply mean that it is easier to destroy the other's army and take its territory than it is to defend one's own. When the defense has the advantage, it is easier to protect and to hold than it is to move forward, destroy, and take. If effective defenses can be erected quickly, an attacker may be able to keep territory he has taken in an initial victory. Thus, the dominance of the defense made it very hard for Britain and France to push Germany out of France in World War I. But when superior defenses are difficult for an aggressor to improvise on the battlefield and must be constructed during peacetime, they provide no direct assistance to him.

The security dilemma is at its most vicious when commitments, strategy, or technology dictate that the only route to security lies through expansion. Status-quo powers must then act like aggressors; the fact that they would gladly agree to forego the opportunity for expansion in return for guarantees for their security has no implications for their behavior. Even if expansion is not sought as a goal in itself, there will be quick and drastic changes in the distribution of territory and influence. Conversely, when the defense has the advantage, status-quo states can make themselves more secure without gravely endangering others."' Indeed, if the defense has enough of an advantage and if the states are of roughly equal size, not only will the security dilemma cease to inhibit status-quo states from cooperating, but aggression will be next to

I46 The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

impossible, thus rendering international anarchy relatively unimportant. If states cannot conquer each other, then the lack of sovereignty, although it presents problems of collective goods in a number of areas, no longer forces states to devote their primary attention to self-preservation. Although, if force were not usable, there would be fewer restraints on the use of nonmilitary instruments, these are rarely powerful enough to threaten the vital interests of a major state.

Two questions of the offense-defense balance can be separated. First, does the state have to spend more or less than one dollar on defensive forces to off- set each dollar spent by the other side on forces that could be used to attack? If the state has one dollar to spend on increasing its security, should it put it into offensive or defensive forces? Second, with a given inventory of forces, is it better to attack or to defend? Is there an incentive to strike first or to absorb the other's blow? These two aspects are often linked: if each dollar spent on offense can overcome each dollar spent on defense, and if both sides have the same defense budgets, then both are likely to build offensive forces and find it attractive to attack rather than to wait for the adversary to strike.

These aspects affect the security dilemma in different ways. The first has its greatest impact on arms races. If the defense has the advantage, and if the status-quo powers have reasonable subjective security requirements, they can probably avoid an arms race. Although an increase in one side's arms and security will still decrease the other's security, the former's increase will be larger than the latter's decrease. So if one side increases its arms, the other can bring its security back up to its previous level by adding a smaller amount to its forces. And if the first side reacts to this change, its increase will also be smaller than the stimulus that produced it. Thus a stable equilibrium will be reached. Shifting from dynamics to statics, each side can be quite secure with forces roughly equal to those of the other. Indeed, if the defense is much more potent than the offense, each side can be willing to have forces much smaller than the other's, and can be indifferent to a wide range of the other's defense policies.

The second aspect - whether it is better to attack or to defend - influences short-run stability. When the offense has the advantage, a state's reaction to international tension will increase the chances of war. The incentives for pre- emption and the "reciprocal fear of surprise attack" in this situation have been made clear by analyses of the dangers that exist when two countries have first-strike capab i l i t i e~ .~~ There is no way for the state to increase its security without menacing, or even attacking, the other. Even Bismarck, who once called preventive war "committing suicide from fear of death," said that "no government, if it regards war as inevitable even if it does not want it, would be so foolish as to leave to the enemy the choice of time and occasion and to wait for the moment which is most convenient for the enemy."32 In another arena, the same dilemma applies to the policeman in a dark alley confronting a suspected criminal who appears to be holding a weapon. Though racism may indeed be present, the security dilemma can account for many of the tragic shootings of innocent people in the ghettos.

Iixti I - Security Dilemma 147

Beliefs about the course of a war in which the offense has the advantage further deepen the security dilemma. When there are incentives to strike first, a successful attack will usually so weaken the other side that victory will be relatively quick, bloodless, and decisive. It is in these periods when conquest is possible and attractive that states consolidate power internally - for instance, by destroying the feudal barons - and expand externally. There are several consequences that decrease the chance of cooperation among status-quo states. First, war will be profitable for the winner. The costs will be low and the benefits high. Of course, losers will suffer; the fear of losing could induce states to try to form stable cooperative arrangements, but the temptation of victory will make this particularly difficult. Second, because wars are expected to be both frequent and short, there will be incentives for high levels of arms, and quick and strong reaction to the other's increases in arms. The state cannot afford to wait until there is unambiguous evidence that the other is building new weapons. Even large states that have faith in their economic strength cannot wait, because the war will be over before their products can reach the army. Third, when wars are quick,

, , states will have to recruit allies in advance." Without the opportunity for bargaining and re-alignments during the opening stages of hostilities, peacetime diplomacy loses a degree of the fluidity that facilitates halance-of- power policies. Because alliances must be secured during peacetime, the international system is more likely to become bipolar. It is hard to say whether war therefore becomes more or less likely, but this hipolarity increases tension between the two camps and makes it harder for status-quo states to gain the benefits of cooperation. Fourth, if wars are frequent, statesmen's perceptual thresholds will be adj~isted accordingly and they will be quick to perceive ambiguous evidence as indicating that others are aggressive. Thus, there will be more cases of status-quo powers arming against each other in the incorrect belief that the other is hostile.

When the defense has the advantage, all the foregoing is reversed. The state that fears attack does not preempt - since that would be a wasteful use of its military resources - but rather prepares to receive an attack. Doing so does not decrease the security of others, and several states can do it simultaneously; the situation will therefore be stable, and status-quo powers will be able to cooperate. When Herman Kahn argues that ulti- matums "are vastly too dangerous to give because ... they are quite likely to touch off a pre-emptive strike,"'%e incorrectly assumes that it is always advantageous to strike first.

More is involved than short-run dynamics. When the defense is dominant, wars are likely to become stalemates and can be won only at enormous cost. Relatively small and weak states can hold off larger and stronger ones, or can deter attack by raising the costs of conquest to an unacceptable level. States then approach equality in what they can do to each other. Like the .45-caliber pistol in the American West, fortifications were the "great equalizer" in some periods. Changes in the status quo are less frequent and cooperation is more common wherever the security dilemma is thereby reduced.

I48 The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

Many of these arguments can be illustrated by the major powers' policies in the periods preceding the two world wars. Bismarck's wars surprised statesmen by showing that the offense had the advantage, and by being quick, relatively cheap, and quite decisive. Falling into a common error, observers projected this pattern into the f ~ t u r e . ~ ' The resulting expectations had several effects. First, states sought semi-permanent allies. In the early stages of the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon 111 had thought that there would be plenty of time to recruit Austria to his side. Now, others were not going to repeat this mistake. Second, defense budgets were high and reacted quite sharply to increases on the other side. It is not surprising that Richardson's theory of arms races fits this period well. Third, most decision makers thought that the next European war would not cost much blood and treasure.36 That is one reason why war was generally seen as inevitable and why mass opinion was so bellicose. Fourth, once war seemed likely, there were strong pressures to pre-empt. Both sides believed that whoever moved first could penetrate the other deep enough to disrupt mobilization and thus gain an insurmountable advantage. (There was no such belief about the use of naval forces. Although Churchill made an ill-advised speech saying that if German ships "do not come out and fight in time of war they will be dug out like rats in a hole,"37 everyone knew that submarines, mines, and coastal fortifications made this impossible. So at the start of the war each navy prepared to defend itself rather than attack, and the short-run destabilizing forces that launched the armies toward each other did not operate.)38 Furthermore, each side knew that the other saw the situation the same way, thus increasing the perceived danger that the other would attack, and giving each added reasons to precipitate a war if conditions seemed favorable. In the long and the short run, there were thus both offensive and defensive incentives to strike. This situation casts light on the common question about German motives in 1914: "Did Germany unleash the war deliberately to become a world power or did she support Austria merely to defend a weakening ally," thereby protecting her own position?39 To some extent, this question is misleading. Because of the perceived advantage of the offense, war was seen as the best route both to gaining expansion and to avoiding drastic loss of influence. There seemed to be no way for Germany merely to retain and safeguard her existing position.

Of course the war showed these beliefs to have been wrong on all points. Trenches and machine guns gave the defense an overwhelming advantage. The fighting became deadlocked and produced horrendous casualties. It made no sense for the combatants to bleed themselves to death. If they had known the power of the defense beforehand, they would have rushed for their own trenches rather than for the enemy's territory. Each side could have done this without increasing the other's incentives to strike. War might have broken out anyway, just as DD is a possible outcome of Chicken, but at least the pressures of time and the fear of allowing the other to get the first blow would-not have contributed to this end. And, had both sides known the costs of the war, they would have negotiated much more seriously. The obvious question is why the

rt.t; I Security Dilemma 149

states did not seek a negotiated settlement as soon as the shape of the war became clear. Schlieffen had said that if his plan failed, peace should be sought."' The answer is complex, uncertain, and largely outside of the scope of our concerns. But part of the reason was the hope and sometimes the expectation that breakthroughs could be made and the dominance of the offensive restored. Without that hope, the political and psychological pressures to fight to a decisive victory might have been overcome.

The politics of the interwar period were shaped by the memories of the previous conflict and the belief that any future war would resemble it. Political and military lessons reinforced each other in ameliorating the security dilemma. Because it was believed that the First World War had been a mistake that could have been avoided by skillful conciliation, both Britain and, to a lesser extent, France were highly sensitive to the possibility that interwar Germany was not a real threat to peace, and alert to the danger that reacting quickly and strongly to her arms could create unnecessary conflict. And because Britain and France expected the defense to continue to dominate, they concluded that it was safe to adopt a more relaxed and nonthreatening military posture."" Britain also felt less need to maintain tight alliance bonds. The Allies' military posture then constituted only a slight danger to Germany; had the latter been content with the status quo, it would have been easy for both sides to have felt secure behind their lines of fortifications. Of course the Germans were not content, so it is not surprising that they devoted their money and attention to finding ways out of a defense-dominated stalemate. Blitzkrieg tactics were necessary if they were to use force to change the status quo.

The initial stages of the war on the Western Front also contrasted with the First World War. Only with the new air arm were there any incentives to strike first, and these forces were too weak to carry out the grandiose plans that had been both dreamed and feared. The armies, still the main instrument, rushed to defensive positions. Perhaps the allies could have successfully attacked while the Germans were occupied in Poland.4L But belief in the defense was so great that this was never seriously contemplated. Three months after the start of the war, the French Prime Minister summed up the view held by almost everyone but Hitler: on the Western Front there is "deadlock. Two Forces of equal strength and the one that attacks seeing such enormous casualties that it cannot move without endangering the con- tinuation of the war or of the aftermath."43 The Allies were caught in a dilemma they never fully recognized, let alone solved. O n the one hand, they had very high war aims; although unconditional surrender had not yet been adopted, the British had decided from the start that the removal of Hitler was a necessary condition for p e a ~ e . ~ W n the other hand, there were no realistic plans or instruments for allowing the Allies to impose their will on the other side. The British Chief of the Imperial General Staff noted, "The French have no intention of carrying out an offensive for years, if at all"; the British were only slightly b ~ l d e r . ~ ' So the Allies looked to a long war that would wear the Germans down, cause civilian suffering through

I50 The Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

shortages, and eventually undermine Hitler. There was little analysis to support this view - and indeed it probably was not supportable - but as long as the defense was dominant and the numbers on each side relatively equal, what else could the Allies do?

To summarize, the security dilemma was much less powerful after World War I than it had been before. In the later period, the expected power of the defense allowed status-quo states to pursue compatible security policies and avoid arms races. Furthermore, high tension and fear of war did not set off short-run dynamics by which each state, trying to increase its security, inad- vertently acted to make war more likely. The expected high costs of war, however, led the Allies to believe that no sane German leader would run the risks entailed in an attempt to dominate the Continent, and discouraged them from risking war themselves.

Technology and Geography. Technology and geography are the two main factors that determine whether the offense or the defense has the advantage. As Brodie notes, "On the tactical level, as a rule, few physical factors favor the attacker but many favor the defender. The defender usually has the advantage of cover. He characteristically fires from behind some form of shelter while his opponent crosses open ground."46 Anything that increases the amount of ground the attacker has to cross, or impedes his progress across it, or makes him more vulnerable while crossing, increases the advantage accru- ing to the defense. When states are separated by barriers that produce these effects, the security dilemma is eased, since both can have forces adequate for defense without being able to attack. Impenetrable barriers would actually prevent war; in reality, decision makers have to settle for a good deal less. Buffer zones slow the attacker's progress; they thereby give the defender time to prepare, increase problems of logistics, and reduce the number of soldiers available for the final assault. At the end of the 19th century, Arthur Balfour noted Afghanistan's "non-conducting" qualities. "So long as it possesses few roads, and no railroads, it will be impossible for Russia to make effective use of her great numerical superiority at any point immediately vital to the Empire." The Russians valued buffers for the same reasons; it is not surprising that when Persia was being divided into Russian and British spheres of influence some years later, the Russians sought assurances that the British would refrain from building potentially menacing railroads in their sphere. Indeed, since railroad construction radically altered the abilities of countries to defend themselves and to attack others, many diplomatic notes and much intelligence activity in the late 19th century centered on this ~ubject.~'

Oceans, large rivers, and mountain ranges serve the same function as buffer zones. Being hard to cross, they allow defense against superior numbers. The defender has merely to stay on his side of the barrier and so can utilize all the men he can bring up to it. The attacker's men, however, can cross only a few at a time, and they are very vulnerable when doing so. If all states were self-sufficient islands, anarchy would be much less of a problem. A small investment in shore defenses and a small army would be sufficient to repel invasion. Only very weak states would be vulnerable, and only very

J t . r c~h Security Dilemma 151

large ones could menace others. As noted above, the United States, and to a lesser extent Great Britain, have partly been able to escape from the state of nature because their geographical positions approximated this ideal.

Although geography cannot be changed to conform to borders, borders can and do change to conform to geography. Borders across which an attack is easy tend to be unstable. States living within them are likely to expand or be absorbed. Frequent wars are almost inevitable since attacking will often seem the best way to protect what one has. This process will stop, or a t least slow down, when the state's borders reach - by expansion or con- traction - a line of natural obstacles. Security without attack will then be possible. Furthermore, these lines constitute salient solutions to bargaining problems and, to the extent that they are barriers to migration, are likely to divide ethnic groups, thereby raising the costs and lowering the incentives for conquest.

Attachment to one's state and its land reinforce one quasi-geographical aid to the defense. Conquest usually becomes more difficult the deeper the attacker pushes into the other's territory. Nationalism spurs the defenders to fight harder; advancing not only lengthens the attacker's supply lines, but takes him through unfamiliar and often devastated lands that require troops for garrison duty. These stabilizing dynamics will not operate, however, if the defender's war materiel is situated near its borders, or i f the people do not care about their state, but only about being on the winning side. In such cases, positive feedback will be at work and initial defeats will be in~urmountable .~"

Imitating geography, men have tried to create barriers. Treaties may provide for demilitarized zones on both sides of the border, although such zones will rarely be deep enough to provide more than warning. Even this was not possible in Europe, but the Russians adopted a gauge for their railroads that was broader than that of the neighboring states, thereby complicating the logistics problems of any attacker - including Russia.

Perhaps the most ambitious and at least temporarily successful attempts to construct a system that would aid the defenses of both sides were the interwar naval treaties, as they affected Japanese-American relations. As mentioned earlier, the problem was that the United States could not defend the Philippines without denying Japan the ability to protect her home island^.^' (In 1941 this dilemma became insoluble when Japan sought to extend her control to Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. If the Philippines had been invulnerable, they could have provided a secure base from which the U.S. could interdict Japanese shipping between the homeland and the areas she was trying to conquer.) In the 1920's and early 1930's each side would have been willing to grant the other security for its possessions in return for a reciprocal grant, and the Washington Naval Conference agreements were designed to approach this goal. As a Japanese diplomat later put it, their country's "fundamental principle" was to have "a strength insufficient for attack and adequate for defense.""' Thus, Japan agreed in 1922 to accept a navy only three-fifths as large as that of the United States,


and the U.S. agreed not to fortify its Pacific islands." (Japan had earlier been forced to agree not to fortify the islands she had taken from Germany in World War I.) Japan's navy would not be large enough to defeat America's anywhere other than close to the home islands. Although the Japanese could still take the Philippines, not only would they be unable to move farther, but they might be weakened enough by their efforts to be vulnerable to counterattack. Japan, however, gained security. An American attack was rendered more difficult because the American bases were unprotected and because, until 1930, Japan was allowed unlimited numbers of cruisers, destroyers, and submarines that could weaken the American fleet as it made its way across the ocean.""

The other major determinant of the offense-defense balance is technology. When weapons are highly vulnerable, they must be employed before they are attacked. Others can remain quite invulnerable in their bases. The former characteristics are embodied in unprotected missiles and many kinds of bombers. (It should be noted that it is not vulnerability per se that is crucial, but the location of the vulnerability. Bombers and missiles that are easy to destroy only after having been launched toward their targets do not create destabilizing dynamics.) Incentives to strike first are usually absent for naval forces that are threatened by a naval attack. Like missiles in hardened silos, they are usually well protected when in their bases. Both sides can then simultaneously be prepared to defend themselves successfully.

In ground warfare under some conditions, forts, trenches, and small groups of men in prepared positions can hold off large numbers of attackers. Less frequently, a few attackers can storm the defenses. By and large, it is a contest between fortifications and supporting light weapons on the one hand, and mobility and heavier weapons that clear the way for the attack on the other. As the erroneous views held before the two world wars show, there is no simple way to determine which is dominant. "[Tlhese oscillations are not smooth and predictable like those of a swinging pendulum. They are uneven in both extent and time. Some occur in the course of a single battle or campaign, others in the course of a war, still others during a series of wars." Longer-term oscillations can also be detected:

The early Gothic age, from the twelfth to the late thirteenth century, with its wonderful cathedrals and fortified places, was a period during which the attackers in Europe generally met serious and increasing difficulties, because the improvement in the strength of fortresses outran the advance in the power of destruction. Later, with the spread of firearms at the end of the fifteenth century, old fortresses lost their power to resist. An age ensued during which the offense possessed, apart from short-term setbacks, new advantages. Then, during the seventeenth century, especially after about 1660, and until at least the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1740, the defense regained much of the ground it had lost since the great medieval fortresses had proved unable to meet the bombardment of the new and more numerous artillery.53

i c Z ; \ I * Security Dilemma 1 53

Another scholar has continued the argument: "The offensive gained an advantage with new forms of heavy mobile artillery in the nineteenth century, but the stalemate of World War I created the impression that the defense again had an advantage; the German invasion in World War 11, however, indicated the offensive superiority of highly mechanized armies in the field."'J

The situation today with respect to conventional weapons is unclear. Until recently it was believed that tanks and tactical air power gave the attacker an advantage. The initial analyses of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war indicated that new anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons have restored the primacy of the defense. These weapons are cheap, easy to use, and can destroy a high proportion of the attacking vehicles and planes that are sighted. It then would make sense for a status-quo power to buy lots of $20,000 missiles rather than buy a few half-million dollar tanks and multi-million dollar fighter-bombers. Defense would be possible even against a large and well-equipped force; states that care primarily about self-protection would not need to engage in arms races. But further examinations of the new technologies and the history of the October War cast doubt on these optimistic conclusions and leave us unable to render any firm judgment."'

Concerning nuclear weapons, it is generally agreed that defense is impossible - a triumph not of the offense, but of deterrence. Attack makes no sense, not because it can be beaten off, but because the attacker will be destroyed in turn. In terms of the questions under consideration here, the result is the equivalent of the primacy of the defense. First, security is relatively cheap. Less than one percent of the G.N.P. is devoted to deterring a direct attack on the United States; most of it is spent on acquiring redundant systems to provide a lot of insurance against the worst conceivable contingencies. Second, both sides can simultaneously gain security in the form of second-strike capability. Third, and related to the foregoing, second-strike capability can be maintained in the face of wide variations in the other side's military posture. There is no purely military reason why each side has to react quickly and strongly to the other's increases in arms. Any spending that the other devotes to trying to achieve first-strike capability can be neutralized by the state's spending much smaller sums on protecting its second-strike capability. Fourth, there are no incentives to strike first in a crisis.

Important problems remain, of course. Both sides have interests that go well beyond defense of the homeland. The protection of these interests creates conflicts even if neither side desires expansion. Furthermore, the shift from defense to deterrence has greatly increased the importance and perceptions of resolve. Security now rests on each side's belief that the other would prefer to run high risks of total destruction rather than sacrifice its vital interests. Aspects of the security dilemma thus appear in a new form. Are weapons procurements used as an index of resolve? Must they be so used ? If one side fails to respond to the other's buildup, will it appear weak and thereby invite predation? Can both sides simultaneously have images of high resolve or is there a zero-sum element involved? Although these problems are real, they are not as severe as those in the prenuclear era: there are


many indices of resolve, and states d o not so much judge images of resolve in the abstract as ask how likely it is that the other will stand firm in a particular dispute. Since states are most likely to stand firm on matters which concern them most, it is quite possible for both to demonstrate their resolve to protect their own security simultaneously.

Offense-Defense Differentiation

The other major variable that affects how strongly the security dilemma operates is whether weapons and policies that protect the state also provide the capability for attack. If they do not, the basic postulate of the security dilemma no longer applies. A state can increase its own security without decreasing that of others. The advantage of the defense can only ameliorate the security dilemma. A differentiation between offensive and defensive stances comes close to abolishing it. Such differentiation does not mean, however, that all security problems will be abolished. If the offense has the advantage, conquest and aggression will still be possible. And if the offense's advantage is great enough, status-quo powers may find it too expensive to protect themselves by defensive forces and decide to procure offensive weapons even though this will menace others. Furthermore, states will still have to worry that even if the other's military posture shows that it is peaceful now, it may develop aggressive intentions in the future.

Assuming that the defense is at least as potent as the offense, the differentiation between them allows status-quo states to behave in ways that are clearly different from those of aggressors. Three beneficial consequences follow. First, status-quo powers can identify each other, thus laying the foundations for cooperation. Conflicts growing out of the mistaken belief that the other side is expansionist will be less frequent. Second, status-quo states will obtain advance warning when others plan aggression. Before a state can attack, it has to develop and deploy offensive weapons. If procurement of these weapons cannot be disguised and takes a fair amount of time, as it almost always does, a status-quo state will have the time to take countermeasures. It need not maintain a high level of defensive arms as long as its potential adversaries are adopting a peaceful posture. (Although being so armed should not, with the one important exception noted below, alarm other status-quo powers.) States do, in fact, pay special attention to actions that they believe would not be taken by a status-quo state because they feel that states exhibiting such behavior are aggressive. Thus the seizure or development of transportation facilities will alarm others more if these facilities have no commercial value, and therefore can only be wanted for military reasons. In 1906, the British rejected a Russian protest about their activities in a district of Persia by claiming that this area was "only of [strategic] importance [to the Russians] if they wished to attack the Indian frontier, or to put pressure upon us by making us think that they intend to attack it."j6

The same inferences are drawn when a state acquires more weapons than observers feel are needed for defense. Thus, the Japanese spokesman

l ~ r ~ i i Security Dilemma 155

at the 1930 London naval conference said that his country was alarmed by the American refusal to give Japan a 70 percent ratio (in place of a 60 percent ratio) in heavy cruisers: "As long as America held that ten percent advantage, it was possible for her to attack. So when America insisted on sixty percent instead of seventy percent, the idea would exist that they were trying to keep that possibility, and the Japanese people could not accept that."" Similarly, when Mussolini told Chamberlain in January 1939 that Hitler's arms program was motivated by defensive considerations, the Prime Minister replied that "German military forces were now so strong as to make it impossible for any Power or combination of Powers to attack her successfully. She could not want any further armaments for defensive purposes; what then did she want them for?"'8

Of course these inferences can be wrong - as they are especially likely to be because states underestimate the degree to which they menace others." And when they are wrong, the security dilemma is deepened. Because the state thinks it has received notice that the other is aggressive, its own arms building will be less restrained and the chances of cooperation will he decreased. But the dangers of incorrect inferences should not obscure the main point: when offensive and defensive postures are different, much of the ~~ncertainty about the other's intentions that contributes to the security dilemma is removed.

The third beneficial consequence of a difference between offensive and defensive weapons is that i f all states support the status quo, an obvious arms control agreement is a ban on weapons that are useful for attacking. As President Roosevelt put it in his message to the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1933: "If all nations will agree wholly to eliminate from pos- session and use the weapons which make possihle a successful attack, defenses auton~atically will become impregnable, and the frontiers and independence of every nation will become s e ~ u r e . " ~ " The fact that such treaties have been rare - the Washington naval agreements discussed above and the anti-ABM treaty can be cited as examples - shows either that states are not always willing to guarantee the security of others, or that it is hard to distinguish offensive from defensive weapons.

Is such a distinction possible? Salvador de Madariaga, the Spanish statesman active in the disarmament negotiations of the interwar years, thought not: "A weapon is either offensive or defensive according to which end of it YOLI art. looking at." The French Foreign Minister agreed (although French ~ o l i c y did not always follow this view): "Every arm can be employed offen- sively or defensively in turn. . . . The only way to discover whether arms are intended for purely defensive purposes or are held in a spirit of aggression is in all cases to enquire into the intentions of the country concerned." Some evidence for the validity of this argument is provided by the fact that much time in these unsuccessful negotiations was devoted to separating offensive from defensive weapons. Indeed, no simple and unambiguous definition is possible and in many cases no judgment can be reached. Before the American entry into World War I, Woodrow Wilson wanted to arm merchantmen only

I56 The Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

with guns in the back of the ship so they could not initiate a fight, but this expedient cannot be applied to more common forms of armament^.^'

There are several problems. Even when a differentiation is possible, a status-quo power will want offensive arms under any of three conditions, (1) If the offense has a great advantage over the defense, protection through defensive forces will be too expensive. (2) Status-quo states may need offensive weapons to regain territory lost in the opening stages of a war. It might be possible, however, for a state to wait to procure these weapons until war seems likely, and they might be needed only in relatively small numbers, unless the aggressor was able to construct strong defenses quickly in the occupied areas. (3) The state may feel that it must be prepared to take the offensive either because the other side will make peace only if it loses territory or because the state has commitments to attack if the other makes war on a third party. As noted above, status-quo states with extensive commitments are often forced to behave like aggressors. Even when they lack such commitments, status-quo states must worry about the possibility that if they are able to hold off an attack, they will still not be able to end the war unless they move into the other's territory to damage its military forces and inflict pain. Many American naval officers after the Civil War, for example, believed that "only by destroying the commerce of the opponent could the United States bring him to terms."62

A further complication is introduced by the fact that aggressors as well as status-quo powers require defensive forces as a prelude to acquiring offensive ones, to protect one frontier while attacking another, or for insurance in case the war goes badly. Criminals as well as policemen can use bulletproof vests. Hitler as well as Maginot built a line of forts. Indeed, Churchill reports that in 1936 the German Foreign Minister said: "As soon as our fortifications are constructed [on our western borders] and the countries in Central Europe realize that France cannot enter German territory, all these countries will begin to feel very differently about their foreign policies, and a new con- stellation will develop."63 So a state may not necessarily be reassured if its neighbor constructs strong defenses.

More central difficulties are created by the fact that whether a weapon is offensive or defensive often depends on the particular situation - for instance, the geographical setting and the way in which the weapon is used. "Tanks ... spearheaded the fateful German thrust through the Ardennes in 1940, but if the French had disposed of a properly concentrated armored reserve, it would have provided the best means for their cutting off the pene- tration and turning into a disaster for the Germans what became instead an overwhelming victory."64 Anti-aircraft weapons seem obviously defensive - to be used, they must wait for the other side to come to them. But the Egyptian attack on Israel in 1973 would have been impossible without effective air defenses that covered the battlefield. Nevertheless, some distinctions are possible. Sir John Simon, then the British Foreign Secretary, in response to the views cited earlier, stated that just because a fine line could not be drawn, "that was no reason for saying that there were not stretches

/ { ' I L I < Security Dilemma 157

of territory on either side which all practical men and women knew to be well on this or that side of the line." Although there are almost n o weapons and strategies that are useful only for attacking, there are some that are almost exclusively defensive. Aggressors could want them for protection, hut a state that relied mostly on them could not menace others. More frequently, we cannot "determine the absolute character of a weapon, but [we can] make a comparison ... [and] discover whether or not the offensive potentialities predominate, whether a weapon is more useful in attack or in defense.""

The essence of defense is keeping the other side out of your territory. A purely defensive weapon is one that can do this without being able to penetrate the enemy's land. Thus a committee of military experts in an interwar disarmament conference declared that armaments "incapable of mobility by means of self-contained power," or movable only after long delay, were "only capable of being used for the defense of a State's territory.""" The most obvious examples are fortifications. They can shelter attacking forces, especially when they are built right along the f r~n t ie r ,~ ; but they cannot occupy enemy territory. A state with only a strong line of forts, fixed guns, and a small army to man them would not be much of a menace. Anything else that can serve only as a barrier against attacking troops is similarly defensive. In this category are systems that provide warning of an attack, the Russian's adoption of a different railroad gauge, and nuclear land mines that can seal off invasion routes.

If total immobility clearly defines a system that is defensive only, limited mobility is unfortunately ambiguous. As noted above, shortrange fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles can be used to cover an attack. And, unlike forts, they can advance with the troops. Still, their inability to reach deep into enemy territory does make them more useful for the defense than for the offense. Thus, the United States and Israel would have been more alarmed in the early 1970's had the Russians provided the Egyptians with long-range instead of short-range aircraft. Naval forces are particularly difficult to classify in these terms, but those that are very short-legged can be used only for coastal defense.

Any forces that for various reasons fight well only when on their own soil in effect lack mobility and therefore are defensive. The most extreme example would be passive resistance. Noncooperation can thwart an aggressor, but it is very hard for large numbers of people to cross the border and stage a sit-in on another's territory. Morocco's recent march on the Spanish Sahara approached this tactic, but its success depended on special circumstances. Similarly, guerrilla warfare is defensive to the extent to which it requires civilian support that is likely to be forthcoming only in opposition to a foreign invasion. Indeed, if guerrilla warfare were easily exportable and if it took ten defenders to destroy each guerrilla, then this weapon would not only be one which could be used as easily to attack the other's territory as to defend one's own, but one in which the offense had the advantage: so the security dilemma would operate especially strongly.


If guerrillas are unable to fight on foreign soil, other kinds of armies may be unwilling to do so. An army imbued with the idea that only defensive wars were just would fight less effectively, if at all, if the goal were conquest. Citizen militias may lack both the ability and the will for aggression. The weapons employed, the short term of service, the time required for mobilization, and the spirit of repelling attacks on the homeland, all lend themselves much more to defense than to attacks on foreign territory.hx

Less idealistic motives can produce the same result. A leading student of medieval warfare has described the armies of that period as follows: "Assembled with difficulty, insubordinate, unable to maneuver, ready to melt away from its standard the moment that its short period of service was over, a feudal force presented an assemblage of unsoldierlike qualities such as have seldom been known to coexist. Primarily intended to defend its own borders from the Magyar, the Northman, or the Saracen . .., the institution was utterly unadapted to take the o f f e n ~ i v e . " ~ ~ Some political groupings can be similarly described. International coalitions are more readily held together by fear than by hope of gain. Thus Castlereagh was not being entirely self-serving when in 1816 he argued that the Quadruple Alliance "could only have owed its origin to a sense of common danger; in its very nature it must be conservative; it cannot threaten either the security or the liberties of other States."'O It is no acci- dent that most of the major campaigns of expansion have been waged by one dominant nation (for example, Napoleon's France and Hitler's Germany), and that coalitions among relative equals are usually found defending the status quo. Most gains from conquest are too uncertain and raise too many questions of future squabbles among the victors to hold an alliance together for long. Although defensive coalitions are by no means easy to maintain - conflicting national objectives and the free-rider problem partly explain why three of them dissolved before Napoleon was defeated - the common interest of seeing that no state dominates provides a strong incentive for solidarity.

Weapons that are particularly effective in reducing fortifications and barriers are of great value to the offense. This is not to deny that a defensive power will want some of those weapons if the other side has them: Brodie is certainly correct to argue that while their tanks allowed the Germans to conquer France, properly used French tanks could have halted the attack. But France would not have needed these weapons if Germany had not acquired them, whereas even if France had no tanks, Germany could not have foregone them since they provided the only chance of breaking through the French lines. Mobile heavy artillery is, similarly, especially useful in destroying fortifications. The defender, while needing artillery to fight off attacking troops or to counterattack, can usually use lighter guns since they do not need to penetrate such massive obstacles. So it is not surprising that one of the few things that most nations at the interwar disarmament conferences were able to agree on was that heavy tanks and mobile heavy guns were particularly valuable to a state planning an attack."

Weapons and strategies that depend for their effectiveness on surprise are almost always offensive. That fact was recognized by some of the delegates to

I C I L I ~ Security Dilemma 159

the interwar disarmament conferences and is the principle behind the common national ban on concealed weapons. An earlier representative of this widespread view was the mid-19th-century Philadelphia newspaper that argued: "As a measure of defense, knives, dirks, and sword canes are entirely useless. They are fit only for attack, and all such attacks are of murderous character. Whoever carries such a weapon has prepared himself for homicide.""

I t is, of course, not always possible to distinguish between forces that are most effective for holding territory and forces optimally designed for taking it. Such a distinction could not have been made for the strategies and weapons in Europe during most of the period between the Franco-Prussian War and World War I. Neither naval forces nor tactical air forces can be readily classified in these terms. But the point here is that when such a distinction is possible, the central characteristic of the security dilemma no longer holds, and one of the most troublesome consequences of anarchy is removed.

Offinse-Defense Differentiation and Strategic Nuclear Weapons. In the interwar period, most statesmen held the reasonable position that weapons that threatened civilians were offensi~e. '~ But when neither side can protect its civilians, a counter-city posture is defensive because the state can credibly threaten to retaliate only in response to an attack on itself or its closest allies. The costs of this strike are so high that the state could not threaten to use it for the less-than-vital interest of compelling the other to abandon an established position.

In the context of deterrence, offensive weapons are those that provide defense. In the now familiar reversal of common sense, the state that could take its population out of hostage, either by active or passive defense or by destroying the other's strategic weapons on the ground, would be able to alter the status quo. The desire to prevent such a situation was one of the ration- ales for the anti-ABM agreements; it explains why some arms controllers opposed building ABM's to protect cities, but favored sites that covered ICBM fields. Similarly, many analysts want to limit warhead accuracy and favor n~ultiple re-entry vehicles (MRV's), but oppose multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV's). The former are more useful than single warheads for penetrating city defenses, and ensure that the state has a second- strike capability. MIRV's enhance counterforce capabilities. Some arms controllers argue that this is also true of cruise missiles, and therefore do not want them to be deployed either. There is some evidence that the Russians are not satisfied with deterrence and are seeking to regain the capability for defense. Such an effort, even if not inspired by aggressive designs, would create a severe security dilemma.

What is most important for the argument here is that land-based ICBM's are both offensive and defensive, but when both sides rely on Polaris-type systems (SLBM's), offense and defense use different weapons. ICBM's can be used either to destroy the other's cities in retaliation or to initiate hostilities by attacking the other's strategic missiles. Some measures - for instance, hardening of missile sites and warning systems - are purely defensive, since they do not make a first strike easier. Others are predominantly offensive - for


instance, passive or active city defenses, and highly accurate warheads. But ICBM's themselves are useful for both purposes. And because states seek a high level of insurance, the desire for protection as well as the contempla- tion of a counterforce strike can explain the acquisition of extremely large numbers of missiles. So it is very difficult to infer the other's intentions from its military posture. Each side's efforts to increase its own security by procur- ing more missiles decreases, to an extent determined by the relative efficacy of the offense and the defense, the other side's security. That is not the case when both sides use SLBM's. The point is not that sea-based systems are less vulnerable than land-based ones (this bears on the offense-defense ratio) but that SLBM's are defensive, retaliatory weapons. First, they are probably not accurate enough to destroy many military target^.'^ Second, and more important, SLBM's are not the main instrument of attack against other SLBM's. The hardest problem confronting a state that wants to take its cities out of hostage is to locate the other's SLBM's, a job that requires not SLBM's but anti-submarine weapons. A state might use SLBM's to attack the other's submarines (although other weapons would probably be more efficient), but without anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability the task cannot be performed. A status-quo state that wanted to forego offensive capability could simply forego ASW research and procurement.

There are two difficulties with this argument, however. First, since the state's SLBM's are potentially threatened by the other's ASW capabilities, the state may want to pursue ASW research in order to know what the other might be able to do and to design defenses. Unless it does this, it cannot be confident that its submarines are safe. Second, because some submarines are designed to attack surface ships, not launch missiles, ASW forces have missions other than taking cities out of hostage. Some U.S. officials plan for a long war in Europe which would require keeping the sea lanes open against Russian submarines. Designing an ASW force and strategy that would meet this threat without endangering Soviet SLBM's would be difficult but not impossible, since the two missions are somewhat different.'"urthermore, the Russians do not need ASW forces to combat submarines carrying out conventional missions; it might be in America's interest to sacrifice the ability to meet a threat that is not likely to materialize in order to reassure the Russians that we are not menacing their retaliatory capability.

When both sides rely on ICBM's, one side's missiles can attack the other's, and so the state cannot be indifferent to the other's building program. But because one side's SLBM's do not menace the other's, each side can build as many as it wants and the other need not respond. Each side's decision on the size of its force depends on technical questions, its judgment about how much destruction is enough to deter, and the amount of insurance it is willing to pay for - and these considerations are independent of the size of the other's strategic force. Thus the crucial nexus in the arms race is severed.

Here two objections not only can be raised but have been, by those who feel that even if American second-strike capability is in no danger, the United States must respond to a Soviet buildup. First, the relative numbers of missiles and warheads may be used as an index of each side's power and will.

It I: I. Security Dilemma 16 1

Even i f there is no military need to increase American arms as the Russians increase theirs, a failure to respond may lead third parties to think that the U.S. has abandoned the competition with the U.S.S.R. and is no longer willing to pay the price of world leadership. Furthermore, i f either side believes that nuclear "superiority" matters, then, through the bargaining logic, it will matter. The side with "superiority" will be more likely to stand firm in a confrontation if it thinks its "stronger" military position helps it, or if it thinks that the other thinks its own "weaker" military position is a handicap. To allow the other side to have more SLBM's - even if one's own second- strike capability is unimpaired - will give the other an advantage that can be translated into political gains.

The second objection is that superiority does matter, and not only because of mistaken beliefs. If nuclear weapons are used in an all-ornone fashion, then all that is needed is second-strike capability. But limited, gradual, and controlled strikes are possible. If the other side has superiority, it can reduce the state's forces by a slow-motion war of attrition. For the state to strike at the other's cities would invite retaliation; for it to reply with a limited counterforce attack would further deplete its supply of missiles. Alternatively, the other could employ demonstration attacks - such as taking out an isolated military base or exploding a warhead high over a city - in order to demonstrate its resolve. In either of these scenarios, the state will suffer unless it matches the other's arms po~ture . '~

These two objections, if valid, mean that even with SLBM's one cannot distinguish offensive from defensive strategic nuclear weapons. Compellence may be more difficult than deterrence," but if decision makers believe that numbers of missiles or of warheads influence outcomes, or if these weapons can be used in limited manner, then the posture and policy that would be needed for self-protection is similar to that useful for aggression. If the second objection has merit, security would require the ability to hit selected targets on the other side, enough ammunition to wage a controlled counterforce war, and the willingness to absorb limited countervalue strikes. Secretary Schlesinger was correct in arguing that this capability would not constitute a first-strike capability. But because the "Schlesinger Doctrine" could be used not only to cope with a parallel Russian policy, but also to support an American attempt to change the status quo, the new American stance would decrease Russian security. Even if the U.S.S.R. were reassured that the present U.S. Government lacked the desire or courage to do this, there could be no guarantee that future governments would not use the new instruments for expansion. Once we move away from the simple idea that nuclear weapons can only be used for all-out strikes, half the advantage of having both sides rely on a sea-based force would disappear because of the lack of an offensive- defensive differentiation. To the extent that military policy affects political relations, it would be harder for the United States and the Soviet Union to cooperate even if both supported the status quo.

Although a full exploration of these questions is beyond the scope of this paper, it should be noted that the objections rest on decision makers' beliefs - beliefs, furthermore, that can be strongly influenced by American


policy and American statements. The perceptions of third nations of whether the details of the nuclear balance affect political conflicts - and, to a lesser extent, Russian beliefs about whether superiority is meaningful - are largely derived from the American strategic debate. If most American spokesmen were to take the position that a secure second-strike capability was sufficient and that increments over that (short of a first-strike capability) would only be a waste of money, it is doubtful whether America's allies or the neutrals would judge the superpowers' useful military might or political will by the size of their stockpiles. Although the Russians stress war-fighting ability, they have not contended that marginal increases in strategic forces bring political gains; any attempt to do so could be rendered less effective by an American assertion that this is nonsense. The bargaining advantages of possessing nuclear "superiority" work best when both sides acknowledge them. If the "weaker" side convinces the other that it does not believe there is any meaningful difference in strength, then the "stronger" side cannot safely stand firm because there is no increased chance that the other will back down.

This kind of argument applies at least as strongly to the second objection. Neither side can employ limited nuclear options unless it is quite confident that the other accepts the rules of the game. For if the other believes that nuclear war cannot be controlled, it will either refrain from responding - which would be fine - or launch all-out retaliation. Although a state might be ready to engage in limited nuclear war without acknowledging this possibility - and indeed, that would be a reasonable policy for the United States - it is not likely that the other would have sufficient faith in that prospect to initiate limited strikes unless the state had openly avowed its willingness to fight this kind of war. So the United States, by patiently and consistently explaining that it considers such ideas to be mad and that any nuclear wars will inevitably get out of control, could gain a large measure of protection against the danger that the Soviet Union might seek to employ a "Schlesinger Doctrine" against an America that lacked the military ability or political will to respond in kind. Such a position is made more convincing by the inherent implausibility of the arguments for the possibility of a limited nuclear war.

In summary, as long as states believe that all that is needed is second- strike capability, then the differentiation between offensive and defensive forces that is provided by reliance on SLBM's allows each side to increase its security without menacing the other, permits some inferences about intentions to be drawn from military posture, and removes the main incentive for status-quo powers to engage in arms races.

IV. Four Wor lds

The two variables we have been discussing - whether the offense or the defense has the advantage, and whether offensive postures can be distinguished from defensive ones - can be combined to yield four possible worlds.

Ierwi Security Dilemma 163

OFFENSE HAS L)EFENSE H A S THE ADVANTAGE THE ADVANTAGE

OFFENSIVE POSI'IJKE N O T IIISTINGIJ1SHABI.E FROM DEFENSIVE ONE

OFFENSIVE POSTURE DISTINGUISHABLE FROM LIEFENSIVF. O N E

Security d~lcmrna, hut security requirements n iay hr cornpat~hle.

The first world is the worst for status-quo states. There is no way to get security without menacing others, and security through defense is terribly difficult to obtain. Because offensive and defensive postures are the same, status-quo states acquire the same kind of arms that are sought by aggressors. And because the offense has the advantage over the defense, attacking is the best route to protecting what you have; status-quo states will therefore hehave like aggressors. The situation will be unstable. Arms races are likely. Incentives to strike first will turn crises into wars. Decisive victories and conquests will be common. States will grow and shrink rapidly, and it will be hard for any state to maintain its size and influence without trying to increase them. Cooperation among status-quo powers will be extremely hard to achieve.

3 N o securlty d~lernrna, hut

aggression poss~hle. Status-quo states can follow

different policy than aggressors.

W'lrning given.

There are no cases that totally fit this picture, but it bears more than a passing resemblance to Europe before World War I. Britain and Germany, although in many respects natural allies, ended up as enemies. Of course much of the explanation lies in Germany's ill-chosen policy. And from the perspective of our theory, the powers' ability to avoid war in a series of earlier crises cannot be easily explained. Nevertheless, much of the behavior in this period was the product of technology and beliefs that magnified the security dilemma. Decision makers thought that the offense had a big advantage and saw little difference between offensive and defensive military postures. The era was characterized by arms races. And once war seemed likely, mobilization races created powerful incentives to strike first.

In the nuclear era, the first world would be one in which each side relied on vulnerable weapons that were aimed at similar forces and each side

4

Doubly s t<~ble

understood the situation. In this case, the incentives to strike first would be very high - so high that status-quo powers as well as aggressors would be sorely tempted to pre-empt. And since the forces could be used to change the status quo as well as to preserve it, there would be no way for both sides to increase their security simultaneously. Now the familiar logic of deterrence leads both sides to see the dangers in this world. Indeed, the new understanding of this situation was one reason why vulnerable bombers


and missiles were replaced. Ironically, the 1950's would have been more hazardous if the decision makers had been aware of the dangers of their posture and had therefore felt greater pressure to strike first. This situation could be recreated if both sides were to rely on MIRVed ICBM's.

In the second world, the security dilemma operates because offensive and defensive postures cannot be distinguished; but it does not operate as strongly as in the first world because the defense has the advantage, and so an increment in one side's strength increases its security more than it decreases the other's. So, if both sides have reasonable subjective security requirements, are of roughly equal power, and the variables discussed earlier are favorable, it is quite likely that status-quo states can adopt compatible security policies. Although a state will not be able to judge the other's intentions from the kinds of weapons it procures, the level of arms spending will give important evidence. Of course a state that seeks a high level of arms might be not an aggressor but merely an insecure state, which if conciliated will reduce its arms, and if confronted will reply in kind. To assume that the apparently excessive level of arms indicates aggressiveness could therefore lead to a response that would deepen the dilemma and create needless conflict. But empathy and skillful statesmanship can reduce this danger. Furthermore, the advantageous position of the defense means that a status- quo state can often maintain a high degree of security with a level of arms lower than that of its expected adversary. Such a state demonstrates that it lacks the ability or desire to alter the status quo, at least at the present time. The strength of the defense also allows states to react slowly and with restraint when they fear that others are menacing them. So, although status- quo powers will to some extent be threatening to others, that extent will be limited.

This world is the one that comes closest to matching most periods in history. Attacking is usually harder than defending because of the strength of fortifications and obstacles. But purely defensive postures are rarely possible because fortifications are usually supplemented by armies and mobile guns which can support an attack. In the nuclear era, this world would be one in which both sides relied on relatively invulnerable ICBM's and believed that limited nuclear war was impossible. Assuming no MIRV's, it would take more than one attacking missile to destroy one of the adversary's. Pre-emption is therefore unattractive. If both sides have large inven- tories, they can ignore all but drastic increases on the other side. A world of either ICBM's or SLBM's in which both sides adopted the "Schlesinger Doctrine" would probably fit in this category too. The means of preserving the status quo would also be the means of changing it, as we discussed earlier. And the defense usually would have the advantage, because compellence is more difficult than deterrence. Although a state might succeed in changing the status quo on issues that matter much more to it than to others, status-quo powers could deter major provocations under most circumstances.

i c L t i 5 Security Dilemma I65

In the third world there may be no security dilemma, but there are security problems. Because states can procure defensive systems that do not threaten others, the dilemma need not operate. But because the offense has the advantage, aggression is possible, and perhaps easy. If the offense has enough of an advantage, even a status-quo state may take the initiative rather than risk being attacked and defeated. If the offense has less of an advantage, stability and cooperation are likely because the status-quo states will procure defensive forces. They need not react to others who are similarly armed, but can wait for the warning they would receive if others started to deploy offensive weapons. But each state will have to watch the others carefully, and there is room for false suspicions. The costliness of the defense and the allure of the offense can lead to unnecessary mistrust, hostility, and war, unless some of the variables discussed earlier are operating to restrain defection.

A hypothetical nuclear world that would fit this description would be one in which both sides relied on SLBM's, but in which ASW techniques were very effective. Offense and defense would be different, but the former would have the advantage. This situation is not likely to occur; but if it did, a status-quo state could show its lack of desire to exploit the other by refraining from threatening its submarines. The desire to have more protecting you than merely the other side's fear of retaliation is a strong one, however, and a state that knows that it would not expand even if its cities were safe is likely to believe that the other would not feel threatened by its ASW program. It is easy to see how such a world could become unstable, and how spirals of tensions and conflict could develop.

The fourth world is doubly safe. The differentiation between offensive and defensive systems permits a way out of the security dilemma; the advantage of the defense disposes of the problems discussed in the previous paragraphs. There is no reason for a status-quo power to be tempted to procure offensive forces, and aggressors give notice of their intentions by the posture they adopt. Indeed, if the advantage of the defense is great enough, there are no security problems. The loss of the ultimate form of the power to alter the status quo would allow greater scope for the exercise of nonmilitary means and probably would tend to freeze the distribution of values.

This world would have existed in the first decade of the 20th century if the decision makers had understood the available technology. In that case, the European powers would have followed different policies both in the long run and in the summer of 1914. Even Germany, facing powerful enemies on both sides, could have made herself secure by developing strong defenses. France could also have made her frontier almost impregnable. Furthermore, when crises arose, no one would have had incentives to strike first. There would have been no competitive mobilization races reducing the time available for negotiations.

In the nuclear era, this world would be one in which the superpowers relied on SL.BM's, ASW technology was not up to its task, and limited


nuclear options were not taken seriously. We have discussed this situation earlier; here we need only add that, even if our analysis is correct and even if the policies and postures of both sides were to move in this direction, the problem of violence below the nuclear threshold would remain. On issues other than defense of the homeland, there would still be security dilemmas and security problems. But the world would nevertheless be safer than it has usually been.

Author's N o t e

I am grateful to Robert Art, Bernard Brodie, and Glenn Snyder for comments, and to the Committee on Research of the UCLA Academic Senate for financial support. An earlier ver- sion of this essay appeared as Working Paper No. 5, UCLA Program in Arms Control and International Security.

N o t e s

1. This kind of rank-ordering is not entirely an analyst's invention, as is shown by the following section of a British army memo of 1903 deal~ng with British and Russian railroad construction near the Persia-Afghanistan border:

The conditions of the problem may ... be briefly summarized as follows:

a ) IF we make a railway to Seistan while Russia remains inactive, we gain a considerable defensive advantage at considerable financial cost;

b) If Russia makes a railway to Seistan, while we remain inact~ve, she gains a considerable offensive advantage at considerable financial cost;

c) If both we and Russia make railways to Seistan, the defens~ve and offensive advantages may be held to neutralize each other; in other words, we shall have spent a good deal of money and be no better off than we are at present. O n the other hand, we shall be no worse off, whereas under alternative (b) we shall be much worse off. Consequently, the theoretical balance of advantage lies with the proposed radway extension from Quetta to Selstan.

W.G. Nicholson, "Memorandum on Seistan and Other Points Raised in the Discussion on the Defence of India," (Committee of Imperial Defence, March 20, 1903). It should be noted that the possibility of neither side building railways was nor mentioned, thus strongly biasing the analysis.

2. Paul Schroeder, Metternlch's D~plomacy a t Its Zenith, 1820-182.3 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press 1969), 126.

3. Quoted in Michael Howard, The Continental Commrtment (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin 19741, 67.

4. Quoted in Gerald Wheeler, Prelude to Pearl Harbor (Columbia: University of Mmour i Press 1963), 167.

5. Quoted in Leonard Wainstein, "The Dreadnought Gap," in Robert Art and Kenneth Waltz, eds., The Use of Force (Boston: Little, Brown 1971), 155; Raymond Sontag, European Diplomatic History, 1871-1932 (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts 1933), 147. The French had made a similar argument 50 years earlier; see James Phinney Baxter 111, The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1933), 149. For a more detailed discussion of the security ddemma, see Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press 19761, 62-76.

6. Experimental evidence for this proposition is summarized in James Tedeschi, Barry Schlenker, and Thomas Bonoma, Conflict, Power, and Games (Chicago: Aldine 1973), 135-41.

l c i v ~ s Security Dilemma I 6 7

7. The results of Prisoner's Dilemma games played in the laboratory support this argument. See Anarol Kapoport and Albert Chammah , Prisoner's Dilemma (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan I'ress I965) , 33-50. Also see Kohert Axelrod, Conflict of lnterest (Chicago: Markham l970) , 60-70.

8 . Quo ted in Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton: Princeton University I'ress 1 95Y), 6 .

9. Herbert York, The Aduisors: Oppenhernrer, Teller, and the Superbonrb (San Franc~sco: Freeman 1 976) , 56-60.

10. For the development of the concept of suhject~ve security, see Arnold Wolfers, Drscorti illid Collirboration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 1962) , chap. 10. In the present section we assume that the state believes that ~ t s security can he hest served by increasing its arms; later we will d ~ s c u s s some o f the conditions under which this s s u m p t l o n does not hold.

11. The question of when a n actor will see another as a threat is important m d under- studied. For a valuahle treatment (although one marred by serious methodologic,~l f l ,~ws) , see Raymond Cohen, "Threat Perception in International Kelations," Ph.1). d ~ s s . ( H e l m \ \ University 1974) . Among the important factors, touched o n below, are the lessons from the previous war.

12. Still the hest treatment is Arnold Wolfers, Hrztairr and France Bet t iwn TILVJ Wlrs ( N e w York: Harcourt, Br,~ce 1940) .

13. Quoted in I'eter Gretton, Former N a l d Person (London: Cassell 1968), 15 1. 14. Michael Kaufman, "Tension Increases in French Colon!;" New York Tntrrs. July I I, 1976. 15. Experimental support f o r thls argument is summarized in M o r t o n L)eut\cii, T h ,

Kcsr~lrrtrori of Conf1ic.t ( N e w Haven: Yale University Press 1973). 18 1-95, 16. R o g u Bullen, Pn/nierstotr Guizot, and tlw Collapsr of the E r r t ~ n t ~ (:ordral~ (1.01idon:

Athlonc 1'1-e\s 19741, 81, 88, 9.3, 2 12. For 3 different vlew of this case, we Stanley Mellon, "Fnrenre, Il~plomacy, and tanrasy," Rez~irws in European Hzstory, 1 1 (September 19761, 7 6 - 8 0 .

17. S~tnll.lrly, a Ft-ench diplomat h,ts argued that "the wors t result o f Loui\ XIV's , lh,~n- donrnenr of o u r t r ad~ t iona l policy was rhe distrust it aroused towards us ahro,ld." Jules L l m b o n , "The Perni,~nenr B ~ s c s of French Foreign Pol~cp," F i ~ r e i p Affinrs. Vlll ( J anua ry I Y 30), 1-9.

18. Thi \ a\\umec, however, that these benefits t o the other w ~ l l nor so Improve the othet-'\ power posltlon that ~t will be more able t o menace the state in the future.

19. W',ilter I.aFeher, ed., T l ~ c 1)ynanrics of World Power; A llocarnrrrrtn~ Hrstory o/

Clrirtcd StLrtes For~lgll Polrry 194 5-1 97.3, 11: Eastern Ertrope and t l ~ c Sorwt IJn~on ( N C U York: Chelsea House in association w ~ t h hlcGraw-Hill 197.3), 700.

20 . Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of C:onflrct ( N e w York: Ox to rd Ur i~vc r \~ ty Press IL)h3), 134-35.

2 I. (1.5. (:ongres\, Senate, Committee o n Foreign Relations, Hearin,qs, k 'r)r t /~ Atl~7trtli lkwt): 8 l st Cong., I at sess. ( 19491, 17.

22. B r ~ ~ c e Kussett a n d Elizabeth Hanson, Interest m d Idrolog)! (San Fra~iclsco: F reemm I 9 7 i ) , 260; Morris l anowi t r , The Professional Soldrrr ( N e w York: Free Press 1960) , chap. 13.

2.1. tiahti, O n T/~erwronrt~lear Wilr (Princeton: P r~nce ton University Press I9hO), 138-60. It should he noted t h ~ t the French example is largely hypothetical because Fr'lnce had n o intell- tlon of tulhlling her obligations once Germany became strong.

24. Wolfers (fn. 9 ) , chap. 1.5; C. Vann Woodward, "The Age o f Keinterpret,ir~ot~," A111~rict771 Historical Rer&ri? Vol. 6 7 (October 1960) , 1-1 9.

2.5. W ~ l l i a ~ n Braisted, The United States N a l y rtr the P'~cific. 1897-1909 (Austin: I ln ivers~ty of Teuas Press 19581, 240.

26. Carnhon (fn. 171, 18.5. 27. Quoted in Adam IJlatn, Exparrsrorr and Co-/-krstence ( N e w h r k : I'r,ieger I %8) , 5. In

1920 the US. Navy's General Board similarly declared "A nation must advance o r retrocede I I I world position." Quoted in W ~ l l i m i Braisted, T ~ J C Unrtrd States N ' Z ~ I ~ In thr I'~7crfic-. 1909-1922 (Austin: University o f Texas I'ress 1971) , 488.

28. Quoted in M a r ~ o n Boggs, Attempts to Define and Lnnlt "Aggressi~v" Arnrnnrrrit 171

Diplowrilcy mzd Strntcgy (Columbia: [Jniversity of Missouri Studies, XVI, No. 1, 194 1 ) 4 1 .


29. Steven Ross, European Diplomatic History, 1789-181.5 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday 1969), 194.

30. Thus, when Wolfers (fn. lo ) , 126, argues that a status-quo state that settles for rough equality of power with its adversary, rather than seeking preponderance, may be able to convince the other to reciprocate by showing rhat it wants only to protect itself, not menace the other, he assumes that the defense has an advantage.

31. Schelling (fn. 20), chap. 9. 32. Quoted in First Fischer, War of illusions (New York: Norton 19751, 377, 461. 33. George Quester, Offense and Defense in the International System (New York: John

Wiley 1977), 105-06; Sontag (fn. 5) , 4-5. 34. Kahn (fn. 23), 21 1 (also see 144). 35. For a general discussion of such mistaken learning from the past, see Jervis (fn. 5 ) ,

chap. 6. The important and still not completely understood question of why this belief formed and was maintained throughout the war is examined in Bernard Brodie, War and Polrtrcs (New York: Macmillan 1973), 262-70; Brodie, "Technological Change, Strategic Doctrme, and Political Outcomes," in Klaus Knorr, ed., Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 1976), 290-92; and Douglas Porch, "The French Army and the Spirit of the Offensive, 1900-14," in Brian Bond and Ian Roy, eds., War and Society (New York: Holmes & Meier 197.5), 117-43.

36. Some were not so optimistic. Gray's remark is well-known: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our life-time." The German Prime Minister, Bethmann Hollweg, also feared the consequences of the war. But the controlling view was rhat it would certainly pay for the winner.

37. Quoted in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, 111, The Challenge of War, 191 6-1 9 16 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1971), 84.

38. Quester (fn. 33), 98-99. Robert Art, The Influence of Foreign Policy on Seapouw, I1 (Beverly Hills: Sage Professional Papers in International Studies Series, 1973), 14-1 8, 26-28.

39. Konard Jarausch, "The ILlusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg's Calculated Risk, July 1914," Central European History, 11 (March 1969), 50.

40. Brodie (fn. 8), 58. 41. President Roosevelt and the American delegates to the League of Nat~ons Disarmament

Conference maintained that the tank and mobile heavy artillery had re-established the dominance of the offensive, thus making disarmament more urgent (Boggs, fn. 28, pp. 3 1, 108), but this was a minority position and may not even have been believed by the Americans. The reduced prestige and influence of the military, and the high pressures to cut government spending throughout this period also contributed to the lowering of defense budgets.

42. Jon Kimche, The Unfought Battle (New York: Stein 1968); Nicholas William Bethell, The War Hitler Won: The Fall of Poland, September 1939 (New York: Holt 1972); Alan Alexandroff and Richard Rosecrance, "Deterrence in 1939," World Politics, XXIX (April 1977), 4 0 4 2 4 .

43. Roderick Macleod and Denis Kelly, eds., Time Unguarded: The Ironside Diaries, 1937-1940 (New York: McKay 1962), 173.

44. For a short time, as France was falling, the British Cabinet d ~ d discuss reaching a negotiated peace with Hitler. The officlal history ignores this, but it 1s covered in P.M.H. Bell, A Certain Eventuality (Farnborough, England: Saxon House 1974), 4 0 4 8 .

45. Macleod and Kelly (fn. 43), 174. In flat contrad~ction to common sense and almost everything they believed about modern warfare, the Allies planned an expedition to Scandinavia to cut the supply of iron ore to Germany and to aid F~nland against the Russians. But the dominant mood was the one described above.

46. Brodie (fn. 8), 179. 47. Arthur Balfour, "Memorandum," Committee on Imperial Defence, April 30, 1903,

pp. 2-3; see the telegrams by Sir Arthur Nicolson, in G.P. Gooch and Harold Temperley, eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. 4 (London: H.M.S.O. 1929), 429, 524. These barriers d o not prevent the passage of long-range aircraft; but even in the air, distance usually aids the defender.

Icn I . Security Dilemma I69

48. See for example, the discussion of warfare among Ch~nese warlords in Hsi-Sheng Chi, "The Chinese Warlord System as an International System," in Morton Kaplan, ed., New Apprr~dches to Internatrond Relat~ons (New York: St. Martin's 1968), 405-25.

49. Some American decision makers, including military officers, thought that the best way out of the dilemma was to abandon the Philippines.

SO. Quoted in Eking Morrison, Turmod and Tradition: A Study of the Lrfe awd Tinzes of

Henry 1.. Stirnson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1960), 326. 5 1. The U S . "refused to consider limitations on Hawaiian defenses, rmce these works

posed n o threat to Japan." Braisted (fn. 27), 612. 52. That is part of the reason why the Japanese admirals strongly objected when the civ~l-

Ian leaders decided to accept J seven-to-ten ratio in lighter craft in 1930. Stephen I'elz, Rnc-e ro Pearl Harbor (Cambridge: Harvard Univers~ty Press 1974), 3.

53. John Nef, War a i ~ d Human Progress (New York: Norton 1963), 185. Also see ihid., 2.17, 242-43, and 323; C. W. Oman, T / J ~ Art of War in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell LJnivers~ty Press 19.531, 70-72; John Beeler, Warfare in Feudal Europe, 730-1200 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell IJniversity Press 1971), 212-14; Michael Howard, War in ~k~cropcwn History (1.ondon: Oxford University Press 1976), 33-37.

54. Q ~ ~ i c y Wright, A Study of War (abridged ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1964), 142. Also see 63-70, 74-75. There are important exceptions to these general~zations - the American Civil War, for instance, falls in the middle of the period Wright says is dominated by the offense.

55. Geoffrey Kemp, Robert Pfaltzgraff, and Uri Ka'anan, eds., The Othcr Arms Race (i.exington, Mass.: D. C. Heath 1975); James Foster, "The Future of Conventional Arnis Control," Policy Scrcnces, No. 8 (Spring 1977), 1-19.

56. Richard Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Polrcy, 1898-2 914 (Princeton: Pr~nceton University Press 1973), 273; Grey to Nicolson, in Gooch and Ternperley ( tn . 47), 4 14.

57. Quoted in James Crowley, Japan's Quest for Autononzy (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1966), 49. American naval officers agreed with the Japanese that a ten-to-six r,ltlo would endmger Japan's supremxy in her home waters.

58. E.1.. Woodward and R. Butler, eds., Doc~tments on Brrtish Foreign Polrry, I9IC)-l9?9, T h ~ r d series, 111 (London: H.M.S.O. 1950), 526.

59. Jervis (fn. 5 ) , 69-72, 3.52-55. 60. Quoted in Merze Tatc, The United States m d A r n ~ a n ~ e n t s (Cambridge: Harvard

Univcrs~ty Press 1948), 108. 6 1 . Koggs (fn. 28), 1.5, 40. 62. Kenneth Hagan, American Gunhoat lliplonzacy rrnd the Old Navy 1877-1889

(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press 1973), 20. 6.3. Winston Churchill, The G a t l ~ e r ~ n g Storm (Boston: Houghron 19481, 206. 64. Brodie, War and Politics (fn. 35), 325. 65. Boggs (fn. 28), 42, 83. For a good argument about the possible different~~lt~on hetween

offens~ve and defensive weapons in the 1930's. see Basil Liddell Hart, "Aggression and the Prohle~n of Weapons," English Review, Vol. 5.5 (July 1932). 71-78.

66. Quoted in Boggs (fn. 28), 39. 67. On these grounds, the Germans claimed in 1932 that the French forts were offensive

(ibid.. 49). Si~nilarly, fortified forward naval bases can he necess'lry for 1,lunching a n attack; see Rrai\ted (fn. 27), 643.

68. The French made this argument 111 the interwar period; see Rlchard Challener, Thc krmch Theory of the Nation rn Arms (New York: C;olumbia IJniversity Press 1955), 181-82. The Germ.lns disagreed; see Boggs (fn. 281, 44-45.

69. Oman (fn. 531, 57-58. 70. Quoted in Charles Wehster, Foreign Policy of Castlerc~zgh. 1 I, 18 1.F-1822 [L.ondon:

G. Bell and Sons 196.31, .5 50. 71. Koggs (in. 28), 14-15, 4 7 4 8 , 60.

Press 1970), 7; also see 16-17. 73. Boggs (fn. 28), 20, 28. 74. See, however, Desmond Ball, "The Counterforce Potential of American SLBM

Systems," Journal of Peace Research, XIV (No. 1, 1977), 23-40. 75. Richard Garwin, "Anti-Submarine Warfare and National Security," Scientific

American, Vol. 227 (July 1972), 14-25. 76. The latter scenario, however, does not require that the state closely match the number

of missiles the other deploys. 77. Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press 1966),

69-78. Schelling's arguments are not entirely convincing, however. For further d~scussion, see Jervis, "Deterrence Theory Re-Visited," Working Paper No. 14, UCLA Program in Arms Control and International Security.


72. Quoted In Philip Jordan, Frontter Law and Order (Lmcoln: Un~versity of Nebraska

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