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Neo-Realism and the future of strategy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2010

Michael C. Williams
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Extract

To speak of the ‘future’ of strategy is to reveal a deep tension in the way we commonly think about the subject. On the one hand we are confronted by revolutionary changes in the geo-political landscape. The transformation of Europe, the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, for example, encourage the belief that the Cold War—a term which has been almost synonymous with-strategy for nearly half a century—is now an historical artifact. These events, analyzed so intensively by leaders and commentators, open up significant questions about the future of strategy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 1993 , pp. 103 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1993

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References

1 For a clear expression of strategic studies commitment to neo-realist assumptions, see: Nye, Joseph S. and Lynn-Jones, Sean M., ‘International Security Studies: A Report of a Conference on the State of the Field’ International Security, 12 (1988), pp. 4–27; pp. 19–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 A particularly clear formulation of this position is provided by Robert Gilpin in ‘Has Modern Technology Changed International Politics?', in Rosenau, J., et al. (eds.), The Analysis ofInternational Relations (New York, 1972)Google Scholar.

3 The best treatments of the theoretical issues involved are Walker, R. B. J., ‘Realism, Change and International Relations Theory’, International Studies Quarterly, 31 (1987), pp. 65–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘History and Structure in the Theory of International Relations’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 18 (1989), pp. 163–83. See also Robert W. Cox, ‘On Thinking About Future World Order’, World Politics (1976), pp. 175–96.

4 Mearsheimer, John, ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War’, International Security, 15 (1990), pp. 5–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 The debate between Mearsheimer, Stanley Hoffman and Robert Keohane is collected as ‘Back to the Future, Part II: International Relations Theory and Post-Cold War Europe’, International Security, 2 (1990). See also Steven Van Evera, ‘Primed for Peace: Europe After the Cold War’, International Security, 3 (1990–1), pp. 7–57.

6 The most well-known analysis along these lines probably remains Robert Jervis, ‘Deterrence Theory Revisited’ World Politics (1919) pp. 289–324.

7 Most formally, though not exclusively, in the guise of game theory.

8 The most important single work in this vein is probably Alexander George and Richard Smoke, Deterrence and American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (New York, 1974). See also Robert Jervis’ extensive review, ‘Deterrence Theory Revisited’. Note, however, that George and Smoke seem largely to concede the assumptions and conclusions of the Second Wave concerning ‘strategic’ deterrence, and differ primarily as it concerns lower levels of application. In this they differ, in varying degrees, from subsequent Third Wave theorists.

9 Indeed, it has recently been revived under the guise of a renewed challenge to Third Wave analyses by a reassertive rational-actor perspective—a so-called fourth wave has emerged. See the special issue of World Politics (1989) on ‘The Rational Deterrence Debate’ and for an overview, Pages, Eric R., ‘The Evolution of Deterrence Theory: A Review of the Literature’, International Studies Notes, 16 (1991), pp. 60–65Google Scholar.

10 Friedrich Kratochwil and John G. Ruggie identify a similar contradiction between neo-realism and regime theory in ‘International Organization: a State of the Art on the Art of the State’, International Organization, 40 (1986), pp. 753–76. See also Kratochwil, ‘Regimes, Interpretation and the ”Science” of Politics: A Reappraisal”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17 (1988), pp. 263–84.

11 Two examples among an enormous literature are: Buzan, Barry, An Introduction to Strategic Studies: Military Technology and International Relations (London, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Garnett, John, ‘Strategic Studies and Its Assumptions’, in Baylis, J. et al., Contemporary Strategy, 2nd edn (New York, 1987), I, ch. 1Google Scholar.

12 On this theme see Lawrence, Philip K., ‘Nuclear Strategy and Political Theory: A Critical Assessment’, Review of International Studies, 11 (1985), pp. 105–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; his exchange with Gerald Segal, in the Review of International Studies, 11 (1985), pp. 235–47; and Lawrence, ‘Strategy, the State and the Weberian Legacy’, Review of International Studies, 13 (1987), pp. 295–310.

13 I develop this same theme in a different direction, that of the narrower analytic structure of deterrence theory, in my ‘Rethinking the “Logic” of Deterrence’, Alternatives, 17 (1992), pp. 67–93.

14 For an emphatic and thorough-going recent analysis of many of these themes see Hollis, Martin and Smith, Steve, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar.

15 Morgenthau, Hans, Politics Among Nations, 5th edn (New York, 1973), p. 4Google Scholar. Morgenthau, as I will argue later, is capable of supporting many interpretations. It seems to me, however, that this has undoubtedly become the major appropriation of his work in neo-realism.

16 Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, 1981), p. 226CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 One need only read the first four chapters of Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass., 1979) to get a sense of this diversity. On this theme, see also Wendt, Alexander, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory’, International Organization, 41 (1987), pp. 335–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It is a failing of some recent ‘critical’ theory that despite its avowed concern with the ‘reifying’ consequences of neo-realism it has itself tended to reify the complex and often contesting themes which constitute the realist tradition into a single abstraction called ‘Realism’.

18 That this presupposes a particular conception of science, and that what science is a highly contested question in itself, should be self-evident. For some reflections on the question, see: Keat, R. and Urry, J., Social Theory as Science (London, 1982)Google Scholar; Manicas, Peter T., A History and Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar and Gunnell, John G., Between Philosophy and Politics (Albany, 1986)Google Scholar. Useful treatments specifically related to international relations include David Campbell, ‘Recent Changes in Social Theory: Implications for International Relations’, and Jim George, ‘The Study of International Relations and the Positivist/Empiricist Theory of Knowledge: Implications for the Australian Discipline'; both may be found in R. Higgot (ed.), New Directions in International Relations? Australian Perspectives (Canberra, 1988).

19 This is too large a theme to be dealt with here; however, two sources in the history of ideas are in this context invaluable. For a succinct treatment see: Hirschman, Albert O., The Passions and the Interests (Princeton, 1977)Google Scholar. More extensive is Pocock, J. G. A., The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton, 1975)Google Scholar.

20 An analysis of Morgenthau as a Weberian is well traced in Turner, R. and Factor, S., Max Weber and the Dispute Over Reason and Value (London, 1984)Google Scholar.

21 Ashley's, Richard K.‘The Poverty of Neorealism’, International Organization, 38 (1984), pp. 225-86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, remains an especially clear treatment of this theme. See also Alexander Wendt, ”The Agent-Structure Problem’.

22 The classic analogy here, of course, is Kenneth Waltz's use of Rousseau's parable of the stag hunt in Man, the State and War (New York, 1959). Although the idiom differs in his Theory of International Politics, the essential position remains unaltered.

23 This could scarcely be more clearly stated than it is by Morgenthau in his first two ‘Principles of Political Realism’. See Politics Among Nations, pp. 4–8. An interesting treatment of this theme, though specifically limited to questions of foreign policy analysis, is Miriam Steiner, ‘The Search for Order in a Disorderly World: Worldviews and Prescriptive Decision Paradigms’, International Organization, (1983), pp. 373–13.

24 While game theory represents an extreme example of the application of the rational actor model, it is important not to identify Second Wave strategic thinking completely with game theory itself or overstate the impact which explicitly game-theoretic approaches had on strategic analysis. A useful corrective remains Hedley Bull, ‘Strategic Studies and its Critics’, World Politics (1968), pp. 593–605. It is not so much pure game theory as it is the adoption of the universal, instrumentally rational actor as the foundation of analysis—in whatever broader theoretical context it may be embedded—which defines Second Wave thinking.

25 The terms in quotations refer, of course, to three representative works within the tradition: Glenn Synder's Deterrence and Defense (Princeton, 1961); Kaufmann, William, “The Requirements of Deterrence”, in Kaufmann (ed.), Military Policy and National Security (Princeton, 1956)Google Scholar; and Schelling, Thomas, The Strategy of Conflict (New York, 1960)Google Scholar. Though even in these examples it can be argued that theoretical claims and analytic practice often stand in contradiction. For a superb analysis, see Ruth Edwards Abbey, Reading Between the Matrices: Conflicting Strategies in The Strategy of Conflict, Working Paper no.9, York University Center for International and Strategic Studies (Toronto; April, 1991).

26 On ‘strategic man’ or, as Bull referred to the concept, ‘homo strategicus’, see Booth, Ken, Strategy and Ethnocentrism (London, 1979)Google Scholar and his searching analysis ‘American Strategy: The Myths Revisited’ in K. Booth and M. Wright, American Thinking About Peace and War (Sussex, 1978).

27 See, for example, Cohn, C., ‘Sex and Death in the World of the Rational Defense Intellectuals’, Signs, 12(1987), pp. 675–704CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 For an analysis of the history of strategic theory as a continuing conflict between these two conceptions, see Herken, Gregg, Counsels of War (New York, 1985)Google Scholar.

29 I should note that I am far from satisfied with these labels. They seem, however, as adequate as (or at least no more inadequate than) other possible distinctions such as those between ‘assured deterrers’ and ‘warfighters’ or theorists of'retaliation’ versus those of'denial’. Moreover, they do possess a certain currency in the field. Gray, for example, adopts the categorization in his well-known ‘Nuclear Strategy: The Case for a Theory of Victory’, in Miller, S., Nuclear Strategy (Princeton, 1984), p. 27, fn.9Google Scholar.

30 John D. Steinbruner, ‘Beyond Rational Deterrence: The Struggle for New Conceptions’, World Politics (1976), p. 231.

31 Steinbruner, ‘Beyond Rational Deterrence’, p. 231.

32 An exemplary illustration is Desmond Ball, Can Nuclear War Be Controlled?, Adelphi Paper No. 169 (London, 1981).

33 Morgan, Patrick, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (Beverly Hills, 1977), p. 207Google Scholar.

34 Bundy, McGeorge, ‘Existential Deterrence and Its Consequences’, in MacLean, Douglas (ed.), The Security Gamble: Deterrence Dilemmas in the Nuclear Age (Totowa, 1984)Google Scholar. For a critique, see Lawrence Freedman, ‘I Exist: Therefore I Deter’, International Security (Summer, 1988).

35 Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, chs. 5 and 6 especially. In an earlier work on psychology and deterrence, Jervis had noted that ‘Deterrence posits a psychological relationship, so it is strange that most analyses of it have ignored decision makers’ emotions, perceptions, and calculations and instead relied on deductive logic base on the premise that people are highly rational. Jervis, R., Lebow, R. and Stein, J., Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore, 1985), p. 1Google Scholar.

36 Words which form the title of chapter 3 in The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Ithaca, 1989).

37 Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, pp. 104–5.

38 Recent analyses by Jervis may mark something of a shift in this regard. It is necessary, he argues, to start to understand ‘the liability of our general social science tradition that analyzes reality apart from the beliefs that both we as scholars and the actors themselves hold’ (Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, p. 176). The implications of such an understanding may be far more fundamental for theories of international relations than he seems to imply.

39 Gray, Colin, Strategic Studies and Public Policy: The American Experience (Lexington, 1982), p. 188Google Scholar. The conflation of these thinkers into a unified ‘Realist tradition’ is itself highly problematic and misleading. In this regard Robert Cox's distinctions between the positions of Carr and Morgenthau are especially important; see his ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 10 (1981), pp. 126–55. Morgenthau's own sense of the distinction is clearly apparent in his review of Carr's Twenty Years Crisis; see ‘Surrender to the Immanence of Power: E. H. Carr’, reprinted in Morgenthau, Politics in the Twentieth Century Vol. 3: The Restoration of American Politics (Chicago, 1962), pp. 36–43. The entire theme of the creation of the ‘Realist tradition’ has been effectively dealt with in R. B. J. Walker, ‘The Prince and The Pauper': Tradition, Modernity and Practice in the Theory of International Relations’, in J. DeDerian and M. Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations: Boundaries of Knowledge and Practice in World Politics (Lexington, 1989).

40 His clearest statement on this issue is Strategic Studies and Public Policy: The American Experience (Lexington, 1982), pp. 3–6.

41 Gray, Colin, ‘Nuclear Strategy: What is True, What is False, What is Arguable’, Comparative Strategy, 9 (1990), pp. 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; p. 11. For a more extensive treatment, see his Nuclear Strategy and National Style, ch.2. Also relevant is Lord, Carries, ‘American Strategic Culture’, Comparative Strategy, 5 (1985)Google Scholar. On the entire theme of'strategic culture’, see Carl Jacobsen (ed.), Strategic Power USA/USSR (London, 1989).

42 Gray, ‘What is True’, p. 14.

43 ‘What is True’, p. 15.

44 The most well-known, or perhaps historically notorious, example here may be Pipes, Richard, ‘Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Can Win a Nuclear War’, Commentary, 7 (1977), pp. 21–34Google Scholar. Less polemically, see: Strode, Rebecca V., ‘Soviet Strategic Style’ Comparative Strategy, 3 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and John Erikson, ‘The Chimera of Mutual Deterrence’, Strategic Review (1978).

45 See Gray, Nuclear Strategy and National Style, ch.3.

46 Gray, Nuclear Strategy and National Style, p. xiv.

47 This is not to say, by any means, that the Countervailing Third Wave takes these admonitions at all seriously enough or carries them out in an adequate or sophisticated way. What is important is the underlying challenge. An excellent exploration of the importance of questions of culture and ideology i n international relations, and a critique of the ways in which they are most often handled in the discipline, is R. B. J. Walker (ed.), Culture, Ideology and World Order (Boulder, 1984).

48 It should be noted that Gray does not completely discount the claims of'existential deterrence’, but argues that it fails to alter completely the nature of strategic debate. See ‘What is True’, pp. 2–4.

49 Many of these issues are highly contentious and reflect some of the deepest and most difficult issues in social theory. What follows, therefore, is intended to be suggestive rather than rigorous. Suggestively, one need only consider the long-standing (and still vibrant) debates in cultural anthropology—to which Gray appeals—which were set off by Peter Winch's early analysis to see that the complexity of the questions raised by an appeal to cultural understandings go far beyond the relatively superficial attempts advanced by Third Wave theorists. In addition to the recent work of Hollis and Smith cited earlier, see as examples in an expansive literature: Winch, Peter, The Idea of a Social Science (New York, 1958)Google Scholar; Maclntyre, Alasdair, Against the Self-images of the Age (Notre Dame, 1978)Google Scholar; Rabinow, P. and Sullivan, W. (eds.), Interpretive Social Science (Berkeley, 1979)Google Scholar; Hollis, M. and Lukes, S. (eds.), Rationality and Relativism (Cambridge, Mass., 1984)Google Scholar; Wright, G. H. von, Explanation and Understanding (Ithaca, 1971)Google Scholar; Hiley, David R. et al. (eds.), The Interpretive Turn (Ithaca, 1991)Google Scholar and M. Hollis and S. Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations.

50 I am grateful to Keith Krause for an illuminating discussion of this issue.

51 Useful reflections on the analysis of these processes include the recent work of Anthony Giddens, especially his Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, 1990); Mike Featherstone (ed.), Global Culture: Nationalism. Globalization and Modernity (London, 1990) and the special issue of Millennium, 20 (1992) on ‘re-imagining’ the nation.

52 Keohane, Robert, ‘International Organizations: Two Approaches’, International Studies Quarterly, 32 (1988), pp. 379–396CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear, 2nd edn (London, 1991), p. 60.

54 For a series of reflections, see R. B. J. Walker, ‘The Concept of Security in International Relations Theory’, Working Paper No. 3, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (University of California, 1988).

55 See also the debate recounted in G. Segal (ed.), New Directions in Strategic Studies: A Chatham House Debate (London, 1989).

56 This is a huge literature; as illustrations, see: Nye's, Joseph S.‘Nuclear learning and U.S. Soviet security regimes’, International Organization, 41 (1987), pp. 371–402CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein (eds.), special issue on ‘Beyond Deterrence’, Journal of Social Issues, 43 (1987).

57 In addition to the works already cited, see Kratochwil, Friedrich, Rules, Norms and Decisions (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Any attempt to define so-called Critical Theory as a unified school would be erroneous. Robert Cox, for example, probably should be as easily placed in this category as in the previous one. This said, from among many possible examples of the approach—as well as of its diversity—one might include not only the work of Ken Booth already mentioned, but also: Klein, Bradley S., ‘Hegemony and Strategic Culture: American Power Projection and Alliance Defence Polities’, Review of International Studies, 14 (1988), pp. 133–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘How the West Was One: Representational Politics of NATO’, International Studies Quarterly, 3 (1990), pp. 311–26; Timothy Luke, ‘What's Wrong With Deterrence?’, in DeDerian and Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations; and Dillon, M., ‘Strategy, Discourse and Modernity’, Current Research on Peace and Violence, 2 (1989)Google Scholar.

59 In my view, it is the question of practical intent and morality which is ultimately at the heart of this debate. Though an analysis of the issues this raises must be foregone here, a move in this direction is intimated by Ken Booth in his ‘Security and Emancipation’, Review of International Studies, 17 (1991), pp. 312–26.

60 For a series of theoretical and practical reflections on this theme, see Booth, Ken, ‘Steps Towards Stable Peace in Europe: A Theory and Practice of Stable Coexistence’, International Affairs, 66 (1990), pp. 17–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.