Poli 12 IR

First event that caused WW1?

First event that caused WW1?

Assassination of Franz Ferdinand

Austrian Response

Blank Check from Germany & 10 Demands on Serbia

Russian Response

Tsar’s decision for full mobilization

German Response

Kaiser’s decision for full mobilization

Western Response

French Mobilization, German Invasion of Belgium, British Declaration of War.

What is the War Guilt Debate?

“First Shots from the archive,” who is the victim

Answer #1 to War Guilt Debate

From War Guilt Commission: War was premeditated by the Central Powers (Germany + Austria-Hungary) and was the results of acts deliberately committed in order to make it unavoidable. They deliberately worked to defeat all the conciliatory proposals made by the Entente Powers and their repeated efforts to avoid War.

Answer #2 to War Guilt Debate

It is the Revisionist View. Harry Elmer Barnes shifts blame to France & Russia. War was caused by aggressive states, France & Russia used the assassination to premeditate a general war used to fulfill their foreign policy dreams.

Answer #3 to War Guilt Debate

Domestic and International Constraints on Choice. Immediate causes are the four decisions from Austria, Germany, and Russia. They were rational responses but together it caused the war.

Which model of war was WW1?

Spiral Model, also known as a bunch of decisions that spiraled into a huge general world war.

Constraints on the Great Powers?

Nationalism, Militarization of Policy, Alliance System

What is Nationalism as a Constraint on the Great Powers?

Demands for independence in Balkans, National glory and national animosities among Great Powers

Militarization of policy as a constraint on the great powers?

Complex military planning/power of general staffs and Caste-like officer corps

Alliance system as a constraint on the great powers?

Europe is divided and division into opposing camps made it hard to conciliate.

Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy was the Central Powers

Triple Entente of France, Russia, and Great Britain was the Allied Powers

What did Europe look like after WW1?

Collapse of Imperial governments, New Nation-States, and Limits on German Power

What were the limits on German power?

Loss of Territory, Limits on Military, and Reparations Payments

Origins of WW2?

Deterrence Failure, and Sources of Aggression

Answer #1: Deterrence Failure

A Lack of Balance of Power.

Nine German Assaults on the “Versailles” order

First four of Nine German Assaults on the “Versailles” order

1. Withdrawal from the League of Nations

2. Intimidation in the Saar plebiscite (Popular vote was supposed to make decision on what to do but Germany intimidated the population to give it back to Germany.

3. Repudiation of the Versailles disarmament clause (grew Military power)

4. Remilitarization of the Rhineland (was supposed to be a warning but it wasn’t taken seriously)

Last 5 of Nine German Assaults on the “Versailles” order

5. Intervention in the Spanish Civil War (all European powers pledged to stay out & western powers did nothing when Germany broke it)

6. German Annexation of Austria

7. Demands for Sudetenland: the Munich Conference (created panic in Europe & England believed allowing Germany to reunification would calm them down)

8. Invasion of Bohemia & Moravia (Czechoslovakia)

9. Invasion of Poland ( Western didn’t happen until they attacked Norway)

Official Definition of Deterrence Failure

When the failure to intervene causes a lack of balance of power that leads to conflict.

The other Axis Powers in Deterrence Failure Answer

1. Japan in Manchuria and China

   1. U.S. was unwilling to invoke sanctions bc they didn’t want war

2. Italy in Ethiopia

   1. Neither France or Britain was willing to get involved

Answer #2: Sources of Aggression

A. Dissatisfaction with the “Versailles” order

B. Hyper-nationalism

C. Failure of Domestic Economies

A. Dissatisfaction with the “Versailles” order

• Western powers did not give rightful lands

• International order imposed by Western powers were unfair

• Territories promised to Italy weren’t all given to Italy

• Borders of Germany after war was much smaller than German ethnic group

• ¾ Territories promised to Japan weren’t given to Japan.

Hyper Nationalism in Sources of Aggression answer?

1. Wanted to be treated equally to western powers

2. Italy felt it was their right to acquire Roman land

3. Italy wanted military power through Expansio

   1. Italy’s Ambitions in Europe

4. Japan’s Hakka Ichiu Monument in 1940

Failure of Domestic Economies as Sources of Aggression

1. Hyper inflation

2. Mussolini and the March on Rome

Two Processes of War Origins

• Spiral Model

  • A crisis spiraling out of control with great powers jumping in on opposite sides and escalating means

• Deterrence-Failure model

  • A failure of great powers to balance against aggressive great powers.

Origins of Cold War

Orthodox Analysis

Revisionist Analysis

Systemic Analysis

Background: Major Changes at the End of WW2

1. Defeat & Occupation of the Axis powers

2. Decline of Britain and France

3. Growing involvement of the USA and USSR in European and Asian affairs

Defeat & Occupation of the Axis powers?

1. Germany & Austria (By all 4)

2. Italy & Japan (By U.S.)

3. Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania (by USSR)

5 things that lead Collaboration to Confrontation?

1. Disagreement over the shape of Peace

   1. Yalta and Potsdam Conferences (USSR & Western Allies disagreed)

2. Communization of Eastern Europe

   1. Satellite governments, COMECON, Cominform

3. Growing Western solidarity

   1. Truman doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO

4. Division of Asia

   1. Commie revolution in Vietnam, U.S. supported France against commies

   2. Commie rev in China/PRC, U.S. supported Nationalist gov in Taiwan, USSR w PRC

5. Direct East-West Confrontations

   1. Berlin Blockade, Korean War

Why did relationship deteriorate so rapidly & so far?

1. Comparative Foreign Policy Explanations - 2nd Image Analysis

   1. Soviet Aggressiveness explanation

   2. U.S. Aggressiveness explanation

2. Comparative International Systems Explanation - 3rd Image Analysis

   1. Systemic explanation

      1. Transition from multipolarity to bipolarity

      2. Shifting configuration of global power in Europe & Asia that permitted and drove U.S. & USSR to expand

Orthodox Analysis

• 2nd Image Analysis

• U.S was simply protecting Freedom

• Soviet Expansionism

• American Response - Containtment

Soviet Expansionism in Orthodox Analysis

• 3 Orthodox Explanations

  • Soviet Leader - Joseph Stalin

  • Soviet Ideology - Marxism-Leninism

  • The needs of the Soviet system - Totalitarianism

Soviet Leader - Joseph Stalin

Stalin was power hungry psychopath who only cared about what he wanted

Soviet Ideology - Marxism-Leninism

• Expansion & aggression was an inherent part of ideology.

• Caused suffering & depression in citizens.

• Riding Wave of Commie future

Pattern of Soviet Expansion

• Historic mission to replace Capitalism for Communism

• Any other ideology = Cold War wouldn’t have happened

• They expand to distract citizens from rebellion

The American Response - Containtment

• How to stop Soviet expansion?

• Didn’t want deference failure to happen again

• Jump into small conflicts to prevent war

• Containment of Russian expansive tendencies

Revisionist Analysis - Soviets

• Soviet security interests in Eastern Europe

  • Not aggressive, normal responses

  • Traditional defensive sphere of influence

  • Defended Western borders & needed to demonstrate they could do it

  • Much like U.S. in Latin America

Revisionist Analysis - America

• Explaining American Expansionism

  • U.S. sought to extend American powers

  • American leader - Harry Truman

    • Hated Soviets

    • Insecurity & a hatred = Cold War

  • Belief system - Paranoia about communism

    • Obsessed with Red Menace

  • Needs of the American System - Capitalism

    • Expansion = Capitalism

    • Commies Threatened that

Systemic Analysis

• Both were expansionist states

• Power transition from a multipolar to bipolar international system

  • 6 major powers to 2 major powers

• Relative Position in International Power

• Rise of two superpowers

  • USA/USSR

Power Vaccum

• Defeat of Axis Powers

• Decline of European colonial powers

  • Rational responses by superpowers to promote their national security in the face of a heightened security dilemma during a transition from multipolarity to bipolarity

• Must move in yourself, someone must fill power vaccum

• Rational decisions were made but combination = Cold War

Was the Cold War a Long Peace?

• Conventional view: Protracted Conflict

• Challenger’s Case: The Long Peace

Conventional view: Protracted Conflict Background

• Central System - two Blocs

  • Superpower crises

    • Berlin & Cuba were satellite wars

  • Military Standoff in the Central System

    • NATO vs. Warsaw Pact in Europe

  • Arms Race

    • Amplified the hostile environment

  • 2 superpowers maintained influences

  • Brink of Warfare

Superpower Expansion isn’t the Periphery within Conventional view: Protracted Conflict

• Superpower fight over decolonization

  • 3rd World

  • Forging Alliances in both sides

• Use of political instability in New States

  • Powers took sides

  • Latin America

• Harnessing Third World inter-state conflicts

  • Arab (USSR) - Israel (US) wars

  • India (USSR) - Pakistan (US) wars

Nature of Conflict in CW within Conventional view: Protracted Conflict

• Central wars by substitute means

  • Arms races and brinkmanship in crises

  • Test resolve & capabilities in other side

• Displacement of Warfare to the periphery

  • Proxy Wars

  • Affected population in proxy countries

• Less wars in Central & more in the periphery

Challengers’ Case: The Long Peace

• No war among major powers in the central system = Peace

• John Mueller: No war among 48 wealthiest 1945-88

• Jeffrey Record: 1600-1945 vs 1945-88

  • 1600-1945: 29 wars in Europe (one new war every 12 yrs)

  • 1945-1988: 0 wars among Great Powers in Europe

Why the Long Peace?

• 3rd Image Analysis Explanation

• Bipolarity

  • Conflict-filled transition from multipolarity to bipolarity, 1945-1950

• Long peace once bipolarity in place

  • Makes it easier to negotiate peaceful settlements

  • Consequences: Negotiating peace, caution

  • Rules of engagement: Avoiding direct superpower conflict

• Rules for spheres of influence

  • Stay out of the other Superpower’s sphere - not directly

  • In areas between spheres rely on proxies if other superpower intervenes

  • Don’t get directly involved to avoid conflict

Why the Long Peace? Answer #2

• Nuclear weapons

• So destructive that it causes fear

• Costs of warfare lead to great-power restraint

• Even if non-nuclear war, nuclear weapons might still be used

• Around 1960, stockpiles of warheads and delivery systems to hit the other Superpower’s homeland

• Emergence of the Balance of Terror and Mutual deterrence

• After Cuban missile crisis = no major crisis

Why the Long Peace? Answer #3

• American Economic Predominance

• U.S. = Econ power

• Hegemonic stability

  • Dominant power = long peace

  • USSR retreated into Econ isolation

Why the Long Peace? Answer #4

• Obsolescence of War

  • A cognitive shift so that war is unimaginable

  • Change in Society’s beliefs & morals

Will the end of the Long Peace bring more conflict?

• Evidence is inconclusive’

  • Total wars increased

  • Mostly Civil Wars

  • Little sovereign state wars

• Prognoses are uncertain

How do political scientists make predictions about the future?

Have comparable shifts in the international system in the past produced more or less conflict?

If polarity is more important?

• Shift to multipolarity - more conflict

• Shift to unipolarity - less conflict

If nuclear deterrence is more important?

• End of Cold War is insignificant

• Proliferation may generalize the restraining effect

• More states will develop the restraint of older nuclear powers

If economic hegemony is more important?

• If American hegemony continues then peace is more likely

• American hegemonic decline portends more conflict during the transition

• A new hegemon (like China) will bring new peace

If ideas are more important?

• The rejection of war will deepen peace

• Or a new clash of civilizations (identities) will produce new and more intense conflicts

Levels of Analysis (Images)

• The distinction among levels of analysis or images concerns the cases that are compared

  • An epistemological distinction (epistemology = how we study reality)

• Second Image

• Third Image

Second Image

• State-as-actor

  • Comparing states

• Causes & consequences of the behavior of the state

• Compare structure of state and attributed that cause them to behave a certain way

Third Image

• Comparing international systems

• Total view of environment

• Compare structure of international systems and how that affects conflicts and cooperation

Three Analytic Approaches

• Political Realism

• Political Economy

• Political Sociology

• Each theory is a simplification

• Empirical theories so it must be corroborated by evidence of patterns across many cases

Political Realism

• Humans as power seekers

• Conflict/cooperation is in pursuit of power

Political economy

• Humans as consumers or producers

• Conflict/cooperation is in pursuit of economic benefits

Political Sociology

• Humans with identities, beliefs, or values

• Conflict/cooperation is in pursuit of personal beliefs

Classical Political Realism

• Three assumptions about all states

• Three differences among states that explain why they behave differently

Three assumptions about all states

• Unitary actor

  • State is one united who craves power

• Rational decision making

  • Make the best decision for their own good & goal

• Pursuit of national interest defined as power

Three Differences among states that explain why they behave differently

• Power capabilities

  • How strong or weak a state is?

• Threats to their power interests

  • Depends on their priorities

  • Geographical location in relations to enemies

  • Threat of enemies

• Opportunities to defend or expand power

Domestic Politics theories of foreign policy behavior

• Domestic power constraints on leaders

• Threats and opportunities to stay in office that originate in domestic power games

Theory of totalitarianism in domestic politics theories of foreign policy behavior

• Survival of totalitarian regimes necessitates expansion

• Total control at home creates deprivation that the regime tries to justify by constant foreign policy crises and expansion

Domestic power constraints on leaders

• Democracies are less likely to pursue aggressive foreign policies due to

  • Electoral connection/democratic accountability

  • Institutional checks in decision making/checks and balances

• Governmental (Bureaucratic) Politics Models

  • Power inside the executive branch

Power

• A political actor has power over another to the extent the first can get the second to do something that the first wants and the second would not otherwise have done

• Relationship among people

• Casual relationship

• Is used instrumentally, purposefully, not impulsively, expressively, cathartically

How does influence and force fit into power?

1. Simple influence

2. Brute Force

3. Armed Influence

Simple influence

• Diplomatic approaches

• Just talking to other country

Brute Force

• Induces outcome

• ex. Air Strike, Invasions

Armed influence

• Threat of force as influence

• Use of force as influence

Threat of force as influence

• A threat in order to influence the other side’s choice

• ex: JFK’s Speech

Use of force as influence

• Measured and calculating use of force to induce the other to choose the option you desire

• ex: Naval blockade to quarantine Cuba

Instruments of Power

• Economic rewards and sanctions

• Diplomacy and Propaganda

• Military Forces

Economic rewards and sanctions

• Economic aid and sanctions (and threats and promises of these) to influence others foreign policy behavior

• Economic sanctions to cripple other states’ ability to do certain things versus sanctions to induce behavior

  • Instruments of force

  • ex: Restrictions to technology

Diplomacy and Propaganda

• Persuasion of foreign governments (diplomacy) or their populations (propaganda) to influence foreign policy

• Can propaganda be weaponized

  • Yes, to cause a rebellion through Gov disinformation

Military Forces

• Brute force to produce the desired outcome directly

• Armed influence to persuade others to produce the desired outcome for you

  • Deterrence

    • Do not change your course of action

  • Compellence

    • Change your course of action

Three essential elements of influence

• Threats and Promises

• The problem of “cheap talk”

• Credible-commitments problem

Threats and Promises

• You influence

  • Their choice among their options by influencing

    • their expectations of

    • your response to

    • their choice

The problem of “cheap talk”

• Costless to issue a threat or promise, but costly to the issuer to implement the threat or promise

Credible-commitments problem

• Tactics for making commitments credible

Political Economic Origins

• Karl Marx

  • Individuals as producers

  • Classes defined by our role in the production process

  • Cooperation within classes

• Adam Smith

  • Individuals as consumers

  • Endless search to meet insatiable desire for wealth

  • Profit motive

• James Buchanan

  • Economic man is a selfish brute who devotes himself single mindedly to maximizing the present value of his measurable wealth

The Political Economic Tradition - Marxian Tradition

• Vladimir Lenin

  • Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism

  • Monopoly capitalism as ultimate stage of capitalism

    • Produce more than can be bought by domestic workers

  • Division of the third world

  • War among imperialist powers

• Source of aggression by states is found in this economic foundation

• Some economic systems are inherently prone to warmaking, some are inherently peaceful

• Wars are part of the very nature of capitalism, cease only when capitalism is abolished

Positive Political Economy

• Joseph Schumpeter, The Sociology of Imperialism

• Capitalists’ interests harmed by war

• Mercantilism and empires prior to capitalism

• Non-capitalist states and modern empires

Political Sociological Tradition Origins

• Emile Durkheim

• Max Weber

• Conflict and cooperation due to diverging or shared identities, beliefs, or values

  • Sometimes give rise to intense emotions and even irrationality

Political Sociological Tradition: Regime and Leadership ideologies

• Cult of the offensive

• Nazi ideology (Mein Kampf as a blueprint)

• Marxism-Leninism in Communist foreign policy

Political Sociological Tradition: Informal political culture

• Louis Hartz The Liberal Tradition in America

• Lockean liberalism explains aggressions

• Homogeneity and Liberal absolutism

  • All are created equal

  • Paranoia about Communism

  • Never had any extremist ideology

• Anti-Communist crusades abroad

Political Sociological Tradition: Identities

• Nationalism

  • German & Italian Irredentism

  • Putin’s Russian Nationalism

How do theories become theories?

• Premises (assumptions)

  • ex: Economic basis of politics and policy

• Theoretical Development (logic)

  • ex: Explanation why advanced capitalism needs foreign markets

• Hypotheses

  • ex: Predictions of aggressive foreign policies by advanced capitalist states

  • Must be tested to be IR theories

Why Theory?

• Theory as a road map

  • Useful simplification

• Theory spotlights the most important causes

• Theory permits generalization across cases

• Theory permits us to predict the likely consequences of our actions