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As you you may recall, world leaders and scholars think about international relations using
different perspectives. A perspective is a particular attitude towards how international
relations works and how actors should react that emphasizes certain facts over others.
The oldest international relations perspective is called realism or the realist perspective.
This mini-lecture will introduce the major concepts that define realism.
▶One way to distinguish between perspectives is to ask yourself the question, "Is war between
nations inevitable?" Recorded history if full of efforts by those who answer this question
in the negative to create international rules to make life more stable and predictable by
decreasing the outbreak of violent aggression between nations. So far, these efforts have
failed including the Peace (or Treaty) of Westphalia in 1648 that marks the beginning
of modern international relations, the Concert of Europe in the 19th Century, the League
of Nations, and the United Nations. If you believe the failure of these efforts was inevitable,
you might be a realist. ▶The realist perspective sees the world
largely in terms of an inevitable struggle for power and survival between unequal states.
To understand and apply this perspective to (1) describe, explain, and predict international
events and (2) proscribe how international actors should behave requires mastering ten
basic concepts. You may wish to pause the video to write these ten concepts down. You
can find more detailed definitions in your textbook or online.
▶The historical failure of grand peace projects makes it relatively easy to understand why
the first broad perspective on international relations was a little pessimistic about the
long-term prospects for peace. The first realists made three observations or assumptions about
the how international relations works: No central authority stands above the state,
this is a condition known as anarchy. Realists assume this condition will be be permeant.
▶Anarchy is such an important concept, we'll step to the side for the moment to define
it. Anarchy is a system operating in the absence of any central government. It does not imply
chaos but the absence of political authority. Internally, states have solved the problem
of order and established security by establishing sovereignty. Externally, there is no sovereignty
and thus anarchy. ▶In anarchy, states cannot assume others
will help them survive and they must rely on self-help.
Self-help
requires states have more power — the means available to secure its interests — relative
to others. A state's primary responsibility is to create, maintain, and increase its national
power — the means available to a state to secure its national interest — at all costs
▶The logical conclusion of these three assumptions is the inevitability of conflict due to the
security dilemma. As states acquire more power to defend themselves due to the self-help requirement, they also
become a greater threat to others. This traps states in an arms race that inevitably leads
to war. The next three slides show this logic in action.
▶Assume a world with just three states. State A has one unit of power and State B
and C have none. State A is a threat to States B and C. ▶This leads States B and C to arm
themselves, making them a threat to State A. ▶State A increases its power to compensate.
▶States B and C are again threatened by State A and they also increase their power.
This process cycles endlessly until it is broken by war.
▶Although realists believe the security dilemma is as permanent as anarchy, they recognize
that its worst effects (like total war) can be delayed. In other words, anarchy and the
security dilemma do not mean constant war, just the inevitability of one in the future.
Since war threatens the survival of a state, realists seek ways to delay the start of the
next conflict. There are two major methods realists propose about how
to achieve this. The first is called the balance of power. It assumes that states will seek
only enough power to defend themselves against others. A second strategy, hegemony, assumes states
will seek enough power until they have the majority of power in their region or even
globally. Realists disagree about which of these approaches is better at moderating the
excesses of the security dilemma. ▶The debate between balance of power realists
and power transition realists is ultimately about polarity, or the structure or distribution
of power between states. In a unipolar world, a single actor has enough power to dominate
as a hegemon. In a balance of power world which may be bipolar or multipolar, there
is a rough balance between the great powers.
▶States have several different strategies that can pursue in to enhance their chance of survival in anarchy and to affect the polarity
of the international system. Four of the most common strategies form a sort of menu of choices
from which states states can choose. The classic realist strategy for states, especially
for powerful states, is balancing. In this strategy, states work to maintain the balance
of power by forming temporary alliances to ensure no single state gets too powerful.
For example, in the 19th century, Great Britain was a decisive influence in maintaining or
restoring the balance of power in Europe by supporting weaker nations threatened by its
rivals. An alternative strategy is called buckpassing.
States that adopt this strategy still want to maintain the relative balance of power
between states, but want to avoid the cost associated with balancing. States can take
the risk that another state will pay the costs of balancing. For example, during the Cold
War the U.S. payed a larger share of the cost of defending Europe from the Soviet Union
than Western European states helping them to fund a more generous social welfare programs.
Another alternative to balancing is bandwagoning, which is when states align with a greater
power to either share the spoils of dominance or to avoid the costs of opposition. For example,
in World War II Italy joined Germany and Japan to share in the spoils of war. In the same
conflict, after Germany's destruction of Poland, Romania and Bulgaria sided with Germany to avoid being occupied. All of these
are cases of bandwagoning. A final strategy, hiding, is available to
small states. States can try to stay so small powerful states may ignore or forget them.
States that are "hiding" often declare themselves as neutral, but neutrality can also be a form
of buckpassing.