- It is the dominant school of thought in international relations before World War I and after World War II.
- The idea behind realism is that world politics is all about struggle and a quest for power in the international system.
- States are the key actors in the present international system. International organizations, such as the United Nations, are secondary actors.
- Every state tries to become more powerful because only power can guarantee survival of a state.
- This struggle for power results in conflicts between states.
- Anarchy, or lawlessness, dominates the international arena. There is no world government that can enforce laws or punish aggression.
- Because there’s no authority, such as a world government, to prevent conflict, every state is on its own. In other words, every state lives in a self-help system where the strong will survive and the weak will perish.
- Security necessitates a strong powerful military and a good economic foundation.
- Military force is a necessity. You not only have to possess it, but you also have to be willing to use it. The use of military force to acquire power and assure the survival of the country is justified at any point.
- International morality is not relevant. The highest moral goal of a country is to assure its own survival.
- High politics dominates. With the security of a state being the ultimate objective, only foreign policy matters, because only it can guarantee security.
- Idealism is utopian: A realist believes that idealists are utopian. Their ideas are based on wishful thinking about the nature of people. Realists advocate looking at the real world and not at how things should be.
Balancing power: The balance of power theory
The balance of power theory is one of the oldest realist theories used to study international relations. The balance of power theory was used by statesmen in ancient Greece and Rome and advocated by great writers such as the Italian political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli. The theory is based on the idea that states interact with each other and that this interaction causes our present-day international state system. Beginning with the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, it became the dominant foreign policy concept of the day.From King Louis XIV of France to the great Prussian ruler Frederick the Great to even Napoleon, balance of power became the foundation for foreign policy. It can be used to explain foreign policy events from the Concert of Vienna, which ended the Napoleonic Wars, to World War I (1914–1918).
Seeing how the theory works
The balance of power theory is fairly simple in nature. It stipulates that all great powers — at least two are needed for the theory to work — are similar in size and power. The power of a country is measured in both military and economic terms. If this is the case, the world will be in balance and peace will result. If, however, one country grows too powerful, it will upset the balance. This in turn will result in conflict, even war, because the system is out of balance. To rebalance the international system, other nations will have to combine and rebalance the system. This is done using warfare. For example, Germany grew rapidly economically and militarily in the late 19th century. By 1914, it had upset the balance of power in Europe and other countries such as France, Great Britain, and even Russia combined against it. The resulting conflict, World War I, rebalanced the system by weakening Germany.
Noting whether it’s still applicable today
For balance of power theory to work, certain preconditions have to be in place. First, as previously mentioned, all the great powers have to be similar in size and power, both economically and militarily. This isn’t always the case. After World War II, the U.S. enjoyed a period of unipolarity, or sole power, because it was the only great power left. It took the Soviet Union years to catch up and rebalance the system. The same happened after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The U.S. had again become the hegemon, or sole superpower in the world. It took a decade for other powers such as China, Russia, and the European Union to become relevant again.Second, a willingness to use force has to be in place for balance of power to work. Countries have to be willing to use force to rebalance the international system. Examples are the Napoleonic Wars and World War I.
Third, a system of flexible alliances has to be in place. This refers to countries switching allies quickly to rebalance the system. To be able to do so, you need to forsake a former ally and align with a former enemy if needed. Great Britain, for example, fought France for hundreds of years and was on good terms with Germany. However, when Germany became too powerful in the late 19th century, it switched sides quickly and aligned itself with its former enemy France against former ally Germany.
Fourth, an agreement on rules of conduct during warfare has to exist. If you go to war against a country, you have to keep in mind that that country could be a future ally. Therefore, a war can’t be too devastating because any enemy is a future friend.
Finally, to be able to conduct a foreign policy based on balance of power, you have to have skilled foreign policy leaders. The need to constantly monitor the international arena for any possible upset of the balance of power and the willingness to bargain and compromise with not just allies but also enemies takes time and especially diplomatic skills.
Avoiding conflict: The power transition model
The power transition model is a realist model developed by political scientist A. F. K. Organski in 1958. It is a theory developed to explain peace and conflict in international relations.The power transition model arrives at the exact opposite conclusion that balance of power theory does. The transition theory states that any balance — two or more powers being equal — results in conflict. Therefore, any kind of balance, or states being similar in power, needs to be avoided. Instead, one all-powerful country (the technical term is hegemon) is needed to maintain peace and stability within the international system. This all-powerful country dominates the system, polices it, and maintains the peace. However, whenever another great power rises and suddenly equals the hegemon, it challenges the hegemon, and conflict occurs. Therefore, a balance within the system leads to conflict, while an imbalance — one power dominating the system — results in peace.
Conflict will occur only if a rising secondary power is dissatisfied with the way the hegemon runs the international system. As long as it benefits from the system, it won’t challenge the hegemon but will continue to become more powerful over time.
For example, many believe that the U.S. became the hegemon for a second time after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The U.S. dominated the international arena and maintained peace within it. Whenever aggression by minor countries occurred, such as in 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the U.S. would take care of business, in this case with Operation Desert Storm, and resolve the conflict. However, today the U.S. is clearly not the hegemon anymore, being challenged by China and a rapidly rising Russia. But both China and Russia do benefit economically from the international system and so far have decided not to challenge the U.S. but rather sit back and have the U.S. police the world while they continue to get more powerful militarily and economically. At some point, however, a challenge to the U.S. may occur, especially from China.Noting neorealism
Neorealism isn’t a new school in international relations but an update to classical realism. Neorealism accepts all the foundations of realism, such as the fact that the state is the key unit of analysis, that anarchy is at the root of the international system, that states pursue power for security, and that states are rational actors, which engage in policies that will benefit them and guarantee their security in the long run.Neorealists also agree that a strong military with a willingness to use military force as a foreign policy tool is necessary to survive in the international arena. However, neorealists find realism lacking in many areas. They believe that classical realism is inadequate because it ignores the role international law and international organizations can play in international relations. Further, realism doesn’t account for global economic integration and the impact domestic politics can play on a country’s foreign policy. Can you really ignore public opinion or the role of interest groups when studying the foreign policy of a nation?
Neorealists thus argue that political scientists today have to not only study high politics (foreign and security policy) but also focus on international organizations and international law as well as low politics (domestic politics, such as economic and social policy).
For this reason, a more comprehensive approach to the study of international relations is needed. The integration of international organizations, international law, and low politics completes realism, giving a comprehensive approach to the study of world politics.
An example of neorealist theory is called the theory of hegemonic stability and was developed by Robert Gilpin in his seminal work War & Change in World Politics (published in 1981 by Cambridge University Press). The work details how countries become all powerful and then create international systems from which they benefit. However, over time, these hegemons decline and are replaced. The work further discusses in detail the reasons these hegemons decline and mentions ways to prevent decline.
In other words, check out the rise and decline of nations. This figure presents the theory in a nutshell.
The theory of hegemonic stability.Following are three possible results of hegemonic or world wars:
- The hegemon wins the war, and no major changes occur to the international system. The challenger is beaten back, and the world returns to the status quo.
- The challenger wins the hegemonic war, and a new international system from which the challenger benefits the most is established.
- Both hegemon and challenger destroy each other, and a third power by default becomes the new hegemon and establishes a system from which it benefits the most.
Second, by 1900, Germany had grown both economically and militarily in Europe and presented a challenge to the then-hegemon Great Britain. By 1914, a hegemonic war broke out, World War I. However, the hegemon prevailed, the challenger was defeated, and no changes occurred to the international system.
The third example revolves around World War II. The hegemon was still Great Britain with the U.S. going back to isolationism after World War I. The new challengers were once again Germany and this time also Italy and Japan. During the ensuing hegemonic war, the hegemon and all challengers were either destroyed or weakened, and there was a power vacuum. The U.S. by default slid into it and became the new hegemon. Next, it established our current international system.
Moving into hegemonic decline
Why do great powers decline over time? This question is all important for the U.S. With the U.S. being the hegemon for most of the time since the end of World War II, it’s imperative to discover the causes of decline. If we can determine these causes, it may be possible to slow down or even reverse them. The next sections list some causes of decline and some possible solutions to them.Overextension
With a hegemon having to control and police the international system it created, overextension, or imperial overstretch, sets in over time. Today, the U.S. has to have military bases all over the world to respond to any form of aggression quickly. In addition, military alliances, such as NATO in Europe, have to be formed to be able to exercise control globally. Although NATO has proven to be very beneficial containing first the Soviet Union during the Cold War and now Russia, this has come at an enormous cost to the U.S.Currently, the U.S. spends the most of any country in the world on its military, more than 3 percent of its GDP, while most allies don’t spend even the 2 percent minimum requested by NATO in 2014. Possible challengers such as China do spend quite a bit but don’t come even close to the U.S.’s military spending. Over time, massive military expenditures can cripple an economy because the monies spent can’t be used on other necessities such as keeping up a country’s infrastructure or being put into research and development.
The law of increasing cost of war
The hegemon has to have the most powerful military in the world and constantly develop newer and better military technology. This is expensive, and often after the development of new weapons systems, allies and possible challengers will receive the technology for free or just steal it.The law of stagnation
The law of stagnation is an old economic concept trying to explain why some economies grow and some don’t. It stipulates the following: For an economy and a country to grow, it has to have low consumption of goods by its population, high investment in research and development in the economy, and low protection costs. For a hegemon, however, protection costs are very high, and its population consumes more than it should, which leads to not very much monies available for investment. Because investment in new technology and new infrastructure makes an economy strong and a country powerful in the long run, and the hegemon is now lacking in investment, the hegemonic country begins to decline.Changes in economic structures
History has shown that growth in the manufacturing sector makes a country powerful. Industries such as steel, chemicals, and the military industrial complex turned the U.S. into the hegemon after World War II.By becoming the most powerful country in the world and creating an international system from which it benefited the most, especially economically, the U.S. became very prosperous within decades. This resulted in a shift in the economy. The manufacturing sector began to decline, and the service sector increased. Although the service sector is necessary and often more profitable than the manufacturing sector, it doesn’t contribute much to a country’s economic power. The steel industry is one of the backbones of any powerful economy, not Starbucks selling fancy coffee.
Population growth
Although population growth is necessary for a powerful country, too much of it can be detrimental. With the U.S. growing in wealth, it became the envy of the world. Citizens from other countries wanted to share in the U.S. wealth, and more and more began to emigrate to the U.S. While legal immigration can be very beneficial, the best and the brightest wanting to move to the U.S., illegal immigration can have mixed results. Many illegal immigrants tend to be less educated and have lower skill levels than legal immigrants. For this reason, they take manual labor jobs, many American citizens won’t take because they believe they are too qualified. These include jobs in construction, meatpacking and agriculture. At the same time, they also rely on the hegemon’s extended welfare benefits, especially free education and subsidized housing. When an economy begins to decline or economic crisis suddenly strikes this can become an economic and political problem for the hegemon.Solutions to decline
What can be done about these factors contributing to the decline of the hegemon? Following are some answers.- Cut protection costs. One attempt to reverse decline involves cutting the costs of protection. The U.S. has worked on this for decades. American military bases all over the world have been closed, and allies have been asked to contribute more. For example, NATO has been asked to spend more on its military and has actively contributed in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan, lowering American costs.
- Bring in an ally. A new powerful ally can be brought in on the hegemon’s side. Its power makes up for the hegemons’ decline of power. In the early 1970s, the U.S. actively courted China as an ally against the Soviet Union. Today, relations with China have become more problematic and the emphasis has shifted to India.
- Reduce consumption. To lower consumption within the hegemon’s economy, hard and often politically impossible choices are needed. Keep in mind that people love to buy products (consume). Who doesn’t want to have the newest iPhone? However, by consuming too much, especially by going into debt to consume, money is taken away from investment. Investment is what made the hegemon’s economy powerful. The only way to reduce consumption in a society is to take purchasing power from citizens. This involves higher taxes and higher interest rates. It would be political suicide for any politician to advocate for this. For this reason, most hegemons historically have not been able to stop decline and have been replaced by another country at the top.