ABSTRACT OF “THE TRAGEDY OF GREAT POWER POLITICS”, BY JOHN J. MEARSHEIMMER.

ABSTRACT OF “THE TRAGEDY OF GREAT POWER POLITICS”, BY JOHN J. MEARSHEIMMER.

ð Reject the view that the assumptions that underpin a theory need not conform to reality.

o Sound theories are based on sound assumptions.

ð Highlights the reality of the 5 realist assumptions:

1. International System is anarchic.

a. The realist notion of anarchism has nothing to do with conflict; it is an ordering principle, which says that the system comprises independent states that have no central authority above them.

2. Great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability, which gives them the wherewithal to hurt and possibility to destroy each other.

3. States can never be certain about other states’ intentions.

a. There are many causes of aggression, and no state can be sure that another state is not motivated by one of them.

b. Intentions can change quickly.

4. Survival is the primary goal of great powers.

5. Great powers are rational actors.

a. They consider the preferences of other states and how their own behavior is likely to affect the behavior of those other states, and how the behavior of those other states is likely to affect their own strategy for survival.

ð None of these assumptions alone dictates that great powers as a general rule should behave aggressively toward each other.

ð 3 general patterns of behavior result:

o Fear.

§ “911 problem – the absence of a central authority to which a threatened state can turn for help”.

§ Political competition among states is a much more dangerous business than more economic intercourse; the former can lead to war and war often means mass killing on the battlefield as well as mass murder of civilians.

· Political antagonism tends to be intense because the stakes are great.

§ How much states fear each other matters greatly, because the amount of fear between them largely determines the severity of their security competition, as well as the probability that they will fight a war.

· Anarchy, difficulty to indentify states intention, power-maximation behavior and other realist assumptions canot explain variations in fear levels because constants can’t explain variations.

· The key is looking to states power, because the more power a state possesses, the more fear it generates among its rivals.

o Here it is important to distinguish among potential and actual power:

i. Potential power is based on the size of its population and the level of its wealth.

ii. Actual power aims armies as the central ingredient of military power, because they are the principal instrument for conquering and controlling territory – the paramount poitical objective in a world of territorial states.

o Power affect the level of fear among states in 3 ways:

i. Nuclear states that possess nuclear forces that can survive a nuclear attack and retaliate against are likely to fear each other less than if these same states had no nuclear weapons.

a. But as cold war demonstrates, this does not mean that war between nuclear powers is no longer thinkable; they still have reason to fear each other.

ii. Large bodies of water are formidable abstacles that cause significant power-projection problems for attacking armies.

a. In good part, that’s why U.S. have never been invaded by another great power, or has never tried to conquer territory in Europe or Northeast Asia.

b. That’s why the U.K. has never tried to dominate the European continent.

§ I PARTICULARY DISAGREE TO EVERYTHING THIS PSYCHOTIC SAYS, HOWEVER, I MUST SPECIALY POINT HERE THAT HE IS POURPOSELY FORGETTING THE EUROPEAN WARS U.K. TOOK PART, AS FOR THE FLADRES, AND ALSO THAT WATER WAS NOT AN OBSTACLE FOR IMPERIALISM AND COLONIZATION. THIS IS SIMPLY RIDICULOUS.

iii. The distribution of power among the states in the system also markedly affects the levels of fear.

a. The configuration which generates most fear is the “unbalanced multipolarity”, which has a ‘potential hegemon’.

§ A potential hegemon is more than the most powerfull state in the system. It is a great power with so much actual military capability and so much potential power that it stands a good chance of dominating and controlling all of the other great powers in its region of the world.

§ The key relationship is the power gap between the potential hegemon and the 2^nd most powerful state in the system.

o When a state survey its environment to determine which states pose a threat to its survival, it focuses on the offensive capabilities of potential rivals, not their intentions.

§ Intentions are ultimately unknowable.

o Self-help.

§ Does not preclude states from forming alliances, but alliances are just temporary marriages of convenience.

· E.G: U.S fought with China and URSS against Germany in WW-II, but changed it soon after the war ended.

o Power maximization.

§ Apprehensive about the ultimate intentions of other states, and aware that they operate in a self-help system, states quickly understand that the best way to ensure their survival is to be the most powerful state in the system.

§ The ideal situation is to be the hegemon in the system.

· Hegemon is a state that is so powerful that dominates all the other states in the system.

· E.G: U.K. in the mid-nineteenth century is sometimes called hegemon, but it was not, because there were 4 other great powers in Europe at the time – Austria, France, Prussia and Russia.

· Global hegemons are distinct from Regional hegemons.

· There has never been a global hegemon, and there is not likely to be one anytime soon.

o The best outcome a great power can hope for is to be a regional hegemon and possibly control another region that is nearby and accessible over land.

o U.S is the only regional hegemon in modern history.

§ Imperial Japan in Northeast Asia, Napoleonic France, Wilhelmine Germany and Nazy Germany in Europe didn’t succeed, besides trying.

· States that achieve a regional hegemony seek to prevent great powers in other regions from duplicating their feat.

o E.G: U.S. played a key role in preventing Imperial Japan, Wilhelmine Germany, Nzy Germany and Soviet Union from gaining regional hegemony.

o Regional hegemons prefer that there be at least two great powers located together in other regions, because their proximity will force than to concentrate their attention on each other rather than on the distant hegemon.

· Given the non-global hegemony reality, the ideal situation for any great power is to be the only regional hegemon in the world.

ð Because one state’s gain in power is another state’s loss, great powers tend to have a zero-sum mentality when dealing with each other.

ð States are disposed to think offensively toward other states, even though their ultimate motive is simply to survive.

ð Great states have aggressive intentions.

o Even when a great power achieves a distinct military advantage over its rivals, it continues looking for chances to gain more power.

o The pursuit of power stops only when hegemony is achieved.

o The idea that a great power might feel secure without dominating the system, provided it has an ‘appropriate amount’ of power, is not persuasive, for two reasons:

a) It is difficult to assess how much relative power one state must have over its rivals before it is secure.

b) Determining how much power is enough becomes even more complicated when great powers contemplate how power will be distributed among them ten or twenty years down the road.

· Capabilities of the states vary over time, sometimes markedly, and it is often difficult to predict the direction and the scope of change in the balance of power.

o E.G: Few in the West anticipated the collapse of the Soviet Union before it happened.

ð Given the difficulty of determining how much power is enough for today and tomorrow, great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibility of a challenge by another great power.

ð All states are influenced by this logic, which means that not only do they look for opportunities to take advantage of one another, they also work to ensure that other states do not take advantage of them.

ð This leads to a world in which peace, defined as tranquility or mutual concord, is not likely to break out.

ð Security Dilemma: 1^st introduced by John Hertz (1950).

o Means that the measure one state takes to increase its own security is usually decreases the security of other states.

ð The best defense is a good offense.

ð Little can be done to ameliorate the security dilemma as long as states operate in anarchy.

ð To say that states are power maximizations is tantamount to saying that they care about relative power, not absolute power.

ð Power is not a means to an end (survival), but an end in itself.

ð Nevertheless, great powers cannot always act on their offensive intentions, because behavior is influenced not only by what states want, but also by their capacity to realize these desires.

ð A great power that has a marked power advantage over its rivals is likely to behave more aggressively, because it has the capability as well as the incentive to do so.

ð States also have the capability to gain advantage over a rival power but nevertheless decide that the perceived costs of offense are too high and do not justify the expected benefits.

ð They weigh the costs and risks of offense against the likely benefits and if the benefits do not outweigh the risks, they sit tight and wait for a more propitious moment. Nor do states start arms races that are unlikely to improve their overall position. .

o Nevertheless, great powers miscalculate from time to time because they invariably make important decisions on the basis of imperfect information.

§ States hardly ever have complete information about any situation they confront.

ð Some defensive realists go so far as to suggest that constraints of the international system are so powerful that offense rarely succeeds and that aggressive great powers invariably end up being punished.

o 2 main claims of the defensive realists:

a) Threatened states balance against aggressors and ultimately crush them.

§ CRITIQUES OF THE OFFENSIVE REALISTS:

i. There is no quest on that systemic factors constrain aggression, especially balancing by threatened states. But defensive realists exaggerate those restraining forces.

b) There is an offense-defense balance that is usually heavily tilted toward the defense, thus making conquest especially difficult.

§ CRITIQUES OF THE OFFENSIVE REALISTS:

i. The historical record shows that offense sometimes succeeds and sometimes does not. The trick for a sophisticated power maximize is to figure out when to raise and when to fold.

ð Great powers balance against capabilities, not intentions.

o Thus, great powers tend to fear states with large populations and rapidly expanding economies, even if these states have not yet translated their wealth into military might.

ð States can pursue non-security goals as long as they don’t conflict with balance-of-power.

o Sometimes non-security goals complements the hunt for relative power, and so get bounded to the security dilemma.

ð Great powers do not work together to promote world order for its own sake.

o Instead, each seeks to maximize its own share of world power, which is likely to clash with the goal of creating and sustaining stable international orders.

o Great powers cannot put aside power considerations and work to promote international peace because they cannot be sure that their efforts will succeed. If their attempt fails, they are likely to pay a steep price for having neglected the balance of power.

ð States con cooperate, although cooperation is sometimes difficult to achieve and always difficult to sustain. 2 main difficulties:

i. Considerations about relative gains

ii. Concern about cheating

o Rivals as well as allies cooperate.

o After all, deals can be struck that roughly reflect the distribution of power and satisfy concerns about cheating.

§ E.G: Various agreement on arms control during the Cold War.

ð NO AMOUNT OF COOPERATION CAN ELIMINATE THE DOMINATING LOGIC OF SECURITY COMPETITION.

o Genuine peace, or a state in which states do not compete for power, is not likely as the state system remains anarchic.

ð The structure of the international system, not the particular characteristics of individual great powers, causes them to think and act offensively and to seek hegemony.