12. Military Power and National Security

• Questions:

- if you were a head of state,

: what budget priorities would you propose for your country’s national security or your citizens’ human security?

- how would you reconcile the need for defense against terrorism with the need to provide for the common welfare such as citizens’ standard of living, human development etc.?

Emperor Qin Shi Huang

• Emperor Qin Shi Huang

: born as Ying Zheng in 259 BC

: the son of the king of the Qin State.

: at the age of thirteen, he succeeded his father's regality.

• Ying Zheng : to unify all the states like Han, Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan and

Qi: realized his ambition: built the first feudal and centralized empire in Chinese

history in 221 BC. : the first emperor of a united China, so he proclaimed

himself Qin Shi Huang.: the Qin Dynasty (221 BC - 206 BC).

Achievements and Defects

• Qin Shi Huang reformed politics, economy and culture. : in culture, the emperor unified the Chinese characters in

writing: tax system began to function and coinage and metrology

were standardized

• in traditional Chinese historiography, the First Emperor was portrayed as a brutal tyrant: suppressed scholars and people

- who were not to his liking: had burned the classics : buried Confucian scholars alive

The Great Wall of China

• the Great Wall: the symbol of the Chinese ancient civilization

• fear of threat: China

- had to defend itself against the attacks of nomadic tribes, barbarians (Xiongnu), in the regions north of China

• hegemony/Chinese greatness: to the Chinese, their land and civilization

- at the center of the universe: the Great Wall kept these “inferior” people at bay and kept the

Chinese in China: it needed to be impressive and intimidating

• the Great Wall stretches for more than 4,000 miles• Qin Shi Huang built 1,400 miles

• General Meng Tien : employed some unhappy 300,000 men in the creation of the original

section of the wall. : the rulers

- used taxpaying peasants, convicts and other unfavorable groups to complete the Great Wall.

: during their construction, countless conscripts - lost their lives due to widespread disease and injury.

: an ancient Chinese myth - “each stone in the wall stands for a life lost in the wall's construction”

Decline of the First Emperor

• the emperor died in 210 BC while traveling

• the Chinese people

: were exhausted and bankrupt as well

• the Peasant Uprising led by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang

: broke out after Qin Shi Huang’s death

• the Qin Dynasty came to an abrupt end in 206 BC.

Elements of Power

• power

: the factors that enable one state to coerce another : the exercise of influence to control or dominate others

(1) realism

- military capability is the central element in state’s power potential

- reject the view of (neo)liberalism

: under condition of globalization

- economic resources is more crucial to national security

- human security than military power

• military capability• military expenditures

: the U.S. (the globe’s sole superpower) is the biggest spender on armament

- committing $396 billion for national security- more than the next 26 countries’ military

expenditure combined: the U.S. citizens pay $1,211 for defenses

Critics - it does not guarantee the security - the U.S. is most vulnerable to terrorist attacks - the size of the defense budge does not matter

- it matters whether the money is wisely spent

(2) liberalism: other factors of potential power• population size• territorial size• geographic position• technological level and capacity• national character• efficiency of government decision making• industrial productivity• trade volume• savings and investment• education level• national moral, internal solidarity

• territorial size

: Russia, China, the U.S. Brazil

• population

: China, India, the U.S., Indonesia

• expenditures on research and development

: Sweden, Finland, Japan, Switzerland, the U.S., Korea

(3) “power is relative”• power is relational and relative• power comes in many forms• few agree on how to measure their potential to exercise the

power

• power is not tangible commodity• judgment is subjective• the mere possession of weapons does not increase power

: thus intention – perceptions of them – is important when making threats

• historically, those who have the largest arsenals

: have not necessarily triumphed in political conflicts

- Vietnam war

- USSR in Afghanistan

- Swiss against Hapsburg Empire

- the Netherlands against Spain

• intangible factors such as the willingness of the target population to resist the great power

: a key element in the capacity of weaker state to defend itself

• nonetheless, many policymakers believe

: that the military capability is a prerequisite to the successful exercise of power

• Cycle of Revenge Fuels a Pattern of Iraqi Killings

• A soccer field in Sadr City where Shiite boys were killed by a mortar strike.

Changing Nature of World Power

• since the mid-1980s, the U.S.

: has spent two-thirds of its research budget on the military programs

• European countries

: two-thirds on the development of new technology for consumers and civilians

• Japan 99%

• military spending: - extracts other opportunity costs - retard economic growth - create fiscal deficits - peace dividend (the global savings from arms expenditure

reduction made possible by the end of Cold War) would exceed $400 billion, but the U.S. failed to do this

- rapid technological innovation creates the need for a more sophisticated weapon

- “guns versus butter”: the substantial costs of defense can erode national welfare

• the sources of power : moving away from the emphasis on military forces

• technology, education, and economic growth: becoming more important

• military forces : have often proven ineffectual against terrorist nonstate

actors • intelligence and communication [soft power]

: as important in counterterrorism as are military capabilities

• soft power

- associated with intangible resources such as culture, information, communications, institutions

- the ability to achieve goals through attraction rather than coercion

• hard power

- associated with tangible resources like military and economic strength

Trends in Military Spending

• how governments allocate their revenues reveals their values and priorities

• the global military expenditure in 2002 is the total of $798 billion • total expenditure worldwide peaked in 1987

: after which it fell about a third• since 1998, military spending in Asia (23%), Africa (37%), Russia

(44%), the U.S. (2.3%) has sharply risen

• the Global North

: spent more money on arms acquisitions• in 2000 the Global North $539 billion

: in contrast with the Global South’s $259 billion

The Great Power’s National Security Strategies

• in search for national security, all states face similar choices

• how should they reconcile the need for a strong military with the need for economic growth?

• the new age of global terrorism drives new strategic thinking

• Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Berlin, and Brussels : struggle to construct defense doctrines to manage the

security threats on the horizon• choices - isolationist withdrawal - active international engagement - unilateral self-help actions - multilateral actions with others - specialized bilateral alliance

U.S. National Security Strategy

• after September 11, U.S. global strategy : shifted in new directions to confront the dangers posed

by the new age of global terrorism

• the U.S. defined military security as its first priority ahead of

: economic recovery : the promotion of U.S. traditional ideas such as free trade

and free market

Explaining the Bush Doctrine - Jervis

United States• reemerging as the globe’s only superpower• regains sufficient supremacy

: in military, cultural, technological, economic clout• behave globally in terms of perceived national interest• act without approval of others, if necessary

- for these objectives, the U.S. : increased its defense budget, planning to spend $2,100 billion

on the military from 2003 to 2008- power

: defined in terms of military might, not in terms of the promotion of ideas such as free trade and government

• Bush Doctrine: assertive unilateral hegemonic leadership: the U.S. will have to lead by using military methods as

an imperial power

• the question: whether the assertive U.S. global ambition of

international affairs will prove beneficial or damaging

“America is both menace and seducer, both monster and model.” – German analyst Josef Joffe

• “we live in at time not only of opportunity, but also of great threat, posed by terrorists and rogue states”

• “We will not live in fear” – Bush’s Cincinnati speech, October 7, 2002

• the powerful psychological link between September 11 and the drive to depose Saddam

: an understandable desire for a safer world

: an understandable fear of fear, an impulse to assert control by acting

• the major element of the Doctrine: the establishment of American hegemony or empire

• “America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge – thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace.”– Bush’s speech at West Point

• the motives of Bush Doctrine are not selfish, but the combination of power, fear, and perceived opportunity

• the U.S.: be ready to wage preventive wars against emerging threats before they

are fully formed

• large obstacles (1) the relevant information is hard to obtain

- because it involves predictions about threats that reside sometime in the future

- it is hard to say that the states that oppress their own people will disturb the international system

(2) even information on capabilities and past behavior may be difficult to come by- the U.S. and Britain exaggerated and overestimated the extent of Iraqi

WMD program

Imperial Dangers – Ikenberry

• America’s nascent neo-imperial grand strategy

: trigger antagonism and resistance

- that will leave America in a more hostile world and a less secure situation

(1) unsustainable

: the neo-imperial grand strategy might succeed in removing Saddam Hussein

: but it is far less certain that it can work over the long term

(2) never simple

: the long tail of burdens – regime changes, peacekeeping, state building – comes with major military action

: more doubtful that the strategy can be sustained at home

- the U.S. needs a support of a growing economy in order to keep the military predominance

: overstretch?

(3) hard to cooperate in other areas- it cannot generate

: the cooperation needed to solve practical problems- trade liberalization, global financial

stabilization, environmental protection, managing rise of China etc.

- the U.S. is a unipolar military power: but economic and political power is more evenly

distributed across the globe: the major states may not directly restrain American

military policy- but they can make the U.S. pay a price in other

areas

(4) self-encirclement: powerful states

- tend to trigger self-encirclement by their own overestimation of their power

: Louis XIV, Napoleon, and post-Bismark Germany - sought to expand their imperial domains - imposed a coercive order on others

: their imperial orders were broken down - when other countries decided they were not

prepared to live in a world dominated by a coercive state

: history will repeat

The Preferences of Liberalists

• the U.S.

: stronger militarily than it has ever been in history, but it has been more vulnerable

• under the period of globalization

: the U.S. is more dependent on others than ever

• the world’s only superpower

: cannot go it alone

• it is imperative that the U.S. seeks constructive relations with others

• the U.S. must rely on

: less “hard power” (military capabilities)

: more “soft power” (the appeal of America’s humanitarian values and culture and its free institutions)

• soft power

: provide the basis for the U.S. to fashion the globe into the peaceful place

13. The Realist Road to Security: Alliances, the Balance of Power, and

Arms Control

The Quest for Theory: Realism

• Key Units: Independent States / Stats are Unitary and Rational Actors

• Motives of Actors: Lust for Power, National Interest

• Core Concern: Security and War / National Interests / Power

• Outlook on Global Perspectives: Pessimistic• Major Approach: Alliance, Balance of Power and

Arms Control

The Realist Road to Security: Policy Recommendations

Realist Policy Prescriptions and Premises

• Prepare for War: If you want peace, prepare for war• Remain Vigilant: No state is to be trusted further than

its national interest• Avoid Moralism: Standards of right and wrong apply to

individuals, not states; the ends justify the means• Actively Intervene: Isolationism is not an alternative to

active global involvement

• Protect with Arms

: Strive to increase military capabilities, and fight rather than submit to subordination.

• Preserve the Balance of Power

: Do not let any state or coalition of states become predominant.

• due to the escalating destructive power of modern weapons, most of states’ sense of national security decreased (security dilemma)

• states reject the liberal path to peace which recommend to build institutions, laws, integration

• states follow the realist path: states can

- (1) arm themselves

- (2) form (or sever) alliances

- (3) negotiate arms control and disarmantal agreement to reduce the threat of adversary’s weapons

Alliances• alliances form when two or more states face a

common security threat

(the U.S. vs. Japan, the U.S. vs. Korea, and the U.S. vs. the Europe)

• formal agreements to coordinate behavior• two or more states combine military capabilities• when facing the common threat

: this provides the reduction of the probabilities to be attacked

• allies don’t ally with enemies

Realist Criticisms of Alliances

• British Lord Palmerston in 1848 advised

that states should have no eternal allies and no perpetual enemies (the U.S. and Japan, the U.S. and Russia)

- once the common threat disappears, the usefulness of alliance is certain to change (the U.S. vs. Europe)

• five fundamental flaws of alliance formation

: provoke formation of counter-alliances (NATO vs. Warsaw)

: enable aggressive states to combine military capabilities for aggression (Axis – WWII)

: can draw neutral states into opposed coalitions (Austria)

: today’s ally may be tomorrow’s enemy• but alliances can still be useful

Balance of Power Models

• military power can be distributed in different ways – polarity (unipolar, bipolar, multipolar)

• long cycle(1) unipolarity, 1945-1949(2) bipolarity, 1949-1991(3) multipolarity, 1991-2001(4) unipolarity, today- ?

- polarity: number of power poles (center)- polarization: the process to which states

cluster in alliances around the most powerful members of the state system

• which type of polarity – unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity - is the most capable of preventing war?

(1) unipolarity : the concentration of power reduces the chances of war

- because a hegemon maintains peace and manages the international system

: the long peace under the Pax Britannica in the 1800s and the Pax Romana

: Pax Americana will be stable as long as U.S. dominance

(2) bipolarity (Waltz: neorealist)

: inherently more stable than unipolarity and multipolarity

: in the bipolar environment of the Cold War, when the threat of war was endemic, major war did not occur

(3) multipolarity (Deutsch and Singer: liberalist)

: the least war prone

: stable - because multipolar system encompass a larger

number of autonomous actors- giving rise to more potential alliance partners

: it counterbalances a would-be aggressor

• Richard Nixon: one of the many leaders who affirmed the

multipolarity

- “We must remember the only time in the history of world that we have had the extended period of peace is when there has been a balance of power (or multipolarity)…. It will be safer… if we have a strong, healthy U.S., Europe, Soviet Union, China, and Japan, each balancing the other.”

• there is no consensus

: on which type of system is likely to be less prone to war or to be more stable

• it is necessary to look at a wide variety of international systems at different times in world history

Unipolarity – the U.S. (1945-1949)

• just after WWII: power was concentrated in the hands of a single

hegemon, the U.S., - able to exercise the overwhelming influence

over all other states• Pax Americana• that hegemonic status was short lived

: as the ascendant challenger, the Soviet Union, began to undermine the U.S. hegemonic status

Bipolarity (1949-1991)

• the recovery of the Soviet economy, the growth of the military capabilities and possession of nuclear weapons in 1949: gave rise to a new distribution of power

• they formed two opposing blocs through polarization : the formation of the NATO, linking the U.S. to

the Western Europe: the Warsaw Pact, linking the Soviet Union to

the Eastern Europe

• the involvement of most other states in the superpowers’ struggle : globalized the East-West conflict

• few states : remained outside the superpower’s alliance

• zero-sum conflict prevailed: both sides viewed what one side gained as a loss

for the other• bipolarity left little room for compromise

• in the late 1960s and early 1970s

: bipolarity began to disintegrate

- less rigid bipolarity: detente • diverse relationship among the states subordinate

to the superpowers developed

: the friendly relationship between France and the Soviet Union, and the U.S. and Romania

: the NATO members began to question whether Paris and Bonn would be protected by the U.S.

• the 1989 dismantling of the Berlin Wall tore apart the Cold War

• the need to replace NATO with a new security arrangement

: most leaders maintained that some configuration of an European defense architecture was still necessary to cement the relationship

• in 1998, only five countries remained members of the communist bloc

- China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam

Multipolarity (1991-2001)

• power transition occurred, resulting in a new multipolar system

: United States, China, Russia, Japan, European Union (Germany)

• as power became increasingly equally distributed, each player became assertive, independent, competitive

• diplomacy displayed a non-ideological character

The Emerging Centers of Power in the 21st Century Global Hierarchy

SOURCES: Economist (2002), 24.

• it led to confusion

: about the identity of friends or foes• this competition under conditions of multipolarity

: evident in the growing U.S.-Japan-EU trade bloc rivalry on the economic battlefield

• in December 2002, China and Russia signed a new friendship treaty

: expressing resentment of U.S. global dominance

NATO enlargement• original purpose of NATO (containing Russian

expansion) : no longer was relevant

• however, NATO did not dissolve• in 1994, NATO

: encouraged the four former communist states (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary) - to join NATO by becoming peace partners

under the Partnership for Peace (PfP) Plan• 7 other former Warsaw Pact members

: joined NATO in 2002 – today 27 full members

• on Sep. 13, 2001, for the first time NATO

: invoked the mutual defense principle

- attacks on WTC were an attack on all of them

- but, NATO was too slow to permit any of them to take decisive military actions

- division between the U.S. and its NATO allies

: in late 2002 Europeans did not accept Bush’s plan to launch a preemptive strike against Iraq

- Christopher Pattern (EU foreign affairs commissioner) and Joschka Fischer (the German foreign minister)

: castigated President Bush for treating the American coalition partners as “satellites”

• realist

: coalition form and dissolve in response to changes in security threats and national interests

Unipolarity Redux (2001-?)• the U.S. is reemerging as the globe’s only superpower• regains sufficient supremacy

: in military, cultural, technological, economic clout• Bush Doctrine: assertive unilateral hegemonic leadership• the question

: whether the assertive U.S. global ambition of international affairs will prove beneficial or damaging

• “America is both menace and seducer, both monster and model.” – German analyst Josef Joffe

Bush Doctrine• the U.S.

: use its unrivaled military power• the use of force

: need to be preemptive• even without a clear threat

: the U.S. claims a right to use preemptive or preventive military forces

• “the military must be ready to strike at a moment’s notice in any dark corner of the world. All nations that decide for aggression and terror will pay a price.” – Bush speech at West Point

America’s Imperial Ambition - Ikenberry

• over the last 50 years, American power stabilized world order: the U.S. provided European and Asian partners

with security protection and access to American markets

: East Asian and European accepted American leadership

• a new grand strategy – crystallized by Sep. 11 and U.S. dominance: unsettling this order

Imperial Dangers• America’s nascent neo-imperial grand strategy

: trigger antagonism and resistance

- that will leave America in a more hostile world and a less secure situation

(1) unsustainable

: the neo-imperial grand strategy might succeed in removing Saddam Hussein

: but it is far less certain that it can work over the long term

(2) never simple

: the long tail of burdens – regime changes, peacekeeping, state building – comes with major military action

: more doubtful that the strategy can be sustained at home

- the U.S. needs a support of a growing economy in order to keep the military predominance

: overstretch?

(3) hard to cooperate in other areas- it cannot generate

: the cooperation needed to solve practical problems- trade liberalization, global financial

stabilization, environmental protection, managing rise of China etc.

- the U.S. is a unipolar military power: but economic and political power is more evenly

distributed across the globe: the major states may not directly restrain American

military policy- but they can make the U.S. pay a price in other

areas

(4) self-encirclement: powerful states

- tend to trigger self-encirclement by their own overestimation of their power

: Louis XIV, Napoleon, and post-Bismark Germany - sought to expand their imperial domains - imposed a coercive order on others

: their imperial orders were brought down - when other countries decided they were not

prepared to live in a world dominated by a coercive state

: history will repeat

Critics of unilateralism

hegemonic stability theory:

• hegemons: special responsibilities

• hegemon: provide collective goods

• hegemon: tolerates free riders

• U.S. hegemonic leadership : guided by more shortsightedness and self-interests

than by ideals• motivated toward competition

: to preserve America’s hegemony• fearful of others’ free riding

: the U.S. looks more like an “ordinary country” than a hegemon

• Bush takes a unilateral approach and practices protectionism

• most of other global powers : agree with skeptics about the instability of world

politics - if the overwhelming power of the U.S.

persists: the U.S. is breeding an alarming arrogance, and

dangerous impulse to bully the rest of world• anti-Americanism

: become the global language of political protest

• for neorealists, unipolarity

: the least stable of all structures

- because great concentration of power threatens other states

: the U.S. preponderance is fragile and negated by other states

: unipolarity is “illusion” that will not last long and give way to multipolarity