Defensive structural realism

Central theme

Elman and Jensen (Realisms, 2013)

“Suggest that states seek security in an anarchic international system because main threat to their well-being comes from other states. States apply a degree of rational restraint to avoid war because of geography, technology and balancing.”

Wikipedia (Wikipedia, 2015)

“Defensive realists argue that the anarchical structure of the international system encourages states to maintain defensive and moderate policies. They argue that states are not intrinsically aggressive and the first concern of states is not to maximize power but to maintain their position in the system.”

Liu and Zhang (Liu & Zhang, 2006)

“Primary goals that states seek to achieve are survival and security. Power is a tool for achieving a goal and not a goal in itself.”

Dynamics

Taliaferro (Taliaferro, 2000)

“International system provides incentives for expansion only under certain conditions. Under anarchy, many of the means a state uses to increase its security decrease the security of others. This security dilemma causes states to worry about one another’s future intentions and relative power. Pairs of states may pursue purely security-seeking strategies, but inadvertently generate an acceleration of mutual hostility and conflict. States often, although not always, pursue expansionist policies because their leaders mistakenly believe that aggression is the only way to make their states secure.

Predicts greater variation in internationally driven expansion and suggest that states ought to generally pursue moderate strategies as the best route to security. Under most circumstances, the stronger states in the international system should pursue military, diplomatic, and foreign economic policies that communicate restraint.”

Mearsheimer (Mearsheimer, 2015)

“Defensive realist like Kenneth Waltz (1979) maintain that it is unwise for states to try to maximize their share of world power, because the system will punish them if they attempt to gain too much power. The pursuit of hegemony, they argue, is especially foolhardy.”

Examples

Case of China by Elman and Jensen (Realisms, 2013)

“Defensive realist are far more optimistic about China’s rise and the future of international security. As they see it, the international system is relatively benign. Aggressive behaviour and power maximization usually trigger self-defeating balancing coalitions, technology and geography make offensive action difficult, and states can signal their peaceful intentions. Rational states, therefore, have little reason to worry about each other based on considerations of power alone. Thus, while China’s rise in power will not be welcomed by its neighbours or the United States, it need not to be feared by them either.

To be sure, defensive realist expect that as China continues to rise it will devote more of its resources to military technology and capabilities. And although these developments could spark the security dilemma dynamics that can lead to arms racing and war, defensive realists stress that measures can be taken by China to signal to other states that these investments are meant for security purposes alone. For example, China could limit its military investments to technologies that work well for defence, but have little or no offensive use. When paired with the belief that conquest is difficult because of defensive advantages and the pervasiveness of balancing, defensive realists expect that any security competition that occurs as a result of China’s growth in power will be countered by a healthy dose of assurance and rational restraint. This is not to say that defensive realists believe that war between China and an American-led coalition is impossible. Rather, defensive realism stresses that if war were to occur it would not be because structure mandated it. Some domestic-level pathology, such as log-rolling interest groups or misperception, would be to blame.”

Case of China by Mearsheimer (Mearsheimer, 2015)

“In contrast to offensive realism, defensive realism offers a more optimistic story about China’s rise. For sure, defensive realists recognize that the international system creates strong incentives for states to want additional increments of power to ensure their survival. A mighty China will be no exception; it will look for opportunities to shift the balance of power in its favour. Moreover, both the USA and China’s neighbors will have to balance against China to keep it in check. Security competition will not disappear altogether from Asia as China grows more powerful. Defensive realists are not starry-eyed idealists.

Nevertheless, defensive realism provides reason to think that the security competition surrounding China’s rise will not be intense, and that China should be able to coexist peacefully with both its neighbours and the USA. For starters, it does not make strategic sense for great powers to pursue hegemony, because their rivals will form a balancing coalition and thwart – maybe even crush – them. It is much smarter for China’s leaders to act like Bismarck, who never tried to dominate Europe, but still made Germany great, rather than Kaiser Wilhelm or Adolf Hitler, who both made a run at hegemony and led Germany to ruin. This is not to deny that China will attempt to gain power in Asia. But structure dictates that it will have limited aims; it will not be so foolish as to try to maximize its share of world power. A powerful China with a limited appetite should be reasonably easy to contain and to engage in cooperative endeavors.

The presence of nuclear weapons is another cause for optimism. It is difficult for any great power to expand when confronted by other powers with nuclear weapons. India, Russia, and the USA all have nuclear arsenals, and Japan could quickly go nuclear if it felt threatened by China. These countries, which are likely to form the core of an anti-China balancing coalition, will not be easy for China to push around as long as they have nuclear weapons. In fact, China is likely to act cautiously towards them for fear of triggering a conflict that might escalate to the nuclear level. In short, nuclear weapons will be a force for peace if China continues its rise.

Finally, it is hard to see what China gains by conquering other Asian countries. China’s economy has been growing at an impressive pace without foreign adventures, proving that conquest is unnecessary for accumulating great wealth. Moreover, if China starts conquering and occupying countries, it is likely to run into fierce resistance from the populations which fall under its control. The US experience in Iraq should be a warning to China that the benefits of expansion in the age of nationalism are outweighed by the costs.

Although these considerations indicate that China’s rise should be relatively peaceful, defensive realists allow for the possibility that domestic political considerations might cause Beijing to act in strategically foolish ways. After all, they recognize that Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany made ill-advised runs at hegemony. But they maintain that the behaviour of those great powers was motivated by domestic political pathologies, not sound strategic logic. While that may be true, it leaves open the possibility that China might follow a similar path, in which case its rise will not be peaceful.

There are other structural realist perspectives for assessing whether or not China’s rise will be peaceful. If the world is unipolar, as some structural realists argue, then the growth of Chinese power will eventually put an end to unipolarity. When it does, the world will be a more dangerous place, since there cannot be war between great powers in unipolarity, while there certainly can be if both China and the USA are great powers. Furthermore, if Japan acquires nuclear weapons, Russia gets its house in order, and India continues its rise, there would be a handful of great powers in the system, which would further increase the potential for great power conflict.

Of course, one might argue that China’s ascendancy will lead to bipolarity, which is a relatively peaceful architecture, even if it is not as pacific as unipolarity. After all, there was no shooting war between the superpowers during the Cold War. Indeed, the security competition between them was not especially intense after the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was more dangerous before then, mainly because the USA and the Soviet Union had to come to grips with the nuclear revolution and also learn the rules of the road for dealing with each other under bipolarity, which was then a new and unfamiliar structure. China and the USA, however, would have the benefit of all that learning that took place during the Cold War, and could deal with each other from the start much the way that Moscow and Washington dealt with each other after 1962.

Not all structural realists accept the argument that bipolarity is more prone to peace than multipolarity. For them, a return to bipolarity would be a cause for pessimism. However, if the rise of China was accompanied by the emergence of other great powers, the ensuing multipolarity would give these realists more cause for optimism.

Finally, for structural realists who believe that preponderance produces peace, the rise of China is ominous news. They argue that US power has had a pacifying effect on international politics. No other great power, and certainly no minor power, would dare pick a fight with the USA as long as it sits at the pinnacle of world power. But that situation would obviously change if China reached the point where it was almost as powerful as the USA. Preponderance would disappear, and without it the world would be a much more dangerous place. Indeed, these realists would argue that the USA would have strong incentives to launch a preventive war against China to forestall decline.

In sum, there is no consensus among structural realists about whether China can rise peacefully. This diversity of views is not surprising since these same realists disagree among themselves about how much power states should want as well as what causes war. The only important point of agreement among them is that the structure of the international system forces great powers to compete among themselves for power.”

 

References

Elman, C., & Jensen, M. A. (2013). Realisms. In P. D. Williams, Security studies an introduction (pp. 15-31). New York: Routledge.

Liu, F., & Zhang, R. (2006). The typologies of realism. Chinese Journal of International Politics, 109-134.

Mearsheimer, J. J. (2015, August 31). Structural realism. Retrieved from Chicago University: http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/StructuralRealism.pdf

Taliaferro, J. W. (2000). Security seeking under anarchy defensive realism revisited . International Security, 128-161.

Wikipedia. (2015, August Saturday). Defensive realism. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_realism