Economic Interdependence and the Balance of Power

To account for variance in great powers responses to threats and the implications for the peacefulness of the international system since the late nineteenth century, this article elucidates a theory which refines and synthesizes economic liberal perspectives and realist balance of power theory. I argue that different patterns and levels of economic interdependence in the great power system generate societal-based economic constraints on, or incentives for, state leaders of status quo powers hoping to mobilize economic resources and political support to oppose perceived threats. This mobilization process influences strongly the preferences of status quo powers, other states beliefs about those preferences, and the interpretation of signals in balance of power politics. In this way, economic ties influence the strategies great powers pursue. Firm balancing policies conducive to peace in the international system are most likely, I then hypothesize, when there are extensive economic ties among status quo powers and few or no such links between them and perceived threatening powers. When economic interdependence is not significant between status quo powers or if status quo powers have strong economic links with threatening powers, weaker balancing postures and conciliatory policies by status quo powers, and aggression by aspiring revisionist powers, are more likely. I then illustrate how these hypotheses explain the development of the Franco-Russian alliance of the 1890s and its effectiveness as a deterrent of Germany up to 1905, British ambivalence toward Germany from 1906 to the First World War, the weakness of British, French, Soviet, and American behavior toward Germany in the 1930s and World War II, and the American and European responses to the Soviet threat, including the NATO alliance, and the "long peace" of the post-1945 era.     

Arms Negotiation,War Exhaustion,and the Credibility of Preventive War

Why do some states agree to suspend their weapons programs in exchange for compensation while others fail to come to terms? I argue that the changing credibility of preventive war is an important determinant of arms construction. If preventive war is never an option, states can reach mutually preferable settlements. However, if preventive war is not credible today but will be credible in the future, a commitment problem results: the state considering investment faces a “window of opportunity” and must build the arms or it will not receive concessions later on. Thus, agreements fail under these conditions. I then apply the theoretical findings to the Soviet Union’s decision to build nuclear weapons in 1949. War exhaustion made preventive war not credible for the United States immediately following World War II, but lingering concerns about future preventive action induced Moscow to proliferate.     

Unfinished business: The united states and Franco's Spain, 1944-47

'Unfinished Business' examines American and British postwar policy toward the regime of Francisco Franco in Spain. Although the emergence of the cold war eventually altered that policy from one of strenuous opposition to one of grudging acceptance, the continuing desire of the Western allies to alter or remove the Franco regime illustrates the persistent influence of anti-fascism after World War II. In retrospect, the eventual alignment of Franco with the West seems a foregone conclusion, but in the fluid context of the years immediately after World War II policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic struggled to determine their interests in a world no longer defined by the war and not yet in the grip of the cold war.     

Selling the 'Decent interval': kissinger, triangular diplomacy, and the end of the Vietnam war, 1971-73

With the help of recently declassified documents, this article examines the link between triangular diplomacy and the Vietnam War. It argues that from the summer of 1971 to the conclusion of the Paris Agreements in January 1973 Kissinger tried to 'sell' a peace agreement to his Soviet and Chinese inter locutors by stressing the American willingness to accept a 'decent interval' solution: that is, the United States would not reenter the war provided that the collapse of the South Vietnamese goverment did not occur immediately after the last US ground troops returned home. While such a posture played a significant role in increasing Sino-Soviet pressure towards a negotiated settlement, Kissinger's policy also served to bolster the subsequent competition between Moscow and Beijing over influence in Indochina.     

The Spirit of Ulysses? Ideology and British Appeasement in the 1930s

The British government's appeasement of fascism in the 1930s derived not only from economic, political, and strategic constraints, but also from the personal ideologies of the policy makers. Widespread guilt about the terms of the Versailles Treaty and tensions with France created sympathy for German revisionism, but the Cabinet properly recognized that Nazi Germany represented the gravest threat to peace in the 1930s. Fear of war and the recognition that Britain would have to tolerate peaceful change underlay attempts to appease the dictators, culminating in the Munich agreement in September 1938. After Munich, continued German belligerence, the Kristallnacht, and British intelligence assessments indicating that Hitler was prepared to attack the Western powers led to a reassessment of appeasement. The British government gave security guarantees to several European countries, seeking to deter future aggression and to lay the groundwork for a successful war against Germany should it prove necessary. While most of the British elite detested communism, anti-communist views did not govern British policy; security considerations required Soviet support in Eastern Europe, and Britain and France made a determined effort to secure Soviet support for the Peace Front.     

Exit Britain: British Withdrawal From the Palestine Mandate in the Early Cold War, 1947–1948

The British decision to withdraw from the Palestine mandate in 1947–1948 may at first glance appear contradictory to British strategic interests. The Middle East and Palestine were vital to Britain's Cold War strategy, and its government repeatedly stated the need for a continued British presence in the region to prevent Soviet expansion. Why then withdraw from Palestine just as the Cold War started? The traditional explanation is that Britain withdrew because of economic exhaustion and its inability to remain a great power. But this article shows that economic and strategic considerations both contributed to the decision to withdraw. Britain's involvement in Palestine threatened to undermine its relations with the independent Arab states, and the decision to withdraw from Palestine was therefore taken in the hope that this would secure Britain's position in the rest of the Middle East.     

Unfinished business: The united states and Franco's Spain, 1944–47

‘Unfinished Business’ examines American and British postwar policy toward the regime of Francisco Franco in Spain. Although the emergence of the cold war eventually altered that policy from one of strenuous opposition to one of grudging acceptance, the continuing desire of the Western allies to alter or remove the Franco regime illustrates the persistent influence of anti‐fascism after World War II. In retrospect, the eventual alignment of Franco with the West seems a foregone conclusion, but in the fluid context of the years immediately after World War II policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic struggled to determine their interests in a world no longer defined by the war and not yet in the grip of the cold war.     

In Pursuit of a Pacific Strategy:British Planning for the Defeat of Japan, 1943–45

This article seeks to explain why the British pushed for a role in Pacific operations during the Second World War when it faced other strategic priorities in Southeast Asia, as well as a powerful American military that maintained tight control over operational decision-making. Although several quarters in Whitehall, including the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had doubts about the necessity of a Pacific strategy, there were sensible reasons behind pursuing such a course. It would illustrate to an “anti-imperialist” America that Britain was not only interested in recovering its colonial possessions but also prepared to fight the Japanese on their homeland. More importantly, taking part in the main operations would allow the British to claim a voice at the peace table while helping to encourage the Americans to cement their close working relationship with Britain in the postwar period.     

A Streetcar Named Sarajevo: Catalysts, Multiple Causation Chains, and Rivalry Structures

"Streetcar" interpretations of world politics emphasize the significance of contingent catalysts vis-a(c)-vis structural variables and multiple, nonlinear chains of causation, among other things. Ultimately, though, it is difficult to evaluate the significance of catalysts in the absence of systematic data on war precipitants that would allow one to compare the effects of catalysts and other factors. More concrete but under conceptualized is the explanatory payoff associated with examining nonlinear interactions among multiple rivalries in bringing about wars that spread more widely than anticipated. World War I is a good case in point. A very large number of interstate rivalries contributed in various ways and over a number of years to the outbreak of a world war that no one sought precisely in the way in which it emerged. Focusing on the structure of their interactions also facilitates the synthesis of a number of alternative interpretations of why World War I began. Examining the effects of interconnected and "ripe" rivalry fields in other major power war contexts should prove to be equally beneficial.     

Lincoln's Gamble: Fear of Intervention and the Onset of the American Civil War

Few studies consider how civil war onset can be influenced by third parties and by the belligerents’ perceptions of third party actions. I show that the American Civil War, a war largely ignored by civil war scholars, sheds insights into how anticipation of third party intervention influences the decision-making process within the target state and how the possibility of third party intervention can influence the onset and escalation of civil war. The American Civil War is an especially interesting case for exploring the role of third parties in civil war initiation since, unlike most cases considered by the existing civil war literature, the American Civil War is an instance of nonintervention: the third parties (the European powers in this case) mattered despite staying out of the conflict. Specifically, I argue that fear of foreign recognition (particularly by the British) played an underappreciated (if not the decisive) role in the earliest stages of the American Civil War by influencing Lincoln's decision to authorize the first major battle of the war at Manassas Junction, Virginia.     

Selling the 'Decent interval': Kissinger,triangular diplomacy,and the end of the Vietnam war, 1971-73

With the help of recently declassified documents, this article examines the link between triangular diplomacy and the Vietnam War. It argues that from the summer of 1971 to the conclusion of the Paris Agreements in January 1973 Kissinger tried to 'sell' a peace agreement to his Soviet and Chinese inter locutors by stressing the American willingness to accept a 'decent interval' solution: that is, the United States would not reenter the war provided that the collapse of the South Vietnamese goverment did not occur immediately after the last US ground troops returned home. While such a posture played a significant role in increasing Sino-Soviet pressure towards a negotiated settlement, Kissinger's policy also served to bolster the subsequent competition between Moscow and Beijing over influence in Indochina.     

In Pursuit of a Pacific Strategy:British Planning for the Defeat of Japan, 1943-45

This article seeks to explain why the British pushed for a role in Pacific operations during the Second World War when it faced other strategic priorities in Southeast Asia, as well as a powerful American military that maintained tight control over operational decision-making. Although several quarters in Whitehall, including the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had doubts about the necessity of a Pacific strategy, there were sensible reasons behind pursuing such a course. It would illustrate to an “anti-imperialist” America that Britain was not only interested in recovering its colonial possessions but also prepared to fight the Japanese on their homeland. More importantly, taking part in the main operations would allow the British to claim a voice at the peace table while helping to encourage the Americans to cement their close working relationship with Britain in the postwar period.     

Eisenhower's disarmament dilemma: From chance for peace to open skies proposal

President Eisenhower's image as a promoter of ‘peace and nuclear disarmament’ was established through speeches he made such as ‘Atoms for Peace’ (December 1953) and ‘Open Skies’ proposal (July 1955). However, Eisenhower's approach to the subject cannot be grasped without an understanding of his attitude towards the relationship between arms, war and disarmament. As he saw it, not only would the mere existence of nuclear weapons not trigger a war, they were actually the best guarantee against the eruption of a global conflagration. The real threat to world security was the repressive, closed, totalitarian and expansionist Soviet regime. War could be prevented only by a dramatic change in the competing ‐ and threatening ‐ ideology and social structure embedded in the Soviet system. Until then, the existence of nuclear weapons would ensure the free world's safety.     

Post-civil war democratization: promotion of democracy in post-civil war states, 1946–2005

Post-civil war democratization is a critical element of building sustainable peace in post-civil war states. Yet studies of democratic transition and survival suggest that the post-civil war environment is not hospitable to either the transition toward or the survival of democracy. This inhospitality may be due to the fact that post-civil war environments are contentious. After a civil war, the former protagonists fear for their security and also want to protect their political and economic interests. The central argument of this study is that former rivals can agree to a transition toward democracy to the extent that a stable balance of power exists between the government and rebel groups; a balance that eliminates the sort of security dilemma that would encourage one or both parties to resume armed conflict. Such a balance should ensure access to political power and economic resources. This study identifies factors that contribute to the establishment of a balance of power between former protagonists and factors that affect its stability. The presence of these factors should affect the decision of former protagonists on whether or not they can achieve their political and economic interests if they agree to a transition toward democracy once the civil war ends. Based on this theoretical argument, I have derived empirically testable hypotheses. In the survival analysis performed, I find support for the theoretical arguments. The findings of this study have some policy implications.     

The Cambodian Waltz: The Khmer Rouge and United Nations intervention

Approaching the 1989–93 Cambodian peace process from the Khmer Rouge point of view, this article explores how the group's nature, history and ideology conditioned its unco‐operative response and tactics towards United Nations intervention. It observes that the Khmer Rouge, once it realized it could not manipulate the structures of the peace process to the benefit of its own aspirations, adopted a two‐track policy. It remained outside the peace process, awaiting the withdrawal of the UN, preserving its military potential to take power afterwards. At the same time, it attempted to retain its international and domestic support despite its non‐co‐operation, by accusing UNTAC of subverting the Peace Agreements. Finally, the article explores how UNTAC was able to salvage the peace process despite the best efforts of the Khmer Rouge.     

United Nations Security Council Reform Revisited: A Proposal

The United Nations [UN] came into being following the Second World War. Resembling earlier efforts of co-operation by the most powerful states of the international system, it was an attempt to effect global governance through the maintenance of international peace and security amongst states. However, led by its main executive organ, the Security Council, the UN has been unable to prevent and effectively deal with armed conflicts and mass atrocities in a number of situations. Over the years, the inability of the UN Security Council to take collective action has resulted in its ineffectiveness in dealing with war and humanitarian crises. This situation has led to calls for Security Council reform and has generated several initiatives to that end. This analysis discusses major shortcomings of the Security Council, analyses prominent reform initiatives, and introduces a proposal, the “Two-Layered Regional Model,” for Security Council reform.     

Pioneers of peace research V: Anatol Rapoport: Apostle of collective rationality

Rapoport challenged the strategic theory of rationality in terms of individual interest, because this theory of rationality led to its own contradiction when confronted with game theory. In order to avoid the irrationality of self‐contradiction, Rapoport defined rationality in terms of social interest. On this basis, Rapoport challenged and criticized the rationality of the two superpowers, whose war machines were a threat to humanity. Rapoport saw war as an organized crime, rather than as a natural disaster or a disease or a political instrument. He proposed that peace researchers should try to show that these war machines were illegitimate, immoral, and irrational. If war were seen as an organized crime, this would facilitate dismantling the war machines. At the same time that he challenged and criticized the war machines of this world, Rapoport also challenged the value‐free notion of science, which enabled scientists to serve the war machines without making any value judgments about the ethics of their behavior. But scientists, like everyone else, should be held responsible for their behavior and its consequences. In order for science to be ethical, scientists should ally the truth with other basic values such as love, freedom, and equality. Far from being value‐free, a science without value would be a contradiction in terms. Peace research cannot be value‐free, but neither can military research.     

“Now that the Milk is Spilt”: Appeasement and the Archive on Intelligence

This article assesses British intelligence and its effect on policy during the interwar years. It discusses the publically available documentation, which now includes almost all the material on the matter, though the data base has been permanently destroyed in significant ways. The paper traces the development of British intelligence between 1869–1939, involving the transition from a tradition to a system of intelligence, with the greatest change occurring during the Fist World War. The article assesses how, between 1914–39, intelligence was interrelated to bureaucratic politics, modes of decision making, and the formulation of strategic politics, modes of decision making, and the formulation of strategic policy. It discusses the structure and power of British intelligence agencies between 1919–39, their quality compared to rivals in other countries, and the impact on policy of their successes and failures. It concludes that intelligence, as an influence and a source of evidence, is essential to the study of diplomatic and strategic history, upon which its impact is complex and variable.     

Contested geopolitical messages for tourists at the Okinawa Peace Park and memorials

Abstract

Now marketed as a tropical beach destination, Okinawa's identity is also forever linked with the horrors of war. Okinawa's tumultuous past encompasses the Ryukyu Islands, which had close economic ties to China until being annexed by mainland Japan, were invaded by the US in the Second World War, were occupied until 1972 and, more recently, have become the centre of heated debates over the continued presence of US military bases. The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest of the Second World War and the inhabitants faced not only the American invasion but also the tactics of the Japanese army, who viewed the islands as expendable in order to slow invading forces from reaching mainland Japan. In the context of the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa in 2015, and beyond, it is argued here that these conflicting geopolitical disputes present significant challenges in terms of the messages presented to educational dark tourists visiting the Okinawa Peace Park and Memorials. The Peace Park Story Tellers or kataribe who are the Second World War survivors, have the critical task of mediating the message to both domestic and international tourists, some of whom are not prepared to hear anti-Japan sentiment. Through an examination of the historical and geographic background, and an analysis of the tourist experience at the Peace Park and Memorials, this paper explores the complexity of educational dark tourism where competing messages collide.     

An appreciation of Alvey Adee

Diplomatic histories identify an early cold war “paradigm shift” as restoring the troubled Anglo–American “special relationship.” However, an integrated analysis of Second World War and post-war Iran suggests continuity in ideologically based Anglo–American differences on the reconstruction of the postwar world economic periphery, and that this was the defining context for crucially elusive relations during successive crises to come. The Americans had embraced Iran as an exemplar of “new deal internationalism,” being as much opposed to competing British neo-imperialist political and economic models there as to Soviet encroachments. They continued to identify autonomous British policies and interests antipathetically during the early cold war period and beyond, not merely out of economic self-interest, but at crucial moments disavowing geopolitical realpolitik. This perplex also determined during future crises of British power, in Iran and throughout the Middle East, that US interests would shift to new relationships, whenever having to decide, with indigenous peripheral actors rather than neo-imperialist European allies, precluding institutionalized, comprehensive Anglo–American partnership, which Britain had hoped would preserve and extend its role as a regional power.