Friday, 20 April 2018

Realism and balance of power a thing of the past?


The world is made up of big , small, rich and poor, strong and weak nations. The world can be compared to a jungle where the fittest survive. Is this rule of any significance in this modern world? In this write up the writer will closely look at what is realism and balance of power politics and how these ideas were implemented in the older days. Furthermore the writer is going to make a closer look on whether these two ideologies are still applicable in this modern world.
According to Donnelly (2000) realism can be defined as a situation where countries seek to control power through forceful means. It is a process by which states can do whatever they can to ensure their survival in the international world even if it means resorting to war. Realism mostly resolves around anarchy and the belief is that for a country to maintain its interest, such country must resort to war. On the other hand power politics as proposed by Morgenthau (1946) is a form of international relations in which sovereign entities protect their own interests by threatening one another with military economic or political aggression. Power politics is essentially a way of understanding the world of international relations. Nations compete for the world’s resources and it is a nation’s advantage to be manifestly able to harm others.
Realism and balance of power politics clearly shows that states are power seekers and thus engage in constant struggle for the dominance of one another. Morgenthau (1985) pointed out that it is a characteristic aspect of all politics, domestic as well as international, that appear as what they actually are manifestation of a struggle for power. When power is not in one’s hand, such people become restless and can do anything to ensure that other powers do not rise above them.
A good example is the case of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970s. This led America to elect Ronald Regan as president and in order to prevent Russia’s growing powers he created the strategic defense initiative (SDI) which was able to send Russia into a state of oblivion. Another example is the US/USSR cold war. Though they didn’t engage in physical battles with one another, they were just wry of one another because they were the only surviving world powers after the Second World War. Mearshelmer (2001) observed that states struggle to protect their own interests and in the case of realism feeble things such as diplomacy or negotiation makes no sense. War is the only thing that can bring true peace, greedy and selfish.
Some of the techniques in power politics as given by Morgenthau(1946) include the following conspicuous nuclear development, pre-eruptive strike, blackmail, the amassing of military units on a boarder, the imposition of  tariffs or economic sanctions, bait and bleed and bloodletting, hard and soft balancing, black passing, covert operations, shock and asymmetric welfare. Nations or states can do anything to ensure that they maintain power over others. The formulation of realism is that all human beings act according to their own self-interests or survival that nation states are similarly guided by this same self-interested need for survival. Walts (2003) stresses that the realism theory divorces all considerations of legality and moral guidance from state policy and holds that all states are capable of breaking any law, treaty or alliance if they feel it is necessary to advance their interests and power.
As it has been shown realism observes that international politics or the behavior of states towards each other is based on the constant struggle for power. So long as the notion of self-help persists, the aim of maintaining the power position is paramount to other considerations (Walts, 2003). This power politics can lead to a balance of power or power equilibrium. This refers to a condition whereby  the power of one state is literary balanced by the equivalent power of another state or set of states as it has been the case during the cold war between the USA and the USSR or NATO and the Warsaw pact .
On the other hand the power in disequilibrium describes a condition in which the distribution of power among the contending state is not balanced. As propounded by Kigley and Wittkopf (2004) this condition clearly favors the leading hegemony may result in the abuse of power by the strongest state which neutralizes other states and may feel free to be the deciding voice. This seems to be the case with the USA after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Morgenthau (1948) assets that it has been standard American policy to maintain unchallengeable supremacy in the western hemisphere. The balancing process can be carried on either by diminishing the weight of the heavier scale or by increasing the weight of the higher one. The balance of power would have to signify a policy aimed at changing the status quo or at preserving it. Morgenthau (1948) offers four ways in which this balancing of power can be done. The first form is to make a hostile state weak by dividing it or keeping it divided e.g. the soviet union from 1920s has consistently opposed the union of western Europe. The US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq could be seen in the same light.
The second manner is to change, maintain or establish the balance through territorial compensation. During the later part of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century the principle of compensation was again deliberately applied to the distribution of colonial territories and the delimitation of colonial or semi-colonial sphere of influence. Although this particular form of maintaining the balance among European power and their dominance in the world worked for a while it later led to the first the First World War because of fundamental conflict of interests among European powers.
The third way in which a policy can change, maintain or re-establish the balances through arm races or disarmament. However Morgenthau (1948) maintains that the arms race is unstable because it increases the burden of military preparations devouring an ever greater portion of national budget and making forever deepening fears, suspicions and insecurity. Lastly alliances are historically the most significant manifestation of balance of power. In this case, alliances can be either a policy aimed at changing, maintaining or re-establishing the balance e.g.  Nation A and B, competing with each other to maintain and improve their relative power positions can add to their own power, the power of other nations. The argument as seen by Kegley and Wittkopf(2004) is that alliances can destabilize a peaceful situation at least in five ways. The first one is that alliances would enable aggressive states to combine military capabilities for aggression. Secondly alliances threaten enemies and provoke them to form counter alliances threaten enemies to form counter alliances which reduce the security for both nations. Thirdly alliance formation may draw otherwise neutral parties into opposed coalitions. Fourthly once states join forces they must control the behavior of their own allies to discourage each member from reckless aggression against its enemies which would undermine the security of alliances of other members and lastly the possibility always exists  that today’s ally might become tomorrow’s enemy.
While realism and balance of power politics emphasizes and clearly shows that states were ensuring that their power was to be felt by other states there seems to be a paradigm shift. It appears that roles of external and internal actors are having major effect on the international system. Snyder (1984) pointed out that it is harder for the normally state centric realist to explain why the world’s superpower announced a war against Al-Qaida a non-state terrorist organization
More state actors have recently become increasingly more important and influential in the international system. This may be due to the change of international system or lack of sovereignty when dealing with international organizations. These external actors are constantly affecting and influencing the behavior of sovereign states and the international system on matters of both domestic and international affairs such as stance in climate change, this may be due to the anarchical system realist believe exist where there is no central global government presiding over the international system where those with more power will go unchallenged.
The strong dogmatic emphasis placed by realism on states being the primary actor in international relations is currently and will continue to be determined by powerful international organizations such as NATO who from August 2009 are currently involved in counter piracy operations of the horn of Africa something sovereign states would normally do, or better yet. NATO also established a no fly zone in Libya in 2011. This actually showed that power is vested in some organizations to determine the world order unlike being vested in a state.
Non state actors are becoming more important and influential in the international stage. The failure of realism to evolve alongside the pragmatic world of international relations makes it irrelevant due to its inability to combat new threats that are not related to the state, a key example being climate change. A sovereign state can willingly give up its power to non-governmental organizations on ground of environmental management.
It is strongly held belief by all realists that states have a monopoly over the use of organization force which is military but yet an increase in terrorism and insurgency in the world sees a shift from states being only one able to use organized force to non-state actors thus from this it can be deduced that states are no longerthe primary actors in international relations. Non state actors are taking center stage in international relations, state functions are being shifted to non-state actors. Gulick (1955) observed that the inability of realism to study other factors that affect international relations aside from its own core assumptions will effectively lead to its redundancy as most widely used theory in international relational relations that gives us an understanding of contemporary international affairs
The trend on world politics these days are consistent with the formulation of institutionalized arrangements which promote cooperation. Keohan (1977) explains that the realist tenet of the self-help is becoming more and more irrelevant as national states are making choices to join trading blocs and military defense for example looking at the European Union which is very much trade oriented as a prime example. Its increase in number of member states tells us that the autonomous self-help notion imposed by realism is being overshadowed by an interdependency of sovereign nation states.
States are acknowledging the benefits of cooperation rather than competition. In southern Africa there is Southern Africa Development Committee (SADC) which is there to promote trade, cooperation and also security issues. In east Africa there is a Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) which also focuses on trade and security among member countries. Complex interdependency is now the order of the day among other nations.
 Snyder (1984) viewed that in the new political world realism service as best as a relic, a foundation of how people used to conduct international relations. Due to its non-pragmatism and its ineffectiveness, realism is unable to explain the contemporary international system i.e. the increased influence of non-state actors and demise in state to state conflict and the increase of state to state dependency.
Realism and tolerance of power politics appear to be useful in constructing an understanding of contemporary international affairs as it is simple rational and practical, in essence, as it is warning us to be safe than sorry with its rhetoric practice, however able to combat change and external actors. It is not fit to help us in contemporary international relations.
                                                                                                                                                           











REFERENCES
Carr, E. H. (1981) The Twenty Years’ Crisis New York Palgrave.
Donelly, J. (2000) Realism and International Relations.
Gulick, E. V. (1955) Europe’s classical Balance of power. New York.
Kegley, J. and Wittkopf, E. (2004) World Politics: Trends and Transformation. Belmont: Watsworth.
Keohan and Nye (1977) Power and Interdependence Boston: Little Brown.
Mearshelmer J. J. (2001) The Tragedy of Great power politics.
Morgenthau, H. J. (1948) Politics among Nations: The struggle for power and Peace; New York.
Morgenthau, H. J. (1946) Scientific man Vs Power Politics: Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Snyder, J. (1984) Civil- Military   Relations and the alt of   the   offensive international security Vo No. 1
Walt, S. (1987) The origins of Alliances Cornell University Press.
Walts, K. M. 92003) Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory.


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