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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