Hard times for soft balancing

International Security

Volumn 30, Issue 1, 2005, Pages

  Brooks, Stephen G ^a   Wohlforth, William C ^a  

^a Dartmouth College   (United States)

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EID: 25644444403     PISSN: 01622889     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (135)

1. See, for example, John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War," International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-56;
2. and Christopher Layne, "The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise," International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 5-51.
3. G. John Ikenberry, "Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of the American Postwar Order," International Security, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Winter 1998/99), pp. 43-78;
4. Charles A. Kupchan, "After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity," International Security, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Fall 1998), pp. 40-79;
5. Michael Mastanduno, "Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and U.S. Grand Strategy after the Cold War," International Security, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Spring 1997), pp. 49-88;
6. William C. Wohlforth, "The Stability of a Unipolar World," International Security, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Summer 1999), pp. 5-41;
7. Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, "American Primacy in Perspective," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 4 (July/August 2002), pp. 20-33;
8. Ethan B. Kapstein, and Michael Mastanduno, eds., Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies after the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999);
9. and G. John Ikenberry, ed., America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002).
10. The best treatments of the general soft-balancing argument are Robert A. Pape, "Soft Balancing: How States Pursue Security in a Unipolar World," annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, September 2-5, 2004;
11. Stephen M. Walt, "Keeping the World 'Off Balance'" in Ikenberry, America Unrivaled;
12. T.V. Paul, "The Enduring Axioms of Balance of Power Theory," in Paul, James J. Wirtz, and Michel Fortmann, eds., Balance of Power Revisited: Theory and Practice in the Twenty-first Century (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004);
13. and Josef Joffe, "Defying History and Theory: The United States as the 'Last Superpower,'" in Ikenberry, America Unrivaled.
14. The soft-balancing argument initially rose to prominence in the late 1990s, as analysts such as Stephen M. Walt and Josef Joffe sought to articulate a distinction between traditional military balancing and subtler forms of balancing. See Walt, "Keeping the World 'Off Balance'";
15. and Joffe "Defying History and Theory."
16. More recently, the term "soft balancing" has described balancing efforts that fall short of military balancing. See, for example, Paul, "The Enduring Axioms of Balance of Power Theory";
17. Pape, "Soft Balancing";
18. Yuen Foong Khong, "Coping with Strategic Uncertainty: The Role of Institutions and Soft Balancing in Southeast Asia's Post-Cold War Strategy," in Allen Carlson, Peter J. Katzenstein, and J.J. Suh, eds., Rethinking Security in East Asia: Identity, Power, and Efficiency (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004);
19. Erik Voeten, "Resisting the Lonely Superpower: Responses of States in the United Nations to U.S. Dominance," Journal of Politics, Vol. 66, No. 3 (May 2004), pp. 729-754;
20. Josef Joffe, "Gulliver Unbound: Can America Rule the World?" Twentieth Annual John Boynthon Lecture, Centre of Independent Studies, St. Leonards, New South Wales, August 5, 2003;
21. Stephen M. Walt, "Can the United States Be Balanced? If So, How?" annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, September 2-5, 2004;
22. Christopher Layne, "America as European Hegemon," National Interest, No. 72 (Summer 2003), pp. 17-30;
23. Bradley A. Thayer, "The Pax Americana and the Middle East: U.S. Grand Strategic Interests in the Region after September 11," Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 56 (Ramat Gan, Israel: Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, December 2003);
24. and Ruth W. Grant and Robert O. Keohane, "Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics," Duke University, March 2004. The most ambitious theoretical effort to fully develop the soft-balancing concept is Pape, "Soft Balancing."
25. Paul, "The Enduring Axioms of Balance of Power Theory," p. 3.
26. Joffe, "Gulliver Unbound."
27. Walt, "Can the United States Be Balanced?" p. 17.
28. For a discussion of this so-called new unilateralism, see Charles Krauthammer, "The Unipolar Moment Revisited," National Interest, No. 70 (Winter 2002/2003), pp. 5-18.
29. See the related discussion in Brooks and Wohlforth, "American Primacy in Perspective," pp. 31-33.
30. For a sampling of this discussion, see John A. Vasquez and Colin Elman, eds., Realism and the Balancing of Power: A New Debate (Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003).
31. See Jack Levy, "What Do Great Powers Balance Against and When? " in Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, Balance of Power Revisited.
32. Levy argues that "few balance of power theorists, at least in the tradition of Western international theory that includes Morgenthau, Claude, Gulick, and Dehio, would predict balancing against the United States" today. Ibid., p. 30.
33. A prominent modern example is John J. Mearsheimer's offensive realist theory, which encompasses a version of balance of power theory that applies only to contiguous great powers and not to offshore powers such as the United States. Indeed, Mearsheimer's theory yields an explanation for the recent, more independent behavior of some U.S. allies that is the opposite of soft balancing: a response to the fear of the retraction rather than the expansion of U.S. power. "America's Cold War allies have started to act less like dependents of the United States and more like sovereign states," he writes, "because they fear that [Washington] ... might prove to be unreliable in a future crisis." Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), p. 391.
34. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979);
35. and Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987).
36. To be sure, Waltz and some of his followers have claimed that their theory explains balanced outcomes without necessarily predicting balancing strategies by states. See Kenneth N. Waltz, "International Politics Is Not Foreign Policy," Security Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Autumn 1996), pp. 54-57.
37. This argument makes the theory exceedingly general, extremely difficult to falsify and test, and impossible to apply to any specific case. More important, accepting the contention that balance of power theory does not predict balancing would sever it from the soft-balancing argument, which is explicitly about state strategies. We can set this claim aside, however, because Waltz has stated that his theory predicts balancing against U.S. unipolarity. Hence, he expects that causal mechanism to be in play today, however subtly. See Kenneth N. Waltz, "Structural Realism after the Cold War," International Security, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Summer 2000), pp. 5-41;
38. and Kenneth N. Waltz, "Evaluating Theories," American Political Science Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (December 1997), pp. 913-917.
39. Walt, "Keeping the World 'Off Balance.'"
40. On the intellectual history of balance of power theory, see Martin Wight, Power Politics (Leicester, U.K.: Leicester University Press, 1978);
41. and Herbert Butterfield, "Balance of Power," in Philip P. Wiener, ed., Dictionary of the History of Ideas (New York: Scribner's, 1968).
42. For an argument stressing this point, see Pape, "Soft Balancing."
43. Walt, "Can the United States Be Balanced?" p. 18.
44. On this falsifiability issue, see Keir Lieber and Gerard Alexander, "Waiting for Balancing: Why the World Isn't Pushing Back," annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, September 2-5, 2004.
45. For example, Christopher Layne asserts that other states will balance the United States, but it may be fifty years before this occurs. See Layne, "The Unipolar Illusion," p. 17.
46. Analyses that treat these partnerships in soft-balancing terms include Paul, "Enduring Axioms";
47. Walt, "Can the United States Be Balanced?";
48. and Joffe "Defying History and Theory."
49. For a detailed analysis of the treaty, see Elizabeth Wishnick, "Russia and China: Brothers Again?" Asian Survey, Vol. 41, No. 5 (September-October 2001), pp. 797-821.
50. Ample evidence and analysis concerning these grand strategies is presented in the chapters on Russia, India, and China in Richard J. Ellings and Aaron L. Friedberg, with Michael Wills, eds., Strategic Asia, 2002-03: Asian Aftershocks (Seattle, Wash.: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2003).
51. On China's grand strategy and its implications for balancing, see Avery Goldstein, "An Emerging China's Grand Strategy," in G. John Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno, eds., International Relations Theory and the Asia Pacific (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002);
52. and Alastair lain Johnston, "Is China a Status Quo Power?" International Security, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Spring 2003), pp. 5-56.
53. Bobo Lo, "The Long Sunset of Strategic Partnership: Russia's Evolving China Policy," International Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 2 (March 2004), pp. 295-309.
54. See, for example, Sergei Blagov, "Russia Seeking to Strengthen Regional Organizations to Counterbalance Western Influence," Eurasia Insight, December 4, 2002.
55. See Kathleen Collins and William C. Wohlforth, "Central Asia: Defying 'Great Game' Expectations," in Richard J. Eilings and Aaron L. Friedberg, with Michael Wills, eds., Strategic Asia, 2003-04: Fragility and Crisis (Seattle, Wash.: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2004), pp. 291-317.
56. Interview with senior analyst, Institute of Strategic Studies, Uzbekistan, Tashkent, August 2002, reported in Collins and Wohlforth, "Central Asia: Defying 'Great Game' Expectations." 26. "Declaration of the Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, June 15, 2001," http://www.missions.itu.int/?kazaks/eng/sco/sco02.htm.
57. "Joint Statement by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization," January 7, 2002, Beijing, http://russia.shaps.hawaii.edu/fp/russia/sco_3_20020107htm.
58. Christopher Hill, "Russian Defense Spending," in United States Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Russia's Uncertain Economic Future (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002), p. 168.
59. For an excellent overview of the defense sector's dilemmas, see Christopher Davis, "Country Survey XV: The Defence Sector in the Economy of a Declining Superpower: Soviet Union and Russia, 1965-2001," Defence and Peace Economics, Vol. 13, No. 3 (June 2002), pp. 145-177.
60. "Only 20% of Russian Arms Are Modern," RFE/RL Daily Report, May 21, 2001.
61. "Every Third Potential Conscript Said Not Fit for Military Service," Itar-Tass, May 23, 2002.
62. Kevin P. O'Prey, "Arms Exports and Russia's Defense Industries: Issues for the U.S. Congress," in Joint Economic Committee, Russia's Uncertain Economic Future, pp. 385-410.
63. See, for example, Pape, "Soft Balancing";
64. and Walt, "Can the United States Be Balanced?"
65. See, for example, Carol R. Saivetz, "Perspectives on the Caspian Sea Dilemma: Russian Policies since the Soviet Demise," Eurasian Geography & Economics, Vol. 44, No. 8 (December 2003), pp. 588-607;
66. Gawdat Bahgat, "Pipeline Diplomacy: The Geopolitics of the Caspian Sea Region," International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 3, No. 3 (August 2002), pp. 310-327;
67. and Douglas W. Blum, "Perspectives on the Caspian Sea Dilemma: A Framing Comment," Eurasian Geography & Economics, Vol. 44, No. 8 (December 2003), pp. 617-703.
68. Transcript of Putin's BBC interview on June 22, 2003, reprinted in Johnson's Russia List, No. 7236, June 24, 2003.
69. See Celeste A. Wallander, "Russia's Interest in Trading with the 'Axis of Evil,'" testimony given at "Russia's Policies toward the Axis of Evil: Money and Geopolitics in Iraq and Iran" hearing, House Committee on International Relations, 108th Cong., 2d sess., February 26, 2003.
70. For an overview of the problems facing Russia's nuclear industry and its interest in foreign sales, see Igor Khripunov, "MINATOM: Time for Crucial Decisions," Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 48, No. 4 (July-August 2001), pp. 49-59.
71. Quoted in Vladimir A. Orlov and Alexander Vinnikov, "The Great Guessing Game: Russia and the Iranian Nuclear Issue," Washington Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Spring 2005), p. 51.
72. See Anatoly Andreev, "Mirnyi Atom dlia Bushera" [Peaceful atom for Bushehr], Trud, December 27, 2002, p. 1.
73. For more on Russia's role in proliferation in Asia, see Bates Gill, "Proliferation," in Ellings and Friedberg, with Wills, Strategic Asia, 2003-04.
74. Although the nuclear issue attracts most of the attention, a similar constellation of interests lies behind Russia's arms sales to Iran. Tor Bukkvoll, "Arming the Ayatollahs: Economic Lobbies in Russia's Iran Policy," Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 49, No. 6 (November/December, 2002), pp. 29-41.
75. Quoted in Orlov and Vinnikov, "The Great Guessing Game," p. 59.
76. For a comprehensive analysis, see Nicole Gnesotto, ed., EU Security and Defence Policy: The First Five years (1999-2004), (Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, 2005).
77. See, for example, Robert J. Art, "Europe Hedges Its Security Bets," in Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, Balance of Power Revisited;
78. Walt, "Can the United States Be Balanced?";
79. Joffe, "Defying History and Theory";
80. and Layne, "America as European Hegemon."
81. See, for example, Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002).
82. Nicole Gnesotto "ESDP: Results and Prospects," in Gnesotto, EU Security and Defence Policy, p. 25.
83. Nicole Gnesotto (chair) and Jean-Yves Haine (rapporteur), European Defence: A Proposal for a White Paper (Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, 2004).
84. An earlier EU report noted more than forty technological shortfalls constraining the force. See Alexander Nicoll, "Spending Call for EU Rapid Reaction Force, Financial Times, February 8, 2002;
85. and the discussion in Ethan B. Kapstein, "Allies and Armaments," Survival, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Summer 2002), pp. 141-160.
86. Quoted in Gnesotto, EU Security and Defence Policy, p. 189.
87. See, for example, Hans-Christian Hagman, "EU Crisis Management Capabilities," paper delivered at the conference "The European Union - Its Role and Power in the Emerging International System," Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, October 3-5, 2003;
88. and Julian Lindley-French, "In the Shadow of Locarno? Why European Defense Is Failing," International Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 4 (October 2002), pp. 789-811.
89. For an analysis that captures this trade-off, see Bastian Giegerich and William Wallace, "Not Such a Soft Power: The External Deployment of European Forces," Survival, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Summer 2004), pp. 163-182.
90. See, for example, Robert Pape, "Welcome to the Era of 'Soft Balancing,'" Boston Globe, March 23, 2003, p. H1;
91. and Joseph S. Nye, "The UN Is Right for the Job: Rebuilding Iraq II," International Herald Tribune, April 14, 2003, p. 10.
92. In reconstructing inter-allied disputes over Iraq, the best extant account is Philip H. Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro, Allies at War: America, Europe, and the Crisis over Iraq (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004).
93. Other accounts and chronologies that were critical in constructing this case study include Elizabeth Pond, Friendly Fire: The Near-Death of the Transatlantic Alliance (Washington, D.C.: Brookings and European Union Studies Association, 2003);
94. Gustav Lindstrom and Burkhardt Schmidt, eds., "One Year On: Lessons from Iraq," Challiot Paper No. 68 (Brussels: EU Institute for Security Studies, March 2004);
95. John Peterson, "Europe, America, Iraq: Worst Ever, Ever Worsening?" Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 42, No. S1 (September 2004), pp. 9-26;
96. David Allen and Michael Smith, "External Policy Developments," Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 42, No. S1 (September 2004), pp. 95-112;
97. and "The Divided West," pts. 1-3, Financial Times, May 27-30, 2003.
98. Pond, Friendly Fire, chap. 3.
99. Martin Walker, "The Winter of Germany's Discontent," World Policy Journal, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Winter 2002/2003), p. 37.
100. Ibid.
101. See, for example, Jeffrey Herf, "The Perfect Storm and After: Retrospect and Prospect for American-German Relations," American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, July 29, 2004, http://www.aicgs.org/c/herfc.shtml.
102. Pond, Friendly Fire, chap. 3.
103. See Pape, "Soft Balancing";
104. and Walt, "Can the United States Be Balanced?"
105. Mustafa Kibaroglu, "Turkey Says No," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 59, No. 4 (July/August 2003), pp. 22-26.
106. "A Pivotal Nation Goes Into a Spin," Economist, March 8, 2003, p. 41.
107. See also Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at War.
108. On Russia's reorientation toward the United States, see William C. Wohlforth, "Russia," in Filings and Friedberg, with Wills, Strategic Asia, 2002-03;
109. and Thomas M. Nichols, "Russia's Turn West: Sea Change or Opportunism?" World Policy Journal, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Winter 2002/03), pp. 13-22.
110. On Putin's strategy and maneuverings on Iraq, see Wohlforth, "Russia's Soft Balancing Act," in Ellings and Friedberg, with Wills, Strategic Asia, 2003-04, pp. 165-179.
111. Pavel Felgenhauer, "New Détente to Die Young," Moscow Times, May 29, 2003.
112. Reports suggest that Russia's intelligence services were feeding Putin wildly exaggerated estimates of Iraq's prospects in a war with U.S. forces. See Sergei Karaganov, "Crisis Lessons," Moscow News, April 23, 2003. Putin voiced skepticism regarding the strategic wisdom of U.S. policy in preinvasion interviews.
113. Quoted in Andrew Jack and Stefan Wagstyl, "Optimism on Russian Postwar Accord with U.S.," Financial Times, May 16, 2003.
114. Elaine Sciolino, "French Struggle Now with How to Coexist with Bush," New York Times, February 8, 2005.
115. The following sources were especially helpful in reconstructing French policymaking on Iraq: Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at War;
116. Pond, Friendly Fire;
117. "The Divided West," pts. 1-3;
118. and the conference "The United States and France after the War in Iraq" (Washington, D.C.: Center for the United States and France [CUSF], Brookings, May 12, 2003), http://www.brookings.edu/fp/cusf/events/20030512cusf.htm.
119. The assessments of motivations in these analyses correspond to those found in the wider literature. Analysts do not see economic incentives as being important in this case. See, for example, Valerie Marcel, "Total in Iraq," U.S.-France Analysis Series (Washington, D.C.: CUSF, Brookings, August 2003).
120. See, for example, "Interview Given by M. Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic, to 'TF1' and 'France2,'" March 10, 2003, http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/francais/actualites/a_l_elysee/2003/mars/ interview_televisee_sur_l_iraq-page_2-2.4840.html;
121. also indicative are the analyses of French counterterrorism expert Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière. See Bruguière, "Terrorism after the War in Iraq," U.S.-France Analysis Series (Washington, D.C.: CUSF, Brookings, May 2003), http://www.brook.edu/printme.wbs?page=/fp/cuse/analysis/bruguiere.htm.
122. For an analysis of U.S.-European policy differences on Iraq, see Pond, Friendly Fire, chap 3.
123. "Who Will Lead the World?" Program on International Policy Attitudes, April 6, 2005, http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/europe/040605/Qnnaire04_06_05.pdf, p. 1.
124. See, for example, Lionel Jospin, "The Relationship between France and America," lecture delivered at Harvard University, December 4, 2003;
125. and commentary by French participants at the conference "The United States and France after the War in Iraq."
126. To cite one example: It was widely reported that the first sentence Chirac uttered in the interview in which he announced his intention to veto the second Security Council resolution was: "We want to live in a multipolar world." This, however, was only the first clause in a sentence that continues: "i.e. one with a few large groups enjoying as harmonious relations as possible with each other, a world in which Europe, among others, will have its full place, a world in which democracy progresses, hence the fundamental importance for us of the United Nations Organization which provides a framework and gives impetus to this democracy and harmony." "Interview Given by M. Jacques Chirac." For an example of the foreign minister's thinking, see the Alastair Buchan Lecture 2003, delivered by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, United Kingdom, March 27, 2003 http://www.iiss.org/conferencepage.php?confID=56.
127. Erik Voeten, "Outside Options and the Logic of Security Council Action," American Political Science Review, Vol. 95, No. 4 (November 2001), pp. 845-858.
128. This episode is detailed in Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at War.
129. Pape, "Soft Balancing."
130. For a general discussion, see Robert Jervis, "Theories of War in an Era of Great Power Peace," American Political Science Review, Vol. 96, No. 1 (March 2002), pp. 1-14.
131. On economic globalization, see Stephen G. Brooks, Producing Security: Multinational Corporations, Globalization, and the Changing Calculus of Conflict (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005).
132. On geography, see William C. Wohlforth, "U.S. Strategy in a Unipolar World," in Ikenberry, America Unrivaled, pp. 98-120.
133. On nuclear weapons, see Kenneth N. Waltz, "More May Be Better, " in Scott D. Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003).
134. On democracy, see Bruce Russett and John R. Oneal, Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001).
135. A useful step in this direction is provided in Voeten, "Outside Options and the Logic of Security Council Action."