Security Seeking under Anarchy Defensive Realism Revisited

International Security

Volumn 25, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 128-161

  Taliaferro, Jeffrey W ^a  

^a TUFTS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33750961624     PISSN: 01622889     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/016228800560543     Document Type: Article

References (131)

1. For an overview of competing post-Cold War U.S. grand strategies derived from offensive realism and defensive realism, see Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, "Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy," International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Winter 1996/97), pp. 5-53.
2. The terms "aggressive realism" (or offensive realism) and "defensive realism" originated in Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 11-12.
3. Overviews of the offensive realism-defensive realism debate include Scan M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller, "Preface," in Michael E. Brown, Owen M. Coté, LynnJones, and Miller, eds., The Perils of Anarchy: Contemporary Realism and International Security (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995), pp. ix-xii; Benjamin Frankel, "Restating the Realist Case: An Introduction," Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. xiv-xx; and Scan M. Lynn-Jones, "Realism and America's Rise: A Review Essay," International Security, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Fall 1998), pp. 157-182.
4. Examples of offensive realism include 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; Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/95), pp. 5-49, especially pp. 10-15; Farced Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual
5. Origins of America's World Role (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998); Randall L. Schweller, "Bandwagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revisionist State Back In," International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 72-107; Schweller, Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler's Strategy of World Conquest (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Samuel P. Huntington, "Why International Primacy Matters," International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 68-83; and Eric J. Labs, "Beyond Victory: Offensive Realism and the Expansion of War Aims," Security Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Summer 1997), pp. \-A9.
6. Robert Jervis, "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma," World Politics, Vol. 30, No. 2 (January 1978), pp. 167-214,
7. provides the theoretical foundations for defensive realism. Examples of defensive realism include Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987); Walt, Revolution and War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995); Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the World Wars (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984); Thomas J. Christensen and Jack Snyder, "Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity," International Organization, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Spring 1990), pp. 137-168; Christensen, "Perceptions and Alliances in Europe, 1860-1940," International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Winter 1997), pp. 65-98; Stephen Van Evera, "Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War," International Security, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Spring 1998), pp. 5-43; and Van Evera, Causes of War: Poicer and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999). 5. Jeffrey W. Legro and Andrew Moravcsik, "Is Anybody Still a Realist?" International Security, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 1999), pp. 5-55.
8. Randall L. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?" Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 90-121; and Fareed Zakaria, "Realism and Domestic Politics: A Review Essay," International Security, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Summer 1992), pp. 177-198.
9. See Charles L. Glaser, "Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help," Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 122-166; Robert Jervis, "Realism, Neoliberalism, and Cooperation," International Security, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Summer 1999), pp. 42-63; and Kenneth N. Waltz, "Structural Realism after the Cold War," International Security, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Summer 2000), pp. 5-41.
10. For examples of competing foreign policy prescriptions drawn from offensive realism and defensive realism, see Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future," especially pp. 36-40, 54-56; Stephen M. Walt, "The Case for Finite Containment: Analyzing U.S. Grand Strategy," International Security, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Summer 1989), pp. 5-49; Christopher Layne, "From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America's Future Grand Strategy," International Security, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Summer 1997), pp. 86-124; Robert J. Art, "Geopolitics Updated: The Strategy of Selective Engagement," International Security, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Winter 1998/99), pp. 79-113; Eugene Gholz, Daryl G. Press, and Harvey M. Sapolsky, "Come Home, America: The Strategy of Restraint in the Face of Temptation," International Security, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Spring 1997), pp. 4-448; Thomas J. Christensen, "China, the U.S.-Japan Alliance, and the Security Dilemma in East Asia," International Security, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Spring 1999), pp. 49-80; and Michael C. Desch, "Why Realists Disagree about the Third World (and Why They Shouldn't)," Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 358-384. 9. See Legro and Moravcsik, "Is Anybody Still a Realist?" especially pp. 9,18-22; Paul Schroeder, "Historical Reality vs. Neo-realist Theory," International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 108-148; and John A. Vasquez, "The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Programs," American Political Science Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (December 1997), pp. 899-912.
11. Robert Jervis, "Realism and the Study of World Politics," International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Autumn 1998), pp. 971-991, at p. 975.
12. See Mike Winnerstig, "Dancing the Master's Waltz: The Hidden Influence of 20 Years of Theory of International Politics," paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 16-20,1999. Based on an investigation of the references made to sixteen prominent scholars in the Social Science Citation Index and a quantitative and qualitative analysis of all articles in International Studies Quarterly and International Security between 1990 and 1997, Winnerstig concludes that contemporary realism is far from the dominant approach in the international relations field.
13. See, for example, Richard Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein, "Beyond Realism: The Study of Grand Strategy," in Rosecrance and Stein, eds., The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993); Robert O. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory," International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 39-51; Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics," International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Spring 1992), pp. 391-4125; Jeffrey W. Legro, Cooperation under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint during World War II (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995); Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); and Alastair lain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995).
14. For statements of realism's core assumptions, see Frankel, "Restating the Realist Case," pp. xiv-xviii; Robert Gilpin, "No One Loves a Political Realist," Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 3-26, at pp. 6-8; Colin Elman, "Horses for Courses: Why Not Neorealist Theories of Foreign Policy?" Security Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Autumn 1996), pp. 7-53, at pp. 18-21; and Randall L. Schweller, "New Realist Research on Alliances: Refining, Not Refuting, Waltz's Balancing Proposition," American Political Science Revieu>, Vol. 91, No. 4 (December 1997), pp. 927-930. 14. Schweller, "New Realist Research on Alliances," p. 329, and Charles L. Glaser, "The Necessary and Natural Evolution of Structural Realism," unpublished manuscript, University of Chicago, May 1999, make the same point. Gideon Rose, who originated the term "neoclassical realism," however, sees neoclassical realism, offensive realism, and defensive realism as competing theories of foreign policy. See Rose, "Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy," World Politics, Vol. 51, No. 1 (October 1998), pp. 144-172.
15. For a contrasting view, see Elman, "Horses for Courses," especially pp. 21-17; and Colin Elman, "Cause, Effect, and Consistency: A Response to Kenneth Waltz," Security Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Autumn 1996), pp. 58-61. Although I agree with Elman's argument-namely, that there is no epistemological or methodological reason why one cannot derive testable hypotheses about states' foreign policies from Waltz's balance-of-power theory-I nonetheless reserve the term "neorealism" for theories of international politics.
16. I draw upon the definitions offered by Dale C. Copeland, The Origins of Major War: Hegemonic Rivalry and the Fear of Decline (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, forthcoming), p. 3; Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 15, 197-198; and Jack S. Levy, "The Causes of War: A Review of Theories and Evidence," in Philip E. Tetlock, Jo L. Husbands, Robert Jervis, Paul C. Stern, and Charles Tilly, cds., Behavior, Society, and Nuclear War, Vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 307, n. 73.
17. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), p. 73. See also Waltz, "International Politics Is Not Foreign Policy," Security Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Autumn 1996), pp. 54-57.
18. See, for example, Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics; A.F.K. Organski, World Politics (New York: Knopf, 1968); Jacek Kugler and A.F.K. Organski, "The Power Transition: A Retrospective and Prospective Evaluation," in Manus I. Midlarsky, ed., Handbook of War Studies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), pp. 171-194; George Modelski, Long Cycles in World Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987); and Robert Jervis, Systems Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997).
19. Elman, "Horses for Courses," p. 12. See also Zakaria, From Wealth to Power, pp. 14-18.
20. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 75.
21. Rose, "Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy," p. 146.
22. Other scholars make this distinction, but employ idiosyncratic terms. Stephen G. Brooks substitutes the labels "neorealism" for offensive realism and "postclassical realism" for defensive realism; Robert G. Kaufmann substitutes the term "pessimistic structural realism" for offensive realism and "optimistic structural realism" for defensive realism; and Charles L. Glaser uses the term "contingent realism" instead of defensive realism. See Brooks, "Dueling Realisms," International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 445-177; Kaufmann, "A Two-Level Interaction: Structure, Stable Liberal Democracy, and U.S. Grand Strategy," Security Studies, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Summer 1994), p. 683ff.; and Glaser, "Realists as Optimists," pp. 52-54.
23. Dale C. Copeland, "Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability: Toward a New Dynamic Theory of Major War," Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 29-89.
24. Security dilemmas exist in any anarchic environment, not just in the international system. See Barry R. Posen, "The Security Dilemma in Ethnic Conflict," in Michael E. Brown, ed., Ethnic Conflict and International Security (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 103-124; and Chaim Kaufmann, "Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars," International Security, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Spring 1996), pp. 136-175.
25. Jervis, "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma," p. 178.
26. Charles L. Glaser, "The Security Dilemma Revisited," World Politics, Vol. 50, No. 1 (October 1997), pp. 171-201.
27. For a discussion of structural modifiers, sec Glenn D. Snyder, "Process Variables in Neorealist Theory/' Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 167-192, at pp. 168-171. Snyder's concept of structural modifiers is similar to Stephen Van Evera's concept of the "fine-grained structure of power" and Barry Buzan's concept of "interaction capacity." See Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 7-8; and Buzan, Charles Jones, and Richard Little, The Logic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 69-83.
28. For debates on the definition and measurement of the offense-défense balance, see Jack S. Levy, "The Offense/Defense Balance in Military Technology: A Theoretical and Historical Analysis," International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 2 (June 1984), pp. 219-238; Scott D. Sagan, "1914 Revisited: Allies, Offense, and Instability," International Security, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Fall 1986), pp. 151176; Sean M. Lynn-Jones, "Offense-Défense Theory and Its Critics," Security Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 660-691; Van Evera, Causes of War, pp. 160-166; Charles L. Glaser and Chaim Kaufmann, "What Is the Offense-Défense Balance and Can We Measure It?" International Security, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Spring 1998), pp. 44-82; James W. Davis, Jr., Bernard I. Finel, Stacie E. Goddard, Stephen Van Evera, and Charles L. Glaser and Chaim Kaufmann, "Correspondence: Taking Offense at Offense-Défense Theory," International Security, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Winter 1998/99), pp. 179-206; Richard K. Betts, "Must War Find a Way? A Review Essay," International Security, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall
29. 1999), pp. 166-198, at pp. 178-179; and Kier A. Lieber, "Grasping the Technological Peace: The Offense-Défense Balance and International Security," International Security, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Summer
30. 2000), pp. 71-104, at pp. 74-77.
31. On this point, my treatment of structural modifiers differs from Glenn Snyder's. Snyder contends that structural modifiers "are roughly analogous macroeconomic influences, like interest rates or governmental regulation, on microeconomic relations between firms; they affect the behavior of all actors more or less evenly, but they are different in kind from factors like the number of actors (firms) or the distribution of power among them-variables which clearly determine the structure of the system (market)." Snyder, "Process Variables in Neorealist Theory," p. 169.
32. Glaser and Kaufmann, "What Is the Offense-Défense Balance?" p. 57. For a different view, see Van Evera, Causes of War, chap. 6; and Emily O. Goldman and Richard B. Andres, "Systemic Effects of Military Innovation and Diffusion," Security Studies, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Summer 1999), pp. 79-125.
33. Walt, Origins of Alliances, pp. 21-34,262-285. Walt defines threat as a composite of a state's aggregate power, offensive military capabilities, geographic proximity, and perceived aggressive intentions.
34. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 105.
35. Ibid.
36. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future," p. 12; and Mearsheimer, "False Promise of International Institutions," p. 12.
37. Glaser, "Realists as Optimists," pp. 130-133.
38. Glaser and Kaufmann, "What Is the Offense-Défense Balance?" p. 64.
39. Van Evera, "Correspondence: Taking Offense at Offense-Défense Theory," p. 195; Miller, Wlien Opponents Cooperate, pp. 64-66; and Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 4-5,19-21,29-35.
40. Lieber, "Grasping the Technological Peace," pp. 100-102. Lieber writes, "A final prediction offense-défense theory makes about behavior under nuclear defense is that states should not compete or fight too intensely over territory beyond the homeland or the homeland of close allies." He claims that frequent Soviet and U.S. interventions around the world during the Cold War disconfirm this proposition. This is not really a testable proposition, but rather a policy prescription that flows from offense-défense theory (and defensive neoclassical realism in general). See Barry R. Posen and Stephen Van Evera, "Defense Policy and the Reagan Administration: Departure from Containment," International Security, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Summer 1983), pp. 3-45, at p. 33; Walt, "The Case for Finite Containment," pp. 22-30; Stephen Van Evera, "Why Europe Matters, Why the Third World Doesn't: American Grand Strategy after the Cold War," Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 1990), pp. 1-51, especially pp. 4-5; Van Evera, Causes of War, pp. 245-246; and Gholz, Press, and Sapolsky, "Come Home, America," pp. 14-15.
41. See Benjamin Miller, Wlien Opponents Cooperate: Great Power Conflict and Collaboration in World Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), pp. 27-28. The term "intended war" says nothing about the objectives of the attacking state. Intended wars encompass both conflicts initiated for self-aggrandizement (i.e., greed) and preventive wars (i.e., conflicts initiated to block or retard the further rise of an adversary).
42. Van Evera, Causes of War, pp. 108-112. See also Walt, "The Case for Finite Containment," pp. 19-22; Peter Liberman, Does Conquest Pay? The Exploitation of Occupied Industrial Societies
43. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996); and Carl Kaysen, "Is War Obsolete? A Review Essay," International Security, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Spring 1990), pp. 42-64, especially pp. 54-57.
44. John J. Mearsheimer, "Disorder Restored," in Graham Allison and Gregory F. Treverton, eds., Rethinking America's Security: Beyond Cold War to New World Order (New York: WAV. Norton, 1992), pp. 213-237, at p. 222.
45. Brooks, "Dueling Realisms," p. 452.
46. See Eliot A. Cohen, "The Strategy of Innocence? The United States, 1920-1945," in Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin Bernstein, eds., The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 428-465.
47. On the reciprocal relationship among external threat, state building, and military strategy (and foreign policy in general), see Charles Tilly, "Reflections on the History of European State-
48. Making," in Tilly, ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975); Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of Modern Politics (New York: Free Press, 1994); and Barry R. Posen, "Nationalism, the Mass Army, and Military Power," International Security, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Fall 1993), pp. 80-124.
49. See Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640-1945 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1955); and H.W. Koch, A History of Prussia (New York: Dorse», 1978), pp. 102-139.
50. Van Evera, Causes of War, pp. 45-53.
51. See Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine, pp. 67-69; and Christensen, "Perceptions and Alliances," pp. 68-70. For a discussion of why leaders often draw the wrong historical lessons, see Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), chap. 6; and Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War: Munich, Korea, Dien Bien Fini, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), chap. 2.
52. Christensen, "Perceptions and Alliances," p. 92; and Walt, Revolution and War, chap. 2.
53. Miller, Wlien Opponents Cooperate, pp. 110-119.
54. Offense-défense theory has both an objective component and a perceptional component. The objective offense-défense balance is a structural modifier. Elite perceptions of the offense-défense balance are unit-level phenomena. See the exchange between Davis and Van Evera in "Correspondence: Taking Offense at Offense-Défense Theory," pp. 179-182,195-200.
55. Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine, pp. 67-69.
56. Stephen Van Evera, "The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War," International Security, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Summer 1984), pp. 58-107; Van Evera, Causes of War, pp. 193-239; and Christensen, "Perceptions and Alliances," pp. 82-83.
57. Thomas J. Christensen, Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobiliwtion, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947-1958 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 256.
58. Ibid., pp. 32-76, 194-241.
59. Andrew Moravcsik, "Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics," International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Autumn 1997), pp. 513-553.
60. Both realist and nonrealist works use variation in state strength to explain national security and foreign economic policies. See Zakaria, From Wealth to Power, pp. 95-113; Stephen D. Krasner, Defending the National Interests: Raw Materials Investment and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978); Aaron L. Friedberg, "Why Didn't the United States Become a Garrison State?" International Security, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Spring 1992), pp. 109-142; Friedberg, In the Shadmv of the Garrison State: America's Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Grand Strategy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000); Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., Between Poiver and Plenty: Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial Societies (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978); and Michael C. Desch, "War and Strong States, Peace and Weak States?" International Organization, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Spring 1996), pp. 237-268.
61. Friedberg, In the Sltadow of the Garrison State, p. 66.
62. Ibid., p. 75.
63. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status Quo Bias," p. 119.
64. Ibid., pp. 117-118.
65. Glaser, "The Security Dilemma Revisited," p. 195.
66. Marc Trachtenberg, "A Wasting Asset: American Strategy and the Shifting Nuclear Balance, 1949-1954," in Trachtenberg, ed., History and Strategy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 100-152, at pp. 107-111. See also Van Evera, Causes of War, chap. 4; and Jack S. Levy, "Declining Power and the Preventive Motivation for War," World Politics, Vol. 40, No. 1 (October 1987), pp. 82-107.
67. Of course, states can address relative decline by seeking additional allies or making concessions to adversaries, instead of launching preventive wars. See Randall L. Schweller, "Domestic Structure and Preventive War: Are Democracies More Peaceful?" World Politics, Vol. 44, No. 2 (January 1992), pp. 235-269; and William C. Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War," International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/95), pp. 91-129.
68. Both Van Evera and Dale C. Copeland argue that windows of opportunity and preventive war calculations drove Adolf Hitler's decision for war against the Soviet Union in June 1941. Ideology and self-aggrandizement propelled Hitler's overall grand strategy. See Van Evera, Causes of War, pp. 94-99; Copeland, "Economic Interdependence and War: A Theory of Trade Expectations," International Security, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Spring 1996), pp. 5-41, at pp. 33-39; and Copeland, Origins of Major War, pp. 139-145.
69. Andrew Kydd, "Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Why Security Seekers Do Not Fight Each Other," Security Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Autumn 1997), pp. 114-155.
70. Ibid., p. 138. Kydd does not consider himself an offensive realist and is broadly sympathetic to defensive realism. Indeed, his formal model illustrates that the search for security does not directly translate into relative power maximization. My criticism of his article mainly concerns two points: (1) the conclusions drawn about the transparency of democratic political systems; and (2) the historical incidence of war or international crises short of war between pairs of security-seeking states. Andrew Kydd, correspondence with the author, August 18 and 21, 2000. 67. Kydd's conception of costly signaling and reassurance turns on transparency, not on audience costs. For examples of the latter, see James D. Fearon, Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes,
71. American Political Science Revinv, Vol. 88, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 577-592; and Kurt Taylor Gaubatz, Democratic States and Commitment in International Relations, International Organization, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Winter 1996), pp. 109-139.
72. Kydd, Sheep in Sheep's Clothing, pp. 143.
73. Glaser, Realists as Optimists, pp. 143-146; and Walt, Origins of Alliances, chap. 6.
74. Kydd, Sheep in Sheep's Clothing, p. 117.
75. See Patrice Louis-René Higonet, The Origins of the Seven Years' War, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 40, No. 1 (March 1968), pp. 57-90; Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, Vol. 2, trans. and ed. Isabella M. Massey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 559; Van Evera, Causes of War, pp. 77, 79, 84; Copeland, Origins of Major War, pp. 79-117; Walt, Revolution and War, pp. 46-128; Miller, Wlien Opponents Cooperate, pp. 125-174; and Devin T. Hagerty, The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation: Lessons from South Asia (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), pp. 117-176.
76. On the perceived lessons of World War I and the origins of total war planning in the Japanese Imperial Army, see Michael A. Barnhart, Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919-1941 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 22-23; and Mark R. Peattie, khiwara Kanji and Japan's Confrontation with the West (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), chaps. 1-3.
77. See Seki Hiroharu, The Manchurian Incident, 1931, in James William Morely, ed., Japan Erupts: The London Naval Conference and the Manchurian Incident, 1928-1932 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), pp. 143-170; and Shimada Toshikiko, Designs on North China, in Morely, ed., The China Quagmire: Japan's Expansion on the Asian Continent, 1933-1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), pp. 135-156.
78. Konoe served as prime minister from June 4,1937 to January 5, 1939; July 22, 1940 to July 18, 1941; and July 18 to October 18,1941. Hiranuma, Abe, and Yonai held the premiership from January 5 to August 30,1939; August 30,1939 to January 16,1940; and January 16 to July 22,1940, respectively. Tojo succeeded Konoe on October 18,1941, and held the premiership until July 18,1944.
79. The KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) suspended their bitter civil war and forged a tactical alliance against the Japanese. In their pursuit of the CCP in Manchuria, Japanese troops repeatedly violated the Sino-Soviet border in 1938-39. For a detailed examination of the undeclared war between Japanese and Soviet forces, see Hata Ikuhiko, The Japanese-Soviet Confrontation, 1935-1939, in James William Morely, ed., Deterrent Diplomacy: Japan, Germany, and the U.S.S.R., 1935-1940 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 129-178; and Alvin D. Coox, Nomohan: Japan against Russia, 1939, 2 vols. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985).
80. Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, Quagmires in the Periphery: Foreign Wars and Escalating Commitment in International Conflict, Security Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Spring 1998), pp. 94-144; and Peter Liberman, The Offense-Défense Balance, Interdependence, and War, Security Studies, Vol. 9, Nos. 1/2 (Autumn 1999-Winter 2000), pp. 59-92, especially pp. 82-88. See also Van Evera, Causes of War, pp. 89-94.
81. I concede that the expansion of the Truman administration's aims in the Korean War-from containment to rollback-appears to provide strong support for one of offensive realism's main hypotheses. U.S. officials escalated their aims in response to perceived battlefield opportunities (i.e., Gen. Douglas MacArthur's successful landing at Inchon) and systemic opportunities (i.e., the Truman administration's perceptions of China's weakness following the civil war and the diminished probability of Soviet intervention). For this argument, see Labs, Beyond Victory, pp. 34-39.
82. William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press), pp. 66-70; and Rosemary Foot, The Wrong War: American Policy and the Dimensions of the Korean Conflict, 1950-1953 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 82-63.
83. See Christensen, Useful Adversaries, pp. 138-193; Chen Jian, China's Road to the Korean War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994); and Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai,
84. Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993).
85. Dale C. Copeland, Do Reputations Matter? Security Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Autumn 1997), pp. 33-71.
86. Chargé in the Soviet Union to the State Department, March 18, 1953, Foreign Relations of the United States: 1952-1954, Vol. 8 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), p. 1131.
87. Kenneth A. Osgood, Form before Substance: Eisenhower's Commitment to Psychological Warfare and Negotiations with the Enemy, Diplomatic History, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Summer 2000), pp. 405-433, especially pp. 419-421.
88. Ibid., pp. 420-421. See also Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Klmtslichev (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 154157; and Deborah Welch Larson, Anatomy of Mistrust: U.S.-Soviet Relations during the Cold War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 47-49.
89. Larson, Anatomy of Mistrust, pp. 204-212; and Wohlforth, Realism and the End of the Cold War, pp. 113-114.
90. John M. Owen, IV, How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace, International Security, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Fall 1994), pp. 87-125.
91. See Bernard I. Finel and Kristin M. Lord, The Surprising Logic of Transparency, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 2 (June 1999), pp. 325-339.
92. See Albertini, Origins of the War of 1812, pp. 514-527; and Van Evera, Causes of War, pp. 222-224. Copeland, on the other hand, argues that Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and other German leaders did not count on British neutrality during the July 1914 crisis. See Copeland, Origins of Major War, pp. 60-64, 84-85, 92-93, 111-112.
93. Osgood, Form before Substance, pp. 412-413; Gregory Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin: America's Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947-1956 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), especially pp. 122-177; Andrew Bennett, Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of Soviet-Russian Military Interventionism, 1973-1996 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 128-131, 169-173,234-235; and Dale C. Copeland, Trade Expectations and the Outbreak of Peace: Detente, 1970-74, and the End of the Cold War, 1985-91, Security Studies, Vol. 9, Nos. 1/2 (Autumn 1999Winter 2000), pp. 15-59.
94. Christopher Layne, Kant or Cant? The Myth of the Democratic Peace, International Security, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Fall 1994), pp. 5-49.
95. Zakaria, From Wealth to Power, p. 23.
96. Ibid., pp. 26-27, 30-31.
97. On this point, see Jervis, Cooperation under the Security Dilemma, pp. 189-190.
98. Mearsheimer, Back to the Future, p. 14. See also John J. Mearsheimer, Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, forthcoming), chap. 2.
99. Labs, Beyond Victory, p. 13.
100. Glaser, The Security Dilemma Revisited, p. 145.
101. Jack S. Levy observes, Hegemony is a concept that is widely used, but is rarely defined with any degree of precision. See Levy, Theories of General War, World Politics, Vol. 37, No. 3 (April 1985), pp. 344-375, at pp. 348-349, n. 20. It is unclear whether hegemony is synonymous with unipolarity or whether a hegemon can exist within a multipolar or bipolar international system. Examples of the different definitions of hegemony employed by realists and nonrealists in security studies include Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, pp. 29-30; Daniel Deudney, The Philadelphia System: Sovereignty, Arms Control, and Balance of Power in the American States-Union, circa 1787-1861, International Organization, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Spring 1995), pp. 191-228; Benjamin Miller, Competing Realist Perspectives on Great Power Crisis Behavior, Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 309-357, at p. 324; Charles A. Kupchan, After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity, International Security, Vol. 23, No.
102. (Fall 1998), pp. 40-80, at pp. 45-49; Michael Mastanduno and Ethan B. Kapstein, Realism and State Strategies after the Cold War, and Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, Realism, Structural Liberalism, and the Western Order, both in Kapstein and Mastanduno, eds., Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies after the Cold \\'ar (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 327,103-137, respectively; and William C. Wohlforth, The Stability of a Unipolar World, International Security, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Summer 1999), pp. 5-41, especially pp. 9-18.
103. Elman, Horses for Courses, pp. 28-29.
104. Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War, 3d ed. (New York: Free Press, 1988), chap. 8; and Miller, Competing Realist Perspectives on Great Power Crisis Behavior, pp. 323-325.
105. Labs, Beyond Victory, pp. 18-20; Mearsheimer, Back to the Future. See also Eric J. Labs, Do Weak States Bandwagon? Security Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Spring 1992), pp. 383-416.
106. Elman, Horses for Courses, pp. 28-29. See also Inis L. Claude, Jr., Power ami International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962).
107. Legro and Moravcsik, Is Anybody Still a Realist? p. 35.
108. Van Evera contends that most wars result from national leaders' misperceptions of the finegrained structure of power-in exaggeration of the power of the offense, the size of first-move advantages, the size and frequency of power fluctuations, and the cumulativity of resources. See Van Evera, Causes of War, pp. 9-11.
109. Aaron L. Friedberg, Tlie Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895-1905 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 8, n. 24.
110. Wohlforth, Realism and the End of the Cold War, p. 98.
111. For the differences between contemporary realism and the classical realism of Morgenthau, Henry Kissinger, E.H. Carr, and Arnold Wolfers, sec Richard Ashley, The Poverty of Neo-realism, International Organization, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Spring 1984), pp. 225-261;
112. Kenneth N. Waltz, The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory, in Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb, eds., The Origins and Prevention of Major Wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 39-414; and Ashley J. Tellis, Reconstructing Political Realism: The Long March to Scientific Theory, Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 3-104, at pp. 67-89.
113. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 3d ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), pp. 1-6, 29.
114. Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man versus Power Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), p. 71.
115. John Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 16.
116. See Miles Kahler, Rationality in International Relations, International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Autumn 1998), pp. 919-942, at pp. 924-925; Brooks, Dueling Realisms, pp. 453-455; and Randall L. Schweller and William C. Wohlforth, Power Test: Evaluating Realism in Response to the End of the Cold War, Security Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Spring 2000), pp. 60-108, at pp. 70-71.
117. Robert O. Keohane, Theory of World Politics, in Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 164-165, 173.
118. Waltz, Tlieory of International Politics, pp. 74-77, 127-128.
119. Waltz, Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response to My Critics, in Keohane, Neorealism and Its Critics, p. 118. See also Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 74-77,127-128. For different views on whether, and if so to what extent, Waltz's neorealist balance-of-power theory relies on rational choice as opposed to an evolutionary mechanism (or some other decisionmaking model), see Elman, Horses for Courses, pp. 42-44; Brooks, Dueling Realisms, pp. 453-454; Joâo Resende-Santos, "Anarchy and the Emulation of Military Systems," Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 193-260, at p. 209, n. 56; Scott D. Sagan, "More Will Be Worse," in Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995), pp. 50-55,86-87; and Jack S. Levy, "Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield," International Organization, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 279-312, at pp. 296298.
120. Alexander L. George and Timothy J. McKeown, "Case Studies and Theories of Organizational Decision Making," in Robert Coulam and Richard Smith, eds., Advances in Information Processing in Organizations, Vol. 2 (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1985), pp. 21-58, at p. 35.
121. Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War," pp. 108-109.
122. Legro and Moravcsik, "Is Anybody Still a Realist?" p. 23.
123. Arnold Wolfers, "The Pole of Power and the Pole of Indifference," in Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays in International Politics (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 42.
124. On this point, see the letters by Günther Hellmann and Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, "Correspondence: Brother, Can You Spare a Paradigm? (Or Was Anybody Ever a Realist?)," International Security, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Summer 2000), pp. 171-172,179.
125. Legro and Moravcsik, "Is Anybody Still a Realist?" p. 9 (emphasis in original). In note 8, Legro and Moravcsik cite Imre Lakatos, "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programs," in Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 131-132.
126. For criticisms of the applicability of Lakatos's MSRP, see Stephen M. Walt, "The Progressive Power of Realism," American Political Science Revieie, Vol. 91, No. 4 (December 1997), pp. 931-935; and Randall L. Schweller, "Correspondence: Brother, Can You Spare a Paradigm? (Or Was Anybody Ever a Realist?)," International Security, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Summer 2000), pp. 174-178.
127. Legro and Moravcsik, "Is Anybody Still a Realist?" pp. 23-27.
128. Wohlforth, "Stability of a Unipolar World," pp. 29-41.
129. Rose, "Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy," p. 165.
130. Glaser, "The Security Dilemma Revisited," pp. 200-201.
131. See James M. Goldgeier, "Psychology and Security," Security Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Summer 1997), pp. 137-166.