Identity, insecurity, and great power politics: The tragedy of german naval ambition before the first world war

Security Studies

Volumn 19, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 656-688

  Murray, Michelle ^a  

^a BARD COLLEGE   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 78649801605     PISSN: 09636412     EISSN: 15561852     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09636412.2010.524081     Document Type: Article

References (182)

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10. and Brian Greenhill, "Recognition and Collective Identity Formation in International Politics," European Journal of International Relations 14, no. 2 (June 2008): 343-68
11. Wendt, "Why a World State is Inevitable," 507
12. Wendt glosses over the difficulty of this process when discussing the importance of struggles for "thick recognition," which involve claims to particular identities. For Wendt world state formation proceeds as long as struggles for thick recognition are "domesticated" so that they do not take the form of violence
13. See ibid., 511
14. My argument will suggest that one such struggle for thick recognition-for great power status-cannot be domesticated because it takes the form of material competition, and thus undermines the formation of community at the international level.
15. J. Samuel Barkin, "Realist Constructivism," International Studies Review 5, no. 3 (September 2003): 325-42
16. Michael C. Williams, "Why Ideas Matter in International Relations: Hans Morgenthau, Classical Realism and the Moral Construction of Power Politics," International Organization 58, no. 4 (Fall 2004): 633-65
17. and Jennifer Mitzen, "Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma," European Journal of International Relations 12, no. 3 (September 2006): 341-70
18. Glaser, "When Arms Races Dangerous?" 61-64
19. Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 114
20. See also, John Gerring, Case Study Research: Principles and Practices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
21. Keir A. Lieber, "The New History of World War I and What it Means for IR Theory," International Security 32, no. 2 (Fall 2007): 155-91
22. William C. Wohlforth, "Unipolarity, Status Competition and Great Power War," World Politics 61, no. 1 (January 2009): 28-57
23. and Deborah Welch Larson and Alexei Shevchenko, "Status Seekers: Chinese and Russian Responses to U.S. Primacy," International Security 34, no. 4 (Spring 2010): 63-95
24. Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 224
25. For a theorization of domestic sources of identities
26. see Ted Hopf, The Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002)
27. and Caroline F. Ziemke, "The National Myth and Strategic Personality of Iran: A Counterproliferation Perspective," in The Coming Crisis: Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Interests and World Order, ed. Victor A. Utgoff (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2000), 87-122
28. Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, "Beyond Identity," Theory and Society 29, no. 1 (February 2000): 17
29. Mitzen, "Ontological Security in World Politics," 358
30. Patchen Markell, Bound by Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 13
31. Richard K. Ashley, "The Poverty of Neorealism," in Neorealism and Its Critics, ed. Robert O. Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 291 (emphasis in original)
32. Iver B. Neumann, "Russia's Standing as a Great Power, 1494-1815," in Russia's European Choice, ed. Ted Hopf (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 23
33. Neumann indicates that the European great powers noted, but did not take seriously, Russia's claims to great power status. This was because, in part, Russia did not conform to the traditional diplomatic rituals of the time, nor did it possess significant power projection capabilities that would cause the European great powers to take notice of it.
34. Iver B. Neumann, "Russia's Quest for Recognition as a Great Power, 1489-2007," (working paper, Institute of European Studies and International Relations, Faculty of the Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, 2007), 32
35. As quoted in Hans Bagger, "The Role of the Baltic in Russian Foreign Policy, 1721-1773," in Imperial Russian Foreign Policy, eds., Hugh Ragsdale and V. N. Ponomarev (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), 37 (emphasis mine)
36. Markell, Bound by Recognition, 14
37. Ibid., 14
38. The language of giving a contradiction "room to move" is drawn from ibid., 108-13
39. Ibid., 112
40. Barry Barnes, "Practice as Collective Action," in The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, eds. Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr Cetina, and Eike von Savigny (New York: Routledge, 2001), 27
41. And Lisa Wedeen, "Conceptualizing Culture: Possibilities for Political Science," American Political Science Review 96, no. 4 (December 2002): 720
42. Ted Hopf, "The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory," International Security 23, no. 1 (Summer 1998): 173
43. Ashley, "The Poverty of Neorealism," 292.
44. See esp., Dana P. Eyre, and Marc C. Suchman, "Status, Norms and Proliferation of Conventional Weapons: An Institutional Theory Approach," in The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996)
45. Marc C. Suchman and Dana P. Eyre, "Military Procurement as Rational Myth: Notes on the Social Construction of Weapons Proliferation," Sociological Forum 7, no. 1 (March 1992): 137-61
46. and Connie L. McNeely, Constructing the Nation-State: International Organization and Prescriptive Action (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995), 63
47. Thomas Ohlson, Arms Transfer Limitations and Third World Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 49
48. Suchman and Eyre, "Military Procurement as Rational Myth," 150.
49. Ibid., 151
50. Ann Swidler, "What Anchors Cultural Practices," in The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, eds., Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr Cetina, and Eike von Savigny (New York: Routledge, 2001), 89.
51. Eyre and Suchman, "Status, Norms and Proliferation of Conventional Weapons," 92.
52. Barry Buzan, The United States and the Great Powers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 61.
53. Jan Rüger, The Great Naval Game: Britain and Germany in the Age of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
54. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1890)
55. This is not to say, of course, that Germany's naval program reflected Mahan's ideas perfectly, or that there was a direct causal link between Mahanism and Weltpolitik
56. For a discussion of how German naval planning deviated from Mahan's ideas
57. see Holger H. Herwig, "The Failure of German Sea Power, 1914-1945: Mahan, Tirpitz and Raeder Reconsidered," The International History Review 10, no. 1 (February 1988): 68-105
58. Holger H. Herwig, "The Influence of A. T. Mahan Upon German Sea Power," in The Influence of History on Mahan, ed. John Hattendorf (Newport: Naval War College Press, 1991), 67-80
59. Donald Kagan, The Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace (New York: Doubleday Publishing, 1995), 135
60. Rüger, The Great Naval Game, 208.
61. Lawrence Sondhaus, Naval Warfare, 1815-1914 (New York: Routledge, 2001), 228
62. Ashley, "The Poverty of Neorealism," 294.
63. Defensive realists argue that German naval expansion was suboptimal from a strategic perspective and reflects distortions generated by domestic politics
64. See Jack L. Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 70-90
65. and Glaser, "When Are Arms Races Dangerous?" 61-64
66. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 34.
67. Christopher Layne, "The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise," International Security 17, no. 4 (Spring 1993): 23.
68. Alexander Wendt, "Constructing International Politics," International Security 20, no. 1 (Summer 1995): 76.
69. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 37.
70. Snyder, Myths of Empire, 71-73.
71. Paul Kennedy, "Tirpitz, England and the Second Navy Law of 1900," Milit ärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 2 (1970): 34.
72. Ibid., 38
73. James R. Holmes, "Mahan, a 'Place in the Sun,' and Germany's Quest for Sea Power," Comparative Strategy 23, no. 1 (January 2002): 48
74. and Paul Kennedy, "Strategic Aspects of the Anglo-German Naval Race," in Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870-1945 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983): 151
75. Kennedy, "Tirpitz, England and the Second Navy Law of 1900," 48
76. and E. L. Woodward, Great Britain and the German Navy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935), 36.
77. Rolf Hobson, Imperialism at Sea: Naval Strategic Thought, the Ideology of Sea Power and the Tirpitz Plan (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002), 260.
78. Ibid., 262
79. and Kennedy, "Tirpitz, England and the Second Navy Law of 1900," 48.
80. Ivo Nikolai Lambi, The Navy and German Power Politics, 1862-1914 (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1984), 143.
81. Hobson, Imperialism at Sea, 272.
82. Holger H. Herwig, "The German Reaction to the Dreadnought Revolution," The International History Review 13, no. 2 (May 1991): 221-83.
83. Glaser, "When Are Arms Races Dangerous?" 62.
84. Robert Ross notes that Germany's preoccupation with battleships prevented it from adequately developing its submarine force
85. Robert S. Ross, "China's Naval Nationalism: Sources, Prospects and the U.S. Response," International Security 34, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 51.
86. Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack, "Let Us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the Statesmen Back In," International Security 25, no. 4 (Spring 2001): 109.
87. Ibid., 133-43.
88. Lawrence Sondhaus, Preparing forWeltpolitik: German Sea Power before the Tirpitz Era (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997)
89. and Hobson, Imperialism at Sea.
90. For a comparative discussion of naval strategic thought with reference to Imperial Germany, see Hobson, Imperialism at Sea
91. for a discussion of the U.S. naval program at the time, see Kevin Narizny, "The New Debate: International Relations Theory and American Strategic Adjustment in the 1890s," Security Studies 11, no. 1 (Autumn 2001): 151-70
92. Andrew Parasiliti, Daniel L. Byman, and Kenneth M. Pollack, "Correspondence: The First Image Revisited," International Security 26, no. 2 (Fall 2001): 166.
93. Eckart Kehr, Battleship Building and Party Politics in Germany, 1894-1901, trans
94. Pauline Anderson and Eugene Anderson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975)
95. James J. Sheehan, "The Primacy of Domestic Politics: Eckart Kehr's Essays on Modern German History," Central European History 1, no. 2 (June 1968): 166-74
96. and Hans-Ulrich Wehler, The German Empire, 1871-1918 (New York: Berg, 1985)
97. Wehler, The German Empire, 165.
98. Sheehan, "The Primacy of Domestic Politics," 171.
99. Snyder, Myths of Empire, 44.
100. Ibid., 46
101. Kagan, The Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, 138. For a thorough critique of the historiography on the domestic politics hypothesis
102. see Wolfgang J. Mommsen, "Domestic Factors in German Foreign Policy Before 1914," Central European History 6, no. 1 (March 1973): 3-43
103. Paul Kennedy, "The Kaiser and German Weltpolitik: Reflexions on Wilhelm II's Place in the Making of German Foreign Policy," in Kaiser Wilhelm II: New Interpretations, eds., John C.G. Röhl and Nicolaus Sombart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 152
104. Kagan, The Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, 138.
105. See also, Richard Ned Lebow, A Cultural Theory of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 305-70.
106. Michael Stürmer, The German Empire, 1870-1918 (New York: Random House, 2000), 45.
107. Rüger, The Great Naval Game, 140
108. Volker R. Berghahn, "War Preparations and National Identity in Imperial Germany," in Anticipating Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871-1914, eds., Manfred Franz Boemeke, Roger Chickering, and Stig F̈orster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 315-18.
109. Jonathan Steinberg, Yesterday's Deterrent: Tirpitz and the Birth of the German Battle Fleet (New York: Macmillan Company, 1965)
110. Peter Padfield, The Great Naval Race: The Anglo-German Naval Rivalry (New York: David McCay Company, 1974)
111. and Geoff Eley, "Reshaping the Right: Radical Nationalism and the German Navy League, 1898-1908," Historical Journal 21, no. 2 (June 1978): 327-54
112. Michael Howard, War in European History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 124.
113. Jonathan Steinberg, "The Copenhagen Complex," Journal of Contemporary History 1, no. 3 (July 1966): 45
114. The seeds of Germany's naval strategy against Britain are evident as early as 1892-1894, however, it did not take form in terms of concrete plans for a Navy Bill until 1897
115. Hobson, Imperialism at Sea, 212.
116. Ibid., 236
117. and Steinberg, Yesterday's Deterrent, 126.
118. From the Tirpitz memorandum of June 1897, "General Considerations on the Constitution of Our Fleet According to Ship Classes and Designs," in Steinberg, Yesterday's Deterrent, 209 (emphasis mine).
119. Kagan, The Origins of War and Preservation of Peace, 139-40.
120. As quoted in Steinberg, Yesterday's Deterrent, 127.
121. Ibid., 129, fn 16, (emphasis in original)
122. and Woodward, Great Britain and the German Navy, 24.
123. As quoted in Lambi, The Navy and German Power Politics, 143
124. Hobson, Imperialism at Sea, 297
125. This is consistent with the view held by several historians that Germany was an aggressive, offense-oriented state prepared for a long and protracted war
126. See Annika Mombauer, "Of War Plans and War Guilt: The Debate Surrounding the Schlieffen Plan," Journal of Strategic Studies 28, no. 5 (October 2005): 857-85
127. Holger H. Herwig, "Germany and the 'Short-War' Illusion: Toward a New Interpretation?" The Journal of Military History 66, no. 3 (July 2002): 681-93
128. and Stig Förster, "Dreams and Nightmares: German Military Leadership and the Images of Future Warfare, 1871-1914," in Anticipating Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871-1914, eds., Manfred Franz Boemeke, Roger Chickering, and Stig F̈orster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 343-76
129. For an application of these ideas to IR, see Lieber, "The New History of World War I."
130. As quoted in Holmes, "Mahan, a 'Place in the Sun,' and Germany's Quest for Sea Power," 37, (emphasis mine)
131. Ibid., 38.
132. Ibid., 48.
133. Ibid., 48.
134. Steinberg, Yesterday's Deterrent, 201.
135. Hobson, Imperialism at Sea, 302-3.
136. Lambi, The Navy and German Power Politics, 145.
137. From Tirpitz's notes for the audience at Rominten, as quoted in Padfield, The Great Naval Race, 82.
138. From the preamble to "Begr ündung zum Entwurf der Novelle zum Flottengesetz," as quoted in Hobson, Imperialism at Sea, 244
139. Woodward, Great Britain and the German Navy, 33.
140. and Kennedy, "Tirpitz, England and the Second Navy Law of 1900," 36.
141. Woodward, Great Britain and the German Navy, 33.
142. Steinberg, Yesterday's Deterrent, 21.
143. Ibid., 21.
144. Steinberg, "The Copenhagen Complex," 23.
145. Padfield, The Great Naval Race, 78
146. and Kennedy, "Tirpitz, England and the Second Navy Law of 1900," 47.
147. Kennedy, "Tirpitz, England and the Second Navy Law of 1900," 47
148. and Kennedy, "Strategic Aspects of the Anglo-German Naval Race," 149.
149. In this way German identity was doubly vulnerable: first, in the sense that any identity comes into being intersubjectively, and, as such, Germany's aspirant identity was dependent upon Britain to have meaning; and second, that the practices Germany pursued in response to this first vulnerability would also not be able to achieve its desired goal.
150. David Daiches, "The Rhetoric of Necessity, F̈ urst B̈ ulow: Rede Zur Flottenvorlage Am 11, Dezember 1899," in Rhetoric and World Politics: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Political Speeches byW.E. Gladstone, J. Chamberlain and B.v. B̈ulow, ed. Helmut Viebrock (Wisebaden: Franz Steiner Verlag), 158-60.
151. Bernhard von Bülow, "Announcement of the Second Navy Bill, Meeting of the Reichstag, December, 11, 1899," in Rhetoric and World Politics: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Political Speeches by W.E. Gladstone, J. Chamberlain and B.v. B̈ulow, ed. Helmut Viebrock (Wisebaden: Franz Steiner Verlag), 157.
152. Daiches, "The Rhetoric of Necessity," 158.
153. Peter Wende, "Politische Rhetorik als Historische Quelle-Zur Imperialismus-Ideologie Chamberlains und B̈ ulows," in Rhetoric and World Politics: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Political Speeches by W.E. Gladstone, J. Chamberlain and B.v. B̈ulow, ed. Helmut Viebrock (Wisebaden: Franz Steiner Verlag), 186.
154. There is a debate in the historiography about the relative importance of the German threat in British naval planning. For those that emphasize financial constraints
155. see Jon Tetsuro Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989)
156. and Nicholas A. Lambert, Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999)
157. For a dissenting view, see Matthew S. Seligmann, "Switching Horses: The Admiralty's Recognition of the Threat from Germany, 1900-1905," The International History Review 30, no. 2 (June 2008): 237-58.
158. Herwig, "The German Reaction to the Dreadnought Revolution," 274.
159. Nicholas A. Lambert, "Admiral Sir John Fisher and the Concept of Flotilla Defence, 1904-1909," The Journal of Military History 59, no. 4 (October 1995): 642
160. The battle cruiser and flotilla defense were part of Fisher's larger vision for British sea power that moved away from a central focus on battleships
161. See Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy
162. Lambert, Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution
163. and Michael C. Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2010)
164. Hobson, Imperialism at Sea, 37.
165. Herwig, "The German Reaction to the Dreadnought Revolution," 278.
166. Ibid., 281.
167. Vice Admiral Wilhelm B̈uchsel, as quoted in ibid., 281
168. Importanly, this shows that Germany understood the security risks it was taking in expanding its navy and proceeded anyway.
169. In 1907 Russia invited the great powers to a conference at The Hague to discuss a reduction in armaments in Europe. Despite British efforts to halt the burgeoning naval arms race, Germany rejected Britain's ideas on disarmament talks because an arms control agreement would eliminate all possibility of achieving any of the goals associated with its program of naval expansion. Similarly, in 1912 Lord Haldane visited Germany to negotiate a naval agreement. Again, Germany refused to accept a naval understanding with Britain unless the agreement allowed a new German naval increase while British levels remained constant, thus allowing Germany to significantly increase its naval forces vis-à-vis Britain. In each of these cases, Germany considered parity to be the mark of recognition for its world power status.
170. Glaser, "When Are Arms Races Dangerous?" 63.
171. Viscount Richard Haldane, "Diary of Mr. Haldane's Visit to Germany, September 2, 1906: Secret," in British Documents on the Origins of the War, eds., G.P. Gooch and Harold Temperley (London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1928), 379.
172. Hopf, The Social Construction of International Politics, 8.
173. Richard Ned Lebow, "Constructive Realism," International Studies Review 6, no. 2 (June 2004): 348.
174. For a dissenting view of China's rise and the inadequacies of the comparison to Imperial Germany
175. see Avery Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge: China's Grand Strategy and International Security (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005).
176. U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China, 2009 (Washington, DC, 2009), 48.
177. Ronald O'Rourke, "China's Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Naval Capabilities," U.S. Congressional Research Service. RL33153, 9 April 2010, 11.
178. Nick Smith, "Grand Delusions: The Psychology of Aircraft Carriers," Harvard International Review 24, no. 3 (2002): 7
179. Smith notes that nuclear weapons have become strategic deterrents, whereas aircraft carriers are inherently offensive weapons built as a projection of power into foreign waters. Moreover, aircraft carriers do not carry the stigma that nuclear weapons hold for proliferators.
180. Andrew S. Erikson and Andrew R. Wilson, "China's Aircraft Carrier Dilemma," Naval War College Review 59, no. 4 (2006): 28.
181. Jing-dong Yuan, "China's Ascendancy to Space Power," China Brief 8, no. 8 (2008): 4-8
182. Council on Foreign Relations, "US-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course," Report of an Independent Task Force Sponsored by the Council of Foreign Relations (Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations, 2007), 48.