STRUCTURAL REALISM

Ibrahim KoncakInternational Relations Department

QUESTIONS

• Why do states want power?• How much power is enough?• What causes great power war?• Case Study: Can China rise peacefully?

FIVE ASSUMPTIONS

• Great Powers are the main actors in world politics and they operate in an anarchic system.

• All states possess some offensive military capability.• States can never be certain about the intentions of other

states.• The main goal of states is survival.• States are rational actors.

WHY STATES WANT POWER? • Great powers fear each other in a self-help world. • The best way to survive is to be especially powerful. The more

powerful a states is relative to its competitors, the less likely it is that it will be attacked.

• Great powers look for opportunities to shift the balance of power in their favor. States want to make sure that no other state gains power at their expense.

• Every state, even satisfied or status quo power, thinks and acts when appropriate like a revisionist state.

HOW MUCH POWER IS ENOUGH?

• There is disagreement on the amount of power a state should aim among structural realists.

• Offensive realists argue that states should always be looking for opportunities to gain more power whenever it seems feasible. States should maximize power with ultimate goal to become hegemon in the system.

• Defensive Realists maintain that it is strategically foolish to pursue hegemony. States should strive for appropriate amount of power due to three factors. 1) if a state becomes too powerful balancing will occur. Other great powers will build up their militaries and form a balancing coalition that will leave aspiring hegemon less secure or may even destroy it. (Napoleonic France, Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany)

HOW MUCH POWER IS ENOUGH?

• Some defensive realists argue that there is an offence-defense balance. It is debatable whether offense pays since sometimes conquest maybe defender’s favor. Any state that attempts to gain large amounts of additional power is likely to end up fighting a series of losing wars.

• Even when conquest is feasible, it does not pay: the costs outweigh the benefits. Due to nationalism, it is especially difficult, even impossible, for the conqueror to subdue the conquered. It is difficult for foreigners to exploit modern industrial economies because information technologies require openness and freedom which are rarely found in occupation.

HOW MUCH POWER IS ENOUGH?

• Offensive realists argue that the alliances formed by threatened states, against an aggressor state, is often inefficient and this provides opportunities for aggressor to take advantage of its adversaries.

• States opt for buck-passing. • Even though it may be difficult to gain hegemony in the world, a state may

gain hegemony in its proximity as the USA gained hegemony in western hemisphere.

• Both defensive and offensive realists acknowledge that nuclear weapons have little utility for offensive purposes, except where only one side in a conflict has them.

OFFENSIVE VS. DEFENSIVE

Defensive Realists • Limited power or strive for appropriate amount of power • Conquest does not pay in the age of nationalism and

technology.• Nuclear weapons have little utility for offensive purposes,

except where only one side owns them.• Some defensive realists acknowledge that the great powers

often behave in ways that contradict their theory. • State that maximize power do not enhance their prospects

for survival; they undermine it.• Structural realism explains part of state behavior,

additional theory (organizational theory, domestic regime type, militarism) is needed. Domestic and system level is combined.

Offensive Realists • States should maximize power when it is feasible with

ultimate goal to gain hegemony in the system.• Sometimes conquest does not pay, but sometimes it

does.• Nuclear weapons have little utility for offensive

purposes, except where only one side owns them.• The security competition will tend to be intense and

there are likely to be great power wars.• Potential hegemon on the scene will arise the danger of

central war.• Additional theory is not structural realist theory so Offs.

Realists tend to rely on only structural arguments.

HOW MUCH POWER IS ENOUGH?

• Both camps agree that conventional war between nuclear armed states is possible but unlikely, because of the danger of escalation to the nuclear level.

What Causes great power war?• No single theory to explain fully• Gain power over a rival state and enhance their security• Ideology and economic considerations• Likelihood of war is affected by the architecture of international system• Changes in the distribution of power• Variations in the defense-offence balance • The number of great powers or poles in the system• Distribution of power amount the major states

THE POLARITY OF THE SYSTEM

• Debate on whether bipolarity or multi-polarity is less or more war prone.

• Bipolarity proved to be more peaceful in 20th century but still it is difficult to determine.

• The more major players, the more uncertainty in the system.• Balancing is more efficient in bipolar systems.• Unipolar world may be more stable • Whenever there is shift of power, major war may occur.