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Dunne, Kurki & Smith: International Relations Theories

Chapter 04

Structural Realism

• Realists believe that power is the currency of international politics.  It is based on the material capabilities that a state controls.  States compete for power and do all they can to shift the balance of power in their favour.

• Whereas classical realists believed conflict was hardwired into human nature, contemporary structural realists believe it is the architecture of the international system that forces states to pursue power politics.

• Structural realism is based on five assumptions about the international system:

• Great powers are the main actors and they operate in an anarchic international system.  By anarchy realists do not mean ‘chaos’ but simply the absence of a centralized authority which can command state actors to follow rules and principles.
All states possess offensive military capability – this varies over time.
States can never be certain about other states’ intentions.  A defensive military doctrine espoused by one state can look like offensive threat to another.  This zero sum predicament is often referred to as the security dilemma.
The main goal of states is survival.
States are rational actors operating with imperfect information: they sometimes make serious mistakes.

• There is an important debate within structural realism between ‘defensive’ and ‘offensive’ camps.  Offensive realists argue that states should always be looking for opportunities to gain more power, with the ultimate prize being hegemony.  Defensive realists argue that unrelenting expansion is imprudent – conquest is often costly and troublesome.  For this reason, defensive realists such as Kenneth Waltz, argue that states should seek an 'appropriate amount of power' (1989: 40).

• Structural realists recognise that there are many possible causes of war.  Of these, the question whether a multipolar system (3 or more great powers) or a bilpolar system (2 great powers) is more stable is hotly debated. 

• Realists who think bipolarity is more stable offer three supporting arguments:

  1. There is more opportunity for great powers to fight each other in a multipolar world
  2. Equality between great powers tends to be more even, and balancing behaviour is easier
  3. There is greater potential for miscalculation in multipolarity

• Realists who think multipolarity is more stable offer the following two supporting arguments:

  1. More great powers is better in part because deterrence is easier.  In multipolarity, more states can join together to confront an aggressive state.
  2. There is less hostility among the great powers as their attention is more diffused.

• With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, many realists argue that unipolarity has arrived.  Such a world is likely to be more stable than either bipolarity or multipolarity.  Logically, there can be no war or security competition among great powers; minor powers will not cause any trouble for fear of offending the unipolar power.  One danger in a unipolar world is that the absence of security competition encourages the great power to withdraw from outer regions thus increasing the likelihood of war breaking out.  Or a hegemon might use its overwhelming power to engage in ideological engineering, causing insecurity and triggering ideologically driven counter-balancing behaviour.

• Other realists argue that it is not polarity that is the key variable explaining war, rather it is the amount of power each great power controls.  Does preponderance generate relative peace (such as in the era of Pax Britannica between Napoleon’s defeat in 1815 and the outbreak of World War 1), or does it incentivize the preponderant power to use force to establish hegemony? 

• One version of this argument is that the most dangerous system of all is when a preponderant power is faced with a rising challenger (for example, Germany confronted by Russia in 1914 and the Soviet Union in 1939).

• Case Study: Can China Rise Peacefully?  As the Chinese economy continues to grow at a phenomenal rate, realists confront the question of what will China do with its military muscle, and how will others (eg the USA and China’s neighbours) react?

• Case Study continued. Offensive realists would predict that China and the USA will engage in security competition.  They expect a rising China will imitate the USA to become a regional hegemon in Asia, meaning removing all local threats to its security and pushing American military forces out of Asia.  This will be resisted by the USA as it does not tolerate peer competitors.

• Case Study continued. Defensive realists argue that it would be smarter for China to consolidate its power (as Bismarck did for Germany) rather than have a run at establishing regional hegemony (as Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler did).  Nuclear weapons in the hands of rivals such as India ought to restrain China.  Also, as the USA is finding out in Iraq, the costs of conquest in an age of nationalism are exorbitantly high.

• Case Study continued. The rise of China will also shed light on realist predictions about unipolarity.  Even if China alters the system to one of bipolarity, the Cold War demonstrated the possibility of a stable balance between the two great powers.