No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Grand strategy in a post-bipolar world: interpreting the final Soviet response*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 October 2010
Extract
All great powers have a grand strategy—including great powers on the verge of collapse. Each power develops its code of national security ends and means differently. Among the myriad factors which explain particular grand strategies, the most important consideration is the distribution of power capabilities in the international system. Regardless of each state's desire to operate independently—to be master of its own grand strategy—the structure of world politics offers little latitude to do so. As in the case of decision-making processes in organizations and bureaucracies, the international system imposes its own constraints and incentives on the security goals of individual states. Primarily addressing the international environment, however, systems theory ‘provides criteria for differentiating between stable and unstable political configurations.’ The first objective of this essay is to explore the role of structure as an indirect influence on the behaviour of its constituent actors, in this case, states. ‘The effects [of structure] are produced in two ways: through socialization of the actors and through competition among them.’
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © British International Studies Association 1992
References
1 Gaddis, J. L., ‘The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System’, International Security, 10 (Spring 1986), p. 103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Waltz, K. N., Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA., 1979), p. 74;Google Scholar also Keohane, R., ‘Realism, Neorealism and the Study of World Polities’, in Keohane, (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics (New York, 1986), pp. 1–26.Google Scholar
3 See the provocative essay by Snyder, J., ‘Averting Anarchy in the New Europe’, International Security, 14 (Spring 1990), pp. 5–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar It is also available in Jervis, R. and Bialer, S. (eds), Soviet-American Relations After the Cold War (Durham, NC, 1991), pp. 276–301.Google Scholar
4 See, for example, Rosenberg, D. A., ‘The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945–1960’, International Security, 1 (Spring 1983), pp. 3–71;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNolan, J., Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy (New York, 1989);Google Scholar and Bell, C., The Reagan Paradox: American Foreign Policy in the 1980s (New Brunswick, 1989).Google Scholar
5 The quotation from Stephen Krasner refers specifically to regimes, not structures, but seems a felicitous way to frame our query. Krasner, S., ‘Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables’, in Krasner, (ed.), International Regimes (Ithaca, 1983), p. 357.Google Scholar
6 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 65. Even critics seemingly accept this much of Waltz's formulation: see, for example, Haggard, S., ‘Structuralism and Its Critics: Recent Progress in International Relations Theory’, in Adler, E. and Crawford, B. (eds.), Progress in Postwar International Relations (New York, 1991), pp. 403–37.Google Scholar For a summary of literature underscoring the ‘international—national connection’, see Almond, G., A Discipline Divided: Schools and Sects in Political Science (Newbury Park, CA., 1990), Chapter 10.Google Scholar
7 Runciman, W. G., A Treatise on Social Theory. Vol. 2: Substantive Social Theory (New York, 1989), pp. 283–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Jervis, R., ‘System Theories and Diplomatic History’, in Lauren, P. G. (ed.), Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy (New York, 1979), pp. 216–9.Google Scholar
8 Keohane, R., After Hegemony (Princeton, 1984), p. 26;Google Scholar and Keohane, , ‘International Institutions: Two Approaches’, International Studies Quarterly, 32 (December 1988), pp. 379–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Robert Gilpin has clearly shown this relationship between system and behaviour in the development of the global political economy; see The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton, 1987).Google Scholar
9 Baldwin, D., Economic Statecraft (Princeton, 1985), p. 20.Google Scholar
10 Baldwin, D., Paradoxes of Power (New York, 1989), p. 168.Google Scholar
11 Aron, R., Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations, trans. Howard, R. and A. B. Fox (1966; Malabar, FA., 1981), p. 16.Google Scholar
12 Arrow, K., Social Choice and Individual Values, 2nd edn (New Haven, 1963).Google Scholar
13 See especially Mearsheimer, J., ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War’, International Security, 15 (Summer 1990), pp. 5–56;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHoffmann, S., Keohane, R., Mearsheimer, J., ‘Back to the Future, Part II: International Relations Theory and Post-Cold War Europe’, International Security, 15 (Fall 1990), pp. 191–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Russett, B., Risse-Kappen, T., Mearsheimer, J., ‘Back to the Future, Part III: Realism and the Realities cf European Security’, International Security, 15 (Winter 1990/1991), pp. 216–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Van Evera, S., ‘Primed for Peace’, International Security, 15 (Winter 1990/1991), pp. 33–40.Google Scholar On the methodological issue, see Fearon, J., ‘Counterfactuals and Hypothesis Testing in Political Science’, World Politics, 43 (January 1991), pp. 169–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14 Gaddis, J. L., ‘Nuclear Weapons and International Systemic Stability’, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Occasional Paper No. 2 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 17.Google Scholar
15 A good example of this distinction can be found in comparing Walt, S., ‘The Case for Finite Containment: Analyzing U.S. Grand Strategy’, International Security, 14 (Summer 1989), pp. 5–49;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Desch, M., ‘The Keys that Lock Up the World: Identifying American Interests in the Periphery’, International Security, 14 (Summer 1989), pp. 86–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16 Gaddis, J. L., ‘Containment and the Logic of Strategy’, The National Interest (Winter 1987/8), p. 29.Google Scholar
17 Luttwak, E., Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge, 1987), p. 179.Google Scholar
18 Kennedy, P., ‘American Grand Strategy, Today and Tomorrow: Learning from the European Experience’, in Kennedy, P. (ed.), Grand Strategies in War and Peace (New Haven, 1991), p. 168.Google Scholar
19 Gaddis, J. L., Strategies of Containment (New York, 1982), p. ix.Google Scholar
20 Thucydides, , History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Warner, Rex (Harmondsworth, 1954/1972).Google Scholar
21 For an account of the affair, see Kagan, D., The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca, 1969), pp. 251–72.Google Scholar
22 See Baldwin, Economic Statecraft, pp. 150–4.
23 Luttwak, E., The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the Third (Baltimore, 1976)Google Scholar; Ferill, A., The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire’, in Kennedy, (ed.) Grand Strategies, pp. 71–85.Google Scholar
24 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 165.
25 Joll, J., The Origins of the First World War (New York, 1984), p. 56.Google Scholar See the important essays: Howard, M., ‘Men Against Fire: Expectations of War in 1914’, International Security, 9 (Summer 1984), pp. 41–57;CrossRefGoogle ScholarVan Evera, S., ‘The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War’, International Security, 9 (Summer 1984), pp. 58–107;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Snyder, J., ‘Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984’, International Security, 9 (Summer 1984), pp. 108–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26 Kennedy, P., The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York, 1987), p. 256.Google Scholar
27 For an insightful argument explaining the opposite alliance choices see Christensen, T. and Snyder, J., ‘Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity’, International Organization, 44 (Spring 1990), pp. 137–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 Mandelbaum, M., The Fate of Nations: The Search for National Security in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 93–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Carr, E. H., The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919–1939 (2nd edn. 1939; New York, 1946), p. 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
30 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, chap. 8; J. L. Gaddis, ‘The Long Peace’.
31 K. N. Waltz, ‘Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response to My Critics’, in Keohane, Neorealism, p. 343; emphasis added.
32 Kennan, G., ‘Containment Then and Now’, Foreign Affairs, 65 (Spring 1987), p. 889.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
33 See Jervis, R., The Nuclear Revolution (Ithaca, 1989), pp. 1–45Google Scholar, 228–37.
34 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 180–3.
35 Waltz, ‘Reflections on Theory of International Politics p. 328.
36 Waltz, Theory of International Politics p. 172.
37 Ibid. p. 170.
38 See Cohen, E., ‘Constraints on America’s Conduct of Small Wars’, International Security, 9 (Fall 1984), pp. 151–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 See Van Evera, S., ‘Wars of Intervention: Why They Shouldn’t Have a Future, Why They Do’, Defense & Disarmament Alternatives, 3 (March 1990), pp. 1–8Google Scholar. Also see Johnson, R. H., ‘Exaggerating America’s Stakes in Third World Conflicts’, International Security, 10 (Winter 1985/6), pp. 32–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Slater, J., ‘Dominoes in Central America: Will They Fall? Does It Matter?’, International Security, 12 (Fall 1987), pp. 105–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a cogent summary of Soviet thinking about Third World conflicts, see Wallander, C., ‘Third-World Conflict in Soviet Military Thought: Does the “New Thinking” Grow Prematurely Grey?’, World Politics, 42 (October 1989), pp. 31–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
40 Most, B. and Silverson, R., ‘Substituting Arms and Alliances, 1870–1914: An Exploration in Comparative Foreign Policy’, in Hermann, C., Kegley, C. Jr., and Rosenau, J. (eds.), New Directions in the Study of Foreign Policy (Boston, 1987), pp. 131–57Google Scholar. The bipolar/multipolar distinction is not made in this article. Also see Most, B. and Starr, H., ‘International Relations Theory, Foreign Policy Substitutability, and “Nice” Laws’, World Politics, 36 (April 1984), pp. 383–406CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41 Waltz, K. N., ‘Another Gap?’, comment in Osgood, R. (ed.), Containment, Soviet Behavior, and Grand Strategy (Berkeley: Policy Papers in International Affairs, No. 16, 1981), p. 81Google Scholar.
42 Snyder, G., ‘The Security Dilemma in Alliance Polities’, World Politics, 36 (July 1984), pp. 415CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 463.
43 Huntington, S. P., ‘America’s Changing Strategic Interests’, Survival, 33 (January/February 1991), p. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
44 ‘Will the U.S. Miss Its Partner, the Kremlin?’, New York Times, 8 September 1991.
45 Martin, L., ‘Dismantling Deterrence?’, Review of International Studies, 17 (1991), pp. 215–224CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see: ‘A New Nuclear Order’, Economist, 5 October 1991; ‘U.S. to Give Up Short-Range Nuclear Arms; Bush Seeks Soviet Cuts and Further Talks’, New York Times, 28 September 1991; ‘Room for Difference’, New York Times, 7 October 1991.
46 Posen, B., The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca, 1984), p. 239Google Scholar.
47 Waltz, K. N., ‘Nuclear Myths and Political Realities’, American Political Science Review, 84 (September 1990), p. 732CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
48 See Sagan, S., Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton, 1989), p. 6Google Scholar. See also Wagner, R. H., ‘Nuclear Deterrence, Counterforce Strategies, and the Incentive to Strike First’, American Political Science Review, 85 (September 1991), pp. 727–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
49 Waltz, ‘Nuclear Myths and Political Realities’, p. 733.
50 See, for instance, Kupchan, Ch. A. and Kupchan, Cl. A., ‘Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe’, International Security, 16 (Summer 1991), pp. 114–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P. Kennedy, ‘American Grand Strategy’, pp. 167–85.
51 Deudney, D. and Ikenberry, G. J., ‘Soviet Reform and the End of the Cold War: Explaining Large-Scale Historical Change’, Review of International Studies 17 (1991), pp. 225–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
52 Ullman, R., Securing Europe (Princeton, 1991), p. 139Google Scholar.
53 Pravda, A., ‘Introduction: Linkages between Soviet Domestic and Foreign Policy under Gorbachev’, in Hasegawa, T. and Pravda, A. (eds.), Perestroika: Soviet Domestic and Foreign Policies (London, 1990), p. 3Google Scholar. See also Breslauer, G., ‘Linking Gorbachev’s Domestic and Foreign Policies’, Journal of International Affairs, 2 (1989)Google Scholar.
54 Light, M., The Soviet Theory of International Relations (London, 1988)Google Scholar; Lynch, A., The Soviet Study of International Relations (Cambridge, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
55 Kubalkova, V. and Cruickshank, A. A., Thinking New About Soviet ‘New Thinking’ (Berkeley, 1989), pp. 30Google Scholar, 80, 83.
56 Snyder, J., ‘The Gorbachev Revolution: A Waning of Soviet Expansionism?’, International Security, 12 (Winter 1987/1988), p. 99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
57 Snyder, ‘The Gorbachev Revolution’, pp. 129–30.
58 Cooper, Charles et al., Rethinking Security Arrangements in Europe (Santa Monica, 1990), p. 8Google Scholar.
59 For a review of Russian books openly discussing military doctrine, see Kipp, J. W., ‘Gorbachev’s “New Thinking” and Soviet Military Doctrine: Major Issues in some Recent Books,’ Journal of Soviet Military Studies, 1 (April 1988), pp. 145–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Bluth, C., New Thinking in Soviet Military Policy (New York, 1990)Google Scholar.
60 Dobriansky, P. J. and Rivkin, D. B. Jr., ‘Changes in Soviet Military Thinking: How Do They Add Up and What Do They Mean for Western Security?’ in Green, W. C. and Karasik, T. (eds), Gorbachev and his Generals (Boulder Co., 1990), p. 165Google Scholar. For more on new doctrinal formulations, see MccGwire, M., Perestroika and Soviet National Security (Washington, 1991)Google Scholar. Also, Ruhl, L., ‘Offensive Defence in the Warsaw Pact’, Survival, 33 (September/October 1991), pp. 442–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
61 On war prevention, mutual security, and reasonable sufficiency see Meyer, S., ‘The Sources and Prospects of Gorbachev’s New Political Thinking on Security’, International Security, 13 (Fall 1988), pp. 124–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Stewart, P. D. and Hermann, M. G., ‘The Soviet Debate over “New Thinking” and the Restructuring of U.S.-Soviet Relations’, in Hudson, G. E. (ed.), Soviet National Security Policy Under Perestroika (Boston, 1990), p. 51.Google Scholar
62 This is documented by Lynch, A., Gorbachev’s International Outlook: Intellectual Origins and Political Consequences (New York, 1989), p. 45Google Scholar.
63 Holloway, D., ‘Gorbachev’s New Thinking’, Foreign Affairs, 68, no. 1 (1989), p. 71Google Scholar.
64 See Schwartz, M., Soviet Perceptions of the United States (Berkeley, 1980), especially pp. 117–24Google Scholar.
65 Cited in M. C. FitzGerald, ‘Gorbachev’s Concept of Reasonable Sufficiency in National Defense’, in Hudson (ed.) Soviet National Security Policy Under Perestroika, p. 179.
66 FitzGerald,’Gorbachev’s Concept’, pp. 181, 186.
67 MccGwire, Perestroika and Soviet National Security, pp. 300–2.
68 Sherr, J., ‘Soviet Military Doctrine: Its Role and Future’, Defense and Diplomacy, 8 (September 1990), p. 22Google Scholar.
69 Luttwak, E., ‘Soviet Grand Strategy: A New Era?’ in Laqueur, W. (ed.), Soviet Union 2000: Reform or Revolution? (New York, 1990), p. 159Google Scholar.
70 Sherr, ‘Soviet Military Doctrine’, p. 22.
71 Luttwak, ‘Soviet Grand Strategy: A New Era?’, pp. 149–50
72 Luttwak, ‘Soviet Grand Strategy: A New Era?’, pp. 152–3, 158.
73 For more detailed discussion of arms control policy, see Sharp, J. M. O., ‘Continuity and Change in Soviet Arms Control Policy’, Journal of Soviet Military Studies, 3 (March 1990), pp. 1–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
74 Sherr, ‘Soviet Military Doctrine’, p. 37.
75 Political theorists of the Roman Empire would have been hard pressed to distinguish its grand strategy; that in itself does not repudiate the existence of one, which was persuasively outlined by Luttwak in The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. We thank Richard Little for coming to our aid with this point.
76 Stewart and Hermann, ‘The Soviet Debate over “New Thinking’”, p. 50.
77 Legvold, R., ‘The Revolution in Soviet Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs, 68, no. 1 (1989), p. 91Google Scholar.
78 Dobriansky and Rivkin, ‘Changes in Soviet Military Thinking’, p. 169.
79 Meyer, S., ‘The Sources and Prospects of Gorbachev’s New Political Thinking on Security’, International Security, 13 (Fall 1988), pp. 144CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 149.
80 Green and Karasik, Gorbachev and his Generals, p. 54.
81 This objective had primacy in the pre-Gorbachev period as well. See MccGwire’s summary of the hierarchy of Soviet foreign policy objectives before the ‘no world war’ assumption in Perestroika and Soviet National Security, figure 4.1 p. 81. This objective is also likely to exist for Soviet successor states.
82 Sherr, ‘Soviet Military Doctrine’, p. 21.
83 Garthoff, R. L., Deterrence and the Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine (Washington, 1990), pp. 188–89Google Scholar.
84 Gray, C. S., War, Peace and Victory (New York, 1990), p. 31Google Scholar.
85 See MccGwire, M., Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy (Washington, DC, 1987)Google Scholar. For a review of this book and an exposition of the view that the Soviets remained committed to deterrence by war-fighting (denial), see Partan, M., ‘Soviet Military Objectives’, International Security, 12, no. 3 (Winter 1987/1988), pp. 208–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
86 Lynch, Gorbachev’s International Outlook, p. 35.
87 C. Rice, The Evolution of Soviet Grand Strategy’, in Kennedy (ed.), Grand Strategies in War and Peace, p. 161.
88 Gray, War, Peace, and Victory, p. 32.
89 Brzezinski, Z., ‘Preface’, in George, A. (ed.), Managing U.S.-Soviet Rivalry (Boulder, 1983)Google Scholar.
90 S. Sestanovich, ‘Inventing the Soviet National Interest’, paper delivered at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, 5 November 1990, Washington. Summarized in ‘Meeting Report’ (Kennan Institute, VIII no. 4). Peter Zwick also succumbs to the Gaullist temptation; see his ‘The Soviet Union in Comparative Perspective’, PS: Political Science and Politics, 24 (September 1991), pp. 464–6Google Scholar.
91 Blacker, C. D., ‘The Collapse of Soviet Power in Europe’, Foreign Affairs, 70, no. 1 (1991), p. 102Google Scholar.
92 For more on this, see Chernoff, F., ‘Ending the Cold War: the Soviet Retreat and the Military Buildup’, International Affairs, 67 (January 1991), p. 124CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
93 Joffe, J., ‘The Revisionists: Germany and Russia in a Post-Bipolar World’, in Clark, M. T. and Serfaty, S. (eds.), Ne"- Thinking and Old Realities: America, Europe and Russia (Washington, 1991), p. 119Google Scholar.
94 Joffe, ‘The Revisionists’, p. 110.
95 Besancon, A., ‘A Suburb of the Empire’, Uncapliw Minds, III (August-October 1990), p. 10Google Scholar. Besancon claimed such designs were reminiscent of the ‘winter plans’ of seventeenth-century strategists.
96 Cooper et al., Rethinking Security Arrangements in Europe, p. 31.
97 Zielonka, J., ‘Europe’s Security: A Great Confusion’, International Affairs, 67 (January 1991), p. 133CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
98 Luttwak, E., The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union (New York, 1983)Google Scholar, ch. 6.
99 For an insightful analysis of costs of empire, see Bunce, V., ‘The Empire Strikes Back: The Evolution of the Eastern Bloc From a Soviet Asset to a Soviet Liability’, International Organization, (Winter 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
100 Besancon, ‘A Suburb of the Empire’, p. 8.
101 Mueller, J., Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York, 1989), p. 115Google Scholar.
102 Crozier, B., ‘The Enduring Soviet Global Threat’, Global Affairs (Summer/Fall 1990), p. 3Google Scholar.
103 Gaddis, J. L., Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States: An Interpretive History (New York, 1978), p. 279Google Scholar.