Peter J. Katzenstein (Ed.) - The Culture of National Security

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The Culture of National Security

by Peter Katzenstein
The political transformations of the 1980s and 1990s have dramatically affected models of
national and international security. Particularly since the end of the Cold War, scholars have
been uncertain about how to interpret the effects of majors shifts in the balance of power. Are
we living today in a unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar world? Are we moving toward an
international order that makes the recurrence of major war in Europe or Asia highly unlikely
or virtually inevitable? In ideological conflict between states diminishing or increasing?
In The Culture of National Security sixteen leading scholars employ an innovative fusion of
sociology and security studies to explore alternatives to the long-dominant analytical
perspectives of neorealism and neoliberalism. Questioning the utility of imagining global
security relations simply in terms of the conventional dimensions of power and interest,
contributors reflect on whether a more effective model would include analysis of cultural
complexes ass well.
Spanning two centuries, from the Greek war for independence in the 1820s to Israeli-
Palestinian negotiations today, reflecting on such pressing concerns as nuclear and chemical
weapons bas and humanitarian intervention, The Culture of National Security lays the
groundwork for new models of national security and global affairs, offering a much needed
entry point to understanding a world in transition.
"A pioneering work, the first to try to marry constructivist approaches to security
studies...I would be surprised if this book doesn't become a part of a new canon in
international relations theory."
--Ted Hopf, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
"[The Culture of National Security] takes on important theoretical terrain, and

brings together some of the young 'new thinkers' in security studies at a time when
that field is open to rapid change."
--Joshua Goldstein, American University
About the author.
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Author
Peter J. Katzenstein is the Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies at

Cornell University. His recent books include Cultural Norms and National Security: Police
and Military in Postwar Japan; Policy and Politics in West Germany: The Growth of a
Semi-Sovereign State; and Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe,
which received the 1985 Woodrow Wilson Book Award.
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AUTHOR: Katzenstein, Peter

TITLE: The Culture of National Security
SUBJECT: 1. National security. 2. Nationalism. 3. Social institutions.
PUBLISHED: New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-231-10468-5 (cl)
ON-LINE Columbia International Affairs Online, Transcribed, proofread, and marked-up in HTML,
ED.: August 1997.
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The Culture of National Security:

Norms and Identity in World Politics
Peter J. Katzenstein
New York
Columbia University Press
1996
Bibliographic Data
Book Summary and Reviews
Table of Contents
Preface
Contributors
1. Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security
2. Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security
Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. Katzenstein
Part I. Norms and National Security

3.Status, Norms, and the Proliferation of Conventional Weapons: An Institutional
Theory Approach
Dana P. Eyre and Mark C. Suchman
4.Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos
Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald
5.Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention
Martha Finnemore
6.Culture and French Military Doctrine Before World War II
Elizabeth Kier
7.Cultural Realism and Strategy in Maoist China
Alastair Iain Johnston
Part II. Identity and National Security

8. Identity, Norms, and National Security: The Soviet Foreign Policy Revolution and the
End of the Cold War
Robert G. Herman
9. Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany and Japan
Thomas U. Berger
10.Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO
Thomas Risse-Kappen
11. Identity and Alliances in the Middle East
Michael N. Barnett
Part III. Implications and Conclusions

12. Norms, Identity, and Their Limits: A Theoretical Reprise
Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro
13. Conclusion: National Security in a Changing World
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The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, by Peter J. Katzenstein,
editor
Preface
The revolutionary changes that have marked world politics in recent years offer scholars an
extraordinary opportunity for reflection and critical self-appraisal 1 This is true, in particular,
for scholars of international relations. One observer has likened the embarrassment that the
end of the Cold War caused us as scholars of international relations and national security to
the effects the sinking of the Titanic had on the profession of naval engineers. Although our
analytical coordinates for gauging global politics have proven to be inadequate for an analysis
of a world in rapid change, there has been remarkably little rethinking of our categories of
analysis. Instead, in the first half of the 1990s North American scholarship on the theory of
international relations was preoccupied with the issue of whether variants of realism or
liberalism offered a superior way for explaining the world. Considering the dramatic
international developments occurring during these years, many of the academic debates
looked arcane to the interested bystander. For it is hard to deny that existing theories of
international relations have woefully fallen short in explaining an important revolution in
world politics.
What the writer Peter Schneider said of the German Left is also apposite for the field of
national security studies: it slept right through a revolution. While the balance between
demand and supply effected significant changes among security specialists working in
think-tanks and, more slowly, even inside government, remarkably little changed in the
academy. In a recent review of the scholarship published between 1989 and 1994 in
International Security, one of the premier journals in the field, Hugh Gusterson concludes that
"old stories have been bent to new times rather than questioned or cast away." 2 He identifies
only one article between 1989�94, published by a historian, which asks the obvious
question--why and how virtually all of the established theories could have been so wrong.
Scholars have made some adjustments in their research. Various forms of realist theorizing,
for example, have rediscovered nationalism and ethnicity and are doing so with a breath-
taking lack of analytical discomfort. Ever since Kenneth Waltz published his seminal Theory of
International Politics, this book had been invoked as a text that provided the field of national
security studies with a firm base. However, Waltz was very clear that the internal
characteristics of states were irrelevant to his theory. The analysis of nationalism and ethnicity
thus is a sharp turn for those who previously had written on national security informed by this
variant of realist theorizing. It is especially surprising that realists, with their natural focus on
states, have not inquired more systematically into the effects of changes in state identity, for
example from warfare state to welfare state in Western Europe, that have altered traditional
conceptions and instruments of national security.
A second adjustment has been to look for new areas to apply realist theory. A spirited debate
about the conditions of peace in Europe has led to an examination of those conditions in other
regions of the world. Realist theory, for example, rediscovered in Asia the balance of power
and the instabilities of multipolarity which so unexpectedly were missing in Europe in recent
years. It was, however, odd that realist analysis continued to neglect domestic politics and
transnational relations, the very factors that had much to do with the unexpected end of the
Cold War. A style of analysis that had proven to be inadequate in Europe was not refurbished
but, implausibly, simply reapplied to Asia.
These adjustments in the core paradigm informing national security studies have left
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unimpressed a growing number of graduate students and younger scholars unpersuaded

because, in part, their political and intellectual sensibilities are more firmly grounded in
circumstances that differ from those experienced by their elders. The younger generation lived
through the waning of the Cold War, not its exacerbation. It was exposed to new intellectual
currents in the humanities and cultural studies. And as had been true before, this was an
impatient cohort, eager to push ahead.
This volume represents and speaks to these intellectual currents. It reports the results of a
project conducted under the auspices of the Committee on International Peace and Security of
the Social Science Research Council and funded by the Council through a grant from the
MacArthur Foundation. The project was deliberately designed to expose the participants to
different intellectual climates at different universities. Workshops held at Cornell University,
the University of Minnesota, and Stanford University, attended by the project participants as
well as graduate students and faculty members from the respective host institutions, elicited
different reactions, depending on the local intellectual culture and the list of participants. The
tenor of the discussions at the Cornell meeting, with a heavy representation of realists, was
"why this effort?" At Minnesota, a stronghold of cultural and post-modern approaches, the
reaction was "show us how!" And at Stanford, in the presence of sociologists and theorists of
rational choice, both reactions were articulated at the same meeting. To say that the debates at
these meetings were spirited would be misleading. The intellectual level of discussion was
extraordinarily high and so was the emotional pitch of the participants. Differences in
arguments mattered both substantively and personally.
"Identity" theory, in particular, is deeply contested because it raises for scholars of national
security directly and unavoidably pressing moral issues. Even though all of the contributors to
this volume show in their scholarship that they regard evidence to be of critical importance in
adjudicating competing analytical and political claims, realists and rationalists, at times, tar
their sociologically minded critics with the brush of being the vanguard of a new wave of
intellectual fascism. The critics, less powerful and more polite, view these scholars at times as
the vanguard of political and intellectual conservatism. Does truth speak to power? Does
power exploit knowledge? For more than an hour the Stanford meeting erupted into an
emotionally charged discussion of these issues, illustrating vividly, painfully and usefully for
everyone around the table the magnitude of the intellectual, political, and moral stakes that
are involved for all scholars, whether they choose to adhere to or depart from the conventional
view of national security.
This project expresses an explicit commitment to engage realism on its own terms. Scholars
tend to shy away from conversations that pose fundamental disagreements, preferring instead
to live in the comfortable cocoon of the like-minded. Talking across deep intellectual divides is
always difficult, often uncomfortable and occasionally hurtful. It is also a useful reminder of
the pervasiveness of power in the world of scholarship, of the primacy of institutionally backed
validity claims among competing analytical possibilities. Even when such confrontations do
not lead to intellectual conversions, they help in sharpening key arguments and circumscribing
general claims. Without the willingness of some distinguished scholars of national security to
generously commit themselves and their time, this confrontation of perspectives could not
have occurred.
In the view of these scholars this was, from the beginning, a fundamentally flawed enterprise.
The critics argued that the issues raised in this book have been addressed by the extant
literature in a promising way which is leading cumulatively to a theory of national security
framed by neo-realist and realist writings. In their reading this volume offers no more than an
intellectually incoherent mixture of postmodern interpretivism, nonfalsifiable claims, ex post
facto description, and insignificant embellishments of what mainstream realism analyzes
elegantly and with precision. I report these objections here and let the reader be the judge.
Science is a social process that develops, refines, and rejects ideas. It is not a football game in
which players protect turf--intellectual and otherwise. Hence the inclusion in this volume of
the self-critical chapter 12. Some colleagues supportive of this project have urged me quietly to
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drop this chapter. And, unsurprisingly, the vociferous critics of this book�s approach
uniformly have applauded it as the most compelling piece in the entire collection. Both
reactions are besides the point. The chapter points to some of the most noticeable weaknesses
of this book and suggests some avenues for future improvement. This self-critical stance, not
the waving of new flags or the dogged defense of received dogma, I take to be the task of an
empirically oriented social science.
This project could not have been carried out without the generous support of the Committee
on International Peace and Security of the Social Science Research Council. I would like to
thank my fellow committee members for their vote of confidence in funding the project and
for their useful counsel in its initial stages. I am also deeply indebted to the staffs at the Social
Science Research Council and at Cornell University, the University of Minnesota and Stanford
University for carrying the administrative burden involved in organizing the three workshops.
And I would like to thank the many graduate students and faculty members at these three
universities who were active participants and whose comments, criticisms and suggestions
were indispensable for shaping my thinking on a broad range of issues. Without their
intellectual energy and commitment all of us would have learned much less in the process, and
the ultimate product would have been worse.
My special thanks go to the staff of Columbia University Press: to Kate Wittenberg for her
strong interest in this project from the very outset; to two readers who gave detailed and
searching suggestions that helped the authors to sharpen their arguments; to Jan McInroy for
her extraordinarily careful work as copyeditor; to Alan Greenberg for putting together the
index in record time; and to Leslie Bialler for much more than his humor and wit along the
way.
Most importantly I would like to thank the project participants for their intellectual
engagement and enthusiasm; for their ability to cooperate in friendship; for their willingness
to disagree in civility; for their hard work; and for their toleration of an "old fogey" in their
midst.
I dedicate this volume to all the graduate students at Cornell with whom I have worked over
the years. I have learned an enormous amount from you. And without you I could not have
conceived of this project. Contradicting current wisdom about the relation between research
and teaching, it was our individual discussions and seminars as well as your research papers
and dissertations that made me read in unfamiliar fields and thus lure me in new directions in
both research and teaching.
May 19
Note 1: See for example, the symposium on prediction in the social sciences introduced by
Michael Hechter in the American Journal of Sociology 100, 6 (May 1995): 1520-1527. Back.
Note 2: Hugh Gusterson, "Reading International Security after the Cold War," paper
prepared for the second workshop on Culture and the Production of Security/Insecurity, Kent
State University, April 28-30, 1995, p. 6. Back.
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editor
Contributors
Peter J. Katzenstein is Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies at Cornell

University.
Ronald L. Jepperson is in the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington.
Alexander Wendt is in the Department of Political Science at Yale University.
Dana P. Eyre is in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School.
Mark C. Suchman is in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin.
Richard Price is in the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota.
Nina Tannenwald is in the Department of Political Science at the University of Colorado,
Boulder.
Martha Finnemore is in the Department of Political Science at George Washington University.
Elizabeth Kier is in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Alistair Iain Johnston is in the Department of Government at Harvard University.
Robert G. Herman is Social Science Analyst, Bureau for Europe and the New Independent
States, U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington, D.C.
Thomas U. Berger is in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University.
Thomas Reisse-Kappen is a member of the Faculty of Public Adminstration at Universitat
Konstanz, Germany.
Michael J. Barnett is in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin.
Paul Kowert is in the Department of International Relations at Florida International University.
Jeffrey Legro is in the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota (on leave)
and until 1997 a John M. Olin Fellow, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.
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1. Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security
It is always risky to pronounce a verdict of death on ideas, even after an

extended period of apparent lifelessness, but I predict that we have seen the
last of the "sociologists" in political science. . . . What has happened is that
others too have penetrated the characteristically sloppy logic and flabby
prose to discover the deeper problems of circularity and vacuousness
inherent in the approach.
-- Brian Barry
This is a book written by scholars of international relations rummaging in the "graveyard" of

sociological studies. Since research and teaching is an eminently social process, it is perhaps
understandable that changing political circumstances and intellectual fashions reopen
controversies that appeared to some to have been already settled. This process can lead, in the
best of circumstances, to what we might call intellectual progress: the diminishing of sloppy
logic, flabby prose, circularity in reasoning, and vacuousness of insight.
Put briefly, this book makes problematic the state interests that predominant explanations of
national security often take for granted. 1 For example, in the absence of geostrategic or
economic stakes, why do the interests of some powerful states in the 1990s, but not in the
1930s or the 1890s, make them intervene militarily to protect the lives and welfare of citizens
other than their own? Why did the Soviet Union consider it to be in its interest to withdraw
from Eastern Europe in the late stages of the Cold War, while it had rejected such suggestions
many times before? Answers to such questions are nonobvious and important. State interests
do not exist to be "discovered" by self-interested, rational actors. Interests are constructed
through a process of social interaction. "Defining," not "defending," the national interest is
what this book seeks to understand. 2 In the context of a bipolar, ideological struggle, the
Cold War made relatively unproblematic some of the cultural factors affecting national
security. Theories that abstracted from these factors offered important insights. Now, with the
end of the Cold War, the mix of factors affecting national security is changing. Issues dealing
with norms, identities, and culture are becoming more salient. An institutional perspective
permits us to investigate more closely the context, both domestic and international, in which
states and other actors exercise power.
This book offers a sociological perspective on the politics of national security. It argues that
security interests are defined by actors who respond to cultural factors. This does not mean
that power, conventionally understood as material capabilities, is unimportant for an analysis
of national security. States and other political actors undoubtedly seek material power to
defend their security. But what other kinds of power and security do states seek and for which
purposes? Do the meanings that states and other political actors attach to power and security
help us explain their behavior? Answers to such questions, this book argues, raise issues of
both theory and evidence.
Our point of departure is influenced greatly by the inability of all theories of international
relations, both mainstream and critical, to help us explain fully what John Mueller aptly calls a
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quiet cataclysm: 3 the dramatic changes in world politics since the mid-1980s, which have
profoundly affected the environment for the national security of states. 4 The Soviet Union
has ceased to exist, and its successor states, organized in the Commonwealth of Independent
States, are in the process of creating a new regional international system while at the same
time attempting to effect transitions from authoritarian socialism to democratic capitalism.
The international positions of the United States and Japan have changed greatly as
international competitiveness and financial power shifted away from the United States in the
1980s and away from Japan in the 1990s. China is undergoing a fundamental transformation
in its economic structure and in its links to the international system. And the European Union
(eu) appears to have been perhaps an overambitious attempt to accelerate the pace of
European integration in the face of German unification. In South Africa, the Middle East,
Central America, and Western Europe, long-standing violent conflicts that only a few years ago
appeared to be simply unsolvable are now finding negotiated settlements. And in Europe,
Central Asia, the Islamic world, and Africa, new conflicts are breaking out.
The main analytical perspectives on international relations, neorealism and neoliberalism,

share with all their critics their inability to foreshadow, let alone foresee, these momentous
international changes. 5 Furthermore, with the end of the Cold War, international relations
specialists, whatever their theoretical orientation, are uncertain about how to interpret the
consequences of change. 6 Disagreement is widespread on what are the most important
questions, let alone what might constitute plausible answers to these questions. Are we living
in a unipolar, a bipolar, or a multipolar world? Is the world increasingly divided into zones of
peace among prosperous states at the center and zones of war between poor states on the
periphery? Is the risk of war rapidly increasing in Asia while it remains neg ligible in Western
Europe or is the reverse closer to the mark? Is the main cause of war on the periphery the
excessive strength or the deplorable weakness of states? Is ideological conflict between states
in the international system diminishing or increasing?
Without thinking specifically about the Cold War and national security, some sociologists
wrote in the 1970s and 1980s about large-scale processes of change in and possible
transformation of the global system. They privileged factors that appear to be relevant to our
understanding of some of the changes that we are now observing. Immanuel Wallerstein, for
example, argued that the dynamism inherent in the world capitalist economy would seek
increasing integration of the socialist bloc. 7 And John Meyer articulated a model of global
sociopolitical organization that embeds states. 8 This has opened up productive lines of
research that undermine the plausibility of making a sharp distinction between international
anarchy and world government as the only analytical alternatives for thinking about
international relations. Taken together, Wallerstein's and Meyer's analyses recognize the
importance of combining an analysis of power and wealth with issues of state sovereignty and
cultural elements in the international society of states.
The uncertainties that mark international relations scholarship make this the right time to cast
about for analytical perspectives that differ on key points from established theories, thus
inviting us to take a fresh look at the world we live in. 9 This volume concentrates on two
underattended determinants of national security policy: the cultural-institutional context of
policy on the one hand and the constructed identity of states, governments, and other political
actors on the other. We explore these determinants from the theoretical perspective of
sociological institutionalism, 10 with its focus on the character of the state's environment and
on the con tested nature of political identities. The primary purpose of this book is to establish
these causal factors, and the theoretical orientations from which they derive, as relevant for
the analysis of national security.
The empirical essays in this volume illustrate how social factors shape different aspects of
national security policy, at times in ways that contradict the expectations derived from other
theoretical orientations. This book does not offer a theory of national security. 11 To insist on
such a theory now would be premature for an approach that is in the early stages of
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developing a theoretically coherent, empirically oriented research program. And it would be

immodest in the midst of a wide-ranging discussion of economic and sociological approaches
in the social sciences. Instead, this book seeks to redress the extreme imbalance between
structural and rationalist styles of analysis and sociological perspectives on questions of
national security.
The authors in this volume adhere to the sociological use of such concepts as norms, identity,
and culture as summary labels to characterize the social factors that they are analyzing. 12
These factors result from social processes, purposeful political action, and differences in
power capabilities.
The authors use the concept of norm to describe collective expectations for the proper
behavior of actors with a given identity. In some situations norms operate like rules that define
the identity of an actor, thus having "constitutive effects" that specify what actions will cause
relevant others to recognize a particular identity. In other situations norms operate as
standards that specify the proper enactment of an already defined identity. In such instances
norms have "regulative" effects that specify standards of proper behavior. Norms thus either
define (or constitute) identities or prescribe (or regulate) behavior, or they do both.
For example, Dana Eyre and Mark Suchman in essay 3 argue that advanced weapon systems
are one measure signifying that a state is mod ern. Governments thus spend their precious
funds to buy such weapon systems even if they have only a marginal effect on national
security. Analogously, large battleships at the beginning of the twentieth century and a secure
second-strike capability at century's end confer world- or superpower status on states.
Similarly, in essay 5, Martha Finnemore argues that global models of statehood have
important effects on policies of military intervention. Relatedly, Richard Price and Nina
Tannenwald show in essay 4 that a taboo delegitimizing the use of chemical and nuclear
weapons has, to different degrees, constrained the self-help behavior of states.
The essays refer to identity as a shorthand label for varying constructions of nation- and
statehood. The process of construction typically is explicitly political and pits conflicting actors
against each other. In invoking the concept of identity the authors depict varying national
ideologies of collective distinctiveness and purpose. And they refer as well to variations across
countries in the statehood that is enacted domestically and projected internationally.
For example, Thomas Berger traces in essay 9 the transformation of Germany's and Japan's
collective purpose from war to commerce. Thomas Risse-Kappen, in essay 10, argues that the
collective identity of democratic states has been central to the creation of a transatlantic
security community, marked by what Karl Deutsch called "dependable expectations of
peaceful change." 13 And Michael Barnett shows in essay 11 that changing and contested
notions of Arab national identity help to define security threats and shape the dynamics of
alliance formation.
Finally, the authors in this volume invoke the term culture as a broad label that denotes
collective models of nation-state authority or identity, carried by custom or law. Culture refers
to both a set of evaluative standards (such as norms and values) and a set of cognitive
standards (such as rules and models) that define what social actors exist in a system, how they
operate, and how they relate to one another. 14 Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald (in essay
4) and Dana Eyre and Mark Suchman (in essay 3), respectively, exemplify these two usages of
the term. Furthermore, Elizabeth Kier (essay 6), Alastair Johnston (essay 7), and Thomas
Berger (essay 9) invoke specific cultural arguments about France, China, Germany and Japan,
and, at times, about some of the political and military organizations within these countries.
The definitions of these concepts share an emphasis on what is collective rather than
subjective. Sociological approaches to the analysis of national security sometimes seem
nebulous in their specification of the factors that affect the behavior of states or other political
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actors. We can easily conjure up the image of a column of 50,000 tanks stretching from
Cleveland to Seattle that tells us something about the size of the Soviet military at the end of
the Cold War. It is harder to fathom what force caused Governor Michael Dukakis, the
Democratic candidate for president in 1988, to dress up in military fatigues and ride around
on a tank--looking foolish in the process--to demonstrate his toughness on the issue of
national defense. Collectively shared expectations of the American public about the military
toughness of presidential candidates are what made the governor behave the way he did.
Collective expectations can have strong causal effects. Such expectations deserve close
scrutiny, this book argues, for a better understanding of national security policy.
This essay points to some analytical gaps left by the predominant perspectives. The next essay
proposes an approach for filling those gaps. The empirical essays that follow seek to show that
perspectives that neglect social factors foreclose important avenues for empirical research and
theoretical insight that are relevant for explaining specific aspects of national security.
Why Traditional National Security Issues?

The end of the Cold War has put new national security issues beside the long-standing fear of a
nuclear war between the two superpowers and their preparations for large-scale conventional
wars: ethnic conflicts leading to civil wars that expose civilian populations to large-scale state
violence; an increasing relevance of economic competitiveness and, relatedly, of the "spin-on"
of civilian high technology for possible military use; increasing numbers of migrants and
refugees testing the political capacities of states; threats of environmental degradation
affecting national well-being; and perceived increases in the relevance of issues of cultural
identity in international politics, including human rights and religion.
The 1970s and 1980s had already witnessed some evidence of this trend. It divided American
realist academics and political practitioners on the one hand and reformers staffing the
Brandt, Palme, and Brundtland Commissions and European peace researchers on the other. 15
In the case of Japan, whose power was increasing sharply in the 1980s, opinion also was
divided. 16 Did Japan's strategy of "comprehensive security" represent merely a politically
convenient ruse to counter American pressure for greater defense expenditures? Or was it a
genuine political innovation that reflected the political experiences of Japan since 1945?
In a prescient article published in the early 1980s Richard Ullman made a general case for
broadening the concept of security. 17 Ullman viewed national security as more than a goal
with different trade-off values in different situations. He insisted that national security is
threatened by the consequences of events that quickly degrade the quality of life of state and
nonstate actors alike, thus narrowing significantly the future range of political choice. 18 But
at the height of the second Cold War in the early 1980s, security specialists did not consider
seriously the arguments of European peace researchers. Japanese national security policy was
not an important topic. And the political climate in the early 1980s was not favorable to
Ullman's argument.
With the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, the political and
intellectual climate has changed. 19 In distinguishing between traditional, narrow definitions
and recent, broad conceptions of security studies, Stephen Walt, Edward Kolodziej, and Barry
Buzan, among others, have articulated very different views about how to define the concept of
security, as well as about the scope of analytical approaches and empirical domains
appropriate to security studies. 20 The narrow definition of security tends to focus on
material capabilities and the use and control of military force by states. 21 This contrasts with
the distinctions among military, political, economic, social, and environ mental security threats
that affect not only states but also groups and individuals, as well as other nonstate actors. 22
Since different analytical perspectives suggest different definitions of national security, such
disagreements are probably unavoidable. 23 Those interested in the state and in traditional
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issues of national security tend to favor established realist and liberal approaches developed
during the last decades. A new generation of scholars built on these approaches in
reinvigorating the field of security studies as an intellectually challenging field of academic
scholarship during the 1980s. In contrast, those interested in unconventional, broader
definitions of national security--such as economic competitiveness, human rights, or human
welfare--as affecting not only states but also nonstate actors tend to favor alternative analytical
perspectives. 24
What scholars and policy makers consider to be national security issues is not fixed but varies
over time. At the beginning of the twentieth century, for example, pronatalist policies were
widely believed to strengthen national power and security. In the interwar period the focus on
eugenics illustrated a partial shift from the quantity to the quality of population as an
important measure of national power and security. And after 1945 there was a dramatic
discontinuity as national elites no longer viewed population control policies as sources of
national security but as sources of national well-being. To take a second example, in the case of
plutonium, the very recent past has witnessed an analogous process of issue transformation.
Once considered to be only a security issue, plutonium has now become an environmental
issue as well. 25 The domain of national security issues thus is variable. In the nineteenth
century, the concept covered economic and social dimensions of political life that, for a variety
of reasons, were no longer considered relevant when national security acquired a narrower
military definition in the first half of the twentieth century, especially during the Cold War.
The intellectual move to broaden the concept thus returns the field of national security studies
to its own past.
This book is self-conscious in bringing together two fields of study usually kept apart. Its
theoretical stance highlights the social determinants of national security policy, but it adopts a
traditional, narrow definition of security studies. It does so despite the fact that the argument
for a broadening of the field has substantial intellectual merit and is reflected in the changing
agenda of United States foreign policy as well as in the curricula of many schools of foreign
affairs. 26
Why, then, does this book focus on traditional issues of national security? The main reason is a
healthy respect for the sociology of knowledge. Intellectual challenges are often disregarded
because they do not meet reigning paradigms on their preferred ground. It might have been
easier to point to the limitations of existing theories of national security by investigating some
of the "new" security issues. But in all likelihood that exercise would have been pointless. Such
a challenge would be dismissed as skirting the hard task of addressing the tough political
issues in traditional security studies. This book deals with what most scholars of national
security would consider to be hard cases. It chooses political topics and empirical domains that
favor well-established perspectives in the field of national security. If the style of analysis and
the illustrative case material can establish plausibility here, it should be relatively easy to apply
this book's analytical perspective to broader conceptions of security that are not restricted to
military issues or to the state.
Existing Analytical Perspectives

Like other subfields in international relations, security studies is influenced by the major
theoretical debates in international relations. Structural neorealism and neoliberal
institutionalism as the two dominant paradigms agree on the central importance of
international anarchy for the analysis of international politics. Even though neoliberalism to
date has had little direct influence on national security studies, indirectly, through this shared
assumption, it has helped consolidate the orienting Hobbesian framework that motivates most
studies of national security. 27
In addition, neorealism and neoliberalism share other areas of agreement on basic theoretical
issues. 28 Neorealist and neoliberal perspectives focus on how structures affect the
5 de 24 05/08/2010 19:30
instrumental rationality of actors. Neorealists emphasize that the competitive pressure of an

anarchic international system is a constant in history; it determines important types of state
behavior such as balancing. In an interdependent world, neoliberals insist, international
institutions provide an alternative structural context in which states can define their interests
and coordinate conflicting policies. But the assumption of unified state actors and a focus on
an anarchical, systemic context of states are common to both.
Kenneth Waltz's formulation of a neorealist theory has had a profound influence on the field
of security studies. 29 Waltz's theory is explicitly structural. It argues that the international
state system molds states and defines the possibilities for cooperation and conflict. According
to Waltz, the international state system has three distinctive characteristics. It is decentralized;
the most important actors--states--are unitary and functionally undifferentiated; and
differences in the distribution of the capabilities of the most important states distinguish
bipolar from multipolar state systems. Waltz is careful to specify only a restricted domain in
security affairs as relevant for neorealist theory. But within that domain developments in
international politics are driven by the balancing of differences in capabilities in the
international system. 30
Robert Keohane has been very influential in shaping the analytical perspective of neoliberal
institutionalism on questions of political economy and international relations. 31 According to
Keohane, international politics after hegemony does not necessarily collapse into the
unmitigated power politics that realists infer from conditions of international anarchy. Instead
the international order that hegemons have created through institutions can continue to
ameliorate the problem of international anarchy. These institutions facilitate monitoring,
enhance political transparency, reduce uncertainty, and increase policy-relevant information.
The institutional infrastructure of a post-hegemonic system thus can facilitate the coordination
of conflicting policies by lowering the transaction costs associated with cooperation.
Neoliberals insist that conflict inheres in the international system. But that condition is not
immutable. Under some political conditions, international conflict can be ameliorated through
collective management. 32
Structural neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism share a similar, underlying analytical

framework, susceptible to the same weakness. Kenneth Waltz privileges systemic effects on
national policy and sidesteps the motivations that inform policy. He argues that "neorealism
contends that international politics can be understood only if the effects of structure are added
to the unit level explanations of traditional realism. . . . The range of expected outcomes is
inferred from the assumed motivation of the units and the structure of the system in which
they act." 33 Since causes operate at different levels and interact with one another,
explanations operating at either level alone are bound to be misleading. 34 Robert Keohane
concurs when he writes that "institutional theory takes states' conceptions of their interests as
exogenous: unexplained within the terms of the theory. . . . Nor does realism predict interests.
This weakness of systemic theory, of both types, denies us a clear test of their relative
predictive power." 35 The consequences of this shortcoming for both neorealism and
neoliberalism are in Keohane's view far-reaching. "Without a theory of interests, which
requires analysis of domestic politics, no theory of international relations can be fully
adequate. . . . Our weak current theories do not take us very far in understanding the behavior
of the United States and European powers at the end of the Cold War. . . . More research will
have to be undertaken at the level of the state, rather than the international system." 36
Both neorealism and neoliberalism thus express a widely accepted, though problematic, social
science paradigm suggesting a three-step analysis. 37 First, there is the specification of a set of
constraints. Then comes the stipulation of a set of actors who are assumed to have certain
kinds of interests. Finally, the behavior of the actors is observed, and that behavior is related to
the constraining conditions in which these actors, with their assumed interests, find
themselves. This perspective highlights the instrumental rationality of actors and focuses on
decisions and choice.
6 de 24 05/08/2010 19:30
Variants of realist and liberal perspectives do acknowledge the importance of social facts.
However, in adopting economic styles of analysis, they often misunderstand concepts such as
prestige and reputation, which they view as "force effects rather than as social attributions." 38
Robert Gilpin is one of the most important and insightful realists. He has developed a
compelling argument about war and change. While he appreciates the importance of
sociological insights for understanding the context of rational behavior, his book argues in an
economic mode. 39 Yet a core assumption of Gilpin's basic model embodies an unanalyzed
concept of identity, the distinction between revisionist and status quo powers. 40 And Gilpin's
analysis of the international system explicitly incorporates recognition by others, or prestige.
For Gilpin this is a functional equivalent to the concept of authority in domestic politics and
has functional and moral grounding. 41 Gilpin asserts, but does not demonstrate, that
"ultimately" prestige rests on military or economic power. But he writes that "prestige, rather
than power, is the everyday currency in international relations." 42
Analogously, Robert Keohane is a leading neoliberal scholar favoring an economic mode of

analysis. He writes that "much of my own work has deliberately adopted Realist assumptions
of egoism, as well as rationality, in order to demonstrate that there are possibilities for
cooperation even on Realist premises." 43 In thinking about egoism and empathy, Keohane
poses the central question of "how people and organizations define self-interest." 44 The
answer lies in the issue of identity, in variations in the degree of expansiveness and
restrictiveness, with which people and organizations relate to one another. To what extent
does the "self" incorporate relevant aspects of the "other" in its calculations of gains and
losses? The answer to this question takes Keohane away from considerations of more or less
myopic calculations of interest to "deeper" questions of values. Keohane concludes that "since
the notion of self-interest is so elastic, we have to examine what this premise means, rather
than simply taking it for granted." 45 Such relational thinking falls squarely in the sociological
rather than the economic mode of analysis. 46
Similarly, a theory of historical change popular among realists and rationalists mimics a
sociological institutional perspective. Stephen Krasner, for example, gives an account of
sovereignty that relies heavily on the concept of punctuated equilibrium and historical
path-dependence. 47 In this view, the social determinants that this volume analyzes are
acknowledged to exist, but they are banished to a remote past or to a distant future. The big
bangs in history contrast sharply with the slight tremors of the present. The social
determinants that are thus admitted to exist during epochal shifts, this book claims, exist
throughout history, be it heroic or mundane. 48
Finally, in a bold neorealist analysis of European politics after the Cold War, John
Mearsheimer invokes the importance of social factors. Mearsheimer makes a case for a
carefully managed process of nuclear proliferation to help stabilize an emerging war-prone,
multipolar European system no longer held in check by the Soviet threat from the East and,
possibly, the American night-watchman state from the West. Nuclear powers can reduce the
dangers of proliferation by helping to "socialize emerging nuclear societies to understand the
nature of the forces they are acquiring. Proliferation managed in this manner can help bolster
peace." 49 Similarly, Kenneth Waltz has conceded in one of his more recent writings that
"systems populated by units of different sorts in some ways perform differently, even though
they share the same organizing principle. More needs to be said about the status and role of
units in neorealist theory." 50
This book relaxes the two core assumptions that mark, to different degrees, both neorealism
and neoliberalism. First, what happens if, in contrast to neorealism, we conceive of the
environment of states not just in terms of the physical capabilities of states? Neoliberalism has
already effected this move with its focus on institutions. But its efficiency-oriented view of the
role of institutions in political life is open to reinterpretation if we also relax a second
assumption. 51 What happens if, contrasting with neoliberalism, we do not focus our
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attention solely on the effects that institutional constraints have on interests? This perspective
neglects the crucial fact that institutions can constitute, to varying degrees, the identities of
actors and thus shape their interests. Relaxing core assumptions of the two central
perspectives in international relations theory, this book argues, is useful for two reasons. It
may help us discern new aspects of national security. Alternatively, it may help in accounting
for anomalies in existing analyses of national security.
Cultural-Institutional Context and Political Identity

The end of the Cold War and the issues of international politics that are emerging as central
make this a propitious time for rethinking established analytical approaches to national
security. This book focuses on the effects that culture and identity have on national security.
The prevailing theories deliberately slight these effects. For realists, culture and identity are, at
best, derivative of the distribution of capabilities and have no independent explanatory power.
For rationalists, actors deploy culture and identity strategically, like any other resource, simply
to further their own self-interests.
Neorealism, for example, insists that shifts in the balance of relative capabilities are the main
determinants of international politics. Yet it is difficult to link the end of the Cold War and the
disintegration of the Soviet Union causally to dramatic changes in power capabilities. 52 It is
undoubtedly true that the relative economic and military decline of the Soviet Union
convinced the Soviet military of the need for fundamental reform. Realist insights thus are
relevant to an interpretation of political developments since the 1980s. 53 But they are no
more than partial.
For example, the process of German unification within multilateral frameworks illustrates well
the shortcomings of realist analysis. 54 The Bush administration did not seek to exploit the
weakness of the Soviet Union through an aggressive foreign policy. It remained instead
committed to the institutional innovation of multilateralism that it had brought to Europe at
the end of World War II. 55 The Soviet Union was willing to accept multilateral institutions to
solve its national security problems. Germany eschewed neutralism in favor of continued
membership in the Western Alliance and a deepening of the process of European integration.
After a brief moment of uncertainty in December 1989 and January 1990, France, in contrast
to Britain, decided in favor of European integration as the most appropriate way of dealing
with the consequences of German unity. Soon after the disintegration of the Soviet Union,
nato's Cooperation Council, reinforced subsequently by the Partnership for Peace, became a
forum for the discussion of security issues between the West and all Central and Eastern
European states as well as all successor states of the Soviet Union except Georgia. None of
these choices was automatic. None is irreversible. But the logic of balancing in a world of
relative capabilities did not dictate political action in the halls of government in 1989-1990.
Realism does not offer a compelling explanation of the end of the Cold War.
While neoliberalism helps us understand the importance of institutions at the end of the Cold
War, it is of less use in making intelligible the central features of international politics after the
Cold War. During the Cold War, it may have been reasonable to take for granted state
identities, at least on the central issues of national security along the central front that divided
East from West. 56 Definitions of identity that distinguish between self and other imply
definitions of threat and interest that have strong effects on national security policies.
Furthermore, such definitions of identity are rarely captured adequately with the language of
symbolic resources sought by self-interested actors. For most of the major states, identity has
become a subject of considerable political controversy. How these controversies are
resolved--for example, in the United States, in the member states of the European Union, in
Russia and the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, in China and in many
parts of the Third World--will be of great consequence for international security in the years
ahead. In sum, recent changes in world politics remind us that other approaches, here a
perspective emphasizing social factors, are useful in sharpening our thinking on issues that
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neorealism and neoliberalism slight.
Social Determinant 1: Cultural-Institutional Context

In sharp contrast to the realist view of the international system as a Hobbesian state of nature,
neoliberalism offers a theory of the cultural-institutional context of state action. It defines
regimes as particular combinations of principles, norms, rules, and procedures. 57 Power
shapes international regimes. Often these regimes emerge when a hegemonic state, such as the
United States after 1945, attempts to mold the international order to suit its interests and
purposes. But international regimes do not simply mirror power relationships. With the
passing of time they acquire their own dynamic. Regimes reduce transaction costs and thus
enhance the potential for coordinating conflicting state policies. Regimes present states with
political constraints and opportunities that can substantially affect how governments calculate
their interests.
While the analysis of economic regimes has become a focus of scholarly attention, American
scholars have made relatively few attempts to apply this analytical perspective to issues of
national security. In the original volume on international regimes, Robert Jervis, for example,
was very tentative in his assessment of whether security regimes have existed since 1945. 58
And in a subsequent essay he reached cautious conclusions about the possibility of relatively
high levels of cooperation between states confronting a security dilemma in international
politics. 59 Other scholars have given greater weight to cultural-institutional factors in their
analyses of security regimes and the security cooperation between the United States and the
Soviet Union. 60 In the most recent synthetic and authoritative restatement of this line of
research, Volker Rittberger has gone furthest in incorporating a prescriptive element as a
defining characteristic of a regime. 61
In an important article, Friedrich Kratochwil and John Gerard Ruggie have noted that these
lines of argument subscribe to a view that is too behavioralist. 62 The dominant, neoliberal
application of regime theory captures only what in a statistical sense is "normal" about norms.
But norms reflect also the premises of action. 63 While above a certain threshold behavioral
violations invalidate norms, occasional violations do not. Critics of neoliberal institutionalism
have made this their central point. These critics insist that social change engenders a process
of self-reflection and political actions that are shaped by collectively held norms. 64
Although their criticism has not been answered to date, these observers have failed to produce
the empirical research necessary to shake the rationalist and behavioral assumptions of
neoliberal theory. 65 But this is beginning to change. 66 For example, in the area of arms
control Emanuel Adler has relied on a sociological perspective to show how the arms control
community in the United States institutionalized its influence in government and how it
subsequently diffused and institutionalized its views in international agreements. 67 And
several scholars have investigated with interesting results the effects of the culture of military
organizations. 68
Self-reflection does not occur in isolation; it is communicated to others. In the process of

communication norms can emerge in a variety of ways: spontaneously evolving, as social
practice; consciously promoted, as political strategies to further specific interests; deliberately
negotiated, as a mechanism for conflict management; or as a combination, mixing these three
types. State interests and strategies thus are shaped by a never-ending political process that
generates publicly understood standards for action. 69
The behavioral compliance of actors with norms thus is only one part of the story, and that
part must be linked to another aspect, the justifications proffered. 70 This line of reasoning is
a departure from neoliberal theory, but it would be a great mistake to overemphasize this
difference. The most widely accepted definition of what constitutes a regime refers specifically
to implicit norms. 71 This definition thus grants scholars a wide measure of latitude in the
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type of evidence that they collect and in the methods of analysis that they rely on. Since a large
amount of the scholarship on international regimes relies on qualitative case histories, the
shift in analysis is not very great, so long as analysis adheres to the conventions of an
empirically oriented social science.
Social Determinant 2: Collective Identity

International regimes are social institutions that mitigate conflict in a decentralized
international society of states. But a rationalist theory of regimes factors out of its analysis the
actor identities that often are consequential for the definition of actor interests. Cultural-
institutional contexts do not merely constrain actors by changing the incentives that shape
their behavior. They do not simply regulate behavior. They also help to constitute the very
actors whose conduct they seek to regulate.
International and domestic environments shape state identities. 72 With the end of the Cold
War, issues of collective identity have become centrally important, probably more so than the
reduction in political uncertainties that inhibit agreements. For example, the shape and speed
of the European integration process and the question of how that Europe will relate to the
outside world is of critical political importance and has given rise to xenophobia and a new
wave of nationalism. Analogous political developments are occurring in Eastern Europe, in the
member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States, in many Third World countries,
and in the United States. And in Asia the intensification of efforts to create new forms of
multilateralism designed to facilitate policy coordination is closely linked to contested
definitions of Asian identity.
With few exceptions, neorealism also remains silent on the issue of identity--for two reasons.
First, it stresses the ecological dynamics that self-selection and functional imperatives have for
states. Second, neorealism seeks to distance itself from traditional realism, which did pay
attention, implausibly, to human nature 73 and, plausibly, to issues of national identity. Since
neorealists view states as undifferentiated and unitary actors, they sidestep consideration of
issues concerning the character of the state and the construction of state identities. 74
The international and domestic societies in which states are embedded shape their identities
in powerful ways. The state is a social actor. It is embedded in social rules and conventions
that constitute its identity and the reasons for the interests that motivate actors. 75 On this
point the con trast between a sociological perspective on the one hand and neoliberalism and
neorealism on the other is substantial. History is more than a progressive search for efficient
institutions that regulate property rights. And history cannot be reduced to a perpetual
recurrence of sameness, conflict, and balancing. History is a process of change that leaves an
imprint on state identity. In a broad historical perspective the eventual success of the national
state in Western Europe should not blind us to the wide array of institutional experimentation,
both domestic and international, that preceded it. 76 Influenced by a long history of universal
empires, regional kingdoms, and subcontinental empires, Asian states also differ greatly from
the conventional image of unified, rational states. 77 The historical evidence compels us to
relinquish the notion of states with unproblematic identities.
The identities of states emerge from their interactions with different social environments, both
domestic and international. Despite differences in theoretical formulation, the analysis of
nationalism offers an important example. Ernest Gellner stresses the importance of the
instrumental logic of nationalism; Benedict Anderson emphasizes that national identities are
socially constructed; and Ernst Haas combines both perspectives in his discussion of
nationalism as an instrumental social construction. 78 All insist that the national identities of
states are crucial for understanding politics and that they cannot be stipulated deductively.
They must be investigated empirically in concrete historical settings.
The international society of states also shapes varying state identities by virtue of recognizing
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their legitimacy and admitting them to international organizations whose membership is often
restricted only to states. 79 Governments crave the diplomatic recognition by members of the
international society of states because it bestows upon them the legitimacy they may need to
secure their existence. In Africa and elsewhere, for example, sovereignty constitutes and
legitimates states that are extremely weak in terms of material power. 80 Statehood thus
depends partly on position in the international society of states.
The analysis of transnational relations and of world systems offers analytical perspectives that
also elucidate the relations between states and their social environments. 81 Often the social
environments that affect state identity link international and domestic environments in a way
that defies the reification of distinct domestic and international spheres of politics. After 1945,
for example, the institutionalization of the welfare state created a system of "embedded
liberalism" based on the compromise between advocates of domestic welfare capitalism and
proponents of a liberal international order. 82 In her research on European guestworkers
Yasemin Soysal has demonstrated one of the consequences of embedded liberalism for
changing notions of citizenship in Western Europe. 83 In contrast to past practice, European
nation-states have become responsible for the welfare of all persons, not just citizens, living
within their borders. Traditionally defined on the basis of nationality, individual rights in
Western Europe are now codified into notions of universal personhood rather than
nationality. This is a novel and important change in the matrix of factors affecting the
international relations of Europe.
This book analyzes the effect of political identities. It views states as social actors. It analyzes
political identities in specific historical contexts. And it traces the effects that changing
identities have on political interests and thus on national security policies.
Neorealist and neoliberal theories adhere to relatively sparse views of the international
system. Neorealism assumes that the international system has virtually no normative content.
The international system con strains national security policies directly without affecting
conceptions of state interest. Neoliberalism takes as given actor identities and views ideas and
beliefs as intervening variables between assumed interests and behavioral outcomes. 84 In
this view states operate in environments that create constraints and opportunities.
These analytical perspectives overlook the degree to which social environments and actors
penetrate one another. The domestic and international environments of states have effects;
they are the arenas in which actors contest norms and through political and social processes
construct and reconstruct identities. The cultural-institutional context and the degree to which
identities are constructed both vary. In some situations neorealist and neoliberal assumptions
may be warranted. But these perspectives often overlook important political effects that
condition international politics and thus affect issues of national security.
This book makes two analytical moves simultaneously. It stipulates a more social view of the
environment in which states and other political actors operate. And it insists that political
identities are to significant degrees constructed within that environment. It thus departs from
materialist notions and the rationalist view of identities as exogenously given. That is, this
book seeks to incorporate into the analysis of national security both the cultural-institutional
context of the political environment and the political construction of identity. The empirical
studies illustrate how both factors help to shape the definition of interests and thus have
demonstrable effects on national security policies.
Why Bother?
Neorealism offers an orienting framework of analysis that gives the field of national security
studies much of its intellectual coherence and commonality of outlook. Furthermore,
neorealism holds forth the promise of a tight, deductive theory as the ultimate prize of
theorizing about national security. Kenneth Waltz himself, however, has been very
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circumspect in his theoretical claims. He argues that his theory, formulated at the level of the
international system, seeks to explain only the recurrence of the balancing behavior of states in
history.
Neorealism is too general and underspecified to tell us anything about the direction of
balancing, let alone about the content of the national security policies of states. Therefore,
particular studies of national security, typically, adapt some features of Waltz's theory and, in
addition, import more or less loosely clustered groups of variables from other fields (such as
organization theory, comparative politics, or political psychology) and graft them onto the
orienting framework that neorealism provides. The theoretical contribution of these studies
lies in the formulation and testing of, at best, loosely linked hypotheses. The politically
substantive and most interesting scholarship in the field is historical in nature and offers little
hope of moving to a deductive style of "theory" anytime soon.
This book puts at center stage analytical concepts that the existing literature on national
security acknowledges only obliquely. Some studies seek to explain aspects of national security
with reference to social facts. But they tend to do so in a manner that subordinates the causal
force of social facts to a materialist or rationalist view of the world. In this view, for example,
identities and norms either are derivative of material capabilities or are deployed by
autonomous actors for instrumental reasons. Based on the assumption that rationality is a
natural rather than a constructed concept, these books view ideologies largely in the service of
rational calculations.
The "myths of empires," for example, that Jack Snyder analyzes in accounting for the
conditions under which great powers overexpand result from different patterns of domestic
politics. While Snyder acknowledges that international factors also play a role, he argues that
specific domestic coalitions develop aggressive strategic perspectives that serve particular
political interests. Elites manipulate mass publics through propaganda. In this view imperial
ideologies are rationalizations for parochial interests, products that entrepreneurs sell in
political markets. As Snyder writes, his theory of domestic politics roots its analysis "securely
in a rational-choice framework. . . . It is more accurate to say that statesmen and societies
actively shape the lessons of the past in ways they find convenient than it is to say that they are
shaped by them." 85 Snyder acknowledges in passing that the "blowback" of propaganda, the
blurring of the line between "fact and fiction . . . sincere beliefs and tactical argument," 86
entraps political leaders not only in their own confusions but in the political context that they
helped create. But since this aside cuts against Snyder's rationalist interpretation of ideology, it
remains one underdeveloped page in a long theoretical essay. Sociologists and cultural
historians are likely to demur by insisting that "blowback is big."
Stephen Walt's theory of balance of threat shows a similar theoretical inclination. 87 As is

true of Snyder's work, Walt's threat theory is not a minor modification of neorealism but a
substantial departure from it. While Walt continues to subscribe to realism as an orienting
framework, his emphasis on threat perception moves away from the systemic level and shifts
analysis from material capabilities to ideational factors. 88 Walt views ideology as a variable
that competes with others for explanatory power. 89 But balance-of-threat theorizing poses
an obvious question about the importance of ideology in the threat perceptions of states. If one
views ideology as a system of meaning that affects the definition of threat, then Walt's
conclusions may warrant further investigation, for the cost calculations that states make when
they weigh ideological solidarity against security concerns are not exogenous to their
ideological affinities. 90
James March and Johan Olsen, among others, have elaborated this view in an often neglected
chapter of their much-cited book. Ideologies, norms, and identities do not simply serve
instrumental purposes. March and Olsen argue that obligatory action contrasts with
consequential action. Behavior is shaped not only by goals, alternatives, and rules of
maximization or satisficing central to rationalist models of politics. Behavior is shaped also by
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roles and norms that define standards of appropriateness. Improvisation and strategic
behavior are embedded in a social environment that constitutes the identity of the actors and
their interests and that shapes the norms that also help to define their interests. "Political
processes are as much concerned with managing interpretations and creating visions as they
are with clarifying decisions. . . . We are led to a perspective that challenges the first premise of
many theories of politics, the premise that life is organized around choice. Rather, we might
observe that life is not only, or primarily, choice but also interpretation." 91 Applied to
questions of national security, the work of Elizabeth Kier on strategic culture offers a
compelling application of that general perspective. 92 In a landmark study, Barry Posen, for
example, developed sophisticated arguments that link the preference of military organizations
for offensive doctrines to the functional needs of military organizations--specifically their wish
to control resources, to be autonomous from civilian interference, and to enhance the social
prestige of military officers. 93 Kier has reexamined existing explanations of the choice of
offensive and defensive military doctrines by military leaders, investigated fully the historical
evidence, carefully evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of alternative explanations, and
come to an unambiguous conclusion: military organizations do not have an inherent
preference for offensive doctrines. One cannot deduce the interests of the military from either
the functional needs of the military or the international balance of power. Instead, the political
preferences for offensive or defensive doctrines of different branches of the military reflect
organizational interests. And these must be understood within the context of specific
organizational cultures, which are themselves nested in broader political-military cultures
distinctive of the politics of different states.
A perspective that emphasizes obligatory action does not have to deny consequential action
and the importance of the instrumental political use of norms and identities. For example,
moral entrepreneurs who manipulate ideas, John Mueller and Ethan Nadelmann argue in
different projects, have had important effects on how elites and mass publics view the
institution of war and a variety of state policies combatting acts such as piracy, slavery,
counterfeiting of national currencies, hijacking of aircraft, trafficking in women and children
for purposes of prostitution, and trading in drugs. 94 As these examples make clear, empirical
research on national security needs to evaluate the competing claims of both obligatory and
consequentialist perspectives.
This book makes its main analytical move at the level of an orienting framework that privileges
social factors. Contrasting analytical claims are best articulated in the form of specific
hypotheses that are applied in particular empirical domains. This is the strategy that the
empirical essays in this volume follow. It is on the ground of evidence that we have the best
chance of intellectually engaging contrasting analytical perspectives that differ on questions of
ontology, epistemology, and methodology.
For particular research questions in specific situations it may be sensible to conceive of states
as actors with unproblematic identities that balance and bandwagon or conduct their political
business in institutions that lower transaction costs. But for many research questions and in
many situations we must capture additional factors to explain problematic aspects of national
security policies.
The effort to test sociological, culture-based explanations against economic, interest-based

explanations centers on identifying and describing problems overlooked by existing
scholarship and specifying the social factors, here state identity and the cultural-institutional
context, that shape conceptions of actor interest and behavior. Some essays in this book view
the context of states and governments as more permeated by social facts than is typical of most
scholarship on national security. Other essays focus on the problematic nature of the identity
of states and governments. While the individual essays privilege one or the other aspect in
their empirical research, the book as a whole makes both moves simultaneously. In this view
the crucial question is not to establish whether interests prevail over identities and norms or
whether identities and norms prevail over inter ests. What matters is how identities and norms
13 de 24 05/08/2010 19:30
influence the ways in which actors define their interests in the first place.
Essay 2 explicates more fully the theoretical approach, with its dual focus on cultural-
institutional context and identity. It compares that approach to others in the analysis of
international and domestic politics; it makes some basic conceptual distinctions; finally,
drawing on the individual case studies as well as other literature, it reviews the effects of
culture and identity on interests and national security policy.
Part 1 focuses on the cultural-institutional context in which states and governments define
their interests and act. Dana Eyre and Mark Suchman analyze in essay 3 the effects that norms
of military prowess have on some of the weapons procurement policies of states. Richard Price
and Nina Tannenwald, in essay 4, analyze the historical evolution in norms of the non-use of
chemical and nuclear weapons. In essay 5 Martha Finnemore examines the effects of changing
norms on patterns of military intervention. She shows how shifts in understandings about the
reasons to intervene and the means of intervening have changed the modalities of national
security policies. In essay 6 Elizabeth Kier analyzes the effects of the organizational culture of
the French military on the evolution of offensive and defensive military doctrine. Finally, in
essay 7 Alastair Johnston argues that China's national security policy in the Maoist period
resulted from a "hard" strategic culture of parabellum, a quintessentially constructed
worldview, rather than from the condition of international anarchy. What unites these essays
and sets them apart from related inquiries is their detailed attention to the effects of the
cultural-institutional context on national security policies.
Part 2 analyzes how constructed, collective identities of political actors, such as states or
governments, affect their interests and policies. In essay 8 Robert Herman traces the political
process by which cosmopolitan reformers in the Soviet Union articulated and put into practice
newly invented or rediscovered notions of a "Western" Soviet Union, thus helping to end the
Cold War. Thomas Berger, in essay 9, deals with Germany and Japan as two instances in which
collective identities have been deeply transformed by the effects of World War II in a political
process marked by political contestation and historical contingency. In essay 10, Thomas
Risse-Kappen examines the changing identities that help define changing security
communities among liberal democracies in the North Atlantic area. And Michael Barnett, in
essay 11, examines the effects of contested and changing identities on security policy, both in
an Arab nation increasingly divided and between the United States and Israel.
The essays in parts 1 and 2 span domestic and international levels of analysis as well as
national, regional, and global political contexts. They engage the present as well as the past.
They deal with Western and non-Western states operating at different levels of development.
But this diversity in empirical application conceals a unity of theoretical purpose. All these
essays specify a political outcome or set of outcomes that is central to students of national
security. And all of them either derive a plausible set of expectations from existing theories
that do not address their question or offer a plausible explanation derived from existing
analytical perspectives that they test against a preferred culture- or identity-based
explanation.
The two essays in part 3 conclude the volume. In essay 12, Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro deal
with the origins and consequences of norms and identities. Their analysis connects this book
back to a set of intellectual concerns that distinguish a number of current approaches. In the
interest of mapping directions for future work, they seek also to impose greater specification
of variables and causal patterns. And they point to gaps and oversights in this book's approach
and findings. Finally, essay 13 considers some recent realist and liberal writings that are trying
to grapple with the issues of culture and identity raised in this book; it summarizes the
approach, hypotheses, and main findings of the empirical essays and explores further some of
the issues raised in them; it points to a broader research agenda for national security studies;
and it concludes with a discussion of the implications of this book's perspective for the role of
the United States in a changing world.
14 de 24 05/08/2010 19:30
This book argues that we should not take for granted what needs to be explained: the sources
and content of national security interests that states and governments pursue. A focus on
political identity and the cultural-institutional context, this book claims, offers a promising
avenue for elucidating the changing contours of national security policy.
For their careful readings and critical comments of previous drafts I would like to
thank the members of the project; the participants at the Social Science Research
Council/MacArthur Workshops at the University of Minnesota and Stanford
University in 1994; and Emanuel Adler, Thomas Christensen, James Goldgeier,
Peter Haas, Gunther Hellmann, Ronald Jepperson, Mary F. Katzenstein, Robert
Keohane, Jonathan Kirshner, Atul Kohli, Charles Kupchan, John Odell, Judith
Reppy, Shibley Telhami, Stephen Walt, Alexander Wendt, and two anonymous
readers for Columbia University Press.
Note 1: Although, properly speaking, I am referring to state security, I am adhering to the

conventional usage in the field of national security studies. Back.
Note 2: See Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1996); Stephen D. Krasner, Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials
Investments and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). Back.
Note 3: John Mueller, Quiet Cataclysm: Reflections on the Recent Transformation of World
Politics (New York: Harper Collins, 1995). Back.
Note 4: This project thus resembles others that seek to reevaluate or refine international
relations theory in light of recent events. See Richard Ned Lebow and Thomas Risse-Kappen,
eds., International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1995); Robert O. Keohane and Helen Milner, eds., Internationalization and
Domestic Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Miles Kahler, ed.,
Liberalization and Foreign Policy (forthcoming); and Thomas Risse-Kappen, ed., Bringing
Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures, and International
Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Back.
Note 5: Sean M. Lynn-Jones, ed., The Cold War and After: Prospects for Peace (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1991); Michael J. Hogan, ed., The End of the Cold War: Its Meaning and
Implications (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992); John Lewis Gaddis, The United
States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1992). Back.
Note 6: Ken Jowitt, New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1992); Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky, The Real World Order: Zones of
Peace, Zones of Turmoil (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1993); Robert O. Keohane, Joseph
S. Nye, and Stanley Hoffmann, eds., After the Cold War: International Institutions and State
Strategies in Europe, 1989-1991 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Bruce Russett,
Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1993); Meredith Woo-Cumings and Michael Lorriaux, eds., Past As Prelude:
History in the Making of a New World Order (Boulder: Westview, 1993); Mike Bowker and
Robin Brown, eds., From Cold War to Collapse: Theory and World Politics in the 1980s
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Hans Henrik Holm and Georg S�rensen,
eds., Whose World Order? Uneven Globalization and the End of the Cold War (Boulder:
Westview, 1995). Back.
Note 7: Immanuel Wallerstein, "Socialist States: Mercantilist Strategies and Revolutionary

Objectives," in Immanuel Wallerstein, The Politics of the World Economy, pp. 86-96
15 de 24 05/08/2010 19:30
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Immanuel Wallerstein, "Marx, Marxism-

Leninism, and Socialist Experiences in the Modern World System," in Immanuel Wallerstein,
Geopolitics and Geoculture: Essays on the Changing World System, pp. 84-97 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991). Back.
Note 8: John W. Meyer, "The World Polity and the Authority of the Nation-State," in Albert
Bergesen, ed., Studies of the Modern World System, pp. 109-37 (New York: Academic Press,
1980). Back.
Note 9: This is a major difference between the inspiration motivating this book and Frank W.
Wayman and Paul F. Diehl, eds., Reconstructing Realpolitik (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1994). Back.
Note 10: Recent volumes that articulate a similar perspective include Sven Steinmo,
Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth, eds., Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism
in Comparative Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992); and Walter W.
Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). Back.
Note 11: I argue below that this is no particular liability for the approach chosen for the
book; no such theory exists in the field of national security studies. Back.
Note 12: One of the main difficulties in making the sociological approach of this book
attractive for scholars of national security lies in the intuitive equation of the concept of norm
with morality. The book focuses primarily on the analysis of regulatory norms (defining
standards of appropriate behavior) and constitutive norms (defining actor identities). It
touches less directly on evaluative norms (stressing questions of morality) or practical norms
(focusing on commonly accepted notions of "best solutions"). See also various essays in
Millennium: Journal of International Studies 22, no. 3 (Winter 1993). Back.
Note 13: Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 5. Back.
Note 14: This distinction between the cognitive and evaluative effects of norms is also made
by scholars working from within a cognitive paradigm. See, for example, Alexander L. George,
"Domestic Constraints on Regime Change in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Need for Policy
Legitimacy," in Ole R. Holsti, Randolph M. Siverson, and Alexander L. George, eds., Change in
the International System, p. 235 (Boulder: Westview, 1980). Back.
Note 15: Raimo Varynen, "Towards a Comprehensive Definition of Security: Pitfalls and
Problems" (paper presented at the thirty-first annual convention of the International Studies
Association, Washington, D.C., April 10-14, 1990), pp. 1-2; John P. Lovell, "From Defense
Policy to National Security Policy: The Tortuous Adjustment for American Military
Professionals," Air University Review 32, no. 4 (May-June 1981): 42-54; J. A. Tapia-Valdes, "A
Typology of National Security Policies," Yale Journal of World Public Order 9, no. 1 (Fall
1982): 10-39; Bruce Andrews, "Surplus Security and National Security: State Policy As
Domestic Social Action" (paper presented at the annual convention of the International
Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 22-26, 1978). Back.
Note 16: "Comprehensive Security: Japanese and U.S. Perspectives: A Conference Report of
the Northeast Asia-United States Forum on International Policy" (Stanford University,
November 1981); J. W. M. Chapman, R. Drifte, and I. T. M. Gow, Japan's Quest for
Comprehensive Security: Defence, Diplomacy, Dependence (New York: St. Martin's, 1982);
Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, Japan's National Security: Structures, Norms, and
Policy Responses in a Changing World (Ithaca: Cornell University East Asia Program, 1993).
Back.
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Note 17: Richard Ullman, "Redefining Security," International Security 8, no. 1 (Summer
1983): 129-53. Back.
Note 18: Ibid., pp. 130-35. Back.
Note 19: Two surveys of the field of security studies from 1987 and 1992 illustrate this point
very clearly. See Joseph S. Nye Jr. and Sean M. Lynn-Jones, "International Security Studies: A
Report of a Conference on the State of the Field," International Security 12, no. 4 (Spring
1988): 5-27; and Lynn Eden, " 'New Approaches to the Study of Conflict and Peace in a
Changing World': Report on a Conference Held January 16-17, 1992, Center for International
Security and Arms Control, Stanford University" Stanford University, Center for International
Security and Arms Control, 1992. Back.
Note 20: Stephen M. Walt, "The Renaissance of Security Studies," International Studies
Quarterly 35, no. 2 (June 1991): 211-39; Edward A. Kolodziej, "Renaissance in Security
Studies? Caveat Lector!" International Studies Quarterly 36, no. 4 (December 1992): 421-38;
Edward A. Kolodziej, "What Is Security and Security Studies? Lessons from the Cold War,"
Arms Control 13, no. 1 (April 1992): 1-31; Barry Buzan, People, States, and Fear: The National
Security Problem in International Relations (London: Wheatsheaf Books, 1983); Barry
Buzan, "The Case for a Comprehensive Definition of Security and the Institutional
Consequences of Accepting It," Working Papers 4/1990 (Copenhagen: Centre for Peace and
Conflict Research, 1990); Barry Buzan, "New Patterns of Global Security in the Twenty-first
Century," International Affairs 67, no. 3 (1991): 431-51; Lester R. Brown, Redefining National
Security, Worldwatch Papers no. 14 (Washington, D.C.: Worldwide Institute, 1977); Joseph J.
Romm, Defining National Security: The Nonmilitary Aspects (New York: Council on Foreign
Relations Press, 1993); Simon Dalby, "Security, Modernity, Ecology: The Dilemmas of
Post-Cold War Security Discourse," Alternatives 17, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 95-134; Theodore C.
Sorenson, "Rethinking National Security," Foreign Affairs 69, no. 3 (Summer 1990): 1-18;
Martin Shaw, "There Is No Such Thing as Society: Beyond Individualism and Statism in
International Security Studies," Review of International Studies 19 (1993): 159-75; Ole
Waever et al., Identity, Migration, and the New Security Agenda in Europe (New York: St.
Martin's, 1993); Wilhelm Agrell, "The Problems of Defining and Dealing with the Civilian
Aspects of Security" (unpublished paper, Research Policy Institute, University of Lund,
Sweden, December 1986); Deborah A. Stone, Policy Paradox and Political Reason (Glenview,
Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1988), pp. 69-86; Ronnie D. Lipschutz, "Reconstructing Security:
Discursive Practices, Material Changes, and Policy Consequences" (paper prepared for
delivery at the 1992 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago,
September 3-6, 1992); Michael T. Klare and Daniel C. Thomas, eds., World Security:
Challenges for a New Century (New York: St. Martin's, 1994); Graham Allison and Gregory F.
Treverton, eds., Rethinking America's Security: Beyond Cold War to New World Order (New
York: W. W. Norton, 1992); Peter Digeser, "The Concept of Security" (paper prepared for
delivery at the 1994 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York,
September 1-4, 1994); James Sperling and Emil Kirchner, "Introduction: The Changing
Definition of Security," in Emil Kirchner, Christoph Bluth, and James Sperling, eds., The
Future of European Security, pp. 1-22 (Brookfield, Vt.: Dartmouth Pub., 1995). Back.
Note 21: Walt, "The Renaissance of Security Studies," p. 212. Back.
Note 22: Kolodziej, "Renaissance in Security Studies?" pp. 422-23; Buzan, "New Patterns of
Global Security," pp. 432-33. Back.
Note 23: Proponents on either side of the debate agree that much would be lost, and little
gained, if broader security studies were compressed into the well-developed, narrower focus
of strategic studies; Walt, "Renaissance of Security Studies," p. 213; Buzan, "The Case for a
Comprehensive Definition," pp. 12-13. Back.
Note 24: Why these are the lines of division is not entirely clear. It is possible that nonstate
17 de 24 05/08/2010 19:30
actors and issues that touch less directly on the balance of material capabilities lend
themselves perhaps more easily to the sociological perspectives that this book proffers. Back.
Note 25: I would like to thank John Meyer for drawing my attention to this analytical point
and these examples. Back.
Note 26: Andrew Rosenthal, "U.S. to Unveil Drug Plan with Wide Military Role," New York
Times, March 9, 1990, p. A5; Elaine Sciolino, "Bush Wants Intelligence Agencies to Reconsider
Focus on Military," New York Times, December 22, 1991, p. 6; Ken Brown, "Cold War Over,
Foreign Affairs Schools Refocus," New York Times, November 17, 1993, p. B7. Back.
Note 27: Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in
International Relations Theory (Boulder: Westview, 1989), p. 6, for example, writes that the
"causal impact of international institutions on state policy is not as strong as that of states on
international institutions." But in contrast to realist thought, this version of liberalism focuses
on deception rather than violence as the most important consequence of international
anarchy. Back.
Note 28: Robert Powell, "Anarchy in International Relations Theory: The Neorealist-
Neoliberal Debate," International Organization 48, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 313-44; Emerson M.
S. Niou and Peter C. Ordeshook, " 'Less Filling, Tastes Great': The Realist-Neoliberal Debate,"
World Politics 46, no. 2 (January 1994): 209-34; Michael Z�rn, "We Can Do Much Better!
Aber muss es auf amerikanisch sein? Zum Vergleich der Disziplin 'Internationale
Beziehungen' in den USA und in Deutschland," Zeitschrift f�r Internationale Beziehungen 1,
no. 1 (June 1994): 98-109. Grouping different theoretical formulations under these two broad
headings is a simplification. Each theory has a major and a minor variant. Neorealists have
sought to systematize the insights of traditional realists. And neoliberals distinguish
themselves from traditional liberals. Although not unimportant, these differences pale
compared with the combined impact that the two main variants, neorealism and
neoliberalism, have had on international relations scholarship since the early 1980s. Hence I
discuss them here. The first part of the concluding essay examines briefly some attempts of
reformulating realist and liberal perspectives to address the issues that this book raises. For
some important differences between realism and liberalism, see also Keohane, International
Institutions and State Power, pp. 1-20, and the discussion in Barry Buzan, Charles Jones, and
Richard Little, The Logic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 1-17. Back.
Note 29: Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-
Wesley, 1979). Back.
Note 30: This book's approach differs from Waltz's along all three dimensions. First, the
international society of states is distinguished by both organizational decentralization and
elements of a shared culture. Second, states are not unitary and functionally differentiated.
Third, the distribution of capabilities and the number of poles may be less important than
some of the effects of the society of states. An additional important difference lies in the fact
that the recurrent balancing behavior of states that interests Waltz is of little concern to any of
the authors writing in this volume. Some of them are interested in the direction of the balance,
others in a variety of aspects of national security policy. A set of essays in two special issues of
Security Studies (5, nos. 2 and 3 [Winter 1995/96 and Spring 1996]) takes stock of realist and
neorealist theory. Back.
Note 31: Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World
Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). Back.
Note 32: Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984);
Kenneth A. Oye, ed., Cooperation Under Anarchy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1986); Oran Young, International Governance: Protecting the Environment in a Stateless
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Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). Back.
Note 33: 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, pp. 41-42
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Back.
Note 34: Ibid., p. 42. Back.
Note 35: Robert O. Keohane, "Institutional Theory and the Realist Challenge After the Cold
War," in David A. Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate, p.
285 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 37: James G. March, "Decision-Making Perspective: Decisions in Organizations and

Theories of Choice," in Andrew H. Van De Ven and William F. Joyce, eds., Perspectives on
Organization Design and Behavior, pp. 205-44 (New York: Wiley, 1981). Back.
Note 38: Francis A. Beer and Robert Hariman, "Realism and Rhetoric in International
Relations," in Francis A. Beer and Robert Hariman, eds., Post-Realism: The Rhetorical Turn
in International Relations (East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press, in press), p.
21 of manuscript. Back.
Note 39: Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1981), pp. xii-xiii. Back.
Note 40: Ibid., pp. 10-11. Randall Schweller's interesting paper on neorealism illustrates the
same point; see Randall L. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias," Security Studies 5, no. 3
(Spring 1996) (in press). "Predatory states motivated by expansion and absolute gains, not
security and the avoidance of relative-gains losses, are the prime movers of neorealist theory"
(ibid., p. 36 of manuscript). Back.
Note 41: Gilpin, War and Change, pp. 14, 28, 30. Back.
Note 43: Robert O. Keohane, "Empathy and International Relations," in Jane J. Mansbridge,
ed., Beyond Self-Interest, p. 227 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). Back.
Note 46: Keohane writes further: "A complete analysis of regimes would have to show how
international regimes could change as a result not of shifts in the allegedly objective interests
of states, or in the power distributions and institutional conditions facing governments, but of
changes in how people think about their interests, including the possibility that they may be
interested in the welfare of others, both from empathy and from principle" (ibid.). In the early
1980s Keohane suggested that a different, sociological line of argument about regimes would
be possible, whereby norms would be "internalized" by actors as part of their utility functions;
see Robert O. Keohane, "The Demand for International Regimes," in Stephen D. Krasner, ed.,
International Regimes, p. 154 n. 27 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983). But his
subsequent work has continued to draw almost exclusively on economic imagery and has
followed a rationalist path. See also Robert O. Keohane, "International Relations Theory:
Contributions of a Feminist Standpoint," in Rebecca Grant and Kathleen Newland, eds.,
Gender and International Relations, pp. 41-50 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991).
This paper clearly recognizes feminism's sociological orientation toward the articulation of an
"institutional vision of international relations" (p. 44) and calls for an "alliance between two
19 de 24 05/08/2010 19:30
complementary critiques of neorealism," neoliberal institutionalism and feminism (p. 47).

Back.
Note 47: Stephen D. Krasner, "Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective," Comparative

Political Studies 21 (1988): 64-94. Back.
Note 48: I am indebted to John Meyer for drawing my attention to this point. Back.
Note 49: John Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability After the Cold War,"
International Security 15, no. 1 (Summer 1990): 38. Back.
Note 50: Kenneth N. Waltz, "Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory," Journal of
International Affairs 44, no. 1 (1990): 37. See also Henry Nau, "Identity and International
Politics: An Alternative to Neorealism" (unpublished paper, George Washington University,
April 1994). Back.
Note 51: One should note here that neoliberalism and institutional economics have been
notably unsuccessful in measuring transaction costs, an opaque concept at best that is central
to an understanding of how institutions work. Back.
Note 52: John Mueller, "The Impact of Ideas on Grand Strategy," in Richard N. Rosecrance
and Arthur A. Stein, eds., The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy, pp. 48-62 (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1993); Richard Ned Lebow, "The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and
the Failure of Realism," International Organization 48, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 249-77; see also
Robert Herman's essay in this volume. Back.
Note 53: William C. Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War," International
Security 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994/95): 91-129. Back.
Note 54: Rey Koslowski and Friedrich V. Kratochwil, "Understanding Change in

International Politics: The Soviet Empire's Demise and the International System,"
International Organization 48, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 244-46; Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Ideas
Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold
War," International Organization 48, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 185-214. Back.
Note 55: John Gerard Ruggie, "Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution," in John
Gerard Ruggie, ed., Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional
Form, pp. 3-47 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 56: This is a simplifying assumption, not an empirical claim. State identities are always
politically reproduced and contested. Furthermore, context makes a difference. The Cold War
may have had a large effect on state identities in Europe. But this does not mean that it
necessarily did so, for example, in the Third World. Back.
Note 57: Krasner, International Regimes; Volker Rittberger, ed., International Regimes in
East-West Politics (New York: Pinter, 1990); Volker Rittberger, ed., Regime Theory and
International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1993). Back.
Note 58: Robert Jervis, "Security Regimes," in Krasner, International Regimes, pp. 173-94.
Back.
Note 59: Robert Jervis, "From Balance to Concert: A Study of International Security
Cooperation," in Oye, Cooperation Under Anarchy, pp. 58-79. Although these are two widely
cited papers, it should be noted that Jervis was not writing from an unambiguous, neoliberal
perspective. His analysis neglects cultural-institutional factors and rests largely on changes in
the payoffs of different policies as well as on institutional features that increase transparency
and warning time. Back.
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Note 60: Harald M�ller, "The Internalization of Principles, Norms, and Rules by
Governments: The Case of Security Regimes," in Rittberger, Regime Theory and International
Relations, pp. 361-88; Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security
Regimes," International Organization 41, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 371-402. Alexander George,
U.S.-Soviet Security Cooperation: Achievements, Failures, Lessons (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1988). Back.
Note 61: Volker Rittberger, "Research on International Regimes in Germany: The Adaptive
Internalization of an American Social Science Concept," in Rittberger, Regime Theory and
International Relations, pp. 10-11. Back.
Note 62: Friedrich Kratochwil and John Gerard Ruggie, "International Organization: A State
of the Art on an Art of the State," International Organization 40, no. 4 (Autumn 1986):
753-75. Other critics have questioned the lack of precision in definition, the analytical
usefulness, and the empirical application of the regime concept; see Stephen Haggard and
Beth A. Simmons, "Theories of International Regimes," International Organization 41, no. 3
(Summer 1987): 491-517; Martin J. Rochester, "The Rise and Fall of International
Organization as a Field of Study," International Organization 40, no. 4 (Autumn 1986):
777-813. Back.
Note 63: This leads to an important set of analytical distinctions that could be further
clarified, relying on Goldstein and Keohane's taxonomy of three types of beliefs; see Judith
Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework," in
Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions,
and Political Change, pp. 8-11 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). "World views" and
"principled beliefs" are publicly held and have behavioral implications; they are
"intersubjective." "Causal beliefs" can be held privately and do not necessarily make claims on
behavior; they are "cognitive." Back.
Note 64: Hayward R. Alker, Jr., "The Presumption of Anarchy in World Politics"
(unpublished manuscript, Cambridge, Mass., 1986); Richard K. Ashley, "The Poverty of
Neorealism," International Organization 38, no. 2 (Spring 1984): 225-86; Richard K. Ashley,
"Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the Anarchy Problematique," Millennium:
Journal of International Studies 7, no. 2 (1988): 227-62; Richard K. Ashley, "Living on Border
Lines: Man, Poststructuralism, and War" (unpublished manuscript, Tempe, Ariz., 1988);
Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1988). Back.
Note 65: Keohane, International Institution and State Power, pp. 158-79; Goldstein and
Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy," pp. 5-6, 26-27. Back.
Note 66: As the research in this volume and many of the volume's references illustrate, the
charge of a lack of empirical research has by now lost much of its bite. Cornell graduate
students alone are finishing a series of dissertations and books that provide a wealth of
empirical research challenging exclusive reliance on rationalist and behavioralist styles of
analysis. See Robert Herman, "Ideas, Identity, and the Redefinition of Interests: The Political
and Intellectual Origins of the Soviet Foreign Policy Revolution" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell
University, 1995); Elizabeth L. Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine
Between the Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Audie J. Klotz, Protesting
Prejudice: Apartheid and the Politics of Norms in International Relations (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1995); Gil Merom, "Blood and Conscience: Recasting the Boundaries of
National Security" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1994); Richard Price, A Genealogy of the
Chemical Weapons Taboo (forthcoming); Richard Price, "A Genealogy of the Chemical
Weapons Taboo," International Organization 49, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 73-104; Christian
Reus-Smit, "The Moral Purpose of the State: Social Identity, Legitimate Action, and the
Construction of International Institutions" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1995); Nina
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Tannenwald, "Dogs That Don't Bark: The United States, the Role of Norms, and the Non-Use
of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1995); Michael Marks, "The
Formation of European Policy in Post-Franco Spain: Ideas, Interests, and the International
Transmission of Knowledge" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1993); and Dan Thomas,
"Between Reason and Power: International Norms and Political Change in Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union, 1975-1989" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1995). Back.
Note 67: Emanuel Adler, "Arms Control, Disarmament, and National Security: A Thirty-Year
Retrospective and a New Set of Anticipations," Daedalus 120, no. 1 (Winter 1991): 1-20;
Emanuel Adler, "The Emergence of Cooperation: National Epistemic Communities and the
International Evolution of the Idea of Nuclear Arms Control," International Organization 46,
no. 1 (Winter 1992): 101-46. Back.
Note 68: Jeffrey W. Legro, Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint During World
War II (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); Kier, Imagining War; Scott D. Sagan, The
Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton: Princeton
Note 69: Harald M�ller, "Internationale Beziehungen als kommunikatives Handeln,"

Zeitschrift f�r Internationale Beziehungen 1, no. 1 (June 1994): 15-44; James Johnson,
"Habermas on Strategic and Communicative Action," Political Theory 19, no. 2 (May 1991):
181-201; Oran Young, International Cooperation: Building Regimes for National Resources
and the Environment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989); Young, International
Governance.
Back.
Note 70: David Welch, Justice and the Genesis of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993). Back.
Note 71: Krasner, International Regimes, p. 2. Issues of definition and conceptualization are
considered at length in several essays in Rittberger, Regime Theory and International
Relations.
Back.
Note 72: Alexander Wendt, "The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations

Theory," International Organization 41, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 335-70; Alexander Wendt,
"Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics," International
Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 391-425; Alexander Wendt, "Collective Identity
Formation and the International State," American Political Science Review 88, no. 2 (Summer
1994): 384-96; Iver B. Neumann, "Identity and Security," Journal of Peace Research 29, no. 2
(1992): 221-26. Back.
Note 73: J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on

Achieving Global Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 30. Back.
Note 74: Relatedly, state theory applied to the analysis of domestic politics or the domestic
sources of foreign policy has typically focused on the variability in the autonomy and the
capacity of states, not on their identity. See Bruce Andrews, "Social Rules and the State as a
Social Actor," World Politics 27, no. 4 (July 1975): 521-40; Peter J. Katzenstein, "International
Relations and Domestic Structures: Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States,"
International Organization 30, no. 1 (Winter 1976): 1-45; Stephen D. Krasner, "Approaches to
the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics," Comparative Politics 16, no. 2
(January 1984): 223-46; Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds.,
Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Peter B. Evans,
Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation (Princeton: Princeton
22 de 24 05/08/2010 19:30
Note 75: Andrews, "Social Rules and the State as a Social Actor," p. 536. Back.
Note 76: Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, A.D. 990-1990 (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1990). Back.
Note 77: Suzanne H. Rudolph, "Presidential Address: State Formation in Asia--Prolegomena

to a Comparative Study," Journal of Asian Studies 46, no. 4 (November 1987): 731-46. Back.
Note 78: Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983);
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983); Ernst B. Haas,
"Nationalism: An Instrumental Social Construction," Millennium: Journal of International
Studies 22, no. 3 (Winter 1993): 505-45. Back.
Note 79: John Gerard Ruggie, "Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a
Neorealist Synthesis," World Politics 35, no. 2 (January 1983): 261-85; John Gerard Ruggie,
"International Structure and International Transformation: Space, Time, and Method," in
Ernst-Otto Czempiel and James N. Rosenau, eds., Global Changes and Theoretical
Challenges: Approaches to World Politics for the 1990s, pp. 21-36 (Lexington, Mass.: D. C.
Heath, Lexington Books, 1989); Raymond Duvall and Alexander Wendt, "Institutions and
International Order," in Czempiel and Rosenau, Global Changes and Theoretical
Challenges, pp. 51-74. Back.
Note 80: Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist: The
Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood," World Politics 35, no. 1 (October 1982): 1-24;
Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Meyer, "The World Polity"; George M.
Thomas and John W. Meyer, "Regime Changes and State Power in an Intensifying World
State-System," in Bergesen, Studies of the Modern World System, pp. 139-58. Back.
Note 81: Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, eds., Transnational Relations and World
Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972); Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern
World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the
Sixteenth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974); Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern
World System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy,
1600-1750 (New York: Academic Press, 1980). Back.
Note 82: Ruggie, "Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity"; Peter J. Katzenstein,
Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1985). Back.
Note 83: Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal, Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational
Membership in Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). Back.
Note 84: Goldstein and Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy," p. 5.# Peter J. Back.
Note 85: Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 17, 30. Back.
Note 87: Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).
Back.
Note 88: Walt is very explicit in arguing that balancing in inter-Arab relations is atypical.
While states typically "seek to counter threats by adding the power of another state to their
own . . . in the Arab world the most important source of power has been the ability to
23 de 24 05/08/2010 19:30
manipulate one's own image and the image of one's rivals in the minds of other Arab elites"
(ibid., p. 149). Back.
Note 89: In a second book, Revolution and War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996),
Walt extends this analytical move from international threat perceptions to domestic threat
perceptions. He argues that revolutions affect threat perceptions through miscalculation,
hostility, perception of offensive power, and uncertainty--that is, through four different
psychological mechanisms. Back.
Note 90: For a critical discussion of Walt's use of correlational metaphors and ways of
drawing conclusions, see Albert Yee, "The Causal Effects of Ideas Themselves and Policy
Preferences: Behavioral, Institutional, and Discursive Formulations" (unpublished paper,
Brown University, 1993), pp. 10-11, and Stephen Haggard, "Structuralism and Its Critics:
Recent Progress in International Relations Theory," in Emanuel Adler and Beverly Crawford,
eds., Progress in Postwar International Relations, pp. 420-22 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1991). For a more positive reading, see Gunther Hellmann, "F�r eine
problemorientierte Grundlagenforschung: Kritik und Perspektiven der Disziplin
'Internationale Beziehungen' in Deutschland" Zeitschrift f�r Internationale Beziehungen 1,
no. 1 (June 1994): 82-83. Taken on Walt's terms, his analysis of ideology also fails to convince
at times. He appears to be bent on arguing the case against the importance of ideology,
especially for the superpowers, either by imposing excessively rigid definitional criteria or by
coding decisions of cases that are not compelling. For example, as noted in Douglas J.
MacDonald's review in Journal of Politics 51, no. 3 (August 1989): 795-98, Walt's restrictive
definitional criteria of left-wing ideological adherence (p. 186) preclude coding the support of
"united front" movements by the Soviet Union as alliances based on ideological considerations.
And the ideologically close relations between the United States and Israel are simply argued
away by referring to Israel as a "welfare-state theocracy" that has little ideological affinity with
the United States (p. 200). Maybe so. But as Michael Barnett argues in this book, U.S.-Israeli
relations became much more problematic in the late 1980s when some segments of the
American public began to doubt that Israel was still behaving like an essentially like-minded
parliamentary democracy. Back.
Note 91: James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions: The
Organizational Basis of Politics (New York: Free Press, 1989), p. 51; March, "Decision-
Making Perspective." Back.
Note 92: Kier, Imagining War. Back.
Note 93: Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany
Between the World Wars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984). See also Jack Snyder, The
Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decison Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1984). I neglect Snyder's work here, since Kier replicates Posen's research on
interwar Europe. Back.
Note 94: Mueller, Quiet Cataclysm; Ethan A. Nadelmann, "Global Prohibition Regimes: The
Evolution of Norms in International Society," International Organization 44, no. 4 (Autumn
1990): 479-526. Back.
24 de 24 05/08/2010 19:30
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editor
2. Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security
Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. Katzenstein
The analytical perspective of this book departs in two ways from dominant assumptions in
contemporary national security studies. First, we argue that the security environments in
which states are embedded are in important part cultural and institutional, rather than just
material. This contrasts with the assumption made by neorealists and many students of the
domestic sources of national security policy. In their views, international and domestic
environments are largely devoid of cultural and institutional elements and therefore are best
captured by materialist imagery like the balance of power or bureaucratic politics. Second, we
argue that cultural environments affect not only the incentives for different kinds of state
behavior but also the basic character of states--what we call state "identity." This contrasts
with the prevailing assumption, made by neorealists and neoliberals alike, that the defining
actor properties are intrinsic to states, that is, "essential" to actors (rather than socially
contingent), and exogenous to the environment. Although we believe these arguments apply to
both the domestic and the international environments in which national security policy is
made, we shall illustrate them at this point only with reference to the latter.
There are at least three layers to the international cultural environments in which national
security policies are made. Commonly recognized in existing scholarship is the layer of formal
institutions or security regimes: nato, osce, weu, arms control regimes like the npt, cwc, salt
treaties, and the like. Less widely acknowledged is the existence of a world political culture as
a second layer. It includes elements like rules of sovereignty and international law, norms for
the proper enactment of sovereign statehood, standardized social and political technologies
(such as organization theory and models of economic policy) carried by professional and
consultancy networks, and a transnational political discourse carried by such international
social movements as Amnesty International and Greenpeace. Finally, international patterns of
amity and enmity have important cultural dimensions. In terms of material power, Canada
and Cuba stand in roughly comparable positions relative to the United States. But while one is
a threat, the other is an ally, a result, we believe, of ideational factors operating at the
international level. In each case realists will try to reduce cultural effects to epiphenomena of
the distribution of power; we argue that these effects have greater autonomy.
Our second argument refers to the effects of cultural environments on the identity, as opposed
to just the behavior, of states. The term identity here is intended as a useful label, not as a
signal of commitment to some exotic (presumably Parisian) social theory. Indeed, this concept
has become a staple of mainstream social science, whether or not the term itself is actually
used. Frederick Frey has written an underappreciated article on the problem of actor
designation, which calls attention to the problems and importance of specifying who the actors
are in a system. 1 Kenneth Waltz was implicitly talking about identity when he argued that
anarchic structures tend to produce "like units." 2 Early on in the development of regime
theory, Stephen Krasner 3 suggested that regimes could change state interests and, later, that
an "institutional" approach would problematize "the very nature of the actors: their
endowments, utilities--preferences, capacities, resources, and identity." 4 And Robert
Keohane, 5 too, has called for a "sociological" approach to state interests, in which
1 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
transformations of interests become an important effect to be investigated. None of these

scholars, however, has systematically pursued these insights; we attempt to do so here. 6
More specifically, our argument envisions at least three effects that external cultural
environments may have on state identities and thus on national security interests and policies.
First, they may affect states' prospects for survival as entities in the first place. Just as Waltz
argued that competitive material environments will "select out" states that do not adopt
efficient organizational forms, so Robert Jackson 7 and David Strang 8 have argued that
recognition of juridical sovereignty by the society of states has enabled weak states to survive
when they otherwise might not. Second, environments may change the modal character of
statehood in the system over time. Today, in contrast to the late nineteenth century, it would
be almost inconceivable for a country readily to vote to become a colony. 9 Relatedly, as late
as the nineteenth century warfare was seen as a virtuous exercise of state power; today, while
states are still organized to fight wars, changing international norms and domestic factors have
"tamed" the aggressive impulses of many states, especially in the West, thus creating a
disposition to see war as at best a necessary evil. 10 Finally, cultural environments may cause
variation in the character of statehood within a given international system. The aftermath of
World War II, for example, initiated a period of identity politics in both Germany and Japan,
which generated "trading state" identities, as Thomas Berger shows in this volume. Similarly,
unlike Britain, France maintained its commitment to the exchange rate mechanism of the
European Monetary System (ems) partly because it is a founding member--that is, because of
its identity interests. 11 In each case a choice theoretic approach that treated the properties of
state actors as exogenously given would fail to capture important effects of the external
cultural environment on state identities, interests, and policies.
We develop this analytical perspective in the rest of this essay. What emerges is not a "theory"
of national security so much as an orienting framework that highlights a set of effects and
mechanisms that have been neglected in mainstream security studies. As such, this framework
tells us about as much about the substance of world politics as does a materialist view of the
international system or a choice theoretic assumption of exoge nous interests. It offers a
partial perspective, but one important for orienting our thinking about more specific
phenomena.
The next section of this essay sketches an intellectual map that conceptualizes international
and domestic environments and their relationships to state identity. Subsequent sections
locate prominent theoretical approaches in the field of national security on this map, in
comparison to the approach of this book, pull together the book's main substantive arguments,
and briefly discuss some methodological and metatheoretic issues. We conclude with some
extensions of our analysis.
Analytical Context
The empirical essays in this volume focus on the ways in which norms, institutions, and other
cultural features of domestic and international environments affect state security interests and
policies. In pursuing this idea we do not claim that theories that do not do so are unhelpful or
wrongheaded. The relationship between different lines of argument will vary from
complementarity to competition to subsumption. One cannot prejudge the relative utility of
different arguments apart from the specification of the problems that motivate the research in
the first place. It is in this spirit that this volume departs from realism and liberalism as the
dominant approaches in security studies.
Figure 2.1 provides a map for positioning the arguments of these essays relative to those of
realism and liberalism. 12 The map is analytically general; we use it here to categorize
domestic and international theories of national security.
2 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
One axis of the map (the x-axis) focuses on the relative cultural and institutional density of the
environments in which actors move. 13 States can be conceived of as interacting with
environments that range from having limited cultural and institutional content on the one
hand to being thickly structured by cultural and institutional elements on the other.
At the low end of this continuum are theories that depict the environment in materialist terms.
The analogy would be to ecology in the physical sciences. In international relations this is the
view held by neorealists, who conceive environments in terms of a distribution of material
(military and economic) capabilities. Materialists need not ignore cultural factors altogether.
But they treat them as epiphenomenal or at least secondary, as a "superstructure" determined
in the last instance by the material "base." This is probably the dominant view of state
environments in security studies. Indeed, this view is so pervasive that even its critics, such as
neoliberal institutionalists, typically refer to structure in material terms and then treat norms,
rules, and institutions as mere "process."
At the high end of the x-axis are theories depicting environments as containing extensive
cultural elements. Such theories might refer to the states system as an "anarchy" in the strict
sense, that is, as lacking a world state. But they insist that even anarchies can be highly
"social." What ultimately determines the behavior of actors within these anarchies is shared
expectations and understandings that give specific meaning to material forces. 14 When
thinking about the relationship between theories located at opposing ends of this dimension, it
is important to avoid two common misunderstandings. The first is assuming that materialist
theories are necessarily about conflict and cultural ones are about cooperation. Although
neorealism tends to predict conflict, Daniel Deudney's work on nuclear weapons 15 suggests
that material forces may also lead to cooperation. 16 And conversely, although neoliberals
tend to focus on cooperation, cultural explanations of conflict are equally possible, as Samuel
Huntington's work on the "clash of civilizations" illustrates. 17 In this respect the perspective
of this volume, and of social constructivism more generally, is like that of game theory; it is
analytically neutral with respect to conflict and cooperation. In contrast to the work of regime
theorists, the value of the arguments here does not depend on the extent to which states
cooperate in security affairs. We argue that any general theory of national security, realist or
otherwise, needs to accommodate both cooperation and coercion.
A second common misunderstanding in comparing theories along the x-axis is smuggling in

unacknowledged cultural factors that do most of the explanatory work within ostensibly
materialist theories. Alexander Wendt, 18 for example, has argued that neorealist arguments
about the role of the distribution of power in world politics in fact trade on an implicit
characterization of the background of shared expectations, a culture of fear and enmity.
Whether or not neorealists in fact adopt such an explanatory strategy, however, it is important
to disentangle claims about the effects of "brute" or generic material forces from claims about
their effects that presuppose specific contingent cultural contexts. Relatedly, categories like
"revisionist" or "status quo" power, when deployed in a realist explanation, often refer to
3 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
social identities. To establish the validity of a materialist argument, one has to show that the
material base as such governs a cultural superstructure.
An important consequence of both these points is that the use by states of material power and
coercion in their security affairs in no way speaks to the validity of theories along the x-axis.
Power is ubiquitous in social life, whether in the "coercive" sense of punishing and
constraining behavior as emphasized by neorealists or in the "productive" sense of producing
subjects as emphasized by students of culture. The issue that separates the contributions to
this volume from mainstream security studies is therefore not the extent to which power and
coercion are thought to matter in international life. In general the authors are just as attentive
to coercion and force as neorealists are. The issue, rather, is whether the manifold uses and
forms of power can be explained by material factors alone, or whether ideational and cultural
factors are necessary to account for them. In the latter case it makes little sense to separate
power and culture as distinct phenomena or causes: material power and coercion often derive
their causal power from culture. This volume does not concede the study of conflict and war to
neorealism, as if the latter provided a confirmed theoretical "baseline," to which cultural
arguments merely add a few secondary variables. The issue is what accounts for power, not
whether power is present.
The second line of argument of this book is represented by the y-axis. It focuses upon the
relationship between actors, such as states, and their environments. This relationship is
two-sided. It includes the impact of actors on their environments and the impact of
environments on actors. 19 Specifically, this volume wants to draw attention to the
significance of the latter. However, this intention does not stem from a belief that the effects of
actors on environments are unimportant. On the contrary. The contributors to this volume
argue that agency and environment are mutually constitutive--in contrast with the primacy
that the dominant realist and rationalist perspectives in international relations theory accord
to the effects that actors have on environments. In this volume Richard Price and Nina
Tannenwald, for example, illustrate such a constitutive relationship in the case of the non-use
of chemical and nuclear weapons. Similarly, Berger's analysis suggests that the transformation
in Germany's and Japan's collective identity affects the international environment.
In thinking about the effects of environments on actors it is useful to distinguish three kinds of
effects, which correspond to progressively higher levels of "construction." First, environments
might affect only the behavior of actors. Second, they might affect the contingent properties of
actors (identities, interests, and capabilities). 20 Finally, environments might affect the
existence of actors altogether. For example, in the case of individual human beings, the third
effect concerns their bodies, the second whether these bodies become cashiers or corporate
raiders, and the first whether or not the cashiers go on strike. Theories that call attention to
lower-order construction effects may or may not stress higher ones. In this book we focus on
the first and, especially, the second effects, usually taking the existence of states as given.
At the low end of this continuum are theories, such as rational choice and game theory, that
depict the defining properties of actors as intrinsic and thus not generated by environments.
Such theories may acknowledge a role for environmental structures in defining the
opportunities and constraints facing actors, and thereby in conditioning the behavior of the
latter via "price" effects, 21 but not in constructing actors themselves. Neoclassical economics,
for instance, treats the preferences and capabilities of actors as exogenously given. Relatedly,
Waltz 22 allows for what he calls "socialization" and "imitation" processes. But in so doing he
envisions the shaping of the behavior of pregiven actors. He thus assumes that the processes
determining the fundamental identity of states are exogenous to the states' environments,
global or domestic.
At the high end of the continuum are theories that treat unit properties as endogenous to the
environment and, at the limit, assume that units have no essential intrinsic properties at all, a
possibility that we neglect here. That someone has the identity (and associated interests) of a
4 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
"student," for example, has no meaning outside of a particular institutional environment that
also defines related identities, like "professor" (with its associated interests). A similar
argument can be made about the identity of some states as "sovereign," which presupposes a
system of mutual recognition from other states with certain competencies. In both cases the
properties of an actor, as well as its behaviors, depend upon a specific social context. The
identities that states project, and the interests that they pursue, can therefore be seen as partly
constructed by their environments.
Theoretical Perspectives
Figure 2.1 provides a way of thinking about the relationship of this book to dominant
approaches in security studies. Each approach represents different views about what
environments consist of, and about how such environments affect actors--here, states. In this
section we briefly characterize approaches to security studies in terms of this figure, dividing
the review into international/systemic and domestic theories. 23 We should note that the two
dimensions of figure 2.1 are continua, but for ease of exposition we discuss approaches by
reference to the quadrant in which they fall.
International Politics
Few approaches fall cleanly in the upper-left quadrant. This combination is difficult to sustain.
If actor properties are constructed, a dense cultural and institutional environment is normally
implicated. But, nevertheless, there probably are a few representatives of this quadrant.
Strands of neo- Marxism, especially world-systems theory, offer some examples. And
Deudney's "security materialism" might also fall in this category. 24
Since they insist on the determining effects of international structure, neorealists like Waltz 25
might also be located here. But it is not clear whether such a classification is accurate. Waltz
claims to derive state interests from an ecological argument about how the logic of anarchy
produces "like units." His argument, however, takes the self-interested and sovereign
character of states as given, and in practice his neorealist "structuralism" ends up focusing on
how structure conditions the behavior of given state actors. 26 This interpretation is
reinforced by his reliance on analogies from microeconomics, a discipline that treats actors'
properties as exogenously given. Analytically, then, in neorealism states have largely
unproblematic--that is, unvarying and acontextual--identities and interests. 27 In this view,
neorealism might therefore more accurately be located in the lower-left quadrant of the map.
In fact, most mainstream strategic and deterrence theory and policy research fall in this
quadrant. Actor identities are taken for granted, and material capabilities are considered the
defining characteristic of environments. Game theoretic models are then typically used to
analyze how material structure provides incentives for particular kinds of behavior. This
perspective focuses on how to contain or manage given conflicts, neglecting strategies for
solving them by transforming underlying identities and interests. The analytical problem of
conflict management and order is thereby reduced to the problem of balancing or achieving
cooperation between exogenously given competitors.
Scholars in the lower-right quadrant retain a rationalist approach to actor construction but
attach considerably more importance to norms, institutions, and other cultural factors than do
neorealists. This neoliberal school argues that norms and institutions matter both at the
domestic level, where regime type is found to have an important effect on some domains of
foreign policy behavior, 28 and at the systemic level, where international regimes change the
incentives for state action. 29 They have conceptualized the difference that norms make, for
instance, in terms of their effects on the relative cost of specific forms of behavior--for
example, through lowering transaction costs and reducing uncertainty about others' behavior.
However, neoliberals have been relatively inattentive to varying constructions of actor
identities on interests and policies. This contrasts with the keen interest of traditional realists
5 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
in the effects of nationalism on state identity. Neoliberalism leaves that topic largely
unexamined. 30
In recent years theoretical disagreements between neorealists and neoliberals have constituted
the core of mainstream international relations theory, which in turn has shaped security
studies. 31 In terms of figure 2.1, these disagreements have occurred along the x-axis. While
disputing the relative importance of material power versus norms and institutions, both
approaches are committed to a rationalist view of the difference that structure makes.
Structure merely affects behavior; it does not construct actor properties. Compared with
earlier advances in international relations theory, this approach marks a substantial narrowing
in analytical perspective. In the 1960s, for example, theorists of neofunctionalism and regional
integration developed sophisticated approaches to investigating the effects of integration
processes on actor properties. 32 These theories are precursors of current theoretical
alternatives to neorealism and neoliberalism that can be found in the upper-right quadrant. 33
Since they differ greatly on important issues of research practice, such alternatives should not
be lumped together as representing one intellectual position. They offer instead a range of
analytical perspectives that differ from realist and liberal variants of international relations
theory.
The oldest stream of scholarship that might be positioned within this space, and to which
subsequent traditions are partly indebted, is the Grotian tradition represented by Hedley Bull
34 and the English School. 35 From this perspective the international system is a "society" in
which states, as a condition of their participation in the system, adhere to shared norms and
rules in a variety of issue areas. Material power matters, but within a framework of normative
expectations embedded in public and customary international law. Scholars in this tradition
have not focused explicitly on how norms construct states with specific identities and interests.
But sociological imagery is strong in their work; it is not a great leap from arguing that
adherence to norms is a condition of participation in a society to arguing that states are
constructed, partly or substantially, by these norms.
Perhaps the most fundamental institution in international society is sovereignty. It has become
an important focus of a second body of scholarship, constructivism. 36 John Ruggie's
important critique of Waltz 37 conceptualizes sovereignty as an institution that invests states
with exclusive political authority in their territorial spaces, which he sees as crucial in the
construction of state identity. By constituting states, and only states, with territorial rights,
sovereignty determines what the basic political units of the system are. It thus defines also
categories of "deviant" units, such as international trusteeships or safe zones, whose existence
within the states system is thereby made problematic. 38 In addition to defining political
identities, the institution of sovereignty also regulates state behavior through norms and
practices of mutual recognition, nonintervention, and (state) self-determination--which in
turn help reproduce state identities. These norms find expression in public international law,
which communicates global agreements about how the society of states should operate. Such
agreements matter. Sovereignty norms establish a largely "juridical statehood," for example, in
Africa, which becomes a key political resource for these states within the interstate system. 39
And David Strang has shown that states externally recognized as sovereign show less
movement between independent, dependent, and unrecognized statuses than do states not so
recognized. 40
Another body of scholarship, poststructural international relations theory, pursues a radical

constructivist position. Beginning with the work of Richard Ashley, 41 poststructuralists have
focused on how state identities are, down to their core, ongoing accomplishments of discursive
practices. Crucial among these practices is foreign policy, which produces and reproduces the
territorial boundaries that seem essential to the state. 42
Neorealism's disregard of questions of identity formation, and classical realism's emphasis on
6 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
the power-seeking interests of states as a function of human, rather than male, nature have
given feminist critiques of realism a dual target. In the words of Ann Tickner, "in the name of
universality, realists have constructed a worldview based on the experiences of certain men: it
is therefore a worldview that offers us only a partial view of reality." 43 In both of its
incarnations, realism seeks to articulate objective and timeless laws--the will to power and the
tendency to balance power--that feminist critics argue reflect a deeply gendered view of
reality. Relativizing that view, feminist theory insists, is a crucial first step in eventually
transforming it. 44
Like feminism, a fourth theoretical perspective that fits into the upper-right quadrant also is
not state-centric, and perhaps for that reason is not well known in international relations
scholarship. This is the sociological research that John Meyer and his colleagues have done on
the world polity. 45 This group has focused on the cultural and institutional foundations of
world society as opposed to the society of states. 46 A parallel concern is quite natural to
students of domestic affairs, who analyze the social embeddedness of states and markets as a
crucial feature of national politics. And it resonates partly with theories of transnational
relations that have informed international relations research during the last two decades. 47
This body of empirical research has focused on a world political culture, carrying standardized
models of statehood. The spread of democratic ideologies and market models provides
obvious examples, along with the underlying consolidation of regional and even global
ideologies of citizenship and human rights. 48 Even states' military procurement is partly
scripted in models of statehood that diffuse widely in the world system, as Dana Eyre and
Mark Suchman argue in their essay in this volume. Adoption of such evolving world models
has shown a weakening relationship over time with specific characteristics of particular states,
which indicates conventionalization and in some instances even institutionalization at the
global level.
This sociological literature, now well developed empirically, 49 has tracked a rapidly
intensifying world institutional and discursive order, carried by an expanding range of
"epistemic" communities 50 as well as intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations.
This line of argument does not describe any formal change in sovereignty, however, nor does it
foresee any movement toward a global protostate. 51 Rather, the jurisdiction and agendas of
states are increasingly worked out within a transnational context. Without reference to this
standardizing world political culture, it is difficult to account for the high stability of the states
system, as well as the decreasing variability of political forms and the rapid spread of political
and social technologies within it. 52
At the same time, new forms of global homogeneity and order also generate new forms of
heterogeneity and disorder. "The insistence on heterogeneity and variety in an increasingly
globalized world is . . . integral to globalization theory." 53 World society carries standardized
oppositional ideologies that are usually selective reifications of elements of dominant world
ideology. Thus authoritarian ideologies and experiments with state socialism in Third World
settings in the 1960s, and the spread of Third World demands for a New International
Economic Order (nieo) in the 1970s, both drew upon Western principles of justice. 54 Indeed,
during the Cold War socialist models achieved (counter)hegemonic status in many Third
World states, despite the absence of the standard preconditions for socialism. With the end of
the Cold War it is conceivable that some strains of Islamic fundamentalism may assume a
similar oppositional role. For as J. P. Nettl and Roland Robertson have argued, religion and
societal ideologies may exercise stronger control functions over global society than do
international law and industrialism. 55
Domestic Politics
The differences in analytical perspective captured in figure 2.1 apply as much to theories of
7 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
domestic politics as to those of international relations. 56 Thus, in their analyses of domestic

politics, orthodox national security studies tend to adhere to the same materialist and
rationalist perspective that characterizes realism at the international level. This work has
taken two main forms: scrutiny of individual decision makers, often observed at times of crisis,
and of bureaucratic organizations involved in the process of policy formulation and
implementation. The theory of the state implicit in the former is the rational-state-as-actor
model; the theory of politics implicit in the latter is bureaucratic pluralism or bureaucratic
routinization.
Critics of deterrence have questioned these implicit theories by invoking in a variety of ways
the cultural content of the environment, thus moving rightward along the x-axis. The cognitive
and motivational biases impairing rationality that have attracted attention are, in this view,
rooted not only in the information-processing proclivities of individuals but also in the
operational codes, understandings, and worldviews shared by decision makers and diffused
throughout society. 57 Similarly, Elizabeth Kier and Alastair Johnston, in their respective
essays in this volume, rely on studies of organizational and strategic cultures that criticize the
lack of attention to cultural variables in the mainstream literatures on organizations and
deterrence. 58
To the extent that they focus on the effects of collective understandings (as embodied, for
example, in ideologies and policy paradigms) rather than individual-level variables, these
critics share much with recent writings in the fields of security studies, comparative political
economy, and foreign policy analysis. 59 Although particular studies differ, they all pay
attention to the institutionalization of ideas--in research institutes, schools of thought, laws,
government bureaucracies--as a crucial determinant of policy. On this point the latter studies
all belong to the "new institutionalism" in the analysis of domestic politics.
But the new institutionalism also has spurred debate about state identity, which moves one
along the y-axis of figure 2.1, away from the origin. In the 1970s and 1980s, various forms of
institutional analysis reemerged, providing powerful criticisms of the liberal and Marxist
theories that regard the state as epiphenomenal. 60 Many realists were unmoved by these
developments. If unitary state actors had to be disaggregated analytically, it was in terms of a
plurality of bureaucratic and organizational actors. Other realists, however, embraced the
return of an analytical perspective focusing on the state and looked for the enduring ideologies
and world visions that motivate state action. Thus Stephen Krasner argued that American
foreign policy was motivated by ideology rather than by the pursuit of a national interest more
narrowly conceived. 61 But in the analysis of domestic politics, the state remained for these
observers a largely unitary actor, as it was in the analysis of international politics.
Some students of domestic politics, on the other hand, viewed the state in its relation to
society. In their view the identity of the state and of social actors--for example, interest groups
or political parties--could be understood only as mutually constitutive. 62 Conceiving of the
state in relational terms and investigating the domestic sources of foreign policy focuses
attention on the degree to which the identities of actors are constructed by state-society
relations. Ideologies of social partnership, for example, helped define for the rich, small
European states after World War II a set of political strategies that combined economic
flexibility with political stability. 63 Furthermore, the relatively generous welfare policies
associated with these political strategies are representative of moral and humanitarian
concerns that have prompted foreign aid policies not easily explained in terms of narrow
conceptions of economic self-interest. 64 Put differently, shared conceptions of identity
appear to have had an important indirect effect on a number of policies. 65
This brief review suggests a concluding observation about the pattern of theorizing in national
security studies. In the case of international relations theorizing, one can discern a dominant
arc of research. It starts in the lower-left quadrant with a materialist-rationalist neorealism,
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extends to the right along the x-axis in the form of neoliberal regime theory, which adds more
cultural imagery, and moves into the upper-right quadrant with constructivist theories that
seek to link cultural structures to actor identities. One can also map the analysis of the
domestic sources of national security policy along this arc, although with less clarity. Different
intellectual currents have challenged two analytical positions that lie close to the origin: the
bureaucratic politics paradigm and the presumption of rational, individual decision makers.
This volume (located in the upper-right quadrant) seeks to establish the fruitfulness of a
sociological perspective on national security. As one moves away from the origin, one captures
the two theoretical departures of this project: the imagined cultural and institutional density
of states' environments increases, and so does the extent to which states' properties are
constructed by these environments.
Arguments
Most of the essays in this volume feature norms, culture, or identities in causal arguments
about national security policy. (We will clarify conceptualizations of these terms in the
appropriate subsections below.) The main lines of argument advanced herein can be captured
by a simple schema: 66 Referring to the causal pathways summarized in figure 2.2, we outline
five main types of arguments present in the substantive essays of this volume. (The numbers
here correspond to the numbers labeling the pathways of the figure.)
1. Effects of norms (I). Cultural or institutional elements of states' environments--in this

volume, most often norms--shape the national security interests or (directly) the security
policies of states.
2. Effects of norms (II). Cultural or institutional elements of states' global or domestic

environments--in this volume, most often norms--shape state identity.
3. Effects of identity (I). Variation in state identity, or changes in state identity, affect the
national security interests or policies of states.
4. Effects of identity (II). Configurations of state identity affect interstate normative

structures, such as regimes or security communities.
5. Recursivity. State policies both reproduce and reconstruct cultural and institutional
structure.
The five essays in part 1 of this volume--by Eyre and Suchman, Price and Tannenwald,
Finnemore, Kier, and Johnston--focus primarily on the cultural and institutional content of
the environments in which states act. These essays give analytical priority, respectively, to
norms of military prowess, the limited use of nuclear and chemical weapons, humanitarian
intervention, and the organizational and strategic cultures of the military that define interests
or affect policy directly. The four essays in part 2--by Herman, Berger, Risse-Kappen, and
Barnett--highlight the contested construction or reconstruction of actor identities within
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environments. These essays problematize the notions of a "Western" Soviet Union, of a

Japanese merchant state and a Europeanized Germany, of a security community of liberal
democracies in the North Atlantic community, and of the tension between pan-Arabism and
Arab statehood. Identities shape actor interests or state policy.
The essays differ in the details of their language and conceptualization, but they share a
common idiom. They are cumulative in the challenge they pose to established analytical
perspectives, and they illuminate how empirical analysis of cultural content and constructed
identities can contribute to the study of national security. All essays specify one or more
outcomes to be explained, compare alternative explanations, and stress the importance of
agency and conflict in the construction of identity and the enactment of norms. All reach new
and nontrivial conclusions regarding substantively important national security issues. The
main lines of argument from the essays, in terms of the five main categories outlined above,
appear below. 67
1. Cultural or institutional elements of states' environments--in this volume, most often

norms--shape the national security interests or (directly) the security policies of states. Many
of the essays feature effects of norms. It has become more common to argue that, given
constant interests, institutions change the transaction costs or information requirements for
certain policies or that they change interests themselves. The essays in this volume build upon
but broaden this insight, in ways that we will describe.
We should first mention that the essays employ the concept "norms" in a sociologically
standard way. Norms are collective expectations about proper behavior for a given identity.
(We will describe the concept "identity" momentarily.) Sometimes norms operate like rules
defining (and thus "constituting") an identity--like the descriptors defining the basic
characteristics of professorhood within a university, in relation to the other main identities
found within that institution. These effects are "constitutive" because norms in these instances
specify the actions that will cause relevant others to recognize and validate a particular
identity and to respond to it appropriately. 68 In other instances, norms are "regulative" in
their effect. They operate as standards for the proper enactment or deployment of a defined
identity--like the standards defining what a properly conforming professor does in particular
circumstances.
Thus norms either define ("constitute") identities in the first place (generating expectations
about the proper portfolio of identities for a given context) or prescribe or proscribe
("regulate") behaviors for already constituted identities (generating expectations about how
those identities will shape behavior in varying circumstances). Taken together, then, norms
establish expectations about who the actors will be in a particular environment and about how
these particular actors will behave. 69 With this conceptualization in mind, we proceed to
arguments.
Price and Tannenwald show how models of "responsible" or "civilized" states are enacted and
validated by upholding specific norms. 70 These norms constrain the use of some
technologies for killing or incapacitating people in large numbers. Berger shows how
Germany's and Japan's antimilitaristic norms have made it very difficult for their governments
to adopt more-assertive national security policies since the end of the Cold War. Finnemore
argues that nonwhite and non-Christian peoples can make claims for humanitarian military
protection in the twentieth century in a way that was not conceivable in the nineteenth
century. Humanitarian concerns have expanded and have shaped the interests and policies of
states. Intervention now often occurs when geostrategic interests are absent or unclear, and
when multilateral coalitions restrain the unilateral exercise of power.
Herman's analysis of Soviet foreign policy argues that the regime that emerged between the
two superpowers during the era of detente articulated nascent norms--the avoidance of
military force, the maintenance of strategic stability, and the legitimation of human
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rights--norms that shaped in demonstrable ways the definition of national interests advanced
by liberal reformers within the ussr. Contesting definitions of security in the Soviet Union were
tied to new interpretations of regime dynamics and U.S. debates by a significant sector of
Soviet policy makers. These interpretive processes fostered a softening of the ussr's
manichaean image of world order. 71
The strength of the causal effects of norms varies. Norms fall on a continuum of strength, from
mere discursive receptivity (as in the early years of American deterrence policy, discussed by
Price and Tannenwald), through contested models (as revealed in Kier's contrasts of French,
British, and German military doctrines in the interwar period), to reconstructed "common
wisdom" (as in the eschewing of militarist policies in Japan and Germany that Berger
discusses). Weak norms, as in the case of nuclear deterrence, and political ideologies, as in the
case of the French military, have behavioral consequences neither as permissive as
instrumental justifications nor as constraining as unthinking common sense.
Thus the presence of norms does not dictate compliance. Any new or emergent norm must
compete with existing, perhaps countervailing, ones. This is a political process that implicates
the relative power of international or domestic coalitions. But norms make new types of action
possible, while neither guaranteeing action nor determining its results. Extending Finnemore's
line of reasoning, one might argue that as norms become institutionalized, support for
institutions may partly supplant adherence to norms as motivators of government behavior. It
is plausible to argue, for instance, that the United States intervened in Somalia as much to
make up for its own inaction in Bosnia and to show support for the un as to alleviate human
suffering in Somalia. A dramatic expansion in the scope of un activities points in that direction.
72
Other cultural effects. Some essays rather than invoking "norms" propose other "cultural"
effects on the interests or national security policies of states. The use of the term culture in this
volume also follows conventional sociological usage. While the authors who use the term vary
in the details, they all invoke it as a broad label denoting collective models of nation-state
authority or identity, represented in custom or law. As typically used (and as used here),
culture refers both to a set of evaluative standards, such as norms or values, and to cognitive
standards, such as rules or models defining what entities and actors exist in a system and how
they operate and interrelate. 73 For example, in their discussions here of domestic cultures,
both Berger and Kier invoke country-specific models of (and discourse about) national
identity and political organization. These models are constructed and contested by politicians,
leaders of political movements, groups and parties, propagandists, lawyers, clerics, and even
academics. Kier's analysis focuses on the military's organizational culture, but she also
examines the broader domestic political culture. The French army in the interwar period did
not, as many claim, inherently prefer an offensive military doctrine. Instead, given the
constraints established in the domestic political arena, the French army's organizational
culture fostered the adoption of a defensive doctrine. Other military organizations would not
have responded the same way. In short, what the civilians and the military understand to be in
their interest depends on the cultural context in which they operate. 74
Kier's analysis focuses on the organizational culture of the military, which is nested in a
broader domestic political culture. Berger's essay concentrates more directly on this broader
setting, in his words the "politico- military culture." Price and Tannenwald in their essay
follow recent trends in the field of science and technology studies and military technology, 75
arguing that even technologies of mass destruction are socially constructed. They concentrate
on how political actors, in international, transnational, and national communities of discourse,
contest different categories of weapons and thus contribute to the emergence and evolution of
norms. 76
Similarly, Jeffrey Legro turns to the military's organizational culture to explain why during
World War II submarine attacks on merchant ships and aerial bombings of nonmilitary targets
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escalated beyond all restrictions, while the use of chemical weapons did not. 77 Dana Eyre
and Mark Suchman's essay provides an international example. In referring to models of
military apparatuses and their world diffusion, they invoke what John Meyer has called a
"more or less worldwide rationalistic culture," indicating "less a set of values and norms, and
more a set of models defining the nature, purpose, resources, technologies, controls, and
sovereignty of the proper nation state." 78 These models are politically constructed and
contested within international organizations, transnational professions, the sciences and other
"epistemic communities," social movement networks, and so forth.
2. Cultural or institutional elements of states' global or domestic environments--in this

volume, most often norms--shape state identity. Cultural and institutional structure may also
constitute or shape the basic identities of states, that is, the features of state "actorhood" or
national identity. For example, in essay 3 Eyre and Suchman show how many states enact
standardized models of statehood. Specifically, they analyze how many such states procure a
standardized weapons portfolio, one related more to domestic display and international
prestige than to the actual security threats that the states face. Analogously, Third World states
draw upon other models of proper organization from un agencies, 79 which helps to account
for the extraordinary diffusion of social and political technologies within the world system.
Similarly, the International Labor Organization (ilo) has been central in global standardization
of some elements and practices of welfare states. 80
Ideas of more or less legitimate state identities develop in world society, as do technologies of
statehood. With the recent "third wave" of democratization, even authoritarian regimes now
use the rhetorical and constitutional trappings of democracy. 81 Norms of racial equality that
emerged from domestic debates over race relations eventually diffused globally through
transnational politics and politicized South African apartheid. 82 Analogously, ideas about
citizenship, developed in domestic contexts, were implicated in the process of decolonization.
83 In this volume, Herman discusses how Soviet reformers sought ways to reconstruct the
Soviet Union as a more "normal" country and how they articulated contrasting radical "global"
and more conventional "national" political visions. And Berger shows how the aftermath of
World War II occasioned a period of identity politics in both Germany and Japan, in which
global models of legitimate state and national identities affected the domestic political process
of reconstructing identity. The institution of multilateralism has had a particularly powerful
effect on Germany. 84
The concept of "identity" thus functions as a crucial link between environmental structures
and interests. The term comes from social psychology, where it refers to the images of
individuality and distinctiveness ("selfhood") held and projected by an actor and formed (and
modified over time) through relations with significant "others." Thus the term (by convention)
references mutually constructed and evolving images of self and other. 85
Appropriation of this idiom for the study of international relations may seem forced, since
states obviously do not have immediately apparent equivalents to "selves." But nations do
construct and project collective identities, and states operate as actors. A large literature on
national identity and state sovereignty attests to this important aspect of international politics.
We employ the language of "identity" to mark these variations. For the purposes of this
project, more specifically, we employ "identity" as a label for the varying construction of
nationhood and statehood. Thus we reference both (a) the nationally varying ideologies of
collective distinctiveness and purpose ("nationhood" or nationalism, for short), and (b)
country variation in state sovereignty, as it is enacted domestically and projected
internationally ("statehood," for short).
This dimension of variation in statehood is less codified in the literature and requires a few
words of further explication. We refer to two main forms of variation. First, the modal
character of statehood varies over time within an international system, as well as varying
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across international systems. For instance, statehood in the contemporary West is arguably
less militarist than statehood elsewhere and in earlier periods. Second, the kinds of statehood
constructed within a given system also vary. For instance, the statehood of many African
countries is more notably external and juridical than that found elsewhere. 86
3. Variation in state identity, or changes in state identity, affect the national security interests
or policies of states. Identities both generate and shape interests. Some interests, such as mere
survival and minimal physical well-being, exist outside of specific social identities; they are
relatively generic. But many national security interests depend on a particular construction of
self-identity in relation to the conceived identity of others. This was certainly true during the
Cold War. Actors often cannot decide what their interests are until they know what they are
representing--"who they are"--which in turn depends on their social relationships. A case in
point is the current ambiguity surrounding U.S. national interests after the Cold War. The
collapse of the Soviet empire as a dominant "other" occasions instability in U.S.
self-conception, and hence ambiguity in U.S. interests. The issue is considerably more pressing
in Russia and several other successor states of the Soviet Union.
States can develop interests in enacting, sustaining, or developing a particular identity. For
example, Price and Tannenwald (in essay 4) argue that a commitment to a "civilized" identity
reinforced acceptance of norms defining chemical and nuclear weapons as illegitimate. And
the wishes of American elites to present a pacific picture of the American nation facilitated the
development of these norms.
Further, constancy in underlying identity helps to explain underlying regularities in national

security interests and policy. Thus Johnston argues in essay 7 that China's strategic culture in
the Maoist period was based on a zero-sum view of the world, a division between "self" and
"other" that generated specific strategic commitments. Classical Chinese conceptions were
reinforced by contacts with the European state system: nationalism and Marxism-Leninism
provided themes of class war and anti-imperialist war that could be grafted onto traditional
constructions. Historical variations in the structural conditions of the Chinese empire do not
account well for the constancy in strategic culture: the relation between "anarchy" and
realpolitik depicted by neorealism, Johnston suggests, is in this case spurious. Rather, it is
China's strategic culture that drives its realpolitik.
Correspondingly, change in identity can precipitate substantial change in interests that shape
national security policy. Redefinition of Soviet identity, and of the U.S.-Soviet relationship,
Herman argues, precipitated a new picture of Soviet interests. And the security dilemma of the
Cold War was rooted, as Risse-Kappen demonstrates, in definitions of self and other that elites
constructed politically in the late 1940s. In the current period, as multilateralism is
"internalized" as a constitutive part of some states' identities, these states develop an interest
in participating in and promoting it. As Berger shows, German state elites have sought to lock
in a reconstructed German identity--pacified, democratic, and internationalist--by linking this
identity to regional and multilateral institutions and iden tities. These processes are directly
analogous to those of "self-binding" 87 and "character planning" conspicuous in personal
identity.
Second, state policy or activity may be a direct enactment or reflection of identity politics.
Postwar domestic battles in Germany and Japan over proper security policy were part of a
broader political conflict over identity. In Germany, but not in Japan, these were open contests
over the reconstruction and retelling of national history. Berger argues that the new
constructions of national identity have little resemblance to the militarist visions driving these
states before World War II. One might argue that identity reconstruction is more consolidated
in Germany than in Japan precisely because of Germany's greater "self-entanglement" in
regional and world institutions. 88 In any case, Berger's study shows how identity politics and
change in collective identities can precipitate substantial change in state interest and policy.
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This argument has important implications for the post-Cold War era. The continuity in
Germany's and Japan's security policy, Berger argues, must be attributed to their domestic
politics of identity, rather than to discontinuity in the structure of the international system.
Despite stark contrasts between China's hard realpolitik and Japan's and Germany's
antimilitarist stance, analytically Berger's and Johnston's conclusions are isomorphic: China's
strategic culture and Japan's and Germany's politico-military culture have stronger effects on
national security policies than international structure does. Analogously, Kier shows that
during the interwar years domestic, not international, conflict over the identity of the French
state provided the setting in which the organizational culture of the French military caused the
adoption of a defensive doctrine.
We have exemplified "identity interests" and "identity politics" as useful constructs for the
analysis of states' national security interests and policy. Barnett's contribution to this volume
suggests another contribution of the identity idiom. In his discussion of U.S.-Israeli relations,
Barnett refers to the identity "crisis" that began in Israel in the late 1980s. It was rooted not in
the dramatic changes in the international system but in the debates spurred by Israeli
occupation policies in the West Bank. Israel was deeply divided between those defending a
traditional conception of geostrategic security, even at the risk of losing the emotional support
of the American public, and those favoring strategic retrenchment while strengthening the
notion of Israel as a Western-style democracy. The peace offensive of the Rabin government
illustrates that identity can trump geostrategy as a determinant of national security policy. 89
4. Configurations of state identity affect interstate normative structures, such as regimes or

security communities. The preceding section focused on the effects of constructed and
contested state identities on national security interests or policy. One can also analyze how
states seek to enact or institutionalize their identities (potentially shifting or multiple ones) in
interstate normative structures, including regimes and security communities.
Risse-Kappen discusses how the formation of nato both expressed the common identity of
liberal democracies and reinforced an embryonic North Atlantic security community, 90
allowing for the development of new practices of collective defense, institutionalized over
time in the nato security regime. Specifically, he shows that an important aspect of that
security community was the norm of multilateral consultation that clashed at times with the
American urge for unilateral action. He argues further that this security community is
persisting despite the evaporation of a common enemy, for it has come to embody norms of
consultation, among others, that reinforce an acquired collective identity. 91 Also, proponents
of European integration, believing that integration requires agreement, actively championed
human rights ideologies, promoting an ideology in order to deepen European identity. 92
Barnett similarly argues that shifts in models of Arab collective identity--specifically, an

ongoing competition between pan-Arabism and state-centric models--have driven the search
for normative structures to implement this identity. From this analytical vantage point,
arguments that invoke the balance of threat as an explanation of alliance formation remain
incomplete in their specification of causation, as long as they neglect variable and contested
state identities as the main factor that defines for decision makers what constitutes a threat in
the first place. 93
5. State policies both reproduce and reconstruct cultural and institutional structure. The
causal imagery captured in figure 2.2 represents a process. Cultural and institutional
structures have no existence apart from the ongoing knowledgeable actions of actors. 94 This
does not mean that such structures are reducible to such actions; it means that cultural and
institutional structures cannot be divorced analytically from the processes by which they are
continuously produced and reproduced and changed. Emanuel Adler, 95 for example, has
analyzed how a particular political coalition of scientists close to the Kennedy administration
helped establish the political practice of arms control for the United States, how that practice
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was exported, and how it eventually became institutionalized internationally.
Since this volume concentrates on invoking cultural and institutional elements as causes of
national security policy, this recursive feature is less stressed in the substantive essays. But all
of the authors take pains to avoid reifying cultural and institutional structures. All stress the
contested construction and contested interpretation of such structures. Power and agency thus
matter greatly. And all at least sketch some of the patterns of agency and microstructure upon
which their macroscopic arguments depend.
For instance, Risse-Kappen, Berger, Barnett, and Herman all develop the recursive argument
that states enacting a particular identity have profound effects on the structure of the
international system to which they belong. The forging of an identity as a Western security
community, for example, contradicts the expectation of Europe's quick return to nineteenth-
century balance of power politics. 96 It predicts instead the continuation of institutional
forms of security cooperation in nato, the West European Union (weu), the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce), or some other multilateral forum. Germany's and
Japan's identities as trading states have important consequences for the international security
conditions in Europe and Asia. 97 The waxing and waning of pan-Arabism has had a
profound effect on military alliances in the Middle East. And changes in Soviet identity and
policy helped bring about the end of the Cold War.
In our insistence on documenting effects of norms and identities, we have unavoidably

slighted important cognate topics. For instance, the essays do not offer detailed investigation
of how cultural norms or constructed identities have effects. Ideas on this topic are scattered
throughout the volume, but the topic itself does not receive concerted treatment. 98 And the
essays do not present a sustained common argument about how one detects a norm or when a
prescription is sufficiently endorsed, conventionalized, or institutionalized to be considered
normative. Discussion of these topics is important in future research and would certainly
complement and extend the work produced here. But the arguments and causal effects that
this essay and this book emphasize are freestanding without this further development.
In sum, the arguments developed in the empirical essays address the major pathways depicted
in figure 2.2. The essays show that "norms," "identities," and "culture" matter. They impute,
furthermore, a higher cultural and institutional content to environments than do the more
materialist views informing, for example, neorealist explanations. Furthermore, the insistence
on socially constructed and contested actor identities militates against the rationalist imagery
informing most neorealist and neoliberal theories, which take identity as unproblematic.
These lines of argument thus open avenues for further research that dominant theories so far
have unduly neglected.
Methodological and Metatheoretic Matters

Methodological Nonissues
The departures of this volume are theoretical rather than methodological. This book neither
advances nor depends upon any special methodology or epistemology. The arguments it
advances are descriptive, or explanatory, or both. All of the essays start by problematizing a
politically important outcome; they then develop their own line of argument in contrast with
others. Many employ comparison across time or space, in ways now standard in social science.
When they attempt explanation, they engage in "normal science," with its usual desiderata in
mind.
Many of the essays make descriptive claims that seek in the first instance to document
phenomena that have been insufficiently noticed, let alone analyzed. For example, Price and
Tannenwald chart the emergence of norms with regard to non-use of nuclear and chemical
weapons; Berger delimits changes in Japanese and German identities after World War II. Both
are complex descriptive tasks. Many of the essays then go on to make a variety of explanatory
15 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
claims positing causal effects either of identities or of the cultural/institutional content of

global or domestic environments. Authors thus problematize features of national or
international security often overlooked by dominant analytical approaches. And they posit
causal effects typically left unexplored.
When the essays make explanatory arguments, they assume no special causal imagery. For
example, in most of them, norms are invoked as context effects, affecting the interests that
inform policy choices. Some essays make occasional references to "constitutive processes" of
identity formation, invoking a set of processes whereby the specific identities of the acting
units in a system are built up or altered. 99 In these instances, the analytical problem
concerns the shape of identities that inform interests rather than, directly, behavior--a
characteristic blind spot in the rationalist vision. But reference to "constitutive" processes
invokes a category of substantive arguments and is more a theoretical than a methodological
departure. Similarly, when essays deal with issues of "meaning" (for instance, when discussing
contested interpretations of or explanatory, oughgoing structuralists: they are interested in
how structures of constructed meaning, embodied in norms or identities, affect what states do.
These essays have a decidedly empirical bent to them. The evidence employed runs the gamut
of statistical and interview data, as well as documentary sources. The authors have sought
substantial comparative and historical variation and subjected it to intensive and varied
empirical probes.
The empirical work amassed here does suggest that security scholars have occasionally been
too narrow in their consideration of both topics and causal factors. This project tries to
contribute to widening the scientific "phenomenology" of the national security field in both
senses. Herman's and Berger's essays suggest two examples. During the 1970s and 1980s
realists and liberals debated at great length competing models of hegemonic stability or
decline for the United States. With the exception of the broader sociological literature, no
similar attention was lavished on developments in the Soviet Union. 100 Yet it was
developments in Soviet, not American, politics and the effects of U.S.-Soviet regimes that
brought about the current revolution in world politics. 101 Detailed analysis of the military
balance of power between the two superpowers overlooked aspects of reality that turned out
to be of great significance. Similarly, the growth of Japanese and German power during the
same period was not just constrained by their status as client states in an anarchic
international system. Military defeat, occupation, and the political experience under the Pax
Americana affected norms of appropriate behavior and conceptions of identity that help shape
the current security situation in Asia and Europe.
Problematizing what others take for granted or even reify, such as the construction of state
identity and interests, does not in and of itself involve any specific methodological imperatives.
For instance, despite the concern in these essays with cultural forces, and hence implicitly or
explicitly with "meanings," they do not depend exceptionally upon any specialized separate
"interpretive methodology." For example, Price and Tannenwald's essay is in part about the
emergence of structures that carry meaning--specifically, norms. It identifies the ways in
which nuclear and chemical weapons have been delegitimated, placing emergent proscriptions
in the context of larger legitimating discourse defining standards of appropriate conduct for
"civilized" states. The empirical work here amounts to a form of "process tracing," whereby the
development of the interpretive frames employed by actors is recounted in historical fashion.
The "interpretations" at issue here are either explananda or causes in the world, rather than
some specialized methodological approach or technique.
In stressing our methodological conventionalism we part company with those scholars who
have pointed the way toward a sociological approach but who insist on the need for a special
interpretive methodology--as do, for instance, Friedrich Kratochwil and John Ruggie, in an
oft-cited article. 102 We note that neither author, either in this article or in subsequent
writings, has explicated what such a methodology would entail in practice or provided an
16 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
empirical exemplar representing concretely the kind of work he has in mind. Ruggie's
illuminating recent work on sovereignty 103 is not especially interpretivist in any specific
methodological sense. And the ways in which Kratochwil's substantive work 104 is and is not
interpretivist are themselves not very clear. Moreover, the research practices of scholars like
Ruggie, Kratochwil, and others identified with constructivist or interpretive approaches
converge substantially with those advocated by mainstream scholars. We are not claiming that
these research practices are identical in details. But methodological differences in practice
appear to be small--or at least are not clearly conceptualized, specified, and articulated in the
literature. 105 We suggest that the literature is prone to conflate substantive and theoretical
differences with methodological ones, as if a theoretical departure necessarily depends upon
some methodological uniqueness. It need not, and does not do so in this volume.
This methodological conventionalism matters to us. From today's perspective, for example, the
methodological differences dividing "traditionalists" like Stanley Hoffmann from
"behavioralists" like Karl Deutsch in the 1960s assumed disproportionate importance. In their
actual studies, both scholars subscribed to different variants of the analytical perspective of
historical sociology as the most productive means for understanding security issues in the
middle of the twentieth century. Disagreements on secondary issues of methods, for example,
should not short-circuit the incipient sociological turn among some realist and liberal scholars
that essay 13 reviews briefly.
Relations Between Lines of Theorizing

Stressing that our intended departures are theoretical rather than methodological does,
however, raise a more substantial issue: what is the relationship of the "cultural,"
"institutional," and "constructivist" arguments of this volume to those of realism and
liberalism? The short answer is that there is no one a priori relationship to be assumed or
found. Sometimes this volume's arguments supplement extant arguments; sometimes they
compete with them; in some instances the intent would be to subsume realist or liberal
arguments within a broader perspective. Although this listing is not exhaustive, the point is
simple: one cannot prejudge the relationship between lines of argument; various relations are
possible, and they have to be established theoretically and empirically, rather than assumed.
This matter merits a bit more development. The discussion of the various possible
relationships between differing lines of argument seems impaired by the highly reified
"paradigm"-talk common to contemporary analyses of international relations. Scholarly
communities are quick to reify differing arguments as distinct and competing paradigms. Then
scholars are prone to assume, often without much thought or argument, that differing
arguments are in immediate and direct competition. Or they will resort to an additive view of
theorizing, suggesting that newly suggested lines of argument at best add variables to a
previously established explanatory model. These images are procrustean and facile.
We see the different arguments of this volume as having differing relationships to the
arguments of realism and liberalism. In some cases one finds instances of direct competition.
In these instances, an author has taken up an explanandum already addressed (or readily
addressable) by extant arguments and has offered an alternative (more sociological)
explanation. Kier's essay provides an excellent example. Kier develops a cultural explanation
of French military doctrine that contradicts existing functional explanations favored by
realists. The evidence suggests the superiority of her explanation over conventional ones. Eyre
and Suchman's essay provides a second example of intentionally direct competition. They set
up two distinct models of weapons acquisition and attempt to adjudicate them empirically. In
this case, the empirical results are not clear-cut; both models receive some support, and thus
the relative strength of the differ ent explanatory approache sometimes they compete with
them; in some instances the intent wos is not settled unambiguously. Johnston's essay
provides a more complex instance of direct competition, as he attempts to subsume a realist
argument within a broader cultural one. In Johnston's account, the continuities in China's
17 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
strategic culture, not the changes in the international balance of power, offer the most
compelling argument for marked continuities in China's definition of and response to security
"threats."
In some cases the arguments of this volume are meant to supplement or complement more
conventional arguments in the security field, rather than to displace, modify, or subsume
them. The most straightforward, and commonly acknowledged, instance is when new
arguments offer description and explanation of phenomena unaddressed by existing
argumentation. In effect, the differing lines of arguments address different empirical domains;
in principle their contributions are complementary, since the contributions are subject to
eventual bridging and thus integration. For instance, Finnemore investigates humanitarian
interventions, a domain left largely unexplored by realist and liberal analysis. Similarly, the
non-use of chemical and nuclear weapons that Price and Tannenwald examine is a topic
mostly overlooked or treated schematically in conventional deterrence theory with its heavy
reliance on realist and rationalist imagery.
More-complex forms of complementarity also occur. One can imagine what might be called
"stage-complementarity," whereby one argument covers one phase of a process, while another
argument takes up the next phase. 106 Thus this project's focus on the problem of interest
definition leaves virtually unattended problems of strategic interaction, a complementary
process. An integrated analytical perspective of politics should have room for both. For
example, sometimes the authors of these essays limit themselves to providing the front end, as
it were, to largely realist arguments--trying to specify further the character of the actors
involved in interaction and/or qualifying the character of the interests being pur sued. Barnett,
for example, argues that threat perceptions in the Arab world offer no more than a partial
explanation of alliance patterns in the Middle East. For threat perceptions depend, in turn, on
collective identities. Stage-complementarity does not mean, however, that only cultural and
institutional arguments operate at the front end of a causal chain. Herman's analysis, for
example, links dramatic changes in Soviet foreign policy and the end of the Cold War to the
"New Thinking" of parts of the Soviet elite. In this case a realist argument offers a plausible
starting point of a more fully specified causal chain. Adverse shifts in the relative capabilities
of the Soviet Union may have been a major factor in how the reformers could install
themselves in power in the first place. 107
Alternatively, arguments can be nested within one another and become complementary in this
sense. There are two main forms of nesting: (1) one argument provides foundations for
another, as when microeconomics provides, at least in theory, foundations for
macroeconomics; and (2) one argument provides conditions for another, as when Weberian
institutionalism, in aspiration, describes and explains the conditions under which
microeconomics obtains. 108 In this volume, the second form of nesting is more likely, since
the sociological (institutionalist and constructivist) thrust of the book's argument departs from
the convention that nation-state actors are somehow contextless or ultimately "real."
Eventually, these arguments should attempt to do two things. First, they should specify the
institutional "scope conditions" under which realist interactions and liberal coordinations
unfold. 109 And, second, they should characterize features of the role as actors (and interests)
that states adopt when they compete and coordinate politically. Such arguments depart from
weaker versions of "historical" institutionalisms by positing that the processes of institutional
contextualization and construction are ongoing, rather than relegated to past epochal
moments (such as the putative effects of the cre ation of the Westfalian state system on state
sovereignty, or the effect of the Great Depression on a Keynesian consensus). 110
In brief, competition is not the only possible analytical relationship between different lines of
argument; various forms of complementarity, both immediate and more distant, are possible.
Often metatheoretical assumptions afford too limited a picture of competition anyway. We are
rarely in a position where differing arguments take the form of two (non-nested) regression
18 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
models, with the same explananda ("dependent variables"), sitting side by side in two
panels--with agreed-upon sets of goodness-of-fit statistics offering ready adjudication between
them. Neither realism nor liberalism thus can reasonably be depicted as representing a
baseline model against which all comers must be measured. For instance, one cannot simply
assume that alternative lines of argument are properly depicted as merely "adding possible
new variables" to an extant framework. Such a picture makes no allowance for
reinterpretation of concepts given new arguments, or for transformation of original arguments
given new ones, or for some other form of integration. Limiting the discussion of relations
between lines of argument to a few comments about relative "explained variance" is a
superficial and misleading appropriation of statistical imagery. 111
In a world full of anomalies, realism is neither sufficiently established nor sufficiently precise
to be treated as a sacrosanct "paradigm" to which other lines of argumentation must defer.
Similarly, power-and-interest-based arguments should not be rendered as foundational, with
other arguments relegated merely to providing ancillary modules. Such imagery is
unwarranted. The end of the Cold War has reminded us once more how naked the emperor of
international relations theory is. 112 It will take more than a couple of tailors to provide the
necessary clothes.
Extension and Conclusion

So far this essay has treated realism and liberalism as broad orienting frameworks for the
analysis of international relations; it has offered sociological institutionalism as an additional
frame that also generates specific arguments about national security issues. But we can also
consider theories of national security as part of the explananda of an institutionalist
perspective.
In making this move, we treat different lines of academic theorizing as highly articulated
versions of world cultural models. 113 Consider realism. Because states remain the
predominant legitimated "actors" in the current world system, theories of national-security-
in-international-anarchy remain dominant, building around world-cultural reifications of state
sovereignty and actorhood. Realism thus frames the political discourse about national security.
As more overt forms of international coordination have developed and become more
prominent, an intellectual space has opened for the network, functional, and bargaining
theories characteristic of neoliberalism.
As the world system changes, so does the way in which the domain of security is defined and
conceptualized. For instance, as some types of state interaction have been reorganized into
"regimes," the domain of security has been redefined in a correspondingly narrower fashion.
International trade provides one example. As the multilateral coordination of trade conflicts
has spread, trade has moved off the core agenda of national security scholars. Similarly,
education systems were once core security concerns, because of their connection to military
mobilization. Over time, the theories and practices of mass education have been reoriented
around economic development and domestic social concerns. Discussion of education on the
world scene is now about human capital, not military strength. This second example shows the
movement of national security issues into taken-for-granted conventions and beliefs--that is,
into culture, rather than into regimes. Eugenics and population control provide a third
example. Previously conceived as national security concerns, these issues were redefined over
time as environmental and public health matters.
In these particular instances, the conceptualization of security has become more narrowly
defined, after what had once been core national security issues were reorganized into regimes
or into the taken-for-granted culture of the world system (e.g., into scientific discourse). Issues
previously classified as national security have been reclassified as economics (as with trade) or
as culture (as with education), or sometimes as simply disorder (as perhaps with terrorism,
genocide, or international crime). Left behind is a more concentrated conceptualization of
19 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
national security, one defined along realist lines. That is, if changing state practices transform
national security issues into international regimes or world conventions or doctrines, then they
are no longer coded as security matters. In this way realism continues to define the domain of
national security--if in a rather tautological fashion.
Issues can also move in the other direction, from culture or regimes into security. A number of
regimes are quite unstable, and the bargaining that they organize can readily spill back into
more "anarchic" types of interstate relations, thus expanding the domain of national security.
A number of weak regimes, like that concerning the non-use of nuclear weapons, operate in
this way. Environmental issues present a parallel example. Some could easily shift from world
scientific culture or transnational regimes into the domain of interstate conflict or bargaining.
Consider also the renewed contestation of issues surrounding population migration and the
associated problems of immigration policy. These issues have reemerged as deeply politicized
from relatively taken-for-granted conventions of nationalism and citizenship. While such
issues are not yet loci of substantial interstate tension, they have attracted the attention of
some security scholars and could induce expansion in the conceptualization of security affairs.
The domain of national security theorizing thus evolves as issues flow between the interactions
of states in "anarchic" settings, political bargaining in regimes, and conventions or doctrines
relatively taken for granted in world culture. Over time, the domain of pure "anarchic"
security politics, the realists' home domain, has probably narrowed somewhat, with the partial
and fitful expansion of multilateral regimes and world society. Simultaneously, this security
domain has intensified, with instances of "anarchic" conflict receiving intense scrutiny and
problematization by their main world-cultural theorists, namely realists.
The security domain has been partly transformed in two other ways, changes that are now
affecting security discourse. First, the state actors considered by security scholars have
themselves been transformed by the reorganization of issues in the world system. Where
military functions have attained more multilateral organization, most notably in Western
Europe, state identity has been substantially pacified or tamed. Similarly, if less powerfully, as
states are drawn more deeply into the world economy (with its attendant regimes, institutions,
and associated doctrines of non-zero sum national development), state actorhood is partly
reconstructed around less militarist lines. There is substantial regional variation in this
process. It is a striking phenomenon in much of Latin America; in contrast, East Asia shows a
picture of a more classic realist politics (and doctrines of common and benign economic
development are, corre spondingly, more weakly represented there). But it nevertheless
remains notable that contemporary security discourse, even in Asia, no longer renders states
inevitably as war machines locked into natural or routine Darwinian competition.
"Lebensraum" is no longer assumed to be a desideratum of state identity.
Second, independent of the modal identity of states, it is clear that the security domain has
become less exclusively an interstate realm: states' hegemony over security has partly eroded.
States have undercut their own security by allowing (or promoting) a vast unregulated market
in arms sales, feeding myriad civil wars and newly armed security-relevant "actors." Various
mafias, narcotics cartels, crime syndicates, terrorist groups, and ethno-religious camps have
proliferated and have attained regional and even global reach.
Thus while the interstate system, narrowly considered, is in some respects more pacified and
ordered--some realists now consider it a "mature" anarchy 114 --the broader global system is
not. Various dissipative forces could undermine or overwhelm existing forms of coordination
or elements of world institutional and cultural structure. World crises could even give a new
lease on life to traditional militarism in previously pacified states or regions. But that would
not occur automatically or overnight. It would require highly visible and contested
reconfigurations of state identities (even in countries like Japan or Germany, which have a
substantial military apparatus). Conversely, it is notable that there has been a heightened
reification of a world responsibility to respond to or manage collective threats. States more
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routinely organize interventions via multilateral regimes and justify such action in the name of
a putatively existing or emerging world order, as Finnemore argues in her essay.
If one employs the above sociology of knowledge, it comes as no surprise that the analytical
domain of "national security" has become less clearly defined and less canonically theorized.
First, the realists' "anarchy" is now sufficiently embedded and penetrated that some core
generalizations of realism--for example, the relationship between polarity and war--attenuate
or break down. Second, the heightened reification of the "world" as an economy or society or
physical environment expands the list of threats to security. Policy makers and scholars
correspondingly call for a broadened conceptualization of the security field, or alternatively
they demarcate entirely new fields outside traditional notions of national security (dealing, for
example, with terrorism, genocide, or organized transnational crime).
The arguments of this book variously compete with, complement, and begin to contextualize
those of realism and liberalism. We have represented realism's nation-state actor as a
construction and reconstruction of evolving world and domestic social environments. And we
see liberalism's functionalism as made possible in part by a broader evolving world society and
culture. A developed institutionalist picture of the world system would describe the scope
conditions under which realism and liberalism coexist. And it would also consider how realist
and liberal theorizing is itself implicated in constructing and reconstructing the domain of
international and national security.
For their careful readings and critical comments of previous drafts we would like to
University in 1994; and Emanuel Adler, Pierre van den Berghe, Thomas
Christensen, Alexander George, Lynn Eden, James Goldgeier, Peter Gourevitch,
Ernst Haas, Peter Haas, Robert Hariman, Stanley Hoffmann, Christine Ingebritsen,
Robert Keohane, Jonathan Kirshner, Atul Kohli, Friedrich Kratochwil, Charles
Kupchan, David Laitin, Lisa Martin, John Meyer, Henry Nau, Judith Reppy, David
Rowe, Heiner Schulz, David Skidmore, Richard Smoke, Jack Snyder, Dan Thomas,
Janice Thomson, Stephen Walt, and two anonymous reviewers for Columbia
University Press.
Note 1: Frederick Frey, "The Problem of Actor Designation in Political Analysis,"

Comparative Politics 17, no. 2 (January 1985): 127-52. Back.
Note 2: Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-

Wesley, 1979), pp. 74-77. Back.
Note 3: Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1983), pp. 362-64. Back.
Note 4: Stephen D. Krasner, "Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective," Comparative

Political Studies 21 (1988): 72. Back.
Note 5: Robert O. Keohane, "International Liberalism Reconsidered," in John Dunn, ed., The
Economic Limits to Modern Politics, p. 183 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Back.
Note 6: We are thus following the general line of argument suggested by John Ruggie's and
Friedrich Kratochwil's writings during the last decade. See John Gerard Ruggie, "International
Responses to Technology: Concepts and Trends," in "International Responses to Technology,"
special issue of International Organization 29, no. 3 (Summer 1975): 557-84; John G. Ruggie,
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"International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar

Economic Order," in Krasner, International Regimes, pp. 195-231; John G. Ruggie,
"Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis," World
Politics 35, no. 2 (January 1983): 261-85; John G. Ruggie, "Multilateralism: The Anatomy of
an Institution," in John G. Ruggie, ed., Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an
Institutional Form (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 3-47; John G. Ruggie,
"Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations,"
International Organization 47, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 139-74; Friedrich V. Kratochwil, "The
Protagorean Quest: Community, Justice, and the 'Oughts' and 'Musts' of International
Politics," International Journal 43 (Spring 1988): 205-40; Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules,
Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International
Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Friedrich V.
Kratochwil, "The Embarrassment of Changes: Neo-Realism as the Science of Realpolitik
Without Politics," Review of International Studies 19 (1993): 63-80; Friedrich V. Kratochwil,
"Norms Versus Numbers: Multilateralism and the Rationalist and Reflexivist Approaches to
Institutions--A Unilateral Plea for Communicative Rationality," in Ruggie, Multilateralism
Matters, pp. 443-74; Friedrich V. Kratochwil, "Is the Ship of Culture at Sea or Returning?" in
Yosef Lapid and Friedrich V. Kratochwil, eds., The Return of Culture and Identity in
International Relations Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, in press). Back.
Note 7: Robert Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third
World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Back.
Note 8: David Strang, "Anomaly and Commonplace in European Political Expansion: Realist
and Institutional Accounts," International Organization 45, no. 2 (Spring 1991): 143-62.
Back.
Note 9: Robert H. Jackson, "The Weight of Ideas in Decolonization: Normative Change in

International Relations," in Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign
Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, pp. 111-38 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1993). Back.
Note 10: On changing attitudes toward war, see John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The
Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books, 1989); and James Lee Ray, "The
Abolition of Slavery and the End of International War," International Organization 43, no. 3
(Summer 1989): 405-40. A distinguished military historian, John Keegan, concurs with the
view that wars are not "natural" but "cultural." They are institutions of society that evolve.
Keegan is "impressed by the evidence that mankind, wherever it has the option, is distancing
itself from the institution of warfare. . . . War, it seems to me, after a lifetime of reading about
the subject, mingling with men of war, visiting the sites of war and observing its effects, may
well be ceasing to commend itself to human beings as a desirable or productive, let alone
rational, means of reconciling their discontents" (John Keegan, A History of Warfare [New
York: Knopf, 1993], p. 59). See also John Mueller, Quiet Cataclysm: Reflections on the Recent
Transformation of World Politics (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), pp. 111-23. Back.
Note 11: David Cameron, "British Exit, German Voice, French Loyalty: Defection,
Domination, and Cooperation in the 1992-93 erm Crisis" (paper prepared for delivery at the
1993 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.,
September 1993). Back.
Note 12: The map is Wendt's idea; the conceptualization of this version, however, was
developed jointly with Jepperson, who has produced a related but different map of social
theories; see Ronald L. Jepperson, "Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism," in
Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalism in Organizational
Analysis, pp. 143-63 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). For further discussion of
Wendt's own version, see Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics
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(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, in press). Essays 1 and 13 in this volume provide
some additional discussion of realist and liberal thought. In the interest of brevity we treat
them here in a reified manner. Back.
Note 13: Throughout, we mean nothing special by actors. Typically, we are referring to
governments or government elites. We treat states and governments largely as synonyms--
sloppy practice for comparative politics, we realize, but this treatment is conventional in
international relations. These shorthand references are not intended to anthropomorphize or
reify actors. Back.
Note 14: It is important to note that while this more elaborated picture of structure is often
associated with sociological analysis, it can be quite compatible with some versions of realism
and rationalism. Paul Schroeder's critique of neorealism, for example, makes a move in this
direction. See Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); Paul W. Schroeder, "Neo-Realist Theory and
International History: A Historian's View," Security Studies (in press); Jack S. Levy, "The
Theoretical Foundation of Paul W. Schroeder's International System," The International
History Review 16, no. 4 (November 1994): 715-44. The same is true of game theoretic
analyses that represent institutions as shared expectations or "common knowledge" that
generates "focal points" in situations of strategic interaction; see David Kreps, "Corporate
Culture and Economic Theory," in James Alt and Kenneth Shepsle, eds., Perspectives on
Positive Political Economy, pp. 90-143 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990);
Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical
Framework," in Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy, p. 17; Arthur T. Denzau
and Douglass C. North, "Shared Mental Models: Ideologies and Institutions," Kyklos 47, no. 1
(1994): 3-31; and John Kurt Jacobson, "Much Ado About Ideas: The Cognitive Factor in
Economic Policy," World Politics 47, no. 2 (January 1995): 283-310. Similarly, Robert Axelrod
and Robert O. Keohane note that the interstate "anarchy" they address is contained within an
"international society"; see their essay "Achieving Cooperation Under Anarchy: Strategies and
Institutions," in Kenneth A. Oye, ed., Cooperation Under Anarchy, p. 226 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1986). But this literature typically does not theorize this "society,"
suggesting at times that one does not need such theorization or that it is too difficult or
unpromising to do so. Back.
Note 15: Daniel Deudney, "Dividing Realism: Structural Realism Versus Security
Materialism on Nuclear Security and Proliferation," Security Studies 2, nos. 3-4 (Spring-
Summer 1993): 7-37. Back.
Note 16: Put differently, realism does not equal materialism. Back.
Note 17: Samuel Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer
1993): 22-49. Back.
Note 18: Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of
Power Politics," International Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 391-425. Back.
Note 19: Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1984); Alexander Wendt, "The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations
Theory," International Organization 41, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 335-70. Back.
Note 20: The difference between these first two effects is partly captured by Robert Powell's
useful distinction between "preferences over action" and "preferences over outcomes," though
the actor properties in which we are interested go beyond preferences over outcomes to
include identities and capabilities. See Robert Powell, "Anarchy in International Relations
Theory: The Neorealist-Neoliberal Debate," International Organization 48, no. 2 (Spring
1994): 313-44. Back.
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Note 21: George Stigler and Gary Becker, "De Gustibus non est Disputandum," American
Economic Review 67, no. 2 (March 1977): 76-90. Back.
Note 22: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 74-77. Back.
Note 23: We make no claim that figure 2.1 captures all significant differences among these
traditions. And we are reasoning by illustration rather than canvassing the literature
systematically. Back.
Note 24: Deudney, "Dividing Realism." Back.
Note 25: Waltz, Theory of . Back.
Note 26: Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It." Back.
Note 27: In his Theory of International Politics, pp. 74-77, Waltz does allow for
"socialization" and "imitation" processes, but in so doing he envisions these primarily in terms
of effects on behavior, thereby assuming that the processes determining the fundamental
makeup or identity of states are exogenous to states' environments. Back.
Note 28: Michael Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics," American Political Science
Review 80, no. 4 (December 1986): 1151-69. Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace:
Principles for a Post-Cold War World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 29: Krasner, International Regimes; Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony:

Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1984); Oye, Cooperation Under Anarchy. We are neglecting here very substantial
differences between international and domestic versions of the liberal argument. For an
important statement of some of these differences, see Andrew Moravcsik, "Liberalism and
International Relations Theory" (unpublished paper, Harvard University, 1993). Back.
Note 30: Uday A. Mehta examines liberalism from this perspective in "Liberal Strategies of
Exclusion," Politics and Society 18, no. 4 (1990): 427-54. This tendency is exemplified in
Robert O. Keohane, Joseph S. Nye, and Stanley Hoffmann, eds., After the Cold War:
International Institutions and State Strategies in Europe, 1989-1991 (Cambridge: Harvard
Note 31: Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1986), pp. 90-143; Joseph S. Nye Jr., "Neorealism and Neoliberalism," World
Politics 40, no. 2 (January 1988): 235-51; David Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism:
The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); Robert Powell,
"Anarchy in International Relations Theory"; Emerson M. S. Niou and Peter C. Ordeshook, "
'Less Filling, Tastes Great': The Realist-Neoliberal Debate," World Politics 46, no. 2 (January
1994): 209-34. Back.
Note 32: Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area:
International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1957); Ernst B. Haas, Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and
International Organization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964); Karl W. Deutsch et
al., France, Germany, and the Western Alliance: A Study of Elite Attitudes on European
Integration and World Politics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967). Back.
Note 33: It is not entirely clear how to label these theories, given the confluence of different
theoretical traditions that they represent. In "International Institutions: Two Approaches,"
International Studies Quarterly 32, no. 4 (December 1988): 379-96, Robert Keohane called
some of them "reflectivist," but we find this appellation to be far too subjectivist in
connotation, as well as analytically vague. The perspective represented in this volume is
24 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
thoroughly structuralist rather than subjectivist. From our perspective it makes more sense to
refer to research of this type as institutionalist or constructivist (or both). See, for example,
Jepperson, "Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism," and Wendt, Social Theory
of . Back.
Note 34: Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1977). Back.
Note 35: Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, eds., The Expansion of International Society
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Tony Evans and Peter Wilson, "Regime Theory and the
English School of International Relations: A Comparison," Millennium: Journal of
International Studies 21, no. 3 (1992): 329-51; Adam Watson, The Evolution of International
Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis (London: Routledge, 1992); Barry Buzan, "From
International System to International Society: Structural Realism and Regime Theory Meet the
English School," International Organization 47, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 327-52; Ole Waever,
"International Society: Theoretical Promises Unfulfilled?" Cooperation and Conflict 27, no. 1
(1992): 97-128. Back.
Note 36: For representative works, see Ruggie, "Multilateralism" and "Territoriality and
Beyond." See also David Dessler, "What's at Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate?"
International Organization 43, no. 3 (Summer 1989): 441-74; Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and
Decisions; Nicholas Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and
International Relations (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989); Emanuel
Adler, "Cognitive Evolution: A Dynamic Approach for the Study of International Relations and
Their Progress," in Emanuel Adler and Beverly Crawford, eds., Progress in Postwar
International Relations, pp. 43-88 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); Emanuel
Adler, "The Emergence of Cooperation: National Epistemic Communities and the
International Evolution of the Idea of Nuclear Arms Control," International Organization 46,
no. 1 (Winter 1992): 101-46; Peter Haas, ed., "Knowledge, Power, and International Policy
Coordination," special issue of International Organization 46, no. 1 (Winter 1992); and
Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It." Note that sovereignty is not the only form of
identity in which constructivists are interested. Back.
Note 37: Ruggie, "Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity." Back.
Note 38: Strang, "Anomaly and Commonplace in European Political Expansion." Back.
Note 39: Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist: The
Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood," World Politics 35, no. 1 (October 1982): 1-24;
Jackson, "The Weight of Ideas in Decolonization." Back.
Note 40: Strang, "Anomaly and Commonplace in European Political Expansion." Back.
Note 41: Richard K. Ashley, "The Poverty of Neorealism," International Organization 38,
no. 2 (Spring 1984): 225-86; Richard K. Ashley, "The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space,"
Alternatives 12, no. 4 (1987): 403-34. Back.
Note 42: David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of
Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992); R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside:
International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993);
Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
Back.
Note 43: J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on

Achieving Global Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 30. Back.
Note 44: Rebecca Grant and Kathleen Newland, eds., Gender and International Relations
25 de 32 05/08/2010 19:32
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); Spike Peterson, ed., Gendered States:
Feminist (Re)Vision of International Relations Theory (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992).
Back.
Note 45: John W. Meyer, "The World Polity and the Authority of the Nation-State," in Albert
Bergesen, ed., Studies of the Modern World System, pp. 109-37 (New York: Academic Press,
1980); George W. Thomas, John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, and John Boli, Institutional
Structure: Constituting State, Society, and the Individual (London: Sage, 1987); John W.
Meyer, "Rationalized Environments," in W. Richard Scott and John W. Meyer, eds.,
Institutional Environments and Organizations, pp. 28-54 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1994); and
John W. Meyer, "The Changing Cultural Content of the Nation-State: A World Society
Perspective," in George Steinmetz, ed., New Approaches to the State in the Social Sciences
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996). We should note that work in the tradition of Gramsci,
such as Robert W. Cox, Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of
History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), and Stephen Gill, American Hegemony
and the Trilateral Commission (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), also seeks to
combine the analysis of structure, power, and ideas. Back.
Note 46: Buzan, "From International System to International Society." Back.
Note 47: Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, eds., Transnational Relations and World
Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972); Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye,
Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977);
Thomas Risse-Kappen, ed., Bringing Transnationalism Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic
Structures, and International Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Back.
Note 48: See Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth
Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991) on democracy; Thomas J. Biersteker,
"The Triumph of Neoclassical Economics in the Developing World," in James N. Rosenau and
Ernst-Otto Czempiel, eds., Governance Without Government: Order and Change in World
Politics, pp. 102-31 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) on market models;
Francisco O. Ramirez and John W. Meyer, "The Institutionalization of Citizenship Principles
and the National Incorporation of Women and Children, 1870-1990" (unpublished research
proposal, Department of Sociology, Stanford University, 1992); John Boli, "Sovereignty from a
World Polity Perspective" (unpublished paper, Department of Sociology, Emory University,
Atlanta, 1993). Back.
Note 49: Consult the citations to studies in Meyer, "The Changing Cultural Content of the
Nation-State." For a paper reviewing this research, see Martha Finnemore, "Norms, Culture,
and World Politics: Insights from Sociology's Institutionalism," International Organization
(in press). Back.
Note 50: Haas, "Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination." Back.
Note 51: For an interesting argument that analyzes U.S. hegemony as a form of international
governance from a moral perspective, see Lea Brilmayer, American Hegemony: Political
Morality in a One-Superpower World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). Back.
Note 52: Meyer, "The World Polity and the Authority of the Nation-State," and "The
Changing Cultural Content of the Nation-State." Back.
Note 53: Roland Robertson, "Globalization Theory and Civilization Analysis," Comparative
Civilizations Review 17 (1987): 22. Back.
Note 54: Ronald Dore, "Unity and Diversity in Contemporary World Culture," in Bull and
Watson, The Expansion of International Society, pp. 407-24. Back.
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Note 55: J. P. Nettl and Roland Robertson, International Systems and the Modernization of
Societies: The Formation of National Goals and Attitudes (London: Faber and Faber, 1968),
p. 153; Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (London: Sage,
1992). Back.
Note 56: We are reviewing them here more briefly simply for reasons of economy. Back.
Note 57: Alexander George, "The 'Operational Code': A Neglected Approach to the Study of
Political Leaders and Decision-Making," International Studies Quarterly 13 (June 1969):
190-222; Alexander L. George, "Ideology and International Relations: A Conceptual Analysis,"
The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 9, no. 1 (1987): 1-21; Robert Jervis,
Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1976); Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War: The Nature of International
Crisis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981); Richard Herrmann, Perceptions
and Behavior in Soviet Foreign Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985).
Back.
Note 58: For a recent overview of the literature on organizational culture, see Frank R.
Dobbin, "Cultural Models of Organization: The Social Construction of Rational Organizing
Principles," in Diana Crane, ed., Sociology of Culture: Emerging Theoretical Perspectives, pp.
117-41 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994). Alastair Iain Johnston's Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture
and Grand Strategy in Ming China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) reviews the
literature on strategic culture. See also his article "Thinking About Strategic Culture,"
International Security 19, no. 4 (Spring 1995): 32-64. Back.
Note 59: Peter Hall, The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism Across Nations
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); Haas, "Knowledge, Power, and International
Policy Coordination"; Judith Goldstein, Ideas, Interests, and American Trade Policy (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1993); Charles A. Kupchan, The Vulnerability of Empire (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1994). Back.
Note 60: Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State
Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); James G. March and Johan P. Olsen,
Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics (New York: Free Press,
1989); Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth, Structuring Politics: Historical
Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Back.
Note 61: Stephen D. Krasner, Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments
and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). Back.
Note 62: Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., Between Power and Plenty: Foreign Economic Policies of
Advanced Industrial States (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978). Analogously,
industrial sociology and social economics focus on the social context that envelops markets.
"Industrial orders," writes Gary Herrigel, "have a relationship to agents within them that is
analogous in some generic respects to the relation between a modern liberal constitution and
its citizens" (Gary Herrigel, "Industry as a Form of Order: A Comparison of the Historical
Development of the Machine Tool Industries in the United States and Germany," in J. Rogers
Hollingsworth, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Wolfgang Streeck, eds., Governing Capitalist
Economies: Performance and Control of Economic Sectors, p. 99 [New York: Oxford
University Press, 1994]); Gary Herrigel, "Identities and Institutions: The Social Construction
of Trade Unions in Nineteenth-Century Germany and the United States," Studies in American
Political Development 7 (Fall 1993): 371-94; Frank Dobbin, Forging Industrial Policy: The
United States, Britain, and France in the Railway Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994). Back.
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Note 63: Peter J. Katzenstein, Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985). Back.
Note 64: David Halloran Lumsdaine, Moral Vision in International Politics: The Foreign
Aid Regime, 1949-1989 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 65: Relatedly, a substantial number of empirical studies suggest that democracies do
not fight wars with one another. See Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics"; Russett, Grasping
the Democratic Peace; Randall Schweller, "Domestic Structure and Preventive War: Are
Democracies More Pacific?" World Politics 44, no. 2 (January 1992): 235-69; and several
articles and subsequent correspondence in International Security 19, no. 2 (Fall 1994), and 19,
no. 4 (Spring 1995). Back.
Note 66: Figure 2.2 labels broad categories of causal construction effects. It is thus not a total
causal model of state security activity. Specifically, since some actor properties are intrinsic,
"identity" is not the only cause of "interest." Figure 2.2 is not in itself a "theory." Back.
Note 67: We occasionally add arguments and examples drawn from other sources. Back.
Note 68: Francesca Cancian, What Are Norms? A Study of Beliefs and Action in a Maya
Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 137-38. Janice E. Thomson,
"Norms in International Relations: A Conceptual Analysis," International Journal of Group
Tension 23, no. 2 (1993): 67-83. Back.
Note 69: Norms may be "shared," or commonly held, across some distribution of actors in a
system. Alternatively, however, norms may not be widely held by actors but may nevertheless
be collective features of a system--either by being institutionalized (in procedures, formal
rules, or law) or by being prominent in public discourse of a system. It is thus useful, following
Emile Durkheim's fundamental discussion of types of social facts, to sustain a distinction
between common (or shared or widely held) norms and collective ones, allowing for the
possibility that some norms may be both common and collective. The now typical
identification of norms as necessarily a "shared" social property is thus inappropriate. It builds
subjectivist and aggregative imagery into the very conceptualization of norms. Instead, a
distinction between collectively "prominent" or institutionalized norms and commonly
"internalized" ones, with various "intersubjective" admixtures in between, is crucial for
distinguishing between different types of norms and different types of normative effects. For a
more extended discussion, see Ronald L. Jepperson and Ann Swidler, "What Properties of
Culture Should We Measure?" Poetics 22 (1994): 359-71; Charles Taylor, "Interpretation and
the Sciences of Man," The Review of Metaphysics 25 (1971): 3-51; and Wendt, Social Theory of
International Politics, ch. 6. Back.
Note 70: See also Gerritt W. Gong, The Standard of "Civilisation" in International Society
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1984). Back.
Note 71: Harald M�ller, "The Internalization of Principles, Norms, and Rules by
Governments: The Case of Security Regimes," in Volker Rittberger, ed., Regime Theory and
International Relations, p. 384 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1993).
Back.
Note 72: Taking 1988 as a baseline figure, by 1994 the number of Security Council
resolutions adopted had increased from fifteen to seventy-eight; the number of disputes in
which the un was directly involved through preventive diplomacy or peacekeeping operations
increased by a factor of three, as did the number of countries contributing military or police
personnel. The un budget for peacekeeping operations increased fifteen-fold, to $3.6 billion.
The un undertook election monitoring in twenty-one countries in 1994, as compared to none
in 1988. And the number of sanctions imposed by the Security Council increased from one to
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seven. See Barbara Crossette, "U.N. Chief Chides Security Council on Military Missions," New
York Times, January 6, 1995. Yet this expansion in un activities has generated political
contradictions and conflicts of its own, as is illustrated, for example, in the growing strength of
the voices, especially in the U.S. Congress, favoring a unilateral approach in the United States.
See John G. Ruggie, "Peacekeeping and U.S. Interests," The Washington Quarterly 17, no. 4
(1994): 175-84. Back.
Note 73: For further discussion of conceptual issues, see Jepperson and Swidler, "What
Properties of Culture Should We Measure?" Back.
Note 74: Two related research projects point in directions similar to that of Kier. See Jeffrey
W. Legro, "Military Culture and Inadvertent Escalation in World War II," International
Security 18, no. 4 (Spring 1994): 108-42; Jeffrey W. Legro, Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo-
German Restraint During World War II (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); and
Deborah D. Avant, "The Institutional Sources of Military Doctrine: Hegemons in Peripheral
Wars," International Studies Quarterly 37, no. 4 (December 1993): 409-30. Avant's analysis of
military doctrine relies on an institutional model that focuses on civil-military relations in
Britain and the United States. Back.
Note 75: John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Note 76: Their essay suggests that prohibitionary norms can be institutionalized either early
or late; they can arise spontaneously in a diffuse manner in a national setting, or they can be
created intentionally at the international level to become subsequently internalized in various
states. Finally, norms can arise from dramatically different political sources: power politics in
the case of nuclear weapons and moral opprobrium in the case of chemical weapons, also one
of Robert W. McElroy's conclusions in Morality and American Foreign Policy (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1992). One preliminary finding that the analysis of Price and
Tannenwald suggests is that historical contingency in the emergence of norms deserves close
attention and may be more important as a starting point of social processes than rationalist
perspectives tend to assume. Back.
Note 77: Legro, "Military Culture and Inadvertent Escalation in World War II"; Legro, .
Back.
Note 78: Meyer, "The Changing Cultural Content of the Nation-State," p. 2. Back.
Note 79: Connie McNeely, "Cultural Isomorphism Among Nation-States" (Ph.D. diss.,
Stanford University, 1989). Back.
Note 80: David Strang and Patricia Mei Yin Chang, "The International Labor Organization
and the Welfare State: Institutional Effects on National Welfare Spending, 1960-80,"
International Organization 47, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 235-62. Back.
Note 81: Larry Diamond, Juan Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, Democracy in Developing
Countries (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1988). Back.
Note 82: Zimbabwe's support for sanctions against South Africa illustrated the significance of
this symbol, that country's high vulnerability to and dependence upon its neighbor state
notwithstanding. Zimbabwe's identity interests--the import of enshrining racial equality for
the identity of the new regime--trumped more narrowly defined security interests. See Audie
Klotz, Protesting Prejudice: Apartheid and the Politics of Norms in International Relations
Note 83: Jackson, "The Weight of Ideas in Decolonization." Back.
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Note 84: Ruggie, "Multilateralism," pp. 8-9. Back.
Note 85: More precisely, identities come in two basic forms--those that are intrinsic to an
actor (at least relative to a given social structure) and those that are relationally defined within
a social structure. Being democratic, for example, is an intrinsic feature of the U.S. state
relative to the structure of the international system. Being sovereign is a relational identity
that exists only by virtue of intersubjective relationships at the systemic level. Put in the
language of game theory, intrinsic identities are constituted exogeneously to a game (though
they might be reproduced or transformed through play of the game), whereas relational
identities ("roles") are constituted by the game itself. In the latter case, part of what is "going
on" in a game is the reproduction and/or transformation of identities. Back.
Note 86: Jackson and Rosberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist." Why does one identity
prevail over another one? To put a very complicated matter much too briefly, identities will be
affected by the social density of transactions and communications, as well as by the power-
dependency relations between actors. The greater the social density and actor dependency, the
more the actors' identity will be wrapped up in and affected by that relationship. Small states,
for example, are more affected in their identity by their relationship with regional hegemons
than with global superpowers. Since social densities are typically much greater in domestic
than in international politics, domestic identities normally carry more weight than
international ones. If we view this question as a social process, we should look for reciprocity,
or "reflected appraisals," in identity formation. In such dynamics actors learn to see
themselves in the roles that other actors, especially powerful ones, attribute to them. For
example, if states treat ("appraise") each other in threatening ways, they will come to
internalize ("reflect") identities as "enemies." If more powerful states treat less powerful ones
as "clients," weaker states will internalize that identity. Back.
Note 87: Jon Elster, Ulysses and the Sirens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
Back.
Note 88: Peter J. Katzenstein, "Taming of Power: German Unification, 1989-1990," in

Meredith Woo-Cumings and Michael Lorriaux, eds., Past as Prelude: History in the Making of
a New World Order, pp. 59-82 (Boulder: Westview, 1993). Back.
Note 89: See also Ian S. Lustick, Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland,
France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank-Gaza (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).
Back.
Note 90: Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area. Back.
Note 91: The United States and the European members of nato have been very careful not to
risk the survival of nato despite their deep differences over the war in Yugoslavia. Although
Risse-Kappen stresses the primacy of domestic politics, his analysis is compatible with recent
analyses of the institution of multilateralism; see Ruggie, "Multilateralism," and Alexander
Wendt, "Collective Identity Formation and the International State," American Political Science
Review 88, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 384-96. Back.
Note 92: Kathryn Sikkink, "The Power of Principled Ideas: Human Rights Policies in the
United States and Western Europe," in Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy, pp.
139-70. Back.
Note 93: Stephen M. Walt, The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987);
Stephen M. Walt, "Testing Theories of Alliance Formation: The Case of Southwest Asia,"
Note 94: Giddens, The Constitution of Society.
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Back.
Note 95: Adler, "The Emergence of Cooperation." Back.
Note 96: John Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War,"
International Security 15, no. 1 (1990): 5-56. Back.
Note 97: Katzenstein, "Taming of Power." Back.
Note 98: It is likely that greater attention to language will be important in specifying these
effects. Language is neither an asset employed by given subjects nor an external constraint that
is imposed on a subject. Rather it exemplifies the general social practices that form both social
subjects and the objects to which they speak. There exists disparate work that engages this
problem both inside and outside the field of ethnomethodology. See, for example, Francis A.
Beer and Robert Hariman, "Realism and Rhetoric in International Relations," in Francis A.
Beer and Robert Hariman, eds., Post-Realism: The Rhetorical Turn in International Relations
(East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press, in press); Albert Yee, "The Causal
Effects of Ideas Themselves and Policy Preferences: Behavioral, Institutional, and Discursive
Formulations" (unpublished paper, Brown University, 1993); Hayward R. Alker, Jr., "Fairy
Tales, Tragedies, and World Histories: Towards Interpretive Story Grammars as Possibilist
World Models," Behaviormetrika 21 (1987): 1-28; and Deirdre Boden and Don H.
Zimmermann, eds., Talk and Social Structure: Studies in Ethnomethodology and
Conversation Analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). Back.
Note 99: We neglect here to develop possible differences between constitutive and causal
processes as conventionally understood. Most of the essays in this volume do not depend upon
such further differentiation. See Wendt, Social Theory, for a discussion of this distinction and
its implication. Back.
Note 100: Randall Collins, "The Future Decline of the Russian Empire," in Weberian
Sociological Theory, pp. 186-212 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Randall
Collins, "Prediction in Macrosociology: The Case of the Soviet Collapse," American Journal of
Sociology 100, no. 6 (May 1995): 1552-93. Immanuel Wallerstein, Geopolitics and Geoculture:
Essays on the Changing World System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Back.
Note 101: For a significant exception, see Valerie Bunce, "The Empire Strikes Back: The
Transformation of the Eastern Bloc from a Soviet Asset to a Soviet Liability," International
Organization 39, no. 1 (Winter 1985): 1-46. Back.
Note 102: Friedrich V. Kratochwil and John G. Ruggie, "International Organization: A State
of the Art on an Art of the State," International Organization 40, no. 4 (Autumn 1986):
753-76. Back.
Note 103: Ruggie, "Multilateralism" and "Territoriality and Beyond." Back.
Note 104: Ray Koslowski and Friedrich V. Kratochwil, "Understanding Change in

International Politics: The Soviet Empire's Demise and the International System,"
Note 105: A recent book on methodology, for example, argues that "science . . . and
interpretation are not fundamentally different endeavors aimed at divergent goals;" see Gary
King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in
Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 37; also pp. 34, 36, 84
n. 8. Back.
Note 106: In the language of Robert Powell ("Anarchy in International Relations Theory"),
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this volume's analytical perspective complements neorealism's and neoliberalism's lack of a

theory of "preferences over outcomes." Because problems of indeterminacy and
incompleteness limit the claims that neorealism and neoliberalism can make concerning
"preferences over actions," this volume's analytical perspective, at least potentially, might help
us formulate stronger claims. We are indebted to Heiner Schulz for helping us sharpen our
thinking on this point. Back.
Note 107: William C. Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War," International
Security 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994/95): 91-129. Back.
Note 108: Arthur Stinchcombe, "Review of Max Weber's Economy and Society," in Arthur
Stinchcombe, Stratification and Organization: Selected Papers, pp. 282-89 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986). Back.
Note 109: Bernard P. Cohen, Developing Sociological Knowledge, 2d ed. (Chicago: Nelson
Hall, 1989). Back.
Note 110: Michael R. Smith, Power, Norms, and Inflation: A Skeptical Treatment (New
York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1992), pp. 253-59. Back.
Note 111: One cannot assume that alternative arguments are limited in effect to mopping up
"unexplained variance" left behind by an extant argument. Such a suggestion is not only
blatantly tendentious, it also prescribes a logical fallacy, best illustrated by referring to
multiple regression analysis once more. As is well known, one cannot take the residuals from
one regression model and then assess the import of a second set of explanatory variables by
regressing these residuals on the new variables. In regression, one must allow for the possible
intercorrelation of independent variables. Neglecting to do so will result in a form of
specification error. The extension of this analogy to issues of explanation in general is direct.
Back.
Note 112: Baldwin, Neorealism and Neoliberalism. Back.
Note 113: We attempt to develop an argument suggested by John Meyer. Back.
Note 114: Barry Buzan, People, States, and Fear, 2d ed. (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1991), pp.
175-81. Back.
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editor
3. Status, Norms, and the Proliferation of Conventional Weapons: An Institutional

Theory Approach
Dana P. Eyre and Mark C. Suchman
Namibia became the world's newest nation today as Africa's last colony
celebrated the end of 75 years of South African rule. . . . South African
soldiers lowered their country's banner for the final time just after midnight
and Namibian troops hoisted the new blue, red and green flag of Namibia to
a bugle fanfare. . . . Soldiers of the new Namibian army . . . marched briskly
through the stadium to the beat of drums as officers bearing swords barked
commands. About 25,000 spectators roared approval.
-- Associated Press, March 21, 1991
We cannot be an independent nation without an army of some sort.
-- Sylvanus Olympio
president of Togo, 1960-1966
In recent years, significant Third World militarization 1 has become a hallmark of the
contemporary international order. Between 1973 and 1989 the total real military expenditures
(in 1982 constant dollars) of developing countries increased from $95.3 billion to an estimated
$220 billion, while arms imports grew an astounding 1,755 percent. Observing this trend and
commenting on militarization in both the developed and the developing world, Peter
Wallensteen, Johan Galtung, and Carlos Portales conclude that "ours is the age of
militarization. . . . There is no doubt that the military formation is a major part of
contemporary society." 2 Although these trends have slowed somewhat in the past few years,
they have not abated entirely. 3 And despite the relative slowing of proliferation, the overall
magnitude of this arms buildup is in itself noteworthy. But it is the qualitative nature of these
new arsenals rather than their growth rate that sets the current trend apart from its historical
precursors. Since at least 1957 the global military buildup has been marked by a remarkable
proliferation of "advanced" high-technology weaponry in the "developing" world. Today,
twenty Third World countries possess or are developing ballistic missiles; at least a dozen are
armed with more than a thousand main battle tanks; more than seventy have deployed
advanced-capability supersonic fighter aircraft (at present there are approximately twenty
thousand military aircraft in the developing world); and a similar number have fielded
sophisticated offensive and defensive missile systems. Perhaps better known is the growing
concern with weapons of mass destruction. Discussion about the causes and consequences of
proliferation of these weapons in the developing world has reached a height not seen since the
early atomic age. Regardless of the weapon system examined, however, the concern is the
same: well-equipped "state of the art" militaries are no longer restricted to a few industrialized
"core" powers; military development and economic development, it seems, have become
decoupled. 4
The primary aim of this essay is to develop and evaluate arguments concerning the spread of
advanced conventional weaponry. In particular, the object here is to formulate a more
theoretical and empirically tractable analysis of the role of "status" and "norms" in weapons
proliferation. Traditionally, "status" or "norm" arguments about weapons proliferation are
seldom systematically theorized and, when they are employed, are generally used in an ad hoc
manner. Such factors are seen as playing only a residual role in the proliferation of weaponry;
1 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
typically, "status" is the explanation given for a specific weapons acquisition when the
acquisition can be attributed to no other factor. What is more important than the debate over
the relative importance of such factors, however, is that "status" and "norm" arguments are
seldom formulated in empirically testable ways, and seldom is evidence systematically
developed for the role of status and norms in weapons proliferation. Our aim is to address this
weakness and thereby to increase our ability to examine patterns of weapons proliferation
through the development of a body of ideas that can support a less ad hoc approach.
We begin by reformulating existing arguments about the role of norms and status in weapons
proliferation, using a sociological perspective known as institutional theory. 5 Through
institutional theory, both weapons proliferation and the broader process of the worldwide
spread of professional, technically oriented military organizations are interpreted as social
(and not merely functional or military) phenomena. Weapons proliferation is shaped by the
same forces that shape the development of other elements of the modern nation-state. 6 In
contrast to this sociological approach, the existing literature has exhibited a tendency to treat
militaries as unique organizations, to see them as fundamental--indeed, foundational--agents
of the state, to take their existence for granted, and to explain their growth and development
primarily through reference to technical and security concerns. 7 Such arguments see military
strength as the bedrock on which nation-states are built. While these arguments have
substantial merit, particularly in explaining the emergence of nation-states and militaries
before this century, we shall develop here an alternative perspective, suggesting that modern
militaries emerge as part of the more general, world-level cultural processes that have given
rise to the modern nation-state.
In brief, we shall argue that militaries no longer build modern nations, but rather, the world
political and social system builds modern nation-states, which in turn build modern militaries
and procure modern weaponry. While the sociological vocabulary employed in this essay may
strike some as a bit jargon-laden, the Namibian example should make the process analyzed
herein quite clear. Namibia was brought into being by the modern world political and cultural
system: drawing on taken-for-granted cultural models of appropriate political organization,
United Nations efforts and the recognition of states throughout the world have constituted
Namibia as a "state." As a symbol of its statehood, the incipient Namibian state created a flag
and an army of more than a thousand soldiers. That the army was (and remains) essentially
militarily insignificant when compared with those of its possible foes (e.g., South Africa or
various armed factions in Angola) is irrelevant to its clearly significant symbolic role. 8
Standard Explanations for the Proliferation of Weaponry

Three broad arguments are commonly made in efforts to understand the proliferation of the
tools of military endeavor. We will label these the superpower manipulation, national security,
and factional interest arguments. Each stresses that weapons acquisition and military force
structures are the result of rational calculation by actors in the pursuit of their own
self-interest. All three of these explanations rest on a single paradigmatic image of human
behavior. Described by James G. March as "consequential action" and by Jon Elster as rational
choice, this approach sees behavior as guided by the determination of goals (or preferences),
the assessment of alternatives available for action, and the mapping of alternatives to goals. 9
Alternatives are selected according to a decision rule--for example, maximize (or satisfice)
goal attainment. Superpower manipulation or geopolitical arguments emphasize choice at the
level of the major international powers; national security explanations, at the level of the
individual nation-state; and factional interest approaches, at the level of subnational interests.
Each argument will be briefly reviewed below; each argument leads to a set of at least partially
unique empirical predictions concerning influences on the process of weapons proliferation.
The particular hypotheses that we will investigate will be summarized after we discuss the
three conventional approaches and the institutional theory alternative.
Superpower Manipulation
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The proliferation of conventional weaponry and, more broadly, the militarization of the world
system may be argued to be primarily the consequence of major power decisions and
geopolitical concerns. Regional conflicts are seen as the playing out of superpower conflicts in
alternative venues; weapons proliferation is driven not by (local) national needs or internal
politics but by the global strategies of the U.S. and the ussr. 10 Superpower or geopolitical
theorists differ among themselves with regard to the nature and origins of underlying
superpower antagonisms. Thus, some attribute the structure of the international military
order to funda mental geostrategic conflicts, while others focus on factional processes within
the superpowers themselves and still others highlight action-reaction conflict spirals. For the
purposes of this investigation, however, these debates are not central; whatever their view of
the dynamics that drive superpower policies, all geopolitical approaches concur in their
emphasis on the active--indeed overwhelming--role of the superpowers in the militarization of
the Third World.
National Security
Underlying most existing research on proliferation is the general assumption that strategic,
operational, and tactical analysis governs force structure and weapons procurement decisions.
Individual nations design a force structure to meet these needs. Decisions are made on the
basis of rationally developed performance criteria and threat assessments, and nations are
presumed to select a mix of weaponry that balances military benefits with purchase costs.
Described by Graham T. Allison and Frederic Morris as the "prevailing simplification" in the
weapons proliferation literature, the approach emphasizes that "weapons are the result of
national strategic choice; government leaders select specific weapons and total force posture
on the basis of precise calculations about national objectives, perceived threats, and strategic
doctrine within the constraints of technology and budget." While the exact degree of precision
in these calculations may be variable, the central argument is nonetheless clear: weapons
procurement is driven by security needs.
Factional Interest
Contrasting with theories that focus on the value of weaponry to nations as a whole, factional
or political theories view procurement as a reflection of competing internal interests. Thus the
acquisition of a particular weapon is the product of a "procurement coalition" shaped by the
self-interests of coalition participants. The military clearly is the primary group, with the most
direct interest in weapons purchases. 11 Thomas Ohlson has suggested that military
governments "by embracing doctrines which exaggerate the role of force and military
preparedness and equate national development with an expansion of national power, are
likely to allocate larger sums to the armed forces than civilian-dominated governments." 12
These three perspectives have generated a rich tradition of research in an effort to
understand the dynamics underlying this worldwide trend in the post-World War II period. 13
This tradition has produced a theoretically elaborate and frequently fruitful collection of
explanatory schema and numerous empirical studies, yet the dominant paradigms seem to
have left the research community with a sense that something is missing. For example, Charles
H. Anderton has noted:
Much of the empirical arms race modeling literature represents an

unsuccessful attempt to find fundamental "lawlike" arms race relationships.
. . . The result has been an extremely large and growing literature . . .
employing the most sophisticated empirical techniques, which has left us
rather dry in terms of knowing more about arms races than we would
otherwise know. 14
Despite the dominance of the three perspectives within the arms trade literature, country- and
region-level empirical examinations frequently find that these approaches perform poorly as
predictors of actual weapons proliferation patterns. Confronting theory with data, observers
frequently note the "widespread propensity to procure highly sophisticated, expensive weapon
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systems and technologies, despite well-known absorption handicaps, and to reject equally
serviceable but cheaper and perhaps less sophisticated options that are readily available." 15
Explanations offered for this phenomenon tend to emphasize the inadequately rational
nature of Third World military decision making rather than the potential inadequacies of the
rational explanation. Rodney W. Jones and Steven A. Hildreth, for example, note the
"superficial Third World knowledge of particular military systems" and also argue that
"developing nations lack the analytical staffs necessary to assess the true military value of
weapon technologies or to determine how the new weapon can best be employed" and that
"less developed countries are often unaware of significant military technologies that are and
will be available to them at reasonable cost." 16
Robert O'Connell argues that this situation is the "product of a fundamental misunderstanding
of the intimate relationship between humans and their armaments." 17 Such a
misunderstanding is almost inevitable given the tendency in the arms control literature to
treat weapons merely as the tools of rationally developed policy; weapons are seen as
technology "pure and simple" without independent meaning or significance. Dana Eyre, Mark
Suchman, and Victoria Alexander have noted that students of arms control "must acknowledge
what has become virtually a truism in other areas of sociology: that technology is never just
technology, that every machine has a socially constructed meaning and a socially oriented
objective and that the incidence and significance of technological developments can never be
fully understood or predicted independently of their social context." 18 In this essay we
investigate this "intimate relationship between humans and their arms" by identifying and
examining factors that affect the adoption of a variety of individual weapon systems (e.g.,
supersonic aircraft, armored personnel carriers, or apcs) by nation-states in the Cold War
period.
An Alternative Perspective: Obligatory Action and an Institutional Theory of

Weapons Proliferation
We emphasize the argument that the spread of high-technology weaponry throughout the
world is the result of more than rational policy or national security concerns. Reduced (for
purposes of explication) to the simplest but strongest possible statement, weapons spread not
because of a match between their technical capabilities and national security needs but
because of the highly symbolic, normative nature of militaries and their weaponry. Weapons
have proliferated because of the socially constructed meanings that have become associated
with them. Highly technological militaries symbolize modernity, efficacy, and independence.
Thus the spread of weapons is a process both driven and shaped by institutionalized
normative structures linking militaries and their advanced weapons with sovereign status as a
nation, with modernization, and with social legitimacy. 19 This argument, which can be
labeled an "institutionalist" approach to arms transfers, emphasizes the role of world-level
cultural models that "press all countries toward common objectives, forms, and practices" 20
and that therefore result in a notable degree of isomorphism in structures and practices
among nation-states.
Consequential action (which lies at the core of traditional explanations for weapons
proliferation) is not the only useful theory of human behavior. While a mythos of rationality
may permeate much of Western culture, and the examination of international relations in
particular, arguments emphasizing different mechanisms are common within sociology. 21
Central to social phenomenology, traditional role theory, and recent institutional approaches
in sociology is an alternative perspective that James G. March terms "obligatory action." 22
Obligatory action may be contrasted with consequential action. Behavior is explained not in
terms of goals, alternatives, and decision rules such as maximization or satisficing (the
vocabulary of consequential action) but through an emphasis on roles, norms, accounts (i.e.,
stories and explanations justifying particular actions) and definitions of appropriate action.
Although the vocabulary of the obligatory action perspective may not be a central feature of
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modern American pop psychological discourse, social scientists should not ignore the value of
the perspective. Viewed through the lens of obligatory action, the identity of an actor is
profoundly social, and an actor's behavior is explained by the culturally constructed definition
of the situation and of appropriate action within the situation. Through the perspective of
obligatory action, the behavior of nation-states, and people, can be seen as similar to the
behavior of actors in a play, or players in a game. Their identity is constituted by the social
system (for example, the identity of pitcher, or that of wife, is given meaning by the complex of
behavioral rules associated with the role), and their behavior is guided by the "script" or the
"playbook." Such arguments do not deny that individual actors are thoughtful or strategic;
there is room for improvisation and creativity (neither people nor nation-states are mindless
followers), but individual behavior is fundamentally shaped by the social structure
surrounding the behavior. Indeed, actors themselves are constituted by the social system.
Actors (be they organizations, persons, or nation-states) do not have social standing, or the
ability to act within a social system, separate from the rules that both construct them and
charter their actions. Within such a perspective the key question for understanding behavior is
no longer "What are an actor's goals, alternatives, and decision rule?" but "How are roles,
accounts, and rituals written, spread, and learned?"
Whatever the explanatory model chosen (consequential or obligatory), it is important not to

reify the model. The concrete action of real people (and states) can be explained by alternative
models, but the action itself is neither "consequential" nor "obligatory," "rational" nor
"irrational"; rather, these ideas are the lenses that the analyst uses to understand action.
Indeed, the ultimate purpose of constructing analytically distinct arguments is to enable us to
combine these "nuts and bolts" in ways that are useful for the explanation of particular
features of social life.
Within organizational theory and political sociology, "obligatory action" arguments are
frequently labeled "institutionalist." Such arguments share three central assumptions: First,
institutional theory sees society as more than a network of exchange relations and power-
balancing efforts. Instead, institutionalists emphasize that the social world is a cul tural
system, structured by an evolving set of categorical prescriptions and proscriptions that define
and delimit appropriate action. Second, institutional theory argues that since these cultural
categories are practically taken for granted as lawful, actors rarely subject conforming
behaviors to cost-benefit analysis--or do so only ritualistically. 23 In keeping with this
outlook, institutionalists explain social life not by postulating goals and interests but by
examining the mechanisms through which societal structures and activities take on a rule-like
or ritual status in the minds of participants. Thus, most institutional arguments focus on the
ways in which apparently autonomous action reflects "higher-order constraints imposed by
socially constructed realities." 24 Finally, institutional theory stresses that these normative
"definitions of appropriateness" are not static but develop and change over time. Although
cultural rules sometimes remain relatively static, this stability is the product of a dynamic
process. Cultural definitions do not merely "originate" and then "spread"; rather, they should
be thought of as in a constant process of evolution, perhaps akin to the process of speciation in
the biological world.
Applied to international relations, these three features of institutional theory imply that
nation-states are not autonomous, independent actors in pursuit of national interests within
an anarchy, as realist theories assume. Most important, institutional theory emphasizes the
central role of the larger world system in constituting the state as "carrier of collective value
and purpose." 25 Indeed, it is this increasingly integrated global system of socially
constructed rules that creates and legitimates nation-states as sovereign actors both in
domestic affairs and on the international stage. It should be noted that institutional theories
bear some similarity to perspectives in political science emphasizing the importance of
regimes. 26 Both schools share conceptions of an international cultural or social system, and
both emphasize a view of the world as more than an unstructured anarchy. But whereas
systemic perspectives view global society as "order-providing"--that is, as a set of enforced
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constraints on behavior--institutionalist perspectives view the world system as

"constitutive"--that is, as a set of fundamental defini tions of legitimate actors and appropriate
actions. To grossly oversimplify, within the systemic perspective, nations go to war in violation
of international norms; within the institutional perspective, nations go to war because that is
one of the actions their "charter" as a nation-state allows/instructs them to do. John Keegan,
Donald Snow, and Martin Van Crevald offer sociologically informed historical analyses of the
impact of social structure on warfare that are sympathetic to this approach. 27
Empirical examinations at the world-system level have generally emphasized the "remarkable
degree of ideological and organizational convergence throughout the world," 28 and most
have concentrated on the three substantive areas: welfare systems, educational systems, and
conceptions of citizenship. 29 This substantial body of empirical work has focused primarily
on establishing the fruitfulness of the institutional perspective and on demonstrating the
presence of isomorphism within the world system. Thomas and Lauderdale's examination of
the worldwide spread of national welfare programs provides a useful example of work in this
tradition. 30 Arguing against the assumption that nation-states adopt and expand welfare
programs in response to functional needs (e.g., the argument that states have an
unemployment insurance system because they have lots of unemployed workers who are
hungry or politically active), the authors posit that "incorporation . . . into the world system
reconstitutes the state as the carrier of collective value and purpose, . . . chartered with the
responsibility for 'national welfare.' " Under such circumstances, welfare policies are not
predicted by indicators of need; they are instead predicted by the extent of incorporation into
the world polity. The basic pattern of the Thomas and Lauderdale study is typical of other
institutional efforts, as are the empirical findings. Indicators of incorporation into the world
system are found to predict the degree of adherence to international cultural norms chartering
state action (here, the existence and extensiveness of social security programs). In contrast,
indices of functional need for state action (for example, the percentage of elderly citizens in
the population) fail to predict either the existence or the extent of governmental response. On
the basis of these findings, Thomas and Lauderdale conclude that national policies establishing
formal welfare programs are "best viewed as rituals of external legitimacy." 31
As noted above, the institutional approach to the problem of proliferation developed herein
will emphasize the role of the symbolic, normative aspects of militaries and weaponry.
Frequently, students of arms control recognize the potential significance of the processes
described by institutional approaches, although generally employing words like status and
prestige. Jones and Hildreth acknowledge that the drive to acquire high-technology weaponry
may be a combination of inadequately rational decision-making systems and "a political
compulsion to deploy systems as modern or sophisticated as a neighbor has." 32 Ohlson
argues that "the armed forces, equipped with as modern weapons as possible, came to be
regarded by many governments in the Third World as a symbol of unity and independence
and as tangible evidence that the government intended to defend its sovereignty. The actual
utility of these weapons . . . was often of secondary importance." 33 Examining the structure
of European navies, Catherine M. Kelleher, Alden F. Mullins, and Richard C. Eichenberg
found that the number of sea control vessels remained remarkably stable across all European
states during the period 1960 to 1970. "The effects of constrained resources seem minimal. . . .
Destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and (for a few states) carriers all seem to constitute an element
of national prestige." Examining the force structures of individual countries, they argued that
"in terms of traditional indicators, it seemed logical to predict the Netherlands and Italy would
be prime candidates for our 'rational middle power'; yet their present naval profiles show few
of the choices we hypothesized for [the model]. . . . It may well be the least powerful middle
powers which are most attached to their symbols of 'equality.'" 34 While these findings are
not conclusive (indeed, Kelleher, Mullins, and Eichenberg's study is one example of the use of
prestige arguments when nothing else seems to fit), they clearly suggest that force structure is
influ enced by more than domestic politics and rational calculation of strategic need.
Despite apparent compatibility and the potential fruitfulness of an institutional approach to
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the study of the arms trade, existing examinations have tended to leave these nascent
institutional arguments underdeveloped. For their part, institutional theorists have also have
tended to skip the military in their empirical investigations of the world system. Yet the
application of institutional arguments to the study of world militaries should be uniquely
fitting for at least two reasons. First, militarization, from an institutionalist perspective, may be
seen not as a unique and especially problematic occurrence (except for the possible
consequences) but as merely one additional facet of the larger, global system-wide trend
toward isomorphism among nation-states that is the central empirical finding within
institutional arguments. Second, failure to examine militaries from an institutionalist
perspective is especially odd given the traditional, unique link between armed force and
national sovereignty and the institutionalist concern for the construction of the nation-state as
an actor. Michael Howard argues that, within the international system, "the military capability
of a state is assumed to be [a] major element in its effectiveness as an actor in the international
system." 35 This argument suggests that, far from being an aberrant event, the militarization
of the Third World is inextricably linked with the extension of the nation-state system and the
development of national sovereignty. Thus it can be argued that the developing world is
militarized, not because of particular events or forces within or between developing world
nation-states but because the developing world is made up of nation-states and one of the
defining characteristics of the nation-state is the possession of a modern military.
From an institutional perspective, once a social object (say, a flag or a supersonic aircraft) is
established as central to normative definitions of statehood (that is, once "being a nation"
means, among other things, "having a flag" and "having a high-tech military"), the critical
variable in the determination of acquisition of these objects is not the nation-state's functional
requirement for the object but the degree of connection of the nation-state to the world
system. In order to understand the "unprecedented proliferation of national flags in the
post-World War II period," one does not look at the nation-state's functional need for a flag, or
at the behavior of flag manufacturers. To understand flag proliferation, one must understand
the cultural system that gives flags their unique meaning for nation-states. A nation-state
"acquires" a flag because it is embedded in a normative system that gives the flag meaning.
Thus, an institutional argument suggests that the proliferation of conventional weapons is
profoundly shaped by an essentially "ritualistic" (in the sense of ritual as encapsulating
meaning, not in the more common usage of habitual action devoid of meaning) belief in
militaries and modern weaponry as distinguishing emblems of the modern nation-state. It
follows that, if procurement results from immersion in such a normative system, then the pace
of procurement should vary with the extent of the immersion. 36
Institutional arguments are able to make comprehensible many otherwise problematic aspects
of militaries and weapons proliferation. It is quite common for developing nations to maintain
only a single "squadron" of four or five advanced aircraft--too few to offer any substantial
strategic or tactical benefits in any but the rarest of circumstances, but enough to constitute a
reasonable air show. Similarly, the symbolic nature of weaponry is almost certainly a
significant part of the failure of the F-20 export fighter program, which was intended to
provide a low-cost, high-reliability jet fighter designed specifically to meet the needs of newly
industrialized countries. Despite having the "right stuff," it lacked the legitimating
imprimature of usaf ownership and perished as unsalable. Institutional arguments must be
better specified if a fuller understanding of the process is to be gained. Indeed, both Ann
Swidler and Connie McNeely have noted that few investigations using institutional arguments
have focused on the specification of the mechanisms by which isomorphism is produced;
instead, they have focused primarily on establishing the fruitfulness of the institutionalist
perspective and the existence of isomorphism within the world system. 37 Although this
investigation, which is designed to use institutional theory in a new empirical realm rather
than to expand institutional theory, is marked by this limitation, we would now like to explore
four directions in which institutional arguments can be developed: greater attention to the
structure of the world system; systematic variation in the process of early and late adoption of
an object; variation in the degree to which an object is given social meaning (or degree of
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institutionalization); and variation in the nature of an actor's identity. Although not all of these
arguments will be empirically evaluated here, the effort is useful in the interest of giving a full
picture of an institutional approach to proliferation.
Structure of the World System

Within the diffusion literature attention is paid both to the nature and degree of
connectedness of the potential adopter and to the organization of the social system. 38
Institutional theory relying on empirical investigations have tended to assume an
undifferentiated (or simply differentiated, e.g., core-periphery) world system, featuring only
variations in the degree of connection of an individual state to the polity. However, Swidler
usefully suggests that different "models of stateness may well be promulgated within
subcommunities, based on language or colonial heritage, political divisions, etc." 39 This
concern suggests an argument that the proliferation of high-technology weaponry should
follow existing channels of international influence and communication. Variations in these
channels should predict variations in patterns of weapons proliferation. For example,
postcolonial relationships (e.g., the British Commonwealth) or regionally based alliance or
cooperation organizations (e.g., the Organization of American States) may foster the
development of variant models of stateness.
Few sociological investigations have systematically examined variations in the structure of the
world cultural system. Anthony Giddens notes that current conceptions of the "world system"
may exaggerate the level of integration of the system. The current world system may, he
argues, be better characterized as being made up of a "global information system," a
"nation-state system," a "world capitalist economy," and a "world military order." "The world
system exists," Giddens notes, but this "does not imply a single dominating dynamic in its
development." 40 We see much value in this approach, and we would point out two major
advantages. First, such a differentiated characterization allows for the formulation of
arguments about the relationship between these systems, focusing, for example, on the degree
to which conformity in one "sector" or "system" (e.g., education or the "global information
system," using a measure of conformity such as that developed by McNeely) 41 predicts
conformity in another sector (e.g., the "world military order"). Similarly, it should be possible,
following the pattern of earlier institutional theories, to construct an indicator of connection to
the world military system, using, for example, the number of military attachés sent abroad or
the number of military-related treaties signed. It would then be possible to examine which
indicator of connection was a better predictor of institutional conformity; significant
improvement with the use of the indicator of connection to the world military system would
suggest support for Giddens's arguments. Second, Giddens's framework implicitly challenges
us to assess empirically the uniqueness of the dynamics of the world military system, rather
than assuming that it must be dominated by either cultural processes or functional
considerations.
Early/Late Adopters
Within the literature on institutional arguments at the organizational level, empirical research
has "yielded the frequently replicated finding that early adoption (that is, adoption of an
innovation soon after its introduction, before a large portion of the population at risk has
adopted it) of organizational innovations is strongly predicted by technical or political
attributes of adopters but that later diffusion is more poorly predicted by technical or political
measures." 42 Pamela Tolbert and Lynne Zucker find that when civil service reforms are not
required by the state, early adoption of civil service by cities is related to internal
organizational requirements, with city characteristics predicting adoption, while late adoption
is argued to be related to institutional definitions of legitimate structural form; empirically,
they find that city characteristics no longer predict adoption. 43 The argument may be
restated more positively as: early adoption of an innovation will be predicted by "technical
characteristics" of the adopter (reflecting the suitability of the innovation as a solution to a
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problem), while later adoption (after the "institutionalization" of the innovation) will no longer
be predicted by technical characteristics and should be predicted by variables reflecting the
degree to which the adopter is connected to the social system within which the innovation is
institutionalized.
Degree of Institutionalization
If objects, such as flags, become, in Selznick's phrase, "infused with value," or institutionalized,
it is reasonable to assume that different objects may vary in the degree to which they do so. A
social object can vary in the degree to which it has been given meaning and has become part
of, or linked to, a particular "taken for granted" image of social reality. The value given a
particular object can vary across social systems. The most obvious example of this process is
the value accorded small bits of ribbon. Within the military, these "bits of ribbon" are highly
significant and full of meaning. In another social system, they may be mere insignificant and
meaningless bits of ribbon. Within the modern world system, where sovereignty, modernity,
and independence are the essence of our ideas about the nation-state, some weapons might
reasonably be seen as highly institutionalized (or symbolically significant, e.g., supersonic
aircraft), while others are less so (e.g., trucks, small arms). A given weapon's symbolic
significance is dependent on the degree to which it is linked to cultural ideas and images of the
nation-state; highly technological, visible, unique weapons are more effective at symbolizing
independence than are mundane, unremarkable weapons. Thus, just as weapons can be
thought to vary in technical capacity (e.g., "throw weight"--the capacity of a missile in terms of
a weight/distance measure), so also can they be seen as varying in terms of institutional
integration or "symbolic throw weight." Weapons that vary in this dimension should follow
distinct patterns of diffusion; the diffusion of highly institutionalized weaponry should be
influenced by linkage to the larger world system and by processes similar to those that shape
the diffusion of other, highly institutionalized elements of the world system. The diffusion of
weapons of a minimal degree of institutionalization (labeled by The Economist as "the tools of
everyday slaughter") should be influenced primarily by consequential factors, including both
strategic requirements and situational constraints.
One significant empirical task for institutional theory is to establish a means of systematically
assessing the degree of symbolic significance for social objects. Establishing such a metric is
difficult; for our purposes, however, variation in symbolic significance among weapons is
relatively clear. Some weapons are commonly seen as highly loaded with meaning. Howard,
looking at naval power at the beginning of the twentieth century, notes that "the Battleship
was indeed a symbol of national pride and power of a unique kind; one even more appropriate
to the industrial age than armies. It embodied at once the technological achievement of that
nation as a whole, its world-wide reach and, with its huge guns, immense destructive power. It
was a status symbol of universal validity, one which no nation conscious of its destiny could
afford to do without." 44 In the post-World War II era, navies have not lost their symbolic
significance; the evocative phrase "showing the flag" has not lost meaning, although the
vehicles may have changed. Aircraft carriers may have taken pride of place in navies, their
symbolic value equaling or exceeding that of battleships of old. Argentine reluctance to employ
the aircraft carrier Veintecinco de Mayo in the Falklands war, for instance, suggests that the
symbolic significance of the carrier exceeded its military utility. Aircraft have similarly
significant roles; the rise of the symbolic significance of aircraft is captured in the
contemporaneous labeling of the era from 1950 to 1970 as "the jet age." Although the 1990s
are infrequently labeled as the jet age, the symbolic significance of aircraft has not been
entirely eliminated. For example, the Slovenian Air Force held an air show in the spring of
1994, despite having fewer than five aircraft. 45
Actor Identity
So far, world system-level empirical investigations employing institutional theory have tended
to assume a single, undifferentiated identity for all nation-states: that of sovereign equals. It is
9 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
reasonable to suspect, however, that there are variations in this basic identity. Clearly, a
"superpower" is more than a mere nation-state; it is, within the military realm, a nation-state
that--at a minimum--has nuclear weapons. Some nations (e.g., India) have at times seemed
actively to aspire to this differentiated status. Similarly, some states seem to aspire to a more
local, but still differentiated, status as a "regional power"--for example, Nigeria or Argentina.
Discussions of the spread of chemical and biological weapons have frequently featured the
label "pariah state." While no state is likely to aspire, or even publicly acknowledge, such a
label, labeling theory 46 offers potentially useful insights into the mechanisms through which
such socially undesirable labels can shape behavior. Finally, it is reasonable to speculate that
"microstates" (e.g., Kiribati, Nauru, St. Kitts, and Nevis) may very well view their identity as
something other than a full nation-state.
Thus, some variation in the identity and behavior of nation-states may stem from variations on
the basic concept of the nation-state in the world-level cultural model. But while world-level
cultural concepts of the nation-state have a profound impact on the formation of specific
states, identity as a nation-state is not constituted solely by world-level cultural processes.
"Domestic" cultural definitions of nationhood and statehood interact with world-level cultural
concepts of the nation-state to form the specific identity of individual nation-states and, in
turn, to shape their behavior. Together, these two processes may account for substantial
variation in the identity and behavior of individual nation-states. Clearly, the dynamics of
identity formation for the nation-state require greater theoretical and empirical work. This
discussion is adequate, however, to highlight the point that variations in national identity may
shape variations in patterns of weapons acquisition. 47
Hypotheses
Before turning to a summary of the hypotheses to be investigated, we should point out that
there are strong reasons to anticipate robust period effects in the proliferation of conventional
weaponry. 48 Most qualitative literature on weapons proliferation suggests that the
post-World War II era may be marked by three major periods: The immediate postwar and
early Cold War period extended through approximately 1968. This period was marked by the
relatively restrained aid policies of both superpowers. Weapons transfers were mostly
outdated World War II-era equipment; the United States was still transferring World War
II-era propeller-driven fighter aircraft to developing countries in the early 1960s. Beginning in
the early 1960s and intensifying in the 1970s, the Soviet Union transferred large amounts of
relatively "high-tech" equipment to independent and newly independent countries. The
United States followed at a lag, and at a relatively reduced rate (with the obvious exception of
transfers to a few key states, such as South Vietnam and Israel). This second period continued
through the mid-1970s, when the burgeoning oil revenues fostered the development of an
increasingly open arms "supermarket." In the third period, arms of increasing sophistication
were available to any nation that had the cash, and to many that had only marginal credit.
Marked by "let's make a deal" fervor, these black- and gray-market transfers pushed a large
volume of weaponry into even the newest and least industrialized states.
The following hypotheses are suggested by the four arguments (superpower, national security,
factional interest, institutional theory) reviewed above:
Levels of conventional weaponry will be strongly shaped by patterns of alliance with

H1. the United States and the Soviet Union and will be less significantly shaped by local
security considerations.
Levels of conventional weaponry will be influenced primarily by the level of strategic
H2.
military threat directly faced by a nation-state.
To the degree that national security arguments implicitly discount the role of
"status" or "normative" processes or reduce them to residual effects (as described
H2a.
above), they also suggest that indicators of connection to the world system should
not be consistently or powerfully related to weapons inventories.
Military regimes will feature a higher level of conventional weaponry than will
H3.
civilian regimes.
10 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
Variation in levels of conventional weaponry will be predicted by variation in the

level of connection of a nation-state to the global system. In developing this
H4.
hypothesis, using the observation made above about variation in level of
institutionalization for different weapon systems, we can add:
Inventory levels of noninstitutionalized weaponry (i.e., that with low symbolic
H4a. significance, such as propeller aircraft or armored personnel carriers) will be
influenced primarily by processes described by national security arguments.
Inventory levels of highly institutionalized weaponry (i.e., that with high symbolic
H4b. significance, such as supersonic aircraft) will be influenced primarily by processes
described by institutional arguments. 49
Research Design, Data, and Methods of Analysis

Before proceeding to the details of the data and methods, we will comment briefly on the
research design of the empirical investigation. Each of the arguments laid out above makes
some claim to the accurate portrayal of some aspect of the growth of Third World militaries. A
substantial number of empirical investigations have been conducted, including (1)
examinations of broad patterns of international arms transfers, (2) studies of overall military
expenditures at the country level, (3) efforts at understanding the growth of overall military
capability, through the use of aggregate indicators of military capability, and (4) examinations
of arms merchant behavior. 50 However, the dominant forms of empirical investigation have
been the country- or region-focused case study and the econometrically flavored examination
of levels of military spending. Each has a weakness. Country studies make the recognition of
world-level processes difficult, while existing quantitative work, with its focus on single
indicators of military expenditure or capability, is, although sophisticated, perhaps too coarse-
grained in its choice of dependent variables. Both sorts of analysis run the risk of obscuring
potentially important aspects of the actual mechanics of proliferation. Relatively lacking thus
far have been efforts to unpack the proliferation process and to conduct large-scale
quantitative investigations of the spread of military organizational forms and individual
weapon systems throughout the world. The preliminary work reported here is intended to fill
this gap. In its more fine-grained view of the proliferation process, it will offer a view of the
arms trade that has not been developed in existing studies. By its examination of the
proliferation of individual weapon types, this investigation is designed to sharpen our
understanding of the processes that drive the proliferation of weaponry in the developing
world.
Measures and Indicators--Dependent Variables

Below, we will report results from the examination of a series of ordinary least squares cross-
sectional regression models that evaluate the hypotheses discussed above. We have conducted
a cross-sectional regression analysis of weapons inventories during the period from 1970 to
1990 (with 1970, 1980, and 1990 as target time points), using country-level weapons
inventories (i.e., counts of weapons of various types possessed by a coun try) as dependent
variables. Inventories of world militaries are drawn from a variety of published sources. The
most significant are the International Institute for Strategic Studies' The Military Balance; the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's Arms Trade Registers (covering 1950 to
1973) and Arms Transfers to the Third World (covering 1971 to 1985), and Defense and
Foreign Affairs Handbook. 51 The data set used in the analyses reported for 1970, 1980, and
1990 (tables 3.1 and 3.2) for the developing world includes inventories for the states that
became independent during the burst of decolonization following the independence of Ghana
in 1957 through the mid-1980s. Not included are "microstates," those states with populations
of fewer than about 750,000. 52 The analysis reported in table 3.3 covers all non-micro
nation-states for which data were available in 1980. For both analyses, individual weapon
systems inventories are aggregated into three basic categories: propeller-driven aircraft,
supersonic aircraft, and armored personnel carriers. Propeller-driven aircraft include all
ground-attack and transportation/utility aircraft in the military inventory, though most in this
category are transportation aircraft. Supersonic aircraft include all aircraft in the military
inventory identified as having supersonic capability, regardless of role. Armored personnel
11 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
carriers include all armored vehicles, whether tracked or wheeled, designed for troop
transportation. No differentiation is made between vehicles designed to be fought from and
vehicles designed solely for transportation. Although these categories are somewhat crude and
do not capture wide variations in the performance of weapon systems, they should adequately
capture important similarities in the symbolic value of the weapon systems.
Measures and Indicators--Independent Variables

The independent variables used in this analysis are drawn primarily from the Data Bank on
Political and Socioeconomic Development available from the Hoover Institution on War,
Revolution, and Peace. This data bank provides more than three thousand economic, social,
political, and cultural measures for 126 countries for the period 1950 to 1992. The majority of
the data are drawn from United Nations or World Bank statistical sources.
Some of the common empirical indicators of connection used in institutional investigations are
the nation-state's number of diplomatic representatives abroad and its number of
memberships in international governmental organizations (e.g., United Nations,
International Postal Union). The standard practice of most institutional theory empirical
investigations is to use the number of international governmental organization (igo)
memberships as the indicator of connectedness to the world system. Strong theoretical and
empirical justification exists for the routine use of this variable as an indicator of the degree of
connection of a country to the world polity, with more memberships indicating a higher
degree of connection. 53 Measuring the relative political power of the military within a
regime is a difficult task. While a number of somewhat successful efforts have been recorded,
they have seldom been done both on a worldwide scale and over a significant period of time.
Therefore, as a indicator of type of regime (Regime) we shall use the presence of a military
officer as president, prime minister, or head of state. This is coded as a dummy variable and is
admittedly a very rough indicator of military power within a government. We undertook a
similar effort to examine the impact of authoritarian regimes as a part of the preliminary
research effort, but the results paralleled those obtained by using the military regime
indicator, and therefore we used the simpler military regime coding inR the final analyses.
Gross national product per capita (gnppc), as measured in constant 1980 dollars, is used as an
indicator of national development.
Obviously, constructing broadly applicable indicators of military threat is a difficult task.

Perceived threat is shaped by a wide variety of factors that are unique to each potential
conflict situation. Nonetheless, some widely applicable indicators can be identified; these fall
into two broad classes, one based on strategic situation or potential threat and the other based
on actual conflict experience. The number of bordering countries (Border) serves as a rough
indicator of the potential for friction, while the fraction of a country's history spent at war,
measured as the number of years at war as a fraction of years of independence (Years at
War), captures a country's military experience. This indicator (drawn from Kidron and Smith)
54 and others include both international/cross-border wars and internal conflicts. 55
Geopolitical alignment (Alignment) was used as an indicator of tie to the superpowers.

Following Kidron and Smith, the general orientation of countries was assessed as pro-West,
nonaligned, or pro-East. 56 This represents an assessment of a country's political allegiance
and an effort to identify the state's main policy direction. It considers, but is not limited to,
formal alliance or friendship pacts. In our preliminary efforts for this study, we used two
dichotomous variables, one for alignment with the West, the other for alignment with the East,
with "nonaligned" being the reference category. The dummy variable for West was not
significant in any of the equations, and removing it from the equations did not alter the
parameter estimates or substantive conclusions in any significant way. This does not, of
course, mean that the West did not transfer arms to its allies; it means only that Western allies
did not receive significantly more or fewer arms, overall, than did nonaligned nations. The
12 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
West dummy variable is therefore not included in the final analyses. The Alignment variable is
coded 0 for nonaligned or aligned with the West or 1 for aligned with the East/Soviet Union.
For the examination of the world inventories of supersonic aircraft in 1980, an additional
dichotomous variable was included to indicate membership in the industrial core (Core),
either East or West, with 0 coded as outside of the core and 1 as a core member.
As appropriate, each variable is also identified by a suffix indicating the year the variable was
measured (e.g., igo82 indicates that the variable measures the number of international
governmental organizations that a country belonged to in 1982). All dependent variables are
measured in the year of the equation. Selection of appropriate lag times for independent
variables is always a significant issue; however, for these analyses, variations in lag affected the
relative significance of variables only modestly; for this investigation, a standard one-year lag
was selected for purposes of simplicity. The exceptions to this are the igo variables, which
were available only for the years 1966, 1977, and 1982. This introduces an exceptionally long
lag for the igo variable in the 1990 equations, which should be expected therefore to attenuate
the impact of the igo variable on 1990 inventories.
Results
The three tables included in this essay present the results of a series of regression analyses.
Table 3.1 covers analyses of weapons inventories of the newly independent states in 1980,
Table 3.2 examines analyses of weapons inventories of the newly independent states in 1990,
and Table 3.3 presents results of a regression analysis for inventories of supersonic aircraft for
the entire world (again, minus microstates of under 750,000 population) for 1980. Tables 3.1
and 3.2 present the results for regressions of all of the independent variables on the three
weapon systems categories: supersonic aircraft, propeller-driven aircraft, and armored
personnel carriers. The tables show the number of cases and the R2 for each of the individual
equations. The coefficients reported below each R2 are the standardized regression
coefficients for each independent variable, along with their approximate significance levels.
Before turning to the tables, however, we must discuss the results of the 1970 equations. For
all three of the equations the R2 was exceptionally small and the equations were not
significant. There were thirty-eight states in the 1970 analysis, and their inventory levels were
relatively small. Few nation-states in the sample were more than ten years old, and most still
featured militaries that resembled those left by the colonial powers. Because these units were
designed primarily for colonial police missions, the military legacy left by the colonial powers
was dominated by dismounted infantry formations and relatively low levels of equipment. In
the case of Britain, this was a de facto policy; in the case of France, a formal policy was
implemented to keep postcolonial militaries relatively small and internally oriented, with
France sharing the external defense burden. Equipment deliveries from all sources to the
newly independent states were relatively modest, and few, if any, states had developed any
13 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
military industrial capacity at all.
Turning to the 1980 and 1990 equations, we find a very different pattern. All six equations are
significant at or below the .01 level. The first finding that should be noted concerns the R2 for
the equations. Overall, the models fit the data reasonably well, with the 1990 equations
seeming to fit slightly better on average. In both sets of equations, the Years at War variable is
consistently significant and positive. In most of the equations it also has the largest
standardized coefficient. The second threat indicator, Border, is not significant in any of the
equations. Regime is also not significant in any equation. igo is significant in five of the six
equations in the 1980 and 1990 analyses; the only equation in which it is not significant is the
1980 propeller aircraft equation. Gross national product per capita (gnppc) is not significant in
any equation in the 1980 analysis but is significant in the supersonic aircraft and armored
personnel carrier equations in the 1990 analysis. Finally, the Alignment variable is signifi cant
and positive in four of the six equations, significant and negative in the propeller aircraft 1980
equation, and not significant and negative in the 1990 propeller aircraft equation. In the 1980
world equation (table 3.3) we see a very similar pattern, with the Years at War, igo, gnppc, and
Alignment variables positive and significant.
Comparing the findings with the hypotheses, we see first that the national security argument is
strongly supported by the consistent positive effect of Years at War. In conjunction with the
lack of significant effects by the Border variable, this result strongly suggests that countries
should pay attention to their histories of conflict, and not to more abstract indicators of
potential conflict, when making weapons acquisition decisions. In contrast with "hard"
national security arguments, however, which tend to employ cultural arguments as ad hoc
explanations for idiosyncratic cases, the second notable finding is the consistent relationship
between international governmental organization membership (igo) and the number of
weapons possessed by a country. This finding provides substantively significant support for
institutionalist arguments. Indeed, it appears that international organizational membership is
significantly related not merely to those weapons that were seen as highly symbolically
significant (supersonic aircraft) but also to positivweapons that were seen as of lesser symbolic
significance (armored personnel carriers). This finding can be interpreted as supporting a
"strong" institutionalist argument. That is, at least for newly independent states, possession of
any of the trappings of a mod ern military may be of symbolic significance. 57 It should be
noted that the significance of the Years at War variable does not directly challenge
institutionalist arguments, which do not deny the significance of functional factors. Rather,
institutional arguments point out that functional requirements are responded to in socially
structured ways: modern militaries are seen as the appropriate response to war (rather than
other possible responses, including target hardening, civilian- or reserve-based defense, or
prayer) because of the highly institutionalized linkage between the nation-state and the
military.
14 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
The second major issue raised by these results concerns the assessment of the symbolic
significance of various weapons. For our purposes, an a priori assumption was made: jets,
supersonic aircraft, main battle tanks, and (for later analysis) large naval vessels were assumed
to be weapons of high symbolic significance. The results discussed above, and conversations
with foreign military trainers, have suggested that many elements of the modern military
system may have substantial symbolic significance. Devising a means for systematically
assessing the symbolic significance of weaponry remains an important task. The level of
technological sophistication involved in a weapon system is clearly one variable that
contributes to symbolic value. But the visibility of a weapon may also have much to do with its
symbolic value. We are currently proceeding with a study on demonstration effects by
examining the proliferation of Exocet missiles after the Falkland Islands war. The results of
this preliminary empirical work make it clear that development of a theoretically justified
assessment of symbolic significance is a central research task.
The lack of significance of the Regime variable is interesting but not inexplicable. Military
regimes may indeed spend more on military budgets and not buy more military hardware.
Budgets may very well go to salaries and personal comfort rather than to organizational
capability. While we cannot discount the possibility that military power within the nation-state
may more profoundly shape procurement patterns--although the effect may be masked by the
admittedly crude measure of military power--we can with some safety assume that this effect
is not the primary motor driving weapons proliferation.
The Alignment variable shows that a strong connection to the Soviet Union has a substantial
impact on force structure: the average state connected to the Soviet Union in 1980 had
approximately twelve more supersonic aircraft and one hundred more armored personnel
carriers than the average nonaligned/West-aligned state. In 1990 the effect was similar:
aligned states had approximately twenty-five more supersonic aircraft and ninety more
armored personnel carriers than the reference group. The negative effect of alignment in the
propeller equation is interesting. The average Soviet-aligned state has about six fewer
propeller aircraft than the reference group. This result may reflect a propensity on the part of
the Soviet Union to transfer helicopters rather than propeller aircraft: in equations (not
reported in the tables) for helicopter inventories, the alignment variable is positive and
significant, with the average aligned state having five to six more helicopters. Again, it should
be noted that the absence of an effect for alignment with the West does not mean lack of
Western transfers; it suggests instead a lack of differentiation in Western transfers.
The pattern of significance for the gnppc variable is interesting. Although insignificant in the
1980 emerging-nation equations, it is significant and positive in two of the three 1990
emerging-nation equations and in the 1980 world equations as well. This outcome may reflect
the dynamics of an aggressive marketing effort by major suppliers in the middle period of the
15 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
arms supermarket. During this rather frenzied time, suppliers may very well have hung out
signs that said, in effect, "Credit is no object. Your good name (as a country) is your credit."
Certainly this effect was seen in bank loan patterns, as the credit-refinancing crunch of the late
1980s demonstrated. The 1990 equations may reflect the impact of this tightening credit, with
propeller aircraft (which have much broader utility and generally much cheaper prices) the
only exception.
Before closing, we should review the significance of the 1980 world equation. The world
equation includes 138 nation-states, all the countries of the world except for the microstates.
The Core variable has a significant effect, and core nations have more supersonic aircraft than
noncore nations, but the effects of other variables in the equation are similar to their effects in
the developing-world equations. This outcome suggests that the effect captured by the igo
variable is relatively robust and is not unique to the developing world or to the formation of
new militaries in newly independent states.
In this essay we have tried to do two things. First, we have summarized a theoretical approach
capable of moving beyond the ad hoc nature of existing arguments about the role of status and
norms in weapons proliferation. Institutional theory provides a vocabulary and a research
tradition comparable in sophistication and structure to existing theoretical approaches to
weapons proliferation. Second, we have conducted a preliminary empirical investigation
employing these arguments. We have argued that the acquisition of modern weaponry, like the
acquisition of a flag, is at least in part a product of world-level cultural definitions of the
modern nation-state. The results reviewed above provide some modest, tentative support for
our arguments. The theoretical structure of institutional theory, the empirical research
informed by it in other substantive areas, and the initial empirical results presented here
suggest that institutional theory offers significant insights into the process of weapons
proliferation.
In the remainder of this essay we would like to look beyond our initial results and discuss
directions for further work. We suggest that this effort be approached not as a process of
adjudication, pitting theory against theory in some intellectual version of a World Wrestling
Federation loser-leaves-town-winner-takes-all grudge match, but as a process of dialogue,
framing more-sophisticated and -nuanced arguments in order to capture important variations
in social processes. Weapons proliferation is a complex phenomenon that is unlikely to be
explained fully by any single the oretical vocabulary. Theoretical rivalry serves understanding
only if it later builds to theoretical synthesis. We have elsewhere laid out suggestions for this
process. 58 Here we wish to focus our attention on the development of institutional theory
and empirical analysis.
As a first step, we note that the arguments we have laid out have not specified the mechanisms
of influence upon which institutional processes are dependent. How is it that world-level
cultural models shape the acquisition behaviors of particular nation-states? Full explication of
these mechanisms is beyond the scope of this essay; it is, however, possible at least to suggest
some mechanisms that may serve to carry cultural expectations into the nation-state.
Institutional theory has attended to this issue. When examining the growth and development
of the nation-state, institutional theory has primarily emphasized the role of international
organizations as "teachers of norms." 59 For example, McNeely notes that international
organizations such as the un serve to convey a wide variety of expectations to member states,
and Finnemore also traces the powerful role played by unesco in the establishment of national
science policy boards. 60 But this organizational- or regime-based mechanism is clearly
absent in the world military system. With the exception of nato and the Warsaw Pact, the
world military system has no formal international organization or regime with a significant
standardizing effect. Thus, while the International Organization for Lappish Culture and
Reindeer Husbandry may have the effect of standardizing the forms and practices of reindeer
husbandry, no similar organization exists to account for similarity of form and practice in
16 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
modern military organizations.
Institutional theory, however, when examining the role of cultural processes at the
organizational level, has emphasized an additional set of cultural carriers. At this level the role
of professional processes in both the emergence and the spread of organizational forms is
significant. For example, Meyer and others examine the role of professional processes in
educational organizations, Scott looks at these processes in mental health organizations, and
DiMaggio examines the construction and spread of the modern American art museum. 61
While the exact role of professional processes in the emergence and spread of organizational
forms varies in each case, all share a common set of elements, including the development of a
unique professional identity, the development of a theorized body of knowledge, the
development of professional organizations, increases in the density of intraorganizational
contacts between professionals, increases in the flow of organization, and the emergence of a
collective definition of the field. 62 Students of military sociology and civil-military relations
will recognize that this is the story of the development of the professional officer corps in the
early modern era. But while the story of the emergence of the professional officer within the
nation-state is familiar, the story of the development of transnational connections within the
military profession is less well known.
Our study of this process is in the early stages, but it is sufficiently well developed to outline
these linkages. There are at least two key sets of linkages between military professionals that
cross national boundaries. The first is the exchange of liaison officers and observers and the
development of exchange officers in military schools. While this process has been carried out
between developed nations at a relatively modest pace for at least a hundred years, the
international exchange of officers has picked up substantially in the post-World War II era.
For example, the United States Army's Command and General Staff College usually has
students from some fifty to sixty nations attending its courses in any given year. Attendance at
military schools in the developed world is very common for military officers from the
developing world; indeed, even during the Cold War some Third World officers had the no
doubt stimulating and unusual experience of attending both American and Soviet, or American
and Chinese, military courses.
The second major set of linkages is the development of an international defense literature.
While some of this material is the product of official defense establishments (for example,
some U.S. Army professional journals have Spanish editions), the largest part of it is of
commercial origin. Jane's Defense Weekly, Aviation Week and Space Technology, and
Flight are but a few examples of this substantial body of literature. Thus, to a degree that may
be unexpected by those who assume that security considerations restrict the flow of defense
information across borders, the military profession is marked internationally by many of the
same features that other professions exhibit. It seems therefore that many of the same carriers
responsible for the transmission of cultural definitions of appropriate behavior in other
organizational sectors are also present within the military sector.
Empirical investigation of these arguments needs to proceed along several lines. Along with
the development of more-sophisticated quantitative indicators of critical concepts,
quantitative work needs to be done employing more-sophisticated techniques, such as event
history analysis and sequence analysis. 63 Case study methods also promise insight into the
processes described by institutional theory. In particular, case studies offer the ability to assess
the degree and nature of connection between states and the larger world culture. The utility of
the case study is not unlimited, however. Case studies of individual weapons acquisition
processes by individual countries fall victim to the problem noted above: myopic focus on
individual cases means that world-level processes are seen only as distant blurs, if at all.
In summary, we have reviewed thinking about the role of status and norms in the proliferation
of weaponry. Using institutional theory, we have reformulated these arguments in a way that
17 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
allows for quantitative empirical evaluation, and, briefly, we have suggested some mechanisms
through which cultural models may be transmitted. The results of this effort offer substantial
insight into the role of normative processes in weapons proliferation. Norms, we suggest, do
not directly cause the acquisition of a particular weapon. Nation-states do not buy particular
weapons exclusively to enhance their prestige. Rather, the creation of a military and the
acquisition of the basic "tools of the trade" both confer and confirm the central cultural
construct of "statehood" wihin the modern world system. The more a nation interacts with this
larger cultural environment, the more it tends to assert and authenticate its sovereign status
with the ultimate symbol of nationhood, a military.
Although many people have helped us in the course of this work, Victoria
Alexander deserves special recognition for substantial effort during the formative
period of this essay.
Note 1: See Andrew L. Ross, "Dimensions of Militarization in the Third World," Armed
Forces and Society 13 (1987): 561-78, and Robert L. West, "Problems of Third World National
Security Expenditures" (paper presented at the United States Institute of Peace Conference on
Conflict Resolution in the Post-Cold War World), for discussions of the term
militarization and the scope and scale of modern militarization. Ross points out that frequent
use of the term masks fundamental disagreements concerning its meaning. Militarization is
used in this introductory paragraph to refer to a steady growth in the military potential of
states. By using it in this sense, we follow the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute. Back.
Note 2: Peter Wallensteen, Johan Galtung, and Carlos Portales, Global

Militarization (Boulder: Westview, 1985), p. xi. Back.
Note 3: Consider, for example, the growth of navies in Southeast Asia and the increasing
attention given to submarines by many navies throughout the world. Back.
Note 4: Although the empirical focus of this essay is on "horizontal" proliferation (that is, the
spread of weaponry of a given level of technological sophistication across countries), "vertical"
proliferation (the development of weapons of increasing levels of technical sophistication) is of
equal concern to the authors. The primary aim here is to develop and test general theories
useful for understanding the dynamics of both vertical and horizontal proliferation. The choice
to evaluate these theories empirically by examining horizontal proliferation in the
"Two-Thirds World" is driven by analytical and methodological issues, not by theoretical
claims concerning the uniqueness of the Two-Thirds World or by political concerns about the
unique evils of horizontal proliferation. The research reported here focuses primarily on the
determinants of conventional weapons proliferation in the states that won independence in
the burst of decolonialization following the independence of Ghana in 1957. These ex-colonies
began life as newly independent states with, for the most part, only modest military
inheritances from their colonial governors. Their militaries were consequently relatively
unformed. These states also lacked extensive military production capabilities, which required
them to acquire weapons from beyond their borders, thus making the estimate of inventory
levels somewhat easier. Together, these circumstances allow for the relatively complete tracing
of their weapons acquisition histories. Back.
Note 5: For a discussion of institutional theory and contemporary uses of the term institution
within sociology, see Ronald L. Jepperson, "Institutions, Institutional Effects, and
Institutionalism," in Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalism in
Organizational Analysis, pp. 143-63 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); and W.
Richard Scott, Institutions and Organizations (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1995). For the
foundational work in institutional theory, see John W. Meyer, John Boli, and George M.
18 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
Thomas, "Ontology and Rationalization in the Western Cultural Account," in George M.

Thomas, John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, and John Boli, eds., Institutional Structure :
Constituting State, Society, and the Individual (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1987); John W.
Meyer and Brian Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and
Ceremony," American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 2 (1977): 340-63. Back.
Note 6: Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990),
pp. 2-3, and others have proposed distinguishing "national states" ("states governing multiple
contiguous regions and their cities by means of a centralized, differentiated, and autonomous,
structure") from "nation-states" ("state[s] whose people share a strong linguistic, religious, and
symbolic identity"). This terminology usefully highlights the distinction between ethnic-
cultural coherence and political autonomy. The phrase has not yet gained wide currency,
however, and in the present discussion the distinction, while useful, is not of central
theoretical importance for the processes examined. We therefore use the more common
approach of employing nation-state to refer broadly to any sovereign entity that possesses
territorial integrity and political independence and that enjoys international recognition as the
collective representative of a discrete population. Back.
Note 7: Ibid.; Michael Mann, States, War, and Capitalism: Studies in Political Sociology
(Cambridge: Blackwell, 1988). Back.
Note 8: The current Namibian military is approximately eight thousand strong and is in the
process of acquiring several small patrol craft. These figures compare with Angolan military
forces of approximately forty-five thousand (along with twenty thousand internal security
police) and approximately forty thousand unita (National Union for the Total Independence of
Angola) forces. In 1994, South Africa had armed forces of approximately sixty-seven thousand.
The Namibian example, and our assertion of its problematic military utility, is, we realize,
suggestive, not conclusive. We include it merely to remind readers of the central symbolic role
played by militaries throughout the history of the nation-state, a role that persists even when
actual military utility is exceptionally open to question. Back.
Note 9: James G. March, "Decision-Making Perspective: Decisions in Organizations and

Theories of Choice," in Andrew H. Van De Ven and William F. Joyce, eds., Perspectives on
Organization Design and Behavior , pp. 205-44 (New York: Wiley, 1981); Jon Elster, Nuts
and Bolts for the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Back.
Note 10: For examples of superpower or geopolitical arguments, see Andrew J. Pierre, The
Global Politics of Arms Sales (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), or Graham T.
Allison and Frederic A. Morris, "Armaments and Arms Control: Exploring the Determinants of
Military Weapons," Daedalus 104 (1975): 99-129. Back.
Note 11: Arguments about the role that procurement coalitions play in acquisition are most
fully developed in examinations of American defense procurement; cf. Gordon Adams, The
Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books,
1982), for examinations of "iron triangles." Although some similar work has been done on
developing-world procurement processes (e.g., Nichole Ball, Security and Economy in the
Third World [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988]; Stephanie G. Neuman, Defense
Planning in Less-Industrialized States [Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1984]), it has
concentrated on the defense planning and procurement processes of a few large states and
does not provide the quantitatively oriented researcher with readily available cross-national
and longitudinal indicators of procurement coalition power. Thus, despite the desirability of
better-theorized arguments concerning Third World procurement coalitions, quantitative
work is limited by the relatively crude indicators available. Back.
Note 12: Thomas Ohlson, ed., Arms Transfer Limitations and Third World Security (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1988), p. xi. Back.
19 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
Note 13: Summarized in Edward J. Laurance, The International Arms Trade (New York:
Macmillan, 1992); A. F. Mullins, Born Arming: Development and Military Power in New
States (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987); Stephanie G. Neuman and Robert E.
Harkavy, Arms Transfers in the Modern World (New York: Praeger, 1979); Robert E.
Harkavy, The Arms Trade and International Systems (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1975).
Back.
Note 14: Charles H. Anderton, "Arms Race Modeling: Problems and Prospects," Journal of
Conflict Resolution 33 (1989): 349. Back.
Note 15: Rodney W. Jones and Steven Hildreth, Emerging Powers: Defense and Security in
the Third World (New York: Praeger, 1984), p. 65. Back.
Note 16: Ibid., pp. 5, 60-61. Back.
Note 17: Robert O'Connell, "Putting Weapons in Perspective," Armed Forces and Society 9
(1983): 441. Back.
Note 18: Dana P. Eyre, Mark C. Suchman, and Victoria D. Alexander, "Military Procurement
as Rational Myth: Notes on the Social Construction of Weapons Proliferation" (paper
presented at the 1986 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association). Back.
Note 19: We seek to develop arguments that provide a framework for systematically
examining the impact of "normative" or "cultural" processes in the world military system.
While we work within a well-established body of sociological thought (cited above), the
application of these arguments to the examination of areas traditionally ceded to realist theory
is new. We do this not in an effort toward an expansive sociological theoretical hegemony but
in the spirit of Jon Elster's exposition of the process of "explanation by mechanism" (Nuts and
Bolts for the Social Sciences). Elster argues that the first step in social science is the
development of a "toolbox" of causal mechanisms, a set of "cogs and wheels" that can be
assembled to provide explanations of specific events and facts. We seek not to replace other
tools but to develop an alternative set of tools. Back.
Note 20: Connie McNeely, "Cultural Isomorphism Among Nation-States: The Role of
International Organizations" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1989), p. 3. Back.
Note 21: For a discussion of the mythos of rationality in Western culture, see March,
"Decision-Making Perspective," and Meyer and Rowen, "Institutionalized Organizations."
Back.
Note 22: March, "Decision-Making Perspective." Back.
Note 23: James G. March, "Ambiguity and Accounting: The Elusive Link Between
Information and Decision Making," in Decisions and Organizations , pp. 384-408
(Cambridge: Blackwell, 1988); Martha S. Feldman and James G. March, "Information in
Organizations as Signal and Symbol," Administrative Sciences Quarterly 26 (1981): 171-86.
Back.
Note 24: Jepperson, "Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism." Back.
Note 25: George M. Thomas and Pat Lauderdale, "State Authority and National Welfare
Programs in the World System Context," Sociological Forum 3 (1988): 383-99. Back.
York: Columbia University Press 1977); Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes
Note 27: John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Knopf, 1993); Donald M. Snow,
20 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
Distant Thunder (New York: St. Martin's, 1993); and Martin Van Crevald, The Transformation
of War (New York: Free Press, 1991). Back.
Note 28: McNeely, "Cultural Isomorphism Among Nation-States;" p. 2. Back.
Note 29: For welfare, see Thomas and Lauderdale, "State Authority and National Welfare
Programs in the World System Context"; for education, see Francisco O. Ramirez and John
Boli, "Global Patterns of Educational Institutionalization" in Thomas et al., Institutional
Structure , pp. 150-72. For citzenship, see Francisco O. Ramirez and Yasemin Soysal,
"Women's Acquisition of the Franchise: An Event History Analysis" (paper presented at the
1989 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association). Back.
Note 30: Thomas and Lauderdale, "State Authority and National Welfare Programs in the
World System Context." Back.
Note 32: Jones and Hildreth, Emerging Powers, p. 5. Back.
Note 33: Ohlson, Arms Transfer Limitations and Third World Security, p. 49. Back.
Note 34: Catherine M. Kelleher, Alden F. Mullins, Jr., and Richard C. Eichenberg, "The
Structure of European Navies 1960--1977," in Oliver Veldman, ed., The Future of West
European Navies, pp. 173-238 (The Hague: Den Helde, 1980). Back.
Note 35: Michael Howard, "War and the Nation-State," Daedalus 108 (1979): 101. Back.
Note 36: Some may object to the comparison of weapons and flags, arguing that flags are
purely symbolic and weapons primarily or exclusively functional. We do not disagree with the
observation that weapons have functional value. Guns, in fact, can be used to kill people. We
do, however, disagree with the assumption that some social objects (e.g., flags) are purely
symbolic and also with the a priori assumption that because some social objects (e.g.,
weapons) have a functional value, functional considerations must necessarily dominate the
proliferation of those objects. First, it should be remembered that the actual utility of
symbolically significant weaponry, such as a supersonic aircraft, is more open to question than
weapons salespeople might acknowledge. This is particularly true in many developing-world
strategic and tactical circumstances. Jet fighters, for example, are difficult to maintain and to
employ effectively. Second, the a priori assessment of the relative functional value of military
weaponry is often dependent on a complex set of assumptions that are themselves as much
cultural theories of war as hard-earned, firsthand lessons of war. As a final complicating
factor, the socially constructed nature of a "threat" should also be kept in mind. The nature
and magnitude of a threat are shaped by perceptual processes and cultural assumptions, as
well as military considerations. Thus, the degree to which a given weapon is seen as
"functional" is dependent on threats and assessments of utility, both of which are socially
constructed. The symbolic and the functional values of social objects cannot be simply
separated or assessed. Carl Von Clausewitz, speaking of what he termed the "physical" and
"moral" factors in war, noted: "One might say that the physical seem little more than the
wooden hilt, while moral factors are the precious metal, the real weapon, the finely-honed
blade" (On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret [Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1984], p. 184). Again, we do not dispute the functionality of
weapons. We merely point out that the assessment of "functionality" is more problematic than
may be generally acknowledged and that one should begin the study of weapons proliferation
with a question, rather than an assumption that one of these two tightly intertwined aspects
necessarily dominates. Back.
Note 37: Ann Swidler, "Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies," American Sociological
Review 51 (1987): 273-86; McNeely, "Cultural Isomorphism Among Nation-States." Back.
21 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
Note 38: Claude S. Fischer and Glenn R. Carroll, "Telephone and Automobile Diffusion in
the United States, 1902-1937," American Journal of Sociology 93 (1988): 1153-78; J. S.
Coleman, E. Katz, and H. Menzel, Medical Innovation (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966);
Lawrence A. Brown, Innovation Diffusion: A New Perspective (New York: Methuen, 1981).
Back.
Note 39: Swidler, "Culture in Action." Back.
Note 40: Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1987), p. 276. Back.
Note 41: McNeely, "Cultural Isomorphism Among Nation-States." Back.
Note 42: Paul DiMaggio, "Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory," in Lynne G. Zucker,
ed., Institutional Patterns and Organizations: Culture and Environment (Cambridge, Mass.:
Ballinger, 1988), p. 6. Back.
Note 43: Pamela Tolbert and Lynne G. Zucker, "Institutional Sources of Change in the
Formal Structure of Organizations: The Diffusion of Civil Service Reform, 1880-1935,"
Administrative Sciences Quarterly 28 (1983): 22-39. Back.
Note 44: Howard, "War and the Nation-State," p. 104. Back.
Note 45: Others who have employed similar arguments acknowledging the symbolic
significance of weaponry but examining distinct historical epochs include William H. McNeill
(The Pursuit of Power [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982]), who looked at the spread
of chariots in the ancient world, and Richard A. Fletcher (Moorish Spain [London: Weidenfeld
and Nicholson, 1992]), who examined the military structures of Moorish Spain. Back.
Note 46: Walter R. Gove, The Labeling of Deviance, 2d ed. (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage,
1980). Back.
Note 47: This argument suggests the following hypothesis: elements of the nation-state that
are more tightly tied to the local culture will exhibit more variation than elements of the state
that are more loosely connected to the local culture and more tightly tied to the world-level
cultural model. This argument neatly accounts for patterns of uniform isomorphism in world
militaries as observed informally by the first author. Armies throughout the world exhibit
substantial variation in the color, design, and symbols used on their uniforms. Navies, in
contrast, seem to exhibit substantial uniform isomorphism. Most world navies have uniforms
that vary little from the British Royal Navy scheme. Back.
Note 48: Laurance, The International Arms Trade.Status, Norms, and the Proliferation of
Conventional Weapons. Back.
Note 49: Here we insert a brief confession of academic unworthiness, in order to reinforce
the point we made earlier. The argument that objects that vary in their degree of symbolic
significance should exhibit different patterns of diffusion within the world system is a
reasonable extension of institutional theory. Developing means of assessing the symbolic
significance remains an important task, one that we have not yet tackled. We proceed with this
preliminary investigation based on the assumption that "high-tech" weaponry is emblematic of
modern militaries and modern states. We believe that this assumption (and our current
instantiation of it) is a reasonable starting point for empirical analysis. Moving beyond this
assumption, through a theoretically informed, empirical assessment of symbolic significance,
is an important future task. We also note, following the comments of one reviewer, that the
ability to produce weaponry may also be symbolically significant. We agree and suggest that
the arguments we have made would apply, mutatis mutandis. Back.
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Note 50: Empirical investigations of the subject (summarized in Mullins, Born Arming; and
Laurance, The International Arms Trade ) have been conducted, including: (1) examinations
of broad patterns of international arms transfers (e.g., Michael Klare, The American Arms
Supermarket [Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984]), (2) studies of overall military
expenditures at the country level (e.g., Robert E. Looney, Third World Military Expenditure
and Arms Production [London: Macmillan, 1988]), (3) efforts at understanding the growth of
overall military capability, through the use of aggregate indicators of military capability (e.g.,
Mullins, Born Arming ). Back.
Note 51: International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 1993-1994
(London: Brassey's, 1993); Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The Arms Trade
Registers (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1975); and Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, Arms Transfers to the Third World 1971-1985 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987). Back.
Note 52: We have chosen this population of states, and not included the microstates, for
research design reasons. It can be argued that both acquisition of weaponry and igo
membership are prompted by a third variable, relative importance in world politics. Larger or
"leader" states do more of both. This argument has some merit; but in restricting our primary
population to developing-world states, we do not include those "core" states that are most
important in world politics. While it still may be possible to argue that there is variation in
importance in world politics within the population, the argument becomes less compelling.
For similar reasons, not including microstates eliminates those states for which any but the
most minor involvement in world politics would be a significant strain. Further empirical
examination of this argument awaits a more sophisticated research effort. Back.
Note 53: For example, see Thomas and Lauderdale, "State Authority and National Welfare
Programs in the World System Context." Back.
Note 54: See Michael Kidron and Dan Smith, The War Atlas : Armed Conflict--Armed
Peace (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983). Back.
Note 55: While one might wish for a more individually tailored indicator of perceived threat,
the conceptual and practical details involved in creating such an indicator are significant.
Nonetheless, we stand by the use of the Years at War variable as a reasonable indicator of
threat. Countries with a high level of involvement in warfare probably perceive greater threats
than countries with long histories of peace. Back.
Note 56: Kidron and Smith, The War Atlas . Back.
Note 57: Our logic in making this assertion is as follows: Previous institutionalist empirical
investigations (as noted above) have consistently found that igo membership predicts
adherence to world cultural models of statehood. The statement "the more a nation-state is
connected to the larger world system, the more it follows the established cultural model of
statehood" is strongly supported by empirical evidence (cf. Thomas et al., Institutional
Structure ). We have extended institutional theory through our arguments that social practices
may vary in degree of institutionalization and that these variations should affect patterns of
diffusion. In order to conduct a preliminary empirical evaluation of this extension, we have
made an analytically necessary assumption: that supersonic aircraft have more symbolic
significance than armored personnel carriers and propeller aircraft. As is often the case, the
results were mixed. In 1980, igo77 was significant in the equations for supersonic aircraft and
personnel carriers but not in the equation of propeller aircraft. igo82 was significant in all of
the equations for 1990. These results can be interpreted as (a) disconfirming our extension of
institutional theory, (b) disconfirming institutional arguments in general, or (c) disconfirming
our analytic assumption but being generally in accord with institutional theory. We have
chosen (c) because the overall pattern of our results strongly resembles patterns of results in
other institutionalist investigations and because we realize that our initial analytic assumption
is just that, an initial assumption. It is grounded in a plausible argument, but it remains an
23 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
auxiliary assumption rather than a theoretically justified, empirically assessed position.

Mechanization, it is equally plausible to argue, may be symbolically equivalent (for armies) to
high-performance aircraft (for air forces). Back.
Note 58: Mark C. Suchman and Dana P. Eyre, "Military Procurement as Rational Myth:
Notes on the Social Construction of Weapons Proliferation," Sociological Forum 7 (1992):
137-61. Back.
Note 59: Martha Finnemore, "Restraining State Violence: The International Red Cross as a
Teacher of Humanitarian Norms" (paper prepared for delivery at the 1992 annual meeting of
the American Political Science Association). Back.
Note 60: McNeely, "Cultural Isomorphism Among Nation-States"; Martha Finnemore,

"Science, the State, and International Society (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1991). Back.
Note 61: See, for example, John W. Meyer and W. Richard Scott, with the assistance of Brian
Rowan and Terrence E. Deal, Organizational Environments: Ritual and Rationality (Newbury
Park, Calif.: Sage, 1983), for examinations of the role of professional processes in educational
organizations; W. Richard Scott, "The Organization of Medical Care Services: Toward an
Integrated Theoretical Model," Medical Care Review 59 (1993): 271-302, for a discussion of
the role of these processes in mental health organizations; and Paul DiMaggio, "Constructing
an Organizational Field as a Professional Project: U.S. Art Museums, 1920-1940," in Powell
and DiMaggio, The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, pp. 267-92, for a
discussion of the growth of art museums. Back.
Note 62: DiMaggio, "Constructing an Organizational Field as a Professional Project." Back.
Note 63: For event history analysis, see Nancy Brandon Tuma and Michael T. Hannan,
Social Dynamics: Models and Methods (Orlando: Academic Press, 1984); for sequence
analysis, see Andrew Abbott and Alexandra Hrycak, "Measuring Resemblance in Sequence
Data: An Optimal Matching Analysis of Musicians' Careers," American Journal of
Sociology 96, no. 1 (1990): 144-85.
24 de 24 05/08/2010 19:33
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editor
4. Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos
Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald
The concept of deterrence has been central to traditional international security studies.
Deterrence has been invoked as the primary explanation for two central phenomena of
twentieth-century international relations--the non-use of nuclear weapons and the non-use of
chemical weapons. Yet, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the conventional notion
of deterrence--based on a rationalist account--does not by itself adequately account for the
practice of non-use of these weapons. Instead, a significant normative element must be taken
into account in explaining why these weapons have remained unused. Moreover, closer
examination also reveals that rationalist explanations for the development of these norms
themselves are indeterminate at best or mistaken at worst.
This essay offers an alternative view on deterrence and the non-use of nuclear and chemical
weapons, one that highlights the socially constructed nature of deterrence and deterrent
weapons. We argue that in order to fully account for why these weapons have remained
unused, we must problematize, not assume, their status as deterrent weapons. The patterns of
non-use of these weapons cannot be fully understood without taking into account the
development of prohibitionary norms that shaped these weapons as unacceptable "weapons of
mass destruction." Moreover, we argue that constructivist accounts are needed to redress gaps
or mistakes in existing explanations for the origins and development of these norms.
The discussion presented here consists of four parts. It begins with a critique of the traditional
conception of deterrence--a realist explanation that assumes that states are unified rational
actors acting on the basis of exogenously given self-interest. We argue that the explanatory
power of this conception in accounting for "non-use" is severely limited by its ultimate
indeterminacy: it is impossible to know "what deters" or why a practice of non-use has arisen
without investigating the normative context in which actor identities and interests are defined.
Thus it is not that realist deterrence theory is entirely wrong so much as it is uninterested in
the kinds of questions necessary for a full understanding of the phenomenon of the non-use of
nuclear and chemical weapons. Positing deterrence as an unproblematic variable elides the
question of how certain weapons have been defined as deterrent weapons whereas other
weapons have not.
We then suggest social constructivist approaches that problematize the issue of non-use, the
nature of the technology and weapons involved, and the notion of actor self-interest upon
which traditional deterrence theory is based. The genealogical approach to the chemical
weapons (cw) taboo and the social construction of nuclear deterrence both argue that in order
to understand the anomalous status and patterns of non-use of chemical and nuclear weapons,
it is necessary to understand how particular social and cultural meanings become attached to
certain kinds of weapons, how these normative understandings arise historically through actor
practices and interpretations thereof, and how they shape actors' conceptions of their interests
and identities.
The second and third sections of the essay then suggest how these two constructivist
1 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
perspectives, respectively, illuminate the two empirical cases--chemical and nuclear. These
cases provide a useful comparison, since their domains of analysis are somewhat different.
The cw taboo originated largely at the systemic level, while the nuclear taboo arose
domestically, principally (although not entirely) in the United States and was then diffused
transnationally. These sections highlight how the differ ent conceptual puzzles opened up by
these approaches result in a more complete account of the origins and roles of norms in
international relations. They briefly sketch the historical development of the respective
non-use norms, describe how they enter into an account of the non-use of these weapons, and
then suggest several ways these norms have affected the substance of international politics. If
anarchy and self-help are "what states make of it," then these non-use norms have constrained
self-help by delegitimating certain kinds of military technologies. 1 More broadly, if the
"structure" of the international system is understood to include both material and ideational
elements, then these norms have come to play a significant role in structuring a certain kind of
hierarchical world order in the post-Cold War era. 2
The final section of the essay evaluates some of the similarities and differences in the two
cases with respect to the origins and role of prohibitionary norms in international politics. It
summarizes a constructivist perspective on norms, clarifying the relationship between our
argument and alternative explanations, as well as how these norms matter and where they
came from. It seeks to demonstrate why explanations involving norms are not simply a matter
of accounting for "residual variance."
The Social Construction of Deterrence

Explaining Non-use
Deterrence theory, which draws on realist assumptions of unitary state actors and exogenously
given interests, focuses its analytical attention on the use of retaliatory threats of force to deter
attack. 3 Deterrence is defined as dissuading an adversary from doing something it otherwise
would want to do (and which is perceived as threatening) through threats of unacceptable
costs. The analytical power of rational deterrence theory derives from a set of simplifying
assumptions about how states seek to maximize their utility. Most deterrence theorists stress a
strong material cost-benefit logic to deterrence and a strong rationalism. 4
The logic of deterrence has been invoked as a primary explanation of the non-use of both
nuclear and chemical weapons. As the argument goes, the non-use of these weapons is due
substantially to fear of retaliation in kind. They are self-evidently so horrifying and/or
destructive that actors acting on the basis of rational self-interest would naturally be deterred
from employing them, for fear of the overwhelming devastation that nuclear or chemical
retaliation would bring. This parsimonious account provides the dominant explanation for the
non-use of nuclear weapons by the superpowers during the Cold War and is often cited as the
most important immediate factor in explaining the non-use of cw. 5
Yet, explanations from deterrence are insufficient by themselves to explain the non-use of
either chemical or nuclear weapons. For example, they cannot account for significant cases of
the non-use of either weapon when there was no threat of retaliation in kind. For cw, the
Spanish Civil War, the Korean War, the French in Indochina and Algeria, the Vietnam War,
and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan are prominent cases. Even during the violence of
World War II, cw were not employed in situations where they offered a clear military
advantage. To cite but one example, the U.S. did not employ gas warfare against the Japanese,
even though there was no threat of retaliation and cw would have been enormously effective
against Japanese forces entrenched in the tunnels and caves of the Pacific Islands.
Likewise, a deterrence explanation cannot account for why nuclear weapons were not used by
the United States during the first ten years of the nuclear era, when the U.S. possessed a
virtual monopoly on nuclear weapons and fear of retaliation was not a dominant concern. In
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the late 1940s and early 1950s, the United States faced crises in Berlin, Korea, Quemoy and
Matsu, and Dien Bien Phu. Yet, despite a perceived weak ness in U.S conventional military
capabilities and a military strategy that relied increasingly upon nuclear weapons, U.S. leaders
did not use nuclear weapons during these crises. Later, in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, U.S.
officials effectively ruled out use of nuclear weapons against a nonnuclear Iraq, even though a
small nuclear weapon could have been militarily effective on the desert battlefield. 6
Several additional factors suggest why a traditional deterrence explanation is inadequate and
raise the issue of the role of normative taboos in shaping the practice of non-use of these
weapons. Here the deficiencies in the scholarship on the chemical and nuclear cases diverge
somewhat: the literature on cw recognizes that a deterrent explanation alone is inadequate but
does not fully explore the mutually constitutive operation of the normative status of cw and its
successful definition as a deterrent weapon. In contrast, the nuclear literature by and large
finds the deterrence explanation satisfactory. In both cases, however, the acceptance of
"deterrence" as more or less unproblematic leads to a slighting of the role of other factors--in
particular, normative ones--in shaping the patterns of non-use.
For cw, World War II offers the most studied and spectacular case of non-use, and it is widely
recognized in the literature that the avoidance of chemical warfare cannot be attributed solely
to deterrence. 7 Indeed, there is a virtual consensus in this literature that attributes this
non-event to three major factors:
The two sides warned each other not to use chemical weapons at the risk of
strong retaliatory action in kind; a general feeling of abhorrence on the part
of governments for the use of cb weapons, reinforced by the pressure of
public opinion and the constraining influence of the Geneva Protocol; and
actual unpreparedness within the military forces for the use of these
weapons. 8
It is of signal importance to note that while some authors have privileged individual factors
over others for different stages and aspects of the story, none of the major studies has
dismissed the prohibitionary norm as irrelevant in the overall explanatory equation. 9 Thus
while it has been argued that legal and moral restraints were not central in immediately
affecting decisions to avoid using cw, 10 the same authors recognize that the unpreparedness
of the military establishments cannot be taken as an unproblematic variable but has to be
explained itself. It is here that normative and legal opposition to cw takes pride of place in
explaining why cw were not used in World War II, as these restraints were crucial in
preventing the assimilation of cw as a standard weapon of war. 11
On this basis alone, the normative opposition to cw cannot be dismissed as peripheral in

preventing the use of cw in World War II. An even stronger case can be made, however, for the
impact of the taboo in preventing the use of cw. Just as the literature recognizes that the
variable of military preparedness itself has to be explained, it is argued here that the variable
of deterrence--the status of cw as a deterrent weapon--also has to be problematized. Why
would the fear of retaliatory cw attacks be any more robust a restraint than the fear of other
horribly destructive methods of warfare such as incendiary bombing raids or submarine
attacks on civilian shipping? If we are to avoid merely begging the question of why a special
dread of retaliation operated with respect to cw, we need to understand how the discursive
practices of statesmen served to set cw apart as a symbolic threshold of acute political
importance and defined cw as a weapon that might not be used.
In sum, the odium attached to cw is indispensable in accounting for their non-use. In the
absence of a normative discourse that ostracized and politicized the use of cw as unacceptable,
illegal, and reprehensible, a strong counterfactual case could be made for the possibility or
even the probability that these weapons eventually would have been assimilated into military
arsenals and their use would have proceeded as an uncontroversial and unpoliticized standard
3 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
practice of warfare.
The nuclear case, in contrast, is in some ways a "harder" case for challenging traditional
deterrence theory than that of chemical weapons because it is widely felt that the tremendous
destructive power of thermonuclear weapons does render them qualitatively different from
other weapons (and therefore makes them "natural" deterrent weapons). Also, in contrast to
the chemical case, the U.S. military establishment has been fully prepared to use nuclear
weapons.
Nevertheless, while a special dread of nuclear weapons may be easier to understand, the
opprobrium attached to them--as with cw--does not follow purely "rationally" or logically
from the nature of the technology. Use of the atomic bomb by the U.S. on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in 1945 (which caused less destruction than the firestorms in Tokyo a few months
earlier) was widely supported in the United States, and moral arguments were invoked as
justification. 12 It was only later, when the development of thermonuclear weapons appeared
to clearly violate any previously existing conceptions of proportionate weapons, that a
normative stigma against nuclear use emerged. But why did the nuclear taboo then come to
apply equally to all nuclear weapons, small and large, tactical as well as strategic, irrespective
of utility considerations? Why did subsequent efforts to pursue such things as "peaceful
nuclear explosions" fail, despite the latter's peaceful and practical applications? Or, to take
another angle, why have nuclear weapons, supposedly fearsome deterrent weapons, not
deterred some conventional attacks by nonnuclear states against nuclear states or allies of
nuclear states? 13 a name="121"> A rational deterrence explanation for nuclear non-use,
while capturing some broad outlines of the Cold War nuclear experience, also glosses
dangerously over the historical record. In doing so it tends to lend an impression of
inevitability to the nuclear non-use tradition that is far from warranted. As military historians
remind us, the enormous destructive capability of weapons and the prospect of retaliation
cannot be assumed to give rise automatically to rational self-interested avoidance-of-use
behavior on the part of actors; such assumptions have failed more often than not in the past.
The parsimonious explanation for nuclear non-use obscures the variety of reasons that the
bomb did not get used on different occasions, not all of which are "normative," to be sure, but
not all of which qualify as "deterrent" either. These include concerns about lack of military
effectiveness of bombs, shortage of bombs, disagreement over policy options, public and allied
opinion, moral concerns, and, especially, contingency. However, as we discuss further in the
fourth section of this essay, clear distinctions between "normative" and "nonnormative"
concerns may in actuality be difficult to make. In sum, the overall "pattern of caution" with
regard to nuclear use in the postwar era does not mean that in each individual case of nuclear
crisis, decision makers were cautious. 14 In fact, the picture over time of nuclear non-use by
the United States suggests a significant role for a normative element in undergirding emerging
perceptions of nuclear weapons as lacking in military utility. U.S. restraint with regard to
nuclear use was in part a matter of chance, in part a matter of deterrence, but was also shaped
in part by emerging American perceptions of nuclear weapons as "disproportionate" (a
profoundly normative concern), a view that increasingly clashed with U.S. leaders' perceptions
of America's moral identity. Even a "realist" such as John Lewis Gaddis concludes at the end of
his examination of nuclear non-use during the early postwar period that moral considerations
may have played a significant role. 15
Explaining the Taboos

Both the nuclear and the cw taboos are norms that matter in international politics. The odium
attached to the use of these weapons is indis pensable in explaining their non-use. In addition,
these taboos are phenomena that themselves cannot be reduced to the assumptions of
deterrence theory. The problem with deterrence theory is not that its logic has never operated
in the case of chemical and nuclear weapons but that it does not address the question of how a
particular weapon comes to be defined in deterrent terms whereas other weapons do not or
4 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
that of how actor "interests" with respect to use or non-use come to be defined. How is it that a
prohibitive fear of cw has operated over and above the fear of other powerful means of
destruction, some of which are accorded the legitimacy of "conventional" weapons despite
their capability to wreak more havoc than cw can? Similarly, how have nuclear weapons been
defined alternatively as moral or immoral weapons, and how have perceptions of them been
shaped such that all uses of nuclear weapons are unacceptable? How did American decision
makers come to define their interests with regard to nuclear use? How have both chemical and
nuclear weapons been ostracized apart from other weapons as an unacceptable practice of
warfare? What do these prohibitions mean for the practice of international politics?
Just as rationalist explanations for the non-use of nuclear and chemical weapons are not fully
satisfactory, neither do rationalist explanations for the norms themselves suffice to
accommodate some of the peculiarities involved in the origins and operations of these taboos.
The argument is often made that cw have not been used, and a norm of non-use has
developed, because cw are perceived as being of marginal military utility. While there is a long
controversy over the question of utility of cw (because of complications such as wind
conditions, logistical burdens, and so forth), this controversy has never been definitively
resolved--there has never been unanimous agreement that the use of cw would not be
advantageous in certain circumstances. In short, the argument that the cw taboo arose from
the lack of utility of cw is not empirically sustainable, as cw have been favorably assessed by
military establishments on many occasions. 16
A second kind of argument also draws upon the intrinsic characteris tics of cw to explain their
anomalous status. Michael Mandelbaum has offered an account of the stigma against cw in the
course of a comparison between the status of nuclear weapons and that of cw. But while he
purports to provide an argument based on cultural and institutional restraints, in the end his
case rests on the implausible argument that the opposition to cw is a genetic aversion rooted in
human chromosomes. 17 His argument fails because, like arguments that ascribe the norm to
the lack of utility of cw, it is premised on the assumption that there must be a rational reason
for the taboo that can be deduced from the essential features of these weapons.
Likewise, it is often pointed out that while the United States did contemplate using nuclear
weapons on several occasions, it never faced a situation in which its vital interests were at
stake. The intended point is that the real "hard test" case for a constraining norm never
materialized. This may be true, but it misses what is interesting here, which is precisely that
historically, despite the fact that nuclear weapons are indeed qualitatively different, U.S.
leaders on various occasions contemplated their use in cases of less than overwhelming
national interest. This situation provides telling contrast with today's widely shared
assumption that nuclear use could be morally contemplated only in the direst of circumstances
(if at all). The historical comparison reminds us that the revolutionary nature of the weapons
was not evident to all.
Further, the particular domestic sources of the nuclear taboo--a democratic United
States--were crucial in shaping interpretations of these weapons as unusable. While a
rationalist account may tell some of the nuclear story, ignoring questions about identity and
thus taking interests as given leaves rational deterrence theory fundamentally unable to
explain the criteria for "deterrence"--that is, what goes into leaders' calculations of
"unacceptable costs." For similar reasons, rationalist regime theory, because it neglects
identity, may offer an inadequate account of norms. With its ahistorical approach, rationalist
regime theory has little to say about the origins and evolution of norms and practices that
cannot be conceived as simply the rational calculation of the national interest. 18
Actually, both the nuclear and the cw taboos resist the parsimonious explanations offered by
rationalist approaches. It is precisely the widely recognized anomaly that taboos may embody
an "irrational" attitude toward technology--a norm that defies the realist dictum that only
5 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
useless weapons are banned--that makes the origins and persistence of these norms such an
intriguing puzzle.
For these reasons, it is clear that an account of the chemical and nuclear taboos requires an
investigation into the meanings and social practices that have constituted these norms. As
James Johnson argues, moral decision making must be understood as "essentially historical in
character, an attempt to find continuity between present and past, and not an ahistorical
activity of the rational mind." 19 That is, the nature of the question plays to the strengths of
constructivist approaches to norms. Such approaches are provided by the genealogical
method, on the one hand, and a "social construction of deterrence" approach, on the other.
The differences in the two approaches lie in the primary analytical focus: the genealogical
approach focuses on understanding how norms are constituted through social and discursive
practices and how these discourses normalize or delegitimate forms of behavior; the social
construction of deterrence perspective emphasizes the relationship between norms, identities,
and interests and provides a causal explanation of how the norm affects outcomes. As will be
made clear, these two approaches offer complementary methods of analyzing norms.
The genealogical method, a mode of analysis articulated by Friedrich Nietzsche and

popularized more recently by Michel Foucault, is particularly appropriate for shedding light
on the case of the cw taboo, for several reasons. 20 Not only is it a method specifically
concerned with the origins and operations of moral discourses, but it also emphasizes the role
that contingency and chance play in the constitution of moral institutions. As will be discussed
below, such fortuitous factors played a major role in the origins and development of the
prohibition against the use of cw. In addition, the genealogy is a constructivist approach and is
thus well suited to the contention of this essay that the cw taboo is a political construction that
cannot be adequately explained solely by virtue of the intrinsic qualities of cw.
Besides remedying the deficiencies of rationalist approaches by historicizing moral

institutions, this study of the cw taboo draws upon the genealogical method through its
analytic focus on moral discourses. Discourses produce and legitimate certain behaviors and
conditions of life as "normal" and, conversely, construct categories that themselves make a
cluster of practices and understandings seem inconceivable or illegitimate.
Prohibitionary norms in this sense do not merely restrain behavior but are implicated in the
productive process of constituting identities as well: actors have images of themselves as
agents who do or don't do certain sorts of things. Unlike some approaches, which seek to
distance the study of norms from power, then, the genealogy in this way implicates norms in
hierarchical relations of domination and resistance. Drawing upon these insights of the
genealogy illuminates aspects of the origins, functions, and development of the cw taboo that
have gone underanalyzed in the literature. All of this results in a better appreciation of the
sources and robustness of this remarkable success in banning a weapon of war.
A social constructivist perspective on deterrence also problematizes the social and historical
construction of deterrence, but that approach takes as its analytical focus the interaction
between norms and the constitution of identities and interests of the actors involved. It holds
that in order to determine "what deters," the identity and interests of actors have to be
investigated. A social constructivist approach is explicitly interested in the relationships among
norms, interests, and outcomes but conceives of norms very differently from the way a
rationalist account does. In a rationalist view, norms constrain exogenously given self-interest
and behavior or lead to recalculations of self-interest. In the constructivist view--developed
primarily in the sociological literature--norms shape conceptualizations of interests through
the social construction of identities. 21 Actors conform to norms in order to validate social
identities, and it is in the process of validating identities that interests are constituted. Thus
both the creation, and reproduction, of norms and their salience for actors are inseparable
from the social constitution of actors' identities.
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Both of these approaches open up sets of questions different from those that are typically
posed by the dominant approaches in international relations scholarship, and it is this
problematic that is required for an adequate account of these weapons taboos and their
influence on outcomes. What set nuclear and chemical weapons as categories apart from other
methods of warfare in the first place? How were nuclear and chemical weapons defined and
delegitimated as a special category of "nonconventional" weapons, and what features of these
weapons were regarded as critical in regarding them as unacceptable weapons? How did
actors come to define their interests with regard to these weapons, and how were their
identities validated in the construction and strengthening of these norms? Have the meanings
of the taboos changed over time, and what are the implications of such discursive
transformations for the robustness of the taboos? In the following two sections, we suggest
how the genealogical and social constructivist perspectives illuminate the two cases by
showing that deterrence and non-use cannot be adequately explained on a purely rationalist
basis, but rather require attention to the elements of identity, contingency, and the socially
constructed nature of weapons taboos.
The Chemical Weapons Taboo

In this short space it is not possible to address at each point every alternative explanation for
each issue and event relevant to the development of the cw taboo and the non-use of cw.
Instead, the account that follows is designed to illustrate the contributions of a genealogical
analysis by filling in neglected gaps in the cw story and redressing key errors. First, and in
opposition to essentialist explanations and arguments from utility, the contingency involved in
the political construction of the cw taboo is examined to underline the difficulties of a
straightforward rationalist accounting of its origins and development. Second, the
development of the contested features of the moral discourse are traced in an effort to gauge
the robustness of the norm. Third, it is argued that a better understanding of the meaning and
significance of violations of the cw taboo is gained when it is recognized that this taboo is
implicated in the hierarchical operation of ordering war and international relations according
to a discourse that characterizes nations as "civilized" and "uncivilized."
Contingency
Rather than being viewed as simply the inevitable result of the objective qualities of chemical
weapons, as is often supposed, the cw taboo is better understood as a political construction
that owes much to a series of fortuitous events. International law first proscribed chemical
warfare at the Hague Conference of 1899, which banned the use of asphyxiating shells even
though no such weapon had yet been developed. This prohibition was accepted by delegates to
the conference largely because it was not believed to have much significance. In fact, however,
the Hague Declaration subsequently proved to be of no small importance. As will be seen
below, later prohibitions against cw--culminating in the Geneva Protocol of 1925--were made
possible on the basis of the understanding that these bans represented not the creation of a
new norm but only the reaffirmation of the norm embodied in the Hague Declaration. In the
absence of the Hague Declaration, it is unlikely that agreement would have been reached on
interwar efforts to proscribe cw. 22
If such an understanding made agreement on a renewed cw prohibition possible, efforts to

proscribe cw might not even have been on the international agenda at all except for an
interwar hysteria over cw generated by the overzealous propaganda efforts of the chemical
industry lobby and the gas warfare lobby. Especially in the U.S. and Britain, a massive
campaign made "totally irresponsible . . . exaggerations of new weapons developments" in
order to secure chemical tariffs and the survival of chemical warfare departments. 23 The
fearful scenarios of future danger that these lobbies constructed around the issue of cw were
so effective because they encountered no opposition until it was too late: the same dialogue of
dread was being inscripted by the opponents of gas warfare. 24 Hence, the image of cw that
7 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
was constructed was far out of proportion to the actual danger they represented at the time, as
many have noted. 25 Indeed, of all the recent technological innovations in offensive warfare,
cw are the one weapon that is most susceptible to defensive measures, a fact that makes the
image of cw as a special threat all the more intriguing.
This depiction of cw eventually backfired on those seeking to promote cw preparedness, for it

led to renewed efforts to prohibit cw. The first major effort was at the Washington Naval
Conference of 1921-1922. At this gathering, U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes
pushed through an absolute prohibition on any first use of cw, despite the unanimous
recommendations of a subcommittee of experts that cw be treated the same as any other
weapon. According to the subcommittee, "the only limitation practicable is wholly to prohibit
the use of gases against cities and other large bodies of noncombatants in the same manner as
high explosives may be limited." 26 While Hughes was prepared to accept the same kinds of
limitations on cw as on other weapons if his resolution had encountered stiff opposition, 27
his proposal for an absolute ban was accepted as Article V of the Washington Treaty.
Its acceptance was made possible by the belief of the delegates at the conference that such a
prohibition was neither nothing new nor anything terribly important. On the one hand, they
saw it as merely reaffirming previous bans--the Hague Declaration, whose violation during
World War I left little confidence in such treaties, and Article 171 of the Versailles Treaty,
which itself cited the previous outlawing of cw as its basis and in any case was essentially an
anti-German provision of a dictated peace. Furthermore, it was believed that such a treaty was
not very important, since it would not prevent preparations for chemical warfare. Even though
the Washington Treaty never came into effect, 28 the clause banning cw lived on in the sense
that it served directly as the basis and even the rationale for the Geneva Protocol of 1925,
which in turn has operated as the focal point of the cw norm for almost seventy years. 29
In genealogical fashion, an institutional tradition prohibiting cw came to be invoked as its own

justification, in such a way as to obscure the fortuitous ancestry of the taboo. The cw taboo was
reborn from the ashes of World War I not simply as a technologically determined and
self-interested reaction to a prohibitively costly new means of warfare but also as a political
construction whose institutionalization has in turn helped to politically legitimate the
definition of cw as a practice beyond the pale of civilized nations.
Defining Features
An important aspect of the cw taboo that is brought out by the genealogical tracing of
discourses concerns the features of the taboo that have been regarded as essential in defining
cw as unacceptable. When the Germans initiated the use of lethal chlorine gas from cylinders
in the trenches of World War I, they defended this use of cw by arguing that it was no more
cruel than shattering soldiers to bits with guns and howitzers. In taking this position, the
Germans directly challenged the presumption of the cw prohibition that cw were an especially
inhumane method of warfare. This contestation of the very core of the cw prohibition became
even more prominent in the U.S. Senate during the ratification hearings for the Geneva
Protocol. Typical of such a position was the contention of Senator David Reed that the cw ban
would prevent the U.S.
from using gas against the next savage race with which we find ourselves in
war, and would compel us to blow them up, or stab them with bayonets, or
riddle them and sprinkle them with shrapnel, or puncture them with
machine-gun bullets, instead of blinding them for an hour or so until we
could disarm them. That is the "humanity" that is attempted to be worked
out by the Geneva Protocol. 30
Because the humanitarian core of the cw taboo has over time become increasingly
unacceptable to question, such sentiments strike most contemporary observers as rather
unsettling. To bring this out more starkly, the above developments can be compared to
8 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
attitudes toward cw during the most recent use of cw, the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Iraq did
not even admit to the use of cw until the last year of the war. Even then, Iraq's leaders stated
that they supported the general rule prohibiting the use of cw; Iraq justified the use of cw as
the "right to defend itself and protect its territorial integrity and its homeland." 31 One need
not attribute too much credence to Iraq's claims to abide by the cw norm to notice that
something significant had not occurred: a reopening of what has over time become the
humanitarian core of the cw norm. Similar to the Italians in their war against Ethiopia in
1935-1936, the Iraqis made no attempt to legitimate their use of cw on the basis of the alleged
humanitarian qualities of cw.
This closure of direct challenges to the humanitarian definition of cw as a particularly odious

means of warfare is indicative of a gradual strengthening of the taboo over time. Indeed, while
it may seem that the opposition of many Arab nations to the Chemical Weapons Convention 32
represents a fundamental challenge to the anti-cw norm, it will be argued below that this
contestation in fact positively depends on cw's being ostracized as a terror weapon of last
resort, though now in its more recent incarnation as a "weapon of mass destruction."
Domination and Resistance: Weapons of Mass Destruction

A significant manifestation of the cw prohibition has been its operation in the hierarchical
ordering of relations of domination in the international system. This feature of the taboo is
most evident in the characterization of cw as weapons of the weak and the taboo's role in the
disciplining discourse of civilized conduct of international society.
The Hague Declaration established a discriminatory regime insofar as its language stipulated
that the ban against asphyxiating shells was "only binding on the Contracting Powers in the
case of war between two or more of them." Furthermore, the declaration stated that "it shall
cease to be binding from the time when, in a war between the Contracting Powers, one of the
belligerents shall be joined by a non-Contracting Power." Those contracting powers were the
nations that would count as the members of an emerging society of civilized states. That is, one
of the qualifications for gaining the status of a civilized nation was to participate in the
regulation of warfare that began among the European society of states in the mid-nineteenth
century. 33 As such, the origins of the cw taboo were implicated in exclusionary practices that
distinguished between civilized and uncivilized areas of the globe.
The symbolic connection of cw with standards of civilized conduct has made it more difficult
for advanced nations to employ these weapons against each other as just another
unremarkable, unpoliticized, and standard means of warfare. At the same time, however, it
has also played a part in undermining the taboo in "uncivilized" areas. The invocation of the
disciplining discourse of civilization operated during the two most significant violations of the
cw taboo since World War I: their use against Ethiopia by Italy in 1935-1936 and during the
Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
The use of cw against Ethiopia led some to expect--and fear--that their employment would be
a matter of course during World War II. 34 For others, however, the assessment was
different: war among the industrialized nations of Europe was a different matter than conflicts
involving less technologically advanced areas, such as the colonies. 35 The surprising lack of
gas warfare during World War II can thus be understood as part of a process by which the
conduct of war among "civilized" nations was demarcated from that involving "uncivilized"
nations. As one author has put it, a standard view of world affairs after Versailles was that the
arenas of European war and colonial war might well have been separable. 36 And the use of
cw might have been less unacceptable in one arena than in the other.
This phenomenon of differentiation in the acceptability of forms of warfare has received

recent articulation by a number of authors, most forcefully perhaps by John Mueller. For
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Mueller, major war--war among developed states--has been subject to a gradual obsolescence
that has not occurred in other areas of the globe. 37 The occasional ruptures of the cw taboo
reflect the understanding that modern warfare between industrialized powers is a qualitatively
different situation than war involving an "uncivilized" country. 38 Such was the argument of
the Italians, who contended that the "Ethiopians have repeatedly shown she is not worthy of
the rank of a civilized nation." 39
This disciplining discourse of identity has not issued solely from the developed world,
however. In a July 1988 statement defending the use of cw, Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz
ventured to argue: "There are different views on this matter from different angles. You are
living on a civilized continent. You are living on a peaceful continent." 40 cw were indeed a
symbol of unacceptable violence--at least among "civilized" countries.
A related manifestation of the disciplining aspect of the cw discourse has been the
characterization of cw as weapons of the weak. To be sure, the designation of cw as the "poor
man's atomic bomb" has condescending overtones, but recently this characterization has been
turned on its head. The link between chemical and nuclear weapons established by the termi
nology of cw as the poor man's atomic bomb has been appropriated by some nations in the
developing world--the Arab nations in particular--by situating it within a broader discourse of
"weapons of mass destruction."
For the industrialized world, the category of weapons of mass destruction has served as the
touchstone for efforts to curb the proliferation of advanced weapon systems in the Third
World. The Arab world, however, has appropriated this discourse in a manner that has made
explicit the double standard in the antiproliferation designs of the industrialized world: while
the Third World is prevented from acquiring deterrents such as nuclear or chemical weapons,
the Western powers are permitted to retain their weapons of mass destruction--conventional
and otherwise--as legitimate tools of diplomacy. 41 Israel's undeclared nuclear arsenal is a
particular concern in this strategy of linkage, and it is on these grounds of eliminating all
weapons of mass destruction that the opposition of some nations to the Chemical Weapons
Convention is centered.
This appropriation of the mass destruction discourse is a remarkable example of the kind of
interpretive reversal that Nietzsche and Foucault had in mind in their writings on moral
discourses. As Foucault wrote, "The successes of history belong to those who are capable of
seizing these rules, to replace those who had used them, to disguise themselves so as to pervert
them, invert their meaning, and redirect them against those who had initially imposed them."
42
The important point to note for the purposes of this essay is the effects of this usurpation on
the illegitimacy of cw. First, it is to be noted that framing unacceptable weapons in terms of the
"weapons of mass destruction" discourse invites the question of why other enormously
destructive "conventional" weapons are not included in this category. On that level, the overall
thrust of the weapons discourse has been to try to expand the definition of unacceptable
weapons rather than to restrict or abolish it. 43
Second, while the linkage to nuclear weapons conceivably could serve to justify the possession
of cw as a deterrent, the linkage to nuclear weapons has not legitimated the actual use of cw. If
anything, the taboo against using nuclear weapons is in all likelihood stronger and more
universal than the taboo against using cw. Thus the effect of linking cw to nuclear weapons has
been to further remove cw from the arsenal of standard and acceptable means of warfare.
The argument here is that this shift in the site of contestation of the norm--from earlier
debates over the alleged humanitarian benefits of chemical weapons to contemporary efforts
to extend the nonproliferation regime of weapons of mass destruction--is indicative of the
10 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
consolidation of the taboo over time. Not only is the resistance to the transformation of the
norm from use to possession restricted to a small group of nations, but the main thrust of this
resistance has not been to challenge the unacceptability of using cw so much as it has been to
question the legitimacy of possessing other weapons of mass destruction, including the
definition of what counts as such a weapon.
The Non-use of Nuclear Weapons

The analysis of the nuclear case offered here focuses initially on the non-use of nuclear
weapons by the United States but then broadens its scope to examine, as in the chemical case,
the global implications of the norm for non-use and its world-ordering impact. The "social
construction of deterrence" perspective problematizes nuclear "deterrence" and seeks to
determine on what grounds the United States was deterred. Why did President Truman
agonize after World War II over the possibility of nuclear use again against a nonnuclear
adversary while President Eisenhower actively considered nuclear use against allies of a
nuclear-armed adversary, for example? Why were only a few nuclear weapons considered
enough to deter in the early years while in later years "deterrence" was defined as requiring a
much higher level of damage? What goes into the definition of "unacceptable costs"?
These kinds of questions highlight the relevance of a constructivist account that investigates
how U.S. interests and identity were defined with respect to nuclear weapons and nuclear use.
The account that follows emphasizes several features of the origins and operation of the
nuclear non-use norm and its impact on outcomes. First is the nature of the initial precedent
set by nuclear use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which provides a point of contrast for later
developments. Second is the role of both practice and contingency in the development of the
non-use norm and the nonlinear process by which it developed. Third is the way normative
concerns that were linked with American identity reinforced emerging perceptions of lack of
military utility of nuclear weapons on the part of American decision makers. Fourth, and
finally, is the role the non-use norm has come to play in the selective delegitimation of nuclear
weapons.
Parts of the constructivist account of nuclear non-use are complementary to a rationalist

account (when fear of retaliation genuinely holds), and parts offer an alternative to the
deterrence argument (when fear of retaliation is not prominent and other factors, including
moral repugnance and the perceived illegitimacy of nuclear weapons, play a significant role).
In all cases, however, a constructivist account is necessary to get at "what deters" and
how/why deterrence "works."
The Initial Precedent: Hiroshima and Nagasaki--from Seamless Web to Utter

Discontinuity
The first point to emphasize is the precedent that World War II created of a seamless web
between nuclear and conventional bombing and between "tactical" and "strategic" bombing. It
was only later that thresholds were created between the two. As historians have noted, the
atomic attacks on Japan represented a continuation of--not a rupture with--wartime bombing
strategy. 44 While the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were carried out with new and
revolutionary weapons, they simply culminated an effort by American strategic air power to
decimate almost every important city in Japan through firebombing. Nuclear weapons
provided a more effective means of carrying out a strategy that was already widely and
vigorously pursued through conventional bombing, and "it was not thought that any
irreversible threshold had been crossed." 45 In fact, conventional bombing intensified after
the nuclear attacks, and the heaviest conventional bombing of the war followed Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. 46 General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, wanted to drop as many
nuclear bombs on Japan as were ready. 47 Plans were discussed for dropping a third atomic
bomb in late August if Japan did not surrender; after news of the scale of the destruction at
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Hiroshima and Nagasaki, President Truman was reluctant to do so, but he began to think he
might have to. Recent research reveals that General George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff,
briefly explored the tactical use of atomic bombs in connection with plans for the possible
invasion of Japan at the end of the war. 48
These facts emphasize the continuity of atomic weapons with existing military strategy and
plans. George Quester highlights this continuity, noting that the kind of thinking we tend to
associate largely with nuclear weapons existed before 1945 with regard to strategic
(conventional) bomb ing: "Modern terms such as 'deterrence,' 'tacit agreement' or 'balance of
terror' show up often in the literature, coupled with descriptions of war scenarios every bit as
awesome as a nuclear holocaust." 49 Thus the label of "weapons of mass destruction" cannot
be said to be simply a straightforward designation of objective features.
Contingency, Iteration, and Principled Belief

While the notion that nuclear weapons ought to remain unused after Hiroshima and Nagasaki
dates from the immediate postwar period, 50 its realization in practice and its transformation
from a notion of prudence and, for some, moral belief into a collective, normative
understanding was a matter of a gradual historical process. During the early period of the Cold
War, little consensus existed on the nature of nuclear weapons, their military or political uses,
how they should be controlled or managed, or whether they should, or would, be used again.
But as the United States became increasingly vulnerable to Soviet nuclear attack, especially
after the development of thermonuclear weapons and advanced delivery capabilities by both
sides in the mid-1950s, the perception that strategic nuclear weapons could have no
meaningful uses increased. However, the development of tactical nuclear weapons combined
with the increased prospect of retaliation gave rise to a temporary interest in limited nuclear
wars and the possible creation of various kinds of "thresholds."
It was thus only gradually during the postwar period that nuclear weapons acquired their
status as unacceptable weapons and that the no-first-use taboo emerged and the utter
discontinuity between nuclear weapons of all kinds and conventional weapons was
established. But this development was neither linear nor inevitable; rather, it owes much to
the combined workings of contingency and the iterated practice of non-use over time, as well
as to self-conscious efforts on the part of some to foster a normative stigma. For example,
President Truman, though he had been the one who actually dropped the bomb, expressed
great horror at the possibility of having to do so again. His administration spent considerable
energy pursuing the Baruch Plan for international control of atomic weapons at the un, and
Truman established the precedent of civilian control over nuclear weapons, thus signaling
their special status. 51 The Eisenhower administration, however, subsequently attempted to
reverse earlier efforts at setting nuclear weapons apart as something "different." It is useful to
speculate on the counterfactual situation--that had Eisenhower preceded Truman as
president, postwar nuclear history might have looked quite different.
The Impact of the Norm

While conventional deterrence theory takes interests as given, from the constructivist
perspective the issue is how normative considerations, identities, and interests regarding
nuclear use mutually shaped each other and hence influenced outcomes. The Korean War
provides a good example of how an emerging "taboo" against initiating use of nuclear weapons
influenced American leaders. In the 1950s, the emerging non-use norm entered decision
making instrumentally in the form of a "cost" (public opinion against the first use of nuclear
weapons), which top decision makers initially sought to appease, while disagreeing with it
themselves. When President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles came into
office, tactical nuclear weapons had recently become available, and they actively sought to
make these weapons "usable," i.e., to make them like any other weapon. Their attempts reveal
12 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
the normative stigma against nuclear weapons that was already beginning to emerge. Policy
discussions during the spring of 1953 on how to end the Korean War suggest that Eisenhower
and Dulles were more preoccupied by the constraint on nuclear use imposed by negative
public opinion than by any more material concern. 52
Over time, a central element of the definition of nuclear weapons was that they were
disproportionately lethal, and this aspect came to clash with U.S. leaders' perceptions of the
United States as a moral country that took seriously the traditional laws of armed conflict,
such as proportion in the use of force and the avoidance of killing noncombatants. During the
cri sis over Quemoy and Matsu in 1958, several State Department officials who thought Dulles
was too enthusiastic about seeking out opportunities for use of tactical nuclear weapons
produced some estimates showing how many civilians would be killed on the islands by a U.S.
tactical nuclear attack on Chinese forces. There is some reason to believe that this dampened
Dulles's ardor for the nuclear option; in any case, the issue was disproportionate destruction
of civilians--a normative concern--not fear of retaliation. 53
In contrast to the chemical case, in which chemical weapons were not well integrated into the
military establishment, nuclear weapons have been the central element of U.S. military plans
since the late 1940s. 54 This information raises the question of the location of the nuclear
non-use norm. As it emerged, it was held primarily by the top civilian leadership and by the
public, but not by the military as an institution. However, even the U.S. military and nato have
over time moved away from the "early first use" plans of the early Cold War years toward what
many have argued is a de facto no-first-use position. Normative development tends to proceed
neither linearly nor necessarily coherently: norms can (and often do) develop even in the face
of seemingly contradictory behavior. 55 As the non-use norm continues to strengthen, one
would expect to see it increasingly reflected in operational plans that downgrade the role of
nuclear weapons. 56
Though the U.S. was the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons in warfare, American
leaders later came to define nuclear use as contrary to Americans' perception of themselves.
As one high-level official reportedly said of the nuclear option during the 1991 Persian Gulf
war, "We just don't do things like that." 57 This unwillingness to consider nuclear options in
the war against Iraq, where no fear of retaliation existed, provides telling contrast to
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A non-use norm has ruled out any serious consideration of nuclear
use in places where small nuclear weapons might have been useful--to bomb bridges or dams
in the Vietnam War, for example, or in the Gulf war for use on massed Iraqi troops--wars that
were otherwise highly destructive. 58 The drive to create "smart" bombs and other high-tech
options so that leaders will not have to resort to nuclear weapons is indicative of the special
status of nuclear weapons. Whereas nuclear weapons were once relied upon in order to avoid
spending money on conventional forces, the nuclear non-use norm now propels the building
of high-tech conventional arsenals that are more politically "usable."
But with the convergence in destructive power of small nuclear weapons and advanced
conventional weapons, the traditional threshold between nuclear and conventional technology
may become increasingly blurred. Fuel-air explosives provide a case in point. During the Gulf
war, coalition military leaders first worried about Iraq's possible use of fuel-air explosives and
then used such weapons themselves at the end of the war against Iraqi forces. Military officials
described the weapons as capable of delivering a devastating blast similar to a small nuclear
explosion over an area several miles wide. 59 Unlike chemical and biological weapons,
fuel-air explosives are blast-effect weapons and there is no ready defense against them.
Official and private statements on why the United States would not need to resort to nuclear
weapons in the Gulf war generally echoed the theme that the coalition could create equivalent
damage with conventional forces without the moral "downside" of using nuclear weapons. The
destructiveness of nuclear weapons per se was not a prominent feature of the reasoning. 60
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The strength of the nuclear taboo and the odium attached to nuclear weapons as weapons of
mass destruction render unusable all nuclear weapons, even though certain kinds or uses of
nuclear weapons could, from the perspective of just war theory, conceivably be justified. The
feature of nuclear weapons at the core of the taboo--their disproportionate nature--may
change with advancing technology. As scattered proponents of tactical nuclear use during the
Gulf war argued, in some circumstances the use of very small, accurate "micronukes" with low
yields could minimize disproportionate destruction and avoid the killing of noncombatants. 61
The capability must be juxtaposed against the coalition's destruction of the Iraqi electric and
water infrastructure during the Gulf war, which caused vast numbers of civilian deaths from
infectious diseases and the lack of food, water, and medical care. 62 Such an attack erodes the
moral claims against the killing of noncombatants, which are the traditional basis for objection
to nuclear weapons. Thus the nuclear taboo may have "permissive effects"--permitting other
weapons and practices that, while avoiding the stigma of nuclear means, accomplish
equivalent ends of destructiveness.
The Non-use Norm and World Order

As suggested in the discussion of the cw taboo, both the chemical and the nuclear
prohibitionary norms have become instruments for structuring certain kinds of status
hierarchies in the international system, thus becoming, in effect, "world order" norms. This
development is particularly interesting in the nuclear case because of the patently
asymmetrical application of varying nuclear prohibitionary norms to different categories of
states and because of the remarkably widespread--if ultimately fragile--acceptance of the
legitimacy of this asymmetry.
In the post-Cold War era, nuclear proliferation has replaced superpower conflict as the major
potential threat to the tradition of non-use. The links between non-use and nonproliferation
are best understood in terms of the differing--and sometimes tenuous--degrees of legitimacy
that the international community appears to attach to different aspects of nuclear
weapons--use, acquisition, possession, and deterrence--and the ambivalence toward such
weapons that this attitude ultimately reflects. 63 These various nuclear taboos apply
unequally to states--only the great powers may legitimately possess nuclear weapons, for
example--and provide mechanisms for the international community to differentiate the status
and legitimacy of the various states. Compliance with the appropriate nuclear norms
reinforces the identity of states and their status as legitimate members of the international
community and/or as a certain kind of state (responsible, civilized, etc.).
The non-use norm, for example, provides the basis for justifying asymmetrical rights and
statuses between nuclear and nonnuclear powers. On one hand, the non-use norm has the
effect of legitimating and stabilizing the practice of deterrence between the superpowers.
Stable nuclear deterrence could not be taken for granted at the end of the 1950s; up to 1962,
U.S.-Soviet relations were unstable because there was as yet no expected process by which
they were conducted and there were few shared norms. After 1962, deterrence was stabilized
by a host of arms control agreements that embodied a variety of shared understandings about
nuclear weapons and were based implicitly on the expectation that nuclear weapons should
not be used. 64 These made the process predictable and legitimated the concept and practice
of deterrence as the appropriate form of superpower political competition.
On the other hand, nuclear deterrence is a practice reserved for the superpowers, and the
non-use norm at the same time serves to justify the illegitimacy of the acquisition of nuclear
weapons by the majority of the world. This relationship between non-use of nuclear weapons
and "nonacquisition" is explicitly embodied in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in
various commitments by the nuclear powers not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear
powers who are parties to the treaty. 65
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Norms, Constructivism, and Explanation

In the final section, we briefly compare and contrast the two cases, with the aims of drawing
out some generalizations and also clarifying more specifically a constructivist conception of
the role of norms. Specifically, we summarize and assess the contribution of our cases with
respect to three questions: (1) What are alternative explanations of non-use? (2) How do these
norms matter (what were their effects)? (3) Where did these norms come from (why is
rationalism insufficient)? Consideration of these questions helps to illuminate the basic
constructivist argument about norms and how they work, in particular why and how it is not
merely a matter of explaining "residual variance."
The Two Cases Compared

The chemical and nuclear cases present a number of interesting similarities and differences
with respect to the origins and role of norms. While both are highly specific norms, the nuclear
non-use norm was initially uninstitutionalized (in fact, "use" is what was institutionalized),
while the anti-cw norm was institutionalized from its earliest origins. 66 In the nuclear case,
the de facto norm arose first, and only later did it begin to become institutionalized in bilateral
and multilateral security and arms control agreements. Unlike the case of the chemical taboo,
there is as yet no specifically legal prohibition against the use of nuclear weapons. 67 This
process contrasts with that depicted by the dominant approach to norms in the international
relations literature (i.e., rationalist regime theory), which tends to focus on how norms are
created in the process of negotiating institutions (a process that may be more characteristic of
political economy than of security issues). In contrast, the anti-cw norm is not only
institutionalized, but the fact that it was institutionalized before the development of modern
chemical weapons is perhaps the single most outstanding feature that explains how cw have
been so successfully ostracized. Finally, the nuclear non-use norm is probably stronger and
more widespread than the chemical taboo, despite the fact that it is largely a de facto norm.
These cases also raise the issue of the relationship between national and international norms.
The nuclear case focuses on how a norm arose in a national context (that of the United States)
and then was subse quently diffused more broadly, while the chemical case involves a norm
that was created at the international level and then diffused into national policies. 68 Both of
these analyses could, in theory, be broadened to look at the rise of these non-use norms
globally (though this is not to claim that they are universal), the various processes by which
this rise occurred, and the way these norms now shape actors' perceptions of their identities
and interests. We have suggested how they both constitute part of a larger explanation
concerning the rise of international society and efforts to regulate the destructiveness of
warfare among "civilized" states. It was because of such concerns that cw (especially) and,
later, nuclear arms control and disarmament were placed on the international agenda in the
first place.
The single most important effect of these taboos, however, is that the delegitimation of these
weapons constrains the practice of self-help in the international state system. Military
technologies that might be useful under some circumstances are successfully proscribed. This
phenomenon belies the realist view--captured in the sayings "war is hell" and "in time of war
law is silent"--that everything is permitted in warfare. Rather, the existence of prohibitionary
norms reveals that war is rarely absolute; instead, it displays features of a social institution. 69
National leaders are forced to seek or develop alternative technologies for use in war or
defense--or else risk being classified as acting outside the bounds of "civilized" international
society. "Society," not anarchy, is the source of constraining and permissive effects.
In sum, these stories suggest that the path of normative development can be highly varied.
They suggest that prohibitionary norms can be institutionalized early or late, that they can
arise from different sources--from power politics, moral opprobrium, and/or domestic
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politics--and that they can arise either in a national context and be diffused more broadly or at
the international level. They also suggest that norms may arise more or less spontaneously or
as the result of intentional efforts. Finally, they point to the important role of historical
contingency in normative development, highlighting the often nonlinear, contingent, and
contradictory features of this process.
Alternative Explanations
Why were the weapons not used? We have argued that the development of prohibitionary
norms was a necessary condition for the limited use of nuclear and chemical weapons.
Without these taboos, the patterns of use would likely have looked quite different. In short,
there would have been more use. In order to explicate more precisely the nature of this claim,
we show below how it relates to possible alternative explanations.
Several alternative explanations could be put forth. The most skeptical is the occasionally cited
argument that nuclear and chemical weapons were not very useful and hence states did not
use them. In this view--a classic realist argument--norms are simply frosting on the cake. They
merely prohibit what states did not want to do anyway. States possessed alternatives (namely,
conventional weapons) and therefore did not need to use nuclear or chemical weapons.
This view is easy to reject on both empirical and conceptual grounds. Both of these weapons
were clearly viewed as useful weapons for a range of circumstances and were, in fact, used,
with great effect. 70 The U.S. nuclear arsenal was initially developed as a more desirable,
"more-bang-for-the-buck" alternative to a more expensive conventional force (a relationship
that has since been reversed because of the nuclear taboo). Since the advent of thermonuclear
weapons, there has never been any real doubt about the military effectiveness of nuclear
weapons or their potential for terror. Even as some U.S. political leaders began to question
privately the utility of nuclear weapons, others, especially in the military, continued to view
tactical nuclear weapons as militarily useful. 71 If anything, the history of nuclear weapons is
a history of unresolved disputes over their utility, which continued into the 1990-1991 Gulf
war.
Similarly, we noted earlier that in the case of chemical weapons there has always been an
unresolved debate over their utility, because of limita tions such as dependence on weather
conditions. There are, however, undeniable instances in the historical record in which it was
recognized that cw would have been enormously useful from a military standpoint--Dunkirk,
D day, and U.S. operations against the Japanese in the Pacific islands, to cite just a few
examples.
Beyond the empirical inaccuracy of the claim, however, the very fact that the supposed lack of
"utility" is put forth as a reason for non-use despite the historical record demonstrates a key
constructivist contention. "Utility," like "rationality," can be read back into history to tell a
compelling story, but it is not at all obvious that such "reasons" were decisive, nor is it clear
how they developed in the first place. In fact, the rationalist argument often imposes a
backward teleology: because these weapons were not used, it is assumed they could not have
been very useful, and that is therefore taken to be the reason for non-use. Our taken-
for-granted beliefs today that these weapons are not "useful" must not obscure the fact that
they have been viewed as quite useful to accomplish specific military tasks, and those same
technological capabilities remain. 72 If, indeed, states did not find them "useful," the more
fundamental question is why states did not think they were useful, which we maintain had
quite a bit to do with the existence of taboos.
A second line of alternative argument would accept the view that these weapons possess utility
but would identify a set of "non-norms" reasons as to why they did not get used. That is, there
may be reasons for non-use that have nothing to do with norms. 73 These could include, for
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example, fear of immediate retaliation, fear of longer-term military consequences, public and
international opinion constraints, lack of organizational readiness, and so on. This perspective
would suggest setting up a "test" between a "norms" explanation and a "non-norms"
explanation. The analytical goal would be to establish what proportion of the "outcomes" is
explained by "norms" and what proportion is explained by other factors. Neoliberal
institutionalism takes this approach, a view quite sympathetic to the role of norms.
We entirely agree that these factors enter into an account of non-use for both of these
weapons, though to varying degrees (for example, "lack of organizational readiness" does not
apply to nuclear weapons). However, the problem with framing the question as such is that
these supposed non-norms factors may not in fact be independent variables. They may only
become politically salient because of the prior existence of a taboo or norm, however strong or
weak. For example, while "lack of organizational readiness" in chemical warfare is not entirely
reducible to normative disdain for cw, we show that such constraints were unlikely to have
been decisive in the absence of more-politicized sources of restraint issuing directly from the
cw taboo.
This point gets to the heart of a constructivist perspective on norms. Viewing norms as
capturing the "residual variance," while consistent with a standard treatment of variables,
misses the core of constructivism. Constructivism does not view the world in terms of
discretely existing independent variables whose independent effect on variance can be
measured according to the logic of statistics. This was, after all, Friedrich Kratochwil and John
Ruggie's critique of treating norms as variables. 74 Instead, certain issues, events, possibilities
may matter--they become meaningful--only in the context of a norm. Thus a distinction
between "norms" and "non-norms" explanations may in some instances risk becoming a false
dichotomy. For example, to argue that nuclear and chemical weapons were not used because
alternatives were available obscures the fact that alternatives would not even have been sought
in the first place if these weapons had been seen as just another uncontroversial weapon, like
grenades or artillery shells. What counts as a concern is shaped by the normative context.
Norms structure realms of possibilities; they do not determine outcomes. Attaching a

percentage figure to the effects of the norms versus the effects of other factors may be one way
to think about norms and outcomes. But we think this approach is inaccurate, because, as our
cases show, other factors (e.g., cost/benefits of use versus non-use) become politicized and
relevant only in the context of a prohibitionary norm that adds force to such factors. It was the
combination of these factors at historical junctures that mattered, and without the norm, the
combination would not have been as potent. That doesn't mean that the norm did all the work
itself, nor does it mean that the norm is simply residual.
The bottom line is that these taboos were a necessary condition--in the sense that we describe
above--for the pattern of non-use of these weapons, but they alone were not the single,
all-powerful "variable."
How These Norms Matter

It is important to underscore that norms are quite marginal in the existing deterrence
literature and that we are asking about a dimension of analysis that receives little attention in
the standard treatments. Because we are telling a "norms story," it is easy to assume that we
must be making a case for the all-determining effects of all-powerful norms. We do not claim
these taboos are truly "taken-for-granted" norms--that is, fully developed, robust
intersubjective structures of the type that are the focus of some interpretive theorists. 75 They
are rather contested norms-in-process that have on occasion but not always exhibited the
quality of an unthinking context (more true for nuclear than chemical weapons).
Our case studies illustrate a number of ways in which norms work. As we have stated, they
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structure realms of possibilities and create "options" that would not have been self-evident in
the absence of a norm. 76 But they need not be wholly "taken for granted" to count. We have
also indicated the way they operate instrumentally--for example, as public opinion constraints
on leaders in the case of nuclear weapons and as a source of bargaining leverage in the global
nonproliferation regime for Arab states in the case of cw.
These stories also are not just tales of two taboos in isolation. As we show, they are firmly
embedded in deeper, "civilizational" normative structures. While the taboos themselves may
be "in process," the higher-order discourses and world-order norms we refer to--of value-
neutral technology and "civilization"--possess the kind of taken-for-grantedness of a norm as
intersubjective context.
For example, how do we account for the fact that the anti-cw norm is sometimes obeyed,
sometimes violated? Deterrence arguments underscore that since World War I the only use of
cw has been against a foe that did not have a cw retaliatory capability. But explaining patterns
of use and non-use via fear of retaliation fails to account for myriad situations in which no fear
of retaliation existed and cw still were not used. To make sense of these practices, we need to
take account of the higher-order norm of "civilization," which castigates users of cw as unfit
for membership in civilized international society. This normative discourse structures new
contexts of the realm of acceptable practice. It does not determine outcomes but makes certain
practices acceptable or illegitimate. Without the cw taboo, there would not have been such
otherwise unexplainable variation--cw would simply have been used whenever appropriate
without controversy.
Likewise, without the normative inhibition on nuclear use it would be difficult to explain why
the Soviet Union did not resort to nuclear weapons to avoid a costly and humiliating defeat in
Afghanistan, why Britain did not use nuclear weapons in the Falklands, why Israel did not use
them on Egypt in 1973, or the United States in the Gulf war--all cases in which the adversary
could not retaliate in kind. It is also essential to making sense of the perceived illegitimacy of
even benign uses of nuclear explosions, such as for blasting new riverbeds in northern Russia
or harbors in developing countries. In remarking on the blanket perception of nuclear
weapons as "evil," Thomas Schelling has noted the "virtually universal rejection" by American
arms controllers and energy-policy analysts in the 1970s of a proposal to create an ecologically
clean source of electrical energy that would have detonated tiny thermonuclear bombs in
underground caverns to generate steam. As Schelling commented, "I have seen this idea
unanimously dismissed without argument, as if the objections were too obvious to require
articulation." The view was simply that "even 'good' thermonuclear explosions are bad and
should be kept that way." 77 In sum, norms can work in a variety of ways and have a variety of
effects. We highlight constraining, permissive, and constitutive effects of these taboos. They
may manifest differing degrees of embeddedness or taken-for-grantedness. Norms can justify
action or the lack thereof. They can work instrumentally, for example, out of fear of
punishments (sanctions, costs) or the constraints imposed by domestic or international public
opinion (this is consistent with a rationalist formulation). Norms also have permissive or
enabling effects, permitting alternatives through both focusing and obscuring effects. They
may also have constitutive effects--as we suggest with regard to the larger discourse of
"civilization" and identity. Here they work because of conceptions of "who we are"--certain
kinds of people just do or do not do certain things. Finally, they can be such a taken-
for-granted part of "context" that they are not consciously considered at all.
Constructivism's contribution is that it evokes the "context" effects of norms. It rejects the
dichotomy of norms versus interests/material factors. Material factors by themselves are not
all there is; their meaning depends on how they are interpreted. We have shown that even in
the hardest cases, such as nuclear weapons--in which material factors should be so
overwhelming--it would be impossible to tell an entirely non-norms story about these non-use
events.
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Origins of Norms
A final issue is how we account for the existence of these taboos in the first place. As we have
outlined above, the conventional explanation is a rationalist, functionalist one. It accepts the
genuine usefulness of the taboos but argues that they reflect a straightforward utility function.
These taboos and the resultant self-restraint are in the interests of states, and this explains
both their origins and why people continue to observe them. 78
We have two lines of response to this explanation. First, as we argue, a rationalist account of
the origins of these taboos is either wrong (cw) or incomplete (nw) on empirical grounds. For
cw, the essentialist reasoning as exhibited by Mandelbaum cannot account for the taboo, and
the argument from utility does not hold up. For nuclear weapons, the rationality argument,
which dominates the literature, is important but underspecified and insufficient. It misses the
fact that luck, contingency, iterated behavior, and moral concerns all went into changing
interpretations of "interests" and the calculation of "rational" costs and benefits. Further,
simply attributing abhorrence to nuclear weapons does not account for the changing context
(such that they were not seen as prohibitively abhorrent during World War II but they were
afterward).
This leads us to our second point, which is that a rationalist account is ultimately
indeterminate. Saying that the origins of the taboos are ratio nally based begs the question of
what gets to count as rational and why. Once taboos of self-restraint exist, it may well be
functional to uphold them (for either instrumental or constitutive reasons). But our question is
the prior one of what constitutes "functional" or "rational." We can imagine, for example,
other taboos that would be very "functional" but that don't exist--taboos on war, handguns,
cigarettes, missiles, etc. For example, it would have been very functional indeed for the
belligerents in World War I to forsake the senseless slaughter of the trenches by "mutually
deterring" each other from using machine guns. But they did not. Thus perhaps a weakness of
our research design is that we do not study noncases of taboos, which might make clearer our
point that there is nothing inevitable about the existence of these taboos, even though they
might seem so self-evidently rational in retrospect. 79
Ultimately, it must be admitted, a rational story can be told about virtually any outcome in
retrospect. But honest inquiry recognizes that rationalism, like any theoretical perspective, has
both uses and limits; constructivism's contributions lie in probing the latter. It may well be that
rationalism has theorized about norms and culture, i.e., instrumentally, and has explained
them with rational choice arguments. We show other kinds of effects, and we demonstrate that
these taboos developed for other reasons as well. We are not giving a story about
"irrationality," but one about what counts as rational. A rational deterrence argument is thus
not necessarily incompatible with the more complex "taboo" argument. Constructivism asks a
different set of questions and attempts to fill in the gaps that rationalist approaches leave
unexplained.
From the perspective of what counts as theory in international relations, our theoretical claims
are modest. Our aims are more descriptive than theoretical, at least insofar as the focus on
origins goes. We do draw on our case studies to suggest a number of generalizations regarding
normative development and effects. But we make no claim to the kind of grand theory of
international politics that overturns realist or liberal theory. Rather, the goal is to convince
deterrence and rational choice theorists of the incompleteness of their arguments, not to
defeat them in some epic Lakatosian battle as if only one can exist and the other must perish.
In conclusion, readers might wish to imagine what the world might be like if the taboos
vanished--namely, if the use of these weapons came to seem "normal." This is an image of the
future that practically everyone finds utterly horrible to contemplate. Perhaps taboos can thus
be con ceived of as providing images of "implicit possible futures." They implicitly contain or
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communicate a subconscious human awareness or vision of a terrible state of affairs that could
come to pass if the future develops in a certain way. 80
Such a thought experiment suggests the meaningfulness of these taboos. Our insistence on
historical contingency and luck reminds us that while there are no iron laws of history here,
even a world arranged according to human constructions has its limits.
For their helpful comments and criticisms, we would like to thank the participants
in the conferences at Cornell, Minnesota, and Stanford, and especially Judith
Goldstein, Ronald Jepperson, Peter Katzenstein, Jeffrey Legro, Diana Richards,
Scott Sagan, Alexander Wendt, and the late Richard Smoke.
Note 1: Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of
Power Politics," International Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 391-425. Back.
Note 2: For constructivist arguments regarding the structure of the international system, see
Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It"; also see David Dessler, "What's at Stake in the
Agent-Structure Debate?" International Organization 43, no. 3 (Summer 1989): 441-74.
Back.
Note 3: Rational deterrence theory posits three basic requirements for deterring an
adversary: credible capabilities, a clearly communicated threat, and a credible willingness to
carry out the threat. See William Kaufman, "The Requirements of Deterrence," in William
Kaufman, ed., Military Policy and National Security, p. 19 (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1956). Back.
Note 4: The best discussion in support of rational deterrence theory is Christopher Aachen
and Duncan Snidal, "Rational Deterrence Theory and Comparative Case Studies," World
Politics 41, no. 2 (January 1989): 143-69. Deterrence theory has at its core rational choice
theory, to which it adds a set of assumptions about the nature of strategic actors. Useful
discussions are Daniel Little, "Rational Choice Theory," in Daniel Little, Varieties of Social
Explanation, pp. 39-67 (Boulder: Westview, 1991), and Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence: A
Conceptual Analysis, vol. 40, Sage Library of Social Research (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1977),
pp. 77-100. Back.
Note 5: See, for example, Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1989); Albert Carnesale et al., Living with Nuclear
Weapons (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983); and McGeorge Bundy, Danger and
Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988).
On the cw case, see n. 9 below. Back.
Note 6: The handful of public calls for U.S. use of tactical nuclear weapons during the
Persian Gulf war specifically invoked the 1945 precedent of saving American lives. Mirroring
earlier arguments that were employed to justify the use of atomic weapons against Japan,
some of the advocates of U.S. nuclear use against Iraqi troops went even further, underscoring
the potential savings in lives on both sides of the battlefield if the United States used nuclear
weapons. See, for example, physicist Lawrence Cranberg's "Tactical Nukes in Iraq: An Option
That Could Ultimately Save Lives," New York City Tribune, November 20, 1990; Congressman
Dan Burton on Crossfire , January 11, 1991; John Barry, "The Nuclear Option: Thinking the
Unthinkable," Newsweek , January 14, 1991, pp. 16-17. Back.
Note 7: Referring to the non-use of cw between the Western Allies and the Axis powers
during World War II is not to ignore that cw was employed by Japan in its campaigns in China
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and that the Germans used gas in their concentration camps. Back.
Note 8: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (hereafter sipri), The Problem of
Chemical and Biological Warfare, vol. 4, CB Disarmament Negotiations, 1920-1970
(Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1971), p. 21. Back.
Note 9: See Frederic J. Brown, Chemical Warfare: A Study in Constraints (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1968); sipri, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare,
vol. 1, The Rise of CB Weapons (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1971); sipri, The Problem of
Chemical and Biological Warfare, vol. 5, The Prevention of CBW (Stockholm: Almqvist and
Wiksell, 1971); Kenneth Adelman, "Chemical Weapons: Restoring the Taboo," Orbis 30, no. 3
(Fall 1986): 444; Susan Wright, "The Military and the New Biology," Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists 41, no. 5 (May 1985): 10; and John Ellis van Courtland Moon, "Chemical Warfare: A
Forgotten Lesson," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 45, no. 6 (August 1989): 40-43. Back.
Note 10: sipri, The Rise of CB Weapons, p. 321; Brown, Chemical Warfare, p. 296. Back.
Note 11: sipri, The Rise of CB Weapons, pp. 334, 322; Brown, Chemical Warfare, pp. 293,
295. A number of factors have been identified as contributing to the failure of military
establishments to be adequately prepared for chemical warfare in the years leading up to
World War II: the uncertain military value of cw, the resistance of tradition-bound military
cultures, the extra logistical burden of cw, and so on. Jeffrey W. Legro offers an organizational
culture explanation in his richly researched Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint
During World War II (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995).
Similar kinds of resistance often accompany new weapons technologies, but rarely do they
result in total abstinence from using such weapons. The argument here is that what made such
factors politically decisive in retarding the acceptance of cw--and thus ultimately prevented
their use in World War II--was the existence of a stigma against cw. Back.
Note 12: See Paul Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the
Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon, 1985). Back.
Note 13: China attacked U.S. forces during the Korean War, North Vietnamese forces
attacked U.S. forces in Vietnam, Egypt attacked Israel in 1973, Argentina attacked British
forces over the Falklands in 1982, and most recently, Iraq attacked Israel and U.S. bases in
Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf war. Back.
Note 14: This is made clear by Richard Betts's careful survey of cases of Cold War nuclear
crises in Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution,
1987). Back.
Note 15: John Lewis Gaddis, "The Origins of Self-Deterrence: The United States and the
Non-use of Nuclear Weapons, 1945-1958," in The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the
Cold War, pp. 104-46 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Back.
Note 16: For example, during World War II, tests were done in the U.S. to determine the
effectiveness of using cw against Japanese forces barricaded in the caves and tunnels of the
Pacific islands. Even the most cautious assessments of those tests concluded that cw would be
effective, while some argued that the tests demonstrated that "gas is the most promising of all
weapons for overcoming cave defenses" (John Ellis van Courtland Moon, "Project sphinx: The
Question of the Use of Gas in the Planned Invasion of Japan," Journal of Strategic Studies 12,
no. 3 [September 1989]: 303-23). See also Richard Price, "A Genealogy of the Chemical
Weapons Taboo" (Ph.D diss., Cornell University, 1994). Back.
Note 17: See his Nuclear Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 39,
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48. Back.
Note 18: As noted by Robert Keohane, "International Institutions: Two Approaches," in

Robert Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations
Theory, pp. 158-79 (Boulder: Westview, 1989). To cite but one example, the U.S. was the
dominant force behind interwar efforts to proscribe cw, even though it was recognized that the
country would be giving up a material advantage with such a prohibition. See the remarks of
the Navy Board in U.S. Senate, Disarmament and Security: A Collection of Documents,
1919-55 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1956), p. 701. Back.
Note 19: James Turner Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and
Historical Inquiry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. x. Back.
Note 20: See Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann and
R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1989); and Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche,
Genealogy, History," in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, pp. 76-100 (New York:
Pantheon, 1984). Back.
Note 21: Francesca Cancian, What Are Norms? A Study of Beliefs and Action in a Maya
Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 137; Peter L. Berger and
Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Anchor Books, 1966), part
3, pp. 129-84; Alexander Wendt, "State Autonomy and Structural Change in International
Relations Theory" (unpublished manuscript, Yale University, December 1992). Back.
Note 22: For example, the Geneva Protocol was the product of a conference on the traffic in
arms; it decided that it did not have the competence to create a new norm against cw. The
protocol was actually enunciated as only a reaffirmation of an existing norm meant as a
transitory measure until a future conference on cw could be held. Back.
Note 23: Brown, Chemical Warfare, p. 180. Back.
Note 24: The turnaround in assessments of gas warfare by these propagandists was
remarkable. In contrast to earlier warnings of the catastrophic potential of cw, see the revised
assessments by members of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service in New York Time s, September
10, 1926, p. 6, and November 26, 1926, p. 12. One can imagine the contempt with which, in a
moment of unsurpassed irony, the president of the American Chemical Society declared that
the widespread feeling against gas was the result of hysteria and propaganda (New York
Times , December 11, 1926, p. 3). Back.
Note 25: "To anyone who was prepared to consider the potentialities of cw dispassionately, it
would have been clear that the chemical threat did not differ markedly from that posed by
high-explosive weapons. Against well-equipped and well-disciplined troops, the chemical
weapons of the time would never be overwhelming; if anything, their efficacy had declined
since 1918" (sipri, The Rise of CB Weapons, p. 247). See also Times (London) editorial of April
3, 1923, p. 7; and L. F. Haber, The Poisonous Cloud (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 288,
307, and 317. By 1927, a New York Times editorial (February 16, 1927, p. 22) had dismissed
the exaggerated fears of cw as "sheer romancing," noting that the previous war had
demonstrated that high explosives were far more destructive. Back.
Note 26: U.S. Department of State, Conference on the Limitation of Armament (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1922), p. 730. Back.
Note 27: Charles E. Hughes, "Possible Gains," in Proceedings of the American Society of
International Law, pp. 1-2 (Washington, D.C.: American Society of International Law, 1927).
Back.
22 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
Note 28: The treaty did not come into effect--the French failed to ratify it because of their
opposition to provisions regarding submarines. Back.
Note 29: At least until 1992, when agreement was reached on the Chemical Weapons
Convention. Back.
Note 30: See Congressional Record, 69th Cong., 2d sess., 1927, 68, pt. 1:150. Back.
Note 31: "Paper Interviews 'Aziz on Kurds, Other Issues," Kuwait AL-QABAS in Arabic,
October 31, 1988, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (hereafter FBIS), November 2, 1988,
p. 27; and "WAKH Reports Khayrallah 15 September Press Conference," Manama WAKH in
Arabic, 15 September 1988 FBIS, September 16, 1988, pp. 23-24. Back.
Note 32: The Chemical Weapons Convention (cwc), which opened for signature in January
1993, prohibits the possession, production, and transfer of cw. At the time of writing, 159
states have signed the cwc. Back.
Note 33: The rise of the society of states is associated with the work of Hedley Bull and
Adam Watson. See in particular Bull's Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1977); Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, eds., The
Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); and also Gerritt W.
Gong, The Standard of "Civilisation" in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1984). Back.
Note 34: See, e.g., Anthony Eden's impassioned speech reported in New York Times , April
21, 1936, p. 18. Back.
Note 35: For example, the U.S. military "denied that there were any lessons to be learned
from the use of gas as a weapon of opportunity against a totally unprepared enemy in a
colonial war" (Brown, Chemical Warfare, p. 145). For a similar German assessment, see
Rolf-Dieter Muller, "World Power Status Through the Use of Poison Gas? German
Preparations for Chemical Warfare, 1919-1945," in Wilhelm Deist, ed., The German Military in
the Age of Total War, pp. 183, 189 (Warwickshire: Berg Publishers, 1985). Back.
Note 36: George Quester, Deterrence Before Hiroshima: The Airpower Background of
Modern Strategy (New York: John Wiley, 1966), p. 78. Thus while reports of Japan's use of cw
against the Chinese were ignored, even the suggestion that cw was being contemplated in
Spain drew preemptory attention from Britain. The use of tear gas by government forces was
reported, and the insurgents claimed that they, too, had gas but "refuse to break the
international law which forbids its use" (Times [London], August 19, 1936, p. 10). In response,
Britain sent its diplomats to investigate these allegations and convey the grave consequences
that might follow from the use of gas even in reprisal (Times [London], September 8, 1936, p.
12). Back.
Note 37: John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York:
Basic Books, 1989). Similarly, Francis Fukuyama has drawn a sharp distinction between the
behavior of the Third World and the industrial democracies--the historical and posthistorical
parts of the world. He argues that the rules of the latter are different from those of the former
and that it is only in the historical world that the old rules of power politics continue to apply
(Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man [New York: Free Press, 1992]). See
also James Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, "A Tale of Two Worlds: Core and Periphery in the
Post-Cold War Era," International Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 467-91; and Michael
Doyle's finding that democracies do not fight wars against each other in "Kant, Liberal
Legacies, and Foreign Affairs," parts 1 and 2, Philosophy and Public Affairs 12 (Summer and
Fall 1983): 205-35 and 323-53. Back.
23 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
Note 38: And as Michael Adas has demonstrated, it was the level of technological
sophistication--rather than race, religion, morality, or other factors--that served as the chief
standard by which the West judged the degree of civilization of other societies. See his
exhaustive account in Machines as the Measure of Men (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1989). Back.
Note 39: Giornale d'Italia, as reported in New York Times , July 4, 1935, p. 1. See also Amy
Gurowitz, "The Expansion of International Society and the Effects of Norms" (unpublished
paper, 1993). Back.
Note 40: New York Times, July 2, 1988, p. A3. Back.
Note 41: As one author has remarked, "The major nations' unwillingness to eliminate their
nuclear weapons while resisting further chemical (and nuclear) proliferation is seen in some
Third World nations as the height of hypocrisy. It sends a message that 'the lesser nations
aren't mature enough for the most powerful of military capabilities' " (Victor A. Utgoff,
"Neutralizing the Value of Chemical Weapons: A Strong Supplement to Chemical Weapons
Arms Control," in Joachim Krause, ed., Security Implications of a Global Weapons Ban, p. 97
[Boulder: Westview, 1991]). See also Geoffrey Kemp, "The Arms Race After the Iran-Iraq
War," in Efraim Karsh, ed., The Iran-Iraq War, pp. 269-79 (New York: St. Martin's, 1989). He
argues that "many countries in the Near East and South Asia express a profound irritation at
what they perceive to be selective Western outrage over the use of chemicals. They believe that
the United States, having failed to prevent India, Pakistan and Israel from building nuclear
weapons is now trying to deny them the very weapons that provide some sort of counter
balance to nuclear devices" (p. 277). Back.
Note 42: Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," pp. 85-86. Back.
Note 43: This is not to say, however, that the view has not been expressed privately in the
developing world--though not in official public discourse--that to die by chemical weapons is
neither more nor less horrible than to die by bullet or flame. See, e.g., the testimony of Brad
Roberts in U.S. Congress, Chemical Warfare: Arms Control and Nonproliferation (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), pp. 60-61. Back.
Note 44: See Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War
II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); and Michael S. Sherry, The Rise of American
Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987). Back.
Note 45: Sheldon Cohen, Arms and Judgment: Law, Morality, and the Conduct of War in the
Twentieth Century (Boulder: Westview, 1989), p. 91. It is important to note that while this
view was shared by important segments of the military and political leadership, it was not the
view of many of the scientists who had worked on the bomb, such as Robert Oppenheimer,
who had a better appreciation of the revolutionary significance of the weapon. As the postwar
period unfolded, the debate was precisely about whether nuclear weapons were revolutionary
or not. Einstein's famous phrase "everything has changed except our way of thinking"
indicates that both sides are right here. Back.
Note 46: On August 14 and 15, a 1,014-plane mission, the largest of the war, staged a
fourteen-hour bombing attack on six Japanese cities, dropping six thousand tons of
conventional explosives. This was after Radio Tokyo had broadcast Japanese acceptance of
American terms (but before the message had reached Washington through official channels).
According to the U.S. Air Force official history of the war, Air Force Chief of Staff Hap Arnold
"wanted as big a finale as possible" (quoted in Leon V. Sigal, Fighting to a Finish: The Politics
of War Termination in the United States and Japan, 1945 [Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1988], p. 254). New York Times , "Superforts Stage 6-Target Wind-Up," August 15, 1945, p. 8;
Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam, 2d ed. (New York: Penguin,
24 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
1985), p. 26. Back.
Note 47: Sigal, Fighting to a Finish, p. 207. Back.
Note 48: See Barton J. Bernstein, "Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking
About Tactical Nuclear Weapons," International Security 15, no. 4 (Spring 1991): 149-73.
Back.
Note 49: Quester, Deterrence Before Hiroshima, pp. 1-2. Back.
Note 50: The very first resolution of the new United Nations General Assembly adopted
unanimously as a goal "the control of atomic energy to the extent necessary to ensure its use
only for peaceful purposes" (un ga Resolution 1[I], January 24, 1946). In a long paper in the
fall of 1949 opposing development of the hydrogen bomb, George Kennan urged U.S. leaders
to reconsider their commitment to the principle of nuclear first use, expressing strong
aversion to that option (John Newhouse, War and Peace in the Nuclear Age [New York:
Knopf, 1989], p. 77). This suggestion was not well received by Dean Acheson, who suggested
that Kennan could go and preach his "Quaker gospel" somewhere else (David S. McLellen,
Dean Acheson: The State Department Years [New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976], p. 176).
Starting in 1946, the Soviet Union regularly proposed that the use of nuclear weapons be
prohibited, as a first step toward a comprehensive program of disarmament. Back.
Note 51: Gaddis, "The Origins of Self-Deterrence"; Gregg Herken, The Winning Weapon:
The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War (New York: Knopf, 1980); Lawrence Freedman, The
Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 2d ed. (New York: St. Martin's, 1989). Back.
Note 52: See the records of discussions in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954,
vol. 15, Korea, part 1, pp. 721-1151, and part 2, pp. 1152-446; and vol. 2, National Security
Affairs, part 1, pp. 202-464. Back.
Note 53: C. Gerard Smith, who was close to Dulles and who was the director of Policy
Planning at the time, recalled in an interview the attempt to disabuse Dulles of the notion that
using nuclear weapons on military targets adjacent to the islands would not cause a large
number of civilian deaths. Dulles was "being tempted by an activist group in the Pentagon that
wanted to take out the artillery batteries at Amoy that were shelling the islands." Smith called
in some weapons specialists from the Pentagon and asked them to estimate the civilian
casualties that any such limited nuclear strike would produce. They estimated about 186,000
civilian casualties. Said Smith, "I never heard another word about it after that" (Newhouse,
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age, p. 126). Back.
Note 54: The Single Integrated Operations Plan (siop) is the main operational statement of
U.S. plans for using nuclear weapons in the event of a Soviet attack. For a concise history of
siop, see David Alan Rosenberg, "The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American
Strategy, 1945-1960," International Security 7, no. 4 (Spring 1983): 3-71. Back.
Note 55: An example is the decolonization/self-determination norm. See the discussion in

Thomas Franck, The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1990), pp. 153-74. Back.
Note 56: In the nuclear case, the fact that the decision to use nuclear weapons rests with the
president creates a significant gap between what the military has plans for and what the
president might actually do. The historical record suggests that presidential thinking about
nuclear weapons has been relatively independent of developments in strategic planning in the
military. See Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, and Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and
Nuclear Balance. Back.
25 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
Note 57: Author interview, Office of Policy Planning, State Department, March 6, 1992.
Back.
Note 58: A Pentagon physicist calculated during the war that the conventional ordnance
dropped on Iraq per week averaged the equivalent of a one-kiloton nuclear bomb (author
interview, Pentagon, Washington, D.C., March 5, 1992). Back.
Note 59: Fuel-air explosives (faes) are among the most lethal of the new generation of
high-tech weapons. They are a kind of gas bomb involving two detonations. Fuel dispersed in
the air is ignited and detonates, creating a huge fireball and an invisible shock wave, which
officials have described as similar to a tactical nuclear weapon. It spreads rapidly across a wide
area and is capable of flattening buildings, destroying aircraft, knocking down oil rigs, and
killing troops. According to Pentagon estimates, at peak efficiency FAEs have destructive
effects ten times more powerful than conventional explosives of the same size (Douglas Frantz
and Melissa Healy, "Iraqi Bomb Gives Nuke-Type Blast, Pentagon Says," Los Angeles Times,
October 5, 1990, p. 18). Back.
Note 60: That is, the reasoning was not "Nuclear weapons are too destructive" but rather
"We now have weapons that are as destructive as nuclear weapons." According to one
commentator, nuclear use by the United States would be highly unlikely because "it has
conventional weapons equivalent to very small nuclear weapons" (Juan J. White, "U.S. Forces
Probably Have 500 N-Arms in Gulf," USA Today, November 30, 1990, p. 10). An analyst who
studied nuclear warfare for the Air Force said, "Today we've got conventional weapons that
approach the effectiveness of the old nuclear stuff. We can dig out those Iraqi bunkers more
effectively with guided 2000-pound bombs than with tactical nuclear weapons--and without
the moral downside" (David Wood, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, February 10, 1991, p. 15). Said a
former assistant secretary of defense, "Militarily you don't need them in terms of the damage
you want to inflict on Iraq" (Lawrence Korb, quoted in Lee Michael Katz and Richard Latture,
"Nuke Threat Always Implied," USA Today , February 8, 1991). Back.
Note 61: The most outspoken exhortations for nuclear use during the Gulf war came from
Representative Dan Burton (R-Ind.) and physicist Sam Cohen, the "father of the neutron
bomb." Burton argued that use of tactical nuclear weapons would save American lives (Dan
Burton, "Tactical Nuclear Weapons Could Save Lives," USA Today , February 13, 1991, p. 10).
Cohen urged the use of neutron artillery shells to attack Iraqi armored columns. He endorsed
nuclear weapons as a more discriminating and effective weapon; see Sam Cohen, "Use
Neutron Bomb on Iraqis?" Los Angeles Times, August 18, 1990. To dismiss such people as
crackpots only reinforces the general perception of these notions as "beyond the pale" or
"unthinkable" today. Despite the fact that both of them sought to justify nuclear use in
just-war terms of proportionate destruction and saving lives, their views prompted outrage
among other editorialists, opinion makers and security experts. See, for example, Mary
McGrory, "Chilling Talk of Using Nukes," Washington Post, February 14, 1991, p. A2; Leslie
Gelb, "Gas, Germs, and Nukes," New York Times , January 30, 1991; Joseph Nye, "Nuclear
Restraint--Now and Later," Boston Globe, February 21, 1991, p. 13; Ellen Goodman, "The
Nuke-em Brigade," Boston Globe, February 14, 1991, p. 31.
For a discussion of "micronukes," see Thomas W. Dowler and Joseph S. Howard II,
"Countering the Threat of the Well-Armed Tyrant: A Modest Proposal for Small Nuclear
Weapons," Strategic Review 19, no. 4 (Fall 1991): 34-39. Back.
Note 62: A special un report on the immediate postwar situation in Iraq stated that the
conflict had wrought "near-apocalyptic results upon the economic infrastructure . . . Iraq has
been relegated to a pre-industrial age" (Report to the Secretary-General on Humanitarian
Needs in Kuwait and Iraq in the Immediate Post-Crisis Environment, un Security Council
Document S/22366 [March 1991]). Various study teams concluded that this resulted in large
26 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
numbers of civilian deaths well beyond the end of the war. One epidemiological report
estimated more than 46,900 excess deaths among children between January and August 1991;
see Alberto Ascherio et al., "Effect of the Gulf War on Infant and Child Mortality in Iraq," New
England Journal of Medicine 327, no. 13 (September 24, 1992), pp. 931-36. More generally,
see H. Jack Geiger, "Bomb Now, Die Later: The Consequences of Infrastructure Destruction
for Iraqi Civilians in the Gulf War," in John O'Loughlin, Tom Meyer, and Edward Greenberg,
eds., War and Its Consequences: Lessons from the Persian Gulf Conflict (New York: Harper
Collins, 1994); Barton Gellman, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq," Washington Post,
June 23, 1991, pp. A1, A16; and Michael Walzer, "Justice and Injustice in the Gulf War," in
David E. Decosse, ed., But Was It Just? Reflections on the Morality of the Persian Gulf War,
pp. 1-17 (New York: Doubleday, 1992). Back.
Note 63: An eloquent discussion of the role of legitimacy in the international community is
Franck, The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations. Back.
Note 64: The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (abm) Treaty between the United States and the
Soviet Union is the clearest and most important institutionalized expression of a non-use
presumption. In its banning of missile defenses against nuclear weapons, the abm Treaty
reflects a shared understanding that nuclear weapons should not be used. Back.
Note 65: Lawrence Scheinman, "The Non-Proliferation Treaty: On the Road to 1995," IAEA
Bulletin 34, no. 1 (1992): 33-40. Back.
Note 66: By institutionalized we mean explicitly or implicitly expressed in treaties,

agreements, or documents with corresponding operationalization in some way in state
practices. These are all obviously matters of degree. Back.
Note 67: Although resolutions and prohibitions passed in the United Nations General
Assembly and other international forums have repeatedly proclaimed use of nuclear weapons
to be illegal, the United States and other nuclear powers have consistently voted against them.
Up through the 1950s, legal scholars were themselves divided over the legality of nuclear
weapons use. Today, although there is probably some agreement that certain kinds of uses of
nuclear weapons are illegal under traditional laws of armed conflict, there is by no means
agreement that all use of nuclear weapons is illegal. The difficulty of coming to conclusions
about the legality of nuclear weapons makes it more useful to think about their status in terms
of the notion of legitimacy. For a history of legal interpretations of nuclear weapons, see Elliott
L. Meyrowitz, Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: The Relevance of International Law (Dobbs
Ferry, N.Y.: Transnational Publishers, 1990). The first U.S. statement on the legality of nuclear
use appeared in 1955. Back.
Note 68: Much of international norm creation has probably taken the first route, as the
history of international law suggests. For example, revolutionary regimes such as France,
America, and the Soviet Union injected new values and norms into the international state
system. See David Armstrong, Revolution and World Order: The Revolutionary State in
International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 69: For further discussion of this issue, see Michael Howard, George, J. Andreopoulos,
and Mark R. Shulman, eds., The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); and Geoffrey Best, War and Law Since 1945 (New
York: Clarendon Press, 1994). Back.
Note 70: Nuclear weapons were tremendously useful at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tactical
nuclear weapons, especially, have been viewed as useful for both deterrent and war-fighting
purposes. Not only were chemical weapons used on a massive scale during World War I, but
an important British assessment done after the war took it as a "foregone conclusion" that gas
"will be used in the future" because no successful weapon had ever been abandoned (Haber,
27 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
The Poisonous Cloud, p. 293). Back.
Note 71: During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff repeatedly suggested that
nuclear weapons might be needed to keep China out of the war. Nuclear attacks would have a
"far greater probability of forcing China" to stop an attack than would a U.S. conventional
response (Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam [New
York: Times Books, 1995], p. 111). Back.
Note 72: The utility of "mininukes" in contemporary scenarios is discussed in Dowler and
Howard, "Countering the Threat"; and Thomas F. Ramos, "The Future of Theater Nuclear
Forces," Strategic Review 19, no. 4 (Fall 1991): 41-47. Back.
Note 73: We thank Scott Sagan for his suggestions on this question. Back.
Note 74: Friedrich Kratochwil and John Gerard Ruggie, "International Organization : A
State of the Art on an Art of the State," International Organization 40, no. 4 (Autumn 1986):
753-75. Back.
Note 75: Charles Taylor, "Interpretation and the Sciences of Man," in Paul Rabinow and
William Sullivan, eds., Interpretive Social Science: A Second Look, pp. 33-81 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987). Back.
Note 76: Even punishment or ostracism for violation of a norm only becomes a possibility
that would not exist in the absence of the norm. The norm itself does not determine the
reaction but sets the context for how use is interpreted. Murder is seen as a violation, but a
murderer sometimes gets off with a year in jail, sometimes gets the electric chair. The norm
proscribing murder itself does not determine these outcomes, but they would not be
understandable if such a norm were not present. Back.
Note 77: Thomas Schelling, "The Role of Nuclear Weapons" (unpublished manuscript,
February 1993), pp. 11-12. Back.
Note 78: This functional, interest-based explanation would argue that non-use of weapons of
mass destruction is entirely consistent with a rationalist interpretation, especially if extended
to include the somewhat long-term "rationality" of making norms and institutions worth
preserving. Back.
Note 79: Causal inference and the study of norms are entirely compatible, but the
substantive interests of researcher and research design may not be. In our case we have chosen
a subject matter that is meaningful politically but nevertheless violates dictums to study null
cases. This is a problem for all empirical research, however. Back.
Note 80: We thank the late Richard Smoke for this provocative idea. Back.
28 de 28 05/08/2010 19:34
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editor
5. Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention
Martha Finnemore
Since the end of the Cold War, states have increasingly come under pressure to intervene
militarily and, in fact, have intervened militarily to protect citizens other than their own from
humanitarian disasters. Recent efforts to enforce protected areas for Kurds and no-fly zones
over Shiites in Iraq, efforts to alleviate starvation and establish some kind of political order in
Somalia, the huge un military effort to disarm parties and rebuild a state in Cambodia, and to
some extent even the military actions to bring humanitarian relief in Bosnia are all instances of
military action whose primary goal is not territorial or strategic but humanitarian.
Realist and liberal theories do not provide good explanations for this behavior. The interests
that these theories impute to states are geostrategic and/or economic, yet many or most of
these interventions occur in states of negligible geostrategic or economic importance to the
interveners. Thus, no obvious national interest is at stake for the states bearing the burden of
the military intervention in most if not all of these cases. Somalia is perhaps the clearest
example of military action undertaken in a state of little or no strategic or economic
importance to the principal intervener. Similarly, the states that played central roles in the un
military action in Cambodia were, with the exception of China, not states that had any obvious
geostrategic interests there by 1989; China, which did have a geostragetic interest, bore little of
the burden of intervening. Realism and liberalism offer powerful explanations for the Persian
Gulf war but have little to say about the extension of that war to Kurdish and Shiite protection
through the enforcement of un Resolution 688. The United States, France, and Britain have
been allowing abuse of the Kurds for centuries. Why they should start caring about them now
is not clear.
The recent pattern of humanitarian interventions raises the issue of what interests intervening
states could possibly be pursuing. In most of these cases, the intervention targets are
insignificant by any usual measure of geostrategic or economic interest. Why, then, do states
intervene?
This essay argues that the pattern of intervention cannot be understood apart from the
changing normative context in which it occurs. Normative context is important because it
shapes conceptions of interest. Standard analytic assumptions about states and other actors
pursuing their interests tend to leave the sources of interests vague or unspecified. The
contention here is that international normative context shapes the interests of international
actors and does so in both systematic and systemic ways. Unlike psychological variables that
operate at the individual level, norms can be systemic-level variables in both origin and effects.
1 Because they are intersubjective, rather than merely subjective, widely held norms are not
idiosyncratic in their effects. Instead, they leave broad patterns of the sort that social science
strives to explain.
In this essay I examine the role of humanitarian norms in shaping patterns of humanitarian
military intervention over the past 150 years. 2 I show that shifts in intervention behavior
correspond with changes in normative standards articulated by states concerning appropriate
ends and means of military intervention. Specifically, normative understandings about which
human beings merit military protection and about the way in which such protection must be
1 de 22 05/08/2010 19:35
implemented have changed, and state behavior has changed accordingly. This broad
correlation establishes the norms explanation as plausible. The failure of alternative
explanations to account for changing patterns of intervention behavior increases the credibility
of the norms approach. I conclude with a discussion of ways to move beyond this plausibility
probe.
The analysis proceeds in five parts. The first shows that realist and liberal approaches to
international politics do not explain humanitarian intervention as a practice, much less change
in that practice over time, because of their exogenous and static treatment of interests. A
constructivist approach that attends to the role of international norms can remedy this by
allowing us to problematize interests and their change over time. The next section examines
humanitarian action in the nineteenth century. It shows that humanitarian action and even
intervention on behalf of Christians being threatened or mistreated by the Ottoman Turks
were carried out occasionally throughout the nineteenth century. However, only Christians
appear to be deserving targets of humanitarian intervention; mistreatment of other groups
does not evoke similar concern.
The third section investigates the expansion of this definition of "humanity" by examining
efforts to abolish slavery, the slave trade, and colonization. Protection of nonwhite
non-Christians did become a motivation for military action by states, especially Great Britain,
in the early nineteenth century, when efforts to stop the slave trade began in earnest. But the
scope of this humanitarian action was limited. Britain acted to stop commerce in slaves on the
high seas; she did not intervene militarily to protect them inside other states or to abolish
slavery as a domestic institution of property rights. It was not until decolonization that this
redefinition of "humanity" in more universal terms (not just Christians, not just whites) was
consolidated.
The fourth section briefly reviews humanitarian intervention as a state practice since 1945,
paying particular attention to the multilateral and institutional requirements that have evolved
for humanitarian intervention. Contemporary multilateralism differs qualitatively from
previous modes of joint state action and has important implications for the planning and
execution of humanitarian interventions. The essay concludes by outlining questions about the
role and origins of norms that are not treated here but could be addressed in future research.
Using Norms to Understand International Politics

Humanitarian intervention looks odd from conventional perspectives on international political
behavior because it does not conform to the conceptions of interest that they specify. Realists
would expect to see some geostrategic or political advantage to be gained by intervening states.
Neoliberals might emphasize economic or trade advantages for interveners.
As I discussed in the introduction, it is difficult to identify the advantage for the intervener in
most post-1989 cases. The 1989 U.S. action in Somalia is a clear case of intervention without
obvious interests. Economically Somalia was insignificant to the United States. Security
interests are also hard to find. The U.S. had voluntarily given up its base at Berbera in Somalia
because advances in communications and aircraft technology made it obsolete for the
communications and refueling purposes it once served. Further, the U.S. intervention in that
country was not carried out in a way that would have furthered strategic interests. If the U.S.
had truly had designs on Somalia, it should have welcomed the role of disarming the clans. It
did not. The U.S. resisted un pressures to "pacify" the country as part of its mission. In fact,
U.S. officials were clearly and consistently interested not in controlling any part of Somalia but
in getting out of the country as soon as possible--sooner, indeed, than the un would have liked.
The fact that some administration officials opposed the Somalia intervention on precisely the
grounds that no vital U.S. interest was involved underscores the realists' problem.
Intervention to reconstruct Cambodia presents similar anomalies. The country is economically

insignificant to the interveners and, with the end of the Cold War, was strategically significant
to none of the five on the un Security Council except China, which bore very little of the
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intervention burden. Indeed, U.S. involvement appears to have been motivated by domestic
opposition to the return of the Khmers Rouges on moral grounds--another anomaly for these
approaches--rather than by geopolitical or economic interests.
Liberals of a more classical and Kantian type might argue that these interventions have been
motivated by an interest in promoting democracy and liberal values. After all, the un's political
blueprint for reconstructing these states is a liberal one. But such arguments also run afoul of
the evidence. The U.S. consistently refused to take on the state-building and democratization
mission in Somalia that liberal arguments would have expected to be at the heart of U.S.
efforts. Similarly, the un stopped short of authorizing an overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq
even when it was militarily possible and supported by many in the U.S. armed forces. The un,
and especially the U.S., have emphasized the humanitarian rather than the democratizing
nature of these interventions, both rhetorically and in their actions on the ground.
None of these realist or liberal approaches provides an answer to the question, What interests
are intervening states pursuing? In part this is a problem of theoretical focus. Realism and
most liberals do not investigate interests; they assume them. Interests are givens in these
approaches and need to be specified before analysis can begin. In this case, however, the
problem is also substantive. The geostrategic and economic interests specified by these
approaches appear to be wrong.
Investigating interests requires a different kind of theoretical approach. Attention to

international norms and the way they structure interests in coordinated ways across the
international system provides such an approach. Further, a norms approach addresses an
issue obscured by approaches that treat interests exogenously: it focuses attention on the ways
in which interests change. Since norms are socially constructed, they evolve with changes in
social interaction. Understanding this normative evolution and the changing interests it
creates is a major focus of a constructivist research program and of this analysis.
A constructivist approach does not deny that power and interest are important. They are.
Rather, it asks a different and prior set of questions: it asks what interests are, and it
investigates the ends to which and the means by which power will be used. The answers to
these questions are not simply idiosyncratic and unique to each actor. The social nature of
international politics creates normative understandings among actors that, in turn, coordinate
values, expectations, and behavior. Because norms make similar behavioral claims on
dissimilar actors, they create coordinated patterns of behavior that we can study and about
which we can theorize. 3 Before beginning the analysis, let me clarify the relationship
postulated here among norms, interests, and actions. In this essay I understand norms to
shape interests and interests to shape action. Neither connection is determinative. Factors
other than norms may shape interests, and certainly no single norm or norm set is likely to
shape a state's interests on any given issue. In turn, factors other than state interests, most
obviously power constraints, shape behavior and outcomes. Thus, the connection assumed
here between norms and action is one in which norms create permissive conditions for action
but do not determine action. Changing norms may change state interests and create new
interests (in this case, interests in protecting non-European non-Christians and in doing so
multilaterally through an international organization). But the fact that states are now
interested in these issues does not guarantee pursuit of these interests over all others on all
occasions. New or changed norms enable new or different behaviors; they do not ensure such
behaviors.
I should also offer a rationale for examining justifications for intervention as an indicator of
norms and norm change. The conventional wisdom is that justifications are mere fig leaves
behind which states hide their less savory and more self-interested reasons for actions.
Motivation is what matters; justification is not important.
It is true that justification does not equal motivation. Humanitarian justifications have been
used to disguise baser motives in more than one intervention. More frequently, motives for
intervention are mixed; humanitarian motives may be genuine but may be only one part of a
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larger constellation of motivations driving state action. 4 Untangling precise motivations for
intervention is difficult and would be impossible in an essay of this length and historical
breadth.
The focus here is justification, and for the purposes of this study justification is important
because it speaks directly to normative context. When states justify their interventions, they
are drawing on and articulating shared values and expectations held by other decision makers
and other publics in other states. It is literally an attempt to connect one's actions to standards
of justice or, perhaps more generically, to standards of appropriate and acceptable behavior.
Thus through an examination of justifications we can begin to piece together what those
internationally held standards are and how they may change over time.
My aim here is to establish the plausibility and utility of norms as an explanation for
international behavior. States may violate international norms and standards of right conduct
that they themselves articulate. But they do not always--or even often--do so. Aggregate
behavior over long periods shows patterns that correspond to notions of right conduct over
time. As shared understandings about who is "human" and about how intervention to protect
those people must be carried out change, behavior shifts accordingly in ways not correlated
with standard conceptions of interests.
We can investigate these changes by comparing humanitarian intervention practice in the

nineteenth century with that of the twentieth century. The analysis is instructive in a number
of ways. First, the analysis shows that humanitarian justifications for state action and state use
of force are not new.
Second, the analysis shows that while humanitarian justifications for action have been
important for centuries, the content and application of those justifications have changed over
time. Specifically, states' perceptions of which human beings merit intervention has changed. I
treat this not as a change of identity, as other essays in the volume use that term, but as a
change of identification. Nonwhite non-Christians always knew they were human. What
changed was perceptions of Europeans about them. People in Western states began to identify
with non-Western populations during the twentieth century, with profound political
consequences, for humanitarian intervention, among other things. Perhaps one could argue
that the identity of the Western states changed, but I am not sure how one would characterize
or operationalize such a change. Certainly Western states have not taken on an identity of
"humanitarian state." Far too many inhumane acts have been committed by these states in this
century to make such a characterization credible--nor do Western states themselves proclaim
any such identity. Besides, these states were "humanitarian" on their own terms in the
nineteenth century. What has changed is not the fact of the humanitarian behavior but its
focus. Identification emphasizes the affective relationships between actors rather than the
characteristics of a single actor. 5 Further, identification is an ordinal concept, allowing for
degrees of affect as well as changes in the focus of affect. Identification--of Western Europeans
with Greeks and of Russians with their fellow Slavs--existed in the nineteenth century. The
task is to explain how and why this identification expanded to other groups.
Third, the analysis highlights contestation over these normative justifications and links it to
change. Ironically, while norms are inherently consensual (they exist only as convergent
expectations or intersubjective understandings), they evolve in part through challenges to that
consensus. Some challenges succeed, some fail. The analysis traces the challenges posed by
humanitarian claims, noting where they succeed and where they have failed. It also points to
instances of continued contestation, even over norms that appear to be gaining wider
acceptance. Humanitarian norms have risen in prominence, but their acceptance is still
limited and contested; certainly there are many forms of intervention, particularly unilateral
intervention, that apparently cannot be justified even by humanitarian norms.
Fourth, the analysis relates evolving humanitarian intervention norms to other normative
changes over the past century. When humanitarian intervention is viewed in a broader
normative context, it becomes clear that changes in this particular norm are only one
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manifestation of the changes in a larger set of humanitarian norms that have become more
visible and more powerful in the past fifty or one hundred years. Particularly prominent
among these changing norms are the norms of decolonization and self-determination, which
involved a redefinition and universalization of "humanity" for Europeans that changed the
evolution of sovereignty and of humanitarian discourse (both of which are essential
components of humanitarian intervention). Thus mutually reinforcing and consistent norms
appear to strengthen each other; success in one area (such as decolonization) strengthens and
legitimates claims in logically and morally related norms (such as human rights and
humanitarian intervention). The relationship identified between decolonization and
humanitarian intervention suggests the importance of viewing norms not as individual
"things" floating atomistically in some international social space but rather as part of a highly
struc tured social context. It may make more sense to think of a fabric of interlocking and
interwoven norms rather than individual norms of this or that--as current scholarship, my
own included, has been inclined to do. 6 Finally, the analysis emphasizes the structuring and
organization of the international normative context. Examination of humanitarian norms and
intervention suggests that norm institutionalization, by which I mean the way norms become
embedded in international organizations and institutions, is critical to patterns of norm
evolution. Institutionalization of these norms or norm-bundles in international organizations
(such as the un) further increases the power and elaboration of the normative claims.
Humanitarian Intervention in the Nineteenth Century

Before the twentieth century virtually all instances of military intervention to protect people
other than the intervener's own nationals involved protection of Christians from the Ottoman
Turks. 7 In at least four instances during the nineteenth century, European states used
humanitarian claims to influence Balkan policy in ways that would have required states to use
force--in the Greek War for Independence (1821-1827); in the Lebanon/Syria conflict of
1860-1861; during the Bulgarian agitation of 1876-1878; and in response to the Armenian
massacres (1894-1917). Although full-scale military intervention did not result in all these
instances, the claims made and their effects on policy in the other cases shed light on the
evolution and influence of humanitarian claims during this period.
Greek War for Independence (1821-1827)

Russia took an immediate interest in the Greek insurrection and threatened to use force
against the Turks as early as the first year of the war. Part of her motivation was geostrategic:
Russia had been pursuing a general strategy of weakening the Ottomans and consolidating
control in the Balkans for years. But the justifications that Russia offered were largely
humanitarian. Russia had long seen herself as the defender of Orthodox Christians under
Turkish rule. Atrocities such as the wholesale massacres of Christians and the sale of women
into slavery, coupled with the sultan's order to seize the Venerable Patriarch of the Orthodox
Church after mass on Easter morning and hang him and three archbishops, then have the
bodies thrown into the Bosporus, formed the centerpiece of Russia's complaints against the
Turks and the justification of her threats of force. 8 Other European powers, with the
exception of France, opposed intervention largely because they were concerned that
weakening Turkey would strengthen Russia. 9 Although the governments of Europe seemed
little affected by these atrocities, significant segments of their publics were. A philhellenic
movement spread throughout Europe, especially in the more democratic societies of Britain,
France, and parts of Germany. The movement drew on two popular sentiments: the European
identification with the classical Hellenic tradition and the appeal of Christians oppressed by
the infidel. Philhellenic aid societies in Western Europe sent large sums of money and even
volunteers to Greece during the war. 10 Russian threats of unilateral action against the sultan
eventually forced the British to become involved, and in 1827 the two powers, together with
Charles X of France in his capacity as "Most Christian King," sent an armada that roundly
defeated Ibrahim at Navarino in October 1827.
It would be hard to argue that humanitarian considerations were decisive in this intervention;
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geostrategic factors were far too important. How ever, the episode does bear on the evolution
of humanitarian norms is several ways.
First, it illustrates the circumscribed definition of who was "human" in the nineteenth-century
conception of that term. The massacre of Christians was a humanitarian disaster; the massacre
of Muslims was not. This was true regardless of the fact that the initial atrocities of the war
were committed by the Christian insurgents (admittedly after years of harsh Ottoman rule).
The initial Christian uprising at Morea "might well have been allowed to burn itself out
'beyond the pale of civilization'"; it was only the wide-scale and very visible atrocities against
Christians that put the events on the agenda of major powers. 11 Second, intervening states,
particularly Russia and France, placed humanitarian but also religious reasons at the center of
their continued calls for intervention and application of force. As will be seen in other cases
from the nineteenth century, religion seems to be important in both motivating humanitarian
action and defining who is human. Notions about Christian charity supported general
humanitarian impulses, but specific religious identifications had the effect of privileging
certain people over others. In this case Christians generally were privileged over Muslims.
Elsewhere, as later in Armenia and Bulgaria, denominational differences within Christianity
appear to be important both in motivating action and in restraining it.
Third, the intervention was multilateral. The reasons in this case were largely geostrategic
(restraining Russia from temptation to use this intervention for other purposes), but, as
subsequent discussion will show, multilateralism as a characteristic of legitimate intervention
becomes increasingly important.
Fourth, mass publics were involved. It is not clear that they influenced policy making as
strongly as they would in the second half of the century, but foreign civilians did become
involved both financially and militarily on behalf of the Greeks. Indeed, it was a British
Captain Hastings who commanded the Greek flotilla that destroyed a Turkish squadron off
Salona and provoked the ultimate use of force at Navarino. 12
Lebanon/Syria (1860-1861)
In May 1860 conflict between Druze and Maronite populations broke out in what is now
Lebanon but at the time was Syria under Ottoman rule. Initial rioting became wholesale
massacre of Maronites, first by the Druze and later by Turkish troops.
The conflict sparked outrage in the French popular press. As early as 1250, Louis IX had
signed a charter with the Maronite Christians in the Levant guaranteeing protection as if they
were French subjects and, in effect, making them part of the French nation. 13 Since then,
France had styled itself as the "protector" of Latin Christians in the Levant. 14 Napoleon III
thus eagerly supported military intervention in the region, at least in part to placate "outraged
Catholic opinion" at home. 15 Russia was also eager to intervene, and Britain became
involved in the intervention to prevent France and Russia from using the incident to expand.
16 On August 3, 1860, the six great powers (Austria, France, Britain, Prussia, Russia, and
Turkey) signed a protocol authorizing the dispatch of twelve thousand European troops to the
region to aid the sultan in stopping violence and establishing order. A letter from French
foreign minister Thouvenal to the French ambassador in Turkey stressed that "the object of
the mission is to assist stopping, by prompt and energetic measures, the effusion of blood, and
[to put] an end to the outrages committed against Christians, which cannot remain
unpunished." The protocol further emphasized the lack of strategic and political ambitions of
the powers acting in this matter. 17 France supplied half the twelve thousand troops
immediately and dispatched them in August 1860. The other states sent token warships and
high-ranking officers but no ground troops, which meant that in the end the six thousand
French troops were the sum total of the intervention force.
The French forces received high marks for their humanitarian conduct while they were in the
region, helping villagers to rebuild homes and farms. They left when agreement was reached
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for Christian representation in the government. 18 This case repeats many of the features of
the Greek intervention. Again, saving Christians was central to the justification for
intervention. Public opinion seems to have had some impact, this time on the vigor with which
Napoleon pursued an interventionist policy. The multilateral character of the intervention is
somewhat less clear, however. There was multilateral consultation and agreement on the
intervention plan, but the execution of that plan was essentially unilateral.
The Bulgarian Agitation (1876-1878)

In May 1876 Ottoman troops massacred unarmed and poorly organized agitators in Bulgaria.
A British government investigation put the number killed at twelve thousand, with fifty-nine
villages destroyed and an entire church full of people set ablaze after they had already
surrendered to Turkish soldiers. The investigation confirmed that Turkish soldiers and officers
were promoted and decorated rather than punished for these actions. 19 Accounts of the
atrocities, gathered by American missionaries and sent to British reporters, began appearing in
British newspapers in mid-June. The reports inflamed public opinion, and protest meetings
were organized around the country, particularly in the north, where W. T. Stead and his paper,
the Northern Echo, were a focus of agitation. 20 The result was a split in British politics.
Prime Minister Disraeli publicly refused to change British policy of support for Turkey over
the matter, stating that British material interests outweighed the lives of Bulgarians. 21
However, Lord Derby, the Conservative foreign secretary, telegraphed Constantinople that
"any renewal of the outrages would be more fatal to the Porte than the loss of a battle." 22
More important, former prime minister Gladstone came out of retirement to oppose Disraeli
on the issue, making the Bulgarian atrocities the centerpiece of his anti-Disraeli campaign. 23
While Gladstone found a great deal of support in various public circles, he did not have
similar success in government. The issue barely affected British policy. Disraeli was forced to
carry out the investigation mentioned above, and he did offer proposals for internal Turkish
reforms to protect minorities--proposals that were rejected by Russia as being too timid. 24
Russia was the only state to intervene in the wake of the Bulgarian massacres. The 1856
treaty that ended the Crimean War was supposed to protect Christians under Ottoman rule.
Russia justified her threats of force on the basis of Turkey's violation of these humanitarian
guarantees. In March 1877 the great powers issued a protocol reiterating demands for the
protection of Christians in the Ottoman Empire that had been guaranteed in the 1856 treaty.
After Constantinople rejected the protocol, Russia declared war in April 1877. She easily
defeated the Ottoman troops and signed the Treaty of San Stefano, which created a large,
independent Bulgarian state--an arrangement that was drastically revised by the Congress of
Berlin.
As in the previous cases, saving Christians was an essential feature of this incident, and
Gladstone and Russia's justifications for action were framed in that way. But military action in
this case was not multilateral. 25 Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this episode is its
demonstration of the strength of public opinion and the media. While they were not able to
change British policy they were able to make adherence to that policy much more difficult for
Disraeli in domestic terms.
Armenia (1894-1917)
The Armenian case offers some interesting insights into the scope of Christianity requiring
defense by European powers in the last century. Unlike the Orthodox Christians in Greece and
Bulgaria and the Maronites in Syria, the Armenian Christians had no European champion. The
Armenian Church was not in communion with the Orthodox Church, hence Armenian appeals
had never resonated in Russia; the Armenians were not portrayed as "brothers" to the
Russians, as were the Bulgarians and other Orthodox Slavs. Similarly, no non-Orthodox
European state had ever offered protection or had historical ties as the French did with the
Maronites. Thus some of the justifications that were offered for intervention in other cases
were lacking in the Armenian case.
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The fact that the Armenians were Christians, albeit of a different kind, does seem to have had
some influence on policy. The Treaty of Berlin explicitly bound the sultan to carry out internal
political reforms to protect Armenians, but the nature, timing, and monitoring of these
provisions were left vague and were never enforced. The Congress of Berlin ignored an
Armenian petition for an arrangement similar to that set up in Lebanon following the
Maronite massacres (a Christian governor under Ottoman rule). Gladstone took up the matter
in 1880 when he came back to power but dropped it when Bismarck voiced opposition. 26
The wave of massacres against Armenians beginning in 1894 was far worse than any of the
other atrocities examined here, in terms of both the number killed and the brutality of their
executions. Nine hundred people were killed, and twenty-four villages burned in the Sassum
massacres in August 1894. After this, the intensity increased. Between fifty thousand and
seventy thousand people were killed in 1895. In 1896 the massacres moved into the capital,
Constantinople, where on August 28-29, six thousand Armenians were killed. 27 These events
were well known and highly publicized in Europe. 28 Gladstone came out of retirement yet
again to denounce the Turks and called Abd-ul-Hamid the "Great Assassin." French writers
denounced him as "the Red Sultan." The European powers demanded an inquiry assisted by
Europeans, which submitted to European governments and the press extensive
documentation of "horrors unutterable, unspeakable, unimaginable by the mind of man." 29
Public opinion pressed for intervention, and both Britain and France used humanitarian
justifications to threaten force. But neither acted. Germany by this time was a force to be
reckoned with, and the kaiser was courting Turkey. Russia was nervous about nationalist
aspirations in the Balkans in general and had no special affection for the Armenians, as noted
above. The combined opposition of Germany and Russia made the price of intervention higher
than either the British or the French were willing to pay. 30 These four episodes are suggestive
in several ways. First, humanitarian justifications for uses of force and threats of force are not
new in the twentieth century.
Second, humanitarian action was rarely taken when it jeopardized other stated goals or
interests of a state. Humanitarians were sometimes able to mount considerable pressure on
policy makers to act contrary to stated geostrategic interests, as in the case of Disraeli and the
Bulgarian agitation, but they never succeeded. Humanitarian claims did, however, provide
states with new or intensified interests in an area and new reasons to act where none had
existed previously. Without the massacre of Maronites in Syria, France would almost certainly
not have intervened. Further, she left after her humanitarian mission was accomplished and
did not stay on to pursue other geostrategic goals, as some states had feared she would. It is
less clear whether there would have been intervention in the Greek war for independence
without humanitarian justifications for such interventions. Russia certainly had other reasons
to intervene, but she was also probably the state with the highest level of identification with
the Orthodox Christian victims of these massacres. Whether the former would have been
sufficient for intervention without the latter is impossible to know. Once Russia did intervene,
the British certainly had an interest in restraining Russian activities in the area and joining the
intervention. At the same time Britain had consistently articulated a strong doctrine of
nonintervention. It may be that humanitarian claims made by important sectors of domestic
opinion were necessary to override this doctrine, but it would be impossible to be certain.
Third, humanitarian action could be taken in a variety of forms. Action could be multilateral,
as in the case of Greek independence. It could be unilateral, as when Russia intervened in
Bulgaria. Action might also be some mixture of the two, as in Lebanon/Syria, where several
states planned the intervention but execution was essentially unilateral. As will be shown
below, this variety of forms for intervention shrinks over time. Specifically, the unilateral
option for either planning or executing humanitarian intervention appears to have
disappeared in the twentieth century.
Fourth, interveners identified with the victims of humanitarian disasters in some important
and exclusive way. At a minimum, the victims to be protected by intervention were Christians;
there were no instances of European powers' considering intervention to protect
non-Christians. Pogroms against Jews did not provoke intervention. Neither did Russian
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massacres of Turks in Central Asia in the 1860s. 31 Neither did mass killings in China during
the Taipings rebellion against the Manchus. 32 Neither did mass killings by colonial rulers in
their colonies. 33 Neither did massacres of Native Americans in the United States. Often there
was some more specific identification or social tie between intervener and intervened, as
between the Orthodox Slav Russians and Orthodox Slav Bulgarians. In fact, the Armenian case
suggests, lack of such an intensified identification may contribute to inaction.
The Expansion of "Humanity" and Sovereignty

This last feature of nineteenth-century intervention, the ways in which interveners identify
with victims to determine who is an appropriate or compelling candidate for intervention,
changed dramatically over the twentieth century as the "humanity" deserving of protection by
military intervention became universalized. 34 The seeds of this change lie in the nineteenth
century, however, with efforts to end slavery and the slave trade. With the abolition of slavery
in the nineteenth century and decolonization in the twentieth, a new set of norms was
consolidated that universalized "humanity" and endowed it with rights, among them
self-determination, which came to be equated with sovereign statehood. These processes are
obviously complex and cannot be treated adequately here. What follows is a brief discussion
showing how these larger normative developments contributed to the evolution of
humanitarian intervention norms. 35
Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade

The abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the nineteenth century was an essential part of
the universalization of "humanity." European states generally accepted and legalized these
practices in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but by the nineteenth century the same
states proclaimed them "repugnant to the principles of humanity and universal morality." 36
Human beings previously viewed as beyond the edge of humanity--as, in fact, property--came
to be viewed as human, and with that status came certain, albeit minimal, privileges and
protections. 37 Further, military force was used by states, especially Britain, to suppress the
slave trade. Britain succeeded in having the slave trade labeled as piracy, thus enabling her to
seize and board ships sailing under non-British flags that were suspected of carrying
contraband slaves. 38 While this is in some ways an important case of a state using force to
promote humanitarian ends, the way the British framed and justified their actions also says
something about the limits of humanitarian claims in the early to mid-nineteenth century.
First, the British limited their military action to abolishing the trade in slaves, not slavery itself.
There was no military intervention on behalf of Africans as there was on behalf of Christians.
While the British public and many political figures contributed to a climate of international
opinion that viewed slavery with increasing distaste, the abolition of slavery as a domestic
institution of property rights was accomplished in each state where it had previously been
legal without military intervention by other states. 39 Further, the British government's
strategy for ending the slave trade was to have such trafficking labeled as piracy, thus making
the slaves "contraband," i.e., still property. The government justified its actions on the basis of
maritime rights governing commerce. Slavery and slaveholding themselves did not provoke
the same reaction as Ottoman abuse of Christians did.
This may be because the perpetrators of the humanitarian violations were "civilized" Christian
nations (as opposed to the infidel Turks). 40 Another reason was probably that the targets of
these humanitarian violations were black Africans, not "fellow Christians" or "brother Slavs." It
thus appears that by the 1830s black Africans had become sufficiently "human" that enslaving
them was illegal inside Europe, but enslaving them outside Europe was only distasteful. One
could keep them enslaved if one kept them at home, within domestic borders. Abuse of
Africans did not merit military intervention inside another state.
Colonization, Decolonization, and Self-determination

Justifications for both colonization and decolonization also offer interest ing lenses through
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which to examine changing humanitarian norms and changing understandings of who is

"human." Both processes--colonization and its undoing--were justified, at least in part, in
humanitarian terms, but the understanding of what constituted humanity was different in the
two episodes in ways that bear on the current investigation of humanitarian intervention
norms.
The vast economic literature on colonization often overlooks the strong moral dimension
perceived and articulated by many of the colonizers. Colonization was a crusade. It would
bring the benefits of civilization to the "dark" reaches of the earth. It was a sacred trust, it was
the white man's burden, it was mandated by God that these Europeans go out into unknown
(to them) parts of the globe, bringing what they understood to be a better way of life to the
inhabitants. Colonization for the missionaries and those driven by social conscience was a
humanitarian mission of huge proportions and consequently of huge importance.
Colonialism's humanitarian mission was of a particular kind, however: it was to "civilize" the
non-European parts of the world--to bring the "benefits" of European social, political,
economic, and cultural arrangements to Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Until these peoples
were "civi lized," they were savages, barbarians, something less than human. Thus in an
important sense the core of the colonial humanitarian mission was to create humanity where
none had previously existed. Non-Europeans became human in European eyes by becoming
Christian, by adopting European-style structures of property rights, by adopting
European-style territorial political arrangements, by entering the growing European-based
international economy. 41 Decolonization also had strong humanitarian justifications. 42 By
the mid-twentieth century, however, normative understandings about humanity had shifted.
Humanity was no longer something one could create by bringing savages to civilization.
Rather, humanity was inherent in individual human beings. It had become universalized and
was not culturally dependent, as it has been in earlier centuries. Asians and Africans were now
viewed as having human "rights," and among those rights was the right to determine their own
political future--the right to self-determination.
There is not space here to investigate in detail the origins of decolonization and accompanying
human rights norms. I would, however, like to highlight three features of the decolonization
process that bear on the evolution of humanitarian intervention. 43 First, as international
legal scholars have long noted, logical coherence among norms greatly enhances their
legitimacy and power. 44 Decolonization norms benefited greatly from their logical kinship
with core European norms about human equality. As liberal norms about the "natural" rights
of man spread and gained power within Europe, they influenced Europe's relationship with
non-European peoples in important ways. The egalitarian social movements sweeping the
European West in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were justified with universal truths
about the nature and equality of human beings. These notions were then exported to the
non-European world as part of the civilizing mission of colonialism. Once people begin to
believe, at least in principle, in human equality, there is no logical limit to the expansion of
human rights and self-determination. 45 The logical expansion of these arguments fueled
attacks on both slavery and colonization. Slavery, more blatantly a violation of these emerging
European norms, came under attack first. Demands for decolonization came more slowly and
had to contend with the counterclaims for the beneficial humanitarian effects of European
rule. In both cases, former slaves and Western-educated colonial elites were instrumental in
change. Having been "civilized" and Europeanized, they were able to use Europe's own norms
against these institutions. These people undermined the social legitimacy of both slaveholders
and colonizers not simply by being exemplars of "human" non-Europeans but also by
contributing to the arguments undercutting the legitimacy of slavery and colonialism within a
European framework of proclaimed human equality.
Although logic alone is not the reason that slavery and colonialism were abolished, there does
appear to be some need for logical consistency in normative structures. Changes in core
normative structure (in this case, changes toward recognition of human equality within
Europe) tended to promote and facilitate associated normative changes elsewhere in society.
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Mutually reinforcing and logically consistent norms appear to be harder to attack and to have
an advantage in the normative contestations that go on in social life. Thus, logic internal to the
norms shapes their development and consequently social change.
Second, as Neta Crawford and others have noted, formal international organizations,
particularly the United Nations, played a significant role in the decolonization process and the
consolidation of anticolonialism norms. The self-determination norms laid out in the charter,
the trusteeship system it set up, and the one-state-one-vote voting structure that gave majority
power to weak, often formerly colonized states, all contributed to an international legal,
organizational, and normative environment that made colonial practices increasingly
illegitimate and difficult to carry out. 46 Third, decolonization enshrined the notion of
political self-determination as a basic human right associated with a now universal humanity.
Political self-determination, in turn, meant sovereign statehood. Once sovereign statehood
became associated with human rights, intervention, particularly unilateral intervention,
became more difficult to justify. Uni lateral intervention certainly still occurs, but, as will be
seen below, it cannot now be justified even by high-minded humanitarian claims.
Humanitarian Intervention Since 1945

Unlike humanitarian intervention practices in the nineteenth century, virtually all of the
instances in which claims of humanitarian intervention have been made in the post-1945
period concern military action on behalf of non-Christians and/or non-Europeans. In that
sense, the universalizing of the "humanity" that might be worth protecting seems to have
widened in accordance with the normative changes described above.
What is interesting in these cases is that states that might legitimately have claimed
humanitarian justifications for their intervention did not do so. India's intervention in East
Pakistan in the wake of Muslim massacres of Hindus, Tanzania's intervention in Uganda
toppling the Idi Amin regime, Vietnam's intervention in Cambodia ousting the Khmers
Rouges--in every case intervening states could have justified their actions with strong
humanitarian claims. None did. In fact, India initially claimed humanitarian justifications but
quickly retracted them. Why?
The argument here is that this reluctance stems not from norms about what is "humanitarian"
but from norms about legitimate intervention. While the scope of who qualifies as human has
widened enormously and the range of humanitarian activities that states routinely undertake
has expanded, 47 norms about intervention have also changed, albeit less drastically.
Humanitarian military intervention now must be multilateral to be legitimate.
As we saw in the nineteenth century, multilateralism is not new; it has often characterized
humanitarian military action. But states in the nineteenth century still invoked humanitarian
justifications, even when intervention was unilateral (for example, Russia in Bulgaria during
the 1870s and, in part, France in Lebanon). That has not happened in the twentieth century.
Without multilateralism, states will not and apparently cannot claim humanitarian
justification. 48 Multilateralism had (and has) important advantages for states. It increases
the transparency of each state's actions to others and so reassures states that opportunities for
adventurism and expansion will not be used. Unilateral military intervention, even for
humanitarian objectives, is viewed with suspicion; it is too easily subverted to serve less
disinterested ends of the intervener. Further, multilateralism can be a way of sharing costs,
and thus it can be cheaper for states than unilateral action.
Multilateralism carries with it significant costs of its own, however. Cooperation and
coordination problems involved in such action have been examined in detail by political
scientists and can make it difficult to sustain. 49 Perhaps more important, multilateral action
requires sacrifice of power and control over the intervention. Further, it may seriously
compromise the military effectiveness of those operations, as recent debates over command
and control in un military operations suggest.
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There are no obvious efficiency reasons for states to prefer either multilateral or unilateral
intervention to achieve humanitarian ends. Each has advantages and disadvantages. The
choice depends in large part on perceptions about the political acceptability and political costs
of each, which, in turn, depend on normative context. As will be discussed below,
multilateralism in the twentieth century has become institutionalized in ways that make
unilateral intervention, particularly intervention not justified as self-defense, unacceptably
costly.
The next two sections of the paper compare post-World War II interventions in situations of
humanitarian disaster with nineteenth-century practice to illustrate these points. The first
section provides a brief overview of unilateral intervention in the post-1945 period in which
humanitarian justification could have been claimed to illustrate and elaborate these points but
was not. Following that is an even briefer discussion of recent multilateral humanitarian
actions that contrast with the previous unilateral cases. 50
Unilateral Intervention in Humanitarian Disasters

India in East Pakistan (1971)
Pakistan had been under military rule by West Pakistani officials since partition. When the
first free elections were held in November 1970, the Awami League won 167 out of 169
parliamentary seats reserved for East Pakistan in the National Assembly. The Awami League
had not urged political independence for the East during the elections, but it did run on a list
of demands concerning one-person-one-vote political representation and increased economic
autonomy for the east. The government in West Pakistan viewed the Awami electoral victory
as a threat. In the wake of these electoral results, the government in Islamabad decided to
postpone the convening of the new National Assembly indefinitely, and in March 1971 the
West Pakistani army started indiscriminately killing unarmed civilians, raping women,
burning homes, and looting or destroying property. At least one million people were killed,
and millions more fled across the border into India. 51 Following months of tension, border
incidents, and increased pressure from the influx of refugees, India sent troops into East
Pakistan. After twelve days the Pakistani army surrendered at Dacca, and the new state of
Bangladesh was established.
As in many of the nineteenth-century cases, the intervener here had an array of geopolitical
interests. Humanitarian concerns were not the only reason or even, perhaps, the most
important reason to intervene. It is, however, a case in which intervention could have been
justified in humanitarian terms, and initially the Indian representatives in both the General
Assembly and the Security Council did articulate such a justification. 52 These arguments
were widely rejected by other states, including many with no particular interest in politics on
the subcontinent. States as diverse as Argentina, Tunisia, China, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. all
responded to India's claims by arguing that principles of sovereignty and noninterference
should take precedence and that India had no right to meddle in what they all viewed as an
"internal matter." In response to this rejection of her claims, India retracted her humanitarian
justifications, choosing instead to rely on self-defense to justify her actions. 53 Tanzania in
Uganda (1979).
This episode began as a straightforward territorial dispute. In the autumn of 1978 Ugandan
troops invaded and occupied the Kagera salient--territory between the Uganda-Tanzania
border and the Kagera River in Tanzania. 54 On November 1 Idi Amin announced annexation
of the territory. Julius Nyerere considered the annexation tantamount to an act of war and on
November 15 launched an offensive from the south bank of the Kagera River. Amin, fearing
defeat, offered to withdraw from the occupied territories if Nyerere would promise to cease
support for Ugandan dissidents and not to attempt to overthrow his government. Nyerere
refused and made explicit his intention to help dissidents topple the Amin regime. In January
1979 Tanzanian troops crossed into Uganda, and by April Tanzanian troops, joined by some
Ugandan rebel groups, had occupied Kampala and installed a new government headed by
Yusef Lule.
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As in the previous case, there were nonhumanitarian reasons to intervene, but if territorial
issues were the only ones that mattered, the Tanzanians could have either stopped at the
border, having evicted Ugandan forces, or pushed them back into Uganda short of Kampala.
The explicit statement of intent to topple the regime seems out of proportion to the low-level
territorial squabble. Fernando Tesón makes a strong case that Nyerere's intense dislike of
Amin's regime and its practices influenced the scale of the response. Nyerere had already
publicly called Amin a murder and refused to sit with him on the Authority of the East African
Community. 55 Tesón also presents strong evidence that the lack of support or material help
for Uganda in this intervention from the un, the oau, or any state besides Libya suggests tacit
international acceptance of what would otherwise be universally condemned as international
aggression because of the human rights record of the target state. 56 Despite evidence of
humanitarian motivations, Tanzania never claimed humanitarian justification. In fact,
Tanzania went out of her way to minimize responsibility for the felicitous humanitarian
outcome of her actions, saying only that she was acting in response to Amin's invasion and that
her actions just happened to coincide with a revolt against Amin inside Uganda. When Sudan
and Nigeria criticized Tanzania for interfering in another state's internal affairs in violation of
the oau charter, it was the new Ugandan regime that invoked humanitarian justifications for
Tanzania's actions. It criticized the critics, arguing that members of the oau should not "hide
behind the formula of non-intervention when human rights are blatantly being violated." 57
Vietnam in Cambodia (1979)
In 1975 the Chinese-backed Khmers Rouges took power in Cambodia and launched a policy of
internal "purification" entailing the atrocities and genocide now made famous by the 1984
movie The Killing Fields. This regime, under the leadership of Pol Pot, was also aggressively
anti-Vietnamese and engaged in a number of border incursions during the late 1970s.
Determined to end this border activity, the Vietnamese and an anti-Pol Pot army of exiled
Cambodians invaded the country in December 1978 and by January 1979 had routed the
Khmers Rouges and installed a sympathetic government under the name People's Republic of
Kampuchea (prk).
Again, humanitarian considerations may not have been central to Vietnam's decision to
intervene, but humanitarian justifications would seem to have offered some political cover to
the internationally unpopular Vietnamese regime. Like Tanzania, however, Vietnam made no
appeal to humanitarian justifications. Instead, its leaders argued that they were only helping
the Cambodian people achieve self-determination against the neocolonial regime of Pol Pot,
which had been "the product of the hegemonistic and expansionist policy of the Peking
authorities." 58 Even if Vietnam had offered humanitarian justifications for intervention,
indications are that these would have been rejected by other states. In their condemnations of
Vietnam's action, a number of states mentioned Pol Pot's appalling human rights violations but
said nonetheless that these violations did not entitle Vietnam to intervene. During the un
debate, no state spoke in favor of the existence of a right to unilateral humanitarian
intervention, and several states--Greece, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, and India--that had
previously supported humanitarian intervention arguments in the un voted for the resolution
condemning Vietnam. 59
Multilateral Intervention in Humanitarian Disasters

To be legitimate, humanitarian intervention must be multilateral. The Cold War made such
multilateral efforts politically difficult to orchestrate, but since 1989 several large-scale
interventions have been carried out claiming humanitarian justifications as their primary
raison d'être. All have been multilateral. Most visible among these have been:
1. the U.S., British, and French efforts to protect Kurdish and Shiite populations inside Iraq
following the Gulf War;
2. the untac mission to end civil war and reestablish a democratic political order in
Cambodia;
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3. the large-scale un effort to end starvation and construct a democratic state in Somalia;
and current, albeit limited, efforts by un and nato troops to protect civilian, especially
Muslim, populations from primarily Serbian forces in Bosnia.
While these efforts have attracted varying amounts of criticism concerning their effectiveness,
they have received little or no criticism of their legitimacy. Further, and unlike their
nineteenth-century counterparts, all have been organized through standing international
organizations--most often the United Nations. Indeed, the un charter has provided the
framework in which much of the normative contestation over intervention practices has
occurred since 1945. Specifically, the charter enshrines two principles that at times, and
perhaps increasingly, conflict. On the one hand, article 2 enshrines states' sovereign rights as
the organizing principle of the international system. The corollary for intervention is a near
absolute rule of nonintervention. On the other hand, article 1 of the charter emphasizes
promoting respect for human rights and justice as a fundamental mission of the organization,
and subsequent un actions (adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, among
them) have strengthened these claims. Gross humanitarian abuses by states against their own
citizens of the kinds discussed in this essay bring these two central principles into conflict.
The humanitarian intervention norms that have evolved within these conflicting principles
appear to allow intervention in cases of humanitarian disaster and abuse, but with at least two
caveats. First, they are permissive norms only. They do not require intervention, as the cases of
Burundi, Sudan, and other states make clear. Second, they place strict requirements on the
ways in which intervention, if employed, may be carried out: Humanitarian intervention must
be multilateral if states are to accept it as legitimate and genuinely humanitarian. Further, it
must be organized under un auspices or with explicit un consent. If at all possible, the
intervention force should be composed according to un procedures, meaning that intervening
forces must include some number of troops from "disinterested" states, usually midlevel
powers outside the region of conflict--another dimension of multilateralism not found in
nineteenth-century practice.
Contemporary multilateralism thus differs from the multilateral action of the nineteenth
century. The latter was what John Ruggie might call "quantitative" multilateralism and only
thinly so. 60 Nineteenth-century multilateralism was strategic. States intervened together to
keep an eye on each other and discourage adventurism or exploitation of the situation for
nonhumanitarian gains. Multilateralism was driven by shared fears and perceived threats, not
by shared norms and principles. States did not even coordinate and collaborate extensively to
achieve their goals. Military deployments in the nineteenth century may have been
contemporaneous, but they were largely separate; there was virtually no joint planning or
coordination of operations. This follows logically from the nature of multilateralism, since
strategic surveillance of one's partners is not a shared goal but a private one.
Recent interventions exhibit much more of what Ruggie calls the "qualitative dimension" of
multilateralism. They are organized according to and in defense of "generalized principles" of
international responsibility and the use of military force, many of which are codified in the
United Nations charter, declarations, and standard operating procedures. These emphasize
international responsibilities for ensuring human rights and justice and dictate appropriate
means of intervening, such as the necessity of obtaining Security Council authorization for
action. The difference between contemporary and nineteenth-century multilateralism also
appears at the operational level. The Greek intervention was multilateral only in the sense that
more than one state had forces in the area at the same time. There was little joint planning and
no integration of forces from different states. By contrast, contemporary multilateralism
requires extensive joint planning and force integration. un norms require that intervening
forces be composed not just of troops from more than one state but of troops from
disinterested states, preferably not great powers--precisely the opposite nineteenth-century
multilateral practice.
Contemporary multilateralism is political and normative, not strategic. It is shaped by shared
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notions about when the use of force is legitimate and appropriate. Contemporary legitimacy
criteria for the use of force, in turn, derive from these shared principles, articulated most often
through the un, about consultation and coordination with other states before acting and about
multinational composition of forces. U.S. interventions in Somalia and Haiti were not made
multilateral because the U.S. needed the involvement of other states for military or strategic
reasons. The U.S. was capable of supplying the forces necessary and, in fact, did supply the
lion's share of the forces. No other great power was particularly worried about U.S.
opportunism in these areas, and so none joined the action for surveillance reasons. These
interventions were multilateral for political and normative reasons. For these operations to be
legitimate and politically acceptable, the U.S. needed un authorization and international
participation. Whereas Russia, France, and Britain tolerated each other's presence in the
operation to save Christians from the infidel Turk, the U.S. had to beg other states to join it for
a humanitarian operation in Haiti.
Multilateral norms create political benefits for conformance and costs for nonconforming
action. They create, in part, the structure of incentives facing states. Realists or neoliberal
institutionalists might argue that in the contemporary world, multilateral behavior is efficient
and unproblematically self-interested because multilateralism helps to generate political
support both domestically and internationally for intervention. But this argument only begs
the question, Why is multilateralism necessary to generate political support? It was not
necessary in the nineteenth century. Indeed, multilateralism as currently practiced was
inconceivable in the nineteenth century. As was discussed earlier, there is nothing about the
logic of multilateralism itself that makes it clearly superior to unilateral action. Each has
advantages and costs to states, and the costs of multilateral intervention have become
abundantly clear in recent un operations. One testament to the power of these multilateral
norms is that states adhere to them even when they know that doing so compromises the
effectiveness of the mission. Criticisms of the un's ineffectiveness for military operations are
widespread. The fact that un involvement continues to be an essential feature of these
operations despite the un's apparent lack of military competence underscores the power of
multilateral norms. 61 Realist and neoliberal approaches cannot address changing
requirements for political legitimacy like those reflected in changing multilateral practice any
more than they can explain the "interest" prompting humanitarian intervention and its change
over time. A century ago, protecting nonwhite non-Christians was not an "interest" of Western
states, certainly not one that could prompt the deployment of troops. Similarly, a century ago
states saw no interest in multilateral authorization, coordination, force integration, and use of
troops from "disinterested" states. The argument of this essay is that these interests and
incentives have been constituted socially through state practice and the evolution of shared
norms by which states act.
Humanitarian intervention is not new. It has, however, changed over time in some systemic
and important ways. First, the definition of who qualifies as human and therefore as deserving
of humanitarian protection by foreign governments has changed. Whereas in the nineteenth
century European Christians were the sole focus of humanitarian intervention, this focus has
been expanded and universalized such that by the late twentieth century all human beings are
treated as equally deserving in the international normative discourse. In fact, states are very
sensitive to charges that they are "normatively backward" and still privately harbor distinc
tions. When Boutros Boutros-Ghali, shortly after becoming secretary-general, charged that
powerful states were attending to disasters in white, European Bosnia at the expense of
nonwhite, African Somalia, the U.S. and other states became defensive, refocused attention,
and ultimately launched a full-scale intervention in the latter but not the former.
Second, while humanitarian intervention in the nineteenth century was frequently

multilateral, it was not necessarily so. Russia, for example, claimed humanitarian justifications
for its intervention in Bulgaria in the 1870s; France was similarly allowed to intervene
unilaterally, with no companion force to guard against adventurism. These claims were not
contested, much less rejected, by other states, as the claims of India, Tanzania, and Vietnam
were (or would have been, had they made such claims) a century later, despite the fact that
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Russia, at least, had nonhumanitarian motives to intervene. By the twentieth century, not only
does multilateralism appear to be necessary to claim humanitarian justifications but sanction
by the United Nations or some other formal organization is also required. The U.S., Britain,
and France, for example, went out of their way to find authority in un resolutions for their
protection of Kurds in Iraq.
The foregoing account also illustrates that these changes have come about through continual
contestation over norms related to humanitarian intervention. The abolition of slavery, of the
slave trade, and of colonization were all highly visible, often very violent, international
contests about norms. Over time some norms won, others lost. The result was that by the
second half of the twentieth century norms about who was "human" had changed, expanding
the population deserving of humanitarian protection. At the same time norms about
multilateral action had been strengthened, making multilateralism not just attractive but
imperative.
Finally, I have argued here that the international normative fabric has become increasingly
institutionalized in formal international organizations, particularly the United Nations. As
recent action in Iraq suggests, action in concert with others is not enough to confer legitimacy
on intervention actions. States also actively seek authorization from the United Nations and
restrain their actions to conform to that authorization (as the U.S. did in not going to Baghdad
during the Gulf war). 62 International organizations such as the un play an important role in
both arbitrating normative claims and structuring the normative discourse over colonialism,
sovereignty, and humanitarian issues. 63 Changes in norms create only permissive conditions
for changes in international political behavior. One important task of future research will be to
define more specifically the conditions under which certain kinds of norms might prevail or
fail in influencing action. A related task will be to clarify the mechanisms whereby norms are
created, changed, and exercise their influence. I have suggested a few of these here--public
opinion, the media, international institutions. More detailed study of individual cases is
needed to clarify the role of each of these mechanisms. Finally, the way in which normative
claims are related to power capabilities deserves attention. The traditional Gramscian view
would argue that these are coterminous; the international normative structure is created by
and serves the most powerful. Humanitarian action generally, and humanitarian intervention
specifically, do not obviously serve the powerful. The expansion of humanitarian intervention
practices since the last century suggests that the relationship between norms and power may
not be so simple.
This essay benefited from comments by Michel Girard, James Goldgeier, Richard
Hermann, Peter Katzenstein, Elizabeth Kier, Stephen Krasner, Joseph Lepgold,
James Lee Ray, Henry Shue, Nina Tannenwald, Stephen Walt, Alexander Wendt,
two anonymous reviewers for Columbia University Press, and the participants at
the third Social Science Research Council/MacArthur Workshop at Stanford
University, October 1994. Research assistance and insightful comments by Darel
Paul are gratefully acknowledged.
Note 1: One could have subsystemic normative contexts as well, as illustrated by several
essays in this volume. Back.
Note 2: The term military intervention in this essay refers to the deploying of military forces
by a foreign power or powers for the purpose of controlling domestic policies or political
arrangements in the target state in ways that clearly violate sovereignty. Humanitarian
intervention is used to mean military intervention with the goal of protecting the lives and
welfare of foreign civilians.
Note that interventions to protect a state's own nationals from abuse are excluded from this
analysis. Such intervention was once categorized as humanitarian by international legal
16 de 22 05/08/2010 19:35
scholars, but it does not present the same intellectual puzzles about interests, since protecting
one's own nationals is clearly connected to conventional understandings of national interest.
Further, scholars of interna-tional law are increasingly making the distinction that I make here
and reserving the term humanitarian intervention for military protection of foreign citizens, as
I do, to follow changing state practice. See Anthony Clark Arend and Robert J. Beck,
International Law and the Use of Force: Beyond the UN Charter Paradigm (New York:
Routledge, 1993), esp. ch. 8; and Fernando Tesón, Humanitarian Intervention: An Inquiry
Into Law and Morality (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Transnational Publishers, 1988). Back.
Note 3: For a more extended discussion, see Martha Finnemore, Defining National Interests
in International Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), ch. 1. There is not space here
to discuss the various sociological and psychological links between norms and behavior. For
one set of sociological arguments, see Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio, eds., The New
Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). For
a somewhat different view, see James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, Rediscovering
Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics (New York: Free Press, 1989). For
psychological arguments, see Henri Tajfel, Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in
Social Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Back.
Note 4: The U.S. intervention in Grenada is one such case, in which humanitarian
justifications were offered (and widely rejected) for action of doubtful humanitarian
motivation. See discussion in Tesón, Humanitarian Intervention, pp. 188-200. The Spanish-
American War is a slightly different case, in which the U.S. offered humanitarian justifications
as part of what were genuinely very complex motives for intervention. See Marc Trachtenberg,
"Intervention in Historical Perspective," in Laura Reed and Carl Kaysen, eds., Emerging
Norms of Justified Intervention, pp. 15-36 (Cambridge, Mass.: Committee on International
Security Studies, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1993).It should also be noted that
humanitarian justifications are often not offered by states that might legitimately claim them.
Tanzania's invasion against Amin's Uganda and Vietnam's invasion of Pol Pot's Cambodia were
both justified on security grounds. India initially offered humanitarian reasons for her 1971
intervention after massacres in East Pakistan but quickly dropped those in favor of
self-defense and security justifications. See discussion below. Back.
Note 5: Obviously, single-actor characteristics may be defined in relation to or by comparison

with those of others, but identification makes affective relationship central in ways that
identity does not. Back.
Note 6: The intellectual orientation of the regimes literature probably had much to do with
this atomized treatment of norms. Norms were incorporated as a definitional part of regimes,
but regimes were always conceived of as pertaining to individual issue areas. Scholars wrote
about norms pertaining to specific issues without addressing either the larger context in which
these norms exist or the ways in which they may be related one to another.
Arguments about interrelationships among norms and the nature of an overarching social
normative structure have been made by both sociological institutionalists like John Meyer and,
to a lesser extent, English School scholars like Gerrit Gong, in his discussion of standards of
"civilization." See George Thomas, John Meyer, Francisco Ramirez, and John Boli, eds.,
Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society, and the Individual (Newbury Park, Calif.:
Sage, 1987), esp. ch. 1; also Gerrit Gong, The Standard of "Civilisation" in International
Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). For an extended discussion of normative fabrics and
social structures, see Finnemore, Defining National Interests in International Society . Back.
Note 7: Intervention in the Boxer Rebellion in China (1898-1900) is an interesting related

case. I omit it from the analysis here because the primary goal of the intervenors was to
protect their own nationals, not the Chinese. But the intervention did have the happy result of
protecting a large number of mostly Christian Chinese from slaughter. Back.
Note 8: J. A. R. Marriott, The Eastern Question: An Historical Study in European
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Diplomacy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917), pp. 183-85. There were plenty of atrocities on
both sides in this conflict. Many of the early Turkish massacres were in response to previous
insurgent massacres of Muslims at Morea and elsewhere in April 1821. For example, Greek
Christians massacred approximately eight thousand Turkish Muslims in the town of Tripolitza
in 1821. In all, about twenty thousand Muslims were massacred during the war in Greece
without causing the great powers concern. Since, under the law of the Ottoman Empire, the
patriarch of Constantinople was responsible for the good behavior of his flock, his execution
was viewed as justified. See Eric Carlton, Massacres: An Historical Perspective (Aldershot,
Hants, Eng.: Scolar Press, 1994), p. 82; Marriott, The Eastern Question, p. 183; Cambridge
Modern History (New York: Macmillan, 1911), 10:178-83.
Atrocities continued throughout the five-plus years of the conflict and fueled the Russian
claims. Perhaps the most sensational of these were the atrocities committed by Egyptian
troops under Ibrahim when they arrived to quell the Greek insurrection in 1825 for the sultan
(to whom they were vassals). Egyptian troops began a process of wholesale extermination of
the Greek populace, apparently aimed at recolonization of the area by Muslims. This fresh
round of horrors was cited by European powers as the reason for their final press toward a
solution. Back.
Note 9: France had a long-standing protective arrangement with Eastern Christians,

described below, and had consistently favored armed intervention (Cambridge Modern
History, 10:193). Back.
Note 10: William St. Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free (London: Oxford University
Press, 1972), p. 81; C. W. Crawley, The Question of Greek Independence (New York: Howard
Fertig, 1973), p. 1; Cambridge Modern History, 10:180. Back.
Note 11: Cambridge Modern History, 10:178-79. Back.
Note 13: R. W. Seton-Watson, Britain in Europe, 1789 to 1914 (New York: Macmillan, 1937),
p. 419; also Trachtenberg, "Intervention in Historical Perspective," p. 23. Back.
Note 14: Seton-Watson, Britain in Europe, pp. 419-20; Trachtenberg, "Intervention in

Historical Perspective," p. 23. Back.
Note 15: Seton-Watson, Britain in Europe, p. 421. Back.
Note 17: Louis B. Sohn and Thomas Buergenthal, International Protection of Human
Rights (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973), pp. 156-60. Back.
Note 18: A. L. Tiwabi, A Modern History of Syria (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 131; Seton-
Watson, Britain in Europe, p. 421. Back.
Note 19: Mason Whiting Tyler, The European Powers and the Near East, 1875-1908
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1925), p. 66 n.; Seton-Watson, Britain in Europe,
pp. 519-20; Marriott, The Eastern Question, pp. 291-92; Cambridge Modern History, 12:384.
Back.
Note 20: Seton-Watson, Britian in Europe, p. 519. Back.
Note 21: Mercia MacDermott, A History of Bulgaria, 1393-1885 (New York: Praeger, 1962),
p. 280. Back.
Note 22: Cambridge Modern History, 12:384. Back.
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Note 23: Tyler, European Powers and the Near East, p. 70. Gladstone even published a
pamphlet on the subject, The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East, which sold
more than 200,000 copies; Seton-Watson, Britian in Europe, p. 519; Marriott, The Eastern
Question, p. 293. Back.
Note 24: MacDermott, A History of Bulgaria, p. 277; Tyler, European Powers and the Near
East, p. 21. Back.
Note 25: Arguably, too, the action was not intervention, since the Russians actually declared
war. Since the war aims involved reconfiguring internal Ottoman arrangements of rule,
however, the incident seems to have properties sufficiently similar to those of intervention to
merit consideration in this study. Back.
Note 26: Cambridge Modern History, 12:415-17; Marriott, The Eastern Question, pp. 349-51.
Back.
Note 27: Of course, these events late in the nineteenth century were only the tip of the
iceberg. More than a million Armenians were killed by Turks during World War I, but the war
environment obviates discussions of military intervention for the purposes of this essay. Back.
Note 28: Indeed, there were many firsthand European accounts of the Constantinople
massacres, since execution gangs even forced their way into the houses of foreigners to
execute Armenian servants (Cambridge Modern History, 12:417). Back.
Note 29: Quotation is from Lord Rosebery, as cited in Cambridge History of British Foreign
Policy, 3:234. Back.
Note 30: Cambridge Modern History, 12:417-18; Sohn and Buergenthal, International
Protection of Human Rights, p. 181. Back.
Note 31: For more on this, see Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the
Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. 2, Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of
Modern Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977). Back.
Note 32: Christopher Hibbert, The Dragon Wakes: China and the West, 1793-1911 (Newton
Abbot, Devon, Eng.: Readers Union, 1971). Hibbert estimates that the three-day massacre in
Nanking alone killed more than 100,000 people (p. 303). Back.
Note 33: In one of the more egregious incidents of this kind, the Germans killed sixty-five
thousand indigenous inhabitants of German Southwest Africa (Namibia) in 1904. See Barbara
Harff, "The Etiology of Genocides," in Isidor Wallimann and Michael N. Dobkowski, eds.,
Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death, pp. 46, 56 (New
York: Greenwood, 1987). Back.
Note 34: The expansion of conceptions of humanity is also relevant to the development of
international human rights and has been discussed by international legal scholars interested in
such issues. See, for example, Louis Henkin, The Age of Rights (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1990), ch. 1. The legal literature on international human rights, however,
does not attend to the connection emphasized here between these expanding notions of
humanity and the international use of organized military force. Back.
Note 35: One might argue that the current plight of the Bosnian Muslims suggests that
"humanity" is not as universal as we would like to think. They, after all, are Muslims being
slaughtered by Christians, and the Christian West is standing by. Countering this would be the
case of Somalia, where the West did intervene to save a largely Muslim population. I would
argue that the explanation for different intervention behaviors in these cases does not lie in
humanitarian norms. Strong normative claims to intervene have been made in both cases and
have met with different results, for old-fashioned geostrategic reasons. As is discussed
elsewhere in this essay, humanitarian norms create only permissive conditions for
19 de 22 05/08/2010 19:35
intervention. They create an "interest" in intervention where none existed. They do not
eliminate other competing interests, such as political or strategic interests. Back.
Note 36: The quotation comes from the Eight Power Declaration concerning the universal
abolition of the trade in Negroes, signed February 8, 1815, by Britain, France, Spain, Sweden,
Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Portugal (as quoted in Leslie Bethell, The Abolition of the
Brazilian Slave Trade [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970], p. 14). Back.
Note 37: I do not mean to minimize the abuses suffered by freed slaves after emancipation,
as Europeans tried in various ways to subvert the emancipation guarantees. I only wish to
stress that emancipation entailed formal guarantees of a minimal kind (e.g., freedom against
forced labor, freedom of movement) and that subversion was now necessary if whites were to
obtain what had previously been available through overt methods. Back.
Note 38: Bethell, Abolition of Brazilian Slave Trade, ch. 1. In 1850 Britain went so far as to
fire on and board ships in Brazilian ports to enforce antislave trafficking treaties (ibid., pp.
329-31). One might argue that such action was a violation of sovereignty and thus qualified as
military intervention, but if so, it was intervention of a very peripheral kind. Back.
Note 39: The United States is a possible exception. One could argue that the North
intervened militarily in the South to abolish slavery. Such an argument would presume that (a)
there were ever two separate states such that the North's action could be understood as
"intervention," rather than civil war and (b) abolishing slavery rather than maintaining the
Union was the primary reason for the North's initial action. Both assumptions are open to
serious question. (The Emancipation Proclamation was not signed until 1863, when the war
was already half over.) Thus, while the case is suggestive of the growing power of a broader
conception of "humanity," I do not treat it in this analysis. Back.
Note 40: For an extended treatment of the importance of the categories civilized and
barbarian on state behavior in the nineteenth century, see Gong, The Standard of
"Civilisation" in International Society . Back.
Note 41: Gerrit Gong provides a much more extensive discussion of what "civilization" meant
to Europeans from an international legal perspective (see ibid.). Uday Mehta investigates the
philosophical underpinnings of colonialism in Lockean liberalism and the strategies aimed at
the systematic political exclusion of culturally dissimilar colonized peoples by liberals
professing universal freedom and rights. One of these strategies was civilizational
infantilization; treating peoples in India, for example, like children allowed liberals to exclude
them from political participation and, at the same time, justified extensive tutelage in
European social conventions in the name of civilizing them and preparing them for liberal
political life. See Uday S. Mehta, "Liberal Strategies of Exclusion," Politics and Society 18
(1990): 427-54.
Of necessity, this very abbreviated picture of colonialism obscures the enormous variety in
European views of what they were doing. Some social reformers and missionaries no doubt
had much more generous notions of the "humanity" of the non-Europeans with whom they
came in contact and treated them with respect. In the view of some more-racist participants in
the colonialist project, no amount of Christian piety or Europeanization would ever raise these
non-Europeans up to a level of humanity comparable to that of Europeans. My goal in this
sketch is to emphasize the effort to create humanity so that connections with decolonization
can be seen. Back.
Note 42: To reiterate, I am making no claims about the causes of decolonization. These
causes were obviously complex and have been treated extensively in the vast literature on the
subject. I argue only that humanitarian norms were central in the justification for
decolonization. Back.
Note 43: Neta Crawford makes similar but not identical arguments in "Decolonization as an
20 de 22 05/08/2010 19:35
International Norm: The Evolution of Practices, Arguments, and Beliefs," in Reed and Kaysen,
Emerging Norms of Justified Intervention, pp. 37-61. Back.
Note 44: For an excellent exposition, see Thomas M. Franck, The Power of Legitimacy
Among Nations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), esp. ch. 10. Back.
Note 45: Crawford, "Decolonization as an International Norm," p. 53. David Lumsdaine

makes a similar point about the expanding internal logic of domestic welfare arguments that
led to the creation of the foreign aid regime in Moral Vision in International Politics: The
Foreign Aid Regime, 1949-1989 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 46: Even veto power on the Security Council could not protect colonial powers from
the decolonizing trend, as the Suez incident in 1956 made clear to Britain and France. See
Thomas Risse-Kappen's discussion of that case in essay 10 of this volume. Back.
Note 47: See, for example, Lumsdaine's excellent discussion of the rise and expansion of
foreign aid in Moral Vision in International Politics. See also the discussion of humanitarian
intercession in Sohn and Buergenthal, International Protection of Human Rights. Back.
Note 48: One interesting exception that proves the rule is the U.S. claim of humanitarian
justification for its intervention in Grenada. First, the human beings to be protected by the
intervention were not Grenadans but U.S. nationals. Protecting one's own nationals can still be
construed as protecting national interests and is therefore not anomalous or analytically
interesting in the way that state action to protect nationals of other states is. Second, the
humanitarian justification offered by the United States was widely rejected in the international
community, underscoring the point made here that unilateral humanitarian intervention is
generally treated with suspicion by states. See the discussions in Tesón, Humanitarian
Intervention, pp. 188-200; and Arend and Beck, International Law and the Use of Force, pp.
126-28.
The apparent illegitimacy of unilateral humanitarian intervention is probably related to two

broad issues that cannot be treated in this limited space--namely, the expansion of
multilateralism as a practice and the strengthening of juridical sovereignty norms, especially
among weak states. On multilateralism, see John G. Ruggie, ed., Multilateralism Matters: The
Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
Concerning the strengthening of sovereignty norms among weak states, see Stephen D.
Krasner, Structural Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). Back.
Note 49: Significantly, those who are Thomas Risse-Kappen's discussion of that case in essay
10 of more optimistic about solving these problems and about the utility of multilateral action
rely on norms to overcome the problems. Norms are an essential part of both regimes and
multilateralism in the two touchstone volumes on these topics. See Stephen D. Krasner, ed.,
International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), and Ruggie, Multilateralism
Matters. Back.
Note 50: These synopses are drawn in large part from Tesón, Humanitarian Intervention, ch.
8; Michael Akehurst, "Humanitarian Intervention," in Hedley Bull, ed., Intervention in World
Politics, pp. 95-118 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); and Arend and Beck, International Law
and the Use of Force, ch. 8. Back.
Note 51: Estimates of the number of refugees vary wildly. The Pakistani government put the
number at two million; the Indian government claimed ten million. Independent estimates
have ranged from five to nine million. See Tesón, Humanitarian Intervention, p. 182,
including n. 163, for discussion. Back.
Note 52: See ibid., p. 186 n. 187, for the text of a General Assembly speech by the Indian
representative articulating this justification. See also Akehurst, "Humanitarian Intervention,"
p. 96. Back.
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Note 53: Akehurst concludes that India actually had prior statements concerning
humanitarian justifications deleted from the Official Record of the un (Akehurst,
"Humanitarian Intervention," pp. 96-97). Back.
Note 54: Amin attempted to justify this move by claiming that Tanzania had previously
invaded Ugandan territory. Back.
Note 55: Tesón, Humanitarian Intervention, p. 164. Back.
Note 57: As quoted in Akehurst, "Humanitarian Intervention," p. 99. Back.
Note 58: As quoted in ibid., p. 97 n. 17. Back.
Note 59: One reason for the virtual absence of humanitarian arguments in this case, as
compared with the Tanzanian case, may have been the way in which the intervention was
conducted. Tanzania exerted much less control over the kind of regime that replaced Amin,
making the subsequent Ugandan regime's defense of Tanzania's actions as "liberation" less
implausible than were Vietnam's claims that it, too, was helping to liberate Cambodia by
installing a puppet regime that answered to Hanoi. Back.
Note 60: John G. Ruggie, "Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution," in Ruggie,

Multilateralism Matters, p. 6. Back.
Note 61: Contemporary multilateralism is not, therefore, "better" or more efficient and
effective than the nineteenth-century brand. My argument is only that it is different. This
difference in multilateralism poses a particular challenge to neoliberal institutionalists. Those
scholars have sophisticated arguments about why international cooperation should be robust
and about why it might vary across issue-areas. They cannot, however, explain these
qualitative changes in multilateralism, nor can they explain changes in the amount of
multilateral activity over time, without appealing to exogenous variables (such as changes in
markets or technology). Back.
Note 62: Inis Claude's classic discussion of this collective legitimation function of the un is
well worth a second reading in the current political environment; see Inis L. Claude Jr.,
"Collective Legitimization as a Political Function of the United Nations," International
Organization 20, no. 3 (Summer 1966): 367-79. Back.
Note 63: For more on the role of ios in creating and disseminating norms, see Martha
Finnemore, "International Organization s as Teachers of Norms: The United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and Science Policy," International
Organization 47, no. 4 (Autumn 1993): 599-628. Back.
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editor
6. Culture and French Military Doctrine Before World War II
Elizabeth Kier
When war broke out in May 1940, the French army found itself saddled with a highly
defensive doctrine that was incapable of breaking the German assault. France used the
interwar period to bolster its military and was well prepared to fight a war against
Germany--but only if Hitler fought the war on French terms. As a result, few defeats were as
rapid or as devastating as the May-June campaign in Western Europe. Making sense of the
French defeat as well as the more general question of the origins of choices between offensive
and defensive military doctrines requires casting aside traditional theoretical approaches.
Neither the civilians nor the military behaves as hypothesized by structural or functional
analyses. Instead, changes in military doctrine are best understood from a cultural perspective.
First, dominant domestic political actors hold assumptions about the military's role in society,
and these beliefs guide civilian decisions that often affect doctrinal developments. Restricting
the sources of military doctrine to the calculations of balance of power politics inadequately
depicts the influence of civilian policy makers and the external environment. Civilians address
their concerns about the domestic distribution of power before they consider the structure of
the international system. Second, military organizations differ in how they view their world
and the proper conduct of their mission, and these organizational cultures determine the
myriad preferences of such organizations. We should not assume that most military
organizations, most of the time, prefer offensive military doctrines; a functional view of the
interests of military organizations fails to capture the variety in organizational behavior. What
the military perceives to be in its interest is a function of its culture. In short, by accounting for
policy makers' cultural environment, we can better explain choices between offensive and
defensive military doctrines.
By focusing on the ways in which culture affects the formation of military doctrine, this essay
endorses this volume's general lesson on the importance of sociological approaches to
understanding international security questions. Culture may be an effective tool in the hands
of political entrepreneurs, but an acknowledgment of culture's instrumental role does not
require a denial of its causal one. Unlike rationalists who take interests as given, this essay
explores the ways in which culture and the meanings that actors attach to certain policies
shape actors' interests. Independent exigencies such as the distribution of power, geographic
factors, or technological discoveries are important, but culture is not merely derivative of
functional demands or structural imperatives. Culture has (relative) causal autonomy.
Making the case that culture is important to explaining choices between offensive and
defensive military doctrines requires taking three steps. Since the origins of military doctrine
have already received sophisticated attention from scholars in a rationalist tradition, I first
summarize and critique their work. Then, having highlighted some of the limitations of this
more conventional work, I set out my argument, outlining how culture affects civilian and,
especially, military decisions about doctrinal developments. The final section uses the case of
the French army during the 1920s and 1930s to illustrate the power of a culturalist approach. 1
Alternative Explanations
Barry Posen and Jack Snyder's pioneering work on military doctrine uses structural and
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functional arguments to explain choices between offensive and defensive military doctrines. 2
Although these scholars disagree on the role of domestic politics and the explanatory weight
of organizational factors, they agree on two important points. Both see the international
system as providing accurate cues for civilian intervention in doctrinal developments. While
Snyder argues that it is the civilians' absence that allows the military to adopt its self-serving
doctrine, Posen accords an active role to civilians, arguing that as the international system
becomes more threatening, civilians intervene in doctrinal developments in accordance with
systemic imperatives. The civilians are painted as the champions of the national interest and
the principal architects of well-integrated military plans.
In contrast, the military is portrayed as choosing doctrines that serve its parochial interests,
not national objectives. These scholars argue that military organizations use the adoption of
offensive doctrines to further their quest for greater resources, certainty, autonomy, and
prestige. For example, Posen argues that the greater complexity involved in the execution of
offensive doctrines justifies increased expenditures, and Snyder claims that quick, decisive,
and offensive campaigns enhance the army's prestige and self-image. According to a functional
logic, these beneficial consequences cause this behavior. Discounting the imperatives of the
international system, the military adopts the offensive doctrine that corresponds to its
functional needs.
The Civilians' International Vision

The argument that civilian intervention in doctrinal developments corresponds to the
international system has weak theoretical and empirical foundations; it exaggerates the power
of systemic imperatives and misses the focus of civilian concerns. This is true even in an easy
case for balance of power theory, such as France during the 1920s and 1930s. If there is any
example where the international system should determine a state's doctrinal orientation, this
is it. French policy makers understood the nature of the threat that they faced and devoted
extensive resources to ensuring France's security. The objective international requirements
were neither misperceived nor seemingly not addressed. France had spent twenty years
preparing for the German assault.
As compelling as the international system was, it cannot account for doctrinal developments in
France. And in general, the international system does not provide determinate explanations
for choices between offensive and defensive doctrines. 3 Although revisionist states require
offensive doctrines, both offensive and defensive doctrines can defend a status quo state, and
states often ignore alliance commitments that require offensive capabilities. Most important, a
state's relative power is indeterminate of doctrinal choice.
Throughout the interwar period, French policy makers understood France's weakness relative
to Germany. In the 1920s Paris argued that France had to strike out offensively and win
quickly. Engaging in a long war of attrition, the reasoning went, could only result in the
eventual triumph of Germany's superior economic strength and industrial mobilization. An
official report in the early 1920s explained that "an offensive conception was the only one that
would permit us to compensate for the inescapable causes of our weakness which result from
the inferiority of our population and industrial strength." 4 France's relative weakness
required an offensive orientation.
This argument was turned on its head a decade later. Now, it seemed, France must stay on the
defensive in the opening battles of a conflict with Germany and throw all its resources into
defeating the initial German assault. France's only hope, it was now argued, was that the initial
resistance to a German offensive would provide the necessary time for the injection of allied
assistance. France could only win a long war. In other words, France's relative weakness led to
support for an offensive orientation in the 1920s and a defensive doctrine in the 1930s. French
policy makers were not misguided, nor did they misunderstand France's strategic position.
Either an offensive or a defensive posture is a sensible response to the systemic demands of a
relatively weak state.
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The indeterminacy of the external environment makes clear why dramatic doctrinal shifts
occur in the absence of systemic variation, or why changes in the structure of the international
system do not lead to shifts in states' doctrinal orientations. For example, although both the
French and the British armies shifted from offensive to defensive doctrines from 1914 to 1939,
conditions in the international system remained relatively static from one period to the next.
Similarly, although India's strategic position changed dramatically upon independence in
1947, it was not until the early 1980s that the Indian army began to shed the doctrinal
orientation of its British predecessor. 5
Realists might dismiss the above critique of the indeterminacy of the external environment by
arguing that France's position in the international system changed between the 1920s and the
1930s; it is this shift in the distribution of power that explains doctrinal developments. After
all, Germany had virtually no army in the 1920s. There seems to be a powerful correlation
between German power and French doctrine. Germany is relatively weak in the 1920s and the
French army has an offensive orientation; Germany is strong in the 1930s and the French
army has a defensive doctrine.
This argument cannot be sustained. It did not take German rearmament for the French to
worry about German power. The French sought to use the Versailles negotiations to harness
German power, and France's Eastern diplomacy during the 1920s discredits any notion that it
took Hitler's rise to power and German rearmament to wake the French up to the potential
threat on their doorstep. More important, France switched to a defensive doctrine five years
before Hitler's seizure of power, seven years before the reinstatement of conscription, eight
years before the remilitarization of the Rhineland. . . . It was in 1929 that the French war plans
became unabashedly defensive--before Hitler came to power and German rearmament began.
There is not a correlation between French doctrine and German power: the French army
switched to a defensive doctrine long before Germany had begun to rearm.
Even if this timing had not been off, the correlation would be unsupported by process-tracing.
6 When France switched to a defensive doctrine in the late 1920s, the French army
repeatedly and explicitly linked the change to the government's decision to reduce the length
of conscription. The French army did not connect the rise of German power with the adoption
of a defensive doctrine. There is neither correlation or causation between German power and
French doctrine.
Barry Posen provides a sophisticated defense of the ability of balance of power theory to
explain French army doctrine during the interwar period. Posen argues that because of
France's relative weakness, French policy makers focused on external balancing--in particular,
on gaining British support to allow France to "pass the buck." This required, according to
Posen, the adoption of a defensive doctrine in order to avoid appearing bellicose in British
eyes. 7
Though logically compelling, this argument is empirically problematic. The French did seek
Britain as an alliance partner, but we are provided with no evidence that the political
repercussions of an offensive doctrine concerned Paris or London, or that the French were
motivated by a desire to avoid antagonizing Britain. Across a whole spectrum of issues, France
was more than willing to court British displeasure. On an economic front, the French
attempted to exploit their ability to undermine the international monetary regime and to
weaken its leader, Great Britain. 8 In foreign policy, the British were far from pleased with
French behavior during the Chanak crisis and the occupation of the Ruhr. And in military
policy, French war plans were explicitly designed to draw Germany into Belgium in order to
threaten the security of the British Isles. This is hardly an action of a state seeking British
approval. Also, if French policy makers desired a defensive doctrine in order to present a
reassuring image to their British allies, why did French war plans continue to be offensive
until 1929?
In addition, if external balancing took precedence, French recognition of British reluctance to
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make a continental commitment should have encouraged France to seek alternative sources of
assistance. French policy makers could have ensured that France had the military capabilities
to honor alliance commitments in Eastern Europe or formed a military alliance with the
Soviets. France did neither.
Finally, there is little support for the claim that French policy makers sought to "pass the buck"
through external balancing. To the contrary, there is evidence that French civilians strongly
objected to such an idea. During a meeting of the Superior Council of War in December 1927,
one of the military officers remarked that France could aid itself only with the help of allies.
The (civilian) minister of defense quickly responded that such a remark was extremely serious,
useless, and dangerous. 9 France did of course seek allied support, but to accuse French
policy makers of buck-passing slights the substantial financial resources that French defense
spending consumed throughout the interwar period--even during periods of economic crisis
and left-wing governments. 10
Contrary to what one would expect from balance of power theory, much of civilian behavior in
France during the 1930s seemed immune to the quickening pace of international events. Many
of Hitler's policies severely compromised France's security system, but French civilians did
little to realign French army doctrine with the new strategic realities. For example, even
though French policy makers recognized that the Belgian declaration of neutrality and the
German remilitarization of the Rhineland weakened France's strategic position, these moves
met little response from Paris. After the German invasion of Poland and in an attempt to
maintain morale during the "phony war," the French command took the dramatic action of
instructing the troops to plant rosebushes around the Maginot Line. 11 The rosebushes were
planted, but General Charles de Gaulle's calls for the creation of an armored force capable of
offensive strikes were ignored.
By establishing constraints, civilian decisions affect doctrinal developments, but civilians

rarely participate actively in the formation of army doctrine. During the 1920s and 1930s,
French civilians deferred to the military on questions of doctrine. 12 Their British
counterparts did like wise; neither the British cabinet nor the parliament concerned itself with
army doctrine. 13 In fact, civilian intervention can be counterproductive to doctrinal change.
Given the state of civil-military relations in France during the 1930s, civilian intervention in
doctrinal developments was probably the best way to guarantee that a change would not occur.
In 1936 de Gaulle sought the aid of a parliamentarian, Paul Reynaud, in his quest for the
adoption of an offensive doctrine. As a result, de Gaulle's reputation within the army
plummeted, and as Edward Pognon explains, "Rare, very rare are those among his comrades
who were not scandalized by his appeal to a politician." 14 The following year, the High
Command, seeking to demonstrate displeasure with de Gaulle's ideas and his appeal to civilian
intervention, dropped him from the promotion list. 15 Far from fostering doctrinal
innovation, civilian intervention frustrated de Gaulle's efforts.
This does not mean that civilian decisions are not important to doctrinal developments. They
frequently are. But the proposition that civilians intervene in doctrinal developments in
accordance with systemic imperatives is more problematic than it first appears to be. The
international system is indeterminate, civilians infrequently intervene, and most important,
civilian decisions constraining doctrinal developments are rarely in response to the structure
of the international system. Instead, military doctrine frequently corresponds to policy makers'
concerns about the distribution of power domestically.
The Military's Parochial Interests

According to a functional argument, offensive doctrines are powerful tools in a military
organization's pursuit of greater resources, autonomy, and prestige. The pursuit of these goals,
however, is largely indeterminate of choices between offensive and defensive military
doctrines. Even if these goals could be fulfilled only with an offensive doctrine, military
organizations often forfeit the attainment of them. This pattern holds true even in the case of
4 de 20 05/08/2010 19:36
the preference for greater resources. Furthermore, without civil ian prompting, military
organizations ostracize those officers who advocate a more offensive orientation and willingly
and dogmatically endorse defensive doctrines.
Although Posen and Snyder argue that the preference for the reduction of uncertainty
encourages the adoption of offensive doctrines, defensive doctrines can also structure the
battlefield and reduce the need to improvise. An integral aspect of the French army's
excessively defensive doctrine before World War II was the concept that the French termed
the methodical battle. Instead of allowing for initiative and flexibility, la bataille
conduite ensured tightly controlled operations in which all units adhered to strictly scheduled
timetables. As a German officer explained, "French tactics are essentially characterized by a
systematization which seeks to anticipate and account for any eventuality in the smallest
detail." 16 The French army's defensive doctrine maximized the centralization of command
and reduced spontaneity to a minimum.
Similarly, military organizations use both offensive and defensive doctrines to insulate
themselves from civilian interference. The French army's endorsement of a defensive doctrine
after 1929 is partly attributable to its being part of a larger package that allowed the army to
retain what it most treasured--a small (and relatively autonomous) professional force. With
the exception of the air force, there is a weak connection between autonomy and offensive
doctrines. Civilians, and especially those in the foreign office, would be more likely to interfere
in military planning if these operations included offensive strikes into a foreign country.
Civilians are not likely to take a hands-off approach if their armed forces are invading a
neighboring country. 17 Air forces have exploited strategic bombing (an offensive doctrine) to
ensure their independence. During the 1920s and 1930s, both the French and the British air
forces used an offensive doctrine in their efforts to obtain institutional autonomy. But the
extent to which each service manipulated its doctrinal preferences to defeat the army and navy
attack on its independence does not correspond to the expectations of a functional
perspective. While the French air force fought bitterly and unsuccessfully for its
independence, French airmen only halfheartedly endorsed the offensive doctrine that,
according to a functional argument, could have furthered their quest for autonomy. 18 In
contrast, the Royal Air Force (raf) gained institutional autonomy relatively easily but remained
enamored of strategic bombing long after it had cemented its independent status as the third
service.
Even when military organizations could gain greater resources, autonomy, or prestige through
the adoption of an offensive doctrine, they often fail to do so. This is true even in such easy
cases for a functional analysis as the French and British armies during the interwar period.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the British army was starved for resources and was the
lowest (financial) priority among the British armed services. The army command was familiar
with the concept of offensive mechanized warfare and had even led its development during
the 1920s. British civilians did not intervene in doctrinal decisions or advocate the adoption of
a defensive doctrine. In short, the British army had the (functional) need, the freedom, and the
knowledge to advocate the adoption of an offensive doctrine in order to increase its modest
budgetary allocation. It is hard to imagine a military organization better positioned to behave
as hypothesized by a functional analysis. Nevertheless, the British army ignored this
opportunity and adopted a defensive doctrine.
Similarly, throughout the 1930s, the French army had access to the ideas of mechanized
warfare and freedom from civilian interference. Unlike the British army, it was not on a strict
budgetary diet--the functional need for an offensive doctrine was less compelling. However,
the French army's desire for autonomy from the civilians could hardly have been more
extreme. With the recurrent instability of the Third Republic, the rise of the Left, and the
outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the army became increasingly fearful and distrustful of the
republic. If military organizations seek autonomy through the adoption of an offensive
doctrine, we should see it here. The French army had the (functional) need, the money, the
ideas, and freedom from civilian intervention. Nevertheless, instead of adopting an offensive
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doctrine in order to increase its independence from the government, the French army became
dogmatically committed to a defensive doctrine.
Still more surprising from a functionalist perspective is the budgetary behavior of the French
and British military during the interwar period. In 1936, for example, the Popular Front
government concluded that the budget request from the Chief of the French General Staff,
General Maurice Gamelin, was insufficient. Léon Blum and Edouard Daladier augmented
Gamelin's request for nine billion francs with an additional five billion francs! 19 All three
British services show a similar budgetary modesty that baffles a conventional evaluation of
organizational interests. The British army ignored the financial benefits that adoption of an
offensive doctrine could have brought. In fact, although all three British services suffered from
a lack of financial support, it was the civilians that consistently prodded the military chiefs to
submit larger budget requests.
When leading military and civilian decision makers met in the mid-1930s to plan British
rearmament, the raf submitted modest budget requests, arousing the ire of the Foreign Office,
which felt that the raf was underestimating the strength of the Luftwaffe. 20 The air staff
retorted that the Foreign Office was placing too much emphasis on the threat of a German air
attack, and the programs eventually adopted exceeded what the services themselves
considered necessary. 21 This reluctance to submit excessive, or in the Foreign Office's view,
adequate budget requests, was equally true of the Royal Navy, leading one participant to
comment that he found it "curious how, all throughout, the Chiefs of Staff have been the
moderating influence." 22
The generalization that military organizations prefer offensive doctrines cannot explain why
some military organizations adopt, and at times dogmatically embrace, defensive doctrines.
They do this on their own initiative, without civilian prodding, and despite adequate
knowledge of and resources for the development of an offensive doctrine. In the French case,
the civilians did not intervene in doctrinal developments to force a defensive doctrine down
the throats of the reluctant high command. Similarly, the British army marginalized those
officers advocating the offensive use of massed tanks. This does not mean that military
organizations prefer defensive doctrines or that organizational goals do not drive military
choices. Instead, what the military perceives to be in its interest is a function of its culture.
Legacy of Verdun
The lessons of World War I seem to explain why a functional explanation cannot account for
French doctrine. According to this argument, the 1920s and 1930s were an exceptional period:
emerging from the carnage of the Great War, the subjective offense/defense balance was so
skewed that an otherwise accurate generalization--that military organizations prefer offensive
doctrines--appears to be incorrect. Given the French army's doctrine in 1939, it seems
plausible that the leadership of the French army, marked by the bloody experiences of World
War I, had prepared for a rematch of the previous war. Devastated by the disastrous results of
the offense � outrance, and influenced in particular by the battle for Verdun, the French
officer corps had learned their lesson and prepared to fight the next war behind the reinforced
concrete of the Maginot Line.
Although this is the most popular explanation of the origins of the French army's defensive
doctrine, this argument fails to recognize the considerable debate in the French army in the
decade following the signing of the Versailles Treaty. 23 The French army eventually adopted
a doctrine reminiscent of the trench warfare in World War I, but this was not the only lesson
available, nor the only alternative considered. The extent to which offensive options were not
only considered but also endorsed becomes clear by examining the debate about the potential
use of fortifications, the war plans, and the discussions about the future of mechanization.
Within months of the armistice's signing, the French military elite began debating the potential
use of prepared positions, in particular whether the fortifications would serve offensive or
defensive functions. 24 While Marshal Pétain and others argued that fortifications were
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primarily defensive, Generals Berthelot, Debeney, Fillomeau, Foch, Guillemaut, Joffre, and
Mangin were the primary partisans of an offensive use of fortifications. Concerned that too
great an emphasis on fortifications might cripple the French army, they argued that fortified
regions should serve as centers of resistance to facilitate offensive actions. For example,
Ferdinand Foch estimated that Philippe Pétain's attempt to guarantee the inviolability of the
frontiers was a dangerous step. For him, "assuring the inviolability of the territory is not the
army's most important goal. . . . Establishing a Wall of China would pledge ourselves to
defeat." Similarly, Maxime Weygand argued that fortifications should be used to economize
forces such that a greater portion of the troops could strike offensively into Germany. 25
The controversy between these two schools of thought continued throughout the 1920s. In a
meeting of the Superior Council of War in 1926, Generals Guillemaut, Berthelot, and
Fillomeau attacked Pétain's proposal. Supported by Joseph Joffre and Eugéne Debeney,
General Guillemaut insisted that it would be dangerous to place greater importance on
fortifications than on the equipment that would allow the prepared positions to be used as
points of maneuver. 26 Foch agreed: "If we don't have the tool, it will not be the umbrella that
will protect the country." 27 Guillemaut also spoke out strongly against Pétain's conceptions:
The Wall of France is a dream financially speaking, and from the military
point of view can be a danger. It could lead us to subordinate all war plans. . .
. It would be better to build a strong army capable of going on the offensive.
Whatever money is remaining--if any does remain--could be used to
construct fortifications that would serve as a base of departure. 28
In their view, fortifications should be used to facilitate offensive actions and to avoid a
repetition of the static defense of World War I. 29
This debate continued for almost a decade, and this prolongation, according to a leading
historian of the Maginot Line, is indicative of the "markedly offensive spirit of the French high
command." 30 Pétain's conception of a continuous frontier eventually won out, but the
debate over the fortifications and the earlier official endorsement of offensive uses belies the
notion that the French officer corps left World War I convinced that only a defensive doctrine
was possible.
The discussions about the potential of mechanized warfare further reveal the extent to which
the French army was open to offensive possibilities in the aftermath of World War I. Just as
there was no consensus among the military leaders over how best to use fortifications, there
was also considerable disagreement in the 1920s about the optimum use of armor. While some
officers advocated the development of independent tank units that could take advantage of the
speed and maneuverability of this new technology, other officers argued that tanks should be
assigned to fill traditional roles of support for the infantry in defensive operations. 31
The war plans of the 1920s are additional evidence that the lessons of World War I did not
determine French military thinking: these plans officially endorsed offensive operations. If a
conflict with Germany occurred, the French intended to bring the battle to Germany and
divide the country in two. 32 In a letter to the minister of defense in 1925, a French officer
explains French intentions: "We must therefore, and at any price, have at our disposal at the
beginning of a conflict offensive forces capable of decisive strikes into Germany such that
Germany will be required to maintain the mass of her forces in the face of us and to fight on
her territory." 33 Increasingly defensive plans later superseded these offensive plans, but the
initial reaction to the threat of a resurgent Germany was once again to plan offensive strikes
beyond the French frontier.
This is not to downplay the impact of the slaughter of World War I on the collective memory in
France. It is only to argue that the French army did not leave World War I convinced that only
a defensive doctrine was possible. Other lessons and interpretations were available and
endorsed by important and influential sectors of the French army. As the lessons of World War
I took on heroic proportions, however, it became increasingly difficult to remember that the
Great War's defensive lessons were not the only ones available or supported.
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The lessons of history are multiple, and they frequently inform policy making only after a
particular policy has been adopted. They are not necessarily the origin of the policy itself. In
other words, the French army adopted a defensive doctrine in the interwar years not because
of the trench warfare of World War I but for different reasons. Once this defensive orientation
had been chosen, history began to be read and used in a particular way to justify or bolster the
chosen policy or institution. As Jack Snyder has aptly stated in his study of the myths of
empires, "Statesmen and society actively shape the lessons of the past in ways that they find
convenient, more than they are shaped by them." 34
The Cultural Roots of Doctrinal Decisions

Some may think it foolish to argue that the conditions in the international system do not
determine doctrinal developments by influencing the decisions made by civilian policy
makers. If military doctrine, which is designed to defeat an adversary's armed forces, is not
determined by the international system, one might reasonably ask what would be. I argue that
it is counterintuitive to assume that military policy would respond only to the objective
conditions in the international arena. Military doctrine is about state survival, but military
policy is also about the allocation of power within society. After all, what could be more
politicized than questions about who within the state has the support and control of the armed
services? Designing military policy requires first and foremost that policy makers address their
concerns about the distribution of power at the domestic level.
I expect fewer objections to the argument that implies that military organizations, constrained
by their own culture, ignore international imperatives. It is commonly argued that military
organizations pursue their parochial interests. Accurate explanations of military doctrine
require an understanding of the often conflicting perspectives held by military organizations.
Deducing preferences from functional characteristics is too general and too imprecise.
Understanding the variation in organizational behavior requires an analysis of cultural
characteristics and how these shape choices between offensive and defensive doctrines.
Domestic Politics and Military Doctrine

The military plays a pivotal role in the state-building process, and this experience informs
policy makers' views of military policy. The creation or stabilization of every state requires that
a bargain be struck over the control of the military. For example, the United States
Constitution ensured that the individual states would retain control of the militia and that
Congress would control defense expenditures. The British Parliament, forever worried that a
strong standing army would once again threaten English liberties, has refused to allow the
military to become independent of legislative control. The critical divide in France was not
between the national and the local levels, as in the United States, or Parliament and the
Crown, as in England; instead, it reflected class divisions. The conservative, industrial, and
landowning classes felt that only a professional army could ensure social stability and the
preservation of the status quo, while the Left and the Republicans stressed that only a
conscript army could guarantee republican liberties.
In other words, civilian choices in military policy often reflect fears about the distribution of
power within the state, not the structure of the international system. These concerns often
become institutionalized and shape decision makers' views of military policy. In many
instances, they persist past their objective relevance so that when civilians make decisions
about military policy, their perceived interests cannot be disentangled from their country's
experience with the armed services and the role that it played in securing a particular
distribution of power within the state.
To capture the role of domestic politics in choices between offensive and defensive military
doctrines, I focus on political military subcultures--that is, civilian policy makers' beliefs about
the role of armed force in the domestic arena. What is the perception of the role of the military
in society? Do domestic political actors fear the latent force in particular military
organizations? Should the armed services reflect the society at large, or are they viewed as
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separate and insular organizations? The questions focus on the importance of force in
domestic politics; the answers usually originate in each state's experience with the military in
the state-building process.
The way the civilians view the military varies from state to state. In some countries, all
important political actors share the same view of the military. This was the case for Great
Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, when there was general agreement across the political
spectrum about the role of the armed forces in society. When only one subculture exists, this
set of ideas and values can best be understood as approaching common sense: it constrains
behavior by establishing what is "natural" and makes other patterns of behavior unimaginable.
In other countries, as we will see in the case of France during the same period, there are
several competing conceptions. In these cases, the competing subcultures more closely
approximate ideologies: they provide explicit, self-conscious guidelines for action. 35 The
presence of one or several subcultures also affects the extent to which civilian intervention in
doctrinal developments corresponds to systemic imperatives. If there is more than one
subculture, civilian decisions are more likely to respond to domestic considerations. Civilians
are first and foremost concerned with securing the preferred domestic distribution of power.
In contrast, with a consensual subculture, the civilians will not be consumed by domestic
battles over military policy, and as a result their decisions are more likely to reflect the
external environment.
The Organizational Culture of the Military

Encouraged in part by the economic success of Japanese companies, organizational theorists
began studying how the culture of an organization affects organizational behavior and
decisions. 36 Although analysts have adopted different definitions, I define organizational
culture as the set of basic assumptions, values, norms, beliefs, and formal knowledge that
shapes collective understandings. The culture of an organization shapes its members'
perceptions and affects what they notice and how they interpret it; it screens out some parts of
"reality" while magnifying others.
Organizations' perceptions of their world frame and constrain the decision-making process.
This is particularly true of military organizations. Few institutions devote as many resources to
the assimilation of their members as does the military. The emphasis on ceremony and
tradition, and the development of a common language and an esprit de corps, testify to the
strength of the military's organizational culture.
The culture of a military organization is the collection of ideas and beliefs about armed
force--both its conduct and its relationship to the wider society. The components of the
military's culture can be divided into those values and attitudes relevant to its relationship
with its external environment--both international and domestic--and those characteristics
internal to the organization. For example, is war a question of courage and morale or has the
steel and firepower of the modern age fundamentally altered its nature? What skills or
formation does the officer corps value--does it model its behavior after the modern-day
business manager or the warrior and heroic leader?
Military culture does not mean military mind; it does not refer to a general set of values and
attitudes that all militaries share. All military organizations can be classified according to a
basic set of components, but they do not all share the same mixture of values and attitudes.
Nor is this an argument about strategic culture. 37 Organizational culture refers to the
collectively held beliefs within a particular military organization, not to the beliefs held by
civilian policy makers. Finally, organizational culture is not the primordial notion sometimes
found in analyses of strategic culture; the military's organizational culture is not equivalent to
the national character. The military's culture may reflect some aspects of the civilian society's
culture, but that is not necessarily the case. The military's powerful assimilation processes can
displace the influence of the civilian society.
Determining the culture of a military organization requires an extensive reading of archival,
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historical, and other public documents. Curricula at military academies, training manuals,
personal histories of officers, internal communications in the armed services, and the leading
military journals should all be examined. It is also important to look for who or what is
considered deviant or taboo in the culture and what it is about these beliefs that conflicts with
the organization's culture.
Making sense of the interests that military organizations bring to doctrinal decisions requires
understanding the cultural context within which these decisions are made. Not all militaries
share the same collection of ideas about armed force, and these beliefs shape how the
organization responds to changes in its external environment.
Focusing exclusively on either domestic politics or the military's organizational culture

provides neither a necessary nor a sufficient explanation of choices between offensive and
defensive doctrines. Military doctrine is the product of two things. First, domestic politics sets
constraints--for example, the length of conscription or the type of army--but these constraints
do not in themselves determine doctrine. Second, the military's organizational culture must
work within these constraints. The organizational culture is the intervening variable between
domestic constraints and military doctrine.
In cases where there is only one political military subculture--that is, when there is consensus
across the political spectrum on the role of armed force--the organizational culture dominates
doctrinal developments. In Britain, the civilian consensus on the role of the military in society
meant that the army's and the air force's cultures took on primary significance in explaining
their doctrinal orientation in the 1920s and 1930s. Domestic politics still establishes
constraints, but these are less direct than in conflictual polities. Civilian decisions are also
more likely to reflect the external environment.
In other cases, decisions made by domestic political actors severely limit the organization's
perception of its available options. For example, in France during the interwar period, the
civilian decision to reduce the length of conscription to one year dramatically constrained
what the French army thought was possible. Another military organization might have reacted
differently to the reduction in the length of conscription, but given the French army's
organizational culture, the high command felt that it had no choice but to adopt a defensive
doctrine. In short, a civilian decision when coupled with the distinctive culture of the French
army yielded a particular type of doctrine. Both civilian decisions and the military's
organizational culture are important, and their interaction must be taken into account.
Political decisions set constraints, but rarely do they determine outcomes. Likewise, the
organizational culture alone does not explain the change in doctrine. There must be some
change in the external environment of the organization--primarily as a result of domestic
politics--to which the organizational culture reacts.
The Cultural Roots of French Doctrine

As ill-suited to the external threat as the French army's doctrine may have been, it
corresponded well to domestic political battles and the French army's organizational culture.
Since the mid-nineteenth century the Left and Right had fought over the organizational form
of the army. While the Right demanded a professional army that, in its view, could ensure
domestic order and stability, the Left feared that a professional army would do the bidding of
the reactionary segments of society. To the Left, only militia or reserve forces could guarantee
the survival of the French Republic.
In 1928 the Left and Republican forces reduced the term of conscription to one year. The army
resisted this decision, but once it had been made, the high command had no choice but to
design a doctrine within that constraint. The leeway that the French army had cannot,
however, be determined objectively; not all military organizations would respond similarly to
the need to work with short-term conscripts. Despite evidence to the contrary, French officers
could imagine only a professional army executing an offensive doctrine: in their view, only
years of service could endow a soldier with the necessary skills for offensive warfare.
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In sum, when deciding on the organizational structure of the army, French policy makers
responded to domestic, not international, factors. The reduction in the term of conscription to
one year addressed the Left's fear of domestic threats, not its concern about German
capabilities. The army reacted to this decision within the constraints of its organizational
culture. Instead of demonstrating a preference for offensive doctrines, the French army chose
a defensive doctrine.
Competing Political Military Subcultures

Much has been written on the instability of the Third Republic, a dreary picture of one cabinet
after another giving way to some equally powerless coalition. Yet it was not the fragility of the
French government that established the framework for French doctrine; instead, it was the
competition between contending political forces with conflicting political military subcultures.
Within months of the signing of the armistice, the old political struggle over the organizational
form of the army reemerged.
Since the French Revolution, and especially in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the
organizational structure of the army had become one of the primary arenas of conflict between
two major factions in French politics. While the Right sought a professional army comprising
long-service soldiers, the Left advocated a national army founded on short-term conscripts in
the form of either a militia or a force highly dependent on reserves.
In the Left's view, it was imperative that the army not be a separate caste, isolated from society
and imbued with military values. 38 If the army could retain the conscript for several years, it
would be able to elicit passive obedience and to use this force for domestic repression. It was
only by eliminating the professional army that the threat to French democracy would
diminish.
The Left believed that the army must reflect society and society's values in order to be able to
defend the entire country (rather than only a particular class). For the Left, the less time spent
in the barracks, the better; the conscript needed to be under the colors just long enough to
learn the requisite military skills. Everything must be done to avoid the development of a
corporate spirit potentially at odds with the republic. In early 1934 Léon Blum, the leader of
the Socialist Party, expressed his fear of long-serving soldiers:
History teaches very clearly that collective feelings develop in professional

armies. They are the army of a corps, while waiting to become the army of a
leader. Isolated from the surrounding life, compressed and focused on itself
by training, customs, and discipline, the army establishes within the nation
an enclosed enclave. . . . Public duty is replaced by hierarchical obedience.
National solidarity is replaced by professional solidarity. 39
Whether the military was a militia force or a mixed army heavily dependent on the
mobilization of reserves, the leftist ideal required a short term of service that would, in the
Left's view, harness the repressive designs of the reactionary part of French society. 40
During parliamentary debates in the early 1920s over the length of conscription, a radical
socialist declared, "It is necessary that France have the army of its policies; but I don't want
France to carry out the policies of her army." 41
In contrast, the French Right demanded the retention of a professional army. Just like the
Left, the Right felt that the number of years that the soldier served in the ranks determined
whether or not the army could be relied upon to maintain the status quo. In a domestic crisis,
only soldiers toughened by many years of strict discipline could be depended upon to
guarantee social stability and the preservation of law and order. Creating citizen-soldiers
would only, in the Right's view, strengthen the revolutionary forces in society. In the
nineteenth century Louis Adolphe Thiers declared that he did not want "obligatory military
service which will enflame passions and put a rifle on the shoulder of all the socialists; I want a
professional army, solid, disciplined, and capable of eliciting respect at home and abroad." 42
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Whereas the Left sought to avoid a deep divide between the army and society by minimizing
the length of conscription, the Right wanted to keep the conscript under arms for at least two
years. The Right agreed that a shorter military service was sufficient to train soldiers, but more
time was needed to create the necessary obéissance passive. 43 Before Parliament, Horace de
Choiseul explained this process: "A soldier that has served for one year has learned without
doubt to use his weapons, but he has not learned to obey; his character has not been
subjugated, his will has not been broken; he has not yet become what makes an army strong:
passive obedience." 44 For the Right, a long term of service would allow the officer corps to
instill an esprit de corps in the troops and thus detach the allegiance of the men from the
society at large and forge a collective identity that would unquestionably follow the orders of
the commanders.
Remembering the workers' revolt in 1848 and hardened by their experience during the
Commune, the Right felt that one of the army's chief tasks was to preserve peace at home. As
the Germans were approaching Paris in 1940, General Weygand revealingly declared, "Ah! If
only I could be sure the Germans would leave me the necessary forces to maintain order!" 45
In short, although French policy makers were acutely aware of their position in the
international system, it was their perception of domestic rather than international threats that
shaped the pivotal decision about the French army's organizational structure. A collection of
center and left-wing parties captured Parliament in 1924 and within three years adopted a
series of legislation that established the organizational structure of the army that France took
to war in 1939. The Left's agenda had finally triumphed: the length of conscription was
reduced to one year. The reason for the Left's rejection of the longer service had nothing to do
with Germany, Britain, or the Eastern allies. As Léon Blum warned, a longer term of service
would "be a danger for republican liberties, that is to say for domestic peace." 46
These choices reflected interests, but we can understand these interests only by understanding
the meanings that actors attributed to the choices. We often cannot understand what an actor
will view as in its interest without first understanding the cultural connotations of a particular
policy. We cannot assume that all left-wing parties, like the French in the 1920s, fear a
professional army or that all right-wing parties do not want a conscript army. The types of
armies that the British and French Left imagined to be in their interests were opposite. For the
French Left, conscription expressed community spirit, equality, and most important, insurance
against the growth of a praetorian guard. For the British Left, conscription attacked individual
liberty and was a tool of continental imperialism.
There is nothing inherent in a conscript or militia army that makes it a force for the Left. The
very social forces that opposed reliance on a conscript army in France (the Right) mobilized in
support of this system in both England and the United States. 47 Likewise, while the French
Left liked militia forces, the American Left feared them, and with good reason. Although
militias in the United States had been in decline since the 1820s, they underwent a dramatic
revival in the late 1870s, especially after the great railroad strike of 1877. Strikebreaking
became the militia's main function, and states with large working-class populations took the
lead in the militia's revival. 48 In fact, in 1892 Samuel Gompers declared that "membership in
a labor organization and a militia at one and the same time is inconsistent and incompatible."
49
In the early part of this century, the American Left bitterly attacked proposals for national
service and instead advocated the creation of a well-equipped and volunteer professional
force. What the U.S. Left supported, the French Left opposed (and the French Right
supported). Similar social-economic positions do not necessarily mean similar policy positions
across national boundaries. To make sense of these choices, we must understand the meanings
attached to policies, that is, we must examine the relevant cultures.
The Army's Culture and the Meaning of Conscription

The French army objected to the shorter length of service, but once it had been adopted, the
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army was obliged to design a doctrine around that decision. It is because the French army had
a choice that the importance of the army's culture becomes clear. A shorter length of service
did not require the adoption of a defensive doctrine. It was a conceptual barrier that stood in
the way of the adoption or, more accurately, that prevented a continuation of an offensive
orientation after 1928.
An offensive doctrine was objectively possible. The French army did not suffer from a lack of
financial support; the requisite material for armored warfare could have been acquired. Nor
was it unaware of offensive alternatives. The French army was well versed on doctrinal
developments in Germany, as well as having its own advocates of mechanized warfare. De
Gaulle's campaign in the 1930s is the most renowned but not the only attempt by a French
officer to persuade the French army of the potential of massed armor. Nor did French civilians
demand a defensive doctrine or actively participate in the formation of army doctrine. Even
construction of the Maginot Line left open offensive possibilities. As discussed above, the
fortifications were initially conceived to support offensive operations. The French army had
the money, ideas, and freedom to adopt an offensive doctrine, but it instead chose a defensive
doctrine. Its organizational culture would not allow otherwise.
It was conceptually impossible for the French army to conceive of the execution of an offensive
doctrine with short-term conscripts. To the French officer, one-year conscripts were good for
only one thing--a defen sive doctrine. In the army's view "young troops" could only be engaged
"methodically"; they could not handle sophisticated technology or new methods of warfare,
and they could not exhibit the élan necessary for offensive actions. To most French officers, a
one-year term of conscription reduced the army to marginal value. In discussing the annual
intake of conscripts, General Debeney explained that these "men are far from having the
solidity of professional soldiers since they have only done six to eleven months of service. . . .
In effect, this mass of reservists will only be good for the second echelon." 50 Similarly,
General Weygand commented on the technical capabilities of short-term conscripts: "The
professional army is able to use certain material. . . . A militia, to the contrary, will be
incapable of manipulating modern material." 51
Although Pétain is frequently blamed for infusing the French army with a defensive spirit, he
was explicit in arguing that it was the presence of the nation armée that made it inconceivable
to initiate a war against Germany with a strategic offensive. Pétain stated that "the professional
army is above all an offensive instrument." 52 With only short-term conscripts, General Henri
Mordacq explained, "it was absolutely impossible to give our contingents an instruction
responding to the demands of modern warfare." 53 The vice president of the Superior
Council of War and inspector general of the army, General Weygand, agreed about the
marginal value of the French conscript army:
The character and the possibilities of the French army were profoundly
modified the day that France adopted military service of less than two years.
. . . Because of its organizational structure, today's army [1932] is much
weaker and less prepared to fight than the army in 1914. . . . This army has
been reduced to the lowest level possible to permit France's security. 54
In sum, short-term conscripts, who represented only quantity, could not be entrusted with
offensive operations.
This rejection of the value of short-term conscripts or reserves was not shared by all armies or
based on the experiences of the French army. The French officers had plenty of opportunities
to see that short-term conscripts could be used effectively in offensive operations. France's
defeat in 1870 by a quantitatively superior army based on universal military service should
have alerted French military leaders to a potential source of power that they had previously
dismissed. Yet, before World War I, while Joffre was declaring that "under no circumstances
will we absorb the reserve formations in the active units," the German army was stating that
"reserve troops will be employed in the same way as the active troops." 55 In addition, during
the initial battles of World War I, the German army had successfully used reserve formations
in offensive operations. Since it was Napoleon who first took advantage of this new form of
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military organization, this persistence of the link between professional armies and offensive
operations in the organizational culture of the French army is all the more surprising. By
Napoleon's mastery of the war of masses, the French army had conquered all of Europe.
General de Gaulle's advocacy of an offensive doctrine in the 1930s may raise questions about
this argument. Here we have a French officer, assimilated into the culture of the French army
yet calling for the adoption of an offensive doctrine subsequent to the reduction in the length
of conscription. This seems to suggest that the reduction in the length of conscription was not
as important as I claim. Yet a closer look at de Gaulle's campaign illustrates both the strength
of the French army's culture and the importance of domestic politics.
In Vers l'armée de métier, de Gaulle called for the creation of a professional army and the
adoption of an offensive doctrine. Intending it as an addition to and not a substitute for the
mass conscript army, de Gaulle advocated the establishment of seven armored divisions
composed of 100,000 soldiers serving a six-year tour of duty. De Gaulle envisioned that these
highly mobile divisions would be capable of immediate action into enemy territory and would
return the offensive to the battlefield. 56
De Gaulle was convinced that the defense and ultimate grandeur of France depended on the
adoption of a new offensive doctrine, yet he endorsed these offensive operations only if they
were coupled to a force of professionals serving six years of military service. As a product of
the orga nizational culture of the French army, de Gaulle could not imagine entrusting young,
unseasoned troops with the tasks involved in mechanized warfare. Only professional soldiers
possessed the skill and training to implement lightning attacks by armored units. De Gaulle
stuck with this proposal even though he was well aware of the political hurdles to the creation
of a professional force of long-serving soldiers.
The reception that de Gaulle's ideas received in the French army further reveals the linking of
a professional army with an offensive doctrine in the organizational culture of the French
army. The high command was not persuaded. One of the primary reasons for its rejection of
de Gaulle's ideas was that the creation of the specialized corps would, in the command's view,
cut the army in two. 57 The officer corps could not imagine that the conscript army could
implement this new offensive warfare. To adopt this doctrine would, in their minds, inevitably
mean draining many of the army's professionals from the conscript army, and the latter,
stripped of its professional officers, would have little if any combat value. The French officer
corps could only accept the whole package of de Gaulle's ideas; separating the offensive
doctrine from the professional army was inconceivable. These concepts were to be
implemented either by a professional army or not at all.
De Gaulle's campaign also reveals the impact of domestic politics and especially the political
military subculture of the French Left. The Left was not, to say the least, pleased with de
Gaulle's proposals for a professional army. The fear of the domestic ramifications--and not
whether these ideas were most suited to repel a German attack--emerges time and again in the
leftist press and in parliamentary debate. For example, an article in L'Esprit states explicitly
the reason for his opposition to de Gaulle's ideas: "This leader, having collected in his hand all
the armed force of the country, multiplied indefinitely by the technological possibilities,
having in hand hired killers, each of which possesses all the aptitudes of murder and all the
extraordinary instruments to kill--when will this leader then march on Paris?" 58 Similarly,
Edouard Daladier, the leader of the Radical Socialist Party, worried that a professional army
might be "more dangerous than one might believe for the security of our nation." 59 Not
surprisingly, de Gaulle's ideas received a different reception from the Right and the extreme
Right. 60
Even though the international environment had become dramatically more threatening, the
domestic political divide persisted. Domestic considerations again determined the army's
organizational structure. Once this constraint was set, the French army could imagine only one
possibility. De Gaulle and the French army were incapable of decoupling offensive concepts
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from a professional army, yet the insistence on a professional force doomed de Gaulle's efforts
because such a force was politically impossible. The French were trapped: the Left would not
accept a professional army, and the army could not envision an offensive doctrine without one.
Culture's Sources
This essay does not directly address the origins of military culture. 61 However, before
arguing that cultural factors have relative autonomy, it is important to address two potential
sources of cultural factors.
First, one must show that the cultural beliefs are sincere. For example, how can we know that
the French army really believed that short-term conscripts and a defensive doctrine were
inseparable? Could this belief have been instrumental and so all consequence and not cause?
Some of the best evidence comes from the French army's estimate of the German army before
World War I. The French army's belief that conscript forces could not undertake offensive
actions prevented its leaders from believing--despite intelligence reports--that the Germans
would attack with the forces that they did. Because they could not imagine short-term
conscripts leading offensive operations, the French army dismissed intelligence reports
showing that the Germans would use "young troops" in the front lines. This misreading of the
situation caused the French army to underestimate the strength of the German offensive by
twenty corps, that is, by at least 680,000 soldiers! 62 Whatever the outcome of the future
battle, the French army's belief in the relative incompetence of short-term conscripts was not
in its interest; it is not in the military's interest to underestimate the strength of opposing
forces.
One can make a similar argument about de Gaulle. He was convinced that defending France
depended on the adoption of an offensive doctrine. He also knew that the creation of a
professional force was politically impossible. Yet he continued to advocate the coupling of an
offensive doctrine with a professional army. If de Gaulle's estimation of the value of
short-term conscripts had been insincere, he would have dropped it in order to pursue what
he felt was in France's national interest--an offensive doctrine.
The second thing that one must demonstrate about the origins of the culture is that it is not
simply a reflection of structural conditions. We must see that individuals or groups sharing the
same situational constraints reach different conclusions. We already saw the various ways in
which the Left evaluates conscription. We also saw that the German and French armies have
different evaluations of the value of reserve or conscript forces. The contrasting positions of
the French and British delegations at the Versailles negotiations is another example. Both
countries shared the same objective interest for the same context: reducing the military threat
posed by Germany. France proposed that Germany rely solely on a conscript army. A French
officer wrote that it "would be better to let Germany have a relatively numerous army, without
seriously trained officers than a smaller army of well-tried, proven officers that Germany will
have and which I fear she will know how to make use of." 63 Britain reached the opposite
conclusion. David Lloyd George worried that with a conscript army "Germany will train
200,000 men each year, or two million in ten years. Why make a gift to them of a system
which in fifteen to twenty years will give Germany millions of trained soldiers?" 64 He
insisted that only the imposition of a professional army would harness German military power.
65 Both countries sought to contain Germany's offensive potential, but they proposed
opposite prescriptions.
This essay is not a call for the wholesale adoption of cultural analyses. Structural and
functional analyses are valuable tools in understanding international politics. Indeed, the
normative and political rationale for pursuing this question stems from a structural constraint.
It is only because offensive military postures are structural impediments to cooperative
relations among states that the question of the determinants of choices between offensive and
defensive doctrines is important. 66 Nevertheless, functional and structural analyses cannot
adequately explain choices between offensive and defensive military doctrines. We must
15 de 20 05/08/2010 19:36
understand the civilians' political military subculture and the military's organizational culture
in order to explain choices between offensive and defensive doctrines.
While structural and functional accounts of the origins of military doctrine are parsimonious
and generalizable, they also appear to be wrong. In contrast, this alternative account better
explains why militaries end up with the doctrines they do. With the formation of new states
and the reorganization of their military forces in the post-Cold War world, we want to
encourage these states to adopt defensive doctrines. Neither looking to the international
system nor relying on civilian oversight is likely to have much of a payoff. Instead, to intervene
effectively in doctrinal developments, we need to understand the politics of military policy and
the constraints of the military's culture.
I would like to thank Jonathan Mercer, Scott Sagan, Kathyrn Sikkink, Jack Snyder,
Stephen Walt, and two anonymous readers for Columbia University Press for their
thoughtful comments and criticism. A more detailed version of some of the
arguments presented in this essay appears in Elizabeth Kier, "Culture and Military
Doctrine: France Between the Wars," International Security 19, no. 4 (Spring
1995): 65-93.
Note 1: This essay is based on a larger study of doctrinal developments in the British and
French army and air force during the 1920s and 1930s. For a discussion of the case selection,
see Elizabeth L. Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine Between the
Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, in press). Back.
Note 2: Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany
Between the World Wars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984); and Jack Snyder, The
Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1984). Also see Stephen Van Evera, "The Causes of War" (Ph.D. diss.,
University of California, Berkeley, 1984), esp. pp. 206-398. The quantity and quality of
scholarship that Posen's, Snyder's, and Van Evera's work has generated testifies to the power
of their ideas. See especially Deborah D. Avant, Political Institutions and Military Change:
Lessons from Peripheral Wars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994); and Kimberly Marten
Zisk, Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovations, 1955-1991
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 3: Unlike Waltz, who refined balance of power theory to explain why balances recur,
Posen uses balance of power theory to explain specific states' military doctrines; see Kenneth
N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979). Back.
Note 4: Quoted in Paul-�mile Tournoux, Haut commandement, gouvernement et défense

des frontiéres du Nord et de l'Est (1919-1939) (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1960), p.
334. Back.
Note 5: Ravi Rikhye, The War That Never Was: The Story of India's Strategic Failures
(Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1988), p. 23; Colonel Gurdial Singh, "Let Us Reorganize Our
Logistical Services," Journal of the United Service Institution of India 111/463 (January-March
1981), p. 64. Back.
Note 6: Alexander George and Timothy J. McKeown, "Case Studies and Theories of
Organizational Decision-Making," Advances in Information Processing in Organizations 2
(1985): 34-41. Back.
Note 7: Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine, pp. 105-40. Back.
Note 8: Jonathan Kirshner, Currency and Coercion: The Political Economy of International
Monetary Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), ch. 5. Back.
16 de 20 05/08/2010 19:36
Note 9: Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre (shat), 1 N 20, "Résumé succinct des séances
du Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre (csg)," December 14, 1927. Back.
Note 10: For example, see Robert Allan Doughty, The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of
French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1985), p. 183; and Robert
Frankenstein, "A Propos des Aspects Financiers du Réarmement Français (1935-1939)," Revue
d'histoire de la deuxiéme guerre mondiale 102 (April 1976): 2-9. Back.
Note 11: Serge Berstein, La France des années 30 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1988), p. 164.
Back.
Note 12: See Jeffrey Johnstone Clark, "Military Technology in Republican France: The
Evolution of the French Armored Force, 1917-1940" (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1968), p.
178; and Henri Michel, Le Procés de Riom (Paris: Albin Michel, 1979), p. 220. Back.
Note 13: Brian Bond, British Military Policy Between the Two World Wars (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 41; Franklyn Arthur Johnson, Defence by Committee: The British
Committee of Imperial Defence, 1885-1959 (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), pp.
12-13; and Norman Henry Gibbs, "British Strategic Doctrine, 1918-1938," in Michael Howard,
ed., The Theory and Practice of War, p. 187 (New York: Praeger, 1966). Back.
Note 14: Edward Pognon, DeGaulle et l'armée (Paris: Librarie Plon, 1976), p. 95. Back.
Note 15: Brian Crozier, De Gaulle: The Warrior (London: Eyre Methuen, 1973), p. 74.
Back.
Note 16: Quoted in Alvin D. Coox, "French Military Doctrine, 1919-1939: Concepts of Ground
and Aerial Warfare" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1951), p. 108. Although for different
reasons, Posen argues that the French army adopted a defensive doctrine because it would
reduce uncertainty (Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine, p. 118). Back.
Note 17: I thank Scott Sagan for this point. Back.
Note 18: Pascal Vennesson, L'Institutionnalisation de l'armée de l'air en France (Paris:

Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1996, in press); Pascal Vennesson,
"Institution and Airpower: The Making of the French Air Force," Journal of Strategic
Studies 18, no. 1 (March 1995): 36-67. Back.
Note 19: Robert Frankenstein, "A Propos des aspects financiers du réarmement français,"
Revue d'histoire de la deuxiéme guerre mondiale 102 (April 1976): 7; Georges LeFranc,
Histoire du Front Populaire, 1934-1939 (Paris: Payot, 1965), p. 392. Back.
Note 20: Brian Bond and Williamson Murray, "The British Armed Forces," in Allan R.
Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, vol. 2, The Interwar Period
(Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988); Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment: The
Dilemma of British Defence Policy in the Era of the Two World Wars (London: Maurice
Temple Smith, 1972), p. 106; and Wesley K. Wark, The Ultimate Enemy: British Intelligence
and Nazi Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 47, 56. Back.
Note 21: Uri Bialer, The Shadow of the Bomber: The Fear of Air Attack and British Politics,
1932-1939 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1980), pp. 58-68. Back.
Note 22: Quoted in Wark, The Ultimate Enemy, p. 29. Also see Brian Bond, Liddell Hart: A
Study of His Military Thought (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1977), p. 67.
Back.
Note 23: For example, see Alistair Horne, The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 (London:
Macmillan, 1962), pp. 2, 336. Back.
17 de 20 05/08/2010 19:36
Note 24: For the most comprehensive account of the development of the Maginot Line, see
Tournoux,. Back.
Note 25: Eugene Carrias, La Pensée militaire française (Presses Universitaires de France,
1960), p. 330. Back.
Note 26: shat, l N 20, "Résumé succinct des séances du CSG," December 14 and 15, 1926.
Back.
Revue d'histoire de la deuxiéme guerre mondiale 1
Note 27: Ibid., July 2, 1927. Back.
Note 28: Quoted in Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, La Décadence, 1932-1939 (Paris: Imprimerie

nationale, 1979), p. 244. Back.
Note 29: Judith M. Hughes, To the Maginot Line: The Politics of French Military
Preparations in the 1920s (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 200. Back.
Note 30: Tournoux, Défense des p. 36. Back.
Note 31: One author estimated that in the early 1920s, two-thirds of the articles in
professional military journals endorsed mechanized warfare. See, for example, Captain
Fernand-Charles Grazin, "Essai d'emploi d'autos mitrilleuses sur chenilles aux manoeuvres de
la Sarre," Revue de cavalerie 3 (1923); and Col. Jean Alphonse Louis Flavigny, "Manoeuvres
de la 4e division de cavalerie en Rhénanie en 1928," Revue de cavalerie 9 (1929). Back.
Note 32: Anthony Adamthwaite, France and the Coming of the Second World War,
1936-1939 (London: Frank Cass and Company, 1977), p. 24; Jean Doise and Maurice Vaisse,
Diplomatie et outil militaire, 1871-1969 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1987), pp. 269, 276; and
General André Laffargue, Justice pour ceux de 1940 (Limoges: Charles Lavauzelle, 1952), p.
91; Tournoux, Défense des frontiéres, pp. 332-35. Back.
Note 33: shat, l N 27, file 3, "Rapports de présentation du CSG," March 9, 1925. Back.
Note 34: Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 30.
Back.
Note 35: I am indebted in this discussion to Ann Swidler's article "Culture in Action: Symbols
and Strategies," American Sociological Review 51, no. 2 (April 1986): 273-86. Back.
Note 36: For useful discussions of organizational culture, see Terrence E. Deal and Allen A.
Kennedy, Corporate Cultures (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1982); Andrew Pettigrew,
"On Studying Organizational Cultures," Administrative Science Quarterly 24 (December
1979): 570-82; Edgar Schien, "Coming to a New Awareness of Organizational Culture," Sloan
Management Review 25, no. 2 (Winter 1984): 3-6. For an application of this concept to
security studies, see Jeffrey W. Legro, Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint
During World War II (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). Back.
Note 37: For example, see Alastair I. Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and
Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). Back.
Note 38: Classic texts that embody the political military subculture of French Left include
Jean Jaurés, L'armée nouvelle (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1977); and J. Monteilhet, Les
Institutions militaires de la France (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1932). Back.
Note 39: Léon Blum, "A bas l'armée de métier!" Le Populaire, December l, 1934. Back.
18 de 20 05/08/2010 19:36
Note 40: On the Left's view of reserves, see Adrien Roux, Gardons le service de deux ans
(Paris: Librarie Positiviste, 1912), pp. 6-7; and General Percin, La Guerre et la nation armée
(Paris: Ligue des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen), pp. 7-13. Back.
Note 41: Quoted in Edouard Bonnefous, Histoire politique de la Troisiéme République, vol.
3, L'aprés-guerre (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968), p. 311. Back.
Note 42: Quoted in J. Monteilhet, "L'avénement de la nation armée," Revue des études
Napoléoniennes (September-October 1918): 51. Back.
Note 43: General Jules L. Lewal, Contre le service de deux ans (Paris: Librairie Militaire de
Baudoin, 1895), pp. 46. 51-52, 77; Richard D. Challener, The French Theory of the Nation in
Arms, 1866-1939 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), pp. 85-87; Claude Croubois,
L'Officier français des origines � nos jours (St-Jean-d'Angely: Editions Bordessoules, 1987),
p. 304; and Monteilhet, Institutions militaires, pp. 166, 169. Back.
Note 44: Quoted in Monteilhet, Institutions militaires, p. 166. Back.
Note 45: Quoted in Crozier, De Gaulle, p. 97. Back.
Note 46: Emphasis added. Léon Blum, "A bas l'armée de métier!" Le populaire, December 1,
1934. Back.
Note 47: John Whiteclay Chambers, "Conscripting for Colossus: The Progressive Era and the
Origins of the Modern Military Draft in the United States in World War I," in Peter Karsten,
ed., The Military in America: From the Colonial Era to the Present, pp. 277-81 (New York:
Free Press, 1980). Back.
Note 48: Barton C. Hacker, "The United States Army as a National Police Force: The Federal
Policing of Labor Disputes, 1877-1898," Military Affairs 33, no. 2 (April 1969): 259. Back.
Note 49: Stephen Skrowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National
Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 105.
Back.
Note 50: General Eugéne Debeney, "Armée nationale ou armée de métier?" Revue politique
et parlementaire (May 10, 1933): 214. Back.
Note 51: Ministére des affaires étrangéres, Documents diplomatiques français,

1932-1939, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1964), p. 568. Back.
Note 52: Philippe Pétain, preface to General Chauvineau, Une invasion est-elle encore
possible? (Paris: Editions Berger-Levrault, 1940), pp. vii-xii. Back.
Note 53: General Henri Mordacq, La défense nationale en danger (Paris: Les editions de
France, 1938), p. 2. Back.
Note 54: shat, 1 N 42, file 2, Etat-major Maxime Weygand, csg, "Rapport sur l'état de
l'armée," May 1932. Back.
Note 55: Jean Feller, Le dossier de l'armée française: la guerre de "cinquante ans,
1914-1962" (Paris: Librairie Academique Perrin, 1966), p. 65. Back.
Note 56: Charles DeGaulle, Vers l'armée de métier (Paris: Editions Berger-Levrault, 1944).
Back.
Note 57: For example, see General Eugéne Debeney, "Encore l'armée de métier," Revue des
deux mondes (July 15, 1935): 285-90. Back.
Note 58: Jacques Lefrancq and Leo Moulin, "Dialogue sur l'armée de la classe 15 � la classe
19 de 20 05/08/2010 19:36
25," Esprit 32 (May 1935). Back.
Note 59: Quoted in Pierre Hoff, Les programmes d'armement de 1919 � 1938 (Vincennes:
Service historique de l'armée de terre, 1982), p. 157. Back.
Note 60: Ladislas Mysyrowicz, Anatomie d'une défaite (Laussane: Editions de l'age
d'homme, 1973), pp. 237-38; Alois Schumacher, La politique de sécurité française face �
l'Allemagne: Les controverse de l'opinion française entre 1932 et 1935 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang,
1978), p. 213. Back.
Note 61: For an extended discussion of the origins of military cultures, see Kier, Imagining
War. Back.
Note 62: On the size of the German corps, see Girard Lindsay McEntree, Military History of
the World War (New York: Scribner's, 1937), p. 33; Philip Neame, German Strategy in the
Great War (London: Arnold, 1923), appendixes 1 and 2, pp. 123-27. Back.
Note 63: Quoted in Pierre Miquel, La paix de Versailles et l'opinion publique française
(Paris: Flammarion, 1972), p. 258. Also see Ministére des affaires étrangéres, Documents
diplomatiques française, 1932-1939, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1969), p. 569.
Back.
Note 64: Quoted in Miquel, Paix de Versailles, p. 256. Back.
Note 65: Bertrand de Jouvenel, "Le service militaire obligatoire. . . . Est-il une institution de
gauche?" La Voix, February 9, 1930, p. 8; and Pertinax (pseud. André Géraud), "Le
désarmement radical de l'Allemagne est décidé," Echo de Paris, March 11, 1919. Back.
Note 66: For discussions and debate about the destabilizing effects of offensive military
doctrines, see Robert Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma," World Politics 30,
no. 2 (January 1978): 167-214; Van Evera, "The Causes of War"; and numerous articles in
Steven E. Miller and Sean Lynn-Jones, eds., Military Strategy and the Origins of the First
World War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).I would like to thank the following
people for their comments and criticisms of this essay: Peter Katzenstein and other
participants in the Social Science Research Council/MacArthur Project, as well as outside
commentators at the three project workshops; members of the Olin Institute National Security
seminar, and Thomas Christensen, Dale Copeland, Robert Keohane, Kenneth Lieberthal, and
Stephen Walt. They are blameless for any shoddy analysis or errors of fact. Back.
20 de 20 05/08/2010 19:36
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editor
Cultural Realism and Strategy in Maoist China
Alastair Iain Johnston
Where does realpolitik behavior come from? Classical realists might attribute states'
preferences for unilateral, competitive, coercive strategies to human nature, greed, a
hardwired desire to maximize power. Neorealists have attributed it to the uncertainty
generated by anarchy, mediated by different distributions of material capabilities. Both
explanations are unsatisfactory because both have difficulty accounting for the considerable
volume and consequentiality of non-realpolitik behavior. Some scholars have recognized this
and have conceded that non-realpolitik, "deviant" behavior is more likely a product of
cooperative ideas or institutions, but at the same time they have reaffirmed that "nondeviant,"
realpolitik behavior remains best explained by the key causal variables in their respective
versions of realism. To some extent, those with a constructivist and ideational theoretical bent
have unwittingly reinforced the hegemony of realist theory in the realm of realpolitik
behavior, precisely by focusing on non-realpolitik behavior. It is critical, then, that construc
tivists and their fellow travelers take up the challenge and see how far ideational arguments
can go in accounting for realpolitik behavior. 1
This essay is an initial attempt to do just that through an analysis of the China case. Essentially
I argue that China has historically exhibited a relatively consistent hard realpolitik or
parabellum strategic culture that has persisted across different structural contexts into the
Maoist period (and beyond). 2 Chinese decision makers have internalized this strategic
culture such that China's strategic behavior exhibits a preference for offensive uses of force,
mediated by a keen sensitivity to relative capabilities. These preferences are often a reasonably
accurate guide to strategic behavior. The persistence of an ideationally based hard realpolitik,
however, suggests that structural accounts of realpolitik behavior are incomplete, precisely
because this empirically observable cultural realpolitik has persisted across vastly different
interstate systems, regime types, levels of technology, and types of threat. And it persists into
the post-Mao period at a time when objectively and subjectively China's threat environment is
the most benign in several decades. Since I have already looked at the presence and effects of
this realpolitik strategic culture in traditional China, 3 in this essay I examine Maoist China,
with some reference to the ancient past, to determine the degree of continuity in Chinese
realpolitik.
Mainstream realist theorists react to these claims by arguing that cultural realpolitik is
epiphenomenal, a product, say, of the logic of anarchy. The realist retort, however, rests at
different times on three problematic claims: (1) only deviant, non-realpolitik behavior may be
ideational in origin, but, by implication, nondeviant behavior is not explained by ideational
variables; (2) realist theory, whether classical or structural, makes determinate predictions
about state strategies in the absence of some ideational interpretation of the meaning of
material capabilities; (3) realpolitik ideology is epiphenomenal. An analysis of Chinese
realpolitik, however, challenges these claims, or at least shows that they are too weak to
dismiss cultural realism as a third, ideationally rooted, explanation for realpolitik behavior.
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The essay begins with a quick summary of the content of traditional Chinese strategic culture
and then moves on to a discussion of the conceptual and methodological issues involved in
rigorously analyzing ideational sources of strategic choice. It then applies this discussion to the
analysis of Maoist strategic culture and Chinese conflict management behavior in the
post-1949 period. Since traditional Chinese and Maoist strategic cultures make predictions
about behavior similar to those made by a determinate structural realpolitik model, the
Chinese case raises critical questions about ideational versus structural explanations of
strategic choice. In the last section I examine these questions, arguing that a structural
realpolitik model can in fact be subsumed within an ideational realpolitik strategic culture,
that the latter is not epiphenomenal. At the very least, structure cannot account for Chinese
realpolitik.
Why China?
China poses interesting problems for the analysis of ideational influences on strategic choice.
Many have assumed that the China case should turn up evidence for cross-cultural differences
in strategic thought and practice. In other words, China could be a hard case for hypotheses
derived from the Western strategic experience or a relatively easy case for culturally and
historically contingent explanations. Practically all the scholars, Chinese or Western, who have
studied Chinese strategic thought have argued that the Chinese have persistently exhibited
what are essentially nonrealist predispositions. According to standard interpretations, from
the core notions of this strategic thought we should expect that as a political actor becomes
stronger in relative terms it becomes less, not more, coercive, seeking to induce potential
adversaries to submit by magnanimously offering them legitimacy or material wealth. Those
who have not studied the Chinese case, but who have tended to rely on this literature to make
the claim that ideational and cultural sources of strategic choice do matter, consequently have
tended to reinforce this perception of the "China difference." 4 China, then, could be a
crucial case both for those who would privilege anarchi cal structures and self-help behavior
and for those who would privilege norms, cultures, ideas, and other shared, socially
constructed, ideational influences on strategic behavior.
A closer look at the Chinese case, however, suggests a more complex picture. 5 The short of
it is, the Chinese strategic tradition does not embody only one set of clear strategic
preferences. Rather, there are at least two different strategic cultures. One, derived from what
can be called a Confucian-Mencian paradigm, places nonviolent, accommodationist grand
strategies before violent defensive or offensive ones in a ranking of strategic choices. This
preference ranking is associated in the core texts in Chinese strategy with language that
reflects the Confucian-Mencian stress on "benevolent," "righteous," and "virtuous"
government as a basis of security. This language casts military force as "inauspicious," to be
used only under "unavoidable circumstances," and stresses the submission of the enemy
without the resort to force. 6
The other set of strategic preferences comes from what could be called a parabellum, or hard
realpolitik, paradigm, which generally places offensive strategies before static defense and
accommodationist strategies; at the violent end of the spectrum, the preference for offensive
actions depends on the "softness" or the "hardness" of the realpolitik axioms in a particular
text. This paradigm reflects a set of characterizations of the external environment as
dangerous, adversaries as dispositionally threatening, and conflict as zero-sum, in which the
application of violence is ultimately required to deal with threats. Moreover, this paradigm
explicitly embodies a key decision axiom--the notion of quan bian--which stresses absolute
flexibility and a conscious sensitivity to changing relative capabilities. The more this balance is
favorable, the more advantageous it is to adopted offensive coercive strategies; the less
favorable, the more advantageous it is to adopted defensive or accommodationist strategies to
buy time until the balance shifts again.
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These two sets of preferences, however, do not stand as two separate but equal strategic
cultures. Rather, the Confucian-Mencian language represents an idealized discourse. None of
the ancient texts on strategy that I examined (with one exception) devotes very much space to
any detailed, concrete application of Confucian-Mencian concepts of security. Moreover, a
number of the texts, along with some historical commentaries and annotations, implicitly or
explicitly relegate these vague strategic axioms to indistinct golden ages of sage kings and
legendary rulers, thus suggesting the historical and strategic irrelevance of these axioms.
Finally, critical security concepts in the Confucian-Mencian paradigm are causally
disconnected from, or only indirectly related to, the defeat of the adversary or the security of
the state. Contrary, then, to most of the Chinese and Western literature on Chinese strategic
thought, traditional China's operational strategic culture exhibited marked hard realpolitik
tendencies.
The predominance of the hard realpolitik, parabellum strategic culture seems confirmed by
the fact that much of the strategic practice in imperial China reflected these realpolitik
preferences. My analysis of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), for instance, indicates that
realpolitik decision axioms showed up in the cognitive maps of key strategists during the Ming
dynasty as they debated how to deal with the Mongol threat from north and west of China.
Empirically, Chinese strategic choices tended to reflect this decision calculus to the extent that
in periods of clear military advantage the Ming tended to act more aggressively toward
Mongols than in periods when the relative capabilities shifted out of Ming favor. Indeed, Ming
strategists tended to argue explicitly that static defensive and accommodationist strategies
(e.g., peace treaties) were temporary fixes, rather than culturally preferred ways of dealing
with external threats. This calculus is similar to that discovered by Paul Forage in his detailed
historical analysis of the Northern Song dynasty's (a.d. 960-1127) strategy toward the Xi Xia
"barbarians" along the northern border in the eleventh century. 7
These conclusions are based only on an analysis of Chinese strategic culture before China's
integration into the European/global state system in the twentieth century and before the
importation into China of "Western" liberal democratic and Marxist-Leninist ideologies. Does
this parabellum strategic culture persist across this transition? To telegraph the findings of this
essay, Maoist strategic culture does indeed represent continuity with the past, reinforced by
modern Chinese nationalist and Marxist-Leninist influences on strategic preferences. The
evidence suggests, as well, that China's conflict management behavior after 1949 has been
generally consistent with hard realpolitik strategic axioms. The fact that these axioms have
persisted into the 1980s and 1990s when China has become increasingly integrated into
international economic institutions and when its threat environment is the most benign since
1949 (a phenomenon that neither neoliberal nor neorealist approaches can comfortably
account for) suggests that China's realpolitik behavior is ideationally rooted. As I will suggest
at the end of the essay, this possibility raises complicated conceptual and methodological
questions in explaining where realpolitik behavior comes from.
Some Conceptual and Methodological Issues

To date, many of those who have explicitly used the term strategic culture have tended to
define it in ways that make it unfalsifiable and untestable. Especially egregious in this regard is
what could be called the first (and most influential) generation of studies in strategic culture. 8
Definitionally, this literature subsumed both thought and action within the concept of
strategic culture, leaving the mechanically deterministic implication that strategic thought led
consistently to one type of behavior. 9 The literature also tended to include everything from
technology to geography to ideology to past patterns of behavior in an amorphous concept of
strategic culture, even though those variables could stand as separate, even conflicting,
explanations for strategic choice. This left little conceptual space for nonstrategic culture
explanations of behavior. As a result, the work took on a mechanistically deterministic hue and
3 de 40 05/08/2010 19:37
concluded that there were obvious and easy differences in the strategic cultures of different
states. Methodologically, there was little explication of, let alone agreement on, the process of
observing a strategic culture. The literature is unclear about the sources one should look to for
representations of strategic culture, the analytical methods one should use to sort out deep
structures in strategic thought from symbolic or instrumental elements, how strategic culture
is transmitted through time, and how it affects behavior.
We need, then, to construct a more rigorous concept of strategic culture that specifies its scope
and content, the objects of analysis, the historical periods from which these are drawn, and the
methods for deriving strategic culture from these objects. Then it is necessary to explicate a
research strategy that can credibly measure the effects of strategic culture on the process of
making strategic choices. I have explored these issues elsewhere, 10 but briefly put, the
research strategy should involve three steps. The first is to come up with a definition of
strategic culture that is falsifiable. The second is to test for the presence of strategic culture in
the formative "texts" of a particular society's strategic traditions. The third is to test for the
effect of strategic culture on behavior.
As for the first step, paraphrasing heavily from Clifford Geertz's definition of religion, 11 I
define strategic culture as an integrated system of symbols (i.e., causal axioms, languages,
analogies, metaphors, etc.) that acts to establish pervasive and long-lasting strategic
preferences by formulating concepts of the role and efficacy of military force in interstate
political affairs, and by clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the
strategic preferences seem uniquely realistic and efficacious. Specifically, strategic culture as a
"system of symbols" comprises two parts. The first consists of basic assumptions about the
orderliness of the strategic environment, that is, about the role of war in human affairs
(whether it is aberrant or inevitable), about the nature of the adversary and the threat it poses
(zero-sum or variable sum), and about the efficacy of the use of force (the ability to control
outcomes and eliminate threats and the conditions under which it is useful to employ force).
Together these make up the central paradigm of a strategic culture (figure 7.1). 12
The second part of strategic culture consists of assumptions at a more operational level, about
what strategic options are the most efficacious for dealing with the threat environment as
defined by the central paradigm. It is at this second level that strategic culture begins to affect
behavior directly. Thus the essential components or empirical referents of a strategic culture
will appear in the form of a limited, ranked set of grand strategic preferences that are
consistent across the objects of analysis and persistent across time. 13 They are not, therefore,
necessarily responsive to changes in noncultural variables such as technology, threat, or
organization. At the high end of the three dimensions we should expect strategic preferences
to reflect a hard realpolitik central paradigm, that is, to show a preference for offensive over
defensive over accommodationist strategies. 14 At the low end we should expect the opposite
preference ranking, consistent with an idealpolitik central paradigm. 15
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I use ranked preferences instead a simple menu of strategic options because if different
societies have different strategic cultures they ought to put different weights on these
choices--that is, rank them differently. Ranked preferences allow for testing for consistency in
strategic culture within systems and thus for differences between systems. 16 This approach
also provides a concept of strategic culture that is falsifiable. If preference rankings are not
consistent across objects of analysis across time, then a single strategic culture can be said not
to exist. Additionally, I use strategic preferences that are ranked because that approach should
yield, ceteris paribus, explicit predictions about behavior, thus making it more possible to
distinguish a strategic culture model of choice from other models.
The next step in this research design is to test for the presence of a strategic culture by testing
for the congruence between the strategic pref erence rankings across the cultural objects of
analysis (or "texts"). This requires first determining what are the "artifacts" in which one
expects to find a culturally based set of ranked strategic preferences. In principle, there could
be a large variety, including the writings and debates of strategists, military leaders, and
"national security elites," or war plans, or even images of war and peace in various media. 17
Fortunately, in the study of China one does not have to be too arbitrary in sampling these
objects of analysis. In my work on traditional China, I used a set of texts--the Seven Military
Classics--which together formed the core of Chinese strategic thought and military education
from the eleventh century on, though some of the texts had existed individually since 500 b.c.
18 In the study of Maoist strategic culture, Mao's own writings form the obvious sampling
base. For this study I have chosen a handful of texts from different periods in Mao's life when
he faced different strategic contexts. The assumption here is that if there is indeed a persistent
Maoist strategic culture, the central paradigm and related strategic preferences should be
consistent across these different texts, across time and different strategic contexts. 19
Having chosen the objects of analysis, the next question is, How should one extract the central
elements of a strategic culture, if indeed one exists? Here I rely primarily on a modified form
of cognitive mapping supplemented by symbolic analysis. Cognitive mapping seems
appropriate because the researcher is interested in what the texts appear to be telling a
strategist about what to do, how to rank options, and thus how to make choices. Causal
judgments are a key step as decision makers reason about how certain types of behavior will
affect their environment in such a way as to secure basic foreign policy goals. 20 Cognitive
mapping is precisely a technique for uncovering causal linkages between certain behavioral
axioms and their estimated behavioral effect. 21
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As for symbolic analysis, the literature on cultural analysis in anthropology and organizational
studies suggests that symbols (e.g., analogies, metaphors, key words, idioms) are the vehicles
through which cultural forms (e.g., shared rules, axioms, preferences) are manifested
empirically, such that culture can be communicated, learned, or debated. 22 From a symbolic
perspective, then, strategic culture may be reflected by symbols about the role of force in
human affairs, about the efficacy of certain strategies, and hence about what sorts of strategies
are better than others.
The third stage in research involves analyzing the relationship between strategic culture and
behavior. Here one has to trace the presence of a strategic culture from the objects of analysis
up to the strategic assumptions of key decision makers in the historical period of interest.
Since Mao was the key decision maker in post-1949 China until his death in 1976, I look at the
possible influences and parallels between traditional strategic culture and Mao's strategic
decision axioms.
The next substep, then, is to test for the effects of decision makers' preference rankings on
politico-military behavior. Here the primary methodological issue is how to conceptualize the
relationship between culture and behavior. In essence, the research problem at this stage is to
control for the effects of culturally exogenous variables. This is not a clear-cut process. There
are a number of ways of conceptualizing the relationships between strategic culture and other
exogenous independent variables. 23 The key issue is how to measure the effects of a constant
or slow-to-change variable on outcomes that are supposed to vary (strategic choice). My
preference is to treat strategic culture as a consistent set of ranked preferences that persists
across time and across strategic contexts. Decision makers are sensitive to structural or
exogenous conditions (i.e., relative capabilities) in a culturally unique way, such that
interaction may (though it need not) yield unique predictions. This conceptualization allows
one to consider strategic culture as a constant that, in interaction with a structural intervening
variable, creates variation in the overall independent inputs into strategic choice. 24 One can
then test the influence of strategic culture against noncultural variables.
But this then raises the obvious question: What alternative models are "out there" against
which a strategic culture model can be tested? At first glance, the most obvious competitive
model would be a structural realpolitik model. One version of this model posits that states'
decision makers generally share an undifferentiated interest in expanding the influence of the
state. Given that interest, states will expand as long as their resources allow, since greater
relative capabilities increase the probability of success of expansion. 25 This structural
realpolitik model would therefore predict that as a state consolidates and mobilizes resources
it will adopt increasingly coercive strategies. The state will become more, not less, belligerent.
26 As the relative power capabilities decline, the state turns to less offensively coercive, more
static defensive strategies, and from there to more accommodating strategies as temporary
fixes for disadvantageous conditions. One could pit this model against a strategic culture
model as long as the latter made distinctive predictions about strategic choice, or as long as
some form of critical experiment could be set up to test for additional sets of predictions if the
initial sets were similar.
As I have suggested, however, China's hard realpolitik strategic culture does not make
predictions that are unambiguously different from this more determinate version of structural
realpolitik. Yet the ideational explanation should not be dropped simply on the grounds of
parsimony; to do so in the absence of some sort of critical test would be to make an important
theoretical choice for aesthetic reasons. Moreover, to do so would be to accept the logical
fallacy that ideational models can explain only non-realpolitik "deviant" behavior and that
"nondeviant" realpolitik behavior is not ideationally rooted. As I will argue, because of its
inadequacy in accounting for the persistence of cultural realpolitik axioms, structural
realpolitik should be abandoned as the "null" hypothesis. This choice does not mean
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abandoning competitive hypothesis testing, but it does suggest that the most logical alternative
models to cultural realpolitik are themselves ideational in nature. More of this later.
The Maoist Central Paradigm

As I suggested above, strategic culture provides answers to the three broad interrelated
questions in the central paradigm, and from this paradigm should flow logically connected
strategic preferences about how to deal with threats to security. Traditional Chinese strategic
thought tended to provide answers toward the hard parabellum end of these three
dimensions. Operationally, therefore, the strategic preference ranking tended to place
offensive strategies above defensive and defensive above accommodationist. Where does
Maoist strategic thought fit along these three dimensions?
The Nature of Conflict

Mao's writings are nothing if not paeans to the constancy of conflict and struggle in human
affairs. The starting point is Mao's theory of contradictions. 27 While scholars debate whether
Mao was simply inheriting traditional Chinese concepts of the dualism of existence or
Hegelian dialectics through Marx, Engels, and Lenin, or was fusing the two, most agree that
for Mao contradictions were the driving force of all natural and human activity. 28 The
resolution of contradictions within a thing was the funda mental source of its transformation
and development. Conflict between contradictory elements drove nature and history. The
resolution of one contradiction led to the creation of or superordination of another
contradiction. Balance or the stability of equilibria in natural and social phenomena was
relative, imbalance was absolute. For Mao, conflict didn't require a solution, it was the
solution to political problems. Hence politics and international affairs were processes by which
contradictions--whether between classes or states--were resolved through conflict, leading to
the emergence of new contradictions.
In Mao's view, conflict in human affairs was not only inevitable but also desirable. Harmony
was transitory and undesirable. He came to this conclusion well before he had accepted
Marxist-Leninist normative arguments that class conflict was central to historical progress. In
his late teens he--like many from his nationalistic generation--had come to believe that China's
political weakness in the face of imperialism was not just analogous to but was also a product
of the physical weakness of the Chinese people. His class notes, written when he was a student
in Changsha, indicate that he accepted the view that people who were lazy, indolent, and weak
could not progress; they would fall behind, decline, and die. Likewise, states that were lazy,
indolent, and weak would fall behind other states, decline, and be exterminated by others.
People and states needed to struggle; they required a spirit of vitality and vigor. 29 Here one
finds parallels to the social Darwinism arguments, made by nineteenth-century European
nationalists, holding that extended periods of peace atrophy the physical capabilities and will
of the state. 30 But there are parallels as well in traditional Chinese strategic thought and
practice. Ming dynasty strategists, for instance, also lamented that prolonged peace led to the
decline in military preparedness and will that in turn encouraged Mongol enemies to exploit
this weakness. 31
This notion that conflict was ubiquitous and inevitable dovetailed with Mao's embrace of
Marxism-Leninism in his late twenties. Class contradictions compelled history forward, and
the resolution of class contradictions was an inherently conflictual process, aimed
fundamentally at the elimination of the adversary. His analogy for politics seemed to
summarize these axioms: "Politics is bloodless warfare. Warfare is bloody politics." 32
The Nature of the Enemy

In ancient Chinese strategic thought, the nature of the enemy was defined by the concept of
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righteous war (yi zhan). Generally the concept meant "sending forth armor and weapons in
order to punish the unrighteous," namely, those who bullied weaker states, killed their own
people, insulted other states, and otherwise rebelled against the established political and social
order. In the face of unrighteous behavior, the violent destruction of the enemy was both
necessary and desirable. 33 Within this context the ends justified the means: once the ends of
war were deemed righteous, then actions that in another context could be unrighteous (i.e.,
invasion and killing) were infused with moral intent. 34 Since the adversary was a threat to
the moral political order, the contest was explicitly zero-sum: the enemy could not be won
over but had to be destroyed. 35
Like the ancient Chinese, Mao also developed a concept of righteous or just war in which the
enemy was defined as dispositionally apt to threaten one's own fundamental values as a class
or state. For Mao, just wars were wars conducted by oppressed classes or nations. Unjust wars
were those undertaken by oppressors, whether classes or nations. Hence, conflicts between
oppressed and oppressor were zero-sum in nature. Under these circumstances, any and all
strategies and tactics were acceptable. Well before he embraced Marx, Mao criticized Song
Rang Gong of the Spring and Autumn period for his moral chivalry. Later, in a major work on
strategy titled On Protracted War, Mao repeated this critique that in a just war strategy and
tactics are questions of methods, not morality. 36
Applied to politics, Mao's theory of contradictions complemented the zero-sum

conceptualization of the enemy inherent in his vision of just war. Mao divided contradictions
into two sets of categories: principal and secondary, antagonistic and nonantagonistic. He saw
the principal contradiction in any particular phenomenon as playing the "leading and decisive
role." 37 The secondary contradiction played a subordinate role and did not immediately
drive the development of a phenomenon. Once the principal contradiction was resolved,
however, the secondary contradiction could turn into the new principal one. He developed the
notion of antagonistic and nonantagonistic contradictions to resolve the problem of conflict
within socialist parties and societies. If contradictions embodied all things, then even after
socialist societies had abolished class society, contradictions had to exist. These contradictions,
Mao argued, were nonantagonistic, in the sense that their resolution did not necessitate the
violent eradication of the adversary required by antagonistic contradictions. Nonantagonistic
contradictions existed "among the people," that is, within and between progressive classes and
social groups remaining inside a socialist movement or state.
In combination, these types of contradictions created a two-by-two matrix (figure 7.2).

Contradictions in the first cell were those in which conflict was inherently zero-sum and thus
could be resolved only by eliminating the adversary. There could be no compromises with
actors in this cell, except for very strict tactical purposes designed to weaken the enemy.
Contradictions in the second cell were temporarily subordinate to the resolution of the
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principal contradiction. Actors in this cell could be temporary allies, with whom one could
form a united front but against whom one also prepared for inevitable conflict. 38 Actors in
the third cell were those with whom the resolution of conflict required not their elimination
but rather their transformation (e.g., through political education). Contradictions within this
cell were primarily within one's own in-group, not between an in-group and an out-group.
Actors in the fourth cell were the least threatening to one's security or well-being and
constituted the most credible political allies.
The question is, How did an actor get put in the first cell in Maoist strategic thought? What
was the threshold of threatening behavior beyond which the conflict was defined as
antagonistic and principal? It is hard to answer this question with much precision. In effect, it
asks, Where on the first two dimensions of the central paradigm does one put Mao in relation
to other texts in China's strategic tradition? In the traditional texts on strategy, the threshold
beyond which a conflict is defined as zero-sum varied somewhat from text to text.
As a Marxist-Leninist, Mao drew upon his class analysis to provide this threshold, and it
appears to have been quite low, perhaps lower than that of the traditional texts. In principle,
all oppressive classes belonged at some point in cell 1, depending on the immediate political
problem (e.g., the overthrow of the nationalists or the consolidation of political control in the
new China). As a Chinese nationalist, Mao could easily put all major powers (whether socialist
or capitalist) in cell 1, depending again on the strategic problem at hand (e.g., facing American
imperialism in the 1960s or Soviet social imperialism in the 1970s).
In sum, according to Mao's strategic thought, at some point in the development of

contradictions between two adversaries this relationship would enter the realm of the
principal antagonistic contradiction. At that point the nature of the conflict with the enemy
became zero-sum, and negotiation, compromise, logrolling, and suasion were essentially ruled
out. One could venture, then, that Maoist thought defined most class-based disputes and all
threats to Chinese territorial and political integrity as inherently zero-sum conflicts.
The Role of Violence

Given the ubiquitousness of contradictions and conflict in human affairs and given also a
zero-sum conceptualization of the adversary inherent in the process of resolving antagonistic
contradictions, it is not surprising that Mao placed a great deal of stock in violence or in the
employment of overwhelming force to eliminate adversaries. Thus superior force was a key
ingredient in the forward march of history. This principle held between oppressed and
oppressor states as well. For Mao, there was both a strong ideological and pragmatic
acceptance that violence inhered in human social processes and that preparations for and the
use of violence were essential for self-preservation and self-development. In Mao's view war
was the highest form of struggle, the most efficacious means of resolving antagonistic
contradictions among classes and states. 39 Mao accepted Clausewitz's notion that war was a
continuation of politics by other means, but he did not accept the potential restraints that this
axiom placed on the scale or conduct of war. If the nature of politics was the struggle between
the just and the unjust, then just war was a valid continuation of politics. And given that the
unjust enemy was unlikely to be satisfied with the mere political resolution of conflict, then
just war was not a last resort. 40 Force did not come at the end of a process of political
give-and-take that had stalemated, leaving no other choice but coercion. The use of force
depended wholly on whether the adversary capitulated. Since class and national enemies were
not predisposed to capitulate short of the use of force, violence was in all likelihood a
necessary part of the process of dealing with threats. 41
Mao came to this conclusion at an early age, though somewhat tentatively. In his notes from
his school days in Changsha, for example, he recorded that those without strong power could
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not complete their tasks or be successful, whatever their endeavors. 42 Despite this, as late as
mid-1919 he was reluctant to endorse fully violent revolution in China, arguing in one essay
that radical change that used "power politics" to overthrow power politics would only result in
more of the same. 43 The radicalization of Chinese intellectuals during the May Fourth
movement in 1919, however, pushed Mao to embrace Marxism-Leninism in 1920 and 1921 and
to embrace, intellectually at least, the role of violence in social transformation. In 1926, after a
lengthy investigation of the radicalizing peasant movement in Hunan, he came to believe that
armed uprising was the only way to resolve principal antagonistic contradictions.
Subsequently he stressed that when carrying out a revolution one had to use "blade against
blade, and rifle against rifle," because class enemies were not going to submit voluntarily. 44
For Mao, then, the causal relationship between military power and security was
straightforward. As he remarked in reference to a perceived threat that the U.S. might
intervene in the Chinese civil war to defend the collapsing Guomintang (gmd) regime, "The
stronger and more resolute the power of the people's revolution the lower the possibilities that
the United States will directly interfere militarily." 45 Mao was not referring here abstractly
to the revolutionary enthusiasm, cohesion, or organization of Chinese people; he was referring
to the military power of the Chinese Communist Party (ccp).
To get a more systematic handle on the role of military force in the achievement of security, it
would be instructive to take a closer look at the cause-effect relationships and symbolic
content in Mao's writings on strategy and statecraft.
Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War (1936)

According to the cause-effect relationships in this text (figure 7.3), victory over the adversary
depended on variety of inputs or "causes." Among these were the effective use of intelligence
to spot the enemy's weak points (211.5.1) 46 and then the use of military force to attack those
points (e.g., 184.2.4; 201.1.1; 224.2.1); immediate retreat after achieving tactical victory,
followed by a second attack (232.1.2); the concentration of superior military force (e.g.,
199.1.4; 233.2.1; 238.1.1); and the annihilation, as opposed to the mere routing, of enemy
forces (e.g., 202.2.2; 224.2.1; 248.3.2). Victory was also a function of a commander's abilities,
in particular his understanding that war was the highest form of resolving contradictions
(180.1.3), and his subjective ability to understand the objective limitations on the use of force
(e.g., 188.1.2; 190.2.4; 232.1.3). Absolute flexibility was also critical for victory. A strategist
must be able to act according to circumstances and demonstrate tactical flexibility (e.g.,
184.1.2; 232.1.1). Other causes of victory included flexible borrowing from the military
experiences of other states (180:5.2; 181.2.10) and the correct military and political leadership
of the ccp (e.g., 192.1.2; 194.1.3).
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Defensive operations were also sources of victory, but only as temporary stages in the
offensive application of force. In one cause-effect relationship, Mao linked the loss of territory
from retreat to victory over the enemy, but it is clear from the context that this strategy
involved trading space for time and then using that time to create conditions advantageous for
the attack by, say, tiring the enemy or forcing it to make mistakes that then could be exploited
(e.g., 217.3.9; 221.1.2; 232.1.2; 234.4.3). Indeed, defensive operations were the first operational
step in defeating the enemy. A defensive retreat in the face of an enemy offensive, or the use of
positional defense of key points alongside mobile warfare, led to the defeat of enemies in a
civil war (207.4.4; 217.3.8) and more generally to military utility (e.g., 199.4.2; 215.3.2;
242.2.1). Defense also had instrumental political value. It lulled the enemy politically
(207.4.5), and in just wars it could rally conservative or "backward" elements in society around
one's cause (207.4.6). But a defensive retreat was only a prelude to the shift to the strategic
offensive. Passive defense or pure defense reduced the scope for initiative (234.4.1). "Active
defense"--defense for the purposes of counterattacking and taking the offense--had positive
utility and was a source of victory (e.g., 207.3.1; 233.1.6; 234.2.1).
As for the ability to attack the enemy with overwhelming superiority, this was rooted in the
fighting power of the military, which in turn was dependent on popular support, advantageous
terrain and weather, military organization, and the confidence and experience of cadres and
commanders (e.g., 206.3.1; 206.5.1; 212.2.2; 222.4.3; 223.2.4). Favorable changes in relative
power, then, led to an increasing ability to concentrate superior military forces for offensive
operations (e.g., 199.1.6; 202.4.1; 208.4.1; 215.5.1; 248.4.1). In other words, the relationship
between the human element (e.g., morale, popular political support, etc.) and military victory
was indirect, mediated by the ability to apply superior armed force against a weakening
enemy.
A couple of points are worth mentioning here. First, it is clear that this text does not advocate
passive defense (e.g., retreat or static defense) as a permanent, effective means of dealing with
an external threat. Rather, it develops the notion of active defense, whereby in an initial period
of strategic weakness one relies on retreats, hoping to "lure the enemy in deep" or wear it
down through small counteroffensives within the context of strategic defense. Once the
relative balance of power--here an amalgam of human and material variables--begins to shift
in one's favor, one should go on the attack. The end point of this attack is the strategic
annihilation of the enemy's ability to wage war. The entire process--from strategic defense to
strategic offense--is called active defense. This terminology is dictated by an instrumental need
to frame one's own actions as entirely defensive and just, a position that is important for
winning popular support and sympathy. 47 The term active defense is probably important at
a deeper symbolic level as well: the concept of just war requires that the enemy's threatening
actions be defined as dispositional rather than situational, hence morally beyond the pale.
Thus the enemy's nature is to threaten; one's own is to defend.
Second, the text stresses that strategists must exercise patience and absolute flexibility at the
tactical and strategic levels, what Mao called the "flexible application of principles according to
circumstances" (an zhao qing Kuang huo yong yuan ze). 48 The shift from the strategic
defensive to the strategic offensive should come only when conditions are ripe--namely, when
the relative balance of composite capabilities shifts in one's favor. A strategist has varying
degrees of control over when and how this shift occurs. Part of the process involves actively
wearing the enemy down militarily. It also involves "conserving one's own strength," avoiding
decisive engagements, building one's own military capabilities, and seeking out political and
military allies. In both cases, however, the key is to remain flexible enough to exploit
opportunity when shifting from the strategic defensive to the strategic offensive. This
flexibility axiom parallels the notion of quan bian found in ancient texts on strategy and
statecraft. Absolute flexibility was at the core of the strategic advice in traditional China. As a
Warring States text, the Si Ma Fa summarized it nicely: "As for war, it is [a question of]
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expedient assessment" (zhan zhe quan bian ye). 49 A Ming dynasty (1368-1644) text put it
best: "As for the way of employing the military instrument there should be no constant form in
either attacking or defending; there should be no constant rules for either dispersing or
uniting forces; there should be no constant time period when one is in motion or at rest; there
should be no constant directional momentum, either when extending or retracting [one's
forces]." 50
Mao was quite at home with this type of thinking. One could not be bound by one set of
methods (e.g., strategic defensive) when the annihilation of the enemy required the adoption
of another set (e.g., strategic offensive). And the strategic offensive required superior
capabilities. It is not entirely accurate, then, to characterize Mao's strategic thought as only
stressing "using weakness to overcome strength" (yi ruo sheng qiang) by dint of superior
morale or political mobilization. 51 Mao outlined a process--active defense--by which an
initially weak military entity could acquire the human and material resources for eventually
defeating an initially stronger military entity. But the defeat, or annihilation, of that enemy
entity at the tactical and finally the strategic level required military superiority. In other
words, a humanly richer but materially impoverished military force could not defeat a
materially superior enemy. At the moment of defeat the "just" side would have to have
superior human and material capabilities. I will come back to this point shortly in the
discussion of Mao's Moscow speech in 1957.
On the New Stage (1938)

This short essay (figure 7.4) on the creation of an anti-Japanese united front with the gmd is
essentially a discussion of how to handle secondary antagonistic contradictions, the second cell
in figure 7.2. Mao readily moved the conflict with the gmd from cell 1 to cell 2, as Japanese
imperialism became the primary threat to Chinese national development in the 1930s. The
causal arguments in this essay were straightforward: Japanese imperialism threatened the
survival of all classes in the Chinese nation. Hence the security of the state was an "effect" of
the defeat of the enemy's "savage and protracted" warfare (191.1.3). Cooperation with the gmd
was causally connected to the defeat of Japanese imperialism (e.g., 179.2.7), as was the
application of violence ("the barrel of the gun") (190.2.1), though from context it seems clear
that the former runs through the latter to lead to victory. 52 Indeed, there was a feedback
relationship between the united front and the Japanese invasion, such that the latter
compelled the former to develop, while the former would lead to the defeat of the latter.
The development of the united front, in turn, required that the CCP make political concessions
to the gmd, such as refraining from expanding ccp-controlled territory and from organizing
secret cells within the gmd (e.g., 185.1.3; 187.3.1; 188.3.1). United front activities were not to be
limited to the gmd, however. Mao also argued that alliances with other states opposed to
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Japanese imperialism were, in a general sense, of great utility (191.1.1; 191.1.2). Concessions
with the secondary contradiction were, of course, permissible. Concessions in the face of the
primary contradiction, however, were politically and militarily disastrous and would assist the
enemy's aggression (e.g., 193.1.1; 193.2.9). Mao used the initial Allied reaction to Hitler as an
analogy. The unwillingness of the democracies to sanction aggressor states, and their
endorsement of the policy of appeasement, were equivalent to assisting aggression.
Despite the focus on the united front, in this essay the defeat of the principal adversary also
ultimately required the use of force. The united front within China, and between China and
other anti-fascist states, would create superior capabilities to apply in the contest with fascism.
Concessions toward or bargaining with the principal enemy were anathema and would only
encourage aggression. These cause-effect relationships do not differ much from those set forth
in the essay on strategy in China's revolutionary war. Rather this text focuses on one part of
the process of creating superior power capabilities to deal with a zero-sum conflict.
The Present Situation and Our Tasks (1947)

This text (figure 7.5) outlines the strategy for the final overthrow of the gmd and the
establishment of a new state. As in the other texts, here also victory over the adversary is the
result of varied causes, but they boil down to two: political mobilization and the offensive use
of superior military power. As for the former, popular political support and rigorous political
work inside and outside the People's Liberation Army (pla) are both "causes" of victory over
the gmd (159.1.4; 161.2.6). While the text links these two factors directly to victory in China's
revolutionary war, comparatively little time is spent in the text expanding on this causal
relationship. It is not unreasonable to view it as in fact indirect, with political mobilization
being an input into the ability of the pla to defeat the adversary militarily.
By far the most attention is paid to the military process of defeating the adversary. Here
victory is a function of putting the gmd on the defensive militarily through the application of
people's war (157.1.6; 161.2.3) and through being absolutely superior in every specific
campaign even though strategically inferior (160.1.15). In other words, relative capabilities
matter. Advantages in relative capabilities allow the pla to attack, to shift from the defensive to
the offensive against the enemy, attacking dispersed, isolated enemy forces first, crushing the
enemy with a combination of frontal and flank attacks, and then attacking concentrated and
strong forces second (e.g., 160.1.2-13). The causal paths lead directly from these actions to the
defeat of the enemy, as well as to the elimination of imperialist influence in China (157.1.5;
160.1.14). The failure of the ccp/pla to oppose the gmd with military means leads directly to
the forfeiting of China's future (158.1.1; 158.1.2).
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In addition to being direct causes of the enemy's defeat, offensive operations lead to the
diminution of the enemy's ability to fight. Specifically, offensive operations are causally linked
to the destruction of the enemy's plans to take the war into ccp territory (157.1.2), pushing the
enemy onto the defensive (157.1.1; 157.1.3), liberating territory (159.2.1), and improving the
pla's relative ability to operate successfully against other enemy forces (160.1.12). Strategic
flexibility--namely, the ability to abandon strategically disadvantageous points--fuels the
enemy's underestimation of pla strength (161.2.6), which in turn leads to the defeat of the
enemy (162.1.1).
Mao's Moscow Conference Speech (1957)

This speech (figure 7.6) to the Moscow Conference of Communist Parties in November 1957
was not a work on strategy proper. Rather it was a broader discussion of statecraft and the role
of power capabilities in general in the achievement of strategic goals. In particular, Mao
focused on the sources of the socialist bloc's strength, arguing that it was rooted in three
things. One was the foreign policy crises facing imperialism--such as the Suez crisis, setbacks
for U.S. influence in Africa and Asia, China's victory in the Korean War--all of which were
indicative of the weakening strategic influence of Western imperialism. These crises were a
direct cause of the East Wind's (socialism's) prevailing over the West Wind (imperialism) (e.g.,
117.3.1;119.3.1).
A second set of causes for the socialist bloc's strength had to do with industrial and military
capabilities. Here Mao argued that the bloc's emerging technological superiority (e.g., the
Soviet Union's Sputnik launch, increases in steel production) would lead to the East Wind's
prevailing over the West Wind (117.6.1; 118.1.2; 118.1.3; 118.2.5). This superiority was a cause of
the West's political-psychological weakening (116.2.1) and contributed to socialism's global
surge. In other words, socialism's material superiority, translated into political and military
strength, would lead to socialism's prevailing over imperialism (119.6.2). 53 Finally, Mao
hinted that the military destruction of imperialism was also causally related to socialism's
victory. Even in nuclear war, he argued, an atomic attack by imperialism would lead to
retaliation by socialism (118.4.1; 118.4.2), which in turn would lead to the destruction of
imperialism and the triumph of socialism (119.1.1; 119.1.4; 119.1.5). Short of nuclear war
launched by "maniacs" in the imperialist camp, the invincibility of socialism would deter
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imperialism from fighting and would lead to everlasting peace (118.3.2; 118.3.3; 119.1.7).
As for China, Mao was also quite clear about the basis of its security. One factor was increased
steel production (118.2.3; 118.2.6), which in turn was a product of Soviet assistance and the
Chinese people's willingness to exert themselves for this goal (118.2.1). Another was its military
prowess, as demonstrated in the defeat of the gmd (116.4.1; 116.4.2), the victory in the Korean
War (117.2.1), and the American unwillingness to send forces to aid the French in Vietnam. As
for the cause of military victory, the strategy was a piecemeal one, to destroy the enemy one by
one (120.2.8). Offensive military actions were also causally related to compelling the enemy to
compromise or capitulate (117.2.4). In other words, a military hard line against the Americans
and/or their allies appeared to have desirable political effects.
The speech also provided evidence of Mao's consistent zero-sum conceptualization of

adversaries. For him, the maintenance of an uncompromising strategic objective while flexibly
blending compromises and struggle at the tactical level is a correct strategy when dealing with
a zero-sum conflict (e.g., 122.3.1; 122.2.5). When two sides are unable to accommodate each
other, the struggle or contradiction is inherently antagonistic, and those conditions must lead
to the overthrow of the adversary. Socialism and imperialism exist absolutely exclusively of
each other, and resolu tion of this contradiction leads invariably to the collapse of imperialism
(122.2.2; 122.2.4).
A couple of observations about the patterns in these cognitive maps are in order here. First, in
all the maps the management of the security problematique requires most directly the military
defeat of the adversary. In one of the texts--Mao's Moscow speech--there is an alternative
route, namely, socialism's technological and material (hence military) superiority, but it is not
clear why that alone might lead to the destruction of imperialism. Mao hints that this
superiority will deter imperialism from attacking socialism, giving time for the internal
contradictions within the imperialist camp and its spheres of influence to cause its implosion.
In any case, superior military power is clearly a critical causal element in the defeat of an
adversary and the achievement of key political goals. When circumstances require the
application of this superior military power, offensive uses of force are causally linked to
military success. Defensive operations are only a temporary and early stage in the application
of violence, and by themselves they are inadequate for achieving desirable political ends. The
so-called human element is only one input into this process of applying superior military force
offensively. Relative material power counts, and in fact determines military success. 54 Most
of the texts also highlight a concept of absolute strategic flexibility that along with the concept
of just war lifts any a priori moral or political boundaries on the means by which the enemy is
defeated.
A second general observation is that none of these causal relationships is inconsistent with the
cognitive maps in traditional Chinese texts on strategy. Like these ancient texts, Mao's texts are
essentially deeply structured around a parabellum or hard realpolitik central paradigm. The
key question is, then, to what extent was Mao directly socialized in this traditional strategic
culture? Unfortunately, on this point the evidence is rather spotty. The issue is also
complicated by the fact that by the 1920s Mao had been exposed to Leninist and Clausewitzian
ideas about statecraft and strategy. A case can be made that these traditions also embodied a
parabellum central paradigm, hence the difficulty in separating out the effects of traditional
Chinese influences.
We do have evidence, however, that Mao had read at least some of ancient texts on strategy as
early as 1913, well before he had any contact with Clausewitz's or Lenin's works. 55 One of his
school notes from 1913 seems to paraphrase a key passage in the Si Ma Fa to the effect that it
is legitimate to "kill people in order to give life to people" (sha ren yi sheng ren)--that is,
destroy an enemy in order to achieve a greater good. 56 This position is consistent with the
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absolute flexibility axiom at the core of Chinese conceptions of just war, and it embodies an
obvious instrumentalism in conceptualizing the role of force. Later on, in his more mature
works on strategy, Mao echoes again this axiom: "Whoever wants to seize state power and
intends to preserve it must have a strong military. . . . We are for the abolition of war, we do
not want war. But only through war can we abolish war, and if we want to get rid of the gun we
must take up the gun." 57
The occasional references to Sun Zi in Mao's later works all focus on the notion of absolute
flexibility. Two of the four references in "Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War"
and in "On Protracted War" are to Sun Zi's axiom "Know the enemy and know yourself and in
one hundred battles you will not be in danger," one refers to avoiding the enemy when it is
stronger and attacking it when it weakens, and one refers to deception, or displaying a false
"form" to the enemy. Arguably, all four references relate to gauging the nature of changing
circumstances and exploiting these strategic opportunities.
As for other influences from works on traditional Chinese military history, we also know Mao
was an avid reader of popular histories and novels set in the Warring States (475-221 b.c.) and
Three Kingdoms period (220 b.c.-a.d. 280). These stories tended to stress the righteous use of
force, often by militarily inferior groups. Operationally many of the accounts stressed
ingenious political and military stratagems and hence were instrumental in creating the myth
that Chinese strategic tradition stressed minimally violent solutions to security problems--but
these were usually preludes to the application of offensive violence.
What Mao seems to have most clearly rejected was the minimal violence notion in Sun Zi that
one could "not fight and subdue the enemy." After he emerged as the chief strategist for the
ccp in the 1930s, Mao was apparently tutored on traditional Chinese strategic thought by Guo
Huaruo, who until the mid-1980s was the ccp's most authoritative interpreter and annotator
of Sun Zi's Art of War. Guo stressed that from a Marxist-Leninist perspective the notion of
"not fighting and subduing the enemy"--the core of the conventional interpretation of Sun
Zi--was un-Marxist, since class enemies could not be credibly defeated without the application
of violence. 58 This axiom was dismissed as "idealist" (wei xin zhu yi). In this instance,
traditional Chinese texts were mediated by Marxist-Leninist arguments, but it is possible that
Mao was receptive to this interpretation, given his socialization in the popular novels and
histories.
In sum, while the evidence is scattered, it does seem that Mao was exposed to elements of the
parabellum tradition in Chinese strategy thought before he was introduced to Clausewitzian
and Leninist variations of parabellum. The net result of Mao's socialization in these three
traditions was, arguably, a mutual reinforcement of the hard realpolitik tendencies in his
strategic thought.
Strategic Preference Rankings

Since the Maoist and traditional Chinese texts share the parabellum central paradigm, we
should also expect them to share the grand strategic preference rankings derived from that
paradigm. That is, the Mao texts should embody a preference for offensive operations over
static defense, and static defense should be preferred to accommodationist strategies. 59 It is
clear from the cognitive maps that Mao believed that final victory over an adversary in a
zero-sum conflict required the offensive application of superior military force to annihilate
rather than merely deter the enemy. The process of getting to this point, however, is a little
complicated and obscured by the political language that Mao used to clothe his offensive
preferences.
Starting from the least-preferred strategy, Mao's concept of principal antagonistic

contradictions, and his notion of just war, ruled out the possibility of long-term cooperation or
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accommodation with an enemy. The goal of political struggles was to "preserve oneself and
annihilate the enemy." It was unlikely, in Mao's view, that the other side in a "principal
antagonistic contradiction" would willingly submit, or bargain away its existence.
As for static defensive strategies, Mao labeled these passive defense (xiao ji fang yu) or pure
defense (dan chun fang yu), to contrast them with his preferred strategy of "active defense."
Passive defense, he argued, involved methods essentially for blocking or obstructing an enemy
who was on the offensive. These strategies were of only limited value for holding territory
temporarily while other forces engaged in offensive operations within the context of the
strategic defense. Passive defense put one in a reactive position and tended to force the
dispersal and weakening of one's military power. 60
Mobile defense--the tactical offense within strategic defense--was designed to create the
conditions ripe for a shift to the strategic offensive.
Mao argued, then, that superior military forces applied offensively were decisive in defeating
an adversary. In one specific discussion of the final push to defeat the gmd in the late 1940s,
he wrote that ideally the annihilation of the enemy required accumulating 3:1 or 4:1 numerical
superiority. 61 Thus the shift to the offensive depended on relative capabilities: when these
were advantageous, the just side should apply offensive violence to annihilate the enemy's
war-making ability. Any other strategy, then, whether defensive or accommodationist, was
contingent and should be adopted only when relative capabilities could not guarantee the
successful offensive use of force. 62
This preference for the offense was qualified, however, in two ways. Politically Mao stressed
that offensive uses of force, whether at the level of operational strategy or grand strategy,
should be named active defense. While just wars were not defensive ones, in the sense that the
just side could declare war or initiate violence, they should nonetheless be called defensive.
For one thing the term active defense was more politically palatable; it could be used in
arousing righteous indignation among masses and soldiers or to attract sympathetic support
from external sources. 63 Just wars were also a legitimate response to what we would now
call "structural violence." The source of conflict was the existence of an oppressor class or an
oppressor nation(s). The oppressor was acting offensively, in that ultimately if it were not for
the existence of this oppressor there would be no fundamental contradiction requiring the use
of force for its resolution. 64
Operationally, the offensive use of force was qualified by a preference against a first strike out
of the blue. Instead Mao evidently preferred an offensive "second strike" (hou fa zhi ren). 65
Again, the reasoning was both political and military. To strike the enemy, particularly its
territory, first, without specific provocation would be to give it the sympathy of world opinion
and would tar the just side with the politically damaging label of aggressor. 66
Militarily, Mao's version of a second strike offensive was designed to compel the enemy to
move first, thus allowing an opportunity to gauge its intentions and capabilities. One could
thereby ascertain the enemy's weak points, and attacks on these points, not first strikes per se,
were decisive in conflict. 67 There are, in fact, parallels here to the strategic calculus in the
traditional Chinese texts. The Sun Zi text speaks of "first putting oneself in an undefeatable
position" and waiting for the enemy to put itself in a defeatable position. In other words,
whether at the grand strategic or the operational level of strategy, defense and offense were
linked. One waited to see how the enemy moved, while one's own strategic posture of
apparent immobility and obscurity concealed one's capabilities and intentions. Once the
enemy revealed its disposition, its weaknesses and strengths, then one shifted to the offensive,
striking at the enemy's "empty" (xu) points and disarming it. One could use limited amounts of
force to provoke the adversary into a definitive move. Defensive strategies established the
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parameters within which the enemy had to operate and thus allowed oneself to retain the
initiative.
If the above characterization of the central paradigm and related strategic preferences in
Mao's thought is accurate, then what sorts of expectations should we have about Chinese
strategic behavior under Mao? First, we would expect the use of force to be framed politically
as defensive and just, whether or not China initiated violence. This is not an unusual
expectation; most states develop some symbolic language to frame behavior in culturally
acceptable terms. We would also expect the Chinese to initiate force after establishing that
conflict is imminent, given the disposition of the enemy and the zero-sum nature of the
conflict. In other words, initiation would come after Chinese decision makers have concluded
that force is "unavoidable." There ought to be a low threshold establishing when an adversary's
moves indicate that conflict is inevitable. That is, once it has been determined that conflict is
zero-sum, we should expect the Chinese leadership to initiate larger-scale conflicts, and given
the premium placed on military initiative, we should also expect China to resort to force in
these types of conflicts. In other words, there should be an observable tendency to link more
isolated threats to a broader challenge to the fundamental values of the state. To the extent
that there are gradations in the severity of this threat to the fundamental values of the state,
severe threats will require the military annihilation of the enemy's capacity to continue to
challenge China. We should expect too that in a general conflict situation, Chinese coercive
behavior should be positively related to advantageous changes in relative military capabilities.
In other words, once in a conflict situation, advantageous shifts in relative capabilities should
be a necessary cause of the initiation of force.
Chinese Conflict Behavior

How well does Chinese conflict behavior after 1949 fit the expectations that follow from the
Maoist variant of the parabellum strategic culture?
The first observation is that, of all the major powers, the prc has been quite prone to use force
in foreign policy crises. According to the data set on foreign policy crises generated by
Jonathan Brecher, Michael Wilkenfeld, and Sheila Rosen, the prc has been involved in eleven
foreign policy crises through 1985 and has resorted to violence in eight (72 percent),
proportionally more than the other major powers in the twentieth century. Comparable
figures for the U.S., the ussr, and the uk from 1927 to 1985 are 18 percent, 27 percent, and 12
percent, respectively. And according to these researchers, the Chinese use of violence has been
what they label "high intensity," involving "serious clashes" or "full-scale war." 68
Second, these conflicts were all located along China's borders. Territorial disputes were thus
crucial drivers in most of these crises. According to the Brecher and Wilkenfeld data set, in
comparison with other major powers China was more likely to use violence in a dispute over
territorial issues, employing it as a key conflict management technique in 80 percent of such
crises (N = 5). For the U.S., the figure was 0 percent (N = 11); the ussr, 20 percent (N = 10);
Britain, 8.3 percent (N = 12); France, 27.3 percent (N = 11); India, 33.3 percent (N = 3); and for
all actors in the data set, 23.5 percent (N = 281). Chinese decision makers tended to see
territorial disputes as high-value conflicts, partly because of a historical sensitivity to threats to
the territorial integrity of the state. 69
The definition of high-value, zero-sum conflicts was not limited to territorial issues, however.
There seems to have been a tendency for Chinese leaders to define even political/diplomatic
crises as high threat and to view force as a legitimate response. China used violence as the
major response in 66.7 percent of the crises involving political/diplomatic issues (N = 3); the
comparable statistic for all actors is 18.1 percent (N = 127). This would suggest that Chinese
leaders were more apt to view a wide range of disputes in zero-sum terms, thus establishing a
low threshold for deter mining what conflicts constituted a clear threat to the security of the
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state. 70 Obviously these comparisons need to be handled with care. Given the small N of
Chinese cases, a relatively small number of new cases in which Chinese behavior deviated
from past trends could very quickly change the percentages. The data are, nonetheless,
suggestive, particularly since the behavior is consistent with the hard realpolitik ideational
structure behind Maoist understandings of conflict. 71
The sparse anecdotal evidence we have of the Chinese decision-making process is consistent
with the aggregate data. In most cases when China used force, the "threat" was considered
high and the issue at hand tended to be a zero-sum one. In the Korean War case, for instance,
before resorting to force Mao argued that not only did American military actions in the
peninsula threaten China's industrial base in Manchuria but also domestic
counterrevolutionaries could take advantage of an extended war with the U.S. to undermine
the CCP's tenuous political control of the mainland. 72 In the first Quemoy-Matsu crisis of
1954-1955, Mao viewed the imminent conclusion of the U.S.-Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty as
a two-pronged threat: one prong was the security threat posed by a formalized American
military presence in a number of bilateral security arrangements around China's periphery;
the other was the possibility that formal bilateral security relations between Taiwan and the
U.S. might encourage the U.S. and other states to make a de facto endorsement of the concept
of two Chinas, an outcome that Mao considered a threat to Chinese territorial integrity. 73
The Sino-Indian border crisis of 1962 was a "conventional" zero-sum territorial dispute, but it
came at a time of severe economic dislocation, in the wake of the Great Leap Forward and
shortly after another "invasion" scare from Taiwan. Thus the urgency of preserving China's
territorial integrity was accentuated by the sense of domestic economic and political crisis in
China. There is some controversy about who initiated the Ussuri clashes with the ussr in 1969
and even less certainty about the decision process on the Chinese side. But one plausible
argument is that in the face of a very real concern that China might be the next on the
Brezhnev Doctrine list, Mao initiated conflict to signal to the Soviets that China was a
risk-acceptant player and that any subsequent Soviet use of force would carry high costs for
Moscow as well. To the extent that the Chinese had the Czechoslovakian case in mind, the
issues at stake in this conflict--China's territorial integrity and political survival--were
high-value ones as well.
Third, the Chinese have also been quite willing to initiate violence in disputes. In the Brecher
and Wilkenfeld data, China initiated violence in 62.5 percent of those crises in which it ended
up using violence (N = 8). To be sure, coding initiators in conflicts is an exceedingly difficult
task, since it is sometimes hard to tell when a crisis or dispute began and which side was
defending the status quo. Nonetheless, the Brecher and Wilkenfeld data are consistent with a
rough estimate of Chinese initiation based on a preliminary version of the Correlates of War
militarized dispute data. These data suggest that of the seventeen cases of militarized disputes
in which the prc has been involved with the ussr through 1985, China probably initiated the
dispute in eleven cases (65 percent). In seven of these eleven cases, the issue for China was
either a perceived threat to Chinese territorial claims or an attempt by Beijing to modify
territorial boundaries, a finding that is again consistent with the Brecher and Wilkenfeld data.
74
Fourth, Chinese conflict behavior has tended to be sensitive to chang ing relative capabilities in
ways that are consistent with a hard realpolitik strategic calculus. In other words, as in the
Ming period, once in a conflictual situation, there seems to have been a correlation between
an advantageous shift in relative capabilities and the PRC's initiation of hostile actions along a
scale of violence. The question is, How did the Chinese or Mao determine relative capabilities?
On the one hand, Mao often incorporated quite subjective measures about who was on the
"defensive" and who was on the "offensive" in his assessment of the relative strengths of the
U.S., the ussr, and China. On the other hand, Mao was also quite sensitive to relative material
capabilities. A very strong theme running through his Moscow speeches in the fall of 1957, a
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year before the second Quemoy-Matsu crisis, was that the Soviet Union's technological
breakthroughs, coupled with the rapid industrial growth rates in the socialist camp, translated
into strategic power. 75
It is not unreasonable to assume, then, that Mao used fairly rough estimates of relative
industrial and military power to determine whether China had more or fewer capabilities with
which to assert its interests in conflict situations. For the moment I will use the ratio of the
percent shares of major power capabilities as a rough indicator of relative power. Very
preliminary findings indicate, for instance, that in all three foreign policy crises with the U.S.
(Korea, Quemoy-Matsu 1954-1955, Quemoy-Matsu 1958) the U.S.-prc power ratio had shifted
in China's direction over the previous year. In the two foreign policy crises involving the ussr
(the Ussuri River crisis of 1969 and the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979) the ussr-prc
power ratio shifted in China's direction. 76 In the one China-U.S. crisis that did not lead to
violence (Taiwan, summer 1962), China's relative power ratio with the U.S. declined. 77 These
are crises in the Brecher, Wilkenfeld, and Rosen data set in which China initiated direct
military conflict with the adversary. This does not mean that an improvement in relative
capabilities inexorably led to the initiation of conflict. Indeed, there are a number of dyad
years in Chinese-U.S. and Chinese-Soviet relations, for instance, where such an improvement
occurred and there was no military conflict. Rather, a favorable change in relative capabilities
appears to have been a necessary but not sufficient condition. That is, without such a change, it
appears that there would not have been any conflict. Given such a change, in the absence of a
foreign policy crisis military conflict is not inevitable. But in the universe of cases of foreign
policy crises, an advantageous shift in relative capabilities did accompany the initiation of
violence.
Problems of Analysis
A couple of conclusions can be drawn at this point about traditional Chinese and Maoist
strategic culture. First, the predominant Chinese strategic tradition does not differ radically
from key elements in the Western realpolitik tradition. Indeed, the Chinese case might be
classified as a hard realpolitik one, sharing many of the same basic tenets about the nature of
the enemy and the efficacy of violence with advocates of nuclear war fighting on both sides in
the Cold War or late-nineteenth-century social Darwinian nationalists. 78 It is characterized
by positions at the high end of the three dimensions that make up the central paradigm of a
strategic culture. From these central assumptions flows a preference for offensive and/or
preemptive strategies in dealing with threats.
Second, the Chinese case suggests that strategic culture is not a trivial variable in the analysis
of strategic behavior. There is, at least in the Chinese case, a long-term, deeply rooted
persistent and relatively consistent set of assumptions about the strategic environment and
about the best means for dealing with it. Moreover, these assumptions appear to have a
nontrivial influence on grand strategic choice in several different historical periods. These
parabellum assumptions have persisted across different state systems in Chinese history--from
the anarchical Warring States period, to the hierarchical imperial Chinese state system, to the
increasingly interdependent post-Cold War period. In the 1980s and 1990s, even as China's
economy has become increasingly integrated into the global economy, even as international
economic institutions play an increasing role in directing China's development strategies, and
even as China faces the most benign threat environment since 1949, hard realpolitik decision
rules continue to dominate the Chinese leadership's approach to foreign policy and security
affairs. Chinese approaches to global issues such as arms control, the environment, and human
rights are still dominated by defection and freeriding decision rules. Chinese leaders openly
admit that China's development goal is "a rich state and a strong army" (fu guo qiang bing).
These conclusions raise a host of complex implications and questions about the nature of
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strategic culture and its influence on behavior. The crux of these problems is, as should be
apparent, that the predictions from a hard realpolitik model of Chinese strategic culture are
similar to those from what could conventionally be called a structural realpolitik model. This
situation poses obvious difficulties for any competitive hypothesis testing. Indeed, neorealists
might immediately ask what the point is in constructing a strategic culture model of realpolitik
when an "old-fashioned" realist model without reference to strategic culture might do just as
well. 79 Their argument would be that Chinese realpolitik strategic culture is epiphenomenal,
not causal, a function of anarchical structures. I think this is a premature judgment. There are
two broad kinds of responses to this charge.
The first is to admit that these two models make similar predictions and then to set up critical
tests. A relatively useful test of realpolitik strategic culture is to look for periods in Chinese
history in which, controlling for structural change, one could identify fluctuations in the
strength of the strategic culture. If strategic choice were consistent with these variations (e.g.,
the absence or weakness of an identifiable realpolitik strategic culture correlated with
accommodationist strategies even when conditions favored the use of force against an
adversary), then the case for cultural realism would obviously be stronger.
There is suggestive evidence that this was the case in the Ming dynasty. Proportionately most
"events" (e.g., years in which relative power favored the Ming and in which the Ming launched
offensives) occurred in the first quarter of the dynasty, when overall structural conditions
favored the Ming. Proportionately, however, during this period one was also more likely to see
"nonevents" (e.g., years in which relative power favored the Ming and in which the Ming did
not launch offensives). In general, the first quarter was a period in which Ming emperors were
engaged in legitimating their dynastic rule. Part of that process involved issuing statements
affirming the more benign Confucian approach to security. It is possible that in these
microperiods Ming rulers, facing a relatively benign threat environment and concerned about
establishing an image of a magnanimous rule, endorsed a degree of restraint in strategic
choice. A more fine- tuned test, then, would be to look in more detail at each of these years of
non-events and compare the strength of the parabellum calculus in the decision process for
the years in which offensives were launched. To the extent that the strength of the parabellum
axioms varied in the predicted direction across these two types of cases, one could make
firmer conclusions about the effects of cultural versus structural realpolitik.
In the prc case, we would need evidence that in those foreign policy crises in which China did
not resort to force hard realpolitik axioms were not as prominent. Unfortunately we are
working with a very small number of cases. There is one instance in which China did not resort
to force immediately in the face of threat to a high-value territorial security issue--namely, the
U.S. decision in June 1950 to use the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan straits to prevent a
Communist invasion of Taiwan. Mao clearly considered this a major challenge to his plans to
liberate the rest of China and another major threat, given the war in Korea. Yet the absence of
an immediate Chinese violent response was the result not of a softening of Mao's hard
realpolitik worldview but of his inability to do anything about the problem in the short run.
This inaction is consistent with both a structural and an ideational realpolitik that is sensitive
to relative capabilities. This case, then, does not offer a conclusive test of the two models.
Overall, the kind of test outlined above may be relatively hard to set up, since there has been
very little fluctuation in the hegemony of the hard realpolitik strategic culture, particularly in
the post-1949 period.
A second test might be a cross-national one. Here one would look for cases in which one could
plausibly argue that the hard realpolitik paradigm was replaced by a different strategic
culture, cases in which changes in relative capabilities have not led to the coercive
opportunism that one finds in Chinese history. My argument has been that the hard realpolitik
strategic culture is a prism through which changes in relative capabilities are interpreted.
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Absent this paradigm, and changes in relative capabilities should mean something different.
80 In this respect, liberal democratic zones of peace, based on shared identities, provide
intriguing evidence. The argument is that shared identities reduce in-group exclusivity, hence
the group values the "other" more. Since each side knows that it prefers accommodation and
negotiation, and since each side believes that this is the case for the other, the central
assumptions of the parabellum paradigm become hard to maintain. Thus the high measures
on the three dimensions of the central paradigm should move dramatically toward low
measures. Military conflict is not seen as imminent, conflict is not considered zero-sum, and
violence is not considered efficacious. Accommodationist strategies are therefore more
preferred than offensive ones, regardless of changes in relative capabilities. As a result,
advantages in relative capabilities are not exploited, and disadvantages are not feared. Since
the parabellum paradigm does not pervade decision makers' perceptions when they are
dealing with other democracies, changes in relative capabilities should not have the same
effect as on states with parabellum strategic cultures. The absence of war itself, and the virtual
absence of militarized disputes, even as the relative capabilities of these states have changed or
remained imbalanced, suggests, then, that there is no relationship between structural changes
and violent conflict among liberal democracies. 81 Such a finding would be consistent with
absence of the parabellum paradigm.
Since I am not using the absence of war (the dependent variable) to posit the absence of
parabellum (the independent variable), this is not a tautological argument. Rather, I am using
a shared democratic identity to posit the absence of parabellum. If the absence of the
parabellum strategic culture correlates with the absence of coercive exploitation of advantages
in changing relative capabilities among democracies, then it seems reasonable to conclude that
the presence of a parabellum strategic culture in China is correlated with the coercive
exploitation of these advantages. Needless to say, a structural realpolitik model could not
account for the relative absence of realpolitik interpretations of changing material capabilities
in democratic security communities. Thus there is no logical reason to expect it to account for
the presence of realpolitik interpretations in nondemocracies.
This brings me to a final test, one designed to see whether the content of China's strategic
culture remained relatively stable over time as structure changed. If this were the case, then
the charge of epiphenomenality would not stand. To be sure, the formative period for this
realpolitik strategic culture was, arguably, the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods
(770-221 b.c.), a time when politics among the feudal states of central China were
characterized by anarchical multipolar relations. But realpolitik axioms persisted across the
rise of unipolar imperial states interacting with weaker nomadic tribal states (e.g., early Han
dynasty from the mid-second to the mid-first century b.c., the Tang dynasty of the early
seventh century b.c., the Ming dynasty in the mid- through late fifteenth century, when it was
the largest empire in the world). And these persisted during periods of weak dynastic or
imperial control when relations between Chinese and non-Chinese states, or among Chinese
states, were bipolar or multipolar (e.g., the Three Kingdoms period (a.d. 220-280), the
Northern and Southern dynasties period (a.d. 420-581), and the Northern and Southern Song
period (a.d. 960-1279). 82 These different systems cannot all be legitimately considered the
same anarchical type even though, strictly speaking, in each there was no supreme authority
regulating relations among the key actors. To argue that they were the same type of system
would be to ignore the effects of the vast power differentials across these systems on actors'
perceptions of their options. It would mean ascribing to the mere absence of supreme
authority such a deterministic effect that relative power becomes unimportant. Structural
realists can't have it both ways--they cannot sometimes argue that anarchy is the most
important variable determining states' strategic choices and other times argue that power
distributions are the most crucial. 83 Indeed, one could argue that in lopsided unipolar
imperial systems one ought to expect some dramatic variation from realpolitik behavior, since
even though the system is anarchic in the strict definition of the term, the empire's survival is
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not threatened by weak, disunited tribes along the periphery. Massively asymmetric relative
capabilities would suggest that the empire could afford to ignore or buy off these low-level
threats. 84 Yet, in the Chinese case at least, Chinese empires, especially at peak periods of
power, often exhibited an offensive, coercive behavior rooted in a perception of adversaries as
implacably hostile and threatening to the very survival of the system and in a distrust of the
long-term efficacy of accommodationist strategies.
In short, that this hard realpolitik calculus undergirded the strategic decision making in the
unipolar imperial state system during the peak periods of Ming power in the fifteenth century
(periods when the Ming was most aggressive in its efforts to exterminate the Mongol threat,
for instance) and in the multipolar and bipolar "anarchical" state systems in which twentieth-
century China was situated suggests that its persistence is related not to particular
distributions of power or to different kinds of anarchical state structures but to the
transmission of a particular strategic culture. In Mao's case socialization in the parabellum
strategic culture came both from exposure to some of its elements in traditional texts military
strategy and history as well as from Leninist and Clausewitzian ideas. Hence there is at least
some evidence that realpolitik axioms developed and persisted across different structural
contexts.
But a second broad way to deal with the neorealists' charge of epiphenomenality is to argue
that, if anything, it is the effects of structure that are epiphenomenal to realpolitik strategic
culture. The argument that one has to set up a critical test between a material structural and
an ideational model of realpolitik rests on the assumption that these two make predictions
about behavior that are causally independent of each other: in one model, strategic culture
interacts with changing relative capabilities to produce behavior; in the other, according to
neorealists, changing relative capabilities alone explains behavior. But when neorealists make
this latter link between capabilities and behavior, they in fact require an assumption about the
meaning or implications of this change for state survival. The problem is, the basis of this
assumption for neorealism is not clear. 85 For some neorealists the answer is simple: anarchy
is the primary cause of states' interests and preferences over actions because in conditions of
uncertainty about the intentions of others, one's own security is assured ultimately only with
sufficient military capabilities arrayed on one's own side (by either internal or external
balancing). Thus under conditions of anarchy states will tend to interpret disadvantageous
shifts in relative capabilities as threatening and dangerous. 86
Yet for other neorealists, the relationship between anarchy and realpolitik is in fact not
coterminus. This is because their argument contains a nor mative element that if states wish to
survive in anarchy they have to think in realpolitik ways; otherwise they lose. Since there are
losers in anarchy (and I don't think their proportion has diminished over time, as the selection
argument would predict), then one has to assume there are states that don't act on these
assumptions about interests and capabilities, and hence that there is at least some choice in
the matter. As some neorealists will agree, the only way that changing relative capabilities--
structure--can explain behavior is if decision makers think these changes matter for the
security of the state. That is, states or state elites provide the realpolitik meaning of changes in
structure. This meaning depends on how states conceive their interests.
So the question is, Where does this particular realpolitik interpretation of interests come
from? Some neorealists are happy to acknowledge that these interests, and the process by
which states interpret changes in relative capabilities in the light of these interests, are
assumptions and are not endogenous to structures per se. At some level the empirical validity
of these assumptions is important to neorealism. But of greater importance is that these
assumptions are made in the first place. The way in which these assumptions are correct--in
other words, where decision makers get these tendencies to interpret changes in relative
capabilities in realpolitik ways--is of still lesser importance. Of course, this failure to
23 de 40 05/08/2010 19:37
problematize the interpretation of relative capabilities opens the door to the constructivist
argument that, to the extent that neorealism has no well-defined theory of where state
interests or preferences over actions come from, just as long as these interests are realpolitik
ones and are present in anarchical structures, it is quite possible that empirically these
interests and preferences come from realpolitik strategic cultures, independent of structure.
For other neorealists, the source of these realpolitik interpretations of changes in relative
capabilities is anarchy. 87 Anarchy produces uncertainty, and uncertainty produces fear of
being exploited. It is fear that gives meaning to a change in power distributions. But
empirically we know that there is considerable variation in the levels of fear. France has
reacted very differently to the unification of Germany in the 1990s than it did to the same
process in the 1860s. Western Europe of the 1990s, as a democratic security community of
sovereign states, reacts to relative capabilities changes among them in very different ways than
it has in the past. So anarchy, a constant, cannot account for dramatic variation in levels of
fear. Thus anarchy cannot account for realpolitik interpretations of changes in relative
capabilities.
If this is the case, then the initial puzzle above does not require a critical test, since all the
Chinese case does is provide empirical evidence that structural realism's assumptions about
state preferences are rooted in realpolitik strategic cultures. These two models, then, are not
competing ones. Rather, structural realpolitik can be subsumed within the cultural realpolitik
model. Indeed, cultural realpolitik is necessary to save structural realpolitik from the
embarrassment that its assumptions may be wrong. If this is the case, then, the standard
juxtaposition of norms versus interests or structural/rational versus ideational models is a
false one. If what we have come to know as structural realism rests on the empirical presence
of cultural or ideational realism, then realpolitik behavior is ideationally based, just as
behavior that deviates from realpolitik behavior has ideational roots as well. This makes sense
to those who consider interests and preferences to be socially constructed. There can be no
interests that are not socially constructed, hence there can be no interests that are not rooted
in ideational cues for ordering the environment. Thus one simply cannot conceive of interests'
being rooted outside of ideas (e.g., in structural anarchy) or pitted against them.
This conclusion is not particularly good news for many realists. While it suggests that there is
an empirical basis for the assumption in neorealism that states can tend to interpret the
constraints of structures in realist ways, it also suggests that this empirical basis is independent
of structure. In other words, if cultural realism provides the content for one of the key
assumptions of structural realism, and if this content is independent of structure (to the extent
that it inhabits decision makers' perceptions and persists across different structural contexts),
then realpolitik behavior is independent of structure. Cultural realism saves structural realism
the embarrassment of being empirically wrong about how states "think" but in doing so
suggests that structure cannot cause realpolitik behavior.
This conclusion raises a problem for research methodology. It suggests, as Jackson rightly puts
it, that ideas and interests should not be juxtaposed against each other because both are
"concepts and therefore ideas" and because both can exist independent of anarchical
structures. 88 If this is the case, we then have to explain what exactly is the relationship
between ideas, norms, cultures on the one hand, and structure on the other. While most
scholars who take the "autonomous power of ideas" seriously would concur with the
importance of this question, they come up with at least three different conceptualizations of
the relationship between ideas and structure. One view is that material structure does in fact
produce determinate predictions about behavior but that these are often wrong because ideas,
norms, and culture sometimes mediate and thus skew the impact of structure on the decision-
making processes. Scholars who start from this assumption thus explore cases that "deviate"
from a neorealist prediction. Their conceptualization could be portrayed as in figure 7.7. 89
24 de 40 05/08/2010 19:37
A second view sees neorealist structures producing indeterminate predictions, providing

limited possibilities and choices, which are then decided upon through the mediation of ideas,
norms, and culture (see figure 7.8). Ideas finalize interests and preferences. 90 In both
conceptualiza tions, structure is implicitly or explicitly given enough content independent of
ideas to produce behavioral predictions.
But a complete rejection of the ideas-interests dichotomy leads to a third conceptualization.

Here ideas, norms, and culture generate structures--anarchical ones if the "strategic culture" is
essentially a realpolitik one and institutionalized ones if the strategic culture is essentially an
idealpolitik one. Behavior flows from structures, but these are given content and meaning by
the ideational precursors. The behavior reinforces the ideational base upon which the
super-"structure" rests (figure 7.9).
Of course, this still begs the question, raised in Wendt's important article, 91 Where do these
ideational bases come from and why do certain ideational and behavioral vectors appear at
different times? In trying to explain where in the process of social interaction the disposition
to identify other states as potential enemies against whom one should be prepared to use force
developed, Wendt ventures that the emergence of a predatory state might teach other states to
act in competitive power-political ways, though he fails to identify where a predatory state
25 de 40 05/08/2010 19:37
might come from. I am in no position to comment about the primordial origins of hard
realpolitik strategic cultures, but I am willing to argue that their presence is a precondition for
realpolitik behavior. 92 The parabellum strategic culture--this learned resignation that
disputes are settled through violence--may be one of the key ideational links in the chain
leading from the appearance of interstate grievances to war. 93
This does not necessarily mean that a cultural realpolitik model of strategic choice must be
universally, cross-culturally valid or indeed constantly valid within one society across time. If
this "style" of strategic choice is cultural in the sense that only those who "learn" it are likely to
act along parabellum lines, then the Chinese case leaves open the theoretical and empirical
possibility that other decision makers may not share hard realpolitik assumptions. The China
case, then, underscores Vasquez's contention that realpolitik is "historically contingent and
confined to certain issue areas" and Wendt's argument that structural anarchy is not the cause
of self-help behavior. The test is to find a "system or issue area" characterized by
non-parabellum or non-realpolitik behavior. 94 At the moment, as I noted above, perhaps the
best case for the argument that not all "successful" states act in realpolitik ways is the existence
of the democratic security community or zone of peace, a community of sovereign states that
in their interaction have abandoned the assumptions of the parabellum paradigm. 95
The China case leads us to think harder about the ideational roots of realpolitik behavior.
China is a critical case both for those who accept the independent causal effect of ideational
variables and for those who don't. The former, constructivists and institutionalists alike, have
tended to use ideational arguments to explain behavior that deviates from "standard" realist
expectations. They will have to develop ideational explanations for "nondeviant" behavior in
order to present a truly competitive challenge to dominant structural approaches. Chinese
strategic behavior is a place to start. The latter will have to show why China's cultural
realpolitik is not causal but epiphenomenal, despite its persistence across very different
exogenous conditions. I don't think they can do it, for the reasons I've outlined here. In short,
China is a hard case for both approaches, but it is the analysis of hard cases that drives theory
forward.
I would like to thank the following people for their comments and criticisms of this
essay: Peter katzenstein and other participants in the Social Science Research
Council/MacArthur Project, as well as outside commentators at the three project
workshops; members of the Olin Institute National Security seminar, and Thomas
Christensen, Dale Copeland, Robert Keohane, Kenneth Lieberthal, and Stephen
Walt. They are blameless for any shoddy analysis or errors of fact.
Note 1: Alexander Wendt has recently articulated the importance for constructivist
approaches of taking on this "hard case" of realpolitik behavior. See his "Constructing
International Politics: A Response to Mearsheimer," International Security 20, no. 1 (Summer
1995). Back.
Note 2: Parabellum comes from the realpolitician's axiom "si pacem, parabellum" (if you
want peace, then prepare for war). This parallels a Chinese idiom, "ju an si wei, wu bei you
huan" (while residing in peace, think about dangers; without military preparations there will
calamity). Back.
Note 3: Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in
Chinese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). Back.
Note 4: Barry Gill, "The Hegemonic Tradition in East Asia: A Historical Perspective," in
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Stephen Gill, ed., Gramsci, Historical Materialism, and International Relations, p. 195
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Justin Rosenberg, "Secret Origins of the
State: The Structural Basis of Raison d'etat," Review of International Studies 18 (1992): 132;
John A. Vasquez, The War Puzzle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 116.
Back.
Note 5: The following section draws from Johnston, Cultural Realism. Back.
Note 6: Confucius (551-479 b.c.) was a philosopher of ancient China whose teachings (and
their interpretations) became the basis of the predominant orthodoxy in political and moral
thought in China. Mencius (390?-305? b.c.) was one of the more influential interpreters of
Confucius' thought. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex body of thought, on questions of
war and peace Confucianism stressed that external security rested on a ruler's ability to
provide for the material and moral needs of his people through virtuous personal conduct and
enlightened policies. This way, the people of the realm would be content with their lot, and
potential enemies would willingly submit to partake of the ruler's magnanimity. Moral
education was sufficient to transform potential enemies into willing and submissive allies.
Confucius did not oppose military preparations, though he downplayed their role in the
security of the state. Mencius, in particular, pushed Confucian ideas in a more extreme
direction, arguing that a virtuous ruler had no need to use military force because he could
have no enemies. It is highly questionable, however, whether this orthodoxy exercised much
restraint on operational strategic thought and practice in Chinese history. See ibid. Back.
Note 7: Paul Forage, "The Struggle for the Northwestern Frontier and the Consequences for
the Northern Song" (paper presented at the annual conference of the Association of Asian
Studies, Boston, March 1994). Back.
Note 8: I concentrate on the first generation here because it is this work that has tended to
dominate the literature. The first generation, which emerged in the early 1980s, focused for
the most part on trying to explain why the Soviets and the Americans apparently thought
differently about strategy in the nuclear age. Borrowing from Snyder's work on strategic
culture and Soviet limited nuclear war doctrine, authors such as Gray, Lord, and Jones all
argued in some form or another that these differences were caused by unique variations in
deeply rooted historical experience, political culture, and geography among other
macroenvironmental variables. See Jack L. Snyder, The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications
for Nuclear Options, Rand R-2154-AF (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 1977); Colin
Gray, "National Styles in Strategy: The American Example," International Security 6, no. 2
(1981): 21-47; Colin Gray, Nuclear Strategy and National Style (Lanham, Md.: Hamilton
Press, 1986); Carnes Lord, "American Strategic Culture," Comparative Strategy 5, no. 3
(1985): 269-93; David R. Jones, "Soviet Strategic Culture," in Carl G. Jacobsen, ed., Strategic
Power: USA/USSR, pp. 35-49 (New York: St. Martin's, 1990). The second generation refers to
a small number of studies that appeared mostly in the mid-1980s and focused on strategic
culture as a kind of Gramscian discourse designed to reinforce the policy hegemony of
strategists. See Bradley Klein, "Hegemony and Strategic Culture: American Power Projection
and Alliance Defence Politics," Review of International Studies 14 (1988): 133-48; Robin
Luckham, "Armament Culture," Alternatives 10, no. 1 (1984): 1-44. The third generation
broadly includes work emerging in the 1990s that has focused on using culture, norms, and
ideas as explanations for behavior. This literature is the most rigorous in conceptualization
and methodology, but it is too new to have had much of an impact on the analysis of "strategic
culture" in mainstream security studies. See Jeffrey W. Legro,Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo-
German Restraint During World War II (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); and the
essays in this volume by Elizabeth Kier, and Nina Tannenwald and Richard Price. For a
detailed discussion of the three generations of work on strategic culture, see Johnston,
Cultural Realism. Back.
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Note 9: See Gray, "National Styles in Strategy," and Gray, Nuclear Strategy and National
Style. Back.
Note 10: Johnston, Cultural Realism, ch. 2. Back.
Note 11: Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p.
90. Back.
Note 12: Here I rely on Taber's notion of a dominant paradigm as a collection of heuristics
used "to guide the selection of problem-solving strategies for some specifiable period of time.
Individual leaders may or may not be aware of the influence of a dominant paradigm on
strategic choice" (Charles Taber, "Modern War Learning: A Markov Model" [paper presented
at the Midwestern Political Science Association Conference, Chicago, 1987], p. 4). There are
similarities here with operational codes and belief systems, except that strategic culture
analysis focuses more squarely on historically rooted and collectively shared, rather than
individual, belief systems. Back.
Note 13: See also Wildavsky's "cultural theory of preference formation" in Aaron Wildavsky,
"Choosing Preferences by Constructing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference
Formation," American Political Science Review 81, no. 1 (1987): 3-20. Back.
Note 14: Lebow argues, for instance, that acceptance of the inevitability of war leads to
preferences for preventive and/or preemptive strategies, since if war is inevitable, it makes
sense to act before the enemy does. See Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War: The
Nature of International Crisis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 254-63.
See also Snyder on the "cult of the offensive"; Jack L. Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive:
Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984),
pp. 17, 39, 199. Back.
Note 15: A belief that war is an aberrant or at least a preventable event in human affairs
ought to be associated with a non-zero-sum view of the adversary. If conflicts are in the main
negotiable, then presumably the enemy has a price short of one's own capitulation. If this is
the case, then ceteris paribus highly coercive, violent strategies--which entail severe economic
and political costs--would seem to be strategies of last resort, since trade-offs and logrolling
opportunities appear more cost-effective in managing (as opposed to eliminating) the threat.
Back.
Note 16: David J. Elkins and Richard E. B. Simeon, "A Cause in Search of Its Effect, or What
Does Political Culture Explain," Comparative Politics 11 (1979): 133. Back.
Note 17: For a list, see Luckham, "Armament Culture," tables 2 and 3. See also Kier's list
(essay 6 in this volume), which includes curriculum from military schools, training manuals,
journals, languages, symbols, taboos, etc. Legro, in Cooperation Under Fire, examines
planning documents, regulations, military exercises, and memoirs. Back.
Note 18: These texts on statecraft, strategy, and tactics are still read and studied in the
professional military education systems in Taiwan and the People's Republic of China. Sun Zi's
The Art of War is one of the seven texts. For the only English translation of the complete set,
see Ralph Sawyer, trans., The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China (Boulder: Westview,
1993). Back.
Note 19: Given the importance of sampling those texts that are most likely to capture the
strategic culture(s) in a society, doesn't this sampling of one individual's works on strategy
virtually guarantee that I will find congruence in preference rankings across texts? How can
the ideas and axioms of an individual constitute a collectively shared, hence socially
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constituted, strategic culture? These are legitimate concerns. I have a couple of responses.
First, to the extent that we are interested in explaining behavior, it makes sense to look for the
presence of a strategic culture in the work of those who play a key role in decision making. As
recent scholarship underscores, Mao was essentially in charge of Chinese foreign policy
making at the strategic and even tactical levels from 1949 on. See Thomas J. Christensen,
Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict,
1947-1958 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, in press); Robert Ross, The United States
and China: Negotiating for Cooperation, 1969-1989 (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press,
1995); Chen Jian, China's Road to the Korean War (New York: Columbia University Press,
1994). Second, given Mao's dominance of the policy process in China, coupled with his
personality cult, Mao's "thought" formed the core of ideological socialization in China. To the
extent that decision makers in China were exposed to antecedent strategic axioms on the basis
of which they may or may not have made decisions, these axioms came largely from Mao.
Given the special circumstances of strategic decision making in Maoist China, there is no easy
way around the question of whether Maoist strategic culture was collectively shared. I would
argue, however, that given the absence of any substantial contestation of Maoist strategic
axioms during and after his life, the term Maoist strategic culture is still valid. That Maoist
strategic axioms persisted after Mao died and after most of his economic, political, and
cultural legacies were dismantled under Deng Xiaoping suggests that the strategic and military
legacy was accepted and internalized by Chinese decision makers. There are literally scores of
books on Mao's strategic and foreign policies that have been published in recent years. See
Foundation for International Strategic Studies, ed., Huan qiu tong ci liang re: yi dai ling
xiumen de guoji zhanlue sixiang [Global contradictions: A generation of leaders and their
international strategic thought] (Beijing: Central Documents Publishing House, 1993); and Gu
Yan, "Duli zizhu shi Mao Zedong waijiao sixiang de linghun" [Independence is the soul of Mao
Zedong's foreign policy thinking], Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi [World economics and politics], no.
2 (1994): 30-33. Back.
Note 20: David Dessler, "Notions of Rationality in Conflict Decision-Making" (paper

presented at the annual conference of the International Studies Association, Anaheim, Calif.,
1986), pp. 18-19; see also Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy:
An Analytical Framework," in Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and
Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, p. 13 (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1993). Back.
Note 21: Robert Axelrod, ed., Structure of Decision: The Cognitive Maps of Political Elites
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976). Back.
Note 22: See, for example, Charles D. Elder and Roger W. Cobb, The Political Uses of
Symbols (New York: Longman, 1983), p. 28; Lowell Dittmer, "Political Culture and Political
Symbolism," World Politics 29 (1977): 577, 579; Lance Bennett, "Perception and Cognition: An
Information-Processing Framework for Politics," in Handbook of Political Behavior (New
York: Plenum, 1981), 1:76; Earl R. MacCormac, A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1985), pp. 23-24; Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien
Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 10.
Back.
Note 23: These are explored in Johnston, Cultural Realism, ch. 2. Back.
Note 24: One of the criticisms that structuralists sometimes level at those who work with
cultural variables is that a constant, like culture, cannot explain change in state behavior. This
charge fundamentally misunderstands the constructivist argument: ideas as independent
variables are useful only because they interpret or give meaning to material facts. Thus
changes in relative capabilities, for instance, mean something different to a realpolitician
concerned about relative gains in a competitive world than they do to a liberal concerned
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about absolute gains. Variation in the predictions of cultural models comes from changes in
the relevant material environment; the implications of these changes, however, depend on the
content of the ideational constant. So constructivists should have no trouble using a structural
intervening variable to make determinate predictions. Back.
Note 25: Readers will note that this foreign policy offshoot of structural realism assumes that
states prefer to maximize power, not simply to seek mere survival. This assumption is not
uncontroversial, but without it realist models of strategic choice become indeterminate, just as
economic expected utility approaches to decision making become indeterminate, or harder to
model, without the use of money as the basis of the utility function. See Mancur Olson,
"Toward a Unified View of Economics and the Other Social Sciences," in James E. Alt and
Kenneth A. Shepsle, eds., Perspectives on Positive Political Economy, p. 218 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992). If survival is the goal of states, one might expect a range of
grand strategic preferences--from "defensive" expansionism in the name of the status quo, to
static defense or deterrence strategies. On the other hand, if the expansion of influence and
power is the primary goal of states, it makes less sense for them to rely solely on defensive or
deterrence strategies. Thus the latter assumption about state interests leads to more
determinant predictions about strategic behavior. In essence, to make structural realist models
determinate, one has to plug in assumptions about state interests that are more commonly
found in classical realist literature. This is essentially why Mearsheimer's version of
neorealism is more determinate than most. See John J. Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of
International Institutions," International Security 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994/95): 9-11. Back.
Note 26: John A. Vasquez, "Capability, Types of War, Peace," Western Political Science
Quarterly 39, no. 2 (1986): 321; John A. Vasquez, "Foreign Policy Learning and War," in
Charles Hermann, Charles W. Kegley Jr., and James N. Rosenau, eds., New Directions in the
Study of Foreign Policy (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1987), pp. 367-68. Back.
Note 27: Mao Zedong, "On Contradiction," [1937], Selected Works of Mao Zedong (Beijing:
Foreign Languages Press, 1965), 1:311-47; Gao Tiejun, "Mao Zedong guofang xiandai hua
sixiang chu tan" [A preliminary discussion of Mao Zedong's thinking on national defense
modernization], Junshi lishi yanjiu [Studies in military history], no. 3 (1987): 61; Liu
Chunjian, Shenqi de qi he: Mao Zedong Deng Xiaoping yu Zhongguo chuantong wenhua [A
mystical unity: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and China's traditional culture] (Shanxi: People's
Publishing House, 1992); John Bryant Starr, Continuing the Revolution: The Political
Thought of Mao (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). Back.
Note 28: We know that from an early age, before he endorsed Marxism-Leninism, Mao
accepted the notion that all phenomena comprise contradictory elements that create a process
of constant change. In his marginal notes on a book about ethics that he read in 1917-1918 in
his mid-twenties, Mao commented, "There is no life and death, only change. If this thing
grows, that thing is eliminated. Life is not only life, and death is not only extermination.
Merely a change" (Mao Zedong, " 'Lunli xue yuan li' pi zhu" [1917] [Critical comments on the
Tenets of Ethics], in Mao Zedong zao qi wen gao [Mao Zedong's early writings] [Hunan:
People's Publishing House, 1990], p. 200). Back.
Note 29: Mao Zedong, "Jiang tang lu" [1913] [Class notes], in Mao Zedong zao qi wen gao, p.
585; Lucian Pye, Mao Tse-tung: The Man in the Leader (New York: Basic Books, 1976).
Back.
Note 30: See, for instance, the writings of Heinriche von Treitschke, Selection from
Treitschke's Lectures on Politics, trans. Adolf Hausrath (London: Gowans and Gray, 1914), and
his Politics, trans. Blanche Dugdale and Torben de Bille (New York: Macmillan, 1916). As
Frank Dikotter implies, however, it is more likely that Mao was influenced by Spencerian
notions of organic intergroup competition as interpreted by Yan Fu. Darwin's work was not
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completely translated into Chinese until 1919. Instead, among early-twentieth-century Chinese
intellectuals Herbert Spencer was one of the most influential European thinkers on the
struggle between social groups; see Frank Dikotter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 104. Back.
Note 31: See Johnston, Cultural Realism. Back.
Note 32: He Taiyou and Zhang Zhongliang, Mao Zedong Zhanfa [Mao Zedong's Art of War]
(Beijing: National Defense University Press, 1988), p. 11. See also Lan Shuchen, "Mao Zedong
junshi sixiang yu zhongguo chuantong wenhua" [Mao Zedong's military thought and China's
traditional culture], Junshi lishi yanjiu [Studies in military history], no. 3 (1987): 69. Back.
Note 33: On righteous war, see Zeng Zhen, Tang Tai Zong, Li Wei Gong wen dui jin zhu jin
yi [Contemporary translation and annotation of the "Dialogues of Tang Tai Zong and Li Wei
Gong"] (Taibei: Commercial Press, 1986), p. 12; Lin Pinshi, Lu Shi Chun Qiu jin yi jin zhu
[Contemporary translation and annotation of the "Lu shi chun qiu"] (Taibei: Commercial
Press, 1986), p. 188; Shi Zimei, Shi shi qi shu jiang yi [Shi Zimei's teaching materials on the
Seven Military Classics], Riben wen jiu san nian ed. (1222; Taibei: Taiwan National Museum),
31:9b and 34:17a; Niu Hongen and Qiu Shaohua, Xian Qin zhu zi junshi lun yi zhu
[Translation and annotation of military essays by Pre-Qin scholars] (Beijing: Military Sciences
Press, 1985), 1:397; Liu Yin, Si Ma Fa zhi jie [Commentary on the "Si Ma Fa"] (Taibei: Shijian
Press, 1955), ch. 1. Back.
Note 34: There are parallels with Machiavelli's view of morality and war: "Morality in
Machiavelli's usage is entirely instrumental: it is part of a prince's arsenal to be used to greater
or lesser effect. In no sense does it restrain state behavior--nor should one expect it to do so
because the state in Machiavelli's treatment is beyond such restraint" (Michael Joseph Smith,
Realist Thought from Weber to Kissinger [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1986], p. 10). For a fuller discussion, see Johnston, Cultural Realism, ch. 3. Back.
Note 35: See Liu Yin [SKQS], Huang Shi Gong San Lue zhi jie [Commentary on Huang Shi
Gong's Three Strategies] [Si Ku Quan Shu version] (Taibei: Commercial Press, 1983-1985), p.
726.103; see also Shi, Shi shi qi shu jiang yi, 36.7b, and Lin, Lu Shi Chun Qiu, pp. 211, 217. The
demonization of an unrighteous adversary--and the corollary that any and all means of
eliminating this enemy are legitimate--is described well by modern-day attribution theory. The
adversary's behavior is seen as dispositional, while one's own behavior is circumstantial. This
construct creates "an image of the situation for personal and public consumption that releases
the subject from moral inhibitions and allows the subject to deal with the threat or opportunity
without restraint" (Richard Herrmann, "The Empirical Challenge of the Cognitive Revolution:
A Strategy for Drawing Inferences About Perceptions," International Studies Quarterly 32
[1988]: 183, 185). See also Thomas Hart, "Cognitive Paradigms in the Arms Race: Deterrence,
Detente, and the 'Fundamental Error' of Attribution," Conflict and Cooperation 3 (1978): 150;
John E. Mack, "The Enemy System," in Vamik D. Volkan, Demetrios A. Julius, and Joseph V.
Montville, eds., The Psychodynamics of International Relations, vol. 1, Concepts and Theories
(Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1990), pp. 60-61; Howard F. Stein, "The Indispensable
Enemy and American-Soviet Relations," in ibid., p. 82; J. Richard Eiser and D. van der Pligt,
Attitudes and Decisions (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 45-66. Back.
Note 36: Song Rang Gong, a ruler of a state during the Spring and Autumn period in the
seventh century b.c., was defeated after he refused to attack a vulnerable enemy force as it
crossed a river. He argued that it was immoral to attack before the enemy had fully formed up.
For his chivalry he suffered a defeat and the opprobrium of later generations of "realist"
strategists. See also Lan, "Mao Zedong junshi sixiang," p. 68. Back.
Note 37: Mao, "On Contradiction," p. 322. Back.
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Note 38: Mao's essay "On Policy" is a good example of how to deal with an actor in the
second cell. In it he argues for a united front with the gmd even in the face of increased
anti-Communist actions by the ccp's erstwhile anti-Japanese allies. The essay was re-released
in the early 1970s to justify the necessity of rapprochement with the U.S. in the face of a
growing Soviet threat. See Mao Zedong, "On Policy" [1940], in Selected Works of Mao
Zedong, 2:441-49. Back.
Note 39: This did not mean that Mao advocated the wholesale slaughter of enemy forces or
political enemies. Annihilation required the elimination of the enemy's military power. This
could entail the application of such overwhelming military force that enemy forces capitulated
en masse. What Mao opposed was attrition, whereby enemy forces would be routed or
bloodied such that they could still fight another day. As he remarked, "Injuring all of a man's
ten fingers is not as effective as chopping off one, and routing ten enemy divisions is not as
effective as annihilating one of them" (Mao Zedong, "Problems of Strategy in China's
Revolutionary War" [1936], Selected Works of Mao Zedong, 1:248). Back.
Note 40: Lan, "Mao Zedong junshi sixiang," p. 69, and He and Zhang, Mao Zedong
Zhanfa, p. 11. It is often suggested that Mao came to Clausewitz through Lenin. This may
indeed have been Mao's first exposure to the notion of war as a continuation of politics, but
recent new materials on Mao suggest that Mao also studied Clausewitz directly, beginning in
the spring of 1938. He even organized a Clausewitz study group joined by other Party military
leaders. This sparked a small "Clausewitz fever" in the Communist base area at Yenan over the
next couple of years as translations and commentaries on "On War" appeared in the
Communist press. See Sun Baoyi, ed., Mao Zedong de du shu shengya [The book reading life
of Mao Zedong] (Beijing: Knowledge Press, 1993), pp. 79-80. Back.
Note 41: This is consistent with the ancient Chinese notion of "using the military instrument
only under unavoidable circumstances" (bu de yi er yong bing). Whether or not these
circumstances were avoidable depended wholly on the enemy. Since the environment was, in
the main, conflictual, and since the conflict with the enemy was, in the main, zero-sum, the
likelihood that force would have to be used frequently was quite high. For a good
contemporary example of this type of argument, see Mao's discussion of the use of coercion
against Taiwan under unavoidable circumstances. See Mao Zedong, "Dui Zhonggong ba da
zhengzhi baogao gao de pi yu he xiugai" [Comments on and revisions of the draft political
report to the 8th Congress of the ccp] [1956], in Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wen gao,
1956-1957 [Mao Zedong's manuscripts since the founding of the nation] (Beijing: Central
Documents Publishing House, 1992), 6:142-43. The pla marshal Nie Rongzhen argued in a
speech to leading cadres in military industry in 1963, "Whether we fight or not is definitely not
up to us. We are not the general staff of imperialism" (Nie Rongzhen, "Zai jun gong lingdao
ganbu huiyishang de jianghua" [1963], in Nie Rongzhen, Nie Rongzhen junshi wenxuan
[Selected military works of Nie Rongzhen] [Beijing: Liberation Army Press, 1992], p. 497).
Back.
Note 42: Mao, "Jiang tang lu," p. 585. Back.
Note 43: Mao Zedong, "Min zhong de da lian he--yi" [The great alliance of the masses--1]
[1919], in Mao Zedong zao qi wen gao, pp. 293, 341. Back.
Note 44: Song Shilun, Mao Zedong junshi sixiang de xingcheng ji qi fazhan [The formation
and development of Mao Zedong's military thought] (Beijing: Military Sciences Press, 1984),
pp. 9-16; see also Mao Zedong, "Zhengquan shi you qiang ganzizhong qu de de" [Political
power is obtained from the barrel of a gun] [1927], in Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong junshi wen
xuan (neibu ben) [Selected military essays of Mao Zedong (internal edition)] (Beijing:
Liberation Army Press, 1981), p. 4. Back.
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Note 45: Mao Zedong, "Muqian xingshi he dang zai yi jiu si jiu nian de ren wu" [The present
situation and the Party's tasks for 1949] [1949], in Mao, Mao Zedong junshi wen xuan, p. 328.
Back.
Note 46: A word about notation. The first numeral refers to the page number of the text, the
next refers to the paragraph number, and the last to the assigned number of the cause-effect
relationship found in that paragraph. The cause-effect statements were entered into a simple
database program that allowed me to search for particular effects or particular causes using
key words. In each text the cause and effect concepts were collapsed and clustered into
self-evident categories, and I tried to keep these categories as consistent as possible across
texts. For each causal argument, I have listed only a couple of representative cause-effect
statements here, rather than providing notation for each of the 810 cause-effect statements
relating to security, statecraft, strategy, and tactics that I coded. On coding, see Margaret
Tucker Wrightson, "The Documentary Coding Method," in Axelrod, Structure of Decision. My
own coding adapted and simplified some of her procedures.
Back.
Note 47: As Mao wrote, "With the slogan of defending the revolutionary base areas and
defending China, we can rally the overwhelming majority of the people to fight with one heart
and one mind, because we are the oppressed and the victims of aggression. In every just war
the defensive not only has a lulling effect on politically alien elements, it also makes possible
the rallying of the backward sections of the masses" (Mao Zedong "Problems of Strategy in
China's Revolutionary War" [1936], Selected Works of Mao Zedong, 1:207). Back.
Note 48: Ibid., p. 187. There are a slew of cause-effect relationships in the text in which the
cause concept is some formulation of the notion of absolute flexibility or the exploitation of
changing circum-stances and the effect is military utility or military victory. See, for
example, 184.2.6; 187.4.1; 190.2.5; 191.1.6; 205.3.4; 240.7.1. Back.
Note 49: Liu, Si Ma Fa zhi jie, p. 33. Back.
Note 50: Academy of Military Sciences, eds., Tou Bi Fu Tan (Beijing: Academy of Military
Sciences Press, 1984), p. 87. Back.
Note 51: This is a common characterization found in both Chinese and Western analyses of
Mao's thought. See, for instance, Ralph Powell, "Maoist Military Doctrines," Asian Survey
(1964): 239; Zhang Shuguang, Deterrence and Strategic Culture: Chinese-American
Confrontations, 1949-1958 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 278; Lin Chongpin,
China's Nuclear Weapons Strategy (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1988), p. 24; Ellis
Joffe, The Chinese Army After Mao (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), p. 4.
Unfortunately the discussion of the role of the "human" element in Mao's thought has missed
some of the subtlety in his writings. To be sure, for Mao a highly motivated population or
military was preferable to a poorly motivated one. The question is why he argued this. I would
suggest that his de-emphasis on material capabilities--technology, weaponry, and so on--was a
part of a strategy for mobilizing morale under conditions of relative military weakness. Mao
believed that in the face of strength it made sense to appear cavalier and unafraid so as to
combat fatalism on one's own side and to make the enemy think twice about the wisdom of
unleashing a conflict over which it might have little control. It is also clear that one reason that
Mao stressed the application of massively overwhelming numerical superiority was that in the
face of a technologically superior enemy, only a quantitatively superior force could
concentrate quantitatively superior technological capabilities. Mao was no strategic Luddite;
he did not believe that a military should deliberately eschew technological modernization or
the development of superior capabilities. Rather, the human element and technology had
synergistic multiplier effects on each other. Christensen makes the important argument that
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one of the key goals of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s was to mobilize the Chinese
economy to produce more advanced military technology to match (eventually) the capabilities
of other major powers; see Christensen, Useful Adversaries; see also Song, Mao Zedong junshi
sixiang, pp. 214-15. Back.
Note 52: Mao did concede, consistent with his notion of absolute flexibility, that when a state
lacked sufficient power it should avoid direct battle with larger states and instead adopt
"ingenious methods" and stratagems (192.1.5). Back.
Note 53: Here, as elsewhere in his works, Mao was not constrained by a narrow consistency.
He also argued that the basic factor leading to socialism's victory was the desire or will of the
people, the human factor (119.7.1). At the same time, however, the speech stressed the causal
importance of steel production, the stuff of industrial and military power, in the superiority of
socialism. Mao was at this time apparently quite influenced by Stalin's views on economics,
which took steel as the "key link" in the development of socialism. I thank Thomas Christensen
for this last point. Back.
Note 54: Mao uses a couple of historical analogies to make this point. In "Problems of
Strategy in China's Revolutionary War," he cites the example of the states of Lu and Qi in the
Spring and Autumn period of the Zhou dynasty (twelfth century b.c. to third century b.c.) to
illustrate the axiom "When the enemy tires, we attack" (p. 211). In an essay on strategy against
Japan, he uses the analogy of "Relieving the state of Chao by attacking the state of Wei" to
argue that if the enemy's forces were diverted elsewhere, then an offensive deep inside enemy
territory where it was weakest was a legitimate strategy (Mao, "Problems of Strategy in
Guerrilla War Against Japan" [1938], in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, 2:104). Back.
Note 55: Open Chinese sources do not mention this early exposure. Sun suggests only that
during the revolutionary wars against the gmd Mao read Sun Zi over several times, along with
another Warring States text, Guan Zi. From Guan Zi, Mao is said to have absorbed the
principle of attacking the enemy's weak points first and avoiding his strong points. See Sun,
Mao Zedong de du shu shengya, pp. 78-79; and Lan, "Mao Zedong junshi sixiang," p. 66.
Back.
Note 56: Mao, "Jiang tang lu," pp. 595-96. Back.
Note 57: Mao Zedong, "Zhanzheng he zhanlue wenti" [Problems of war and strategy] [1938],
in Mao Zedong xuanji, p. 512 (Beijing: People's Press, 1967). Back.
Note 58: Interview with researchers at the Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing, March
1991; Guo Huaruo, " 'Sun Zi yi zhu' qian yan" [Preface to "Translation and annotation of Sun
Zi"] [1983], in Gua Huaruo, Guo Huaruo junshi lunwen xuanji [Guo Huaruo's selected essays
on military affairs] (Beijing: Liberation Army Press, 1989), p. 427. Back.
Note 59: I have discussed the congruence in preference rankings across the Seven Military
Classics elsewhere (Johnston, Cultural Realism, ch. 4). Suffice it to say that there is not perfect
statistical congruence across all seven texts. Depending on how the preferences of a couple of
the more ambiguous texts are inferred, the coefficient of congruence (Kendal's W) ranges from
.39 to .43. The former is significant at the 0.09 level, the latter at the 0.05 level. This moderate
consistency is in large measure attributable to the effects of one text's preference rankings--the
San Lue. This text, in contrast to the other six, places more emphasis on the Confucian-
Mencian central paradigm. Consequently, it tends to prefer accommodationist and defensive
strategies over clearly offensive ones. Back.
Note 60: Liao Guoliang, Li Shishun, and Xu Yan, Mao Zedong junshi sixiang fazhan shi [The
history of the development of Mao Zedong's military thought] (Beijing: Liberation Army Press,
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1991), p. 450. Back.
Note 61: Mao Zedong, "Gei di yi canmie yu gei di yi canmie xing da ji bixu tongshi zhuzhong"
[We must pay simultaneous attention to annihilating the enemy and attacking him with
annihilating effects] [1947], in Mao Zedong junshi wen xuan, p. 314. Back.
Note 62: Interestingly, Chinese sources indicate that Mao's decision in 1948 to shift to the
strategic offensive in the war with the gmd came as material conditions were shifting clearly in
the ccp's favor. In 1946 the ratio of regular gmd to ccp troops stood at 3.5:1. By 1948 this figure
had dropped to 1.3:1, but of these the ccp's first-line forces outnumbered the gmd's first-line
forces by a ratio of 1:0.62. See Song, Mao Zedong junshi sixiang, pp. 190-91. Back.
Note 63: For a good explication of Mao's doctrine of active defense and the political uses of
"defense," see Peng Dehuai's report to the National Defense Commission in July 1957; Peng
Dehuai, "Junshi jianshe gaikuang" [The general situation in military construction] [1957], in
Peng Dehuai junshi wenxuan [Selected military works of Peng Dehuai] (Beijing: Central
Documents Publishing House, 1988), pp. 588-91. See also Song, Mao Zedong junshi
sixiang, pp. 166-208. The deliberate use of "defense" to describe a doctrine that allowed,
indeed required, offensive operations points to another similarity between Maoist and
traditional Chinese strategic cultures, namely, the presence of a distinct symbolic discourse
disconnected from operational decision rules. While Maoist Chinese strategic culture and
behavior exhibited parabellum tendencies, it was clothed in the rhetoric of people's war. In
principle the doctrine of people's war is quintessentially defensive--an attacking enemy should
be "lured in deep" into Chinese territory and enveloped by an armed population and a mobile
professional military. I would argue that people's war per se did not reflect Mao's most
preferred strategy, in that he believed defensive strategies were only one stage in a broader
process of shifting to the offensive. Indeed, in practice, at no time in the post-1949 period did
the prc fight a people's war. The pla's use of force was invariably at or beyond China's borders.
For a more detailed discussion of the hypothesized roles of the symbolic discourse in strategic
decision making, see Johnston, Cultural Realism, ch. 5. Back.
Note 64: Wang Sanxin, Mao Zedong junshi sixiang yanjiu [Studies in Mao Zedong's military
thought] (Beijing: National Defense University Press, 1988), p. 24. Back.
Note 65: This did not exclude the initiation of violence when it appeared that conflict was
imminent. In the parlance, Mao eschewed preventive war but not preemptive war. In his view,
China's initial offensive in the Korean War was a second strike because the initial basis of
conflict had been established by the U.S. presence on Taiwan and its threatening operations on
the Korean peninsula; see Song, Mao Zedong junshi sixiang, p. 222. Similarly, according to a
recent analysis, China's operations against Vietnam in 1979 were militarily offensive but
politically defensive. "Concerning the counter-aggression nature of the national revolutionary
warfare, a strategic counterattack carries the implications of a strategic offensive. From a
political perspective, it makes more sense and is more advantageous not to call it 'attack' but to
call it a 'counterattack.' For example, the February 1979 self-defense counterattack against
Vietnam, from the perspective of military operations, we adopted offensive actions, but the
essence of this type of offense was a self-defense counterattack" (Zhang Jing and Yao Yanjin,
Jiji fangyu zhanlue qianshuo [An introduction to the active defense strategy] [Beijing:
Liberation Army Press, 1985], p. 137). Back.
Note 66: See Peng, "Junshi jianshe gaikuang," pp. 588-91. Back.
Note 67: Ibid. Back.
Note 68: Jonathan Wilkenfeld, Michael Brecher, and Sheila Rosen, Crises in the Twentieth
Century: Handbook on Foreign Policy Crises (New York: Pergamon, 1988), 2:161. Back.
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Note 69: On the crucial role of territorial disputes in the outbreak of interstate war, see
Vasquez, The War Puzzle. Back.
Note 70: The finding that the Chinese have been more crisis-prone than many other states
would suggest, logically, that we should not expect the realpolitik strategic cultures of these
other major powers to be as "hard" as that of the Chinese. Since I have not done a cross-
national study of strategic cultures, I can't show this empirically. That China, compared to
other states, appears to be more willing to consider political/diplomatic crises to be
high-threat situations indirectly suggests, however, that many other states would not rank as
high as it does on estimates of the inherent zero-sum nature of the strategic environment. This
is a testable hypothesis. Back.
Note 71: Indeed, in almost every variable relating to the type and scope of states' responses
to a foreign policy crisis in the Brecher, Wilkenfeld, and Rosen data set, the Chinese cases
indicate a higher level of militarized behavior than one finds in the population of states as a
whole. (1) In 56.5% of foreign policy crises triggered by nonmilitary events, states as a whole
responded with nonmilitary responses (N = 216). In 9.7% of the cases of a nonmilitary trigger,
states responded with a violent response. In 0% of China's foreign policy crises triggered by
nonmilitary events, China responded with nonviolent responses (N = 2). In 50% of the cases of
a nonmilitary trigger, China responded with a violent response. (2) In 42.3% of foreign policy
crises categorized as military-security-territory related, states as a whole responded with a
nonmilitary response (N = 281). In 20% of China's cases categorized as military-security-
territory related, China responded with a nonmilitary response (N = 5). (3) In 10% of foreign
policy crises categorized as military-security-territory related, states used violence as the
preeminent response (N = 281). In 40% of China's crises categorized as military-security-
territory related, China used violence as the preeminent response. (4) In 11% of foreign policy
crises categorized as political-diplomatic related, states used violence as the preeminent
response (N = 127). In 33.3% of China's crises categorized as political-diplomatic, China used
violence as the preeminent response. Back.
Note 72: Thomas J. Christensen, "Threats, Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace: The
Lessons of Mao's Korean War Telegrams," International Security 17, no. 1 (1992): 122-57;
Zhou Enlai, "Kang Mei huan Chao, baowei heping" [Resist America, Support Korean, protect
peace] [950], in Zhou Enlai, Zhou Enlai Xuanji [Selected writings of Zhou Enlai] (Beijing:
People's Publishing House, 1984), pp. 50-54. Back.
Note 73: Thomas Stolper, China, Taiwan, and the Offshore Islands (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe,
1985); Zhang, Deterrence and Strategic Culture, pp. 193-99. Back.
Note 74: The secondary literature about China's military disputes also suggests that the
Chinese began large-scale military operations against the target in most of these cases. See
Christensen, "Threats, Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace; Harlan Jencks, "China's
Punitive War on Vietnam: A Military Assessment," Asian Survey 19, no. 8 (August 1979):
568-84; Gerald Segal, Defending China (London: Oxford University Press, 1985). Back.
Note 75: Mao Zedong, "Speech of 18 November 1957" [1957], in Michael Schoenhals, "Mao
Zedong: Speeches at the 1957 'Moscow Conference,' " Journal of Communist Studies 2, no. 2
(June 1986): 115-24; Zhang, Deterrence and Strategic Culture, p. 229. Christensen argues that
at that point Mao did not really believe socialism was prevailing over imperialism in material
capabilities terms. Rather, the "East Wind" statements were projections of a future state of
affairs if current technological and industrial trends continued. Moreover, Mao's upbeat
pronouncements were part of a pep talk to the socialist camp in order to deflate the
threatening nature of U.S. imperialism. See Christensen, Useful Adversaries. I think the
evidence on this point is somewhat murky. To be sure, Mao believed that a certain bravado in
the face of the adversary was necessary to rally popular morale and prevent fatalism and
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pacifism. This is in part what he meant by "despising the enemy strategically." On the other
hand, in his November 1957 speeches he clearly puts socialism's material superiority in the
present tense (Mao, "Mao Zedong: Speeches," p. 118). Later, in November 1958 after the
Quemoy-Matsu crisis, Mao again disparaged imperialism's strength, remarking, "All evidence
proves that imperialism adopts a defensive stance and has not undertaken the slightest
offensive" (cited in Allen S. Whiting, "Mao, China, and the Cold War," in Yonosuke Nagai and
Akira Iriye, eds., The Origins of the Cold War in Asia, p. 260 [New York: Columbia University
Press, 1977]). Back.
Note 76: In the U.S.-prc cases the U.S.-prc power ratio shifted from 2.58:1 to 2.33:1 in
1949-1950, from 2.11:1 to 1.91:1 in 1953-1954, and from 1.68:1 to 1.4:1 in 1957-1958. In the
ussr-prc cases, the Soviet-Chinese power ratio shifted from 1.21:1 to 1.13:1 in 1968-1969 and
from 1.2:1 to 1.16:1 in 1978-1979. The capabilities data come from the Correlates of War major
powers capabilities data set. The percent shares are on a world base. These data are suggestive
only; the shifts in ratios are quite small in some instances (though these can translate into
substantial raw power resources). In some cases, however, these data do reflect Mao's
unambiguous subjective calculation of whether the superpower involved was on the defensive
or on the offensive. Back.
Note 77: The U.S.-prc power ratio increased from 1.74:1 in 1960 to 1.84.1 in 1961. Back.
Note 78: See Martin Wight, International Theory: The Three Traditions, ed. Gabriele Wight
and Brian Porter (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1991), for a discussion of realpolitik as
one of the three Western traditions in international relations. Back.
Note 79: This was a point made by Stephen Walt in his comments on this book project at the
American Political Science Association meeting in New York, September 1994. Back.
Note 80: In this respect, China's realpolitik strategic culture is not merely permissive, since it
specifies exactly how one should react under different material conditions. Absent this
realpolitik and we should expect very different reactions to similar measures of the material
variables. Back.
Note 81: Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War
World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and David
Lalman, War and Reason: Domestic and International Imperatives (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1992); Randall L. Schweller, "Domestic Structure and Preventive War: Are
Democracies More Pacific?" World Politics 44 (1992): 250-51. Back.
Note 82: On the Spring and Autumn interstate system, see Richard L. Walker, The
Multi-State System of Ancient China (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1953). On the Han,
see Yu Ying-shih, "Han Foreign Relations," in Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe, eds., The
Cambridge History of China, vol. 1, The Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C.-A.D. 220 (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1986); and Thomas J. Barfield, The Perilous Frontier:
Nomadic Empires and China (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1989). On the Tang, see ibid. On the
Five Dynasties, see Edmund Worthy, "Diplomacy for Survival: Domestic and Foreign
Relations of the Wu Yueh, 907-978," in Morris Rossabi, ed., China Among Equals: The Middle
Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th-14th Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1983). On the Song, see Forage, "The Struggle for the Northwestern Frontier"; and Wang
Gungwu, "The Rhetoric of a Lesser Empire: Early Sung Relations with Its Neighbors," in
Rossabi, China Among Equals. And on the Ming, see Arthur Waldron, The Great Wall of
China: From History to Myth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and Johnston,
Cultural Realism. Back.
Note 83: This is where Fischer's critique of Kratochwil's analysis of the feudal system runs
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into problems. See Markus Fischer, "Feudal Europe: Discourse and Practice," International
Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992). The feudal and Westphalian systems, like the unipolar
imperial and multipolar state systems in China, cannot both be usefully classified as similarly
anarchical. This stripped-down definition of anarchy implies that all historical "state" systems
have been anarchical, from imperial, unipolar systems to sovereignist, multipolar systems,
because even in the former there is no overarching authority governing relations between the
empire and smaller states and tribes. As Mueller implies, this kind of conceptual stretching
reduces the utility of the concept; see John Mueller, "The Impact of Ideas on Grand Strategy,"
in Richard N. Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein, eds., The Domestic Bases of Grand
Strategy, pp. 48-62 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 84: Some realists will argue that the key link between anarchy and realpolitik behavior
is uncertainty about the intentions and capabilities of others. This leads states to fear that
others will exploit them and thereby threaten their survival, hence their reliance on self-help
measures. So regardless whether the system is uni-, bi-, or multipolar, or some form of
mixed-actor system, these are all technically anarchical, hence they all produce realpolitik
behavior. Yet presumably fear is a variable--that is, it varies as uncertainty varies. Not all
anarchical systems ought to produce the same degree of uncertainty and fear. Indeed, the
more asymmetrical the distribution of power--e.g., the more the system resembles a unipolar
imperial system--the less the imperial state needs to worry about the capabilities other states
have (even if their intentions remain constant), and thus it can be more certain about its ability
to survive in the face of external threats. One therefore ought to see less "self-help" realpolitik
behavior on the part of the empire the more powerful and system-dominant it becomes. If one
does not, this suggests that neither anarchy nor the (asymmetrical) distribution of power
variables explains the persistence of realpolitik impulses. Back.
Note 85: Indeed, the construction of an "old-fashioned" realist model is not as

unproblematic as structural realists might assume, as a whole generation of excellent literature
by scholars trained in neorealist analysis has shown. See Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of
Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987); and Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire:
Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). On the
problems that realism has conceptualizing the relationship between structure and behavior,
see Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power
Politics," International Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 391-425; Fareed Zakaria,
"Realism and Domestic Politics: A Review Essay," International Security 17, no. 1 (Summer
1992): 177-99; Randall L. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status Quo Bias: Bringing the Revisionist
State Back In" (paper presented at the National Security Seminar, Olin Institute for Strategic
Studies, Harvard University, November 1993); and Robert Powell, "Anarchy in International
Relations Theory: The Neorealist-Neoliberal Debate," International Organization 48, no. 2
(Spring 1994): 313-44. Back.
Note 86: In this sense, anarchy for structural realists is analogous to norms, identities, ideas,
and cultures for some constructivists. To the extent that these are constant they cannot in and
of themselves explain variation in behavior. But both require the intervention of changing
material variables to provide variation in the composite independent variable. For the former,
fear, bred from anarchy, provides a particular interpretation of the meaning of these changes.
For the latter, the interpretation depends on the content of the ideational constant. Realpolitik
strategic cultures will give these changes a realpolitik hue; non-realpolitik strategic cultures, a
non-realpolitik hue. Structural realists, however, will only predict realpolitik interpretations
because anarchy can only breed uncertainty and fear. Thus they mispredict a great deal of
non-realpolitik behavior in the world. This suggests that anarchy, then, does not have the
determining effect on interpretations of relative capabilities, and thus, by definition, cannot
account for the realpolitik behavior either. Back.
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Note 87: Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," pp. 9-10. Back.
Note 88: Robert H. Jackson, "The Weight of Ideas in Decolonization: Normative Change in
International Relations," in Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy, pp. 112-13.
Back.
Note 89: Goldstein and Keohane implicitly accept this conceptualization when they suggest
that the way to test for the influence of ideas on behavior is to test the null hypothesis that
behavior conforms to "egoistic interests in the context of power realities" (Goldstein and
Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy," p. 26). Their approach seems to me to be contradictory.
On the one hand, they recognize that most material-interest arguments are indeterminate
because of the problem of multiple equilibria and uncertainty. This is precisely why, they
argue, ideational factors are important (e.g., in establishing focal points, for instance). But on
the other hand, they insist that one has to construct an interest maximization null hypothesis
to show that ideas are not epiphenomenal. Back.
Note 90: G. John Ikenberry, "Creating Yesterday's New World Order: Keynsian 'New
Thinking' and the Anglo-American Postwar Settlement," in Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and
Foreign Policy. p. 59. Back.
Note 91: Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Makes of It." Back.
Note 92: A fruitful direction may be to examine the relationship between the formation of
in-groups and out-groups, the requirements for legimating power structures within the
in-group, and the devaluation of the out-group. If the out-group is viewed as dispositionally
likely to act in devalued ways, then the shift from viewing an out-group as being somewhat
suspect to seeing it as a hardcore enemy is a shift in degree, not kind. In-groups are
predisposed to view out-groups as potential adversaries, and this provides the ideational basis
for realpolitik behavior. Variation in the strength of in-group/out-group differences and
changes in the composition of the in-group will explain variation in strength of realpolitik
ideas and axioms and hence in realpolitik behavior directed at other actors. See Donald T.
Campbell and Robert A. Levine, "Ethno-centrism and Intergroup Relations," in Robert
Abelson et al., eds., Theories of Cognitive Consistency: A Sourcebook, pp. 551-64 (Chicago:
Rand McNally, 1968); Murray Edelman, Political Language: Words That Succeed and
Policies That Fail (New York: Academic Press, 1977); Ernest G. Bormann, "Symbolic
Convergence: Organizational Communication and Culture," in Linda L. Putnam and Michael
E. Pacanowsky, eds., Communication and Organizations: An Interpretative Approach, pp.
99-122 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1983); Jonathan Mercer, "Anarchy and Identity," International
Organization 49, no. 2 (1995): 229-52; Daniel Druckman, "Nationalism, Patriotism, and
Group Loyalty: A Social Psychological Perspective," Mershon International Studies Review 38,
supp. 1 (1994): 47-48; and Marc Ross, The Culture of Conflict: Interpretations and Interests in
Comparative Perpsective (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 11-12, 40. Back.
Note 93: Vasquez, The War Puzzle, p. 113. Back.
Note 94: John A. Vasquez, The Power of Power Politics: A Critique (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1983), p. 216; Vasquez, The War Puzzle, p. 89. Back.
Note 95: Evidence for the presence of non-parabellum strategic cultures and behavior
suggests that the null hypothesis for a cultural realpolitik model is not structural realism but
cultural liberalism, or cultural institutionalism, or some formal model that aggregates
domestic political preferences, themselves ideationally rooted. If structural realism is
incomplete without ideational assumptions about interests, then it is not really an alternative
to a cultural realpolitik model. In other words, any competitive hypothesis testing of a
parabellum strategic culture model should be done with other ideational models, not against
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structural realism. This conclusion suggests that many of those involved in the "norms, ideas,
and culture" project are right to reject the ideas-interest dichotomy in favor of an ideas-ideas
dichotomy. Back.
40 de 40 05/08/2010 19:37
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editor
8. Identity, Norms, and National Security: The Soviet Foreign Policy Revolution
and the End of the Cold War
Robert G. Herman
Tensions arising from Russia's recent pursuit of a less reflexively pro-Western foreign policy,
coupled with President Boris Yeltsin's unsettling warnings of a looming "cold peace," tempt us
to forget the extraordinary change in the nature of Moscow's relations with the advanced
industrial democracies since the mid-1980s. The debate over the future direction of Russia
domestically and internationally is inextricably linked to the ongoing, spirited argument over
the origins of the end of the Cold War. This essay joins the debate in offering an alternative
analytical framework to explain the tectonic shift in Soviet foreign and military policy.
The advent of "New Thinking" (novoye mishleniye) 1 accompanying the accession to power of
Mikhail Gorbachev brought about the end of the Cold War and created the conditions for a
durable East-West peace. Both the depth and the breadth of this change, from the unilateral
steps to reduce and restructure military forces to give them a less offensive cast to the
rejection of force to maintain communist domination in Eastern Europe and to prevent the
dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, went far beyond what conventional international
relations theories can accommodate as well as what knowledgeable area specialists imagined
was possible. 2
This essay contends that reigning realist and liberal explanations cannot adequately account
for New Thinking's revolutionary character, which made the transformation of superpower
relations possible. If policy outcomes represent the final phase in a causal sequence, the
principal contribution of realism lies at the front end, in identifying structural constraints on
political actors. However, even here realism's preoccupation with material capabilities
produces a reified view of structures that does not capture the multiple dimensions (e.g.,
political, ideological, moral) of the USSR's systemic crisis. Liberal approaches provide a richer
context and greater explanatory power for foreign policy moderation in the early Gorbachev
era, allowing us to move further along the causal chain. Yet they, like their realist competitors,
either marginalize or ignore altogether the social processes that spawned the core ideas of
mature New Thinking and helped bring them to policy fruition.
The ideas and identity framework developed here both complements and challenges realist
and liberal paradigms. It builds on some of their powerful insights while pointing to analytical
shortcomings and blind spots, posing different questions and proffering a new, more
compelling explanation for changes in state behavior.
Most scholars and policy makers have interpreted the shift in Soviet foreign policy as a tactical
adjustment necessitated by internationally or domestically generated imperatives rather than
as a genuine reconceptualization of interests grounded in new collective understandings about
the dynamics of world politics and in actors' evolving identities. The first view, which
privileges material capabilities, unquestionably sheds light on sources of moderation in Soviet
international policy, particularly the generally modest changes enacted during the early stages
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of Gorbachev's tenure. Its narrowly drawn, materialist conception of interests, however, misses
the cultural-institutional context that shaped the ways in which future Soviet decision makers
understood the policy implications of the USSR's economic and political plight. Only the
second interpretation, with its emphasis on collective ideational constructs, can account for
the revolutionary path followed once proponents of radical foreign policy reform triumphed
over their moderate rivals. 3
The two accounts are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but integrating them requires
explication of the complex interaction of ideational and material structures in influencing state
behavior. Such eclectic theorizing can be accommodated far better by an explanation that does
not take interests as given and fixed.
The central argument advanced here is that the momentous turn in Soviet international policy
was the product of cognitive evolution and policy entrepreneurship by networks of Western-
oriented in-system reformers coincident with the coming to power of a leadership committed
to change and receptive to new ideas for solving the country's formidable problems. 4 These
expert communities comprised in part liberal interna tional affairs specialists (or
mezhdunarodniki) from a few research institutes of the Academy of Sciences together with a
small cadre of like-minded officials in the party and state apparat. 5
Having helped to lay the conceptual groundwork for the East-West rapprochement of the
early 1970s, liberal specialists were spurred by its early successes and subsequent demise to
question the basic assumptions undergirding the Brezhnev Politburo's coercive approach to
detente. In seeking to strengthen and expand the norms embedded in this nascent security
regime, they developed new understandings about cause-and-effect relationships in
international politics and the nature of security in the contemporary age. 6 Determined to
reverse the self-defeating ways of Kremlin foreign and military policy, liberal specialists
espoused jettisoning Marxist-Leninist ideology as a guide for defining state interests and
advocated conciliatory measures designed to soften would-be adversaries' perception of
hostile Soviet intentions. This "conciliatory realpolitik" perspective was the common baseline
for virtually all foreign policy reformers and closely resembled the moderate strand of New
Thinking prevalent in the early Gorbachev years.
But the radical course on which the Soviet regime embarked beginning in late 1987 and early
1988 and that led directly to the cessation of the Cold War was the work of a subgroup of
specialists who promoted a new political order based in part on principles governing relations
among the Western democracies and within those societies. 7 Some of these principles were
transmitted to Soviet reformers through transnational contacts with liberal-Left counterparts
in the West that flourished in the 1970s and survived detente's precipitous decline. 8
Other central elements of New Thinking (e.g., the relationship between peace and socialism
and between class values and "values common to all mankind") were indigenous, often the
product of ongoing debate within the socialist bloc. The fact of Soviet hegemony in Eastern
Europe blurred the distinction between international and domestic policy and helps to explain
why foreign policy radicals, virtually all of whom came to political consciousness as
anti-Stalinist reformers, were equally committed to fundamental changes in the way Soviet
society was organized. In this respect, the end of the Cold War is directly linked to the collapse
of communism and the long-standing struggle of in-system reformers to realize an alternative
socialist future.
Propelled by a vision of the USSR as a democratic and peaceable member of the international
community and touting "values common to all mankind," these "idealists" sought to eliminate
the underlying causes of East-West conflict. Conceiving of the Soviet Union in this new
identity rendered obsolete the two-camp view of the world that formed the core of Marxist-
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Leninist ideology. 9 This change, in turn, enabled the two sides to transcend their
decades-long confrontation rather than simply mute the rivalry--which had been the extent of
Soviet aims since the Khrushchev era.
The contest between advocates of these two discrete yet closely linked perspectives formed
part of the political-intellectual milieu in which Soviet foreign policy was forged in the mid- to
late 1980s. As discussed in the concluding section, this battle over the content of New Thinking
also goes far in explaining elements of both continuity and change between the Gorbachev and
Yeltsin governments.
Realist and Liberal Explanations

Realist and liberal explanations capture some of the factors and processes that contributed to
the change in Soviet international policy in the Gorbachev era. The former tend to emphasize
adverse changes in material conditions in inducing states to modify their behavior. Some
realist explanations stress imperial overstretch 10 or Moscow's deteriorating geostrategic
position in the wake of American military resurgence and demonstrated military-technological
prowess in the Reagan years. 11 Companion arguments focus on economic stagnation 12 and
the requirements of advanced industrial production and the need to integrate into the global
economy to reap the benefits of the scientific-technological revolution. 13
That material circumstances, both international and domestic, affect the intellectual evolution
and policy choices of political decision makers is not in dispute, though the nature of the
interaction between the material and the ideational worlds remains undertheorized. Scholars
have shown, for instance, that periods of crisis can both stimulate new ideas and create a
demand for them, 14 particularly when accompanied by political succession. Historically,
incoming regimes have tended to be more receptive to new ideas, 15 multiplying the
opportunities for policy entrepreneurship. In the Soviet Union, the combination of economic
decline and unfavorable changes in the global correlation of forces increased the probability of
reformers' coming to power in the first place 16 and continued to influence the thinking of the
Gorbachev regime in the ensuing years. Policy is not made in a vacuum. The saliency of the
New Thinking critique and alternative strategy had much to do with the severity of the
problems that the country was facing.
But how a political leadership will respond to the strategic environment is indeterminate; it
depends at least in part on how decision makers understand the world 17 and how they
interpret the frequently ambiguous lessons of history. 18 Virtually the same confluence of
internal and external pressures that purportedly compelled the adoption of New Thinking had
been present since the late stages of the Brezhnev regime without any significant changes in
policy until 1985 and the arrival of the Gorbachev circle. 19 Moreover, Gorbachev's rivals for
power offered a different diagnosis of and cure for the country's ailments, and reformers
themselves could not agree on either the nature of the problem or the prospective solution.
The point is that permissive structural conditions did not make New Thinking, particularly in
its full-blown form, inevitable. Alternative strategies existed, and any satisfactory explanation
for Soviet international policy in the mid- to late 1980s must deal with that reality. To what
degree those strategies offered viable long-term solutions to the country's myriad problems is
of less consequence than the fact that each commanded identifiable constituencies in the
Soviet political establishment and thus constituted credible rivals to New Thinking. At the time
of the death of Konstantin Chernenko, chairman of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(cpsu), the foreign policy course that the world would come to know as New Thinking was not
advocated by any of the contenders for power, including Gorbachev.
Options ranged from carrying on Chernenko's approach of muddling through domestically
3 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
and internationally to heeding the hard-liners' call for mobilizing resources to repel the
Reagan administration onslaught. Also in the policy mix were those who could be called
"economic modernizers" of varying inclinations. They supported moderating Moscow's foreign
policy to permit domestic economic renovation. Some proponents viewed this as a temporary
arrangement to buy time to retool the defense-industrial complex for the inevitable long-term
rivalry with the capitalist powers. Others hoped that a milder version of the Brezhnev-
Gromyko international strategy would ratchet down the East-West military competition and
yield a sustainable detente relationship. The USSR might have taken any one of these paths in
1985, and even after the selection of Gorbachev--known more as a talented technocrat than as
an ardent reformer--the country was not fated to travel the New Thinking road. Realism
cannot provide the sharper analytical tools needed to explain why (or how) a particular policy
option prevails.
Nor does realism (or liberalism, for that matter) necessarily generate unambiguous predictions
about state action. Employing realist assumptions regarding the material basis of state
interests to predict the foreign policy behavior of a beleaguered USSR in the early to
mid-1980s yields two rather contradictory outcomes. On the one hand, Soviet decision makers
could, as William Wohlforth contends they did, respond rationally to per ceptions of relative
decline by retrenching, thereby trying to allay Western fears and encourage nato to adopt a
less hard-line anti-Soviet posture. 20 On the other hand, a Soviet leadership attempting to
balance against a heightened Western threat might just as rationally decide to resist this
external pressure forcefully by exacting the sacrifices deemed necessary to match nato's
aggressive stance or, in an extreme and all but unimaginable case, launch a preventive war. 21
To sum up, while identifying the set of constraints and incentives with which decision makers
have to contend, realist explanations are underdetermining with respect to policy outcomes. In
the case of Soviet international behavior in the period under discussion, even accepting that
realism points to the increased possibility of reformers' coming to power, it cannot adequately
account for the vast scope and radical content of the changes undertaken by the Gorbachev
regime.
Having treated states' interests as given--rationally derived from the anarchic nature of and
distribution of capabilities within the international system--realist arguments preclude any
meaningful role for human reflection or political-ideological contention in (re)shaping actors'
conception of interests. 22 At the same time, realism's view of the material world as largely
devoid of ideational content leads proponents to miss the importance of the existence of
successful nonsocialist models of social organization and economic development (e.g., the
prosperity of the West and great promise of the "Asian tigers") as well as norms of "civilized
nations" in making up part of the strategic environment in which Soviet interests were
defined. 23
By ignoring the process of cognitive evolution and the ways in which collective understandings
of cause-and-effect relationships and shared values are diffused through the political system,
these explanations reduce the New Thinking revolution to a mechanical act of rational
adaptation to adverse changes in material circumstances. 24 The Soviet leadership "learned"
only in the sense that like any firm in microeconomic theory, it had to conform to the dictates
of the strategic environment if it was to survive. 25 This account bears little resemblance to
the intellectual and political processes whereby Soviet interests were redefined in the
Gorbachev era.
The liberal paradigm is better equipped to incorporate the cognitive and political processes
that produced the turn in Soviet international behavior. Scholars advancing a variety of liberal
explanations centered on ideas, 26 learning, 27 international regimes, 28 transnational
linkages, 29 and the social consequences of the modernization process; 30 all either argue
4 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
outright or allow for the possibility that changes in Moscow's foreign policy were the result of
new conceptions of state interests. Each of these factors has causal significance, and several
are integrated into the alternative framework outlined in the next section.
What these liberal explanations have in common is that they challenge realism's austere view
of international politics. 31 Liberal institutionalist approaches, for example, point to the set of
rules that states have devised (or customs they have formalized) to regulate behavior and
facilitate cooperation. 32 Frequently these rules are institutionalized in the form of
international regimes. Regime theorists acknowledge that institutions that were initially based
on states' rational cost-benefit calculations can over time alter actors' conception of interests.
33 One way that regimes accomplish this is by facilitating learning, usually through strategic
interaction. 34 I will show that this was the case with Soviet foreign policy reformers, who
came to see in detente's extant rules of prudential superpower behavior the potential for a
more far-reaching East-West accommodation.
Whereas realists deny or greatly downplay the causal effect of such regime-embedded
regulatory norms on actor behavior, several variants of liberalism accord these ideational
phenomena independent explanatory power. To the extent that New Thinkers' alternative
conception of Soviet interests was derived from the regulatory principles loosely codified in
the detente regime of the 1970s, a cognitive-institutionalist framework accounts for
considerable policy innovation in the Gorbachev period. But the decision makers who
determined the content of Soviet policy in the late 1980s were driven by a vision of the USSR
that went far beyond that embodied in the regulatory norms of superpower rapprochement.
Neither the realist nor even the aforementioned liberal approach can account for the New
Thinking revolution in its conceptual and applied-policy totality. The most likely policy
trajectory derived from the logic of a combination of realist and liberal assumptions
approximates conciliatory realpolitik. An incoming Soviet regime alert to the country's
declining position could be expected to pare down its overseas commitments, pursue modest
arms reduction accords as a way to cut military expenditures and reduce the West's sense of
threat, seek an expansion of East-West trade and technical cooperation, and generally try to
recast itself in the image of a kinder, gentler superpower rival. This was the program judged by
the vast majority of in-system reformers to be necessary to redress the USSR's most pressing
domestic difficulties and international setbacks. 35
But in moving unilaterally to reduce its military forces and give them a defensive character, in
actively pressing for peaceful resolution of protracted Third World conflicts, and in tolerating
the collapse of fraternal allies in Eastern Europe--for four decades considered the
indispensable bulwark against Western aggression--the Gorbachev leadership's fully
developed New Thinking strategy trumped conciliatory realpolitik.
The differences in the two policy approaches stem not from varying assessments of the gravity
of the Soviet problematique but from different underlying assumptions and motivating forces.
Idealists parted company with purveyors of a more cautious brand of New Thinking akin to
conciliatory realpolitik in rejecting a view of East-West relations as inherently conflictive--if
not ideologically, then geostrategically. Similarly, radical reformers were not content to
ameliorate the security dilemma; they were determined to transcend it altogether, through
strategies based on reassurance rather than deterrence threats and, more ambitiously, through
the transformation of the Soviet Union into a democratic society integrated into the Western
community of nations. And whereas proponents of a conciliatory realpolitik course lauded its
amorality and pursuit of decidedly traditional state interests (after decades of Marxist-Leninist
ideology as the guiding principle), idealists were driven by a normative vision that defined
Soviet interests in wholly new ways.
5 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
To reject categorically the use of force to maintain the Soviet Union's security shield in Eastern
Europe and then to preserve the USSR itself is inexplicable in realist terms. No Soviet regime,
regardless of the perceived urgency of the country's economic plight or its faltering
geostrategic position, would take steps that it thought would jeopardize the physical security
of the state. The Gorbachev cohort was no exception. What allowed it to pursue a strategy
utterly unthinkable to its predecessors was its fundamentally different understanding of the
nature of the threat.
In coming to hold an altogether different vision of the USSR and its relations with the outside
world, the Gorbachev regime's idealist cohort was confident that a transformed Soviet Union
would render the Cold War confrontation an artifact of history. It is the pivotal significance of
this identity dimension for explaining the revolutionary course in Soviet foreign policy in the
late 1980s that eludes both realist and liberal approaches.
An Ideas and Identity Framework

Taking ideational phenomena seriously as independent variables in influencing actors'
definitions of interests requires a systematic exploration of intellectual evolution within the
Soviet policy elite and the political process whereby new strategic prescriptions 36 carried by
in-system reformers became state policy.
The alternative conceptual framework developed here seeks to incorporate identity and
domestic politics into a social cognitive perspective. Following Judith Goldstein and Robert
Keohane, I accord explanatory autonomy to collectively held ideas but refine their approach in
showing the constitutive effects of norms on actor behavior. 37 Identity is the link between
norms and interests that motivate behavior. The idealist conception of Soviet interests that
determined the content of New Thinking in the mid- to late Gorbachev period was
championed by in-system reformers who identified with the principles governing relations
among Western democratic states and between said governments and their respective polities.
I modify the framework offered by Goldstein and Keohane by unpacking their concept of
principled beliefs to distinguish between regulatory and constitutive principles. Both assert
claims on behavior, though the latter do so much more strongly. Regime theory tends to give
short shrift to constitutive norms. Perhaps for most instances of policy revision, and certainly
for changes in Soviet international practice in the first years of the Gorbachev era, regulatory
norms suffice to explain the attending modification in decision makers' conception of state
interests. In the case of the sweeping redefinition of interests that yielded the radical variant of
New Thinking, constitutive norms of identity were the principal motor force.
For many liberal scholars, cognitive evolutionary processes are central to the discussion of the
effects of norms on behavior, whether constitutive or regulatory. While there is no single
approach to learning, 38 the distinction drawn by Joseph Nye and others between "simple"
and "complex" learning is helpful for explaining the magnitude of foreign policy change in the
Gorbachev years. 39 In the former, policy adjustments constitute a more efficient matching of
means and ends--tactical adaptation that leaves fundamental assumptions unquestioned and
unchanged. Complex learning, in contrast, involves intellectual deliberation in which decision
makers' interests may be redefined in light of new understandings about cause-and-effect
relationships. 40 By this definition, both regulatory and constitutive norms are linked
analytically to complex learning through their effects on actors' conceptions of interest. There
is no analytical or methodological reason why changes in actor identity cannot be incorporated
into cognitive evolutionary approaches premised on complex learning.
I employ the concept of specialist networks 41 to explicate two distinct but interrelated
processes: (1) social construction 42 of the ideas/ideology 43 and identities that gave New
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Thinking its radical orientation and (2) political contention/selection, or how these shared
conceptions became the basis of state policy in the late 1980s. The use of specialist networks
provides the leverage to overcome two major shortcomings of the cognitive approaches that
form the core of my argument. First, I do not see learning as an act of individual cognition that
can be aggregated to generate insights about state or institutional behavior. Cognitive
evolution is a social process. 44 New Thinking was a collaborative effort, the result of
intellectual give-and-take within these expert groups. 45 I integrate identity formation into
the cognitive framework by emphasizing the collectivity. Identity norms make much more
powerful claims on behavior than do the causal beliefs and schemata that are the central focus
of most learning approaches. In addition, building identity norms into cognitive approaches
corrects bias of the latter toward the diffusion of technical knowledge at the expense of values
and principles.
The second relevant shortcoming of learning explanations is that they are frequently divorced
from politics and questions of power. 46 Specialist networks quite literally provide the bridge
between the emergence of new ideas and identities and their prospective adoption by the
political leadership. Which conception of Soviet national interests would prevail was largely a
function of political struggle between competing groupings within the elite.
As other scholars have made considerable headway in correcting the apolitical nature of most
cognitive approaches, my primary aim in this essay is to demonstrate the impact of collective
identity norms on actor behavior.
Incorporating constitutive norms of identity into existing cognitive explanations for Soviet
foreign policy change allows me to differentiate between the conciliatory realpolitik and
idealist perspectives within the New Thinking camp. This distinction has largely escaped
students of contemporary Soviet/Russian affairs despite its importance in explaining the
evolution of Soviet policy during the Gorbachev years and after.
The conciliatory realpolitik perspective was the dominant outlook among progressive
detractors of the Brezhnev leadership's handling of foreign affairs. Proponents criticized the
regime's approach on the grounds that its unilateralist and ideology-driven strategy was
eroding rather than advancing traditional state interests defined in terms of military security
and economic well-being. Soviet practice was self-defeating, having unnecessarily antagonized
the West and squandered precious resources with little to show in return. For many, though by
no means all, of the reformers who subscribed to this line of thinking, the problem was not the
goals of Soviet policy but the means employed to attain them. In this sense, envisaged changes
in Kremlin international policy did not reflect a full-fledged reconceptualization of interests.
In contrast, the idealist outlook claimed a much smaller following and was only just emerging
in the late 1970s and early 1980s, although it too had its rudimentary precursors. Proponents
of this perspective conceived of Soviet interests in ways unrecognizable to realist practitioners
of traditional great power politics and even to liberal institutionalists. In addition to promoting
a strategy of reassurance to reverse the arms race and eradi cate the political sources of
military conflict, they sought to inject normative criteria into the formulation and conduct of
foreign policy. 47 Idealists embodied a new identity that held out the possibility of
transcending the East-West divide. They viewed Soviet national interests in the context of
global problems and values common to all mankind. For them, the failure of the Brezhnev-
Gromyko approach resided in both its skewed representation of international political reality
and its flawed vision of how the world and the Soviet Union ought to be. Genuine peace,
according to idealists, could be achieved only on the basis of a common identity. To this end,
they envisioned the USSR's joining the community of advanced industrial democracies whose
relationships were governed by norms of reciprocity and non-use of force. The Cold War
would wither away, its sustaining logic having vanished.
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In practice, idealist and conciliatory realpolitik perspectives were not so easily distinguishable.
They are best thought of as two ends of a spectrum, with the vast majority of foreign policy
reformers distributed along the continuum. Thus the purveyors of New Thinking
simultaneously held elements of both worldviews, the precise admixture of which changed
over time. This is why it is possible to find inconsistencies in their policy positions, starting
with Mikhail Gorbachev, whose thinking underwent considerable evolution during his six
years in power. 48
The existence of contending factions within the reformer camp is also one of the reasons the
idealist version of New Thinking took a few years after Gorbachev was chosen general
secretary to become state policy. 49 Proponents of foreign policy reform, including top
decision makers, held divergent views about the source of the problem and the nature of the
prospective solution. In the absence of an agreed-upon blueprint, the initial New Thinking
vision articulated by Gorbachev was predictably an amalgam of themes and concepts, some of
which even resonated with foreign policy conservatives. 50 It was sufficiently vague to permit
political forces with relatively moderate agendas to claim allegiance to a common ideal even as
they strived to head off any radical change. 51 For his part, Gorbachev remained open to the
arguments of advocates of both the conciliatory realpolitik and the idealist perspectives,
ultimately siding with the latter. 52
The focus of the empirical section of this essay is the neglected idealist outlook because it is
here that we find the newly minted identity and attendant normative commitments that gave
New Thinking its transformative character and made possible the peaceful end of the
East-West conflict. As I have shown, existing liberal explanations that emphasize cognitive
evolution can account for many important policy revisions undertaken by the Gorbachev
regime. In doing so, they persuasively demonstrate that ideas promoted by in-system
reformers exerted independent influence on Soviet behavior, effectively rebuffing realists'
materialist conception of interests, which views ideas solely in instrumental terms 53 (i.e., used
by Kremlin decision makers to justify or make palatable changes necessary for domestic
restructuring). 54 But in order to account for New Thinking's idealist incarnation, which in
effect deprived the West of its Cold War enemy, these liberal approaches must be
supplemented with a collective identity dimension.
The Empirical Case

Origins of New Thinking's Idealist Variant
The ideas and identity that gave New Thinking its revolutionary content had historical
antecedents going back to the Khrushchev era and the beginnings of de-Stalinization. They
have been documented elsewhere and need not be examined here. 55 But one cannot draw a
straight line from Khrushchev-inspired reformers--the self-described "children of the
Twentieth Party Congress"--to purveyors of the idealist strand of New Thinking almost three
decades later, even though in some cases they were same people. 56 Getting to that point
required some conceptual leaps that many proved unable or unwilling to make. Those who did
underwent a profound evolution that led them to repudiate fundamental axioms of Marxism-
Leninism that they had once taken to be true.
It was as a result of both the early success and the disillusioning demise of 1970s superpower
rapprochement that liberal mezhdunarodniki began to challenge the underlying assumptions
of the Brezhnev regime's coercive detente strategy and to formulate an alternative approach.
Detractors rejected both the prevailing conception of peaceful coexistence as a form of class
struggle and the dominant interpretation of Western accommodationist policies as being
compelled by a shift in the "correlation of forces" in favor of socialism. Their conclusion that
Western cooperative behavior was in part dispositional rather than wholly circumstantial
pointed to the need for more-conciliatory Soviet policies that could be expected to strengthen
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the hand of "realistic-minded" circles in the elite and thereby elicit Western reciprocity.
With the expansion of East-West detente, liberal reformers were less inclined to view capitalist
states as inherently aggressive or to accept the notion of irreconcilable interests between the
two social systems. Buoyed by detente's promising early returns, some of these specialists saw
the possibility that superpower rapproche-ment could bring about the restructuring of
international relations and with it the prospect of eliminating the risk of armed conflict
between the two blocs. 57
The hope of radically recasting East-West relations was most evident in the distinction drawn
by Soviet commentators between "negative peace" and "positive peace." The former refers to
the absence of war because of mutual deterrence, while the latter connotes a state of pacific
relations in which the root causes of conflict have been eliminated. The conceptual link
between the ideas of positive peace and the restructuring of international relations on the one
hand and the idealist strand of New Thinking on the other is unmistakable. 58 What enabled
these ideas to survive the downturn in relations only to reappear in modified form in the
Gorbachev era was their partial codification in the series of East-West agreements that
collectively composed detente.
The institutionalization of nuclear arms control in the form of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty, which banned nationwide missile defense systems, and the Strategic Arms Limitations
Treaty of the same year, which placed ceilings on offensive weapons, together with accords
aimed at regu lating superpower rivalry in the Third World (Basic Principles Agreement, BPA)
and ratifying the postwar political settlement in Europe (the 1975 Helsinki Accords)
constituted a nascent security regime. Embedded in the regime were fledgling norms of
behavior that shaped the identity of would-be radical New Thinkers. These diffuse norms
represented an attempt to articulate shared aspirations as well as to codify formally extant
practices. 59
Regrettably, neither Moscow nor Washington was prepared to countenance the potentially
far-reaching implications of the abm Treaty or the bpa. 60 That all changed when the
Gorbachev regime placed reasonable sufficiency and finite deterrence on the policy agenda 61
and made good on its pledge to seek political solutions to festering regional conflicts in
Afghanistan, Cambodia, Angola, and elsewhere in the developing world. 62
The Basic Principles Agreement was especially relevant to the emergence of the idealist
outlook in the Gorbachev years. The accord was destined to become a casualty of continuous
superpower efforts to shape political outcomes in the Third World for unilateral advantage. 63
But for liberal mezhdunarodniki analyzing the reasons for the demise of detente, the accord
came to be viewed as a stillborn attempt to create a regime premised on nonintervention and
nonresort to force. What the two sides initially regarded as a commonsense and self-interested
way to constrain provocative behavior was later endowed with normative significance by New
Thinkers whose vision of the USSR precluded the expansionist and militaristic Kremlin
strategies they now concluded had helped destroy detente. 64 They recognized the
transformative but wasted potential of the bpa. The problem, according to these foreign policy
revisionists, was not that superpower detente had been overambitious. To the contrary,
detente had been too timid; it had neglected to address the root causes of the Cold War
conflict, thereby forgoing any chance to move from managed rivalry to full-fledged
collaboration. 65
The human rights provisions of the Helsinki Accords similarly affected the ideational
evolution of would-be idealists, albeit indirectly, by giving rise to a network of committed
activists in the USSR and Eastern Europe. 66 Their courageous efforts, while more or less
successfully suppressed by the various communist governments, did not go unnoticed by
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Soviet liberal reformers, anti-Stalinists all, who could condemn the dissidents' confrontational
tactics but could no longer deny the validity of their simple message about the regime's harsh
repression and the absence of basic freedoms. Dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov, together
with Western transnational partners whose unwavering support for human rights and detente
bolstered their credibility in the eyes of Soviet in-system reformers, confronted these liberal
reformers with the dark reality of the regime of which they were very much a part. 67
The response by liberal mezhdunarodniki to the crash in East-West relations was largely
confined to revisionist scholarship on international relations theory, although some specific
regime policies were criticized by institute experts and specialists in the apparat. 68 The
Institute of World Economy and International Relations (imemo) took the lead in promoting
an analysis that emphasized states rather than classes as the principal actors on the world
stage, accelerating interdependence, the primacy of nonclass values, the role of nonmaterial
factors (e.g., domestic politics, culture, individual leaders' worldviews) in determining states'
interests, and implicitly, a more benign view of capitalism. 69 All of these themes were to
become central tenets of the USSR's new course, having been conveyed to future cpsu
chairman Gorbachev through institute director Aleksandr Yakovlev (the reformist former
Central Committee secretary banished to Canada to be Soviet ambassador and brought back to
Moscow in 1983 at Gorbachev's behest to take the helm of imemo) and his successor Yevgeny
Primakov.
Joining imemo analysts in this self-conscious attempt to purge Soviet foreign policy of its
ideological underpinnings were like-minded colleagues at the Institute of the United States
and Canada (iskan), the Institute of Economics of the World Socialist System (iemss), and
other Academy of Sciences think tanks, together with sympathetic experts in the government
and party bureaucracy. With growing temerity they advanced cogent critiques of Soviet
international strategy despite the stifling impact on foreign policy-related discourse of the
burgeoning conflict with the West.
As alluded to earlier, many of the international security and arms control concepts associated
with New Thinking were originally developed by peace scholars and other liberal-Left experts
in the West and transmitted to pro-reform mezhdunarodniki and aspiring civilian defense
analysts in the USSR through transnational networks. 70 None of these linkages proved more
important than the membership of iskan director Georgi Arbatov on the Independent
Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues chaired by Olaf Palme. 71 Under the
tutelage of West German arms control expert and prominent Social Democratic Party official
Egon Bahr, the influential Arbatov became a convert to common security 72 and his institute
became the entrepreneurial source of proposals for asymmetrical cuts in nuclear and
conventional arms and for nonoffensive-force postures later taken up by Gorbachev. 73
Other transnational links that influenced Soviet security policy included Soviet specialists'
contacts with European alternative defense proponents such as Danish physicist Anders
Boserup (through Pugwash Conference working groups) 74 and Academy of Sciences vice
president and Gorbachev adviser Yevgeny Velikhov's participation in joint projects with U.S.
arms control experts. 75 The fact that these Western specialists were critical of their own
governments' policies as well as those of the USSR enhanced their standing with Soviet
interlocutors.
Yet even more important than the contribution of transnational net works to the eclipse of the
image of the West as implacably hostile and to the diffusion of knowledge about mitigating the
pernicious effects of the security dilemma was the role of these specialists in the identity
evolution of Soviet in-system reformers. During the heyday of detente, the Brezhnev regime
did its best to insulate Soviet society from subversive bourgeois liberal ideas. Still, through
transnational contacts, progressive mezhdunarodniki were exposed to Western conceptions of
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human rights and sensitized to the flaws in the Soviet system by staunchly pro-detente
counterparts in the U.S. and Western Europe. 76 They also witnessed the advantages of
pacific international partnership, political pluralism and democratic governance, and the
establishment of the rule of law.
Many of these specialists had the opportunity to travel to the West and, in the case of iskan
postgraduates, to spend several months working in the U.S. at the embassy in Washington or at
the un mission in New York. Firsthand experience with the West did not necessarily send
liberal reformers rushing to try to replicate on Soviet soil a free-market system and democratic
political institutions. But by their own admission it instilled in them an abiding appreciation
for the numerous strengths of these societies and purged them of many deeply ingrained
myths and stereotypes about capitalism. 77 Contact with the West gave Soviet reformers a
new lens through which to view their own society: the stifling repression, pervasive secrecy,
lagging living standards, and adversarial relationship with every non-communist country on
the Eurasian landmass. By the late 1970s a number of in-system regime critics, already firmly
ensconced in the Westernizer camp, were making the transition from anti-Stalinist reformers
to democratic socialists and in some cases, to social democrats. 78 Direct and indirect
exposure to the West may have helped Soviet reformers to comprehend the magni tude of the
USSR's systemic crisis, but, far more important, this contact influenced the content of the
program that they formulated and then proceeded to implement once they gained power.
Liberal reformers who developed this new identity decreasingly defined the Western threat in
broad political-ideological terms. The adversary, as they saw it, was the bellicose strategy
pursued by right-wing hawks in the West (and the provocative Soviet policies that helped
generate support for it), not the democratic capitalist system per se (some of the founding
principles of which this cadre of Soviet reformers now accepted).
The intervention in Afghanistan was a pivotal event in the identity evolution of liberal
mezhdunarodniki. 79 Foreign policy reformers saw their unprecedented admission of
Kremlin complicity in the fall of detente give way to a more profound critique of Soviet
international behavior. Beyond conventional arguments that intervention would prove
politically costly (e.g., deal a deathblow to an already ailing detente) and militarily ineffective,
some of these specialists saw the introduction of Soviet troops as a violation of international
law governing the resort to force and the sanc tity of interstate borders. 80 In essence, they
were rejecting the Brezhnev Doctrine, a position that they articulated with greater force a few
years later in connection with the rise of the Solidarity trade union movement in Poland and
the possibility of armed Soviet intervention. 81
It was becoming clear to a growing number of reformers that the USSR could not take its place
among the world's "civilized nations" if it insisted on violating at home and abroad the norms
of behavior governing Western democratic regimes' treatment of their own citizens and
relations between member states of that community. 82 It is the significance of this identity-
derived normative dimension in molding the ultimate character of the Gorbachev foreign
policy revolution that is beyond the reach of realist and liberal explanations.
The vision of Soviet society and the USSR's relationship to the outside world that united
moderate and radical reformers is conveyed in the term normal country. Virtually every New
Thinker I interviewed or who has spoken or written on the topic has invoked it to describe his
or her hopes for the nation. And while not all of them meant precisely the same thing, the
general notion was not difficult to discern. At the most elemental level it meant removing the
"absurdity and irrationality" that was everyday life. 83 In the economic sphere, that
translated to the necessity of a system with rational incentives that produced food and
consumer goods in sufficient quantities that citizens would not suffer the indignity of
perpetual lines. In the political sphere it meant once and for all throwing off the yoke of
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Stalinism and moving in the direction of democratic governance (i.e., respect for individual
rights, establishment of the rule of law, competitive elections). 84 With respect to interstate
relations, becoming a normal country required abandoning Marxism-Leninism as a guide for
defining state interests and pursuing either an enlightened realpolitik dedicated to advancing
traditional security goals or, alternatively, a foreign policy based on the norms and principles
associated with the bolder version of New Thinking.
Ideas reflecting both the amoral realpolitik perspective and its fledgling idealist competitor
started to reach those who later would wield political power in the Gorbachev era. Dispirited
by the failure of successive regimes to take remedial steps to redress economic and political
stagnation and to repair the dangerous rift in superpower relations, 85 nascent New Thinkers
nevertheless were determined not to abandon their cause. They refined their critique,
circulated heterodox views on contemporary international relations, and cultivated support
among certain members of the leadership, most notably Mikhail Gorbachev, who by 1983 had
become a major force on the Politburo and Andropov's heir apparent.
Examination of relevant cpsu and individual institute archives reveals that by this time
Gorbachev was already on the receiving end of secret zapiski from progressive specialists.
While generally avoiding assessments of specific Soviet actions (with the exception of the
Afghanistan intervention and deployment of SS-20s), these analysts succeeded in raising
first-order questions about the USSR's overall international strategy. There was also a
collection of more than a hundred white papers written during Andropov's tenure by experts
from an array of disciplines on the full panoply of problems confronting the USSR. They were
done at the behest of Politburo member Gorbachev with the help of Nikolai Ryzhkov, head of
the Central Committee's Economic Department. A few years later, addressing a group of
sympathetic intellectuals to encourage them to redouble their efforts in the struggle for
reform, Gorbachev publicly confirmed the existence of the white papers. Recalling his earlier
frank conversations with many of the authors, Gorbachev stated: "The results of these
discussions and their analyses formed the basis for the decisions of the April [1985] plenum
and the first steps thereafter." 86
In addition to his close personal relationship with Yakovlev, who pro vided a window onto
innovative work being done at imemo, the future general secretary had contact with a range of
other prominent liberal thinkers. Among them were iskan director Arbatov, Political Science
Association chief Georgi Shakhnazarov, journal (Ogonek) editor Vitaly Korotich, head of the
Institute of Economics and Industrial Organization Abel Aganbegyan, and senior staffers from
the International Department of the Central Committee Secretariat. Gorbachev's practice of
seeking out experts and engaging them in wide-ranging discussions became institutionalized
once he was elevated to the CPSU chairmanship. He empowered pro-reform specialists to fill
in his sparse vision, 87 which at that point more closely resembled conciliatory realpolitik
than its incipient idealist rival.
The New Thinking Revolution

During the Gorbachev period Soviet international policy evolved from a comparatively modest
set of initiatives aimed at ratcheting down the East-West confrontation to a daring program for
completely revamping the USSR's relations with the West and the rest of the world. Focusing
on Moscow's Eastern Europe strategy and on Soviet military doctrine and arms control
practices, I show that profound changes in these areas reflected the success of purveyors of the
idealist variant of New Thinking. Capitalizing on the failure of the early Gorbachev line to elicit
reciprocal Western restraint, radicalized mezhdunarodniki persuaded Kremlin decision
makers to embrace their analysis and policy prescriptions. Elements of the idealist version of
New Thinking were incorporated into leadership statements and initiatives from the outset of
Gorbachev's tenure as cpsu chairman, although it became the dominant perspective in Soviet
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policy only in 1988-1989. 88 Beginning with the plan to eliminate nuclear weapons by the
year 2000 and the general secretary's "Political Report to the Twenty-seventh Party Congress"
and culminating in Gorbachev's historic December 1988 speech at the United Nations and
decision to tolerate the collapse of successive commu nist regimes in Eastern Europe, Soviet
interests were redefined, consistent with the rival vision of the Soviet Union put forward by
radical specialists.
Contrary to the view of realist-minded skeptics in the West that Moscow was trying to make
virtue of necessity by cloaking an unavoidable redirection of international policy in noble
language, the New Thinking course pursued by the Gorbachev Politburo starting about late
1987 was the product of decades-long intellectual evolution that was influenced but not
determined by material factors. It embodied both new understandings about how the world
works and normative judgments about how it should. What initially looked to suspicious nato
governments like a straightforward case of survival-driven adaptive behavior cleverly
packaged to portray the USSR as the champion of inspiring, high-minded ideals was nothing
less than a long-time-in-the-making metamorphosis of intellect and conscience. 89
Arms Control and Military Doctrine

The drastic changes in Soviet defense policy that paved the way for the end of the Cold War
rivalry were not on the incoming regime's original agenda. The new team in the Kremlin
hoped to alter the perilous trajectory of superpower relations through renewed summit
meetings and a number of modest arms control concessions (e.g., a freeze on the deployment
of SS-20 missiles and a temporary moratorium on nuclear tests) 90 designed to convey a
more moderate strategy and greater flexibility at the bargaining table.
At the same time, evidence of radical inclinations at the highest levels was not hard to find.
Dismissed in the West as another in a long line of transparently propagandistic Soviet
disarmament ploys designed to play to world public opinion, the January 1986 proposal for a
nuclear-free world gave every indication of being a serious initiative. It differed from past
grandiose pronouncements both in laying out a specific, sequential approach to reductions
and, more important, in demonstrating an understanding of the nuclear revolution and the
dangerous fallacy of a unilateral path to security. According to Vladimir Petrovsky, a respected
international relations theorist and practitioner who helped draft the documents that became
the basis of the proposal, the plan also captured Gorbachev's personal commitment to
disarmament on ethical as well as on economic and security grounds. 91 In statements aimed
at explaining Moscow's thinking on contemporary international relations, the Soviet leader
frequently expressed doubts about the morality of nuclear deterrence. It was a view he shared
with Ronald Reagan and one that led them to flirt with a pact to eliminate strategic nuclear
arms at the Reykjavik summit. 92
The vigorously contested report to the party convocation in February 1986 93 provided further
evidence that radical New Thinkers were already influencing Politburo policy debates. 94
Reiterating earlier statements about the need for new approaches in Soviet international
praxis, Gor bachev embraced common security and endorsed the principles of reasonable
sufficiency and nonprovocative defense that were already being promoted by maverick civilian
analysts--albeit cautiously, given the strong taboo on public discussion of questions related to
strategy and force posture.
The general secretary's declared intentions and some meaningful doctrinal modifications (e.g.,
a shift in the official goal from war-fighting to war prevention) notwithstanding, 95 actual
Soviet military policy changed relatively little in the early Gorbachev years. A major obstacle
was the military high command, which persisted in trying to define reasonable sufficiency and
nonoffensive defense in such a way as to deflect efforts to overhaul the armed forces and
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thereby safeguard its institutional autonomy. 96 Nor was a political leadership that continued
to harbor doubts about U.S. objectives ready to translate those abstract concepts into bold,
concrete arms control measures.
The turning point came when Moscow moved to de-link a prospective agreement to ban all
land-based intermediate range nuclear missiles from the impasse over the proposed American
Star Wars antimissile system and reductions in the superpower strategic nuclear arsenals.
Gorbachev attributed the decision to lobbying by civilian defense experts 97 and discussions
with foreign intellectual and cultural figures gathered in Moscow in February 1987 for a
conference titled "For a World Without Nuclear Weapons, for Humanity's Survival." 98
Acceptance of the previously vilified "zero option" was the first crucial step toward
implementation of the agenda formulated by radical New Thinkers. It reflected a substantial
redefinition of Soviet security interests and marked a dramatic departure from past policy.
The treaty's ban on an entire category of newly deployed nuclear weapons required deeply
asymmetrical cuts in Soviet forces. Eager to extend glasnost to the secretive military
establishment, the Soviet leader agreed to unprecedented intrusive verification provisions. 99
In the stroke of a pen, Gorbachev and his allies had confounded Western forecasters and
Soviet foreign policy moderates alike. 100
The accord proved empowering for ardent reformers because it was tantamount to official
admission that the original deployment of SS-20s--and by extension much of Moscow's
international security policy--had been fatally flawed. In acceding to the Western demand that
it scrap its most modern medium-range missiles, the Soviet regime showed it was coming to
terms with the USSR's role in detente's collapse, an analysis proffered by radicalized
mezhdunarodniki in support of their more benign view of capitalist states. These specialists
responded to the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (inf) accord by intensifying their efforts
on behalf of increasingly far-reaching measures to overhaul Soviet defense strategy and force
structure. 101
In the months following conclusion of the accord, articles by emboldened civilian defense
analysts began to appear in several publications. With growing confidence, these
commentators advanced proposals to extend to strategic nuclear and conventional forces the
conceptual breakthrough that sealed the inf deal and in so doing gave content to often
amorphous New Thinking proclamations. The battle for the hearts and minds of the
Gorbachev leadership to determine which version of New Thinking would prevail had entered
a decisive and openly contentious phase. 102
The intellectual work, political battling, and "lobbying" by radical civilian defense specialists
was rewarded when Gorbachev announced before the un that Moscow would reduce troop
levels by five hundred thousand within two years and would destroy ten thousand tanks,
eighty-five hundred artillery systems, and eight hundred combat aircraft. He pledged to
demobilize six Soviet divisions stationed in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany and
said that remaining divisions would be reorganized and "given a different structure from
today's, which will become unambiguously defensive after the removal of a large number of
their tanks." Assault landing and river-crossing forces were also to be withdrawn. 103 It was
not so much the magnitude of the reductions that drew Western attention as the stunning shift
from an offensive to a defensive military posture and the retreat from traditional
Russian/Soviet conceptions of security that these unilateral moves represented.
Gorbachev's un speech had the hoped-for impact, propelling the U.S. and the USSR to
dismantle the military confrontation that had defined their relationship for four decades.
Having taken up the agenda urged by radical civilian defense experts, Gorbachev steered the
superpowers toward a series of sweeping agreements that transformed the security situation
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on the European continent and advanced the cause of global peace and security. In less than
three years East and West concluded the strategic nuclear arms reduction treaty (start I) and
the conventional forces in Europe accord (cfe Treaty) and made substantial progress on
eliminating chemical weapons and on follow-on cuts in the strategic arsenals.
The reconceptualization of Soviet security interests that made these agreements possible
reflected a new collective identity in which a critical core of the Soviet leadership no longer
viewed the West as the "other." When Gorbachev, Shevardnadze, and others spoke of
depriving the West of an enemy, they were not only alluding to the possibility of the USSR's
unilaterally dropping out of the arms race; they were expressing aspirations of joining the
community of democratic states. They now understood that even significant disarmament
accords would not suffice to overcome the East-West divide. Only a common identity would
permit the two sides to transform their relationship, because at its core the Cold War was a
political-ideological conflict, especially for the U.S., with its own Manichaean worldview and
messianic impulse "to make the world safe for democracy." This is why, in addition to Soviet
behavior abroad, the regime's policies at home and within the bloc would determine whether
Moscow and the West would move beyond rapprochement to genuine partnership.
Eastern Europe
That the complete revamping of Soviet arms control strategy was informed by broader idealist
commitments pertaining to the non-use of force in interstate relations and the fostering of
conditions of "positive peace" is easier to discern in the context of Moscow's policy toward
Eastern Europe.
Well acquainted with the large body of revisionist scholarship strongly suggesting a loosening
of Soviet hegemonic control, 104 the Gorbachev cohort came to power convinced of the need
for a more permissive and outright supportive stance toward pro-reform elements in Eastern
Europe. 105 Addressing the Twenty-seventh Party Congress, the general secretary signaled
the onset of a policy to "deregulate" the bloc 106 when he observed that "unity has nothing in
common with uniformity" or "with interference by some parties in the affairs of others." The
official death of the Brezhnev Doctrine was still more than three years away, but the
leadership was clearly hinting that Moscow would not impose its will on Eastern European
allies and certainly would not do so through force.
As part of the move to relax the USSR's four-decade iron grip on the bloc, Gorbachev actively
encouraged Warsaw Pact governments to emulate Moscow in introducing greater
liberalization in economic and political life. The result was to energize Eastern European
reformers and antagonize Stalinist stalwarts such as East German chief Eric Honecker, but
there were as yet few signs of the coming cataclysm and every reason for the Kremlin's
confidence that it could control the pace of events.
A number of specialists at iemss and elsewhere who provided the intellectual and political
support for Moscow's more benign stance sought broader changes in the USSR's relationship
with fraternal socialist allies. They were motivated as much by normative qualms about an
empire held together by force as by pragmatic considerations revolving around the desire to
ease the economic burden posed by the bloc. 107 The contrast between nato's Kantian
security community and the Warsaw Pact had not been lost on liberal mezhdunarodniki, many
of whom envisioned a socialist commonwealth bound together by shared principles rather
than by imposed dogmas and the omnipresent threat of Soviet intervention. 108 These
specialists found important allies within the regime's top echelons, including Foreign Minister
Shevardnadze and senior Gorbachev advisers Georgi Shakhnazarov and Anatoly Chernyaev.
The Gorbachev leadership came under growing pressure from reformers to launch bolder
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initiatives in both domestic and foreign affairs. In the summer of 1988 two major gatherings,
the Nineteenth All-Union cpsu Conference 109 and a meeting of influential experts at the
Foreign Ministry, 110 propelled Soviet reforms in a more radical direction. 111 Policy toward
Eastern Europe was no exception. Authoritative statements in support of the principle of
noninterference in allies' affairs were now more frequent and less equivocal and were given
added credence by the multilateral accord providing for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from
Afghanistan.
The cuts in Soviet military forces stationed on the territory of Pact states outlined in
Gorbachev's watershed address to the UN 112 were a powerful expression of Kremlin
intentions toward Eastern Europe as well as the nato states. The implicit removal of the threat
of Soviet force to crush challenges to communist authority was followed by a series of fateful
decisions by the Gorbachev hierarchy that indirectly fomented popular upheaval and hastened
the collapse of all the Warsaw Pact regimes. 113
With Poland already making the transition to a non-communist led government and the East
German regime under siege, the Gorbachev cohort showed it was true to its professed
principles. During a trip to Helsinki in October 1989, the Soviet leader all but declared the
Brezhnev Doctrine formally dead, 114 stating that "the USSR does not have the moral or
political right" to interfere in the affairs of its Warsaw Pact allies. He ordered Soviet troops
based in the German Democratic Republic (gdr) (East Germany) not to participate in the
suppression of antigovernment demonstrations threatening to topple the regime. The Berlin
Wall was breached, and the communists were soon ousted. The same fate befell their
comrades throughout the bloc by year's end. Near-total control over territory deemed
absolutely essential to Soviet security for four decades had been relinquished without firing a
shot. In the final analysis, Moscow may well have been a "hostage to revolution," 115 but it
was a revolution largely of its own making and one that the Gorbachev leadership consciously
declined to derail when opportunities to do so still existed.
If the Gorbachev leadership had not intended to preside over the collapse of the Soviet
position in Eastern Europe, why would it have made such feeble attempts to avert that
outcome, given the bloc's overwhelming strategic value in Soviet security assessments? The
answer is closely related to the idealist identity that was taking hold among the Gorbachev
cohort and the attending redefinition of Soviet interests and external threats. 116
Moscow's benevolent response to the revolutions of 1989 reflected the goal of radical New
Thinkers that the USSR take its place among the world's advanced industrialized nations not
on the basis of its military prowess--the path pursued by each of Gorbachev's
predecessors--but on that of shared principles and a common identity. What would it mean for
an aspiring democratic Russia to move to suppress nonviolent popular democratic movements
in Eastern Europe and how could such a country expect to join the community of Western
states? 117 Gorbachev and his chief allies were committed to a Soviet Union rooted in that
community, and they made clear their readiness to expose Soviet society to the influence of
Western ideas, values, institutions, and culture. 118
When Gorbachev had first invoked the image of a "common European home" during his visit
to London in December 1984, his vision of a demilitarized continent was based on the
continued existence of two political systems. By 1989 the "common home" phrase expressed
the desire to create a new "European" (i.e., Atlantic to the Urals) security order based on a
common identity made possible by the political and, to a lesser degree, economic reformation
under way in the USSR. 119 The Soviet leadership had come to appreciate that although
disarmament accords and adoption of defensive military postures could ameliorate the
security dilemma, only a common identity provided the basis for "positive peace" in which
nations forswear (and cannot even fathom) resort to force or the threat of force as a means to
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resolve disputes. 120 Significantly, Gorbachev's call for a USSR integrated into Asia, first
made in his 1986 Vladivostok speech, never invoked visions of shared values and identity as
had analogous statements on the common European home. 121
The point of the foregoing analysis of the relationship between identity evolution on the one
hand and Soviet arms control strategy and policy toward Eastern Europe on the other is not to
claim that purveyors of the idealist variant of New Thinking became Gandhian pacifists and
Jeffersonian democrats. They did not, as the body of their statements, writings, and actions
attests. But neither were they the same individuals who in their formative years viewed the
world through the prism of Marxism-Leninism and continued to believe in its central tenets as
a guide for Soviet international policy. Particularly the older cohort of reformers--the children
of the Twentieth Party Congress--who came to power with Gorbachev, underwent tremendous
changes in their thinking about the world, about Soviet society, and about themselves over a
period of many years. 122 This evolution was inextricably tied to changes in collective identity
that, while greatly influenced by the transmission of Western ideas and principles, were
essentially homegrown. It was nurtured in an oppressive system that denied its citizens basic
political and civil rights and failed to provide anything more than a meager material existence
and in a foreign policy that made hostile encirclement a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There is little question that foreign policy reformers, both liberal and radical, did not intend to
bring about a precipitous decline in Soviet international influence, to say nothing of the
disintegration of the USSR. On the contrary, they wanted to arrest the Soviet Union's
accelerating internal decline and to preserve the country's status as a prime actor in world
affairs. But how the idealist contingent defined being a great power varied markedly with
historical Soviet understandings (as well as with extant Western ones). Reflecting on the
theme of greatness and responding to the accusations of his vociferous detractors about his
having engineered the USSR's loss of power and prestige, Foreign Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze poignantly stated:
The belief that we are a great country and that we should be respected for
this is deeply ingrained in me, as in everyone. But great in what? Territory?
Population? Quantity of arms? Or the people's troubles? The individual's
lack of rights? In what do we, who have virtually the highest infant mortality
rate on our planet, take pride? It is not easy to answer the questions: Who
are you and who do you wish to be? A country which is feared or a country
which is respected? A country of power or a country of kindness? 123
As Shevardnadze's questions illustrate, foreign policy radicals, of which he was definitely one,
had a very different conception of what it meant to be a great power, a conception bound up
with changing notions of Soviet national identity. These specialists were confident that if the
Gorbachev government pursued the enlightened policies that they prescribed, the USSR could
return to a position of visionary leadership in the international community. As the birthplace
and tireless promoter of New Thinking, the USSR would be in the vanguard of the movement
to construct a peaceful and prosperous new world order.
In this way there was a profound link to the ideals of the great October Revolution.
Gorbachev's invocation of the Leninist legacy was not so much a bid to garner legitimacy for a
regime moving to dismantle a system erected by the founding father as it was an attempt to
redeem the promise of the revolution. 124 Retaining its character as a socialist state was
probably less important than reclaiming the mantle of international political leadership. For
idealists, it was not enough that their country be a normal country. They entertained grander
ambitions of transforming the Soviet Union, which, they reasoned, would in turn alter the
fundamental nature of postwar international politics. 125 As New Thinking idealists had
hoped, the radical course finally adopted by the Gorbachev regime brought tribute from
around the world and made Moscow the center of revolutionary praxis, thereby reaffirming
17 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
the country's singular destiny. This sense of mission was and remains central to the
Soviet/Russian national identity.
Back to the Future?

In this essay I have attempted to show that the revolutionary elements of Soviet New Thinking
that ushered in the end of the Cold War were the product of a profound reconceptualization of
state interests. This redefinition of interests was rooted in new collective understandings about
causal relationships in international politics and in regulatory and constitutive norms that
spawned a vision of a democratic Soviet Union in full partnership with the Western powers.
The ideas and identity framework developed here both complements and challenges realist
and liberal approaches in offering, it is argued, a more compelling explanation for the
transformative character of Soviet foreign policy in the mid- to late Gorbachev era. Beyond
being able to account for the radical turn in Kremlin arms control strategy and the pacific
response to the revolutions in Eastern Europe and independence movements in various then
Soviet republics, it also helps to explain why the Soviet Union under Gorbachev rejected the
"Asian path" of economic development as unsuitable for the USSR. 126 In this regard, the
ideas and identity framework speaks to both Russia's past and its future.
It does not follow from my explanation for the end of the Cold War that Russia would continue
to pursue an entirely cooperative and arguably deferential foreign policy or that Kremlin
decision makers would continue to view the nation's interests as fully congruent with those of
its former adversaries. To the contrary, the framework presented here strongly suggests that
the future direction of post-Soviet Russian international policy was and remains very much in
question and that the long-run prospects for radical New Thinking were, for reasons
elaborated below, never especially encouraging.
For realists who see burgeoning strains in U.S.-Russian relations--whether stemming from
Moscow's hegemonic behavior in the "near abroad," its brutal war against the breakaway
Chechen Republic, or its sale of nuclear technology to Iran--as confirming the inevitability of a
return to great power rivalry following an aberrant honeymoon, Russia's growing assertiveness
would seem to confound the expectations of realist theory. If, as realists insist, New Thinking
was a rational response to dire circumstances, how can they account for the Yeltsin
government's increasingly nationalist course at a time when Russia is far weaker in both
relative and absolute terms than in the late 1980s? Similarly, if Moscow's recent behavior does
herald a return to more traditional Soviet/Russian patterns, thereby rendering
late-Gorbachev-era New Thinking a historical anomaly, it is powerful evidence that state
interests cannot be deduced from material capabilities.
To the extent that Russian rhetoric and actions in the international sphere reflect the
exigencies of post-Soviet domestic politics, the driving force behind Moscow's behavior is
beyond the reach of dominant (neo)realist structural explanations. In contrast, the ideas and
identity framework, with its imperfect attempt to integrate politics and collective ideational
constructs, makes intelligible Russia's ambivalent--partly cooperative, partly combative--
stance toward the West.
The battle waged by opponents and supporters of New Thinking is part of a larger struggle
over Soviet identity in the modern world--a struggle with roots deep in the Russian past. 127
For centuries, Slavophiles and Westernizers armed with their competing visions have fought
for the soul of Russia. 128 What kind of society and what kind of country did Russia aspire to
be?
Those questions must still be answered as the Russian Federation charts its foreign policy
18 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
future. Many factors will determine which course Russia pursues in its relations with the
outside world. 129 The contest between advocates of the conciliatory realpolitik and idealist
variants of New Thinking (later joined by stridently nationalist voices at the extremes of the
political spectrum) remains relevant for understanding the Yeltsin government's flirtation with
a more assertive international posture and for the longer-term evolution of Russian policy.
Present-day policy debates in the political elite and increasingly in the general public reflect
the ongoing struggle over the meaning and content of Russian national identity, which was
only temporarily settled in the late Gorbachev era. 130
The idealist view of the world and the USSR's place in it never commanded the support of a
majority of foreign policy reformers even after Gorbachev sided with the radicals. Opposition
from hard-liners was constant and continues to the present. What changed was the addition to
the opposition ranks of moderate reformers who welcomed the initial revisions in Soviet
strategy, then watched with alarm as radicals commandeered the policy process. 131
Eduard Shevardnadze, one of the most forceful proponents of the radical agenda, was also
among the first casualties of the backlash against what was seen as the "naive idealism" of the
USSR's international course. 132 The embattled foreign minister resigned under a barrage of
criticism for kowtowing to the West and betraying Soviet interests (e.g., supporting the
anti-Iraq coalition in the Persian Gulf war, permitting German unification and the new state's
incorporation into nato, bowing before the Interna tional Monetary Fund's demands for
painful structural reforms). Detractors also attacked unilateral force reductions and the
abandoning of longtime allies while disparaging New Thinking tenets such as universal human
values and the diminished utility and dubious morality of armed force in the modern era.
More recently, former foreign policy reformers have joined extremists on the Right and Left in
demanding a more forceful posture toward the states of the former Soviet Union, either to
quell bloody ethnic conflicts along the Russian border or to prevent discrimination against
Russian minorities living there. 133
Bowing to pressure, President Yeltsin and Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, at first content to
continue the course that they inherited, began to take a harder--or at least a less overtly
pro-Western--line. This has been manifested in the not-so-surreptitious intervention by
Russian units in the Georgian civil war, delayed troop withdrawals from former Baltic
republics, support for "brother Slavs" in the Bosnian war, and sometimes bitter complaints
about Russia's treatment as a junior partner in its post-Cold War relations with onetime foes.
Moscow's recent decision to join the Partnership for Peace (after pressing vigorously but
unsuccessfully for full nato membership or some special status to distinguish Russia from
other new partners) suggests that those who see Russia's future as a democratic and capitalist
nation firmly anchored in the West retain the upper hand. But whether this once and sure-to-
be-future great power will continue to cast its lot with the West will depend in large measure
on which among the competing national identities emerges as the most salient.
Western leverage over Russia's choice and its future evolution is modest, and pronouncements
to the contrary run the risk of generating the kind of unrealistic expectations that doomed
detente in the 1970s and already have a Republican-controlled Congress moving to slash U.S.
aid to Moscow. Efforts to integrate Russia into the constellation of international institutions
and emerging regional security architecture can help to blunt historical Russian suspicion that
the Western powers harbor malevolent intentions and seek to exploit Moscow's weakened
position. Decision makers in Western capitals have not been sufficiently sensitive to the
multiple traumas--disorienting political and economic transformation at home and collapse of
power and prestige abroad--that beset present-day Russia.
19 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
There is no simple causal nexus between U.S./Western action and Soviet behavior. In the early
1980s external Western pressure may have helped undermine the legitimacy of the old guard,
but only because liberal reformers were ready and able to make a compelling case that
Western belligerence was not immutable and was in part a response to threatening Soviet
behavior. A similar Western strategy today would likely ensure Russia's nationalist turn. 134
At a minimum, the ideas and identity framework elaborated in this essay can provide
scholars and policy makers with an improved set of tools with which to assay the often
neglected complex social processes that shape the ways in which states define their interests.
Having illuminated these processes and suggested a causal sequence that takes us from
systemic crisis to recognition to political and ideological contestation and finally to foreign
policy outcomes, the ideas and identity framework would appear to be a promising candidate
for comparative crossnational research. Only further empirical study will tell.
The author would like to thank the participants at the three Social Science
Research Council/MacArthur Workshops for illuminating discussions and helpful
comments. I am also indebted to Peter Katzenstein, David Holloway, Stephen Walt,
and two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and insightful comments. I
gratefully acknowledge the support of the Brookings Institution and the Social
Science Research Council.
Note 1: The term New Thinking became shorthand for the ensemble of insights, concepts,
initiatives, and practices that the USSR's international strategy comprised in the Gorbachev
era. While the precise content of New Thinking changed over time, the new approach rested
on three core ideas. First, the existence of the "security dilemma," wherein measures taken by
one side to enhance its security are invariably perceived by a would-be rival as undermining
its own, means that security must be mutual or common and cannot be pursued unilaterally.
Second, resort to force or threats of force is neither an efficacious nor a legitimate way to
resolve interstate conflicts. To ameliorate the security dilemma and the pressures propelling
states to eschew diplomatic solutions, strategies of reassurance must replace or at least
supplement those based on deterrence threats. And last, class values should be subordinated
to "universal human values." Adoption of this idea amounted to a repudiation of Marxism-
Leninism's Manichaean worldview of irreconcilable interests between capitalism and socialism
and thus paved the way for a new international order based on shared values. On the content
of New Thinking, see Matthew Evangelista, "The New Soviet Approach to Security," World
Policy Journal 3, no. 4 (Fall 1986):561-99; Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier, "New Thinking About
the Third World," World Policy Journal 4, no. 4 (Fall 1987): 651-74; Bruce Parrott, "Soviet
National Security Policy Under Gorbachev," Problems of Communism 37, no. 6
(November/December 1988): 1-36; Robert Legvold, "The Revolution in Soviet Foreign Policy,"
Foreign Affairs 68, no. 1 (Winter 1989): 82-98; and Raymond Garthoff, Deterrence and the
Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1990).
Back.
Note 2: The debate over the end of the Cold War continues to engage the intellectual and
emotional energies of scholars. Among important recent works are Richard Ned Lebow and
Thomas Risse-Kappen, eds., International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); William Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of
the Cold War," International Security 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994/95): 91-129; Matthew
Evangelista, Taming the Bear: Transnational Relations and the Demise of the Soviet
Threat, forthcoming; Raymond Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations
and the End of the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994); John Lewis
Gaddis, "International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War," International
20 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
Security 17, no. 3 (Winter 1992/93): 5-58; and Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic
Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). Back.
Note 3: In distinguishing between moderate and radical perspectives among foreign policy
reformers, I draw generously on the work of Franklyn Griffiths. His article "The Sources of
American Conduct: Soviet Perspectives and Their Policy Implications," International
Security 9, no. 2 (Fall 1984): 3-50, offers a useful typology that loosely informs my own
categories. Back.
Note 4: Research for this project included interviews with dozens of specialists from
institutes under the Soviet Academy of Sciences as well as with senior state and party
apparatchiks, many from the Central Committee's International Department (ccid) and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (mfa). I also worked in the cpsu Central Committee Archives and
gained access to previously classified memoranda (zapiski) prepared by institute analysts for
the leadership. The potential problems with interviews are well known. I took several steps to
ensure that the oral testimony used in my analysis was reliable, including corroboration based
on other independent accounts, interlocutors' published writings, and the aforementioned
classified documents, which provided analysts with greater latitude to express critical views.
And while the majority of interviewees were committed New Thinkers, my discussions
extended to moderate and conservative opponents, some of whom occupied important posts
in the government. Back.
Note 5: Three social science institutes figure most prominently in my research: World
Economy and International Relations (imemo), USA and Canada (iskan), and Economics of
the World Socialist System (iemss). This troika formed the bulwark of revisionist scholarship
and provided many of the intellectual shock troops in the New Thinking army. For a more
in-depth discussion of the early histories of these institutes, see Jeff Checkel, "Organizational
Behavior, Social Scientists, and Soviet Foreign Policymaking" (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, 1991); Neil Malcolm, Soviet Political Scientists and American Politics
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984); Georgi Arbatov, The System: An Insider's Life in Soviet
Politics (New York: Times Books, 1992); and Oded Eran, Mezhdunarodniki: An Assessment
of Professional Expertise in the Making of Soviet Third World Policy (Tel Aviv: Turtle Dove,
1979). Back.
Note 6: In this paper norms are defined as collective beliefs that regulate the behavior and
identity of actors. Back.
Note 7: Finer lines demarcating Europeanists and Atlanticists have been drawn by Western
scholars, including Hannes Adomeit, "Capitalist Contradictions and Soviet Policy," Problems
of Communism 33, no. 3 (May/June 1984): 1-18. Back.
Note 8: See Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions,
Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War," International Organization 48, no. 2
(Spring 1994): 185-214; Evangelista, Taming the Bear; and Robert G. Herman, "Ideas,
Identity, and the Redefinition of Interests: The Political and Intellectual Origins of the Soviet
Foreign Policy Revolution" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1995). Back.
Note 9: The deideologization of Soviet foreign policy in the Gorbachev period has been well
documented (e.g., see Stephen Kull, Burying Lenin: The Revolution in Soviet Ideology and
Foreign Policy [Boulder: Westview, 1992]), but few works examine the identity basis of this
change. Back.
Note 10: Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and
Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987), pp. 488-514. Valerie
Bunce predicted that the growing burden of the USSR's empire in Eastern Europe would force
21 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
the Soviet leadership to deregulate the bloc; see "The Empire Strikes Back: The
Transformation of the Eastern Bloc from a Soviet Asset to a Soviet Liability," International
Note 11: For a sophisticated form of the argument, see John Lewis Gaddis, "Hanging Tough
Paid Off," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 45 (January 1989): 11-14. Subscribers to the "Peace
Through Strength" thesis, mostly conservative analysts, credit the Reagan-era military buildup
(especially the threat posed by the Strategic Defense Initiative) and bellicose strategy with
forcing Moscow to adopt New Thinking and end the Cold War on Western terms. This account
mirrors the dominant explanation in Soviet policy circles for U.S. interest in a relaxation of
tensions in the late 1960s. Proponents of this interpretation of recent history contended that a
shift in the correlation of forces in favor of socialism, most significantly Moscow's attaining
strategic parity, compelled Washington to seek accommodation with its chief adversary. Back.
Note 12: See, for example, Coit Blacker, Hostage to Revolution: Gorbachev and Soviet
Security Policy, 1985-1991 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993), esp.
Introduction and ch. 5; and Stephen Meyer, "Sources and Prospects of Gorbachev's New
Political Thinking on Security," International Security 13, no. 2 (Fall 1988): 124-63. Back.
Note 13: Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, "Soviet Reform and the End of the Cold
War: Explaining Large-Scale Historical Change," Review of International Studies 17 (Summer
1991): 225-50. Specialists at imemo and iemss offered similar conclusions in classified reports
prepared throughout the 1970s. Some analysts also recognized the need to transfer resources
from military to civilian production. Back.
Note 14: For example, Peter Hall, The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism
Across Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); Kathryn Sikkink, Ideas and
Institutions: Developmentalism in Brazil and Argentina (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1993); and Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical
Framework," in Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy:
Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, pp. 3-30 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).
Back.
Note 15: Valerie Bunce, Do New Leaders Make a Difference? (Princeton: Princeton
Note 16: Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War." Back.
Note 17: The literature on perception, belief systems, constitutive processes, etc., as applied
to state behavior is enormous. I cite here only some of the works that I used for this study:
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes," International
Security 41, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 371-402; Ernst B. Haas, When Knowledge Is Power
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Emanuel Adler, "Cognitive Evolution: A
Dynamic Approach for the Study of International Relations and Their Progress," in Emanuel
Adler and Beverly Crawford, eds., Progress in Postwar International Relations (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1991); Philip Tetlock, "Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy:
In Search of an Elusive Concept," in George Breslauer and Philip Tetlock, eds., Learning in
U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy, pp. 20-61 (Boulder: Westview, 1991); Friedrich Kratochwil and
John Gerard Ruggie, "International Organization: A State of the Art on an Art of the State,"
International Organization 40, no. 4 (Autumn 1986): 753-75; and Alexander Wendt,
Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 391-425. The classic work on belief systems remains
Milton Rokeach, The Open and Closed Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1960). Back.
22 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
Note 18: See Ernest May, "Lessons" of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American
Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), and Robert Jervis, Perception and
Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976). Back.
Note 19: Domestically, the Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko regimes either ignored the
gathering crisis or instituted cosmetic reforms that would do little to address systemic
deficiencies. In foreign policy, contrary to the popular view that the U.S./West vanquished the
USSR, forcing it to pursue accommodation, these regimes responded to the West's
confrontational strategy with their own more bellicose posture. Strained relations also made it
extremely difficult for nascent New Thinkers to express their views, even in classified sources.
See Herman, "Ideas, Identity, and the Redefinition of Interests." Back.
Note 20: Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War." Back.
Note 21: Many power transition theories predict that declining hegemons will go to war to
preserve their international position. See Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Back.
Note 22: See Richard Ashley, "The Poverty of Neorealism," International Organization 38,
no. 2 (Spring 1984): 225-86; and Adler, "Cognitive Evolution." Back.
Note 23: My thanks to David Holloway for this insightful point. Back.
Note 24: This view of learning-induced policy change does not even meet the criteria of
"simple" or "tactical" learning in which decision makers devise more efficient strategies for
pursuing unchanged goals; see Nye, "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes."
Kenneth Oye offers a sophisticated realist argument that tries to show how the external
environment is endogenized and can be read as incorporating a cognitive dimension. He
contends that "international environmental characteristics--specifically the development of
nuclear weapons and the subsequent long central systemic peace--were a significant
permissive cause of the political and economic liberalization within the Soviet Union"
("Explaining the End of the Cold War: Morphological and Behavioral Adaptations to the
Nuclear Peace," in Lebow and Risse-Kappen, International Relations Theory and the End of
the Cold War, p. 58). Back.
Note 25: As Jeffrey W. Legro points out, neorealist theorists do acknowledge a role for
political socialization whereby states are brought into conformity with system norms, but their
emphasis is on punishment/reward for unacceptable/acceptable behavior, a process more
aptly described as simple adaptation; see "Strategy Under Anarchy" (draft paper for Norms
and National Security Workshop, Cornell University, February 1993). Back.
Note 26: Jeff Checkel, "Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution,"
World Politics 45 (January 1993): 271-300; Douglas Blum, "The Soviet Foreign Policy Belief
System: Beliefs, Politics, and Foreign Policy Outcomes," International Studies Quarterly 37
(1993); Allen Lynch, The Soviet Study of International Relations (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1987); and Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy. Back.
Note 27: Breslauer and Tetlock, Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy; Robert Legvold,
"Soviet Learning in the 1980s," in ibid.; Janice Gross Stein, "Political Learning by Doing:
Gorbachev As Uncommitted Thinker and Motivated Learner," International Organization 48,
no. 2 (Spring 1994): 155-84; and Nye, "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes."
Back.
Note 28: Alexander George, Philip Farley, and Alexander Dallin, eds., U.S.-Soviet Security
Cooperation: Achievements, Failures, Lessons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988);
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Nye, "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes," and Herman, "Ideas, Identity, and
the Redefinition of Interests." Also see Garthoff, The Great Transition. Back.
Note 29: Risse-Kappen, "Ideas Do Not Float Freely," and Evangelista, Taming the Bear.
Back.
Note 30: A strong case for the modernization explanation, focusing on the emergence of a
younger, more educated, and reform-minded generation, is Moshe Lewin, The Gorbachev
Phenomenon: An Historical Interpretation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
For a variant employing social coalition analysis, see Jack Snyder, "The Gorbachev Revolution:
A Waning of Soviet Expansionism?" International Security 12, no. 3 (Winter 1987/88): 93-131.
Back.
York: Columbia University Press, 1977). Back.
Note 32: Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Neorealism and Neoliberalism," World Politics 40, no. 2
(January 1988): 235-51; and Robert Keohane, "International Institutions: Two Approaches,"
International Studies Quarterly 32, no. 4 (December 1988): 379-96. While acknowledging
that the international realm is by definition anarchic, liberals reject the depiction of interstate
politics as a Hobbesian, self-help world. Back.
Note 33: Stephen Krasner, "Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes as Autonomous
Variables" in Stephen Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1983). Back.
Note 34: Nye, "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes." Back.
Note 35: This "detente-plus" strategy seems close to what at least some of Gorbachev's
Politburo selectors had in mind. See Yegor Ligachev, Inside Gorbachev's Kremlin (New York:
Random House, 1993); also author's interviews with Gorbachev advisers A. Yakovlev, G.
Shakhnazarov, V. Zagladin, A. Chernyaev, and others. Back.
Note 36: The strategic prescriptions advanced by New Thinkers incorporated both causal
ideas and principled beliefs, suggesting that the dichotomy proposed by Goldstein and
Keohane (Ideas and Foreign Policy) needs further refinement. I am grateful to Thomas Risse-
Kappen for calling this point to my attention. Back.
Note 37: On the constitutive effects of norms, see Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and
Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and
Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Back.
Note 38: As Philip Tetlock observes, there is not even agreement on the definition of the
term; see "Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy"; also see Jack Levy, "Learning and
Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield," International Organization 48, no. 2
(Spring 1994): 279-312. Back.
Note 39: Nye, "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes," and Legvold, "Soviet
Learning in the 1980s." Back.
Note 40: Haas, When Knowledge Is Power. According to Legvold ("Soviet Learning"),
change at the level of fundamental beliefs can occur either gradually through "exposure to
more testing instances," in which case a richer, more differentiated representation of reality
results from the accumulation of greater knowledge, or suddenly, when the schema with
which a person makes sense of the world crumbles under the onslaught of disconfirming
24 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
experiences. In either case, decision makers demonstrate increased "cognitive differentiation

and integration of thought and capacity for self-reflection." Also see Lloyd Etheredge, Can
Governments Learn? (New York: Pergamon Press, 1985). Back.
Note 41: I have deliberately eschewed the term epistemic communities because the networks
of reform-minded specialists examined here do not fit the decidedly technical
knowledge-based criteria employed by the concept's most prominent theoreticians, including
Peter M. Haas (ed., Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination, special issue,
International Organization 46, no. 1 [Winter 1992]). The Soviet networks overwhelmingly
comprised social scientists from different disciplines who shared a roughly common
worldview rather than common expertise. Identifiable subgroups also came to share certain
values commitments. Recent works on the USSR/Russia that employ some variant of specialist
communities in an attempt to link expert knowledge to policy outcomes include Evangelista,
Taming the Bear; Checkel, "Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy
Revolution"; Emanuel Adler, "The Emergence of Cooperation: National Epistemic
Communities and the International Evolution of the Idea of Nuclear Arms Control,"
International Organization 46, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 101-46; Sarah Mendelson, "Internal
Battles and External Wars: Politics, Learning, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan,"
World Politics 45, no. 3 (April 1993): 327-60; and Herman, "Ideas, Identity, and the
Redefinition of Interests." An example of a non-Soviet case in which specialists' shared values
are the motive force is Kathryn Sikkink, "Human Rights and Principled Issue-Networks,"
International Organization 47, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 411-41. Back.
Note 42: Proponents of constructivist approaches problematize the notion of structure; what
matters is not so much objective conditions but how actors understand them. For many
constructivists, this is largely a function of self-conception or identity, which in turn shapes
definitions of interests. State behavior becomes intelligible only by examining such collective
ideational phenomena; see Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It." Back.
Note 43: New Thinking can be viewed as an alternative ideology to Marxism-Leninism. For
the purposes of this study I define ideology as a coherent set of interrelated ideas containing
causal inferences about means-ends relationships, value judgments about those ends, and a
guide to action for attaining them. Two classic works on Soviet ideology are Robert C. Tucker,
The Soviet Political Mind (New York: Praeger, 1963) and Nathan Leites, A Study of
Bolshevism (New York: Free Press, 1953). Back.
Note 44: Ernst B. Haas, "Collective Learning: Some Theoretical Speculations," in Breslauer
and Tetlock, Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy, pp. 62-99; and Albert Bandura,
Social Learning Theory (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall, 1977). Back.
Note 45: In our interviews, liberal specialists cited discussions with colleagues, including
Western counterparts, as playing a crucial role in their intellectual evolution. Key decision
makers such as Gorbachev and Shevardnadze likewise credit formal and informal sessions
with these experts as influencing their thinking. Back.
Note 46: Checkel, "Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution,"
Mendelson, "Internal Battles and External Wars"; and Haas, When Knowledge Is . Back.
Note 47: Reflecting on the lessons of the Chernobyl disaster regarding Moscow's less-than-
forthcoming initial reports to the international community, by then former foreign minister
Shevardnadze wrote, "It tore the blindfold from our eyes and persuaded us that politics and
morals could not diverge. We had to gauge our politics constantly by moral criteria" (The
Future Belongs to Freedom [New York: Free Press, 1991], pp. 175-76). Back.
Note 48: This conclusion is based on my reading of Gorbachev's extensive writings and
25 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
speeches, a large secondary literature, and interviews with senior Gorbachev advisers such as
A. Yakovlev, A. Chernyaev, G. Shakhnazarov, and Ye. Velikhov. Back.
Note 49: The faint outlines of the idealist agenda were visible in statements from the April
1985 Central Committee plenum. They became more deeply etched in Gorbachev's report to
the Twenty-seventh Party Congress (February 1986) and even more so in his speech before the
Nineteenth All-Union Party Conference in the summer of 1988. Back.
Note 50: Gorbachev's much-heralded report to the Twenty-seventh Party Congress was far
from a New Thinking manifesto. While the speech contained some significant revisions in
Soviet thought, it also offered a generous dose of well-worn Marxist-Leninist polemics about
capitalism's inherent militarism and imperialistic tendencies. Back.
Note 51: Most notable was the struggle pitting civilian defense specialists and their
party/government allies against the military. The debate grew in intensity as the leadership
pursued more radical measures. See Blacker, Hostage to Revolution, esp. pp. 144-82;
Garthoff, Deterrence and the Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine; Michael McGwire,
Perestroika and Soviet National Security (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991);
Parrott, "Soviet National Security Under Gorbachev"; and articles in Timothy Colton and
Thane Gustafson, eds., Soldiers and the - Relations from Brezhnev to Gorbachev (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1990). The battle to define New Thinking was also a prominent
theme in many of the interviews that I conducted. On this point, also see two pseudo-
memoirs: G. Arbatov, The System, and E. Shevardnadze, The Future Belongs to Freedom.
Back.
Note 52: A number of Gorbachev's top advisers expressed to me that he came to power with
a fairly sophisticated grasp of broad foreign policy issues and was intent on demilitarizing
East-West relations. But he also retained vestiges of "old thinking" about the nature of
capitalism, which partly explains the cautious nature of early Soviet overtures compared to
later initiatives. Whether Gorbachev learned, and if so how, remains a matter of debate. See
Stein, "Political Learning by Doing." Back.
Note 53: Even liberal macrohistorical and domestic political explanations that accord a role
to ideas/beliefs tend to view them instrumentally. See Snyder, Myths of Empire; Deudney and
Ikenberry,"Soviet Reform and the End of the Cold War"; and Mendelson, "Internal Battles and
External Wars." Back.
Note 54: There is a parallel here to glasnost and democratization. Many commentators have
rightly pointed out the instrumental character of the democratic turn: reforms would create
pressure for change from below, bring the intelligentsia on board the perestroika bandwagon,
help to weaken a bureaucratic structure hostile to reform, and allow for richer debate to
correct past mistakes. On several occasions, the leadership spoke of democratic reforms as an
indispensable companion to perestroika. But it is also the case that for many reformers greater
individual freedom and steps toward some form of popular rule were goals in themselves, not
merely a means to aid perestroika. In-system liberals such as Fydor Burlatsky, Georgi
Shakhnazarov, Andrei Grachev, Vitaly Korotich, and others believed strongly in the need for a
multiparty system and the rule of law. For them the time had come for the USSR to join the
ranks of the democratic states (though not necessarily to emulate the capitalist economic
system of those states). Back.
Note 55: See William Zimmerman, Soviet Perspectives on International Relations,

1956-1967 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969); Lynch, The Soviet Study of
International Relations; Franklyn Griffiths, "Image, Politics, and Learning in Soviet Behavior
Towards the United States" (Ph.D diss., Columbia University, 1972); Checkel, "Ideas,
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Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution"; Lewin, The Gorbachev
Phenomenon; and Robert English, "Russia Views the West: The Intellectual and Political
Origins of Soviet New Thinking" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1995). Back.
Note 56: One of the most influential of the early liberal specialist networks was the group of
consultants assembled around then Central Committee secretary Yuri Andropov in the early to
mid-1960s. The members were Fydor Burlatsky, Georgi Shakhnazarov, Georgi Arbatov, Oleg
Bogomolov, Aleksandr Bovin, and Gennadi Gerasimov. Remarkably, all went on to play
important roles in the New Thinking drama. Back.
Note 57: Nikolai Lebedev, "The Struggle of the USSR for the Restructuring of International
Relations," Mezhdunarodnaia zhizn' 12 (December 1975); and V. Kortunov, "The Relaxation
of Tensions and the Struggle of Ideas in Contemporary International Relations," Voprosy
istorii KPSS 10 (October 1975). Both are cited in Raymond Garthoff, Detente and
Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution, 1994), pp. 64 and 49, respectively. Back.
Note 58: Nor is it surprising. The purveyors of these ideas in those two time periods were
often the same people. See V. Petrovsky, "The Struggle of the USSR for Detente in the
Seventies," Novaya i noveiyshaya istoriya 1 (January/February 1981); and D. Tomashevsky,
"Na puti k korennoi perestroike mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii" [Toward a radical
restructuring of international relations], MEiMO 1 (January 1975): 3-13. Back.
Note 59: See George, Farley, and Dallin, U.S.-Soviet Security Cooperation; Garthoff, Detente
and Confrontation; Nye, "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes"; Harald
M�ller, "The Internalization of Principles, Norms, and Rules by Governments: The Case of
Security Regimes," in Volker Rittberger, ed., Regime Theory and International Relations, pp.
361-88 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1993); and Genreikh Trofimenko,
"sssr-ssha: Mirnoe sosushchestvovanie kak norma vzaimootnoshenii" [USSR-usa: Peaceful
coexistence as a norm of mutual relations], SShA 2 (February 1974): 3-17. Back.
Note 60: Despite the failure to grasp these implications, a strong case can still be made that
the abm Treaty, by codifying mutual vulnerability, helped to turn the practice of non-use of
nuclear weapons into an international norm on which New Thinkers would later build. The
first part of the argument is put forward by Nina Tannenwald, "Dogs That Don't Bark: The
United States, the Role of Norms, and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945" (Ph.D.
diss., Cornell University, 1995). Back.
Note 61: This was first done in Gorbachev's January 1986 proposal to eliminate all nuclear
weapons by the year 2000. The text of the plan appeared in International Affairs 3 (March
1986). Back.
Note 62: On changes in Soviet Third World policy, see Valkenier, "New Thinking About the
Third World"; Jerry Hough, The Struggle for the Third World: Soviet Debates and American
Options (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1986); and Mark Katz, Gorbachev's
Military Policy in the Third World (New York: Praeger, 1989). Back.
Note 63: One of the best treatments of the demise of the bpa and of detente in general is
Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation. Also see Harry Gelman, The Brezhnev Politburo and the
Decline of Detente (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984). Back.
Note 64: New Thinkers were not suggesting that the U.S. had lived up to its commitments
under the bpa. However, Georgi Arbatov and other liberal Americanists did point out that
important segments of the U.S. foreign policy establishment had opposed the war in Vietnam
and were taking steps to prevent such imperialist interventions in the future (e.g., the War
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Powers Act). This, they argued, would render superpower military involvement in the
periphery anachronistic. Back.
Note 65: Among the most forceful proponents of this view was Aleksei Arbatov, head of
imemo's arms control and disarmament section. This analysis of the failure of detente was
shared by a number of younger specialists then at iskan, among them Andrei Kortunov and
Sergei Karaganov. One of their more interesting conclusions was a retrospective appreciation
of the Carter administration's early efforts to push beyond the modest rapprochement of the
early 1970s, most notably in the area of nuclear arms control and resolving Third World
conflicts. Back.
Note 66: I am grateful to Daniel Thomas for his comments on the role of the Helsinki
Accords and the csce process more generally with respect to the birth and/or strengthening of
human rights movements throughout the communist bloc. How ironic that an agreement
designed to stabilize Europe by codifying postwar arrangements would contribute to the
collapse of communist power and the birth of democratic successor states. It did so by
empowering small groups of human rights campaigners whose activities helped to erode the
legitimacy of the various regimes. Back.
Note 67: This is the composite picture to emerge from numerous interviews with Soviet
reformers. Without trying to portray themselves as having always been secretly in agreement
with Sakharov and other regime opponents, several liberal specialists recounted how the
dissidents' very visible activities speeded their own recognition that repression and denial of
individual rights remained endemic to the Soviet system. The ambivalence that many
in-system reformers felt toward the dissidents is apparent in Georgi Arbatov's memoir, The
System. Back.
Note 68: The two policy decisions that drew the most fire were the intervention in
Afghanistan and the reflexive modernization of medium-range nuclear missiles targeted on
Western Europe--the SS-20 debacle. Critics were still circumspect in expressing their views,
but there is little question that these two actions were regarded by most foreign policy
reformers as egregious mistakes and, more important, as symptomatic of the flawed
assumptions on which the USSR's overall international strategy rested. Oleg Bogomolov,
director of the Institute of Economics of the World Socialist System, circulated one of the few
pointed attacks; see "Afghanistan As Seen in 1980," Moscow News 30, July 30-August 6, 1988.
Back.
Note 69: Checkel, "Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution."
Among the relevant articles appearing in the institute's journal were Oleg Bikov, "Leninskaya
politika mira i yeyo voploshcheniye v deyatel'nosti kpss" [Lenin's peace policy and its
implementation in the activities of the cpsu], MEiMO 3 (March 1984); and V. Lukov and D.
Tomashevsky, "Interesy chelovechestva i mirovaya politika" [Human interests and world
politics], MEiMO 4 (April 1985). Back.
Note 70: Evangelista, Taming the Bear, and Risse-Kappen, "Ideas Do Not Float Freely."
Back.
Note 71: The commission's final report was published under the title Common Security: A
Blueprint for Survival (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982). Back.
Note 72: Author's interview with Arbatov and several iskan analysts. Back.
Note 73: iskan defense specialists such as Andrei Kokoshin, Valentin Larionov, Andrei
Kortunov, and Sergei Karaganov turned out increasingly ambitious proposals for reducing and
restructuring Soviet nuclear and conventional forces. Their contributions and those of other
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pro-reform specialists to New Thinking were cited by Anatoly Dobrynin, the longtime
ambassador to the United States, appointed by Gorbachev to head the Central Committee
International Department. "For a Nuclear-Free World As We Approach the Twenty-first
Century," Kommunist 9 (June 1986). Also see Pat Litherland, "Gorbachev and Arms Control:
Civilian Experts and Soviet Policy," Peace Research Report 12, University of Bradford (uk),
November 1986. Back.
Note 74: The Soviet ambassador to Copenhagen in the mid-1980s, Lev Mendelevich, took an
active interest in Boserup's work. After Mendelevich was appointed head of the Foreign
Ministry's Evaluation and Planning Directorate, he brought to bear some of the scientist's
ideas. According to my interviews with former high-ranking Foreign Ministry officials Georgi
Kornienko and Viktor Komplektov, a few months before Gorbachev's historic December 1988
un speech announcing unilateral force cuts and modest restructuring, Boserup was brought in
to meet with senior staffers to discuss issues related to nonprovocative defense. On the
contribution of Pugwash to East-West relations in this period, see Joseph Rotblat and V. I.
Goldanskii, eds., Global Problems and Common Security: Annals of Pugwash 1988 (Berlin:
Springer-Verlag, 1989). Back.
Note 75: Author's interview. Velikhov chaired the Committee of Soviet Scientists for Peace,
Against the Nuclear Threat, which lobbied the regime not to match the U.S. sdi program but to
rely on cheaper, less-destabilizing countermeasures. Velikhov willingly credits discussions
with Western counterparts, particularly the members of the American Academy of Sciences
arms control working group (sisac) for imparting knowledge on the finer points of nuclear
strategy and persuading him on the wisdom of the superpowers' adopting a minimum
deterrent posture and banning nuclear tests. Back.
Note 76: On the diffusion of Western values to Russia/USSR, see Frederick Starr, "The
Changing Nature of Change in the USSR," in Seweryn Bialer and Michael Mandelbaum, eds.,
Gorbachev's Russia and American Foreign Policy, pp. 3-35 (Boulder: Westview, 1988). Back.
Note 77: Author's interviews with liberal institutchiki, particularly those who had spent time
in the West when in their twenties. Back.
Note 78: This progression is admittedly difficult to track because fledgling democrats in the
policy establishment were not prepared to jeopardize their positions by openly attacking the
foundations of the Soviet political system. Still, among the ranks of the reformers was a
smaller group whom, I later learned through extensive interviewing, colleagues credited with
having held Western-oriented views regarding a multiparty system, individual rights, an
independent judiciary, etc. There was no definitive consensus, but prominent names most
frequently mentioned included Georgi Shakhnazarov, Vitaly Korotich, Fydor Burlatsky,
Aleksandr Bovin, and Andrei Grachev. Back.
Note 79: This was one of my most definitive findings, based on interviews with Soviet
scholars, party and government officials, journalists, etc. Back.
Note 80: Shevardnadze was one of the first to give public voice to this position (and then
only after three years as foreign minister) with his extraordinary admission that the USSR had
"violated the norms of proper behavior." Some specialists (e.g., Vladimir Lukin, Aleksandr
Bovin) had made similar arguments years earlier at the time of the Warsaw Pact's intervention
in Czechoslovakia to crush the reformist regime of Alexander Dubcek. A number of
zapiski written during the 1970s, mostly by experts at iemss, indirectly attacked the so-called
Brezhnev Doctrine. Also see Bogomolov, "Afghanistan as Seen in 1980." Back.
Note 81: The Institute of Economics of the World Socialist System (iemss) worked diligently
in zapiski and in conversations between director Bogomolov and key decision makers,
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including kgb chief Andropov, to persuade the Soviet leadership that the political crisis
accompanying the rise of Solidarity could be resolved without resort to force. Secret reports
prepared by institute experts emphasized the popular support enjoyed by the illegal labor
union and also pointed out, using carefully crafted language, that armed intervention would
do irreparable harm to East-West relations. Analyst Yevgeny Ambartsumov went further still,
arguing that the Polish crisis was rooted in contradictions inherent in socialism and was not a
product of imperialist subversion as the Kremlin claimed--a stand for which he was punished
by the authorities. Back.
Note 82: A similar but less starkly moral argument was advanced by Yakovlev. A staunch
opponent of the invasion, he felt strongly that the withdrawal of Soviet troops from
Afghanistan was the linchpin of any possible shift in East-West relations because the
intervention seemed to corroborate the West's basest fears about Soviet intentions. According
to colleagues, Georgi Arbatov made a similar case in suggesting that such armed intervention
by the great powers had become anachronistic, citing the popular and elite-level backlash
against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. This line of reasoning flowed from an earlier book in
which he contended that in the age of nuclear deterrence armed force was of diminishing
utility: Ideologicheskaya bor'ba v sovremennykh mezhdunarodnykh otnosheni-yakh [The
ideological struggle in contemporary international relations] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1970).
Back.
Note 83: The phrase is Vladimir Petrovsky's, but it accurately expressed the view of the vast
majority of the reformers I interviewed. Back.
Note 84: There is a caveat. Among the reformers were those I've termed "economic
modernizers," who sought technocratic solutions to the Soviet Union's problems and were
either agnostic about or hostile to corresponding political reforms. Two members of this
school of thought were Nikolai Ogarkov and Sergei Akhromeyev, successive heads of the
military's general staff. They reasoned that without structural changes in the economy the
USSR would be unable to compete militarily with the technologically advanced capitalist
powers in the coming decades. Like-minded commentators praised the path taken by China
and South Korea, authoritarian states that had enjoyed stunning rates of growth in harnessing
the scientific-technological revolution. For the most part, Soviet economic modernizers
envisaged the state as continuing to play the dominant role in economic reconstruction,
thereby putting them at odds with proponents of greater decentralization of decision-making
authority closer to Western capitalist models. Back.
Note 85: The hardest blow came with Yuri Andropov. A pragmatic conservative whose
long-standing contact with liberal reformers and early admission of serious domestic and
foreign policy problems gave rise to expectations for meaningful change, he proved incapable
of seeing that the causes of the Soviet Union's predicament were systemic. Back.
Note 86: "To Build Up the Intellectual Potential of Restructuring," Pravda, January 7, 1989;
and FBIS-SOV, January 9, 1989, pp. 52-64. Back.
Note 87: Personal interviews with Yakovlev, Chernyaev, G. Arbatov, Bogomolov,

Shakhnazarov, Oleg Grinevsky, Zagladin, and others. Back.
Note 88: Translating ambitious ideas into concrete policy would take time. The new
leadership first had to consolidate its position, which it did beginning with an enormous
turnover of personnel at the upper echelons of the party and state apparat. See Thane
Gustafson and Dawn Mann, "Gorbachev's First Year: Building Power and Authority," Problems
of Communism 35, no. 3 (May/June 1986): 1-19; Jerry Hough, "Gorbachev Consolidating
Power," Problems of Communism 36, no. 4 (July/August 1987): 21-43; and Parrott, "Soviet
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National Security Under Gorbachev." Back.
Note 89: The West's initial response to Gorbachev's New Thinking was far from uniform. It
ranged from outright dismissal by Reagan administration hawks to varying degrees of
enthusiasm in the German elite, including some in the conservative Kohl government; see
Risse-Kappen, "Ideas Do Not Float Freely." Back.
Note 90: The West was quick to dismiss both steps as propaganda gambits rather than good
faith overtures. In the case of the unilateral halt to nuclear testing, nato governments did not
appreciate the political capital expended by Gorbachev to override the intense objections of
the military establishment. Accounts of the military's opposition are based on interviews with
officials who participated in high-level policy meetings, including Yevgeny Velikhov, Oleg
Grinevsky, and Aleksandr Yakovlev. Back.
Note 91: Author's interview. Gorbachev's personal foreign policy adviser, Anatoly Chernyaev,
similarly stressed to me the significance of the "moral dimensions" of the revolution in Soviet
international policy, citing both the desire to eradicate nuclear weapons and the commitment
to forgo armed force in favor of negotiated agreements in Eastern Europe and in the
developing world. Back.
Note 92: For an account of the summit proceedings, including the controversy over this
elusive disarmament agreement, see Don Oberdorfer, The Turn: From Cold War to a New
Era, 1983-1990: The United States and the Soviet Union (New York: Poseidon, 1991). Back.
Note 93: "Central Committee of the cpsu Political Report to the Twenty-seventh Party
Congress," Kommunist 5 (March 1986). According to interviews with participants in the
drafting sessions and related discussions, including A. Yakovlev, G. Arbatov, V. Zagladin, and
A. Grachev, there was intense infighting over the portions of the report dealing with foreign
and military policy. One of the major battles concerned the war in Afghanistan. A preliminary
draft contained an explicit call for the withdrawal of Soviet troops, but the final version was
watered down considerably. Back.
Note 94: While the document did not abandon the notion of rivalry between the two social
systems, it did transcend the USSR's signature zero-sum view of international politics,
summed up in the perennial Russian question "kto - kogo?" or Who prevails over whom?
Similarly, in discussing economic interdependence, "global problems affecting all of
humanity," and the primacy of nonclass values, the Gorbachev team was unceremoniously
jettisoning Marxism-Leninism's Manichaean worldview, which had structured Soviet thinking
since the Bolshevik Revolution. The USSR was casting aside its historically self-regarding view
of the world in affirming a global commonality of interests. One measure of the Kremlin's
earnestness was the alacrity with which it moved to bolster the effectiveness of international
institutions, most prominently the United Nations, by deepening multilateral cooperation.
Back.
Note 95: Garthoff, Deterrence and the Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine, esp. pp. 101-8.
In May 1987 at a meeting of Warsaw Pact defense ministers, it was announced that defensive
operations would henceforth be the primary means to repel aggression. They also proposed
that the two blocs reduce their forces to levels that would preclude the capability to mount
offensive operations; see "On the Military Doctrine of the Member States of the Warsaw Pact,"
Pravda, May 30, 1987. Back.
Note 96: Contrary to civilian experts' conception of New Thinking, in which the USSR would
escape the parity trap by restructuring its forces based on the notion of sufficiency, Defense
Minister Dmitri Yazov held fast to the view that "military strategic parity remains the decisive
factor in preventing war at the present time." Yazov amplified on his views in Na strazhe
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sotsializma i mira [On guard for socialism and peace] (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1987). Back.
Note 97: Following the near-momentous meeting in Reykjavik, a group of experts met with
Gorbachev to persuade him to seek a separate deal on inf. Meanwhile, institute specialists
wrote a number of zapiski urging the Soviet leader to take the lead to alter the course of
East-West relations. One, which was prepared by iemss and, Yakovlev confirmed, discussed by
members of the Politburo ("Thoughts on the Agenda of the Upcoming Session of the Political
Consultative Commission of the Warsaw Pact," March 2, 1987), outlined with unusual
bluntness the need for the USSR to dismantle the Soviet threat to Western Europe through
unilateral and negotiated reductions in military forces and the adoption of a strictly defensive
posture. Back.
Note 98: M. S. Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World
(New York: Harper and Row, 1987), p. 153. Back.
Note 99: Soviet support for intrusive on-site inspections was first evidenced in the 1986
Stockholm Agreement of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Gorbachev
was eager to demonstrate Moscow's greater openness for two reasons. First, he and his civilian
advisers knew that excessive secrecy had been extremely counterproductive, since it lent
credence to Western hawks' assessments of Soviet intentions. As Foreign Minister
Shevardnadze observed, comprehensive verification measures were vital to promote trust and
"a norm of political reliability."
Second, they believed that openness was a hallmark of democratic systems and a practice that
the "new" Soviet Union should emulate. My thanks to Ann Florini for her comments on
emerging norms of transparency in international arms control. Back.
Note 100: Soviet moderates were not necessarily opposed to the inf Treaty. Most were firmly
supportive of efforts to control the arms race. However, they distrusted the Reagan
administration and were concerned about establishing a precedent of asymmetrical reductions
in Soviet forces; author's interviews with high-ranking Foreign Ministry officials Georgi
Kornienko, Viktor Komplektov, Mikhail Zamyatin, and others. Back.
Note 101: Gorbachev's speech on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the October
Revolution provided further stimulus in signaling a more permissive attitude on the part of
the leadership toward critical, public examination of foreign policy issues past and present;
"October and Restructuring: The Revolution Goes On," Kommunist 17 (December 1987),
speech delivered at a special joint session of the Central Committee and Supreme Soviet,
November 2, 1987. Back.
Note 102: In the spring of 1988, Aleksei Arbatov, the imemo defense analyst who by virtue of
director Yevgeny Primakov's close relationship with Gorbachev and his own links to the
Foreign Ministry had lines to top decision makers, published a comprehensive two-part article
in the institute's journal ("Deep Reductions in Strategic Arms," MEiMO 4 and 5 [April and
May 1988]; reprinted in Steve Hirsch, ed., MEiMO: New Soviet Voices on Foreign and
Economic Policy, pp. 435-52 and 453-70 [Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs,
1989]). Arbatov outlined deep cuts in superpower nuclear arsenals and implicitly argued for
greater flexibility by Moscow in ongoing negotiations. A few months later, Arbatov upped the
ante. He directly contradicted the military and challenged the political leadership in arguing
that reasonable sufficiency did not mean the USSR should endeavor to preserve nuclear
parity. Contending that the West was pursuing a competitive strategy of embroiling the Soviet
Union in a resource-depleting arms race, Arbatov insisted that the USSR should "proceed on
the principle of reasonable sufficiency and drop out of the West-imposed race for parity"
("Parity and Reasonable Sufficiency," International Affairs 10 [October 1988]: 75-86. A
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number of specialists offered parallel prescriptions for conventional forces. Among the most
influential was Andrei Kokoshin; see A. Kokoshin and V. Larionov, "The Confrontation of
Conventional Forces in the Context of Ensuring Strategic Stability," MEiMO 6 (June 1988):
23-30. Back.
Note 103: Blacker, Hostage to Revolution, p. 80. Back.
Note 104: Foremost among the relevant books and reports was the classified Zvezda project
on which progressive specialists from iskan, imemo, and iemss collaborated with colleagues
from the respective Academy of Sciences institutes of the various Warsaw Pact nations. The
comprehensive report consisted of five volumes issued over several years, beginning in the
mid-1970s. Back.
Note 105: Author's interviews with Yakovlev, Shakhnazarov, Zagladin, Bogomolov, and
Chernyaev. Back.
Note 106: See Valerie Bunce, "Soviet Decline as a Regional Hegemon: Gorbachev and
Eastern Europe," Eastern European Politics and Societies 3 (Spring 1989): 235-67. Back.
Note 107: Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, iemss analysts were touting reform
experiments in Eastern Europe, most notably in Hungary, whose leader, Janos Kadar, was a
personal friend of institute director Bogomolov. In secret zapiski and classified reports,
including the comprehensive Zvezda project series, iemss pushed for greater autonomy for the
Warsaw Pact allies. One of the most radical specialists was Vyacheslav Dashichev, who by
1987-1988 was advocating an end to Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe and later was among
the first commentators to call for the reunified German state to be integrated into nato. Back.
Note 108: This was the general vision held out in most of the entries in the Zvezda project
series, particularly numbers II, "Countries of the Socialist Commonwealth and the
Restructuring of International Relations" (1979), and IV, "Concrete Problems in the Policies of
Countries of the Socialist Commonwealth in Relations with Developed Capitalist States in the
1980s" (1984). Back.
Note 109: Michel Tatu, "The Nineteenth Party Conference," Problems of Communism 37
(May/August 1988): 1-15; and "Resolutions of the Nineteenth All-Union cpsu Conference,"
Kommunist 10 (July 1988). Back.
Note 110: This extraordinary conference witnessed some of the most candid attacks yet on
Soviet international policy, past and present. It began with Shevardnadze's keynote address, in
which he all but disowned the Brezhnev Doctrine and called for a constitutional mechanism
providing for the use of force outside Soviet borders. For Shevardnadze's speech and excerpts
from conference proceedings, see "Scientific and Practical Conference at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs," International Affairs 10 (October 1988): 3-35. Back.
Note 111: After the Gorbachev regime's modest first phase of reform, roughly April 1985 to
late 1987, failed to produce the anticipated turnaround in the economy or in relations with the
West, Gorbachev and his allies pushed through a more radical program. The plan was
approved at the Nineteenth All-Union Party Conference in June 1988. On the undulations in
the reform process, see Anders Aslund, Gorbachev's Struggle for Economic Reform (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1989, 1991); and Richard Sakwa, Gorbachev and His Reforms,
1985-1990 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1991). Back.
Note 112: The announcement of unilateral force reductions in support of a defensive military
posture was only one element of the Soviet leader's sweeping exposition of the idealist variant
of New Thinking. Speaking passionately about the need to humanize and de-ideologize
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international relations, Gorbachev said, "Our idea is a world community of states based on the
rule of law which also make their foreign policy activity subordinate to the law." He went on to
discuss the "revolutionary transformation" under way in the USSR in which "under the badge
of democratization, restructuring has now encompassed politics, the economy, spiritual life,
and ideology" (M. S. Gorbachev's speech at the un Organization, Pravda, December 8, 1988).
Here was the head of the world's first socialist state and frequent pariah telling the
international community that the Soviet Union was reinventing itself based on the principles
and ideals that had provided the original inspiration for the un. Gorbachev advisers Yakovlev,
Shakhnazarov, Chernyaev, and especially Petrovsky vigorously conveyed to me this last point.
Back.
Note 113: Kremlin actions included pressure on Polish Communist Party bosses to cooperate
in the transfer of power to a new non-communist-led government headed by Solidarity
intellectual Tadeusz Mazowiecki; preapproval of Hungary's decision to open its borders with
Austria, allowing thousands of East German "tourists" to flee; and Gorbachev personally
urging Eric Honecker's beleaguered successor, Egon Krenz, to open up the gdr's borders. See
Ronald Asmus, J. F. Brown, and Keith Crane, Soviet Foreign Policy and the Revolutions of
1989 in Eastern Europe (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 1991). Back.
Note 114: Government spokesperson Gennadi Gerasimov half-jokingly hailed the arrival of
the "Sinatra Doctrine," in which Warsaw Pact states were free to do things their own way.
Back.
Note 115: The term and the complementary analysis belong to Coit Blacker, Hostage to .
Back.
Note 116: While Gorbachev and Shevardnadze felt strongly that the Bush administration was
not moving fast enough to consummate a prospective post-Cold War partnership, they did not
see U.S./nato as the fierce threat they had previously. Specifically regarding the issue of the
West and turmoil in Eastern Europe, Bush's efforts to reassure Moscow that the U.S. would do
nothing to exploit the USSR's potential vulnerability were another factor in the Soviet decision
to permit the collapse of its security buffer. On the role of U.S. reassurance, see Michael
Beschloss and Strobe Talbott, At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold
War (New York: Little, Brown, 1993). Back.
Note 117: It is beyond the scope of this paper, but a parallel argument about Soviet identity
and rejection of force in Eastern Europe could be made concerning the dissolution of the
USSR itself. The decision not to use force to keep the Soviet Union together in the aftermath of
the failed coup in August 1991 went to the core of the Gorbachev cohort's conception of self
and of the nation. As Shevardnadze explained to his American counterpart, James Baker,
following the first explosion of separatist-related unrest (April 1989 in Tbilisi): "If we were to
use force then it would be the end of perestroika. We would have failed. It would be the end of
any hope for the future, the end of everything we're trying to do, which is to create a new
system based on humane values. If force is used, it will mean that the enemies of perestroika
have triumphed. We would be no better than the people who came before us. We cannot go
back" (cited in Beschloss and Talbott, At the Highest Levels, p. 96). Back.
Note 118: Writing in the journal International Affairs, Andrei Kolosovsky, then an assistant
deputy minister for foreign affairs, eloquently drew the connection between shared values and
security: "Much is being said today about the affirmation of the priority of universal values in
world politics as one of the ways to build a secure world. For us, this slogan means we are
stating our readiness to accept anew the values of European civilization, many of which we
vigorously rejected over the past seventy years, alluding to class interests. . . . Discarding
democratic traditions and norms of morality developed in the depths of Western civilization
34 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
over centuries led to a lag in development and had serious consequences for people's lives and
freedom" ("Risk Zones in the Third World," International Affairs 8 [August 1989]: 39-49).
Back.
Note 119: Shevardnadze put it this way: "Universal security cannot be dependably
safeguarded as long as nations reject common humanist values and common respect for
human rights." Back.
Note 120: The need to transform the East-West relationship from one of cooperative-
competitive coexistence to partnership (i.e., detente to entente) was a core tenet of the idealist
perspective. See Shevardnadze, The Future Belongs to Freedom, and assorted articles by
Soviet authors in a Soviet-American collaborative volume sponsored by the Beyond War
Foundation: Anatoly Gromyko and Martin Hellman, eds., Breakthrough: Emerging New
Thinking (New York: Walker, 1988). Back.
Note 121: The Western orientation of the Gorbachev cohort is a major reason that the
so-called Chinese model was rejected for the Soviet Union, even though it appeared to hold
great promise for making the transition from a centrally planned economy to a free-market
one. They were committed to political reform, which they judged to be incompatible with the
Chinese path, particularly after the massacre in Tiananmen Square--shortly after Gorbachev's
visit to Beijing brought cheers of "Gorby, Gorby" from pro-democracy students. Repudiation of
the Chinese model was tied to the question of Soviet identity in another way that had little to
do with principles and values. In the eyes of the Soviet leadership, the USSR was a superpower
and an advanced industrial state that should look to its equal-stature Western competitor for
useful techniques and practices rather than to a great power wanna-be like China. Back.
Note 122: Glimpses into these personal, intellectual, and philosophical journeys can be seen
in Stephen F. Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel, Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with
Gorbachev's Reformers (New York: Norton, 1989). My argument also draws heavily on my
own extensive interviews. Back.
Note 123: "Shevardnadze Addresses the Foreign Ministry," FBIS-SOV, April 26, 1990, cited
in Oberdorfer, The Turn, p. 438. Back.
Note 124: Craig Nation presents a similar view in Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet
Security Policy, 1917-1991 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 323-24. Back.
Note 125: Few radical reformers anticipated that ending the Cold War and altering the basic
shape of world politics would prove far easier than transforming the Soviet Union. Back.
Note 126: The cold reception accorded the Asian model by the Gorbachev leadership raises
the important but frequently neglected question of why certain ideas lose. For realists, the
defeat of the Asian option would be attributed to its projected failure to advance the material
interests of influential segments of the political establishment. This is an unconvincing
explanation because the statist paths pursued with such encouraging results by several
developing countries in Asia would seem to hold considerable attraction for a Soviet
leadership committed to economic reconstruction but still uneasy about scrapping the central
planning apparatus. The ideas and identity framework suggests that whether an idea generates
a politically consequential constituency depends on more than the material concerns of its
addressing actors. As stated elsewhere in this paper, the Chinese or East Asian model lost in
Soviet debates largely because key elements of the Gorbachev regime viewed it--perhaps
erroneously--as incompatible with democratic political reform, particularly in the wake of the
Chinese government's brutal crackdown on the democracy movement. In short, the values
content of ideas can matter enormously in the competition for supremacy. Back.
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Note 127: See James Billington, The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian
Culture (New York: Knopf, 1966). Back.
Note 128: Refinements in the Slavophile-Westernizer typology have been numerous. One
that seems particularly relevant today centers on a third general perspective that some have
termed Eurasianist. Proponents see the country's geographical location as a compelling
metaphor for Russia, and they advocate borrowing from East and West to form a unique
hybrid. See S. Neil MacFarlane, "Russia, the West, and European Security," Survival 35, no. 3
(Autumn 1993): 3-25. Back.
Note 129: See Aleksei Arbatov, "Russia's Foreign Policy Alternatives," International
Security 18, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 5-43. Back.
Note 130: See Sergei Stankevich, "Russia in Search of Itself," National Interest 28 (Summer
1992): 47-51; and MacFarlane, "Russia, the West, and European Security." Back.
Note 131: Western policy makers did not appreciate the fact of divisions within the New
Thinker camp. Interviews conducted by the author beginning in 1990 revealed growing
anti-idealist sentiment among foreign policy moderates. One of the most outspoken of these
commentators has been former iemss analyst and former chairman of the Congress of Peoples
Deputies Foreign Affairs Committee Yevgeny Ambartsumov, who has written widely on the
need for a less pro-Western policy orientation. Back.
Note 132: David Remnick's Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire (New York:
Random House, 1993) contains interviews with critics of the accommodationist line pursued
by Gorbachev and then Yeltsin. Back.
Note 133: A recent work on Russian policy toward some of the newly independent states is
Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott, Russia and the New States of Eurasia: The Politics of
Upheaval (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Back.
Note 134: Just as New Thinking was not the inevitable outcome of Soviet decline, those who
see a nationalist turn in Russian foreign policy as a foregone conclusion misjudge the degree of
support for such a shift. While there exists in Russia a widely shared sense of dismay and
resentment regarding the country's diminished role and influence in international affairs,
there is no popular groundswell in favor of an aggressive anti-Western or expansionist
strategy. For instance, surveys show that citizens want Russia to maintain a firm hand in
dealing with the new independent states (especially over the treatment of ethnic Russians) but
have little interest in reconstituting the Soviet Union. Surveys also reveal that whatever
Russians' disappointment or anger toward the West (e.g., over the failure of assistance to
prevent tumbling living standards), relatively few view the West as a threat. The situation is
not dissimilar in the domestic sphere, where the common wisdom has Russians ready to give
up political freedoms for the security of the old days. Yet despite the hardships associated with
the transition to a market economy that have given rise to a nostalgia for the certainties of the
past, they do not seek a return to the Stalinist system that produced those certainties. Back.
36 de 36 05/08/2010 19:38
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9. Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany and Japan
Thomas U. Berger
For nearly half a century Germany and Japan have pursued remarkably consistent national
security policies that deemphasize military instruments as a means of achieving national
objectives. They have continued to adhere to these policies despite dramatic changes in their
security environments and steady growth in their relative power. Since the 1950s many
outside analysts have predicted that these two nations will inevitably assume a larger defense
and national security role. Yet, contrary to these predictions, not only have Germany and
Japan failed to assume a more independent defense posture, but they have also been slow to
assume a larger security role within the context of multilateral institutions, such as the un,
nato, or the more limited bilateral context of the U.S.-Japanese Security Treaty.
This behavior is anomalous from the perspective of neorealism and neoliberalism, which see
state behavior as being driven by the rational responses of state actors to pressures emanating
from their international environments. While these two schools differ in the way they specify
international structure, both perspectives would predict greater German and Japanese
responsiveness to the changes in the international system than has in fact occurred. Instead of
increasing their political-military power, as neorealist perspectives suggest they would,
Germany and Japan have done precisely the opposite. Although it may be argued that the two
nations have developed formidable military establishments, their ability to act independently
of their allies has been sharply circumscribed by the types of weapon systems that they have
acquired, by the kinds of missions that their forces train for, and by various institutional
limitations placed on their armed forces. Despite demands periodically placed upon them by
the United States and other allies, Germany and Japan have resisted pressures to expand their
global military roles. This aversion to acting more independently might at first seem to be
consistent with the predictions of neoliberalism. But Germany's and Japan's timidity in
assuming greater military responsibilities within the framework of international institutions
opens them up to the charge of free riding and threatens to undermine the very security
regimes upon which they have come to depend.
This essay will argue that an adequate explanation of German and Japanese antimilitarism
requires us to look beyond international structures and examine the domestic cultural-
institutional context in which defense policy is made. The central thesis is that Germany and
Japan, as a result of their historical experiences and the way in which those experiences were
interpreted by domestic political actors, have developed beliefs and values that make them
peculiarly reluctant to resort to the use of military force. During the immediate postwar period
of 1945 to 1960, these beliefs and values became institutionalized in the German and Japanese
political systems in various ways, both formal and informal, and are now integral parts of their
countries' post-1945 national identities. Together they constitute unique political-military
cultures that lead Germany and Japan to choose certain responses to their respective
international environments, responses that might differ from those of other states in identical
situations. Although the end of the Cold War has fundamentally transformed the two nations'
security environments, their approaches to national security have changed only minimally.
While some further evolution is likely, the pace of change is glacial and the direction in which
1 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
they are likely to evolve cannot be deduced from objective, external factors alone. Rapid
changes in Germany's and Japan's cultures of antimilitarism are likely only if they are
challenged by a major external shock--for instance, a direct military attack on German or
Japanese population centers or a collapse of their alliances with the United States and the
West combined with the emergence of new security threats.
The argument will be structured as follows: After examining the short comings of purely
structural approaches to explaining German and Japanese antimilitarism, I shall briefly
explicate my use of the concept of political-military culture. I shall then examine first the
development of these two cultures in the immediate postwar period and subsequently during
the Cold War. Finally, I will examine the persistence of these two cultures of antimilitarism
since 1989.
The purpose of this exercise is not to "disprove" structural approaches to analyzing state
behavior. Unlike much of the literature on strategic culture, this essay will underline how
noncultural factors can, under certain circumstances, shape the evolution of culture. At the
same time, however, cultural forces have a significant impact on how states respond to the
structural conditions (the distribution of economic and military power, the density of
international institutions) under which they operate. While the relationship between culture
and structure may be dialectical, without factoring in cultural and ideological variables we
cannot achieve an adequate understanding of foreign outcomes or even make the most
guarded predictions about future state behavior.
Deficiencies of Structural Accounts

The development of postwar German and Japanese national security policies, particularly
since the end of the Cold War, poses a number of thorny problems for both neorealist and
neoliberal theories of state behavior. The two nations' profound reluctance to assume larger
military roles, either independently or in a multilateral setting, raises questions about the
domestic origins of state preferences and their perceptions of the international system that
cannot be answered by perspectives that focus solely on a state's position in the international
system.
Realism offers a convincing explanation of the origins of German and Japanese defense and
national security policies in the post-1945 period and provides important insights on the
structural forces that helped shape German and Japanese security policy during the Cold War.
Defeated in World War II and occupied by the United States, Germany and Japan found that
their policy makers had little room to maneuver during the early postwar years. Since the two
nations were dependent on the United States for both their security and their prosperity, the
costs of not joining the Western alliance system would have been prohibitive and would have
posed unacceptable risks from the perspective of the leaders of the time.
Differences in the two nations' geopolitical positions also help explain why they adopted very
different approaches to their alliances. Faced with a formidable Soviet military threat on its
borders and fearful that the United States might abandon Western Europe, Germany sought to
extract from its allies as clear a commitment to its security as it could. In return for such
guarantees, German leaders were willing to pay a considerable price in national autonomy. In
contrast, Japan, as an island nation relatively insulated from immediate military threat, was
primarily concerned that too close an alliance with the United States might entangle it in
bloody regional conflicts like Korea and Vietnam. Consequently Japan preferred to maintain a
high degree of military autonomy within the context of its purely bilateral security
arrangement with the United States. 1 Finally, a realist analysis of German and Japanese
foreign policies would emphasize the two nations' security relationship with the United States
to explain their relatively low military expenditures during the Cold War. In effect, the United
States provided them with a free ride on security, allowing them to concentrate their national
energies on increasing their economic strength. From the perspective of 1990, this strategy
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seems to have proved itself a brilliant success, as Germany and Japan emerged from the Cold
War with arguably the world's strongest economies, while the United States and the Soviet
Union appeared exhausted after forty years of political-military competition.
The shortcomings of a purely realist analysis, however, become more apparent when we try to
examine the foreign policies of the two countries after they reemerged as major powers in the
1960s and 1970s. Contrary to so-called aggressive variants of neorealism, which see states as
power maximizers, Germany and Japan did not seek to develop military capabilities
commensurate with their burgeoning economic power. 2 On the contrary, they were
profoundly ambivalent about any increase in military power, even when the opportunity was
thrust upon them--for example, during the debate over the creation of a multilateral nuclear
force (mlf) as part of nato in the 1960s. 3 Likewise, many Japanese leaders in the fifties and
sixties, including Prime Ministers Kishi Nobusuke and Sato Eisaku, supported American
requests for Japan's assumption of a greater regional role in containing Communism and
would gladly have increased Japanese military capabilities, but they were sharply constrained
by domestic political pressures.
Even from a more moderate realist point of view that sees states as security optimizers that
balance against potential threats rather than as power maximizers, it would have appeared
perfectly rational for Germany and Japan to have sought to acquire greater independent
military capabilities, including, if not their own nuclear force de frappe, at least joint control
over allied nuclear forces stationed in their own territory. 4 German and U.S. interests had
diverged sharply over such issues as Berlin and detente, while in Asia new security threats,
including a highly ideological, nuclear-armed People's Republic of China, had emerged in
Asia. Moreover, with the Soviet acquisition of the capability to reach targets in the United
States, the doctrine of extended deterrence had become highly problematic. 5
That such a force de frappe was a real possibility from the perspective of the time is reflected
by U.S. willingness to supply Germany with theater nuclear weapons in the late 1950s and
American fears in the 1960s that without something like mlf Germany was very likely to
develop its own nuclear forces. 6 Similarly, in the late 1960s Japanese policy makers privately
reviewed the possibility of developing a nuclear capability, while in public a fierce debate
broke out over whether Japan should shift to an "autonomous defense" (jishuboei) stance. 7
Ultimately, German and Japan ese decision makers chose not to acquire such capabilities for
a variety of reasons, including fears of triggering regional arms races. Yet there were good,
realist reasons for them to have gone in the other direction as well. Tipping the balance in both
cases--but especially in Japan--were the domestic political costs that would have been
associated with taking such measures.
Realist difficulties in accounting for German and Japanese behavior have increased since the
end of the Cold War. The end of the East-West confrontation has considerably enlarged the
two nations' room for maneuver and heightened their relative stature in the international
system. Nonetheless, neither Germany nor Japan has sought to take advantage of the new
opportunities by increasing military capabilities. On the contrary, both nations have reduced
their armed forces in the wake of the Cold War--significantly so in the German case--and have
deliberately eschewed new military responsibilities even when they were thrust upon them, as
during the Gulf war.
At the start of the Gulf crisis, German and Japanese leaders and security policy experts
believed that it was vital that their forces participate directly in the allied war effort in the
Gulf. They feared that in the event of heavy U.S. casualties, Germany and Japan would run the
risk of triggering an isolationist backlash in the United States, undermining the international
security order on which both countries have come to depend. In other words, the rational free
rider would have found the dispatch of a small number of forces of the Gulf--if not on the scale
of Britain or France, then at least on a par with Italy or Belgium--a worthwhile investment to
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ensure that the free ride would continue. The force of domestic antimilitary sentiments,
however, ruled out taking even minimal military measures. 8
In certain respects, recent German and Japanese behavior poses less of a problem for
neoliberals, who maintain that a variety of international structural changes are diminishing the
pressures toward military competition--notably the spread of liberal democracy, growing
economic interdependence, the proliferation of international institutions, and social and
technological developments that greatly increase the costs of war while reducing the benefits.
Neoliberal scholars such as Richard Rosecrance, John Goodman, and Jeffrey Anderson have
viewed German and Japanese national security policies as a confirmation of their positions.
Even some former traditional realists, such as Edward Luttwak, see in Germany and Japan
evidence that the world is moving from an era of geopolitics to a new age of geoeconomics.
German and Japanese antimilitarism, from this perspective, is not an aberration of the
international norm but rather a harbinger of things to come; in the future, adherents of this
view argue, other nations are likely to behave more like Germany and Japan in security
matters. 9
In contrast to the realist perspective, however, neoliberals have difficulty accounting for the
origins of German and Japanese antimilitarism, important elements of which had clearly
developed before causal factors stressed by liberals had an opportunity to have much of an
effect. Moreover, neoliberals find it difficult to explain the depth of German and Japanese
antimilitarism compared to that of other countries that find themselves in similar structural
positions. War is unpopular in liberal democracies the world over, and there are many other
advanced industrial societies similarly embedded in the global network of international
institutions and dependent on access to foreign markets and resources. Yet no other nations
display as intense a sense of antimilitarism as do Germany and Japan.
Here again, the Gulf war provides us with the best recent example. German and Japanese
interests in the Gulf war were certainly no less than those of other American allies; in fact,
given the dependence of these countries on the United States for security, their interests were
arguably much greater. Yet not only were the Germans and Japanese far less active than the
British and French--who, one could plausibly maintain, as members of the Security Council
have reputations as great military powers to uphold--but they seemed timid compared to even
the Italians, Dutch, and Belgians, all of whom dispatched to the Gulf precisely the kind of
symbolic military forces that pragmatists in the German and Japanese defense and foreign
ministries were urging their governments to send.
Finally, neither the neorealist nor the neoliberal perspective addresses the issue of national
identity and the way in which the definition of national identity in turn shapes the national
interest. The importance of national identity is particularly apparent in the case of Germany
during the Cold War because of its peculiar status as a divided nation. For nearly half a
century, German policy makers on both the Left and the Right pursued the dream of national
reunification, even though the economic and diplomatic costs of pursuing relations with
Eastern Europe were considerable and international realities made their quest seem
increasingly quixotic. Nonetheless, even in the 1970s and 1980s, after the Germans reconciled
themselves with their fate as a divided nation, the dream of national unity lived on, and no
German politician could afford to abandon a definition of national identity that committed the
nation to pursuing that dream. That identity, and the definition of national interest that it
produced, cannot be understood using systemic approaches that simply treat states as unitary,
independent actors. 10
National identity, however, is a static variable. For while German national identity survived the
nation's half-century-long partition, it underwent at the same time a profound transformation.
Whereas in the pre-1945 era German statesmen and intellectuals had emphasized Germany's
unique path of development, Der deutsche Sonderweg between East and West, during the
1950s and 1960s Germany redefined itself as part of a larger, nascent European community of
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nations bound together by common values and interests. This commitment to integration with
the rest of Western Europe fundamentally altered the way in which national interest was
calculated. As a result, once reunification was achieved, Germany further reduced its national
sovereignty by accelerating the European integration process through the treaty of Maastricht.
To achieve this objective, Germany agreed to sacrifice the German mark and support the
creation of a European central bank, even though it thereby relinquished a major source of
power and influence in a way that neither neorealism nor neoliberalism can easily account for.
In short, both neorealism and neoliberalism identify important systemic factors that sharply
constrained German and Japanese policy makers during the early Cold War period and
provided incentives for pursuing more moderate policies thereafter. By themselves, however,
international structures are underdetermining. While pressures from the international system
may influence state actors like Germany and Japan, the signals that it sends are ambiguous,
even contradictory, and a multiplicity of plausible solutions is available. Under such
circumstances states are likely to be guided in their decision making by their own internal sets
of preferences and beliefs about the international system. 11 To argue that simply because
German and Japanese policy proved successful in the end meant that this was the only
rational course of action open to those nations is to commit the same sort of post hoc fallacy
that cultural explanations are often accused of. What is needed at this point is a model of how
these beliefs and values may have come into existence and why they continue to persist across
generational boundaries.
The Concept of Political-Military Culture

Common to all theories of culture is the notion that human behavior is guided by socially
shared and transmitted ideas and beliefs. 12 Cultures as such comprise beliefs about the way
the world is--including at the most basic level beliefs that define the individual's and the
group's identities--and ideas about the way the world ought to be. 13 Political culture refers to
those cultural beliefs and values that shape a given society's orientations toward politics. 14
Political-military culture in turn refers to the subset of the larger political culture that
influences how members of a given society view national security, the military as an
institution, and the use of force in international relations.
Although influenced by the real world, cultures (including political-military cultures) are not
merely subjective reflections of objective reality. Two individuals or groups with different
cultural backgrounds are likely to behave differently even when confronted with identical
situations. For example, if French or American policy makers found themselves in geostrategic
positions similar to Japan's or Germany's, they might be expected to behave in a very different
way than their German and Japanese counterparts do because they come from cultural
backgrounds with very different norms and values regarding the military and the use of force.
Cultures--and by extension political-military cultures--are not static entities hovering above

society, directing behavior while they themselves remain immune to social, economic, and
political forces. They are transmitted through the often imperfect mechanisms of primary and
secondary socialization and are under constant pressure from both external developments and
internal contradictions. 15 Cognitive beliefs about the world are constantly tested by actual
events. While failures and surprises can be reinterpreted so that they do not contradict
existing norms and beliefs, they also create pressures that can lead to a reevaluation and
modification of the culture. In extreme cases, if a culture totally fails to meet the expectations
of its members, large-scale defections to other cultural systems are likely to result. 16 The
collapse of Communism may serve as a case in point.
Such adaptation, however, is neither quick nor easy. Simple, instrumental beliefs can be
discarded easily. More-abstract or emotionally laden beliefs and values that make up the core
of a culture (such as a preference for democracy or belief in monotheism) are more resistant
to change. 17 Ordinarily such change takes place slowly and incrementally. Occasionally more
5 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
rapid change in core beliefs and values occurs, but only after they have been thoroughly
discredited and the society is under great strain. Individuals and groups are then forced to
reexamine their old beliefs and seek new ways of making sense of the world and new solutions
to the problems confronting them. Such rapid and fundamental change tends to be
accompanied by psychological distress and is broadly similar to Thomas Kuhn's description of
paradigm shifts in the natural sciences. 18
The reexamination of the core beliefs and values of a particular nation is a complicated affair.
At any one time there exists a multiplicity of political actors--motivated by their own
distinctive experiences and interests--who seek to establish their understandings as binding
for the rest of the society. In pluralistic political systems, however, usually no one group is able
to impose its views on the rest. In order to pursue their agenda, political actors are compelled
to enter into debates and negotiations with other groups, making compromises and
concessions along the way. These compromises, however, have to be legitimated, both
internally within the group and externally in the rest of society. Such legitimations often
involve a reinterpretation of past events, current conditions, and future goals. In this way,
politics is a question not only of who gets what but of who persuades whom in an ongoing
negotiation of reality.
At first such compromises are precarious. Political actors are keenly aware of their arbitrary
and artificial nature, and many may hope to reverse the agreed-upon compromises at the
earliest possible opportunity. Once agreed upon, however, these negotiated realities are
typically institutionalized in the political system and cannot be easily changed even if there is a
shift in the balance of power among the different political actors. Decision-making rules, such
as the requirement of a two-thirds majority to revise a constitution, may create high barriers to
the reversal of agreed-upon policies, while the credibility of leaders may be damaged by a
constant shifting of positions. Moreover, over time the legitimations offered on behalf of these
compromises--particularly if they are perceived as successful--are reified and become what
Emile Durkheim called "social facts." 19 Subsequent generations of decision makers come to
take for granted these legitimations and the beliefs and values on which they are based. What
may have been an ad hoc response to historical necessities at one time becomes hallowed
social truth at another. These legitimations thus become part of the political culture of the
nation and can have a lasting impact on state behavior long after the circumstances that gave
birth to them have passed.
The study of the political-military culture of an entire nation requires a detailed, multilayered
research strategy, involving three central empirical tasks. First, it is necessary to investigate
the original set of historical experiences that define how a given society views the military,
national security, and the use of force, paying careful attention to the interpretation of these
events among different groups in the society. Second, one needs to examine the political
process through which actual security policy was made and how particular decisions were
subsequently legitimated. In this context it is important to define the essential features of both
the political-military culture and the security policy associated with it at a particular point in
time. Third, it is necessary to examine the evolution of both the political-military culture and
defense policies over time, monitoring how they evolved in response to historical events.
Such a longitudinal analysis allows us to escape the trap of deriving culture from behavior,
which leads to the kind of tautological, ad hoc reasoning of which cultural analysis is often
accused. 20 While in practice it is nearly impossible to separate culture from behavior, for
analytical purposes it is possible to disaggregate policy behavior and the meanings that
political actors and the general public attach to those policies, as reflected in public opinion
polls, parliamentary debates, books and articles written by opinion leaders, newspaper
editorials, and so forth. This procedure allows us to judge the degree of consistency between
behavior and expressed beliefs and values over time. If culture (in this case, political-military
culture) changes without any corresponding shift in behavior, there are grounds to question
6 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
the posited relationship between the two. Likewise, if behavior changes without any change in
the expressed beliefs and values that have been associated with earlier policies, then again we
have reason to doubt that the two factors influence one another. In other words, expressed
cultural beliefs and values should develop in tandem with behavior--in this case defense and
national security policy. When there is a disjuncture between the two, an appropriate degree
of tension should be observable in the political system.
According to the model of cultural change explicated above, under normal circumstances
culture should change only incrementally in response to ordinary historical events such as
shifts in the balance of power or the formation of international institutions. When major new
policy initiatives violating existing norms and values are proposed, resistance in the form of
demonstrations, political confrontations, and changes in government should be observable. If
major changes occur without generating such resistance, then the presumed relationship
between political-military culture and defense policy can be considered to have been falsified.
In this sense, political-military culture often acts as a source of inertia in policy making, at
least in the short run. At the same time, how nations choose to behave can have significant,
system-level effects in the long run as well, especially if they are important actors like
Germany and Japan. For example, isolationism in the United States before 1941 significantly
delayed the American entry into World War II, creating a window of opportunity in which the
Axis powers could have achieved military victory. While from a structural realist point of view
the only significant difference would have been that Western Europe would have been
organized under the aegis of a Nazi German rather than a democratic American hegemon, the
character of the international system would have been profoundly different. 21
The Origins of the New Political-Military Cultures

To a remarkable degree, the political-military cultures of Germany and Japan continue to be
shaped and guided by the ideological and political battles of the late forties and fifties. During
this critical formative period the foundations of the postwar German and Japanese approaches
to security were put in place. The creation of the new German and Japanese defense
establishments was not merely a technocratic exercise in obtaining maximum security at
minimal price, nor were they merely the products of a pluralistic bargaining process between
interest groups concerned with maximizing their share of societal resources. Rather, the
German and Japanese defense debates of the 1950s revolved around much more fundamental
questions of national identity, the definition of the national inter est and of the kind of
political, economic, and social systems that the two nations should adopt. In the course of
these debates, basic decisions regarding defense and national security became inextricably
intertwined with the new national identities of postwar Germany and Japan.
Perhaps the most important fact to be noted in any analysis of postwar German and Japanese
thinking about defense and national security is the degree to which it represented a radical
departure from the dominant historical patterns. Prewar Germany and Japan had been
quintessential militarist societies. 22 The armed forces had played a pivotal role in the
formation of the modern German and Japanese states, and their status as great military
powers was central to their national self-understandings. In Germany, it was the Prussian
army that had fulfilled the nineteenth-century nationalist dream of unifying the German
nation. In Japan, governments since the Meiji restoration of 1868 legitimated their rule by
depicting themselves as the defenders of the nation and the sacred Imperial institution from
predatory Western powers. As a result, the German and Japanese military establishments
wielded tremendous political influence and enjoyed high social prestige in the prewar period.
23
The disastrous defeat in World War II dealt a lethal blow, both materially and spiritually, to
these highly militaristic political-military cultures. Both nations suffered enormous physical
losses. More than six million Germans and three million Japanese perished between 1939 and
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1945. By the time the fighting ended, their cities had been reduced to rubble, their economies
had collapsed, and their populations were saved from starvation only by the massive infusion
of Western aid. Perhaps more important than the material losses were the psychological ones.
The German and Japanese armies had failed to fulfill the missions that had been their
principle sources of legitimacy. In Germany, instead of unifying all German-speakers, the war
ended in national partition and dismemberment. In Japan, the military was blamed for having
recklessly dragged the country into a disastrous war that ended in the first occupation of
Japan in recorded history and left the emperor at the mercy of foreign conquerors.
In the wake of these disasters the popular mood was one of disillusionment with nationalist
ambitions and a rejection of the prewar military ethos. These sentiments by themselves,
however, were insufficient to effect a lasting transformation of German and Japanese political-
military cultures. In the past, other countries--including post-World War I Germany--had
suffered defeats of comparable magnitude and exhibited similarly powerful moods of war
weariness without developing lasting antimilitary cultures. Alongside the natural pacifism of
two defeated peoples there also lurked feelings of fear and resentment of the victorious Allied
powers. There remained as well a host of issues--including most important questions of
territory--that potentially could have become catalysts for new aggressively irredentist
movements.
The dimensions of the defeat, however, did create windows of opportunity after 1945 during
which general societal attitudes toward the military and the use of force became unusually
malleable. Two sets of actors--the American occupation authorities and the new German and
Japanese democratic elites--played key roles in reinforcing and institutionalizing the
antimilitary sentiments that appeared in the wake of the war.
For the American occupation authorities, demilitarization was both a physical and a
psychological project. Not only did the occupation forces demobilize and dismantle the vast
German and Japanese war machines, but they also worked hard to impress upon the German
and Japanese people that theirs had been a moral as well as a military defeat. The political and
military leaders of the wartime regimes were put on trial for war crimes; books and passages
in school texts deemed to be militaristic were expunged from the curriculum; and the German
and Japanese populations were bombarded with antimilitary propaganda that was almost as
fierce as the wartime propaganda that preceded it. 24
At least as critical to the ultimate demilitarization of Germany and Japan were the efforts of
their own political elites, on both the Left and the Right. The left-wing labor unions and
socialist/social-democratic movements, the traditional enemies of the military in the prewar
period, were naturally opposed to seeing their old political rivals reestablished. The main
centrist and right-of-center political formations, organized under the Christian Democrats led
by Konrad Adenauer in Germany and the Liber als under Yoshida Shigeru in Japan, were
deeply suspicious of the armed forces and blamed them for the failure of party democracy in
the 1930s. Although less critical of the military than the Left, men like Adenauer and Yoshida
were determined to prevent the armed forces from playing the kind of political role that they
had before 1945. Even archconservatives, such as later defense minister Franz Josef Strauss,
declared themselves vehemently opposed to the military and militarism. 25
When the basic institutions of the postwar German and Japanese democratic systems were put
into place in the late 1940s, the dominant political forces were committed to the eradication of
the old military ethos. At the same time, democratization took place in an international
environment in which pressures for German and Japanese rearmament remained muted and
the international community was primarily concerned with preventing the reemergence of a
German or Japanese military threat. German and Japanese leaders emphasized the degree to
which the new political systems differed from the old and antimilitarist values were
institutionally anchored in the new democratic political systems. The most prominent of these
new institutions were to be found in the new constitutions of the two countries; Japan's article
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9, which forbade the maintenance of military forces or war-fighting material, and article 87a of
the German Basic Law, which prohibits waging wars of aggression.
The emergence of the Cold War, and especially the outbreak of the Korean War, soon
compelled Germany and Japan to reconsider their antimilitary postures. Under pressure from
the United States and worried by the threat of Communism, German and Japanese leaders felt
they had no choice but to reverse, at least partially, the antimilitary policies that had been
implemented over the past five years.
This change in direction, however, clashed with the powerful popular mood of antimilitarism,
and throughout the 1950s West German and Japanese politics were dominated by fierce
domestic struggles over the defense issue. In both nations this debate was in good measure
also a debate over the future of the German and Japanese economic and social systems. The
Left--backed by the trade unions and large segments of the intelligentsia--feared that joining
the American-led alliance would lock them into the Western capitalist system and hamper
their efforts to achieve more far-reaching, socialist reform in their respective societies. The
Right--supported by business interests and traditionally conservative sectors of society such as
the church and agriculture--hoped for precisely the opposite.
Ultimately pro-Western, right-of-center coalitions won the day in both countries, aided by
improving economic conditions and the considerable benefits afforded by U.S. patronage. 26
Their left-wing rivals, hampered by inept Soviet diplomacy, were unable to translate popular
sympathy for neutrality into victories at the ballot box. More-conservative forces, which
favored large-scale, unrestricted rearmament and a more independent policy stance, enjoyed
little popular support. Even in Japan, where conservative, prodefense leaders like Hatoyama
Ichiro and Kishi Nobosuke came into power, the far Right's influence on policy and the
popular debate on defense remained relatively marginal.
Although the supporters of alliance and rearmament achieved their chief objectives, they were
compelled to make a number of important concessions in order to reassure the public and the
opposition forces--as well as neighboring countries--that there would be no reversion to
militarism. Consequently, rearmament took place on a limited scale and at a relatively
cautious pace. The new German Bundeswehr and Japanese Self Defense Forces (sdf) were
placed under strict regimes of civilian control, and great care was taken to underline their
purely defensive nature. Both countries forswore the acquisition of certain categories of
weapons systems--most notably weapons of mass destruction--and both the Federal Republic
and Japan passed legislation prohibiting the dispatch of their forces beyond their own
territory, or--in the German case--outside of the area covered by nato. 27
During this formative period, when German and Japanese attitudes toward their military were
in flux and their room for maneuvering decidedly limited, geopolitical forces had a powerful
influence on the development of the two countries' defense policies. In particular, contrasting
Ger man fears of abandonment and Japanese fears of entanglement led to very different,
almost inverse patterns of alliance relations. Faced with a clear and present danger in the
Soviet Union, Germany chose to integrate itself as tightly as possible with its allies through an
impressive array of overlapping multilateral institutions, including nato, the European
Community, and the West European Union. In contrast, Japan, confronted with a much lower
level of external threat and fearful that it might be dragged into destructive regional conflicts
like Korea and Vietnam, declined various American proposals for regional security
arrangements and remained relatively isolated from its neighbors.
Yet even in this period, domestic political and historical factors played an important role in
certain aspects of the two nations' defense policies, most notably in the area of civil-military
relations. In the modern era both nations have had their share of problems with maintaining
control over the armed forces. The German Reichswehr under General Kurt von Schleicher
played a key role in bringing Adolf Hitler to power, while the Japanese militarists had
9 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
progressively taken control of the Japanese government through a decade-long series of

coups, assassinations, and engineered military emergencies. This historical background served
to greatly sharpen the dilemma of how to reconcile democratic institutions with the military
establishment. Although Germany and Japan faced problems that were structurally almost
identical, they adopted virtually the opposite strategies for maintaining control over their
armed forces.
In the German case memories were still fresh of how the Reichswehr--a small, highly
professional force of military men with political views far to the right of those of German
society as a whole--had been instrumental in the demise of the Weimar Republic. From the
point of view of many German political and military leaders, the key issue was how to
integrate the new armed forces into society and ensure that they not become a collecting point
for extreme Right views. The solution that they found relied principally on two mechanisms:
the reintroduction of universal military service and the institutionalization of the doctrine of
innere Fuhrung (internal leadership), designed to infuse the armed forces with a democratic
ethos and to protect the civil rights of recruits. 28
In Japan, on the other hand, the Imperial Army had been a mass-based organization with
powerful social and political foundations. The militarists had used its informal network of
contacts to bolster the extensive formal privileges granted to the armed forces under the Meiji
constitution. As a result, it was not altogether surprising that the last thing that Japan's
postwar political leaders wanted to do was to create a military establishment that was
thoroughly integrated into society. While some efforts were made to indoctrinate the military
with a democratic ethos, the basic postwar Japanese strategy for controlling the military was to
isolate it politically and socially. The armed forces were placed under a tight system of both
internal and external bureaucratic controls, and their uniformed personnel were carefully
monitored by the civilian overseers in charge of the Japanese Defense Agency. The agency
itself occupied a very subordinate position within the Japanese bureaucratic hierarchy, and
many of its key departments, including finance and procurements, were effectively under the
control of other ministries, The idea of military conscription, although favored by some
military men, never even reached the political agenda in Japan. 29
The highly polarized character of the Japanese political system in the 1950s and 1960s further
reinforced the isolation of the armed forces. The presence of extremely conservative figures in
the ruling coalition (Prime Minister Kishi had been munitions minister under General Tojo
Hideki and was a signatory of the declaration of war on the United States) and the readiness of
much of the Japanese Left to accept Soviet propaganda at face value created an ideological
gulf between the government and the opposition that was far wider than in West Germany.
Cooperation between government and opposition was almost unknown. 30 Without even a
minimal consensus on defense, and faced with deep public antipathy toward the armed forces,
the Japanese government was compelled to place the armed forces under an evolving system
of legislative constraints in order to reassure the public (and indeed, many members of the
government itself) that the military establishment was not becoming too powerful to control.
In the Federal Republic, despite the bitter polemical battles between the Christian Democrats
and the Socialists, the opposition was willing to cooperate with the government on key defense
legislation in order to help shape national policy. 31 As a result, the Bundeswehr enjoyed far
greater political legitimacy than did the Self Defense Forces, and the German military, while
far from popular and much criticized, was not regarded with nearly the same degree of
suspicion.
During the 1950s German and Japanese security policy makers were unusually sensitive to the
various forces--both domestic and international--present in the policy-making environment.
In the course of the policy-making process, however, new institutional structures were created
that insulated defense policy from the domestic and international pressures. Some of these
structures were legal in nature, such as the restrictions placed on the German and Japanese
10 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
armed forces by their interpretations of the constitutions. Others were more bureaucratic-
organizational, such as the office of the Wehrbeauftragte (a special independent
commissioner charged with overseeing innere Fuhrung in the Bundeswehr). Once installed,
these formal institutions could not easily be discarded, and therefore they locked the further
evolution of policy into fixed paths of development. 32
Other structures were ideological in character, including the beliefs and values used to
legitimate the new national security policies and institutions. Central to these legitimations
were new definitions of the German and Japanese national identities. In West Germany,
Adenauer and other proponents of the Western alliance argued that for a hundred years
democracy in Germany had been crippled by the cross-pressures generated by its geographical
and cultural location between East and West. This ambivalence, they maintained, had
spawned the aggressive hypernationalism of the prewar period that had proved so destructive.
To contain the demons of nationalism, Adenauer and others argued, Germany had to bind
itself into a network of transatlantic and Western European institutions. Economic and
military alignment with the West was thus not merely a strategy for maximizing the national
interest; it was a decision to resolve a centuries-old identity crisis and to anchor the nation
firmly in Western civilization and thus support the values of liberal democracy. 33
In a similar way Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru provided his countrymen with a vision of
Japan as a "merchant nation" (shonin kokka), a country that concentrated on economic
development while eschewing the pursuit of military power. With this slogan Yoshida
subverted the Left's own vision of Japan as a "peace nation," a nation dedicated to the pacifist
ideals of the Japanese constitution, by linking antimilitarism to the decidedly nonleftist desire
for commercial gain. Also unlike the Left, Yoshida and other centrists looked to the capitalist
West rather than the socialist East for the model of development that Japan should emulate.
They argued that alliance with the United States was the price that Japan had to pay for
entering the global community of prosperous modern powers. The military side of the
relationship, as opposed to the commercial one, was carefully deemphasized. 34
Potentially, these legitimations could have been used to support very different policies. There
is nothing about the notion of Germany as a part of the West that intrinsically required it to
indoctrinate its armed forces with democratic values (no other member of nato has a
comparable policy). Nor does Japan's collective identity as a merchant nation a priori bar it
from dispatching forces overseas. Innere Fuhrung and the highly restrictive ban on the
overseas dispatch of forces were the products of the constellations of political forces dominant
in Germany and Japan in the 1950s. Likewise, Germany's decision to integrate itself into the
West, and Japan's determination to stay aloof from regional security affairs were logical
responses to the particular external pressures that the two countries experienced. Once made,
however, these decisions were tied to the new national identities by the German and Japanese
governments, which had to justify their policies to their highly critical public. In this way
policies were invested with a symbolic value that linked them to the core values of the new
German political-military culture and made them quite resistant to change.
Over the course of the next thirty years, these cultures and patterns of behavior would be
frequently challenged. Domestically, there existed powerful rival visions of national identity
and policy agendas that were promoted by parties on both the Left and the Right.
Internationally, the evolving East-West relationship and shifts in the balance of power were to
generate pressures for change as well. Nonetheless, a basic set of beliefs and values, along with
associated patterns of defense behavior, can be identified as existing around 1960 and can be
summarized briefly as follows.
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In the following sections we will trace the subsequent evolution of German and Japanese
defense and national security policies and the debates surrounding them. In the process we
will analyze the extent to which Germany and Japan deviated from the norms, values, and
patterns of behavior established during the critical early years after the war.
The Evolution of the Two Political-Military Cultures

Public opinion surveys from the sixties and seventies reveal a marked increase in West
German and Japanese popular support for the institutional pillars of the new approaches to
defense and national security, including their alliances with the United States, political and
economic integration with the West, and the new armed forces. Whereas in 1960 a substantial
minority of the population in Japan (32 percent) supported neutrality over alignment with the
United States (44 percent), by 1978 backing for the West had increased to 49 percent, while
support for neutrality declined to 25 percent. 35 In West Germany popular support for the
military alliance with the United States rose as well, albeit not quite as dramatically as in
Japan. In 1961, for example, 42 percent were still for neutrality, against 40 percent for alliance
with the West, by 1975 proalliance attitudes had risen to 48 percent versus 38 percent. 36
Support for integra tion with Western Europe increased similarly during this period.
Although in 1965 a large majority of West Germans (69 percent) still said that given a choice
they would prefer reunification over integration with Europe, by 1973 the balance had shifted
dramatically, with 65 percent preferring European integration over German reunification. 37
In both countries external factors may have contributed to this shift in attitudes. The end of
the Vietnam War and detente reduced Japanese fears of entanglement, and Ostpolitik
removed some of the chief obstacles to a solution--albeit a far from satisfactory one--for the
problem of national partition. While these external events may have facilitated the
consolidation process, once the consensus was in place, further changes did not lead to a
reversal. Even after the Cold War reintensified in the late 1970s and the first half of the 1980s,
support for the basic security institutions remained high in both countries. 38
Support for nonmilitary means of ensuring national security also grew steadily. In Germany
after 1973 public support for Ostpolitik continued to increase even as superpower relations
deteriorated. In 1973, 49 percent of those surveyed felt that Ostpolitik had been worthwhile,
and 29 percent did not. By January 1980, the level of support had increased to 51 percent
12 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
versus 28 percent, and the vast majority of West Germans supported the further promotion of
detente--74 percent versus 17 percent. 39 Although there was far less emphasis on dialogue
with the Soviet Union or other potential enemies in Japan, there was evidence of strong
popular preferences for relying on nonmilitary instruments for national security. A 1972
Yomiuri newspaper survey revealed that only 6 percent of the respondents thought military
power was a very effective means of defending the nation, while 32 percent thought it was
somewhat effective and 14 percent thought it was totally ineffective. In contrast, 32 percent
thought that economic instruments (foreign aid, trade, and so forth) were very effective ways
of maintaining national security, and 43 percent thought that they were somewhat effective.
Respondents rated diplomatic negotiations, maintaining a high standard of living and
international exchanges all as more effective than military power as ways of ensuring national
security. 40
Expressions of elite opinion as well gravitated toward greater support of the existing approach
to defense and national security, especially in Japan. Whereas in the 1950s Japanese
intellectuals and the media overwhelmingly backed the Left's proposals for unarmed
neutrality, during the 1960s and 1970s increasing numbers of intellectuals came out in favor of
the government's policy of alignment with the West and maintenance of a minimal defense
establishment. At the forefront of this movement was a new generation of scholars such as
Kosaka Masataka and Nagai Yonosuke, who provided new, more sophisticated rationales for
Japan's postwar approach to national security and were increasingly enlisted by the Japanese
government to serve on panels to study defense and foreign policy issues. 41 During the early
1980s this trend accelerated, as reflected by Yomiuri's shift to a prodefense editorial line and
the increased willingness of Japanese companies to produce weapons. At the same time, the
public defense debate went from being a battle between the pacifist Left and the proalliance
Center to a struggle between centrists and a resurgent, nationalist anti-American Right that
favored a major military buildup and a more independent approach to foreign policy. 42
Whereas in Japan the shift in the overall spectrum of political opinion among elites was
toward the Right and Center, in West Germany elite opinion shifted in the opposite direction,
toward the Left. In the late 1960s support for detente grew dramatically in the face of stubborn
resistance by the cdu (Christian Democratic Union) government to closer ties with Eastern
Europe. The student movement and the issue of coming to terms with the atrocities of the Nazi
era added a powerful emotional dimension to the new policy of Ostpolitik announced by
Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1969, making the new diplomatic policy as much a matter of
strengthening democracy and atoning for the past as of pursuing German national interests.
These moves reinforced and further institutionalized the antimilitary character of West
German political-military culture. Consequently, massive demonstrations broke out in
Germany when in the late 1970s and 1980s nato governments, including German chancellors
Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl, sought to counter growing Soviet military strength by
deploying a new generation of theater nuclear forces. 43
The positions of political parties mirrored shifts in popular and elite attitudes. In West
Germany during the late 1950s the Social Democrats (spd) shifted decisively toward accepting
nato and integration with the West. 44 Even in the late 1980s, after the spd partially reversed
itself on national security in response to the emergence of the far left-wing Green Party and a
new, more radical generation within the party, the Social Democrats refrained from calling for
withdrawal from nato. Indeed, whereas in the 1950s the spd had bitterly opposed nato and
integration with Western Europe, in the 1980s it came out in favor of greater European
integration in the hope that a united Europe could provide a counterweight to the United
States and preserve detente. 45 For its part, the cdu came to accept Ostpolitik and detente in
the 1980s, conducting its own mini-detente with the German Democratic Republic even at the
height of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation of the early to mid-1980s. 46 Despite the enormous
controversy surrounding defense issues in West Germany during the 1980s, on a deeper level
consensus on national security actually grew.
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On the whole, shifts in Japan tended to be less dramatic than in West Germany. Nonetheless,
over the course of the 1970s and 1980s the Socialist opposition to the government's national
security policies became less virulent than it had been in the 1950s. An important factor in this
trend was the Socialists' efforts to court the so-called middle-of-the-road parties (the
Democratic Socialist Party and the Clean Government Party), which were more supportive of
the Self Defense Forces and the alliance with the United States and which were prepared to
compromise with the government in order to pass new defense legislation. 47 Although there
remained right-wingers in the ldp (Liberal Democratic Party) who wanted to see Japan
become a "normal nation" by assuming a larger and more independent military role, they were
held in check by the party's centrist mainstream. 48
As in Germany, the defense debate of the 1980s revealed that the growing consensus was no
longer confined to a shift toward the center in the distribution among the different
subcultures; a deeper transformation was taking place in the contents of the beliefs that they
proposed. Whereas in the past, Japanese rightists had hoped to use the defense issue to spark
a new debate on national identity and Japan's global mission, during the 1980s right-wing
ideologues like Ishihara Shintaro and Eto Jun increasingly chose to focus on trade issues
instead in order to inflame nationalist passions. 49 In effect, the Right accepted the centrist
position that Japan's strength lay in its role as a merchant nation.
Behind this shift in the terms of the political debate was a broader intellectual transformation
of the ways in which Japan's new national identity was related to its past. Borrowing ideas
from the popular analysis of Japanese culture known as nihonjinron (the theory of Japanese-
ness), more and more influential Japanese came to accept the argument that because Japan
had never been subjected to successive waves of foreign invasion as had Europe and mainland
Asia, conflict had always tended to be of a more limited nature than elsewhere in the world.
This historical insularity is alleged to have made the Japanese people inherently inept at
power politics, while at the same time strengthening their inclination toward harmony and
cooperation. 50 The conclusions that centrists--and, increasingly, right- wing figures as
well--draw from this analysis jibes well with Japan's overall strategy as a "merchant
nation"--namely, to recognize its relative weakness as a military power, rely on "warrior
nations" like the United States to come to its aid, and concentrate its energies on the areas in
which it enjoys a comparative advantage: trade, technology, and economic growth.
In sum, there is little doubt that the political-military cultures of Germany and Japan shifted
in significant ways during the course of the Cold War in response to international events and
domestic political developments. These shifts, however, on the whole led to a greater
consensus in favor of the antimilitary policies that had been established in the 1950s. Efforts to
move in the opposite direction triggered considerable domestic political turmoil. In West
Germany the development of Ostpolitik was accompanied by intense infighting within the cdu
and the coming to power of the spd. Likewise, the decision to deploy new intermediate-range
nuclear weapons in the early 1980s triggered mass demonstrations and another change in
government. In a similar fashion, the Japanese student movement and the debates over the
return of Okinawa (then still occupied by the United States) fueled intense political
controversy in Japan. Various conservative defense initiatives, such as Prime Minister Fukuda
Takeo's efforts in 1978 to pass new legislation enabling the Self Defense Forces to respond to a
military emergency, generated so much political resistance that they had to be greatly
modified or abandoned. 51
The end of the Cold War has sparked new controversy over national security in Germany and
Japan, and there are clear signs that popular and elite attitudes toward defense are continuing
to evolve. The main focal point of the new defense debate of the 1990s is whether and in what
form Germany and Japan should participate in international peacekeeping missions. During
the Gulf war German and Japanese public opinion, despite negative views of Saddam Hussein,
showed overwhelming opposition to direct involvement in the war. 52 German and Japanese
14 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
elite views were similarly divided over how to respond to the crisis, with the Left generally
opposed to involvement, the Right supporting a limited show of force, and the Center waffling
somewhere in between. 53 Since the Gulf war public opinion has slowly coalesced in favor of
some degree of limited military participation in international affairs, accompanied by perhaps
the most intensive debate of national security issues in these two countries since the 1950s.
Public opinion polls show cautious popular approval of the limited forays into peacekeeping in
Cambodia and Somalia. Media treatment of these operations has been largely favorable. The
trend toward increased consensus received a boost in Japan when Socialist Matsuyma
Tomiichi became prime minister in coalition with the conservative Liberal Democrats and
announced that his party would partially reverse its long-standing policy of opposition to the
Self Defense Forces and the alliance with the United States. 54 In Germany the Federal
Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the government, decreeing that the Bundeswehr could
indeed participate in military operations, including combat missions, outside of the nato area,
providing it received parliamentary approval and these operations were conducted in a
multilateral framework. 55
These developments, while significant, do not represent fundamental deviations from the
political-military cultures of the Cold War. Despite its enhanced position of power in the
center of Europe, and despite various, often serious disagreements with its European allies
over such issues as Bosnia, the Uruguay round, or the expansion of nato into central Europe,
Germany remains committed to deepening its integration with the West and pursuing a policy
of reassurance vis-á-vis its neighbors to the East. Japan for its part, prefers to overlook
simmering regional threats in North Korea and China and continues to insist that it will make
only nonmilitary contributions to the international order. While there is slow evolution--as
there has been during much of the Cold War--there is no fundamental shift in direction, either
toward greater defense autonomy or toward the assumption of a leadership role on security
issues in a multilateral context.
The Evolution of German and Japanese Security Policies

Accompanying the changes in German and Japanese political-military cultures there were also
shifts in their national security policies, as one would expect if there is a causal relationship
between the two. Moreover, when those shifts ran against the established antimilitary cultures,
they were accompanied--as predicted earlier--by intense domestic political debate and
controversy. For analytical purposes it is useful to distinguish three different aspects of
national security policy: alliance politics, force structure and mission, and civil-military
relations.
Alliance Politics
German and Japanese alliance policies changed in two major ways during the Cold War:
U.S.-Japanese military ties were intensified in the late 1970s and 1980s, and West Germany
tried to achieve closer relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, beginning in the
late 1960s. In West Germany the primary impulse for Ostpolitik came from a deep-rooted
desire to hammer out a modus vivendi with the Soviet Union that would decrease the threat of
war and increase contact with the East German population. Such geostrategic considerations
and nationalist aspirations alone need not have led to a far-reaching series of agreements on
trade and security. 56 The Republic of South Korea, for instance, has endured national
partition and the threat of war for an even longer period than West Germany did, without
engaging in a comparable diplomatic campaign. In addition, the student movement of the late
1960s and the desire to atone for Germany's crimes during the Nazi period made a moral
imperative out of a diplomatic initiative and lent the Ostpolitik policies of Willy Brandt and
Egon Bahr a dynamic that went well beyond the satisfaction of immediate German national
interests.
After immensely difficult negotiations and fierce parliamentary battles (the Brandt
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government survived a no-confidence measure by a mere two votes), in 1971 the West German
government signed a series of agreements with its Eastern neighbors, including the Soviet
Union and the East German regime. These agreements covered a wide range of issues, the
most important of which were increased economic and diplomatic ties, the status of Berlin,
and humanitarian contacts between the two German states. 57 Thereafter, the West German
government continued to pursue closer ties with the East, becoming the primary sponsor of
the csce (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe), which led to the signing of the
Helsinki Accords in 1975. 58 Even during the bitterest period of U.S.-Soviet confrontation in
the early 1980s, the Federal Republic continued to pursue relations with the East despite
widespread American and Western apprehensions that Germany was heading down the path
toward neutralism. 59
In the case of Japan, the initial impetus toward greater military cooperation with the United
States came in the mid-1970s, as American power in the Pacific appeared to decline after
Vietnam while that of the Soviet Union increased. These developments led to a stormy debate
within the ldp over whether Japan should assume a more active, independent stance on
defense even while retaining its security links with the United States, a position known as
jishuboei. 60 After much deliberation and internal squabbling, the ruling party leaders and
bureaucrats, alarmed by the nationalist rhetoric of the jishuboei camp and signs of growing
anxiety abroad, chose to strengthen Japan's alliance with the United States instead. Over the
next few years, the government laid the groundwork for closer cooperation between the two
nations' armed forces, culminating in the 1978 Guidelines on U.S.-Japanese Defense
Cooperation. Thereafter contacts between the Self Defense Forces and the U.S. military
increased sharply. Japanese naval forces were dispatched abroad on training missions, and
American and Japanese military planners began formal discussions on how they might react to
a military crisis in the Far East. These trends accelerated further in the early 1980s, especially
under the conservative Nakasone administration, which opened the door for joint weapons
research and development and increased Japan's commitment to containing the Soviet Union.
61
In short, the changes in German and Japanese elite and public attitudes toward defense
mirrored actual shifts in policy. In West Germany the Left's objective of establishing at least a
limited security partnership with Eastern Europe was realized, while in Japan the Right's
long-sought-after goal of strengthening the armed forces through closer ties to the United
States was finally achieved. These were important shifts in policy that had been encouraged--
though not dictated--by changes in the international environment, but whose implementation
was delayed for years until the requisite domestic political support could be mustered. In West
Germany the cdu was able to resist the trend toward detente for nearly a decade. In Japan it
took more than five years after the end of the Vietnam War before an internal consensus in
favor of closer ties to the United States could be formed.
These changes in policy did not imply, however, that the basic German and Japanese alliance
strategies had been abandoned. Both countries remained dependent on the United States for
military security, and efforts either to establish an independent defense posture (as called for
by Nakasone and the advocates of jishuboei) or to abandon nato (as demanded by the Greens
and the left wing of the spd) had been emphatically denied. Germany remained tightly
integrated into the nato command structure and continued to seek to reach its foreign policy
objectives primarily through multilateral institutions. Germany also continued to be one of the
prime proponents of deepening the European Community--if anything, German unification
even accelerated this trend--while at the same time integrating itself even more thoroughly
into new nato institutions such as the Nuclear Planning Group. 62
Japan, on the other hand, maintained relatively looser ties with the United States. Even after
1978 there was no joint command structure, only a coordinating office to be set up in the event
of an emergency. Despite Nakasone's sometimes belligerent rhetoric (he once described Japan
as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" ready to repel Soviet aggression), it remained uncertain
16 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
whether Japanese forces would assist the United States except in the event of a direct Soviet
attack.
Since the end of the Cold War there has been some shift toward increased regionalism in both
countries, but the basic patterns of behavior remain consistent with the core values established
in the 1950s. In Europe, in keeping with its traditional strategy of integrating itself, Germany
has deepened both its European and its Atlantic multilateral military commitment, turning the
French-German brigade into a corps and promoting the creation of multinational forces inside
nato to which the alliance's most combat-ready forces will be allocated. 63 Germany has also
been the chief promoter of expanding the alliance eastward while offering the Soviet Union
various forms of reassurance that such moves are not directed against it, but rather are
designed to gradually pull the entire region into a peaceful, multinational security order.
Japan, like Germany, remains wedded to its close military relationship with the United States.
At the same time, it also has begun to foster a security dialogue with neighboring countries in
East Asia. Nonetheless, Japan's efforts in this direction remain tentative. Although with the
end of the Cold War the strategic positions that Germany and Japan now occupy have become
quite similar with respect to the risks of entanglement versus the dangers of abandonment, the
Japanese political-military culture still has not adjusted to its changed external environment.
The fear of entanglement continues to loom large in Japanese politics. Perhaps more
important, whereas German leaders are able to justify their policies through reference to
Germany's membership in a larger community of Western values, similar arguments with
respect to the commonalities between Japan and the United States or Japan and the rest of
Asia fail to have similar domestic resonance.
Force Structure and Mission

During the Cold War, West Germany's and Japan's decisions to continue to rely on the United
States for external security implied that, at least to a limited extent, they had to follow the U.S.
lead on security issues. As the United States redoubled its efforts to contain growing Soviet
military strength in the late 1970s and 1980s, Germany and Japan were compelled to follow
suit, expanding and modernizing their armed forces and adopting military missions and force
postures that in certain respects appeared to signal a departure from their earlier policies. To
many West German critics, the deployment of a new generation of intermediate nuclear forces
(inf) and the Kohl government's willingness to support President Ronald Reagan's Strategic
Defense Initiative (sdi) signified German acceptance of new, highly belligerent nuclear
doctrines. 64 Fears that German foreign policy was being remilitarized were further
reinforced by the Bundeswehr's adoption of the American doctrine of Follow-on Forward
Attack (fofa), which foresaw deep strikes into Eastern Europe in order to disrupt a Soviet
assault.
Likewise, in Japan, Prime Minister Suzuki Zentaro's pledge to defend his nation's sea lanes of
communication for up to a thousand nautical miles from the Japanese mainland appeared to
mark a dramatic expansion of the sdf's traditional territorial defense role. Similarly, the
overturning of the one-percent-of-gnp limit on defense spending was interpreted by many as a
sign that the Japanese government was moving beyond its minimalist approach to spending
and preparing to embark on a major arms buildup. 65
Yet on closer inspection, many of these apparent departures prove far less significant that they
were made out to be. The primary purpose of deploying the inf missiles was not to develop the
ability to launch a decapitating first strike but rather to reinforce the credibility of the
American nuclear guarantee in an era of increasing Soviet power. 66 Moreover, consistent
with the pattern of behavior that had already been established in the 1950s, Germany
continued to seek accommodation even as it strengthened deterrence by linking the inf
deployments to new arms control initiatives. 67
17 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
Similarly, Kohl's endorsement of sdi was motivated more by the desire to demonstrate
solidarity with the United States than to help establish mil itary dominance over the Soviet
Union. Within the German government even prodefense conservatives, such as Manfred
W�rner, were uneasy about sdi, fearing that if it were realized it might prove destabilizing.
Consequently, Chancellor Kohl made his support of sdi even as a research program contingent
on further progress in the area of arms control. 68 German support for American plans for a
conventional defense of Europe was similarly lukewarm, and for the most part Germany paid
only lip service to these new doctrines and did not actually implement them. The concrete
impact of these policies on actual German force structures and defense planning was on the
whole rather minimal. 69
The Japanese commitment to defending its sea lanes was also a highly political statement with
little concrete military impact. The Japanese Self Defense Forces had long planned to patrol
Japan's sea lanes of communication in order to assure the continued flow of oil and other vital
raw materials. Yet the Maritime Self Defense Forces had little hope of accomplishing this
mission on their own, and Suzuki's announcement did little to change that state of affairs.
Indeed, it seems that the policy owed more to domestic political intrigues than to geostrategic
exigencies. There is considerable evidence that Suzuki never intended to expand Japan's
military obligations in the first place but enemies inside the government had tricked him into
making the statement in order to embarrass him. 70 Other defense initiatives also increased
Japan's dependence on the United States. In the event of a Soviet attack, Japanese defense
planners envisioned, Japanese forces would serve as the conventional "shield," protecting the
American forces, which would act as a military "spear," launching attacks on Soviet forces in
the Far East. Consequently there was a heavy emphasis on acquiring basically defensive
weapons systems, such as improved antisubmarine warfare capabilities and air defense
systems. Little effort was made to acquire greater force projection capabilities, and Japan
eschewed obtaining weapons systems that might be construed as being offensive in character,
such as aerial refueling capacity or helicopter carriers. Japanese forces also continued to
adhere to a territorial defense role. During the first Gulf crisis, in 1987, many Japanese foreign
policy experts thought that it would be in Japan's interests to dispatch at least minesweepers
to the region to demonstrate support for the United States and to nudge public opinion toward
acceptance of a broader role for the sdf. Once again, however, pressures from within the ruling
party vetoed such a move. 71
West German defense spending patterns from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s reflected this
relatively low level of interest in expanding military capabilities. While the defense budgets of
both countries continued to grow and their capabilities increased as a result of force
modernization, defense spending as a percentage of gnp grew only marginally in Japan and
actually declined in Germany. And this at a time when East-West tensions were at their
highest since the Cuban missile crisis and conservative, prodefense governments were in office
in both countries.
With the decline of the Soviet threat after the Cold War, both Germany and Japan have
significantly reduced their armed forces and their defense budgets. This is particularly true of
Germany, which has reduced its army to 370,000 and greatly slowed the pace of force
18 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
modernization. 72 Since Japanese forces started from a much lower baseline, pressures for
force reduction have not been as great. Nonetheless, there, too, defense spending has
decreased, reaching its lowest level of increase--0.7 percent--in more than thirty years.
Both armed forces continue to modernize, albeit slowly. The only sig nificant change has been
in the definition of their mission, which since the Gulf war has been expanded to include
participation in peacekeeping operations. The sdf and the Bundeswehr are undergoing some
reorganization in preparation for carrying out such missions, The pace of these changes,
however, remains very slow, the great majority of German and Japanese forces remain
earmarked for territorial defense, and neither nation has made any deliberate effort to
increase its power projection capabilities. 73
Civil-Military Relations
Even greater immobility may be observed in the area of civil-military relations. This is not to
say that there was a complete absence of debate on this topic. On the contrary, throughout the
Cold War civil-military relations remained one of the most sensitive issues on the political
agenda. Nonetheless, the pressures for change were the weakest in this area of policy, and the
domestic political resistance to change was the strongest.
In West Germany the chief point of contestation was over the political symbolism and how the
Bundeswehr should portray its predecessors--the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht--in the
construction of an institutional persona that its members could use as a role model.
Conservative politicians and officers periodically sought to strengthen unit cohesion through
the cultivation of a sense of military tradition. In a number of respects, these traditions--
especially their emphasis on discipline, obedience, and a martial ethos oriented toward
killing--clashed with the principles of innere Fuhrung. 74
During the 1980s the Kohl government, concerned that German society needed a healthy
sense of patriotism in order to counter the neutralist tendencies of the peace movement,
raised similar issues concerning the place of the armed forces in Germany identity on the
national level through a series of symbolic gestures. The most controversial of these was Kohl's
1986 visit with President Ronald Reagan to the Bittburg military cemetery, where former
members of Hitler's Waffen ss, among other, ss are buried. The Kohl administration continued
to attach great importance to this kind of political symbolism even after the Cold War ended,
as reflected by the reinterment of the Prussian Soldier King, Friedrich II, in 1993 and the
participation of German troops in the July 14, 1994, parade of the Eurocorps down the
Champs d'Elysees. 75
Innere Fuhrung, although challenged, proved too deeply rooted to be discarded, and efforts to
re-create a martial ethos within the Bundeswehr were unsuccessful. Although compromises
were worked out on such peripheral issues as the names of ships or barracks, the doctrine of
democratizing internal military life was retained. Likewise, even after the end of the Cold War
made the military rationale for the maintenance of a mass army less credible, support for the
retention of military conscription crossed party lines and was legitimated as an important
means of integrating the armed forces into society. 76
In Japan the debate centered on retaining airtight control over the activities of military men
and the ways in which the government portrayed the martial aspects of Japan's past. 77 The
continued modernization of the Japanese military and its assumption of somewhat broader
military roles inevitably led to modification of the many legislative safeguards that had been
placed on the armed forces. So, for example, in 1986 the one-percent-of-gnp limit on defense
spending was abrogated. Every time a safeguard has been dropped, however, it has been
replaced by new constraints. In the case of the one-percent barrier, a five-year rolling budget
was introduced that made sure expansion took place at a controlled pace. Other measures
were implemented as well, increasing the ability of politicians and nonmilitary bureaucrats to
19 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
intervene in the military budget process. 78
As in Germany, conservative leaders in Japan believed that the nation lacked a proper sense of
patriotism. As a result, throughout the Cold War there were repeated efforts to rekindle a
sense of national consciousness. And as in Germany, these concerns motivated conservative
leaders to make a number of symbolic gestures designed to reconcile postwar Japanese society
with the armed forces; the most famous such overture was Nakasone's 1986 visit to the
Yasukuni shrine dedicated to the Japanese war dead. Unlike the situation in Germany,
however, these efforts have had more far-reaching, concrete policy implications revolving
primarily around the issue of how to treat the war in Japanese textbooks. 79 In the late 1980s
and early 1990s the Japanese government succeeded in revising Japanese textbooks, including
making a discussion of Japan's right to self-defense part of the curriculum and adding Admiral
Togo Heihachiro, a hero of the Russo-Japanese war, to the list of historical role models for
Japanese children. 80
As in Germany, however, these symbolic gestures were highly controversial and have never
been fully institutionalized. Nakasone's trip to the Yasukuni shrine attracted widespread
criticism, as did other measures that appeared to link the military with religious or nationalist
themes. Moreover, at the same time that Japanese textbooks began to deal more openly with
military issues, the Japanese government began to allow more discussion of Japanese wartime
atrocities in school texts. Parallel to these efforts was a diplomatic campaign, spearheaded by
the new Japanese emperor, to apologize to other Asian nations for Japan's past misconduct in
the region. 81
In short, the core features of the German and Japanese approaches to maintaining control
over the armed forces--tight bureaucratic controls in the Japanese case and integration of the
armed forces into society in the German case--remained intact into the 1990s. While in both
countries conservative governments sought to cast the armed forces in a more positive light,
their efforts to do so met with limited success and were offset by countervailing pressures to
acknowledge the terrible crimes to which Bundeswehr's and sdf's predecessors had been
party. More than fifty years after the end of World War II the past continues to cast a large,
inescapable shadow over the official discourse on the relationship between the armed forces
and society.
As the foregoing analysis of German and Japanese security policy has demonstrated, cultural
norms and values have evolved in tandem with shifts in behavior, precisely as our model
predicts. Over the past fifty years, external events such as the end of the East-West conflict, the
Gulf war, or shifts in the balance of power have periodically triggered domestic political
debates over national security. At issue in these debates has been not only the question of how
beset to realize German and Japanese interests but also the highly emotional areas of national
identity and the definition of national interests. Different political actors in the German and
Japanese contexts have held strong and widely divergent views on these subjects, leading to
intense controversies over how to interpret external developments and how to respond to
them. The extreme sensitivity of military security issues in the German and Japanese contexts
has placed significant constraints on policy making in the area of security. German and
Japanese political leaders are naturally reluctant to deal with such a highly sensitive issue,
especially since the domestic political gains from taking a strong stance on defense are
perceived by most politicians as minimal. 82
Moreover, the overall direction of the shifts both in German and Japanese behavior and in
attitudes indicates a consolidation of, rather than a departure from, the antimilitarism
approaches to national security that originally came together in the 1950s. Despite profound
changes in their external security environments, German and Japanese policy makers have
acted in a manner consistent with the core principles of the political-military cultures
established by their nations in the 1950s and 1960s. In turn, German and Japanese behavior
has had an increasingly significant impact on the security environments in those countries.
20 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
Germany's commitment to political and economic integration has permitted the formation of a
European security community, while Japan's eschewal of military power has greatly reduced
tensions in the potentially volatile Asia-Pacific region.
To be sure, there have been incremental shifts all along in German and Japanese defense and
national security, and such shifts are likely to continue as the two countries adjust to changes
in the international system. A dramatic shift from the core principles of their political-military
culture is, however, likely only if there is a major shock to the system that persuades the
countries' leaders that their approach to defense and national security has been a failure. In
the Japanese case, such an event would require a collapse of the U.S.-Japan alliance,
combined with the emergence of a major new security threat. In the German case, even if the
alliance with the United States came apart, there would remain the option of trying to find a
purely European solution to the problem of nuclear deterrence. Alternatively, a failure of
extended deterrence resulting in an attack on a German or Japanese population center might
constitute a similar shock. Even under such extreme circumstances, however, German and
Japanese behavior would not likely change overnight. Instead, there would be intense
domestic political debate between different political actors about how to interpret these events
and how to respond to them. The outcome of such debate would be, at least in part, strongly
shaped by domestic political forces, and the kind of policies that would then be adopted are
not predictable by considering external factors alone.
Note 1: On the contrasting implications for alliance relations of fears of entanglement and of
abandonment, see Michael Mandelbaum, The Nuclear Revolution (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1981), ch. 6. Back.
Note 2: See John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future," International Security 15, no. 1
(Summer 1990): 5-56; Christopher Layne, "The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers
Will Rise," International Security 17, no. 4 (Spring 1993), esp. pp. 41-45; and Kenneth N.
Waltz, "The Emerging Structure of International Politics," International Security 18, no. 2
(Fall 1993): 44-79. A number of Japanese experts make similar arguments; see Chalmers
Johnson, "Rethinking Asia," National Interest 32 (Summer 1993): 20-28. Perhaps the most
widely known representation of this view is George Friedman and Meredith Lebard, The
Coming War with Japan (New York: St. Martin's, 1992). Back.
Note 3: See Catherine M. Kelleher, Germany and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1975), chs. 7, 9, and 10. Back.
Note 4: Leading examples of this sort of approach include Barry R. Posen, The Sources of
Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1984); and Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell
Note 5: See Earl C. Ravenal, "NATO: The Tides of Discontent," University of California
Institute of International Affairs, Policy Papers in International Affairs, no. 23 (Berkeley,
1985), pp. 12-13. Back.
Note 6: John Mearsheimer's recent argument that the United States should seek to ensure
that Germany acquires nuclear weapons in an orderly, nondestabilizing fashion, is in this sense
perfectly consistent with earlier American policy initiatives. See Kelleher, Germany and the
Politics of Nuclear Weapons, pp. 180-81. Back.
Note 7: Recently key documents have been released to the public in Japan that revealed that
the Defense Agency, on instructions from Prime Minister Sato Eisaku, had investigated the
possibility of Japan's acquiring its own force de frappe. See Mainichi, August 1, 1994, p. 1.
21 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
Back.
Note 8: Conversations with Motoo Shiina, spring 1991, and Professor Sato Seizaburo,
summer 1992. See also Thomas Kielinger, "The Gulf War and Consequences from the German
Point of View," Aussenpolitik 42, no. 2: 241-50, and the interview with Wolfgang Sch�uble in
Der Spiegel, no. 4, January 25, 1993, p. 20. Back.
Note 9: See Richard Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in
the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986); Jeffrey J. Anderson and John B.
Goodman, "Mars or Minerva: A United Germany in a Post-Cold War Europe," in Robert O.
Keohane, Joseph S. Nye, and Stanley Hoffmann, eds., After the Cold War: International
Institutions and State Strategies in Europe, 1989-1991, pp. 23-63 (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1993); and Edward Luttwak, "From Geopolitics to Geo-Economics," National
Interest, no. 20 (Summer 1990): 17-23. Back.
Note 10: Traditionally, realists have shown a keen appreciation of the effects of nationalism
on international politics. For the most part, however, they treat its existence as a given and do
not even attempt to explain its origins or the reasons for the intensity or forms that nationalist
sentiments assume at different points in time, thus rendering their use of nationalism post
hoc. See Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th
ed. (New York: Knopf, 1978), esp. pp. 337-47. For more recent efforts to analyze nationalist
sentiments from a basically realist perspective, see Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic
Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), and Stephen Van
Evera, "Hypotheses on Nationalism and War," International Security 18, no. 4 (Spring 1994):
3-39. Both Snyder and Van Evera, however, have departed significantly from the core
proposals of systemic realism, adopting approaches that come perilously close to certain
variants of constructivism. Back.
Note 11: A similar argument is made with regard to the role of ideas in international relations
by Geoffrey Garret and Barry Weingast, "Ideas, Interest, and Institutions: Constructing the
European Community's Internal Market," in Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds.,
Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, pp. 173-206 (Ithaca:
Note 12: For an excellent yet succinct summary of the main features of a cultural theory of
action, see Harry Eckstein, "A Culturalist Theory of Political Change," in Eckstein, Regarding
Politics: Essays on Political Theory, Stability, and Change, pp. 267-71 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1992). Back.
Note 13: For an interesting discussion of the relationship between national identity and
national interest, see William Bloom, Personal Identity, National Identity, and International
Relations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), esp. ch. 4; and Alexander Wendt,
Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 391-425. Back.
Note 14: The classic formulation of the concept of political culture can be found in Gabriel
Almond and Sydney Verba, The Civic Culture (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), pp. 11-14. Back.
Note 15: For an example of the kind of internal contradictions that may emerge out of a
culture over time, see Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (New York:
Basic Books, 1976). Back.
Note 16: Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, and Aaron Wildavsky, Cultural Theory
(Boulder: Westview, 1990), ch. 5. Back.
Note 17: For more on the process of social learning, see Milton Rokeach, The Open and
Closed Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1960); Lloyd Etheridge, Can Governments Learn?
22 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
(New York: Pergamon, 1985); and Ernst Haas, "Why Collaborate? Issue Linkage and
International Relations," World Politics 32, no. 3 (April 1980): 357-405. Back.
Note 18: Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1970). Back.
Note 19: Emile Durkheim, The Rules of the Sociological Method, trans. Sarah A. Solovay and
John D. Mueller, ed. George E. G. Catlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938), pp.
1061-62. Back.
Note 20: See Brian Barry, Sociologists, Economists, and Democracy (London: Collier-
Macmillan, 1970); and Carole Pateman, "Political Culture, Political Structures, and Political
Change," British Journal of Sociology 1, no. 3 (July 1971): 291-306. Back.
Note 21: For a similar type of argument, see John Gerard Ruggie, "Multilateralism: The
Anatomy of an Institution," in Ruggie, ed., Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of
an Institutional Form (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 24-31. Back.
Note 22: See Volker R. Berghan, Militarism: The History of an International Debate,
1861-1979 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
Back.
Note 23: On the political influence of the military in prewar Germany, see Gordon Craig, The
Politics of the Prussian Army, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964); Geoff Eley,
Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change After Bismarck
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980). On Japan, see Richard J. Smethurst, A Social Basis
for Japanese Militarism: The Army and the Rural Community (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1974). Back.
Note 24: On the American efforts in Japan, see Meirion Harries and Susie Harries,
Sheathing the Sword: The Demilitarization of Postwar Japan (New York: Macmillan, 1987).
On Germany, see Lucius Clay, Decision in Germany (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1950);
and Howard Zink, The United States in Germany, 1944-1951 (New York: Van Nostrand, 1957).
Back.
Note 25: See Otake Hideo, Saigumbi to Nashyonarizumu (Tokyo: Chuokoshinsho, 1989);
and Hans-Peter Schwarz, Adenauer: Der Aufstieg, 1876-1952 (Stuttgart: Deutsche-Verlags-
Anstalt, 1986). Back.
Note 26: On the considerable influence that the United States wielded in German and
Japanese politics, as well as the extensive benefits it could provide in terms of aid and access
to the newly emerging international trading system, see Hans Jurgen Grabbe, Unionspartei,
Sozialdemokratie, und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, 1946-1966 (Dusseldorf: Droste
Verlag, 1983); and Akaneya Tatsuo, "Saikeikoku taigu o motomete," in Watanabe Akio, ed.,
Sengo Nihon no Taigaiseisaku, pp. 108-34 (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1985). Back.
Note 27: See Paul B. Stares, The Restrictions on the Forces of the Federal Republic of
Germany (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991); and Boei Handobukku, 1989 ed.
(Tokyo: Asagumo Shimbunsha, 1989), pp. 425-26. Certain ambiguities did remain. For
example, the Japanese armed forces planned to acquire the ability to defend merchant
shipping well beyond Japan's territorial waters in the event of hostilities. Back.
Note 28: The best English-language source on West German civil-military relations is
Donald Abenheim, Reforging the Iron Cross (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).
Back.
23 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
Note 29: For a brief overview of postwar Japanese civil-military relations, see Leonard A.
Humphreys, "The Japanese Military Tradition," in James H. Buck, ed., The Modern Japanese
Military System, pp. 21-40 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1975). See also Hirose Katsuya, Kanryo to
Gunjin: Bunmin tosei no Genkai (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1989). On external bureaucratic
controls, see Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, Japan's National Security: Structures,
Norms, and Policy Responses in a Changing World, Cornell East Asia Series no. 58 (Ithaca:
Note 30: On the Left's fears of the government's intentions, see Utake Hideo, Saigumbi to
Nashyona-rizumu. On the gullibility of the Japanese Left, see Kojima Ryo, Hangarii Jiken to
Nihon: 1956 Shisoteki Kosatsu (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1987). Back.
Note 31: An important factor that reinforced the polarization of the Japanese political system
was the presence of the Communist Party, which competed with the Socialists for left-wing
votes. In West Germany, on the other hand, the Communist Party was banned in 1951, making
it easier for the spd to move to the right on defense and other issues. When an alternative to
the left of the spd--the Greens--emerged in the 1970s pressure built for the party to shift to the
left. See Josef Joffe, The Limited Partnership: Europe, the United States, and the Burdens of
Alliance (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1987). Back.
Note 32: On the concept of path-dependent development, see Douglas C. North, Institutions,
Institutional Development, and Economic Performance (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), esp. ch. 11. Back.
Note 33: Hans-Peter Schwarz, Die gez�hmten Deutschen (Stuttgart: Deutsche-Verlags-

Anstalt, 1985). Back.
Note 34: Kenneth B. Pyle, The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era
(Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1992). Back.
Note 35: Question: Should Japan join the Free World, the Communist camp, or be neutral?
Back.
Note 36: Question: In your opinion, what would be better foreign policy: Should we continue
to ally ourselves with the United States or should we try to be neutral, for example, like
Switzerland?
Back.
24 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
Note 37: At the same time, support for German reunification remained very high. There
were important generational differences, however, with younger Germans showing markedly
less interest in reunification than their elders. See Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, ed., Jahrbuch
(Institut fur Demoskopie, Allensbach, 1976), p. 83. Back.
Note 38: The peace movement and the acrimonious West German debate over the nato
decision to deploy a new generation of intermediate-range missiles caused some temporary
shifts, but overall the impact was almost surprisingly limited. See Hans Rattinger, "The
Federal Republic of Germany: Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing," in Hans Rattinger and
Gregory Flynn, eds., The Public and Atlantic Defense, pp. 101-73 (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and
Allanhead, 1985). Back.
Note 39: Meyer, Der Burger und seine Sicherheit, p. 255, table 6.7.8. Back.
Note 40: Gekkan Yoron Chosa, July 1972, cited in Akio Watanabe, "Japanese Public Opinion
and Foreign Affairs," in Robert A. Scalapino, ed., The Foreign Policy of Modern Japan, pp.
105-45 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 115. Back.
Note 41: See Komiya Ryutaro, "Uerubeki Migi Senkai," Gendai Keizai 6 (Spring 1979): 71-84.
For more on the employment of Japanese intellectuals in the Japanese policy-making process,
see Frank Schwartz, "Of Fairy Cloaks and Familiar Talk: The Politics of Consultation," in Gary
D. Allinson and Yasunori Sone, eds., The Political Dynamics of Contemporary Japan, pp.
217-41 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 42: See Umemoto Tetsuya, Arms and Alliance in Japanese Public Opinion (Ph.D. diss.,
Princeton University, 1985). Characteristic of the new right-wing literature was Shimizu
Ikutaro, Nihon yo Kokka o Tare!: Kaku no Sentaku (Tokyo: Bungeishunju, 1980). Back.
Note 43: See Jeffrey Herf, War by Other Means: Soviet Power, West German Resistance,
and the Battle over the Euromissiles (New York: Free Press, 1991). Back.
Note 44: See Gordon D. Drummond, The German Social Democrats in Opposition,
1949-1960 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982). Back.
Note 45: Berthold Meyer, Die Parteien der BRD und die sicherheitspolitische
Zusammenarbeit in Europa (Frankfurt am Main: Hessische Stiftung fur Friedens und
Konflikt Forschung, Bericht 2, 1987), ch. 3. Back.
Note 46: See Clay Clemens, Reluctant Realists (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989).
Back.
Note 47: See Umemoto Tetsuya, Arms and Alliance in Japanese Public Opinion, esp. pp.
175-80; and Horie Tadashi and Ikei Masaru, Nihon no Seito to Gaiko Seisaku (Tokyo: Keio
Tsushin, 1980), chs. 2 and 3. Back.
Note 48: Typical of the centrists' ability to check the Right was the way in which they foiled
Nakasone's efforts to link increasing defense spending above one percent of the gnp with a
rekindling of Japanese nationalism. See Kaminishi Akio, GNP 1% Waku (Tokyo: Kadokawa
Bunko, 1986); and Akasaka Shintaro, "1% Waku de Tsumazuita Nakasone Shusho,"
Bungeishunju (January 1986): 178-82. Back.
Note 49: See Ishihara Shintaro, The Japan That Can Say "No": The New U.S.-Japanese
Relations Card (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991); and Eto Jun, Nichibei Senso wa
owatte inai: Shukkumei no Taiketsu--Sono Genzai, Kako, Mirai (Tokyo: Nesco Books, 1986).
Back.
Note 50: Sophisticated versions of this argument can be found in Amaya Naohiro,
25 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
"Shoninkoku Nihon Tedai no Kurigoto," Bungeishunju (March 1980); and Okazaki Hisahiko,
Senryakuteki Kangaekatta to wa Nani ka (Tokyo: Chuokoshinsho, 1983), pp. 9-13, 24-26.
Back.
Note 51: See Utake Hideo, Nihon no Boei to Kokunai Seiji (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1983), pp.
26-100. Back.
Note 52: In Japan a mere 10% supported sdf dispatch with no limitations, and even among
ldp supporters opponents of dispatch outnumbered proponents 41% to 14.9%; Nikkei, October
15, 1990. In Germany in January 1991, 71% of all German-supported allied actions, but only
20% would have supported Bundeswehr participation in the campaign; Der Spiegel 5, January
28, 1991, pp. 32-36. See also Der Spiegel 11, March 11, 1991, p. 36. Back.
Note 53: For an overview of the Japanese debate, see Ito Kenichi, "The Japanese State of
Mind: Deliberations on the Gulf Crisis," Journal of Japanese Studies 17, no. 2 (Summer 1991);
on Germany, see Michael J. Inacker, Unter Ausschlu� der �ffentlichkeit: Die Deutschen in
der Golfallianz (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1991). For a brief overview of the German intellectual
debate at the time, see Cora Stephan, "An der deutschen Heimatfront," Der Spiegel 10, March
4, 1991. Back.
Note 54: See Yomiuri, July 9, 1994, pp. 1 and 2. Back.
Note 55: See the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 15, 1994, pp. 1 and 2. Back.
Note 56: On this point the author is indebted to conversations with Victor Cha on the
evolution of the dialogue between North and South Koreas. Relations between Taiwan and
China also contrast sharply with the German case. Back.
Note 57: For what is still one of the best overviews of the politics leading up to the Eastern
Treaties, see William E. Griffith, The Ostpolitik of the Federal Republic of Germany
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978), esp. ch. 5. Back.
Note 58: See Jonathan Dean, Watershed in Europe (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books,
1987); and Vjotech Mastny, Helsinki, Human Rights, and European Security (Durham: Duke
Note 59: See Clay Clemens, Reluctant Realists. For a sampling of the fears that this policy
caused abroad, see Christopher Layne, "Deutschland uber Alles," New Republic (September
1987); and Eberhard Schulz and Peter Danylow, eds., Bewegung in die deutsche Frage? Die
ausl�ndischen Besorgnisse uber die Entwicklung in den beiden deutschen Staaten (Bonn:
Deutsche Gesellschaft fur ausw�rtige Politik, 1985). Back.
Note 60: See Utake, Nihon no Boei to Kokunai Seiji, chs. 1-3. Back.
Note 61: See Chuma Kiyofuku, Saigumbi no Seijigaku (Tokyo: Chishikisha, 1985), pp.
45-94. Back.
Note 62: See Dieter Mahncke, Nukleare Mitwirkung: Die Bundesrepublik in der
Atlantischen Allianz (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972). Back.
Note 63: See Thomas-Durrell Young, Franco-German Security Accommodation: Illusion of

Agreement (Carlisle, Pa: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 1993); Hilmar
Linnenkamp, "The Security Policy of the New Germany," in Paul B. Stares, ed., The New
Germany and the New Europe (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1992), pp. 98-100;
and Wolfgang Schl�r, German Security Policy, Adelphi Paper 277 (London: IISS-Brassey's,
June 1993), pp. 30, 58-59. Back.
26 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
Note 64: See Hans Gunter Brauch, ed., Star Wars and European Defense (New York: St.
Martin's, 1987). Back.
Note 65: On the sea lanes issue, see Chuma Kiyofuku, Saigumbi no Seijigaku, pp. 107-24; on
Japanese defense spending, see Joseph P. Keddell, Jr., The Politics of Defense in Japan:
Managing Internal and External Pressures (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), ch. 3. Back.
Note 66: See Helmut Schmidt, Menschen und M�chte (Berlin: Siedler. 1987), p. 92; and
Wolfram Hanrieder, Germany, America, and Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1989), pp. 110-11. Back.
Note 67: See Helga Haftendorn, Sicherheit und Entspannung (Baden-Baden: Nomos
Verlag, 1986), pp. 250-51. Back.
Note 68: Christian Hacke, Weltmacht wider Willen (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1988), pp.
334-41; Ernst-Otto Czempiel, "sdi and nato: The Case of the Federal Republic of Germany," in
Sanford Lakoff and Randy Willoughby, eds., Strategic Defense and the Western Alliance, pp.
147-64 (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1987). Back.
Note 69: See the comments by General Inspector of the Bundeswehr Klaus Naumann on the
prospects for a conventional defense of Western Europe in Naumann, "The Forces and the
Future," in Stephen S. Szabo, The Bundeswehr and Western Security (London: Macmillan,
1990), p. 174. Back.
Note 70: See Chuma Kiyofuku, Saigumbi no Seijigaku, pp. 110-12; Keddell, The Politics of
Defense in Japan, pp. 112-18; interview with highly placed officials in the Japanese Foreign
Ministry, Tokyo, October 1988. Back.
Note 71: See Asahi, July 7, 1987, evening ed., p. 1; Asahi, September 5, 1987, p. 3; Japan
Times, October 8, 1987, p. 1; and Gotoda Masaharu, Seiji to wa Nanika (Tokyo: Kodansha,
1988), p. 172. Back.
Note 72: Schlor, German Security Policy, pp. 40-43; and Linnenkamp, "The Security Policy
of the New Germany," pp. 95-96.
Back.
Note 73: The complete text of the Japanese peacekeeping law along with concomitant
amendments to other laws governing the Japanese armed forces can be found in "Kokusai
heiwaji katsudo nado ni tai suru Kyoryoku ni Kan suru Horitsu," Shinboeironshu 20, no. 2
(September 1992): 82-100. For more on the background of the law, see Aurelia George,
"Japan's Participation in UN Peacekeeping Missions: Radical Departure or Predictable
Response?" Asian Survey 33, no. 6 (June 1993): 560-75. On German Bundeswehr
reorganization, see Otfried Nassauer, "Die NATO--Aufbruch zu neuen Ufern?" in Erich
Schmidt-Eenboom and Jo Angerer, eds., Siegermacht NATO (Berg am See:
Verlagsgesellschaft Berg, 1993), pp. 75-84; and Thomas-Durrell Young, The New European
Security Calculus: Implications for the U.S. Army (U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies
Institute, Carlisle Barracks, March 1, 1991). Back.
Note 74: See Abenheim, Reforging the Iron Cross; Ulrich Simon, Die Integration der
Bundeswehr in die Gesellschaft (Heidelberg/Hamburg: R.v.Decker's Verlag G. Schenck,
1980); and Martin Esser, Das Traditionsverst�ndnis des Offizierkorps
(Heidelberg/Hamburg: R.v.Decker's Verlag G. Schenck, 1982). Back.
Note 75: For an extensive documentary overview of the Bittburg visit and the controversy
surrounding it, see Ilya Lefkov, ed., Bitburg and Beyond: Encounters in American, German,
and Jewish History (New York: Shapolsky Books, 1987). Back.
27 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
Note 76: See Hans-Adolf Jacobsen and Hans-Jurgen Rautenberg, eds., Bundeswehr und
Europ�ische Sicherheitsordnung (Bonn: Bouvier, 1991), pp. 50-51, 55-59; and Jurgen
Kuhlmann and Ekkehard Lippert, "Wehrpflicht Ade? Argumente fur und wider die
Wehrpflicht in Friedenszeiten," in Geld Kladrack and Paul Klein, eds., Die Zukunft der
Streitkr�fte Angesichts Weltweiter Abrustungsbemuhungen (Baden-Baden: Nomos
Verlagsgesellschaft, 1992). Back.
Note 77: Hirose Katsuya, Kanryo to Gunjin: Bunmintosei no Genkai (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 1989); Nikkei, February 16, 1992, p. 2, and October 16, 1993, p. 2. Back.
Note 78: Keddell, The Politics of Defense in Japan, pp. 126-56. Back.
Note 79: Because of the institutional structure of the German state, where education is a
responsibility of state governments, this issue rarely reaches national politics. For an
exception, see Dieter Lutz, Der 'Friedens'-Streit der Kultusminister: Ein 'Schul' Beispiel
(Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1984). For an overview of the Japanese debate,
see Teruhisa Hori, Educational Thought and Ideology in Modern Japan: State Authority and
Intellectual Freedom (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1988), pp. 106-212. Back.
Note 80: See Asahi, July 1, 1992, p. 1; and Japan Times, July 1, 1992, p. 3. Back.
Note 81: For an overview of recent developments, see Sekai (February 1994), special issue
on war guilt, Arai Shinichi, Senso Sekinin to wa Nani Ka"; and Tanaka Akira, "Nihon wa Senso
Sekinin ni do taishite kita ka." Back.
Note 82: This is particularly true in Japan. The author has had numerous oportunities over
the past five years to discuss defense issues with Japanese policy makers and it has been their
unanimous view that a strong, prodefense position brings little electoral benefit. As a
prominent liberal democratic Diet member put it to the author, "Boei wa Hyo ni
Tsunagaranai" (interview with Nagao Eiichi, Tokyo, spring 1988), a point of view that was
repeated to the author many times by politicians from both the Left and the Right. Back.
28 de 28 05/08/2010 19:39
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editor
10. Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO
Thomas Risse-Kappen
The Puzzle
Why was it that the United States, the undisputed superpower of the early post-1945 period,
found itself entangled in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with Western Europe
only four years after the end of World War II? Why was it that a pattern of cooperation
evolved in NATO that survived not only the ups and downs of the Cold War and various severe
interallied conflicts--from the 1956 Suez crisis to the conflict over Euromissiles in the
1980s--but also the end of the Cold War? Why is it that NATO has emerged as the strongest
among the post-Cold War security institutions--as compared to the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (osce), the West European Union (weu), not even to mention the
eu's Common Foreign and Security Policy (cfsp)?
Traditional (realist) alliance theory 1 at least has a simple answer to the first two questions: the
Soviet threat. But what constituted the Soviet threat? Was it Soviet power, ideology, behavior,
or all three combined? I argue in this essay that the notion of the "Soviet threat" needs to be
unpacked and problematized if we want to understand what it contributed to the emergence
and the endurance of NATO. I also claim that realism might provide first-cut answers to the
questions above but that it is indeterminate with regard to explaining particular Western
European and U.S. choices at critical junctures of the Cold War, not even to mention its
aftermath. Moreover, sophisticated power-based arguments that try to account for these
choices do so at the expense of parsimony. Why should they be privileged as providing the
baseline story, while more elegant alternative explanations are used to add some local
coloration? 2
I provide an account for the origins and the endurance of NATO different from the
conventional wisdom. NATO and the transatlantic relationship can be better understood on
the basis of republican liberalism linking domestic polities systematically to the foreign policy
of states. 3 Liberal democracies are likely to form "pacific federations" (Immanuel Kant) or
"pluralistic security communities" (Karl W. Deutsch). Liberalism in the Kantian sense,
however, needs to be distinguished from the conventional use of the term, as in neoliberal
institutionalism, denoting the "cooperation under anarchy" perspective of rationalist regime
analysis. 4 I present a social constructivist interpretation of republican
liberalism, emphasizing collec tive identities and norms of appropriate behavior. To illustrate
my argument, I discuss the origins of NATO, the transatlantic interactions during two major
Cold War "out-of-area" crises (the 1956 Suez crisis and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis), and the
persistence of NATO after the end of the Cold War.
Theorizing About Alliances

Realism and NATO: The Indeterminacy of the Conventional Wisdom
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Traditional alliance theory is firmly grounded in realist thinking. Realism, however, is

indeterminate with regard to explaining the origins of, the interaction patterns in, and the
endurance of NATO.
Realism and the Origins of NATO
Structural realism contains a straightforward alliance theory. 5 States balance rather than
bandwagon; alliances form because weak states band together against great powers in order to
survive in an anarchic international system. Alliance patterns change because the international
distribution of power changes. This is particularly true under multipolarity; great powers do
not need allies under bipolarity. The latter structure consists of only two great powers, which
are self-sufficient in terms of their ability to survive. As a result, alliances become a matter of
convenience rather than necessity.
It is hard to reconcile Waltzian realism with the history of NATO. The U.S. emerged from
World War II as the undisputed superpower in the international system, enjoying a monopoly
(and later superiority) with regard to the most advanced weapons systems, i.e., nuclear forces.
Its gross domestic product (gdp) outweighed that of all Western European states combined,
not even to mention the Soviet Union. If material capabilities are all that counts in world
politics, one would have expected Western Europe to align with the Soviet Union rather than
with the U.S. 6
But the Waltzian argument rests on some peculiar assumptions about bipolarity. While great
powers may not need allies to ensure their survival, client states might become an asset in the
competition between the two hegemonic rivals. After all, bipolarity means that the two great
powers in the system have to cope primarily with each other. As "defensive positionalists,"
they are expected to be concerned about relative gains and losses vis-á-vis each other and to
compete fiercely. 7 The more important relative gains are, however, the more significant the
acquisition of client states should become. While the loss or defection of one small ally might
not be important, superpowers might fear that even small losses might set in motion a chain
reaction.
Thus, if we change our understanding of bipolarity only slightly, American Cold War policies
of acquiring allies around the globe, including the Western Europeans, can be explained. In
other words, structural realism can be made consistent with actual U.S. behavior during the
Cold War, but the theory could also explain the opposite behavior.
What about Stephen Walt's more sophisticated realism emphasizing the "balance of threat"
rather than the "balance of power"? 8 Does it reduce the indeterminacy of structural realism
by adding more variables? Walt argues that states align against what they perceive as threats
rather than against economic and military capabilities as such. States feel threatened when
they face powers that combine superior capabilities with geostrategic proximity, offensive
military power, and offensive ideology. One could then argue that the proximity of the Soviet
landmass to Western Europe, Moscow's offensive military doctrine backed by superior
conventional forces, and the aggressive communist ideology constituted the Soviet threat
leading to the formation of NATO.
There is no question that Western decision makers perceived a significant Soviet threat during
the late 1940s and that this threat perception was causally consequential for the formation of
NATO. The issue is not the threat perception, but what constituted it: Soviet power, ideology,
behavior, or a combination of the three? As to Soviet power, the geographic proximity of the
Soviet landmass--Walt's first indicator--could explain the Western European threat perception
and the British and French attempts to lure reluctant decision makers in Washington into a
permanent alliance with Europe. 9 But it is still unclear why the U.S. valued Western Europe
2 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
so much that it decided to join NATO. The argument that the U.S. wanted to prevent Soviet
control over the Eurasian rimland 10 makes sense only if we also assume that decision makers
in Washington saw themselves as defensive positionalists in a fierce hegemonic rivalry rather
than more relaxed Waltzian realists (see above). In this case, sophisticated realism is as
inconclusive as structural realism.
Moreover, the Soviet Union was not considered an offensive military threat to Western Europe
during the late 1940s. Military estimates did increasingly point to Soviet military superiority in
Europe, but that did not lead to the perception of an imminent attack. As John Lewis Gaddis
put it, "Estimates of Moscow's intentions, whether from the Pentagon, the State Department,
or the intelligence community, consistently discounted the possibility that the Russians might
risk a direct military confrontation within the foreseeable future." 11
Rather, the U.S. threat perception at the time focused on potential Soviet ability to
psychologically blackmail war-weakened Western Europe and to destabilize these countries
politically and economically. This American view of a significant Soviet threat was concerned
about actual Soviet behavior in Eastern Europe and the Soviet offensive political ideology--the
third of Walt's indicators. If this is indeed what constituted the Soviet threat in Western eyes in
the late 1940s, it can be better explained by liberal theories than by even sophisticated realism
(see below). At least, the two accounts become indistinguishable at this point.
Realism and Cooperation Patterns in NATO
Realism's indeterminacy with regard to the origins of NATO also applies to interaction
patterns within the Western Alliance. To begin with, structural realism of the Waltzian variety
has a clear expectation regarding cooperation among allies. If great powers do not need allies
under bipolarity, they also do not need to listen to them. As Waltz put it, the contributions of
smaller states to alliances "are useful even in a bipolar world, but they are not indispensable.
Because they are not, the policies and strategies of alliance leaders are ultimately made
according to their own calculations and interests." 12
If this argument holds true, one would not expect much European influence on U.S. decisions
during the Cold War--particularly not in cases, such as the Cuban missile crisis, when the U.S.
perceived its supreme national interests at stake. I show later in this essay that this expectation
proves to be wrong. Close cooperation among the allies was the rule rather than the exception
throughout the history of NATO--with regard to European security, the U.S.-Soviet
relationship, and "out-of-area" cases. The power asymmetry within NATO did not translate
into American dominance. Rather, the European allies managed to influence U.S. foreign
policy significantly even in cases when the latter considered its supreme national interests to
be at stake. 13
More sophisticated realists, however, should not be too surprised by these findings. If we
assume that decision makers in Washington needed allies to fight the Cold War, we would
expect some degree of cooperation within the Western Alliance, including European influence
on U.S. policies. Allies who need each other to balance against a perceived threat are expected
to cooperate with each other. Unfortunately, this assumption is demonstrably wrong.
Cooperation among allies is by no means assured. Allies are as likely to fight each other as they
are to fight non-allies--except for democratic alliances. 14 Thus we need additional
assumptions about the conditions under which nations in alliances are likely to cooperate.
According to realist bargaining theory, for example, we would expect a higher degree of
interallied cooperation,
1. the higher the perceived level of external threat

2. the more allies fear that their partners might abandon them or defect, particularly in
3 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
crisis situations
3. the more issue-specific power resources are used in interallied bargaining situations. 15
At this point, sophisticated realism loses much of its parsimony. Evaluating these propositions
against alternative claims requires detailed process-tracing of interallied bargaining. We
cannot simply assume a realist bargaining process when we find outcomes consistent with one
specific version of realist theory.
Realism and the Endurance of NATO After the Cold War
The indeterminacy of realism also applies when we start using the theory to predict the
survivability of NATO after the Cold War. Structural realists in the Waltzian tradition should
expect NATO to wither away with the end of the Cold War. If great powers do not need allies
under bipolarity for their survival, this should be all the more true when the hegemonic rivalry
ceases to dominate world politics. In Waltz's own words, "NATO is a disappearing thing. It is a
question of how long it is going to remain as a significant institution even though its name may
linger on." 16
In the absence of indicators of what "lingering on" means, it is hard to evaluate the
proposition. I argue later in this essay that NATO is alive and well so far, at least as compared
to other security institutions in Europe.
Sophisticated realism and "balance-of-threat" arguments are indeterminate with regard to the
future of NATO. On the one hand, one could argue that the Western Alliance should gradually
disintegrate as a result of the Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe and the drastically
decreased military threat. On the other hand, the Russian landmass might still constitute a
residual risk to Western Europe, thus necessitating a hedge against a potential reemergence of
the threat. 17 In any case, the Western offer for a "partnership for peace" to Russia is difficult
to account for even by sophisticated realism.
In sum, a closer look at realism as the dominant alliance theory reveals its indeterminacy with
regard to the origins of, the interaction patterns in, and the endurance of NATO. In retrospect,
almost every single choice of states can be accommodated somehow by realist thinking. As a
Waltzian realist, the U.S. could have concluded that the direct confrontation with the ussr was
all that mattered, while the fate of the Western Europeans would not alter the global balance
of power. As a more sophisticated realist, the U.S. would have decided--as it actually did--that
the fate of the Eurasian rim was geostrategically too significant to leave the Western
Europeans alone. If decision makers in Washington listened to their allies during the Cuban
missile crisis, we can invoke realist arguments about reputation and the need to preserve the
alliance during crises. Had the U.S. not listened to the Western Europeans during the crisis,
one could have argued that superpowers do not need to worry about their allies when they
perceive that their immediate survival is at stake. If NATO survives the end of the Cold War, it
is "lingering on" as a hedge; if it disappears, the threat has withered away. As others have
noted before, realism is not especially helpful in explaining particular foreign policy choices.
18 I now look at a liberal account emphasizing a community among democracies, collective
identity, and alliance norms.
Democratic Allies in a Pluralistic Security Community: A Liberal Constructivist

Approach
The U.S. had quite some latitude as to how it defined its interests in Europe. Thus we need to
"look more closely at this particular hegemon" in order to "determine why this particular . . .
agenda was pursued." 19 Domestic politics and structures have to be considered, and the
realm of liberal theories of international relations is to be entered.
4 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
To avoid confusion, particularly with what is sometimes called neoliberal institutionalism, I

reserve the term liberal theories of international relations for approaches agreeing that 20
1. the fundamental agents in international politics are not states but individuals acting in a
social context--whether governments, domestic society, or international institutions;
2. the interests and preferences of national governments have to be analyzed as a result of

domestic structures and coalition-building processes responding to social demands as
well as to external factors such as the (material and social) structure of the international
system;
3. ideas--values, norms, and knowledge--are causally consequential in international

relations, particularly with regard to state interests, preferences, and choices;
4. international institutions form the social structure of international politics presenting

constraints and opportunities to actors.
Immanuel Kant's argument 21 that democratic institutions characterized by the rule of law, the
respect for human rights, the nonviolent and compromise-oriented resolution of domestic
conflicts, and participatory opportunities for the citizens are a necessary condition for peace
has been empirically substantiated. Most scholars agree that liberal democracies rarely fight
each other, even though they are not peaceful toward autocratic regimes. 22 The reasons for
these two findings are less clear, since explanations focusing solely on democratic domestic
structures miss the point that liberal states are not inherently peaceful. Rather, we need
theoretical accounts that link the domestic level to interactions on the international level. 23
Two domestic-level explanations prevail in the literature. 24 The first emphasizes

institutional constraints. Democracies are characterized by an elaborate set of checks and
balances--between the executive and the legislature, between the political system and interest
groups, public opinion, and so on. It is then argued that the complexity of the decision-making
process makes it unlikely that leaders will readily use military force unless they are confident
of gathering enough domestic support for a low-cost war. This explanation is theoretically
unconvincing. Why is it that the complexity of democratic institutions seems to matter less
when liberal states are faced with authoritarian adversaries?
The second explanation focuses on the norms governing democratic decision-making

processes and establishing the nonviolent and compromise-oriented resolution of political
conflicts, the equality of the citizens, majority rule, tolerance for dissent, and the rights of
minorities. These norms are firmly embedded in the political culture of liberal states and
shape the identity of political actors through processes of socialization, communication, and
enactment. This norm- and identity-based account appears to offer a better understanding of
why it is that democratic governments refrain from violence when dealing with fellow
democracies. But its exclusive focus on the domestic level still does not show why such
restraints disappear when liberal governments deal with autocratic regimes.
The norm- and identity-based explanation nevertheless can be easily amended and linked to
the level of international interactions. Collectively held identities not only define who "we" are,
but they also delineate the boundaries against "them," the "other." 25 Identities then
prescribe norms of appropriate behavior toward those perceived as part of "us" as well as
toward the "other." There is no reason that this argument should not equally apply to the
domestic and the international realm. A sociological interpretation of a liberal theory of
international relations then claims that actors' domestic identities are crucial for their
perceptions of one another in the international realm. As Michael Doyle put it,
5 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
Domestically just republics, which rest on consent, then presume foreign

republics also to be consensual, just, and therefore deserving of
accommodation. . . . At the same time, liberal states assume that non-liberal
states, which do not rest on free consent, are not just. Because non-liberal
governments are in a state of aggression with their own people, their foreign
relations become for liberal governments deeply suspect. In short, fellow
liberals benefit from a presumption of amity; nonliberals suffer from a
presumption of enmity. 26
Threat perceptions do not emerge from a quasi-objective international power structure, but
actors infer external behavior from the values and norms governing the domestic political
processes that shape the identities of their partners in the international system. Thus, France
and Britain did not perceive the superior American power at the end of World War II as
threatening, because they considered the U.S. as part of "us"; Soviet power, however, became
threatening precisely because Moscow's domestic order identified the Soviet Union as "the
other." The collective identity of actors in democratic systems defines both the "in-group" of
friends and the "out-group" of potential foes. Liberal theory posits that the realist world of
anarchy reigns in relations between democratic and authoritarian systems, while "democratic
peace" prevails among liberal systems.
But liberal theory does not suggest that democracies live in perpetual harmony with each
other or do not face cooperation problems requiring institutional arrangements. Kant's "pacific
federation" (foedus pacificum) does not fall from heaven, but has to be "formally instituted"
(gestiftet). 27
Since the security dilemma 28 is almost absent among democracies, they face fewer obstacles
to creating cooperative security institutions. Actors of democratic states "know" through the
process of social identification described above that they are unlikely to fight each other in the
future. They share liberal values pertaining to political life and are likely to form what Deutsch
called a "pluralistic security community," leading to mutual responsiveness in terms of
"mutual sympathy and loyalties; of 'we-feeling,' trust, and consideration; of at least partial
identification in terms of self-images and interests; of the ability to predict each other's
behavior and ability to act in accordance with that prediction." 29
While Deutsch's notion of pluralistic security communities is not confined to democracies, it is

unlikely that a similar sense of mutual responsiveness could emerge among autocratic leaders.
There is nothing in their values that would prescribe mutual sympathy, trust, and
consideration. Rather, cooperation among nondemocracies is likely to emerge out of narrowly
defined self-interests. It should remain fragile, and the "cooperation under anarchy"
perspective to international relations should apply. 30
If democracies are likely to overcome obstacles against international cooperation and to enter
institutional arrangements for specific purposes, what about the rules and decision-making
procedures of these institutions? One would expect the regulative norms 31 of these
institutions to reflect the constitutive norms that shape the collective identity of the security
community. Democracies are then likely to form democratic international institutions whose
rules and procedures are aimed toward consensual and compromise-oriented decision-
making respecting the equality of the participants. The norms governing the domestic
decision-making processes of liberal systems are expected to regulate their interactions in
international institutions. Democracies externalize their internal norms when cooperating
with each other. Power asymmetries will be mediated by norms of democratic decision-
making among equals emphasizing persuasion, compromise, and the non-use of force or
coercive power. Norms of regular consultation, of joint consensus-building, and of
nonhierarchy legitimize and enable a habit of mutual influence on each other's preferences
and behaviors. These norms serve as key obligations translating the domestic decision-making
6 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
rules of democracies to the international arena. This is not to suggest that consultation norms
exist only in alliances among democracies. But consultation means "codetermination" when
democracies are involved.
But how are these regulative norms expected to affect interaction processes among democratic
allies? First, decision makers either anticipate allied demands or directly consult their partners
before preferences are formed and conclusions are reached. Actors then make a discernible
effort to define their preferences in a way that is compatible with the allied views and to
accommodate allied demands.
Second, norms serve as collective understandings of appropriate behavior, which can be

invoked by the participants in a discourse to justify their arguments. Consultation norms affect
the reasoning process by which decision makers identify their preferences and choices. Actors
are expected to invoke the norms to back up their respective views and to give weight to their
arguments.
Third, the cooperation rules and procedures are also expected to influence the bargaining
processes among the allies. This is fairly obvious with regard to consultation. In addition,
democratic decision-making procedures deemphasize the use of material power resources in
intra-allied bargaining processes, thereby delegitimating to play out one's superior military or
economic power in intra-alliance bargaining. Both the pluralistic security community and
specific consultation norms work against the use of coercive power in bargaining processes
among democracies.
But norms can be violated. Norms compliance in human interactions is to be expected only in
a probabilistic sense. Instances in which actors violate specific rules and obligations are of
particular interest to the analysis. If norms regulate the interaction but are breached, one
would expect peculiar behavior by both the violator and the victim, such as excuses,
justifications, or compensatory action. 32
Finally, the allied community of values does not exclude democracies' driving hard bargains
when dealing with each other in conflictual situations. While using material power resources
to strengthen one's bargaining position is considered illegitimate among democracies,
references to domestic pressures and constraints are likely to occur frequently. After all,
liberal systems have in common that their leaders are constrained by the complexities of
democratic political institutions. Since these procedures form the core of the value
community, it should be appropriate to play "two-level games" using domestic
pressures--small domestic "win-sets," in Robert Putnam's terms--to increase one's bargaining
leverage. 33 The argument presented above assumes that the values and norms embedded in
the political culture of liberal democracies constitute the collective identity of a security
community among democracies and that the regulative norms of the community institutions
reflect these constitutive norms. This claim is subject to two objections: 34
1. Why is it that domestic orders, norms, and political cultures shape the identities of actors
in the international realm? Why not economic orders, such as capitalism? Why not
geographic concepts, such as "the West," the "North Atlantic area," and the like? Why not
gender and race, such as "white males"?
2. Democratic identities appear to be constant and acontextual rather than historically

contingent. Is there never any change as to what constitutes an identity as "liberal
democrat"?
As to the first point, it is, of course, trivial that actors hold multiple identities. Which of these
or which combination dominates their interests, perceptions, and behavior in a given area of
7 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
social interaction needs to be examined through empirical analysis and cannot be decided
beforehand. I submit, however, that values and norms pertaining to questions of governance
are likely to shape identities in the realm of the political--be it domestic or international.
Moreover, such notions as "the West" do not contradict the argument here but seem to
represent a specific enculturation of a broader liberal worldview. The same holds true for
identities as "capitalists," particularly if juxtaposed against "communist order." The notion of
the "free world," which Western policy makers used frequently during the Cold War to refer to
their collective identity and to demarcate the boundaries against "Communism," encompassed
liberal values pertaining to both the political and the economic orders.
As to the second point, and unlike several versions of neoliberalism, a sociological

interpretation of the liberal argument posits historical contingency and contextuality. The zone
of the "democratic peace" in the Northern Hemisphere did not fall from heaven but was
created through processes of social interaction and learning. 35 The emergence of NATO is
part and parcel of that story. Moreover, the norms of the democratic peace can in principle be
unlearned, since collective identities might change over time. But to argue that the social
structure of international relations is somehow more malleable and subject to change than
material structures represents a misunderstanding of social constructivism. 36
The argument then can be summarized as follows: Democracies rarely fight each other: they
perceive each other as peaceful. They perceive each other as peaceful because of the
democratic norms governing their domestic decision-making processes. For the same reason,
they form pluralistic security communities of shared values. Because they perceive each other
as peaceful and express a sense of community, they are likely to overcome obstacles against
international cooperation and to form international institutions such as alliances. The norms
regulating interactions in such institutions are expected to reflect the shared democratic
values and to resemble the domestic decision-making norms.
In the following sections, I illustrate the argument with regard to the formation of NATO, two
cases of inter-allied conflict during Cold War crises, and the future of the transatlantic
relationship in the post-Cold War environment.
A Liberal Interpretation of the Transatlantic Security Community

The Origins of NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization represents an institutionalization of the security
community to respond to a specific threat. While the perceived Soviet threat strengthened the
sense of common purpose among the allies, it did not create the community in the first place.
37 NATO was preceded by the wartime alliance of the U.S., Great Britain, and France, which
also collaborated closely to create various postwar regimes in the economic area. Particularly
the British worked hard to ensure that the U.S. did not withdraw from Europe, as it had after
World War I, but remained permanently involved in European affairs. 38
While the European threat perceptions at the time might be explained on sophisticated realist
grounds using Stephen Walt's "balance-of-threat" argument, U.S. behavior as the undisputed
hegemon of the immediate post-World War II era is more difficult to understand. The U.S.
faced several choices, each of which was represented in the administration as well as in the
American public. President Roosevelt, for example, tried to preserve the wartime alliance with
the Soviet Union until his death and to realize a collective security order guaranteed by the
"four policemen" (the U.S., the ussr, Great Britain, and China), a concept that he had first
proposed in 1941. His successor, President Truman, continued on this path during his first
months in office. After Truman had changed his mind, Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace
still advocated a modus vivendi with the Soviet Union and the need to respect a Soviet sphere
8 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
of influence in Europe until he was removed from office in September 1946. In the U.S. public,
Walter Lippmann became the leading advocate of that argument when responding to George
F. Kennan's containment strategy.
Early supporters of a tougher policy toward Moscow included the U.S. ambassador to Moscow,
Averell Harriman, Kennan, and particularly Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, while
Secretary of State George Marshall steered a middle course until about 1948. How is it to be
explained that this latter argument carried the day and that particularly President Truman
became a firm advocate of a policy of containment? 39
An obvious answer pertains, of course, to Soviet behavior. Western leaders, including

Roosevelt, would have accepted a Soviet sphere of influence in Europe and were prepared to
accommodate its security concerns--see Churchill's famous trip to Moscow in October 1944
and the Soviet-British "percentages agreement" on Southeast Europe. 40 But when the Red
Army moved into Eastern Europe in 1944, Moscow immediately started to suppress potential
political opposition in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and, above all, Poland. Stalin broke what
Roosevelt considered a Soviet commitment to free elections negotiated at Yalta, provoking the
president to complain, "We can't do business with Stalin. He has broken every one of the
promises he made at Yalta." 41
The Truman administration, which had supported friendly relations with the Soviet Union
until December 1945, began to change its position in early 1946, in conjunction with the Soviet
reluctance to carry out the Moscow agreements to include non-Communists in the
governments of Romania and Bulgaria. 42 These early disputes focused on domestic order
issues in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe. Had Stalin "Finlandized" rather than "Sovietized"
Eastern Europe, the Cold War could have been avoided. In the perception of U.S. decision
makers, the Soviet threat emerged as a threat to the domestic order of Western Europe, whose
economies were devastated by the war. As the cia concluded in mid-1947, "the greatest danger
to the security of the United States is the possible economic collapse in Western Europe and
the consequent accession to power of Communist elements." 43 U.S. administrations from
Roosevelt to Truman considered Western Europe vital to American security interests, both for
historical reasons (after all, two world wars had been fought over Western Europe) and
because it was viewed as a cornerstone of the liberal--political and economic--world order that
both Roosevelt and Truman envisaged. 44 But it was not Soviet power as such that
constituted a threat to these interests; rather it was the Soviet domestic order, combined with
Soviet behavior in Eastern Europe, indicating a willingness to expand Communism beyond the
ussr. In other words, Soviet power became threatening as a tool to expand the Soviet domestic
order. Moreover, the Soviet Union also refused to join the Bretton Woods institutions of the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, thus ending hopes that it might participate
in the postwar international economic order.
This is not to suggest that the Soviet Union was solely responsible for the origins of the Cold
War. Rather, differing views of domestic and international order clashed after World War II.
Moscow refused to join the American liberal project based upon an open international order
and free trade, free-market economies, and liberal systems of governance. 45 Roosevelt and
Truman tried to accommodate the Soviet view at first but then gradually abandoned that idea
in favor of tougher policies. Stalin's behavior in Eastern Europe and elsewhere--irrespective of
whether it was motivated by genuine security concerns or aggressive intentions--reinforced
the emerging perceptions of threat, both in the public and in the administration. Over against
those promoting a modus vivendi between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Stalin helped
another worldview to carry the day in Washington, one that interpreted the post-W
consequent accesorld War II situation in terms of a long-lasting strategic rivalry between the
U.S. and the ussr--the Cold War.
9 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
The emerging conflict was increasingly framed in Manichaean terms. As Anders Stephanson
put it,
[The Cold War] was launched in fiercely ideological terms as an invasion or

delegitimation of the Other's social order, a demonology combined of course
with a mythology of the everlasting virtues of one's own domain. This is not
surprising, considering the universalism of the respective ideologies. 46
The liberal interpretation of Stalin's behavior transformed the Soviet Union from a wartime
ally to an opponent, the "other":
There isn't any difference in totalitarian states. . . . Nazi, Communist or

Fascist, or Franco, or anything else--they are all alike.
The stronger the voice of a people in the formulation of national policies, the
less the danger of aggression. When all governments derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed, there will be enduring peace. 47
The various declarations of the Cold War--Kennan's "long telegram," Churchill's 1946 "iron
curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri, and the 1947 Truman doctrine--all made the same
connection between a liberal interpretation of the Soviet threat stemming from its
"totalitarian" domestic character, on the one hand, and a realist balance of power
("containment") strategy to counter it. Kennan's "long telegram" and his later "X" article
connected two liberal interpretations of the Soviet threat to promote his preferred course of
action. 48 He portrayed the Soviet Union as combining an ancient autocratic tradition that
was deeply suspicious of its neighbors with a Communist ideology. Of course, cooperation was
not an option with an opponent whose aggressiveness resulted from a historically derived
sense of insecurity together with ideological aspirations that were ultimately caused by the
fear of authoritarian rulers that they would be overthrown by their own people.
To what extent were these interpretations of the Soviet threat merely justifying rhetoric to
gather public support for U.S. foreign policy rather than genuine concerns of decision makers?
First, as argued above, there was nothing inevitable about the emergence of the Cold War, as
far as U.S. decision makers were concerned. Soviet behavior, U.S. responses, the clash of
worldviews, and mutual threat perceptions reinforced each other to create the East-West
conflict. Second, the historical record appears to indicate that Harry Truman genuinely
changed his mind about the extent to which one could cooperate with the Soviet Union during
his first year in office. 49 Third, an exaggerated rhetoric constructing the Soviet Union as the
"empire of the evil" (Reagan) created the Cold War consensus in the U.S., since public opinion
and Congress at the time were reluctant to accept new commitments overseas shortly after
World War II had been won. The Truman doctrine, for example, deliberately oversold the
issue of granting financial aid to Greece and Turkey as a fight between "freedom" and
"totalitarianism" to get the package through Congress. But this point only confirms the power
of the liberal argument in creating winning domestic coalitions in the U.S.
Even after the perception of a Soviet threat had won out in Washington, the U.S. still faced
choices. Joining NATO was only one of them. It could have fought the Soviet Union on its own
in a bipolar confrontation. Another option was to negotiate bilateral security arrangements
with selected Western European states, as the Soviet Union did with Eastern Europe between
1945 and 1948, and as British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin suggested in 1948. 50 Instead,
the U.S. chose to entangle itself in a multilateral alliance based on the indivisibility of security,
diffuse reciprocity, and democratic decision-making procedures. 51
Since it is impossible to present a detailed history of the North Atlantic Treaty in a few pages,
some general remarks must suffice. 52 First, NATO came about against the background of the
emerging sense of threat in both Western Europe and the U.S. Soviet behavior in Eastern
10 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
Europe and in its German occupation zone might have been motivated by Moscow's own
threat perceptions and by an attempt to prevent a Western anti-Soviet bloc. But Stalin's
behavior once again proved counterproductive and served to fuel Western threat perception.
The Prague Communist "coup," for example, occurred precisely when negotiations for the
Brussels Treaty creating the West European Union were under way and led to their speedy
conclusion. The events in Czechoslovakia, as well as Soviet pressure against Norway,
convinced U.S. Secretary of State Marshall that a formal alliance between the U.S. and Western
Europe was necessary. The Soviet blockade of Berlin's Western sectors in 1948 not only
"created" Berlin as the symbol of freedom and democracy--i.e., the values for which the Cold
War was fought--but also proved crucial to move the U.S. closer to a firm commitment to
European security.
Second, major initiatives toward the formation of a North Atlantic Alliance originated in
Europe, mainly in the British Foreign Office. 53 A close transgovernmental coalition of
like-minded U.S., British, Canadian, and--later on--French senior officials worked hard to
transform the growing sense of threat into a firm U.S. commitment toward European security.
The negotiations leading to the North Atlantic Treaty resembled a "three-level" game involving
U.S. domestic politics, transgovernmental consensus-building, and intergovernmental bargains
across the Atlantic. As to the last, probably the most important deal concerned Germany: the
French would support U.S. policies toward the creation of a West German state in exchange
for an American security commitment to Europe in terms of "dual containment" (protection
against the Soviet Union and Germany). 54
Third, a multilateral institution had advantages over alternative options, since it enhanced the
legitimacy of American leadership by giving the Western Europeans a say in the decision-
making process. In this context, it was self-evident and not controversial on either side of the
Atlantic that an alliance of democratic states had to be based on democratic principles, norms,
and decision-making rules. The two major bargains about the North Atlantic Treaty
concerned, first, the nature of the assistance clause (article 5 of the treaty) and, second, the
extent to which the consultation commitment (article 4) would include threats outside the
NATO area. Neither the commitment to democratic values (preamble) nor the democratic
decision-making procedures as outlined in articles 2, 3, and 8 were controversial in the treaty
negotiations. Rather, the controversy between the U.S. Congress, on the one hand, and the
administration together with the Western European governments, on the other, focused on the
indivisibility of the mutual security assistance. 55
In sum, a liberal interpretation of NATO's origins holds that the Cold War came about when
fundamental ideas--worldviews--about the domestic and the international order for the
post-World War II era clashed. The Western democracies perceived a threat to their
fundamental values resulting from the "Sovietization" of Eastern Europe. While the perceived
Soviet threat certainly strengthened the sense of community among the Western democracies,
it did not create the collective identity in the first place. In light of the liberal collective identity
and its views of what constituted a "just" domestic and international order, Stalin's behavior
and his refusal to join the liberal order confirmed that the Soviet Union could not be trusted.
NATO then institutionalized the transatlantic security community to cope with the threat. The
multilateral nature of the organization based on democratic principles and decision rules
reflected the common values and the collective identity.
Regulatory norms of multilateralism and joint decision making were not just rhetoric covering
up American hegemony, but shaped the interallied relationship. These norms were causally
consequential for transatlantic security cooperation during the Cold War, since they allowed
for disproportionate European influence on U.S. foreign policies. During the Korean war, for
example, norms of consultation had an overall restraining effect on American decisions with
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regard to the localization of the war in Korea instead of its extension into China, the non-use of
nuclear weapons, and the conclusion of the armistice negotiations. 56
Western Europeans also had quite an impact on the early stages of nuclear arms control,
especially during the test ban negotiations when the British in particular pushed and pulled
the U.S. toward an agreement. As to NATO decisions pertaining to European security, joint
decision making quickly became the norm. This has been shown to be true in most crucial
cases, such as decisions on nuclear strategy and deployments. 57 The evidence also suggests
that the transatlantic relationship cannot be conceptualized as merely interstate relations;
rather, the interaction patterns are significantly influenced by transnational and
transgovernmental coalition-building processes. 58
I will briefly discuss here two cases of interallied dispute over policies during the Cold War.
The first, the 1956 Suez crisis, probably constituted the most severe transatlantic crisis of the
1950s, leading to a temporary breakdown of the community. I argue, however, that reference
to a conflict of interests alone does not explain the interallied confrontation, in particular not
the United States' coercion of its allies. The transatlantic dispute can be better understood in
the framework of norm-guided behavior, as a dispute over obligations and appropriate
behavior in a security community. The second case, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, was the
most serious U.S.-Soviet confrontation during the Cold War. I argue that U.S. decisions during
the crisis cannot be explained without reference to the normative framework of the
transatlantic security community.
<
i>The 1956 Suez Crisis: The Violation of Community Norms

A temporary breakdown of the allied community resulted from the 1956 Suez crisis when the
U.S. coerced Britain, France, and Israel through economic pressure to give up their attempts to
regain control of the Suez Canal. I suggest that the "realist" outcome of the crisis--the strong
defeating the weak--needs to be explained by a "liberal" process. The American coercion of its
allies resulted from a mutual sense of betrayal of the community leading to the violation of
consultation norms and the temporary breakdown of the community itself.
The conflict of interests between the U.S. and its two allies was obvious to both sides from the
beginning of the crisis. 59 The British and French governments knew that the U.S. profoundly
disagreed with them on whether or not force should be used to restore control over the Suez
Canal. The attitudes of the U.S. as compared with those of its allies were rooted in diverging
assessments of the situation in the Middle East, of the larger political context, and of the
particular actions by Egypt's Nasser. The U.S. made a major effort to restrain its allies from
using military force by working for a negotiated settlement and the establishment of an
international authority to take control of the Suez Canal. Both sides frequently exchanged their
diverging viewpoints through the normal channels of interallied communication, which
remained open throughout most of the crisis. The U.S. and its allies also knew that the British
were economically dependent on American assistance for the pound sterling and for ensuring
oil supplies to NATO Europe, should the crisis escalate into war. 60
Why, then, did the British and French who knew about their dependence and the American
disagreement with them, nevertheless go ahead with their military plans and deceive
Washington? How is their miscalculation of the U.S. reaction to be explained?
The British and French governments reluctantly agreed to U.S. attempts for a negotiated
solution, first through an international conference in London in August 1956 and later through
the proposal of a Suez Canal Users' Association (scua) in September. But the allies were not
seriously interested in the success of these efforts, since their ultimate goal was not only to
12 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
secure access to the Suez Canal but also to get rid of Nasser. They endorsed the American
efforts to buy time and to create a favorable climate of opinion in the U.S. and the UN.
At the same time, the governments in London and Paris perceived American behavior during
the crisis as at best ambiguous, if not deceiving. John Foster Dulles earned himself a
reputation of "saying one thing and doing another," as Selwyn Lloyd, the British foreign
minister, put it. 61 There are indeed indications that Dulles favored stronger action if Nasser
rejected reasonable proposals by the London conference. In September, for example, Dulles
discussed a proposal with the British prime minister to set up an Anglo-American working
group that would consider means of weakening Nasser's regime. 62
The British sense of being betrayed by the Americans increased dramatically as a result of
Dulles's handling of his own scua proposal. Prime Minister Anthony Eden viewed it as a means
to corner Nasser further and to use his expected rejection as a pretext for military action. But
in an attempt to dampen the British spin on the proposal and to make it more acceptable to
the Egyptians, Dulles declared that "the United States did not intend itself to try to shoot its
way through" the Suez Canal. As a result, Eden concluded on October 8 that "we have been
misled so often by Dulles' ideas that we cannot afford to risk another misunderstanding. . . .
Time is not on our side in this matter." 63 The British felt abandoned by the American
government, which in their eyes had violated the community of purpose. London then chose to
deliberately deceive Washington about the military plans in October 1956 without calculating
the possible consequences. First, British officials thought, in a somewhat self-deluding
manner, that the U.S. did not want to hear about the military preparations. Second, the British
government was convinced in some strange way that the U.S. would ultimately back it and that
allied action would somehow force Washington to support what persuasion did not
accomplish. Eden and his foreign minister reckoned that the choice was clear for Washington
if it had to take sides between Egypt and its European allies. What they perceived as Dulles's
duplicity not only created a sense of betrayal leading to the deception in the first place, it also
helped to reassure them that the Americans would ultimately support their action. In short,
British decision makers firmly believed in the viability of the North Atlantic partnership. They
convinced themselves that the U.S. was bound by the community and would ultimately value
it. They relied on reassurances such as the one uttered by Dulles ten days before the invasion
of the Suez Canal: "I do not comment on your observations on Anglo-American relations
except to say that those relations, from our standpoint, rest on such a firm foundation that
misunderstandings of this nature, if there are such, cannot disturb them." 64
But Eisenhower and Dulles, despite all ambiguous statements, never wavered in pursuing two
goals: (a) to prevent the use of force and (b) to reach a negotiated settlement guaranteeing safe
passage through the Suez Canal. The administration mediated between its allies and the
Egyptians while at the same time trying to restrain the British and French from resorting to
military action. But this does not mean that Washington had to use its overwhelming power to
force its allies to give up their adventure in Egypt. While the U.S. opposition to the allied
action was to be expected, the use of coercive power was not. The allies could have agreed to
disagree, since no supreme American interests were at stake. 65 The U.S. could have confined
its opposition to condemnatory action in the UN General Assembly. In other words, U.S.
decision makers made choices as to how to react to the allied military action.
The American decision to play hardball with the allies was triggered by a series of unilateral
allied moves that violated norms of consultation and jeopardized the community of purpose in
the eyes of American leaders. First, the British government decided at the end of August to get
the North Atlantic Council involved in the crisis, against the explicit advice of the U.S.
government. The allies apparently calculated that other Western Europeans would support
their military preparations, while the administration thought that such a move would further
13 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
complicate discussions at the London conference. 66
Second, the British government told the U.S. in late September of its plans to refer the matter
to the UN Security Council in order to preempt a likely Soviet move. John Foster Dulles
advised against it, since he thought that such action would hinder his attempts to get the scua
off the ground. On September 23, the British and French referred the Suez issue to the
Security Council anyway.
Third, immediately before the invasion, American decision makers complained that they were
left in the dark about the British and French plans and that the interallied lines of
communications had gradually broken down. The State Department asked the U.S. embassies
in London and Paris to find out what the two governments were up to. It received reassuring
messages, since the American embassies either were deliberately misled by their sources or
just second-guessed the allied governments. Intelligence information gradually came in
reporting Israeli plans to invade Egypt, with possible French and British involvement. 67
When the Israeli invasion started on October 29, the U.S. administration had sufficient
information to suspect that France was involved in the action. But until the facts could no
longer be denied, neither Eisenhower nor Dulles wanted to believe that the British
government had deceived them. The sense of community led to wishful thinking by American
decision makers. The U.S. then decided to bring the matter to the UN Security Council but was
told by the allies that they would never support a UN move against Israel. Even then,
Eisenhower did not believe what he saw. He sent an urgent message to Prime Minister Eden,
expressing his confusion and demanding
that the UK and the us quickly and clearly lay out their present views and
intentions before each other, and that, come what may, we find some way of
concerting our ideas and plans so that we may not, in any real crisis, be
powerless to act in concert because of our misunderstanding of each other.
68
The extent of the Anglo-French-Israeli collusion became clear only a few hours later, when the
British and French issued a joint ultimatum demanding that Israel and Egypt withdraw from
the Suez Canal to allow for an Anglo-French occupation of the Canal zone. The plot was
immediately apparent, since the Israeli forces had not yet reached the line to which they were
supposed to retreat. Eisenhower now realized that he had been misled all along and expressed
his dismay about the "unworthy and unreliable ally." Later that day, he declared that he was
"inclined to think that those who began this operation should be left to work out their own oil
problem--to boil in their own oil, so to speak."
The secretary of state summoned the French ambassador, telling him that "this was the
blackest day which has occurred in many years in the relations between England and France
and the United States. He asked how the former relationship of trust and confidence could
possibly be restored in view of these developments." 69
Eisenhower and Dulles were not so much upset by the Anglo-French-Israeli use of force itself
as by the fact that core allies had deliberately deceived them. The allies had not broken some
minor consultation agreements; they had violated fundamental collective understandings that
constituted the transatlantic community--"trust and confidence." Once the degree of allied
deception became obvious, decision makers in Washington concluded that they were
themselves no longer bound by alliance norms. They decided to retaliate in kind and coerced
their allies through financial pressure. Now the U.S. abandoned the community, leaving its
allies no choice but to back down. As the British ambassador in Washington put it, "We have
now passed the point when we are talking to friends. . . . [W]e are on a hard bargaining basis
and we are dealing with an Administration of business executives." 70
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While the U.S. administration was coercing its allies to withdraw from the Suez Canal, it
indicated at the same time that a major effort should be made to restore the community. As
soon as November 7, the president called the whole affair a "family spat" in a telephone
conversation with Prime Minister Eden. He later tried to find excuses for the British behavior:
"Returning to the Suez crisis, the President said he now believes that the British had not been
in on the Israeli-French planning until the very last stages when they had no choice but to
come into the operation." 71
If the British had "no choice," they could not really be blamed for deceiving the U.S. The two
governments now engaged in almost ritualistic reassurances that their "special relationship"
would be restored quickly. President Eisenhower and Anthony Eden's successor Harold
Macmillan worked hard to reestablish the community. The Bermuda summit in March 1957
documented the restoration of the "special relationship." In the long term, the crisis resulted
in a major change in U.S. policies toward nuclear cooperation with the British. In 1958,
Congress amended the Atomic Energy Act to allow for the sharing of nuclear information with
Britain, which London had requested throughout the decade. The violation of alliance norms
during the Suez crisis reinforced rather than reduced the transatlantic ties.
As for NATO in general, the crisis led to a reform of its consultation procedures. The "Report
of the Committee of Three on Non-Military Cooperation in NATO" restated the need for timely
consultation among the allies on foreign policy matters in general, not just those pertaining to
European security. The North Atlantic Council adopted the report in December 1956. 72
But the French-American relationship never recovered. While French leaders had already
been more sanguine about the interallied conflict than the British, the crisis set in motion a
trend of gradually weakening the transatlantic ties between Paris and Washington. This
deinstitutionalization culminated in President de Gaulle's 1966 decision to withdraw from the
military integration of NATO. The French learned different lessons from the crisis than did the
British, as far as the collective identity of the transatlantic community was concerned. The case
shows that actors' interpretations of specific events may lead to changes in how they perceive
their identity, which then results in changing their practices.
In sum, the confrontation between the U.S. and its allies developed because each side felt
betrayed by the other in fundamental ways. The conflict of interests alone does not explain the
confrontation. Such conflicts occurred before and afterward without leading to a breakdown of
the transatlantic community, but they were usually resolved through cooperation and
compromise--note, for example, the almost continuous interallied disputes over nuclear
strategy and deployment options, which involved the survival interests of both sides. During
the Suez crisis, however, U.S. decision makers perceived the allied deception as a violation of
basic rules, norms, and procedures constituting the transatlantic community. No longer bound
by the norms of appropriate behavior, the U.S. used its superior power and prevailed. Both
sides knew that they had violated the rules of the "alliance game" and engaged in self-serving
rhetoric to cover it up. More important, the U.S. and the British worked hard to restore the
transatlantic community, suggest ing that they did not regard the sort of confrontations
experienced during the Suez crisis as appropriate behavior among democratic allies.
I conclude, therefore, that the Suez crisis confirms liberal expectations about discourses and
practices when fundamental norms governing the relationship are violated. Norm violation
challenging the sense of community among the allies provides the key to understanding the
interactions leading to the confrontation, the clash, and the restoration of the community.
<
i>The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: Collective Identity and Norms
15 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
While the Suez crisis is a case of norm violation, the Cuban missile crisis shows the collective
identity of the security community in action. It represents the most serious U.S.-Soviet
confrontation of the Cold War. While we know today that neither side was prepared to risk
nuclear war over the Soviet missiles in Cuba, President John F. Kennedy and General
Secretary Nikita Krushchev were each afraid that the other would escalate the conflict in ways
that might get out of control. 73 Decision makers in Washington were convinced that the
supreme national interests of the United States were at stake. Why care about allies when
national survival is endangered? Indeed, the conventional wisdom about the Cuban missile
crisis holds that the allies were not sufficiently consulted, even though U.S. decisions directly
affected their security. Even senior officials in the administration, such as Roger Hilsman, then
director of intelligence in the State Department, thought that the U.S. had chosen not to
consult the allies in order to preserve its freedom of action: "If you had the French
Government and the British Government with all their hangups and De Gaulle's hangups we
would never have done it, it's as simple as that." 74
I argue that--except for the first week of the crisis--there was far more interallied consultation
than most scholars assume and that key allies, particularly the British and Turkish
governments, knew about details of decision making in Washington. Moreover, the fate of the
Western Alliance was the most important foreign policy concern for U.S. decision makers,
except for the direct confrontation with Moscow and Cuba. Strategic arguments about
reputation and the credibility of commitments explain these concerns only to a limited extent.
First, as argued above, realism is indeterminate with regard to allied consultation when the
alliance leader's survival is perceived to be at stake. Second, decision makers did not worry at
all about their reputation in the Organization of American States (oas), for example, the other
U.S.-led alliance, which was even more directly involved in the Cuban missile crisis. Rather, if
we assume a security community of democracies, strategic concerns about reputation and
credibility immediately make sense. At least, realism does not offer a better understanding of
these concerns than liberal theory.
But the Cuban missile crisis also poses a puzzle for liberal propositions about the allied
community of values and norms, since the U.S. violated these rules during the first week of the
crisis. Whether or not to consult the allies was discussed during the very first meeting of the
Executive Committee (ExComm) on October 16. Secretary of State Dean Rusk argued strongly
in favor of consultation and maintained that unilateral U.S. action would put the allies at risk,
particularly if the U.S. decided in favor of a quick air strike. The decision not to consult,
however, did not free decision makers from concerns about the Europeans. Membership in the
community of democracies formed part of the American identity, as a result of which decision
makers continued to define U.S. preferences in terms of joint interests rather than unilaterally.
There was unanimous consensus that U.S. inaction with regard to the Soviet missile
deployment in Cuba would be disastrous for U.S. credibility vis-á-vis its allies. 75 The
reputation of the U.S. government was perceived to be at stake, in both domestic and alliance
politics. Decision makers in the ExComm did not distinguish between the two. As a result, the
decision not to consult key allies during the first week strengthened the position of the "doves"
in the ExComm, who argued that an air strike and military action against the Soviet
installations in Cuba without prior consultation would wreck NATO.
During the second week of the crisis, the Europeans not only were regularly informed about
the U.S. deliberations but had ample opportunities to influence American thinking through a
variety of bilateral and multilateral channels. Among the key allies, only the British chose to
take advantage of these opportunities, while France and West Germany strongly supported the
U.S. courses of action. President Kennedy had almost daily telephone conversations with
Prime Minister Macmillan--which even many of his staff members did not realize.
16 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
The British were the most "dovish" of the major allies. They made sure, for example, that U.S.
forces in Europe were exempted from the general alert status of U.S. troops. When Macmillan
was briefed about the crisis, he assured the president that Britain would support the U.S., but
he mentioned that Europeans had lived under the threat of Soviet nuclear weapons for quite
some time. Since the British had internally concluded that the naval blockade of Cuba violated
international law, Macmillan demanded that the U.S. made a good legal case in favor of the
quarantine. He then wondered about possible Soviet reactions against the blockade, including
attempts at trading American bases in Europe or even West Berlin for the withdrawal of the
missiles from Cuba. 76 Kennedy perceived Macmillan's message as the "best argument for
taking no action."
The British prime minister was as concerned as President Kennedy that the crisis might get
out of control, and he favored a cooperative solution. On October 24, he told David
Ormsby-Gore, the British ambassador to the U.S.: "If I am right in assuming that the
President's mind is moving in the direction of negotiations before the crisis worsens, I think
that the most fruitful course for you to pursue at the present might be to try to elicit from him
on what lines he may be contemplating a conference." 77
He suggested that the U.S. should raise the blockade if the Soviets refrained from putting more
missiles into Cuba. When Macmillan phoned Kennedy later, he urged the president not to rush
and asked whether "a deal" could be done. When the president asked for Macmillan's advice
on a possible invasion of Cuba, the prime minister strongly recommended against it. 78
Whether the British proposals for de-escalation made a crucial difference in the U.S. decision-
making process is unclear. It is safe to argue, however, that the close contact between
Kennedy, Macmillan, and Ormsby-Gore during the second week of the crisis strengthened and
reinforced the president's view. Given Kennedy's convictions about the importance of the
Western Alliance, which he expressed time and again during the crisis, it was significant that a
key ally whom he trusted fully endorsed his search for a "deal."
Two alliance issues strongly influenced the president's thinking during the crisis. The first was
the fate of Berlin. The American commitment to Berlin was one more reason to preclude
inaction against the Soviet missiles in Cuba. As the president put it during the second ExComm
meeting, if the Soviets put missiles in Cuba without an American response, Moscow would
build more bases and then squeeze the West in Berlin. 79 Concerns about Berlin also served
as another restraining factor on U.S. decisions. The city's exposure inside the Soviet bloc made
it an easy target of retaliatory action against American moves in Cuba. Kennedy worried about
Berlin almost constantly. Fear of Soviet action against the essentially defenseless city was one
reason for his decision in favor of the blockade and against more forceful military action. 80
Kennedy's personal and emotional commitment to Berlin was again apparent during the
crucial ExComm meeting on October 27, when he was faced with the choice between an air
strike and a "missile swap":
What we're going to be faced with is--because we wouldn't take the missiles
out of Turkey, then maybe we'll have to invade or make a massive strike on
Cuba which may lose Berlin.
We all know how quickly everybody's courage goes when the blood starts to
flow, and that's what's going to happen in NATO . . . We start these things
and they grab Berlin, and everybody's going to say, "Well that was a pretty
good proposition." 81
The Berlin issue symbolized the role of the North Atlantic Alliance in the minds of U.S.
decision makers throughout the crisis--precluding both inac tion and a rush to escalation.
Concerns about the city and the fate of Europe in general were causally consequential not by
determining specific choices but by constraining the range of options available to decision
17 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
makers. President Kennedy and other ExComm members treated Berlin almost as if it were
another American city, for which American soldiers were supposed to die in defense of their
country. It did not seem to make a difference whether the fate of Berlin or that of New York
was at stake. Berlin symbolized the allied community and the values for which the Cold War
was fought. It was the city's very vulnerability to Soviet pressures that made it such a
significant symbol for the U.S. commitment to the defense of Europe.
While Berlin was an important concern of U.S. decision makers during the crisis, it was
peripheral to the solution to the crisis. The Jupiter medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs)
deployed under NATO arrangements in Turkey and Italy became part and parcel of the crisis
settlement. The Jupiter missiles had been deployed following a 1957 NATO decision, on U.S.
request. In the meantime, the administration considered them dangerously vulnerable and
militarily obsolete. Kennedy would have preferred their withdrawal long before, but the
administration failed to persuade Turkey to give them up. By the time of the Cuban missile
crisis, the Jupiter missiles had become a political symbol of alliance cohesion, of the U.S.
commitment to NATO and to Turkey in particular, which had just returned to democratic rule.
Not surprisingly, the Jupiter MRBMs became immediately linked to the Soviet missile
deployment in Cuba. Throughout the crisis, the administration was divided over a "missile
swap." The split cut across divisions between departments and even led to differences of
opinion within specific agencies such as the State Department and the Pentagon. The topic of
the Turkish Jupiter bases also came up in various interallied discussions. A "missile swap" was
discussed in the British government, but London remained opposed to an explicit "missile
trade" throughout the crisis, despite its support for a "deal." At the same time, the Turkish
government began to raise concerns, particularly when the Soviet ambassador in Ankara began
to argue that Moscow regarded the Jupiter missiles as its "Cuba." While Dean Rusk publicly
denied any connection between the Cuban missile crisis and any situation elsewhere in the
world, he hinted that, in the long run, disarmament negotiations could deal with the location
of weapons. 82
The administration also considered speeding up plans for the Multilateral Force (MLF), a
sea-based nuclear force of American, British, and French systems under a joint NATO
command, which had originally been proposed by the Eisenhower administration. The U.S.
then set its diplomatic machinery in motion to anticipate how the allies would react to
withdrawal of the Jupiter missiles in such a context. 83 The U.S. ambassador to NATO, John
Finletter, responded along the lines already discussed in Washington. He argued that Turkey
regarded the Jupiter missiles as a symbol of the alliance commitment to its defense and that
no arrangement should be made without the approval of the Turkish government. Finletter
strongly advised against any open deal, but then proposed a "small southern command
multilateral seaborne force on a 'pilot basis'" using Polaris submarines and manned by mixed
U.S., Turkish, and Italian crews. Such an arrangement could allow the U.S. to offer the
withdrawal of the Jupiters to the Soviets. 84 While the U.S. ambassador to Turkey cabled a
gloomy assessment from Ankara, he also concurred that a strictly secret deal with the Soviets
was possible, together with some military compensation for Turkey. 85 These cables were
discussed in the ExComm meetings on October 27 and influenced the president's decisions.
Various U.S. ambassadors to NATO allies apparently talked to their host governments about a
secret "missile swap" despite an explicit directive by Rusk not to talk about it. The networks
provided by the transatlantic institutions made it impossible to exclude allied officials from the
deliberations. British officials discussed a "missile swap"; so did NATO's permanent
representatives in Paris. Most important, the Turkish foreign ministry indicated to the
American and the British ambassadors that it was not completely opposed to a removal of the
Jupiters, to be discussed after a suitable lapse of time and in a general NATO context. 86 The
18 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
president involved the British ambassador in his deliberations and also asked the British to
approach their embassy in Ankara for a view on the matter. 87
When the crisis reached its climax on October 27, discussions that included the State
Department, the Pentagon, U.S. diplomats in Europe, NATO representatives in Paris, and
various allied governments--at least the British and the Turks--had been held, and a solution
had emerged. The solution entailed a strictly secret deal between Washington and Moscow
that included the removal of the Jupiter missiles from Turkey in exchange for military
compensation, after the Soviets had withdrawn their missiles from Cuba.
On October 27, the ExComm devoted most of its meeting time to discussing the options of an
air strike against Cuba versus a "missile swap." The sense of allied community among
ExComm members served as a frame of reference in which the various courses of action were
discussed. Both sides in the debate referred to the need to preserve NATO. Supporters of an
air strike argued that a missile trade would lead to the denuclearization of NATO and indicate
that the U.S. was prepared to tamper with the indivisibility of allied security for selfish
reasons. As McGeorge Bundy put it, "In their [the Turkish] own terms it would already be
clear that we were trying to sell our allies for our interests. That would be the view in all of
NATO. It's irrational, and it's crazy, but it's a terribly powerful fact." 88 The president was
primarily concerned that the Soviet public demand might provoke a public counterresponse
by the Turkish government, which would jeopardize a secret solution to the crisis. He argued
that the U.S. faced a dilemma. On the one hand, the U.S. commitment to its allies was at stake.
On the other hand, many alliance members around the world might regard a missile trade as a
reasonable deal and would not understand if the U.S. rejected it. 89
In the end, the proposal of a secret deal with the Soviets together with some military
compensation for the allies carried the day with the president. It was agreed that the Jupiter
missiles could not be removed without Turkish approval and that therefore the U.S. would
have to persuade the government in Ankara. A small group of Kennedy's advisers assembled
after the ExComm meeting and discussed an oral message to be transmit ted to ANATOly
Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador, by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Dean Rusk proposed
that Kennedy should simply tell Dobrynin that the U.S. was determined to get the Jupiter
missiles out of Turkey as soon as the crisis was over. The group also agreed to keep absolute
secrecy about this in order to preserve allied unity. 90
Shortly after the meeting of Kennedy's advisers, the president's brother met with Ambassador
Dobrynin and told him in rather dramatic terms that the crisis was quickly escalating and that
the U.S. might soon bomb the missile bases in Cuba, which could lead to war in Europe. He
then told Dobrynin with surprising openness that the U.S. was prepared to remove the Jupiter
missiles from Turkey but could do so only if the deal was kept secret, since alliance unity was
at stake. 91 Khrushchev accepted the president's proposal, thereby solving the crisis.
In sum, U.S. membership in an alliance of democratic states shaped the process by which
decision makers struggled over the definition of American interests and preferences during
the Cuban missile crisis. One could argue, though, that the U.S. decisions were perfectly
rational given the risks and opportunities at hand and that reference to the transatlantic
relationship is, therefore, unnecessary to explain American behavior. The blockade, the
noninvasion pledge, and the secret "missile swap" were indeed perfectly rational decisions.
But a rational-choice account proves to be indeterminate unless alliance considerations are
factored in. The opposite arguments in favor of escalating the crisis through an air strike or
even an invasion were as rational as those in support of the blockade or the "missile deal."
Supporters of an air strike correctly argued that the risks of escalation were minimal given the
overwhelming superiority of the U.S., both locally in the region and on the global nuclear level.
19 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
Only if Soviet retaliation against Europe was considered a problem could one make a rational
argument against the air strike and other escalatory steps. Berlin was the American Achilles
heel during the crisis, not New York City.
That U.S. decision makers did not distinguish between domestic and European concerns, that
they worried as much about the fate of Berlin as about New York City, and that they regarded
obsolete Jupiter missiles in Turkey as major obstacles to the solution of the crisis--these
puzzles make sense if one assumes a security community of democratic nations, on behalf of
which the Kennedy administration acted. Membership in the Western Alliance affected the
identity of American actors in the sense that the "we" in whose name the president decided
incorporated the European allies. Those who invoked potential allied concerns in the internal
dis courses added weight to their arguments by referring to the collectively shared value of the
community. The alliance community as part of the American identity explains the lack of
distinction between domestic and alliance politics as well as the sense of commitment that U.S.
decision makers felt with regard to their allies. Reputational concerns and the credibility of the
U.S. commitment to NATO were at stake during the Cuban missile crisis. But I submit that
these worries can be better understood within the framework of a security community based
on collectively shared values than on the basis of traditional alliance theory.
The End of the Cold War and the Future of NATO

Since 1985, the European security environment has changed dramatically. The Cold War is
over, the U.S.-Soviet rivalry gave way to a new partnership among former opponents,
Germany is united, the Warsaw Pact and even the Soviet Union have ceased to exist.
Fundamental parameters in the international environment of the transatlantic relationship
have been profoundly altered. The world of the 1990s is very different from the world of the
1950s and 1960s. Can we extrapolate anything from the study of European-American relations
during the height of the Cold War for the future of the transatlantic ties?
Contrary to Waltzian assumptions, NATO remains alive and well so far, adjusting to the new
international environment:
1. In response to the end of the Cold War, NATO has started changing its force structure.
Instead of heavily armored and mechanized divisions, member states are setting up
intervention forces with increased mobility in accordance with the NATO decision to
build an allied rapid reaction corps for "out-of-area" purposes. 92
2. As to relations with the former Cold War opponents, the North Atlantic Cooperation
Council was instituted in 1991, linking the sixteen allies with Eastern Europe and the
successor states of the Soviet Union. Two years later, these countries joined a
"partnership for peace," creating institutionalized ties between NATO's integrated
military command structure and the East European and Russian militaries. Current
debates center around how central Eastern European countries such as Poland,
Hungary, and the Czech Republic could join the alliance without antagonizing Russia
and jeopardizing its legitimate security concerns. 93
3. The alliance has started playing a subsidiary role in un-sponsored international
peacekeeping and peace-enforcement missions, such as in the former Yugoslavia. 94 It
is remarkable in this context that the profound conflict of interest among the Western
powers with regard to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has not at all affected NATO.
Rather, the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany worked hard to ensure that their
disagreements over Bosnia would not adversely influence the transatlantic alliance.
I have argued here that the Western Alliance represents an institutionalization of the
transatlantic security community based on common values and a collective identity of liberal
20 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
democracies. 95 The Soviet domestic structure and the values promoted by communism were
regarded as alien to the community, resulting in a threat perception of the Soviet Union as the
potential enemy. The democratization of the Soviet system initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev and
continued by Boris Yeltsin then started ending the Cold War in Western eyes by altering the
"Otherness" of the Soviet system. The Gorbachev revolution consisted primarily of embracing
Western liberal values. 96 While "glasnost" introduced publicity into the Soviet political
process, "perestroika" democratized it. In response, Western threat perception gradually
decreased, even though at different rates and to different degrees. The Germans were the first
to declare the Cold War over. They reacted not only to the democratization of the Soviet
system but in particular to Gorbachev's foreign policy change toward "common security."
Americans came last; Gorbachev needed to give up Eastern Europe and the Berlin Wall had to
tumble down in order to convince them.
It should be noted, however, that this explanation has its limits. Liberal theory as such does
not suggest that democracies should behave cooperatively toward democratizing states, as the
West did toward the Soviet Union under Gorbachev. The arguments put forward in the
Kantian tradition pertain to stable democracies. Since they relate to the social structure of
international relations, they cannot explain the specifics as well as the differences among the
Western responses to the Gorbachev revolution, i.e., agency. 97 But unlike realism, a liberal
argument about the transatlantic security community correctly predicts that these threat
perceptions would wither away at some point when former opponents democratize and thus
begin entering the community of liberal states.
The end of the Cold War, then, not only does not terminate the Western community of values,
it extends that community into Eastern Europe and, potentially, into even the successor states
of the Soviet Union, creating a "pacific federation" of liberal democracies from Vladivostok to
Berlin, San Francisco, and Tokyo. 98 But liberal theory does not necessarily expect NATO to
last into the next century. It only assumes that the security partnership among liberal
democracies will persist in one institutionalized form or another. 99 If the democratization
process in Russia gives way to authoritarian nationalism, however, liberal theorists do expect
NATO to remain the dominant Western security institution and to regain its character as a
defensive alliance. In this case, NATO would be expected quickly to extend its security
guarantee to the new democracies in central Eastern Europe. But institutionalist arguments
suggest that a transformed NATO will remain the overarching security community of the
"pacific federation." It is easier to adjust an already existing organization, which encompasses
an elaborate set of rules and decision-making procedures, to new conditions than it is to create
new institutions of security cooperation among the liberal democracies in the Northern
Hemisphere. The osce--not to mention the West European Union--would have to be
strengthened much further until they reach a comparable degree of institutionalization.
NATO also provides a unique institutional framework for Europeans to affect American
policies. Liberal democracies successfully influence each other in the framework of
international institutions by using norms and joint decision-making procedures as well as
transnational politics. Playing by the rules of these institutions, they do not just constrain their
own freedom of action; they also gain access to the decision-making processes of their
partners. Reducing the institutional ties might create the illusion of independence, but it
actually decreases one's impact.
Conclusions: How Unique Is NATO?

I have argued in this essay that traditional alliance theories based on realist thinking provide
insufficient explanations of the origins, the interaction patterns, and the persistence of NATO.
The North Atlantic Alliance represents an institutionalized pluralistic security community of
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liberal democracies. Democracies not only do not fight each other, they are likely to develop a
collective identity facilitating the emergence of cooperative institutions for specific purposes.
These institutions are characterized by democratic norms and decision making rules that
liberal states tend to externalize when dealing with each other. The enactment of these norms
and rules strengthens the sense of community and the collective identity of the actors.
Domestic features of liberal democracies enable the community in the first place. But the
institutionalization of the community exerts independent effects on the interactions. In the
final analysis, then, democratic domestic structures, international institutions, and the
collective identity of state actors do the explaNATOry work together.
But do the findings pertaining to the North Atlantic Alliance hold up with regard to other
alliances and cooperative institutions among democracies? Comparisons can be made along
two dimensions: the degree of institutionalization of the community and the extent to which
collective identities have developed among its members. The only international institution that
appears to score higher than NATO on both dimensions is the European Union (EU). 100
While it is less integrated than NATO with regard to security and foreign policy making, the
eu features unique supranational institutions such as the European Commission and the
European Court of Justice. The eu member states also coordinate their economic and
monetary policies to an unprecedented degree. 101 As far as collective identity is concerned,
there is a well-documented sense of common Europeanness among the elites of the
continental member states that partially extends into mass public opinion. Interaction patterns
within the eu closely resemble the transnational and transgovernmental coalitions that have
been found typical for decision making in NATO. 102
Compared with NATO and the eu, the U.S.-Japanese security relationship appears to
represent an interesting anomaly, in the sense that it is highly institutionalized, but the
collective identity component seems to be weaker. 103 Japanese security was more
dependent on the U.S. during the Cold War than were Western Europe and even Germany.
Strongly institutionalized transnational and transgovernmental ties developed among the
military and the defense establishments of the two countries. Apart from the elite level of the
governing party, however, the security relationship remained deeply contested in Japanese
domestic politics during the Cold War. As a result, the U.S.-Japanese security cooperation
certainly qualifies as a democratic alliance establishing norms of consultation and
compromise-oriented decision making similar to those of NATO. But given the lack of
collective identity, it is less clear whether this alliance constitutes a "pluralistic security
community" in Deutsch's sense. The U.S.-Japanese example, then, shows that there is some
variation with regard to both institutionalization and identity components in alliances among
democracies.
In contrast, identity politics appears to be particularly strong in the U.S.-Israeli security

relationship, as Michael Barnett argues in this volume. Again, the variation, compared with
NATO and the U.S.-Japanese alliance, seems to pertain to the identity component, while the
American alliance with Israel is as highly institutionalized as the other security relationships
discussed so far. As Barnett points out, recent strains in the relationship can be better
explained by challenges to the collective sense of democratic community resulting from Israeli
policies than by changes in the international environment in which the two states operate.
So far, I have looked only at security communities among democracies. What about alliances
involving nondemocracies? If the liberal argument presented here holds true, we should find
quite different interaction patterns in such relationships, since the basic ingredients for the
"democratic peace" are missing. A thorough analysis is beyond the scope of this essay. But
various findings appear to suggest that, indeed, interaction patterns in nondemocratic
alliances are different and conform more closely to realist expectations, particularly realist
22 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
bargaining theory. As to the Middle East, for example, Stephen Walt has argued that common
ideology played only a limited role in the formation of alliances among Arab states. While
Michael Barnett disagrees, pointing to the significance of pan-Arabism, he also concurs that
this collective identity has been weaker than the sense of community among democratic allies
such as the U.S. and Israel. 104 A study comparing U.S. relations with Latin America and
interaction patterns within the former Warsaw Pact concludes that these relations can well be
analyzed within the framework of public choice and realist bargaining theories. 105
In sum, these comparisons suggest that NATO is not unique but exemplifies interaction
patterns and collective identities that are quite common for security communities among
democracies. At the same time, these features appear to distinguish democratic alliances from
other security relationships. In this sense, alliances among democracies are indeed special,
since they can build upon a strong sense of community pertaining to the domestic structures of
liberal states. Nevertheless, the degree of institutionalization as well as the extent to which
"pluralistic security communities" have emerged varies among democracies.
This essay summarizes, builds upon, and expands arguments developed in Thomas
Risse-Kappen, Cooperation Among Democracies: The European Influence on U.S.
Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). Participation in the
Social Science Research Council-sponsored project under the directorship of Peter
Katzenstein has greatly inspired my thinking on the subject of norms, identity, and
social constructivism. For comments on the draft of this essay, I am very grateful to
the project participants, in particular Peter Katzenstein. I am also indebted to Mark
Laffey, David Latham, Fred H. Lawson, Stephen Walt, Steve Weber, and several
anonymous reviewers for their criticism and suggestions.
Note 1: See, for example, Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for
Power and Peace, brief ed. (1948; reprint, New York: McGraw Hill, 1993); Kenneth N. Waltz,
Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979); George Liska,
Nations in Alliance: The Limits of Interdependence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1962); Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1962). See also Ole R. Holsti et al., Unity and Disintegration in International
Alliances (New York: Wiley, 1973). Back.
Note 2: On this point, see Ron Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. Katzenstein,
"Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security," essay 2 in this volume. Back.
Note 3: See, for example, Michael Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics," American Political
Science Review 80, no. 4 (1986): 1151-69; Robert Keohane, "International Liberalism
Reconsidered," in John Dunn, ed., The Economic Limits to Modern Politics, pp. 165-94
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic
Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
Back.
Note 4: On this use of the term, see, for example, Joseph M. Grieco, "Anarchy and the Limits
of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism," International
Organization 42, no. 3 (Summer 1988): 485-507; Robert O. Keohane, International
Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder: Westview,
1989). See also the discussion of neoliberalism in Peter J. Katzenstein, "Introduction:
Alternative Perspectives on National Security," essay 1 in this volume. Back.
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Note 5: For the following, see Waltz, Theory of International Politics, ch. 6; and Glenn H.
Snyder, "Alliance Theory: A Neorealist First Cut," Journal of International Affairs 44, no. 1
(Spring 1990): 103-23. Back.
Note 6: See Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1987), pp. 274-76. For thorough critiques of the Waltzian notion of bipolarity, see, for example,
Richard Ned Lebow, "The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism,"
International Organization 48, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 249-77; R. Harrison Wagner, "What Was
Bipolarity?" International Organization 47, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 77-106. Back.
Note 7: See Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 106, 170-73. On "relative gains" in
particular, see Grieco, "Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation." For an argument that relative
gains are particularly important under bipolarity, see Duncan Snidal, "International
Cooperation Among Relative Gain Maximizers," International Studies Quarterly 35, no. 4
(December 1991): 387-402. Back.
Note 8: Walt, The Origins of . Back.
Note 9: On the origins of NATO, see, for example, Richard Best, "Cooperation with
Like-Minded Peoples": British Influence on American Security Policy, 1945-1949 (Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood, 1986); Don Cook, Forging the Alliance: NATO, 1945-1950 (New York:
Arbor House/William Morrow, 1989); Sir Nicholas Henderson, The Birth of NATO (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982); Timothy P. Ireland, Creating the Entangling Alliance: The
Origins of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1981).
Back.
Note 10: On this point, see Wagner, "What Was Bipolarity?" and Robert Jervis and Jack
Snyder, eds., Dominoes and Bandwagons: Strategic Beliefs and Great Power Competition in
the Eurasian Rimland (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Back.
Note 11: John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 41.
See also Matthew Evangelista, "Stalin's Postwar Army Reappraised," International Security 7,
no. 3 (Winter 1982/83): 110-68; James L. Gormly, From Potsdam to the Cold War
(Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1990), pp. 92-93; Melvyn P. Leffler, "National
Security and U.S. Foreign Policy," in Melvyn P. Leffler and David S. Painter, eds., Origins of
the Cold War, pp. 15-52, 25-27 (London: Routledge, 1994); Norbert Wiggershaus,
"Nordatlantische Bedrohungsperzeptionen im 'Kalten Krieg,' 1948-1956," in Klaus A. Meier et
al., eds., Das Nordatlantische B�ndnis, 1949-1956, pp. 17-54 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1993).
Perceptions of a Soviet military threat increased only after the political confrontation was
already in full swing. Back.
Note 12: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 169, 170. Glenn Snyder applies this
thought to the transatlantic alliance: "It is abundantly clear that the European allies will not do
the United States' bidding when it is not in their own interest, but it is also clear that they have
little positive influence over U.S. policy--when the United States does not wish to be
influenced. . . . The word that most accurately describes their behavior is not domination or
even bargaining, but unilateralism" (Snyder, "Alliance Theory," p. 121). Back.
Note 13: Details in Risse-Kappen, Cooperation Among Democracies. See also Fred Chernoff,
After Bipolarity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994); Helga Haftendorn,
Kernwaffen und die Glaubw�rdigkeit der Allianz (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1994); Elizabeth
Sherwood, Allies in Crisis: Meeting Global Challenges to Western Security (New Haven: Yale
24 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
Note 14: For evidence, see Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, The War Trap (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1981); Stuart A. Bremer, "Dangerous Dyads: Conditions Affecting the
Likelihood of Interstate War, 1816-1965," Journal of Conflict Resolution 36, no. 2 (1992):
309-41. Back.
Note 15: On these propositions, see, for example, Michael Handel, Weak States in the
International System (London: Frank Cass, 1981); Holsti, Unity and Disintegration in
International Alliances; Glenn Snyder, "The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics," World
Politics 36, no. 4 (July 1984): 461-96; Jan F. Triska, ed., Dominant Powers and Subordinate
States (Durham: Duke University Press, 1986). Back.
Note 16: At a U.S. Senate hearing in November 1990. Quoted from Gunther Hellmann and
Reinhard Wolf, "Neorealism, Neoliberal Institutionalism, and the Future of NATO," Security
Studies 3, no. 1 (Autumn 1993): 3-43, 17. See also John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future:
Instability in Europe After the Cold War," International Security 15, no. 1 (1990): 5-56. Back.
Note 17: See Charles Glaser, "Why NATO Is Still Best: Future Security Arrangements for
Europe," International Security 18, no. 1 (Summer 1993): 5-50. Back.
Note 18: As Kenneth Waltz himself put it, "With the aid of a rationality assumption one still
cannot, from national interest alone, predict what the policy of a country might be" (Waltz,
"Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response to My Critics," in Robert O.
Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics, pp. 322-45 [New York: Columbia University Press,
1986], p. 331). On the indeterminate nature of realism, see also Robert O. Keohane, "Realism,
Neorealism, and the Study of World Politics," ibid., pp. 1-26; Stephen Haggard, "Structuralism
and Its Critics: Recent Progress in International Relations Theory," in Emanuel Adler and
Beverly Crawford, eds., Progress in Postwar International Relations, pp. 403-37 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1991). Back.
Note 19: John G. Ruggie, "Multilateralism: The ANATOmy of an Institution," International

Organization 46, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 561-98, 592. Back.
Note 20: For efforts at systematizing a liberal theory of international relations, see
Ernst-Otto Czempiel, Friedensstrategien (Paderborn: Sch�ningh, 1986), pp. 110-67; Doyle,
"Liberalism and World Politics"; Keohane, "International Liberalism Reconsidered"; Andrew
Moravcsik, Liberalism and International Relations Theory, 2d ed., Working Paper Series
(Cambridge: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1993); Russett, Grasping the
Democratic Peace. My point of departure is, thus, what Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein
call "neoliberalism" in "Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security," essay 2 in this
volume. But drawing on insights from social constructivism, I argue that a liberal theory of
international relations properly understood should be located in the upper-
right--"sociological"--corner of figure 1 in the Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein essay. Back.
Note 21: See Immanuel Kant, "Zum ewigen Frieden: Ein philosophischer Entwurf" (1795), in
Wilhelm Weischedel, ed., Immanuel Kant: Werke in sechs B�nden (Frankfurt am Main:
Insel-Verlag, 1964), 6:193-251. Back.
Note 22: For the state of the art, see Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace. Two recent
criticisms of the "democratic peace" finding seem to be empirically flawed. See Christopher
Layne, "Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace," International Security 19, no. 2
(Fall 1994): 5-49; David E. Spiro, "The Insignificance of the Liberal Peace," International
Security 19, no. 2 (Fall 1994): 50-86. For the rebuttals, see John M. Owen, "How Liberalism
Produces Democratic Peace," International Security 19, no. 2 (Fall 1994): 87-125; Bruce M.
Russett, "The Democratic Peace: And Yet It Moves," International Security 19, no. 4 (Spring
25 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
1995): 164-75. Back.
Note 23: See Owen, "How Liberalism Promotes Peace"; Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Democratic
Peace--Warlike Democracies? A Social Constructivist Interpretation of the Liberal Argument,"
European Journal of International Relations 1, no. 4 (1995): 489-515. Back.
Note 24: See the discussion in Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace, ch. 2. Back.
Note 25: See Alexander Wendt, "Collective Identity Formation and the International State,"
American Political Science Review 88, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 384-96. Back.
Note 26: Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics," p. 1161. Back.
Note 27: Kant, "Zum ewigen Frieden," p. 203. Back.
Note 28: See John Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1951); Robert Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma," World
Politics 30, no. 2 (1978): 167-214. Back.
Note 29: Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area
Note 30: See, for example, Kenneth A. Oye, ed., Cooperation Under Anarchy (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1986). The "democratic peace" argument does not suggest that
authoritarian states are constantly in a state of war among themselves. Rather, liberal theory
posits that the causes of peace among autocracies are different from the causes for the
"democratic peace" and that cooperation among authoritarian regimes is likely to remain
fragile. Back.
Note 31: Norms are "collective expectations of proper behavior for a given identity." In the
following, I mainly use the term in the sense of regulative norms that prescribe or proscribe
behavior for already constituted identities. The constitutive norms of these identities are the
values and rules of democratic decision making in the domestic realm. For these distinctions,
see Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein, "Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security."
Back.
Note 32: See Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of
Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 63. Back.
Note 33: See Robert Putnam, "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level
Games," International Organization 42 (1988): 427-60; Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson,
and Robert S. Putnam, eds., Double-Edged Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993). Back.
Note 34: I thank Mark Laffey, Steve Weber, and an anonymous reviewer for alerting me to
the following points. Back.
Note 35: This even shows up in quantitative studies. Instances of militarized disputes among
democracies have declined over time. Moreover, most disputed cases of alleged war among
democracies occurred during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For data, see
Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace, ch. 4. Back.
Note 36: John Mearsheimer's discussion of social constructivism--which he mislabels

"critical theory," thereby lumping together a variety of different approaches--suffers from the
26 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
misunderstanding that ideational factors in world politics are somehow more subject to
change than material ones. Collective identities cannot be changed like clothes. See John J.
Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security 19, no.
3 (Winter 1994/95): 5-49. Back.
Note 37: As Alfred Grosser put it, 1945 was "no year zero"; see Grosser, The Western
Alliance: European-American Relations Since 1945 (New York: Vintage Books, 1982), pp.
3-33. See also Robert Latham, "Liberalism's Order/Liberalism's Other: A Genealogy of Threat,"
Alternatives 20, no. 1 (1995): 111-46, on this point. Back.
Note 38: See, for example, John Baylis, "Britain and the Formation of NATO" (International
Politics Research Paper no. 7, Department of International Politics, University College of
Wales, Aberystwyth, 1989); Best, "Cooperation with Like-Minded Peoples"; Henry B. Ryan,
The Vision of Anglo-America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Back.
Note 39: On the origins of the containment strategy, see, for example, John L. Gaddis,
Strategies of Containment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); Gaddis, The Long
Peace, pp. 20-47; Deborah Larson, Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); David Mayers, George Kennan and the
Dilemmas of U.S. Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). Back.
Note 40: Overview in David Dimbleby and David Reynolds, An Ocean Apart: The
Relationship Between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (New York: Vintage
Books, 1989), pp. 170-72. Back.
Note 41: Quoted from Gaddis, The Long Peace, p. 30. Back.
Note 42: See Gormly, From Potsdam to the Cold War, pp. 94-111. Back.
Note 43: Quoted from Leffler, "National Security and U.S. Foreign Policy," p. 29. Back.
Note 44: For conflicting interpretations of U.S. strategic interests after World War II, see
Gaddis, The Long Peace; Melvyn P. Leffler, The Preponderance of Power (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1992); Leffler, "National Security and U.S. Foreign Policy," pp. 23-26;
Thomas J. McCormick, America's Half-Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). For an excellent overview on U.S.
historiography on the origins of the Cold War, see Anders Stephanson, "The United States," in
David Reynolds, ed., The Origins of the Cold War in Europe: International Perspectives (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 23-52. Back.
Note 45: See Latham, "Liberalism's Order/Liberalism's Other," on this point. Back.
Note 46: Stephanson, "The United States," p. 50. Back.
Note 47: Quotes from Truman's speeches in March 1947, contained in Gaddis, The Long
Peace, p. 36. Back.
Note 48: See Kennan's "long telegram," in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the
United States, 1946 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), 6:696-709; 'X,'
"The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs 25, no. 4 (July 1947). Back.
Note 49: See, for example, Robert Donovan, Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S.
Truman (New York: Norton, 1982); Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, pp. 14-20; Gormley,
From Potsdam to the . Back.
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Note 50: On these alternatives, see Steve Weber, "Shaping the Postwar Balance of Power:
Multilateralism in NATO," International Organization 46, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 633-80,
635-38. See ibid. for the following. Back.
Note 51: The first two notions are based on Ruggie's definition of multilateralism. See
Ruggie, "Multilateralism." Back.
Note 52: See, for example, Cook, Forging the Alliance; Henderson, The Birth of
NATO; Ireland, Creating the Entangling Alliance; Lawrence S. Kaplan, The United States and
NATO: The Formative Years (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1984); Ennio Di
Nolfo, ed., The Atlantic Pact: Forty Years Later (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991); Meier et al., Das
Nordatlantische B�ndnis; Norbert Wiggershaus and Roland G. Foerster, eds., Die westliche
Sicherheitsgemeinschaft, 1948-1950 (Boppard: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1988). Back.
Note 53: See Best, "Cooperation with Like-Minded Peoples."
Back.
Note 54: On the French position, see Bruna BagNATO, "France and the Origins of the
Atlantic Pact," in Di Nolfo, The Atlantic Pact, pp. 79-110; Norbert Wiggershaus, "The Other
'German Question': The Foundation of the Atlantic Pact and the Problem of Security against
Germany," in ibid., pp. 111-26; Pierre Guillen, "Frankreich und die Frage der Verteidigung
Westeuropas," in Wiggershaus and Foerster, Die westliche Sicherheitsgemeinschaft, pp.
103-23. Back.
Note 55: For details on the treaty negotiations, see Cook, Forging the Alliance; Henderson,
The Birth of NATO; Ireland, Creating the Entangling Alliance; Sherwood, Allies in
Crisis, pp. 5-29. Back.
Note 56: For details, see Risse-Kappen, Cooperation Among Democracies, ch. 3. For the
following, see ibid., ch. 5. Back.
Note 57: See, for example, Haftendorn, Kernwaffen und die Glaubw�rdigkeit der
Allianz; Thomas Risse-Kappen, The Zero Option: INF, West Germany, and Arms Control
(Boulder: Westview, 1988). See also Chernoff, After Bipolarity.
Back.
Note 58: Transgovernmental relations are defined as interactions among subunits of national
governments in the absence of central decisions. See Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye,
Jr., "Transgovernmental Relations and International Organizations," World Politics 27 (1974):
39-62. Back.
Note 59: I essentially agree with Richard Neustadt's earlier analysis of the crisis. See his
Alliance Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970). For a similar argument, see
Sherwood, Allies in Crisis, pp. 58-94. The major studies on the Suez crisis are David Carlton,
Britain and the Suez Crisis (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988); Steven Z. Freiberger, Dawn over Suez
(Chicago: Iven R. Dee, 1992); Keith Kyle, Suez (New York: St. Martin's, 1991); Diane B. Kunz,
The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1991); Wm. Roger Louis and Roger Owen, eds., Suez 1956 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
Back.
Note 60: See Diane B. Kunz, "The Importance of Having Money: The Economic Diplomacy
of the Suez Crisis," in Louis and Owen, Suez 1956, pp. 215-32, 218-19; Kunz, The Economic
Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis.
28 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
Back.
Note 61: Selwyn Lloyd, Suez 1956: A Personal Account (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978), p.
38. Back.
Note 62: See "Memorandum of Conversation at British Foreign Office," September 21, 1956,
in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-1957 [hereafter
FRUS 1955-1957] (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990), 16:548-50.
Back.
Note 63: "Eden to Selwyn Lloyd," October 8, quoted in Wm. Roger Louis, "Dulles, Suez, and
the British," in Richard Immermann, ed., John Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold
War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 133-58, 151. For the Dulles quotes, cf.
ibid., pp. 149, 150; Robert Bowie, "Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Suez Crisis," in Louis and
Owen, Suez 1956, pp. 189-214, 204-5. Back.
Note 64: "Dulles to Selwyn Lloyd," October 19, FRUS 1955-1957, 16:760. Back.
Note 65: U.S. anticolonialism, for example, does not explain American behavior. During the
Falklands/ Malvinas war in 1982, for example, the Reagan administration tacitly backed the
British effort to regain the islands even though it remained officially neutral in light of its
alliance obligations to both Argentina (oas) and Britain. Back.
Note 66: See "Memorandum for Secretary of State," August 28, FRUS 1955-1957, 16:309;
"Secretary of State to U.S. Embassy UK," August 30, ibid., pp. 339-40; "Dept. of State to
certain diplomatic missions," August 31, ibid., pp. 344-45. Back.
Note 67: See "Dept. of State to U.S. Embassy UK," October 26, FRUS 1955-1957, 16:790;
"U.S. Embassy Israel to Dept. of State," October 26, ibid., p. 785; "Dept. of State to U.S.
Embassy France," October 29, ibid., pp. 815-16. For the following, see "Memorandum of
Conversation at Dept. of State," October 28, ibid., pp. 803-4; "U.S. Embassy UK to Dept. of
State," October 29, ibid., pp. 817-20. Back.
Note 68: "Eisenhower to Eden," October 30, FRUS 1955-1957, 16:848-50. See also
"Memorandum of Conversation at the White House," October 29, ibid., pp. 833-39; editorial
note, ibid., pp. 840-42; Bowie, "Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Suez Crisis," pp. 208-9. Back.
Note 69: "Memorandum of Conversation at the Dept. of State," October 30, FRUS
1955-1957, 16:867-68. For the Eisenhower quotes, see "Memorandum of Conference with the
President," October 30, ibid., p. 873; "Message from Eisenhower to Eden," October 30, ibid., p.
866; "Memorandum of Conversation with the President," October 30, ibid., pp. 851-55. Back.
Note 70: "Lord Caccia [uk ambassador in Washington] to Foreign Office," November 28,
1956, quoted from Louis, "Dulles, Suez, and the British," pp. 155-56. Back.
Note 71: "Memorandum of Conversation between the President and Dulles," (my emphasis!),
November 12, FRUS 1955-1957, 16:1112-14. For the preceding quote, see "Memorandum of
Telephone Conversation between the President and Sir Eden," November 7, ibid., p.
1040.Collective Identity in a Back.
Note 72: See Sherwood, Allies in Crisis, pp. 88-94. Back.
Note 73: For details, see Richard N. Lebow and Janice G. Stein, We All Lost the Cold War
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 19-145. See also Michael Beschloss, The
Crisis Years (New York: Edward Burlingame Books, 1991), pp. 431-575; James Blight, The
29 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
Shattered Crystal Ball (Savage, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1990); James Blight and David
Welch, On the Brink (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989); McGeorge Bundy, Danger and
Survival (New York: Random House, 1988), ch. 9; Laurence Chang and Peter Kornbluh, eds.,
The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (New York: New Press, 1992); Raymond Garthoff, Reflections
on the Cuban Missile Crisis, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1989). Back.
Note 74: "Interview with David Nunnerly," in National Security Archive, The Cuban Missile
Crisis, 1962 [hereafter NSA:CMC], microfiche collection (Washington, D.C.: Chadwyck-
Healey, 1990), Doc. 03251. On the alleged lack of consultation, see Richard Rosecrance,
Defense of the Realm (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 13; Sherwood, Allies in
Crisis, p. 122; I. F. Stone, "What Price Prestige?" in Robert A. Divine, ed., The Cuban Missile
Crisis, pp. 155-65 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971). Back.
Note 75: As Robert McNamara put it later, "For all kinds of reasons, especially to preserve
unity in the alliance, we had to indicate to the Soviets that we weren't going to accept the
presence of offensive missiles in Cuba" (quoted from Blight and Welch, On the Brink, p. 188).
See also "ExComm Transcripts," October 16, 1962, NSA:CMC, Doc. 00622. Back.
Note 76: See Harold Macmillan, At the End of the Day, 1961-1963 (London: Macmillan,
1973), pp. 184-90. For the following quote see "507th NSC Meeting," October 22,
NSA:CMC, Doc. 00840. Back.
Note 77: "Foreign Office to Embassy Washington," October 24, in Public Records Office,
London, Diplomatic Correspondence Files [hereafter PRO:FO] 371/162378. Back.
Note 78: See Macmillan, At the End of the Day, pp. 198-203, 202-4. See also Lebow and
Stein, We All Lost the Cold War, p. 121. Back.
Note 79: "White House Tapes and Minutes of the Cuban Missile Crisis," International
Security 10, no. 1 (Summer 1985): 164-203, 185. Back.
Note 80: See, for example, the telephone conversation Macmillan-Kennedy, October 26, in
Macmillan, At the End of the Day, pp. 209-11. Back.
Note 81: "October 27, 1962: Transcripts of the Meetings of the ExComm," International
Security 12, no. 3 (Winter 1987/88): 30-92, 55, 58. Back.
Note 82: For details, see "Ambassador Hare, Ankara, to State Dept.," October 23,
NSA:CMC, Doc. 01080; "Hare to State Dept.," October 24, ibid., Doc. 01260; "Rusk, Circular
Cable," October 24, ibid., Doc. 01140; "Rusk to US Embassies, West Europe," October 25, ibid.,
Doc. 01294; "Rusk to US Embassy, Ankara," October 25, ibid., Doc. 01298. Back.
Note 83: "Dean Rusk to US Embassies to NATO and to Turkey," October 24, NSA:CMC, Doc.
01138. Back.
Note 84: "Finletter to State Dept.," October 25, NSA:CMC, Doc. 01328. Back.
Note 85: "Hare to State Dept." (Section 1), October 26, NSA:CMC, Doc. 01470; "Hare to State
Dept." (Sections 2 and 3), October 26, NSA, Nuclear History Documents.
Back.
Note 86: See "Embassy Ankara to Foreign Office," October 28, PRO:FO 371/162382;
"Embassy Ankara to Foreign Office," October 28, ibid. 371/162381. On discussions at NATO's
headquarters see "Finletter to State Dept.," October 28, NSA:CMC, Doc. 01602. Back.
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Note 87: According to "Embassy Washington to Foreign Office," October 27,

PRO:FO 371/162382. Back.
Note 88: "October 27, 1962: Transcripts," p. 39. Back.
Note 89: Bromley Smith, "Summary Record of ExComm Meeting," October 27,
NSA:CMC, Doc. 01541. For the following see "October 27, 1962: Transcripts." Back.
Note 90: See Bundy, Danger and Survival, pp. 432-34;. Back.
Note 91: See Dobrynin's cable to Moscow, October 27, in Lebow and Stein, We All Lost the
Cold War, pp. 524-26. Back.
Note 92: If the alliance was disintegrating, one would expect the members to concentrate on
the defense of their national territories rather than building light and mobile forces. See
Hellmann and Wolf, "Neorealism, Neoliberal Institutionalism, and the Future of NATO," p. 22.
Back.
Note 93: For details, see "North Atlantic Cooperation Council Statement," NATO Press
Service, December 20, 1991; Stephen Flanagan, "NATO and Central and Eastern Europe,"
Washington Quarterly 15, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 141-51; " 'Partnerschaft f�r den Frieden' mit
Osteuropa. Aber keine konkreten Zusagen f�r Mitgliedschaft," S�ddeutsche Zeitung, January
11, 1994; "NATO Chiefs Hail New Era, But War Still Casts Clouds," International Herald
Tribune [hereafter IHT], January 12, 1994; "Clinton Hints NATO Would Defend East from
Attack," IHT, January 13, 1994. Back.
Note 94: See, for example, "Report by Ad-hoc Group of the North Atlantic Cooperation
Council on Cooperation for Peacekeeping," NATO Press Service, June 11, 1993; Hellmann and
Wolf, "Neorealism, Neoliberal Institutionalism, and the Future of NATO," p. 25. Back.
Note 95: See also Steve Weber, "Does NATO Have a Future?," in Beverly Crawford, ed., The
Future of European Security (Berkeley: University of California at Berkeley, Center for
German and European Studies, 1992), pp. 360-95. Emanuel Adler, "Europe's New Security
Order," in ibid., pp. 287-326, shares the assessment but comes to different conclusions
regarding the desirability of NATO. Back.
Note 96: On this point, see Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, "The International
Sources of Soviet Change," International Security 16 (Winter 1991/92): 74-118; Henry Nau,
"Rethinking Economics, Politics, and Security in Europe," in Richard N. Perle, ed., Reshaping
Western Security, pp. 11-46 (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute Press, 1991).
Back.
Note 97: See Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions,
Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War," International Organization 48, no. 2
(Spring 1994): 185-214. Back.
Note 98: On liberal and institutionalist visions of the future of European security, see Adler,
"Europe's New Security Order"; Ernst-Otto Czempiel, Weltpolitik im Umbruch (Munich:
Beck, 1991); James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, "A Tale of Two Worlds: Core and
Periphery in the Post-Cold War Era," International Organization 46, no. 3 (Spring 1992):
467-91; Charles Kupchan and Clifford Kupchan, "Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future
of Europe," International Security 16, no. 1 (Summer 1991): 114-61; Dieter Senghaas,
Friedensprojekt Europa (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991); Stephen Van Evera, "Primed
for Peace: Europe After the Cold War," International Security 15 (Winter 1990/91): 7-57.
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Back.
Note 99: I thank Andrew Moravcsik for clarifying this point to me. Back.
Note 100: Cooperation patterns among the Nordic states come to mind, too. Note that
Scandinavian cooperation was the main example in Deutsch's original study on "pluralistic
security communities." See Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area.
Back.
Note 101: See, for example, Anne-Marie Burley and Walter Mattli, "Europe Before the
Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration," International Organization 47, no. 1 (Winter
1993): 41-76; Stanley Hoffmann and Robert Keohane, eds., The New European Community
(Boulder: Westview, 1991); Alberta Sbragia, ed., Euro-Politics (Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution, 1992). Back.
Note 102: For details, see Richard M�nch, Das Projekt Europa: Zwischen Nationalstaat,
regionaler Autonomie und Weltgesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1993); Anthony
Smith, "National Identity and the Idea of European Unity," International Affairs 68, no. 1
(1992): 55-76; Ole Waever et al., "The Struggle for 'Europe': French and German Concepts of
State, Nation, and European Union" (unpublished manuscript, 1993). On transnational and
transgovernmental relations within the eu see, for example, David Cameron, "Transnational
Relations and the Development of the European Economic and Monetary Union," in Thomas
Risse-Kappen, ed., Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: State Actors, Domestic
Structures, and International Institutions, pp. 37-78 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995). Back.
Note 103: See Reinhard Drifte, Japan's Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 1990); Peter
Katzenstein and Yutuka Tsujinaka, " 'Bullying,' 'Buying,' and 'Binding': U.S.-Japanese
Transnational Relations and Domestic Structures," in Risse-Kappen, Bringing Transnational
Relations Back In, pp. 79-111; Peter Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, Japan's National
Security: Structures, Norms, and Policy Responses in a Changing World (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1993). See also Thomas Berger's contribution to this volume. Back.
Note 104: See Walt, The Origins of Alliances; Michael Barnett, "Institutions, Roles, and
Disorder: The Case of the Arab States System," International Studies Quarterly 37, no. 3
(September 1993): 271-96; see also Barnett's contribution to this volume. Back.
Note 105: See Triska, Dominant Powers and .For their critical reading and helpful
suggestions, I would like to thank the members of the project, the participants in the
workshops at Stanford and Minnesota, Emanuel Adler, Peter Katzenstein, David Laitin, Martin
Sampson, Stephen Walt, and the anonymous reviewers at Columbia University Press. Back.
32 de 32 05/08/2010 19:40
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editor
11. Identity and Alliances in the Middle East
Michael N. Barnett
International relations scholarship is nearly unanimous in the view that alliances are driven by
expediency rather than principle, that their primary motivation is to enhance state security in
the face of some immediate or future external threat, and that ideational and domestic
interests are of secondary importance. In this view, states seek alliances primarily to enhance
their capabilities through combination with others, which helps to deter a potential aggressor
and avoid an unwanted war, to prepare for a successful war in the event that deterrence fails,
or more generally to increase one's influence in a high-threat environment or maintain a
balance of power in the system. Resting on a foundation of systemic theorizing, alliances can
be a product of either balancing or bandwagoning behavior, but in any form they are the result
of expedience and an external threat. 1
As security scholars identify the dynamics of alliance formation, they generally focus on two
features of the state's strategic calculus: (1) the identification of the threat and (2) the
determination of whether and with whom to ally in response to that threat. Both steps,
according to realists, are parsimoniously and predictably propelled by power politics and
systemic pressures; material factors and threats to the state's security generate the definition
of the threat, and the decision to construct an external alignment (as opposed to a strategy of
internal mobilization) and with whom is dependent on a rational calculation of costs and
benefits that derive primarily from material factors and the state's relative military power
vis-á-vis potential and immediate threats. 2 In general, the neorealist approach to alliance
formation is quite insistent that material factors dominate the definition of, and the adopted
response to, that threat.
This essay, in contrast, asserts that state identity offers theoretical leverage over the issue of
the construction of the threat and the choice of the alliance partner. It is the politics of identity
rather than the logic of anarchy that often provides a better understanding of which states are
viewed as a potential or immediate threat to the state's security. Moreover, whereas realists
calculate the costs and benefits of additional units of security, defined in terms of the state's
relative military power, and emphasize the state's attempt to maneuver between the dual fears
of entrapment and abandonment, the variable of identity also signals which states are
considered more or less desirable partners. By proposing a direct link between identity and
strategic behavior, and investigating that behavior in a central research domain of neorealism,
I offer an alternative understanding of security dynamics.
To explore the relationship between identity and alliance formation I examine various
episodes of inter-Arab and U.S.-Israeli relations. Inter-Arab relations are frequently
characterized as the paragon of realist politics; Arab leaders routinely paid lip service to the
ideals of pan-Arabism while engaging in power-seeking behavior. To demonstrate how identity
provides theoretical leverage over these central issues surrounding alliance formation, I
examine two periods in inter-Arab relations. During the early years of the Arab states system,
Arab nationalism guided Arab states to identify both with whom they should "naturally"
associate and the threat to Arab states; this common identity and threat, in turn, created the
desire for certain normative and institutional arrangements to govern inter-Arab security
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politics that were reflective of their self-understanding of being Arab states. The 1955 Iraqi-
Turkey Treaty, better known as the Baghdad Pact, ignited these very issues and suggests the
impact of identity rather than anarchy. I then examine the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC )
and some features of the post-Gulf war security patterns, which also elevate how identity
shapes the construction of the threat and signals who is considered a preferred partner.
These two episodes in inter-Arab politics also suggest ways in which changing identities are
associated with changing regional security and alliance patterns. Frequently discussed as the
"end of pan-Arabism," "the new realism," "the return to geography," and "the fragmentation of
the Arab world," the subtext is the decline of Arab national identities and the emergence of
statist identities. 3 These changes, in turn, are linked to discursive and behavioral changes in
inter-Arab politics. Specifically, if Arab nationalism reminded Arab leaders that as heads of
Arab states they shared interests, goals, and security threats and should actively attempt to
strengthen that community and to develop close strategic ties (or at least be viewed as doing
so), its observed decline and the rise of statist identities has diminished the enthusiasm for all
of the above. Consequently, Arab states are exhibiting new behavioral expectations and
patterns of interactions that have imprinted their security politics in general and alliance
arrangements in particular.
Most analyses of the U.S.-Israeli alliance contend that it is driven by either systemic or U.S.
domestic politics. My position, however, is that Israel's collective identity, and the U.S.'s
understanding that Israel shares with it certain values, are critical for understanding
U.S.-Israel relations. To demonstrate the importance of identity, I examine the "crisis" in
U.S.-Israeli relations that began in the late 1980s; while many look to systemic forces and the
end of the Cold War, I argue that another source of the crisis resided in Israeli debates and
practices that challenged its Western, liberal-democratic, character, and accordingly, the
foundation of U.S.-Israeli relations. All three cases, then, are intended to demonstrate how
identity, as a relational construct that emerges out of the international and domestic discourse
and interactions, helps us better to understand the dynamics of alliance formation.
Identity and Alliance Formation

A mainstay of realist approaches to alliance politics is that states respond to threats from the
external environment. Of central importance here is Stephen Walt's The Origins of
Alliances. Walt modifies Kenneth Waltz's account of alliance formation by recognizing that
states balance not against power but rather against threats. Because anarchy and the
distribution of power alone are unable to signal which states will be identified as threats, Walt
posits that the threat derives from a combination of geostrategic and military factors and
"aggressive intentions." 4 To deter mine who constitutes a threat to the state's physical
security and relative power requires a marriage of capabilities and intentions.
Walt's "balance-of-threat" approach represents an important contribution to neorealist

thought, and his analytically driven narrative of Middle Eastern politics is quite compelling.
Yet to what extent do Walt's theory and narrative of Middle Eastern politics offer a verdict for
neorealism and materialism? I want to suggest that his theoretical framework and
observations identify not the logic of anarchy but rather the politics of identity; specifically,
Walt assembles strong support for ideational rather than materialist forces as driving
inter-Arab politics in general and alliance formation in particular.
To begin, consider the variable of "aggressive intentions." Walt elevates this critical variable
because of his recognition that the distribution of power alone cannot predict which states will
be identified as a threat. Yet how is intent determined? In his theoretical discussion Walt
offers various examples of how intent represents an important component of the construction
of the threat, yet the concept of intent is left underspecified and undertheorized. By rejecting
the proposition that intent is conceptually linked to anarchy or the balance of power and by
failing to offer a conceptual tie in its place, Walt leaves the issue unresolved: How is intent
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determined? What constitutes a threat?
Although Walt's theoretical discussion does not offer any guidance concerning how intent is
determined, looming large in his historical narrative is "ideology." Specifically, pan-Arabism
represents both a force to be reckoned with and a potential threat to other Arab regimes by
challenging their legitimacy, sovereignty, and internal stability. Briefly, pan-Arabism charged
that because the West segmented and divided the Arab nation into separate Arab states, Arab
states derived their identity, interests, and legitimacy from the entire Arab nation that
enveloped their separate borders. A central feature of this drama was that while the Arab
states system was nominally organized around sovereignty, pan-Arabism held that Arab states
had an obligation to protect Arabs wherever they resided and to work toward political
unification, that is, to bring the state and the nation into correspondence. pan-Arabism, in
short, represented a potential threat to Arab governments, as it challenged the very territorial
basis of their existence.
An Arab leader that wielded the pan-Arab "card," therefore, represented a dual challenge to
other Arab governments. First, he challenged them to be viewed as working toward both a
deepening of the Arab political com munity and their eventual political unification. By
reminding them both that (his own and) their authority and legitimacy derived not from these
fictitious territories created by the West but from the Arab nation, and that their duty was, in
effect, to deny their own sovereignty and strengthen the bonds of Arab unity, Arab nationalism
represented a threat to the Arab states' sovereignty and, hence, to the Arab leaders' external
and internal security. This view helps to explain why in the 1940s a militarily powerful Egypt
feared a substantially weaker Iraq that was a thousand miles from its border, that offered little
military challenge, and that, in fact, offered itself up for political unification. The proposed
Syrian-Iraqi federation in the late 1940s and the realized Syrian-Egyptian unification in 1958
threatened the entire region; yet the challenge derived not from the combined aggregate
military power of the two states but from their making good on Arabism's pledge and
challenging other Arab leaders to do the same.
Second, Arab leaders could lose tremendous legitimacy, and hence suffer a drop in their
domestic and regional standing, if they were viewed as not acting to safeguard the interests, as
failing to live up to the goals and aspirations, of the Arab nation. The fortunes of Arab leaders
were dependent on whether they were viewed as conforming to the norms of the Arab nation;
indeed, they could be the target of severe regional and domestic sanctions if they were
perceived as violating its norms. The norms associated with Arabism, in other words,
instructed Arab leaders how they were to behave, and one Arab leader could potentially
undermine another by charging him with behavior that was inconsistent with the norms of the
group. That Arab nationalism had this effect dramatizes the point that it was cultural capital,
not military capabilities, that was the currency of power in Arab politics and that was deployed
to shield oneself from, and to injure, one's rivals. In the game of inter-Arab politics, if you will,
sticks and stones had comparatively little effect, but words could really hurt; portraying
another Arab leader as acting in ways that were inconsistent with Arabism could potentially
unleash domestic challenges and subject him to regional sanctions. In general, pan-Arabism
represented a potential threat to the Arab state's domestic and international basis of existence,
and an Arab leader who wielded the pan-Arab card could be dangerous indeed. 5 Because
Arab nationalism represented a potential threat to the sovereignty and security of Arab states,
interstate interactions had a different dynamic than predicted by realist formulations. Simply
put, rivalry had a strong normative element that was independent of material power. In fact,
Walt recognizes as much. After surveying a series of alliances and balancing episodes in Arab
politics, he concludes:
A different form of balancing has occurred in inter-Arab relations. In the

Arab world, the most important source of power has been the ability to
manipulate one's own image and the image of one's rivals in the minds of
other Arab elites. Regimes have gained power and legitimacy if they have
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been seen as loyal to accepted Arab goals, and they have lost these assets if
they have appeared to stray outside the Arab consensus. As a result, an
effective means of countering one's rivals has been to attract as many allies
as possible in order to portray oneself as leading (or at least conforming to)
the norms of Arab solidarity. In effect, the Arab states have balanced one
another not by adding up armies but by adding up votes. Thus militarily
insignificant alliances between various Arab states often have had profound
political effects. 6
This conclusion, by singling out Arabism and ideology as driving inter-Arab interactions and
by failing to forward the distribution of power as causally consequential, seems somewhat at
odds with a neorealist view as it points to identity and not anarchy.
If Walt concludes that Arabism and ideology drove inter-Arab dynamics, why does he not
revise his balance-of-threat model to incorporate more fully ideational factors? If he is
suggesting that images, not anarchy, drives inter-Arab politics, then why not direct attention to
ideational--not material--forces as primary, independent, and causal? As it stands, Walt's
various historical observations are inconsistent with his materialist presuppositions,
suggesting the limitations of neorealism for understanding inter-Arab politics. In my view,
there are two reasons for the failure to give ideational forces their proper due. The first is a
commitment to a materialism that forces Walt to reduce ideational factors to the level of
ideology and to see them as parasitic on the material. Rather than consider ing how Arabism
might in fact shape the identity, if not the interests, of Arab leaders, Walt reduces its status to
that of an instrument used by Arab leaders to further their domestic and regional standing--
simply put, as a legitimator of foreign policy. Although in his analytical discussion Walt
recognizes that "aggressive intentions" drive the construction of the threat and are
autonomous with respect to the distribution of power, he fails to consider what other
theoretical field might generate the identification of hostile intent. The need to try to minimize
the potential causal force of identity is also evident in his discussion of U.S.-Israeli relations;
for instance, he dismisses the possibility of "ideological solidarity" between the U.S. and Israel
because the "U.S. is [not] a welfare-state theocracy such as Israel." 7 In general, Walt seems
incapable of fully acknowledging just how inconsistent his empirical observations are from his
theoretical presuppositions because of his loyalty to materialism.
Perhaps another reason why Walt retreats to anarchy is because of the observation that Arab
states, who supposedly shared an identity, have showed quite a flair for conflict and not for
cooperation. In other words, because a shared identity is more closely associated with conflict
than with cooperation, then it must be a realist world. 8 Yet the observation that the existence
of a shared identity is associated with conflict is worth greater reflection. To begin, why
assume that a shared identity necessarily generates a pacific structure and cooperation? After
all, a community of Saddam Husseins is unlikely to father a secure environment, while a
community of Mahatma Gandhis will encourage all to leave their homes unlocked. 9 Perhaps
a more reasonable stance is to consider the possibility that conflict can take place among those
actors that have a shared identity. 10 Conflict, after all, is part of any social relationship;
George Simmel told us this a century ago in his highly insightful, but generally
underappreciated, essay "Conflict." 11 In other words, the mere existence of conflict does not
in and of itself entail a realist world or derive from anarchy; conflict has many sources, and the
challenge is to consider reasons other than anarchy for why actors that have a shared identity
might also exhibit conflict and hostility.
Because interstate interactions and alliance formation are better connected conceptually to
identity than to anarchy, reducing identity to ideology and assuming that the ideational is
parasitic on the material relegates to a residual category what is, in fact, central. 12
Specifically, while anarchy and material factors provide little leverage and are not analytically
linked to "aggressive intentions," identity offers a better conceptual handle in two ways. First,
assorted literatures conclude that there is an important relationship between identity and the
construction of the threat. To begin, identity emerges as a consequence of taking into
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consideration a relevant "other." While not all states with a shared identity will define threats
in the same way, will treat all those outside the group as a threat, or will agree on the means to
confront the threat, there is an important connection between identity and threat. 13 In other
words, Arabism might affect the identity and interests of, and the socially acceptable policies
available to, Arab leaders in ways that fundamentally shape their desired and available
security policies. In fact, we readily accept the proposition that there is a relationship between
identity and threat when it comes to ethnic, tribal, and religious groups, and there is no reason
to dismiss a similar connection in the context of a different corporate actor called the state. 14
For instance, in the current climate, that is absent a clearly identifiable external danger, those
that compose the self-selected Western community are elevating domestic
characteristics--most notably, markets and democracy--as markers to distinguish between
those who represent threats and those who do not. Walt, for instance, recognizes that an Arab
identity and Arab nationalism caused Arab states to identify Israel as a threat and enemy. 15
To be sure, this hostility did not overcome collective action problems and free riding, yet it
did prescribe what was acceptable and legitimate and suggests an important relationship
between identity and the definition of the threat. In general, identity might be better able to
"predict whether two states will be friends or foes, will be revisionist or status quo powers, and
so on," and a shared identity is likely to generate a shared definition of the threat. 16
Second, a possible source of conflict among actors that share an identity is their constitutive
norms. Those states that share a basic identity and organize themselves into a self-constituted
group are likely to construct norms that instruct them on how they are to enact their identity.
This suggests two possible sources of conflict. First, actors with a shared identity might very
well debate and contest their associated norms. After all, while Pat Buchanan and I both
identify ourselves as Americans, we have very different understandings of the norms that are
associated with that identity, and those understandings are not easily reducible to our material
circumstances or interests. What exists for actors in the domestic arena also applies to states in
the international system. My argument is that inter-Arab politics largely concerns the debate
over the norms that should govern Arab politics that are directly related to issues of identity.
In general, that actors who have a shared identity will disagree over what constitutes
acceptable behavior for the members of the group represents a potential source of conflict.
The proposition that actors with a shared identity might debate the norms that are to regulate
their relations and are tied to conceptions of self generates a second, earlier observation: that
actors will vie to present themselves as acting in a manner that is consistent with the group's
norms and to portray others as acting in a manner that is inconsistent with those norms and
thus potentially threatening to the group. In other words, rivalry is not over military power but
rather it is over images and the presentation of self; threats, therefore, derive from a rival's
attempt to portray itself as acting in a manner that violates the group's norms. Arab leaders,
for instance, have attempted to present themselves as acting to further the interests of the
Arab nation and to present others as potentially undermining those interests. Similarly, Arab
leaders forged alliances and divisions around different positions concerning the norms that
should govern inter-Arab politics; this is to be expected, given that norms, rather than
militaries, potentially posed the threat to the regime's domestic and regional standing.
Consequently, portraying a member of the group as violating the group's norms potentially
threatens that member's standing, if not its very status in the group. Said otherwise, there is
generally some positive relationship between the state's expressed identity, its membership in
the group, and its behavior; the behavior cannot be totally inconsistent with the
self-proclaimed identity without challenging the state's relationship to the group. Therefore,
disregarding these norms that define the group can undermine the state's identity and
relationship to that group. For instance, the literature on the "democratic peace" notes the
presence of constitutive norms that signify that "civilized" states do not go to war; therefore,
going to war with a member of the community challenges the state's membership in the
community of democratic states. The case of the Baghdad Pact illustrates the development of
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and debate over the norms that are intended to define and give meaning to the Arab nation
and shows how Iraq's alliance with Turkey represented a challenge to the meaning and future
of Arab nationalism and unleashed a debate over the norms to govern Arab politics.
In general, by exploring, first, that actors with a shared identity are likely to have a shared
construction of the threat and, second, that actors with a shared identity might clash over the
norms that are to govern their behaviors that are a reflection of that shared identity, I contend
that identity is linked to the construction of the threat and represents a potential source of
alliance formation.
In contrast to the neorealist view that the choice of the alliance partner is largely dependent on
a rational calculation of costs and benefits that derive primarily from material factors, I want
to consider how identity potentially shapes the choice of the alliance partner, and provides the
foundation of the alliance. First, whereas neorealists presume that strate gic calculations
exhaust the state's consideration of a potential alliance partner, there is evidence that it
frequently employs identity criteria to evaluate a prospective partner's "worthiness." Identity,
in short, makes some partners more attractive than others. For instance, it is noteworthy that
democratic states generally align with one another and do not ally against each other during
times of war. 17 In Arab politics, the West, not to mention Israel, is not usually ranked high on
the list of desirable strategic partners. The importance of identity for determining who is
considered a worthwhile strategic partner is explored in the case of the Baghdad Pact and the
GCC . In general, given the absence of an immediate threat (which is frequently the case),
identity will factor into the state's choice of ally.
Second, identity not only provides some leverage over the choice of an alliance partner, but it
also suggests that the maintenance of that alliance can be dependent on the parties' mutual
identification. Consequently, a shared identity might not help to cement the basis of the
alliance, but a change in identity can undermine the alliance's foundation. Because an
important basis for the strategic association is not simply shared interests in relationship to an
identified threat but rather a shared identity that promotes an affinity and mutual
identification, the language of community rather than the contractual language of alliance
arguably better captures this type of strategic association. 18 To participate and to be counted
as a member of a community requires that the state proclaim oneself as a member of the
community, and express and uphold those values and norms that constitute it. To do so, the
state must have a stable identity that has the "capacity to keep a particular narrative going."
19 Therefore, being part of an association of like-minded states involves having a dominant
historical narrative, an identity, that is consistent with that of the community. "In order to
have a sense of who we are," Charles Taylor observes, "we have to have a notion of how we
have become, and of where we are going." 20 The community becomes an important source
of that identity and that narrative, and those within the community frequently express similar
historical roots, a common heritage, and a shared future.
Communities and societies can be understood as engaging in a continuous debate over their
collective identity. 21 As Edward Said observes, "We need to regard society as the locale in
which a continuous contest between adherents of different ideas about what constitutes the
national identity is taking place." 22 In this respect, states can have an "identity conflict,"
which is likely to emerge under two conditions. 23 First, it may result whenever there are
competing definitions of the collective identity that call for contradictory behaviors. Although
referring explicitly to the notion of role conflict, (with minimal translation errors), identity
conflict might be seen to exist
when there are contradictory expectations that attach to some position in a

social relationship. Such expectations may call for incompatible
performances; they may require that one hold two norms or values which
logically call for opposing behaviors; or they may demand that one [identity]
necessitates the expenditure of time and energy such that it is difficult or
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impossible to carry out the obligations of another [identity]. 24

Identity conflict can also exist whenever definitions of the "collective self are no longer
acceptable under new historical conditions." 25 In other words, a crisis might emerge
whenever the state's collective identity (or the very debate over that identity) is at odds with
the demands and defining characteristics of the broader community (which represents an
additional source of the state's identity).
Maintaining a stable identity that is consistent with this larger commu nity may be particularly
challenging for some states at some moments because of changed international and domestic
factors. At the international level, a change in systemic patterns, caused by transnational,
economic, or military politics, can trigger wide-scale domestic change and debates concerning
the collective identity and the state's relationship to the wider community. This has been
particularly noticeable in recent years, as many states have debated the national identity and
its relationship to other international communities, most notably the "West." At the domestic
level, changes in territorial boundaries, the political economy, and demography can also
enliven the debate over the collective identity. In any event, identity concerns not only the
state's external "self" but also its internal one.
Relatedly, constitutive norms can pertain not only to the external behavior of states but also to
their domestic behavior and arrangements. That is, being a member in the community is
shaped not only by the state's external identity and associated behavior but also by its domestic
characteristics and practices. Indeed, states apparently attempt to predict a state's external
behavior based on its internal arrangements; this is most obvious in the expectation that
democratic states will settle their differences short of war. Therefore, the failure to order the
domestic polity in a particular way can potentially undermine the state's status in the group.
26 In general, my concern is how identity conflict undermines both the state's ability to keep
a particular narrative going, and, accordingly, the state's membership in the community. This
issue is explored in the case of U.S.-Israel relations.
In sum, I am employing the concept of state identity to gain theoretical leverage over strategic
behavior in general and alliance formation in particular. Identity, first, provides a better
conceptual link to the construction of the threat than do anarchy and other materialist
derivations and, second, potentially informs as to who is deemed an attractive ally. The
following cases are intended to illustrate these two central points concerning alliance
formation.
Identity and Alliances in Arab Politics

From the inception of the Arab states system through the late 1960s, Arab nationalism had a
powerful hold over the Arab states. Two points deserve immediate attention. First, there is a
relationship between the Arab identity and the definition of the threat. Although before the
1900s the Arab world lived in separate and relatively isolated political communities, soon after
that time, the combination of imported ideas of nationalism from the West, changes in social
structure because of an expanding world economy, the Ottoman Empire's "Turkification"
program of 1908, and primarily the mandate system and Zionism following World War I
caused Arab leaders and masses alike to consider their relationship to one another and to
develop an Arab political identity and loyalty. 27 The fear generated by these intrusions did
not subside after the independence of the Arab states, for the Jewish presence had become the
State of Israel, and the West made known its intentions to maintain influence over this
important geostrategic ground. A common Arab identity, in short, was linked to a common
definition of the threat.
Second, Arab nationalism can be understood as the belief that Arab states have shared
identities and interests; the Arab nation envelops and allocates a common Arab identity to the
segmented Arab states system. Since the independence of the Arab states in the 1940s, the
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relationship between Arab nationalism and the sovereign Arab states has been a defining
feature of the debates over how Arab states should organize their relations. In short, how were
Arab states to enact their identity? What norms were associated with Arab nationalism?
Briefly, if Arab states assumed that they had a common Arab identity, they exhibited a range of
expectations concerning how that Arab identity should affect inter-Arab strategic cooperation;
Arab states forged allegiances depending on the positions they held on these key issues. At one
end was the expectation that Arab states should work toward unification. If the West had
divided the Arab nation into separate states to keep it weak and vulnerable to Western
interests, then the surest and quickest way to restrengthen the Arab nation was to create a
single Arab state. In this version, Arab nationalism meant territo rial unification. As reflected
by the League of Arab States, however, the Arab states were generally suspicious of any efforts
to restrict their sovereignty or to undermine their territorial basis of power. Although this was
particularly true of Lebanon (which feared Syria's territorial claims), Saudi Arabia, and Egypt,
even Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, which more actively flirted with the idea of unification (no doubt
in part because these three states were the most artificial and, accordingly, their populations
the most susceptible to the rally of unification), demonstrated tremendous wariness regarding
unification.
Although most Arab leaders had little taste for a pan-Arabism that demanded unification, the
existence of Arabism encouraged Arab states to organize themselves somewhere between
sovereignty and unification; because their security was interdependent, Arab states should act
in concert and consultation with other Arab states. The clearest expression of this was the
attempt to develop close strategic ties and military integration, and the articulated norm that
Arab states should settle their disputes short of war. These principles were embodied in the
Treaty of Joint Defence and Economic Cooperation Among the States of the Arab League
(better known as the Collective Arab Security Pact), signed April 13, 1950, which pledged them
to settle their conflicts through nonviolent means (article 1), to engage in collective defense
(article 2), and to integrate their military and foreign policies (article 5). 28 Such noble
gestures notwithstanding, the lofty rhetoric and far-reaching treaty had very little practical
effect.
Although there was little real movement toward unification or military integration, the history
of the period exhibits numerous instances and episodes in which Arab leaders responded to
the expectations that they develop (or at least be viewed as supporting the development of)
close strategic ties among Arab states and, at the bare minimum, that Arab states not adopt any
policies that potentially might harm the security of the Arab nation. 29 The fact of being an
Arab state, therefore, generated certain expectations, and defying those expectations could
have major conse quences for an Arab leader's domestic and regional standing. In general,
Arab leaders had been involved in a continuous debate over the norms to govern inter-Arab
relations.
Beginning in the early 1950s, two events intensified the discussion over the norms associated
with Arabism. The first was the Egyptian revolution in 1952, which brought about a change not
only in regime but in foreign policy orientation. King Faruq's commitment to Arabism did not
extend much beyond a desire to rid the British from Egypt and to assert Egypt's role as leader
of the Arab world if only to discourage radical Arab demands. At first Nasser and the Free
Officers appeared to be loyal to Faruq's policies, as they concentrated their energies on
evicting Britain from Egypt. Yet Nasser expressed a greater commitment to Arab unity, a
desire born largely of his experiences in the Palestine War of 1948 and his belief that Arab
unity was the best method for resuscitating Arab power. It was, then, Nasser's understanding
that Egypt's fate and security could not be separated from those of the other Arab states (and
that he could gain considerable personal power from this message). 30 As a sign of events to
come, on July 4, 1953, Nasser launched the "Voice of the Arabs" to broadcast his message of
Arab unity to the Arab world. The second development was that the U.S. and Britain, both
perceived threats to the Arab nation, were signaling their determination to become more
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deeply involved in the region. Both nations were hoping, though for somewhat different
reasons, to establish alliances with Arab states. 31 The principal signal that the Cold War had
come to the Middle East was the Turkish-Pakistani alliance of April 1954, which created a
strategic link to Britain and the U.S. This treaty precipitated a major debate in the region
concerning the proper, and ideally collective Arab, response to this renewed surge from the
West. Throughout the debate, Arab leaders exhibited approach-avoidance behavior toward
each other and the West: while most were highly conservative and suspicious of any actions
that might lead to an erosion of their sovereignty or encourage Arabist sentiments, they also
desired closer cooperation because, first, it would increase their power vis-á-vis the West and
their standing among their populations and, second, the failure to be associated with the
group's norms could lead to a decline in popular support.
Similarly, while most Arab states were quite fearful of the West, they also accepted the reality
that Britain and the increasingly engaged U.S. were great powers that could provide both arms
and badly needed resources for regime maintenance. 32 Iraq seemed the most favorably
disposed toward an association with the West. Not only was it fearful of potential
encroachment by the Soviets to the north, but Iraq believed that only the West could provide
the resources it so desperately required. 33 Nasser, though generally pro-West, more than
willing to talk to Dulles, and highly attracted to the capital and arms of the West, was
extremely sensitive to any agreement that hinted at Egypt's and the Arab world's
subordination to the West. Therefore, the debate between Iraq and Egypt was not about
making a deal with the West per se but rather it was about the belief that Arab states should
coordinate their security and foreign policies before any deal and that such a deal should not
leave the Arab world vulnerable to the West.
After months of dialogue and debate, something of a solution was reached at the Arab Foreign
Ministers Conference held in Cairo in December 1954. There the Arab governments crafted
two resolutions: (1) "that no alliance should be concluded outside the fold of the Collective
Arab Security Pact" and (2) "that cooperation with the West was possible, provided that a just
solution was found for Arab problems and provided the Arabs were allowed to build up their
strength with gifts of arms." 34 In other words, a strategic relationship with the West was
possible after consultation with and consensus among the other Arab states. 35 Arab leaders
had seemingly navigated between Arab nationalism and realpolitik, between the two ideas that
they must coordinate their policies because they were Arab states and that as sovereign
entities they could construct any alliance they desired.
Hence, the January 13, 1955, announcement of a strategic alliance between Iraq and Turkey
sent shockwaves through the Arab world. 36 It is important to recognize that Turkey was not
just any non-Arab state; rather, it was the successor to the Ottoman Empire that had ruled the
region for more than three centuries. Many Arab leaders could remember Ottoman rule;
therefore, Iraq's alliance with Turkey not only handed the West a possible port of entry into
the Arab world but also represented an alliance with an old antagonist. More disturbing,
however, was that it represented a direct challenge to a stripped-down version of Arabism that
bound Arab states to coordinate their foreign policies before reaching any formal agreement
with the West: if this watered-down Arabism had no force, then it had little meaning. Egyptian
minister Sallah Salim captured the mood: "The Arab World is now standing at a crossroads: it
will either be an independent and cohesive unit with its own structures and national character
or else each country will pursue its own course. The latter would mean the beginning of the
downfall of Arab nationhood." 37
Therefore, the challenge offered by the Baghdad Pact was not a shift in military power 38 but
rather a move toward Arabism and the belief that Arab states should coordinate their policies
because they had common identities and interests. 39 More to the point, the ensuing debate
and conflict (1) concerned the norms that should govern Arab states and (2) was waged
through presentational politics in general and Nasser's attempt to portray Iraq as having
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violated the norms of Arabism in particular. For instance, newspaper headlines throughout the
Arab world strongly con demned the treaty. In Egypt, a major Arab daily wrote in its
headlines: "Iraqi Government Demolishes All Efforts to Strengthen the Arab League and
Bolster the Arab Collective Security Pact." 40 The "Voice of the Arabs" beamed:
While the Arab States are preparing to hold a meeting of their Foreign
Ministers to consider and agree on the unification of their foreign policy, the
consolidation of the Collective Security Pact, and the strengthening of the
Arab League, the Arab World is taken unaware by a communique issued by
two countries. . . . How can it be justified that Iraq took part in this
communique and indeed did so on her own when the meeting is about to be
held? 41
Responding to whether Iraq as an independent state had the right to enter into any treaty it
wants, Egyptian minister Sallah Salim said: "Although Iraq is an independent sovereign state,
she nevertheless has obligations and responsibilities toward the League of Arab States and the
Arab Collective Security Pact. Is there any state, in the Atlantic Pact, for example, free to make
any decisions it chooses even if it be contrary to that pact?" 42
In response to the treaty, Arab governments met in Cairo from January 22 though February 6.
Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Jordan--states with different governmental
structures, military capacities, and location in the distribution of power--uniformly
condemned the Iraqi action as undermining Arabism and the Collective Arab Defense Treaty.
Nasser unveiled his own response the evening of January 25: the "establishment of a unified
Arab army under one command along the same lines as the proposed European army." 43
The overall result of the conference must have been somewhat disappointing to Egypt, the
most vocal opponent of the pact, and somewhat heartening to Iraq. Although it passed several
resolutions condemning Iraq's actions, pledged not to join the treaty, and decided to send a
delegation to Iraq to try and persuade Nuri al-Said of the error of his ways, the conference
adjourned without reaching any real conclusion or issuing a final statement. The delegation
was apparently unsuccessful, for Iraq and Turkey signed the treaty on February 24. 44
Four days later, on February 28, Israel attacked a military installation in Gaza. The
combination of Israel's attack on Egypt and Iraq's defection from the Arab fold had a
tremendous impact on Nasser and the Arab world. Nasser now found himself riding a tide of
popular support across the region. In response to both the treaty and Arab governments'
rather tepid opposition, protests against the treaty erupted in Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
King Hussein of Jordan had been attempting to lean on British power as a way of propping up
his regime and keeping at bay both regional and domestic rivals. The Baghdad Pact completely
undermined his policy, as domestic forces both caused him to desist from for example, free to
make any decany consideration of signing it 45 and forced him to dismiss John Glubb as head
of Jordan's Arab Legion, a symbol of British presence, in March 1956. 46 King Saud of Saudi
Arabia calculated that Iraq was attempting to gather the resources and prestige to launch
another challenge for Fertile Crescent unification, which would represent both an external
threat and a source of internal instability. 47 Syria was the real battleground for the pact, and
the debate over whether to join was both a sign and a cause of its increasingly Arab nationalist
and neutralist leanings; 48 that it abstained from joining was counted as a loss for Iraq and a
victory for Nasser.
These domestic pressures, unleashed by Iraq's affront to Arabism, caused the other Arab states
to become allies. Egypt offered to replace the now moribund Collective Arab Security Pact
with its "own security community by a series of treaties with Syria and Saudi Arabia (1955),
and eventually, with Jordan and Yemen (in 1956)." 49 In other words, Egypt forged a series
of alliances with some Arab states that concurred with Nasser's brand of Arabism (Syria) and
others that did not (Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia), and the latter states chose to ally
themselves with Nasser's vision of regional life rather than risk a decline in regional standing
or a domestic backlash. It was Nasser's normative vision and ability to portray Iraq in a
10 de 34 05/08/2010 19:41
particular manner, not his military, that caused this alliance with Egypt and against Iraq.
The Baghdad Pact would have its most direct and immediate effect on its very Iraqi
sigNATOries: in July 1958 the Free Officers' revolution, led by General Qasim and Colonel
Aref, overthrew the Iraqi government (Nuri al-Said was killed while trying to escape the city).
Although many factors contributed to the revolution, the Baghdad Pact, the Suez War of 1956,
and Iraq's subsequent isolation in the Arab world, contributed to the military's and masses'
increasing dissatisfaction with the government's policies. 50
The pact not only perpetuated the undesired connection with the English
and guaranteed them the privilege they had hitherto enjoyed, but also
entailed a severing of Arab ranks and an open taking of sides in the "cold
war." It alienated, in other words, neutralist, nationalist, and pan-Arab
opinion. 51
Indicative of how the Baghdad Pact and Arabism affected the Free Officers was a directive
signed by the party on the eve of the July 14 coup, in which a central point was that the future
Iraqi government would henceforth "pursue an independent Arab national policy . . . convert
the 'Arab Union' into an authentic union between Iraq and Jordan . . . and unite on a federal
basis with the U.A.R." 52 After coming to power, the Free Officers immediately suspended
Iraq's participation in future pact security meetings and then, in March 1959, withdrew
completely from the treaty. Although not all segments of Iraqi society supported this more
radical brand of Arab nationalism, 53 they were unified in their rejection of the Baghdad Pact
and its symbolic defection from the Arab fold.
The controversy surrounding the pact highlights a number of key issues concerning the
relationship between identity and strategic behavior that run counter to neorealist arguments.
First, the Arab nation's definition of the threat was directly linked to the Arab identity; Arab
nationalism partially emerged in response to intrusions from the Ottoman Empire and the
West. In short, the definition of intent, of who is considered friend and foe, is better
determined by the politics of identity than by the logic of anarchy. Second, the Baghdad Pact
represented a challenge not to the balance of power per se but to Arab nationalism and its
emerging and con tested norms. The pact unleashed a debate among Arab states concerning
what behavior was and was not proper for Arab states, that is, how Arab states were to enact
their identity. At the core of it was a concern about how Arab states should organize their
relations as Arab states, and a conviction that because they had a shared identity and
interdependent security they should coordinate their policies. Iraq's alliance with Turkey and
the West not only symbolized an alliance with actors who were considered to be hostile to the
Arab nation, but the means by which it forged that agreement violated even the most minimal
understanding of the norms that were to guide the behavior of Arab states. Simply put, the
conflict was about the norms that were to govern their shared identity.
Third, in the ensuing debate Arab states dueled with symbols and images, but not militaries,
attempting to portray themselves as expressing and furthering the aspirations of the Arab
nation and their rival as potentially injuring those very interests. In short, rivalry was driven
by presentational, not military, politics. Arab leaders could either profit or suffer, depending
on how they were situated by regional and domestic actors in relation to the group's norms; if
Nasser's ascending fortunes represent one side of the coin, Iraq's Nuri al-Said's fate
demonstrates the other.
Fourth, the power of these norms is exemplified by the individual and collective response of
the Arab states to the pact. Not only was the response shaped by Arabism and not anarchy, but
most Arab leaders quickly acknowledged that Iraq's actions posed a threat to any collective
spirit; and if they were not visibly exercised over Iraqi actions, then their populations were
quick to remind them of their "true" preferences and where their loyalties should reside. 54
Indeed, the transnational identity of Arabism placed very similar demands on Arab leaders
and caused them both to reject the pact and to embrace an alliance among themselves.
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Finally, the Baghdad Pact deposited two currents of Arab nationalism in inter-Arab politics.
The first was the search for Arab unity as advanced by Nasser and other state and societal
actors throughout the Arab world. The other, however, did not necessarily encourage Arab
unification and close inter-Arab consultation; it encouraged neutralism and anticontainment.
55 That is, the debate over the Baghdad Pact contributed to the development of strong
prohibitionary norms that signaled to Arab leaders that certain actions could not be
undertaken for fear of estrangement and retribution from the Arab community. The legacies of
the Baghdad Pact were both the growing expectation among societal forces that Arab leaders
should be seen working toward the cause of Arab nationalism and unification and the
constraints that it imposed on their future security policies.
The GCC and Post-Gulf War Security Arrangements

The Gulf Cooperation Council and the post-Gulf war security arrangements illustrate the
continuing salience of identity for shaping alliance formation; yet these episodes, in
combination with the Baghdad Pact, also suggest how a change in state identities--specifically
the declining significance of an Arab national identity and the emergence of statist
identities--can shape security and alliance politics. 56
Few paid much heed when Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
and Kuwait signed the GCC charter in Abu Dhabi on May 25, 1981. After years of failed Arab
experiments in regional associations and federation, yet another attempt on the periphery of
Arab nation alism did not warrant excessive hype. What motivated the Gulf Arab states to form
an exclusive club? Shared economic concerns certainly played a role. The GCC states, after all,
were all oil-exporting states (with the exception of Oman) and had experienced rapid
economic development and industrialization since the 1970s. Alongside these economic
factors, however, was a shared identity. Geographic contiguity had left a legacy of cultural,
strategic, political, and economic interaction, which, in turn, produced a regional identity
(khaliji). For instance, in June 1980, before the Iran-Iraq war, the amir of Bahrain called for
tightening Gulf relations among the Arab states because it is an Arab Gulf and those in the
region are khaliji. 57 Furthermore, in contrast to most other Arab states (with the exception
of Jordan) that had nonmonarchical forms of governance, the GCC states were all monarchies.
On this basis alone, Iraq, Iran, and the Yemens were relatively poor candidates for the GCC .
58 These states, moreover, were Sunni Muslim and embraced some type of Islamic polity.
Consistent with the view that this was an association of like-minded states, the final statement
of the GCC 'sinaugural meeting proclaimed that their common destiny, shared interests and
values, and common economic and political systems produced a natural solidarity. 59 The
GCC states, in short, were "natural" allies, sharing key biographical features and historical
characteristics, and by creating the GCC they aspired to construct a "psychologically satisfying
political community." 60
The GCC states also differentiated themselves from the other Arab states. 61 Although the
Gulf states identified themselves as Arab--after all, they immediately joined the League of
Arab States (Saudi Arabia was a founding member) upon independence and supported core
Arab issues such as Palestine--the GCC states also were rather wary of and aloof from the rest
of the Arab world. For instance, while the Gulf leaders waved at the GCC 'srole in furthering
Arab aspirations, such rhetoric was always quickly followed by aggressive claims that the Gulf
Arab states were a separate entity bounded by common culture and interests and, accordingly,
were different from the other Arab states. 62 Indeed, the GCC states tended to perceive other
Arab states as something of a threat: their traditional fear that close cooperation might trigger
memories of and hopes for unification heightened beginning in the 1970s when the Gulf Arab
states became the Gulf Arab oil states--leading them to become highly suspicious of the
economic motivations underlying any new expressions of fraternal devotion from other Arab
states. Therefore, the GCC states hoped to use their new association to isolate the Gulf from
the other Arab states. 63 In general, the GCC states expressed the belief that their shared
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identity made them natural allies, desired to cooperate to further their shared interests, and
drew a symbolic boundary between themselves and other Arab states and, therefore, opposed
including the other states in their association. Indeed, the GCC , alongside the other
subregional organizations that emerged in the 1980s (the Arab Maghrebi Union and the Arab
Cooperation Council) suggested a weakening Arab national identity and emerging statism. 64
The shared identity shaped not only the choice of with whom they felt most comfortable but
also, relatedly, their common construction of the threat. At the time of the GCC 'sinception
there was little thought that it would become a full-fledged security organization; the opinion
was that any discussion of this sort was highly premature and unrealistic. 65 However, the
GCC states soon began to explore the possibility of security cooperation because of external
and internal security threats. Most prominent, though arguably not most alarming, was the
Iran-Iraq war, which threatened to involve the GCC states both directly and indirectly--
namely, through the possibility of a direct Iranian assault, the closing of the shipping lanes,
and the attempt by Iran to destabilize them from within. The Iran-Iraq war, in short, catalyzed
the GCC states to take defensive measures. Yet what strategies would they adopt? States have
numerous options available to them for increasing their security: they can extract from their
societies, or construct alliances, or some combination of the two--but neorealism says very
little about the direction or the form of that policy search. 66 To begin, the GCC states
decided to construct some type of external alignment since an internal mobilization strategy
was highly unattractive, given a sparse manpower base, geostrategic vulnerability, and limited
resources. Although there was a wealth of opportunities, for helping hands were being
extended from near and far, the Gulf states jettisoned any Arab or superpower involvement,
preferring to maintain an exclusive club of like-minded Gulf Arab states.
Why did the Gulf states spurn the offers from other Arab states? A pan-Arab response, the very
arrangement vocalized and nominally pursued before 1967, might be attractive for both
ideational and strategic considerations. Although the Collective Arab Security Pact still existed
and the Arab League still operated, neither these nor any type of collective Arab effort was
ever seriously entertained. There were quasi-strategic reasons for shunning an alliance with all
other Arab states: Egypt was estranged from the Arab world because of the Camp David
Accords; any agreement with Iraq would seem highly offensive to Iran and therefore would
threaten to widen the war; and Syria was considered a "rogue" state, a reputation only
enhanced by its support of Iran, and its radical rhetoric was particularly offensive to the more
conservative Gulf monarchies. That said, an underlying fear was that an Arab alliance might
stimulate greater demands for inter-Arab cooperation and perhaps greater sharing of the oil
wealth. Such demands were legitimated by the understanding that oil was an "Arab" resource
and that they were part of the same Arab nation; therefore, a strategic arrangement might only
encourage the view that the Gulf oil states had an obligation to redistribute the wealth among
other members of the "family."
If the Gulf states did not favor a pan-Arab response, then what of an alliance with one of the
superpowers? After all, such an alliance would provide an immediate increase in external
security, and both the Soviets and the Americans were actively courting the Gulf states. Yet the
GCC states rebuffed such overtures. 67 In fact, a point of consensus among the GCC states was
to keep the superpowers at bay, to establish regional independence, and to resist foreign
intervention. 68 Two prominent factors guided this objection to superpower presence. First,
the GCC feared that superpower involvement would increase regional instability and expand
the severity and boundaries of the war. Although the superpowers were arming the region, to
solicit a greater role for one superpower would automatically invite suspicions and intrusions
by the other, quickly turning what was ostensibly a regional conflict into an international
conflict. Such an escalation would only further imperil the GCC states.
Second, any increase in external security might decrease internal security. Nearly all
Arab-Islamic societies (and this was true of the GCC states) were highly sensitive to an explicit
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alliance with the U.S. and feared that too visible a presence might trigger domestic instability.
Consequently, a U.S. alliance might increase external security while unleashing domestic
insecurity. In general, the GCC states were wary of any visible relationship with the West or
the Soviet Union, because of the fear that their interventions might invite both regional and
domestic instability.
That a superpower or a pan-Arab alliance might have negative domestic repercussions--that is,
igniting Arab nationalist sentiments in either case--not only highlights the role of identity but
also demonstrates that the GCC states were arguably more alarmed by domestic, rather than
interstate, threats. "Gulf security in the context of the GCC ," observes Emile Nakhleh, "is
directly equated with the continued stable existence of the present regimes and forms of
government in the Gulf States." 69 The real impetus for security cooperation, in fact, came
not from the Iran-Iraq war per se but from internal instability, namely militant Shi'a activity.
70 The attempted coup in Bahrain in mid-1981, and the string of bombings in Kuwait in
December 1983 (rumored to have been fomented by Iran) alarmed the Gulf Arab states and
prodded them to cooperate against this security threat and to safeguard their "political
security." 71 As Sultan Qabas of Oman commented:
I firmly believe that the main threat facing the Gulf is the attempt to
destabilize it from within--by exporting terrorism across the national
borders. We should watch out for destabilization attempts, particularly
because domestic instability can blow the door open to foreign intervention.
I believe that this the main hazard. 72
The GCC saw these internal developments as a threat shared by the Gulf Arab states;
therefore, they had no intention of involving other Arab states in their security precautions. As
noted by Bahraini interior minister Amir Nayif: "Gulf coordination [to combat terrorism] with
other states . . . has not yet materialized." 73 Nor would it. 74
In sum, identity played a role in shaping: the boundaries of the association; the definition of
the threat; and who qualified as a desirable alliance partner. First, the common identity of the
Gulf Arab states shaped who was a candidate for membership; not only did they identify
themselves as sharing key ideational features based on a common history, culture, and
government, but other Arab states were viewed as "different" and even as potential threats.
Second, their shared identity lent naturally to a shared definition of the threat. This became
particularly clear vis-á-vis internal threats; as Sunni monarchies they viewed the threat to
their regimes as deriving largely from Shi'ite elements. Third, as the GCC states confronted
internal and external threats, they desired to construct some type of external alignment
because of their domestic limitations. To be sure, there were strategic rationales for avoiding
an alliance with either the superpower or other Arab states, yet also prominent were ideational
and normative concerns. Specifically, the underlying fear was that, first, an Arab alliance might
stir pan-Arab sentiments if not unleash redistributive claims on the oil wealth by their Arab
brethren, and, second, an alliance with the West would violate Arabist norms. In short, while
strategic factors were certainly part of the story behind the GCC and the response to these
perceived internal and external security threats, identity was a critical factor in shaping the
definition of the threat and the alliance response.
Post-Gulf War Security Arrangements

During the Gulf war the GCC acted as the primary conduit for expressing the revulsion by the
region's Arab states to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and its "Saudi-controlled skeleton military
command structures were . . . mobilized immediately afterwards to integrate Gulf military
forces into the Coalition." 75 Moreover, that the Gulf states participated in the Gulf coalition
under the GCC flag while the Syrian and Arab states were integrated as individual states in the
coalition symbolizes the division between the Gulf Arabs and the rest of the Arab world. 76
Notwithstanding the modest expressions of security cooperation among the Arab states in
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general and the GCC states in particular, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait--simply put, the sight of one
Arab state swallowing another whole--caused Arab leaders to proclaim the end of Arab
nationalism, the need for a "new realism," and the view that state interests were not
interchangeable with, and took primacy over some conception of, the Arab national interest. 77
I want to discuss briefly four ways in which the weakening hold of Arab national identities
and the emerging statist identities imprinted post-Gulf war inter-Arab dynamics and alliance
behavior.
To begin, the emerging statism and the decline of Arabism nearly erased the assumption that
as Arab states they had shared security threats and should consider pan-Arab security
arrangements. As acknowledged by then Egyptian foreign minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
"The painful realities resulting from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and its usurpation of the
territory of a fraternal Arab state include the collapse of the traditional concept of pan-Arab
security." 78 The secretary-general of the Arab League nearly pro nounced the last rites of the
Collective Arab Security Pact: "It must be clear that the concept of security is the biggest
responsibility of each individual state. Each state determines the needs and boundaries of its
security on its own, because this concerns its people and its future. We should basically
assume that there should be no interference in any country's security. We must acknowledge
and proceed from this basic principle." 79 Relatedly, at an Arab League meeting, Arab states
agreed for the first time that each could identify its own security threats. 80 These
testimonials suggest that the emergence of statist identities and the corresponding decline of
Arab national identities enabled Arab leaders to assert that they no longer shared a definition
of the threat or should attempt to coordinate their security.
Second, as Arab states recognized that pan-Arab security arrangements were a thing of the
past, they also proclaimed that regional order should be premised on sovereignty.
Immediately following the Gulf war, the Arab states displayed some security camaraderie
through the Damascus Declaration. Announced in March 1991, the Gulf states, Syria, and
Egypt pledged further strategic and military cooperation, with an understanding that the last
two would be well compensated for their military commitments and troops. 81 The
declaration, however, soon became a dead letter, testifying to the very differences between two
regions of the Arab world. 82 Indeed, the real importance--and the only surviving
principle--of the declaration was not its promise of further military cooperation but its
insistence on sovereignty as the basis of inter-Arab politics. Coming on the heels of Iraq's
denial of Kuwaiti sovereignty and claim that Gulf oil belonged to the Arabs, the GCC states
held sovereignty and security as indistinguishable. Secretary-General Bishara's interpretation
of the declaration was that it recognized the legitimacy of the Arab states' borders, the right of
each state to arrange its own security, and the exclusive claim to its resources--that is, its
sovereignty and exclusivity. 83 Although Arabism once challenged and undermined the
sovereignty of the separate Arab states, its decline meant that Arab states were more willing to
recognize the norms of sovereignty as the basis of regional order. 84
Third, the rise of statism and the decline of Arabism ushered in a debate over the desired
regional order: an all-Arab regional order versus a "Middle Eastern" order. 85 That is, to
what extent should regional arrangements be exclusive to Arab states or include non-Arab
states? In this respect, perhaps the surest barometer of the emergence of statism and
sovereignty was the transformation of the Arab-Israeli conflict from an ideological struggle
into an interstate conflict. The decline of the Arab political community, the hardening of the
Arab states, and a diminished responsiveness to "core" Arab concerns means that Israel is
more fully recognized as a legitimate member of the region. 86 That Israel negotiates
bilaterally with the Palestinians and the various Arab states represents a fundamental change
in the organization of the Arab-Israeli conflict and reflects the emergence of state-national
interests that are linked to a regional order premised on sovereignty. 87
Fourth, the emerging statism also shaped the permissible alliance arrangements: whereas once
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the Gulf states shunned the West and outside powers for fear of offending Arabist sympathies,
the emerging statism meant that each state was responsible for its own security and was now
permitted to construct its security arrangements as it saw fit, though still within limits. 88
The U.S., for instance, now found itself openly wined and dined by the GCC states. The same
GCC secretary-general who before the Gulf war was quite unbending in his objection to a
superpower presence was now advertising that he had "no reservations" concerning a more
visible foreign presence: "Every state has an inalienable and legitimate right to defend its
sovereignty and territory using the methods and means avail able to it, including inviting
foreign forces to that end." 89 Kuwaiti defense minister Shaykh al-Sabah, who previously
chastised Oman for its security agreement with the U.S., likened the defense agreement with
the U.S. to the Damascus Declaration, thereby equating defense agreements with Arab and
Western states. 90 Many Arab states, in effect, were now claiming that the U.S. was preferable
to their Arab brothers as a security partner. The emerging statism, in short, erased a prewar
security taboo: an explicit alliance with the U.S. In general, although Arabism had been in
decline for several years, the Gulf war was the midwife to pronounced statist identities and
interests and the decline of any politically meaningful Arab identity in inter-Arab politics.
These developments imprinted the region's security patterns.
In sum, while these post-Gulf war security patterns can be partly attributed to the severity of
the external threat, namely, the shock of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, that alone is unable to
explain why Arab leaders were now able to entertain those very policies that were once
prohibited by the transnational norms associated with Arabism. To fully understand these
shifts requires incorporating the relationship between changing identities and norms. This can
be illustrated by contrasting the post-Gulf war security arrangements and patterns with the
Baghdad Pact. Whereas the Baghdad Pact was defined by a contest over images and a conflict
over the constitutive norms that should flow from an Arab identity, the post-Gulf war security
arrangements are not only absent these very dynamics but, in fact, Arab leaders go out of their
way to argue the irrelevance of the Arab national identity for shaping the state's current
security policies (thereby providing indirect testimony to the past potency of that identity and
its associated norms). Identity politics has defined inter-Arab dynamics and developments
over the years, and no understanding of Arab politics is complete without it.
U.S.-Israeli Relations
There are two generalized views concerning what matters for understanding U.S.-Israeli
relations, each of which has serious defects for explaining the U.S.'s continuous strategic
support of the State of Israel since 1948. The first situates U.S.-Israeli relations within the
same systemic forces and strategic logics that envelop other interstate relations. Regardless of
the long-standing pledges by U.S. policy makers of their support for Israel's security and
sovereignty, the level of support followed the phases of the Cold War. 91 Specifically, it was
not until after 1967 that the U.S. began to fully integrate Israel into its containment strategy,
and, true to systemic form, it was only then that Israel received tremendous military and
economic assistance from the U.S.; conversely, the end of the Cold War caused many to
ponder Israel's coming strategic irrelevance. 92
Yet systemic theorists have a difficult time explaining why the U.S. was so quick to extend
security guarantees in the late 1940s despite the absence of a strategic rationale and to
continue such guarantees when they were perceived as undermining the security goals of the
U.S.--as was frequently the case during the Cold War when the U.S. attempted to cultivate
strategic alliances with the Arab states and since the end of the Cold War when the continued
level of support and commitment betrays any compelling strategic imperative. When all is said
and done, U.S. support for Israel has continued against the backdrop of changing security
circumstances, distributions in the balance of power, and the place of Israel in U.S. strategic
doctrine.
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The second view, that of the primacy of domestic politics, attempts to explain a relationship
that seemingly defies systemic reasoning. Various mechanisms, most notably electoral politics
and interest-group pressures, cause American leaders to adopt consistently a pro-Israel policy
even when strategic logic suggests a more "balanced" approach if not a pro-Arab policy. 93
The implication, accordingly, is that these subsystemic pressures "distort" the formulation of
U.S. foreign policy as it steers away from "objective" national interests and takes a pro-Israel
position. 94 Although this domestic politics view helps to explain the level of U.S. strategic
assistance, it does not provide an adequate explanation of its very existence. To begin, the level
of aid and strategic support is not correlated with the rumored role of domestic politics. 95
Moreover, the effectiveness of domestic groups is dependent on their ability to provide a
sustained justification for U.S. support that is consistent with the beliefs and values of most
Americans. 96 Consequently, not only is there little evidence that domestic politics explains
the consistent existence and high levels of support for Israel, but the very effectiveness of these
interest groups is dependent on an existing cultural and ideational field that resonates with the
arguments raised by these groups.
In short, those who put forward the domestic politics position offer convincing critiques of the
systemic view, and those who champion a systemic view offer several persuasive arguments
against the domestic politics position. Their mutual criticisms are fairly convincing. The result,
however, is that the issue of U.S.-Israeli relations defies the expectations of either systemic or
domestic politics; there has been a continuity in strategic association that survives changes in
systemic politics and exists even in the absence of electoral or domestic pressures. How else
might we explain this continuity?
I offer a third view: identity politics matters. Although domestic and systemic pressures
affected the level of U.S. support for Israel, it is the existence of a shared identity and
transnational values that is the foundation of this relationship. The oft-heard mantras--"the
only democracy in the Middle East," and "shares values and principles"--signify something
substantial and causal and gives meaning and substance to the term special relationship. 97
Suggesting that shared identities and values are the foundation of U.S.-Israeli relations does
not imply that it is impermeable to corrosive forces. A shared identity is based on two factors:
the U.S. must view Israel as having a common identity; and Israel's collective identity and
associated practices must be consistent with those of the U.S. 98 Here resides the potential
hurdle. Israel's identity is not firmly ensconced in the story lines that dominate and define the
Western community and embrace the U.S.; indeed, it frequently challenges the dominant
narratives that define that community. U.S.-Israeli relations is dependent upon Israel's having
a particular identity, though for a variety of reasons Israel has difficulty keeping that identity
going. I argue that Israel's identity crisis provoked a crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations in the late
1980s and discuss how this crisis potentially undermined the U.S.-Israeli alliance and how the
Israeli polity responded to this crisis.
Israeli Collective Identity

Three strands constitute Israel's collective identity: religion, nationalism, and the Holocaust.
99 Although each has varied in prominence and meaning, all three provide an attenuated link
between Israel and the U.S. First, Israel has a Jewish identity--it is a Jewish state. 100
Although its Jewish identity represents an important connection with a West that claims a
Judeo-Christian heritage, it also acts as a distancing agent. Specifically, although the specific
meaning of, and practices that are associated with, being a Jewish state have been hotly
contested in Israeli politics, the role of religion in guiding everyday life means that Israel
contrasts decidedly with other Western states that are secular in character. 101
Suggesting that shared identit Israel's civil laws, customs, national holidays, education
curricula, right of return, and a host of other cultural and political practices are all explicitly
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guided by Jewish law and custom. In this important respect, Israel's domestic makeup and
organizing principles contrast with those of the West. Indeed, people in the West who declare
that Islam represents a threat to the West's "way of life" because the former does not separate
the state and religion are implicitly suggesting that Israel has more in common with its
Arab-Islamic neighbors than it does with the West.
Zionism, a response to the Jewish community's exclusion from and persecution in European
Christian society, maintains an ambivalent relationship to the West. 102 Although its main
ideological sources--Judaism, socialism, secular nationalism, and liberalism--provide
something of a link, it is a weak connection because of Zionism's underlying premise that Jews
are unsafe in the Western community. 103 In short, Zionism and the very need for a Jewish
State exists because of the Western community and its long and virulent history of
anti-Semitism.
The Holocaust is the third strand of Israel's identity. 104 To be sure, the Holocaust represents
an important reason for the West's commitment to the Jewish state. Yet one important lesson
of the Holocaust is that Jews cannot trust their safety and security to non-Jews, even in
so-called progressive and civilized countries. The lessons of the Holocaust not only instruct
Israel to be wary of a Western (Christian) community but also challenge the dominant
narrative of the Western community that views itself as liberal, democratic, and tolerant. As a
living memorial of the Holo caust, Israel represents a constant reminder to the West that its
history does not resemble the self-image of enlightenment and tolerance. 105 All three
strands, then, provide a tenuous link to the West and the U.S., represent the West as
something of a threat (which, ironically, Israel shares with the Arab states), challenge the
West's self-understanding of being progressive and civilized, and, finally, provide a
justification for a defiant and aggressive self-help posture and foreign policy. 106
If these three strands of Israel's collective identity represent a less-than-firm link to the West
and the U.S., a fourth serves both to embed it in the West and to differentiate it from the
surrounding Arab states: its status as a liberal democracy. Since Israel's inception in 1948,
Israeli leaders and supporters have identified its democratic character as a major justification
for its support. Although Israel's status as a democracy generally goes unchallenged--for it
does have a relatively free press, a competitive party system, free and fair elections, and so
on--there are two potential problems. The first is the Arab minority in the Israeli state, a
minority that is viewed by Israeli authorities as having dual loyalties, and therefore as being
unable to accept the full benefits, obligations, and markings of Israel citizenship, i.e., military
service. The second, more visible and frequently cited concern is Israel's record in and hold
over the territories captured in the 1967 war. Israel's democratic character within the "Green
Line" contrasts decidedly with that in the occupied territories. Notwithstanding the various
justifications used to exculpate Israel's presence and policies in the territories, those who
reside there live in tremendous insecurity, without the same civil rights and protections
available to Israeli citizens. These issues become more salient when considering the possibility
of Israeli sovereignty over these territories. 107
This brief discussion of Israel's collective identity suggests that, while there are strong links to
the West and Israelis identify themselves as part of the West, its collective identity is always
negotiated and highly vulnerable to counternarratives. This provides the background for the
examination of U.S.-Israeli relations since the mid-1980s: to investigate how Israel's identity
"crisis" helps to account for the progressive strains in the relationship. In response to this
crisis, Israeli leaders and partisans began to accentuate and promote Israel's "Western" and
democratic character and identity in order to reproduce the U.S.-Israeli alliance and to
distinguish Israel from its neighboring Arab states.
An Alliance Under Duress

U.S.-Israeli relations can be divided into three periods. The pre-1967 period reveals two,
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almost contradictory, behavioral patterns. On the one hand, there was the unquestioned and
unequivocal support of the U.S. for the State of Israel. Whence came this impulse? Shared
values and sentiments are nearly always recognized as primary factors in explaining this rush
to protect and guarantee Israel's sovereignty. Americans saw something in themselves when
they saw Israel:
Even as [Americans] go their own way, in pursuit of their own national

interests, Americans and Israelis are bonded together like no two other
sovereign peoples. As the Judaic heritage flowed through the minds of
America's early settlers and helped to shape the new American republic, so
Israel restored the vision and the values of the American dream. 108
Richard Murphy, a former assistant secretary of state for Near and Middle Eastern affairs,
observes that the strategic alliance was used for the moral commitment; 109 that is, the
strategic is parasitic on the ideational. There are innumerable testimonials to the belief that
the U.S.-Israeli relationship is undergirded by shared values rather than shared threats.
These stated commitments, however, cannot erase a legacy of U.S. policies that often
represented more of a threat than a support to Israeli security. Truman quickly followed his
recognition of the Israeli state with an arms embargo, Eisenhower and Dulles asked Israel
whether it might be willing to withdraw from the Negev in return for an alliance between the
U.S. and Egypt, and the U.S. refused to sell Israel any weapons until the mid-1960s. In general,
the strategic and ideational imperatives of the U.S. produced a nearly schizophrenic attitude
toward Israel.
For a variety of reasons, revolving largely around a changing U.S. containment and strategic
posture, U.S.-Israeli relations grew by leaps and bounds after 1967. The upturn was
particularly noticeable under Reagan, when the conservative tide and the "second cold war"
furthered Israel's standing in the eyes of the U.S. government (and this was particularly true
when compared to the Carter years). 110 The peaks came in 1984 with the Memorandum of
Understanding, which pledged to deepen military and strategic cooperation with Israel, and in
1987 when Israel attained quasi-NATO status (which led some in the U.S. to contemplate the
"NATOization of Israel"). Many Israelis interpreted these developments as evidence of Israel's
important, nearly indispensable, place in U.S. security strategy, creating tremendous optimism
in Israel. 111 Writing in the Israeli paper HaMishmar, Wolf Blitzer exclaimed that with the
memorandum, "We are on the threshold of a new era in relations between Washington and
Jerusalem." 112
This era, however, was not the one that Blitzer and others imagined. No sooner had the
festivities subsided than U.S.-Israeli relations entered a third period, one of difficulties,
leading to a genuine concern that the special relationship was not that special. Although some
deemed it a clash of personalities, President Bush and Secretary of State Baker against Shamir,
many others argued that the crisis was a natural by-product of the end of the Cold War and the
loss of Israel's strategic role. I want to propose, however, that three events--the end of the Cold
War, the debate over Greater Israel, and the intifada--challenged the foundations of
U.S.-Israeli relations by challenging Israel's identity.
The most frequently evoked reason for the crisis was the end of the Cold War. The traditional
interpretation is that absent the Cold War Israel became strategically irrelevant; therefore, the
crisis was provoked by a change in the international distribution of power. Yet this systemic
reading of the Cold War is open to a constructivist twist. The very categories East and
West became indistinguishable from the Cold War itself, and this international structure
distributed identities and roles to states depending on their place within that structure. That
the international system through the structure of the Cold War distributed identities to states
is apparent in the myriad debates over the national identity--for instance, in Turkey and the
U.S.--that have erupted since the demise of the Cold War. The same can be said of Israel. For
two decades Israel had been an integral part of the Western containment network, proudly
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guarding U.S. military and foreign policy interests and profiting greatly in both status and
resources. Yet Israel's place within the containment network was sold on the basis of its
identity and its potential strategic utility; it was not just any ally but a "stable and reliable" ally
because of its democratic features and Western values. In this respect, Israel's role in the
Western community, its very identity as a Western state, derived in part from--or at the very
least reinforced by--the Cold War. The decline of the Cold War, then, potentially usurped not
just Israel's identification with the Western community but a source of Israel's Western
identity as well. 113
A greater challenge to Israel's collective identity emerged in the debate over "Greater Israel."
Although this debate preceded Israel's control over the territories as a consequence of the
June 1967 war, it has intensified considerably since then. 114 There are two alternative
visions of Israel's collective identity with respect to the territories. The first argues for a "State
of Israel," an Israel that resides within negotiated pre-1967 borders as the best hope for
maintaining Israel's security, and its civic, democratic, and Jewish character. The Labour Party
and leftist movements expressed tremendous concern that Israel is endangering its
commitment to democracy and its Jewish character by maintaining its hold over the
territories. Therefore, those in this camp demand a change in Israeli policies not only on
security and humanitarian grounds but also because of a belief that a continuation would
threaten Israel's collective identity as a Western, Democratic, Jewish state.
Those who championed a "Greater Israel" hoped to extend Israel's sovereignty to the
territories, what they prefer to call by the biblical names Judea and Samaria to symbolize the
Jewish people's historical and religious bond to this land. Beginning with Zev Jabotinsky, the
founder of Revisionist Zionism, and carried forward by Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir,
the champions of Eretz Israel evidenced a willingness to forgo (or at least risk) Israel's
democratic character to maintain Jewish control over the territories. Specifically, to extend
sovereignty over these territories and its nearly one million Palestinians would automatically
change Israel's demographic character and, in time, threaten to turn the Jews of the Jewish
state into a minority. 115 In general, this debate over Israel's boundaries and sovereignty had
immediate and direct implications for Israel's democratic future; in this important respect, it
had immediate and direct implications for Israel's status as a "Western" state.
The third event is the intifada. The Israeli response to the Palestinian uprising not only
undermined the portrait of a "benign" occupation but also led many to question Israel's
"Western" character. The images of routine beatings, detention, Defense Minister Rabin's "iron
fist" policy, and other violations of human rights caused many to mumble that Israel
resembled a "Third World" and not a "Western" state.
The images and reports transmitted to the U.S. affected the American government's (and
community's) view of Israel. 116 U.S. officials were deeply troubled by Israel's response to the
intifada. Assistant Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs Richard Murphy argued that the
intifada would not go away and that the U.S. was opposed to many of the policies adopted by
Israel to contain it. 117 Noting that some began to question whether Israel was still part of the
West, Murphy later reflected that the intifada created a shockingly different context for
U.S.-Israeli relations, captured vividly by the cbs film of Israeli soldiers breaking the bones of
those accused of throwing stones. Such pictures reverberated throughout the administration
and caused many to wonder about its friend. 118
Although U.S. policy had always maintained that Israeli settlements on the occupied territories
were both illegal and an obstacle to peace, there were greater urgency and determination by
American officials to differentiate U.S. support for Israel from support for Israeli policies in
the territories. In other words, support for Israeli sovereignty did not extend to support for
Israeli sovereignty over a Greater Israel that had a large Palestinian population absent civil
rights. For instance, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a mainstay of U.S. support for
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Israel, recognized Israel's commitment to democracy, noted the "striking contrast between
Israel and the Arab states in this regard," 119 but was troubled that the shared values that
joined U.S. and Israel might be eroding:
America's links with Israel are broad and deep, based on shared values,
common interests, and a commitment to democracy, rule of law and
freedom. Nevertheless, the subcommittee is troubled by the continuing cycle
of violence between Israelis and Palestinians . . . and evidence of on-going
human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza. 120
The House, in other words, was troubled that a traditional marker used to separate Israel and
the Arab states in the American mind was deteriorating because Israeli behavior more closely
resembled that expected from the Arab states. No doubt Israel's presence and policies in the
territories were eroding the foundations of the special relationship.
The most visible sign of the changing times was the emerging debate over U.S. assistance to
Israel. In response to Israel's post-Gulf war request for a $10 billion loan guarantee, the U.S.
made the assistance conditional on Israel's assurance that these funds would not be used for
settlement expansion. Shamir vehemently objected to the condition, arguing that it intruded
on Israel's domestic affairs and hindered the humanitarian mission of absorbing the Russian
and Ethiopian Jews. Tensions rose through fall 1991 and early 1992, with Bush and Baker
holding firm and Shamir believing that they were bluffing and that Congress would come to
Israel's rescue. Shamir miscalculated. Not only did Bush refrain from bending but Shamir
wrongly predicted that a confrontation with the U.S. would not damage his popularity. 121
Because the U.S. was Israel's primary military benefactor, a crisis, particularly one that was
potentially avoidable, might conceivably risk Israeli security. The Labour and Likud parties
present two different understandings of whether Israel's confrontational tactics risked U.S.
support and methods for managing the relationship. Labour politicians have a history of
expressing greater deference and are generally more reserved and measured in their criticisms
and confrontational rhetoric; Likud, on the other hand, often declared that confrontation
would not beget confrontation. Yehoshafat Harkabi contrasts these two styles and
hypothesizes how Likud's policies might undermine Israeli security in the following way:
A widely-held but erroneous belief is that Ben-Gurion's view of world

opinion is contained in his remark: "It doesn't matter what the 'goyim' say, it
matters what the Jews do." . . . [Yet] he believed that a positive international
attitude toward Israel was a precondition for Israeli security. . . . The capacity
to achieve goals depends not only on the strength of the local forces that
have to be overcome, but also on the support of these goals in the world
community. 122
Harkabi provided a causal chain to illustrate why certain policies and practices must be
changed: such practices will create moral gaps between Israel and the West; these gaps, in
turn, will erode U.S. support for Israel; and, finally, they will encourage adventurism among
the Arab states. Provoking the U.S. and aggravating the "hand that feeds you" was not only bad
manners but also needlessly endangering Israel's security.
These issues culminated in the 1992 Israeli elections, in which Israel's identity crisis was
played out, pitting the "two Yitzhaks"--Shamir and Rabin--against each other, with their two
alternative visions of Israel's relationship to the territories and collective identity. Since 1967
Israel's debate over the territories has been the primary vehicle for discussing the nation's
collective identity. The end of the Cold War, the post-Gulf war peace process, and the
confrontation with the U.S. over the loan guarantees combined to focus the Israeli election on
its future relationship to the territories and the question of whether it was willing to endure
the costs of Shamir's policies. The subtext, then, was Israel's collective identity: Yitzhak Rabin
advocated a State of Israel theme, while Yitzhak Shamir championed Greater Israel. By openly
campaigning that Israel could not afford the economic, strategic, and psychological costs of
maintaining a permanent presence over the territories, Rabin was implicitly arguing that at
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stake were Israel's collective identity, relationship to the West, and relationship to the U.S.
Rabin's victory was interpreted by many as a victory for those championing a State of Israel
message.
The debate over Israel's collective identity--or at the very least the recognition that Israeli
policies in the territories would shape that identity--carried over from the elections to the
peace process. Israel's decision to recognize the plo and sign the Declaration of Principles was
profoundly shaped by the visions of its collective identity. In an interview the night of the
historic handshake between himself and Yasir Arafat, Prime Minister Rabin explained why
Israel had to cede territory to Palestinians:
I believe . . . annexation will bring . . . racism to Israel, [and] that racism and
Judaism are in contradiction by their very essence. Israel that will preach
racism will not be a Jewish state by my understanding. . . . Otherwise [Israel
will have to give the Palestinians] full civilian rights as we give to every
individual who is an Israeli citizen. . . . Every one of them, once inside, can be
a full Israeli citizen . . . [and will constitute] 35 percent of the voters to the
Knesset. . . . They'll dictate if Israel will be a Jewish state with a destiny to
serve the Jewish people all over the world, or we will become another small
Jewish country . . . because 35 percent of the voters will be non-Jewish. . . . I
don't expect [the Palestinians] to be Zionists. And if Israel will lose the
Zionists from its very existence, Israel will be an entirely different country. . .
. Therefore, whoever speaks now about the whole land of Israel speaks either
of a racist Jewish state which will not be a Jewish or a bi-national state. I
prefer Israel to be a Jewish state not all over the land of Israel. 123
Acknowledging a direct link between a continuation of certain practices and Israel's collective
identity, Rabin was responding to the twenty-five-year-old identity crisis caused by Israel's
capture of the territories in the 1967 War and saying that the only way to resolve that crisis in
favor of a Western, Democratic, and Jewish Israel was to relinquish Israel's control over the
territories. 124
Another way to reinforce Israel's identity as part of the West was to discover a common threat.
Earlier I argued that a common threat can reinforce or shape a common identity; it is through
the recognition of a shared threat that actors acknowledge that they share not only interests
but also values and beliefs. Although U.S.-Israeli relations already had a strong ideational
component before Israel's post-1967 strategic role in U.S. containment policy, this role
reinforced both Israel's identity as part of the West and the U.S.-Israeli alliance. Therefore, the
end of the Cold War stripped Israel of not only its strategic role but also a reinforcing beam of
its identity. Although still very much in the making, and by no means approximating the status
of the Cold War, many Israeli and Western leaders argue that Islam represents a common
threat. 125 It is unknown whether Israeli leaders cynically or sincerely thrust Islam forward
as the new threat: while undoubtedly many Israelis feel threatened by radical Islam, Israeli
leaders are probably aware of the potential strategic payoff from a threat also identified by the
West. 126 In either case, if the U.S. recognized the threat to the West posed by Islamic
fundamentalism, then U.S.-Israeli relations might be righted and their shared identities
reinforced.
This discussion highlights two key features of the relationship between identity, practices, and
membership in the community. First, being part of the community entails not only having a
particular identity but also abiding by the community's norms. The constitutive norms, in
other words, demanded not that the "average stream" of behavior converge around certain
practices and expectations, but rather that it abstain from those practices that were antithetical
to the very qualities that define membership in the community. If Israel's membership is
dependent on its liberal character and values, then these domestic debates over its future
relationship to, and practices in, the territories potentially threatened its collective identity as
a "Western" state and, accordingly, the U.S.-Israeli alliance. Therefore, both foreign policy
actions and the constitutive norms that define state-society relations are important markers of
22 de 34 05/08/2010 19:41
identity.
Second, the desire to adhere to the norms of the Western community for both instrumental
and ideational reasons served to reproduce and (potentially) encourage the development of
new identities. If one reason for the interest of Israeli leaders in altering their policies in the
territories was to ensure an uninterrupted flow of U.S. assistance, these policy changes, in
turn, promoted certain identities and denigrated others. Yet instrumental logic alone does not
fully capture the nature of the debate over the territories or the reason for the recent changes,
for equally important was the desire by various Israeli constituencies to promote a particular
political identity, to adhere to a particular vision of Zionism, and to be part of the liberal,
Western community.
In sum, most interpretations of U.S.-Israeli relations view it as a product of either domestic or

systemic politics, but thus far most analyses of the crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations refer to the
collapse of the Cold War and Israel's strategic relevance. My focus on identity highlights how
shared values and common identities are the foundation of U.S.-Israeli relations and how the
crisis was nothing less than an "identity" crisis, which challenged Israel's Western, liberal
character and, therefore, U.S.-Israeli relations. Because ideational factors represented the
source of the crisis, the Israeli polity moved (consciously or not) to redirect its collective
identity and to stabilize U.S.-Israeli relations. By conceptualizing the U.S.-Israeli alliance as
forged by shared identity and not simply a shared security interest, we are better able to
understand how this partnership preceded and outlasted any systemic threat that might have
given rise to its existence.
Rather than following the lead of neorealism and reducing nonmaterial forces to the level of
ideology and parasites on the material, this essay demonstrates how state identity offers
important insights into the dynamics of security cooperation and alliance formation. Although
Walt and other neorealists treat Arabism as little more than an ideology that is used to
legitimate state interests deriving from anarchy, Arabism shaped the identity, interests, and
policies available to Arab leaders in ways that left its mark on inter-Arab security dynamics
and alliance politics. To begin, identity provides theoretical leverage over the construction of
the threat. While neorealists concede that the construction of the threat cannot be derived
from structural factors alone, they have yet to offer an alternative proposition for explaining
this elementary feature of alliance formation. If history and a collective memory are obvious
factors in producing a definition of the "other" and the threat, many approaches to security
politics tend to view them as secondary considerations and as background material rather than
as a central feature of what is doing the explaining and what is to be explained.
Similarly, identity provides a handle on who is considered to be a desirable alliance partner.

Whether a state is a "natural" security partner cannot be derived from material forces alone,
for the degree of naturalness is highly dependent on familiarity and identity. For instance, U.S.
officials often claimed that Israel is a preferable strategic partner to the Arab states (despite
the latter's advantaged geostrategic condition) because of its democratic character and liberal
values. The GCC 'smembership was based on ideational factors, a shared history, and a similar
political profile, which meant placing symbolic boundaries between Gulf and non-Gulf Arab
states. In short, identity potentially signals whom to balance against and whom to bandwagon
with.
Far from suggesting the primacy of identity and the irrelevance of material forces, I recognize
that both are important explaNATOry variables, though with different causal weight at
different historical moments. Sometimes identity politics will figure centrally; at other times a
strategic logic might provide an exhaustive explanation. There is no theoretical or empirical
justification, however, for assuming the primacy of one over the other. My sense is that
neorealism's insistence on material factors is premised not only on its theoretical
presuppositions but also on the mistaken assumption that a shared identity lends naturally
and only to cooperation. That is, neorealism observes that because even states that have a
23 de 34 05/08/2010 19:41
shared identity have, at times, conflicting interests if not outright hostility, then it must be a
realist world. Yet there are many sources of conflict, and there is no a priori reason to dismiss
the possibility of identity. The case of the Baghdad Pact vividly illustrates, first, how inter-Arab
politics and alliances were driven by presentational politics and not by military power and,
second, an intense debate over which behavioral expectations were and were not consistent
with being an Arab state. Arab states positioned themselves, fought, and forged alliances
depending on their view of the demands and expectations that Arabism made on Arab states.
In general, even actors that have a shared identity and identification of the threat can struggle
over the norms that concern how they are to enact their identity.
These cases also demonstrate that identity is not a static construct but rather is socially
constructed, and that this social construction process can be used to good effect for
understanding alliance dynamics and changes in security patterns. To understand the social
construction of state identity, however, requires examining not only interstate interactions but
also state-society relations. The discussion of the changing alliance patterns in inter-Arab
politics is connected to a weakening of the Arab national identity and the emergence of statist
identities, which are a consequence of regional interactions and state formation processes. 127
These ideational shifts are associated with changing patterns of inter-Arab politics, including
the definition of the threat and who is considered an acceptable ally. The case of U.S.-Israeli
relations suggests how the state's membership in the community and the basis of the
association is dependent on mutual identification, that is, shared identities. Yet because
identities are socially constructed they are susceptible to change, and such a change can create
a "crisis," if not undermine the very basis of the relationship. To understand the source of this
crisis, however, requires incorporating changes in the international system structure as well as
debates over the national identity.
In sum, the language of identity offers an alternative approach for understanding security
politics and security cooperation. All three cases demonstrate how identity, as a relational
construct that emerges out of the international and domestic discourse and interactions,
imprints security politics and helps us to understand the dynamics of alliance formation.
For their critical reading and helpful suggestions, I would like to thank the
members of the project, the participants in the workshops at Stanford and
Minnesota, Emanuel Adler, Peter Katzenstein, David Laitin, Martin Sampson,
Stephen Walt, and the anonymous reviewers at Columbia University Press.
Note 1: For various realist and neorealist statements, see Thucydides, The Peloponnesian
War (New York: Penguin Books, 1954); George Liska, Nations in Alliance: The Limits of
Interdependence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962); William Langer,
European Alliances and Alignments, 1871-1890, 2d ed. (New York: Vintage, 1964); Stephen
M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987); Edward Gulick,
Europe's Classical Balance of Power (New York: Norton, 1955), pp. 58-62; Glenn Snyder,
"Alliance Theory: A Neorealist First Cut," in Robert Rothstein, ed., The Evolution of Theory in
International Relations, pp. 83-104 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1992);
Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979),
chs. 6, 8; and Randall Schweller, "Bandwagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revisionist State
Back In," International Security 19, no. 1 (Summer 1994): 72-107. Back.
Note 2: See, respectively, Walt, The Origins of Alliances, and Snyder, "Alliance Theory."
Back.
Note 3: See, respectively, Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and
Practice Since 1967 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Bernard Lewis,
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"Rethinking the Middle East," Foreign Affairs 71, no. 4 (1992): 99-119; and Martin Kramer,
"Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity," Daedalus 122 (Summer 1993): 171-206; Ghassam
Salame, "Inter-Arab Politics: The Return to Geography," in William Quandt, ed., The Middle
East: Ten Years After Camp David, pp. 319-56 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution,
1988); and George Corm, Fragmentation of the Middle East: The Last Thirty Years (London:
Hutchinson Books, 1983). For realist-inspired explanations of inter-Arab dynamics, see P. J.
Vatikiotis, Conflict in the Middle East (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971), and Arab and
Regional Politics in the Middle East (New York: St. Martin's, 1984); Walt, The Origins of
Alliances; Shibley Telhami, The Path to Camp David (New York: Columbia University Press,
1990); Roger Owen, State, Power, and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East
(New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 90-92; and Alan Taylor, The Arab Balance of Power
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1982). Back.
Note 4: Walt, The Origins of Alliances, pp. 22-26. Back.
Note 5: This relates to domestic sources of alliance formation. Specifically, there is

wide-ranging evidence, particularly in the non-Western context, that states often construct
external alliances to counter domestic threats. See Michael Barnett and Jack Levy, "Domestic
Sources of Alliances and Alignments: The Case of Egypt," International Organization 45, no. 3
(Summer 1991): 369-96; and Stephen David, "Explaining Third World Alignment," World
Politics 43, no. 2 (January 1991): 233-56. Back.
Note 6: Walt, The Origins of Alliances, pp. 22-26. Back.
Note 8: See John J. Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions,"

International Security 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994/95): 37-40, for a similar view. Back.
Note 9: This is consistent with Wendt's observation that "anarchy is what states make of it";
Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power
Politics," International Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 391-425. Back.
Note 10: Walt observes that certain ideologies are likely to generate suspicion and fear while
others are not; The Origins of Alliances, pp. 36, 267. Specifically, he argues that a
Pan-Arabism that is associated with unification and can only have one "leader" is likely to
generate fear, suspicion and rivalry, while democracies and monarchies are not likely to
generate the same dynamics. Walt, in other words, appears to be suggesting that identity, and
not anarchy, drives interstate dynamics in important ways. Back.
Note 11: George Simmel, Conflict and the Web of Group-Affiliations (New York: Free Press,
1964). Back.
Note 12: Walt's implicit recognition but ultimate rejection of the causal impact of ideational
factors, and his subsequent retreat to materialism, are aptly captured by Jeffrey Alexander's
observation of what occurs when individualists are confronted by the limitations of their
theories for understanding interactions and group behavior: "When unresolved tensions
develop in general theories, theorists will resort to ad hoc ways to resolve them. To cope with
these tensions they will introduce, in what is usually an ad hoc and unthought-out way,
theoretical categories which are residual to, or outside of, the logically developed systemic
strands of their argument. . . . While residual categories are the result of theoretical tensions,
for the sake of interpretation it is often more useful to move backwards, from one's discovery
of the residual categories back to the basic tensions which they have been developed to
obscure" (Jeffrey Alexander, Twenty Lectures [New York: Columbia University Press, 1987],
pp. 124-25). Back.
Note 13: See William Connolly, Identity/Difference (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992),
25 de 34 05/08/2010 19:41
for a general treatment. That the definition and cohesion of the group are shaped by an
outside threat or entity is, of course, a central proposition in much sociological thinking and
many works on nationalism. See, for instance, Simmel, Conflict and the Web of Group-
Affiliations.
Back.
Note 14: For other treatments of the relationship between state identity and threat, see
Gerrit Gong, The Standard of "Civilization" in International Society (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1984); Iver Neumann and Jennifer Welsh, "The Other in European
Self-Definition: An Addendum to the Literature on International Society," Review of
International Society 17 (1991): 327-48; and David Campbell, Writing Security (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1992). Back.
Note 15: Walt, The Origins of Alliances, p. 204. Back.
Note 16: Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It," p. 398. Back.
Note 17: Jack Levy, "Domestic Politics and War," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18, no.
3 (1988): 653-73. Also see Thomas Risse-Kappen's contribution to this volume, essay 10.
Back.
Note 18: This is related to the concept of security communities. See Karl W. Deutsch,
Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1957); Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, "Pluralistic Security Communities: Past, Present,
and Future" (Working Paper Series on Regional Security, no. 1, Global Studies Research
Program, University of Wisconsin- Madison, 1994). Back.
Note 19: Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1991),
p. 54, emphasis in original. Back.
Note 20: Quoted from Giddens, ibid. Back.
Note 21: Connolly, Identity/Difference, p. 204; and Samuel Kim and Lowell Dittmer,
"Whither China's Quest for National Identity?" in L. Dittmer and S. Kim, eds., China's Quest
for National Identity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 241. Back.
Note 22: Edward Said, "The Phony Islamic Threat," New York Times Magazine, November
21, 1993,
p. 62. Back.
Note 23: Lowell Dittmer and Samuel Kim, "In Search of a Theory of National Identity," in
Dittmer and Kim, China's Quest for National Identity, pp. 6-7. Back.
Note 24: Sheldon Stryker, Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Perspective

(Reading, Mass.: Benjamin/Cummings, 1980), p. 73. Back.
Note 25: Dittmer and Kim, "In Search of a Theory of National Identity," p. 7. Back.
Note 26: Relatedly, identity shapes the boundaries of the community. Whereas structuralists
argue that the boundaries of any security association are determined along systemic lines,
namely those that ally against the identified external threat, the language of identity suggests
that boundaries are shaped by identity considerations. This raises the possibility that some
states are probational members of the community--that is, they are not full-fledged members.
Because of the state's domestic configurations, its foreign policy behavior, or the way the
26 de 34 05/08/2010 19:41
community constructs the state, the membership of some states is less "natural," less taken for
granted. Accordingly, probational members will have their behavior more fully scrutinized and
monitored. The probational status of some states suggests that they might be "liminal" states.
Liminal actors can be thought of as " 'betwixt and between' existing orders. Liminars, whether
their rites of passage are ritual or revolutionary, are between identities. In politics, they are
between allegiances. This state is marked by ambiguity, ambivalence, and contradiction, yet it
is from this disorder that new orders arise. In reflecting on the differences that mark out the
liminal, people give meaning to their nationalities" (Anne Norton, Reflections on Political
Identity [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988], p. 53.) Back.
Note 27: For good overviews of Arab nationalism, see A. A. Duri, The Historical Formation
of the Arab Nation (New York: Croom Helm, 1987); Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism, 2d ed.
(New York: St. Martin's, 1990); Rashid Khalidi, "Arab Nationalism: Historical Problems in the
Literature," American Historical Review 96 (December 1991): 1363-73; Rashid Khalidi et al.,
eds., The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991); and
Martin Kramer, "Arab Nationalism." Back.
Note 28: See Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1986), pp. 90-91, for a discussion of the events leading to the treaty. See Taylor, The Arab
Balance of Power, pp. 125-27, for the text. Back.
Note 29: See Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystallization of the Arab State System
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1993), and Seale, The Struggle for Syria, for excellent
treatments of the politics of the pre-1955 period. Back.
Note 30: Gamal Abd' Nasser, The Philosophy of the Revolution (New York: Buffalo, Smith,
Keyze, Marshall, 1959); Seale, The Struggle for Syria, pp. 193-94; and Taylor, The Arab
Balance of Power, p. 30. Back.
Note 31: Eisenhower and Dulles intended to build a fire wall of alliances to contain the
Soviet Union. A critical section of this wall would be the "Northern Tier" in the Middle East;
with its geostrategic proximity to the Soviet Union and its incredible oil reserves, the Arab
states were viewed as a major prize in the Cold War contest. Britain was engaged in its own
strategic search, attempting to establish alliances where it once had mandate rights; the
Middle East was Britain's remaining souvenir of the empire, and it was determined to retain a
presence for both symbolic and geostrategic reasons. See Seale, The Struggle for Syria, pp.
186-92. Back.
Note 32: Many Arab-Islamic states were not wary of the Soviet Union because it was an
unknown quantity and communist. Still, the Soviet Union was an immediate beneficiary of
these intrusions by the West; incensed by Iraq's defection, concerned with Israeli military
operations, and unable to locate a Western arms supplier, Egypt and Syria concluded arms
deals with the Soviets in 1955. Back.
Note 33: Seale, The Struggle for Syria, p. 200. Back.
Note 36: Iraq's decision to sign the treaty apparently derived from the belief that Arab unity
offered little protection and security from the Soviet Union, that other Arab countries would
follow its lead, and that it needed cooperation with Turkey on the Kurdish issue to maintain
Iraq's internal cohesion. See Albert Hourani, History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 363; and Seale, The Struggle for Syria, pp. 199-201. Back.
Note 37: Quoted from Seale, The Struggle for Syria, p. 217. Back.
27 de 34 05/08/2010 19:41
Note 38: Walt, The Origins of Alliances, pp. 58-60. Although Walt initially characterizes the
events surrounding the Baghdad Pact as related to the balance of power, his narrative
recognizes the importance of ideational forces in causing the alliances. Back.
Note 39: "The [Arab] League's policy, assiduously promoted by Egypt, of noncooperation
with the West until Arab national objectives had been realized has frequently found Iraq and
Egypt in opposite camps. The controversy over the Baghdad Pact is, of course, an outstanding
illustration" (Robert McDonald, The League of Arab States [Princeton: Princeton University
Press. 1965], p. 77). Also see Elie Podeh, The Quest for Hegemony in the Arab World: The
Struggle over the Baghdad Pact (New York: Brill, 1995). Back.
Note 40: Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report, FBIS, January 14, 1955, pp.
A1-2. Back.
Note 41: Ibid., pp. A4. Back.
Note 42: Ibid., January 17, 1955, pp. A7. Back.
Note 43: Ibid., January 26, 1955, pp. A1. Back.
Note 44: Although Nuri al-Said was highly defensive of the pact and felt highly susceptible to
Nasser's charges; Waldemar Gallman, Iraq Under General Nuri: My Recollections of Nuri
al-Said, 1954-1958 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964), p. 72. Back.
Note 45: Peter Mansfield, The Ottoman Empire and Its Successors (New York: St. Martin's,
1973), p. 119. Back.
Note 46: Hourani, History of the Arab Peoples, p. 363; J. C. Hurewitz, Middle East Politics:
The Military Dimension (Boulder: Westview, 1982), pp. 318-19. Back.
Note 47: Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1988), pp. 78-79. Back.
Note 48: Seale, The Struggle for Syria, ch. 17. Back.
Note 49: McDonald, The League of Arab States, pp. 233-34; also Hurewitz, Middle East
Politics, p. 463. Back.
Note 50: Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, Iraq Since 1958 (London: Taurus,
1990), pp. 43-44, 47. Back.
Note 51: Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq
Note 53: Ibid., p. 817; Majid Khadduri, Independent Iraq, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1960), pp. 307-9. Back.
Note 54: Writing at the time of the post-June 1967 soul-searching in the Arab world,
Mohammed Haykal wrote in the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram that he hoped that masses would
act at present as they had during the Baghdad Pact: "Our past experience is still within our
memory. In a situation less dangerous than the one we are facing now, the Arab national force
destroyed the Baghdad Pact in Baghdad itself without a single shot from outside Iraq and
before the winds of social revolution had begun to blow" (cited from BBC World
Broadcasts, ME/2548/A/3, August 21, 1967). Back.
Note 55: Boutros-Ghali reflected: "The controversy between Iraq and the other Arab states
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over the formation of the Baghdad Pact . . . is interesting from a historical viewpoint inasmuch
as it was the starting point of a nonalignment policy adopted by the Arab states. . . . The
revolution of July 14, 1958, in Baghdad sanctioned the victory of the nonaligned states" ("Arab
Diplomacy: Failures and Successes," in George Atiyeh, ed., Arab and American Cultures, p.
232 [Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1969]). Back.
Note 56: See Michael Barnett, "Sovereignty, Nationalism, and Regional Order in the Arab
States System," International Organization 49, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 479-510, for an
explanation for the shift in these state identities. Back.
Note 57: FBIS-Near and Middle East, June 18, 1980, pp. C1-5. Back.
Note 58: Joseph Twinam, "Reflections on Gulf Cooperation, with Focus on Bahrain, Qatar,
and Oman," in John Sandwick, ed., The Gulf Cooperation Council, p. 30 (Boulder: Westview,
1987); author interview with Abdalla Bishara. Back.
Note 59: See Abu Dhabi Domestic Service, May 26, 1981. Cited from FBIS-NES, May 27,
1981, pp. A1-2; and Gulf News Agency, May 26, 1981. Cited in FBIS-NES, June 4, 1981, pp.
A10-11. Back.
Note 60: Twinam, "Reflections on Gulf Cooperation," p. 23. Twinam later notes: "The main
goals were both a more secure environment for the GCC states and meeting the aspirations of
their citizens for a closer Gulf identity" (p. 29). Also see Emile Nakhleh, Gulf Cooperation
Council: Policies, Problems, and Prospects (New York: Praeger, 1986), p. 57; and author
interview with Abdalla Bishara. Back.
Note 61: See Michael Morony, "The Arabisation of the Gulf," in B. R. Pridham, ed., The Arab
Gulf and the Arab World, pp. 3-28 (New York: Croom Helm, 1988); and Robert Landen, "The
Changing Pattern of Political Relations Between the Arab Gulf and the Arab Provinences of the
Ottoman Empire," in Pridham, The Arab Gulf and the Arab World, pp. 41-64, for brief
overviews of the relationship between the Gulf and other Arab regions. Abdalla Bishara, the
first secretary-general of the GCC , added that the Gulf states had been the "butt of Arab
jokes," considered something of a backwater of the Arab world; author interview. Back.
Note 62: Ralph Braibanti, "The Gulf Cooperation Council: A Comparative Note," in John
Sadwick, The Gulf Cooperation Council, p. 206 (Boulder: Westview, 1988). Back.
Note 63: Ghassam Saleme, "Inter-Arab Politics," pp. 239, 249-50. Back.
Note 64: Salame, "Inter-Arab Politics," p. 239; and Tibi, Arab Nationalism, p. 24. Back.
Note 65: Author interview with Abdalla Bishara. Separated from the rest of the Arab world
because of the British protectorate over much of the Gulf region, the rapid independence of
many of the Trucial states after 1960 caused many to contemplate security cooperation and
some form of association to replace the British presence; see Riad El-Rayyas, "Arab
Nationalism and the Gulf," in Pridham, The Arab World and the Gulf, pp. 87-90. Still, little
happened on this front until these security threats. Back.
Note 66: Michael Barnett, Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State, and Society
in Egypt and Israel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). Back.
Note 67: While Oman had a low-level, but highly controversial, strategic agreement with the
U.S., the other Gulf states condemned its actions and actively discouraged any greater U.S. (or
Soviet) presence in the region. In 1985 Kuwait both received a shipment of weapons from the
Soviet Union and allowed the U.S. to reflag its oil tankers following the "tanker wars." Back.
Note 68: FBIS-NES, September 20, 1984, 5, 184, p. C1. Back.
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Note 69: Nakhleh, Gulf Cooperation Council, p. 44. Back.
Note 70: See Joseph Kechichian, "The GCC and the West," Journal of American-Arab
Affairs 29 (Summer 1989): 28; Nakleh, Gulf Cooperation Council, p. 39; and Ursula Braun,
"The Gulf Cooperation Council's Security Role," in Pridham, The Arab World and the Gulf, p.
255. The Omani information minister provided the following distinction between security and
defense policy: "There is a very big difference between the security strategy and the defense
strategy. The security strategy deals with the firmness of the internal front of the GCC states,
while the defense strategy deals with resisting external threats to these states"
(WAKH, November 6, 1985, cited from FBIS-NES, 216, November 7, 1985, C3). Back.
Note 71: KUNA, April 4, 1984, cited in FBIS-NES, 5, 67, April 5, 1984, C1. Back.
Note 72: MENA, April 4, 1985, cited in FBIS-NES, 85, 66, April 5, 1985, C2-3. Back.
Note 73: "Al-Hawadith," March 6, 1987, pp. 30-31. Cited in FBIS-NES, March 10, 1987, p. 3.
Back.
Note 74: That the GCC was able to construct some modest cooperation against their shared
internal threats emboldened them to undertake military cooperation. The first GCC meeting
commissioned a discussion group to consider their security needs, which became the first
paper on the concept of collective defense in 1982 (author interview with Abdalla Bishara).
Soon thereafter the GCC developed a series of elaborate and sustained measures designed to
increase military coordination and cooperation: a rapid deployment force, the outline for a
unified army, an early warning network, a series of joint maneuvers through the "Peninsula
Shield" exercises, attempted coordination of military procurement to standardize equipment
and training, an integrated training academy. As Bahraini minister of foreign affairs Shaykh
Muhammad Khalifa observed: "We feel we have started a never-ending effort, because every
coordination action has unknown results" (WAKH, April 24, 1984, cited in FBIS-NES, 5, 81,
April 25, 1984, C1). See Braun, "The Gulf Cooperation Council's Security Role," for an
overview of GCC security cooperation. Back.
Note 75: George Joffe, "Middle Eastern Views of the Gulf Conflict and Its Aftermath,"
Review of International Studies 19 (1993): 191. Back.
Note 76: See F. Gregory Gause III, The Oil Monarchies (New York: Council on Foreign
Relations, 1993), ch. 5, for a good discussion of the Gulf states' post-Gulf war security policies.
Back.
Note 77: See Lewis, "Rethinking the Middle East"; Kramer, "Arab Nationalism"; Ibrahim
Karawan, "Arab Dilemmas in the 1990s: Breaking Taboos and Searching for Signposts,"
Middle East Journal 48 (Summer 1994): 433-54; and Muhammad Faour, The Arab World
After Desert Storm (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1994); and
author interview with Abdalla Bishara. Back.
Note 78: Interview and date not given. Cited in FBIS-NES-91-059, March 27, 1991, pp. 9-10.
Back.
Note 79: FBIS-NES-92-232, December 2, 1992, pp. 1-2. See also the "Memorandum of
Understanding" signed between the Arab League and the GCC ; FBIS-NES-92-034, February
20, 1992, p. 3. Back.
Note 80: Oded Granot, "Outcome of Arab League Conference Analyzed," Ma'ariv, in
FBIS-NES, March 31, 1994, p. 3. Back.
Note 81: For the text of the Damascus Declaration, see FBIS-NES-91-152, August 7, 1991, pp.
1-2. Back.
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Note 82: As noted by Ihsan Bakr in Egypt's Al-Ahram, "We have to acknowledge the
apprehensions of the people in the Gulf, or at least some of them, who fear an Arab presence
in the Gulf, because the past is not very encouraging" (June 7, 1992, p. 9, cited in FBIS-NES-
92-114, June 12, 1992, 9-10). Back.
Note 83: FBIS-NES-92-241, December 15, 1992, pp. 10-11. Back.
Note 84: Barnett, "Nationalism, Sovereignty, and Regional Order in Arab Politics." Back.
Note 85: Kramer, "Arab Nationalism," p. 198; Karawan, "Arab Dilemmas in the 1990s"; and
"Arafat Suggests Formation of Mideast 'Regional Order'," FBIS-NES, February 4, 1994. Back.
Note 86: Paul Noble, Rex Brynen, and Baghat Korany, "Conclusion: The Changing Regional
Security Environment," in B. Korany, P. Noble, and R. Brynen, eds., The Many Faces of
National Security in the Arab World, p. 281 (New York: St. Martin's, 1993). Back.
Note 87: As one editorial lamented, "The paradox of the negotiations between the Arabs and
Israel are [sic] more acceptable--and maybe successful--than the Arabs' negotiations with one
another. And the enmity with Israel has begun to drop to low levels, compared with inter-Arab
hostilities. The negotiations with it over the demarcation of its border are much easier than
negotiations among Gulf states, on the grounds that Israel is more acceptable" (Abd-al-Bari
Atwan, al-Quds al-Arabi, December 23, 1994; cited in FBIS-NES, December 30, 1994, p. 3).
Back.
Note 88: While the U.S. has concluded several strategic agreements with the Gulf states,
these agreements are always quite careful to limit U.S. visibility for fear of offending local
sensitivities. Consequently, the U.S. has forgone military bases in favor of stockpiling and
over-the-horizon agreements. Back.
Note 89: "Sawt al-Kuwayt al-Duwali," July 21, 1992, p. 9; cited in FBIS-NES-92-142, July 23,
1992, p. 2. Back.
Note 90: "Defense Minister on Army, Security Accords." FBIS-NES-007, January 10, 1992, p.
10. The London-based al-Quds al-Arabi editorialized that the Gulf Summit Declaration of
December 1991 was evidence that the Gulf states had abandoned their Arab brothers for
isolation and demonstrated real hostility toward the Arabs; FBIS-NES-27-003, January 6,
1992, p. 5. Back.
Note 91: Michael Handel, "Israel's Contribution to U.S. Interests in the Middle East," in
Harry Allen and Ivan Volgyes, eds., Israel, the Middle East, and U.S. Interests, pp. 80-85 (New
York: Praeger, 1983); and A. F. K. Organski, The $36 Billion Bargain (New York: Columbia
Note 92: Michael Barnett, "From Cold Wars to Resource Wars: The Coming Decline in
U.S.-Israeli Relations?" Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 13, no. 3 (September
1991): 99-117. A possible objection to the U.S.-Israeli case is that its uniqueness renders it a
poor place for theory testing and plausibility probes. Many of the so-called unique features of
Israel and U.S.-Israeli relations first suggest complexity and not uniqueness and second
require explanation and not dismissal. Moreover, even if U.S.-Israel relations does exhibit
some atypical qualities--what social relationship does not?--this does not justify its exclusion
as a case. The idea of using exceptional and atypical cases for theory development has become
a more widely accepted methodological practice in recent years. See Michael Barnett, "The
Methodological Status of the Israeli Case," in Michael Barnett, ed., Israel in Comparative
Politics: Challenging Conventional Wisdom (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1996), for a detailed discussion of the methodological status of the Israeli case. Back.
Note 93: Mohammed Ayoob, "The Security Problematique of the Third World," World
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Politics 43, no. 2 (1991): 257-83. Back.
Note 94: Cheryl Rubenberg, Israel and the American National Interest (Urbana: University
of Illinois Press, 1986). Back.
Note 95: Organski, The $36 Billion Bargain, p. xv. Back.
Note 96: Camille Mansour, Beyond Alliance: Israel and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1994); Abraham Ben-Zvi, The United States and Israel: The Limits
of the Special Relationship (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 16-17; and
James Lee Ray, The Future of American-Israeli Relations (Lexington: University of Kentucky
Press, 1985), p. 25. Back.
Note 97: See Mansour, Beyond Alliance, for an excellent review of the shortcomings of the
literatures that treat U.S.-Israeli relations as driven by either systemic or domestic politics and
an interesting discussion of how cultural factors and shared values represent its real
foundation. Ben-Zvi, The United States and Israel, begins with the assumption that the special
relationship is dependent on shared beliefs and then proceeds to examine the conditions
under which the "national interest" can overcome normative power. See Peter Grose, Israel in
the Mind of America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), and Seth Tillman, The United States
in the Middle East (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), for other statements that
acknowledge shared identity and values as the basis of U.S.-Israeli relations. Back.
Note 98: Morton Halperin, "Guaranteeing Democracy," Foreign Policy 91 (Summer 1993):
105-22; and Samuel Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations," Foreign Affairs 72 (Summer
1993): 22-49, provide a fairly simplistic but effective representation of how U.S. policy makers
see both themselves and those who are part of the community. Although the relationship is
equally dependent on Israel's reading of the U.S., I focus on the debate over Israel's identity
both for illustrative purposes and because it was here that the real challenges existed. Back.
Note 99: Amos Elon, "The Politics of Memory," New York Review of Books, October 7, 1993,
p. 4. Back.
Note 100: S. N. Eisenstadt, Change and Continuity in Israeli Society (New York:
Humanities Press, 1974). Back.
Note 101: The debate over Israel's Jewish identity is perhaps best illustrated in the
continuing controversy over "Who is a Jew?" Back.
Note 102: Shlomo Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism (New York: Basic Books, 1981).
Back.
Note 103: Baruch Kimmerling, "Between the Primordial and the Civil Definitions of the
Collective Identity," in E. Cohen, M. Lissak, and U. Almagor, eds., Comparative Social
Dynamics, p. 262 (Boulder: Westview, 1985). Back.
Note 104: Elon, "The Politics of Memory"; Tom Segev, The Seventh Million (New York: Hill
and Wang, 1993). Back.
Note 105: Although the Holocaust has been internalized within the American historical
consciousness, it has been in a particular American way. For instance, the Holocaust Museum
in Washington, D.C., is a testimony to both the need to resist future Holocausts and ambiguous
role of the U.S. in protecting and overcoming the Holocaust. See David Schoenbaum, The
United States and the State of Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 321. The
contradictions were ever-present at the commemorative ceremony with Elie Wiesel, a
Holocaust survivor, imploring President Clinton, the leader of the West, to do something to
stop the modern-day Holocaust in Bosnia. Back.
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Note 106: See Segev, The Seventh Million, for illustrations of how the legacy of the
Holocaust translates into particular foreign policy actions. Back.
Note 107: While those states that are "core" members of the West might not be able to live
up to its supposed standards, their status is taken for granted (and in this respect these
questions are hardly ever addressed), and transgression is viewed as an occasional, and
excusable, lapse--not cause for questioning its very identity and membership within the
community. Back.
Note 108: Grose, Israel in the Mind of America, p. 316. Back.
Note 109: Interview with author. Back.
Note 110: That Reagan would frequently quote biblical scripture and openly discuss Israel's
place in biblical prophecy only served to strengthen the link between the U.S. and the Jewish
state. Back.
Note 111: "The idea was harmful, especially once it took root in the popular mind, for it
created an erroneous perception of what Israel can allow itself to do in its relations with the
United States, and thus provided indirect support for annexationist and other extreme
policies" (Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel's Fateful Hour [New York: Harper and Row, 1988], p.
129). Back.
Note 112: May 28, 1984, pp. 7, 12, cited in FBIS-NES, 5, 107, June 1, 1984, I5-6. Back.
Note 113: This is consistent with the proposition that identity is partly informed by an
outside threat; consequently, the demise of that threat can potentially undermine the actor's
identity. See Simmel, Conflict and the Web of Group-Affiliations.
Back.
Note 114: Kimmerling, "Between the Primordial and the Civil Definitions of the Collective
Identity." Back.
Note 115: Those who championed Greater Israel had three immediate methods for resolving
the possibility that Arabs might outnumber Jews in a future Israel. One was to deny that this
demographic revolution would ever occur either because of alternative projected birthrates,
anticipated immigration, or desired Palestinian emigration. The second, articulated by the
political party Moledet, was to "transfer" Palestinians to Arab states through either forced
means or incentive packages. A final option, visibly and starkly articulated by Meier Kahane's
Kach Party, was to deny citizenship to the Palestinians in an expanded Israel. Kahane argued
that Israel could not be both Jewish and democratic, and since Israel would always be a Jewish
state the Arabs would never be citizens. Although Kach was a minority party that was
eventually ruled unconstitutional by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1984, Kahane and his
followers touched a raw nerve in Israeli politics as they challenged Israel's democratic
character and image. Back.
Note 116: The Jewish American leadership was quite sensitive to Israel's deteriorating status
as a consequence of the decline of the Cold War and its occupation policies and altered their
presentation of Israel accordingly to highlight its democratic character. For instance,
testimony by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (aipac) to the House Foreign
Affairs Committee on Israel's aid package between 1982 and 1993 reveals a pronounced
emphasis on Israel's democratic character and Western identity. In general, the vanishing
strategic rationale caused supporters of Israel to focus on the base reason for U.S.-Israeli
relations: their shared identity and values. Back.
Note 117: FBIS-NES-88-174, September 8, 1988, pp. 50-51. Back.
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Note 118: Interview with author. Back.
Note 119: Committee on Foreign Affairs, Foreign Assistance Legislation for Fiscal Year
1994: Part 2, Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1993), p. 60. Back.
Note 121: While approximately 20 percent of those polled said that a deterioration in
relations would increase their support for Shamir, more than 40 percent said that it would
undermine it; Davar, March 30, 1992, p. 2, cited in FBIS-NES-92-062, March 31, 1992, p. 19.
Back.
Note 122: Harkabi, Israel's Fateful Hour, p. 205. Back.
Note 123: Interview with Yitzhak Rabin on the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour, Monday,
September 13, 1993. Also see Ben Lynfield, "Rabin Tries to Make Less of 'Greater Israel,' "
Christian Science Monitor, January 25, 1994, p. 22. Back.
Note 124: More recent events, including Israel's decision to label Kach and Kahana Hay as
terrorist organizations after the terrorist attack in Hebron in February 1994, was also read
through the image of the Western "self" in general and the belief that Israel's democratic and
liberal identity were being challenged from within. See, for instance, "Rabin Addresses Knesset
on Hebron Massacre," FBIS-NES, March 1, 1994, pp. 31-33; and Clyde Haberman, "Israel
Votes Ban on Jewish Groups Linked to Kahane," New York Times, March 14, 1994, p. 1. Back.
Note 125: This "Islam vs. the West" debate has become a particularly troubling and vocal one
in the U.S. over the past few years, beginning soon after the Iranian revolution but gathering
momentum and contributors since the end of the Cold War. For a sampling of the literature,
see Ghassan Salame, "Islam and the West," Foreign Policy 90 (Spring 1993): 22-37;
Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations"; and Said, "The Phony Islamic Threat." Back.
Note 126: Ariel Sharon claimed that the U.S. and Israel are threatened by Arab-Muslim
fundamentalism and that the U.S. should begin discussions with Israel on how best to confront
this mutual threat. IDF Radio, 28 March 1992, cited in FBIS-NES-92-061, March 30, 1992, pp.
27-28. Yitzhak Rabin also argued that Islam represents a shared threat, implying that Israel
has not only a new strategic role but also a shared identity. Daniel Williams, "U.S. Offers to Sell
Israel Upgraded Fighter Jets," Washington Post, November 16, 1993, p. 31. Back.
Note 127: Barnett, "Sovereignity, Nationalism, and Regional Orderin Arab Politics." Back.
34 de 34 05/08/2010 19:41
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12. Norms, Identity and Their Limits: A Theoretical Reprise
Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro
It is neither the borders nor the men who make a nation; it is the laws, the
habits, the customs, the government, the constitution, the manner of being
that comes from all of this. The nation is in the relations of the state to its
members: when its relations change or cease to exist, the nation vanishes.
-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Correspondance générale
Unlike Rousseau, many contemporary students of international politics treat the material facts
of a nation's existence-its physical capabilities, technological achievements, geographical
location, and so on-as the final arbiters of political outcomes. Not only are the laws, habits, and
customs that Rousseau emphasizes considered epiphenomena, but they are notoriously
elusive subjects for social scientific inquiry. Volumes such as this one therefore necessarily
devote considerable effort to justifying their own approach and subject matter. The authors of
the preceding essays seek to show in great detail, and in a wide variety of settings, that custom
is often more important than capability and that social prescription often super sedes material
self-interest. This essay critically reviews these efforts and considers the payoff for
international relations theory of a focus on norms.
Norms, including the laws, habits, and customs to which Rousseau refers, are social
prescriptions. While such prescriptions take many forms, this volume focuses first on norms
that regulate the behavior of important actors in international politics. 1 Norms are thus tied
to actors. "New Thinking" in the Soviet Union was a norm, as was "hard realpolitik" in Mao's
China. Both prescribe behavior for national policy-making elites (and, on another level, for
nations). The changing collective beliefs about the use of nuclear or chemical weapons, the
legitimacy of military intervention, and even the spread of democracy are all examples of
widespread and evolving political norms. These too prescribe and regulate the practice of
agents in international politics.
We wish, however, to maintain one important distinction among the different types of norms
discussed in this essay. In much the same way that Wendt has distinguished between structure
and agent in international relations theory, we will distinguish between norms as the
regulative cultural content of international politics and identities-regulative accounts of actors
themselves. 2 Another example may help to clarify this distinction. Charles Kindleberger has
argued that the rise of free trade in mid-nineteenth-century Europe came not from changing
material interests but rather from the spread of a laissez-faire ideology. 3 This ideology itself
consists of a web of normative claims (about the efficacy of new trade practices, for example).
But it also incorporates an account of the identity of actors who may legitimately participate in
and govern trade (the legitimate practices of sovereign nations, for example, continued to
differ from those of colonies). Identities, therefore, are prescriptive representations of political
actors themselves and of their relationships to each other. We thus divide social prescription
into these two categories: prescriptive accounts of actors themselves (identities) and
behavioral prescriptions for the proper enactment of these identities (behavioral norms). 4
When maintaining this distinction is unimportant, however, we will occasionally use the
latter term (norms) in the more general sense described above to indicate social prescriptions
including regulative accounts of actor identity.
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This essay raises two questions about social prescriptions in world politics. First, what are the
consequences of behavioral norms and identities? What, in other words, is the payoff of the
"sociological turn" in international relations theory away from individualism and materialism
toward a focus on collective interpretation? The central claim of this volume is that
international relations theory cannot afford to ignore norms. This essay assesses that claim by
considering the impact of norms on the interests, beliefs, and behavior of actors in
international politics. Demonstrating that impact does not invalidate other theories of
international relations. Rather, it points to analytical blind spots and gaps in existing accounts.
In so doing, it not only casts light into the shadows of existing theory but raises new questions
(and offers new explanations) as well.
If norms are important, a second question naturally emerges: Where do the norms themselves
come from? While the preceding essays devote considerable effort to answering the first
question, they rarely address the second one. But they nevertheless offer some insights into
potential answers. The second section of this essay therefore identifies three possible avenues
to norm building. For the most part, these "sources" of norms remain ill-defined, incompletely
theorized, and understudied. But if one accepts the central contention of this volume-that
norms matter to the conduct of international politics-then the origins of norms is a natural
subject for further study.
The third section of this essay considers several other difficulties with ongoing efforts to
investigate the role of norms in international politics. While the practitioners of international
politics (national leaders, for example) may believe they know norms when (and if) they see
them, identification and categorization remain difficult problems for social scientists.
Moreover, the fluidity of social norms and the complex interplay between physical reality and
interpretation complicate such scholarship enormously. And the fact that at least some
political actors are aware of norms and actively seek to manipulate them further confounds
the efforts of scholars. This essay concludes, therefore, with an overview of the promise and
perils of a focus on norms in international politics.
How Norms Matter

Norms have attracted attention in disciplines across the social sciences, including psychology,
sociology, anthropology, economics, and political science. Such wide interest undoubtedly
stems in large part from a desire to explain otherwise perplexing behavior. Why do actors
adhere to social rules even in situations where these rules may run counter to their own
material interests? 5 What, more generally, is the fabric that holds pluralistic societies
together? And when will these societies, facing each other across national boundaries, adhere
to a set of (admittedly looser) rules for international conduct? These are critical concerns for
students of international relations.
The international arena is often characterized as having a minimalist order because it is

"anarchic"-that is, it lacks a sovereign to enforce rules, leaving only appeals to armed force to
resolve clashes of interest between states. 6 Scholars of post-World War II international
relations, especially in security affairs, consequently tend to downplay the role of norms.
Realists focus primarily on material capabilities and argue that norms, where they exist,
merely ratify underlying power relationships. And while (neo)liberal theorists more often
accord an independent role to norms, they nevertheless concentrate on explicit contractual
arrangements (such as those embodied in regimes) intended to resolve collective action
problems. This volume, however, argues that norms play a much broader role in world
politics, shaping both cooperation and conflict in ways that are invisible to theories that focus
either on material structural forces or on individual choice.
The argument here is not that approaches such as realism or liberalism are "wrong." Rather, it
is that the micro- and macrofoundations of these perspectives are not equipped to account for
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the full range of political norms and their consequences. Indeed, the central assumptions of
such theories direct attention away from the cultural variables on which this volume focuses.
Thus, a useful starting point for this section on the consequences of norms is with these very
gaps in existing approaches. Such gaps are important because they point directly to the most
important effects of norms-and because they highlight the relevance of norms for mainstream
international relations theory. This section considers first, therefore, the "economic" approach
that provides the dominant microfoundation of both neorealist and neoliberal theory. It then
turns to the formal structuralism that serves as a macrofoundation to both bodies of theory. 7
Neoclassical microeconomics, in both its orthodox and its institutional versions, offers an
important account of the microfoundations of social order. In the orthodox approach, social
behavior and outcomes are a product of the rational choices of individuals who maximize their
satisfaction (utility) by efficiently matching available means to their desired ends. The main
factor that conditions actor choice is change in "prices" based on market forces (supply and
demand) that tend to stabilize in equilibrium. 8
In international relations theory, several approaches adopt this economic individualism.

Strategic and game theoretic perspectives on conflict and cooperation employ a generic
version of the economic approach to understand the dynamics of strategic choice and the
circumstances (costs) that shape actor decisions. 9 More generally, realist (and particularly
neorealist) international relations theory rests on orthodox microeconomic foundations.
Neorealists thus view states as generic entities, like firms, that respond rationally to costs in an
international "market" defined by a distribution of capabilities among states. Robert Gilpin, to
take a prominent example, explicitly adopts microeconomic language and analogies. 10
While it may offer considerable advantages, the orthodox economic approach and its
application to international relations tend to marginalize the importance of both behavioral
norms and actor identity. In this spare version of economic individualism, norms play no
independent role apart from the strategic choices of actors, since explanation focuses on
agents that respond rationally to the "objective" environment (i.e., shifting prices in the
markets for security and welfare). 11 And actors themselves are posited as unitary,
calculating, self-interested agents. 12 When conceptions of actor identity and roles cleave to
these minimalist assumptions, then orthodox economics can only provide an extremely sparse
account of behavioral variations in actors facing similar constraints. The neoclassical model
possesses no theory of differences in goals.
Another, less orthodox variant of neoclassical theory directs greater attention toward the
institutional framework of individual choice. This school accepts the rational egoism of
orthodox theory but accords institutionalized rules a special role in resolving problems of
aggregation and coordination. These rules facilitate repeated interaction and, as Michio
Morishima has argued, may contribute to long-run economic success. 13
When individual preferences do not aggregate to a consistent "collective" interest, as discussed

by Kenneth Arrow, these institutions may provide a framework of order that permits collective
decision making. 14 Similarly, institutions may coordinate expectations and actions in
situations where there are multiple equilibria. A focus on institutions thus permits the theorist
to examine mechanisms for dealing with the costs of uncertainty, information acquisition, and
transactions rather than assuming a perfect and frictionless market. 15
The study of regimes is the most prominent example of the institutionalist microeconomic
approach in international relations theory. Neoliberal institutionalists explicitly acknowledge
the collective rules (norms) that constrain and enable individual choice, but they continue to
treat actor identities and interests themselves as preexisting and fixed. 16 And to the extent
that they are considered, norms (embodied in institutions) derive exclusively from rational
egoistic choice. 17 Their origins are thus limited to the preexisting preferences of agents, and
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their consequences tend to reflect this constraint. Identity thus remains marginalized, even in
more expansive neoliberal institutionalist arguments. 18
In contrast to the bottom-up view of economic individualism, structural approaches adopt a

top-down logic. Structure can be conceptualized as having two aspects: material and social.
The material aspect of structure refers to the relative position of subgroups within a society
and the distribution of material capabilities among them. Social structure refers to the cultural
context of actor behavior-the dominant beliefs and understandings that characterize a society.
19 Most theories of international relations, as already suggested above, have placed far
greater emphasis on the material aspects than on the social attributes of structure. And this
tendency is evident in structural theories at both the international and the domestic levels of
analysis.
At the level of the international system, neorealism's materially grounded view of structure has
played an influential intellectual role, particularly in security studies. 20 For neorealists, the
structure of the interna tional system is sketched primarily along a single dimension: the
distribution of power, defined in terms of material capabilities. Realism assumes that states
generally perceive this balance in an accurate fashion and respond accordingly to secure their
own relative advantage wherever possible. 21 And if they fail to do so, they are likely to fall
victim to a process of "natural selection" at the international level. Thus the system as a whole
rewards realist adaptation. In this approach, customs and beliefs far removed from the
distribution of power are relatively unimportant. Norms, where they matter at all, matter only
at the discretion of (or in service to) the power structure. 22 Neoliberal institutionalism, on
the other hand, more readily allows for the possibility that norms, conventions, and principles
may over time become uncoupled from "material" structure, thus exerting a limited
independent influence. Even this approach, however, usually focuses on formal treaties and
institutions rather than on less formal social expectations. And it grants norms an independent
influence only when the (materially) functional imperatives of the international system are
relatively modest. Many neoliberal theorists have thus been particularly reluctant to focus on
informal structure and norms in the area of security studies. 23
At the level of the nation-state, analysts have also relied on material or formal notions of
structure and functional approaches to the problem of order. For example, Peter Gourevitch,
Peter Katzenstein, and Stephen Krasner have all traced foreign economic or security policies
to variations-derived from differences in material capabilities-in state political structures. 24
Others, such as Barry Posen and Jack Snyder, point to similarity in organizational structures
(e.g., the pursuit of maximum autonomy and size) to account for similarities in military
doctrine. 25 But, as with structural theories at the international level, these domestic
structural theories make scant room for cultural norms to exert an independent effect. 26
Conceptions of both the actors and the environment are, in these models, functionally
derived from materially "objective" structures.
Both the economic individualist and the structural functionalist approaches are silent,
therefore, on what this volume identifies as critical. The authors of the preceding essays find
considerable variation in the preferences and character of actors in international politics so
that, even when actors face similar constraints, they may respond in different ways. And
bringing social, normative structures into sharper focus greatly facilitates an account of
behavior in those situations that neorealists and neoliberals find perplexing. The authors of
this volume thus explicitly problematize the assumptions-economic rationalism and formal,
material structuralism-of the dominant approaches to international relations thought and are
consequently able to shed new light on a variety of ways in which norms matter. Their
arguments can be grouped into three categories, focusing on: (1) the effects of norms on
interests, (2) the ways norms shape instrumental awareness of links between interests and
behavior, and (3) the effects of norms on other normative structures (including actor
identities). These three effects are shown schematically in figure 12.1 (see also the related
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discussion and diagram in Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein's essay 2).
Of course, not every author in this volume emphasizes all three of these effects: the essays
trace a variety of different paths through figure 12.1. The remainder of this section considers
these paths in more detail, focusing on the three effects of norms listed above.
Interests
Theories of norms address gaps in economic rationalist accounts most directly by examining
(rather than merely assuming) the construction of actor interests. In fact, norms may even
shape an actor's interests or preferences in ways that contradict the strategic imperative of the
international environment (as specified, for example, in realist balance of power theories) or
the functional need to cooperate. In Finnemore's analysis of military intervention, for
example, states may intervene to accomplish humanitarian objectives even when no obvious
economic or strategic rationale is present. As she points out, a realist could identify few
interests that explain the commitments Western nations have made in Somalia or Cambodia.
But theories that allow for a fuller range of national goals-including humanitarian goals-are
more readily able to account for evolving patterns of intervention. Similarly, Eyre and
Suchman find evidence that developing countries-which may face very different strategic
problems or threats-will tend to buy very similar types of weapons. These choices, they argue,
have little to do with the external threats these states face. Instead, global norms of modernity
shape the interests of national elites, directing their attention toward symbols of status and
power such as advanced (but often inappropriate) weaponry.
Domestic-level norms may also shape state interests in ways that contradict the material
international structure. Kier argues that the interwar preferences of both civilian and military
leaders for military doctrine (either offensive or defensive) were defined more by internal
culture than by the external balance of power. While the military aspired to professionalism,
French civilians focused on how military policy affected their own domestic power rather than
on external threats. And Risse-Kappen shows that norms associated with the spread of
democracy, in a later period of European history, once again shaped preferences-this time
promoting a new European alliance structure (nato). Again, this argument contrasts sharply
with the realist expectation that states should ally against the strongest power regardless of
ideological or political considerations. Finally, Johnston describes a remarkably constant
parabellum strategic culture in China that, he argues, has produced a consistent set of Chinese
interests despite changes in China's strategic position with respect to other powers. In fact,
Johnston finds that this strategic culture determined the character of China's involvement in
external politics, thus reversing the primacy that realism usually accords to the international
system.
Instrumentality
Norms affect not only actor interests but also the ways actors connect their preferences to
policy choices. More precisely, norms shape the instruments or means that states find
available and appropriate. In other words, norms shape actors' awareness and acceptance of
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the methods and technologies on which they might rely to accomplish their objectives. Some
means, of course, may be ignored simply because they are outside the knowledge set of the
actors involved, however functional or technologically viable they might otherwise be. Jacob
Viner argues, for example, that wealth-seeking states failed for some time to understand that
free trade actually served their goals better than mercantilist autarky. 27 And, in security
studies, others have pointed to a "cult of the offensive" before World War I that biased choices
of military doctrine at a time when defense (as ample evidence from the Boer and Russo-
Japanese wars indicated) was functionally more appropriate. 28
Even when actors are aware of a wide array of means to accomplish their policy objectives,
they may nevertheless reject some means as inappropriate because of normative constraints.
Finnemore's discussion of military intervention suggests, for example, that while states now
have broader humanitarian goals that extend to more parts of the world, they simultaneously
confront increasing normative constraints on the enactment of these goals. Unilateral
intervention, even to accomplish humanitarian objectives, is seen as less and less appropriate.
Ignoring this norm would have both international and domestic consequences that most
leaders are unwilling to risk. And not only do such prohibitions shape actors' adoption of
means, but their self-understanding (identity) also determines which means are acceptable.
Price and Tannenwald thus argue that the widespread tendency to distinguish nuclear and
chemical weapons from "conventional" weapons, and to prohibit their use, stems in important
ways from norms of "civilization" (including prescriptions for a "civilized state," a particular
identity). A civilized state, so the argument goes, cannot adopt these means-even in warfare. A
rationalist and functionalist framework, they contend, cannot explain such restrictions when
nothing about "unconventional" technologies distinguishes them from any other means of
warfare. Burying the enemy alive in trenches and caves, or killing by immolation with a
flamethrower, is hard to distinguish functionally (or even morally) from death by gas. Indeed,
the World War II firebombing campaigns in Japan were every bit as brutal and even more
lethal than the atomic bombs used later. Nor can realism account for the reluctance of states to
use unconventional weapons, despite the military advantage they might have produced, in
those cases where one combatant had no ability to respond in kind (as in Korea, Vietnam, or
the Persian Gulf war). The taboo against chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons thus
emerges as a subective and socially determined phenomenon.
Domestic norms have also helped to define the means that actors consider acceptable and
effective. Kier's analysis of interwar France indicates that the norms of military organizational
culture, in combination with France's broader political-military culture, had a definitive
impact on whether offense or defense was chosen as the guiding principle of military doctrine.
Thus norms shape not only civilian and military preferences (as noted above) but also the
means for accomplishing these goals. While an offensive military doctrine was objectively
possible (and Kier argues that the French military was well aware of German developments in
offensive doctrine), the prevailing organizational wisdom among French officers was that
short-term conscription afforded no means to attain the operational goals of an offensive
strategy. French officers believed themselves constrained, therefore, to a defensive strategy.
Similarly, in both Germany and Japan, Berger finds that internal cultural norms dictated an
antimilitarist defense policy. 29 These countries still desired security, but the perceived
lessons of World War II highlighting the costs of unilateral defense prohibited the
development of military tools that were affordable and that, from a realist viewpoint, would
enhance security in an anarchic, uncertain world where even allies cannot be trusted
completely. Once again, these cultural norms do not simply parallel systemic constraints as
neorealism or neoliberalism might suggest; instead, they reflect internal social values and
ideas.
Normative Structure
Not only do norms affect actor interests and awareness of instrumentality, but they also affect
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other normative structures. A good deal of this volume, in fact, is preoccupied with this kind of
normative effect (which is circumscribed by the dotted line in figure 12.1). Behavioral norms,
for example, may encourage certain national identities. Diffuse, underlying norms at one level
may shape specific norms at another level. 30 These effects are complex and frequently
appear to be circular, but interactions among norms have profound consequences for the other
effects of norms (on interests and instrumentality) already examined.
In their discussion of interactions between norms, several authors in this volume focus on the
ways in which identity shapes prevailing rules for behavior. Barnett shows, for example, that
pan-Arabism strongly influenced Arab national identities and inter-Arab politics, promoting a
specific pattern of strategic ties that required consultation, placed limits on the use of force to
resolve intracommunity conflicts, and excluded Western participation. And while the Persian
Gulf war signaled an apparent end to whatever pan-Arabism remained in the region, the
reemergence of statist identities paved the way for new patterns of sovereign behavior and
new alliances with the West. In another case of alliance politics, Risse-Kap pen argues that
democratic identity promoted reciprocity and consultation within the nato alliance. Even the
trying circumstances of the Suez crisis, during which these norms were violated, served only to
redouble the efforts of nato partners to build better institutions for cooperation. 31
Not only does identity shape rules for behavior within the political environment, but
behavioral norms can also interact powerfully with conceptions of identity. Sociologists and
anthropologists have noted that some identities are challenged so severely by certain
behavioral prescriptions that individuals would rather risk death than permit the two to
remain in conflict. For example, Clifford Geertz describes a Balinese elite who marched into
Dutch machine-gun fire rather than accept a way of life (and its attendant norms) that
included foreign domination. 32 Samurai of ancient Japan committed seppuku in the face of
lost honor. And in times of starvation, elderly Eskimos committed suicide rather than burden
their families. 33 In each of these cases, individuals chose to negate their own identity rather
than permit it to conflict with prevailing behavioral norms. 34 And in each case the outcome
is, to say the least, puzzling when viewed from the perspective of economic rationalism.
In international relations, sovereignty is the quintessential norm that demarcates global

political space into nation-states, thereby conferring legitimacy on some actor conceptions
(nationhood, for example) and not on others (such as supranational movements). Indeed,
much of this volume focuses on the way prescriptive accounts of the political environment
shape conceptions of identity. German and Japanese antimilitarism, as Berger indicates, owes
much to the common experience of these two countries as they emerged from World War II
(and to the prescriptive consequences that this experience entailed). Of course, their
experiences were not identical. Nor were the roles that they adopted: Japan became a
merchant state, while Germany sought closer ties to the West through formal alliances and
institution-building. But in both cases the collective lessons of wartime defeat became
embedded in political-military cultures that have since prevented the development of strong
military resources to match the international position of these states.
The preceding discussion has noted that norms at several different levels may affect interests
and instrumentality. This observation introduces a distinction-which is rarely treated explicitly
in the empirical essays of this volume-between "levels of norms." And this distinction suggests,
in turn, that norms may interact across these levels. Consider, for example, the vision of
systemic structure adopted by hegemonic stability theory or Kenneth Waltz's discussion of
systemic polarity, both of which propose a direct link between the distribution of power in the
international arena and peace. 35 Despite the materialist orientation of such theories, the
structures that they feature involve considerable normative content. A nation-state system,
whatever its polarity, requires a conception of the world as meaningfully divided according to
state boundaries. And theories that focus on power require some collective knowledge about
what national capabilities are meaningful and about how they are distributed. Differences in
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the content of these underlying structures may thus cause the hegemony of one nation to
differ considerably from that of another, as John Ruggie has argued in a comparative analysis
of Dutch, British, and American hegemony. 36 And, as several authors in this volume argue,
these underlying normative structures greatly influence specific behavioral norms and
identities.
Herman suggests, for example, that Soviet perceptions of international structure were
multifaceted (and certainly not the product of material structures alone). The
mezhdunarodniki were informed more by the underlying norms of detente (such as the Basic
Principles Agreement) than by those of competitive bipolarity. These structures pushed the
New Thinkers toward a reconceptualization of Soviet identity (as a less "revolu tionary," more
"normal" state). And their more liberal interpretation of international structure, in turn, also
encouraged the transfer and consideration of new prescriptions for foreign and domestic
security policies-of new behavioral norms, in other words. Interestingly, while detente may
have encouraged greater pluralism in Soviet domestic politics for a time, Herman also argues
that underlying normative structures (of "normalcy") eventually promoted isomorphism and
convergence around New Thinking. Several other authors make similar arguments. Eyre and
Suchman trace the acquisition of symbolically modern weapons by developing countries to
underlying structures of national sovereignty. And Price and Tannenwald's account of
weapons taboos relies strongly on preexisting structures of national sovereignty, "civilization,"
and technology. Before a weapon can be considered unconventional, the distinction between
conventional and unconventional weapons in the context of national self-help must be
meaningful-it must be institutionalized within existing global structures. And given this
context, weapons taboos are not only possible but functional since they serve to demarcate
civilized and uncivilized nations (another institutionalized distinction). Thus diffuse normative
structures and institutions (e.g., "It is meaningful to speak of 'conventional weapons' and
'civilized states'") permit specific identities and behavioral norms (e.g., "We are a civilized
nation" or "This weapon is not conventional"), resulting finally in specific means knowledge
and behavioral prohibitins (e.g., "We will not use nuclear or chemical weapons").
To summarize, then, norms matter in a wide variety of ways. Diffuse normative structures
such as sovereignty or even "civilization" shape the particular identities of actors on the
international stage, as well as the rules for enacting these identities. The character of actors
also influences the way they interpret the rules that apply to them. And, conversely, these
rules limit the types of identities that are viable. This interlocking web of norms, in turn,
shapes the particular interests of political agents. And it shapes their beliefs about the
available (and best) instruments for achieving their goals. Neorealist and neoliberal theories of
international politics offer no comparable model for specifying the interests of actors, nor can
they account for persistent differences in interpretation of seemingly objective political
structures. For all of these reasons, the sociological turn in international relations theory
described here holds considerable promise. Of course, the sociological approach is not without
its challenges. But before a consideration of some of these difficulties, a prior question merits
discussion: What processes generate social norms?
The Sources of Norms

The irony of the criticism of neorealist and neoliberal theory voiced here is that, while the
authors of this volume often take existing international relations theory to task for treating the
construction of political actors and their preferences as exogenous, the essays that make up
the body of this book tend to treat their own core concepts as exogenously given. To be sure,
they acknowledge, often explicitly and at some length, that actor identity and behavioral
norms are socially constructed. But this is generally a starting point, from which the essays
proceed to focus on the impact of these social constructions (which is, after all, their primary
concern). Arab, European, Chinese, Japanese, and Soviet political identities are all shown to
have a great impact on strategic behavior in international politics . . . an impact that rationalist
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theory tends to ignore. And in some cases, the historical development of these identities is
described, occasionally in detail. But about the process of identity construction, the authors
have relatively little to say. And without any theory of how such identities are constructed and
evolve, this research struggles to contribute more to an understanding of political behavior
than the work that it criticizes.
The next task for scholars such as these is to take their own criticisms seriously and to develop
more explicitly theoretical propositions about the construction of sociopolitical facts-the
process of building collective norms and political identities. 37 At least some of the authors in
this volume might resist this task on the grounds that such generalizations are impossible.
Indeed, while the essays are both "descriptive and explanatory," as Jepperson, Wendt, and
Katzenstein observe in essay 2, they often seem to view the generative processes of norm
building and evolution as unique to the cases they examine. And yet there is considerable
material in these essays from which to construct plausible hypotheses about norm creation
that might be applied to other cases.
This section takes up the task of identifying candidates for generalizable theory-not about the
ways that social constructions cause (or enable, or give meaning to) certain political outcomes
but about the sources of norms themselves. Where do collective political norms come from?
How are the identities of states, military organizations, alliances, and other international
actors constructed? In this section, we seek to distill, from the essays in this volume and from
the broader social science literature, some tentative answers to these questions. In fact, the
previous section has already pointed to one source of norms: other norms (possibly at other
levels). But it is difficult to generalize about this source of norms because of their historical
specificity and because of the potential for circular reasoning ("norms cause norms").
Therefore, we will not revisit the interaction between norms discussed above but focuses
instead on three other processes that generate, maintain, and change political norms: (1)
ecological, (2) social, and (3) internal.
Ecological processes derive from the pattern of relations between actors and their
environment. Social processes stem from the relations between actors themselves. And, as the
term implies, internal processes spring from the internal characteristics of actors. Internal
processes, therefore, are reductive, while both ecological and social processes are irreducible
to individual actors (and thus, in some sense, systemic).
Ecological Processes
Ecological processes result from the patterned interaction of actors and their environment. In
some cases, actors confront a rapidly (or dramatically) changing environment. 38 In other
cases, continuities are more obvious; and in still other cases, the characteristics of the
environment are unclear. The third category of cases, which we will consider first, point to the
role of ambiguity in social knowledge. Ambiguity is not a function of particular actors or of the
environment itself in the abstract. A political situation appears ambiguous only to actors,
depending on their relationship to it. Arguments about the role of ambiguity in the creation of
social norms have an old pedigree. In 1939, Muzafer Sherif described a series of experiments
that suggested that collective, normative agreement was much easier in ambiguous settings
(e.g., those in which a clear frame of reference is lacking) than in more clear-cut situations. 39
His argument finds some confirmation in this volume. Herman proposes, for example, that in
the Soviet Union the vision articulated by Gorbachev "was sufficiently vague to permit political
forces with relatively moderate agendas to claim allegiance to a common ideal even as they
strived to head off any radical change." 40 At the outset, at least, politicians with different
agendas could all claim to be New Thinkers. And while he is not so explicit, Barnett provides
numerous clues that pan-Arab identity, to the extent that it existed, relied on a similar
ambiguity to smooth over many important differences among Arab nations. When events such
as the Baghdad Pact and, later, the Persian Gulf war brought these differences into sharper
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relief, the weak norms (and identities) of Arabism suffered greatly.
But the effects of ambiguity are . . . ambiguous. The authors of this volume take pains to point
out that almost every aspect of international politics requires considerable social
interpretation, no matter how incontrovertible materialists may take it to be. What counts,
therefore, as an unambiguous international situation? By what metric can social scientists
determine that one norm is more ambiguous than another? Put another way, how can
differences in the degree of normative ambiguity be mea sured? And should one assume that
ambiguous norms are always easier to establish than highly specified ones? After all,
prohibitionary norms regarding the use of nuclear weapons flourished only after nuclear
weapons were clearly distinguished from other weapons. In this case, clarity rather than
ambiguity hastened the institutionalization of the nuclear taboo. The ways in which ambiguity
relates to norm and identity construction thus remain in need of elaboration.
A second ecological process argument addresses the problem of norm and identity
maintenance rather than their emergence. This argument stresses the passage of time and
continuity in the environment, positing simply that iteration strengthens norms, quite apart
from any other efforts to reinforce or undermine them. In other words, the longer a norm goes
unchallenged, the more it tends to "solidify." Finnemore places great emphasis, for example,
on the growth and solidification of humanitarian norms (including, but not limited to, norms
of humanitarian intervention such as multilateralism) over "the past fifty or one hundred
years." 41 And Price and Tannenwald link iteration to both norms and identities; compliance
with weapons taboos over time, they contend, both strengthens non-use norms and "reinforces
the identity of states." 42 While the iteration hypothesis seems plausible and is appealing in
its simplicity, it seems equally possible that the opposite might sometimes occur: norms or
identities, although unchallenged, might simply "fade away" over time, pass out of style, or for
a variety of reasons become irrelevant. What, for example, of the prohibition in the Hague
Regulations of 1907 against the attack or bombardment of undefended towns, villages,
dwellings, or buildings? Rather than being challenged directly, this norm has simply lost force
with the passage of time and the development of modern mass armies requiring a "nation at
arms." 43 Since time is not equally kind to all norms, some further refinement of this
hypothesis seems in order.
A third ecological process argument expressed in this volume addresses changes in norms.
This proposition-that dramatic shocks in the environment (to the international system, for
example) loosen commitments to existing identities and behavioral norms-is an
institutionalist's version of Mancur Olson's argument in The Rise and Decline of Nations. 44
But whereas Olson focused on the ways in which systemic shocks eliminate redistributive
agreements and redefine material incentives within a society, this volume opens the question
of how such agreements and incentives themselves are constructed. One way of putting the
argument is to say that an obvious shock to the international (or domestic) political system
provides political capital for the proponents of change within a political system. The shock
"proves" that politics must be conducted differently . . . or thought about differently. In this
volume, the shock hypothesis finds its strongest exposition in Berger's discussion of German
and Japanese identities after World War II. Berger argues that a national identity or a
political-military culture will change rapidly only when it is "challenged by a major external
shock" and "placed under great strain." Otherwise, cultural change is likely to be slow and
incremental. World War II, he contends, provided just such a massive shock to the political-
military cultures of militarism in Germany and Japan. Similarly, Barnett suggests that the
shock of the Persian Gulf war helped to crystallize the dependence of Gulf Arab states on the
West, reinforced emergent statism, and thereby allowed what had previously been taboo-a
security alliance with the United States.
One difficulty with this type of argument lies in defining what counts as a shock. In Berger's
case, the impact of World War II seems so decisive that one would expect it to qualify as a
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systemic shock whatever the definition. This allows Berger to avoid definitional issues. But
how shocking must shocks be? What is it about the Persian Gulf war that qualifies it as a major
systemic shock? Moreover, the "rally 'round the flag" effect must be reconciled with this
general argument. Some shocks, at least initially, reinforce rather than challenge existing
collective beliefs. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, for example, strongly reinforced
American identity. On the other hand, it served to undermine norms of isolationism that until
that time had been quite strong. Not only does greater attention to the circumstances under
which shocks will reinforce rather than challenge existing norms seem desirable, but also the
relationship of shocks at one level to norms at another deserves further exploration. Barnett
alludes to this phenomenon in his discussion of the intifada, which not only provided a shock
to domestic norms of democracy within Israel but, as a result, also called into question the
alliance relationship of Israel to the United States.
Social Processes
Social process arguments of norm building take the form of generalizations about the way
human beings, organizations, states, or other political agents interact. 45 At least two such
arguments appear in the foregoing essays. The first of these is also perhaps the most
straightforward: norms are spread through a simple process of social diffusion. 46 Although
they do not elaborate, several authors allude to this process. Risse-Kappen, for example, finds
that "transgovernmental networks" greatly facilitated the development of a common identity
(and norms of reciprocity and consultation) within nato. Finnemore suggests that international
organizations encouraged a similar process involving the spread of humanitarian norms, while
Herman argues that New Thinking in the Soviet Union was "essentially homegrown . . . [and]
nurtured in an oppressive system." 47
In the most explicit discussion of diffusion, Eyre and Suchman suggest that affinities such as
common heritage or language may serve to increase the chances for norm or identity diffusion.
Unfortunately, they do not take up this argument in any detail in the empirical section of their
essay.
As appealing and straightforward as the social diffusion hypothesis is, it leaves many questions
unanswered. Are new collective understandings expected simply to seep across
"transgovernmental networks" like ever-widening inkblots? If not, then what operational
criteria will allow us to identify the most prominent paths for diffusion? And which ideas will
be communicated across these linkages? Why humanitarian norms instead of self-help ones,
particularly given the rise of highly nationalist identities in some areas of the globe? Even if
these questions are addressed, a more fundamental problem remains. Jepperson, Wendt, and
Katzenstein, following Durkheim, call attention to the difference between
shared understandings and collective understandings-the latter presumably being the concern
of this volume. 48 But diffusion seems to explain the sharing rather than the "collectivizing"
of norms. The process by which shared knowledge becomes a collective norm remains
underspecified. While these difficulties deserve further attention, the empirical essays
nevertheless make a strong case that social diffusion is responsible for the emergence of many
of the norms considered in this volume.
A second social process account of norm building draws on "interaction role theory" and
suggests that norms-and particularly identity-emerge from a process of in-group/out-group
differentiation and social role definition. 49 It may encourage New Thinking in the Soviet
Union, for example, to be able to oppose it to the "old thinking" of Brezhnev and Gromyko.
Identifying the out-group helps to reify its supposed values (old thinking), which may then be
opposed to in-group values. Another statement of the role relation argument can be found in
Barnett's discussion of security communities in the Middle East. Barnett argues that identity is
profoundly social-a product of continuous debate within the community, of evolving historical
narratives, and of competing social portrayals (some of which posed great challenges to
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leaders in the Middle East). Barnett thus goes beyond simple in-group/out-group distinctions
to argue that social interaction may produce a variety of relational (and interrelated) identities
as actors take up various roles with respect to each other. Israel's role as an American ally in
the Middle East, for example, also promotes (arguably) a democratic Israeli identity. And the
Iraq-Turkey Treaty of 1955 "sent shockwaves through the Arab World" because it placed Iraq
in a new role vis-á-vis the West and thereby challenged its Arab identity-an identity that was
itself founded on role relations and the perceived threat from the West (a homogeneous
out-group) to Arab states.
Barnett's discussion of role relations points the way to a more complex account of roles in
international politics. Despite the advantages of parsimony, a degree of complexity may be
partly unavoidable, since nations (not to mention other political actors) can relate to each
other in so many different ways. Kal Holsti offers a typology of no fewer than seventeen
specific national role conceptions defined, at least in part, through social interaction. 50
These national roles include: regional leader, independent, faithful ally, liberator, and
defender of the faith. And, more recently, Richard Herrmann has proposed twenty-seven
categories of national role images based on differential social comparisons of capability,
culture, and threat. Herrmann does go on to argue, however, that only a small subset of these
(notably: enemy, ally, degenerate, colonial, and imperial) is likely to be common. 51 Finally,
Martin Sampson and Stephen Walker tie these role conceptions to cultural norms in a study
that speaks directly to Berger's discussion of militarism in Germany and Japan. Sampson and
Walker offer a different comparison-between France and Japan-but reach much the same
conclusion: that differences in national role conceptions (identity) explain decisions about
militarization in these two societies. 52 Typologies of national roles take an important step
toward analytical generalization. But role relation arguments do not always offer clear
predictions, perhaps because they emphasize a highly contingent process of role creation. It
remains unclear which social roles will become linked together and whether or not such
linkages must be functional. Nor is it obvious how role relation theory should account for
different levels of analysis. It may well make sense, after all, to speak both of a single Japanese
identity (which relies greatly on Japanese distinctiveness-a relational concept) and of many
Japanese identities, some more nationalist than others (indeed, Berger makes such an
argument for both Japan and Germany). Much the same could be said for the Israeli identities
that Barnett examines. While two-level games have received considerable attention among
international relations theorists, two-level roles have not.
Internal Processes
Unlike other paths to the generation of norms, internal processes operate within political
actors. For this reason, scholars interested in the phenomena of collectives often ignore
internal processes, usually with the dismissive rationale that psychological or rational choice
arguments cannot account for the generation of truly social norms or knowledge structures.
Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane, in their recent book Ideas and Foreign Policy, thus
take pains to distinguish their work from psychological approaches. 53 And in his paper on
the evolution of Soviet New Thinking, Herman takes both rational choice and psychological
theories to task for their failure to integrate social and political processes into their accounts of
learning. 54 But despite this implied criticism, Herman's subject matter lends itself easily to
an internal process interpretation. In fact, Douglas Blum has offered an account of the
evolving New Thinking in the Soviet Union that parallels Herman's in many respects but
explicitly emphasizes cognitive rather than social processes. 55 While internal processes do
not themselves operate at the level of the collective, their effects may nevertheless be felt at
other levels. In fact, Johnston's reliance on cognitive mapping to construct an image of the
parabellum strategic culture in Maoist China is a tacit adoption of this internal process
premise. 56 Limitations of space do not permit a full discussion here of the ways
individual-level processes may result in collective political norms. But three examples should
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suffice to give some indication of the variety of internal process arguments.
The first of these examples emphasizes a psychological process and is closely related to one of
the social process arguments discussed above. Role-relation hypotheses about the construction
of norms emphasize a process of social interaction encouraging role definition. But the
definition of social roles might also, as considerable research suggests, stem from cognitive or
motivational processes within individuals. In fact, the reluctance of the authors of this volume
to place emphasis on people's need for identity in social relations-a need so strong that they
will invent in-group and out-group identities and differences even when there is no rational
basis for doing so-makes sense only in the light of this volume's general preoccupation with
social rather than individual processes. 57 Marilyn Brewer's theory of "optimal
distinctiveness," however, traces identity formation to the individual's need to perceive
distinctions between self and other, and to justify one's own behavior. 58 Taking another
approach, John Turner argues that social identities emerge instead from cognitive miserliness.
According to Turner, "the first question determining group-belongingness is not 'Do I like
these other individuals?' but 'Who am I?' " 59 Turner's self-categorization theory emphasizes
the mental heuristics that cause people, for reasons of cognitive efficiency, to focus selectively
on information that confirms simplifying group stereotypes. In the case of either cognitive or
motivational arguments, the result is the same: stable in-group and out-group identities-
precisely the sort of identity on which this book places so much emphasis. 60 Another
internal process argument focuses on the use and interpretation of language. It would, of
course, be inappropriate to identify the "linguistic" path to norm construction solely with an
internal process since neither the grammar nor the content of a language is reducible to
individual speakers. But, by the same token, speech act processes begin their opera tion at the
level of the individual. 61 Livia Polanyi et al. argue, for example, that "we need
comprehensive textual analyses if we wish to identify and explore cultural expectations of
normal and abnormal conduct, good or bad self and other identifications, possible or
impossible or necessary historical development within particular security cultures." 62 Their
objective, rephrased in the terms of this book, is a linguistic account of norms and identity. 63
To this end, they propose a "linguistic discourse model" that identifies regularized processes
and multiple levels of speech: speech events (gestures, facial expressions, and so on), words,
phrases, clauses, sentences, multi-sentences, and finally texts. Textual instruction devices-
including analogies, metaphors, and varied forms of negation or emphasis-all serve as
definitional wayposts in the construction of a discourse. In a similar vein, both Friedrich
Kratochwil and Nicholas Onuf argue that social meanings and institutions are constructed out
of the practical linguistic rules that operate within individuals but that have profound
normative, constructive effects. 64 In a sense, these linguistic theorists go one step further
than cognitive psychologists: they argue that people must not only make sense out of their
world, but must then communicate those mental representations to others . . . and that the
process of communication is a process of mking sense. This process inevitably, they would
argue, produces norms (in fact, the process is the production of norms). And while the
"semantic dimensions of the language" permit some normative constructions, they render
other constructions unintelligible. 65
Although psychological and linguistic theories are often set in opposition to rational choice
theories-at least in the field of international relations-rigid distinctions of this type are illusory.
The cognitive efficiency invoked by Turner's self-categorization theory might easily be restated
in rational choice terms. And Hayward Alker and his colleagues working in the fields of
discourse analysis, artificial intelligence, and computer modeling have already examined in
some detail the links between story-telling, motivation, and economic activity in iterated
Prisoner's Dilemma games. 66 In these theories, strategic agency plays an important role. But
the internal process version of agency emphasizes not the normative constructions that
interact through the behavior of actors who subscribe to them, but rather the (exogenously
given) goals of agents themselves. A more straightforward restatement of the argument in
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rational choice terms is that the efforts of utility maximizers to attain efficient outcomes
encourage norm construction as a device that reduces transaction costs. 67 There is, of
course, a large body of neoliberal research (on declining hegemony and regimes) that has
focused almost exclusively on this pathway to norm creation. 68 For neoliberals, norms are
strictly functional at their inception, serving the (innate or given) interests of strategic actors.
69 They reduce transaction costs and facilitate agreement among political agents. 70 And
they help to encourage behavior congenial to the interests (and identity) of the hegemon that
(neoliberals assume) created them.
Whatever the flaws of internal process accounts of norm building, it seems inappropriate to
dismiss them merely because they are not (by definition) "social" theories of collective
knowledge. As a wide variety of cognitive, linguistic, and economic research shows, norms may
also arise from the aggregate effects of processes that operate within individuals. Moreover,
such reductive arguments may have another practical advantage: they are often better
specified and may lead more easily to generalizable predictions than do the sociological
theories emphasized in this volume. Remedying the "weakness" of the latter theories is, of
course, precisely the justification for books such as this one.
To be sure, internal process theories are not immune to criticism. A particularly important gap
in the individualist approach is the problem of aggregating individual choices. The aggregation
problem is common to psychological, linguistic, and rational choice approaches. But it has
received particular attention from rational choice theorists, who point out that social order can
be difficult to understand from the point of view of atomistic choice when strategic situations
do not encourage stability or equilibrium. As noted above, Arrow has demonstrated that
certain individual preference orderings yield no consistent social preference ordering. 71 And
Jon Elster argues that many strategic interactions produce either no equilibrium, multiple
equilibria, or unstable equilibria. 72 Both Arrow and Elster suggest that norms themselves
may play a role in resolving these aggregation problems. Elster argues that norms afford
predictability, and for Arrow they take the form of "consensus on social objectives" that align
individual interests. In either case, the implication is that norms precede and constrain the
strategic interaction of individuals. For this reason, Alexander Field argues that an economic
approach cannot explain institutions. 73 If they are to be productive, efforts to account for
norms on the basis of internal processes must squarely address the aggregation problem.
The authors of the preceding essays provide ample reason to suspect that further investigation
of the social construction of norms and identity would be fruitful. They offer an intriguing
variety of proto-theories (schematically summarized in figure 12.2) about the genesis of norms
and identities. While some of these theories have been tested in other disciplines (sociology
and psychology, for example), they deserve similar attention from students of international
politics.
Challenges in the Study of Norms
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In addition to the issue of generalizing about norm construction, the sociological turn in
international relations theory faces several other theoretical and methodological challenges.
This section examines five of them. The first, confronted in some way by the authors of each
empirical paper in this volume, is to decide on criteria for identifying and measuring norms. It
is not always apparent how, from a social scientific perspective, one can be certain that a norm
is present. A second problem-in some sense the reverse of the first-is that norms often seem to
be all too present. In other words, the field may suffer from an embarrassment of norms. A
third problem is that norms figure in efforts to account for both continuity and change, with
occasionally confusing results. A fourth problem is the difficulty of specifying the relationship
between the normative and the material worlds. And finally, the fifth problem is the
potentially confounding effect of agency on normative analysis. The criticisms offered in this
section do not reflect a desire to undermine or reject the sociological approach to international
relations. In fact, as we have argued, many of these problems are shared by (and may be more
intractable within) the mainstream rationalist research program. 74 The following discussion
is simply an attempt to stake out challenges that lie ahead. Addressing these challenges will
improve research efforts that make up the "sociological turn."
Knowing Norms
This volume generally treats norms as collective beliefs regulating the behavior and identity of
actors. But that definition leaves important questions unanswered. To what degree must
norms be shared before they can be called collective? And on what does their regulative
authority depend? To argue that certain norms are influential is to suggest that their effect
may vary with their strength. Thus Price and Tannenwald indicate that, as the taboo against
using unconventional weapons has become more robust, the use of these weapons has
declined. But by what criteria can one assess norm robustness (independent of the very
outcomes one seeks to explain)? Some have linked a norm's strength to its institutionalization.
75 But this simply pushes the problem back to one of measuring institutionalization-no easy
task itself. 76 And the chore is complicated by the widely accepted notion that some
behavioral violations of norms do not necessarily invalidate the norms. At a certain point
violations clearly do begin to undermine norms. But how do we assess that point?
Rational choice scholars have faced similar problems in identifying and measuring actor
preferences or interests. Relying on what actors say can be misleading because of the strategic
role of deception in public statements. Judging interests according to behavior, on the other
hand, invites circularity. The unhappy compromise is to rely on "revealed preferences"-desires
exhibited in past behavior. But such a move assumes that preferences do not change (or at
least that they have not yet changed). And as game theorists themselves emphasize, action is
not a sure guide to preferences since it also reflects actors' assessments of strategic
circumstances and constraints. 77 In general, students of norms have taken two different
approaches to identifying their subject matter. The first is to focus their attention on what
actors do-that is, whether actor behavior complies with norms or not (and, if not, how other
actors respond). But if some degree of deviation from norms does not necessarily imply their
repudiation, then this "revealed norm" method is unreliable. 78 A case of incest, for example,
does not by itself invalidate prohibitions against incest. Likewise, in Risse-Kappen's study, the
violation of an alliance consultation norm during the Suez crisis did not lead to a collapse of
the Atlantic security community or to the illegitimacy of its norms. Nor have the many
violations of the chemical weapons taboo led (so far) to its irrelevance. And, at any rate, this
approach permits only the post hoc recognition of norms.
A second approach is to focus on what actors say-that is, how they justify or defend their
actions. Because an interpretive approach sees norms as communication devices, perhaps
their presence and efficacy are indeed better judged by the pleas for understanding, rationales,
and normative justifications than by behavior itself. The problem here, as for the rational
choice theorist, is to distinguish manipulation and deception from more "genuine" forms of
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communication. How should one interpret proclamations of support for nuclear

nonproliferation when a nation simultaneously works to build nuclear weapons . . . or worse,
claims that nuclear or chemical weapons are too horrible to use, even when preparations for
attack are under way? At the very least, then, it seems necessary to study both rhetoric
and behavior over time-an approach adopted by most of the essays in this volume.
Efforts to identify and measure norms also suffer from a bias toward "the norm that worked."
Most studies of norms, including those in this volume, focus only on a single, specific norm-or,
at most, on a small set of norms. Typically, the norms under consideration are effective norms
or ones that seem to have obvious consequences. 79 Yet, in order to understand how norms
work, studies must allow for more variation: the success or failure, existence or obsolescence
of norms. A companion study to Price and Tannenwald's examining weapons taboos that did
not take hold would be instructive. 80 But normative research has tended to overlook the
emerging norms that never quite made it, the portfolio of identities that were never realized,
and the international structures that might have been. These counterfactuals, analyzed in
conjunction with comparable cases of success, should lead to a more substantial research
program. 81 Addressing these identification and measurement problems is a formidable task
for work in this area-but not one that is necessarily intractable. And the particular virtue of the
empirical essays in this volume, unlike research that overlooks behavioral norms and that fails
to problematize actor identity, is that these essays have at least begun to confront these
important variables.
An Embarrassment of Norms
An equally troubling issue for those working in the sociological tradition is not the difficulty of
identifying norms but their ubiquity. Several of the empirical essays in this volume make it
clear that norms are multifaceted and that many different identities can exist side by side in a
collectivity. 82 In one sense, this is an advantage of sociological analysis rather than a
problem, since it allows a richer account of political behavior. Moreover, while rationalists
must assume that preferences are ordered transitively in order to aggregate interests in a
collectivity, the sociological approach faces no similar constraint with respect to norms or
identities. But because multiple norms can influence actors-with competing or even
contradictory prescriptions for behavior and for identity-it is difficult to predict which norms
will be most influential. Without clear conceptual definition and convincing measures of norm
salience, the consequences of norms are likely to be indeterminate. One can almost always
identify, post hoc, a norm to explain a given behavior. 83 Examples of this problem are
manifold. Finnemore recognizes that increasingly dense organization in global politics has
facilitated the rise of humanitarian norms, but she argues that these norms run counter to
other important institutional structures such as sovereignty and self-help. It is clear neither in
the abstract nor in the concrete terms of the case that Finnemore discusses whether
humanitarian or "isolationist" norms will ultimately prevail. But whatever the outcome, one
could easily point to norms as a cause! 84 Or, to take another example, Barnett discusses a
variety of competing regional, Arab, and statist identities. Each of these identities has different
implications for behavior. But, once again, which will prevail?
Perhaps a resolution to this problem will come from a reintegration of different levels of
analysis (or more specifically, "levels of norms") within the sociological approach. 85 A
neorealist would almost certainly argue that there is a hierarchy of global political structures
such that norms must conform to certain structures even though they may violate others. 86
When basic national interests are challenged, for example, a self-help system will punish the
states that do not respond appropriately. Structures such as these are functionally dominant in
a neorealist analysis. And, even if we do not accept neorealist functionalism, the need for a
"replacement" framework relating collective beliefs at different levels to one another is clear.
87 Otherwise, it is difficult to avoid the criticism that "anything goes"-that any behavior can
be explained with reference to some norm. In reaction to this position, several of the authors
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in this volume, including Eyre and Suchman, Finnemore, and Price and Tannenwald, focus on
normative structures that they take to be decisive at the international level. Others (Berger,
Kier, and Johnston) accord more impact to domestic structures. The great variety of norms
that these authors identify, however, makes a cross-level, integrative analysis a challenging
task.
Continuity and Change

Another complication for research on political norms is the difficulty of accounting for both
stasis and change. One of the central contributions of the sociological turn in international
relations theory is its move away from static conceptions of fixed identities and interests. This
volume problematizes both state and other collective identities. But while social interaction
among actors may produce new collective identities, existing normative structures also shape
the properties and behavior of agents. Consequently, the sociological approach pursues an
explanation both for patterns of stability and for cases of change.
At the heart of the problem is the inertial force of cultural constructs such as norms: this
inertia tells us why certain patterns persist, but not why they change. Of course, a culture may
consistently demonstrate patterns of change, as Harry Eckstein contends in the case of
modern societies, but then the problem becomes one of accounting for observed continuities
(themselves a deviation from more fluid patterns). 88 The problem, in other words, is
accounting for both stasis and change in the same culture. To do so, normative theorists must
usually appeal to ad hoc arguments about forces external to a given culture. Thus Berger
focuses on the shock of World War II to explain the rise of new cultures in Japan and
Germany. And while Arab and regional identities may explain continuity in the Gulf
Cooperation Council, they cannot also explain its demise and the emergence of alliances with
the West. So Barnett, like Berger, invokes an external shock: the Persian Gulf war.
While cultures may certainly have multiple themes (or subcultures) that are in tension,
explanations for the hierarchy of these different cultural elements (including multiple
identities) are poorly developed at present. Several approaches to this difficulty have been
proposed. Ann Swidler sees culture, for example, as a "tool kit" from which actors choose
different types of actions. But, as already noted, if the available tools allow for both any action
and its opposite, then their explanatory role is suspect. Indeed, Swidler accords exogenous
"structural constraints" and "historical circumstances" substantial influence in dictating which
"strategy of action" is selected. 89 Similarly, in this volume Kier grants considerable leeway to
historical circumstance in shaping both the organizational culture of the French military and
the fears of civilian elites. And yet a greater appreciation for the hierarchical integration of
cultural themes suggests at least a degree of cultural and normative stability. Finnemore,
although clearly concerned with change and evolution in humanitarian norms over a 150-year
period, thus maintains that normative change may be guided by principles of logical
consistency. Expanding definitions of "humanity" led naturally (although perhaps not
unavoidably) to the expansion of associated human rights. Likewise, Eckstein finds evidence of
a more uniform process at work in culture. He proposes that changes in culture occur in
response to environmental changes and argues that these changes will ordinarily work to
maintain existing patterns. 90 He allows that rapid contextual changes and even the
instrumental efforts of agents (such as revolutions) may lead to cultural discontinuities. But
these sources of change cannot themselves be explained within the logic of culture itself.
Constructivists appear to offer another approach to the problem of change and continuity,
relying on a conceptualization that views structures and agents as linked in a dialectical
synthesis. The interaction among agents and between agents and structures both produces and
reproduces these entities. 91 The key issue, of course, is whether "reproduction" or
"different" production (i.e., change) will occur. And to answer this question, constructivists
once again appeal to exogenous historical conditions. While historical contingency is
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undoubtedly central to understanding specific events, it does not easily lend itself to
theoretical generalization. 92 In fact, this line of reasoning suggests that social scientific
inquiry can offer nothing more than a historically descriptive and highly contingent account.
Although this proposition is inconsistent with the overall tenor of this volume, it occasionally
finds exposition in the empirical essays (in Price and Tannenwald's observation, for example,
that the chemical weapons taboo owes much to a series of fortuitous events). But while some
historians and interpretive theorists might find common ground in this approach, it seems too
pessimistic and too restrictive.
The bulk of the studies in this volume suggest yet another approach to change and continuity.
While a single culture may be inadequate to explain both change and stasis, an appreciation
for levels of culture-that is, different facets of culture nested within one another-may help. The
preceding essays suggest multiple levels of nested norms, ranging from organizational culture
(Kier) to strategic culture (Johnston) to political-military culture (Berger, Kier, and perhaps
Herman) to international technological and political norms (Barnett, Eyre and Suchman,
Finnemore, Price and Tannenwald, Risse-Kappen). This solution is remarkably similar to the
rationalist attempts to deal with anomalies by demonstrating that actors are maximizing their
welfare in different nested games. 93 Of course, the danger for realists of both traditional and
sociological stripe is an endless appeal to nests within nests of interests or norms. But in
general the authors in this volume adopt the position that norms and identity are constructed
through regularized processes, often with relatively stable effects. Even their discussions of
historical contingency do not imply that all conceivable outcomes were equally likely.
Material and Normative Worlds

While the sociological perspective rejects the realist preoccupation with uniquely material
forces, students of norms cannot afford to ignore the material world. Norms do not float
"freely," unencumbered by any physical reality. They are attached to real physical
environments and are promoted by real human agents (though norms, of course, are not
themselves material). But the relationship of normative to material structures is rarely
examined or explicitly theorized, despite the likelihood that the influence of norms may be
related to the characteristics of the material structures in which they are embedded or the
qualities of the actors that adopt or promote them. Norms backed by the United States are
likely to become more widespread and effectual than otherwise similar norms originating in
Luxembourg. While the differing capabilities of these two nations are undoubtedly a matter of
interpretation, it is difficult to ignore the overwhelming material contrasts.
Scientific, technological, political, economic, religious, and even artistic structures all involve
both formal and informal, physical and interpretive components. While Kier argues in this
volume that the French choice of strategic doctrine in the interwar period did not derive
functionally from perceptions about the state of military technology (favoring either a
defensive or offensive stance), the history of warfare offers many examples of how technology
was decisive in other ways. When Americans rushed to develop nuclear weapons, their
expectations were eventually rewarded by a Japanese surrender. 94 Very often, as in the
latter case, actors are keenly aware of such technological change, even though they may be
unsure of its impact. And perhaps the material aspects of cultural and religious similarities
between Israel and the United States help to explain the close relationship between these two
nations. Or, to take another example, the economic and technological performance of the
United States undoubtedly contributed strongly to the persuasiveness of Western values
reflected in Soviet New Thinking (and helps to explain why the West itself seemed to derive so
little from Soviet norms during the interactions that Herman describes). In each of these
instances, it is hard to overlook the possible connection between material developments and
normative changes. To suggest a role for material influences on norms does not imply that
norms stem directly from physical capabilities as realism more or less expects. But neither do
collective understandings exist in a material vacuum. And a more synthetic conceptualization
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of the interaction between the material and the interpretive worlds remains necessary. 95
center> a name="492"> Agency and Norms
One of the most important effects of norms, as we noted earlier in this essay, is their influence
on the interests of political actors. But we also found the reverse to be true: agents sometimes
set out to manipulate or change norms. Actors may be well aware of the potential advantages
accruing to those who control certain norms. Hans Morgenthau thus warned long ago that
rationalizations and justifications should not be allowed to conceal the true nature of foreign
policy. 96 Identifying the "true nature" of foreign policy is no easy task. But some agents are
clearly able to use norms in an instrumental fashion to further their own interests rather than
simply being held captive to various normative mandates. 97 In World War II, countries
sometimes abided by restrictions on the use of force (e.g., strategic bombing, submarine
warfare) not out of ethical restraint but instead to retain domestic or international support. At
the same time, some states tried to arrange situations that would cast another party as a
"violator" and thus justify otherwise prohibited measures in retaliation. 98 In such cases, both
support and violation of prohibitionary norms were functions of strategic calculations that had
little to do with the norms themselves. In this volume, Eyre and Suchman, Johnston, and
Herman all point to other ways that leaders use norms instrumentally to enhance their own
positions. The development of New Thinking in the Soviet Union, for example, was not merely
an academic exercise and cannot be divorced from the strategic behavior of the
mezhdunarodniki who promoted these new understandings in an attempt to change the
course of Soviet foreign policy and, perhaps, to improve their own positions. In this case,
promoting a certain redefinition of the situation (as a "failed" Brezhnev-Gromyko foreign
policy) served the political interests of the liberal reformers. 99
Even an actor's own identity can be manipulated for instrumental reasons. Kier provides an
excellent example of this process, noting the extent to which military organizations construct
their identity for strategic purposes: battlefield effectiveness requires a self-conception
incorporating professionalism, obedience, and esprit de corps. In this case, effectiveness relies
on strategic behavior designed to encourage particular (military) identities. Or, to take another
example, Barnett argues that Israel manipulated its own identity for strategic advantage.
Israeli leaders emphasized Israel's Western and democratic character so that Americans would
see "something in themselves when they saw Israel." American "identification" with Israel was
critical, Israeli leaders realized, to the continued flow of financial support from the United
States.
These examples illustrate a distinction, which is not always acknowledged in the empirical
papers of this volume, between internal and external norms. 100 Internal norms are
representations of the environment or constructions of identity as it appears to an actor.
External norms, on the other hand, are representations of situations or actors to others. 101
Some might object to this distinction on the grounds that, because norms are a collective
phenomenon, all norms must be external. At the level of the individual, this is true. An internal
norm for an individual is not a norm at all but merely an idea. But many of the actors
discussed in this volume are not individuals but collectives (foreign policy elites, militaries,
and nations, for example). For such actors, identity is different from the presentation of
identity-though both involve regulative content. And the fact that actors manipulate
self-presentation (that is, external norms) strategically does not mean that such norms are
irrelevant. On the contrary, these manipulations would be pointless if norms did not matter.
102 The instrumental manipulation of norms poses a more fundamental problem, however,
than distinguishing internal from external norms. If actors self-consciously manipulate
external norms, then the social scientific study of norms, their origins, and consequences is
greatly complicated. Not only do the variables in such an analysis interact, but some variables
(agents) are directly aware of other variables. In such cases, many social scientific models
must be applied with greater caution than usual. Linear regression models, for example, might
19 de 34 05/08/2010 19:42
be inappropriate for certain analyses. Such instrumental awareness may violate assumptions
about the independence of error components in the linear model, and it is very likely to
introduce additional problems of multicollinearity and serial correlation. Quasi-experimental
research designs also suffer when their subjects "know too much." Researchers should be
cautious when their subjects are not only aware of the "experiment" but also actively trying to
change its parameters. For these reasons, the instrumental manipulation of norms poses
special difficulties for social scientific analysis. This issue, in turn, foreshadows a more
philosophical problem-the double hermeneutic (the interpretation by scholars of the
interpretations of actors) in social science. 103 Since scholarly inquiry is itself interpretation
(thus the product of agency), can it presume to investigate interpretive phenomena such as
norms without, by the nature of the scientific enterprise, altering their meanings? This is not
the place for an extended discussion of the philosophy of social science, but a few concrete
examples drawn from the empirical essays may help to clarify the point. It seems almost
undeniable that the norms of New Thinking in the Soviet Union, parabellum strategic culture
in Maoist China, or reciprocity among nato allies mean the same thing to the authors of this
volume as they did (or do) to the relevant political actors themselves. Can the effects of
sociopolitical norms then be stated precisely, or are these effects (like the norms themselves)
so much a matter of interpretation that any attempt to measure them distorts them? The
analogy in physics is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. But while physicists no longer find
efforts to locate electrons within the electron shell of an atom meaningful (because this cannot
be known except by measurement procedures that themselves define the possible locations),
this volume undertakes a closely analogous task in the domain of international politics. The
practical objection, therefore, is that there should be a Heisenberg uncertainty principle of
interpretive analysis. And if the nor mative interpretations of actors are themselves
unknowable except by an equally interpretive procedure carried out by social scientists, then it
is no longer clear who or what is being studied.
This is a problem that confronts all social science. 104 Those working in the sociological
tradition are neither more nor less prone to it (although they may be more likely to recognize
it). The criterion for judging international relations scholarship is not therefore the extent to
which it replaces interpretation with "objectivity." Rather, it is the extent to which it provides
better historical accounts and raises new questions. 105 And while the other essays of this
volume are mostly concerned with assessing the plausibility of norm-based portraits of
political behavior, this paper argues that they succeed in doing much more. Not only are they
able to tell stories about international politics that realists, neoliberals, and neorealist
structuralists (among others) have difficulty telling, but they also point the way toward
numerous intriguing relationships between underlying cultural structures, norms, identities,
interests, and behavior-relationships that students of international politics have scarcely begun
to investigate.
As this essay has suggested, there are (if anything) too many rather than too few plausible
generalizations that describe the causes and effects of norms. The practical task is therefore to
sort out unrelated, rival, and contradictory hypotheses rather than to reject the whole
enterprise on the grounds that social norms can operate in a wide variety of ways. One method
of doing this is to search for regularized pathways between norms, identities, interests, and
behavior. One need not subscribe to functionalism in order to search for such patterned
behavior. Indeed, there is considerable danger that a na�vely teleological view of norm
function will obscure both "deeper" causes and counterfactual hypotheses. Many of the
authors in this volume consequently resist functionalist arguments. But whether or not social
norms are functional, this volume finds evidence that they are in some cases quite stable and
that when they change they do so in predictable ways (in response to shocks or ambiguities,
for example). General accounts of the causes and consequences of norms, such as those
offered in this essay, thus provide a basis for rejecting the pessimistic claim that every
interpretation of political reality is unique in all respects and that theory is impossible.
20 de 34 05/08/2010 19:42
In fact, this volume is ambitious in its approach to international relations theory. It rejects the
extreme historical constructivist position that generalizations about how actors will interpret
their environment (political or otherwise) are impossible. Moreover, it rejects the materialist
position that the physical reality of this environment governs cultural interpretations of it. And
it rejects the tendency of rationalist theory to assume fixed goals and identities of actors. To
attempt theory simultaneously on all of these fronts-that is, theory within the upper-right
quadrant of Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein's figure 2.1-would go beyond ambition if the
authors also rejected the insights of scholarship in the other quadrants. But while this volume
identifies shortcomings in the micro- and macrofoundations of mainstream approaches, it
does not reject realism, liberalism, or their structural variants out of hand. In a broad
analytical sense, there is a complementary relationship between the sociological perspective
and these more traditional approaches. Accounts (and theories) of norms and identity fill gaps
where other perspectives fall short. Of course, this complementarity can be overstated. A
realist would not argue that threatened states will buy weapons for their symbolic (rather than
military) value or that they will avoid other weapons-chemical or nuclear-that might serve
their interests. Nor would a realist expect a nation to select a military doctrine that satisfies
certain domestic and organizational interests but that leaves the nation woefully unprepared
for the next war. Eyre and Suchman, Price and Tannenwald, and Kier-to take three
examples-do not merely supplement realism; to a point, at least, they challenge it. 106 The
payoff of the sociological turn in international relations theory, therefore, is not merely
incremental (i.e., more detailed historical accounts than are otherwise possible). It redirects
scholars' attention toward consequential variables and processes that might otherwise go
unnoticed. Norms and identity are both facets of culture and, as such, have been invis ible to
scholars who choose to investigate more tangible, less value-laden phenomena. This essay
highlights the analytical and explanatory significance of social norms. The final essay of the
volume argues that this work is also timely and particularly relevant for problems of the
post-Cold War order.
The authors wish to thank the participants of the Social Science Research
Council/MacArthur Workshops at Cornell University (February 5-7, 1993), the
University of Minnesota (January 14-16, 1994), and Stanford University (October
7-9, 1994), as well as members of the Mershon Center Research Training Group
(rtg) on the Role of Cognition in Collective Political Decision Making at Ohio State
University for discussions that enriched this essay. We are also indebted to Ethan
Cherin, Martha Finnemore, Peter Katzenstein, Nicholas Onuf, Diana Richards,
Stephen Walt, Katja Weber, the other participants in this book project, and two
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and advice. Kowert gratefully
acknowledges support from the International Relations Department at Florida
International University and from a National Science Foundation grant
(DIR-9113599) to the Mershon Center rtg at the Ohio State University. Legro is
grateful for support from the Department of Political Science at the University of
Minnesota.
Note 1: Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein define norms, in the second essay of this volume,
as "collective expectations about proper behavior for a given identity." This is consistent with
our definition, but naturally one might distinguish among many different types of norms.
Some regulate morality, others prescribe accepted (but not ethically required) practice, and
still others regulate the character of actors themselves. The latter type of norm, which we term
identity, is discussed below.
Norms may also differ in their effects, in the extent to which they are known and accepted as
just, in the explicitness of their content or provisions, in the uniformity of their application, in
21 de 34 05/08/2010 19:42
the degree to which sanctions accompany violations, in the degree to which they are
internalized, and in the modes of their transmission. See Judith Blake and Kingsley Davis,
"Norms, Values, and Sanctions," in Robert E. L. Faris, ed., Handbook of Modern Sociology
(Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964); Robert E. Edgerton, Rules, Exceptions, and Social Order
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); and Janice E. Thomson, "Norms in
International Relations: A Conceptual Analysis," International Journal of Group Tensions 23
(1993): 67-83. The common analytical divide between constitutive and regulative norms, for
example, is a distinction based on effect: constitutive norms create or grant properties while
regulative norms specify the proper enactment of these properties. On this distinction, see
David Dessler, "What's at Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate?" International
Organization 43, no. 3 (Summer 1989): 454-58; and Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and
Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and
Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Others make a related
distinction between descriptive and prescriptive norms. Because we focus in this article only
on norms with prescriptive or regulative effects, we leave aside many of these distinctions.
Thus even our treatment of identity focuses explicitly on the regulative (rather than merely
constitutive) effects of norms. We concentrate, in other words, not on how collective
understandings describe or constitute actors but on how they regulate the "proper" identity of
actors.
Another related distinction also deserves brief mention. Essays 1 and 2-and several of the
empirical essays (notably those by Berger, Johnston, and Kier)-devote attention to "culture" as
well as to norms or identity. Because we focus on social prescription, we avoid the more
general term culture, which may include a wide variety of social knowledge apart from
(prescriptive) norms. We do not attempt, therefore, to capture every aspect of the arguments
offered in the empirical essays. What is distinctive about this volume, in our view, is its
emphasis on social prescriptions of both identity and behavior (see Katzenstein's essay 1 and
its discussion of culture). For a recent account of culture as collective knowledge that does not
(necessarily) involve prescription, see Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, Ideas and
Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1993). For a multifaceted account of the impact of culture on international politics, see
Jongsuk Chay, Culture and International Relations (New York: Praeger, 1990). Back.
Note 2: Alexander Wendt, "The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory,"

International Organization 41, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 335-70; see also Dessler, "What's at
Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate." Back.
Note 3: Charles Kindleberger, "The Rise of Free Trade in Western Europe, 1820-1875,"
Journal of Economic History 35 (1975): 20-55. Back.
Note 4: This distinction corresponds closely to Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein's

distinction in essay 2 between portfolios of identities and regulations for the behavior of
"already-constituted identities." It also parallels, very roughly, the distinction between the two
axes of international relations theory that they discuss (see their figure 2.1). Theories that
emphasize the cultural, regulative content of the environment in which actors move (the
x-axis) are theories of norms. Theories that focus on the way the environment shapes cultural
representations of actors themselves (that is, theories high on the y-axis) are theories of
identity. Back.
Note 5: See Jon Elster, The Cement of Society: A Study of Social Order (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989); and Jack P. Gibbs, Norms, Deviance, and Social Control:
Conceptual Matters (New York: Elsevier, 1981). Scholars may have different interests in
studying order-some hope to undermine it, others to strengthen it. For an interpretivist
assessment of "order" as a social construct, see Nicholas Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules
and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia: University of South
22 de 34 05/08/2010 19:42
Carolina Press, 1989), pp. 127-59. Back.
Note 6: Hedley Bull defines order as "an arrangement of social life such that it promotes
certain goals or values" (The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics [New
York: Columbia University Press, 1977], p. 4). Back.
Note 7: These schools-neoclassical individualism and formal structuralism-represent

different extremes of the schema developed in essay 2 (figure 2.1). The former ignores the way
that structures (either material or normative) constitute actors, whereas the latter ignores the
cultural content of the environment. Back.
Note 8: Gary Becker, The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1976); Jack Hirschleifer, "The Expanding Domain of Economics," American
Economic Review (1985), pp. 53-68. Back.
Note 9: Duncan Snidal, "The Game Theory of International Politics," in Kenneth Oye, ed.,
Cooperation Under Anarchy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); Arthur Stein,
Why Nations Cooperate (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). Back.
Note 10: Robert Gilpin, War and Change in the International System (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1981). See also Robert O. Keohane, Neorealism and Its Critics (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1986); and Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics
(Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979). Back.
Note 11: Many of the arguments in this volume distinguish themselves from rationalism, but
that does not imply that they espouse "irrationalism." Rather, the point is that "rationalist"
arguments are based on narrow self-interest that is influenced primarily by material-economic
forces. A sociological approach rejects the basis of realist rationality-that states are driven
primarily by the international power distribution-as too limited. Instead it argues that a range
of social phenomena help to constitute and constrain agents. Once an agent knows what it is
and what it wants, it will move instrumentally (even in the sociological model) to achieve its
goals within the material and normative constraints it faces. The virtue of the sociological
approach is that it fills in some of the more interesting lacunae of rationalism (e.g., the
character and goals of actors). Back.
Note 12: Albert Hirschman, "Three Ways of Complicating Some Categories of Economic
Discourse," Economics and Philosophy 1 (1985): 7-21; Robert Jervis, "Realism, Game Theory,
and Cooperation," World Politics 40 (1989): 317-49; and Amartya Sen, "Rational Fools,"
Public Affairs and Philosophy 6 (1977): 317-44. Back.
Note 13: For discussions of how rules facilitate repeated interaction, see Robert Axelrod, The
Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984); Andrew Schotter, "The Evolution of
Rules," in Richard N. Langlois, ed., Economics as a Process: Essays in the New Institutional
Economics, pp. 117-33 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Robert Sugden, The
Economics of Rights, Co-operation, and Welfare (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986); and R. Sugden,
"Spontaneous Order," Journal of Economic Perspectives 3 (1989): 85-97.
Morishima argues that the adoption of Confucian ethics during the Meiji period produced an
economically functional civic code that contributed to Japan's long-run commercial success.
Similarly, Ramsey McMullen attributes the decline of the Roman Empire to a failure by the
Roman state to encourage social norms capable of reining in corruption. And Greif extends
this argument to the commercial success of Western traders during the Middle Ages. See
Avner Greif, "Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi
Traders," Journal of Economic History 49 (1989): 857-82; Avner Greif, "Institutions and
International Trade: Lessons from the Commerical Revolution," American Economic
Review 82 (1992): 128-33; Avner Grief, "Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A
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Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualistic Societies," Journal of

Political Economy 102 (1994): 912-50; Ramsey McMullen, Corruption and the Decline of
Rome (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); and Michio Morishima, Why Has Japan
"Succeeded"? Western Technology and the Japanese Ethos (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1982). For a discussion of these points and for an extended account of the
economic role of social norms, see also Jean-Philippe Platteau, "Behind the Market Stage
Where Real Societies Exist-Part I: The Role of Public and Private Order Institutions," The
Journal of Development Studies 30 (1994): 533-77; and J.-P. Platteau, "Behind the Market
Stage Where Real Societies Exist-Part II: The Role of Moral Norms," The Journal of
Development Studies 30 (1994): 753-817. Back.
Note 14: Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1951); Kenneth Schepsle, "Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in
Multidimensional Voting Models," American Journal of Political Science 23 (1979): 27-59;
and Kenneth Schepsle and Barry Weingast, "The Institutional Foundations of Committee
Power," American Political Science Review 81 (1987): 85-104. Back.
Note 15: Douglass North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: Norton,
1981); D. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990); and Oliver E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies:
Analysis and Antitrust Implications (New York: Free Press, 1975). Back.
Note 16: See, for example, Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power
(Boulder: Westview, 1989); and Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1983).
This is not true in the most "sociological" versions of regime theory. For example, Oran Young
defines institutions as "recognized practices consisting of easily identifiable roles, coupled with
collections of rules or conventions governing relations among the occupants of these roles" (O.
Young, "International Regimes: Toward a New Theory of Institutions," World Politics 39
[1986]: 107). Young thus explicitly addresses the identities that define agent roles, but it is
unusual for neoliberal institutionalists to devote much attention to the constitution of actors
themselves (as opposed to the rules that govern actor behavior). Back.
Note 17: Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation; Keohane, International Institutions and
State Power; Oye, Cooperation Under Anarchy; Philip Pettit, "Virtus Normativa: Rational
Choice Perspectives," Ethics 100 (1990): 725-55; Edna Ullmann-Margalit, The Emergence of
Norms (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). Back.
Note 18: To be sure, some rational choice theorists have gone beyond their customary focus
on strategy in an effort to model individual preferences and beliefs. Aaron Wildavsky argued,
in his 1986 presidential address at the 82d annual meeting of the American Political Science
Association, that international relations theorists (and neoliberal institutionalists in particular)
should devote greater attention to preference formation. See A. Wildavsky, "Choosing
Preferences by Constructing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference Formation,"
American Political Science Review 81 (1987): 3-21. See also Vinod Aggarwal, "A General
Theory of Preference Formation" (manuscript); also published, in a different version, as
"Obiettivi, Preferenzie, e Giochi: Verso una Teoria della Contrattazione Internazionale," in
Paolo Guerrieri and Pier Carlo Padoan, eds., Politiche Economiche Nazionale e Regimi
Internazionali (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1990); Vinod Aggarwal and Pierre Allan, "Modeling
Game Change: The Berlin Deadline, Berlin Wall, and Cuban Missile Crises" (paper prepared
for delivery at the 1990 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San
Francisco, August 29-September 2, 1990); and Michael D. Cohen and Robert Axelrod, "Coping
with Complexity: The Adaptive Value of Changing Utility," American Economic Review 74
(1984): 30-42. But there is no obvious rational explanation for these beliefs (or for the
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character of actors themselves). Offering such an account, in fact, would take rational choice
theorists well into the domain of "substantive" rationality (Weber's Wertrationalitat)-a move
that they have, so far, wisely resisted. Back.
Note 19: Material structures, of course, are interpreted by actors and thus "shade into" social
structures. Moreover, social structures themselves may range from the formal and legalistic to
the informal and "customary." Even within virtually identical formal structures, behavior may
vary widely depending on informal beliefs and practice. While formal laws prohibit jaywalking
in many places, for example, the practice of jaywalking varies according to cultural practice-it
is widespread in some areas and rare in others. Back.
Note 20: Other systemic theories, based on different material notions of structure, also
accord only a minor role to norms and social structures. Wallerstein's modern world system
approach, for example, explains international relations as a product of the material nature of
the global capitalist system that leads to a hierarchy of power (i.e., core, semiperiphery,
periphery) with accompanying institutions (e.g., strong and weak states). Hegemonic stability
theory likewise bases systemic structure on relative power. See Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and
the Multinational Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1975); R. Gilpin, War and Change in
the International System; and R. Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). And other cyclic theories trace structure to the
long-term fluctuations of the international economy; see Joshua Goldstein, Long Cycles:
Prosperity and War in the Modern Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988). Back.
Note 21: Another variant of this argument is the "security dilemma," which posits an
international structure of insecurity independent of actors' understandings (and relying,
instead, on such putatively "objective" factors as the offense-defense balance). But this balance
and the dilemma itself are affected by collective beliefs that vary independently of power, as in
the cases of the U.S.-British condominium before World War I and the U.S.-European alliance
after World War II against the Soviet Union. See Stephen R. Rock, Why Peace Breaks Out
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989); and Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of
Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987). Back.
Note 22: For example, see Waltz on socialization and emulation and Posen's account of the
sources of nationalism: Kenneth N. Waltz, "The Emerging Structure of International Politics,"
International Security 18 (1994): 44-79; Barry Posen, "Nationalism, the Mass Army, and
Military Power," International Security 18 (1993): 80-124. Back.
Note 23: See Robert Jervis, "Security Regimes," in Krasner, International Regimes, pp.
173-94; R. Jervis, "From Balance to Concert: A Study of International Security Cooperation,"
World Politics 38 (1985): 58-79; and Charles Lipson, "International Cooperation in Economic
and Security Affairs," World Politics 37 (1984): 1-23. Back.
Note 24: Peter Gourevitch, Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International
Economic Crises (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., Between
Power and Plenty: Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1978); and Stephen D. Krasner, Defending the National Interest
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). See also Matthew Evangelista, Innovation and
the Arms Race: How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military
Technologies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988). Back.
Note 25: Barry Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1984); Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).
Back.
Note 26: An exception is Katzenstein's two-volume study of the "corporatist compromise" in

the small European states. These states' common ideology of democratic corporatism,
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resulting from their peculiar vulnerabilities, nevertheless allows for considerable variation,
ranging from Swiss, Belgian, and Dutch liberal corporatism to Austrian and Scandinavian
brands of social corporatism. Peter J. Katzenstein, Corporatism and Change: Austria,
Switzerland, and the Politics of Industry (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984); and
Katzenstein, Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe (Ithaca: Cornell
Note 27: Jacob Viner, "Power Versus Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy in the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," World Politics 1 (1948): 1-29. Back.
Note 28: Stephen Van Evera, "The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World
War," International Security 9 (1984): 58-107; and Snyder, The Ideology of . Back.
Note 29: Kier and Berger (and Johnston) generally use the term culture rather than
discussing specific social norms or prescriptions (see the first essay for further discussion of
culture and its relationship to norms and identity). But in each of these essays, there is obvious
concern for the effects of norms. The military's culture prescribes how the military ought to be
constituted as a professional organization and how its members ought to behave. Kier also
shows that these norms were subject to vehement dispute. The culture of the French Left, for
example, included very different prescriptions for the role and identity (presumably
bourgeois) of the military. Thus, while culture does not always involve prescription, the
arguments in these essays do clearly involve cultural norms. Back.
Note 30: See, for example, Robert Axelrod's discussion of "metanorms" in "An Evolutionary
Approach to Norms," American Political Science Review 80 (1986): 1095-111. Back.
Note 31: Risse-Kappen notes, of course, that these efforts to strengthen the ties binding nato
members were not accepted unanimously. The French-American relationship, in particular,
deteriorated from this point onward. But, by the time of the Bermuda summit in March 1957,
the British and the Americans had already begun to restore their "special relationship."
For an interesting related discussion of possible conflicts between norms of democracy and
deterrence within nato, see Josef Joffe, "Democracy and Deterrence: What Have They Done to
Each Other?" in Linda Miller and Michael J. Smith, eds., Ideas and Ideals: Essays on Politics
in Honor of Stanley Hoffmann, pp. 108-26 (Boulder: Westview, 1993). Back.
Note 32: Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1980). Back.
Note 33: Edgerton, Rules, Exceptions, and Social Order, p. 28. Back.
Note 34: In each of these cases, it is not merely identity (as a Balinese, a Japanese, or an
Eskimo) that is in conflict with a particular external threat. Rather, identity is in conflict with
culturally accepted practice for meeting those threats. One cannot simultaneously remain a
good Balinese and allow foreign domination. It is not the fact of Dutch rule that is at issue: it is
the acceptance of this rule that is incompatible with the Balinese elite's identity. The conflict,
in each of these cases, is directly between behavioral rules and actor identity. The suggestion
of change in the former implies the negation of the latter. Back.
Note 35: See Gilpin, War and Change in the International System; Waltz, Theory of
International Politics. Back.
Note 36: John G. Ruggie, "International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded
Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order," in Krasner, International Regimes, pp. 195-231.
Back.
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Note 37: We substitute the term norm building for norm creation because norms are rarely
(if ever) created de novo. Instead, they rely on preexisting cultural knowledge and institutions.
Nevertheless, the importance of particular behavioral regulations and identities does rise and
fall over time. In some cases, this process may occur so rapidly that a new norm appears to be
"created," as in the case of prohibitions against the use of nuclear weapons. Undeniably, this
norm drew on prohibitions against the use of other "unconventional" weapons. But since not
all highly destructive weapons are taboo, it is not unreasonable to ask how this particular
norm, pertaining to this weapon, came into being. Although we avoid the term for the sake of
clarity, we therefore do not believe it is meaningless to ask how norms are "created." Back.
Note 38: See Harry Eckstein, "A Culturalist Theory of Political Change," American Political
Science Review 82 (1988): 789-804. Back.
Note 39: Sherif projected a dot of light on a wall in an otherwise darkened room. The
autokinetic effect makes the dot appear to move, and Sherif investigated the extent to which a
confederate could influence judgments about this movement. But even in this scenario, there
is nothing inherently ambiguous about the situation that Sherif created. It was ambiguous only
given the autokinetic effect and the visual acuity of the human subjects that Sherif used in his
experiment. See Muzafer Sherif, The Psychology of Social Norms (New York: Harper, 1939).
Back.
Note 40: See Herman, essay 8 in this volume, p. 287. Herman also notes that while virtually
all New Thinkers he interviewed invoked the idea of a "normal country" to describe their
hopes for their nation's future, "not all of them meant precisely the same thing" (Herman,
essay 8 in this volume, p. 294). Here again ambiguity serves a useful role. Back.
Note 41: Finnemore also notes that the passage of time permits greater institutionalization in
formal international organizations such as the United Nations; see Finnemore, essay 5, p. 160.
Back.
Note 42: Berger's finding that support for new political-military cultures in Germany and
Japan increased slowly over time also fits well with the iteration hypothesis. See Price and
Tannenwald, essay 4, and Berger, essay 9. Back.
Note 43: Nor is it sufficient to explain away the decline of the "aerial bombardment of
undefended areas" prohibition simply by pointing out that its frequent violation undermined
the norm. Chemical weapons, after all, were widely used in World War I; yet the taboo against
chemical weapons is now strong, while aerial bombardment has become permissible.
Some might even argue that this norm, while often violated, remains in effect. To be sure,
attacking undefended noncombatants would appear to violate current norms of warfare. But it
seems difficult to argue that attacking undefended cities or buildings is a similar violation in
light of the role that so many civilian technologies (telecommunications, power generation,
etc.) can play in modern war-fare. The aerial bombardment of Iraq during the Persian Gulf
war-and particularly the American emphasis on precision-guided munitions targeted at
specific buildings-illustrates this distinction. Back.
Note 44: Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation,
and Social Rigidities (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982). See also Stephen Krasner,
"State Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade," World Politics 28 (1976): 317-47. On the
twin shocks of World War I and the Depression, see Jeff Frieden, "Sectoral Conflict and U.S.
Foreign Economic Policy, 1914-1940," in G. John Ikenberry, David Lake, and Michael
Mastanduno, eds., The State and American Foreign Economic Policy, pp. 59-90 (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1988). And on the oil shocks of the 1970s, see G. John Ikenberry,
"Market Solutions for State Problems: The International and Domestic Politics of American
Oil Decontrol," in Ikenberry, Lake, and Mastanduno, The State and American Foreign
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Economic Policy, pp. 151-77. Back.
Note 45: For an account of norm creation as a problem of strategic interaction, see Arthur
Stein, "Normative Equilibrium and International Politics" (paper presented at the conference
"Norms and Emulation in International and Domestic Behavior," Palm Springs, Calif., January
13-16, 1994). Back.
Note 46: This notion has been developed in some detail by sociologists and by political
scientists who focus on "epistemic communities." See Mary Fennell and Richard Warnecke,
The Diffusion of Medical Innovations: An Applied Network Analysis (New York: Plenum
Press, 1988); Claude Fischer and Glenn Carroll, "Telephone and Automobile Diffusion in the
United States, 1902-1937," American Journal of Sociology 93 (1988): 1153-78; Peter Hall, The
Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism Across Nations (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1989); and "Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination,"
International Organization 46 (special issue, 1992): Back.
Note 47: Herman, essay 8 in this volume, p. 310. Back.
Note 48: For a belief (or norm) to be shared does not necessarily mean that it is
institutionalized or, in some other way, a property of a collective. On this point, see also
Ronald L. Jepperson and Ann Swidler, "What Properties of Culture Should We Measure?"
Poetics 22 (1993/94). Saying that a certain percentage of Americans have patriotic beliefs is
different, for example, from saying that Americans as such are patriotic. Only the latter is a
statement of a collective norm. But despite this discussion, it often seems difficult to
distinguish between the two in practice. Is New Thinking the shared representation of a new
foreign policy agenda among Soviet elites or is it a property of some collective, ultimately
institutionalized in perestroika? Perhaps it is both. But, if so, it is not clear what evidence of its
presence would help us to distinguish between its shared existence and its collective existence.
Back.
Note 49: Stephen Walker, ed., Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1987); and S. Walker, "Symbolic Interactionism and International Politics:
Role Theory's Contribution to International Organization," in Martha Cottam and Chih-yu
Shih, eds., Contending Dramas: A Cognitive Approach to International Organization, pp.
19-38 (New York: Praeger, 1992). Back.
Note 50: Kal J. Holsti, "National Role Conceptions in the Study of Foreign Policy,"
International Studies Quarterly 14 (1970): 233-309. Back.
Note 51: See Richard K. Herrmann, Perceptions and Behavior in Soviet Foreign Policy
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985); R. K. Herrmann, "The Power of
Perceptions in Foreign-Policy Decision Making: Do Views of the Soviet Union Determine the
Policy Choices of American Leaders?" American Journal of Political Science 30 (1986):
841-75; and Richard K. Herrmann and Michael P. Fischerkeller, "A Cognitive Strategic
Approach to International Relations: Theory and Practice in the Persian Gulf" (manuscript,
1994).
Herrmann argues that states, in the course of their interaction, make judgments about their
relative capabilities (superior, comparable, or inferior), cultures (superior, comparable, or
inferior), and interactions (threat, opportunity, or mutual interest). Different combinations of
these judgments yield twenty-seven categories. A smaller number are likely to dominate,
however, because some combinations make little sense. It seems unlikely, for example, that an
"enemy" should simultaneously be viewed as posing a "high" threat and yet having "low"
capabilities. One of the components of such a role image will, over time, be revised. Some will
object to Herrmann's and other similar approaches to identity on the grounds that they
overlook "intrinsic" components of identity, focusing instead only on relational aspects of
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identity definition. Whether identity is more an intrinsic property of actors or a function of

their social interaction and environment is impossible to say. At the extreme, however, the
contention that identity is fully and solely intrinsic precludes any investigation of its
sources-they would consequently be held unknowable, as in rationalist theory, discussed
above. This contention would have the effect, therefore, of foreclosing the very kind of inquiry
that this volume (and this essay, in particular) undertakes. Back.
Note 52: Martin W. Sampson and Stephen W. Walker, "Cultural Norms and National Roles:
A Comparison of Japan and France," in Walker, Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis, pp.
105-22. Back.
Note 53: Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy. Back.
Note 54: Eyre and Suchman, Finnemore, and Risse-Kappen also distance their arguments
from rational choice approaches. Back.
Note 55: Douglas W. Blum, "The Soviet Foreign Policy Belief System: Beliefs, Politics, and
Foreign Policy Outcomes," International Studies Quarterly 37 (1993): 373-94. Back.
Note 56: See Johnston, essay 7 in this volume; also see Katzenstein's discussion in essay 13 of
efforts by both rational choice and cognitive theorists to provide a microfoundation for the
analysis of collective norms. Back.
Note 57: On in-group and out-group identities, see Richard Cottam, Foreign Policy
Motivation: A General Theory and a Case Study (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1977); Paul A. Kowert, "The Cognitive Origins of International Norms: Identity Norms and the
1956 Suez Crisis" (paper presented at the 35th annual meeting of the International Studies
Association, Washington, D.C., March 28-April 1, 1994); Penelope Oakes and John C. Turner,
"Distinctiveness and the Salience of Social Category Memberships: Is There an Automatic
Perceptual Bias Towards Novelty?" European Journal of Social Psychology 16 (1986):
325-44; Henri Tajfel, ed., Differentiation Between Social Groups: Studies in the Social
Psychology of Intergroup Relations (London: Academic Press, 1978); H. Tajfel, Human
Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981); and H. Tajfel et al., "Social Categorization and Intergroup Behavior,"
European Journal of Social Psychology 1 (1971): 149-78. Back.
Note 58: Marilyn Brewer, "The Social Self: On Being the Same and Different at the Same
Time," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 17 (1991): 475-82; and M. Brewer, "The
Role of Distinctiveness in Social Identity and Group Behavior," in Michael Hogg and Dominic
Abrams, eds., Group Motivation: Social Psychological Perspectives (London: Harvester
Wheatsheaf, 1993). Back.
Note 59: John C. Turner, "Towards a Cognitive Redefinition of the Social Group," in Henri
Tajfel, ed., Social Identity and Intergroup Relations, p. 16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1982). For a comparative analysis of several other cognitive theories of group
identification, see Richard R. Lau, "Individual and Contextual Influences on Group
Identification," Social Psychology Quarterly 52 (1989): 220-31. Back.
Note 60: This discussion of internal psychological processes has, for reasons of brevity,
focused only on the microfoundation of identity. But cognitive and motivational psychologists
have also undertaken numerous research projects investigating the construction of behavioral
norms. See, among others, Jerry Burger, "Desire for Control and Conformity to a Perceived
Norm," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53 (1987): 355-60; Martha Cottam,
"Problem Representation After the Cold War" (paper presented at the 35th annual meeting of
the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., March 28-April 1, 1994); Daniel
Kahneman and Dale Miller, "Norm Theory: Comparing Reality to Its Alternatives,"
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Psychological Review 93 (1986): 136-53; Brian Ripley and Dwain Mefford, "The Cognitive
Foundations of Regime Theory" (paper prepared for delivery at the 1987 annual meeting of
the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1987); Donald Sylvan and Stuart Thorson,
"Ontologies, Problem Representation, and the Cuban Missile Crisis," Journal of Conflict
Resolution 36 (1992): 709-32; and Stephen Walker, "The Motivational Foundations of Political
Belief Systems: A Re-Analysis of the Operational Code Construct," International Studies
Quarterly 27 (1983): 179-202. Jonathan Mercer has also employed Turner's
self-categorization theory to argue that both the identities and the behavioral repertoires of
nation-states are likely to be constructed in ways that mirror common realist assumptions; see
J. Mercer, "Anarchy and Identity," International Organization 49 (1995): 229-52. Back.
Note 61: Our claim here is more modest than it may seem. We do not contend that language
can be reduced entirely to the behavior of individuals or that individuals are even "primary." It
may largely rely, instead, on collective representations that exist completely apart from the
thoughts or actions of any particular person. But the act of speech itself does begin with the
human (biological and psychological) capacity for speech. In the following discussion, we
briefly consider several regularities in the processes of speech that may serve to generate
norms. Back.
Note 62: Livia Polanyi et al., "Retelling Cold War Stories: Uncovering Cultural Meanings
with Linguistic Discourse Analysis" (working paper, "Security Discourse in the Cold War Era,"
Center for Studies of Social Change, New School for Social Research, New York, 1993), p. 8.
Back.
Note 63: For related work, see Hayward Alker, "Fairy Tales, Tragedies, and World Histories:
Towards Interpretive Story Grammars as Possibilist World Models," Behaviormetrika 21
(1987): 1-28; H. Alker et al., "Text Modeling for International Politics: A Tourist's Guide to
relatus," in Valerie M. Hudson, ed., Artificial Intelligence and International Politics (Boulder:
Westview, 1991), pp. 97-126; and Sergio Alvarado, Understanding Editorial Text: A Computer
Model of Argument Comprehension (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990). Back.
Note 64: Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions; and Onuf, World of Our Making. Back.
Note 65: On the semantic dimensions of language, see Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and
Decisions. Also see Onuf, World of Our Making, pp. 66-95. Neither Kratochwil nor Onuf
would classify his own work under the rubric of "individual-level processes." To do so would
be akin to suggesting that a language can be private (a claim that Onuf specifically rejects; see
Onuf, World of Our Making, pp. 47-49, esp. n. 12, and pp. 78-81). But our claim here is not
that language or the social rules it engenders are reducible to individual behavior. Rather, they
stem from a process of communication that, like processes of thinking, feeling, and (rationally)
choosing, begins its operation at an individual level. For a related effort to bridge the gap
between psychology and discourse, focusing on the concept of voice-which once again grows
out of individual speech acts but which also acquires collective, cultural content-see the
discussion of identity politics in Edward Sampson, "Identity Politics: Challenges to
Psychology's Understanding," American Psychologist 48 (1993): 1219-30. Back.
Note 66: Hayward Alker, Roger Hurwitz, and Karen Rothkin, "Fairy Tales Can Come True:
Narrative Constructions of Prisoner's Dilemma Game Play" (paper presented at the annual
meeting of the American Economic Association, Anaheim, Calif., January 5, 1993). Back.
Note 67: See Platteau, "Behind the Market Stage Where Real Societies Exist-Part I";
Platteau, "Behind the Market Stage Where Real Societies Exist-Part II"; Sugden, The
Economics of Rights, Co-operation, and Welfare; and Ullmann-Margalit, The Emergence of
Norms. Back.
Note 68: Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World
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Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); and Krasner, International
Regimes. Back.
Note 69: Price and Tannenwald (essay 4 in this volume) give an example of the role of
agency in creating a norm that turned out not to be very functional from the point of view of
the agent. They observe that the efforts of the chemical industry to play up developments in
chemical warfare in order to secure tariff protection facilitated the creation of a chemical
weapons taboo-something that the industry evidently had not expected and that ultimately ran
counter to its business interests. Back.
Note 70: Deborah Avant, "The New Institutional Economics and the Origin of Norms of
Warfare" (paper presented at the 35th annual meeting of the International Studies
Association, Washington, D.C., March 28-April 1, 1994); Keohane, After Hegemony; North,
Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance; and Katja Weber, "Hierarchy
Amidst Anarchy: Transaction Costs and International Cooperation" (Ph.D. diss., University of
California, Los Angeles, 1992). Back.
Note 71: Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values. Back.
Note 72: Elster, The Cement of Society. Back.
Note 73: Alexander Field, "Microeconomics, Norms, and Rationality," Economic

Development and Cultural Change 32 (1984): 683-711. Back.
Note 74: For a recent, general critique of the rationalist research program, see Donald P.
Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1994). Back.
Note 75: Keohane, International Institutions and State Power, pp. 4-5; Kratochwil, Rules,
Norms, and Decisions, p. 62. Back.
Note 76: This problem has also plagued the neoliberal institutionalist research program. It
has been difficult to assess regime strength without referring to criteria that are conceptually
related to regime effects. Discussions of different criteria for assessing institutionalization
include: Keohane, International Institutions and State Power, pp. 4-5; Joseph Nye, "Nuclear
Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes," International Organization 41 (1987): 375; and
Roger Smith, "Institutionalization as a Measure of Regime Stability: Insights for International
Regime Analysis from the Study of Domestic Politics," Millennium: Journal of International
Studies 18 (1989): 234-36. For a related discussion in comparative politics, see Samuel
Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968).
Back.
Note 77: Snidal, "The Game Theory of International Politics." Back.
Note 78: See Blake and Davis, "Norms, Values, and Sanctions"; Edgerton, Rules, Exceptions,
and Social Order; and Friedrich Kratochwil and John G. Ruggie, "International Organization:
A State of the Art on an Art of the State," International Organization 40, no. 4 (Autumn
1986): 753-76. Back.
Note 79: See, for example, James Mayall, Nationalism and International Society
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); James Lee Ray, "The Abolition of Slavery
and the End of International War," International Organization 43 (1989): 405-39; Janice E.
Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1994). Back.
Note 80: In the case of prohibitions during World War II, see Jeffrey W. Legro, Cooperation
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Under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint During World War II (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1995). Back.
Note 81: A related bias in the study of norms is the "good norms" problem. Analysts tend to
focus on those issues that are normatively desirable-e.g., the spread of democracy, the rise of
human rights, the integration of world society, and prohibitions against the use of force. Yet
undesirable norms are equally possible. Examples include norms of military autonomy and the
use of force, economic domination, the acceptability of intrastate violence (e.g., civil war), and
the disintegrative tendencies that exist in international politics (e.g., nationalism, religious
exclusivity). These issues too deserve attention from the emerging sociological approach. By
focusing on security affairs, this volume takes a step toward exploring a fuller range of
normative consequences. But "bad" or threatening norms remain understudied. Back.
Note 82: Diana Richards, "Interests and Identities in International Relations Theory" (paper
presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April
6-8, 1995).
The analogous problem for rationalist (economic individualist) international relations theory
is the prospect of an "embarrassment of interests" in which any behavior can be explained by
reference to some interest (often inferred ex post facto from the behavior). Back.
Note 83: For a lucid discussion of these problems, see Stephen Welch, The Concept of
Political Culture (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993). Back.
Note 84: Finnemore might reasonably object that she never claims to make a deterministic
argument about whether, when, or which norms will prevail. On the contrary, she specifically
disavows such an intention because of the multiplicity of relevant norms and because of
exogenous influences on state interests and behavior. Our point, therefore, is the same as
Finnemore's-that multiple and conflicting international norms limit the prospects for
predictive generalization. Back.
Note 85: A constructivist might offer a much different solution to this problem. The meaning
and force of rules, from a constructivist perspective, rely on the possibility of their violation.
Affirming a norm thus requires its potential negation-otherwise the norm ceases to have
meaning. In a more general sense, all norms must therefore explain their violation as well as
their affirmation. David Campbell argues, in this vein, that the modern discourse of
international security and foreign policy depends on (and therefore must define and create)
insecurity and foreignness; see David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign
Policy and the Politics of Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992). From
this perspective, the causal questions that concern the authors of this volume simply become
irrelevant when understood in a larger interpretive context. Back.
Note 86: Eyre and Suchman note, citing Anthony Giddens, that the current world system can
actually be decomposed into several systems: an information system, a nation-state system, a
capitalist economy, and so on. They warn that we should not exaggerate the extent to which
these systems are integrated. See Eyre and Suchman, essay 3 in this volume; and A. Giddens,
The Nation-State and Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). Back.
Note 87: Swidler labels a less functionalist alternative to the traditional realist framework
"sociological realism." See Ann Swidler, "The Ideal Society," American Behavioral Scientist 34
(1991): 563-80. Back.
Note 88: Eckstein, "A Culturalist Theory of Political Change." Back.
Note 89: Ann Swidler, "Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies," American Sociological
Review 51 (1986): 280. Back.
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Note 90: Eckstein, "A Culturalist Theory of Political Change." Back.
Note 91: John G. Ruggie, "Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a
Neorealist Synthesis," World Politics 35, no. 2 (January 1983): 261-85; J. Ruggie,
"Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations,"
International Organization 47 (1993): 845-65; Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States
Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics," International Organization 46, no. 2
(Spring 1992), pp. 391-425; and Alexander Wendt, "Collective Identity Formation and the
International State," American Political Science Review 88, no. 2 (June 1994): 384-96. Back.
Note 92: As a possible first step toward such generalization, some theorists emphasize the
way that small historical events can have enormous and persistent implications. Thus, an
appreciation of historical contingency does not require that anything could happen. See, for
example, the discussion of path dependence and punctuated equilibrium in Brian Arthur,
"Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-in by Historical Events," Economic
Journal 99 (1989): 116-31. Also see Stephen Krasner, "Sovereignty: An Institutional
Perspective," in James Caporaso, ed., The Elusive State: International and Comparative
Perspectives (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1989). Back.
Note 93: George Tsebelis, Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). Back.
Note 94: A determined constructivist might argue that, even in the case of nuclear weapons,
technology was not initially decisive. Indeed, postwar U.S. presidents have often worried that
nuclear weapons will not be sufficient to deter the threat of the day. We should also point out
that Kier's argument applies equally to nuclear weapons-the technology does not clearly favor
a particular military doctrine apart from the various (different) ways it is socially interpreted.
Back.
Note 95: To take one example of such a synthesis, Keegan offers an intriguing historical
account of the interaction between cultures of warfare and technology; see John Keegan, A
History of Warfare (New York: Knopf, 1993). Back.
Note 96: But he also cautioned against assuming that moral limitations play no role in
international politics; see Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Knopf,
1973), pp. 230-31. Back.
Note 97: A nice statement of this point is Foucault's claim that "the successes of history
belong to those who are capable of seizing these rules, to replace those who had used them, to
disguise themselves so as to pervert them, invert their meaning, and redirect them against
those who had initially imposed them." See Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,"
in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, pp. 85-86 (New York: Pantheon, 1984); also see
Richard Price, "A Genealogy of the Chemical Weapons Taboo," International Organization 49
(1995): 73-103. Back.
Note 98: Legro, Cooperation Under Fire. Back.
Note 99: Herman would also argue that the Soviet reformers took political risks for which
they occasionally paid a price (personal communication with the authors). We do not mean to
suggest, therefore, that the norms they promoted can easily be construed as completely
self-serving. Especially during the early years of the Reagan administration, the reformers left
themselves open to harsh criticism from Soviet conservatives. Back.
Note 100: See, however, Finnemore's distinction between identity and identification. Back.
Note 101: On such "external" representations, see Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self
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in Everyday Life (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959); and A. Paul Hare and Herbert
Blumberg, Dramaturgical Analysis of Social Interaction (New York: Praeger, 1988). Back.
Note 102: In fact, these manipulations may come to matter even to the manipulators; see
Kevin McKillop, Michael Berzonsky, and Barry Schlenker, "The Impact of Self-Presentations
on Self-Beliefs: Effects of Social Identity and Self-Presentational Context," Journal of
Personality 60 (1992): 789-808; and Barry Schlenker and J. T. Trudeau, "The Impact of
Self-Presentations on Private Self-Beliefs: Effects of Prior Self-Beliefs and Misattribution,"
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990): 22-32. For similar dynamics in
"myths" and strategic culture, see Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1991); and Charles A. Kupchan, The Vulnerability of Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1994). Back.
Note 103: Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of
Structuration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); and A. Giddens,
Note 99:New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative

Sociologies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 104: Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1962). See also Hayward Alker, "The Return of
Practical Reason" (unpublished review article, 1993); and Martin Hollis, The
Cunning of Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Back.
Note 105: What counts as a "better" historical argument is too philosophical a

question to examine here in any detail. Simply put, however, "good" arguments
are a matter of interpretation within the culture of social scientists. This certainly
does not mean that all claims to historical "truth" are equally valid; social science
offers many criteria for evaluating the performance of theories. These criteria are
the social norms that make the professional study of international relations
possible. Back.
Note 106: Nor would a realist argue that states will enter into alliance
relationships for reasons of cultural affinity or normative symbolism. Barnett and
Risse-Kappen both contrast their approaches, therefore, to realist theories of
alliance formation such as that proposed by Walt. See Walt, The Origins of . For
their careful readings and critical comments of previous drafts, I would like to
University in 1994; and Emanuel Adler, Tom Christensen, Lynn Eden, Gunther
Hellmann, Ron Jepperson, Mary F. Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, Jonathan
Kirshner, Audie Klotz, Atul Kohli, Henry Nau, Jack Snyder, Janice Thomson,
Stephen Walt, Alexander Wendt, and two anonymous readers for Columbia
University Press. Back.
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The Culture of National Security https://www.ciaonet.org/book/katzenstein/conclusion.html
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editor
13. Conclusion: National Security in a Changing World
The approach of "rational behavior," as it is typically interpreted, leads to a

remarkably mute theory....The purely economic man is indeed close to being
a social moron. Economic theory has been much preoccupied with this
rational fool decked in the glory of his one all-purpose preference ordering.
To make room for the different concepts related to his behavior we need a
more elaborate structure.
In the late phases of the Cold War American discussions about a newly emerging international
order concentrated on changes in America's global position. Paul Kennedy's historical analysis
of the rise and fall of great powers argued that, for reasons of material resources, like all other
great powers America was destined to lose its position of international preeminence. 1 At
best, the United States could affect the process of secular decline. Francis Fukuyama's essay
and subsequent book "The End of History" 2 analyzed a broader range of factors and
concluded, to the contrary, that America had prevailed in the great ideological conflicts of the
twentieth century. Focusing on material resources and ideology, these two analyses reached
dramatically different conclusions.
In a similar vein, the disintegration of the Soviet Union is yielding a proliferation of different
interpretations. Some insist on the primacy of strong states, the continuity of the balance of
power, and the inescapability of war. 3 Others see a pandemonium of ethnic wars and wars of
rage caused by the excessive weakness, not strength, of contemporary states. 4 Still others
argue that states will continue to be central actors, together with large corporations, regional
security communities, and world civilizations. 5 Our interpretations shape the views we hold
of the international position of the United States and change in the world at large.
Adherents and critics of the two leading paradigms of international relations, realism and
liberalism, did not succeed in explaining adequately, let alone predicting, the peaceful end of
the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union. It is, therefore, a good time to reconsider
the conventional analytical assumptions that informed national security studies during the
Cold War. Are there alternative ways of conceptualizing international relations and security
affairs that are both systematic and comprehensive?
Our understanding of the international security environment inevitably privileges some

factors at the expense of others. This book is no exception. It emphasizes culture and identity
as important determinants of national security policy. Without a particular political problem
or a well-specified research question, it makes little sense to privilege cultural context over
material forces or problematic, constructed state identities over unproblematic, given ones. By
the same logic, it makes little sense to make the opposite mistake, focusing exclusively on
material resources or assuming that state identities can be taken for granted.
This essay argues that in American scholarship realism and liberalism have converged greatly
in recent decades. Next, it summarizes the book's approach, hypotheses, and findings and then
considers briefly two issues, sovereignty and regionalism. Third, it argues that the concept and
1 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
the approach to national security should be broadened. Finally, it presents the current
confusions about the purposes motivating American foreign policy as being rooted not in the
transitory phenomena of daily politics but in the confusion about American identity.
Realism and Liberalism

Traditional disagreements between realism and liberalism are deep. The skepticism of realists
is rooted in their analysis of bloody and often evil conflicts in world politics. By contrast, the
optimism of liberals derives from the existence of embryonic communities of humankind. 6
Since World War II international relations scholars have drawn a sharp distinction between a
realist stance that took note of the shattering political experiences of the 1930s and 1940s and
an idealist or legalist stance that did not. Hans Morgenthau, John Herz, and Henry Kissinger,
among others, brought from Europe to the United States the doctrine of realpolitik, which
Kenneth Waltz, Robert Gilpin, and other scholars reformulated as social science theory. 7
Despite important substantive differences, the gap between realist and liberal perspectives has
narrowed. In the 1950s and 1960s realists focused on the Cold War. Economic theories and
strong assumptions about the rationality of decision makers informed their analysis of nuclear
deterrence. As systematic explanatory factors, culture and identity did not exist. Liberals
focused on the astonishing transformation that the process of European integration had
brought to a part of the world that in the twen tieth century had spawned two global wars. 8
Many liberals were deeply skeptical of the relevance of models of rationality to questions of
nuclear strategy. 9 Many realists remained unpersuaded that in the process of integration
states would cede sovereignty on vital issues of "high politics." 10
With the growing importance of economic issues in world politics, the gap between realism
and liberalism narrowed during the 1970s. At the beginning of that decade interdependence
theory had a decidedly liberal cast. It highlighted new sets of transnational relations not
captured by traditional state-centric models of international politics. 11 But the oil shock of
1973, the move to flexible exchange rates, and subsequent creeping trade protectionism helped
to clarify the political dynamics of two kinds of interdependence, sensitivity and vulnerability,
that affect societies and states differently. By the end of the 1970s interdependence theory had
been reformulated as a set of descriptive models that approximated, more or less closely, two
ideal types: traditional state-centric international politics as analyzed by realism, on the one
hand, and a novel form of complex interdependence amenable to liberal analysis, on the other.
12
The elaboration of regime theory in the 1980s has been the latest step in the substantial
convergence of realist and liberal theories of international politics. "Modified structural
realists" and "neoliberal institutionalists" have done a large amount of theoretically informed,
empirical research. This has broadened the middle ground between "hard" neorealist scholars,
who deny the political effects of regimes altogether, and "soft" Grotian scholars, who see in
regimes more than mere mechanisms that facilitate the coordination of conflicting policies.
This middle ground bridges a chasm that for decades had separated the fields of international
relations and international law.
Furthermore, economic models of politics and choice theoretic perspectives have deeply
affected the centrist versions of realist and liberal the ories, thus reinforcing a convergence in
perspective. Realists and liberals alike contributed to the discussion of hegemonic stability that
an economist, Charles Kindleberger, had started. 13 Microeconomics was very important to
the specification of neorealism. And institutional economics has become central to
neoliberalism. Preferences are assumed to be fixed. Explicitly accepting the rationality
premise, Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane, for example, write that "actions taken by
human beings depend on the substantive quality of available ideas, since such ideas help to
clarify principles and conceptions of causal relationships, and to coordinate individual
behavior. Once institutionalized, furthermore, ideas continue to guide action in the absence of
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costly innovation." 14 Bypassing the social effects (identity and culture) that this book
underlines, their analysis views ideas as mechanisms by which actors with given identities seek
to achieve their preexisting goals.
This is not to argue that the process of convergence has eliminated all important differences
between realism and liberalism. These two perspectives continue to disagree strongly, most
notably on the effect that institutions can have in moderating or transforming international
conflicts, and on the dynamics of redistributive conflicts. 15 But the stark difference that
separated realism and liberalism in the 1950s and 1960s has become more muted. The end of
the Cold War and the relatively peaceful disintegration of the Soviet Union have not disrupted
this substantial convergence between current formulations of realist and liberal perspectives.
Neorealism carries on in focusing largely on the balance of material forces in the international
state system; neoliberalism continues to study the potentially moderating effects of
international institutions on conflicts between states. 16 In a clarifying exchange over the
relative merits of neorealism and neoliberalism, Keohane invokes the collective identity of all
scholars of international affairs interested in better theory. Students of realism and liberalism
should break down artificial barriers between academic doctrines. 17 For Keohane the
possibility exists that "perhaps in the next few years, analysts who are willing to synthesize
elements of realism, liberalism, and arguments about domestic politics will be able to better
explain variations" in different aspects of world politics. 18
Cataclysmic international change has affected the political sensibilities and intellectual
intuitions of some realists and liberals. Henry Nau and Joseph Nye, for example, have
articulated nuanced realist and liberal positions that seek to integrate culture and identity into
their analyses. 19 Nau is a realist with moderately conservative views. In light of the specific
conditions of the inflation-ridden years of the early 1980s and in the interest of stable
economic growth as an essential prerequisite for a peaceful international order, Nau favors a
unilateral American approach to international problems. Nye is a liberal with moderate views.
Seeking to strengthen the role of international institutions that embody many of America's
values and interests, he favors multilateral diplomacy.
In making their theoretical moves, Nau and Nye follow some traditional realists and liberals
who paid attention to culture and identity. Carl Schmitt, for example, was an uncompromising
realist who insisted that identity, the distinction between friend and foe, was a central,
defining element of the state. 20 Indeed, Christoph Frei argues that Schmitt may well have
borrowed the distinction between friend and foe from Hans Morgenthau's dissertation. 21
Morgenthau's discussion of power acknowledges that international politics operates within a
framework of rules and through the instrumentality of institutions. "The kinds of interests
deter mining political action in a particular period of history depend upon the political and
cultural context within which foreign policy is formulated." 22 And ever since Kant, different
strands of liberal thought have attached much greater importance to norms and identities than
does neoliberal institutionalism.
For Nau and Nye, American foreign policy is determined fully neither by the distribution of
material capabilities in the international system nor by the rules of international organizations.
What also matters for Nau, for example, is the influence of the ideas that shape the purposes
and policies of governments, specifically those of the United States. A cocoon of consensus-
building shapes social values. As these purposes have converged among many of the major
states since 1945, American interests have been well served. Similarly, Nye stresses the
importance of institutions and culture for a transformation of power. He argues that the
importance of "hard" power is declining while the importance of "soft" power is rising. 23
Hard power relies on tangible resources and military or economic threats or inducements to
affect the behavior of others directly. Soft power relies on intangible resources that include
culture, ideology, and institutions that shape the preferences and thus co-opt behavior. 24
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Nau struggles with the problem of how to specify the influence of national ideas on the
international convergence of purpose, especially in light of some of the glaring social
pathologies that have marked American society during the last four decades. Nye has difficulty
articulating clearly the relational implications of his concept of "soft power" and
demonstrating empirically how it, and America's stipulated cultural, ideological, and
institutional preeminence, is affecting different features of international politics. But both Nau
and Nye point the way for future reformulations of realist and liberal perspectives by seeking
to incorporate into their analysis social factors that are central to this book. Put differently,
they are utterly persuasive by pointing to the need for both realism and liberalism to embed
their analyses in a broader sociological perspective.
The effect of culture and identity varies across time and space. "Idealism" is not a political
doctrine, as was thought in the 1950s, but a type of social science theory. 25 Indeed, Ronen
Palan and Brook Blair have argued that neorealism has been inoculated with an exceptionally
heavy dose of German idealism. 26 Culture and identity are summary labels for phenomena
that have an objective existence. The crumbling of the structures that had defined and been
reinforced by the Cold War highlights their relevance for an analysis of national security.
Summary and Extensions

The empirical studies in this book deal with subjects central to the field of national security
studies: arms proliferation, intervention, deterrence and weapons of mass destruction,
military doctrine and strategic culture in part 1 and several of these topics as well as civil-
military relations, arms control, and alliances in part 2. This section briefly summarizes the
approach, hypotheses, and findings of the empirical essays. Avoiding an artificial distinction
between international and domestic politics, it then briefly considers sovereignty and
regionalism in world politics.
Summary
All the empirical essays in this volume are problem-focused. In most instances the questions
they pose are similar to those at the center of the mainstream literature on national security.
Why have weapons proliferated throughout the developing world (essay 3)? What determines
the choice between offensive and defensive military doctrines (essay 6)? How did "New
Thinking" in the Soviet Union help bring about the end of the Cold War (essay 8)? Why do
Japan and Germany refuse to seize the opportunities for enhancing their political and military
profiles in the post-Cold War world (essay 9)? What will happen to nato (essay 10)? And what
is the relation between threat and the process of alliance formation in the Middle East (essay
11)?
But in several instances the motivating questions differ from those normally asked by students
of national security. How have nuclear and chemical weapons become delegitimated as
"weapons of mass destruction" and how can we explain this change (essay 4)? How and why,
rather than if and when, do humanitarian interventions occur (essay 5)? What is the relation
between the self-help behavior of states and realist conceptions of the state in the international
system (essay 7)? It is one of the advantages of the sociological perspective that on questions of
national security it can both address existing questions in the field and, going beyond that,
raise new ones.
Some of the essays articulate conventional, structural, rationalist, or functional explanations

for the questions that interest them. And they point to the limitations of these explanations in
accounting for the empirical evidence at hand. For example, Dana Eyre and Mark Suchman
(essay 3) argue that conventional realist analysis views weapons proliferation as a consequence
of states preparing for war as the ultimate means for defending their security. But if that were
true, states should possess militaries in some rough proportion to both the magnitude and the
quality of the threats they face. States confronting large internal security threats, for example,
4 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
should have militaries and weapons that are very different in their configurations than states
that face only minimal threats. But the size and functional specialization of many Third World
militaries differ from what a conventional explanation would lead us to expect. Specifically,
many Third World states spend too much of their money on "big ticket" items that are not
useful in dealing with the actual internal security threats that they face.
Furthermore, Elizabeth Kier (essay 6) shows how prevailing explanations of the choice
between offensive and defensive military doctrines are rooted in structural and functional
styles of analysis. For functional reasons having to do with their size, autonomy, and prestige,
military organizations, the conventional literature argues, prefer offensive doctrines.
Furthermore, existing explanations argue that civilian intervention in the development of
doctrine occurs in response to the objective incentives that the international balance of power
provides. With few qualifications, Kier's analysis undercuts both of these claims.
Thomas Berger (essay 9) also shows realist explanations of Japanese and German security
policy to be either indeterminate or empirically wrong, as neither state has sought to translate
its growing capabilities in the last two decades into commensurate military power.
Furthermore, liberal explanations that focus on Japan and Germany as trading states
operating in international markets have trouble explaining why some important elements of
Japanese and German antimilitarism arose even before complex interdependence created a
benign international environment. And Thomas Risse-Kappen (essay 10) argues that structural
realism, balance of power, hegemonic stability, and rationalist-institutional explanations are
indeterminate or wrong in either explaining the origin of nato or accounting for how over time
nato solved the collective action problem of harmonizing divergent national policies.
Other essays point to what they regard as some debilitating weaknesses that make
conventional explanations ill-suited for helping to explain particular aspects of national
security. Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald, for example, argue in essay 4 that rationalist,
interest-based explanations of the "taboo" status of chemical and nuclear weapons are either
indeterminate or wrong, for such explanations assume that some objective characteristics of
weapons delegitimate them as weapons of war. Furthermore, conventional accounts have
difficulty explaining why chemical and nuclear weapons were not used when it might have
been advantageous and the deterrent effects of reliance on these weapons were not evident-for
example, in the Pacific islands fighting during World War II. Martha Finnemore (essay 5)
suggests that humanitarian interventions pose important logical problems for realist theory.
Such interventions bring into conflict two of the theory's core assumptions, self-help and
sovereignty. In cases of intervention, the target state ceases to be an autonomous actor.
Furthermore, the shift to multilateral interventions as the main legitimate form of intervention
in the last decades and the occurrence of interventions in situations in which the interests of
the intervening states are often not at stake, either directly or indirectly, pose important
anomalies to conventional accounts.
Alastair Johnston (essay 7) seeks to establish the superiority of an analytical perspective that
stresses the effects of strategic culture over those of the international system emphasized by
conventional models of structural realism. Robert Herman (essay 8) finds conventional
structural and rationalist explanations limited because they posit a deterministic relation
between structure and behavior and thus fail to engage political processes that he sees as
central to any understanding of the transformations in Soviet politics and foreign policy in the
1980s. In a similar vein, Michael Barnett (essay 11) criticizes existing theories of balance of
power and balance of threat for failing to engage a broad range of social processes that are
essential for explaining how collective identities and the construction of threats shape
processes of alliance formation in the Middle East.
The empirical essays make claims that both compete with and comple ment conventional
explanations. In some instances they offer alternative explanations, for example, in the case of
arms proliferation and military doctrine. In other instances, they make problematic what
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conventional theories take for granted-concepts such as deterrence, humanitarian

intervention, or threats leading to alliance formations-thus complementing existing accounts.
Finally, such complementarities also exist where the essays establish that the stipulated effects
of general structural theories are indeterminate and thus unhelpful-for example, in answering
questions about nato and the security policies of China, the Soviet Union, Germany, and Japan.
The analysis of social effects on national security thus can offer a useful alternative to
conventional theories; it can cause us to ask new questions about aspects of national security
previously taken for granted; and it can offer a more fine-grained analysis of issues that
conventional theories cannot deal with easily.
In their descriptions and explanations, the empirical essays trace two kinds of social effects on
national security policies: processes that affect the identity of actors, and thus the interests
these actors hold, and processes that shape the interests of actors directly without redefining
identities. For example, internationally recognized standards of what it means to be a modern
state, Eyre and Suchman (essay 3) and Finnemore (essay 4) argue, have noticeable effects on
what kinds of weapons governments buy, whom they consider to be "human," and how they
organize military interventions. Price and Tannenwald (essay 4) describe historical, political,
and moral developments that have created a taboo around weapons of mass destruction,
developments that are not reducible either to objective characteristics of the weapons
themselves or to the structural power relations between states. And in their analyses of the
effects of the organizational culture of the French military and of Chinese strategic culture,
Elizabeth Kier (essay 6) and Alastair Johnston (essay 7) show how cultural effects help shape
the interests that guide actors in the military doctrines they adopt and the security policies
they adhere to. These cultural effects vary, depending on whether they operate in the polity at
large or in particular military organizations (the French case) or whether they are reinforced
by specific aspects of political ideology (the Chinese case).
Robert Herman (essay 8) and Thomas Berger (essay 9) trace the effects that Soviet, German,
and Japanese contested definitions of identity have had on previously unchallenged views of
state interest. But Herman's analysis of "New Thinking" stresses for the most part cognitive
elements, not unlike those discussed in the global models of statehood in essays 3 and 4, while
Berger's analysis underlines prescriptive elements. Finally, Thomas Risse-Kappen (essay 10)
and Michael Barnett (essay 11) analyze how collective identities of liberal democracies and
pan-Arabism define the threats that states face in the international system and thus shape the
interests that motivate their alliance policies. The difference in these two cases is that over
time the collective identity of the democratic member states of nato strengthened, and with it
the North Atlantic security community, while the pan-Arabic movement weakened greatly
after 1967, in the face of the growing identities of separate Arab states.
The essays avoid tautological reasoning. Instead of relying on policies as indicators of

"revealed cultural preference," the authors analyze various kinds of texts and interview
materials to infer the presence or absence of specific social effects. The analysis in these
essays, as in the conventional explanations that they engage, is primarily interested in drawing
causal inferences between stipulated effects and observed behavior. For example, although
Eyre and Suchman are as interested as are the other authors in the effects that modern notions
of statehood have on policy, their analysis simply assumes that a model of a modern military
exists as part of an ensemble of models that helps define the modern world polity in which
contemporary states operate. Essay 3 argues that if such a model exists, then it should have a
range of observable effects, and the essay goes on to investigate those effects. Alternatively,
Kier establishes the effects of the organizational culture of the military on military doctrine.
But she is not interested in analyzing the sources of organizational culture and the degree to
which and how it can change. Finally, to different degrees all of the remaining essays are
interested in processes of cataclysmic or gradual change that alter some of the social processes
that shape national security policies. 27
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In their methods of analysis these essays do not differ from the qualitative case study and
historical narrative that are typical of the literature on national security. Eyre and Suchman's
statistical analysis and the genealog ical reconstruction of historical processes of change in the
analysis of the chemical weapons taboo in essay 4 illustrate, furthermore, that the analysis of
social effects and processes can rely equally well on hard quantitative or soft interpretive
methods. What distinguishes this book's approach is not distinctive methods but the analytical
specification of effects that conventional theories typically slight.
In some instances these effects do not merely help define interests in ways that we tend to
overlook but also make intelligible what from a structural or rationalist perspective may look
like "dysfunctional" behavior. Essay 3 suggests, for example, that modern militaries in Third
World countries have been a source of profound political instability for many of the political
regimes that equip these militaries with modern weapons. Relatedly, the effects of the
chemical weapons taboo were so strong, Price and Tannenwald argue, that the United States
refrained from using these weapons when, in the absence of clear Japanese deterrent effects, it
would have been advantageous to rely on them during the late stages of World War II in the
Pacific. Kier (essay 6) illustrates that the reason for France's lack of adequate preparation for
war in 1939 had cultural roots. Herman (essay 8) argues that the Soviet Union sacrificed an
empire in the interest of meeting the "Western" standards of behavior that New Thinking and
transnational contacts had spread among members of the political elite. 28 Similarly, Berger's
analysis underscores what from the vantage point of conventional theories looks like a
profound "irrationality" of Japanese and German policy during the Persian Gulf war. For these
two states resisted vigorously, and at considerable economic and political cost to themselves,
the strong pressure that the United States brought to bear on them to join a broad
international coalition against Iraq.
Since the approach of this book seeks to explain the interests that actors hold, rather than
taking them as given, the notion of "dysfunctional" or "irrational" behavior makes little sense,
for such a notion implies what this book's approach seeks to investigate, the existence of an
objectively "best" standard for behavior. But just about any behavior can be construed to be
"functional" or "rational" from some perspective. The trick is not to define one best standard
against which all performance is measured, but to make intelligible the political logic inherent
in different kinds of substantive rationalities.
Although all the essays argue that social effects have causal significance, the tightness or
looseness of the link between social effects and observed behavior varies. In some instances
the link is loose, as in the global models of statehood that inform the analysis of arms
proliferation and military intervention in essays 3 and 4. Essay 10 refers to instances in which
the United States actually did not comply with specific rules of the norm of consultation while
at the same time acquiescing in the diffuse norm of taking Allied interests into account. And
essay 7 reports the existence of a large gap between China's idealized, Confucian-Mencian
strategic culture and security policy and the absence of such gap in the case of its parabellum,
operational strategic culture. Depending on the content of a country's strategic culture and the
nature of a chosen policy, Johnston's analysis suggests, the tightness of the link between social
effects and observed behavior varies.
Most of the essays investigate how social effects define the interests that actors hold. Hence
standards of appropriate behavior among allies, as described in essay 10, appeal to collective
understandings. They are not arguments deployed for selfish reasons, as a rationalist
interpretation would suggest. Instead they are the articulation of preferences that have been
formed in light of historical experience. Instances in which allies make appeals to such
standards in order to elicit compliance by others while covering their own noncompliance
would rapidly undermine any existing collective understanding. Analogously, Kier (essay 6)
argues that we need to make a sharp distinction between the causal effects of organizational
culture on the one hand and the invocation of specific myths, created for particular political
7 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
purposes, on the other. The defensive lesson of Verdun and World War I, for example, took on
legendary proportions, but only after the organizational culture of the French military had
already shaped a defensive military doctrine. Causal primacy hence lies with this factor, not
with historical myths. Finally, the invocation of standards of appropriate behavior is often
closely linked to issues of political power-for example, in the case of the invocation by Arab
states of the taboo against chemical weapons as an attempt to redress a discriminatory nuclear
nonproliferation regime as discussed in essay 4.
The social effects that are analyzed here typically are institutionalized. The taboo against
chemical weapons, essay 4 argues, was institutionalized even before the invention of modern
chemical weapons, a plausible explanation for the success of those who ostracized these
weapons as instruments of war in the twentieth century. The antinuclear taboo, by way of
contrast, was institutionalized only in the 1960s and 1970s, two decades after Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. In the diverse data on the social effects that the essays report, only pan-Arabism
appears to be conspicuously uninstitutionalized.
There is, however, considerable variation in the specificity or diffuseness of the social effects
that the essays analyze. The global models of statehood that shape arms proliferation and
intervention policies, Eyre and Suchman as well as Finnemore argue, are diffuse. The taboo
against weapons of mass destruction and the effects of organizational culture of the military,
on the other hand, are specific (essays 4 and 6). And as in several other of the essays, Risse-
Kappen's discussion in essay 10 points to the coexistence of both, specific consultation norms
with the diffuse obligation of taking allied interests into account in foreign policy making.
Breaking specific norms can under some circumstances reinforce a diffuse sense of obligation
toward allies who have not been consulted but whose interests must be taken into account.
This argument provides a ready link to the moral basis of American hegemony that Lea
Brilmayer has analyzed lucidly. 29 One of the advantages of the sociological-institutional
perspective lies in its ability to lend itself to reconnecting empirical analysis to philosophical
discussions about the purposes of political action and the nature of political community.
Scholarly analysis of national security and international politics has sidestepped these issues
during the last three decades. It should not.
Extensions
Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro (essay 12) reflect on both the effects and the origins of norms.
They argue that norms are an interlocking web, spanning different levels of analysis and
shaping the interests of actors, the beliefs that actors hold about the best means available for
achieving their objectives, and larger normative structures. But Kowert and Legro note also
that, in the effort to convince us that the social constructions of norms and identity matter, the
empirical essays, like the conventional theories that they criticize, tend to take their own core
concepts as exogenously given. 30 With a few notable exceptions, such as the genealogy of the
chemical weapons taboo in essay 4, the empirical essays have little to say about the manner by
which collective identities and norms are constructed through different generative processes:
ecological, social, and internal. Extension into the domain of social psychology offers a
possible microfoundation for sociological approaches. Although it signifies the continued
importance of psychology to our understanding of national security, such a move insists that
besides individual cognition and motivation we must be attentive as well to collective and
social origins. 31 Relatedly, the research program on national role perceptions should be of
great interest to those who are rediscovering the importance of social facts in international
politics and national security. 32
Other approaches for the construction of a microfoundation of an institutional perspective are

possible. They include theories of practical knowledge and action based on advances in
ethnomethodology, the analysis of cognitive aspects of routine social behavior, the taken-
for-grantedness element in cognition, and the analysis of a habitus that seeks to explain why
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strategically oriented actors so often do not seek to alter social structures that are not in their
interest. 33 Furthermore, research into the microfoundations of norms and identities cannot
avoid paying close attention to language. 34 In contrast, conventional realist and liberal
theories seek the microfoundation for structural theories in economics and the rational actor
assumption. Essay 12 illustrates that much work has been done in other social science fields
that is very relevant for the approach of this book and that should be incorporated more
systematically into future work.
This book's focus on the social effects that operate on national security spans both
international and domestic politics. 35 Conventional theories, by contrast, typically operate
exclusively at the level of the international system while conceding to "reductionist" theories
of domestic politics the task of accounting for elements of national variation. This distinction
has always been in tension with real-world politics, which the organization of this volume
seeks to sidestep. Instead, the empirical essays analyze in one framework international and
national effects that shape national security. In part 1 the essays by Eyre and Suchman, Price
and Tannenwald, and Finnemore focus primarily on international models of statehood that
inform national security policy on issues such as weapons procurement, non-use of nuclear
and chemical weapons, and military intervention. At a different level of analysis but from the
same norms-based perspective, the essays by Kier and Johnston focus instead at the national
level on the effects of the organizational and strategic culture of the military. In part 2 Herman
and Berger explain national security policy in terms of Soviet, Japanese, and German
collective identities. From a similar identity-based vantage point, but at a different level of
analysis, Risse-Kappen and Barnett examine the waxing and waning of international security
communities in the North Atlantic area and of alliances in the Middle East as well as
U.S.-Israeli relations. The book's analytical categories thus permit us to sidestep the traditional
"level-of-analysis problem." 36 I will illustrate this advantage briefly with reference to our
understanding of sovereignty and regionalism as important factors that are shaping world
politics.
Sovereignty
A sociological perspective affects how we think about the institution of sovereignty, in the view
of conventional theories the supposed foundation of international anarchy and state
autonomy. Writing from a realist perspective, Stephen Krasner acknowledges that the system
of 1648 did not create states acting as "billiard balls." The principle of unquestioned state
sovereignty never triumphed. Instead the practice of intervention, before and after 1648, has
left state sovereignty deeply problematic, and with it the sharp distinction between
international and domestic levels of analysis. 37 Economic, social, and environmental issues
that increasingly permeate state boundaries reinforce that trend. Sovereignty is an institution
that shapes state identity. It is not a natural fact of international life. Instead it is politically
contested and has variable political effects. 38
A broader historical and cultural perspective, extending beyond the modern Western state
system, illustrates that sovereignty is a problematic, fundamental institution distinctive of the
modern Western system rather than a universal institution typical of all international systems.
The international relations of other historical eras and civilizations have been based on other
fundamental institutions. 39
Reus-Smit, for example, argues that in Western history different state systems have created
different fundamental institutions governing the relations between states. 40 Ancient Greece,
for example, relied for centuries on a successful system of third-party arbitration not codified
by international law. By contrast, the modern Western system relies on law and multilateral
diplomacy. The cause for such variation in institutional practice lies in changing state
identities. These identities reflect not international sovereignty but domestic values
concerning the moral purpose of the state. Such values are not invariant but historically and
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culturally specific. They originate in dominant states and then diffuse internationally, affecting
the behavior of weak and strong states alike.
In the Chinese context, sovereignty is defined not only by equality between states but also by
the capacity of the Chinese state to encompass others. 41 With a combination of hierarchy and
anarchy as its distinctive trait, the Chinese system, like the Ottoman Empire, was made up of
suzerain states. In this instance issues of political or military domination and resistance do not
fall into discrete spheres of international and domestic politics. They occupy a sphere that
links both. Tributary trade, not third-party arbitration or international law and
multilateralism, was the distinctive fundamental institution of the Sino-centric world. And it
was the strength of domestic coalitions fighting over different, and changing, definitions of
Chinese state identity that shaped the policy interests of the Ming dynasty.
What was true of ancient China is also true of contemporary world politics. Sovereignty is not
the basic defining characteristic of an international anarchy. Instead there are numerous
examples of various types of sovereignty, which suggests that sovereignty is not an
unquestioned foundational institution of international politics that can be assumed or
analyzed at the level of the international system. Contemporary conflicts in the Russian
Federation, for example, offer a telling example. Between July 1990 and January 1991,
fourteen of the sixteen autonomous republics in Russia declared their sovereignty and
renamed themselves. A few months later four of the five autonomous oblasts did the same and
were recognized by the Russian Supreme Soviet on July 2, 1991. 42
Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union only the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya
forced the issue of independence, which in December 1994 exploded into war. The Russian
Federation Treaty signed in March 1992 creates three types of units with various types of
sovereignty inside Russia: sovereign republics, other administrative units of varying size and
autonomy, and the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Institutionalized definitions of nationhood do not have to treat nations simply as internally

homogeneous and externally sharply delimited social groups. Nations are not fixed or real.
Nationality struggles in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (cis) can be
viewed instead not as "struggles of nations, but the struggles of institutionally constituted
national elites-that is, elites institutionally defined as national-and aspiring counter-elites." 43
A map of Russia thus resembles a quilt made up of republics proclaiming the precedence of
their laws over those of the Russian Constitution. John Slocum concludes that "the concept of
sovereignty, so much at stake in the struggle over Russian federalism, is becoming increasingly
irrelevant in the world at large. A fragmented Russia, which hangs together on some level and
not on others, seems perfectly in tune with the times." 44
In contrast to Russia, contemporary Europe offers a very different example of far-reaching

attempts to pool state sovereignty of various sorts across different parts of Europe and
different issues areas. Neorealism either denies that international institutions in Europe have
any important effects 45 or interprets such effects as resulting primarily from the interests of
"middle-rank" countries like France and Italy, which seek to gain some voice over the growing
power of Germany. 46 Neoliberal institutionalism interprets European international politics
by pointing to a particularly dense set of institutions that facilitate problems of coordination.
In this view institutions are important because they reduce uncertainty and create efficiencies
that may contribute to the redefinition of interests and thus modify behavior. Neoliberals
interpret the partial pooling of sovereignty in Europe as a series of nested games that link
states in ongoing interactions that limit the range of their bargaining tactics. Political elites
make strategic use of international institutions to escape from both the democratic controls
and the political fragmentation of domestic societies. 47
Furthermore, the structures and processes of European integration offer new opportunities
for domestic actors to strike transnational bargains that change domestic coalitions,
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institutions, and policies.
But institutions do not merely create efficiencies. They also express identities, for example by
affecting the character of statehood. John Ruggie, for one, sees in the eu "the first truly
postmodern international political form." 48 International politics in the eu is neither
national nor intergovernmental nor supranational. It no longer takes place from twelve
distinct starting places with twelve separate, single, and fixed viewpoints. The processes
"whereby each of the twelve defines its own identity-and the identities are logically prior to
preferences-increasingly endogenize the existence of the other eleven. Within this framework,
European leaders may be thought of as entrepreneurs of alternative political identities." 49
Because territorial conflict has become a less central component of state identity in Western
Europe, the eu has tamed and transformed its member states in significant ways. European
identity links both international and national levels of politics and shapes the preferences and
interests that actors hold.
This sociological perspective makes it possible for us to capture variations in state identity that
are glossed over by conventional theories. In their response to the crisis of fall 1993 in the
European Exchange Rate Mechanism (erm), France and Britain took different positions,
arguably reflecting attempts to maintain different political identities in Europe. David
Cameron thus argues that the politics of European monetary cooperation is explained best in
terms of the effects that identity has on the definition of interests. 50 France and Germany
cooperated in a series of currency crises to maintain their privileged European partnership. In
contrast to Britain, France refused to drop out of the erm, largely because of considerations of
identity. 51 State identities thus can have powerful effects on conceptions of state interest.
Institutional perspectives that neglect questions of identity also have great difficulties in
accounting for German policy on questions of European monetary integration. While
neoliberal institutionalism offers powerful explanations for why Germany has come to like the
erm as a way of shaping European politics, it tells us little about why Germany's political
leadership appears to be so committed to the goal of full monetary integration in the emu, a
policy that would greatly reduce the power of German monetary policy in Europe. The effect
of Europe on German identity offers us a clue. In his essay Thomas Berger points to the
fundamental consequences that the changing purpose of the state has had for the character of
German identity. Put succinctly, he describes the transformation of German state identity from
territorial aggrandizement to individual entitlement, from warfare to welfare. Furthermore, as
Thomas Risse-Kappen shows in his essay, the North Atlantic security community has had
lasting effects on the identity of all member states, including Germany. In short, German
identity now encompasses more international aspects than ever before in modern times. In
fact, the German government accepted national unification in 1990 only under the condition
that it be legitimated internationally by all European states. Europe thus has become a very
important component of German national identity.
Like Germany, many European states are finding their "home" in a broadening European
community. Identity politics is thus central to an understanding of the politics of regional
integration. But as Michael Bar nett's analysis of Mideast politics illustrates, collective regional
identities can be built "down" as well as "up." A sociological perspective can help us analyze
conflict and war as well as peaceful cooperation.
Regionalism
An analytical focus on social effects of culture and identity permits us to examine international
politics not only along dimensions of power, types of alliances, or geography. We may gain
much from thinking of world regions as social constructs. Sometimes regions emerge
spontaneously. At other times political actors deliberately fashion them. 52
The North Atlantic region, for example, subsequently institutionalized in nato, was a political
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creation of the mid-1940s, designed to bring the United States politically closer to Britain and
the European continent, in defiance of the logic of cartographers. With the reestablishment of
democracy in the mid-1970s, political elites emphasized Spain's European identity rather than
its traditional Iberian-Latin American identity. 53 Greece succeeded in joining Europe largely
because it could play on its recognized identity as the home of European culture and
civilization. 54 In a similar vein, since 1989 the Central European democracies have been
competing in their attempts to show that they are returning to "Europe," with the Czech
Republic apparently winning first prize. And Russian politicians are creating a new region of
"the near abroad" to legitimate possible future interventions in the affairs of members of the
cis. Such political constructs often, but not always, reflect particularly dense social transactions
that tie different societies to one another. 55 And they often, but not always, can enhance
economic and social density.
On this point the contrast with neorealism is stark. This theory insists that states live in an
international environment marked by an inescapable security dilemma. With the end of the
Cold War and bipolarity, for example, neorealists argue that international politics is returning
to multipolarity. "Assuming Russia recovers, and China holds itself together, we can expect as
in the old days to have a world of five or so great powers, probably by the first decade of the
next millennium . . . if unity is not achieved, Germany may get tired of playing European
games, some years hence and go off on its own." 56 States play games and have distinct
identities that permit them to go their own ways when the game is over. But the language of
multipolarity and games is analytically quite limiting, as Charles Kegley and Gregory Raymond
have argued. 57 It imposes an artificially uniform analytical perspective upon a political
reality that differs substantially in different regions of the world. 58
A sparse conception of international structure can capture elements of international politics

better in some regions than in others. Considering the basic values that motivate the
contemporary Chinese state, realism offers important, though limited, political insights into
some aspects of the Asian balance of power. 59 In contrast to Western Europe and the North
Atlantic area, during the last several decades no security community has emerged in Asia. The
Cold War never imposed as clear a split on Asia as it did on Europe, hence the end of the Cold
War had a less dramatic effect on the Asian balance of power. The logic of military balancing
that no longer is central to West European politics still remains an important aspect of Asian
international politics. 60
Indeed, since the end of the Cold War in Europe, Asian governments have moved very quickly
to set up new multilateral international institutions or to deepen existing ones. This offers
strong support for the insights of neoliberal institutional theory. Institutions do serve the
purpose, among others, of reducing uncertainty and thus facilitating policy coordination. But
this is not the only effect that institutions have, even in Asia. The network structures that are
increasingly integrating Asian political economies under the umbrella of Japanese
keiretsu systems and through Chinese ethnic and familial ties are informal and, by European
standards, politically underinstitutionalized. 61 But they are, in the words of Joel Kotkin,
instances of a new form of tribalism in the global economy. They illustrate how race, religion,
and identity are central in shaping important trends in the global economy. 62
Regional politics in Europe offers another illustration of the role of the profound effects that
collective identity has on interests and policies. The phenomenal success of the national
institution of the welfare state since 1945 has had a lasting effect on the basic values that
define the substantive purposes of policy both at home and abroad. This transformation is
most evident in Germany in the center of Europe and the locus classicus of a virulent
ethnically or racially based form of nationalism. Although current citizenship requirements
still reflect the view of a national community bound together by ancestral lineage, the political
realities of the 1990s are different. Contemporary German nationalism has become a
nationalism not of collective assertion but of individual entitlement. With unification the
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expectation of the Kohl government, widely shared by the older generation of the social
democratic leadership, assumed a repetition of the experience of joint sacrifice and pulling
together, 1950s style.
What happened instead was the display of a "possessive individualism" that took the
chancellor's election promises literally: national unification without individual sacrifice. This
nationalism of entitlement has not shown itself as clearly in any other European state in recent
years. But there exists no substantial evidence undermining the expectation that the German
form of welfare state nationalism distinguishes Western Europe at large. 63 The effect that
the institution of the welfare state has had on collective identities in Germany and throughout
Europe, and hence on the content of policy interests, I would argue is of much greater political
importance for an understanding of the national security policies of Western European states
than are the stipulated, though unmeasured, efficien cies that international institutions create
as conceived by rationalist theories.
Different world regions thus embody different substantive domestic purposes that shape state
sovereignty. And regions are parts of a global system that, in turn, is affecting them differently.
Global processes like transnational capital flows, the increasing salience of human rights, or
the risks of environmentally unsustainable developments thus have different political effects
on states situated in different regions of the world. Today there exists no general threat to the
state system as the basic organizing principle of international politics. Everywhere states retain
minimal sovereignty. But an increasing number of agenda-setting and legitimacy-creating
polities are organized on a global scale. 64 This is one step in the direction that Hedley Bull
has called the "neo-Medievalism" of contemporary international politics: 65 a move, more or
less halting in different regional settings, toward multiple, nested centers of collective
authority and identity. One advantage of a sociological perspective is that it can capture
analytically the variability of the effects that varying substantive values informing state
sovereignty and different regional contexts have on the national security policies of states.
Little is gained, and much is lost, when our theories foreclose a systematic investigation, at
multiple levels of analysis, of the possibility that culture and identity can interact in shaping
the interests of specific states seeking to protect their national security.
Going Beyond Traditional National Security Studies

This book's exclusive focus on traditional military issues meets traditional definitions of
national security. The subject matter of the case studies is central to the substantive concerns
of conventional approaches to questions of national security. The analytical issues are thus
joined on grounds that provide a hard test for the sociological approach that this book puts
forward.
We do not, however, endorse in this volume the insistence on restricting security studies only
to states and military issues. Traditional strategic studies continues to be an important part of
the field of security studies. And the state continues to be an important actor on questions of
security. But changes in world politics have broadened the security agenda that confronts
states. And nonstate actors are of great relevance to traditional issues of military security.
Furthermore, theoretical debates about how strategic and security studies relate to the social
sciences suggest that commonly made analytical distinctions-for example, between
international and domestic politics, security issues and economic issues, facts and values-often
hinder rather than help our description and explanation of real world events. 66 These
analytical distinctions often pose conceptual barriers that reflect a binary view of the world. In
distinguishing between "inside" and "outside," "us" and "them," that view often takes collective
identity as an unexamined defining characteristic of international politics. 67 In light of
recent political and theoretical developments, it serves no purpose to restrict scholarship to
only one part of the field of national security studies. 68
Developments in world politics speak for broadening the field of security studies in two
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directions, encompassing nonmilitary issues and nonstate actors. First, a focus on economic
issues could analyze, for example, policies that relate to questions of military conversion and
are thus clearly relevant to traditional national security studies. But it could also concentrate
on broader issues of food security, as in Africa, or human rights, as in Haiti, because such
issues can have direct effects on the military intervention of states. Furthermore, for
governments of rich states the economic development of their poor neighbors is also becoming
a security issue. Fear of mass migration, for example, and the social and political instabilities
that it can engender, characterizes the political relations of the United States and Mexico,
France and Northern Africa, and Germany and its Eastern neighbors.
Furthermore, collapsing political structures have put ethnic and national conflict even higher
on the agenda of national security studies than they have been since 1945. The analysis of the
effects of ethnic and national identities on security, as compared with competing class, gender,
race, or religious identities, raises vexing political and theoretical problems. An empirically
grounded analysis should steer clear of both the essentialism of rationalist perspectives
(which, typically, take actor identities to be unproblematic) and the fluidity of postmodern
perspectives (which often see identity as being shaped by specific combinations of contingency
and agency). Security studies should not be narrowly restricted to states and questions of
military security only. But neither should it be broadened so much that it comes to encompass
all issues relating directly or indirectly to the violence between individuals and collectivities.
Broader security studies can add to the traditional analysis of national security if the issues
and actors that it studies have some demonstrable links to states and questions of military
importance.
Theoretical developments in the social sciences, in international relations, and in the specific
field of national security studies provide a second main reason why the intellectual agenda of
security studies should be broad, not narrow. The dominant theoretical issues no longer relate,
as they did in the 1970s and early 1980s, to debates between realist, pluralist, and structural-
global analytical perspectives-that is, academic versions of conservatism, liberalism, and
Marxism. Rather, the central theoretical debates now engage rationalist and constitutive
explanatory approaches to theory.
This book targets realism's and rationalism's neglect of important effects and processes that
shape the nature of political interests and the character of political actors. But the approach of
this volume shares with realism and rationalism an insistence on linking analytical arguments
to evidence. Other approaches, such as critical theory, postmodernism, and feminist theory,
are divided on many issues. They offer much more profound and unsettling challenges to the
field of national security studies and international relations theory than do disagreements
between different types of explanatory theory. Critical theory investigates the knowledge
interests that tie security studies to the institutions and individuals that control the levers of
power. Feminist theory proposes to rethink all of the basic categories of analysis-man, state,
and war-central to the field of military strategy and important in the field of security studies.
And postmodernist theory seeks to deconstruct, among others, core concepts of security
studies, such as state sovereignty, and thus to subvert the entire field of security studies and
decenter its theoretical dis course. These approaches are themselves divided between critical
theory that works toward some foundationalism of shared knowledge and postmodernism that
does not, with different strands of feminist theory to be found in either camp. Typically, they
all question the research strategy of realist, rationalist, and constructivist explanatory theory.
The theoretical debates that are occurring in the social sciences and in international relations,
as well as in the fields of security and strategic studies, are likely to broaden the range of
analytical approaches. One reason is generational change. When asked what constituted
progress in the field of economics, a young Paul Samuelson is reported to have replied,
"Obituaries." Younger scholars, whose political experiences were not formed by the Cold War,
are likely to experiment with a broader range of theories to understand a new political reality.
A second reason is the geographic diffusion of centers of learning and intellectual innovation
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in a more pluralist world. European peace researchers, for example, cannot suppress a polite
yawn when American students of security studies rehearse vigorously arguments in the 1990s
that Europeans debated in the 1960s and 1970s. And Asian scholars and policy makers are
plainly bewildered by American debates about whether the definition of security should be
restricted only to military issues or should encompass economic and other issues as well. From
the Asian perspective it makes neither political nor intellectual sense to adhere to a narrow
scope of security studies. In light of these reactions, Paul Samuelson might also have
answered, "Intellectual currents outside of U.S. national security studies." 69
National security studies are exposed to the differing insights of sociological or constructivist
and economic or rationalist perspectives. This book tries to follow Max Weber onto the middle
ground that he sought to preserve in the original "battle of the methods." 70 In the late
nineteenth century, that battle pitted Gustav Schmoller and the German historical school of
economics against Carl Menger and the challenge of the British, neoclassical tradition.
Neoclassical theory stressed choice, individual units, rationalism, a market logic, prediction,
and explanation. The historical school emphasized constraints, collectivities, irrationalities, a
logic of society, description, and explanation. Contemporary theoretical debates in the field of
security studies, as throughout the social sciences, are restating core aspects of the old debate
in modern form.
Disciplinary debates within each of the two camps and their various subdivisions tend to be
isomorphic. They focus on the causal priority and sequence of the major analytical variables as
they relate to the formulation of actor interests and choices. In the economic-rationalist
perspective this debate affects how we think about the causal relationships among preferences,
institutional rules, organizational structures, and choice. In the sociological-constitutive
perspective it affects how we think about the causal relationships among identities, norms,
interests, and practice. The discussions within different paradigms illustrate a substantial
amount of parallelism in perspectives, albeit expressed in different analytical languages.
Students of security seeking to relate their substantive interests to either camp thus focus on
the intersection between power and policy on the one hand and preferences, institutional
rules, organizational structures, norms, identity, and interests on the other.
But discussions within paradigms are theoretically less illuminating than the emerging debates
across paradigms. Such debates sometimes bring radically different perspectives closer
together. Some rationalists, for example, are in the early stages of seeking an active
engagement with students of culture. For cultural processes may offer a solution to the vexing
problem of multiple equilibria and the 'common knowledge' assumption. 71 Alternatively,
cross-paradigm debates can also divide more clearly from one another analytical perspectives
that once were thought of as sharing much in common. For example, all variants of
institutional analysis oppose a decontextualized and atomistic account of choice behavior. And
all model the way institutional arrangements mediate, shape, and channel collective and
individual choices. But the new rational choice institutionalism in economics and political
science focuses on the institutional context of and constraint on interested action. It remains
indebted to the Weberian distinction between a world of brute or material facts and a world of
perceived or interpreted facts. This perspective contrasts, however, with the world of
institutional facts that are at the center of the new post-Weberian institutionalism in sociology.
72 This version of institutionalism focuses not on institutional constraints on interests and
actors but on the institutional constitution of both interests and actors. Put differently,
sociological institutionalism makes problematic what economic institutionalism takes for
granted, actor identities and the interests they entail.
Cross-paradigm debates are as complicated now as they were at the end of the nineteenth
century, for the temptation is great to merely retranslate the core constructs of another
perspective or discipline into one's own, rather than trying to understand which parts of
reality another perspective might in fact illuminate more forcefully than a familiar mode of
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thought. This appears to be true of all social science. As much as it might wish, the field of
national security studies is unlikely to escape from a broadening of analytical perspectives and
competing empirical claims. The only question is whether the new "battle of methods" will
split the field further into different camps, both committed to empirical research, that speak
past each other or will lead to joint intellectual advance. Eventually the choices we make as
scholars and teachers will be reflected in which journals and book series publish our research
findings, in how we train our graduate students, and in how we teach our undergraduate
students. Acknowledging the intellectually profitable and personally uncomfortable frictions
that occur in cross-paradigm discussions, this book aims at broadening the middle ground for
an analysis of national security.
America in a Changing World

Shocks produce traumas. For the survivors of the California earthquake the traumas are
emotional. For foreign policy specialists who watched the Cold War end unexpectedly and the
Soviet Union disintegrate peacefully, the traumas are cognitive. Disagreement about the future
course of American foreign policy runs deep. Conventional theories do not consider important
factors that contributed to the cataclysmic changes of 1989-1990. Their conceptual lenses
overlook the cultural-institutional context and identity as important causes that are creating
widespread confusion about the purposes to which American power should be applied now
that the Soviet Union has disappeared. In contrast, Ernest May identifies the central
importance of culture and identity when he argues that "American foreign policy issues have
historically involved one question not asked in the same way elsewhere: Who are we?" 73
Although none of the empirical essays deal with American foreign policy directly, their
arguments contain a number of implications that point to the contradictory impulses of
American security policy on the international system. Eyre and Suchman suggest that the
United States affects the militarization of international politics directly, as one of the largest
weapons exporters in the world. Furthermore, by defining the model of what constitutes a
modern military, the United States reinforces global militarization also, though indirectly. By
implication, the United States also shapes the concepts and language by which modern
militaries frame security issues, with obvious effects on the international security
environment. Johnston's analysis of the causal effects of China's strategic culture of hard
realism reminds us of the political significance of such collective norms. At the same time,
American foreign policy has also created political developments that push in very different
directions. Risse-Kappen and Herman show in their essays that the creation of a North
Atlantic security community, embodying the principle of multilateralism and the exchange of
ideas during the period of detente, as well as President Bush's policy of reassurance in
1989-1991 created the political space that allowed New Thinkers to operate and that helped
push Gorbachev to adopt radical reform policies.
Over time some of these factors get magnified for reasons not directly related to American
foreign policy. For example, the powerful effect of the presence of the United States in
Germany and Japan after World War II eventually made these two states abstain from the
militarization of international politics-based on the reassurance that the protection of the U.S.
military has provided to date. Herman's paper illustrates that important elements of New
Thinking in the Soviet Union, such as the concept of "defensive defense," acquired political
significance because of contacts between Soviet and German research institutes.
Today American foreign policy is unsteady because the norms and doctrine that inform it
remain politically undefined. Price and Tannenwald show how the norms of non-use of
chemical and nuclear weapons evolved not in a linear fashion but in response to political
contingencies, historical conjunctures, and accident. Finnemore's analysis of intervention
norms documents important secular changes in shared identities and in liberal egalitarian
notions of humanity. They are now embodied in international legal precepts that have
eliminated the legitimacy of unilateral interventions for national gain. Realpolitik efforts to
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ignore claims for humanitarian intervention in strategically unimportant states will prove
politically impossible to sustain in at least some cases, such as Rwanda.
If humanitarian interventions cannot be avoided and if they must be multilateral, U.S. policy
makers should strengthen multilateral institutions so that they can act more efficiently and
effectively when they must carry out what have become normatively necessary tasks. But at
the end of the Cold War, we do not find a broadly accepted model or set of social norms that
shapes U.S. policy. Instead American politics shows a deep division between a Congress
committed to unilateralism and an executive favoring multilateralism. Similarly, the U.S.
military, Kier's analysis of French military doctrine implies, should now reevaluate its military
doctrine to adjust to new contexts. It remains to be seen whether peace enforcement in the
Third World and low-intensity conflicts will replace, for example, the army's traditional focus
on Europe and mechanized warfare.
Domestic debate about American foreign policy resembles a masquerade ball. Conservatives
who favored an assertive foreign policy, including intervention, in the interest of defending the
free world before 1989, have turned isolationist. None of the growing number of trouble spots
in the Third World threatens vital American interests and thus merits engagement. Liberals
who had advocated caution in foreign affairs before 1989 now insist that if international
pandemonium is left unchecked, this will have deleterious consequences for the American
body politic. Hence, they favor multilateral engagement in defense of basic human rights. In
terms of public debate, American foreign policy reacts to the push and pull of the same forces
as it did before 1989. The masques are the same. But the faces and voices that they conceal
differ.
With the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, the relative power of the
United States has increased sharply. Yet we do not live in a world in which international
security issues gravitate around only one superpower. For the United States is reluctant to
commit its military might. Unilateral military action is unlikely, since few, if any, of the many
conflicts in the world threaten vital American interests. And multilateral action is also unlikely,
since the American political elite and public do not trust international peacekeeping and
peace-enforcing efforts that the United States government cannot fully control. Yet American
influence does not exist simply because of America's military might, for that might is often not
usable in the many conflicts that affect the national security of states around the world.
American influence exists also by virtue of the fact that the United States is recognized in most
capitals around the world as the only military superpower.
On economic issues the distinction between the territorial economy of the United States and
American global economic presence makes it difficult to come to an overall assessment of
America's position. The territorial economy of the United States is holding its own in
competition with Europe, but the accelerating pace of economic change in Asia is
undermining, in relative terms, the strength of American producers in that part of the world.
The American territorial economy creates a large number of jobs while real wages, uniquely
among the leading capitalist states, stagnate or decline. In the international division of labor,
American multinational corporations remain highly competitive, as has been true for the last
several decades.
Finally, on questions of mass culture the assessment of America is equally indeterminate. The
United States is unrivaled in exporting its popular culture to all corners of the globe, from
fast-food chains to movies and rock music. Japan and Germany have made limited inroads, for
example, in the world of fashion and international cuisine, but their cultural appeal is very
limited compared with the pervasive American presence in the global culture market.
Furthermore, that presence has intensified over time. In the process of becoming, in Walt
Whitman's apt phrase, a "world nation, " however, the United States is largely giving over to
marketing considerations any specificity of what it means to be American. 74 For ET and
Jurassic Park to be successful culture products, they must abstract from the American context
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in which they were produced. These are global stories that do not package American values.
Distinctive to the strong global appeal of America's popular culture is the fact that it
transcends the specificity to time and space. As is true for military and economic issues, in the
realm of mass culture America appears to be both present and absent on the global scene.
The United States thus finds itself enmeshed in global contexts that are partly of its own
making. As Samuel Huntington argued in a seminal essay published in 1973, the nature of the
American empire was powered by the spread of transnational organizations. Since 1945 they
were developed largely out of American national organizations, both governmental and
nongovernmental. Access to foreign societies became as important as accords with foreign
governments. America expanded into the international system not only by controlling foreign
people and resources but also by deploying American people and resources. American
expansion was typified not by the acquisition of foreign territory and the power to control but
by the penetration of foreign society and the freedom to operate. This expansion was
quintessentially American: segmental, pluralistic, and operational. By and large, and despite
some significant exceptions, American expansion was not colonial. The mechanisms of
expansion were variegated and involved a mixture of competition, coercion, and emulation. 75
In the end, this American empire proved vastly superior to the territorially based one of the
Soviet Union. But with the end of the Cold War, Huntington argues, the United States is
locked, once again, in a conflict of global proportions. In Huntington's view the Cold War has
given way to a clash of civilization that makes issues of cultural authenticity central to
international politics. 76 Indeed, Huntington's economic and cultural arguments are close
cousins. The pervasiveness of America's informal empire and the increasing intensity of
international cultural conflicts are probably causally related.
Civilizational clashes are in this view the defining characteristic of a new type of international
relations. Civilizations are not replacing states. Instead, Huntington argues, they are becoming
the relevant cultural contexts in which states must act. 77 State interests will no longer be
defined as much by ideological interests as by civilizational ones. Although they are real, the
defining characteristics of civilizations (history, language, culture, tradition, religion) cannot
be grasped easily. Similarly, although the boundaries between civilizations are not hard and
fast, they are basic. 78 Civilizations are becoming more important as the religious and
political fundamentalism of non-Western states is challenging the interests and values of the
West. Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Algeria are examples.
This argument is appealing to some because, like Doctor Doolittle's push-me-pull-you, it has
two heads and thus can take on all comers-those who assume identities to be essential and
those who assume them to be constructed. Under the wide umbrella of civilization, identities
can be thought of as constantly contested and constructed in a fluid political life. Political
leaders can deliberately choose to refashion the identity of a Turkey, a Mexico, an Australia, or
a Russia. 79 But this is not the central thrust of Huntington's argument. His analysis views the
basic factors defining civilizations as objective and not amenable to political change. Indeed, at
times in the analysis civilizations, not states, bandwagon and balance, and act on the
international stage. 80 Ethnic and religious slaughter in Yugoslavia results from five hundred
years of history, not from the political gambits of a Milosevic or a Tudjman during the last five
years. This view of civilizational identity as immutable permits Huntington to articulate the
most controversial part of his analysis. An apparent, old civilizational multipolarity conceals
an underlying, new bipolarity, which pits the "West against the rest." 81
Huntington's conclusion is open to serious question on many grounds. 82 Four points

concern me here. His analysis does not specify the full range of outcomes that occurs when the
states or empires that are carriers of civilizations clash. In history that range encompasses
more than "clashes." Don Puchala's preliminary inventory of some historical episodes lists a
much broader array of outcomes that includes absorption, hybridization, hege mony, rejection
and resurgence, obliteration and genocide, isolation and suspicion, and cross-fertilization. 83
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Second, Huntington is erroneously one-sided in the conclusion he draws from his analysis.
Karl Deutsch's comparison of world regions and civilizations strikes a better balance. Deutsch
argues that the distinctiveness of the West is strongest with respect to social and political
institutions. And, equally important, almost all Western traits can also be found in one or more
world regions and civilizations. "The peoples and culture of the West are like those of other
regions, only more so. This is why the West and the rest of the world could learn from each
other in the past and can continue to do so in the future." 84
Third, identities are neither totally fluid nor primordial. They are historically contingent and
must be understood contextually. The resurgence of Islam illustrates the point. "Islam"
operates as a construct that includes Iran in the Middle East and gives that country a leading
role in the politics of that region. By contrast, "pan-Arabism" as the reigning ideology of the
1960s sought to exclude non-Arab Iran from the Middle East. A politically focused
anti-imperialism of the 1960s has given way to a diffuse anti-Westernism in the 1990s.
Definitions of collective identity are thus subject to change over time. Unsurprisingly,
contemporary Islamic civilization is not a homogeneous actor on the world stage. Saudi Arabia
and Iran express clashing visions of traditionalism and radicalism and are deeply divided over
the social and cultural purposes of Islamic civilization. Static and totalizing wholes such as
"Islam" and "Christianity," or "totalitarian Communism" and "democratic Capitalism," do not
offer fruitful ways for analysis and harbor the risk of seriously misleading public policy. 85
Finally, the United States itself reveals a great flaw in Huntington's attempt to reimpose
intellectual order on an inchoate world, based on the equation of American with Western
identity. Huntington acknowledges this possibility in the form of a rhetorical question: Is it
possible that "de-Westernization of the United States" may lead to its "de-Americaniza tion"?
86 The question is more than rhetorical. It is real. To be sure, the American celebration of
cultural diversity, remarkably uniform as it is in its tenor, is not pushing the United States
toward disintegration. But cultural diversity is real nonetheless. "Oklahoma city has five
mosques, four Hindu temples, one Sikh gurudwara, and three Southeast Asian Buddhist
temples. . . . There are said to be 70 mosques in the Chicago metropolitan area. . . . It is
surprising to find that Muslims outnumber Episcopalians in the U.S. and are likely to
outnumber Jews in the near future." 87 These demographic facts eliminate the dubious
anchor of an uncontested, stable American or Western identity that clashes with the "rest." In
a world where "our" Japanese can beat "their" Japanese, 88 will "our" Muslims fight "theirs"?
The United States may begin to follow in Canada's footsteps and become the second
postmodern nation. Canada's central government has made multiculturalism its official policy,
and Canadian identity on questions of security is defined in terms of international
peacekeeping rather than the defense of national sovereignty. But in contrast to Canada
through its politics, economics, and culture, the United States has a profound influence on the
"rest." It offers a microcosm of the political and cultural pluralism that marks the world. The
social statistics of the United States belie the presumption of cultural homogeneity. Traditional
pillars of American identity are growing weaker: standardized school curricula, a common
language, mass conscription, and a skilled industrial working class. Other institutions gain
strength: the media and pop culture, high-tech warfare, and a bifurcated service economy.
Thus the United States is increasingly institutionalizing its own "multicultural regime" as a
form of postmodern politics. 89
The incoherence of American policy and politics expresses this increasing diversity and, with
the end of the Cold War, the weakening of a sense of collective identity. The hollowing out of
the American economy by American multinational corporations and the segmentation of
American culture by media conglomerates are part of the same social process. They reflect the
logic of an informal American empire that is reorganizing the world along transnational lines
while helping to disorganize the American nation-state. We can observe a similar process in
Europe. But it takes a different form and works more obliquely. 90 Civilizations will provide
19 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
the relevant context for state action. With its identity demonstrably changing in important
ways, however, the "West" is unlikely to confront the "rest." America's growing cultural
heterogeneity makes implausible the fixing of a particular "us" that can be opposed to an alien
"them." America's collective identity can no longer be reinforced by the invocation of an
overpowering foreign enemy-unless, of course, one was to reinvent that enemy for political
reasons in a new cultural gestalt.
An eroding sense of collective identity in the United States reinforces rather than weakens the
transnational diffusion of American values. For as John Ruggie argues compellingly, the
multilateral vision of world order that has been at the core of the American expansion in the
twentieth century mirrors America's collective identity. To become American is a matter of
individual choice, not birth. America sees itself as it sees the world it would like to create: a
willful community created by individual choices that are based on a universal organizing
principle. 91
With the end of the Cold War, national security specialists are eager to find a new compass for
the United States. The difficulty in constructing a coherent grand strategy does not lie
primarily in the complexity of the material and normative constraints and incentives that
confront the United States in the international arena. It lies rather in the contested collective
U.S. identity and lack of purpose that make a clear definition of American interest so difficult.
It is easy to forget that on the eve of the war with Iraq the American public was more deeply
divided about whether or not to fight than it had been before any of the other major U.S.
military campaigns in the twentieth century. America's position in the world is thus shaped by
the two factors that this book has privileged in its analysis throughout: real and perceived
cultural conflicts and the contestations of collective identities at home and abroad.
But the difficulty in devising a new American strategy runs deeper. In an attempt to meet its
intellectual critics on their chosen ground, this book has been self-conscious in focusing on the
state's military security. Yet the concept of national security is evidently in a process of
broadening. Outside of the United States and the halls of government nonmilitary and
nonstatist definitions of national security are becoming more widely shared. In Europe and
Asia political and economic definitions of security are debated more seriously than in the
United States. And in many states, especially in the Third World, the main worry is not, and
should not be, about how to make the state more secure from other states. Rather the focus is,
and should be, on how to make citizens more secure from the capriciousness of states.
Furthermore, the search for a new coherent strategy is impaired by the fact that the United
States does not live with a few scores of other states in an anarchic international system. Nor
does it belong to international institutions whose effects on policy coordination extend only to
the reduction of uncertainties and the increase in transparency. Instead the United States is
part of a variegated set of complex social structures and processes that constitute a global
system. Although they are relevant for governments and states, these processes typically are
not organized solely around states. They may or may not take institutional form and thus
affect the interest calculations of governments. But they touch often on norms and identities
that matter in domestic and international politics.
Today's problem is no longer that of E. H. Carr, one of avoiding the sterility of realism and the
naiveté of idealism. 92 Our choice is more complex. We can remain intellectually riveted on a
realist world of states balancing power in a multipolar system. We can focus analytically with
liberal institutionalists on the efficiency effects that institutions may have on the prospects for
policy coordination between states. Or, acknowledging the partial validity of these views, we
can broaden our analytical perspective, as this book suggests, to include as well culture and
identity as important causal factors that help define the interests and constitute the actors that
shape national security policies and global insecurities.
20 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
For their careful readings and critical comments of previous drafts, I would like to
University in 1994; and Emanuel Adler, Tom Christensen, Lynn Eden, Gunther
Hellmann, Ron Jepperson, Mary E. Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, Jonathan
Kirshner, Audie Kohli, Atul Kohli, Henry Nau, Jack Snyder, Janice Thomson,
Stephen Walt, Alexander Wendt, and two anonymous readers for Columbia
University Press.
Note 1: Paul Kennedy, The Rise and the Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and
Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987). Back.
Note 2: Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History," National Interest, no. 16 (Summer 1989):
3-18; Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).
Back.
Note 3: Kenneth N. Waltz, "The New World Order," Millennium: Journal of International
Studies 22, no. 2 (1993): 187-95; Kenneth N. Waltz, "The Emerging Structure of International
Politics," International Security 18, no. 2 Fall 1993): 44-79; John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the
Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War," International Security 15, no. 1 (Summer
1990): 5-56. Back.
Note 4: Daniel P. Moynihan, Pandaemonium: Ethnicity in International Politics (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1993); Ken Jowitt, New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). Back.
Note 5: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Multinationals and the National
Interest: Playing by Different Rules, OTA-ITE-569 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government
Printing Office, September 1993); Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, "Pluralistic Security
Communities: Past, Present, and Future,' Working Paper Series on Regional Security, Global
Studies Research Program, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1994; Samuel P. Huntington,
"The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 22-49. Back.
Note 6: Michael Lorriaux, "The Realists and Saint Augustine: Skepticism, Psychology, and
Moral Action in International Relations Thought," International Studies Quarterly 36, no. 4
(December 1992): 401-20. Back.
Note 7: Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace
(New York: Knopf, 1985); John H. Herz, International Politics in the Atomic Age (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1959); Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich,
Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957); Henry
Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994); Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of
International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979); Robert Gilpin, War and
Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Frank W. Wayman
and Paul F. Diehl, "Realism Reconsidered: The Realpolitik Framework and Its Basic
Propositions," in Frank W. Wayman and Paul F. Diehl, eds., Reconstructing Realpolitik, pp.
3-26 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994). Back.
Note 8: Ernst B. Haas, Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International

Organization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964); Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political
Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957). Back.
Note 9: Philip Green, Deadly Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence (New York:
Schocken, 1968); Karl W. Deutsch, The Analysis of International Relations (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1968), pp. 124-30. Back.
21 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
Note 10: Stanley Hoffmann, "Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation-State in Western
Europe," Daedalus 95, no. 3 (Summer 1966): 862-915. Back.
Note 11: Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, eds. Transnational Relations and World
Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972). Back.
Note 12: Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics
in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977). Back.
Note 13: Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929-1939, rev. ed. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1986). Back.
Note 14: Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical
Framework," in Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy:
Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, p. 5 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 15: Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1986); David A. Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The
Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); John J. Mearsheimer,
"The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security 19, no. 3 (Winter
1994/95): 5-49, and a set of replies of liberal scholars to be published in the same journal (vol.
20, Summer issue), in 1995. Back.
Note 16: Waltz, "The New World Order"; Waltz, "The Emerging Structure"; Robert O.
Keohane, Joseph S. Nye, and Stanley Hoffmann, eds., After the Cold War: International
Institutions and State Strategies in Europe, 1989-1991 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1993). Back.
Note 17: Robert O. Keohane, "Institutional Theory and the Realist Challenge After the Cold
War," in Baldwin, Neorealism and Neoliberalism, p. 293. The analytical assumptions of a
sociological formulation of liberalism that Keohane invokes only in passing are more
compatible with the perspective of this volume than with the perspective of neoliberalism and
its total neglect of issues of identity (ibid., pp. 271, 289), for they focus, in the words of Joseph
Nye, on "the transformative effect of transnational contacts and coalitions on national
attitudes," or identity; Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Neorealism and Neoliberalism," World Politics 40,
no. 2 (January 1988): 246. Back.
Note 18: Keohane, "Institutional Theory and the Realist Challenge After the Cold War," p.
296. Back.
Note 19: Henry R. Nau, The Myth of America's Decline: Leading the World Economy into
the 1990s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Joseph S. Nye, Bound to Lead: The
Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Robert L. Paarlberg,
Leadership Abroad Begins at Home: U.S. Foreign Economic Policy after the Cold War
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995). Back.
Note 20: Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen (Munich: Duncker and Humblot, 1932).
Back.
Note 21: Christoph Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau: Eine intellektuelle Biographie (Bern: Paul
Haupt, 1993), pp. 168-72. I am indebted to Gunther Hellmann for drawing my attention to this
point and to Frei's work. Back.
Note 22: Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 11. Back.
Note 23: Nye does not offer any suggestions for how we might explain this important change.
The concluding pages in essay 2 try to develop one possible line of argument. Back.
22 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
Note 24: Nye, Bound to Lead, pp. 31-32, 188. Back.
Note 25: Christian Reus-Smit, "Realist and Resistance Utopias: Community, Security, and
Political Action in the New Europe," Millennium: Journal of International Studies 21, no. 1
(1992): 1-28; Robert W. McElroy, Morality and American Foreign Policy: The Role of Ethics
in International Affairs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). Back.
Note 26: Ronen P. Palan and Brook M. Blair, "On the Idealist Origins of the Realist Theory
of International Relations," Review of International Studies 19 (1993): 385-99. Back.
Note 27: For a number of reasons this volume resists the temptation of developing
typologies-for example, of norms and identities. Since actor identities are often relational, they
involve the coding of processes of political construction rather than simply the coding of the
political properties of actors. The typologizing of processes is not an easy task and requires
considerably more data than are at hand to date in this field of study. Typologies are useful for
organizing a substantial body of empirical material. Outside of a rationalist framework,
however, national security studies has paid little systematic attention to either norms or
identities. The line of work that this book represents is at an early stage. Furthermore,
typologies are ahistorical and acontextual. To be fruitful, most scholars argue, the analysis of
norms, identities, and cultures must be contextual and historical. Back.
Note 28: To be sure, realist and rationalist explanations help us to understand why the
Soviet military permitted the reformers to seize power in the first place. For without reform,
the military believed, Soviet defeat in the high-technology arms race of the Cold War would be
unavoidable. But these explanations are not useful, Herman argues, in helping us to
understand policies of voluntary retrenchment-imposing a unilateral moratorium on nuclear
testing, deliberately undercutting the leadership of several Eastern European allied
governments intent on cracking down on democracy movements, offering only token
resistance to German unification on Western terms, and acquiescing in the un Security Council
to a U.S.-led Persian Gulf intervention-that the reformers eventually adopted. Back.
Note 29: Lea Brilmayer, American Hegemony: Political Morality in a One-Superpower

World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). Back.
Note 30: Sociological-institutional scholarship thus would do well to emulate Alexander

George. Criticizing structural theories for their black-boxing of important processes that
translate structural effects, he has shown us how to make "process theory" a respectable
cousin of "substantive theory"; see Alexander L. George, Bridging the Gap: Theory and
Practice in Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1993),
pp. xxi-xxii. Glenn H. Snyder, "Process Variables in Neorealist Theory," Security Studies 5, no.
3 (Spring 1996), in press, has tried to enrich neorealist theory by developing more
systematically the concepts of "process" and "relationship." Back.
Note 31: On the basis of social psychological research, Jonathan Mercer offers an interesting
realist critique of Wendt's constructivist account of anarchy. See his article "Anarchy and
Identity," International Organization 49, no. 2 (1995): 229-52. Alastair Johnston's essay in
this volume is a useful reminder that, contra Mercer, realism and constructivism are not
necessarily antithetical, for realism can itself be viewed as a powerful social construction. See
also Stephen Haggard, "Structuralism and Its Critics: Recent Progress in International
Relations Theory," in Emanuel Adler and Beverly Crawford, eds., Progress in Postwar
International Relations, p. 430 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991). Back.
Note 32: Stephen G. Walker, ed., Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis (Durham: Duke
Note 33: Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, introduction to Walter W. Powell and Paul
23 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, pp. 15-27 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1991). Back.
Note 34: Albert Yee, "The Causal Effects of Ideas Themselves and Policy Preferences:
Behavioral, Institutional and Discursive Formulations" (unpublished paper, Brown University,
1993); Sanjoy Banerjee, "International Interaction as a Psychocultural Process: Examples from
the Partition of India" (paper prepared for delivery at the 1994 annual meeting of the
American Political Science Association, New York, September 1-4, 1994). Back.
Note 35: It thus follows those scholars who are self-conscious in avoiding any sharp
distinction between international and domestic levels of analysis; Peter Evans, Harold
Jacobson, and Robert Putnam, eds., Double-Edged Diplomacy: Interactive Games in
International Affairs (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Back.
Note 36: In a different way, though, a sociological perspective may also emphasize
differences between levels of analysis. This volume offers some evidence for the preliminary
hypothesis that the constitutive effects of norms are stronger at the international level, while
their regulative effects are stronger at the domestic level. Back.
Note 37: Stephen D. Krasner, "Westphalia and All That," in Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas
and Foreign Policy, pp. 235-64. Back.
Note 38: John Boli, "Issues of Sovereignty in the World Polity: An Institutionalist Research
Agenda" (unpublished paper, n.d.); Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber, eds., State
Sovereignty As Social Construct (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, in press); Palan
and Blair, "On the Idealist Origins." Back.
Note 39: Adda B. Bozeman, Politics and Culture in International History (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1960); Neta Crawford, "A Security Regime Among Democracies:
Cooperation Among Iroquois Nations," International Organization 48, no. 3 (Summer 1944):
345-86. Back.
Note 40: Christian Reus-Smit, "The Moral Purpose of the State: The Social Identity,
Legitimate Action, and the Construction of International Institutions" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell
University, 1995). Back.
Note 41: Arthur Waldron, "Chinese Strategy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth
Centuries," in Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin Bernstein, eds., The Making of
Strategy: Rulers, States, and War, pp. 85-114 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994);
Morris Rossabi, ed., China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th-14th
Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural
Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1995). Adam Segal, "War, Walls, or Trade: Changing Conceptions of Chinese
State Identity and Ming Foreign Relations" (unpublished paper, Government Department,
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1994). Back.
Note 42: John W. Slocum, "Will Russia Disintegrate? Separatism, Regionalism, and the
Future of the Russian Federation" (unpublished paper, Peace Studies Program, Cornell
University, 1993), p. 5. Back.
Note 43: Rogers Brubaker, "Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and
Post-Soviet Eurasia: An Institutionalist Account," Theory and Society 23 (1994): 48; David
Laitin, "Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Nationality in the Post-Soviet Diaspora"
(paper prepared for delivery at the 1994 annual meeting of the American Political Science
Association, New York, September 1994); Ted Hopf, "Identity and Russian Foreign Policy"
(unpublished paper, University of Michigan, August 1994); Jessica Eve Stern, "Moscow
Meltdown: Can Russia Survive?" International Security 18, no. 4 (Spring 1994): 40-65. Back.
24 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
Note 44: Slocum, "Will Russia Disintegrate?" p. 18. Back.
Note 45: Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future." Back.
Note 46: Joseph M. Grieco, "State Interests and International Rule Trajectories: A Neorealist
Interpretation of the Maastricht Treaty and European Economic and Monetary Union,"
Security Studies 5, no. 3 (Spring 1996), forthcoming. Joseph M. Grieco, "The Maastricht
Treaty, Economic and Monetary Union, and the Neo-realist Research Programme," Review of
International Studies 21, no. 1 (January 1995): 21-40. Neorealism fails to convince in this
instance, since it sidesteps altogether the central question of why Germany has an interest in a
policy that neorealist theory suggests favors its European competitors. An important part of
the answer, as Grieco recognizes elsewhere, lies in German domestic politics and thus falls
outside the domain of neorealist theory altogether. See Joseph M. Grieco, "Understanding the
Problem of International Cooperation: The Limits of Neoliberal Institutionalism and the
Future of Realist Theory," in Baldwin, Neorealism and p. 338. Back.
Note 47: Wayne Sandholtz, "Choosing Union: Monetary Politics and Maastricht,"
International Organization 47, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 1-39. Back.
Note 48: John Gerard Ruggie, "Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in
International Relations," International Organization 47, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 140. Ruggie's
formulation is giving short shrift to Canada, arguably the first postmodern state par excellence.
Quebec's search for "sovereignty association" bears some resemblance to the eu. According to
Quebec comedian Yvon Deschamps, ideally an independent Quebec would exist within a
united Canada. See Clyde H. Farnsworth, "Quebec Separatists Split on Timing and Terms of
Referendum," New York Times, April 18, 1995, p. A9. The United States is not free of its own
sovereignty problems. In 1990, 287 reservations for American Indians, and almost as many
tribes, were recognized as distinct nations. These reservations sometimes resemble Third
World enclave economies, often lacking extradition agreements with surrounding county
governments. See Peter T. Suzuki, "The Indian Reservation in the Comparative PA Course"
(paper prepared for delivery at the Eighteenth National Conference on Teaching Public
Administration, Seattle, March 24-25, 1995). Back.
Note 49: Ruggie, "Territoriality and Beyond," p. 172; Ann-Marie Burley and Walter Mattli,
"Europe Before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration," International
Note 50: David Cameron, "British Exit, German Voice, French Loyalty: Defection,
Domination, and Cooperation in the 1992-93 ERM Crisis" (paper prepared for delivery at the
1993 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.,
September 1993). Back.
Note 51: This line of reasoning could be extended to a comparison of Germany and France.
Despite some remarkable similarities in their international placement after World War II,
West Germany and France have often behaved very differently. These differences are arguably
related to different state identities. Back.
Note 52: Adler and Barnett, "Pluralistic Security Communities." Back.
Note 53: Michael Marks, "The Formation of European Policy in Post-Franco Spain: Ideas,
Interests, and the International Transmission of Knowledge" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University,
1993). Back.
Note 54: Michael Herzfeld, Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern
Greece (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982). Back.
Note 55: Deutsch et al., Political Community and the . Back.
25 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
Note 56: Waltz, "The New World Order," p. 194. Back.
Note 57: Charles W. Kegley, Jr., and Gregory Raymond, A Multipolar Peace? Great-Power
Politics in the Twenty-first Century (New York: St. Martin's, 1994), p. 121. Back.
Note 58: Peter J. Katzenstein, "Regions in Competition: Comparative Advantages of

America, Europe, and Asia," in Helga Haftendorn and Christian Tuschhoff, eds., America and
Europe in an Era of Change, pp. 105-26 (Boulder: Westview, 1993); Peter J. Katzenstein,
"Introduction: Asian Regionalism in Comparative Perspective," in Peter J. Katzenstein and
Takashi Shiraishi, eds., Network Power: Japan and Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1997). Back.
Note 59: Realist theories are likely to be wrong in their analyses if they overlook either the
significance of comprehensive definitions of national security going beyond narrow military
concerns or the legacy of the Sino-centric world system for the national security policies of
Asian states in the 1990s. Back.
Note 60: Applied to Asia, however, realism still faces the problem of yielding analyses that
are indeterminate. See Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security: Police
and Military in Postwar Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996). Back.
Note 61: Katzenstein, "Introduction: Asian Realism." Back.
Note 62: Joel Kotkin, Tribes: How Race, Religion, and Identity Determine Success in the
New Global Economy (New York: Random House, 1993). Back.
Note 63: The reappearance of a virulent and xenophobic nationalism in the politics of many
European states, including Germany, reflects an erosion (in the case of Italy, an implosion) of
the political center-right. Underlying trends of increasing social diversity have been apparent
for two decades, paralleling, although in less dramatic form, developments toward the creation
of a multicultural regime in the United States. The broadening of the spectrum of collective
identities in Europe has accelerated with the end of the Cold War. In the 1990s Christian
democracy is losing its grip over the right-wing political spectrum. This development mirrors
the erosion of social democratic support among groups favoring environmental movements in
the 1980s. Back.
Note 64: John Meyer, "Rationalized Environments," in W. Richard Scott and John W.
Meyer, eds., Institutional Environments and Organizations (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1994), pp.
28-54. Back.
York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 254-55. Back.
Note 66: Such compartmentalization had great intellectual benefits in the 1970s and 1980s.
It supported, for example, the creation of a "conventional" scholarly field of national security
that followed the canons of social science rather than simply tracking policy developments, as
had often been the case in the 1950s and 1960s. Back.
Note 67: R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations As Political Theory

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 68: When conventional analytical perspectives in the field of national security engage
issues that provide hard tests for their preferred mode of analysis-broader security issues and
nonstate actors-theoretical debate and empirical research on national security issues are likely
to be enriched greatly. See, for example, Daniel Deudney, "The Case Against Linking
Environmental Degradation and National Security," Millennium: Journal of International
Studies 19, no. 3 (Winter 1990): 461-76. Back.
26 de 28 05/08/2010 19:43
Note 69: See, for example, a number of outstanding essays on international relations theory
published in the excellent inaugural issue of Zeitschrift fur Internationale Beziehungen 1, no. 1
(1994). Back.
Note 70: Richard Swedberg, " 'The Battle of the Methods': Toward a Paradigm Shift?" in
Amitai Etzioni and Paul R. Lawrence, eds., Socio-Economics: Toward a New Synthesis, pp.
13-33 (Armonk, N. Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1991). During the last decade the relationship between
economics and sociology has once again become a lively source of debate. See, for example,
James N. Baron and Michael T. Hannan, "The Impact of Economics on Contemporary
Sociology," Journal of Economic Literature 32 (September 1994): 1111-46; Harald Muller,
"Internationale Beziehungen als kommunikatives Handeln: Zur Kritik der utilitaristischen
Handlungstheorien," Zeitschrift fur Internationale Beziehungen 1, no. 1 (1994): 15-44;
Rationality and Society 4, no. 4 (October 1992); Journal of Institutional and Theoretical
Economics (JITE) 150, no. 1 (March 1994); James Johnson, "Habermas on Strategic and
Communicative Action," Political Theory 19, no. 2 (May 1991): 181-201; Jon Elster, The
Cement of Society: A Study of Social Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989);
Mark Granovetter, "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness,"
American Journal of Sociology 91, no. 3 (November 1985): 481-510; and Anthony Oberschall
and Eric M. Leifer, "Efficiency and Social Institutions: Uses and Misuses of Economic
Reasoning in Sociology," Annual Review of Sociology 12 (1986): 233-53. Back.
Note 71: John A. Ferejohn, "Rationality and Interpretation: Parliamentary Elections in Early
Stuart England," in Kristen Renwick Monroe, ed., The Economic Approach to Politics (New
York: Harper Collins, 1991), pp. 279-305; Robert H. Bates and Barry R. Weingast, "A New
Comparative Politics: Integrating Rational Choice and Interpretivist Perspectives"
(unpublished paper, Harvard and Stanford Universities, October 1994); James Johnson,
"Symbol and Strategy: Cultural Bases of Political Possibility" (unpublished paper, University of
Rochester, 1992). Back.
Note 72: Friedrich Kratochwil, "Regimes, Interpretation, and the 'Science' of Politics: A
Reappraisal," Millennium: Journal of International Studies 17, no. 2 (Summer 1988): 263-84.
Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1988), pp. 22-28. Back.
Note 73: Ernest R. May, " 'Who are We'?" Foreign Affairs 73, no. 2 (March-April 1994): 135.
Back.
Note 74: David Rieff, "A Global Culture?" World Policy Journal 10, no. 4 (Winter 1993/94):
74; Carl Bernstein, "The Leisure Empire," Time, December 24, 1990, pp. 56-59; Paarlberg,
Leadership Abroad Begins at Home, pp. 48-56. Back.
Note 75: Samuel P. Huntington, "Transnational Organizations in World Politics," World

Politics 25, no. 3 (April 1973): 338, 342-45. Back.
Note 76: Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Back.
Note 77: Don Puchala, "International Encounters of Another Kind" (paper prepared for
presentation at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C.,
March 30-April 2, 1994. Back.
Note 78: Ian S. Lustick, Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and
Algeria, Israel and the West Bank-Gaza (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 79: Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?," pp. 24, 42-44, 48. Back.
Note 80: Ibid., pp. 26-27, 30, 35, 39-41, 48. Back.
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Note 81: Ibid., pp. 26, 39-41, 48. Back.
Note 82: Some of these issues are aired in a number of short articles published in Foreign
Affairs 72, no. 5 (November-December 1993), and discussed by James Kurth in "The
Real Clash," National Interest, no. 37 (Fall 1994): 3-15. They were discussed frankly at a
special panel of the 1993 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. Back.
Note 83: Puchala, "International Encounters of Another Kind." Back.
Note 84: Karl W. Deutsch, "On Nationalism, World Regions, and the Nature of the West," in
Per Torsvik, ed., Mobilization, Center-Periphery Structures and Nation-Building: A Volume
in Commemoration of Stein Rokkan, p. 86 (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1981). Back.
Note 85: Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, "Religion, the State, and Transnational Civil Society," in
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, ed., Transnational Religion, the State, and Global Civil Society, pp.
21-23 (forthcoming). Back.
Note 86: Samuel P. Huntington, "If Not Civilizations, What? Paradigms of the Post-Cold War
World," Foreign Affairs 72, no. 5 (November-December 1993): 189-90. Back.
Note 87: Rudolph, "Religion, the State, and Transnational Civil Society," p. 4. Back.
Note 88: Walter Feinberg, Japan and the Pursuit of a New American Identity: Work and
Education in a Multicultural Age (New York: Routledge, 1993). Back.
Note 89: James Kurth, "The Post-Modern State: Is America a Nation?" Current 348
(December 1992): 26-33; Kurth, "The Real Clash." Back.
Note 90: Michael Geyer, "Historical Fictions of Autonomy and the Europeanization of
National History," Central European History 22, nos. 3-4 (1989): 316-42. Back.
Note 91: John Gerard Ruggie, "Third Try at World Order? America and Multilateralism After
the Cold War," Political Science Quarterly 109, no. 4 (Fall 1994): 564-65; Alexander L.
George, "Domestic Constraints on Regime Change in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Need for Policy
Legitimacy," in Ole R. Holsti, Randolph M. Siverson, and Alexander L. George, eds., Change in
the International System, pp. 233-62 (Boulder: Westview, 1980). Back.
Note 92: E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of
International Relations, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1956), pp. 11-12. ). Back.
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CIAO: About The Culture of National Security https://www.ciaonet.org/book/katzenstein/katzensteininfo.

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The Culture of National Security

--Ted Hopf, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

"[The Culture of National Security] takes on important theoretical terrain, and

--Joshua Goldstein, American University

About the author.

The Culture of National Security

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Peter J. Katzenstein is the Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies at

The Culture of National Security

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AUTHOR: Katzenstein, Peter

The Culture of National Security

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The Culture of National Security:

Book Summary and Reviews

Part I. Norms and National Security

Part II. Identity and National Security

Part III. Implications and Conclusions

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unimpressed a growing number of graduate students and younger scholars unpersuaded

The Culture of National Security

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Peter J. Katzenstein is Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies at Cornell

The Culture of National Security

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1. Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security

It is always risky to pronounce a verdict of death on ideas, even after an

This is a book written by scholars of international relations rummaging in the "graveyard" of

The main analytical perspectives on international relations, neorealism and neoliberalism,

developing a theoretically coherent, empirically oriented research program. And it would be

Why Traditional National Security Issues?

Existing Analytical Perspectives

instrumental rationality of actors. Neorealists emphasize that the competitive pressure of an

Structural neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism share a similar, underlying analytical

Analogously, Robert Keohane is a leading neoliberal scholar favoring an economic mode of

Cultural-Institutional Context and Political Identity

neorealism and neoliberalism slight.

Social Determinant 1: Cultural-Institutional Context

Self-reflection does not occur in isolation; it is communicated to others. In the process of

Social Determinant 2: Collective Identity

Stephen Walt's theory of balance of threat shows a similar theoretical inclination. 87 As is

The effort to test sociological, culture-based explanations against economic, interest-based

Note 1: Although, properly speaking, I am referring to state security, I am adhering to the

Note 7: Immanuel Wallerstein, "Socialist States: Mercantilist Strategies and Revolutionary

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Immanuel Wallerstein, "Marx, Marxism-

Note 18: Ibid., pp. 130-35. Back.

Note 21: Walt, "The Renaissance of Security Studies," p. 212. Back.

Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). Back.

Note 34: Ibid., p. 42. Back.

Note 36: Ibid., pp. 294-95. Back.

Note 37: James G. March, "Decision-Making Perspective: Decisions in Organizations and

Note 42: Ibid., pp. 30-31. Back.

Note 44: Ibid., p. 228. Back.

Note 45: Ibid., p. 236. Back.