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Domestic Structure and Preventive War: Are Democracies More Pacific?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Randall L. Schweller
Randall L. Schweller
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Abstract

Realists have long viewed uneven rates of growth among states as a major cause of wars. According to strict logic of realpolitik, a declining dominant power should launch a preventive war against a rising challenger as a prudent long-term security strategy. But historically, power shifts have only sometimes resulted in war. Although preventive war has been the preferred response of declining authoritarian leaders, no democracy has ever initiated such a war. Instead, depending on the regime type of the rising challenger, democratic states have chosen accommodation, defensive alliances, or internal balancing to solve the problem of impending decline. In addition to establishing the correlation between preventive war and authoritarian regimes and explaining why democratic states forgo this option, this essay (1) develops a model based on the domestic structures of the leader and challenger that predicts which strategy will be employed by a declining dominant power and (2) tests the propositions against historical survey data and several in-depth case studies.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , January 1992 , pp. 235 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1992

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References

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19 Singer and Small (fn. 1), 55; Doyle (fn. 14), 212. Specifically, Doyle's definition requires male suffrage of at least 30% and female suffrage to be granted within a generation of its initial demand.

20 Weede (fn. 1) disagrees, stating that “economic freedom is usually not part of definitions of democracy” (p. 655). But the current democratization of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union seems to demonstrate that, in addition to political freedom, a market and private-property economy may be an indispensable ingredient of democracy.

It is important to note, however, that the addition of juridical rights and economic freedom to the definition of democracy has had no effect on the coding (democratic or nondemocratic) of the cases in this study, as all politically free states also contained both of these elements.

21 Rummel defines freedom in the expansive sense as economic freedom plus political freedom (civil liberties plus political rights). See Rummel (fn. 1, March 1983), 30–31. Doyle (fn. 14) refers to the institution of a market and private-property economy in his definition of a “liberal regime” (p. 212). A liberal democracy obviously implies both economic and political freedom.

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33 For instance, in response to Churchill's accusation that Baldwin had acted irresponsibly by not proposing a greater rearmament effort in 1935, the prime minister responded: “Supposing I had gone to the country and said that Germany was rearming and we must rearm, does anyone think that this pacific democracy would have rallied to that cry at that moment? I cannot think of anything that would have made the loss of the election from my point of view more certain.” Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, speech in the House of Commons, quoted in Craig, Gordon A. and George, Alexander L., Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time, 2d ed. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 64Google Scholar.

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42 Vagts (fn. 4), 264.

43 Although he is inconsistent on this point, even Hans Morgenthau has written that the national interest of a state must be constrained by its own morality. See Morgenthau, , In Defense of the National Interest (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), 36–37Google Scholar; and idem, , “Letter to the editor,” International Affairs 35 (October 1959), 502Google Scholar. See also Thompson, Kenneth W., Political Realism and the Crisis of World Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of the skepticism of political realists about international morality, see Beitz, Charles R., Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

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It is especially in the refusal to consider seriously the possibility of preventive war, regardless of its expediency in view of the national interest, that the moral condemnation of war as such has manifested itself in recent times in the Western world. When war comes, it must come as a natural catastrophe or as the evil deed of another nation, not as a foreseen and planned culmination of one's own foreign policy. Only thus might the moral scruples, rising from the violated moral norm that there ought to be no war at all, be stilled, if they can be stilled at all.

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50 The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg stated: “It must be remembered that preventive action in foreign territory is justified only in case of an ‘instant and overwhelming necessity for self-defense, leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation’ (Caroline Case).” Quoted in Bowett (fn. 49), 60.

51 The meaning of a preemptive attack is somewhat ambiguous. It sometimes implies that the preemptor is aware of an imminent enemy attack and thus is compelled to strike the first blow. At other times it refers to an “anticipatory counterattack” waged after the adversary's attack has been launched but before its impact has been felt. Under both definitions, the existence of an immediate threat and a very short time frame for decision making characterizes a preemptive attack; a preventive attack, by contrast, is motivated by long-term forecasting.

52 The classic doctrine of bellum justum did, however, include preventive war. See Osgood and Tucker (fn. 7), 292.

53 See Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 62Google Scholar. See also Osgood and Tucker (fn. 7), 296–97. The issue of whether preventive war can ever be included in the doctrine of the just war is far more complicated than the schematic treatment I am able to offer here. For a comprehensive discussion of this matter, see Tucker, Robert W., The Just War: A Study in Contemporary American Doctrine (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1960), 15Google Scholar, 71, 105–45. For a rebuttal to Tucker's argument, see Ramsey, Paul, The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968), 61–69Google Scholar.

54 Otto von Bismarck, quoted in Walzer (fn. 53), 63.

55 This is not to say that whenever a nondemocratic state is in the process of being overtaken by a rising challenger it will respond by unleashing a preventive war. In 1866, for example, France did not intervene to prevent either side in the Austro-Prussian War from winning and uniting the loose German confederation under its leadership.

56 Curiously, Engels believed that universal military service would democratize society. He declared in 1891 that “contrary to appearance, compulsory military service surpasses general franchise as a democratic agency.” History has proved otherwise, however. See Neumann, Sigmund and Hagen, Mark von, “Engels and Marx on Revolution, War, and the Army in Society,” in Paret, Peter, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 277–80Google Scholar.

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72 Eden, , Facing the Dictators (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), 397Google Scholar. Eden also wrote:

Academically speaking, there is little dispute that Hitler should have been called to order, if need be forcibly, at his first breach of an accepted international engagement. But nobody was prepared to do it, in this country literally nobody. Even the most warlike proclaimed that the League Council must be called, which would not have endorsed the use of force, (p. 412)

73 Parker (fn. 60), 364.

74 Thomson (fn. 68), 171.

75 In addition, the Third Republic's history of political scandals, most notably the Stavisky affair of 1934, had entirely discredited the parliamentary system. One French officer exclaimed, “Literally I have never met a single one of my poilus who has not expressed his disgust for the parliamentary regime”; comments of a French officer, June 1940, quoted in Adamthwaite, Anthony, France and the Coming of the Second World War, 1936–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 1977), 12Google Scholar.

76 Laval had resigned in response to the public's denouncement of the Hoare-Laval proposals, which sought to appease Italy through territorial concessions at the expense of Ethiopia.

77 Thomson (fn. 68), 200.

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97 Brecher, Michael, The Foreign Policy System of Israel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 65Google Scholar.

98 In the years 1966–75 Israel's military expenditure averaged 49.8% of the national budget. See Leitenberg, Milton and Ball, Nicole, “The Military Expenditures of Less Developed Nations as a Proportion of Their State Budgets,” in Eide, Asbjorn and Thee, Marek, eds., Problems of Contemporary Militarism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980), 289Google Scholar.

99 Handel (fn. 95), 9.

100 It is worth noting that the Israelites under David's leadership waged two preventive wars, first against the Philistines and then against Damascus. For a good discussion on the similarities between the ancient Jewish states and contemporary Israel and on how the history of the ancient Israelites affects Israeli foreign policy decision making, see Roberts (fn. 96), chap. 1.

101 For an excellent discussion of the effects of the international system on domestic structure, see Gourevitch, Peter, “The Second Image Reversed,” International Organization 32 (Autumn 1978)Google Scholar.

102 For discussions that forecast the return of multipolarity in Europe, see Mearsheimer, John J., “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security 15 (Summer 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Snyder, Jack, “Averting Anarchy in the New Europe,” International Security 14 (Spring 1990CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Christensen, Thomas J. and Snyder, Jack, “Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity,” International Organization 44 (Spring 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

103 For similar arguments, see Evera, Stephen Van, “Primed for Peace: Europe after the Cold War,” International Security 15 (Winter 1990–91)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the exchange between Russett, Bruce M. and Mearsheimer, John J. in “Back to the Future, Part III: Realism and the Realities of European Security,” International Security 15 (Winter 1990–91).CrossRefGoogle Scholar