International Order: A Political History 9781685850913

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International Order

International

ORDER A Political History Stephen A. Kocs

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2019 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com

and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 5DB

„ 2019 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kocs, Stephen A., author. Title: International order : a political history / Stephen A. Kocs. Description: Boulder, Colorado : Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019004994| ISBN 9781626378100 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781626378117 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: International relations—History. | Comparative government—History. | Liberalism—History. Classification: LCC JZ1308 .K63 2019 | DDC 327.09—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019004994

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.

5 4 3 2 1

Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgments

vii ix

Introduction

1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The Historical Evolution of International Order The Dynastic System, 1300–1700

The Balance-of-Power System, 1700–1815 The Concert of Europe, 1815–1854

5

33

57

81

The Revived Concert, 1871–1914

101

Liberal Order and Cold War, 1945–1989

159

The First Liberal System, 1919–1939

International Order in the Post–Cold War World What Future for Liberal Order?

Bibliography Index About the Book

127

195

229

237 251 261

v

Figures

2.1 3.1 4.1 5.1 6.1 6.2 7.1 8.1 9.1

Three Ages of International Order Europe in 1556 Europe in 1714 Europe in 1815 Europe in 1871 The Balkans in 1878 and 1914 Europe in 1924 Europe in 1955 Europe in 2018

vii

10 39 68 85 105 107 136 174 216

Acknowledgments

MY FOREMOST DEBT IN WRITING THIS BOOK IS TO MY students at the College of the Holy Cross, who graciously permitted me the opportunity to try out its arguments on them. The book has benefited immeasurably from their questions, reactions, and occasional skepticism. I am also indebted to Ward Thomas, Loren Cass, and Denis Kennedy for detailed and incisive comments on an early version of the manuscript, and to Jim Read for thoughtful comments on several chapters. I am grateful to Lynne Rienner for believing in this book and offering many helpful suggestions along the road to publication, and to Laura Poole for expert editorial assistance. I also thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and criticisms. Finally, I am deeply grateful to the College of the Holy Cross for providing the research support that made this book possible.

ix

1 Introduction

THE QUESTION OF ORDER IS PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORtant problem in international relations. International order matters because it is a precondition for attaining many of the goals of human existence. Human societies find it difficult to thrive amid conditions of chaos and insecurity. In modern times, the collapse of international order has coincided with the onset of total war, as exemplified by World Wars I and II. Those wars resulted in millions of deaths, caused physical destruction on a massive scale, and disrupted lives all across the globe. If an all-out war among major powers were to take place in today’s nuclear-armed world, the survival of the human race would be endangered. For that reason, political leaders are normally anxious to ensure that international order does not collapse. Where does international order come from? How is it created and maintained? The existence of order at the international level cannot be taken for granted. The international realm consists of multiple independent political actors able to decide for themselves how they will behave toward others. International politics therefore takes place in a condition of anarchy, meaning that no one government exercises effective authority over the whole realm. Under anarchy, political order exists only to the extent that the actors deliberately construct it. In the modern world, sovereign states are the main international actors. There are nearly 200 sovereign states in existence today, ranging from very large and powerful ones, such as the United States and 1

2

International Order

China, to comparatively small and powerless ones, such as Fiji and Luxembourg. Each sovereign state has its own government, laws, and armed forces. As a sovereign actor, a state may pursue whatever foreign policy it deems desirable and may choose to do so without regard to the impact on other states. It may decide to cooperate with other states, but it may also decide to launch a war or take other actions damaging to them. Given such circumstances, it might seem logical to expect that international affairs would be chaotic, with states engaged in an endless and violent struggle to seize resources for themselves and enslave or destroy those who stand in their way. Yet if we survey the world as it actually is, that is not what we find. In the real world, the vast majority of states coexist peacefully with their neighbors. Every year, trillions of dollars in goods and services are traded across international borders. Millions of tourists, students, and businesspeople travel to and from foreign countries without incident. Banks and business firms invest billions of dollars in foreign economies, confident that their investments are safe. Although conflicts of interest between states sometimes give rise to skirmishes and tests of will, it is unusual for such conflicts to escalate to full-scale war. To be sure, there is a great deal of organized violence in the world, but most of it takes place within states, not between them, and arises from domestic power struggles rather than international ones. In short, order seems more prevalent in the international realm than does chaos. Historically, breakdowns of international order have been followed quickly by attempts to reestablish it on a more solid foundation. States create international order by accepting constraints on their behavior. Such constraints may derive from custom or from explicit rules like those listed in the United Nations charter, or from informal agreements between states. For example, during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union reached an informal agreement not to challenge each other’s vital interests in Europe. The United States refrained from challenging Soviet domination of eastern Europe; in return, the Soviet Union refrained from challenging US leadership over western Europe. The agreement enabled the two superpowers to avoid all-out war, even though their overall relationship remained highly adversarial. A set of rules or arrangements that creates order among international political actors may be called an international political system, or “international system” for short. International systems are estab-

Introduction

3

lished by the most powerful international actors, and any system they create reflects their preferences. That is to be expected. The powerful actors wield the economic and military capabilities necessary to sustain a system. The less powerful actors do not. An international system defines the rights and obligations of the actors that make it up and specifies the constraints they are expected to observe in their behavior toward each other. Once established, an international system normally remains in place for as long as the powerful actors retain the ability and will to uphold it. If a time comes when they are no longer able or willing to do so, the system will fall apart, and a period of disorder is likely to ensue before a new system is put into place. Given that the identities and preferences of the most powerful actors change over time, international systems change over time as well. Each system is specific to its own historical era. This book approaches the question of international order from a comparative historical perspective. It traces the rise and fall of successive international systems through history, focusing initially on the international systems of late medieval and early modern Europe, then turning its attention to the more globalized international systems established beginning in the nineteenth century. By comparing the international systems of different periods, the analysis highlights the distinctive features of each system and illuminates long-term trends. A central argument of this book is that the essential character of international order has evolved over time. In late medieval Europe, international order arose mainly from the religious beliefs and social customs that defined western Christendom. In adhering to those beliefs and customs, European rulers accepted some implicit constraints on their international actions. By the eighteenth century, religion and custom were fading as sources of restraint. International order came to depend on informal, pragmatic arrangements among the major European powers. Those arrangements enabled the major powers to advance their own interests, but did so in ways that often sacrificed the interests of less powerful states and peoples. Another major shift occurred after World War I, when the victorious powers agreed that international order should be based on explicit, universal rules designed to protect the security and independence of all states. Since that time, universal rules have provided much of the basis for international order. But because not all states have been willing to adhere to those rules, order has continued to depend partly on informal arrangements based on power.

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International Order

The book proceeds as follows. Chapter 2 introduces key concepts and provides an overview of the main arguments. Chapter 3 explores international politics in Renaissance Europe, showing how hereditary monarchs employed dynastic wars and marriages to perpetuate an international order based on inherited rulership. Chapter 4 shows how the great powers in eighteenth-century Europe tried to preserve their independence through balance-of-power stratagems. Chapter 5 traces the rise and fall of the Concert of Europe, which the great powers created as a basis for international order following the Napoleonic Wars. Chapter 6 describes the revival of the Concert of Europe in the 1870s and shows how the revived Concert preserved international order until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Chapter 7 covers the period between the two world wars and examines why the international system established after World War I broke down so quickly. Chapter 8 addresses the Cold War era, focusing on the role of the United States in constructing and managing global international order. Chapter 9 examines the nature of international order in the post– Cold War world. Finally, Chapter 10 discusses questions facing the international system as we look toward the future. The story of international order is ongoing. Every international system reflects the political conditions that existed at the time of its creation. As those conditions change, the rules and arrangements that define the system may become more difficult to sustain. New rules and arrangements, reflecting new circumstances, may need to be created. For example, political observers point to China’s emergence as a global economic power as a development that may well lead to significant changes in the current international system. Other contemporary developments, such as climate change, declining birth rates across most of the developed world, and the growth of populist political movements in the United States and Europe, may also lead to changes. What form will those changes take? How will they come about? The history of international order provides important clues.

2 The Historical Evolution of International Order

WHEN APPLIED TO POLITICS, THE CONCEPT OF ORDER denotes the presence of rules or arrangements that enable actors to protect their interests. Political order exists to the extent that those rules and arrangements are respected. Disorder exists to the extent that those rules and arrangements are not respected. In international politics, the construction of order is complicated by anarchy—the absence of a central government able to exert effective authority over the international realm as a whole. Most international authority rests in the hands of sovereign states, which lack authority to legislate for other states or impose their laws outside their own territories. Anarchy is not the same thing as disorder. The international realm is by definition anarchic, but political order can and does exist under anarchy. Broadly speaking, order in the international realm may be created in one of two ways.1 First, order can arise if international actors restrain themselves voluntarily in accordance with rules or arrangements they have chosen to accept. Second, order can exist if the more powerful international actors enforce a set of rules or arrangements on each other and on the less powerful actors. At most times in history, including the present, the maintenance of international order has depended on both methods. However, the relative importance of voluntary self-restraint versus coercive enforcement has varied with circumstances.

5

6

International Order

It is essential to note that international order is not necessarily the same thing as international peace. All international systems depend to some extent on the use of violence to maintain order. But some systems involve more violence than others. For example, military conflict was an inherent feature of international order during Europe’s dynastic era. The hereditary monarchs who dominated politics in that era relied on war as a means of upholding inherited rulership. Even though war in dynastic Europe was widespread, the dynastic system was “orderly” in the sense that it preserved established authority structures and principles of legitimacy. In contrast to the dynastic system, international systems established since 1815 have been created with the conscious goal of preserving peace among the major powers. As a result, wars among major powers have become much less frequent than in earlier centuries. Indeed, no fullscale war between major powers has taken place since the end of World War II. But wars by major powers against less powerful states and peoples remained common throughout the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth.2 Today, the idea of international order brings to mind the image of a universal peace that includes all states. Even so, some uses of military force remain integral to international order, as when the UN Security Council authorizes the use of force against a state that has violated the UN charter. International order is also not necessarily the same thing as international justice. In international politics, as in domestic politics, maintaining order means upholding established relationships of power and authority. To the extent that existing power relationships are unjust, maintaining order will also mean perpetuating injustice. Although it may be argued that unjust political arrangements—by definition—are morally unacceptable, in international politics the quest for justice must sometimes give way to the need for order. As the two world wars showed, the collapse of global political order produces far more human suffering and oppression than exists in an unjust but relatively peaceful world. In today’s nuclear-armed world, an all-out war between major powers would wreak inconceivable harm. For that reason, maintaining an orderly peace among the major powers is an overriding moral imperative, even if doing so produces substantial amounts of injustice. The question of how best to promote a more just world while preserving international order remains vital.3 The rules and arrangements that provide international order are established by the most powerful international actors and reflect their

The Historical Evolution of International Order

7

interests and preferences. If an international system fails to serve the objectives of the powerful actors, it is likely to break down. Powerful actors generally cannot be forced to adhere to arrangements they reject. Meanwhile, the nature of the actors depends on historical context. As used here, the phrase “international actors” refers to rulers (such as monarchs) or political units (such as states) that have authority to make treaties with foreign rulers or governments. In dynastic Europe, the main international actors were hereditary monarchs, and the international system of that era reflected their goals and priorities. In the modern world, the main international actors are sovereign states. Modern international systems reflect the goals and priorities of the most powerful states. For example, the international system of post-Napoleonic Europe served the objectives of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and France, which were the major powers of that time. Similarly, the international system established after World War II served the objectives of the two most powerful states of the Cold War era: the United States and the Soviet Union. It is worth asking why powerful states would seek to establish international order. For order to be possible, those states must accept some constraints on their international behavior. But why would they do so? Why would they voluntarily give up some of their freedom of action, rather than simply seeking to take what they want by force? In general, even the most powerful international actors prefer order over disorder, because they can secure their interests more effectively in an orderly environment than they can in a chaotic one. An orderly environment reduces the risks that international actors face from other actors. It helps insure them against losses of territory or independence. It broadens possibilities for international cooperation while narrowing the possibilities for conflict. It creates predictability, allowing actors to allocate security resources where they are most needed. In short, the existence of order enables international actors to manage external threats effectively rather than allowing those threats to overwhelm them.4 From the standpoint of the most powerful actors, order is also advantageous because it helps preserve existing power structures, thereby perpetuating the benefits the powerful derive from their position atop the hierarchy. Under most circumstances, powerful actors stand to gain much more from maintaining international order than they do from destroying it. Given the anarchic nature of the international realm, it is always possible for an international system to break down. But breakdowns

8

International Order

are the exception, not the norm. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the principal arrangements sustaining international order have fallen apart three times. The first time occurred between 1854 and 1871, when a series of wars between major European states significantly altered the territorial settlement of 1815. The second took place from 1914 to 1918, when Europe descended into general war. The third happened from the late 1930s to 1945, as Germany and Japan embarked on programs of territorial expansion that led to war against other major powers. Each breakdown was followed by the establishment of a new international system once the fighting was over. The present-day international system encompasses the entire world. From a historical perspective, the existence of a global international system is a relatively recent development. In premodern times, international systems were local or regional in scope, and different systems existed simultaneously in different parts of the world.5 Even the most powerful ancient and medieval empires lacked the means to exert much influence on areas far from their own, so the existence of an international system in one part of the world tended to have little effect on international politics in other parts. That began to change in the sixteenth century, as European merchants, settlers, and soldiers crossed oceans in search of land and trade. In Central and South America, the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors and the resulting destruction of indigenous societies put an end to whatever local international orders may have existed there. In Africa and Asia, the full impact of European imperialism was not felt until the nineteenth century. But over time, as the proportion of the world under European colonial control expanded, there was less and less room for international systems separate from the European system. From the late nineteenth century on, it makes sense to think of the international system as global in nature.6

Foundations of International Order In any given international system, order rests on a set of foundational rules or arrangements accepted by the main actors in the system. Those rules or arrangements define (at least in broad terms) the constraints the actors are expected to observe in their behavior toward each other. As used here, the word “rule” means a guideline or principle defining certain behavior as legitimate or illegitimate, whereas an “arrangement” is an agreement that allocates specific

The Historical Evolution of International Order

9

benefits or spoils to particular actors. Historically, some international systems have rested mainly on rules, and others have rested mainly on arrangements. The distinction between these two types of structure is not always clear-cut, and international systems typically draw their stability from a combination of both. Examples may help clarify the difference between rules and arrangements. The UN charter, which provides much of the normative foundation of the present-day international system, illustrates a rules-based approach to the construction of order. The charter lists a series of principles that establish guidelines for states’ behavior and define certain types of behavior as illegitimate. Under the charter, states are obligated to settle their international disputes by peaceful means and to respect the sovereign rights of other states. Similarly, a rules-based approach characterized the international system established after World War I. The League of Nations covenant, which provided the normative foundation for that system, obligated member states to refrain from international aggression and to participate in collective security measures. The international system of dynastic Europe may also be understood as a rules-based order. That system rested on the principle of respect for inherited rights of rulership. Some international systems rest mainly on arrangements rather than rules. In such systems, the powerful actors typically allocate territories, influence, or other benefits among themselves, and agree formally or informally to abide by that allocation. During the Cold War, for example, the United States and the Soviet Union brought significant stability to their relationship by accepting the informal division of Europe into US and Soviet zones of influence. Similarly, during the nineteenth century the major European powers preserved peaceful relations among themselves by avoiding challenges to each other’s spheres of influence and overseas territorial claims.

Three Ages of International Order International systems change over time. A system reflects the identities and preferences of the most powerful actors, and those identities and preferences evolve with changing circumstances. Internal economic, social, and political changes may cause states to modify their international goals. The international distribution of power may shift, giving rise to newly powerful states whose preferences differ from

10

International Order

those of the established powers. As states evolve internally, and as the distribution of power shifts, pressure mounts for changes to bring the system into closer alignment with the new identities and preferences of its most powerful members. Depending on circumstances, changes to an international system may happen gradually or abruptly and may be incremental or wide-ranging. Scholars do not always agree about the dates that should be assigned to the beginning and end of a particular international system. International order usually rests at least partly on informal understandings and implicit constraints, so different observers can reach different conclusions about how a given system works and when it came into existence. Because a given international system may share elements in common with the preceding system, the decision to classify it as a new system may be open to debate. But a strong case can be made that the most fundamental changes in international order usually happen in the aftermath of major wars among the powerful states. At such moments, the victorious powers are in a strong position to establish international rules and arrangements that correspond to their preferences, whereas the defeated powers are in a weak position to insist on their preferences. Scholars point especially to the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the end of World War I in 1918, and the end of World War II in 1945 as moments when major changes in international order were initiated.7 In considering the changes that have taken place in international order over time, it is useful to divide the historical periods discussed in this book into three ages. These are referred to as the Age of Religion, the Age of Power Politics, and the Liberal Age (see Figure 2.1). Figure 2.1 Three Ages of International Order The Age of Religion The Age of Power Politics The Liberal Age

Historical era

Approximate dates

Balance of power Concert of Europe Revived Concert

1700 to 1815 1815 to 1854 1871 to 1914

Papal monarchy Dynastic

Interwar Cold War Post–Cold War

1100 to 1300 1300 to 1700

1919 to 1939 1945 to 1989 1990 to today

The Historical Evolution of International Order

11

The ages correspond to three different ways of creating order in international politics. During the Age of Religion, which lasted from the twelfth century through the seventeenth century, international order in Europe arose mainly from the constraining effects of religion and custom. The main international actors during the Age of Religion were kings, princes, and the pope. Those actors shared a Christian religious and cultural heritage that guided their actions toward fellow Christian rulers and peoples. The Age of Religion consisted of two main phases. The first phase, from about 1100 to 1300, may be called the era of the papal monarchy. During that time, the pope exercised substantial influence over European politics. He asserted the right to define collective goals for western Christendom as a whole, and persuaded many people to embrace those goals. But over time, as kings and other sovereign princes strengthened their authority, the pope’s influence faded. International order entered a new phase, which may be called the dynastic era. During the dynastic era, international politics in Europe revolved mainly around the defense of inherited rights of rulership. Chapter 3 examines international order in the dynastic era, defined here as the period from about 1300 to 1700. During the Age of Power Politics, which stretched from the early eighteenth century to World War I, the main international actors were a group of powerful European states known as the “great powers.” The great powers created international order by establishing arrangements that protected their own interests at the expense of smaller European states and non-Western peoples. The Age of Power Politics was marked by intensified strategic competition among European states. The constraints of religion and custom that shaped international behavior in earlier centuries largely fell by the wayside, as the great powers maneuvered for strategic advantage. Chapters 4 through 6 examine international order during the Age of Power Politics. The Liberal Age began at the end of World War I and has continued to the present day. It has been characterized by efforts to reduce the role of power politics in international affairs and to maintain international order on the basis of universally accepted rules. Core principles of liberal international order include open trade, peaceful resolution of disputes, and respect for humans as individuals and as members of national groups. The United States, which emerged as a global power after World War I, took the lead in promoting liberal principles as the basis for international order. Since

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International Order

World War II, the United States has also served as the principal manager and enforcer of the liberal system. Chapters 7 through 10 discuss international order in the Liberal Age. The remainder of this chapter provides a more extensive introduction to the three ages of international order.

The Age of Religion From the twelfth century through the seventeenth century, the shared religious tradition of western Christendom provided the primary foundation for international order in Europe. The phrase “western Christendom” refers to those parts of the world where Roman Christianity was the dominant religion. As the twelfth century began, western Christendom included nearly all of western and central Europe, from Ireland and Portugal in the west to Poland and Hungary in the east. People who lived within this area were subject to the religious authority of the Roman Catholic Church, unless they belonged to one of the small communities of Jews or were part of the Muslim population concentrated along Europe’s southern tier. The Roman church thus enjoyed a religious monopoly that assured it a central place in European society. Christian beliefs and practices were woven into nearly every facet of life, blurring the distinction between religion and politics. European rulers viewed themselves as guardians of the church and derived much of their legitimacy from that role. The church’s religious monopoly lasted until early in the sixteenth century, when it came under challenge by the Protestant Reformation. Although doctrinal disagreements between Protestants and Catholics undermined long-standing assumptions about religion and politics, Christian tradition continued to provide the main basis for international order in Europe until about the end of the seventeenth century. The papal monarchy, which was the initial phase of the Age of Religion, began to take shape during the second half of the eleventh century. At the time, political power nearly everywhere in Europe was decentralized. The effective authority of kings generally did not reach very far, and in large kingdoms like France and Germany, local lords were typically able to govern their fiefdoms with little accountability to the king or anyone else. 8 The fragmented character of political power offered an opportunity for the papacy to ele-

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vate its role in European society. Beginning in the mid-eleventh century, papal officials introduced a series of internal reforms aimed at establishing strong papal control over the church’s doctrine, personnel, and finances. The reformers sought to create a centralized church, governed from Rome, in place of the mostly locally governed church that existed at the time. As the reforms took effect, the pope found himself increasingly able to assert religious authority throughout western Christendom.9 Given the church’s religious monopoly, its centralization of authority magnified the pope’s influence over Europe’s kings, princes, and knights. Europe’s rulers were members of the church, and they viewed themselves as working in partnership with the pope to defend Christianity against its enemies. Thus, the pope could normally expect rulers to defer to his religious judgments and decrees. To be clear, the pope did not seek to exercise direct rulership over western Christendom. His authority was fundamentally religious rather than political, and he acknowledged the right of kings and princes to govern their subjects.10 But because the church viewed the religious sphere as superior to the political, the pope claimed authority to define collective goals for Christendom as a whole and called on kings and princes to provide the resources needed to accomplish those goals. The popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries tended to prioritize two collective goals above all others: the reestablishment of Christian rule over the Holy Land (in place of the Muslim rule that had long prevailed there), and the suppression of heresy. To a notable extent, the popes succeeded in persuading Europe’s rulers and knights to adopt those goals and work to achieve them. Knights were especially enthusiastic about the idea of retaking the Holy Land—an objective that seemed to offer not only the promise of spiritual redemption but also possibilities for personal glory and wealth. Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade in 1095, marking the beginning of a 200-year effort by western Christendom to win back the Holy Land. Many of Europe’s most renowned twelfth- and thirteenth-century kings helped organize or lead a crusade at some point during their reign. The rise of the papal monarchy brought significant elements of order to relations among European rulers. The popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries envisaged Christendom as a unitary community binding all Christians together under God’s universal law.

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International Order

The establishment of firm papal control over the church brought that vision at least partly to fruition. Under papal leadership, Christian identity and loyalty to the Christian faith became more central to European society than before. 11 The growing sense of Christian unity helped mobilize popular support for the Crusades. And it encouraged European rulers to view each other not just as rivals but as mutually legitimate holders of rights within the religious community of Christendom. Even as the papal monarchy took shape, developments in France and England were beginning to erode its underlying foundations. The church was the dominant institution in twelfth-century Europe, and as such was able to command the primary loyalty of large numbers of people across the continent. Because national political institutions were not yet well developed, national identity generally did not offer a strong focus for loyalty. In France and England, that was beginning to change. The French and English kings were constantly in search of revenues to finance military campaigns. Driven by the need to increase their income, they imposed new taxes on their subjects and established permanent institutions for tax collection and the administration of justice. Those developments strengthened the authority of the Crown and made the king a more visible presence in the lives of those he ruled. As a result, the primary loyalty of people in France and England began to shift away from the church and toward the Crown.12 As the domestic authority of the French and English kings increased, the pope’s political influence diminished. At the height of the papal monarchy, the pope was able to appeal effectively to nobles, knights, and common people across Europe to support the collective goals he had laid out. Kings often faced great pressure to accede to his demands. But once the primary loyalty of people in France and England had shifted to the Crown, the rulers of those kingdoms enjoyed greater freedom to decide which goals they would prioritize. Although they might agree with the pope—in principle—on the desirability of winning back the Holy Land, in practice they usually gave priority to political and dynastic objectives in their own kingdoms. By around 1300, the era of the papal monarchy came to an end. The growth of royal authority in France and England meant that the pope no longer had the ability to impose his priorities on Christendom as a whole. Although the pope remained a major actor in European affairs, the character of international order was evolving. As the four-

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teenth century began, dynastic conflicts and rivalries among Europe’s ruling families were moving to the center of the European stage. The hereditary monarchs who dominated European politics from 1300 to 1700 were concerned above all with dynastic questions. Few things mattered more to them than protecting their inherited titles and adding to the prestige of their dynastic lines. Dynastic rulers craved glory, and as they gained control over greater financial resources, they were able to wage lengthy wars in pursuit of it. War was integral to dynastic politics. Religion and custom provided the primary basis for political order during the dynastic era. Most of the leading monarchs in Europe came to office through inheritance, and they regarded their titles as having been bestowed on them by God’s will. They viewed the traditional social order as divinely ordained and considered it their sacred duty to uphold it. After all, their claims to power derived from the traditional order and depended on its continuation. The sense of religious community that had characterized western Christendom in earlier centuries persisted into the dynastic period and shaped how Europe’s monarchies interacted. The ruling families normally accepted each other’s inherited titles as valid, except where those titles conflicted with their own inherited claims. Marriages between ruling families occurred routinely and were facilitated by the uniformity of religious doctrine and ritual across western Christendom. Such marriages contributed to political order by implicitly affirming the status and titles of the families involved. Over time, two developments undermined religion and custom as sources of international order. One of those developments was the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1517. Protestantism spread quickly across much of northern and central Europe, creating doctrinal divisions between Protestants and Catholics. For a long time, Europeans assumed those divisions were temporary and that religious unity would eventually be restored. But by the middle of the seventeenth century, they began to accept that the divisions created by the Reformation were permanent. As a result, religious faith became less relevant to the conduct of international politics. In a Europe where some rulers were Catholic and some were Protestant, religious community could no longer provide a legitimizing framework for international order. A second key development was the rise of large, permanent government bureaucracies in Europe’s major kingdoms. Those

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International Order

bureaucracies came into existence as a result of rulers’ constant efforts to increase tax revenues and consolidate their hold on power. The growth of bureaucracy was a gradual process, but by the eighteenth century, professional civil servants had come to play a central role in forming and carrying out government policies. Hereditary monarchs continued to preside over the state but found that their policy decisions increasingly depended on information and advice from the bureaucracy, which was capable of resisting decisions it disagreed with. As a result of that development, rulers began to redefine their own role and purpose. Whereas rulers in the dynastic era had typically behaved as if the state existed to serve them, eighteenth-century rulers began to accept the idea that their role was to serve the state. Rather than seeking military glory as an end in itself, eighteenth-century monarchs began to give priority to protecting and strengthening the lands they ruled. An international system designed to serve the interests of states operates differently than one designed to serve the interests of monarchs. Dynastic monarchs sought to uphold the traditional social order and defend their inherited claims. But the state, as a territorial entity with defined borders and a defined population, did not necessarily have an intrinsic interest in protecting traditional social customs or religious beliefs. Nor did it necessarily have an intrinsic interest in upholding the dynastic claims of its hereditary ruler. Rather, the core interests of the state lay in protecting its physical security and economic prosperity. By the eighteenth century, the strategic and economic interests of Europe’s states were beginning to take precedence over the dynastic interests of hereditary monarchs. As a result, Europe’s international system underwent a substantial transformation.

The Age of Power Politics The transition from the Age of Religion to the Age of Power Politics happened gradually during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This book uses 1700 as the dividing line between the two ages, but a case can be made for choosing a somewhat earlier or later date. Many commentators point to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 as a watershed event in international politics and would likely date the Age of Power Politics from that point. But dynastic considerations

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remained central to European politics even after 1648, and it may be argued that the logic of state interests did not overshadow the logic of dynastic interests until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, which followed World War I, offers a persuasive dividing line between the Age of Power Politics and the Liberal Age. Although power politics did not disappear from international politics after 1919, the injection of liberal principles into international governance marked a clear shift toward a new type of international system. Thus, as defined here, the Age of Power Politics lasted from around 1700 until World War I. The Age of Power Politics was characterized by a more intense competition for international power than had existed during the Age of Religion. The major states in the system viewed each other with deep distrust and sought to develop international arrangements to cope with the threat they faced from each other’s military capabilities. Such arrangements rested mainly on the use of force (or the threat of it), rather than on custom, law, or religion. At the heart of power politics is the idea that coercive power is its own justification and that powerful states are entitled to dominate weaker states and peoples simply because they can. In other words, “might makes right.” Power politics reasoning suggests that states should disregard considerations of morality or justice in deciding how to act. Instead, they should pursue whatever course of action best serves their material self-interest. They should exercise restraint only to the extent that the opposing power of other states compels them to do so. The logic of power politics encourages states to strengthen themselves militarily and economically, and to use diplomacy to prevent other states from uniting against them. Power politics did not originate in eighteenth-century Europe. The Greek historian Thucydides, writing more than 2,400 years ago, described in detail how power politics shaped the course of the Peloponnesian War, a lengthy conflict between ancient Athens and Sparta. His penetrating analysis and critique of power politics remains influential today.13 But the theory and practice of power politics was especially central to the international systems of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. As such, it is useful to distinguish the Age of Power Politics from the religious age that preceded it and the liberal age that followed it. Great Britain, Russia, France, Austria, and Prussia dominated Europe’s international politics during the Age of Power Politics.

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These five states were usually referred to as the “great powers,” a label reflecting their leading role in creating and maintaining international order. This book divides the Age of Power Politics into three periods: first, the eighteenth century, which was characterized by a balance-of-power international system; second, the Concert of Europe era, which lasted from 1815 to 1854; and third, the era of the revived Concert, which lasted from 1871 until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. In the eighteenth century, European statesmen understood international order mainly in terms of what they called the balance of power. Each great power was fearful that one of its rivals would acquire enough territory and military capability to achieve dominance over Europe, thereby depriving the other powers of their independence. Statesmen argued that the best way to prevent that from happening was by preserving a balanced distribution of power among the major states, so that none could gain a decisive strategic edge over the others. States could pursue various policies to help maintain the balance. For example, they could ally themselves against any state (or coalition of states) that appeared to be threateningly strong. For the balance to work properly, it was essential that states be pragmatic in choosing their alliance partners and not reject potential allies on religious or cultural grounds. In addition, states could help protect the balance by keeping their armed forces well funded and technologically up to date, so that they could defend themselves and their allies effectively. If necessary, states could also preserve the balance by going to war against an overly powerful rival to try to weaken it. Eighteenth-century statesmen often relied on balance-of-power reasoning to justify actions that would have been difficult to defend on legal or moral grounds. For example, statesmen cited the balance of power to justify territorial aggression in the form of partition schemes and compensations. These types of arrangements (discussed in more detail in Chapter 4) reflected the idea that a territorial gain by one power should be offset by territorial gains for its rivals. In that way, no power would be able to achieve dominance over the others by gradually expanding its territories. From the perspective of the individual great powers, maintaining international order under a balance-of-power system essentially meant keeping pace with the strategic and territorial gains of other powers. Order in that sense did not necessarily have much to do with international peace and stability or with respecting the legal

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rights of other European states and rulers. Coercion lay at the heart of the balance-of-power system. The efforts of the individual powers to preserve their independence (and thus international order) sometimes led them to conspire with rival powers to seize territory from weaker states and sometimes to launch wars in an effort to alter the balance in their favor. Throughout the eighteenth century, territorial rivalries drew the great powers into large, extended wars against each other. Late in the century, the French Revolution created a new source of antagonism. The revolution triggered a series of ideology-based wars between France and the other powers, which set the stage for the extraordinarily destructive wars of the Napoleonic era. When these wars finally ended in 1815, the victorious powers sought to establish an international system that could preserve stability and prevent major wars. The system they devised became known as the Concert of Europe. In many ways, the Concert of Europe represented a repudiation of the earlier balance-of-power system. Whereas balance-of-power logic implied the division of the great powers into opposing alliances, the Concert aimed to prevent such divisions. It operated through cooperation and consensus. Whereas the balance-of-power system was associated with frequent wars, the Concert was intended to allow the powers to manage their disagreements peacefully. However, in some ways the Concert system may be viewed not as a rejection of the balance of power but as an attempt to put it on a more stable foundation. The great powers remained deeply distrustful of each other, and each hoped to prevent any shift in the distribution of power that would leave it weakened against its rivals. The Concert was meant to preserve the balance by imposing strong restrictions on territorial change in Europe, thereby preventing the powers from seizing territory at will. The Concert of Europe provided international order through two largely separate mechanisms. The first may be described as a greatpower condominium. In international politics, a “condominium” is an arrangement in which two or more states share governance over a given territory or region. In some respects, the Concert operated as a system of joint governance by the five great powers over the international politics of Europe. Essentially, the powers accepted joint responsibility for supervising and limiting territorial change. They agreed informally that they would seek to preserve the territorial settlement reached in 1815 and would consult with each other on questions that

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posed a threat to European stability. Any changes to territorial boundaries within Europe would require the consent of all five powers. In practical terms, this meant that partition schemes and territorial compensations would play a sharply reduced role in European affairs. The great powers also maintained international order by establishing spheres of influence. A “sphere of influence” may be defined as a territory or region dominated by one outside power to the exclusion of other outside powers.14 Typically, a state that has a sphere of influence relies on military intervention (or the threat of intervention) to ensure that the governments within its sphere remain friendly to it and defer to its interests. For example, after 1815 Austria maintained a sphere of influence over the Italian peninsula. Italy was composed of numerous small principalities, and Austria enforced its dominant position over them by sending troops to intervene whenever developments seemed to endanger its interests. The other great powers had their own spheres of influence. Condominium and spheres of influence served complementary functions in the Concert system. Great Britain, one of the strongest of the great powers, was unwilling to tie itself too closely to a condominium arrangement because doing so would greatly restrict its freedom of action. As a result, the great power condominium usually became relevant only when there was a perceived threat to the 1815 territorial settlement or to Europe’s overall stability. At such times, the great powers would confer with each other and try to devise a solution satisfactory to all of them. But under ordinary conditions, the powers preferred to act alone to protect their interests rather than being required to consult and compromise with each other. By erecting spheres of influence in those parts of Europe where their particular interests were most directly involved, the individual powers found a way to preserve substantial freedom of action in defending their vital interests without endangering peace with the others. They understood that preserving peace required them to avoid interfering in each other’s spheres of influence, and for the most part they did so. The complementary functions of the Concert’s two key mechanisms may be summarized in the following way. The condominium aspect helped maintain peace by requiring the great powers to consult with each other as needed to resolve problems that threatened Europe’s strategic equilibrium. Meanwhile, the spheres-of-influence aspect helped keep the powers at peace by requiring them to avoid

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meddling in each other’s business. Both the great power condominium and the individual powers’ spheres of influence existed as informal arrangements. The great powers tended to shy away from formal agreements that might limit their ability to cope flexibly and pragmatically with new developments. The Concert of Europe was successful in preserving peace among the great powers for nearly four decades after 1815. But underlying developments in European society challenged the territorial status quo on which the Concert rested. Germans and Italians were beginning to demand national statehood, as were many of the peoples of southeastern Europe. Those demands proved difficult to accommodate within the Concert framework, and Europe experienced a series of great power wars in the 1850s and 1860s. The wars disrupted the Concert and opened the way to the political unification of Italy and Germany. But when the dust finally settled, the powers again looked to Concert diplomacy to stabilize relations among themselves. The final period in the Age of Power Politics lasted from 1871 to 1914. That time may be labeled the era of the revived Concert. In an effort to create a stable equilibrium, the great powers again agreed that they would seek to limit further territorial changes in Europe. On those occasions when territorial adjustments were unavoidable, they sought to manage the changes by negotiation and consensus among themselves. Like the balance-of-power system of the eighteenth century, the nineteenth-century Concert systems created international order primarily through the use of force or the threat to use force. Under the Concert systems, the great powers imposed a territorial stability in Europe that satisfied their own interests but often involved the coercion of less powerful states and peoples. Similarly, force was used to create and maintain the vast new colonial empires in Africa and Asia that European powers acquired during the later nineteenth century. Even relations among the Concert powers did not rest on intrinsic respect for each other’s rights but on a pragmatic recognition that each of them was willing to defend its interests by war, if necessary. Over the course of the nineteenth century, changes in European society and the world at large gradually eroded the powers’ ability to maintain international order using the methods of Concert diplomacy. Those changes included industrialization, the continued growth of national sentiment among European peoples, and the emergence of powerful actors outside Europe such as the United States and Japan. The Concert of Europe was best suited to a world where the leaders

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of the European powers could negotiate solutions to international disputes without needing to take much account of smaller states, or powers outside Europe, or public opinion in their own countries. By the beginning of the twentieth century, that world was rapidly disappearing. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the Concert of Europe collapsed permanently.

The Liberal Age The peace settlement that concluded World War I marked the beginning of the Liberal Age. The defining feature of this age has been the ongoing effort to structure international politics around liberal norms and institutions, rather than coercive arrangements. That effort is reflected in the present-day international system, which largely rests on liberal principles. On the whole, international politics in the Liberal Age operates quite differently than it did during the Age of Power Politics. But power politics continues to play a substantial role in global affairs and appears certain to do so for the foreseeable future. The word “liberal” is not easily defined. Liberalism comprises a rich tradition of political and economic thought reaching back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.15 There are many strands within the liberal tradition, and important disagreements divide the thinkers representing different strands. But if one idea may be said to represent the core of liberalism, it is the belief that individual freedom is the highest political value.16 That view sets liberalism apart from political doctrines putting the interests of rulers, nations, or particular groups ahead of those of individuals. Liberalism holds that the primary purpose of government is to protect the freedom and dignity of those under its authority. That means upholding liberties such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and shielding people from arbitrary and oppressive exercises of power. It means organizing economic life on the basis of free enterprise and private property rights. It also implies an obligation on the part of government to enable those it governs to achieve their full potential as humans.17 Applied to the international realm, liberal principles strongly imply that relations among states should be based on respect for each state’s sovereign rights, rather than on arrangements that allow powerful states to impose their will on less powerful states through coer-

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cion. No state can ensure the freedom and dignity of its people if it is forced to serve the interests of a foreign government. In other words, mutual consent (rather than the use of force) should form the basis for international order. Liberal principles also imply that all national peoples are entitled to self-determination. “Self-determination” refers to the right of a people to rule itself and control its own political destiny, rather than having its destiny dictated to it by foreign actors. In regard to economics, liberalism calls for the establishment of open trade among states. From a liberal perspective, excessive restrictions on trade represent an unjustified constraint on freedom and a needless incitement to territorial aggression and war. The logic of liberal order differs radically from the logic of power politics. Under liberal principles, arrangements such as spheres of influence, condominiums, and balances of power are all viewed as illegitimate, because they maintain order in ways that violate human freedom and dignity. For the same reason, modern liberalism rejects colonialism. (In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many liberals supported colonial empires. They were influenced by racist arguments that have since been discredited.18) In place of power politics and the coercive international systems it produces, liberalism envisages a world governed by universal rules that are accepted by all states. In a fully liberal international system, order would arise primarily from states’ voluntary self-restraint. States would comply willingly with the agreed rules, because those rules are based on their freely given consent and because the rules are fair rather than discriminatory. In an international system based on power politics, the arrangements that sustain order usually involve cooperation among some states at the expense of others. For that reason, such arrangements tend to be informal and unwritten. Or, in cases where a written agreement is necessary (e.g., in creating a formal military alliance), the terms of the agreement are usually kept secret by the participating states. For example, military alliances in the eighteenth century often included secret provisions specifying how the participating states intended to divide the territories of an opposing state among them. It made sense to keep such agreements secret, because revealing them would antagonize the intended victims while making the states in the alliance appear to be immoral aggressors. By contrast, the rules governing a liberal international order are explicit. They are established through formal international agreements

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that all states are welcome to join. The rules of a liberal system are not directed against anyone but are meant to protect the independence and security of all. The foundational rules of the liberal international system established after World War I were laid down in the League of Nations covenant. Those of the post-1945 liberal system were laid down in the UN charter. The founders of the League of Nations and the United Nations intended those organizations to be universal—that is, to include the eventual membership and participation of all the world’s states. The liberal vision of international order has grown more inclusive over time. After World War I, when a liberal international system was first put into place, most people in the United States and Europe did not intend the individual rights promised by liberalism to include everyone. In the United States, there was little support for ending the racial discrimination that pervaded American life. In Europe, states that had colonial empires were determined to hold onto them regardless of what the colonized peoples might wish. Having emerged from World War I as the most powerful international actors, the United States, Great Britain, and France were able to ensure that the League of Nations covenant included no provisions obligating them to grant rights to those they had disenfranchised. But changes in Western societies and the international environment eventually prompted a more universalistic conception of rights. In the decades after World War II, there was growing acceptance of the principle that all humans, regardless of race, sex, or creed, were equal in intrinsic dignity and should be treated as such. In other words, each person should be regarded as having the same fundamental human rights as every other person. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved by the UN General Assembly in 1948, provided a detailed list of specific human rights. Those rights later gained legal substance through a series of international treaties. The European colonial powers also gradually accepted the idea that colonized peoples had a right to self-determination. By the end of the 1970s, nearly every European colonial possession that sought independence had achieved it. This is not to say that progress toward the realization of human rights has proceeded smoothly. In many instances, colonial powers waged long, brutal wars to prevent colonies from achieving independence. And although most states have ratified the principal human rights treaties, not all have done so, and many have proved

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unable or unwilling to fulfill their obligations under the treaties they have joined. Throughout the Liberal Age, one of the central challenges to international order has come from the unwillingness of some states to conduct their foreign policy in ways consistent with a liberal system. For example, the liberal international system established after World War I collapsed when Germany and Japan embarked on programs of large-scale territorial conquest. After World War II, the Soviet Union’s insistence on establishing a sphere of influence in eastern Europe triggered an adversarial relationship with the United States that endangered global stability. In the post–Cold War era, numerous states (including important powers such as China and Russia) remain opposed to key aspects of liberal order.

The Evolution of Liberal Order This book divides the Liberal Age into three periods: the interwar era (1919–1939), the Cold War era (1945–1989), and the post–Cold War era (1990–present). In all three periods, the foremost architect of international order was the United States, which sought to organize the international system on the basis of liberal principles rather than power politics.19 As a territorially satisfied power that faced no significant threat of foreign invasion, the United States felt little need to engage in balance-of-power maneuvering or acquire additional territorial possessions. It saw little to gain, and much to lose, from wars among the major powers, so its interests were in promoting an international order that would prevent such wars from taking place. Given the size of its economy, the United States also had a strong interest in gaining access to raw materials and export markets. That goal could be pursued more effectively in a peaceful and liberal world than in one fractured by great power rivalries. The framework of a liberal international system first took shape in the aftermath of World War I. Under the influence of US President Woodrow Wilson, who brought his liberal vision to the Paris Peace Conference, the victorious powers agreed to form the League of Nations. The league was intended to preserve international peace and protect the security and independence of its member states. At the heart of the new international order was the principle of collective security, which meant that all league members were supposed to join

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together in opposing any member state that attacked another in violation of its obligations under the covenant. Thus, the aggressor state would find itself isolated internationally and subject to moral disapprobation, economic sanctions, or even military action by other members. The league covenant also put a high priority on promoting international disarmament agreements, reflecting the belief—widely held at the time—that one of the chief causes of war was the buildup of large national weapons arsenals. It soon became clear that the liberal international system faced potential opposition from a number of states, most importantly Germany and Japan. Although the German and Japanese governments initially followed a policy of accommodation to the new liberal order, many in those states rejected the liberal system and favored a policy of territorial expansion through force. An underlying weakness of the post-1918 liberal system was that it lacked effective incentives to induce compliance by dissatisfied states. Such incentives would have had to be provided mainly by the United States, which was the world’s largest economic power and had the greatest ability to underwrite the new international system. US political leaders and public opinion enthusiastically supported the principles of global disarmament and the peaceful resolution of international disputes. But most voters rejected the idea that the United States should be required to come to the defense of other states militarily, or that it should commit itself to helping states that confronted economic hardship. The United States did not join the League of Nations and accepted no formal responsibility for upholding collective security or ensuring international economic stability. The task of preserving the liberal system thus fell mainly to Great Britain and France, which lacked sufficient resources to succeed. Militant nationalists in Germany and Japan campaigned relentlessly against the international status quo, and when economic conditions worsened at the end of the 1920s, political sentiment in both countries shifted decisively in their favor. During the 1930s, Germany and Japan took the path of territorial expansionism, culminating in World War II and the collapse of the liberal international system. Germany and Japan were eventually defeated, primarily through the efforts of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain. As World War II drew to a conclusion, the leaders of these states reached agreement on the main elements of a new international organization to replace the League of Nations. That organization, the

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United Nations, established the foundation for a restored liberal order. Its charter, whose final text was approved in 1945 at an international conference in San Francisco, enshrined into law the principles of sovereign equality among states, self-determination of peoples, peaceful resolution of international disputes, and collective defense against aggressors. The charter prohibited member states from using force or the threat of force to deprive any state of its territory or political independence. The terms of the charter reflected the liberal vision of the United States, which offered the new organization its strong support. But even as plans for the United Nations went forward, fundamental disagreements were emerging between the United States and the Soviet Union over the terms of the post–World War II international order. Following the war, the Soviet Union took advantage of its military presence in eastern Europe to impose pro-Soviet communist regimes on several states. Soviet leaders viewed that action as necessary to protect their country from future invasions, but US officials saw it as contrary to the UN charter and a threat to the liberal international system. The United States and the Soviet Union were the dominant powers of the post-1945 world—the “superpowers,” as they came to be called—so if the Soviet Union behaved in ways that flouted liberal principles, the liberal system was at risk of giving way to an international order based mainly on coercive arrangements. The United States was the only power with sufficient capabilities to ensure that the liberal system remained intact. To stabilize the liberal order, the United States needed to persuade other states to join with it in liberalizing international trade and opposing communism. The states that mattered most in that effort were Great Britain, France, West Germany, and Japan. Aside from the two superpowers, those states were likely to wield the most economic power in the postwar world. To win their support for the liberal order, the United States offered economic and security leadership. It provided massive reconstruction aid to western Europe, thus helping lay a foundation for economic prosperity. It encouraged the establishment of democratic political systems in West Germany and Japan, so that domestic liberalism there would mesh with liberal principles internationally. It established security pacts with key partner states, pledging to defend them against communist aggression. It took the lead in negotiating a multilateral agreement designed to liberalize trade among capitalist countries.

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Together those measures wove North America, western Europe, and Japan into a liberal bloc under US leadership. The bloc rested on a far-reaching bargain between the United States and its liberal allies. For its part, the United States provided its allies with security guarantees and with assured access to US markets within an open world economy. In return, the allies agreed to uphold liberal values and align themselves with US efforts to limit Soviet and communist influence. By creating a liberal bloc under its leadership, the United States managed to preserve the liberal foundations of the post-1945 international order despite the Soviet Union’s contrary agenda. At the same time the US-led liberal bloc was taking shape, the Soviet Union worked to consolidate its sphere of influence in eastern Europe. The division of Europe hardened, leaving most of eastern Europe under Soviet domination and most of western Europe tied closely to the United States. Although neither superpower was fully satisfied with the arrangement, both were willing to live with it, and it remained in place until the end of the Cold War. Outside Europe, the superpowers engaged in an ongoing contest for influence among the less developed states of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. To expand their influence among the developing countries, the superpowers relied heavily on the establishment of what may be called client relationships. In international politics, the phrase “client relationship” refers to an arrangement in which a powerful state (the patron) agrees to help the ruling regime in a weaker state (the client) maintain its hold on power. During the Cold War, the United States became patron to numerous Third World regimes, sometimes accepting them as clients simply to block the possibility that they might otherwise come under Soviet influence.20 The Soviet Union acquired a substantial number of Third World clients, but not as many as the United States. A few European powers (especially France) established client relationships with some of their former colonial possessions. The relationships the United States maintained with its Third World clients differed significantly from those it maintained with its Western allies. Most of the Western allies were democracies, whereas nearly all US client states were governed by authoritarian regimes. In general, the United States did not encourage its clients to become more democratic. US leaders worried that Third World states lacked the capacity to sustain democratic institutions and that trying to push them toward democracy would destabilize them. Instead, the United

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States focused on the more limited goal of using its client relationships to block the spread of communism. Client relationships made up an important element of international order during the Cold War. They provided the major powers with a means of securing their economic and strategic interests in the developing world. In that sense, client arrangements functioned as a replacement for the system of colonial rule, which was being dismantled. On the whole, client relationships involved less international coercion than had been the case with colonial rule. Unlike colonial possessions, client states governed themselves; in most cases, they retained the freedom to choose their own foreign policy course. Thus, the system of client relationships that emerged during the Cold War represented a more liberal form of order than the earlier system of colonial empires. But in important ways, client relationships were not fully consistent with the liberal principles laid down in the UN charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Because client rulers enjoyed the support of a powerful foreign government, they were usually able to stay in office even if they were deeply unpopular among the people they governed and even if they committed systematic human rights abuses. To sum up, the international system that emerged in the decades after World War II created order through a combination of liberal institutions and coercive arrangements. The system’s foundational principles, established by the UN charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, were liberal. The United States, which emerged from World War II as the world’s preeminent economic and military power, stabilized the liberal system by providing security guarantees and economic assurances to other liberal states. However, the post-1945 international system included arrangements that were directly or indirectly coercive. Foremost among them was the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, which rested more on mutual intimidation than on positive cooperation. The Soviet sphere of influence in eastern Europe, which was held in place by the threat of Soviet military intervention, was also a coercive arrangement. Meanwhile, the many client relationships that existed between powerful states and Third World governments were indirectly coercive in nature. On the surface, such arrangements appeared consensual because they normally came into existence through voluntary agreement between the patron and the client regime. But their underlying logic was coercive in that they

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reinforced the ability of client regimes to rule without accountability to the people they governed. The end of the Cold War marked the beginning of the third era of the Liberal Age. The collapse of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union seemed to herald a major shift in international order, with liberal principles poised to become more central to the international system as a whole. The states of eastern Europe, no longer in thrall to Soviet power or communist ideology, were free to adopt democratic political institutions and seek membership in the liberalized trade arrangements that existed among Western states. Most of them did so. The end of the Cold War also opened the door to increased liberalism in the developing world. With communism discredited and the Soviet Union dissolved, the United States no longer had to worry that supporting liberal reforms in developing countries might backfire by allowing pro-Soviet communist forces to seize power. Even before the Cold War ended, US leaders had begun using diplomatic and financial leverage to promote liberalization among Third World states. Although the United States did not always pursue that goal consistently, the overall thrust of its policy was aimed at drawing the developing world into closer alignment with Western liberal values. US policy especially encouraged Third World governments to abandon state-directed economic growth strategies in favor of market capitalism and to open their states to increased participation in world trade. One of the main obstacles to the liberal vision of international order during the Cold War was the Soviet Union’s ideological opposition to liberal principles. The fundamental incompatibility between US liberalism and Soviet communism meant that stable peace between the superpowers was unachievable, and little positive cooperation between them took place. But with the collapse of communism as an ideological alternative to liberalism, there were grounds for hoping that post-Soviet Russia might adopt liberal values, and a genuine and durable peace between the United States and Russia might emerge. There was also reason to hope that China might eventually embrace liberalism. China had largely abandoned communist doctrine during the 1980s and was in the process of adapting its economy to capitalism. Even though the Chinese government carried out a violent crackdown against political dissent in 1989, US leaders hoped that integrating China into global trade would create strong economic incentives for the Chinese to liberalize.

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Over time, it became clear that resistance to liberalism remained strong in Russia, China, and elsewhere in the non-Western world. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia pursued policies that aimed to restore its status as a major world power while undermining Western unity and subverting Western democracy. Meanwhile, the Chinese government took steps to block the spread of liberal ideas within China and counter the growth of liberalism in the developing world. Russia and China remained intensely suspicious of the United States, which they believed sought to weaken and dominate them. The US liberal agenda encountered resistance from other authoritarian regimes as well. At the root of such resistance was the fundamental contradiction between authoritarian rule and liberal values. By its nature, an international system based on liberal principles questions the legitimacy of authoritarian political systems. Ruling elites in authoritarian states accordingly perceive liberal order as a threat to their hold on power and view US support for liberal values as a plot directed against them. They seek to prevent liberal ideas from gaining global ascendancy and try to shape the international system so that it does not challenge the legitimacy of authoritarian rule. As long as the world’s major powers continue to include both liberal democracies and authoritarian states, the role of liberal principles in structuring international order will continue to be contested.

Notes 1. See the discussion in Ikenberry, After Victory, 23–37. 2. See, for example, S. Anderson, “Metternich, Bismarck, and the Myth of the ‘Long Peace.’” 3. Bull, The Anarchical Society, 77–98. 4. Trachtenberg, “The Question of Realism” and “The Problem of International Order”; Glaser, “Realists as Optimists”; Ikenberry, After Victory, 52–53. 5. For discussions of international systems other than the ones considered in this book, see Kang, East Asia before the West; Buzan and Little, International Systems in World History; Kaufman, Little, and Wohlforth, eds., The Balance of Power in World History; Wight, Systems of States; and Watson, The Evolution of International Society. 6. See Bull and Watson, The Expansion of International Society. 7. See for example Ikenberry, After Victory, and Holsti, Peace and War. 8. Osiander, “Before Sovereignty,” 122–123; Barber, The Two Cities, 195– 197 and 274–275. 9. See Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy, 74–117, and Lynch, The Medieval Church, 136–182.

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10. Brooke, Europe in the Central Middle Ages, 355–358. 11. Lynch, The Medieval Church, 158–164. 12. Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State, 45 and 54. 13. See for example Rahe, “Thucydides’ Critique of Realpolitik”; Garst, “Thucydides and Neorealism”; and Johnson Bagby, “The Use and Abuse of Thucydides in International Relations.” 14. Keal, Unspoken Rules and Superpower Dominance. 15. Arblaster, The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism. 16. Ryan, The Making of Modern Liberalism, 23. 17. See Ryan, The Making of Modern Liberalism, chap. 1, and Kelly, Liberalism. 18. Hobson and Hall, “Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism.” 19. Ikenberry, “Liberal Internationalism 3.0.” 20. Sylvan and Majeski, U.S. Foreign Policy in Perspective, 48.

3 The Dynastic System, 1300–1700

THE PERIOD FROM ABOUT 1300 TO 1700 CONSTITUTED the dynastic era in Europe’s international politics. During this time, dynastic monarchs—sovereign rulers who inherited office—were the main international actors in Europe. Dynastic monarchs sought above all else to defend their inherited rights and titles and add to them where possible. As a result, Europe’s international politics in this era revolved mainly around dynastic wars and marriages, which were the principal international methods used by hereditary monarchs to increase their prestige and reinforce their claims to rulership. Box 3.1 summarizes the main features of the dynastic international system. Religion provided the underlying foundation for international order during the dynastic era. Traditionally, the rulers and peoples of western Christendom thought of themselves as a religious community united under God’s eternal laws. That view of the world implied that monarchs derived their rights of rulership not only from the laws of succession in their own particular kingdom or principality but also from their membership in the Roman Catholic Church. As holders of rights within the Christian religious community, they were under an implicit obligation to defend the church and protect the traditional social order as ordained by God. In some ways, the conception of western Christendom as a religious community acted as a constraint on monarchs. It obligated them to respect the inherited 33

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Box 3.1 The Dynastic System Time frame: About 1300 to 1700.

Principal actors: The French, English, and Habsburg monarchies. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the rivalry between France and the Habsburgs was central to European politics. In 1556, the Habsburg monarchy divided itself into a Spanish branch and an Austrian branch. That move left the Spanish branch, whose territories were much wealthier than those of the Austrian branch, as France’s principal rival. Other important actors during this time included Portugal, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Venice, Savoy-Piedmont, the Dutch Republic, the papacy, and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was an important military adversary of the Austrian Habsburgs, but as a Muslim power, it remained outside the system in many key respects. How did the system create international order? The

dynastic system created order by protecting the power and status of Europe’s hereditary monarchs and nobles. The system was based on the principle of respect for inherited rights of rulership. As members of the religious community of western Christendom, Europe’s monarchs normally accepted each other’s inherited titles as legitimate. They enforced the system by intermarrying with other ruling families and waging wars in defense of their inherited claims. In doing so they gained prestige and ensured that disputed titles of rulership remained in the hands of the established families.

rights of fellow Christian rulers and peoples. But it also enabled them to acquire additional titles of rulership through intermarriage. In most European kingdoms, the laws that governed hereditary succession took shape long before the Protestant Reformation began.1 In other words, those laws arose at a time when the religious unity of western Christendom was still intact. Religious uniformity was a precondition for the emergence of the dynastic international sys-

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tem. It meant that people anywhere in western Christendom could be sure that even if rulership over their kingdom or principality were inherited by a foreign prince, that prince would be of the same religion as themselves. Had that not been the case, kingdoms throughout Europe would have disallowed foreign princes from inheriting the right to rule them, and the dynastic international system would not have come into existence. Because the dynastic system was built on the assumption of religious uniformity within Christendom, the rise of Protestantism in the sixteenth century posed a grave challenge to its continued viability. But by that time, the system was too deeply rooted in law and custom to be pushed aside easily. Moreover, Europe’s hereditary rulers were not ready to give up a system that served their interests so well. The dynastic system continued to serve as the main framework for international order in Europe until about the end of the seventeenth century, when it began to be overshadowed by the emerging logic of power politics. The dynastic system represented a very different type of order from what we would think of as international order today. In the present day, the concept of international order is associated closely with the preservation of peace. But in dynastic Europe, monarchs gained status and reputation by demonstrating their prowess as military leaders. They viewed the pursuit of military glory as a vital element of successful rulership. From their perspective, war was a normal and desirable feature of political order. The dynastic system was characterized by frequent wars, as monarchs fought to defend their inherited rights of rulership and gain personal glory and renown. Some waged war almost continuously throughout their reigns. By fighting wars for dynastic goals, rulers consolidated and justified their hold on power. In that way, war helped perpetuate existing structures of political authority and preserve the dynastic system. Although it may seem contradictory to describe war as a feature of international order, it is important to keep in mind that every international system serves the interests of the actors who created it. Hereditary monarchs were the principal actors in the dynastic system, and they benefited from dynastic wars even if most of the people under their rule did not. Indeed, such wars were often appallingly destructive. But the common people lacked effective means of holding rulers accountable, so rulers were able to embark on wars without worrying much about the costs to those they ruled.

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This chapter begins with a brief overview of key trends in the internal politics of European monarchies during the course of the dynastic era. It goes on to describe the major European political units in this period and shows how monarchs used dynastic marriages and wars to add to their prestige and reinforce their authority. The chapter concludes by discussing the impact of the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years’ War on the dynastic system.

The Growth of Royal Authority The dynastic era spanned several centuries, and European societies experienced a great deal of change in that time. Political, legal, and judicial institutions became more sophisticated and more effective. Taxation became more regular and more widely accepted. Territorial boundaries became more settled. These developments were more pronounced in some parts of Europe than in others, and they progressed unevenly. But as they accumulated, they gradually reshaped the exercise of political power. On the whole, the changes taking place in European society tended to strengthen the authority of monarchs in relation to that of other power holders, such as the nobles and the clergy.2 During the early part of the dynastic era, the exercise of power within European kingdoms was generally more fluid and less bound by legal constraints than was the case later on. The judicial, legislative, and administrative institutions of fourteenth-century kingdoms were usually not sufficient to secure the kingdoms’ domestic political integrity. Kings worked assiduously to strengthen royal authority, but their efforts often provoked violent resistance from powerful nobles. Under such circumstances, fourteenth-century kings tended to be preoccupied with the problem of holding their kingdoms together. Their military campaigns and dynastic marriages often took place within their own kingdoms, because the main challenges to their position tended to come from domestic opponents, rather than foreign ones. By the beginning of the sixteenth century—the midpoint of the dynastic era—the situation had changed significantly. Across much of Europe, royal authority was more firmly established than before. It was backed up by more fully developed legislative, judicial, and administrative institutions. As these instruments of royal authority

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became more effective, the powerful nobles increasingly found that they could gain more by seeking the king’s favor than by taking up arms against him. As a result, monarchs became less dependent on domestic uses of armed force to preserve the integrity of their kingdoms. They were more able to manage the powerful nobles through patronage—that is, by appointing them to high office, granting them gifts of land and money, and offering them opportunities to win glory in war alongside their sovereign.3 These internal developments in Europe’s kingdoms affected the character of dynastic politics in Europe as a whole. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, dynastic conflicts were commonly domestic in nature—triggered by monarchs’ efforts to expand royal authority or by competition between rival factions within a kingdom for possession of the throne. Even the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), a major international conflict involving France and England, was partly a French civil war. But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the international dimension of dynastic politics became more prominent. Dynastic struggles more often took the form of contests between monarchies, rather than contests within them. For the purposes of this book, the second half of the dynastic era is of more interest than the first half. The remainder of this chapter focuses on the dynastic system as it operated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Major Political Units in Dynastic Europe Europe’s two most powerful actors during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the Habsburg dynasty and the French monarchy. The Habsburgs were long-established rulers of the duchy of Austria and several other principalities in southern Germany. A series of marriages had brought additional territories under their control, eventually enabling them to acquire rulership over a large part of Europe. The Habsburg dynasty reached its greatest extent during the reign of Charles V, who by 1519 was ruler of Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Sicily, Sardinia, southern Italy, and various territories north and west of Switzerland, as well as Spain’s colonial possessions in the Americas. He was also the crowned head of the Holy Roman Empire, a position the Habsburg dynasty held almost continuously from 1438 to 1806. A further addition to

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the Habsburg lands came in 1526, when Charles’s younger brother Ferdinand was elected king of Bohemia (a kingdom corresponding approximately to the modern-day Czech Republic) and Hungary. Those two kingdoms later became hereditary possessions of the Habsburgs and, along with Austria, remained under Habsburg control until 1918. Charles V’s territorial holdings were too large and geographically dispersed for him to govern by himself, so he relied heavily on family members to assist him. He placed the Habsburg lands in Germany under Ferdinand’s control, and in the Netherlands his aunt Margaret ruled in his name.4 In 1556, near the end of Charles’s life, the Habsburgs partitioned their possessions into a Spanish branch and an Austrian branch (see Figure 3.1). The partition turned out to be permanent. The Spanish branch, by far the wealthier of the two, included Spain, the Netherlands, and the Habsburg holdings in Italy and the Americas. The Austrian branch included Habsburg lands in Germany and the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia. After separation, the two branches of the dynasty intermarried heavily with each other to preserve their close political ties. Those marriages came at a price, as cumulative inbreeding damaged the Habsburgs’ genetic stock and led to the extinction of the Spanish Habsburg line in 1700. The French monarchy was Europe’s other leading actor during the dynastic era. France’s population, estimated at 16 million in 1500, was more than double that of Spain and about six times that of England. The French king enjoyed what was probably the largest revenue of any European monarch, which placed him in a strong position to pursue an assertive foreign policy.5 In the center of Europe lay the Holy Roman Empire, the precursor of modern-day Germany. Territorially, the empire encompassed not only Germany but also the lands that now comprise Austria, the Czech Republic, Belgium, the Netherlands, and parts of northern Italy, eastern France, and western Poland. In contrast to France and England, where monarchical authority was well established and growing stronger, the Holy Roman Empire lacked a strong monarchy. The empire had emerged from the medieval era as a collection of hundreds of self-governing, politically autonomous towns and principalities. The Holy Roman emperor exercised important powers, but he possessed little substantive authority over the parts of the empire that lay outside his hereditary domains. The empire functioned essentially as a legal framework that enabled its autonomous political units to coordinate policy on matters of common interest.

Figure 3.1 Europe in 1556

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Although its population was nearly as large as that of France, the empire behaved very differently in international politics. Sandwiched between France and the Ottoman Empire, it faced nearly continuous military threats from its neighbors. But its decentralized political structure prevented it from responding nimbly to external attacks.6 It was mainly for that reason that the empire’s seven electoral princes—so named because they held the power to elect the emperor—consistently chose the head of the Habsburg dynasty for the position. The Habsburgs, whose territorial holdings within the empire amounted to about a third of its total land area, were the most powerful of its many princely dynasties and thus the most capable of protecting it against external threats.7 The empire’s individual political units looked to the emperor to organize and lead their collective defense in times of danger. But because the rulers of those units also wanted to preserve their independence, they did not want the emperor to become too powerful. So when they agreed to provide money and troops for the empire’s defense, it was usually only when the threat of foreign invasion had become acute. The empire itself, in other words, did not have anything that could be described as a foreign policy, but it did possess a capacity for selfdefense that could be activated in times of pressing need.8 The Habsburg dynasty pursued a foreign policy of its own, but its interests coincided only partly with those of the empire. Other significant actors in Europe’s dynastic system during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included England, Portugal, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Venice, Savoy-Piedmont, and the papacy. The Dutch Republic emerged in the late sixteenth century as an important trading and maritime power. Finally, a word needs to be said about the unusual position of the Ottoman Empire in European politics. The Ottomans, an Islamic dynasty that originated in what is now northern Turkey, had established an extensive empire by the early sixteenth century that included Anatolia, parts of North Africa and the Middle East, and most of southeastern Europe. In 1453, Turkish forces captured Constantinople and made it the Ottoman capital. The northward expansion of the Turks into Hungary, and their growing naval presence in the Mediterranean, brought them into nearly continuous military conflict with the Habsburgs in the sixteenth century. Politically and economically, the Ottoman Empire was partially integrated into Europe. Trade between Christian lands and Turkish-controlled territories was

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extensive, and Christian rulers sometimes formed loose alliances with the Turks. That was especially true of the French monarchy, which regularly attempted to weaken its great rival, the Habsburgs, by encouraging Turkish attacks against Habsburg lands. But both Christian and Muslim religious beliefs posed barriers to full mutual acceptance. Christians continued to view Muslims as the permanent enemies of Christendom, and they were outraged in 1544 when the king of France allowed the Turkish navy to use the French port of Toulon as a base for attacks against Habsburg ships.9 For its part, the Ottoman court rejected the idea of equality between Muslims and Christians. The sultan permitted Christian states to send diplomatic representatives as supplicants to Constantinople, but considered it unfitting for his own officials to travel in Christian lands or serve as envoys to Christian monarchs. The Ottoman Empire did not begin to establish permanent diplomatic representatives in Christian capitals until the closing years of the eighteenth century.10

A Dynastic International Order Europe’s hereditary monarchs owned their titles of rulership as a form of private property, which they passed from one generation to the next. Dynastic rulers’ foremost priority was to preserve their inherited titles and territories and bequeath them intact to their successors. In their eyes, this was not merely a preference but a duty imposed on them by the same divine providence that had put them in power.11 Rulers were accordingly loath to give up any of their inherited titles or claims, including those that existed only on paper. Even if a ruler was unable to make good on a particular claim in his own lifetime, he could never know what might become possible in the future. Thus, giving up a claim, except when absolutely necessary, was to deprive one’s descendants of their rightful inheritance. It is easy to understand why hereditary monarchs would put overriding importance on upholding their inherited rights. Their authority was based not on personal achievement but on the laws of inheritance that had brought them to power. If inherited rights ceased to be honored, dynastic rulers stood to lose everything. Consequently, hereditary monarchs tended to adopt an uncompromising and legalistic stance toward disputed dynastic claims. In some ways, dynastic rulers’ emphasis on inherited rights encouraged international conflict. Because Europe’s ruling families had

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intermarried for centuries, they were connected closely by blood ties. Thus, in cases where a ruling line died out, there might be several other dynasties with a legal claim to inherit its titles and holdings. Such situations were likely to result in war. One of the most famous conflicts of this kind originated in 1328, when the king of France died without a direct heir. The two strongest claimants to the vacant throne were Philip of Valois, a French prince, and Edward III, the Plantagenet king of England. Their competing claims led to war in 1337, initiating the long series of military conflicts known collectively as the Hundred Years’ War. The war ended finally in 1453 with England’s defeat, but the English monarchy refused to abandon its claim to the French throne. Henry VII, who became king of England in 1485, titled himself officially “King of England and France,” and his son, Henry VIII, justified his repeated invasions of France on the grounds that the French throne rightfully belonged to him.12 The defense of dynastic rights, even though it led often to war, was not a recipe for indiscriminate aggression. Rulers sought to have their claims acknowledged and accepted by Europe’s other rulers, so they usually hesitated to seize lands or crowns to which they had no legal right. In the same way that needlessly giving up part of one’s rightful inheritance could be seen as a violation of God’s plan, so could attempting to deprive another ruler of his rightful inheritance. Thus, in kingdoms and principalities where the ruling dynasty was well established, the process of hereditary succession normally took place without causing an international conflict. It is worth noting that peace settlements in Europe during the dynastic era usually arranged for small states that had been incidentally overrun or occupied in a war to be restored to their lawful rulers, rather than simply absorbed by more powerful neighbors. International respect for inherited rights helps explain why many small principalities that were essentially unable to defend themselves nevertheless continued to survive. Dynastic monarchs were constrained in their authority by the need to maintain support from the powerful noble families within their kingdoms. On coming to power, monarchs swore an oath that they would rule in accordance with their subjects’ existing laws and customs.13 That pledge benefited the nobles, assuring them that they would continue to enjoy their traditional legal privileges and tax exemptions. The dynastic system as a whole rested on an implicit bargain between hereditary rulers and the nobility. Hereditary rulers

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upheld the nobles’ customary rights and status, and in exchange, the nobles accepted the principle of hereditary rulership.14 Thus, monarchs who held rulership over multiple kingdoms and principalities found themselves obliged to rule each according to its particular laws and customs. Even within a single kingdom, monarchs typically found it necessary to accommodate local differences in customs. Similarly, a ruler who added to his lands by marriage or war was expected to uphold the traditional laws and customs of his newly acquired subjects. Europeans in the dynastic era drew an important conceptual distinction between wars fought on behalf of inherited claims (that is, dynastic wars) and wars of conquest. In waging a dynastic war, a ruler did not consider himself to be engaged in an act of conquest. From his perspective, he was merely attempting to exercise rights of rulership he had acquired lawfully through inheritance. Thus, victory in a dynastic war did not entitle the winning ruler to impose whatever terms he wanted on his newly acquired subjects. Normally, it gave him only the right to rule his new subjects in accordance with their established laws and customs. For this reason, dynastic wars did not endanger the essential fabric of European society. Even though they were often immensely destructive of lives and property, dynastic wars took place within a normative framework that all sides understood and accepted. Wars of outright conquest seldom occurred within western Christendom in the dynastic era.15 European rulers thought of themselves as part of a religious community that encompassed other Christian rulers and kingdoms. From that perspective, fellow Christian rulers had acquired their positions through divine grace and were thus lawfully entitled to them. Seeking to acquire Christian lands through conquest would threaten the entire system of inherited rights on which their own claims to rulership depended.16 However, the constraints that Christian rulers accepted in their dealings with each other did not apply to interactions between western Christendom and the non-Christian world. In general, the rulers and peoples of western Christendom felt little obligation to honor the titles of non-Christian rulers or the laws of non-Christian lands. Instead, they regarded themselves as rightfully entitled to take possession of non-Christian lands through conquest and govern the conquered territories as they saw fit.17 The European explorers and settlers who came into the Americas during the sixteenth and seventeenth

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centuries showed little hesitation in overthrowing local rulers, laying title to conquered territories on behalf of European monarchs, and killing or enslaving indigenous populations.

Dynastic Marriage and International Politics Marriages between dynastic families played an important part in helping Europe’s hereditary rulers sustain their hold on power. By intermarrying with other ruling families, hereditary monarchs gained affirmation of their own royal or princely status. Even if indirectly, a marriage between two ruling families implied an acknowledgment by each side that the other held its titles of rulership lawfully. Dynastic intermarriage thus helped ruling families strengthen their position against domestic and foreign challengers. The high stakes of dynastic marriages meant that political considerations normally took priority over romantic sentiments, and brides and grooms in such marriages were often unsuited to each other by any measure other than that of politics. Because inherited rights of rulership in many kingdoms and principalities passed through daughters as well as sons, it was sometimes possible for dynastic families to acquire additional ruling titles through marriage. In several cases, marriages between dynastic families brought about major territorial realignments. From a modern perspective, this seems one of the strangest features of the dynastic era. The political destiny of entire kingdoms might hinge on the consequences of a royal marriage. For example, the marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile resulted in a permanent union of the two Spanish kingdoms, which until then had existed for centuries as separate entities. The 1503 marriage of Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII’s older sister, to James IV of Scotland laid the foundation for the union of the English and Scottish kingdoms two centuries later. 18 Dynastic marriages also produced the vast European empire of Charles V. Ferdinand and Isabella were Charles’s maternal grandparents, and from them he inherited his titles to Aragon and Castile, along with the Spanish colonial territories in the Americas and the Aragonese crown lands in Italy and the Mediterranean. Through his paternal grandmother Mary of Burgundy, Charles gained title to the Netherlands and to territories in what is today eastern France. From his paternal grand-

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father Maximilian, he inherited the Habsburg lands in the Holy Roman Empire, which included Austria. Most of the time, marriages between ruling houses produced no transfers of territorial ownership and were not intended to. Dynastic marriages served a variety of political and diplomatic purposes, many of which were unconnected with territorial gain. As already noted, intermarriage between ruling families often provided a means for both sides to add to their prestige and legitimacy. In some cases, a marriage might help cement a political or military alliance. At other times, a marriage might be arranged as part of a peace settlement between two formerly warring rulers. Intermarriage among Europe’s ruling dynasties helped define and reinforce the boundaries of the dynastic international system. Europe’s dynastic families virtually never intermarried with families outside western Christendom. For example, it would have been unthinkable for a Christian dynasty in western Europe to form a marriage alliance with the ruling dynasty of the Ottoman Empire. As Muslims, the Ottoman Turks were considered unacceptable as marriage partners. In addition, the cultural practices of the Ottoman imperial household were incompatible with those of western Europe’s Christian dynasties.19 For similar reasons, western European dynastic families did not intermarry with Russia’s ruling dynasty. Even though the Russians were Christians, the Russian church had never been under the authority of the Roman pope, and thus had never been part of western Christendom. Culturally, Western rulers viewed Russia as a barbarian power. Intermarriages between Western dynasties and the Russian royal family did not begin to take place until well into the eighteenth century, after the Russian royal court had undergone reforms that changed it to resemble the royal courts of Western monarchies. In an era when mortality rates from disease, childbearing, and accidents were much higher than today, it was not unusual for dynastic marriage alliances to produce consequences that were unforeseen and unwanted. Territorial agglomerations might come about not because they were desirable but because of the absence or early deaths of heirs. For example, Ferdinand of Aragon did not intend for his grandson Charles V, who was already in line to inherit the Habsburg and Burgundian territories, to inherit Spain and its possessions as well. Charles gained title to Spain accidentally: those ahead of him in the line of succession died prematurely or were unable to rule because of mental illness.

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There was little strategic coherence to the sprawling hodgepodge of territories that Charles V inherited. His far-flung holdings exposed him to French attacks on multiple fronts and simultaneous Turkish attacks in the east. By the end of his life, Charles was forced to acknowledge that his diverse territories could not be governed by a single ruler, and he accepted their partition into Spanish and Austrian branches. Even though the partition freed the Spanish Habsburgs from the burden of defense against the Turks in eastern Europe, Spain’s continued possession of the Netherlands and parts of Italy proved to be a disadvantage.20 The Netherlands rebelled against Spanish rule in the 1560s, initiating a savage conflict that continued for eight decades. The kings who succeeded Charles V in Spain were determined to hold onto their inheritance at any cost.21 They sent one army after another to try to crush the Dutch rebellion, a policy that drove the Spanish Crown into repeated financial crises.22 The conflict was not finally settled until 1648, when the northern Dutch provinces, known as the Dutch Republic or the United Provinces, were granted full independence. The Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) remained under Spanish control. Because dynastic marriages were often used to seal peace agreements, they could also ironically enable states to acquire claims on the territories of their traditional rivals. Here, too, the eventual consequences of a dynastic marriage might run contrary to strategic logic. An important example is the marriage of Louis XIV of France to the daughter of King Philip IV of Spain, which was arranged as part of the negotiations to end the French-Spanish war of 1635–1659. Marriages of this kind, which united members of Europe’s most powerful ruling dynasties, were sought for the prestige they brought to the contracting parties. But by the 1670s, when it became clear that the Spanish Habsburg line would end with the death of Philip’s successor, the sickly Charles II, the unwanted consequences of the marriage were apparent to all of Europe. Because of the marriage, Louis’s descendants would acquire a claim to Spain and its possessions. By raising the possibility of French domination of Europe, that claim was certain to provoke strong resistance from Europe’s other rulers. In the years preceding Charles II’s death, Louis searched frantically for a diplomatic solution to the looming crisis. Ultimately, the question of the Spanish succession dragged France into a long and staggeringly expensive war that left it financially exhausted and weakened its position in Europe for decades afterward.

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Dynasticism and the Quest for Glory The highly personal nature of dynastic rule meant that Europe’s monarchs were preoccupied with matters of prestige and reputation. To exercise their authority effectively, monarchs needed to command the loyalty of a nobility that was demanding and often fractious. They did so partly through patronage—distributing titles, lands, and monetary gifts to the leading noble families in the kingdom. Generous and discerning patronage could contribute greatly to a ruler’s reputation. But the paramount source of prestige for rulers was success in war. The pursuit of dynastic claims through war served important practical functions. It raised a ruler’s standing in the eyes of the nobility and gained him respect from other monarchs.23 In so doing, it helped him forestall internal and external challenges to his position. In addition, dynastic rulers were acutely conscious of the judgment of history, and they craved the glory and renown that belonged to those who waged a just war in defense of their rightful titles and possessions.24 War was thus intrinsic to international politics in the dynastic era. Wars fought on behalf of dynastic interests generally did not benefit the common people. For example, the Spanish monarchy’s obstinate and seemingly endless war against Dutch independence was disastrous not only for the people of the Dutch provinces but for the people of Spain. Similarly, the people of France did not benefit from the Italian wars, a long series of destructive conflicts arising from the ambition of French kings to make a name for themselves through territorial gains in Italy. The wars were begun by Charles VIII of France, who had inherited a claim to the southern Italian kingdom of Naples. Believing that circumstances were favorable for him to make good on this claim, Charles assembled a large army and led it into Italy in 1494. That turned out to be the opening move in a struggle that would last more than sixty years. Charles died before achieving any permanent gains in Italy. He was succeeded as king of France by a cousin, Louis XII, who had inherited a claim to the northern Italian duchy of Milan. Louis accordingly sought to assert control over Milan as well as Naples. Following Louis’s death in 1515, the wars were resumed by his successor, Francis I, and after him by Henry II. The Italian wars brought devastation to much of northern and central Italy, where warfare took place almost continuously from 1494 to 1529 and intermittently thereafter. The battles

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were fought with great savagery, as armies sacked and burned cities and brought epidemic disease in their wake.25 France’s most tenacious opponent in Italy was Spain. Ferdinand of Aragon claimed Naples for himself, and he sent Spanish armies into Italy to contest French moves there.26 The French also encountered opposition from other actors, including the pope. When Charles V became king of Spain in 1516, he inherited Ferdinand’s Italian possessions, and with them the ongoing conflict with France. But Charles had also inherited territories that bordered France to the north, south, and east, presenting other fronts for French attack. Beginning in the 1520s, the Italian wars broadened into a more general conflict that pitted the French monarchy against the Habsburg monarchy. The costs of that struggle far exceeded the income of either side, and a pattern emerged in which several years of war would be followed by a treaty, a few years of recovery from mutual financial exhaustion, and then renewed war. Peace came finally in 1559 when Henry II renounced all his Italian claims. Six decades of war had yielded nothing for the French Crown in Italy. It is hard to see any way the Italian wars served the interests of the French people, especially the peasantry from whom much of the money to pay for the wars had been extracted. In preparing for his attempt to take Naples, Charles VIII had sought (in vain, as it turned out) to get himself on good terms with neighboring rulers, so they would not attack France while he was in Italy. France was involved in a long-standing dispute with Spain over the border provinces of Cerdagne and Roussillon and with the Holy Roman Empire over the provinces of Artois and Franche-Comté. Charles settled those conflicts in 1493 by ceding the disputed territories to Spain and the emperor, respectively (see Figure 3.1).27 The sacrifice of strategically valuable lands along France’s perimeter in exchange for a chance to pursue dynastic glory in distant Naples offers a classic illustration of the way dynastic logic tended to contradict strategic considerations. The consequences of Charles’s actions were felt for generations, as it took France more than 150 years to recover all the ceded provinces. Even if Charles had managed to hold onto Naples, the cost of defending it would have exceeded the revenues it yielded.28 A better case could be made for the attempt by Louis XII and his successors to gain Milan, which was wealthier than Naples and not so geographically remote from France. But as the Italian wars dragged on decade after decade, their cost far surpassed

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any benefits that could be derived from victory. Dynastic rulers did not weigh the pursuit of their hereditary claims in terms of economic profit or loss. As Charles V remarked, “It is not fitting for a prince to think of money when he is occupied with heroic deeds.”29 Dynastic prestige similarly overrode economic and strategic considerations in Henry VIII’s repeated invasions of France. Soon after becoming king of England in 1509, Henry revived the traditional English royal claim to the French throne. He invaded France in 1513, 1523, and 1543, leading his army personally on the first and third of those occasions. There was little chance that he would actually capture the French throne, and his conquests of French territory were minimal. But the wars satisfied his intense desire to achieve glory and prove himself as a warrior.30 During his first war in France, Henry captured the city of Tournai, which he ransomed back to the French king a few years later. During his third war, he captured the city of Boulogne. Reaching a peace settlement on the latter occasion proved difficult because Henry was determined not to sacrifice the prestige he had gained by taking the city. But the French king, Francis I, was equally determined to reverse the humiliation of having lost it. In the end, the honor of both sides was preserved by agreeing that England would sell the city back to France after eight years.31 Despite their enormous expense, Henry’s wars in France yielded no tangible benefits for England. The ransoms France paid to recover Tournai and Boulogne did not come close to matching the money Henry had spent to capture them. To modern eyes, dynastic wars appear wasteful and strategically irrational. Such wars imposed steep costs on the common people, who were burdened with heavy taxes to finance them and victimized by ill treatment at the hands of marauding troops. Monarchs were seldom able to keep their soldiers well provisioned, so armies often sustained themselves by stealing livestock and grain as they passed through the countryside. Local civilian populations were left to starve or, weakened by hunger, succumb to disease. Thus, wherever armies went, a great many civilian deaths were sure to follow. Civilians suffered even more when monarchs ran out of money in the middle of a war, as frequently happened. Mercenary soldiers made up the bulk of most armies during this era, and when they were not paid, they usually responded by looting and burning whatever areas came under their control. For those unfortunate enough to live near a war zone, the dynastic conflicts of rulers produced unimaginable hardship.32

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From the perspective of hereditary rulers, dynastic wars were a source of personal renown and prestige. Such wars are perhaps best understood as a “luxury good” enjoyed by rulers at the expense of their subjects. In the same way that taxes on the common people paid for a monarch’s palaces and lavish court life, they also paid for his pursuit of glory through military exploits. Dynastic wars seldom benefited the common people of a kingdom, even indirectly. But that was not their purpose.

International Order and the Thirty Years’ War The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time of religious upheaval in Europe. Traditionally, the rulers and peoples of western Christendom had thought of themselves as a religious community united by a common faith. But the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1517, put an end to Christendom’s religious unity. As the sixteenth century progressed, Protestantism gained a wide following in central and northern Europe. In some kingdoms, including England, Sweden, and Denmark, the monarchy itself adopted Protestant beliefs. Europe as a whole became divided between Catholics, who continued to accept the pope as the final authority on religious doctrine, and Protestants, who drew their doctrinal beliefs directly from Scripture and thus rejected the pope’s religious authority. The spread of Protestantism produced a deep and long-lasting crisis in European society. At the root of the crisis was the fact that western Christendom lacked any tradition of religious toleration. For hundreds of years, the pope had insisted that heresy—deviation from the doctrinal beliefs approved by the church—could not be accepted under any circumstances. Europe’s kings and princes had traditionally helped the pope in combating the spread of heresy. They saw themselves as defenders of the church and viewed the suppression of heresy as one of the duties of their office. Given its history of enforced religious conformity, European society struggled to cope with the doctrinal divisions produced by the Reformation. Both Catholic and Protestant rulers normally expected their subjects to accept the same religious doctrine they did, and they took steps to ensure that the church within their kingdom or principality mirrored their personal religious beliefs. But in a kingdom such as France, where the monarchy remained Catholic while much of the nobility embraced Protes-

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tantism, the continuing quest for religious uniformity triggered violent conflict. From 1562 to 1598, France underwent a series of devastating religious civil wars. The loss of religious unity in Europe held profound implications for the European international system. Traditionally, Europe’s dynastic rulers had accepted fellow Christian rulers as legitimate (and therefore rightfully entitled to inherited crowns and lands) because of their shared membership in the religious community of western Christendom. The division into Catholic and Protestant camps thus called into question the underlying assumptions on which the European international order was built. However, Catholics and Protestants clung to the hope that doctrinal unity would eventually be restored.33 Rulers continued to think of themselves as holders of rights within a religious community that included all of western Christendom, even if doctrinal disagreements had temporarily divided its members. Consequently, the religious framework undergirding international order in Europe persisted despite the Reformation. But religious unity proved impossible to restore. Sooner or later, Europe’s rulers would need to find a basis for international order that did not depend on uniformity of religious beliefs. The Thirty Years’ War, which began in 1618 and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, helped lay the foundation for a new international order. The Thirty Years’ War was the most destructive of all the armed conflicts in Europe during the dynastic era. Although most of its major battles took place within the borders of the Holy Roman Empire, the war attracted large-scale intervention from other powers, including Spain, Sweden, and France. Those interventions prolonged the war and magnified its international significance. The war arose partly as a result of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants, but it was not primarily a war of religion.34 Dynastic and strategic considerations strongly shaped its course. When the Thirty Years’ War began, the Reformation had already been under way for 100 years. In the sixteenth century, many cities and principalities in the Holy Roman Empire had enacted Protestant reforms and had restricted or outlawed the practice of Catholicism. As a result, the empire had become a patchwork of Catholic-dominated and Protestant-dominated regions. Protestantism had gained a large following in the hereditary lands of the empire’s most powerful dynasty, the Austrian Habsburgs. But the Habsburgs themselves remained staunchly Catholic, and Habsburg leaders continued to look

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for opportunities to restore Catholic uniformity to their lands. The Thirty Years’ War began when Protestants in Bohemia, convinced that the Habsburg monarchy intended to try to reimpose Catholicism, mounted an armed rebellion. The resulting conflict eventually expanded into a civil war involving the empire as a whole. The opposing sides were defined mainly by religion. On one side was a coalition of mostly Catholic forces headed by the Austrian Habsburgs. On the other side was a coalition of Protestant forces sponsored by several of the empire’s Protestant rulers. Outside powers intervened in the war because their own dynastic or strategic interests were likely to be strongly affected by its outcome.35 For example, the Spanish monarchy believed that its interests in the Netherlands and northern Italy would be damaged severely if the Austrian Habsburgs were defeated. Determined to prevent that from happening, Spain provided the Austrian Habsburgs with extensive military assistance. Conversely, Sweden’s Protestant king feared that a Habsburg victory would endanger Sweden’s existence as an independent and Protestant state. So he assembled an army and led it into the empire to do battle against Habsburg forces. The leaders of France also opposed the Austrian Habsburgs. France’s view of the war was shaped by its intense rivalry with Spain. Given the close cooperation between the Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs, French leaders worried that an Austrian victory would give Spain the upper hand against France. Thus, even though the French monarchy was Catholic, France provided military subsidies to Sweden and to the empire’s Protestant forces and eventually declared war on the Austrian Habsburgs. The Peace of Westphalia, concluded in 1648, finally brought the war to an end. Decades of fighting had failed to produce a decisive shift in the empire’s religious makeup, and the Westphalian settlement essentially marked a recognition by all sides that the division of the empire into Catholic and Protestant territories was permanent. Under the terms of the settlement, the empire’s Catholic and Protestant princes accepted each other as fully legitimate. France and Sweden, which were also parties to the settlement, acted as guarantors for its terms. The Westphalian agreement represented an important step away from religion as the basis for international order in Europe. Traditionally, European rulers had been reluctant to treat those they regarded as heretics as legal equals. They considered it their duty to

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suppress heresy, not legitimize it. But in accepting the settlement, which granted legal equality to the empire’s Catholics and Protestants, the participating rulers subordinated their religious principles to political realities. They endorsed the settlement even though it effectively abandoned the goal of restoring religious unity to the empire. Europe’s rulers were beginning to think of the international realm as one governed by a logic of power and material self-interest, and thus a realm where religious doctrines did not necessarily apply.36 The Peace of Westphalia reflected a new way of thinking, consistent with the approaching Age of Power Politics, which held that treaties between states were valid simply because they had been agreed to by the states involved. That represented a major departure from the traditional belief, characteristic of the Age of Religion, that a treaty could be valid only if its terms were consistent with God’s will. The Peace of Westphalia did not mark a clear dividing line between the dynastic international system and its successor. The dynastic system rested not only on the shared religious traditions of western Christendom but also on the political power exercised by hereditary monarchs. Because monarchs continued to dominate the political arena and prioritize their own interests over those of other actors, international politics continued to be structured more by dynastic imperatives than by the logic of power politics. Reflecting that reality, large parts of the Westphalian peace treaties dealt with the restoration of specific legal or territorial rights to particular dynastic families within the Holy Roman Empire or with the transfer of particular rights of rulership from one dynasty to another. In that sense, the Westphalian settlement remained anchored in the assumptions and practices of the dynastic order.37

Conclusion International systems reflect the identities and interests of the actors that make them up. During the period from about 1300 to 1700, the principal actors in European politics were dynastic monarchs, and the international system that emerged under their influence gave emphasis to inherited rights and claims. This system served the interests of hereditary rulers by enabling them to tighten their hold on power and indulge their quest for personal glory. The dynastic system also served the interests of the leading noble families, who

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gained lands, wealth, and prestige through royal patronage. In addition, many nobles enjoyed tax exemptions that enabled them to avoid the burden of financing the monarch’s wars. Instead, the costs of war were borne mainly by the common people, who seldom reaped any benefits from their sacrifice. War was an integral part of the dynastic international system. By fighting wars in defense of their inherited claims, hereditary monarchs were able to demonstrate their fitness to rule and could ensure that disputed titles would remain under the control of the established ruling houses. Far from causing the dynastic system to break down, war helped sustain and perpetuate it. The dynastic international system rested on a religious foundation. Europe’s rulers believed that their authority came directly from God, and they accepted other European rulers as legitimate because of their shared membership in the religious community of western Christendom. But the Protestant Reformation brought an end to doctrinal unity, making the dynastic system more difficult to sustain. Beginning with the Peace of Westphalia, Europe’s Catholic and Protestant rulers increasingly disregarded their religious differences in their diplomatic dealings with each other. As the seventeenth century ended, competition among Europe’s rulers for glory and reputation was beginning to give way to competition among states for power and security. The logic of state interests was beginning to take precedence over the dynastic interests of rulers. Dynastic considerations would continue to play an important role in Europe’s international politics until the middle of the eighteenth century and would not disappear entirely as a factor until the end of World War I. But from about 1700 on, they were usually no longer decisive in determining the causes or outcomes of European wars.

Notes 1. See Sharma, “Kinship, Property, and Authority,” 165–168. 2. For useful overviews, see Watts, The Making of Polities, and Nicholas, The Transformation of Europe. 3. Richardson, Renaissance Monarchy, 32–34 and 145–171; Kaiser, Politics and War, 14–19. 4. Pettegree, Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 125–126; Blockmans, Emperor Charles V, 28; Bonney, The European Dynastic States, 114. 5. Bonney, The European Dynastic States, 81 and 365.

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6. See Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 19–20. 7. Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 16. 8. Wilson, From Reich to Revolution, 162–169. 9. Bonney, The European Dynastic States, 106; Anderson, The Origins of the Modern European State System, 115–116. 10. Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 127–128. 11. Hatton, “Louis XIV and His Fellow Monarchs,” 160–161; Holsti, Peace and War, 55. 12. The English monarchy did not officially give up its claim to the French throne until 1802. Seward, The Hundred Years War, 264. 13. Hinsley, Sovereignty, 102–107. 14. See for example Elliott, “A Europe of Composite Monarchies,” and Nexon, The Struggle for Power, 138–149. 15. Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 23; Wight, Systems of States, 159. 16. See Sharma, “Kinship, Property, and Authority,” 158–159. 17. See the discussion in Korman, The Right of Conquest, 42–47. 18. England and Scotland had the same monarch beginning in 1603 and were politically unified in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. 19. See Sharma, “Kinship, Property, and Authority,” 162–163. 20. Parrott, “The Causes of the Franco-Spanish War,” 82. 21. See for example Williams, Philip II, 121. 22. Kaiser, Politics and War, 33–45; Porter, War and the Rise of the State, 85. 23. Richardson, Renaissance Monarchy, 27–28. 24. See Hatton, “Louis XIV and His Fellow Monarchs,” 160–161. 25. See Pettegree, Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 60, and Blockmans, Emperor Charles V, 65. 26. See Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella, 112–114. 27. Anderson, The Origins of the Modern European State System, 75. 28. Potter, A History of France, 260. 29. Blockmans, Emperor Charles V, 148. 30. See Gunn, “The French Wars of Henry VIII.” Henry did not personally expose himself to combat, but he led the 1513 and 1543 invasions in the sense that he traveled to France with his army and directly supervised its operations. 31. Richardson, Renaissance Monarchy, 78. 32. See Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 179–191; Tallett, War and Society in Early-Modern Europe, 148–166; and Anderson, War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime, 54–69. 33. Upton, Europe, 45. 34. Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 9. 35. For a discussion of Spain’s motives for becoming involved in the war, see Brightwell, “The Spanish Origins of the Thirty Years’ War,” 419–420. For discussions of Sweden’s motives, see Asch, The Thirty Years War, 101–104; Ringmar, Identity, Interest and Action, 162–186; and Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 461–463. For a discussion of France’s goals, see Parker, ed., The Thirty Years’ War, 129–137. 36. For insightful discussions of this point, see Phillips, War, Religion and Empire, 141–145; Jackson, Sovereignty, 50–53; and Mitzen, Power in Concert, 66–72. 37. Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State, 114.

4 The Balance-of-Power System, 1700–1815

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY MARKED THE TRANSITION IN Europe’s international politics from the Age of Religion to the Age of Power Politics. Sovereign states emerged as the principal international actors, and calculations of power and national interest became central to international dynamics. States gave priority to preserving their independence and advancing their economic well-being. Those goals were a considerable departure from the religious and dynastic concerns that had traditionally dominated European affairs. Europe’s international politics thus followed a different pattern in the eighteenth century than in the preceding era. Competition for power intensified as states focused their attention on acquiring strategically valuable territories. International politics became more predatory. States formed coalitions for the purpose of attacking other states and dividing their territories. Political officials used the concept of the balance of power to explain the new international dynamics. They justified territorial partitions as an effective method of preserving the balance and ensuring that no state gained a position of dominance over Europe as a whole. Balance-of-power reasoning represented an effort to find a new basis for international security in place of the earlier principle of respect for dynastic rights. But by encouraging territorial predation, balance-of-power dynamics generated new sources of insecurity. Efforts to preserve the great power balance failed spectacularly in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Napoleonic France succeeded in conquering most of western Europe. Box 4.1 summarizes the essential features of the balance-of-power system. 57

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Box 4.1 The Balance-of-Power System Time frame: About 1700 to 1815.

Principal actors: France, Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia.

These five states were commonly known as the great powers.

How did the system create international order? Each great

power sought to protect its independence and avoid coming under the domination of another. The system served that objective by maintaining a “balance” among the powers, such that none was strong enough to overwhelm the others. One way the powers upheld the balance was by cooperating in seizing territory from weaker states. By dividing the spoils among themselves through compensation arrangements or partition schemes, the powers kept pace with each other’s gains while avoiding unwanted confrontations. The great powers also preserved the balance by grouping themselves into opposing military alliances and resorting to war when that seemed the most effective way to advance their interests. War among the powers did not in itself signify a breakdown of the system. Rather, the system failed when it proved unable to prevent Napoleonic France from gaining domination over Europe.

This chapter examines why the dynastic international system faded away and a balance-of-power system arose in its place. It discusses the emergence of the great powers as Europe’s main international actors and considers how they pursued their interests through war and territorial expansion. It examines the distinctive role of territorial partitions and compensations in eighteenth-century international politics. Finally, it reviews the period of warfare triggered by the French Revolution and by Napoleon and provides an overall assessment of the balance-of-power system.

The Rise of the State

Much of the analysis in this chapter has to do with how the rise of the state in Europe affected the European international system. In

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international politics, a “state” is a political unit that exercises sovereignty over a defined territory and population. A state governs itself under its own laws and has the capacity to enter into relations with other states. In the modern world, states are the principal international actors, and international politics revolves mainly around states’ attempts to secure their interests in relation to other states. A state has “interests” in the sense that it acts on behalf of the people and territory it governs. Its interests involve matters that affect its inhabitants collectively—such as its physical security, territorial integrity, cultural identity, and material prosperity. The concept of the state as a sovereign political unit, possessing its own intrinsic interests, did not emerge clearly until the midseventeenth century.1 Prior to that time, Europeans generally did not conceive of international politics as a clash of interests among independent states. Instead, they thought of Europe’s various kingdoms and principalities as parts of a united Christian commonwealth, governed by eternal laws handed down from God.2 The fact that rulers often framed their foreign policy goals in the language of divinely bestowed rights, rather than that of national interests, helped perpetuate belief in the underlying unity of western Christendom. Only gradually did political commentators begin to perceive a clear distinction between the interests of the state and those of its ruler. Once established, that distinction made it easier to imagine Europe’s kingdoms and principalities as fully independent units, rather than parts of a larger, divinely ordained whole. As we saw in Chapter 3, rulers in dynastic-era Europe tended to give foremost priority to their quest for personal glory and the defense of their hereditary rights. By the early eighteenth century, they were beginning to focus less on these goals and more on the types of strategic objectives associated with modern conceptions of national interest. They began to redefine their roles and responsibilities. Traditionally, Europe’s hereditary rulers tended to view their kingdoms and principalities as resources to be exploited to serve the needs of the ruling dynasty. They often showed themselves indifferent to the physical security and material well-being of the populations they ruled. But during the eighteenth century, they increasingly came to think of themselves as caretakers of the state, with a responsibility to make the state stronger and more secure. In large part, that shift in perspective resulted from the increasing complexity of governance and the growing size and permanence of the institutions responsible for administering public laws and policies.3

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During the dynastic era, Europe’s principal monarchies had been at war almost continually. To finance war, rulers introduced new taxes and tried to enforce existing tax laws more effectively. As part of such efforts, they increased the number of officials involved in assessing and collecting taxes. Greater tax revenues made it possible for rulers to raise larger armies than had been possible before. Maintaining larger armies, in turn, required an increase in administrative personnel for recruiting, equipping, and provisioning soldiers. Thus, one of the side effects of continual war was the emergence of large bureaucracies capable of collecting taxes effectively and overseeing large-scale military spending.4 Rulers also created new government offices to carry out such tasks as coordinating diplomatic activity, planning the construction of roads and fortresses, and surveying territorial boundaries. Over time, these fiscal and administrative bureaucracies tended to become self-sustaining and capable of functioning with little direct supervision by the ruler. In other words, public administration in Europe was becoming institutionalized. Although the king might decide overall policies for the government and might select key officials personally, policy implementation took place within an increasingly permanent administrative framework. During the eighteenth century, military spending continued to increase, and civil bureaucracies grew larger. For example, the number of full-time employees in Britain’s fiscal bureaucracy tripled between 1690 and 1783, growing to more than 8,000.5 In Russia, the civil bureaucracy grew from around 6,000 people in 1725 to 16,000 in 1762.6 Civil servants across much of Europe were becoming more highly trained and professionalized. Increasingly, they were paid regular salaries rather than depending on fees and gratuities. As civil bureaucracies expanded and became more professionalized, dynastic considerations naturally began to carry less weight in determining the foreign policies pursued by monarchs. Although hereditary rulers continued to make the major policy decisions in most states, they became increasingly dependent on guidance from civil servants with specialized training or expertise. That development enabled the bureaucracy to play a larger role in setting policy goals.7 As a group, civil servants had a stake in defending the interests of the state, which paid their salaries. Many civil servants saw little to be gained from squandering resources on behalf of the monarch’s dynastic ambitions. Thus, the bureaucracy’s growing role in policy formation helped push dynastic considerations into the background.

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The emergence of effective central government, characterized by a large and professional civil bureaucracy, meant that the territory and people under that government could be thought of as a political unit—a state. As the institutions of government solidified, it became clear that the state had a permanent existence quite independent of the ruling dynasty. For both rulers and the governing class as a whole, it became increasingly natural to think and speak in terms of the interests of the state. Kings began to see it as their responsibility to strengthen the state’s physical security and promote the material welfare of their people. In Great Britain, a further reason for the declining importance of dynastic concerns was the increased power of Parliament. By the 1690s, following a decades-long struggle against monarchical tyranny, Parliament had established its control over taxation and its right to be consulted by the monarch on decisions of war and peace. Thus the commercial elites represented in Parliament were able to exercise substantial influence over foreign policy.8 These elites cared more about protecting Britain’s overseas trade and limiting its military involvement on the Continent than about defending the monarchy’s inherited territorial claims, and they sought to shape foreign policy to reflect their priorities.

The Interests of the State The idea that the state has interests of its own, and that its interests transcend those of any particular person or group within the state, became highly influential in the eighteenth century and remains so today. But what exactly are the interests of a state? In other words, what is the national interest? Under most circumstances, a state’s foremost interest is to survive as a political unit. That means protecting its sovereign independence and territorial integrity against foreign encroachments.9 It means defending its political and cultural identity and its access to resources outside its borders that are vital for its economic health. Formulated in general terms of this sort, the idea of the national interest would be endorsed by nearly all political leaders in nearly all states. But in practice, the concept of national interest often does not provide clear guidance for policymakers. Even if there is consensus on the goal of protecting the state’s security and well-being, there may be

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a great deal of disagreement on how best to pursue that goal. The decisions of political leaders responsible for defending the national interest are influenced by factors such as their ideology, life experience, and personality and by the particular demands of their political supporters. But even if we allow that any given state’s interests are subject to a range of interpretations, it seems clear that the interests of Europe’s eighteenth-century states differed substantially from the dynastic interests of their hereditary monarchs. Whereas dynastic rulers had tended to give priority to defending their inherited rights and achieving personal glory, the self-interest of the state lay in reinforcing its material prosperity and physical security. Thus, as the idea of national interest began to take hold, a significant shift occurred in the nature and goals of European wars. During the dynastic era, many wars had been waged on behalf of dynastic objectives that contributed little or nothing to the state’s security and well-being. Because hereditary monarchs set no price on their reputation or honor, they routinely fought until they had consumed every available source of funds and driven their state deep into debt. By contrast, eighteenth-century states tended to take an instrumental approach to war.10 The business of the state was to add to its wealth and security, not exhaust itself in the defense of its ruler’s inherited rights. War might serve the state’s interests in some circumstances, but not in others. Decisions on whether to go to war or to continue a war already in progress became increasingly subject to calculations of costs and benefits. International conflict in Europe began to have less do with kingly ambitions and more to do with state efforts to gain strategic advantages over other states. It is important to note that for most people in eighteenth-century Europe, this shift in emphasis did not necessarily translate into better living conditions. Political power remained concentrated in the hands of a narrow governing elite. The burden of taxation continued to weigh heavily on the common people, who lacked any voice in decisions for war and peace. Military spending continued to consume most tax revenues.11 Large-scale wars among Europe’s principal kingdoms remained common, even if the underlying causes of war had changed.

The Politics of Predation As European governments began to define their foreign policy goals in terms of the interests of the state, they found themselves drawn

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increasingly to the logic of power politics. That change involved an important shift in mindset. Traditionally, European rulers had conceived their foreign policies within the religious and legal framework established by Christian tradition. But by the eighteenth century, Europe’s governing class was beginning to view international politics as a struggle among states in which power mattered more than respect for legal rights or Christian morality. For a state to maintain its independence and advance its interests, it needed ways to offset other states’ military and economic power. Because its survival was potentially at stake, it needed to maneuver for strategic advantage. This implied taking advantage of other states’ weaknesses, insofar as it was possible to do so. A state that followed a pragmatic and opportunistic foreign policy appeared more likely to thrive than one that allowed considerations of law and morality to stand in its way. Power politics reasoning undermined the traditional principle of respect for inherited and customary rights. As a political actor, the state had little reason to care about upholding the established rights of the rulers and inhabitants of other states. It gave priority instead to improving its strategic position. Thus, when eighteenth-century states saw a favorable opportunity to conquer strategically valuable territory, they often tried to do so even if they lacked any legal claim to the territory in question. For Europe’s most powerful states, the rise of power politics seemed to promise significant benefits. It offered the possibility that military strength could be translated into strategic territorial gains. But the logic of power politics also posed a potential threat. After all, if it became widely accepted that strategic considerations could override inherited rights of rulership, what was to prevent states from waging wars of outright conquest against fellow Europeans whenever it was opportune? What was to prevent a powerful state from trying to establish dominion over the whole continent? Eighteenth-century statesmen were aware of these dangers and looked for ways to deal with them. Because they usually cared more about achieving territorial gains for their own state than about strengthening the stability of the international system as a whole, their actions tended to make the system less stable.12 Not until 1815 did the major powers begin to prioritize territorial stability as a central element of international order. One way that statesmen of this time sought to achieve strategic gains while limiting risks was by pursuing partition schemes. A partition scheme is a plan by several states to divide the territory of an

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opposing state among them. It made sense for states to work together when trying to seize territory from a prospective victim. By agreeing to share the spoils, the aggressors could hope to increase their chances of success while reducing the possibility that their aggression would trigger an unwanted confrontation with each other. Statesmen also attempted to achieve strategic gains at minimal risk with demands for territorial “compensations.” The question of compensations typically arose whenever a state added to its territory in Europe through conquest or inheritance. In such situations, rival states usually insisted that they be compensated by being granted comparable gains.13 The territory necessary to make compensation possible was seized from a weaker state that was not in a position to mount effective resistance. Eighteenth-century statesmen justified their resort to partition schemes and territorial compensations by invoking the balance of power.14 The central idea of the balance was that no European state should be permitted to acquire such a strong power position that it could dominate the others and deprive them of their independence. To ensure that a balance was preserved, the powerful states needed to take active measures to counter each other’s gains. Partition schemes and compensations, it was argued, helped maintain the balance by making it harder for any one state to gain a decisive power advantage. Partition schemes and compensations played a larger role in the eighteenth century than at any other time in Europe’s history.15 Prior to this time, balance-of-power maneuvers in western Christendom tended to be defensive in nature. Threatened with domination by a stronger actor, weaker actors sometimes combined forces to create a blocking coalition. In 1686, for example, the states neighboring France created the League of Augsburg to block France’s eastward expansion. Defensive alliances of this kind were fully compatible with the protection of established dynastic and legal rights. By contrast, eighteenth-century alliances were frequently offensive, formed for the purpose of preying on the weak or destroying a rival. The pursuit of compensations and partitions by such coalitions directly contradicted the principle of respect for established rights. The rise of offensive, predatory coalitions in place of the defensive coalitions of earlier times reflected the declining weight of dynastic rights in Europe’s international politics. International politics in eighteenth-century Europe was notably violent. Efforts by states to achieve strategic gains at the expense of their rivals repeatedly led to major wars. These included the War of the Span-

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ish Succession (1701–1714), the War of the Austrian Succession (1740– 1748), the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), and the wars triggered by the French Revolution and by the rise of Napoleon (1792–1815).

The Great Powers The principal international actors in eighteenth-century Europe were France, Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and the Habsburg monarchy (referred to by the shorthand name of “Austria”). By the 1760s, it had become customary to refer to these five states as the “great powers.”16 The great powers dominated Europe’s international politics, and there was a growing gap between their military capabilities and those of second-tier states. Russia and France, each with around 25 million inhabitants, and Austria, with about 14 million people in its central lands, were Europe’s most populous states. All three were capable of raising large armies and could hold their own in a conflict against another great power. Austria’s status as a great power was due in part to the vast eastern European territories it had gained in 1699 at the conclusion of a lengthy war with the Ottoman Empire. The territories ceded by the Turks included Transylvania, Croatia, and the parts of Hungary that were not already under Austrian control. Those territorial additions gave Austria a surface area comparable to France, although Austria was not nearly as wealthy. Territory and population were not the only sources of power. The Kingdom of Great Britain, formed in 1707 through the union of England and Scotland, had only about one-third as many people as France but was able to mobilize its resources more effectively. Britain’s power rested on its robust commercial economy and rapidly expanding export trade.17 Britain also had a system of public finance that enabled the government to borrow large sums during wartime at low interest rates, thus converting the country’s wealth into military power. Because Parliament (rather than the monarch) controlled taxation in Britain, those who loaned to the government in wartime could feel confident they would be repaid in full—a circumstance that increased their willingness to lend money to the government and accept a relatively low interest rate on their loan. Thus Britain’s wealth enabled it to support the large and expensive navy that protected its maritime trade routes.18 The British system of public finance represented an important departure from traditional methods of financing war. In France and

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Spain, who had been Europe’s strongest powers during the dynastic era, monarchs traditionally raised much of the money for war by trading future government income for immediate funds. For example, they sold tax exemptions to private individuals and sold off government monopolies and other revenue sources.19 Although that approach might successfully finance a war in the short run, in the long run it pushed the state deeper into debt. Efforts to reform public finance in France and Spain provoked ferocious resistance from the nobility, whose status and privileges were tied closely to the traditional system. Over time, Spain’s chronically precarious financial situation undermined its ability to compete as a military power.20 After the mid-seventeenth century, Spain faded from the ranks of Europe’s leading actors. France also faced problems in sustaining its position. As its strategic rivalry with Britain intensified, reliance on traditional methods of financing war burdened it with a growing mountain of debt. By the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, the French state’s debts were so great that interest payments alone absorbed 60 percent of its annual budget.21 France’s costly intervention against Britain during the subsequent American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) was an extravagance it could no longer afford, pushing it toward insolvency and setting the stage for revolution. Russia’s emergence as one of Europe’s leading powers was a development of major importance. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Russia’s interactions with Europe had been largely confined to the continent’s eastern and northern perimeters.22 But under Peter the Great, who ruled Russia from 1694 to 1725, Russia became an active participant in the European system.23 Peter imposed sweeping reforms on Russian government and society, and with the help of Western advisers he modernized the Russian army and built a substantial navy. The Great Northern War (1700–1721), a major conflict in which Sweden and other states faced an opposing coalition led by Russia, ended with Sweden’s defeat. Under the peace settlement, Russia gained extensive territories along the eastern Baltic coast, enabling it to replace Sweden as the dominant power in northeastern Europe. Despite its backward economy, Russia’s large population and vast territory established it as a permanent factor in Europe’s international politics. Russian soldiers were noted for their courage and endurance, and Russia’s armies, after Peter’s reforms, were a match for those of any other European state.24 The rise of Prussia, like that of Russia, proved to have momentous implications for Europe. “Prussia” was a shorthand name for the lands held by the House of Hohenzollern, which ruled an assortment

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of principalities scattered across the Holy Roman Empire (see Figure 4.1). The Hohenzollerns also ruled the province of East Prussia, located outside the empire to the east. Their most important possession was the electorate of Brandenburg, whose capital city, Berlin, was the Hohenzollern seat of government. Although the Hohenzollern territories were extensive, they were mostly poor and thinly populated. The dynasty had acquired many of its holdings through inheritance and diplomatic maneuvering, with the result that there was little economic or strategic coherence to the Prussian state as a territorial entity.25 Prussian ruler Frederick William I, concerned that his scattered lands were vulnerable to invasion, built up a disproportionately large army to defend them. By the time of his death in 1740, that army was half the size of France’s, even though Prussia had only onetenth France’s population.26 Prussia was able to maintain such a large army because its tax system was relatively efficient and because Frederick William imposed drastic spending cuts on his royal household so he could direct more money to military purposes.27 As the eighteenth century began, Prussia was not a major European power. It was merely one of several German states—others included Saxony and Bavaria—with ambitions of gaining a larger role on the European stage. Such ambitions were unwelcome to Austria, which viewed them as a potential threat to its leadership of the Holy Roman Empire. As a second-tier state with limited wealth and population, Prussia usually needed to ally itself with a more powerful state to achieve its foreign policy objectives. That dependence proved galling to Frederick William, whose diplomacy in the 1730s focused almost entirely on trying to gain Austrian or French support for his claim to the western German duchies of Jülich and Berg. Neither Austria nor France wanted to see the disputed duchies in Prussian hands, and Frederick William’s efforts proved futile.28 His failure helped persuade his son and successor, Frederick II, that Prussia must find the means to achieve its goals without having to rely on the support of others. The actions of Frederick II, who came to be known as Frederick the Great, would vault Prussia into the ranks of the great powers.

Strategic Calculation and War The interests of Great Britain shaped essential aspects of eighteenthcentury international politics. Because of its dependence on trade with

Figure 4.1 Europe in 1714

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Europe and the rest of the world, Britain invested heavily in maintaining a powerful navy. As an island state with a minimal land army, Britain felt no desire to acquire large territorial holdings in continental Europe. Such holdings would be difficult and expensive to defend and would merely add to Britain’s vulnerabilities. Despite its limited appetite for European territory, Britain found itself drawn repeatedly into wars among the continental powers. Usually it joined forces with the weaker side, seeking to ensure that the stronger side could not alter the map of Europe to Britain’s disadvantage. That strategy earned Britain a reputation as the “holder of the balance.” Whereas continental powers like France and Russia tried to strengthen themselves through territorial gains in Europe, Britain sought to gain advantage by keeping the powers divided against each other while expanding its own commercial empire outside Europe. The single biggest threat to Britain’s interests came from France. Britain was Europe’s dominant naval power, but France was its strongest land power. Britain was determined to block France from gaining control of the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium), which bordered France to the north and was an obvious target for French expansion. Possession of the Southern Netherlands would give France control of all the European coastline nearest Britain, leaving it in a strong position to disrupt Britain’s trade ties with the Continent. Britain and France were also rivals for commercial advantages overseas, especially in the Americas. Although there were some periods of cooperation between them during the eighteenth century, the two states usually found themselves on opposing sides. Their rivalry reached a climax during the Napoleonic Wars in the early nineteenth century. The growing importance of strategic considerations in eighteenthcentury international politics is illustrated by the War of the Spanish Succession, a major military conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The war came about because of competing claims to the Spanish Crown. Charles II, the last of Spain’s Habsburg kings, had no direct heir. When he died in 1700, the two main claimants to the throne were the Bourbons (the royal dynasty of France) and the Austrian Habsburgs. Both were closely related to the Spanish Habsburgs by marriage. The stakes in the dispute were extraordinarily high, because Spain’s territories included much of Italy, various Mediterranean islands, the Southern Netherlands, and a global colonial empire. Neither France nor Austria wanted war, but each preferred to fight rather than allow the Spanish inheritance to fall into the hands of the

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other. England was a major actor in the dispute because it did not wish to see France or Austria achieve a dominant position by gaining all of Spain’s territories. England’s leaders were willing to go to war to ensure that the Spanish possessions were partitioned among several states. On the surface, the Spanish succession war might seem to be a classic dynastic war. But that was not really the case. Despite its major role in the conflict, England was not a claimant to the Spanish inheritance and went to war for strategic reasons. Much the same could be said of France, despite its ruling family’s claim to the Spanish Crown. The French king, Louis XIV, adopted a highly instrumental stance toward the Spanish inheritance. In the years before Charles II’s death, Louis opened negotiations with England on a compromise solution to the crisis. Those discussions led to a treaty, signed by France, England, and the Dutch Republic, that would have allowed most of the Spanish inheritance to go to the Austrian Habsburgs. Louis agreed to relinquish his claim to all the Spanish possessions except Naples, Sicily, and Milan. He did not actually intend to hold onto these Italian lands, but hoped to exchange them for Lorraine and Savoy-Piedmont, two small states located next to France (see Figure 4.1). Acquiring Lorraine and Savoy-Piedmont would benefit France by strengthening its frontiers. But the rulers of the two states resisted Louis’s plan, as did the Austrian Habsburgs.29 With the failure of the Anglo-French diplomatic effort, it proved impossible to avoid a long and immensely destructive war to determine who would take possession of the Spanish territories. Louis XIV ruled France from 1661 to 1715, and his career symbolized the gradual transition in Europe’s international politics from a preoccupation with dynastic prestige to a focus on strategic gains. As a youth, Louis had burned with desire for military glory.30 In his first decades as king, he fiercely defended every inherited territorial right he could lay claim to and launched France repeatedly into unnecessary wars aimed at winning prestige and renown for himself. But as he grew older, Louis became increasingly concerned with providing France with defensible borders.31 That concern is worth noting, because it suggests an emerging conception of France as a permanent entity with interests of its own, rather than just an inheritance serving the interests of its monarch. By the time of the Spanish succession crisis, Louis’s view of inherited territorial claims had become essentially pragmatic. He treated his claim to the Spanish inheritance

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as a bargaining chip rather than a divinely endowed and inalienable right. He had become much more reluctant to subject France to the ills of large-scale military conflict. Thus Louis was willing, at least in principle, to forgo the Bourbon claim to the Spanish inheritance if by doing so he could avoid a costly war and gain some strategically valuable border provinces for France. The War of the Spanish Succession ended with the partition of Spain’s territories. Figure 4.1 shows the territorial boundaries in Europe after the peace settlement. Under the settlement, the French Bourbons and the Austrian Habsburgs each gained some of the Spanish lands. Austria gained the Southern Netherlands and most of Spain’s Italian possessions. France’s Bourbon dynasty gained rulership over Spain and its overseas colonial possessions. Strictly speaking, that was not a territorial gain for France, because Spain remained an independent state, and its overseas colonies remained under Spanish control. The Spanish throne went to Philip of Anjou, Louis XIV’s grandson. France nevertheless benefited from the fact that Spain, its traditional enemy, was now in friendly hands. The principal winner of the war was Britain, which had successfully blocked France and Austria from achieving any gains that would seriously harm British interests. Britain also took advantage of the war to make some strategically important gains of its own. It took possession of Gibraltar, located at Spain’s southern tip, and Menorca, an island in the western Mediterranean. The acquisition of those crucial outposts enabled the British navy to consolidate its dominant position in the western Mediterranean and the northeastern Atlantic.32

The Impact of Frederick the Great Any analysis of the declining importance of dynastic rights in Europe’s international politics must take note of the role played by Frederick the Great, who succeeded his father as king of Prussia in 1740. Frederick’s father had obsessively pursued an inherited claim to the duchies of Jülich and Berg, but was unable to make good on the claim because of diplomatic opposition from France and Austria. In the wake of his father’s failure, Frederick took a cynical view of dynastic legal rights. He was determined to gain strategically valuable territory for Prussia, regardless of legal considerations.33 In December 1740, in an action with repercussions that echo

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to the present day, he launched a surprise invasion of Silesia, an Austrian possession adjacent to Brandenburg in what is today southwestern Poland (see Figure 4.1). Silesia was a wealthy province with a thriving economy and more than a million inhabitants. Frederick’s invasion was triggered by the death of Charles VI, the Austrian Habsburg ruler. Charles was succeeded by his inexperienced twenty-threeyear-old daughter, Maria Theresa, and Frederick thought Austria would be unable to mobilize an effective response to his aggression. Frederick had no serious dynastic claim to Silesia; his military strike was motivated by opportunism and strategic considerations.34 The invasion was a bold move, and it seems likely that many rulers in Frederick’s place would have taken a more cautious path, as indeed his own advisers urged.35 Frederick’s action triggered the War of the Austrian Succession, a major conflict that involved most of Europe. After Austrian troops proved unable to recapture Silesia from Prussia, other powers rushed to take advantage of the Habsburg monarchy’s apparent vulnerability. France, Spain, and Bavaria formed a predatory coalition and mounted a coordinated attack on Austria’s territories, intending to carve them up among themselves. Their plans were frustrated by the British, who feared that the destruction of Austria would enable France to dominate Europe. Britain provided Austria with enough military and diplomatic assistance to allow it to recover and fend off its attackers. When several more years of fighting failed to produce a decisive outcome, Britain and France decided to reach a settlement. A peace treaty concluded in 1748 restored the prewar status quo, except that Frederick’s possession of Silesia was confirmed and Austria was forced to cede some of its territories in northern Italy to Spain. Maria Theresa was embittered by Britain’s willingness to allow Frederick to retain his ill-gotten gains, but she could not continue the war without British help. The War of the Austrian Succession set the stage for an even larger conflict, the Seven Years’ War, which took place from 1756 to 1763. In this case, the intended victim of partition was Prussia. Maria Theresa remained unreconciled to the loss of Silesia, and she planned to retake it by force as soon as circumstances permitted. Russia’s leaders were also hostile to Frederick, viewing Prussia’s increased power as a challenge to Russian domination of northern and eastern Europe. 36 Elizabeth, the ruler of Russia, was intent on eliminating the Prussian threat. When war came, Prussia found

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itself pitted against a powerful opposing coalition of Austria, Russia, and other states. If Prussia were to lose the war, it faced territorial dismemberment. 37 Although Prussia fought tenaciously for several years, its defeat was imminent in January 1762 when Elizabeth finally succumbed to a long illness. Her death proved to be Prussia’s salvation. Peter III, Elizabeth’s successor, was an ardent admirer of Frederick, and he promptly withdrew Russia’s troops from the war. Deprived of Russia’s help, Austria was soon forced to accept peace on the basis of the prewar status quo. Austria’s loss of Silesia thus became permanent. Had Elizabeth lived just a few weeks longer, Prussia might have been eliminated forever as a factor in European politics.38 In several ways, Frederick’s conquest of Silesia undermined international respect for dynastic rights. It established a precedent of force prevailing over lawful possession. It led France, Spain, and Bavaria to try to grab parts of Austria themselves, as compensation to offset Prussia’s gain. It set the stage for a war of revenge in which Prussia was the target of a partition scheme. It also prompted the Austrian government to initiate a far-reaching overhaul of its internal administrative and tax structure, so it would be better prepared to defend itself in the future.39 The conquest of Silesia thus contributed to intensified strategic competition in eastern Europe, helping lay the basis for a territorial grab directed against Poland.

The Partition of Poland In the final decades of the eighteenth century, strategic rivalry among Austria, Russia, and Prussia culminated in a dramatic development: the partition of the kingdom of Poland.40 With a population of twelve million and a surface area greater than that of France, Poland was one of Europe’s largest states. But it lacked effective institutions of central government and had been unable to prevent Russia from imposing control over it during the Great Northern War.41 After 1720, Poland was essentially a Russian satellite, insulating Russia from the great powers to its west. In 1768, Polish nobles launched an armed rebellion against the Russian presence. The Polish uprising, in turn, prompted the Ottoman Empire to initiate war against Russia. The Turkish leadership was concerned that if Russia further tightened its grip over Poland, Turkish territories

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south of Poland would be threatened. The Ottoman decision for war backfired, as Russian forces achieved repeated successes against Turkish armies. Austria and Prussia became alarmed at the prospect of major territorial gains by Russia in southeastern Europe. Frederick the Great attempted to turn the situation to Prussia’s advantage by suggesting to Russia’s ruler, Catherine II, a partition of Poland’s territory and people among Prussia, Russia, and Austria. After considerable hesitation, Catherine agreed. She was worried that Austria and France might join the Turks in an alliance against Russia. Frederick’s partition idea offered a way for her to satisfy Prussia and Austria, leaving her free to deal with the Turks as she pleased. Austria’s leaders were reluctant to join in the partition because they did not want to see Prussia or Russia strengthened. But Austria could not prevent the partition from taking place, so Maria Theresa finally accepted Frederick’s proposal. Under an agreement negotiated among the three powers and imposed on Poland in 1772, Prussia, Russia, and Austria annexed substantial portions of Polish territory. Poland lost about a third of its total population and land area. Maria Theresa was moved to tears by the injustice of these actions, which she regarded as a criminal violation of Poland’s rights. But as Frederick drily observed, “the more she cried, the more she took.”42 A second partition of Polish territory was carried out between Prussia and Russia in 1793. That partition, like the first, was precipitated by a combination of Prussian territorial ambitions and Polish attempts to assert independence from Russia. Austria acted too slowly in deciding whether to participate and was excluded from the spoils. A third and final partition, which eliminated Poland completely, was carried out by Prussia, Russia, and Austria in 1795. The demise of Poland demonstrated vividly the great powers’ growing ability to dictate outcomes to the rest of Europe and their increased willingness to ignore weaker states’ legal rights. Strategic competition among the great powers created an incentive for territorial predation, and because none of the great powers was willing to see others achieve gains while it did not, each act of predation tended to set off a chain reaction of territorial grabs. The Polish case simply carried to an extreme the pattern that had been set at the beginning of the century by the War of the Spanish Succession, in which one power’s prospective territorial gain led the other powers to demand gains for themselves as the price of their consent.

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The Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars The eighteenth century ended with more warfare among the great powers. From 1792 to 1815, the powers were at war almost continually, with France confronting a series of opposing coalitions. The wars engulfed all of Europe and resulted in millions of deaths.43 The initial cause of the wars was the ideological suspicion and hostility that arose between France and its neighbors in the wake of the French Revolution, which began in 1789.44 The French revolutionaries worried that Austria and Prussia, which remained traditional monarchies, would attempt to subvert the revolution. Conversely, the governments of Austria and Prussia worried that France would try to export its revolution to them. A first round of fighting in 1792 thus pitted France against Austria and Prussia. French victories led other states, including Britain and Spain, to join the anti-French coalition. Finding itself in an increasingly desperate position, the French government conscripted all unmarried, able-bodied young men into military service and mobilized the economy for the production of military supplies. Reinforced with hundreds of thousands of new recruits, French armies routed the coalition forces and pushed deep into foreign territory. The opposing coalition fell apart. By 1798, France had gained possession of the Southern Netherlands and a wide swath of territory in western Germany. It had overthrown governments in Italy, Switzerland, and the Dutch Republic and replaced them with officials subordinate to France. Despite its military victories abroad, the revolutionary government in France never managed to develop a stable political base. Under the strain of endless war, it reached the verge of collapse by fall 1799. A politically ambitious French general named Napoleon Bonaparte, seeing his opportunity, seized power and imposed a military dictatorship. Initially he governed with the title of First Consul, but in 1804 he made himself into a hereditary monarch, proclaiming himself Emperor of the French and ruling as Napoleon I. Under Napoleon’s rule, French expansionism gained new momentum. Between 1799 and 1814, Napoleon faced military opposition from Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia in varying combinations. Britain was able to avoid defeat by pouring resources into its navy, preventing Napoleon from launching an invasion of the British Isles. Prussia and Austria were not so fortunate. Military defeats at

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Napoleon’s hands forced these states to accept major territorial losses. Napoleon redrew the map of central Europe, turning most of the smaller German states into French satellites. The Holy Roman Empire ceased to function and was abolished. By 1807, France had achieved a position of overwhelming dominance in Europe. But it failed to consolidate its gains. Napoleon’s program of expansion and conquest lacked specific war aims that, once attained, might permit a durable settlement to be concluded. Austria, Prussia, Russia, and even Britain tried repeatedly to coexist with Napoleon by accommodating rather than fighting him. But they discovered that any agreement they reached was no more than a temporary truce before France renewed its aggression.45 In the end, these powers saw no alternative but to renew the war—a desperate step, given Napoleon’s seeming invincibility. French dominance was also undermined by its ruthlessly exploitative character. Wherever French armies invaded, they supported themselves by confiscating food, livestock, and other goods from the local populace, leaving privation in their wake. Opposing governments, once vanquished, were required to pay large indemnities that subsidized French military spending. Conscription was imposed in occupied territories to provide the French army with fresh troops.46 France’s relentless exploitation of its satellite states provoked growing unrest and resistance, and triggered a major insurrection in Spain beginning in 1808. The turning point in French domination of Europe came with Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. Intending to force the Russian government into a more compliant relationship with France, Napoleon entered Russia with a massive army of more than 600,000 troops. The invasion proved to be his greatest miscalculation. Russia’s armies retreated ever deeper into the vast Russian interior, so Napoleon was unable to force a decisive battle or compel Tsar Alexander I to come to terms. The French army reached Moscow but found it deserted. Lacking adequate supplies and facing the onset of winter, Napoleon finally had no choice but to withdraw. As his starving and freezing troops stumbled westward, they were harassed continually by Russian forces. By the time the army crossed out of Russian territory, all but 93,000 of its soldiers had died or been captured.47 The defeat of Napoleon’s great army prompted Austria and Prussia to rejoin Britain and Russia in the war against France. The coalition forces advanced all the way to Paris, finally compelling Napoleon

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to abdicate in April 1814. He was sent into a comfortable exile on the island of Elba, off the western coast of Italy. But less than a year later, he escaped from Elba and returned to France, where he quickly regained power and raised an army. The other great powers dispatched forces to deal with him, and Napoleon was defeated for the last time at Waterloo. He was again sent into exile, this time to the remote island of Saint Helena in the south Atlantic.

The Balance of Power as an International System The international system of eighteenth-century Europe is usually described as a balance-of-power system. Eighteenth-century statesmen thought about international politics in terms of the balance of power, and they used balance-of-power arguments to explain and justify their foreign policies.48 The underlying logic of this system was fundamentally different from that of the system that had preceded it. Under the dynastic system, traditional customs and inherited titles provided the framework for international order. As participants in the religious community of western Christendom, Europe’s hereditary monarchs had normally accepted their fellow Christian rulers as rightfully entitled to their inherited crowns and lands. Even though wars among European rulers occurred frequently, they took place within a framework of overall respect for existing rights and customs. Indeed, the central purpose of the dynastic international order was to preserve the established rights of the hereditary ruling caste. But by the eighteenth century, statesmen had come to think of international politics as a struggle among states, in which outcomes were determined by military and economic power. Each state sought gains for itself, raising the possibility that if a powerful state were left unchecked by opposing powers, it might eventually dominate Europe. In that event, the other states would lose their independence. To avoid such an outcome, the argument went, the great powers must take care to counterbalance each other so that none would gain a decisive edge. Preserving a balance among the powers took precedence over all other goals, including the defense of inherited rights. Balance-of-power logic was attractive to Europe’s great powers because it provided a pragmatic, flexible justification for behavior that served the state’s strategic interests—especially when that

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behavior could not be justified by traditional appeals to inherited rights. Statesmen routinely cited the balance of power to justify their partition schemes and demands for territorial compensation. Nevertheless, the system failed to provide the great powers with the security they craved. 49 The idea of a balance did not define clear rights or obligations for individual states or provide an objective basis for distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate behavior. 50 Because states had an interest in gaining an advantage over their rivals, they continually looked for ways to tip the existing balance in a direction more favorable to themselves. To justify such activities, statesmen might claim that they were only trying to “preserve the balance” or “restore the balance.” In other words, the balance of power was a subjective, elastic concept that could be used to rationalize nearly anything a state wanted to do. States could engage in aggressive expansionism, yet still claim to be upholding the balance. The notion of balance sounded reassuring, but it masked the system’s predatory realities. The continual pursuit of territorial expansion through partition schemes and compensations meant that eighteenth-century Europe never achieved a stable territorial equilibrium. The first partition of Poland, despite the large territorial gains it provided to Prussia, Austria, and Russia, merely paved the way for further partitions until Poland was wiped from the map. Even the great powers were not secure from the threat of partition. Both Austria, in the early 1740s, and Prussia, in the early 1760s, came close to being dismembered by enemy coalitions. The balance-of-power system provided no basis for international trust, because the existing distribution of territory was always subject to revision, and every state was a potential target for predation. In their pursuit of territorial gains, the great powers found themselves drawn repeatedly into costly, large-scale wars against each other. The Napoleonic Wars left the great powers disillusioned with the balance-of-power system. Under Napoleon, France succeeded in bringing most of western Europe under its control, endangering the survival of the other great powers. Had Napoleon not overreached by invading Russia, French domination of Europe might have lasted for decades. Once Napoleon had been defeated, the victorious powers resolved to establish an international order that could more reliably protect their independence and security. Their efforts would give rise to the Concert of Europe.

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Notes 1. The idea was articulated in Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, published in 1651. See van Creveld, The Rise and Decline of the State, 178–179. 2. See Hinsley, Sovereignty, 181–184. 3. See van Creveld, The Rise and Decline of the State, 128–143. 4. See Porter, War and the Rise of the State, 31–49, 63–67, and 72–118. 5. Brewer, The Sinews of Power, 66. 6. Upton, Europe, 262. 7. See Luard, War in International Society, 153–154; Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 117–118; and Wolf, Toward a European Balance of Power, 122–123. 8. See the useful discussion in Wolf, Toward a European Balance of Power, chap. 6. 9. Morgenthau, “Another ‘Great Debate’,” 972. 10. Holsti, Peace and War, 64 and 92–93. 11. Hoffman, Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, 21–23. 12. Luard, The Balance of Power, 347–351. 13. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 6–7. 14. See Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 149–180. 15. See Holsti, Peace and War, 94, and Luard, The Balance of Power, 337. 16. See the discussion in Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 119–121. 17. Upton, Europe, 225–226. 18. See Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan, 188–223. 19. See the useful overviews in Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan, 96–139, and Hui, War and State Formation, 109–123. 20. Upton, Europe, 83–90 and 137–141. 21. Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 144. 22. Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 217–218. 23. Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 24–28. 24. See Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 227–228, and Upton, Europe, 188. 25. See Clark, Iron Kingdom, 9–16 and 48. 26. McKay and Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, 163. 27. Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 50; Upton, Europe, 256; and Schulze, “The Prussian Military State,” 201–202. 28. See the account in Ergang, The Potsdam Führer, 190–211. 29. Wolf, Toward a European Balance of Power, 131; McKay and Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, 55; and Hatton, “Louis XIV and His Fellow Monarchs,” 171 and 177. 30. Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV, 27–32; Sturdy, Louis XIV, 136. 31. McKay and Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, 35; Wolf, Toward a European Balance of Power, 62 and 66–72. 32. McKay and Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, 95. 33. Showalter, The Wars of Frederick the Great, 30–32. 34. See Anderson, The War of the Austrian Succession, 59–68, and Clark, Iron Kingdom, 192–193. 35. Anderson, The War of the Austrian Succession, 65–68; Scott, “Prussia’s Emergence as a European Great Power,” 161. 36. Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 70 and 88.

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37. Clark, Iron Kingdom, 200. 38. Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 106–107. 39. Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 160–172. 40. See Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 157–167 and 201–213. 41. See Upton, Europe, 174–180. 42. Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 195. 43. Rapport, Nineteenth-Century Europe, 40, estimates the total deaths from the Napoleonic Wars at seven million, while Blanning, The Pursuit of Glory, 670, and Gildea, Barricades and Borders, 55, estimate them at five million. 44. See Walt, Revolution and War, chaps. 2–3, and Haas, The Ideological Origins of Great Power Politics, chaps. 1–2. 45. This argument is developed in Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 391–395, and Schroeder, “Napoleon’s Foreign Policy.” 46. Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 319; Grab, Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe, 27. 47. Blanning, The Pursuit of Glory, 664. Historians differ in their estimates regarding both the size of Napoleon’s invasion army and the number of survivors. Blanning’s estimates of 665,000 and 93,000, respectively, are near the high end of the spectrum, whereas the estimates of 500,000 and 40,000 given by Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 348–349, are near the low end. 48. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 163. 49. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 9–10 and 47–48; Luard, The Balance of Power, 347–353. 50. See Haas, “The Balance of Power,” and Claude, Power and International Relations, chap. 2.

5 The Concert of Europe, 1815–1854

THE VIENNA PEACE SETTLEMENT, WHICH CONCLUDED the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, was a major turning point in international history. It introduced a century of relatively peaceful relations among the great powers. Whereas the eighteenth century had been marked by recurring large-scale wars involving all the major European powers, no such wars occurred between 1815 and 1914. From 1815 to 1854 and again from 1871 to 1914 the great powers were at peace with each other. Several significant wars, each involving two or three of the powers, took place between 1854 and 1871. But those wars were limited in size and scope. The underlying basis for peace after 1815 was a changed attitude toward territorial expansion. Previously, the quest for territorial gain had been a central feature of Europe’s international politics. Wars were often initiated for the express purpose of seizing territory from neighboring states. Partition schemes, in which states plotted with each other over how they might divide another state’s territory, were common. But by 1815, the great powers had become convinced that territorial expansion—at least within Europe—was not an effective method for achieving security. The Napoleonic Wars had taught them a harsh lesson: unrestrained territorial competition put their very existence at risk. Napoleon’s conquests had given the great powers a taste of life under foreign domination. It was an experience they did not care to repeat. So they decided to create strong constraints on 81

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territorial expansion in the future. To succeed, those constraints had to apply to all European states. The Vienna settlement, together with the formal and informal agreements that held it in place, established an international system known as the Concert of Europe. Under this system, the great powers cooperated to resolve international crises and manage their conflicts of interest. Rather than allow disputes to escalate into wars, the powers dealt with them with compromise and accommodation. Box 5.1 summarizes the main features of the Concert system. As the nineteenth century progressed, the main challenge to the Concert system came from the rising national aspirations in central and eastern Europe. A growing number of Germans sought to create a unified German state, and many Italians demanded the same for Italy. Peoples such as the Greeks, Serbs, Romanians, and Hungarians,

Box 5.1 The Concert System Time frame: 1815 to 1854.

Principal actors: The Concert of Europe comprised five great powers: Britain, Russia, France, Austria, and Prussia. How did the system create international order? As in the

eighteenth century, the great powers defined an orderly international system as one that prevented any one power from gaining dominance over the rest. But rather than relying on territorial compensations, partition schemes, and wars to maintain the balance, the Concert did so by restricting territorial competition in Europe. The great powers had come to regard war against each other as undesirable, and by limiting territorial rivalry, they hoped to prevent it. The powers accordingly agreed that they would uphold the territorial settlement adopted at Vienna in 1815, and that any future territorial changes in Europe would require their joint consent. The powers also took care not to challenge each other’s prestige or vital interests. As a general rule, they avoided interfering in each other’s spheres of influence.

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who had long been ruled by the Turks or the Austrian Habsburgs, clamored for independence. Their demands threatened to undermine peace among the great powers, which depended largely on preserving the territorial status quo. This chapter examines the creation and functioning of the international order established in 1815. It begins by describing the Vienna peace settlement, showing how the territorial changes it imposed laid the groundwork for international stability. It discusses the nature and rules of the Concert system and examines how Concert diplomacy enabled the great powers to manage their conflicts of interest peacefully. It also shows how the decline of Turkish power in southeastern Europe led to the Crimean War and the collapse of the Concert system. The chapter concludes by examining how the consequences of the Crimean War made possible the establishment of a unified Italy and a unified Germany.

The Vienna Settlement From September 1814 to June 1815, a great peace conference, the Congress of Vienna, met to work out the details of a territorial settlement for Europe following Napoleon’s defeat.1 The challenges facing the delegates were daunting. Nearly everywhere Napoleon’s conquering armies had penetrated, traditional rulers had been overthrown and territorial boundaries altered. More than 200 states and dynastic houses sent representatives to Vienna to seek redress for injuries suffered at Napoleon’s hands. Rather than try to accommodate the demands of all those delegations, the representatives of the four victorious great powers—Britain (now known officially as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland), Russia, Austria, and Prussia—hammered out a territorial settlement behind closed doors. Meanwhile, the diplomats from the smaller states were kept occupied month after month with lavish dinners and entertainments. Once the great powers had reached an agreement that satisfied their interests, they invited the other states to join in signing it. Although this tactic unfairly sacrificed the interests of many of the smaller states, it was probably the only method that could have produced an agreement. Including the smaller states in the negotiations would have resulted in deadlock. The terms of the settlement reflected the determination of the victorious powers, especially Britain, to prevent French aggression in the future. The states on France’s northern and eastern borders were

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enlarged and strengthened, so they could more effectively resist any French attempt to dominate them (see Figure 5.1). Belgium was consolidated with the former Dutch Republic to create the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Italian state of Piedmont (formerly SavoyPiedmont), which bordered southeastern France, was fortified by the annexation of Genoa. Austria gained Lombardy and Venetia in northeastern Italy, which put it in a strong position to dominate the Italian Peninsula and block French expansion in that direction. Within France, the Napoleonic regime was abolished and the traditional monarchy was restored to power. The great powers also reorganized Germany so it could more effectively defend itself against France. Already in 1801, Napoleon had dictated territorial changes in Germany that consolidated many of its states into larger units. The negotiators at Vienna allowed that consolidation to stand, so that the total number of German states decreased from about 360 to 39. In place of the defunct Holy Roman Empire, a new German Confederation was established. The confederation, dominated by Austria and Prussia, was intended to enable the German states to coordinate their economic policies and military efforts. Prussia, which had lost territory in the east, was compensated with part of Saxony and substantial territory in western Germany along the Rhine. In that way, Prussia became part of the barrier against France. In one other important change, the great powers permitted Russia to take control of much of the Polish territory that had been acquired by Austria and Prussia in the partitions of 1793 and 1795. Russia’s gains may be thought of as a payoff for its contribution to Napoleon’s defeat, as well as a compensation to offset Prussia’s territorial gains in Germany and Austria’s gains in Italy.2 Although the victorious powers sought to block future French expansionism, they agreed that France had a valuable part to play in the European system. For that reason, they refrained from imposing terms that would cripple France permanently. Britain and Austria, in particular, were anxious to maintain France as a counterweight to Russia—a role it could not fill if it were greatly weakened. Under the Treaty of Paris of 1815, France was deprived of nearly all the territory it had gained since the beginning of the revolution. The treaty imposed a temporary military occupation of French territory and required France to pay an indemnity. But those terms were manageable. The indemnity was paid off, and the occupation ended, three years after the peace agreement was signed.

Figure 5.1 Europe in 1815

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The Great Powers’ Desire for Peace At Vienna, the victorious powers sought to do more than extract gains for themselves and impose punishment on the vanquished. They tried to lay the foundation for a stable peace. Each power had come to view war against its rivals as something to be avoided. The potential gains from such wars no longer seemed to justify the costs and risks they entailed. The powers differed, however, in their specific motives for desiring peace. Britain favored peace and stability on the Continent so it could focus its attention on its rapidly growing overseas and colonial trade.3 In fact, that had long been its preference. Since the eighteenth century, Britain’s participation in wars on the Continent had been reluctant, driven by the need to prevent the rise of a dominant power that could threaten British independence. As long as there was no danger of such a power emerging, Britain had little reason to desire a war in Europe. That was even more the case after 1815. British leaders were highly satisfied with the terms of the Vienna settlement, which granted them nearly everything they wanted. The settlement created strong obstacles to French expansionism but did not interfere with Britain’s domination of the high seas. It confirmed British possession of strategically important naval outposts taken from France and its allies during the wars, and granted Britain title to some lucrative trading colonies in the Caribbean. Thus the settlement further consolidated Britain’s naval supremacy and economic advantages. The perspectives of the three eastern powers—Russia, Austria, and Prussia—were shaped by the fact that those states remained traditional hereditary monarchies in which lawmaking and policy direction rested in the hands of the monarch and his circle of advisers and ministers. The French Revolution had demonstrated that monarchies could be overthrown, and the eastern monarchs feared that revolution anywhere in Europe could spread like a contagion, endangering their own thrones.4 Austria’s leaders feared revolution for another reason: the Austrian Empire was multinational in character, and revolution would probably cause it to fragment into smaller pieces, destroying it as a great power. Austria and the other eastern powers were therefore determined to suppress revolution and uphold monarchical rule. That required preserving peace among the great powers, since the outbreak of a major war would likely open the door to revolution and the destruction of the traditional political order. The eastern powers for-

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malized their opposition to revolution in the so-called Holy Alliance, which they established in 1815. The Holy Alliance provided an instrument by which the three monarchies could support each other in suppressing revolution in central and eastern Europe.5 The power least satisfied with the peace settlement was France.6 The French considered it unjust that other states had made important territorial gains under the Vienna settlement while France was reduced to its prewar boundaries. French leaders and public opinion also resented the fact that the settlement was designed to prevent France from achieving future territorial gains. Successive French governments continually searched for opportunities to revise the Vienna settlement, but the other four powers were united in opposing their ambitions. As long as that remained the case, French leaders had no incentive to risk a war that would simply result in defeat and further territorial losses.

The Concert of Europe After defeating Napoleon, the four victorious powers had taken the unusual step of agreeing to extend their wartime Quadruple Alliance for another twenty years. That was part of their effort to insure against any renewal of the Napoleonic Wars. France was admitted to this group in 1818, thereby creating the Quintuple Alliance. Allowing France to join was a way for the other powers to manage French demands and prevent France from overturning the peace.7 Admission to the alliance gave France a voice in the great powers’ collective decisions, but also obligated it to abide by those decisions. As allies, the great powers were now all on the same side, working together to maintain order in Europe and preserve peace among themselves. This arrangement came to be known as the Concert of Europe. For peace to succeed, the great powers needed to establish practical mechanisms to deal with future problems and crises in a way that would preserve their cooperative relationship. By itself, signing an alliance pact was not enough to keep them at peace. Deeply rooted rivalries and suspicions did not fade away spontaneously. In postNapoleonic Europe, political crises erupted regularly. Many of those crises originated in popular demands for government reform and for the establishment of constitutional limits on the power of monarchs. Rising literacy, the growth of political awareness among European publics, and the onset of industrialization all helped stimulate repeated

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waves of revolutionary upheaval that swept across Europe in the decades after the Napoleonic Wars ended. At first, the Concert of Europe operated mainly through conference diplomacy. Between 1818 and 1822, the great powers held highlevel meetings among themselves nearly every year to consult on problems of mutual concern. These meetings offered the possibility of taking coordinated action to uphold peace and stability. But it gradually became clear that consultation would not resolve the fundamental disagreement between Russia and Britain on how revolutionary uprisings should be dealt with. Tsar Alexander I of Russia argued that the Concert powers should take joint action to suppress revolution anywhere in Europe, thereby guaranteeing the established political order and ensuring that existing rulers held onto their thrones. Lord Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary, adamantly opposed the tsar’s proposal. In his view, the purpose of the Concert was to prevent French aggression, not block every attempt to overthrow corrupt or oppressive rulers.8 The British had no wish to become entangled in constant interventions against revolutionary change in other states. In addition, the tsar’s proposal implied the use of Russian troops to suppress revolutions as far west as Spain—an expansion of Russian influence that the British were unwilling to accept. Castlereagh was not opposed to military intervention against revolutions, but he believed that each power should be free to take action on its own when its interests were at stake, rather than being required to coordinate its action with the other Concert powers. Given Britain’s stance, Russia abandoned the idea of using the Concert as a kind of governing body for Europe. After 1822, the powers usually convened a conference only when an immediate problem or crisis demanded their attention—and even then, only if all agreed that the problem could usefully be addressed with conference diplomacy. On issues where agreement was impossible, the powers most directly affected by a problem usually dealt with it on their own initiative. In some instances, the three eastern powers used the framework of the Holy Alliance to coordinate their actions. In 1821, for example, they authorized Austria to send an army into the southern Italian Kingdom of Naples to suppress a revolution. Thus, in practice, spheres of influence came to play a large role in the Concert system.9 Each power exercised dominance over those areas where its interests were most at stake and its power was most effective, while avoiding meddling in the spheres of the other powers.

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For example, the great powers accepted that Britain’s sphere of influence included Portugal, and they did not interfere when British forces intervened there in the 1820s and 1830s to try to keep a pro-British government in power. Similarly, the powers made no move to stop Russia from crushing an uprising by the Poles in 1830–1832. All the powers, with the occasional exception of France, accepted Austria’s domination of Italy. Austria and Prussia shared influence over the German Confederation, although Austria’s influence was predominant.

The Crises over Greece and Belgium One of the most serious problems facing the Concert of Europe arose from the Ottoman Empire’s deteriorating control over its territories in southeastern Europe. Those territories were populated by a patchwork of ethnic groups—Serbs, Greeks, Romanians, Bulgarians, and Albanians—that resented Turkish overlordship and hoped to achieve independence. As the Ottoman Empire weakened, it became more likely that Russian influence in the region would increase. If that happened, there was a strong possibility that the great powers could be drawn into a major war. Klemens von Metternich, the foreign minister of Austria, was obsessed with fear of Russian domination, and he strongly opposed any further Russian gains in southeastern Europe.10 The British were similarly opposed. The problem of managing the Ottoman Empire’s fading power in a way that preserved peace among the great powers was known as the “Eastern Question.” The Eastern Question would plague European politics throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. The danger posed by the Eastern Question became clear in the 1820s, when ethnic Greeks in the Ottoman Empire rebelled against Turkish rule. Russia’s sympathy for the Greeks, who were fellow Orthodox Christians, led to war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Russia was victorious, ensuring that the Greek demand for independence would be successful. That prospect raised alarm on the part of Britain and France, because Russia’s sponsorship of Greek independence meant that the new Greek state would probably be little more than a Russian satellite. Such a development would represent a major gain for Russia in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean. To keep the Greeks from falling completely under Russian influence, the British and French governments decided that they would

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also support Greek independence. In 1830, Britain, France, and Russia signed a treaty in which they defined Greece’s borders and jointly guaranteed its status as an independent state.11 They also decided that Greece would be a hereditary monarchy, and in 1832 they selected a Bavarian prince, Otto von Wittelsbach, as king of the new state. In taking these measures, they sought to ensure that Greece would not become part of any great power’s sphere of influence, so that the creation of the new state would not give rise to new jealousies. The resolution of the Greek crisis in a way that avoided a general European war was a major diplomatic achievement. Another challenge to great power peace—one that had nothing to do with the Eastern Question—arose when the people of Belgium revolted in 1830 against the union with the Dutch that had been imposed on them by the Vienna settlement. The king of the Netherlands appealed for help in suppressing the rebellion, but Britain and France, deeply suspicious of each other’s motives, made clear that neither would tolerate outside intervention in the crisis. Because of Belgium’s strategically important location, each sought to prevent the territory from coming under the influence of any power other than itself. In the end, the problem of Belgium was resolved by methods similar to those used in the Greek crisis. The five Concert powers agreed to the establishment of Belgium as an independent state, and they cooperated in defining the new state’s territorial boundaries. To ensure that Belgium would not become a satellite of any power, they jointly guaranteed its independence and neutrality.12

The Concert of Europe as an International System The rules of the Concert system were informal and unwritten.13 They were created in part through the conscious design of statesmen such as Lord Castlereagh, Metternich, and Alexander I. But they also arose as a result of pragmatic compromise among the great powers, whose goals and priorities differed. For Britain, the principal function of the system was to prevent France or Russia from gaining a dominant position on the Continent. For Russia and Austria, the Concert’s foremost purpose was to protect European states from internal revolution. The tension between those partly contradictory goals meant that the Concert could work only if the powers allowed each other adequate leeway to defend their interests as they saw fit. Tak-

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ing such an approach reinforced the division of Europe into spheres of influence. It meant that each power, in exchange for relative freedom of action in its own sphere, had to accept that other powers might impose solutions it did not like within their spheres. Each understood that it must not interfere in another power’s internal affairs or stir up unrest in another power’s sphere of influence. Above all, the powers had to avoid actions that might be perceived as direct challenges to each other’s interests or prestige. Although the Concert of Europe provided flexibility in accommodating each great power’s defense of its interests, it put stringent limits on territorial expansion within Europe. Two core principles of the system were that the Vienna territorial settlement should be preserved to the greatest extent possible, and all adjustments to it must be approved by a consensus of the great powers. Eighteenth-century international politics had demonstrated repeatedly that territorial gain by one great power was destabilizing, because it led other powers to demand matching gains. Under the Concert system, the great powers solved that problem by tacitly agreeing not to seek further territorial gains for themselves within Europe. As long as no power added to its European territories, the others were willing to accept the territorial status quo, thereby preserving peace. The great powers’ management of the Greek and Belgian crises demonstrated the Concert system in operation. The establishment of Greece and Belgium as independent states was achieved not simply by the efforts of the Greeks and Belgians but by agreement among the great powers. In both cases, the powers worked to find solutions that would prevent any one power from achieving unilateral gains in territory or influence. That meant that neither the Greeks nor the Belgians were allowed full freedom to pursue their national aspirations. The great powers decided the territorial boundaries of the new states and drew them so as to cause as little disruption as possible to the existing equilibrium. By jointly guaranteeing the independence of Greece and Belgium, the powers sought to prevent those states from coming under the influence of one great power at the expense of the others. It is important to note that the Concert system applied only to the area covered by the Vienna settlement and therefore did nothing to restrict efforts by the powers to add to their trade, influence, and territory outside Europe. The Concert of Europe worked to the particular advantage of its two strongest members, Britain and Russia, by protecting their vital interests in Europe while allowing them wide

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scope to pursue unilateral gains elsewhere.14 Russia achieved major territorial gains in 1828–1829 in the Caucasus at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and Persia. For its part, Britain exploited its maritime superiority around the world to strengthen its influence and open new markets for its goods.15 To a considerable extent, the stability provided by the Concert system was purchased at the expense of Europe’s smaller states, whose interests were often brutally sacrificed to preserve cooperation among the great powers. Stability also came at the expense of those who yearned for an end to the tyranny of monarchical rule. By permitting each great power to control its sphere of influence with minimal interference, the Concert contributed directly to political repression in central, eastern, and southern Europe. For the three eastern powers, participation in the Concert was essentially a trade-off in which they gave up the chance for further territorial gains in Europe in exchange for a strengthened ability to block ideologically threatening developments inside and outside their borders. Austria took the lead in enforcing political repression in Germany and Italy. At Metternich’s insistence, the German Confederation adopted a series of measures in 1819–1820 that included censorship of the press, restrictions on what could be taught at universities, and rules to prevent individual German states from liberalizing on their own.16 In Italy, Austria used repeated military interventions, beginning with the Naples intervention of 1821, to exclude liberalizing reformers from power. In some ways, the Concert system operated as a condominium (a system of joint governance) by the five great powers over Europe. The condominium aspect was most pronounced in the first years of the post-Napoleonic era, when the great powers held regular conferences to consult on European affairs. But by 1822, it was clear that the powers were unwilling to accept the constraints on their freedom of action that a full-blown condominium would have entailed. Instead, they preserved peace among themselves mainly by avoiding interference in each other’s spheres of influence. However, the Concert continued to operate as a condominium when territorial questions were involved. Any significant territorial change in Europe posed a threat to the equilibrium established by the Vienna settlement. Therefore, the great powers treated territorial questions, such as the ones raised by the Greek and Belgian crises, as matters that must be resolved by consensus. Although the Concert system worked very differently from the balance-of-power system, the two systems were similar in that they

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created international order through the methods of power politics. The Concert of Europe rested not on ethical principles but on the idea that each power—simply because it was powerful—was entitled to dominate weaker states and be treated respectfully by the other powers. Under this system, the great powers used military interventions and other repressive tactics to maintain their spheres of influence and compel smaller states to defer to their interests. They ruled their overseas colonial empires through force. Even in relations among themselves, peace rested on an implicit threat of violence. Britain, in particular, was willing to go to war rather than allow France or Russia to achieve further territorial gains in Europe.

The Revolutions of 1848 In the first months of 1848, a wave of revolutionary uprisings swept through France, Germany, Italy, and Austria. Sparked by crop failures and an economic depression, the uprisings reflected popular demands for major political reforms. The uprisings were symptomatic of a growing incompatibility between European society, which was undergoing rapid economic and social change, and the Concert system, which sought to freeze the political status quo in place. The 1848 revolutions did not cause the Concert to collapse, but they did help erode its foundations. In France, the traditional monarchy disappeared permanently, replaced first by a republic and then by an imperial dictatorship under the rule of Napoleon III. In the German Confederation, local revolutions soon gave rise to an attempt by liberal reformers to create a unified German state governed by an elected legislature. Although unsuccessful, that effort demonstrated the increasing popularity of the idea of German unification. The events of 1848 also showed that Austria was vulnerable to internal fracture along ethnic lines. Although the Habsburg dynasty was culturally German, the Austrian Empire as a whole was composed mainly of non-German peoples. Ethnic Germans were concentrated in the empire’s western regions. Elsewhere, other groups predominated: Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles in the north; Ukrainians and Romanians in the east; Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs in the south; Italians in the southwest; and Hungarians in the center and east. Almost every one of those groups in 1848–1849 attempted to redefine its relationship with the Habsburg government. Some demanded

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a greater degree of self-government for themselves, while others, especially the Hungarians and Italians, sought to remove themselves from Habsburg rule entirely. Even though the revolutionary surge drew all the continental powers into significant military actions outside their borders, the upheaval ended with the restoration of the territorial status quo. Russia contributed greatly to that outcome by supporting Austria at critical junctures. In 1849, Russia helped the Austrian Empire remain intact by sending an army to suppress the Hungarian rebellion. Russia also provided crucial backing for Austria on the question of German unification, helping it block a proposal by Prussia in 1850 to unify northern Germany under the Prussian monarchy.17

The Crimean War The Concert of Europe collapsed in 1854, when Britain and France went to war against Russia. That action was part of the Crimean War (1853–1856), a conflict in which Britain and France helped defend the Ottoman Empire against Russian expansionism. The origins of the war were complex, but one of its main causes was an ill-considered attempt by Russian Tsar Nicholas I to place the Christians in the Ottoman Empire under Russian protection, so they would be less prone to mistreatment by the empire’s Muslim ruling class.18 Christians made up the bulk of the population in the Ottoman Empire’s European territories; granting Russia the right to protect them would have amounted in practice to accepting Russian control of those territories.19 Although Nicholas believed that the other great powers would acquiesce to his move, he was mistaken. Britain and France came to the military aid of the Turks. The Crimean War was the first war since 1815 to involve European great powers in military conflict against each other. Despite its high death toll, the war was limited in scope. Austria and Prussia, hoping to maintain their cooperative relationships with Russia, refused to allow Britain and France to use their territory as a staging ground for attacking Russian territory. As a result, Britain and France were limited to attacking those parts of Russia that were directly accessible to them by sea. They landed large numbers of troops along Russia’s Black Sea coastline—especially the Crimean Peninsula, where much of the fighting took place. The war went badly for Rus-

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sia, and in 1856 it was forced to accept a peace agreement that significantly reduced its influence in southeastern Europe. One of the major consequences of the Crimean War was that it opened the door to the territorial unification of Italy and Germany. Britain was disillusioned by the war’s high cost and relatively meager payoff, and largely withdrew from continental politics. Russia, having become painfully aware that its backward economy and weak government institutions endangered its great power status, turned its attention to internal modernization. As a result, Austria found itself diplomatically isolated. Since 1815, Austria’s ability to uphold the political status quo in central Europe had depended on Russian backing. Because Austria needed Russia’s support, yet feared Russia as a rival, the Crimean War had put it in a nearly impossible position. Austrian diplomacy steered a middle path during the war, attempting to prevent Britain from imposing a major defeat on Russia but also seeking to block Russia from achieving gains in southeastern Europe.20 Although Austria succeeded in its aims, Russia’s leaders viewed Austrian actions during the war as a betrayal, and in the years that followed they were no longer willing to come to Austria’s rescue.21 The indirect result of that development was the territorial transformation of central Europe.

The Unification of Italy Throughout the Concert of Europe era, Austria had used its control over Lombardy and Venetia in northern Italy as a base from which to dominate the Italian Peninsula. But Austria’s diplomatic isolation after the Crimean War presented Italian nationalists with an opportunity to curtail Austrian influence and achieve unification. Austria’s weak position also offered a temptation for Napoleon III to try to expand French influence in Italy at Austria’s expense.22 Under a secret treaty reached in 1858, France and the northern Italian state of Piedmont agreed to work together to expel Austria from Italy. In a war the following year, French armies drove Austria’s forces from Lombardy, which they handed over to Piedmont. Russia refused to come to Austria’s aid, leaving the Austrians no choice but to accept defeat. As it turned out, the results of the war benefited Piedmont more than France. Nationalists in the small states of north-central Italy overthrew their rulers and requested that their states be annexed to Piedmont. There was little Napoleon III could do to prevent Piedmont from

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taking control of those additional states, especially after the British government made clear its opposition to further French intervention in Italy. In exchange for some small territorial concessions by Piedmont to France, Napoleon III accepted Piedmontese domination of Italy. By the end of 1860, Piedmont had further extended its boundaries by forcibly annexing Naples and Sicily. In 1861, the Kingdom of Italy came into existence, and Victor Emmanuel II, the Piedmontese king, was proclaimed king of Italy. The newly unified Italy did not yet control Venetia, which remained under Austrian rule, or Rome, which was defended by French troops. But it would gain possession of both within a decade, completing its unification of the peninsula.

The Unification of Germany Austria’s diplomatic isolation also helped facilitate the political unification of Germany. In the years after the suppression of the 1848 revolutions, liberal and nationalist sentiment in the German states continued to strengthen. Demands for political reform in Germany were rooted in the economic and social transformation brought about by industrialization, and could no longer be contained through simple repression. By the 1860s, it was clear that the German Confederation could not be sustained in its existing form, and would have to be reorganized to enable closer policy coordination among the German states.23 But what specific form should that reorganization take? Any fundamental overhaul of German political structures would redefine the relationship between Austria and Prussia and inevitably benefit one more than the other. Austria, which had exercised leadership within Germany since medieval times, hoped for a solution that would preserve its traditional influence there. German liberals, by contrast, sought a Germany in which ultimate authority would be held by a popularly elected legislature rather than hereditary rulers. Both the Austrians and the liberals were opposed by Otto von Bismarck, the chief minister of Prussia. Bismarck was determined to achieve German unification in a way that would reinforce Prussian domination over the other German states and reserve ultimate political authority within a united Germany to the Prussian king and his ministers, rather than surrendering it to an elected parliament.24

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Recognizing that there was no peaceful way to reconcile their conflicting visions for Germany, Austria and Prussia went to war in 1866. Although many observers expected an Austrian victory, Prussia defeated Austria in a matter of weeks. Bismarck had formed an offensive alliance with Italy shortly before the war, which forced Austria to divide its armed forces between two fronts. Prussia benefited from more detailed war planning than Austria, as well as better military leadership, a more developed rail network for moving troops, and an infantry superior in weapons and training.25 The outcome of the war meant that Austria could no longer stand in the way of Bismarck’s plans. Prussia annexed several of the northern German states outright and organized the rest into a new Prussian-controlled confederation that replaced the German Confederation. The southern German states, deprived of Austrian protection, allied themselves militarily with Prussia. Prussia could not have defeated Austria or added to its German territories without the acquiescence of the other great powers. International circumstances in 1866 were uniquely favorable to Bismarck’s plans, because Russia, Britain, and France were all disinclined to intervene on Austria’s behalf.26 Russian leaders had come to view Austria as a potential threat and were thus not overly concerned if Prussia achieved gains at Austria’s expense. British leaders were preoccupied by a struggle over political reform in Britain and had little attention to spare for continental affairs. In any case, British leaders tended to think that Prussian gains in Germany would benefit Britain by making Prussia more effective as a barrier against French or Russian expansionism.27 France also decided against intervention. Napoleon III apparently hoped that a war between Austria and Prussia would exhaust both, creating opportunities for France to achieve territorial gains as part of a general settlement. But the rapid conclusion of the war and Bismarck’s shrewd refusal to seize any Austrian territory for Prussia deprived the other powers of any compelling grounds for stepping in. The process of German unification was completed through a war between Prussia and France. Although Bismarck was mainly responsible for causing the war, he took care to make France seem the aggressor, so that Britain would be less likely to intervene. In July 1870, he deliberately incited conflict by making it appear that the Prussian king, William I, had behaved insultingly toward a French ambassador.28 Belligerent elements in the French government played into Bismarck’s hands by persuading Napoleon III to teach Prussia a lesson.

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Russia remained neutral in the ensuing war and even assisted the Prussian effort by massing troops along the Austrian border so that Austria did not dare intervene. France thus faced Prussia by itself. Again, Prussian superiority in mobility, planning, leadership, and infantry proved decisive.29 Prussian troops penetrated quickly into France and surrounded Paris, forcing its surrender after a lengthy siege. Under the peace treaty signed in 1871, Prussia extracted territorial spoils from France, forcing it to hand over possession of the border province of Alsace and part of the province of Lorraine. The loss of those territories would embitter French relations with Germany for decades. Within France, military defeat triggered domestic revolution. Napoleon III was overthrown, and his imperial regime was replaced by a parliamentary republic. Prussia’s victory removed the final obstacles to German unification. Even before the war ended, the remaining independent German states agreed to union with Prussia. William I was proclaimed Kaiser (emperor) of the new German state, and the Prussian capital of Berlin became Germany’s capital. Bismarck had succeeded in unifying Germany on his terms. As German chancellor—an appointive post he would hold until 1890—Bismarck was able to exert wide-ranging control over Germany’s foreign and domestic policies.

Conclusion Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the victorious powers concluded that their interests would best be served by an international system based on compromise and mutual accommodation. The powers committed themselves to managing their disputes peacefully, and that commitment provided the foundation for the Concert of Europe.30 The rules of the Concert were informal. The powers agreed to try to preserve the territorial boundaries established by the Vienna settlement. They agreed that any necessary adjustments to those boundaries would require their joint consent. They generally refrained from interfering in each other’s internal affairs or intruding on each other’s spheres of influence. They avoided direct challenges to each other’s prestige. In itself, the establishment of the Concert of Europe did not resolve the considerable conflicts of interest that continued to divide the powers. Efforts to structure the Concert as a full-fledged condo-

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minium proved unworkable and were abandoned by 1822. From that point on, the Concert functioned primarily as a spheres-of-influence arrangement, in which the powers maintained peace mainly by staying out of each other’s affairs. A system based on spheres of influence was easier to sustain than one requiring close policy coordination. But as the successful resolution of the Greek and Belgian crises demonstrated, the Concert was able to operate as a condominium when that was the only way to avoid a major war. The biggest challenge to the Concert arose from the Ottoman Empire’s dwindling control over its territories in southeastern Europe. The strategic uncertainties created by the decay of Turkish power threatened repeatedly to draw the great powers into armed confrontation. Even so, the powers succeeded in keeping peace among themselves for several decades. But by the early 1850s, their commitment to peace seemed to waver.31 Britain, France, and Russia showed themselves willing to go to war rather than accept an outcome in southeastern Europe unfavorable to their interests. The Crimean War helped pave the way for major territorial changes in Europe. As a result of the war, Britain and Russia reduced their involvement in continental affairs, leaving Austria politically isolated and allowing dissatisfied actors in central Europe to seize the initiative. France and Prussia, hungry for territorial gains, saw an opportunity to pursue them by military means. Italian and German nationalists, long suppressed by Austria, were emboldened in their pursuit of unification. Territorial ambitions led to military conflicts, including the Franco-Austrian War (1859), the Austro-Prussian War (1866), and the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). Although these wars were brief, they transformed the map of central Europe. Austria lost its Italian lands, allowing the creation of a unified Italy largely free of Austrian influence. In Germany, Bismarck blocked Austrian membership in the unified state taking shape under Prussian domination. From 1854 to 1871, the Concert system lost its effectiveness as the great powers repeatedly resorted to war in pursuit of their strategic objectives. But Prussia’s decisive victory over France in 1871 set the stage for a revival of Concert diplomacy. Unification had been Germany’s most urgent priority, and achieving that goal removed a major source of instability in central Europe. Whereas Prussia had traditionally been the smallest of the great powers, the newly created Germany was the most powerful state on the Continent. Under Bismarck’s direction, it was poised to take the lead in managing Europe’s international order.

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Notes 1. For detailed accounts of the negotiations see Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, chap. 12; Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna; Jarrett, The Congress of Vienna and Its Legacy, chap. 3; Chapman, The Congress of Vienna; and Gulick, Europe’s Classical Balance of Power. 2. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 524. 3. Chapman, The Congress of Vienna, 20. 4. See Rendall, “Russia, the Concert of Europe, and Greece,” 68. 5. Schroeder, “Containment Nineteenth Century Style.” 6. Bullen, “France and Europe,” 123–125. 7. Bridge and Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System, 41. 8. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, 202–210; Vincent, Nonintervention and International Order, 73–83. 9. Kraehe, “A Bipolar Balance of Power”; Bullen, “The Great Powers and the Iberian Peninsula,” 57–58; Slantchev, “Territory and Commitment,” 600. 10. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 47. 11. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 56. 12. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 59–61; Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 670–691. 13. For discussions of the Concert’s rules, see Elrod, “The Concert of Europe”; Schroeder, Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War, 405; and Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, 225. 14. Schroeder, “The 19th-Century International System,” 13–16; Ikenberry, After Victory, 112–113. 15. See Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, chap. 6. 16. Sheehan, German History, 408–409; Blackbourn, The Long Nineteenth Century, 122–123; Sked, “The Metternich System, 1815–48,” 115–117. 17. See Sheehan, German History, 711–715. 18. Useful accounts of the origins of the Crimean War are offered by Rich, Why the Crimean War?, and Goldfrank, The Origins of the Crimean War. 19. Rich, Why the Crimean War?, 37. 20. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 116–118. 21. Jelavich, A Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 135–136. 22. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 130–131; Bridge and Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System, 136–137. 23. Lerman, Bismarck, 43–44; Pulzer, Germany, 9–14. 24. Lerman, Bismarck, 40–41 and 44. 25. Clark, Iron Kingdom, 537–542; Breuilly, Austria, Prussia and Germany, 76–77. 26. See Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 199–200. 27. Bridge and Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System, 152 and 154–155. 28. See Carr, The Origins of the Wars of German Unification, 193–201. 29. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 213–214. 30. This is a central argument of Mitzen, Power in Concert. 31. See Mitzen, Power in Concert, 201–209.

6 The Revived Concert, 1871–1914

THE CONCLUSION OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR IN 1871 initiated more than four decades of peace among the European great powers. The international system of 1871 to 1914 may be described as a revived version of the Concert of Europe. Like the original Concert system, the new system was based on the principle that territorial change in Europe should be kept to a minimum and any necessary modifications to territorial boundaries should be decided by consensus among the great powers. Box 6.1 summarizes the main features of the revived Concert system. The six powers that made up the revived Concert were Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. On two occasions between 1871 and 1914, the Concert powers met as a group to decide major territorial questions. In 1878, they convened in Berlin to decide the territorial boundaries of several newly established states in the Balkan Peninsula. In 1912–1913, they met in London to revise the Balkan territorial boundaries established in 1878. On the whole, the European political environment after 1871 was less well suited to a concert-type international system than it had been in the decades after 1815. Nationalism was a stronger force than before, and it complicated the great powers’ efforts to preserve European stability. For a concert system to work, the powers had to be willing to accommodate each other’s vital interests. But as public opinion within the great powers grew more nationalistic, political 101

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Box 6.1 The Revived Concert System Time frame: 1871 to 1914.

Principal actors: The six Concert powers were Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Germany was the most powerful state in continental Europe, but Britain and France were more influential than Germany at the global level. Italy was the weakest of the powers and generally exerted the least influence over the Concert’s decisions. In the late nineteenth century, the United States emerged as the world’s largest economic power, and both the United States and Japan (another emerging power) competed with the European powers for influence in East Asia. The United States and Japan were not members of the revived Concert, and their emergence as important international actors made the Concert less useful as a framework for managing rivalries among the European powers.

How did the system create international order? The Concert powers were concerned with protecting their independence and great power status, but they were also anxious to avoid fighting a major war in Europe. In pursuit of these goals, they sought to limit territorial change in Europe and asserted collective authority to decide territorial boundaries in the Balkans. As in the original Concert of Europe, the powers attempted to avoid war by resolving territorial questions through negotiation and consensus. Several of the powers acquired large territorial holdings in Africa and Asia during this period. Acquiring new overseas colonies provided a way for the powers to maneuver for strategic advantage against each other while not provoking war.

leaders became more reluctant to accept the kinds of compromises that were required for the peaceful management of international disputes. The Concert also faced challenges arising from nationalism in the Balkan states of Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria. These states dreamt of territorial expansion, and because any significant territorial change

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in the Balkans would threaten the interests of the great powers, Balkan nationalism held the potential to drag them into war. After becoming a unified state in 1871, Germany was the strongest land power in Europe, and it gradually found itself thrust into a position of leadership in managing international order on the Continent. Officially, Germany’s constitution reserved authority over foreign policy to the Kaiser, the hereditary monarch. But in practice, German foreign policy was directed by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who remained in office until 1890. Bismarck was intent on keeping Germany out of war. He succeeded in doing so through a complex diplomacy that restrained Austria-Hungary, reassured Russia, and limited France’s options. German foreign policy under Bismarck anchored and stabilized the European international order. Two developments eventually destroyed the peace. The first of these was the Ottoman Empire’s continuing political deterioration, which drew the powers into an anxious competition for strategic advantage in southeastern Europe. The stakes of that competition were especially high for Austria-Hungary and Russia, and in the years before World War I, hostility between the two powers intensified. The other problem facing Europe was the increasingly strident foreign policy pursued by Germany after Bismarck’s departure from office. German leaders worried that their country lacked the means to compete on an equal footing with emerging global powers such as Britain, the United States, and Russia. In response to those concerns, they built up the German navy and attempted to badger the other powers into accommodating Germany’s desire for an increased share of global influence. That behavior antagonized the other powers but failed to produce any major improvement in Germany’s strategic position. Over time, German leaders came to believe that their country could realize its ambitions only through a war of territorial expansion within Europe. When Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in June 1914, the Austrian, Russian, and German governments made little real effort to resolve the ensuing international crisis through negotiation. Each insisted on its own terms for resolving the crisis and was willing to risk war rather than back down. Under such circumstances, war followed as a matter of course. This chapter discusses the workings of the revived Concert system between 1871 and 1914. It focuses on two questions. First, how was peace among the great powers maintained during this period? Second, why did that peace break down?

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The Construction of a Germany-Centered European Order

One of the factors that made it possible to reestablish the Concert system after 1871 was the lack of desire by the great powers to risk a major war. Russia considered itself unprepared for any armed conflict that might pit it against a leading military power such as Britain or Germany. Britain retained its traditional aversion to being dragged into wars on the Continent. Austria-Hungary and France, having been recently defeated in war, felt themselves too weak to fight a new war unless they could do so with the support of powerful allies—which neither had. Under Bismarck’s leadership, Germany was no more inclined toward war than any of the other powers. Instead, German diplomacy strove to uphold and reinforce the peace.1 In Bismarck’s view, Germany was a territorially satisfied power whose foremost priority was to consolidate itself internally. To pursue that goal undisturbed, Germany needed to ensure that its neighbors did not gang up against it. Bismarck worried above all about the possibility of an alliance between France and Russia. Those two countries bracketed Germany to the east and the west, and an alliance between them would pose a major threat to German security (see Figure 6.1). Because the Franco-Prussian War had made friendship between France and Germany impossible, Bismarck focused on preserving cordial relations with Russia. He also looked for ways to tie AustriaHungary and Britain to Germany. His goal was to block France from acquiring a great power ally. As long as France remained isolated, it posed a manageable threat. A further source of concern for Bismarck was the rivalry between Russia and Austria-Hungary for influence in southeastern Europe, where the Ottoman Empire’s power was waning. If that rivalry led to war, Germany would inevitably be drawn in as well. Bismarck feared that participation in a major war might trigger domestic revolution or lead to Germany’s defeat and dismemberment at the hands of the other powers. He devoted much effort to preventing the tension between Austria-Hungary and Russia from escalating into open conflict. Relations among the three eastern powers in the 1870s were smoothed somewhat by the ideological kinship among Kaiser William I of Germany, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, and Tsar Alexander II of Russia. These three monarchs believed fervently in dynastic rights and were united in their opposition to revolution. On

Figure 6.1 Europe in 1871

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that basis, in 1873 they agreed to come to each other’s aid if any were attacked by another European power. This arrangement, which came to be known as the Three Emperors’ League, was essentially an expression of monarchical solidarity rather than a binding military alliance.2 The league helped create an atmosphere of cooperation between Russia and Austria-Hungary but did nothing to reconcile the states’ conflicting goals in southeastern Europe. Russia hoped to expand its influence in southeastern Europe by supporting the efforts of the non-Turkish peoples there to free themselves from Ottoman rule. In pursuit of that goal, Russia went to war against the Ottoman Empire in 1877. The Turks were soon defeated and lost control over much of their European territory. Rather than allow Russia to dictate the territorial settlement, the other European powers insisted on a conference to negotiate an arrangement acceptable to all of them. The resulting 1878 Congress of Berlin imposed a sweeping territorial reorganization on southeastern Europe. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro, whose lands had belonged to the Ottoman Empire for centuries, gained formal recognition as independent states. Bulgaria, another Turkish possession, was granted autonomy but remained officially part of the empire. The congress also permitted Austria-Hungary to take administrative control of Bosnia and Herzegovina, two Ottoman provinces on Austria’s southern border. That concession derived from an earlier secret deal between Austria-Hungary and Russia, in which Russia had agreed to accept Austrian control over Bosnia and Herzegovina in exchange for Austria’s promise to remain neutral during the war.3 Figure 6.2 shows the boundaries of the Balkan states following the Congress of Berlin. The outcome of the congress showed that the great powers had revived the principles of Concert diplomacy.4 The territorial changes approved in Berlin were decided by great power consensus, and in that sense resembled the collaboration that had peacefully resolved the question of Greek independence in 1830. But it is important to note that the Berlin settlement represented a considerable setback for Russia. By defeating the Turks, Russia had put itself in position to dominate much of the Balkan Peninsula. That would have amounted to a major expansion of Russian power in Europe—something the other powers were determined to prevent. Thus, a central purpose of the territorial arrangements imposed by the Congress of Berlin was to limit Russia’s influence. Russia accepted the settlement because it realized that the other powers were likely to declare war if it did not.5

Figure 6.2 The Balkans in 1878 and 1914

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The Congress of Berlin was a diplomatic triumph for Bismarck, who presided over the negotiations. However, Russian public opinion was enraged by the terms of the settlement and blamed Germany for depriving Russia of the fruits of its victory over the Turks. Russia’s relations with Austria-Hungary were also soured. In the aftermath of the congress, the Three Emperors’ League was effectively dead. If Bismarck hoped to prevent the rivalry between AustriaHungary and Russia from spinning out of control, he would need to devise other arrangements. Bismarck responded to the breakdown of the Three Emperors’ League by concluding a defensive alliance with Austria-Hungary. Under that alliance, which was established in 1879, Germany promised to protect Austria-Hungary against attack by Russia. But the guarantee applied only if Russia were the aggressor, not if Austria initiated the conflict. Bismarck sought the alliance as a means of binding Austria-Hungary to Germany, thereby ensuring that Germany would have at least one ally among the three great powers on its borders. The alliance was also intended to help stabilize eastern Europe by providing Germany some degree of control over Austrian foreign policy. Because Austria would not dare to provoke a war with Russia without being certain of Germany’s support, the alliance enabled Germany to restrain Austria from taking aggressive actions at Russia’s expense.6 On learning of Germany’s agreement with Austria-Hungary, the Russian government quickly signaled that it, too, was willing to make a defensive alliance. Russia feared becoming isolated among the great powers, and its leaders were therefore anxious to maintain a good relationship with Germany despite the hard feelings produced by the Berlin settlement. Bismarck viewed Russia’s proposal as an opportunity not only to reestablish close ties between Germany and Russia, but also to coax Russia and Austria-Hungary into a more cooperative relationship. He therefore insisted that any alliance discussions between Russia and Germany also include Austria-Hungary. Negotiations among the three powers in 1881 resulted in the creation of the Three Emperors’ Alliance. That alliance replaced the defunct Three Emperors’ League and stipulated that if any of the member powers found itself at war with another power (aside from the Ottoman Empire), the other two would remain neutral. In that way, the alliance provided the eastern powers with a measure of protection against each other. Bismarck also saw to it that the agreement

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included a number of practical provisions to reduce tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary in the Balkans.7 The Three Emperors’ Alliance was central to Bismarck’s efforts to maintain peace among the great powers. By assuring both AustriaHungary and Russia of Germany’s friendship, the alliance put Bismarck in a position to help mediate disputes between them. The alliance was also designed to stabilize peace to Germany’s west by ensuring that neither Russia nor Austria-Hungary would ally itself with France. However, the alliance proved to be of limited effectiveness in managing the Russia–Austria rivalry.8 During the 1880s, AustriaHungary was more successful than Russia in expanding its economic and diplomatic influence in the Balkans. As a result, the Russians became disillusioned with the alliance, concluding that it served Austrian interests more than their own. In 1887, when the alliance came up for renewal, Russia allowed it to lapse. The demise of the Three Emperors’ Alliance prompted Bismarck to search for a new way to reassure Russia that it had nothing to fear from Germany. The result was the Reinsurance Treaty, an agreement between Germany and Russia in which each promised to remain neutral if the other were attacked by a third power. Under that agreement, Russia gained an assurance that if it were attacked by Austria-Hungary, Germany would not join the attack. Conversely, Germany gained an assurance that if it were attacked by France, Russia would not join in. The network of defensive alliances Bismarck constructed between 1879 and 1890 did much to reinforce peace among the great powers. The network was structured in such a way as to ensure that any European power contemplating a war of aggression would find itself diplomatically isolated and thus in a weak position.9 In addition to the German-Austrian alliance and the various agreements between Germany and Russia, Bismarck concluded a defensive alliance in 1882 among Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy (the so-called Triple Alliance), and facilitated a series of agreements in 1887 among Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Great Britain aimed at upholding the territorial status quo in the Mediterranean. Of all these agreements, the most important were those that tied Russia to Germany. As long as Germany and Russia remained committed to cooperation with each other, a major war was effectively ruled out. But after Bismarck left office in 1890, German leaders began to chart a foreign policy course that placed a lower priority on friendship with Russia.

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Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the Balkans One of the main threats to great power peace in Europe after 1871 was the competition between Austria-Hungary and Russia for influence in the Balkan Peninsula. Austria’s preoccupation with the Balkans was largely a consequence of the strategic defeats it had suffered during the 1850s and 1860s in Italy and Germany. Prior to that time, Austria had been the dominant power in Italy and had shared with Prussia a role of leadership within Germany. France’s victory over Austria in 1859, followed by the establishment of a unified Italian state, deprived Austria of its Italian territories and signaled an end to its influence in the Italian Peninsula. Then in 1866, Austria’s defeat at the hands of Prussia ended its influence over the southern German states and ensured that the unified Germany created in 1871 would answer to Prussia’s interests, not Austria’s. Defeat by Prussia also triggered major changes in Austria’s internal constitutional structure. The Habsburg dynasty that ruled Austria was culturally German, but three quarters of the Austrian Empire’s population consisted of non-German nationalities—most notably Hungarians, Czechs, Serbs, and Romanians. In the aftermath of the war against Prussia, the weakened Habsburg monarchy was forced to offer major concessions to the Hungarians, the largest and most influential of the non-German nationalities. Under a constitutional compromise reached in 1867, the Hungarians were granted self-government under their own legislature, and about half of the Austrian Empire’s territory was put under Hungarian control. In effect, the Austrian Empire became two semi-independent states—one controlled by ethnic Germans, the other by Hungarians—united under a shared monarchy. The reorganized empire was known as Austria-Hungary, or the Dual Monarchy. Although the reorganization satisfied Hungarian demands, it did not address the grievances of the empire’s other nationalities, and in some ways it made them worse.10 Having been expelled from both Italy and Germany, AustriaHungary found itself in a strategically precarious position. Its status as a great power hinged on developments in the Balkans, where it found itself locked in a struggle with Russia for influence. As Turkish power in the Balkans crumbled, Austria-Hungary was haunted by the possibility that the Balkans would fall under Russian domination. If that happened, Austria-Hungary would find itself hemmed in and largely at Russia’s mercy. Were Russia to gain a dominant position in

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the Balkans, it might even block Austria-Hungary’s access to the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off its maritime connections to the rest of the world. For those reasons, Austrian leaders strongly preferred that the new Balkan states of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro remain small and divided against each other. A Balkan Peninsula parceled into several small states would be more difficult for Russia to dominate and would provide more opportunities for Austria-Hungary to protect its key interests.11 For Russia, too, there was much at stake in the Balkans. The eastern end of the peninsula bordered on the Turkish Straits, which connected the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Economically and militarily, the straits were vitally important to Russia. They had been under Turkish control for centuries, but in the closing decades of the nineteenth century that control was no longer secure. Russian leaders believed that the Ottoman Empire was headed for collapse—an event that would put control of the straits up for grabs. From Russia’s viewpoint, allowing the straits to fall into the hands of a potent rival such as Britain or Germany would be catastrophic. If the day came when the Turks no longer controlled the straits, Russia was determined to seize them for itself.12 Russian policy in the Balkans was affected by other considerations as well. Like the Russians, the Serbs and Bulgarians were Slavic peoples. Many people in Russia, influenced by the doctrine of pan-Slavism, believed passionately that it was Russia’s duty and right to protect the Slavic peoples of the Balkans from subjugation by the Ottoman Empire or Austria-Hungary.13 In addition, many Russians took it for granted that their country’s sacrifices in the 1877 Russo-Turkish War entitled it to a share of influence in the Balkans. As a result, efforts by Austria-Hungary to secure its interests in the Balkans sometimes provoked fury from Russian public opinion. The tsar and his ministers, always fearful of domestic revolution, hesitated to ignore such outcries. Austria-Hungary’s main goal in the Balkans was to establish a corridor of influence reaching southward to the Aegean Sea, ensuring that it could not be hemmed in by Russia or by Balkan states acting under Russian influence. The Congress of Berlin provided AustriaHungary an opportunity to begin carrying out that strategy. The congress authorized Habsburg forces to occupy and administer Bosnia and Herzegovina, putting the two Ottoman provinces under AustriaHungary’s control. The population of Bosnia and Herzegovina comprised

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Serbs and their closely related ethnic kin, the Croats; one of the main reasons Austria-Hungary sought control of the territory was to prevent it from being absorbed into Serbia. A large Serbia that included Bosnia and Herzegovina would be in position to block Habsburg influence in the Balkans and might inspire rebellion among the Serbs in AustriaHungary’s southern regions. However, Austria-Hungary refrained from annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina formally, even though that option was available in 1878. Hungarian leaders strongly opposed annexation, fearing that the addition of a large new Serbian population to AustriaHungary would bring intensified pressure for constitutional reforms. Such reforms would inevitably diminish the privileges the Hungarians had won for themselves in the constitutional compromise of 1867. For that reason, Austria-Hungary decided not to integrate Bosnia and Herzegovina fully into the empire. Instead, it treated the territory essentially as a colonial possession.14 By seizing control of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary ensured that the newly independent state of Serbia would be small and weak. Economically, Serbia was heavily dependent on trade with Austria-Hungary, and in 1881 it accepted a preferential trade agreement that tied its economy even more tightly to that of its neighbor. Serbia’s ruling prince, Milan Obrenović, reached an additional agreement with Austria-Hungary in which he promised to follow a proHabsburg foreign policy in exchange for support and personal benefits provided to him by the Habsburg government. Serbia thus became an Austrian client state.15 On the surface, Austria-Hungary’s gains in the western Balkans in the 1870s and 1880s seemed considerable. The Habsburg monarchy had taken direct control of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the new state of Serbia was effectively a Habsburg satellite. But those gains were far from secure. Nationalism ran deep among the Serbs, and although circumstances had forced them into a temporary dependency on Austria-Hungary, that was not a situation they would accept indefinitely.

The Division of the Powers into Blocs During the 1880s, Germany served as the anchor of great power peace in Europe. Bismarck’s foreign policy stabilized the European international order by tying Austria-Hungary and Russia to Germany on

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terms that provided reassurance to both states while also restraining them. But after Bismarck’s retirement in 1890, German foreign policy shifted course, leading to the division of the great powers into opposing coalitions. There were two main reasons for that development. First, even though Bismarck did all he could to maintain a close partnership with Russia, Germany’s foremost priority was its alliance with Austria-Hungary. Quite simply, German security required that Austria-Hungary remain a great power.16 If Austria-Hungary weakened, it might well disintegrate into nationality-based pieces. In that scenario, large parts of central and southeastern Europe would fall under Russian influence, dramatically undermining Germany’s strategic position. Given the tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, Germany faced a difficult balancing act in trying to remain a faithful friend to both states. After Bismarck left office, his successors decided that the partnership with Russia was incompatible with Germany’s commitments to Austria-Hungary, so they allowed the Reinsurance Treaty to lapse.17 The Russian government, which had hoped for the treaty’s renewal, suddenly found itself without a strategic partner. As a result, Russia became more receptive to France’s proposals for closer ties. The French had long been trying to escape the strategic isolation imposed on them by Bismarck’s alliance system, and the demise of the German–Russian partnership offered them an opportunity to do so. In 1894, Russia and France officially formed a defensive alliance. For Germany, that was an unwelcome development that highlighted its vulnerable geographic position. A second factor contributing to the division of Europe into opposing blocs was Germany’s adoption of a more assertive foreign policy. At the root of that change was a growing dissatisfaction among Germans with their nation’s place in the world. During Bismarck’s time in office, Germany experienced rapid industrial development and the consolidation of its national identity. As they gained confidence in their nation’s strength and dynamism, many Germans began to question whether the European status quo served Germany’s interests. Nationalists clamored for the acquisition of a much larger overseas colonial empire, so Germany could compete on equal terms with Britain, France, Russia, and the United States.18 To a growing extent, such demands reflected a social Darwinist belief in German racial superiority. Social Darwinist views were not unique to Germany. In the late nineteenth century, they were influential among ruling elites in many Western countries, including Britain

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and the United States.19 But whereas social Darwinism in Britain and the United States served to justify existing policies of colonialism and racial discrimination, thus reinforcing the status quo, in Germany it contributed to a sense of national grievance and a desire for radical changes to the international political order. One of the leading advocates of a more globally oriented German foreign policy was Kaiser Wilhelm II, who succeeded to the German imperial throne in 1888. Convinced that increased naval power was essential for Germany to fulfill its ambitions, Wilhelm pressed the German government and legislature to give greater priority to naval expenditure. Beginning in 1898, Germany embarked on a warship construction program aimed at providing it with a navy strong enough to challenge the British fleet. This proved to be a disastrous misstep. Britain, as an island nation heavily dependent on overseas trade, regarded its control over shipping lanes as essential to its survival. Britain responded to the German naval buildup with a massive buildup of its own, so that its navy retained a large margin of superiority. More than that, Germany’s naval buildup persuaded Britain to view Germany as a threat, and drove it to closer cooperation with France and Russia.20 In the end, Germany’s naval buildup was a major factor leading Britain to side with France and Russia in World War I, rather than remaining neutral or siding with Germany. Germany’s desire for greater global influence was connected to broader trends in Europe’s relationship with the rest of the world. Industrialization in Europe was accelerating, causing states to become worried about securing adequate sources of raw materials to supply their growing manufacturing sectors and sufficient export markets to absorb the increasing amounts of goods being produced. Industrialization also enabled European states to leap forward in their military capabilities, making it easier for them to conquer lands in Africa and Asia. The search for raw materials and export markets, combined with improved military capabilities, prompted a scramble among the powers to acquire more overseas territories. During the closing decades of the nineteenth century, European states carved up much of Asia and most of Africa into new colonial possessions. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Belgium all participated in the imperialist land grab, with Britain and France acquiring the largest share of the newly colonized territories. The scramble for territories reached its peak in the 1870s and 1880s while Bismarck was in office. Bismarck was unconvinced that acquiring overseas possessions would contribute much to

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Germany’s security or prosperity, and under his watch, the country did not put much effort into colonial expansion.21 By the time he left office, the most valuable territories in Asia and Africa had been seized by other powers. Although Germany went on to accumulate a substantial overseas empire, that empire was much smaller and less significant than those of Britain and France. As the twentieth century began, Germany confronted a historical irony. On one hand, unification had enabled it to establish itself as the strongest and most physically secure state in continental Europe. But even as that accomplishment was taking shape, the game of great power politics was shifting from a European chessboard to a global one. 22 The problem facing Germany was that its strong position in Europe did not provide it with the means to compete effectively for influence at the global level.23 Germany’s national homeland was dwarfed by the continent-sized homelands of the United States and Russia, and its overseas colonial empire lacked enough economic or strategic value to provide it with a great deal of bargaining leverage outside Europe. Sandwiched geographically between Russia and France, and outmatched on the high seas by Britain, Germany could do little to prevent the emerging global powers from dividing world influence among themselves without German participation or consent. Agreements such as a 1904 deal between Britain and France, which defined their respective spheres of influence in North Africa, and a 1907 deal between Britain and Russia, which defined their spheres of influence in Persia and central Asia, seemed to validate German concerns. As competition among the great powers became more globalized, the revived Concert appeared increasingly inadequate as a system for preserving international order. The rules of the Concert applied only within Europe, meaning that Britain, Russia, and France were under no obligation to consider German interests when they allotted territories and influence outside Europe. The same could be said of rising non-European powers such as the United States and Japan. Although Germany reacted angrily to the other powers’ disregard for its ambitions, it lacked any effective means of forcing them to behave differently. That was a potentially dangerous situation. If German leaders became convinced that the Concert system no longer suited their country’s needs, they would have little reason to continue accepting the constraints it imposed on German territorial expansion within Europe.

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Indeed, many German officials became convinced that the only way their country could raise itself to the level of a genuinely global power was by greatly increasing the size of its national homeland. But achieving such gains would require a war against Russia and France, and possibly against Britain as well. Although German leaders expressed confidence that their country could win such a war, they were hesitant to start one.24 They were uncertain whether the German people would support a war of expansion and conquest, especially if Germany appeared to have started it deliberately.25 They also realized that a large-scale European war would impose enormous costs and sacrifices and might involve unforeseen risks. The net result of the leaders’ discontent with the status quo, combined with their reluctance to initiate a general war, was an erratic and opportunistic foreign policy that lacked clear goals.26 Russia, France, and Britain, worried that Germany intended to destroy the existing international order, drew closer together in an anti-German coalition. Even though the European powers had become divided into opposing coalitions—with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy in one camp and Russia, France, and Britain in the other—the revived Concert system continued to function almost to the eve of World War I. Because the coalitions were defensive, their existence did not fundamentally contradict the principles of Concert diplomacy. In addition, divergences of interest within the coalitions meant that the great powers often looked to members of the opposing coalition for assistance in managing international problems. Nevertheless, the division into opposing coalitions helped lay the groundwork for a major war, because it meant that any armed conflict between Russia and AustriaHungary would almost certainly drag the other powers in as well. Germany could not afford to see Austria-Hungary defeated by Russia, because such an outcome would leave it encircled by hostile powers. France and Britain could not afford to see Russia defeated by Germany, because that outcome would produce a Germany strong enough to dominate them.

Austria-Hungary and the Problem of Serbia Events in the Balkans played a crucial role in starting World War I. In the years leading up to the war, Austria-Hungary and Russia experienced what they perceived as major setbacks to their strategic posi-

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tions in the Balkan Peninsula. Russian and Habsburg leaders became increasingly determined to do whatever was necessary to prevent more setbacks. As a result, the crisis of July 1914 took shape as a test of wills in which neither the Habsburg monarchy nor the Russian government showed much interest in compromise. To a large extent, Austria-Hungary’s problems in the Balkans revolved around Serbia. The patron–client relationship between the Habsburg monarchy and Serbia began to fall apart in 1903, when a group of nationalist army officers in Serbia murdered King Alexander Obrenović (the son and successor of Milan Obrenović) and reorganized the Serbian government. Serbia’s new leaders sought to reduce their country’s dependence on Austria-Hungary and develop stronger economic ties with other countries, including Russia. Those efforts provoked an angry reaction from the Habsburg monarchy, leading it to impose trade sanctions against Serbia in 1906. From that point on, relations between the states became actively hostile. An underlying source of tension between Austria-Hungary and Serbia had to do with the Serbian regime’s territorial ambitions. Serbian nationalists had long dreamed of uniting all Serbs within a single national homeland, and the new government voiced its support for that objective. But given that millions of Serbs lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the southern regions of Austria-Hungary, creating a unified Serbian homeland would require detaching Bosnia and Herzegovina from Habsburg control and ultimately dismembering Austria-Hungary itself. Needless to say, Habsburg officials regarded Serbia’s ambitions as deeply threatening. Serbian nationalists remained hopeful that Bosnia and Herzegovina could be united with Serbia, because even though those provinces had been under Habsburg occupation since 1878, they still legally belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Thus, there was some uncertainty about what would become of them if the Ottoman Empire finally collapsed. Although existing power realities seemed to pose a steep barrier to Serbian aspirations, nationalists looked to the examples of Italian and German unification to support their belief that unification might somehow be possible for the Serbian people as well. The anti-Habsburg orientation of the new Serbian government prompted Austria-Hungary to reconsider its earlier decision not to assert full ownership over Bosnia and Herzegovina. In October 1908, it announced its formal annexation of the two provinces. That action was prompted not only by Serbia’s nationalist rhetoric but also by

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concerns that the Ottoman Empire intended to reclaim control of the provinces.27 By formally annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Habsburg monarchy intended to resolve the question definitively, showing that it was futile for other governments—or for the Bosnian Serbs themselves—to agitate for a different outcome. Most European governments, including Russia’s, were not surprised by Austria-Hungary’s action. They had understood all along that the Habsburg monarchy intended to hold on to Bosnia and Herzegovina permanently, which implied that formal annexation would take place eventually. But the people of Serbia and Russia were taken by surprise, and reacted to the annexation with outrage. Anxious to avoid stoking popular anger, the Russian government announced it would refuse to recognize the annexation. The Serbian government went further. In addition to not recognizing the annexation, it launched a propaganda campaign intended to encourage the Bosnian Serbs to rebel against Habsburg rule. In response, the Habsburg government began to prepare for war against Serbia. The crisis posed a serious threat to peace among the great powers, because if Austria-Hungary launched an invasion of Serbia, there was a significant danger that Russia would respond by declaring war on Austria-Hungary. The crisis finally ended in March 1909, when the German government, acting in support of Austria-Hungary, delivered an ultimatum to Russia demanding that it accept the annexation. That action forced a swift resolution to the crisis, because Russia was in no condition for a serious confrontation with Germany. Just a few years earlier, in 1905, Russia had suffered military defeat in the Far East in a war against Japan. That defeat had exposed major weaknesses in its military capabilities and sparked domestic political upheaval that continued to unsettle the country. In addition, France and Britain showed no interest in being dragged into a war over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although they disapproved of Austria-Hungary’s unilateral action in annexing the provinces, they urged Russia to reach a peaceful accommodation with Germany. Lacking other realistic options, the Russians backed down and complied with Germany’s demands. The Serbian government found itself forced to yield in turn. If it did not, it faced a war against Austria-Hungary that it would almost certainly lose. Therefore, in accordance with Habsburg demands, Serbia recognized the Habsburg annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and promised it would henceforth behave as a “good neighbor” toward AustriaHungary. But that promise soon proved to be empty.

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Although the Bosnian crisis was resolved peacefully, the events of 1908–1909 helped pave the way for war in 1914. For one thing, Germany’s use of an ultimatum to force Russia to back down left Russia, France, and Britain more convinced than ever that the Germans sought to dominate Europe and might eventually have to be stopped by force. That meant that in a future crisis, those states might be less willing to conciliate Germany in the interests of peace. Russia’s leaders were particularly determined not to back down to Germany again. By submitting to the German ultimatum, Russia suffered a major blow to its prestige. That blow came on top of its unexpected and humiliating military defeat in 1905 at the hands of Japan, in a war that most observers had expected Russia to win. Russian officials worried that their country would cease to be respected as a great power if it suffered another such humiliation. The Bosnian crisis also increased the likelihood of a future confrontation between AustriaHungary and Serbia. Now that Bosnia and Herzegovina had been officially incorporated into Austria-Hungary, the Serbian government worried that the opportunity to create a unified Serbian homeland might be slipping away forever. Desperate to prevent that from happening, it stepped up its anti-Habsburg propaganda campaign and encouraged the formation of popular organizations to promote Serbian unification. Those organizations quickly spread to Bosnia, providing cover for Serbian extremists who carried out assassination attempts against Habsburg officials.28

The Coming of the Great War In the years following the Bosnian crisis, Russia and Austria-Hungary maneuvered constantly for advantage in the Balkans. Even so, neither state wanted war, and both remained willing to work within the framework of Concert diplomacy to preserve the peace. The main threat to Balkan stability came not from the great powers but from Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro. These small Balkan states all bordered on the Ottoman Empire, and each viewed the empire’s military weakness as an opportunity to add to its national territory. In 1912, the four countries formed a predatory coalition, the Balkan League, for the purpose of waging war against the Ottoman Empire and dividing up its remaining European territory among themselves. The league launched its intended war in October 1912 and swiftly

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dealt the Turks a series of battlefield defeats. As a result, virtually no territory in the Balkans remained under Turkish control except East Thrace, a small region on the European side of the Turkish Straits. Faced with these developments, the Concert powers scrambled to reassert their control over territorial change in Europe. They did not intend to allow the Balkan League states to grab Turkish territories for themselves without taking account of the great powers’ interests. They convened a conference in London where they intended to dictate to the Balkan League how the territories taken from the Ottoman Empire would be allocated. Although the conference ultimately reached a settlement, its deliberations again exposed the contradictions between Habsburg and Russian interests in the Balkans. 29 During the war, Serbian forces had seized a section of Ottoman territory along the Adriatic Sea, and Serbia now demanded that it be allowed to retain it. Russia, which had positioned itself as Serbia’s sponsor and protector, supported the Serbs’ demand. Habsburg leaders opposed the idea vehemently. The Habsburg government had come to regard Serbia as a Russian surrogate, and argued that if Serbia were allowed to acquire territory reaching to the Adriatic, Austria-Hungary would find itself blocked off from the Balkan Peninsula and hemmed in by Russian power. In the end, the Concert accepted Austria-Hungary’s position and agreed to award the contested territory to Albania, a new state brought into existence by the London conference. The Albanians, a non-Slavic people who inhabited the western Balkans along the Adriatic coast, had revolted against Ottoman rule just a few months before the Balkan war started. At the London conference, the Concert powers recognized Albania as an independent state and delineated its boundaries. By granting Albania a national territory that stretched along the Adriatic from Montenegro to Greece, the Concert powers prevented Serbia from gaining an outlet to the sea, thereby meeting Austria-Hungary’s key demand. In June 1913, a second Balkan war broke out, pitting Serbia, Greece, Romania, and the Ottoman Empire against Bulgaria. The war arose from disagreement between Bulgaria and its former Balkan League allies about the division of the territorial spoils from the first Balkan war. The second war was short but bloody, and it ended in defeat for the Bulgarians. The ensuing Treaty of Bucharest, concluded in August 1913, confirmed Serbia’s territorial gains. As a result of the Balkan wars, Serbia had roughly doubled in size, making

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its anti-Habsburg activities appear even more threatening to AustriaHungary. Serbia remained intent on expanding westward to the Adriatic. During fall 1913 and spring 1914, it probed different possibilities for achieving that goal, such as seizing territory from Albania or concluding a unification pact with Montenegro.30 Figure 6.2 shows the boundaries of the Balkan states on the eve of World War I in 1914. Comparison with the boundaries of 1878 shows how much had been altered by the two Balkan wars and the London conference. The course of events in the Balkans from 1912 to the summer of 1914 left Austria-Hungary disillusioned with the revived Concert system. Serbia seemed relentless in pursuing territorial goals that threatened Austria-Hungary’s vital interests and perhaps its very existence. But because of Russia’s support for Serbia and the unwillingness of the other Concert powers to entangle themselves in Balkan conflicts, the Concert seemed incapable of imposing restraint on Serbia. Consequently, the Habsburg government became convinced that it could only depend on itself to stand up to Serbia’s provocations. That was the situation on June 28, 1914, when a Bosnian Serb extremist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Franz Ferdinand was the designated successor to the Habsburg throne and was also one of Emperor Franz Joseph’s closest advisers. The assassination took place while the archduke was visiting Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. Convinced that the Serbian government was behind the assassination, Habsburg leaders decided that the time had come for decisive action to put an end to Serbia’s hostile and expansionist foreign policy. They saw no point in taking their grievances to the Concert, where Russia and France were sure to oppose any meaningful action to bring Serbia under control. Instead, they envisaged a war carried out by Austria-Hungary on its own, to permanently eliminate Serbia as an independent actor. The Habsburg monarchy did not seek to acquire Serbian territory. The goal of ending Serbia’s independence was to be accomplished by other means, such as replacing the existing regime with a puppet government under Habsburg supervision or by partitioning Serbia among Bulgaria, Albania, and Greece. 31 Either measure would establish Austria-Hungary as the dominant power in the Balkans and compel the Balkan states as a group to respect Habsburg interests. But a Habsburg attack on Serbia was likely to prompt Russia to declare war against Austria-Hungary. So the Habsburg government

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appealed to Germany for help. On July 5, German leaders assured Austria-Hungary of their unconditional support for strong measures against Serbia, even though they knew a general European war might result.32 Several considerations appear to have factored into the German decision. To begin with, German leaders agreed with their Habsburg counterparts that strong action against Serbia was morally justified and that failure to take action might threaten AustriaHungary’s survival. It also appears that the key decision makers— above all the German chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg— were influenced by their desire to establish Germany as a global power. Convinced that Germany could not achieve that goal by peaceful means, they resigned themselves more readily to war as the price Germany must pay to fulfill its ambitions.33 The German decision to support Austria-Hungary was also affected by miscalculation. German leaders did not actively seek a war with Russia, and they hoped that a strong display of will would deter Russia from intervening.34 That approach had proved successful in resolving the Bosnian crisis of 1908–1909. But conditions had changed, and German hopes were misplaced. At the time of the earlier Bosnian crisis, the risk of war between Germany and Russia had been minimal, because Russia’s armed forces were in no condition to face Germany’s. But by 1914, Russia was in a much better position to fight a major war. Increases in military spending had enabled it to improve the quality of its armed forces. More important, Russia was now confident of France’s support. French president Raymond Poincaré had put a high priority on preserving the alliance with Russia, even if it meant being dragged into war against Germany.35 There were other reasons the Russian government remained firm in its opposition to Habsburg action against Serbia. Russian public opinion bitterly opposed any move by Austria-Hungary to subjugate Serbia by force, and the tsarist regime faced the prospect of violent domestic upheaval if it failed to come to the Serbs’ defense.36 Russian leaders also feared that their country would cease to be regarded as a great power if it again backed down in the face of German intimidation.37 Above all, Russia’s strategic interests in the Balkans were too important to allow Austria-Hungary to establish a dominant position there. Given the alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary, Russian officials worried that Habsburg dominance in the Balkans might pave the way for Germany to seize control of the straits— something Russia could not accept under any circumstances.

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The crisis reached a climax on July 23, when Austria-Hungary presented Serbia with an ultimatum demanding that the Serbian government put a complete stop to its anti-Habsburg activities and allow Habsburg officials to take a direct role in enforcing Serbia’s compliance. As the Habsburg government had anticipated, these demands were too much for Serbia to accept, and when Serbia rejected them, Austria-Hungary declared war.38 By that point, Russia was already beginning to mobilize its armed forces for war against Germany, prompting Germany to declare war against France and Russia. Britain, determined to prevent German domination of Europe, entered the war as well. More than twenty million soldiers and civilians would die before peace was restored.

The International System, 1871–1914 The underlying rules of the post-1871 international system strongly resembled those of the Concert system of 1815–1854. Like the earlier Concert, the revived Concert of 1871–1914 rested on the principle that the territorial status quo in Europe should be preserved as much as possible, and any necessary changes in territorial boundaries should be decided by agreement among the great powers. That principle guided the 1878 Congress of Berlin, where the great powers decided the boundaries of the new states of Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Montenegro, and the London conference of 1912–1913, where they delineated the boundaries of Albania. Germany was the strongest of the continental powers, and during Bismarck’s time in office the German government functioned as the de facto manager of the European international order. Even though none of the great powers sought a major war, maintaining peace required successful handling of the crises that erupted from time to time. Bismarck’s diplomacy, by simultaneously restraining and reassuring AustriaHungary and Russia, helped prevent the rivalry between those powers from escalating into violence. After Bismarck’s retirement in 1890, Germany played a less central role in managing the European order. To a growing extent, stability came to be based on mutual deterrence, with the German-Austrian bloc and the French-Russian bloc countering each other. Because any war between Russia and Austria-Hungary was likely to draw in the other European powers, there was a strong incentive on all sides to deal with disputes by peaceful means.

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As the nineteenth century drew to a close, Germany became less satisfied with its place in the international order. German leaders could see that international politics in the future was likely to be dominated by global powers such as Great Britain, the United States, and potentially Russia. Because its military power remained confined mainly to Europe, Germany faced the prospect of becoming a second-rate state as the emerging global powers moved to the forefront. Germany’s dissatisfaction with that situation caused it to become less committed to upholding the existing international order and more willing to contemplate overturning it through war. However, it is debatable whether Germany would have gone to war if the crisis of July 1914 had not occurred. It does not appear that German leaders were simply looking for an excuse to launch a war. If that had been the case, they probably would have taken action before 1914. But Germany’s discontent with the status quo caused it to put less effort into resolving the July 1914 crisis peacefully than it otherwise might have. Political instability in the Balkans contributed greatly to the demise of the post-1871 international order. The Balkan Peninsula was a region of vital interest to both Russia and Austria-Hungary, and neither power was willing to allow the other to achieve a dominant position there. The emergence of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro as independent actors in 1878 added to the tension between Russia and Austria-Hungary, because the presence of the new states made the contest for influence in the Balkans more complicated and unpredictable. Even so, the territorial boundaries imposed on the new Balkan states by the Congress of Berlin provided some protection to the interests of both powers. As long as those boundaries remained intact, it was possible to keep the rivalry between Russia and AustriaHungary from escalating to war. The Balkan wars of 1912–1913 were especially damaging to international order because they overturned the 1878 territorial settlement, heightening the sense of insecurity felt by Russia and Austria-Hungary. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand all but forced Russia and Austria-Hungary into a violent showdown. Given the course of events since 1912, the Habsburg government no longer saw any option but to take decisive action against Serbia, and the Russians saw no option but to support Serbia. At the same time, the question of Serbia’s fate could no longer be separated from the larger question of Germany’s place in Europe and the world. In the aftermath of the assassination, German leaders might have urged restraint on Austria-Hungary, rather than

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encouraging it to take actions that were likely to provoke a war with Russia. But German leaders had come to view the idea of a war against Russia not just as a danger but as an opportunity. A major war was Germany’s only chance to break free of the territorial constraints preventing it from competing on equal terms with the emerging global powers. As all sides recognized, a war between Germany and Russia must also involve France, and probably Britain, because the latter two powers could not risk standing aside as Germany established supremacy over Europe. Many other states would also be drawn into the war, including (eventually) the United States. World War I proved to be a major turning point in the construction of international order. From 1815 to 1914, the great powers had attempted to preserve order mainly through the principles of Concert diplomacy. Generally speaking, the Concert powers showed little reluctance to sacrifice the interests of less powerful states and peoples, if by doing so they could maintain cooperative relations among themselves. But in the aftermath of World War I, US president Woodrow Wilson would call for a new type of international system—one based not on self-serving deals among the powerful states but on universal rules that protected the rights and security of all states. The era of Concert diplomacy drew to a close. The Liberal Age was about to begin.

Notes 1. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 218–219. 2. Langer, European Alliances and Alignments, 23–25. 3. Langer, European Alliances and Alignments, 91–93 and 113–114. 4. Bridge and Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System, 208. 5. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 224. 6. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 228. 7. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 229, and Bridge and Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System, 216. 8. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 229–232, and Bridge and Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System, 217–221. 9. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 245–246. 10. See Sked, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 187–234. 11. See Bridge, The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers, 122–123, 163, 166, 209, 231, and 285. 12. See McMeekin, The Russian Origins of the First World War, 28–30, and Bridge and Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System, 192. 13. Jelavich, A Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 173–176 and 261–262. 14. Bideleux and Jeffries, A History of Eastern Europe, 345–347; Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War, 62–66.

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15. See Jelavich and Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 186–187. 16. Jelavich, A Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 195; Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 219, Langer, European Alliances and Alignments, 175–176. 17. Seligmann and McLean, Germany from Reich to Republic, 109–110; Bridge and Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System, 242. 18. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 371; Seligmann and McLean, Germany from Reich to Republic, 114–116. 19. See the discussion in Koch, “Social Darwinism as a Factor.” 20. Seligmann and McLean, Germany from Reich to Republic, 132–139; Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, 223–237. 21. See Seligmann and McLean, Germany from Reich to Republic, 46–51. 22. Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War, 38–45. 23. Schroeder, “World War I as Galloping Gertie,” and Schroeder, “Embedded Counterfactuals.” 24. Hewitson, Germany and the Causes of the First World War, 173–189. 25. Hewitson, Germany and the Causes of the First World War, 45–47. 26. Seligmann and McLean, Germany from Reich to Republic, 124–125. 27. Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 411; Bridge, The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers, 280. 28. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War, 104–106. 29. See Bridge, The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers, 317–322. 30. Bridge, The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers, 325 and 333. 31. Bridge, The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers, 336. 32. Hewitson, Germany and the Causes of the First World War, 204–205. 33. Kaiser, “Germany and the Origins of the First World War”; Herwig, “Germany,” 160–168. 34. Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War, 212–213. 35. Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War, 219; Kiesling, “France,” 229–230 and 235. 36. See Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War, 166–167, and Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War, 20. 37. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War, 141–144; Bobroff, “War Accepted but Unsought,” 245–248; Bridge and Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System, 334. 38. The ultimatum listed ten demands. In its response, the Serbian government accepted some of the demands conditionally while evading others. But it rejected the crucial demand, which called for Austria to be allowed to participate in the investigation and punishment of any persons in Serbia involved in the assassination plot. See Clark, The Sleepwalkers, 464–466.

7 The First Liberal System, 1919–1939

WORLD WAR I MARKED THE FINAL COLLAPSE OF THE Concert of Europe system that had regulated great power competition in Europe for most of the previous century. Following the end of World War I in 1918, it was necessary to create a new system to replace Concert diplomacy. But what form would that system take? The task of constructing a new system rested mainly in the hands of the United States, Great Britain, and France—the principal victors of the war. For the first time, the United States found itself in a position to shape the essential features of global political order. It responded by trying to design international rules that could gain wide acceptance as being just and fair, and that would safeguard the security and independence of all states. US leaders viewed traditional European power politics as a source of injustice and international conflict. They hoped to create an international order that would transcend power politics. The international system that took shape after World War I strongly reflected US preferences. For the first time, international order was organized around liberal principles such as collective security, general disarmament, self-determination, and the peaceful resolution of international disputes. The establishment of this system— the first liberal system—marked the beginning of the Liberal Age of international order. As it turned out, the United States was unwilling to commit itself to enforcing the new system, leaving Britain and France with 127

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the task of preventing future German aggression. Because Britain was unwilling to use force to restrain Germany, and France was unable to do so without Britain’s help, the stability of international order in Europe came to depend on Germany’s voluntary self-restraint. Similarly, in East Asia, the absence of US enforcement meant that stability came to depend on Japan’s voluntary self-restraint. The new system thus rested on a fragile foundation, and when the deep economic downturn of the early 1930s brought militant nationalists to power in Germany and Japan, the system unraveled. Had the United States and Britain committed themselves fully to defending the system, peace among the major powers would likely have proved more durable. This chapter examines the rise and fall of the first liberal system. It begins by reviewing international conditions at the end of World War I and discusses the contrasting views of the victorious powers on the question of how best to deal with Germany. It describes the peace settlement imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles and discusses Germany’s reaction to the treaty. It then turns to an analysis of the international system put into place after 1918. It examines US efforts in the 1920s to strengthen international order through naval disarmament agreements, and explores the roots of German and Japanese discontent with the liberal system. It describes the growth of militarism in Germany and Japan, and discusses British, US, and Soviet reactions to the threat of renewed war. The chapter concludes with an overall assessment of the first liberal system and the reasons for its lack of durability. Box 7.1 summarizes the system’s main features.

Box 7.1 The First Liberal System Time frame: 1919 to 1939.

Principal actors: The United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan. The United States was the world’s largest economic power, and it took the lead in designing the system.

continues

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Box 7.1 Continued How did the system create international order? The League

of Nations covenant provided a legal and conceptual framework. The covenant was liberal in inspiration and represented an effort to establish formal, universal rules of international conduct in place of power politics arrangements. The covenant prohibited member states from engaging in aggression and established procedures for the peaceful resolution of international disputes. It obligated member states to uphold international security by participating in collective measures against aggressors. The main potential threats to international order came from Germany and Japan, which were dissatisfied with the territorial status quo. Even so, these countries adhered at first to the constraints on territorial expansion. They were anxious not to alienate the United States, a vital economic partner. In addition, Germany was not in a position to challenge the other great powers militarily. But by the 1930s, it had become clear that Britain and France were unwilling to enforce the territorial status quo with military action, and the United States was unwilling to take effective economic measures to help Germany and Japan recover from the Great Depression. Under these circumstances, Germany and Japan no longer saw convincing reasons to restrain themselves. Militarists came to power in both countries and initiated programs of large-scale territorial conquest, thus bringing the first liberal system to an end.

The Background to the Paris Peace Conference At the conclusion of World War I, the principal members of the victorious Allied coalition were the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. Japan was also on the winning side, having declared war on Germany soon after the fighting began, but its participation in the war was very limited and mainly involved seizing control of Germany’s colonial possessions in East Asia and the Pacific. On the losing side of the war were the Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary,

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the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. Russia was also one of the war’s losers, even though it had fought on the Allied side against Germany. Internal revolution had caused Russia to drop out of the war before Germany was defeated. As a result, Germany was able to force Russia to accept massive territorial losses. World War I was characterized by enormous numbers of casualties and a military stalemate. In the early stages of the war, before the stalemate emerged, the overall pattern was one of German gains. In the west, German armies advanced through Belgium and into northern France. In the east, German armies were able to push several hundred miles into Russian territory. But as troops on all sides dug in, the war became static. Attempts to gain ground with military offensives were mostly unsuccessful, because the technology of the time heavily favored defenses. Infantrymen armed with rifles and grenades found it all but impossible to advance against opponents whose defensive positions were protected with trenches, machine guns, and barbed wire. Thus, in both the west and the east, the military fronts stabilized and the conflict settled into a war of attrition.1 But that did not make the war any less costly. Desperate to gain the upper hand, each side poured every available resource of manpower and industrial production into the war effort. Two crucial developments finally broke the stalemate. The first was internal revolution in Russia. The war against Germany imposed enormous hardships on the Russian people, and eventually the strain led to political revolt. The tsarist regime collapsed in March 1917. Eight months later, Bolshevik revolutionaries, led by Vladimir Lenin, seized control of the Russian government. Their goal was to remake Russia into a communist society. Because the Russian people were unwilling to continue the war against Germany, the Bolsheviks decided to accept peace on whatever terms the German government demanded. Under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia lost hundreds of thousands of square miles of its territory in eastern Europe. Germany intended to organize this territory into a collection of satellite states under its control, thereby securing permanent German domination of Europe.2 The treaty was signed by Germany and Russia in March 1918, ending Russia’s participation in the war. The other key development was the US entrance into the war in April 1917. The US decision to join the war did not immediately turn the tide against Germany, because it took some time to recruit and train forces for deployment in Europe. But in 1918, as some two million US

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soldiers arrived on the western front, the military balance shifted decisively. It became clear that Germany’s defeat was inevitable. Rather than fight to the bitter end, German leaders offered an armistice. They hoped to lay the basis for a negotiated peace settlement that would enable Germany to achieve at least some of its war aims. However, the Allies imposed substantial conditions before agreeing to the armistice. Germany was forced to agree to withdraw from the territories it had occupied and renounce the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. As a result, Germany was deprived of the fruits of its victory over Russia. In the west, it was obliged to withdraw from northern France and Belgium, frustrating its plan to turn Belgium into a German satellite. The armistice went into effect on November 11, 1918. In January 1919, a conference to determine the final peace terms convened in Paris. Although twenty-seven states were represented at the conference, most of the key decisions were settled in private discussions among three men: US president Woodrow Wilson, British prime minister David Lloyd George, and French prime minister Georges Clemenceau. The conference ultimately yielded five peace treaties. The first and most important of these was the treaty between the Allied states and Germany, the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on June 28, 1919. Subsequent treaties were concluded between the Allies and Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. The victorious powers sought to lay the foundations for a peaceful and stable international order. Italy and Japan were much less central to that effort than were the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Italy, the weakest of the great powers, was mainly interested in gaining territorial spoils from its membership in the victorious coalition. Japan possessed neither the capacity nor the desire to shoulder responsibilities for international order outside its home region. But the United States, as the world’s largest industrial producer and leading financial creditor, was well positioned to exercise global leadership. Britain and France, although seriously weakened by the war, enjoyed temporary superiority over defeated Germany and could thus play an important part in shaping the new order.

French, British, and US Perspectives on Germany The prospects for international stability hinged on the question of Germany. One of the most tragic aspects of World War I was that

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despite the millions of lives lost, it failed to resolve the question of Germany’s place as a European and world power. Nearly all of the actual fighting in the war had taken place outside Germany, leaving intact the country’s industrial capabilities. Germany remained potentially Europe’s strongest military power. Defeat did not foreclose a renewed effort by Germany to subjugate Europe by force, and any new international order would fail unless it succeeded in integrating Germany into the system as a peaceful actor. But the French, British, and US delegations in Paris disagreed about how Germany should be managed. They devoted a large part of their effort at the conference to reconciling their differences. The top priority of the French delegation was to gain security against the possibility of future German attack.3 Convinced that a strong Germany posed a mortal danger to France, Clemenceau sought to tame Germany by imposing permanent limits on its power and perpetuating the US-British-French wartime coalition. If the Germans knew that any future aggression on their part would be automatically countered by such a coalition, they would be very hesitant to start another war. Because Germany was wealthier and more industrially developed than France and had a much larger population (more than 60 million people compared with 40 million), France was not strong enough to restrain Germany by itself. French leaders believed that their nation’s continued existence as an independent power would depend ultimately on the support provided by Britain and the United States. Britain’s stance at the peace talks reflected its traditional foreign policy priorities of defending its global empire while minimizing its military involvement on the Continent. Although they were anxious to eliminate Germany as a naval and imperial rival, the British had no wish to destroy Germany as a European power. Whereas the French saw Germany primarily as an enemy, the British tended to see the Germans as future partners in maintaining European stability. From Britain’s perspective, Germany was an indispensable element of the balance of power.4 A crippled Germany could not serve effectively as a bulwark against the spread of Bolshevism and might itself become susceptible to a communist revolution. A further consideration was that Germany had been Britain’s biggest trading partner in the years prior to the war. Britain’s economic well-being thus depended to a considerable extent on the revival of the German economy. There was also an ingrained tendency on the part of British officials to regard France, not Germany, as the power that posed the greatest long-term threat. That

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perception, although gravely mistaken, contributed to British suspicion of France’s motives. The British hoped for a stable balance of power to emerge between France and Germany, thereby freeing Britain to shift its attention away from continental affairs and back to its empire. Woodrow Wilson arrived at Paris with goals that set him apart from the leaders of the other victorious powers. Whereas others sought to convert military victory into concrete gains for their own states, Wilson viewed the peace talks as an opportunity to reshape the foundational rules of the international system. In defining US war aims, Wilson emphasized that the United States sought no territories or indemnities for itself. The guiding thread of US policy, he said, was “the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak.”5 Wilson sought to ensure a stable peace by eliminating what he believed were the underlying causes of war. In his Fourteen Points speech, delivered nearly a year before the war ended, he laid out the major elements of his program. They included freedom of the seas, liberalization of trade, general disarmament, the elimination of secret treaties, and the establishment of a permanent association of states to resolve international disputes and stop acts of aggression. He also put great emphasis on the principle of self-determination, a concept that came to be closely associated with him. Self-determination is an ambiguous term, and in the circumstances of 1919 it meant different things to different actors. For Wilson, self-determination meant above all that eastern European peoples such as the Poles and the Czechs, who yearned for national independence, must be granted greater control over their political destiny. In Wilson’s view, peace and justice were closely linked.6 Justice required democratic government within states and freedom of trade between states. It also required that small states enjoy the same independence and security as more powerful states. Wilson believed that war was caused by injustice. He accordingly objected to the arrangements that characterized traditional power politics, such as military alliances, secret pacts, spheres of interest, and exclusive trade zones. In his view, such arrangements inevitably bred resentment and conflict, because they unjustly benefited some at the expense of others. He concluded that the only way to achieve a just and durable peace was to eliminate international rivalries and replace them with a collective security organization—a League of Nations—that would ensure

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peace and security for all. He thought that if peoples around the world enjoyed control over their own governments through democratic institutions, were able to pursue economic opportunity through liberalized trade, and were guaranteed protection against aggressors through the collective support of all the world’s states, they would have little incentive to go to war. Wilson approached the Paris conference with the mindset of an arbiter rather than a victor. He asserted that the United States did not seek to prevent Germany from expanding its influence, provided that it did so peacefully and without violating other countries’ rights. He hoped to persuade the Central Powers and the Allies to accept him as an impartial advocate for the general good. He also considered it proper that Germany be punished for having embarked on an unjust war.7 He hoped, rather naively, that punishment would persuade the German people to turn against militarism and embrace peace. A Germany reformed in its attitudes would become a supporter of international stability, enabling the United States to avoid burdensome responsibilities for enforcement. The League of Nations was crucial to Wilson’s plan for integrating Germany into the international system as a peaceful actor. Wilson believed that global public opinion, manifested through the league, would be a powerful moral force dissuading states from aggression.8 He was convinced that creating the league would go a long way toward solving the German problem. By contrast, Clemenceau and Lloyd George put little faith in the power of moral suasion to constrain German behavior. As events later showed, global public opinion was not able to restrain dissatisfied powers unless it was backed up by tangible enforcement from countries like the United States, Great Britain, and France.

The Treaty of Versailles The terms of the Paris peace settlement represented a compromise between France’s desire to cripple Germany permanently and Britain’s wish to preserve Germany as a continental power.9 In exchange for France’s agreement to allow Germany to remain essentially intact, Britain and the United States offered a guarantee (contingent on approval by the US Congress) that they would come to France’s aid in the event of German aggression. The Rhineland—the part of Germany

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that bordered France—was to be permanently demilitarized, meaning that Germany would not be allowed to station troops or build military fortifications there. By requiring Germany to leave its western border areas undefended, the Allies hoped to make it impractical for Germany to invade France or Belgium in the future. To help ensure compliance with the peace terms, the Rhineland was to be placed under Allied occupation for fifteen years. At the end of that time, provided Germany fulfilled its obligations under the treaty, Allied forces would withdraw. Germany lost some territory under the peace settlement, but the losses did not drastically impair its overall industrial potential. The provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, taken by Germany as a war prize in 1871, were returned to France. Other border adjustments transferred small bits of territory from Germany to Belgium and Denmark. Along Germany’s eastern border, a substantial amount of territory was transferred to Poland (see Figure 7.1). Although the majority of the population in the area was ethnically Polish, there were a million or more Germans interspersed within it.10 Those Germans now found themselves living unwillingly under Polish rule. Germany also lost its overseas colonial empire, which was divided among several of the victorious states. Germany’s colonial possessions were generally of little economic value, but the elimination of Germany as an imperial rival was an important strategic gain for Britain and Japan. Japan no longer faced German competition for influence in East Asia, and Britain no longer needed to worry about threats to its overseas dominions from German military outposts in Africa and the Pacific. Other provisions in the Treaty of Versailles imposed limits on Germany’s armaments and addressed its responsibility for the war. Germany was required to dismantle all but a small part of its armed forces and was prohibited from possessing tanks, heavy artillery pieces, submarines, and military aircraft. Its army was not to exceed 100,000 men, and its navy was limited to a modest number of surface ships. The Allies intended to allow only enough military capability for Germany to patrol its borders and maintain domestic order. The country was also obligated to pay a large sum in reparations. To justify the imposed reparations, a war guilt clause affirmed that aggression by Germany and its allies had caused the war. Another section of the treaty designated Kaiser Wilhelm II a war criminal. However, because Wilhelm had been granted asylum in the Netherlands, he was never put on trial. On learning of the peace terms, the German people reacted with shock and anger. Believing they had won the war in the east and

Figure 7.1 Europe in 1924

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fought the Allies to a draw in the west, they found it hard to understand why the settlement treated their nation as a defeated power. They were infuriated by the war guilt clause and the imputation that the Kaiser was a war criminal. In the view of most Germans, their nation was no more to blame for the war than were the other powers. Germans were especially bitter about the territorial concessions to Poland.11 They saw no reason why German territory with a mixed population of Germans and Poles should be handed over to Polish rule. Amid widespread denunciations of the Treaty of Versailles by political leaders and commentators, most of the German public became convinced that the treaty was unjust and must be revised. It is worth emphasizing that despite Germany’s hostile reaction to the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty did not inevitably doom Europe to fight another major war. The Germans may have resented the peace terms, but Germany could not come close to matching the combined power of the United States, Britain, and France. Working together, those three countries had ample capability to create a robust international order that would discourage renewed German aggression. However, they failed to do so. As we shall see, the United States and Britain pursued policies in the 1920s that served their short-term interests but failed to create a strong foundation for peace among the great powers. Neither country was willing to make the political commitments necessary to enable the international system to survive the challenges it faced from German and Japanese discontent. Indirectly, US and British policies helped foster the rise of militarist expansionism in Germany and Japan, which led to the destruction of the system.

Political Consequences of the War World War I produced a far-reaching transformation of political regimes and territorial boundaries in eastern Europe and the Middle East. Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire all experienced internal revolutions that abolished monarchical rule. As already noted, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917 and began to impose a communist political and social system. Beginning in late 1922, Russia along with neighboring Soviet republics became known officially as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union. In Germany, internal and external pressures at war’s end sparked a rapid political transition. A national assembly, convened in the city of Weimar, drew up a new constitution that transformed Germany into a

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republic and established democratic institutions. Under its new democratic political system, Germany was often referred to as the Weimar Republic. In Austria-Hungary, military defeat led to the collapse of the Habsburg imperial government and the fragmentation of the Austrian Empire into ethnically based pieces. Some pieces were absorbed by neighboring states, and others established themselves as independent nations. World War I also brought about the demise of the Ottoman Empire. The Arab-populated territories of Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine, which had been under Turkish rule for centuries, were severed from the Ottoman Empire and placed under British and French control. Meanwhile, Turkish nationalists reorganized the Ottoman heartland into the modern-day Republic of Turkey. As a result of the military defeats inflicted on the Central Powers and Russia, a large number of new eastern European states came into existence. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland took shape in the territories that had been detached from Russia by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Austria emerged as separate states in lands that had made up Austria-Hungary. Another new state, Yugoslavia, was created by combining Austria-Hungary’s southern regions with Serbia.12 Many Germans were dissatisfied with the territorial settlement involving the former Austria-Hungary. One subject of grievance involved the establishment of Austria as an independent state.13 Shorn of its central European empire, Austria was now a small, landlocked country populated by eight million ethnic Germans. The new Austria was not very viable economically, and without its empire it lacked a compelling reason to exist. Many people in Austria favored merging the state with Germany.14 But the Allies were determined to prevent such a merger and included provisions in the peace treaties expressly prohibiting it. The Allies believed that Germany, as a defeated aggressor, should not be rewarded with territorial gains. And they did not wish to add to Germany’s population and power. But to the Germans, the enforced separation of Germany and Austria seemed contrary to the principle of self-determination trumpeted by Wilson. Another potential problem involved Czechoslovakia. Czechs were the dominant ethnic group in the newly formed country, but its other ethnic groups included a German-speaking minority of about three million people. The ethnic Germans were concentrated in a mountainous region known as the Sudetenland, which lay along the border with Germany. Germans wondered why the Sudetenland should belong to

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Czechoslovakia, rather than being under German control. Under the principle of self-determination, shouldn’t a region inhabited mainly by ethnic Germans be ruled by fellow Germans, rather than Czechs? But the Allies opposed transferring the Sudetenland to Germany for the same reasons they opposed Germany’s absorption of Austria. For most Germans, the fact that Austria and the Sudetenland were blocked from merging with Germany was not a matter of urgent concern. The Austrian and Sudeten Germans had belonged to AustriaHungary, not Germany, so the argument for absorbing them into Germany rested on abstract principle rather than any historical claim. But the Allies’ invocation of self-determination as a guiding ideal exposed them to accusations of hypocrisy in their dealings with Germany. Austria and the Sudetenland provided grievances that could be exploited by German nationalists to further delegitimize the Treaty of Versailles.

The United States and International Order After Wilson US efforts after World War I to establish a liberal international order might appear, at least on the surface, to be motivated by altruism. Certainly, most Americans assumed a liberal international system would benefit everyone, not just the United States. But US support for liberal institutions also reflected a self-interested desire to minimize US responsibility for upholding global political and economic stability. In seeking to eliminate the underlying causes of war, Wilson aimed to create an international system that would be intrinsically stable and thus require little policing by the major powers. In the aftermath of the Great War, the United States could no longer evade the reality that it had become a major global actor. It was now the world’s principal source of investment capital, and its industrial output exceeded that of the next six powers combined.15 To a large extent, the world’s future economic fortunes would be shaped by decisions made in the United States. But the United States was not yet willing to accept responsibility for managing global order. US public opinion was skeptical of the idea that US policies should be constrained in any way by the needs of other states. By the time Wilson left office in 1921, it had become clear that the United States would not honor the commitments he had made in Paris. Although US public opinion generally favored membership in the

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League of Nations, many Republicans in Congress did not. They objected above all to Article 10 of the league covenant, which obligated each member state to defend all other members against external aggression. Such an obligation, Republicans argued, would embroil the country in wars where its interests were not at stake.16 When the agreements Wilson had signed in Paris were brought before the Senate for ratification, they failed to achieve the two-thirds majority required for approval. The failure to ratify meant that the United States refused membership in the league. In addition, it negated the US security guarantee that Wilson had offered to France. Britain’s participation in the guarantee had been conditional on US ratification, so when the Senate rejected the arrangement, the British withdrew their guarantee as well. In some respects, the Senate’s rejection signified a return to traditional US policy toward Europe. Since early in its history, the United States had avoided alliances with European powers or involvement in European wars. Although participation in World War I marked a major departure from that tradition, it proved to be temporary. Once the war had ended, those who opposed any ongoing political commitment to Europe regained the upper hand in US politics. Even as the United States disengaged itself from Europe, it continued to try to shape the international system in ways that would serve US interests. Under Warren Harding, who followed Wilson as president, the United States took the lead in pushing for internationally agreed limits on the size of naval fleets. A naval disarmament conference, sponsored by the United States, met in Washington from late 1921 to early 1922. The conference was attended by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, China, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal. In summoning the conference, the United States sought to avert the possibility of an expensive naval arms race with Britain and Japan and to impose constraints on the expansion of Japanese power.17 If the main problem for international order in Europe was to prevent renewed German aggression, the main problem in East Asia was to manage the conflicting goals of the United States and Japan. Japan was a rapidly industrializing state, but its home territory was poor in natural resources. Japanese officials were acutely conscious of the need to secure reliable supplies of energy and raw materials from abroad. They were determined to assert Japan’s interests in East Asia against the encroachments of Western imperialism. In pursuit of those goals, Japan had itself become an imperialist power in the late

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nineteenth century. By 1910, it had imposed colonial rule over Taiwan and Korea and established a sphere of influence in the resourcerich Chinese region of Manchuria, north of Korea. During World War I, while the Western powers were preoccupied with the struggle in Europe, Japan tried to extend its Asian empire. It seized control of Germany’s island possessions in the western Pacific, and supplanted German influence in the Chinese province of Shandong. It also tried to intimidate the Chinese government into accepting measures that would have turned China as a whole into a Japanese satellite. At this time China was a weak state, vulnerable to foreign imperialism. In the two decades before the war, not just Japan but also Britain, France, Germany, and Russia had carved out spheres of influence on Chinese soil. Within their respective spheres, the imperialist powers enjoyed various monopoly rights granted by the Chinese government. Such rights often included special trade privileges, the right to set up mining operations, the right to build and operate railroads, and control over local laws and policing.18 By contrast, the United States had advocated what it called the open door. Disavowing any desire for a sphere of influence in China, the United States called on the other powers to respect the political integrity of China and allow outside trade and investment in their spheres of influence. In arguing against the creation of exclusionary economic zones, the United States sought to preserve China in its entirety as a market for US investments and goods. US officials regarded Japan’s actions during the war as a threat to the open door. One of the central US goals at the Washington conference was to put limits on Japan’s power in East Asia and persuade Japan to conduct its foreign policy in accordance with the liberal principles espoused by the United States. From a US perspective, the Washington conference was a resounding success. It produced three major agreements: the Four-Power Treaty, the Five-Power Treaty, and the Nine-Power Treaty. Under the Four-Power Treaty, the United States, Britain, Japan, and France agreed that in the event of a future East Asian crisis, they would consult with each other before taking action. Along with Italy, these states also signed the Five-Power Treaty, a naval arms limitation agreement that put restrictions on the number and size of capital warships each was allowed to possess. That agreement led the five powers to scrap many of their older capital ships and set aside plans to build new ones. The Nine-Power Treaty, signed by all of the states present at the conference, affirmed the open door in China.

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The Washington agreements served US goals in several ways. By preventing a naval arms race, the Five-Power Treaty enabled the United States to hold its military spending to a much lower level than would otherwise have been the case. Through the Four-Power Treaty, the United States succeeded in breaking up Japan’s naval alliance with Britain, which had existed since 1902. US officials had always disliked the alliance, believing it provided cover for Japan’s imperialist foreign policy.19 The four-power consultative arrangement that replaced the alliance deprived Japan of that cover. The Washington conference also resulted in an agreement by Japan to return control of Shandong Province to the Chinese government. Getting Japan to withdraw from Shandong had been a US priority. The outcome of the Washington conference showed that the United States could shape the international order to suit its preferences. The United States had leverage at the conference because of the size and dynamism of its economy. The British and Japanese governments realized that if they provoked the United States into a naval arms race, they were likely to find themselves the losers. They decided that under the circumstances, a cooperative relationship with the United States served their interests better than an antagonistic one. For Britain, the economic benefits of naval arms limitation were clear. Britain’s economy was struggling to recover from the war, and a naval arms race would have absorbed resources that were badly needed elsewhere. British officials were relieved that the Five-Power Treaty made a naval buildup unnecessary. In Japan, the Washington agreements proved more controversial. Hard-line nationalists, especially those in the armed forces, opposed any limits on armaments or foreign policy.20 But Japan’s civilian leaders knew that refusal to participate in the treaties would leave the country diplomatically isolated and jeopardize its crucial economic relationship with the United States. The United States was Japan’s largest trading partner, absorbing 40 percent of Japanese exports.21 Although the Washington treaties imposed some restrictions, they offered benefits that made them acceptable to Japanese moderates. The Five-Power Treaty prohibited the signatory powers from building new naval bases or fortifications in the Pacific. In practical terms, that provision ensured the continuation of Japan’s existing naval superiority in the western Pacific.22 The Nine-Power Treaty, even though it affirmed the principle of the open door, provided tacit recognition of Japan’s sphere of influence in Manchuria. By agreeing to the treaty, Japan essentially accepted limits on its further expansion in China in

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exchange for informal US acceptance of its existing sphere of influence. The Washington agreements put US-Japanese relations on a generally friendly and cooperative footing, at least in the short term.23 The overall thrust of US foreign policy under Harding was continued by his Republican successors, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. The policy pursued by the three Republican administrations from 1921 to 1933 may be described as liberal in some respects and nationalistic in others. The Republican presidents shared Wilson’s liberal belief that international order should be based as much as possible on universal principles and open transactions, rather than exclusionary arrangements such as alliances, secret deals, and spheres of influence. Like Wilson, they sought to promote international peace through global disarmament. Disarmament was domestically popular and suited the Republicans’ preference for low taxes and limited government spending.24 Republican foreign policy was also nationalistic. Reflecting US public opinion, the Republicans insisted that Britain and France repay the billions of dollars in loans provided to them by the United States during the war. The resulting debt payments heavily burdened the British and French economies throughout the 1920s, adding greatly to their difficulties in recovering from the war.25 The Republicans also took a hard line on trade, rejecting Wilson’s commitment to tariff liberalization. Although the Republicans sought to assist US exporters by pushing for open-door policies around the world, they followed a protectionist policy at home.26 The Fordney-McCumber Tariff, signed into law by Harding in 1922, sharply increased US import duties. The Republicans were also determined to avoid any treaty commitments that might require the United States to come to the aid of other states. Thus the Nine-Power Treaty, created to shield China from further Japanese expansionism, had no enforcement provisions. Similarly, the Republicans made sure that the United States remained outside the League of Nations.

The Problem of Enforcing the Versailles Peace Terms The central problem of international order in Europe—namely, the question of how to manage Germany—reemerged soon after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Important parts of the treaty, such as those involving reparations payments and limits on Germany’s armed

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forces, required Germany’s cooperation to be carried out successfully. But the internal political situation in Germany created incentives for the government to evade its obligations. Public opinion was hostile to the treaty, and militant nationalists were willing to carry out violent acts to prevent the government from complying with it. Opposition focused especially on reparations, which Germany was supposed to pay according to a schedule established by the Allies in 1921. Payments were owed in cash and in the form of specified quantities of certain goods, including coal, timber, and industrial dyes. The amounts involved were substantial, and meeting the payment obligations in full would have required the German government to impose unpopular sacrifices on the German people. It was unwilling (or unable) to do so. Instead, a pattern emerged in which Germany repeatedly defaulted on its reparations payments and deliveries of coal and timber.27 Germany’s failure to meet its obligations triggered a crisis in relations between Britain and France. The French believed that their security depended on strict enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles, and they were willing to pursue strong measures to ensure that reparations were paid. By contrast, British leaders believed that attempting to hold Germany strictly to the treaty terms was likely to backfire by crippling Germany financially and discrediting its fragile democratic institutions.28 The British considered it self-defeating to take actions that might push Germany back into militarism or drive it into an anti-Western alliance with the Soviet Union. They favored reducing the reparations to a level the German people could accept. The United States, although unwilling to involve itself in the reparations question directly, took a view similar to that of the British.29 The reparations crisis intensified in 1923. Having concluded that only forcible action would enable it to extract sufficient payment from Germany, France sent troops to occupy the Ruhr basin, an important coal-producing region in Germany’s industrial heartland. The occupation was intended to enable France to take direct possession of the coal produced in the mines, transferring it to France as a substitute for missed payments. But Britain and the United States disapproved of this move, leaving France politically isolated among the major powers. Meanwhile, the German government resisted the occupation by instructing workers, miners, and officials in the Ruhr not to cooperate with the occupying forces. This “passive resistance” campaign made the occupation more expensive for France, but also severely damaged the German economy.30

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As the economic fallout from the crisis spread, threatening to drag down France’s economy as well as Germany’s, the US government signaled its unofficial support for a renegotiation of Germany’s reparations burden.31 Because US claims to reparations were minimal, the United States had little direct stake in the question of German payments. But it did have a stake in Europe’s economic wellbeing and political stability, which were endangered by the crisis. An international committee, chaired by US banker Charles Dawes, drew up a proposal to stabilize the German economy by dramatically reducing Germany’s reparations payments and providing Germany with a large loan organized by private US banks.32 Germany and the Allies accepted the Dawes Plan, which entered into force in August 1924. French troops began to withdraw from the Ruhr, bringing the crisis to an end.

Peace Through Accommodation The adoption of the Dawes Plan marked an important shift in the Allies’ strategy for preventing future German aggression. One of the main pillars of the 1919 peace settlement had been the imposition of wide-ranging restraints on Germany. By requiring Germany to remain largely disarmed and pay substantial reparations, the settlement was designed to maintain peace by denying Germany the means to start another war. But the United States and Britain had concluded that peace on that basis did not suit their preferences. In view of Germany’s continual evasions of its obligations, it had become clear that upholding the peace terms would require an ongoing commitment by the Allies to monitor and enforce compliance. Neither Britain nor the United States was willing to accept such a responsibility. The Dawes Plan initiated an alternative approach to peace in Europe, based on accommodating Germany and gaining its active cooperation rather than trying to force it into compliance. The French government was reluctant to accept the new approach but concluded that it had no real choice. The events of the reparations crisis had demonstrated that France was not powerful enough to enforce the peace terms on its own. France’s policy toward Germany was limited by what Britain and the United States were willing to support. Within Germany, political moderates such as Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann embraced the opportunity to put relations between Germany and the Allies on more cooperative footing.

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Although most Germans agreed that it was essential to free the country from the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles and restore it to a position of strength among the great powers, there was disagreement about how those goals could best be achieved. Whereas militant nationalists rejected even a temporary accommodation with the treaty terms, moderates such as Stresemann favored a strategy of cooperation and negotiation with the Allies. Stresemann believed that by taking a conciliatory approach, Germany would be able to persuade the Allies to treat it as an equal. In 1925, at Stresemann’s initiative, Britain, France, and Germany began talks on a new mutual guarantee of the territorial status quo in western Europe. The talks led to the Locarno Treaties, in which France, Belgium, and Germany pledged to respect their existing borders with each other and avoid trying to change those borders by force. In addition, Germany accepted the Rhineland’s demilitarized status. Britain and Italy joined the agreements, pledging to come to the aid of France, Belgium, or Germany if any of them were the victim of aggression by one of the others. The Locarno agreements signified Germany’s willingness to cooperate peacefully with Britain and France in managing European affairs and paved the way for German admission to the League of Nations in 1926.

The Fragile International Order With the Locarno Treaties in place, the international order appeared to have achieved a measure of stability. Under Stresemann’s guidance, Germany was at last pursuing a policy of cooperation and negotiation with the Allies. In East Asia, cooperation under the Washington conference treaties had prevented a naval arms race and limited Japan’s imperial expansion. But international stability rested on a weak foundation. Militant nationalists in Germany and Japan remained unreconciled to the existing international system and continued to agitate for drastic changes to it. Because the system put substantial constraints on Germany and Japan but lacked effective enforcement mechanisms, militants were able to win growing numbers of converts to their views. Eventually, militant nationalism would doom the system to a premature collapse. Germany’s entrance into the League of Nations led the country’s populace to expect that major revisions of the Versailles peace terms

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would soon follow. As a member of the league, Germany was now in a stronger position to demand that the discriminatory measures imposed on it be lifted. Germans were impatient for an end to reparations and the Allied occupation of the Rhineland, and they hoped to gain Allied support for negotiations to reverse some of Germany’s territorial losses. But their hopes were misplaced. The French, having been forced to accept a major reduction in Germany’s reparations payments, were in no mood to endorse further revisions to the peace terms. And although British leaders tended to sympathize with German wishes, they were unwilling to envisage a wholesale dismantling of the remaining restraints on German power.33 As German frustrations mounted, militant groups such as Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party continued their relentless denunciations of the Treaty of Versailles. To many Germans, the militants’ demands for more assertive action to overturn the peace settlement seemed increasingly persuasive. In Japan, meanwhile, substantial numbers of officers in the army and the navy had come to reject the international order, which in their view forced Japan into a subordinate position and made it dependent on the goodwill of the Western powers.34 Many officers believed that Japan should secure its interests through unilateral military action. Those views put them at odds with the civilian political leadership, which remained committed to a policy of cooperation with the Western powers. Japanese discontent with the international order increased sharply in the wake of the Immigration Act enacted by the US Congress in 1924.35 The act imposed a total ban on immigration from Japan (a restriction that already applied to other Asians), while continuing to allow large numbers of northern Europeans to emigrate to the United States. Many Japanese concluded that the United States held racist attitudes toward Japan and was unwilling to treat it with the same respect it accorded to European states. Developments in the late 1920s pointed to new sources of trouble. Germany’s robust economic growth in the second half of the 1920s was fueled largely by private US loans, which had poured into Germany following the adoption of the Dawes Plan. But in 1928, US investors began to pull back from Germany. Surging stock prices in the United States meant that it was more profitable for them to invest their money in the domestic stock market instead.36 The result was a German economic slowdown, accompanied by a sharp rise in unemployment. Things got even worse following the US stock market crash of October 1929. US banks responded to the crisis by reducing

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their lending and calling in their short-term foreign loans. Many German businesses, cut off from US credit and unable to find alternative sources of loans, went bankrupt. German unemployment skyrocketed. Another source of trouble lay in US trade policy.37 The 1928 US elections produced large Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. The Republicans were the party of protectionism; following their election victory, they introduced a bill calling for a large increase in tariff rates. Given that US tariff duties were already steep, and that the US trade balance was strongly in surplus, there was little economic rationale for such a measure. Indeed, prominent economists warned that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, as it came to be known, would leave the United States worse off by prompting other countries to increase their own barriers to trade. Congress enacted the bill anyway, and President Hoover signed it into law in 1930 just as the world was beginning to slide into the Great Depression. US trading partners deeply resented the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, and they responded by adopting discriminatory measures against US goods. Thus, American protectionism helped encourage the division of the world into exclusionary trading blocs—a development that harmed US economic interests and created incentives for German and Japanese territorial expansionism. The adoption of Smoot-Hawley was typical of the hard-edged nationalism that colored US foreign policy in the 1920s. In effect, the tariff signified Congress’s deliberate disavowal of responsibility for the fortunes of people elsewhere in the world. The international status quo was also endangered in East Asia. During the second half of the 1920s, a strengthened Chinese central government had emerged under the military leadership of General Chiang Kai-shek. In 1928, China’s leaders called for a renegotiation of the special privileges enjoyed by foreign imperial powers within China.38 Essentially, China was demanding to be treated as a fully sovereign state. The Chinese demand implicitly threatened Japan’s sphere of influence in Manchuria, raising the possibility that Japan would take military action to defend its interests there.

The Militarists Come to Power In the face of ongoing German pressure for revision of the peace settlement, international negotiations in 1929 produced an agreement for further reductions in Germany’s reparation payments. The Allied powers also agreed to end their occupation of the Rhineland

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by July 1930, five years earlier than specified in the Treaty of Versailles. Although these measures were intended as a constructive response to Germany’s frustration over the slow pace of treaty revision, they unintentionally opened the door to political extremism. When the Rhineland was under Allied occupation, most Germans had understood that it was not feasible to pursue a militant foreign policy. But once the occupation came to an end, the Allies no longer had any effective instruments for restraining Germany. German voters were thus free to shift their allegiance away from mainstream parties and toward extremists such as the Nazis.39 Millions did so. The Nazi Party, which up to that point had been little more than a fringe movement, emerged as a major force in German politics. In the September 1930 national election, it received 18 percent of the total vote, making it the second largest of the many parties represented in the German legislature. The Great Depression, which brought widespread hardship to Germany in the early 1930s, enabled the Nazis to gain even more votes. Economic despair led growing numbers of voters to conclude that democracy had failed and that the Nazis could do a better job of restoring Germany’s strength and standing in the world. In the July 1932 national election, the Nazis received 37 percent of the vote, making them the largest party in the legislature. An extended constitutional crisis followed, triggered by the fact that the other parties did not wish to see Hitler in control of the government. But Hitler now had enough political leverage to prolong the crisis until he was finally named chancellor in January 1933. Using emergency powers granted to him a few weeks after he assumed office, he suppressed the Nazis’ domestic opponents and established a one-party state. Germany descended into dictatorship. The Great Depression was also instrumental in pushing Japan toward militarism. Japanese exports to the United States fell dramatically after 1929, partly because of the Depression and partly because of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. The widespread economic hardship resulting from decreased export revenues helped turn Japanese public opinion against the policy of cooperation with the Western powers. Hard-line nationalists who had been pushing for military action to defend Japan’s strategic interests found that the public mood had shifted in their favor. 40 In September 1931, the Japanese army launched a military offensive against Chinese forces in Manchuria. The goal was to bring Manchuria firmly under Japanese control and forestall any attempt by China’s revived central government to

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reduce Japan’s influence there. The action in Manchuria initiated a new period in Japan’s domestic politics, in which civilian politicians lost most of their influence over policy, and the country’s strategic direction was decided mainly by army and navy leaders. After expelling China’s forces from Manchuria, Japan transformed the province into a de facto colonial possession. In an effort to avoid being condemned by other states for violating China’s territorial integrity, Japan adopted the pretense that Manchuria had detached itself willingly from Chinese rule and was now an independent state. Japan called the new state “Manchukuo” and ruled it through a puppet government. Although the Western powers did not take any substantive steps to oppose Japan’s actions, they refused to give formal recognition to the changes in Manchuria’s status. In response, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations and increasingly disengaged itself from the liberal international order. Abandoning its earlier policy of cooperation with the Western powers, it began trying to create a hierarchical East Asian order under Japanese domination. Japan’s new course led to a full-scale invasion of China in 1937 and war against the United States a few years after that.

German Foreign Policy Under Hitler Hitler’s rise to power in Germany posed a far-reaching challenge to the liberal international order. Hitler was not interested in peaceful coexistence between Germany and the other states of Europe. Instead, he intended to raise the country to a position of world power by means of war and conquest. He envisaged multiple stages to Germany’s rise.41 In the initial stage, Germany would rearm itself and seek territorial gains at the expense of the small countries to its south and east. Hitler hoped to achieve these goals without provoking war with Britain or France, since Germany was not yet strong enough for such a conflict. In the next stage, Germany would aim for complete domination of continental Europe. That would require destroying France (while still avoiding war with Britain, if possible) and waging a war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. Germany would then annex the rich farmlands and vast natural resources of the western Soviet Union, creating an enormous and self-sufficient German homeland invulnerable to naval blockades like the one Britain had used against it during World War I. In the final stage, Germany would challenge the United States for global supremacy. Although Hitler never wavered from this overall

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plan, he was careful to disguise his intentions. He hoped that Britain and France would not perceive his true goals until it was too late. Hitler’s immediate objective after coming to power was to free Germany from the remaining restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles and build up its military capabilities to a level where it could dominate Europe by force. Because the constraints imposed on Germany after the war had left it militarily weak, preparation was necessary before it could hope to challenge the other powers successfully. During his first year in office, Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations and initiated a massive, semi-secret rearmament program aimed at rebuilding the country’s military strength. In 1936 he remilitarized the Rhineland, stationing thousands of troops there. The rearmament program, which Hitler announced to the world in 1935, and the remilitarization of the Rhineland directly violated the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler justified these steps as nothing more than an assertion of Germany’s sovereign right to control its own territory and possess enough armaments to defend itself. Such arguments found considerable sympathy in Britain.42 Hitler accompanied his actions with reassuring messages aimed at foreign leaders, in which he professed his peaceful intentions and his willingness to negotiate new agreements in place of the restrictions he had overthrown. Britain and France reacted to Hitler’s moves by increasing their own spending on armaments, but neither was prepared to attempt military action against Germany. In fact, under Neville Chamberlain, who became prime minister of Britain in 1937, the British government adopted a policy of intensified accommodation toward Germany. Given the Nazi regime’s military buildup, Chamberlain and much of British public opinion judged it urgent to find a satisfactory resolution to Germany’s grievances. In doing so, they desperately hoped to preserve the peace and avert the unimaginable slaughter and destruction that would result from a return to war. Provided that Germany agreed to pursue its objectives through peaceful means, Chamberlain was prepared to offer major concessions.43 For example, he was willing to ignore the parts of the Versailles settlement that barred Germany from asserting control over Austria and the German-speaking populations in Czechoslovakia and Poland. He was prepared to stand aside as Germany expanded its economic influence in eastern Europe. He was potentially willing to restore to Germany some of the colonial possessions that had been taken from it. But neither Chamberlain nor the British public was willing to allow Germany to expand eastward across Europe through

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conquest. Because eastward conquest lay at the heart of Hitler’s plans, Chamberlain’s objectives were ultimately irreconcilable with Hitler’s. Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement made it easier for Hitler to move aggressively in accomplishing two of his key short-term goals: absorbing Austria into Germany, and destroying Czechoslovakia. In the first months of 1938, Hitler pressured the Austrian government to align itself more closely with his Nazi regime. Austrian leaders, discovering that the other Western powers were not willing to come to their aid, bowed to these demands. Further threats from Hitler forced the chancellor of Austria to dismiss his cabinet and resign from office, leaving his country without a government. The German army promptly crossed into Austria and seized control of it. Many Austrians genuinely favored union with Germany and welcomed that development. Others were cowed into submission. Austria was absorbed into Germany without a fight. Britain and France protested Germany’s action but took no meaningful steps to oppose it. A few months later, Hitler provoked a new international crisis by demanding that the Sudetenland and its three million German-speaking inhabitants be detached from Czechoslovakia and handed over to Germany. Britain responded to the demand by proposing negotiations, which led finally to a conference in Munich in late September 1938. The conference brought together four key European leaders: Chamberlain, Hitler, French prime minister Édouard Daladier, and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Determined to avoid a war, Chamberlain and Daladier agreed that Germany could take possession of the Sudetenland. Informed of that decision, which was also endorsed by Mussolini, the Czech government reluctantly surrendered the Sudeten region to Hitler. Politically weakened by that concession, it was soon forced to cede other parts of its territory to neighboring Poland and Hungary. In March 1939, a surprise invasion by German troops swept away what was left of the country, which was replaced with a puppet regime under German control. The Munich conference and the ensuing destruction of Czechoslovakia marked a turning point in British and French attitudes toward Hitler. Whereas mainstream opinion had previously rejected the idea of confronting Germany, the British and French publics now concluded that Hitler was bent on conquest and must be restrained by force.44 British and French leaders became firmer in their resolve to stand up to Hitler, and when German forces invaded Poland in September 1939, they reacted by declaring war.

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US and Soviet Responses to the Approach of War Soviet leaders were well aware of the threat the Nazi regime posed to the Soviet Union, and throughout the 1930s they wrestled with the question of how to manage it. Their analysis was influenced by ideology and the mutual suspicion that had existed between Soviet Russia and the Western powers since the Bolshevik revolution. Although the Soviet government had established diplomatic relations with the major Western states by 1933 and joined the League of Nations the following year, Soviet leaders remained ambivalent toward the international order.45 They regarded all capitalist states—a category that included Britain, France, and the United States as well as Nazi Germany—as intrinsically hostile toward communism and ultimately bent on destroying the Soviet regime. In the absence of workers’ revolutions that would bring ideologically friendly regimes to power in the Western states, Soviet leaders saw no clear path to making their country secure. Under Joseph Stalin, who emerged as the top Soviet leader following Lenin’s death in 1924, the Soviet government attempted to industrialize the Soviet Union as rapidly as possible. Although its large population and vast territory endowed it with the potential to become a major world power, the Soviet Union remained poor and technologically backward compared with Britain, France, and Germany. Acutely aware of his country’s weaknesses, Stalin strove to prevent the Soviet Union from becoming embroiled in a major war.46 He also tried to improve its ability to defend itself from foreign attack. Faced with Germany’s accelerating rearmament under Hitler, he shifted much of the Soviet Union’s industrial capacity into the production of arms. In August 1939, as Germany completed final preparations for invading Poland, Stalin worried that Poland’s defeat would soon be followed by a German invasion of the Soviet Union. Desperate to avoid that possibility, he reached agreement with Hitler on a mutual nonaggression pact.47 Although Hitler fully intended to invade and conquer the Soviet Union eventually, the agreement with Stalin suited his interests in the short run. Hitler did not want to risk plunging Germany into a two-front war like the one it had faced in 1914. The nonaggression pact ensured that even if France and Britain responded to his invasion of Poland by declaring war, Germany would not have to deal with a war against the Soviet Union at the same time. The pact also suited Stalin, by ensuring that Germany, Britain, and France would be occupied (at least in the short run) with

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fighting each other rather than ganging up against the Soviet Union. The pact bought the Soviet Union more time to strengthen its armed forces and allowed Stalin to hope that the Western powers would inflict so much damage on each other that they would have no appetite left for attacking the Soviet Union. As it turned out, the pact provided the Soviet Union with a breathing space of nearly two years. Hitler eventually launched his long-intended war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, but not until June 1941. Meanwhile, the United States responded to the growing threat of war in Europe by turning inward. Americans were still struggling to recover from the Great Depression, and public opinion overwhelmingly opposed any steps that might draw the country into an overseas conflict.48 Between 1935 and 1937, Congress enacted a series of neutrality acts that reflected the public’s isolationist mood. The first neutrality act prohibited US arms sales to countries at war. The second added a prohibition on loans to countries at war, and the third prohibited Americans from traveling on the ships of countries at war. These measures were intended to keep the United States out of war. But the country had too much at stake in Europe and Asia for noninvolvement to be a realistic option.49 Angered by Japan’s efforts to seize more and more Asian territory and horrified by Hitler’s swift conquest of most of western Europe in spring 1940, US public opinion began to demand action. During 1940 and 1941, the United States imposed increasingly severe economic sanctions against Japan and stepped up its military aid to Great Britain. The idea of neutrality fell by the wayside. Japan’s surprise attack on the US naval fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was followed four days later by a German declaration of war against the United States. Two decades of US efforts to stay out of foreign wars thus came to naught.

The Post-1918 International System in Perspective The international system created after World War I was an attempt to establish international order on the basis of liberal principles rather than power politics. In its underlying logic and its practical mechanics, the new system differed greatly from the Concert of Europe system. In contrast to the Concert system, which created order through pragmatic accommodation among the great powers, the new system sought to maintain order by requiring states to adhere to explicit rules of conduct spelled out in the League of Nations covenant.

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Whereas the Concert system had often sacrificed the interests of less powerful states and peoples to preserve cooperation among the great powers, the new system rested on the principle of respect for the independence and territorial integrity of all states. The post-1918 system treated international peace as a goal to be sought for its own sake, which had not been the case under the Concert system. Certainly, the Concert powers sought to avoid war among themselves. But they did so because they had come to view major wars as damaging to their interests, not because they were committed to peace as a matter of principle. By contrast, the design of the post-1918 system reflected the liberal belief that peace is a worthy end in itself. Modern liberals tend to perceive war as inherently evil because human freedom and dignity cannot thrive amid conditions of widespread killing and destruction. In the interests of safeguarding peace, the League of Nations covenant obligated member states to refrain from aggression, submit their international disputes to arbitration, and participate in disarmament negotiations and collective security measures. None of those obligations existed under the Concert system. Throughout the Age of Power Politics, the great powers had regarded war as a legitimate foreign policy tool. But under the rules of conduct laid down by the league covenant, that was no longer the case. Although the covenant did not outlaw war explicitly, its various restrictions amounted to a presumption that initiating war was illegitimate under most circumstances. The United States was the main architect of the new system, and most aspects of the system reflected US interests and preferences. The United States stood to benefit handsomely from the obligations of self-restraint that the covenant imposed on member states. For example, the covenant called on member states to reduce their national armaments “to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations.” That provision was fully consistent with US preferences, as reflected in initiatives such as the Naval Disarmament Conference. US leaders had no desire to involve the United States in arms races with other powers and were well pleased to see disarmament established as a global priority. The United States also stood to benefit from the provisions of the covenant that called on member states to refrain from aggression. The American public was determined to avoid being dragged into another major overseas war. The prohibition on aggression contained in the covenant directly reflected the US preference for a peaceful world. American producers hoped for a relaxed

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international environment that would allow them to sell goods around the globe without becoming embroiled in other countries’ rivalries. In addition to its liberal features, the post-1918 international system included significant power politics elements carried over from before the war. Great Britain, France, Portugal, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and the United States continued to maintain overseas colonial empires. Those empires encompassed nearly all of Africa, and much of Asia and the Middle East—meaning that colonialism, not liberal principles, provided the main source of international order for most of the world outside Europe and the Americas. Power politics also came into play in the peace settlement that the Allies imposed on Germany. By prohibiting Germany from absorbing Austria or the Sudetenland, the Allies demonstrated their unwillingness to trust Germany’s good intentions when doing so would add substantially to German national power. Collective security, which Woodrow Wilson had envisaged as the centerpiece of the postwar international system, never actually played much role in preserving international order. None of the major powers was interested in expending resources to counteract aggression that did not threaten it directly. Britain’s resources were largely absorbed in policing its vast colonial empire. France cared about restraining Germany, not about upholding collective security as a universal principle. The United States refused to accept any formal responsibility for enforcing the peace. Germany, Japan, Italy, and Soviet Russia were all ambivalent toward the postwar system and more likely to try to overturn it than to defend it. Thus, the collective security system established by the League of Nations proved effective only on minor matters where the great powers were in agreement with each other.50 On issues where the great powers were divided, the league could achieve little. In that respect, it resembled its successor, the United Nations. The foremost threat to international order during the interwar era was the possibility that Germany or Japan might seek major territorial gains through conquest. Given US and British unwillingness to enforce collective security, international stability depended ultimately on German and Japanese self-restraint. But why should those states restrain themselves? What did they receive in return? The answer, essentially, is that they received a promise of goodwill from the United States. By structuring international order on liberal principles, the United States signaled to Germany and Japan that it would not block them from achieving economic growth and prosperity—provided they pursued their goals by peaceful means. For militant nation-

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alists in Germany and Japan, that was an unacceptable stipulation. But the militants’ influence remained limited at first, because the liberal order seemed to provide Germany and Japan with ample opportunities to advance themselves economically. The international order began to unravel when the United States declined to take active steps to help Europe and Asia overcome the Great Depression. By enacting the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, the United States damaged its trading partners and undermined German and Japanese faith in peaceful trade. German and Japanese militarists had been arguing for years that true national security required the conquest of enough territory and resources to make their countries economically self-sufficient. The global wave of protectionism triggered by Smoot-Hawley persuaded many people in Germany and Japan that the militarists were right. At the same time, the fact that the United States seemed to lack the military will to defend the liberal order helped convince them that a strategy of conquest could succeed. Thus, US actions created incentives for Germany and Japan to embark on military aggression.51 After World War II, the United States would once again encourage Germany and Japan to adopt restraint in their foreign policies. US efforts in that regard would be much more successful after 1945 than they were during the interwar era. But they would also be accompanied by a strong, substantive US commitment to German and Japanese well-being.

Notes

1. See De Groot, The First World War, chaps. 2–3. 2. Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War. 3. Stevenson, “France at the Paris Peace Conference,” 14–16. 4. Sharp, The Versailles Settlement, 188 and 191–192. 5. Wilson, “The Fourteen Points Speech.” See also Knock, To End All Wars, 121. 6. See Knock, To End All Wars, 112–113. 7. Stevenson, The First World War and International Politics, 278–279; Kennedy, “Woodrow Wilson,” 17–22. 8. Ambrosius, Wilsonianism, 51–52; Knock, To End All Wars, 225; Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis, 46–47. 9. Useful overviews of the peace terms are provided by Sharp, The Versailles Settlement; Henig, Versailles and After; and Dockrill and Goold, Peace without Promise. 10. Marks, The Illusion of Peace, 21. 11. Sharp, The Versailles Settlement, 123 and 129. 12. Until 1929, Yugoslavia was known officially as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

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13. See Sharp, The Versailles Settlement, 151–152, and Dockrill and Goold, Peace without Promise, 111–112. 14. See Gould, “Austrian Attitudes toward Anschluss.” 15. Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 439. 16. See Ambrosius, Wilsonianism, 92–95. 17. Pyle, Japan Rising, 159–160. 18. Mancall, China at the Center, 159. 19. Pyle, Japan Rising, 161. 20. See Pyle, Japan Rising, 174–179. 21. Iriye, After Imperialism, 26. 22. Storry, Japan and the Decline of the West, 126. 23. Asada, “Between the Old Diplomacy and the New.” 24. Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 452. 25. Henig, Versailles and After, 64. 26. Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis, 82–83. 27. See Marks, “The Myths of Reparations,” 237–241. 28. Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace, 95; Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis, 94, 111, 116, 122. 29. Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace, 87–88. 30. Craig, Germany, 448–449. 31. Steiner, The Lights that Failed, 232; Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis, 127–128. 32. See the discussion in Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace, chaps. 9 and 10. 33. See Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace, 361–362, 375, and 424–426. 34. See Pyle, Japan Rising, 179–183. 35. See Iriye, After Imperialism, 35–36, and Pyle, Japan Rising, 163–164. 36. Frieden, Global Capitalism, 174; Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis, 218. 37. This paragraph is based on Irwin, Peddling Protectionism, 16–17, 83–85, and 145–182. 38. Iriye, After Imperialism, 228. 39. Marks, The Illusion of Peace, 113. 40. See Iriye, After Imperialism, 278–279 and 283–284, and Iriye, The Origins of the Second World War, 5–10. 41. See Hillgruber, Germany and the Two World Wars, 49–55; Rich, Hitler’s War Aims, 3–16; Overy, The Origins of the Second World War, 39–41; and Henig, The Origins of the Second World War, 72–85. 42. See Henig, The Origins of the Second World War, 26, and Bell, The Origins of the Second World War in Europe, 235. 43. Hillgruber, Germany and the Two World Wars, 60–61. 44. Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark, 765–770, and Bell, The Origins of the Second World War in Europe, 278–280 and 284–286. 45. See Jacobson, “The Soviet Union and Versailles.” 46. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence, 223 and 243. 47. See the analysis in Weinberg, “The Nazi-Soviet Pacts.” 48. See Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 503–509. 49. See Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 518–536. 50. See Henig, “The League of Nations.” 51. See Overy, “Economics and the Origins of the Second World War.”

8 Liberal Order and Cold War, 1945–1989

THE UNITED STATES AND THE SOVIET UNION EMERGED from World War II as the world’s dominant military powers, and they sought to create a postwar international order that would protect their vital security interests. But the US and Soviet visions of order were largely incompatible. Soviet leaders viewed the world through the lens of power politics and imagined international order largely in terms of a spheres-of-influence arrangement that would allow the Soviet Union to dominate neighboring states without interference from other powers. By contrast, US leaders remained committed to a liberal vision of international order. They aimed to construct a system that would uphold every state’s sovereign independence, promote open trade, and encourage respect for human rights. The contradiction between the US and Soviet visions of order mattered crucially in Europe, where both superpowers had vital interests at stake. Given the Soviet Union’s great military capabilities, the United States could not simply override Soviet interests there without provoking a new world war. Instead, stabilizing US–Soviet relations required some form of mutual accommodation. Ultimately, the superpowers managed the problem of Europe through a pragmatic arrangement: the United States tacitly accepted Soviet domination of eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union accepted western Europe’s alignment with the United States. Germany was divided into two states, under conditions that ensured it could not pose a military threat to the Soviet Union. 159

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The United States did not give up on its goal of establishing a liberal international order, but it came to recognize that Soviet opposition would make it impossible to create a liberal order that included the entire world. Instead, US officials worked to forge a liberal order made up of the United States and the other countries of the West. In pursuit of that goal, the United States offered security guarantees to Japan, Canada, Australia, and most of western Europe. It initiated negotiations on a new multilateral agreement designed to facilitate trade among Western capitalist states. It took wide-ranging measures aimed at establishing liberal democracy in West Germany and Japan and strengthening liberal institutions in other Western states. Thus, the international order of the Cold War era may best be understood not as a single system but as a combination of two largely separate systems. One operated according to the logic of power politics. By dividing Europe informally into US and Soviet zones of influence, it provided a degree of order and stability to US–Soviet relations. The other was based on liberal principles of sovereign equality, peaceful resolution of disputes, open trade, market capitalism, and respect for individual freedoms. It governed relations between the United States and its Western allies and was anchored by US economic and security guarantees. This chapter begins with a discussion of international conditions at the end of World War II and of US plans for creating a liberal international system to replace the one that had collapsed in the 1930s. It shows how conflicting US and Soviet objectives gave rise to the Cold War and led the United States to assume overall responsibility for maintaining the liberal system. It also discusses how the superpowers gradually reached an accommodation in Europe that protected their vital interests. The chapter then turns to an examination of developments in the Third World, including the dismantling of the European colonial empires and the efforts by the superpowers to advance their interests there. It concludes with a discussion of the factors that gradually paved the way for an end to the Cold War. Box 8.1 offers a summary of key features of the post-1945 international system.

The Situation at the End of World War II At the conclusion of World War II in 1945, power to shape the postwar international order rested mainly in the hands of the United

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Box 8.1 The Post-1945 International System Time frame: 1945 to 1989.

Principal actors: The United States and the Soviet Union were the two military superpowers, but the United States was the sole economic superpower. Other major actors included Britain, France, West Germany, Japan, and China. How did the system create international order? Initially,

the UN Security Council was intended to be the principal body for the enforcement of international order. However, US–Soviet rivalry left the council paralyzed on most questions. As a result, international order in the post-1945 era came to be maintained largely through two informal systems, which may be called the liberal system and the Cold War system. The core members of the liberal system were the United States and most of the states of western Europe, along with Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The liberal system rested on an informal grand bargain in which the United States promised to protect the other members against attack and accepted responsibility for ensuring their access to global supplies of energy and raw materials. The United States agreed to open its domestic market to the other members and grant them access to US investment and technology. In return, the other members accepted US leadership and agreed to support the United States in its opposition to communism. They agreed to participate in liberalized international trade arrangements and tacitly committed themselves not to go to war against each other or engage in military aggression. Meanwhile, the Cold War system arose through pragmatic accommodation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The accommodation rested on power politics, not liberal principles. Under the Cold War system, the United States accepted Soviet domination of eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union accepted the alignment of western Europe and Japan with the United States. continues

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Box 8.1 Continued For the peoples of the Third World, the post-1945 international order brought both benefits and challenges. The UN charter provided support for the idea that all peoples should enjoy the right to sovereignty and self-determination. As such, it helped delegitimize colonial rule and accelerate the dismantling of colonial empires. However, a large proportion of Third World states suffered from problems of domestic political unrest, unresponsive governments, and relentless poverty. The Cold War system operated in ways that often made such problems worse. States and the Soviet Union. Those states, together with the United Kingdom, were the principal victors of the war, and each expected to have a large part in deciding the political and territorial arrangements of the postwar world. The Soviet Union had emerged from the war as Europe’s strongest military power. The turning point of the war in Europe was the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–1943, where Soviet forces achieved a decisive victory over Germany’s invading armies. From that point forward, the Soviet army began to gain ground. It pushed German forces out of Soviet territory, then liberated the states of eastern Europe from German control. In the closing months of the war, Soviet troops advanced into Germany, capturing Berlin and advancing well beyond it. At the moment of Germany’s surrender in May 1945, Soviet forces were present in eastern Germany and across most of eastern Europe. Similarly, the United States was assured of a strong voice in determining postwar arrangements. Beginning in 1941, it had provided enormous quantities of military equipment, food, and other supplies to the Soviet Union and Britain under the Lend-Lease Act. That aid was crucial to the two powers in sustaining their war efforts. US ground troops entered the European war in large numbers in June 1944, when an Allied force composed mainly of US and British soldiers landed along France’s Atlantic coastline, opening a second front against Germany. These forces then moved eastward, liberating France from German control and advancing into Germany from the west. The western half of Germany was under US and British occupation at the moment

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of Germany’s surrender. Meanwhile, in the western Pacific, US forces fought a long and arduous campaign to displace Japan from the strategic island bases it controlled. Those bases provided Japan with a defensive buffer, and as US forces advanced, the Japanese home islands became vulnerable to attack. Early in 1945, the United States initiated a systematic bombing campaign against Japan’s cities and began to prepare a full-scale ground invasion. But US success in developing atomic weapons made an invasion unnecessary. The United States carried out an atomic bomb strike against the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and against the city of Nagasaki on August 9. Japan announced its surrender a few days later. The outcome of World War II resulted in a number of important changes in territorial boundaries and ownership. The Soviet Union took advantage of its victory to reclaim most of the territories it had lost at the end of World War I. These included Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, parts of Romania and Finland, and the eastern half of Poland. Soviet troops were already in control of those areas when the war ended, and the Soviet government proceeded to annex them officially. US leaders disliked the Soviet action but could not prevent it and saw little point in quarreling over it.1 The victorious powers compensated Poland for the loss of its eastern half by granting it a large swath of territory taken from Germany. Thus Germany, after losing part of its national territory to Poland after World War I, lost even more of it to Poland after World War II. The victorious powers also deprived Germany of the territories it had acquired prior to the war. Austria, which had been absorbed by Germany in 1938, was reestablished as an independent state. The territory Germany had taken from Czechoslovakia in 1938–1939 was restored to Czech possession. In Asia, the victorious powers stripped Japan of all territorial possessions other than its home islands. Japan was directed to withdraw its forces from East and Southeast Asia, much of which it still ruled at the time of its surrender. Control over Manchuria and Taiwan was handed back to the Chinese government. The victorious powers decided that Korea, which had been a Japanese colonial possession since 1910, would be granted independence after a five-year transitional period. In the meantime, Korea was divided into two occupation zones, with Soviet forces in the northern half of the country and US forces in the southern half.2 At war’s end, it remained undecided what final peace terms would be imposed on Germany and Japan. For purposes of military

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occupation, the victorious powers divided Germany into four zones, with the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France each controlling a zone. Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader, agreed that control over the capital, Berlin, could be shared among the four powers, even though the city was located deep within the Soviet occupation zone. All sides expected these arrangements to be temporary, pending an agreement on final peace terms. In Japan, the United States imposed a military occupation under its sole authority. The Soviet Union asked to be granted an occupation zone in Japan, which would have put it in position to ensure that any final settlement respected Soviet interests. But the United States rebuffed the Soviet request.

The US Vision of Postwar Order As argued in Chapter 7, one of the main reasons the post-1918 international system collapsed was that the United States, the world’s strongest economic power, did not do enough to uphold it. The United States did not enforce the arrangements it had helped put into place to limit German and Japanese military expansion, and it adopted protectionist trade policies that undermined German and Japanese acceptance of the territorial status quo. At the end of World War II, it was clear that the prospects for future international stability would depend more than ever on US choices and actions. The United States had emerged from the war with its homeland unscathed and its economy booming. Its economic output accounted for half of the world total.3 By contrast, the other major powers had suffered great physical damage to their national territories. For all of the major powers except the United States, recovering from the war would take many years. The US plan for postwar international order took shape under Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was president from 1933 until his death in April 1945. Roosevelt’s plan echoed the liberal vision Woodrow Wilson had advanced at the end of World War I. Roosevelt sought to construct a peaceful international system that would protect the peoples of the world from aggression. Like Wilson, he viewed rivalry among the major powers as the main source of global instability, and he hoped to tame that rivalry by establishing international rules that would remove the main incentives for war. The core elements of his proposed system were collective security, self-determination, disarmament, and liberalized trade.

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Roosevelt’s ideas differed in important ways from those of Wilson. Wilson had hoped that the moral force of world opinion, expressed through the League of Nations, would be enough to discourage states from engaging in aggression. But the events of the interwar era had proven that to be a false hope. Roosevelt drew the conclusion that for peace to be stable, a select group of major powers needed to take direct responsibility for preventing new outbreaks of aggression.4 Whereas Wilson had believed that peace went hand in hand with general disarmament, Roosevelt believed that the powers responsible for enforcing international peace and stability could not perform their duties effectively if they disarmed themselves. Instead, those powers would impose disarmament on the rest of the world.5 In developing his ideas about international order, Roosevelt operated within the constraints imposed by US public opinion. During the interwar era, the American public had emphatically rejected the idea of any ongoing US security commitments in Europe or Asia. Roosevelt accordingly sought to design an international system that would minimize such commitments. He envisioned an arrangement in which the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and China would share responsibility for enforcing international peace. Roosevelt called these states the “Four Policemen.” Britain and the Soviet Union would share responsibility for maintaining order in Europe, and China would have responsibility for Asia. The United States would maintain order in the Americas, as it had been doing since the early twentieth century. The Four Policemen would coordinate their actions within the framework of the United Nations, a new organization being planned as a successor to the League of Nations. American voters supported the idea of US membership in the new organization. They recognized that US failure to participate in the League of Nations had helped to set the stage for World War II.6 Under Roosevelt’s plan, international authority over security questions would be reserved to the Security Council, a limited-membership body within the United Nations. The Four Policemen would have permanent membership on the council, and their views would take precedence over those of other states. Roosevelt imagined the Four Policemen essentially as trustees whose job was to safeguard a global peace that served the interests of all. For this planned system to work, it would be essential for the Four Policemen to cooperate closely and behave with self-restraint in the parts of the world that came under their particular responsibility.7

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Roosevelt’s proposed international system was problematic in several ways. For one thing, it lacked a realistic strategy for managing the power vacuum in Europe created by Germany’s defeat. Roosevelt planned to keep Germany disarmed permanently, so that it could not renew its aggression in the future. But without Germany to serve as a bulwark against Soviet power, there would be little to prevent the Soviet Union from extending its political domination over the whole Continent. By itself, Britain lacked the means to counterbalance Soviet power in Europe. Recognizing that problem, British leaders proposed that France be included as one of the powers with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. They hoped that France would be able to help stabilize Europe and limit the expansion of Soviet influence there.8 Roosevelt agreed to this proposal. But France, which had been easily defeated by Germany in 1940 and spent most of World War II under German occupation, emerged from the war greatly weakened. Even if Britain and France acted in unison, they lacked the ability to offset Soviet power. Another problem with Roosevelt’s plans had to do with China. Just as the destruction of German power had created a power vacuum in Europe, the destruction of Japan’s power had created a power vacuum in Asia. Roosevelt envisaged China as the power that would take the lead in maintaining Asia’s peace and stability. The United States had provided China with extensive military aid during the war; US officials believed that the Chinese government, headed by the Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek, would be responsive to US concerns. But China lacked the capabilities of a genuine great power.9 Its armed forces were poorly trained, its economy remained largely agrarian, and its government was corrupt and ineffective. Large parts of China had been conquered by Japan in the 1930s and had been restored to Chinese control only as a result of Japan’s defeat by the United States. In addition, the Chinese government was embroiled in a domestic civil war against communist insurgents. There was little basis for believing that China would be able to fulfill the responsibilities Roosevelt had in mind. Roosevelt seems to have chosen China as one of the Four Policemen largely by default. He intended Japan to remain disarmed and did not want to see the Soviet Union become the dominant power in Asia.10 That left China as the only local power that could conceivably fill the role of policeman. Fundamentally, Roosevelt’s plan for international order suffered from the same contradiction that had undermined US foreign policy

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during the interwar era. The plan sought to establish a liberal international system consistent with US values and interests, yet attempted to minimize US responsibility for managing and enforcing that system. Given the relative size and strength of the US economy, a liberal system was feasible only if the United States shouldered the principal responsibility for making it work. During the 1920s and 1930s, the United States had been unwilling to accept such a responsibility. Roosevelt based his plan for postwar order on the assumption that US voters would continue to resist security commitments in Europe and Asia. Only the onset of the Cold War persuaded the United States to accept global responsibilities commensurate with its capabilities.

The Soviet Vision of Postwar Order Stalin’s view of international order was shaped above all by the Soviet Union’s need for physical security.11 Germany’s unprovoked invasion in 1941 had led to the deaths of more than twenty million Soviet citizens and brought immeasurable devastation to the Soviet homeland. Stalin regarded it as vital that the states along the Soviet Union’s western border be ruled in the future by pro-Soviet governments, so they could not pose a threat to Soviet security. He planned to turn eastern Europe into a Soviet sphere of influence, with the states there tied closely to the Soviet Union politically, economically, and culturally. Stalin also considered it essential that the victorious powers impose a peace settlement on Germany that would sharply limit German power and safeguard the Soviet Union against future German attack. Stalin’s plan to establish pro-Soviet governments in the states along the Soviet Union’s western border was at odds with the US vision of an international system based on open trade and respect for states’ sovereign independence. As Roosevelt saw it, the underlying cause of the two world wars lay in the efforts of the great powers to cordon off pieces of the world for themselves, to the exclusion of other powers. Spheres of influence were exclusionary arrangements, as were colonial empires. In seeking to build up their spheres of influence and colonial empires, the European powers had condemned themselves to an unwinnable rivalry because any gain for one power equaled a loss for its rivals. The inevitable result was war. Roosevelt thus viewed it as essential that the major powers work together to

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maintain an open world in which the less powerful states and peoples would be free to pursue trade and cultural relations with whomever they wished.12 Roosevelt’s beliefs in that regard mirrored those of Congress and US public opinion. In line with such views, US officials urged the Soviet Union to permit free elections in the states it had liberated from German control. But in much of eastern Europe, political elites were predominantly anti-Russian. If free elections were held, governments hostile to the Soviet Union would come to power in Poland and Romania and perhaps elsewhere in the region.13 To prevent that, Stalin took advantage of the Soviet troop presence in eastern Europe to install local Communist Party officials in power. He made it clear to the officials he selected that he expected them to follow his directives. At first, he allowed the eastern European governments to retain significant autonomy in deciding their internal policies, as long as they followed pro-Soviet foreign policies. Later, as the Cold War intensified, he adopted a more rigid approach.14 Stalin endorsed the creation of the United Nations and agreed to Soviet participation in it. But he viewed the organization entirely in terms of how it could be used to protect Soviet security interests.15 He and the rest of the Soviet leadership were deeply suspicious of the United States and the other Western powers. Soviet leaders had not forgotten the efforts of the Western powers to isolate the Soviet Union during the interwar period, and they believed that the United States, as a capitalist power, could never truly accept the Soviet Union’s communist political and economic system. To Stalin, Soviet security depended on solidifying the gains that had been achieved through victory in World War II.16 Soviet membership on the proposed UN Security Council could be helpful in achieving that goal by ensuring that any security actions undertaken by the United Nations met with Soviet approval. The underlying logic of Stalin’s ideas about international order strongly resembled the power politics logic of the nineteenth-century Concert of Europe system. Stalin hoped that the cooperative relationship that had existed between the United States and the Soviet Union during the war would continue in the postwar era. For the Soviet Union to achieve its goal of keeping Germany and Japan in check, it would need US help.17 But his distrust of the Western powers made Stalin determined to avoid any arrangement that would make Soviet security dependent on Western goodwill. He was willing to respect US and British security interests, provided that the Western powers respected

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the Soviet Union’s vital interests in eastern Europe and Germany. He was willing to cooperate with the Western powers in areas where their interests were compatible with Soviet interests. Stalin thus imagined the UN Security Council as a concert-type body where the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom could make mutually beneficial deals with each other. As in the nineteenth-century system, the great powers would avoid meddling in each other’s spheres of influence and could sacrifice the interests and independence of smaller states as necessary to preserve cooperative relations among themselves.18 This was a sharply different vision from that of Roosevelt, who imagined the council as the body where the major powers would take joint action to preserve a world free of exclusionary arrangements. During the closing stages of World War II, US, Soviet, and British officials worked out the details of the UN’s structure and charter. After much wrangling, they agreed that the five permanent members of the Security Council would each have a right of veto over the council’s actions. In other words, the council could not approve any measure that was opposed by one of the permanent members, even if that measure was supported by the rest of the council. Soviet officials insisted on the right of veto, reflecting Stalin’s concern that the United Nations might otherwise be used by the Western powers as an instrument to attack Soviet interests. US officials eventually came to embrace the veto right as well. They recognized that Congress would not accept the United Nations if the Security Council had the ability to impose decisions contrary to US wishes. In the absence of the veto right, it is unlikely that the Soviet Union or the United States would have been willing to join the United Nations.19 Roosevelt had envisioned the Security Council as the central institution for enforcing liberal principles of international order. But the Soviet Union’s preference for a concert-type system based on spheres of influence meant that the Security Council could not play the role Roosevelt had intended for it. The United Nations came officially into existence in October 1945. Although the UN charter endowed the Security Council with far-reaching authority over matters of international security, it soon became evident that disagreements between the superpowers would leave the council paralyzed on most questions. Thus, to achieve its goal of creating a liberal international system, the United States would need to construct institutions that did not depend on Soviet support. Because little could be done, short of war, to prevent the Soviet Union from consolidating its sphere of influence

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in eastern Europe, any liberal order the United States created was likely to exclude the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites.

The Cold War Intensifies In December 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union reached an informal accommodation that resolved some of the key points of friction between them. The United States tacitly accepted Soviet domination over eastern Europe; in exchange, the Soviet Union accepted sole US control over occupied Japan.20 That agreement, in which each side gave up something of secondary importance to itself in return for gaining something that concerned its vital interests, was a significant step toward constructing a stable US–Soviet relationship. But the question of Germany, which was of overriding importance to both sides, remained unresolved. US leaders were reluctant to begin negotiations with the Soviet Union regarding a final peace settlement. They worried that restoring Germany as an independent state would again make it possible for the country to pursue policies inimical to US interests. US leaders also worried that the conclusion of a peace treaty, followed by the withdrawal of US occupation troops from Germany, might enable Stalin to expand his eastern European sphere of influence to include Germany as a whole. Already, in the Soviet occupation zone, Stalin had taken action to bolster pro-Soviet communist leaders and restrict the activities of other political parties. Gradually, US policy coalesced around an alternative objective: that of tying Germany so closely to the West, politically and economically, that it could neither revert to aggression nor fall under the sway of the Soviet Union.21 To achieve that goal, the United States needed to create substantial incentives for the German people to choose the West. That would mean reviving the German economy, which had been broken by war and defeat. Choosing that path would destroy any possibility of reaching agreement with the Soviet Union on a German settlement. Soviet policy was focused on extracting reparations from Germany and creating avenues for the extension of Soviet influence into the western occupation zones. 22 It became increasingly clear that US and Soviet goals in regard to Germany were simply not compatible. Discussions among the four occupation powers about what to do next ended repeatedly in stalemate.23

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Recognizing that the Soviet Union would not go along with their plans for Germany, the United States, Britain, and France increasingly coordinated policy on Germany with each other, without seeking Soviet consent or attempting to include the Soviet occupation zone in their plans. During 1947–1948, the three Western powers merged their occupation zones into a single, centrally administered zone. That zone formed the basis for a new state: the Federal Republic of Germany, known informally as West Germany. West German political leaders, acting under the supervision of the Western occupation powers, drew up a democratic constitution for the Federal Republic, held elections, and formed a national government. In September 1949, the Western powers permitted the new state to begin governing itself. These events took place in parallel with the advent of the Marshall Plan, a US program that provided billions of dollars in reconstruction aid to western Europe beginning in 1948. The Marshall Plan provided a crucial boost to economic recovery in western Europe as a whole, including West Germany. Stalin viewed the Marshall Plan and the US actions in Germany as deeply threatening to Soviet security.24 From his perspective, the United States had embarked on the creation of a unified anti-Soviet bloc that included a revived and potentially remilitarized Germany. The three Western occupation zones in Germany accounted for nearly three quarters of Germany’s total population and most of its industrial capacity. Even though the Soviet Union retained control over its own occupation zone, its exclusion from influence over the rest of Germany amounted to a major strategic defeat. In reaction to the changed US policies in western Europe, Stalin tightened his grip on eastern Europe. Although he had previously allowed the eastern European states some autonomy in running their internal affairs, he now began to insist that they model their domestic policies and institutions directly on those of the Soviet Union.25 He responded to the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany by converting the Soviet occupation zone in Germany into a state in its own right. Known officially as the German Democratic Republic and unofficially as East Germany, the new state was bound tightly to the Soviet Union. Its leaders, like their counterparts in the other eastern European states, took orders directly from Stalin. Stalin engaged in a heavy-handed attempt in 1948–1949 to pressure the Western powers into withdrawing their forces from Berlin, where they had exercised administrative control over the western half of the city since

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1945. But this gambit failed to achieve its objective. Moreover, it alarmed public opinion in the United States and western Europe, and helped prompt the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in April 1949. NATO was a political and military alliance aimed at defending western Europe against the Soviet threat. Its founding members included the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and a number of smaller European states. The establishment of NATO solidified the US strategic presence in Europe, and meant that Stalin would no longer be able to play the Western powers off against each other. Meanwhile, in Korea, a US–Soviet stalemate similar to the one in Germany emerged.26 In the northern half of the peninsula, Soviet authorities established a provisional government run by local communist leaders, and in the southern half of the peninsula, the United States established a provisional government led by anticommunist figures. Discussions on creating a unified and independent Korean state went nowhere, because neither superpower was interested in unifying Korea on terms acceptable to the other. Instead, each granted independence to the government it had created. In August 1948, the United States granted formal recognition to South Korea (known officially as the Republic of Korea). A few weeks later, the Soviet Union granted recognition to North Korea (known officially as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea). These developments solidified the division of Korea into two separate states. In abandoning any effort to preserve a unified Germany or a unified Korea, the United States moved sharply away from the assumptions that guided its foreign policy at the end of World War II. US leaders made further changes to policy in 1950 in response to developments that they regarded as highly threatening. In August 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested an atomic bomb. Americans were dismayed to realize that their superpower rival now had the means to wreak unthinkable destruction on the US homeland. In September 1949, China’s civil war ended in victory for the communists, who reorganized the mainland into the People’s Republic of China. The defeated Nationalist government retreated to the island of Taiwan, where it continued to claim to be the rightful government of all China. Most Americans interpreted the communist victory in China as a major setback to the US vision of a peaceful and liberal international order. In June 1950, the communist government of North Korea mounted a full-scale invasion of South Korea. To save South Korea

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from defeat, the United States dispatched air, naval, and ground forces to the Korean Peninsula. In response, communist China sent troops to fight on behalf of North Korea. War on the Korean Peninsula dragged on until 1953, when it was halted by an armistice that reaffirmed the dividing line between the two Korean states. The events of 1949–1950 convinced the United States that it must be prepared to use force to prevent the expansion of communist influence in Europe and Asia.27 Following World War II, the United States had demobilized most of its military forces. In 1950 it reversed course, initiating a major new military buildup and greatly expanding its military presence in western Europe and East Asia. It also revised its policies toward West Germany and Japan. Following the war, US policy had aimed at keeping Germany and Japan disarmed. Indeed, Japan’s postwar constitution, adopted during the US military occupation, included a renunciation of war and a pledge that Japan would never again maintain armed forces.28 But the events of 1949–1950 led US officials to conclude that a different approach was necessary. If US-supported states were at risk of being attacked by communists, then the United States needed to ensure that those states were protected. In the early 1950s, the United States established security pacts with Japan, Australia, and New Zealand and began planning for the integration of West Germany into NATO. It insisted that West Germany and Japan begin rebuilding their national military capabilities.29 Doing so would strengthen their strategic partnership with the United States and would signify that they were willing to shoulder part of the burden for their own defense. West Germany gained NATO membership in May 1955. The Soviet Union responded to that development by forming an opposing military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, made up of itself and its eastern European satellites including East Germany (see Figure 8.1). The incorporation of East and West Germany into opposing military alliances reinforced the Cold War division of Europe. Aside from a few limited changes—Albania’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact in 1968 and Spain’s admission to NATO in 1982—the alliance structure shown in Figure 8.1 remained in place until the Cold War ended.

Trade Liberalization One of the central goals of US foreign policy after 1945 was the establishment of an open system of international trade. US leaders

Figure 8.1 Europe in 1955

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Note: NATO members not shown: Canada, Iceland, the United States.

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believed that the division of the world into protected trading blocs during the 1930s had been one of the main underlying causes of World War II.30 Much of the fault for the spread of protectionism in the 1930s rested with the United States, which had adopted high tariffs to shield its producers from foreign competition. Britain and France had responded to increased US tariffs by constructing protected trading blocs for themselves and their colonial empires. The protectionist actions of the United States, Britain, and France worked to the disadvantage of Germany and Japan, which found themselves blocked from access to many of the world’s markets and sources of raw materials. Those powers had reacted with expansionist aggression aimed at securing enough territory to be able to establish selfsufficient trading blocs of their own. In the aftermath of World War II, US officials were determined to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. They sought to dismantle protected trading blocs and replace them with new arrangements that would enable states to enjoy nondiscriminatory access to markets around the world. They believed that an open system of international trade would greatly reduce the incentives for military conflict. They also believed that the US economy, which was based on free-market capitalism, required open access to the world’s markets to be able to function effectively.31 Even before the war ended, the United States began to lay the foundations for the open trade system it envisioned. At an international monetary conference held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944, US officials reached agreement with allied states on a set of arrangements to stabilize currency exchange rates. The conference also established the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, institutions designed to ease financial flows among participating states and facilitate postwar reconstruction. Late in 1946, representatives of the United States and seventeen other states began negotiations on the establishment of a new, multilateral framework for international trade. Those negotiations concluded in 1947 with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which represented a major step toward trade liberalization among Western states. Under the agreement, participating states substantially reduced tariff rates among themselves on a broad array of goods.32 Follow-up negotiations in later years led to further tariff reductions, so that tariffs gradually faded in importance as an obstacle to international trade within the developed West. Over time, additional states sought GATT membership to

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secure increased access to Western markets. By 1970, more than seventy states had joined the GATT. The negotiations surrounding the establishment of the GATT proved difficult. Great Britain, for example, was reluctant to give up the economic security it derived from its protected trading bloc.33 To persuade the British to agree to liberalized trade, US officials had to convince them that they would be able to rely on exports to the United States as a central pillar of their future prosperity. In effect, the GATT was made possible by an implicit US promise to keep its domestic market open to its Western partners and not revert to the protectionist policies of the interwar era. US leaders had hoped originally to include the Soviet Union and China in the liberalized international trading system they aimed to create. But the onset of the Cold War meant that US trade policy became shaped to a large degree by strategic rivalry with the communist powers. As part of its strategy, the United States sought to deny the Soviet Union the benefits of trade with the West. Beginning in the late 1940s, it imposed wide-ranging restrictions on US–Soviet trade. The restrictions were intended to show disapproval of Soviet foreign policy and keep the Soviet Union militarily and economically weak.34 Trade between the Western powers and the Soviet Union remained at a low level throughout the Cold War. The United States also took economic measures against communist China. In response to China’s intervention in the Korean War, the United States enacted a comprehensive embargo on US–China trade. For the next two decades, US trade with communist China was nonexistent.35 As the Cold War intensified, US leaders came to view the GATT as a key instrument of strategic policy. In particular, they saw the GATT as a means of facilitating the integration of West Germany and Japan into the Western political bloc, thereby reducing the chance that these former US enemies would adopt neutralist or pro-Soviet foreign policies. 36 West Germany welcomed the prospect of economic integration into the West and was admitted to the GATT in 1951. US leaders strongly supported Japan’s admission to the GATT, even though the Japanese government showed little willingness to liberalize the country’s highly protected domestic market. In the context of the Cold War, it made sense for the United States to open its market to Japanese goods—even if Japan opened its own market only partially in return. By offering Japan ample export markets in the West, the United States sought to

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reduce the incentives for it to find markets in the Soviet Union or communist China. Aided by US sponsorship, Japan gained membership in the GATT in 1955.

The Liberal “Grand Bargain” By the early 1950s, the main outlines of a liberal international system for the postwar world were beginning to come into focus. But the new system worked very differently from the international system of the interwar era, which had also been based on liberal principles. The biggest difference between the post-1918 liberal system and the post-1945 liberal system involved the role of the United States. After World War I, the United States had declined to take responsibility for enforcing or managing the international system, even though it was the world’s strongest economic power. After World War II, it remained reluctant to do so. But the growing antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union gradually led Congress and US public opinion to accept greater responsibility for maintaining international order. Americans feared that if they did not take active steps to defend the liberal international framework, Europe and Asia would come under the sway of Soviet-directed communism. If that happened, the liberal international system would collapse, and the American way of life, which was based on liberalism, would be threatened with extinction.37 US leaders believed that a stable and peaceful world could be created only through voluntary cooperation and self-restraint among states. By its nature, a liberal political order is based on consent, not coercion. The task facing the United States was to construct a liberal international system that would earn the willing participation of other states. That system would not include the Soviet Union, which had shown that it was unwilling to conduct its foreign policy according to liberal principles. But the United States sought to devise a system that would include as much of the world as possible. US leaders viewed it as crucially important to enlist the participation of Britain, France, West Germany, and Japan, who appeared likely to be the most powerful states (aside from the superpowers) in the postwar world. For their part, Britain, France, West Germany, and Japan were anxious to avoid a replay of the interwar era, when the United States had taken the lead in establishing a liberal international system but

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disavowed responsibility for maintaining it. In the years following World War II, it became clear that those states would commit themselves to a revived liberal order only if the United States demonstrated a firm commitment to the system. To convince them to accept a liberal system, the United States found itself required to provide them with guarantees that the system would be fully backed by US capabilities. For example, to persuade Britain and France to give up their protected trading blocs, the United States had to assure them that a liberalized international trading system would provide ample sources of export markets, energy supplies, and raw materials. To make good on that assurance, the United States was obliged to renounce its earlier protectionism and allow its trading partners to achieve large increases in their exports to the US market. In addition, it was obliged to make full use of its economic, diplomatic, and military power to ensure that key sources of raw materials and energy supplies around the world remained open for trade. Security guarantees were also an essential component of the liberal international system. Many states were reluctant to align themselves with the liberal order if doing so would antagonize the Soviet Union. In Japan, most voters preferred to see their country focus on rebuilding its economy rather than get dragged into the Cold War.38 In France and Italy, large leftist movements demanded that their countries follow a pro-Soviet foreign policy. In West Germany, many people worried that tying their state too closely to the United States would eliminate any chance for reunification with Sovietdominated East Germany. To convince these and other states to align themselves with the liberal system, the United States had to offer assurances that it would protect them against the military risks of taking sides against the Soviet Union. It did so by entering into formal military alliances that committed it to defend its allies if they came under attack. Those alliances included NATO, the US–Japan defense pact, and ANZUS (composed of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States). In addition to providing a security guarantee against the Soviet threat, NATO protected western Europe against any revival of German aggression. West Germany’s rebuilt military forces were put under NATO command, ensuring that they could be used only as approved by the other NATO members.39 Thus, the liberal international system of the post-1945 era rested on what could be called a “grand bargain” between the United States and its allies.40 Many of the core elements of the bar-

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gain took the form of implicit understandings rather than formal commitments. For its part, the United States agreed to keep its domestic market open to its trading partners and allow them access to US investment and technology. It agreed to shoulder the main responsibility for maintaining an open world economy. It agreed to protect its allies from the Soviet military threat. In exchange, US allies accepted US leadership of the liberal international system. They sided with the United States in its opposition to communism. They agreed not to go to war against each other or engage in military aggression. They opened their domestic markets (at least partly) to multilateral trade.41 And they contributed to the military defense of the liberal world by maintaining substantial armed forces of their own and by permitting the United States to establish military bases on their national territories. This grand bargain did not eliminate all conflicts of interest between the United States and its allies, but it provided the foundation for a stable and prosperous peace among the developed Western states. The US role in the post-1945 liberal system has often been described as hegemonic. A hegemon is a state that exercises the main responsibility for enforcing the rules of an international system. 42 For a state to be a hegemon, it must possess sufficient economic, diplomatic, and military capabilities to exert leadership over the other states in the system, and the other states must accept its leadership as legitimate.43 World history offers a number of instances of international systems led by hegemons. One prominent example is the traditional Asian system led by China from the fourteenth century until the late nineteenth century. Under that system, the Chinese government offered recognition and peaceful relations to smaller neighboring kingdoms, such as Korea and Vietnam, in exchange for their formal acknowledgment of China’s cultural superiority. The hegemonic relationship enabled the smaller kingdoms to enjoy trade and cultural ties with China while retaining their independence.44 Another frequently cited example of hegemony is Britain’s near-monopoly control of the world’s seas in the nineteenth century. The other great powers were willing to grant tacit acceptance to British naval superiority because Britain employed its naval capabilities in ways that were mostly compatible with the other powers’ interests.45 For example, the British navy took action to suppress pirates in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. That action was welcomed by the other powers,

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because it reduced the threat to their merchant shipping. Britain did not seek to prevent other states from engaging in maritime trade. Rather, it sought to make the seas safe for everyone’s merchant ships. But because Britain lacked the ability to dominate the other European powers on land, its naval hegemony did not translate into overall political hegemony within the European system. The establishment of US hegemony after World War II differentiates the post-1945 liberal system from the liberal system constructed after 1918. The interwar system lacked a hegemonic power. Britain, France, and the United States each contributed in some ways to the maintenance of international order after World War I, but no one power assumed overall responsibility for managing the system. After 1945, by contrast, the United States gradually took on the chief responsibility for maintaining international security and ensuring the smooth functioning of the global economy. A defining feature of US hegemony was its essentially liberal character.46 The United States attempted to structure the core institutions of the post-1945 system in ways that would affirm and strengthen liberal principles. The NATO alliance offers a good example. Rather than insisting on unilateral control over NATO’s military strategy, the United States agreed that decisionmaking within the alliance would be conducted in accordance with the liberal principles of sovereign equality and nondiscrimination among states. That meant that all member states, even the smallest, would be able to participate in shaping strategic decisions.47 The United States exercised more influence than other member states over NATO strategy, but NATO procedures required the United States to gain support for its preferences through negotiation and persuasion, rather than by simply ordering the other members around. The liberal character of US hegemony can also be seen in efforts to foster democracy in West Germany and Japan. 48 In both countries, US occupation authorities carried out wide-ranging political and social reforms aimed at building popular support for democracy and worked with local officials to replace authoritarian political institutions with democratic ones. Under US supervision, West Germany and Japan adopted constitutions that guaranteed individual liberties and made government leaders accountable to voters through free elections. US efforts to transform West Germany and Japan into liberal democracies reflected the larger goal of building international order

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on the basis of consent rather than coercion. Germany and Japan had been major powers before 1945, and there was every reason to expect that they would reemerge as major powers once they recovered from military defeat. For that reason, US officials put a high priority on integrating both states into the liberal international system. But US officials resisted the temptation to use coercive methods to compel West Germany and Japan to join the system. They realized that attempting to do so might simply provoke German and Japanese opposition. As the events of the 1930s had shown, a dissatisfied Germany or Japan was capable of throwing the world into turmoil. By restructuring these countries as liberal democracies, the United States granted them the power to make their own strategic choices. As a result, the people of West Germany and Japan viewed the decision to join the liberal international system as one they had made voluntarily, rather than one imposed on them by force. To sum up, the liberal international system that had taken shape by the early 1950s encompassed the United States and most of western Europe, as well as Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. These were the participants in the grand bargain that defined the parameters of US liberal hegemony. But in two essential ways, the construction of international order remained incomplete. First, the United States and the Soviet Union had become locked in an adversarial relationship, and there was a significant danger that their mutual hostility would escalate to all-out war. Unless the superpowers could find a way to stabilize their rivalry, international order would remain fragile. Second, it remained to be seen how the countries of the developing world—Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East—would fit into the emerging international order. The developing world lay outside the grand bargain that existed between the United States and its key Western partners.

Stabilizing the US-Soviet Rivalry The most nettlesome problem in US–Soviet relations during the 1950s was the question of Germany. There was as yet no peace treaty in place between Germany and the states it had fought against in World War II, and key aspects of the country’s status remained unresolved. The German question was of overriding importance to the superpowers and held the potential to drag them into a war neither wanted.

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Following Stalin’s death in 1953, the new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev continued to try to solve the German question in a way that would advance Soviet interests. Khrushchev envisioned a settlement in which both sides would formally accept the division of Germany into two states.49 Soviet leaders were anxious to gain Western recognition of East Germany. East Germany was the linchpin of Soviet influence in eastern Europe, and Soviet leaders were determined to ensure that the East German regime survived.50 As Khrushchev saw it, formal Western acceptance of East Germany would go a long way toward stabilizing Europe on terms that the Soviet Union could live with. But his ideas initially found little support among the Western powers. The West German government viewed East Germany’s communist regime as illegitimate and sought to undermine it. The United States, Great Britain, and France supported West Germany’s position. The German question was complicated by two further problems. One involved nuclear weapons. In the 1950s, Western military planners took it for granted that any major war in the future would involve the use of nuclear weapons. Because states armed with these weapons could easily defeat those that were not, nonnuclear states could not hope to exert much political leverage, even in peacetime, over nucleararmed rivals.51 Such considerations raised the question of whether West Germany should develop a nuclear arsenal, since it might otherwise be vulnerable to Soviet intimidation.52 But Soviet leaders were horrified at the notion of a nuclear-armed West Germany.53 They worried that possession of such weapons would embolden West German leaders, potentially leading them into military confrontation with East Germany and the Soviet Union.54 From the Soviet perspective, any acceptable resolution of the German question would need to ensure that West Germany could never acquire nuclear weapons. A second complication in the German question involved West Berlin, which remained under the protection of US, British, and French forces. By its very presence in the heart of East Germany, West Berlin posed a problem for the repressive and unpopular East German regime. Under arrangements established by the victorious powers during the occupation, land and air access routes between West Berlin and West Germany remained open. Thus, East Germans who sought to escape their government’s control were able to do so by entering West Berlin and then taking a train or airplane to West Germany. During the 1950s, more than two million East Germans fled to West Germany.55 By 1952, the East German government had

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established an effective physical barrier to block its citizens from crossing directly into West Germany from East German territory.56 But without a comparable barrier to prevent them from entering West Berlin, the regime could not stem the outflow. The ongoing exodus threatened the regime with collapse. Soviet leaders therefore insisted that any settlement of the German question deal with the problem of West Berlin. Over time, Khrushchev grew increasingly frustrated by the unwillingness of the Western powers to negotiate a resolution to the German question. Late in 1958, he informed the Western powers that unless a peace treaty with Germany were concluded within six months, he would cut off western access to Berlin. He did not want to go to war over Berlin, and his threat was partly a bluff. But it initiated a crisis that lasted several years. Finally, in the summer of 1961, he took action unilaterally. He considered it too risky, in practice, to cut the access routes between West Berlin and West Germany. Instead, he authorized the East German regime to build a wall around West Berlin. Construction of what came to be known as the Berlin Wall began on August 13. With the wall in place, the East German regime was able to avoid collapse. Meanwhile, the question of West Germany’s nuclear status was resolved by an informal US–Soviet understanding that emerged in stages during the 1960s. The first steps toward an understanding took place under US president John F. Kennedy. Kennedy and his advisers regarded the proliferation of nuclear weapons as a destabilizing factor in world politics, and they sought to discourage additional states from acquiring nuclear arsenals. By the time Kennedy came to office in 1961, Britain and France had already become nuclear powers, and communist China was close to acquiring a nuclear capability. There was reason to think that West Germany might also seek to develop nuclear weapons. 57 Like Khrushchev, Kennedy worried that a nuclear-armed Germany might drag the superpowers into an unwinnable war. He concluded that West Germany must not be allowed to possess a nuclear force of its own.58 Kennedy’s views opened the door to US–Soviet cooperation on measures to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons technology. In 1963, US, Soviet, and British negotiators finalized the Partial Test Ban Treaty, an agreement that would prohibit signatory states from conducting nuclear weapon tests above ground. (Underground tests would still be allowed.) The treaty was desirable from a health and

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environmental standpoint, because above-ground nuclear tests released radioactive contamination into the atmosphere. But the treaty was also intended as a means of preventing West Germany and communist China from acquiring nuclear weapons.59 Underground nuclear tests required a higher level of technical sophistication than above-ground tests. A nonnuclear state that accepted the treaty would therefore find it more difficult to develop nuclear weapons successfully. Most states around the world welcomed the treaty and signed it promptly. West Germany also signed it, although some top German officials would have preferred to keep their country’s nuclear options open.60 Communist China ignored the treaty and went on to develop a national nuclear arsenal. By becoming a party to the Partial Test Ban Treaty, West Germany largely gave up the possibility of developing nuclear weapons. In doing so, it reconciled itself to a position of strategic dependence on the United States and accepted that German reunification would have to be postponed. These developments, in conjunction with the events in Berlin, amounted to an informal US–Soviet settlement of the German question. The terms of the settlement could be summed up as follows. For the foreseeable future, Germany would remain divided. The United States would prevent West Germany from acquiring nuclear weapons, and would tacitly accept East Germany and its communist regime. In return, the Soviet Union would allow West Berlin to remain under Western control and ensure that the access routes between West Berlin and West Germany remained open.61 The informal resolution of the German question was reinforced in 1968 by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (commonly called the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT). The treaty prohibited nonnuclear signatory states from acquiring nuclear weapons. West German leaders resented the treaty, which they perceived as an effort by the superpowers to further limit West Germany’s diplomatic leverage and foreign policy options.62 But refusing to sign the treaty was not a feasible choice for a country in West Germany’s position. Most countries around the world became parties to the treaty. Following a lively internal debate, West Germany did so as well. The easing of US–Soviet tensions over Germany marked a major turning point in the Cold War. With West Germany consigned to nonnuclear status and constrained by its strategic dependence on the United States, Soviet leaders became more confident that their essential security needs had finally been met. The possibility of a super-

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power showdown in Europe appeared to fade, and the Cold War entered a less dangerous phase. US and Soviet nuclear capabilities provided an additional reason for the superpowers to abide by the accommodation they had reached in Europe. By the 1960s, each had acquired a large stockpile of nuclear warheads, as well as the ability to strike its rival’s homeland with long-range missiles. Thus, any serious attempt by either side to overthrow the European settlement appeared likely to trigger an escalating conflict that would result in the nuclear devastation of the superpowers’ homelands. During the course of the 1960s, preventing nuclear proliferation emerged as a priority goal of US foreign policy.63 Accordingly the United States sought to persuade all of its allies, not just West Germany, to join the NPT. As the NPT gained acceptance around the world, the expectation that US allies would refrain from developing nuclear arsenals became part of the grand bargain. That expectation applied to all states that enjoyed a formal US security guarantee, aside from Britain and France. Britain and France already had nuclear arsenals at the time the NPT came into existence, and did not intend to give them up, so the United States made an exception in their cases.

International Order and the Developing World As the analysis in the preceding sections suggests, international order in the post-1945 world was provided by two largely distinct systems, the liberal system and the Cold War system. Each was defined by an underlying bargain among its participants. The liberal system encompassed most of the economically developed states of the West and embodied the liberal principles of consent, market capitalism, open trade, and liberal democracy. It was held together by US hegemony, which offered economic and security assurances to the system’s other members in exchange for their acceptance of US leadership. The Cold War system was a power politics arrangement that rested on an informal accommodation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States accepted Soviet domination of eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union accepted the alignment of western Europe and Japan with the United States. The Cold War system preserved peace between the superpowers by assuring each that the other would not encroach on its vital security interests. In that sense,

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the Cold War system operated according to a logic similar to that of the nineteenth-century Concert of Europe. As these two international systems took shape, it remained to be determined how the lands and peoples of the developing world would fit into them. The developing world included Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Asia (except for Japan), and the Pacific (except for Australia and New Zealand). At the beginning of the postwar era, much of the developing world—or Third World, as it came to be called—remained under European colonial rule. The European colonial powers continued to regard their overseas empires as essential to their political and economic standing in the world and did not intend to relinquish them. But resistance to colonial rule was on the rise throughout the developing world. In India, where a large pro-independence movement had been active for decades, it became clear even before World War II ended that British colonial rule was no longer sustainable. Under an agreement negotiated between British officials and India’s proindependence leaders, colonial rule in India ended in 1947. India was the largest and most important of Britain’s colonial possessions, and its independence signaled the beginning of a fundamental shift in Europe’s relationship with the developing world. On the whole, the international context in the postwar era tended to favor decolonization rather than the perpetuation of empire. The establishment of the United Nations provided a global forum for critics of imperialism to denounce colonial rule and draw up resolutions opposing it. The UN charter endorsed the principle of selfdetermination, implicitly questioning the legitimacy of colonial rule. At the same time, the emergence of the US-led liberal system made it possible for the European colonial powers to begin thinking of their overseas empires as dispensable. The grand bargain at the heart of the liberal system provided the Europeans with assurances that the United States would protect them from foreign aggression and ensure their access to export markets and sources of raw materials. Under those circumstances, colonial possessions lost much of their earlier value as a hedge against strategic uncertainty. The costs and disadvantages of maintaining a colonial empire began to seem more significant than the benefits of doing so.64 Gradually, the European colonial powers came to accept that if colonized peoples wanted to rule themselves, they should be permitted to do so. The decades following World War II thus witnessed the

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systematic dismantling of the European empires in Asia and Africa. Between 1946 and 1976, dozens of colonial possessions were transformed into sovereign states. In the majority of cases, colonial territories achieved independence peacefully and with the cooperation of the colonial power. But this was not true in every instance. The European powers were loath to give up their most valuable colonial holdings, and their reluctance sometimes led to long and violent conflicts between colonial rulers and pro-independence insurgents. Even in those instances, the eventual outcome was independence. By 1976, little remained of the European overseas empires except some minor island possessions scattered across the world’s oceans. For the United States, the question of how to incorporate the developing world into the liberal international order was not easily answered. Third World states as a group were characterized by high levels of political instability—a situation that offered fertile ground for the rise of communist insurgencies. That was the case not only for newly independent postcolonial states but also for long-established Third World states like those of Latin America. US officials worried that the internal problems of Third World states created opportunities for communist revolutionaries, assisted by outside actors such as the Soviet Union or China, to seize power.65 The United States regarded the prospect of communist takeovers in the Third World as a major threat to US interests. For one thing, communist economic policies were incompatible with the market capitalism on which the liberal international trading system rested. A Third World nation governed by communists was likely to impose much greater restrictions on Western access to its natural resources than a noncommunist state. In addition, communist states were viewed as likely to align themselves politically with the Soviet Union, undermining US efforts to organize the world on the basis of liberal principles.66 To protect its interests in the Third World, the United States came to rely heavily on client relationships. A client relationship is one in which the more powerful state (the patron) provides assistance to the rulers of a less powerful state (the client) to help those rulers maintain their hold on power. In a typical client relationship, the patron provides the client regime with various types of military, economic, and technical assistance, so the regime is able to defend itself against its domestic and foreign enemies. In exchange, the client state provides certain services to the patron.67 For example, the client may allow the patron to maintain military bases on its territory. It

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may align itself with the patron on particular international issues, and it may accept guidance in structuring its domestic political, economic, and security institutions. The United States did not attempt to establish client relationships with all Third World states. Instead, it tended to form such arrangements with states that were especially significant because of their size or because they had large deposits of strategically valuable resources such as oil. By enlisting resource-rich states as clients, the United States sought to ensure that Western economies would have ample access to the energy and raw materials they needed. Key US clients in the Third World during the Cold War included Saudi Arabia, beginning in 1953; Iran, from 1953 to 1979; Congo (also known as Zaire), beginning in 1963; and Indonesia, beginning in 1966.68 In addition, the United States maintained client relationships with nearly all states in Latin America—with the notable exception of postrevolutionary Cuba. Most of the US client relationships in Latin America predated the Cold War and reflected the long-standing prevalence of US influence in the Western Hemisphere. Outside the Western Hemisphere, the United States maintained client relationships with about two dozen Third World states in all.69 There were important differences between the client relationships the United States established with Third World regimes and the alliance partnerships it formed with First World states such as Canada, Japan, and the countries of western Europe. (The term “First World” refers to the economically developed nations of the West.) Most of the United States’ First World allies were democracies. Thus, in making alliance agreements with other First World states, US officials were mostly dealing with leaders who had been democratically elected and who enjoyed broad domestic support within their countries. By contrast, most of the United States’ Third World clients were authoritarian regimes that maintained power through coercive methods such as media censorship, jailing or murdering political rivals, and outlawing political opposition. A number of US clients came to power in the first place through US covert interventions, in which American intelligence agents orchestrated the violent overthrow of a regime the United States disliked and arranged for its replacement by a new regime more responsive to US objectives.70 US support for authoritarian client regimes in the Third World seemed to contradict the principles of democracy and respect for human rights that were central to the US vision of a liberal world order. But in the context of the Cold War, US officials viewed sup-

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port for authoritarian clients as a lesser evil than allowing communist influence in the Third World to spread.71 Although many US client regimes were guilty of severe abuses against the populations they governed—in some cases including mass killings—the United States rarely withdrew support from a Third World client regime as long as that regime remained anticommunist.

The Second Phase of the Cold War Broadly speaking, the Cold War may be divided into two main phases, with the first lasting from 1946 to 1963 and the second from 1963 to 1989. The first phase was marked by frequent crises and moments of extreme tension between the superpowers, arising above all from the unresolved questions surrounding Germany. But once the United States and the Soviet Union had achieved an informal settlement to the German question, the threat of a superpower war receded, and the Cold War entered a second and generally less intense phase, characterized by a significant relaxation of tensions in Europe but also ongoing superpower rivalry in the Third World. During the 1970s, the superpowers negotiated a series of arms control agreements that aimed to stabilize the US–Soviet nuclear arms race. The agreements included a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, both signed in 1972, and a second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) signed in 1979. The two SALT agreements established ceilings on the number of long-range nuclear missiles each superpower was allowed to maintain. The ABM Treaty prohibited the superpowers from constructing anything more than minimal defenses against each other’s long-range nuclear missiles. The overall effect of these treaties was to provide some assurance to each superpower that its rival would not attempt to achieve a decisive advantage in nuclear capability. Each superpower would retain its ability to annihilate the other with nuclear strikes, enabling it to feel reasonably confident that the other would not dare to attack its vital interests. In an effort to further reduce Cold War tensions in Europe, the superpowers and thirty-two European states and Canada reached agreement in 1975 on the Helsinki Accords. The accords formalized acceptance by the participating states of the existing territorial boundaries in Europe, including the boundary in Germany. Although the declaration was not legally binding, it was important to the Soviet Union because it

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signaled that the United States and West Germany would not seek to challenge Soviet domination of eastern Europe and East Germany.72 The arms control agreements of the 1970s, together with the Helsinki Accords, represented a pragmatic attempt by the superpowers to find a strengthened basis for peaceful coexistence with each other. Given the size and capabilities of the US and Soviet nuclear arsenals, the superpowers recognized the necessity of reassuring their rival that they did not intend to try to overpower it by force. However, the 1970s agreements did not eliminate the underlying ideological struggle between the superpowers. US political leaders and public opinion continued to view communism as a fundamentally illegitimate form of government, and US policy continued to pursue the overarching goal of organizing the world in accordance with liberal principles. Meanwhile, the Soviet leadership, which was headed by Leonid Brezhnev from 1964 to 1982, remained convinced that capitalism was doomed to collapse and that the laws of history pointed to the eventual victory of communism everywhere.73 Although the superpowers had come to recognize the need to avoid direct challenges to each other’s interests in Europe, they continued to compete for influence in the Third World. That competition remained a source of friction in US–Soviet relations until the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union insisted on its right to offer assistance to Third World socialist and anti-imperialist forces. In practice, that meant it often provided economic and military aid to governments the United States viewed as hostile to its own interests. Long-term trends were undermining the Soviet Union’s ability to continue waging the Cold War. In 1973, the Soviet economy entered a period of slow growth from which it never recovered. The Soviet economic system, which was based on central planning and state control of production, operated much less efficiently than the market capitalist economies of the Western democracies. The Soviet system offered few incentives for innovation and had difficulty absorbing new technology or adapting to changing circumstances.74 In the 1970s and 1980s, Western economies began to achieve major technological gains as a result of the globalization of production and the increasing use of computerized data-processing technologies. The Soviet economy, because of its inflexibility and relative isolation from global trade, was unable to achieve comparable gains.75 Thanks to decades of heavy spending on its nuclear and conventional armed forces, by the 1970s the Soviet Union had achieved approximate parity with the United States in overall military strength.

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But the slowdown in economic growth, combined with the widening technology gap, made it increasingly difficult for the Soviet Union to sustain that parity. Given that the Soviet economy was much smaller than the US economy, military spending absorbed a far higher proportion of its total economic output. Military spending may have accounted for as much as 25 percent of the Soviet economy in the 1980s, compared with 5 or 6 percent of the US economy.76 Mikhail Gorbachev, who became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, was a reform-minded figure who sought to revitalize the Soviet economy and improve living standards for the people. Gorbachev understood that he could not accomplish those goals while the Cold War persisted.77 The US–Soviet rivalry blocked the Soviet Union from access to Western technological advances and forced it to devote an inordinate share of its economic output to military spending rather than consumer goods. Gorbachev introduced important changes into Soviet policy toward eastern Europe. Since 1945, the Soviet Union had relied on the threat of military force (and, on several occasions, actual military interventions) to ensure that the governments of its satellites remained loyal to the Soviet Union and the Soviet economic model. But Gorbachev regarded the use of force to protect Soviet interests in eastern Europe as self-defeating.78 He believed that for the eastern European states to make true progress in addressing their economic problems, they needed to find their own paths to economic and political reform. His refusal to use force to preserve the eastern European communist regimes opened the door to the rapid and unintended collapse of those regimes in the final months of 1989—a development that heralded the end of the Cold War.

Conclusion International order in the post-1945 era was affected profoundly by the strategic and ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. As a communist superpower, the Soviet Union posed a major challenge to US plans for rebuilding international order on the basis of liberal principles. The United States responded to the Soviet challenge by seeking to draw as much of the developed world as possible into a liberal order under US leadership. The American-led system took shape gradually and came to rest on an informal grand bargain between the United States and its allies. Under that bargain,

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the United States provided its allies with economic and security guarantees; in return, the allies aligned themselves with the United States and adhered to the norms of the liberal system. In addition to the liberal system governing relations among the Western democracies, a Cold War system also took shape. It emerged through a process of grudging accommodation between the superpowers and reflected the logic of power politics. The Cold War system contributed to international order by enabling the superpowers to avoid all-out war with each other. Under its terms, the Soviet Union accepted the alignment of western Europe and Japan with the United States, and the United States accepted Soviet domination of eastern Europe and agreed to prevent West Germany from developing nuclear weapons. The liberal system after World War II proved extraordinarily successful in solidifying peaceful and mutually beneficial relations among Western states. By offering economic and security guarantees to Britain, France, and West Germany, the United States enabled those powers to overcome their traditional rivalries and begin the process of economic and political integration that eventually led to the establishment of the European Union. By helping West Germany and Japan become liberal democracies and welcoming them into the liberal order, the United States succeeded in persuading them to abandon their ambitions for territorial expansion. The potential for renewed war between the United States and its defeated World War II enemies effectively disappeared. That was a remarkable achievement—one that stood in stark contrast to the failures of US foreign policy in the interwar era, when unwillingness to accept international leadership contributed to the collapse of liberal order and the onset of a second World War.

Notes

1. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 135–139. 2. Kim, History of Korea, 361–365. 3. Ikenberry, After Victory, 167. 4. Kimball, The Juggler, 85–86; Bosco, Five to Rule Them All, 15. 5. Kimball, The Juggler, 99. 6. Patrick, The Best Laid Plans, 60–63. 7. Kimball, The Juggler, 95–96; DePorte, Europe between the Superpowers, 84–87; Patrick, The Best Laid Plans, 84. 8. Bosco, Five to Rule Them All, 26. 9. Mancall, China at the Center, 307–308. 10. Kimball, The Juggler, 141. 11. Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind, 30–32; Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, 11–35.

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12. On Roosevelt’s views regarding spheres of influence and colonial empires, see Kimball, The Juggler, 102–157. 13. DePorte, Europe between the Superpowers, 69–70. 14. See Naimark, “The Sovietization of Eastern Europe.” 15. Bosco, Five to Rule Them All, 17–18. 16. Pechatnov, “The Soviet Union and the World,” 91–95. 17. Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind, 54. 18. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 19; DePorte, Europe between the Superpowers, 90. 19. Hurd, After Anarchy, 85–88. 20. See Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 13–15, and Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan, 57–61. 21. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 41–65. 22. Smyser, From Yalta to Berlin, 32–33 and 40. 23. Smyser, From Yalta to Berlin, 53–61. 24. Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, 50–51; Pechatnov, “The Soviet Union and the World,” 105. 25. Naimark, “The Sovietization of Eastern Europe,” 191–197. 26. Kim, History of Korea, 371–384. 27. Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 635–647. 28. This pledge is contained in Article 9 of Japan’s postwar constitution, which states that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation” and that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” 29. On Germany, see Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 102–103. On Japan, see Schaller, Altered States, 35–36. 30. DePorte, Europe between the Superpowers, 81; Patrick, The Best Laid Plans, 110 and 125. 31. Gardner, Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy, 12–23; McCormick, America’s Half-Century, 48–52. 32. Patrick, The Best Laid Plans, 253–254 and 258. 33. See Zeiler, Free Trade, Free World, 20–40 and 105–126. 34. See Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War. 35. Zhang, Economic Cold War, 288. 36. See McKenzie, “GATT and the Cold War,” and Forsberg, America and the Japanese Miracle. 37. Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind, 69 and 82. 38. Schaller, Altered States, 26. 39. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 127. 40. See Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan, 207–216. 41. Krasner, “American Policy and Global Economic Stability,” 33–35. 42. For a useful overview of the theoretical debates surrounding the concept of hegemony, see Clark, Hegemony in International Society, 18–33. 43. It is important to note that not all commentators define hegemony this way. Many use the word to denote any international setting in which one state dominates the rest. But equating hegemony with domination destroys much of the usefulness of the concept, because it eliminates the distinction between hierarchical relationships based on coercion and hierarchical relationships based on mutual consent. 44. See Kang, “Hierarchy and Legitimacy in International Systems,” and Kang, East Asia before the West. 45. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, chap. 6.

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46. Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan, 70–75. 47. Hampton, “NATO at the Creation,” 624–626. 48. See Smith, America’s Mission, 146–176. 49. See Zubok, “The Case of Divided Germany.” 50. Zubok, “The Case of Divided Germany,” 281–282 and 289–290. 51. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 154–155. 52. Hanrieder, Germany, America, Europe, 42–44. 53. Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, 195; Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind, 163–164. 54. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 252–256. 55. Halle, The Cold War as History, 354; Smyser, From Yalta to Berlin, 138. 56. Stacy, US Army Border Operations in Germany, 50. 57. See Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 231–237. 58. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 284–285 and 305. 59. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 382–385. 60. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 394–396. 61. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 386–391 and 398–399. 62. Hanrieder, Germany, America, Europe, 91–95. 63. Gavin, “Nuclear Proliferation and Non-Proliferation,” 400–407. 64. See Frieden, Global Capitalism, 308–309, and Holland, European Decolonization, 205–209. 65. See Westad, The Global Cold War, chap. 4. 66. See Leffler, “The American Conception of National Security,” 358–359 and 365. 67. For discussions of the dynamics of international patron–client relationships, see Sylvan and Majeski, U.S. Foreign Policy in Perspective; Carney, “International Patron-Client Relationships”; and Afoaku, “U.S. Foreign Policy and Authoritarian Regimes.” 68. The dates provided here are taken from Sylvan and Majeski, U.S. Foreign Policy in Perspective. Since 1997, the Congo (formerly Zaire) has been known officially as the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is not to be confused with its much smaller neighbor, the Republic of the Congo. 69. See Sylvan and Majeski, U.S. Foreign Policy in Perspective, 43, 45, 49, 59, and 69. 70. Well-known instances include US interventions in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Congo (1960), and Brazil (1964). See Westad, The Global Cold War, 122, 137–140, and 146–150. 71. Latham, “The Cold War in the Third World,” 269–272. 72. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation, 475–478. 73. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation, 38–50. 74. This argument recurs throughout Hanson, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy. 75. Brooks and Wohlforth, “Power, Globalization, and the End of the Cold War,” 25–26, 34–42. 76. Åslund, How Capitalism Was Built, 67. 77. Brown, The Gorbachev Factor, 212; Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, 22. 78. Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, 54–58; Kramer, “The Demise of the Soviet Bloc,” 1552–1554.

9 International Order in the Post–Cold War World

IN MANY WAYS, THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM THAT EXISTS today is a continuation of the liberal system constructed after 1945. The core elements of present-day liberal order, including the United Nations charter, the open trade system, and US liberal hegemony, all originated in the aftermath of World War II. But for more than four decades, the Cold War prevented the liberal system from becoming genuinely global. Soviet opposition to liberalism meant that US–Soviet relations were conducted on the basis of power politics, not liberal principles. US–Soviet rivalry also extended into the developing world, where it often pushed concern for liberal principles to the background. In practice, the liberal system functioned mainly as a Western system. It governed relations among Western states but exerted limited influence over international relations elsewhere in the world. The end of the Cold War seemed to offer an unprecedented opportunity to expand the reach of the liberal system. With the collapse of Soviet power and the discrediting of communist ideology, two of the chief obstacles to strengthening liberal order had disappeared. The United States took the lead in encouraging non-Western states to integrate themselves more deeply into the liberal system. It supported the expansion of the open trade system to include many new member states, most notably China. And it stepped up its efforts to promote political and economic liberalization in the former Soviet bloc and the Third World. US policy reflected a belief that liberal 195

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states were more trustworthy than nonliberal states and would be reliable partners in upholding the international order. In the early years after the Cold War, US efforts to encourage liberalization in non-Western states met with considerable success. But over time, those efforts encountered growing resistance. The most important opposition came from post-Soviet Russia and from China. Governing elites in Russia and China tended to regard liberal values as a threat to their hold on power, and they interpreted US support for liberal democracy as a hostile strategy aimed at subjecting their countries to American domination. In addition, it became increasingly clear that conditions in much of the Third World remained unfavorable to liberal democracy. As a result, it seemed inevitable that the liberal international system would remain contested for the foreseeable future. This chapter begins by reviewing the events that led to the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era. It then surveys the structural pillars of the post–Cold War liberal system and discusses how they create international order. The chapter goes on to examine US efforts to strengthen the liberal system by promoting liberalization in non-Western states and shows how those efforts have provoked opposition from Russia and China. It concludes with a discussion of important structural obstacles to the continued spread of political liberalization and provides an overall comparison between today’s international system and that of the Cold War era. Box 9.1 summarizes key features of the post–Cold War international system.

Box 9.1 The Post–Cold War International System Time frame: 1990 to the present day.

Principal actors: The United States is the sole superpower. China is an economic superpower in some respects, but is not yet prepared to take on superpower responsibilities for maintaining international order. Other major actors include Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Russia, India, and Brazil.

continues

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Box 9.1 Continued How did the system create international order? The United Nations charter provides the fundamental legal framework for international peace and security. It establishes the principles that are supposed to guide relations among states. Under the charter, states are obligated to settle their international disputes by peaceful means and respect each other’s territorial integrity and political independence. The United States, working with its allies, has generally taken the lead in enforcing the charter principles. On some issues, such as those involving the NonProliferation Treaty, the United States has been able to cooperate productively with Russia and China. In the realm of trade, the multilateral agreements overseen by the World Trade Organization provide the primary framework for global commerce. Today, virtually all of the world’s important economic powers have joined the main trade agreements. Finally, US liberal hegemony contributes to international order by offering reassurance to western Europe and Japan and by providing leadership to the system as a whole.

The Collapse of Communism and the Breakup of the Soviet Union In 1985, on being chosen general secretary of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev set out to revitalize the Soviet economy and improve living standards for citizens. He also aimed to bring the Cold War to an end. He considered it unconscionable for the United States and the Soviet Union to perpetuate an adversarial relationship that threatened themselves, and the world as a whole, with nuclear annihilation.1 He sought to make it possible for the Soviet Union to devote less of its economic output to military spending and more to the production of consumer goods. Gorbachev did not foresee that his reform efforts would lead within a few years to the collapse of the eastern European communist regimes, the reunification of Germany, and the breakup of the Soviet Union.2 Those

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developments were unintended, and it is likely that Gorbachev regretted them. But he achieved his goal of ending the Cold War and inaugurating a new era in world politics. When Gorbachev came to power, the Soviet bloc states in eastern Europe were experiencing severe economic difficulties arising from mounting foreign debt and from the inefficiencies inherent in their state-run, centrally planned economies. 3 Gorbachev encouraged these states to improve their economic performance through reforms, and he signaled his intention to allow each state to follow its own path to reform without Soviet interference. 4 But given the domestic unpopularity of the eastern European communist regimes, any serious attempt at reform ran the risk of undermining the communists’ hold on power. Previous Soviet leaders had been willing to use force to preserve communist rule in eastern Europe, as demonstrated by Soviet military interventions in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. But Gorbachev rejected using military force for such purposes.5 As it turned out, the Soviet-bloc regimes were unable to survive without the threat of Soviet intervention to back them up. During the final months of 1989, communist rule in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania collapsed, initiating a transition to new political systems based on multiparty competition. The demise of communist rule in East Germany called into question the division of Germany into two states. Recognizing the opportunity offered by the political chaos, West German chancellor Helmut Kohl seized the initiative in late November 1989 by outlining a stepby-step program for German reunification.6 Soviet leaders reacted to these ideas with shock and anger. From their perspective, the strategic status quo in Europe reflected the Soviet Union’s hard-earned victory in World War II and must not be called into question.7 But given Gorbachev’s unwillingness to prop up the East German communist regime with military force, the Soviet Union had limited influence over the rapidly evolving situation.8 In search of a solution that would protect Soviet interests, Soviet leaders began to insist that if German unification moved forward, it should be accompanied by West Germany’s withdrawal from NATO. That way, the unified Germany would be a neutral state not allied with either superpower.9 But Kohl, supported by the United States, rejected the Soviet demand. In the end, Soviet leaders reluctantly accepted not only unification but also Germany’s continued membership in NATO. To calm Soviet

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security concerns, Germany reiterated its formal commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons and agreed to limit its armed forces to no more than 370,000 troops. On October 3, 1990, East Germany ceased to exist. It was absorbed into West Germany, creating a unified German state governed by the West German constitution. Meanwhile, communist rule was beginning to break down within the Soviet Union itself. On coming to power, Gorbachev had begun introducing significant political and economic reforms. His goal was not to undermine Soviet communism but to strengthen it by making it more humane and less repressive.10 But much of the Communist Party elite resisted his reforms, viewing them as a threat to their power and privileges. In response, Gorbachev finally circumvented the party by empowering the people of the Soviet Union directly. His efforts culminated in major electoral reforms, enacted between 1988 and 1990, that abolished the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power and permitted noncommunist candidates to compete for elective office. These changes led almost immediately to developments that endangered the Soviet Union’s territorial unity. For one thing, they enabled ethnic separatism to emerge as a decisive political force.11 The Soviet Union was a multinational state, composed of fifteen ethnically based union republics and more than 100 distinct ethnic groups in all. Each republic had its own legislature, and once Gorbachev’s political reforms gave the people a genuine voice in choosing their leaders, it was natural that politicians at the republic level would seek to appeal to the national consciousness of their voters. Many of the ethnic groups had a strong sense of national identity. Some had been incorporated into the Soviet Union against their will and had long hoped to free themselves from Soviet authority. In seeking to make the Soviet political system more open and democratic, Gorbachev underestimated the potential for ethnic nationalism to corrode the ties that held the union together. Gorbachev had also not foreseen that political leaders in the republics would take advantage of reform to consolidate their power bases at the expense of the Soviet central government. But that is what happened. Even the Russian Republic, headed by Boris Yeltsin, demanded increased autonomy from central Soviet authority. Russia was by far the largest of the republics, accounting for about half of the Soviet Union’s total population and three quarters of its territory. Without Russia’s support for a centralized power structure, the Soviet

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Union as a political entity could not hold together. Central government authority over the republics gradually crumbled, depriving the Soviet state of its basis for existence. On December 26, 1991, in acknowledgment that its fifteen union republics had become independent states, the Soviet Union officially dissolved. Russia, as the Soviet Union’s designated successor state, inherited the Soviet seat in the UN Security Council and control over the Soviet nuclear arsenal.

The Post–Cold War International System The events of the late 1980s and early 1990s were enormously important for the structure of international order. They marked not only the disappearance of the Soviet Union as a superpower but also the discrediting of communism as a serious ideological rival to liberalism. Throughout the Cold War era, Soviet actions had posed the single biggest source of opposition to the liberal international system favored by the United States. By imposing communist rule on eastern Europe and offering aid and inspiration to antiliberal forces in the Third World, the Soviet Union had thwarted US efforts to construct a liberal system that was truly global in scope. As we saw in Chapter 8, international order during the Cold War era was provided by two largely distinct systems—the liberal system and the Cold War system. The liberal system regulated relations among the developed Western states and was sustained by US hegemony. The Cold War system regulated relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and operated according to the logic of power politics. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the basis for the Cold War system disappeared. Instead of two superpowers countering each other’s influence in Europe and elsewhere, only one superpower remained. The Soviet sphere of influence in eastern Europe dissolved, and the Warsaw Pact alliance ceased to exist. Meanwhile, the liberal international system remained solidly in place. That system continues to provide the chief framework for international order today. It rests on three main pillars, established in the aftermath of World War II. The first pillar is the UN charter, which spells out the overall rules of international politics. The second pillar is the open international trade system, which enables states to pursue economic prosperity through peaceful exchange, rather than military aggres-

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sion. The third pillar is US liberal hegemony, which ties the developed Western states together in a security community under US leadership. The following sections discuss the three pillars in detail.

Liberal Norms and the UN Charter The UN charter, adopted in 1945 by the United Nations’ fifty-one original member states, provides much of the normative foundation for the present-day international system. The charter specifies the guiding principles that are supposed to govern relations among states. In so doing, it defines the fundamental constraints and obligations that states are expected to observe in their international behavior. The key principles are listed in chapter 1 of the charter. They include:

• the principle of the sovereign equality of states (meaning that each state possesses the same rights of sovereignty and independence as all other states); • the principle of self-determination of peoples; • the obligation of member states to settle their international disputes by peaceful means; and • the obligation of member states to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of other states.

These principles, like those of the League of Nations covenant, are essentially liberal. They amount to a repudiation of the power politics that characterized international relations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The UN charter affirms the right of states and peoples to govern themselves and make their own political choices without facing the threat of coercion by more powerful states. Under the charter, relations between states are supposed to be based on mutual consent. The charter derives its authority from the fact that virtually every sovereign state in the world today holds UN membership.12 In becoming a member of the United Nations, a state accepts the obligations contained in the charter. Thus, the charter represents a formal consensus of nations on the principles governing international security. When a state violates the charter, it puts itself legally in the wrong and may find itself subject to enforcement actions.

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The adoption of the UN charter marked an important turning point in international politics. For centuries, international conflict had revolved largely around competition for territory. Powerful states sought to strengthen themselves by expanding the territorial boundaries of their homelands or by amassing colonial empires. That pattern persisted right up to the end of World War II. But in the decades after 1945, the European colonial powers gradually gave up their overseas empires and granted independence to the peoples they had colonized. It became widely accepted, even by the colonial powers themselves, that maintaining colonial rule over foreign peoples against their will was illegitimate. Meanwhile, previously expansionist powers such as Germany, Japan, and Italy abandoned their quest for territorial gains. In effect, competition for territory disappeared from international politics among the powerful states. In place of territorial competition, there emerged an international norm prohibiting the acquisition of territory through conquest.13 That norm was visible in the way the United States and the Soviet Union waged the Cold War. They did so not through territorial expansion but by building up their national military capabilities and acquiring allies and clients. Although there have been a few cases of attempted territorial conquest since 1945, nearly all were initiated by Third World states dissatisfied with the boundaries they inherited at independence.14 Among the major powers, there has been no hint of revived competition for territory. Many factors contributed to the rise of the norm against territorial conquest.15 One important factor was the establishment of open trade among capitalist states, which reduced the incentives for them to maintain overseas empires or seek territorial expansion. Over time, open trade facilitated the globalization of economic production, which further reduced the incentives for conquest.16 Another key factor was the active effort by the United States to discourage territorial aggression and punish it when it occurred. In the absence of these and other underlying factors, the UN charter might have had little effect on the pattern of territorial competition among nations. But in the circumstances that existed in the post-1945 era, the principles listed in the charter mattered a great deal. By articulating selfdetermination as an international norm, the charter did much to strengthen and accelerate the trend toward decolonization. It emboldened those who opposed colonial rule and put supporters of colonial rule on the defensive. 17 Similarly, the charter’s implicit prohibition

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on acquiring territory through force encouraged the major powers to abandon territorial expansionism as a strategy.18 It is important to keep in mind that the behavior of states since 1945 has not always conformed to the UN charter principles. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States often engaged in actions that contradicted the principle of respect for other states’ political independence. The Soviet Union, in constructing its sphere of influence in eastern Europe, drastically curtailed the independence of the states under its domination. The United States carried out numerous covert interventions in the Third World that subverted the independence of the targeted states. In the post–Cold War era as well, states have often taken actions that infringed the political independence of other states. Prominent examples include the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine in 2014. But those are far from the only examples. In certain parts of the world, particularly the Middle East and central Africa, uninvited military interventions by outside powers have frequently occurred. Typically, the states most likely to be victimized by outside intervention are those troubled by violent internal conflict. Outside powers may be drawn to intervene in such conflicts to protect their interests. For example, the deterioration of central government authority in Zaire in the 1990s opened the door to large-scale intervention by neighboring states, including Rwanda, Uganda, and Angola. In Syria, the outbreak of civil war in 2011 led numerous outside powers, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Turkey, and Russia, to intervene by providing military assistance to their preferred factions. As these and similar examples demonstrate, power politics has not disappeared from the international realm. Even so, the UN charter principles remain central to international order in the contemporary world. Indeed, it may be argued that these principles matter more today than they did during the Cold War, when they were often overshadowed by the US–Soviet rivalry. The principles represent a normative consensus shared by both the developed Western states and by most developing states. In the eyes of Western states and peoples, the charter principles have legitimacy because they reflect liberal values that are held widely throughout the Western world. Meanwhile, most Third World states, including many that do not embrace liberal values, also support the charter principles. The principles affirm their right to govern themselves and have their sovereignty respected by the more

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powerful states. Most Third World states lack strong military capabilities, and they count on global acceptance of the charter principles to help ensure that other states do not attack them. States that violate the charter principles often pay a substantial price for doing so, especially if the violation is flagrant. They may find themselves subject to international enforcement in the form of diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, or military intervention. Since the end of World War II, the United States has usually taken the lead in organizing and carrying out enforcement actions against violators. For that reason, the United States is often described as the world’s policeman. America’s role in enforcing the charter principles was exemplified by US actions following Iraq’s invasion and annexation of the small neighboring state of Kuwait in 1990. When sanctions and diplomatic pressure failed to persuade Iraq to withdraw, the UN Security Council authorized member states to use military means to accomplish that goal. The United States promptly assembled an international military coalition, led by US troops, that drove the Iraqis from Kuwait. In cases where the state that violates the charter principles is a major power such as Russia, a military enforcement action like the one carried out against Iraq is unlikely to happen. But the offending state may still pay a considerable price for its behavior. For example, the United States and its allies imposed a series of financial sanctions on Russia following its military intervention in Ukraine in 2014. The sanctions inflicted significant damage on the Russian economy.19 On occasions when the United States itself violates the charter principles, the penalties for its actions have generally been indirect. The United States faces little danger that other states might seek to punish it with direct penalties, such as international sanctions. Most Western states depend on economic and security guarantees provided by the United States and would be unwilling to participate in sanctions directed against it. Similarly, many developing nations cannot afford to antagonize the United States even if they disapprove of US actions. But that does not mean the United States can ignore the charter principles at no cost to itself. When the United States behaves in ways that disregard the charter principles, it risks encouraging other states to disregard them as well. Since the time of Woodrow Wilson, US foreign policy has sought to promote liberal ideals as the foundation for international order. Thus, actions that undermine the charter are self-defeating in terms of broader US objectives. Viewed in

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that light, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003—an invasion regarded by much of the world as an illegal use of force—was strategically costly. In addition, US violations of the charter principles may cause other countries to become less accepting of US global leadership. Even if most nations would not seek to punish the United States with direct penalties such as sanctions, they might become less willing to cooperate with it in managing global problems such as nuclear proliferation, environmental degradation, and terrorism. The United States has a vital interest in managing those problems successfully, but doing so requires active cooperation from states around the world. If other states were to withhold their cooperation because they viewed the United States as a renegade power, the damage to US security would be enormous.20

The Open Trade System The second pillar of present-day international order is the system of open trade instituted after World War II. The United States sponsored multilateral negotiations on trade liberalization after 1945 and ensured that those negotiations were successful. US officials understood that the spread of protectionist trade policies in the 1930s had triggered the collapse of world trade, worsening the Great Depression and helping cause the war. They were determined to prevent a similar sequence of events from happening again. They reasoned that if the major powers could be guaranteed access to resources and markets through open trade, there would be little need to resort to imperialism or territorial expansionism. As US leaders saw it, the establishment of an open trade system would do much to remove territorial rivalry from international politics, making possible the creation of a peaceful and stable international order. Open trade was also central to US strategy for waging the Cold War. By offering western Europe and Japan access to the US market on favorable terms, the United States sought to undermine communist political influence in the West and unify the Western powers against Soviet diplomatic pressure. For similar reasons, US leaders supported European regional institutions, such as the European Economic Community (EEC), that aimed to draw the states of western Europe into closer economic and political cooperation. The EEC, established in 1958, was the precursor to the European Union.

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At the same time, the United States blocked the Soviet Union and communist China from participation in the open trade system. It aimed to weaken the communist powers and restrict their access to Western technology. The centerpiece of the open trade system was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), created in 1947. Under the GATT, participating states significantly reduced their tariffs on manufactured goods produced by other participating states. Prior to this agreement, tariffs had posed a major obstacle to trade, with rates on manufactured goods averaging about 35 percent. The initial GATT agreement marked the beginning of a decades-long process of tariff reduction. Subsequent rounds of trade negotiations, held every few years, led to further cuts. By 1986, average tariffs on manufactured goods among GATT members had been reduced to about 6.4 percent, less than a fifth of their pre-GATT levels.21 For the economically developed states of the West, the GATT proved tremendously successful. It facilitated a rapid expansion of international trade and ensured that the Western powers did not revert to the destructive protectionism of the 1930s.22 Tariff reduction led to intensified competition among Western manufacturers, creating strong incentives for product innovation and technological modernization. Thanks to the GATT, Western consumers enjoyed access to a broader selection of goods at lower prices than would otherwise have been the case. The GATT also delivered political and strategic benefits. By fostering trade interdependence between the United States and its major allies, the agreement helped reinforce Western unity during the Cold War, making it more difficult and costly for the Soviet Union to sustain its adversarial posture toward the United States. The trade liberalization achieved under the GATT, although substantial, was far from comprehensive. Economic sectors other than manufacturing, such as agriculture and services, were largely exempt from the agreement. Over time, US officials became convinced of the need to broaden trade liberalization in ways that went beyond tariff reduction.23 They especially sought to liberalize trade in services, a category that accounts for the large majority of production in economically developed states. The service sector includes such industries as banking, communications, education, health, computer software, and tourism. As a world leader in many service industries, the United States stood to reap large gains from a reduction in the barriers that hindered US businesses from selling services in foreign markets.

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At US urging, other GATT member states agreed to participate in a new round of trade negotiations based on the ambitious US agenda. Those negotiations, known as the Uruguay Round, began in 1986 and concluded in 1993. They yielded a package of agreements that significantly broadened the scope of trade liberalization among participating nations. Key elements of the package were an updated general agreement on tariffs, an agreement on trade in services, and an agreement on the protection of intellectual property rights. A new international institution, the World Trade Organization (WTO), was created to oversee the agreements. The WTO began operating in 1995. The transition from GATT to WTO signified that the system of open trade was becoming global. Prior to the 1980s, trade liberalization had been confined largely to the West, with communist states and most developing countries remaining limited participants in international commerce. Third World peoples were hesitant to become deeply involved in trade, for fear that their economic backwardness would expose them to exploitation at the hands of Western powers.24 However, several small Asian states, including South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, pursued trade actively. They invested heavily in export-oriented manufacturing, a strategy that enabled them to achieve rapid industrialization and high levels of economic growth. Eventually other Third World countries, especially in Asia, also began to adopt export-oriented growth strategies. The most important state to do so was China. During the 1950s and 1960s, China’s participation in world trade had been minuscule for a country of its size. Its economic ties with other countries were constrained by its Maoist development doctrine, which emphasized national self-reliance, and by ongoing US efforts to keep the Chinese communist regime internationally isolated. After the United States finally lifted its trade embargo in 1971, China’s foreign trade began to grow, although slowly. China’s transformation into a global trading power did not really begin until the 1980s, when the country moved away from the Maoist policies that had guided it since the communist revolution. Deng Xiaoping, China’s top leader from 1978 to 1989, was a pragmatist who prioritized economic growth rather than Maoist orthodoxy. Under his direction, China opened parts of its economy to foreign trade and investment. Western manufacturers began to establish operations along China’s east coast, employing low-cost Chinese labor to produce goods for Western markets. Trade emerged as a major engine of growth for the economy. In 1986,

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China applied for membership in the GATT, initiating negotiations that eventually resulted in its admission to the WTO. WTO membership accelerated China’s integration into global production chains. China’s share of world trade, which stood at a mere 1 percent in 1980, rose to more than 11 percent by 2013.25 By the 1990s, most states around the world had concluded that they could gain more by participating in the open trade system than by striving for economic self-sufficiency. Applications for WTO membership surged. Today, twenty-nine of the world’s thirty largest economic powers are WTO members (the exception is Iran). Institutionally, the WTO serves as the chief forum for maintaining open trade at the global level and negotiating further steps toward global trade liberalization. Although the agreements overseen by the WTO provide the primary framework for open trade at the global level, those agreements exist alongside numerous preferential trading agreements that are regional or bilateral in scope. Well-known regional agreements include the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Southeast Asian Free Trade Area. Preferential trading agreements provide a way for states to deepen their trade ties with select partner states in ways that go beyond the liberalization agreed at the WTO level.

US Liberal Hegemony The third pillar of the present-day international system is US liberal hegemony. In a hegemonic system, the hegemonic power (in this case, the United States) provides benefits to other states in exchange for their agreement to participate in the system.26 The construction of US hegemony took place during the first part of the Cold War, largely as a result of concerns about the ideological and military threat posed by the Soviet Union. To counter the Soviet threat, the United States sought to draw the nations of the West into close alignment with itself. Achieving that goal required the United States to provide its partners with economic and security guarantees, so that the advantages of placing themselves under US leadership would outweigh any disadvantages. US hegemony may be described as liberal, in that it was designed to defend and reinforce an international system based on liberal principles. As explained in Chapter 8, US hegemony rested mainly on a grand bargain between the United States and key partner nations in

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Europe, Asia, and North America. The grand bargain came into existence through a process of voluntary negotiation. No states were compelled to participate against their will. Moreover, the bargain was reciprocal. It imposed binding obligations on the United States and on the countries under its leadership. It was not a case of a dominant state exercising arbitrary power over less powerful states. Thus, US hegemony conformed to the liberal vision of peaceful international cooperation based on mutual consent. By persuading the western European powers and Japan to put themselves under its hegemonic leadership, the United States was able to block the spread of Soviet influence in the West and consolidate the liberal international system. US liberal hegemony paid off handsomely for the United States and its allies. It effectively eliminated the possibility of renewed war among the Western powers and established a stable framework for economic and security cooperation among them. It also greatly strengthened the West in its dealings with the Soviet Union by depriving Soviet leaders of effective means of dividing the Western powers against each other. After the Cold War ended, the grand bargain remained in place. Even though the Soviet threat had vanished, the United States maintained its existing commitments and continued to exercise hegemonic leadership. There were good reasons for the Western states to preserve the military alliances established during the Cold War. The alliances provided reassurance to Western states that they could count on America’s help in meeting whatever new security threats might emerge. They reinforced international stability by ensuring that Germany and Japan remained tied to the Western liberal order. In addition, the alliances suited the preferences of the United States, which felt little inclination to give up the benefits it enjoyed as leader of the Western world. Hegemony enabled the United States to define international priorities for the West as a whole and call on its allies for support in pursuing its strategic agenda. Leadership of the West greatly enhanced the United States’ diplomatic and economic leverage in its dealings with non-Western states.27

International Liberal Order and Domestic Liberalism Since the beginning of the Liberal Age, US foreign policy has been guided by the belief that liberal order at the international level cannot

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succeed unless nations are liberal internally.28 Nonliberal states, by their very existence, pose problems for liberal order. To a large extent, those problems arise from the lack of trust between liberal and nonliberal states. Nonliberal regimes come in many varieties (including monarchy, autocracy, communism, fascism, theocracy, and military dictatorship), and some are more oppressive than others. Regardless of type, nonliberal regimes deny their citizens at least some of the rights and freedoms that liberals consider fundamental, and all use coercive methods to suppress political opposition. Americans are suspicious of regimes that trample on their own citizens’ rights, believing that they cannot be trusted to refrain from aggression. Americans are also reluctant to accept nonliberal regimes as fully legitimate, given that they exercise power without the freely given consent of the governed. In turn, many nonliberal regimes are distrustful of the United States, fearing that the underlying goal of US policy is to remove them from power. Distrust among states is corrosive to a liberal international system. When states distrust each other’s intentions, they may respond by pursuing security strategies that undermine international peace and cooperation. The Cold War, which grew out of the ideological clash between American liberalism and Soviet communism, exemplified the adverse consequences that can flow from distrust. Each of the two superpowers viewed its opponent’s social system as intrinsically threatening to its own. As a result, neither believed that permanent coexistence with the other was possible.29 Although the division of Europe into US and Soviet zones of influence enabled the superpowers to avoid all-out war, it did not establish a stable peace between them. Instead, they remained locked in a struggle for unilateral advantage. Each devoted enormous industrial, scientific, and manpower resources to building up its military capabilities. Each produced thousands of nuclear weapons, which it aimed at the other. Each funneled large amounts of military aid to Third World clients, fueling endless local wars between US-supported actors and Soviet-supported actors. The United States has sought to mitigate distrust in international politics by encouraging other states to adopt liberal institutions. Since World War II, it has devoted considerable resources to promoting the spread of liberal democracy and market capitalism. 30 Its efforts flow from a conviction that a world made up of liberal states would be more stable, peaceful, and cooperative than one where nonliberal states control a substantial share of global power.31 Both his-

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tory and logic provide some support for that view.32 Historically, the main threats to liberal international order have come from powerful nonliberal states, such as Nazi Germany and the communist Soviet Union. Logically, it makes sense to assume that liberal states will be less likely to engage in aggression than nonliberal ones. Liberal government entails a commitment to the principles of popular consent and respect for individual rights.33 Aggression is contrary to those principles, because it means seeking to impose one’s will on other people against their consent and in violation of their rights. In addition, liberal states are better suited than nonliberal states to conduct trade in ways that preserve international trust.34 Liberal states rely substantially on market mechanisms to allocate the gains from trade, creating opportunities for all participating countries to derive benefits. By contrast, nonliberal states are often unwilling to allow markets to determine the outcomes of economic competition and may instead pursue mercantilist trade strategies aimed at increasing their national power at the expense of their trading partners. Such strategies are contrary to liberal principles and are likely to provoke suspicion and resistance from other states. US support for political liberalization in other countries has varied depending on circumstances. During the first part of the Cold War, the United States focused its democracy promotion efforts mainly on West Germany and Japan, where vital US interests were at stake. By contrast, the United States generally made little effort to encourage liberal democracy in the Third World. US officials regarded most Third World states as too poor and politically unstable for democracy to be viable, and they worried that attempting to introduce democracy in such states would simply make them more vulnerable to communist takeover. But in the later stages of the Cold War, the United States began to champion a vision of political and economic liberty that encompassed more of the world than just the developed Western states. During the presidency of Jimmy Carter (1977–1981), the United States voiced strong support for universal human rights and prodded its Third World client regimes to behave less abusively toward their domestic opponents. Under Ronald Reagan’s presidency (1981–1989), the United States initiated democracy assistance programs in dozens of countries and pressured numerous Third World states to open their domestic markets to international trade and investment.35 Following the end of the Cold War, democracy promotion emerged as a central

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element of overall US foreign policy strategy. Successive presidents used economic incentives, diplomatic pressure, and in some cases military intervention to encourage political and economic liberalization elsewhere.36 During the three-decade span from 1975 to 2005, the number of liberal democracies in the world rose dramatically. In 1975, only about one in five states around the world was a liberal democracy. By 2005, that proportion had grown to two in five.37 The newly democratic states were located mainly in South America and in southern and eastern Europe, but also included a few states in Asia and Africa. The democratizing trend began in southern Europe in the mid-1970s, as Greece, Portugal, and Spain discarded their rightwing military dictatorships and replaced them with new political institutions modeled on those of western Europe’s established democracies. During the 1980s, democratically elected governments supplanted right-wing authoritarian regimes in numerous South American countries, as well as in the East Asian states of South Korea and Taiwan. The trend toward democracy gained momentum with the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Most of the former communist states in eastern Europe adopted multiparty democracy in place of communism, as did some of the former Soviet republics, including Russia. However, democracy in Russia proved to be short-lived. The specific factors that triggered democratic transitions varied from country to country. But an important contributing cause in most instances was the changing international political environment.38 Many of the right-wing authoritarian regimes that gave way to democracy had seized power to prevent communists or other extreme leftists from coming to office in their countries. By the mid-1970s, the sense of threat from communism was beginning to diminish. As standards of living in communist countries fell behind those of Western capitalist countries, communism as a social and economic system lost much of its appeal to left-wing activists in southern Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere. As a result, many leftists abandoned their calls for communist revolution and adopted more moderate demands. In response, business elites that had previously supported right-wing authoritarian rule as the only effective defense against communism became more open to democratic reform. At the same time, growing US encouragement for political and economic liberalization helped tip the balance in favor of democracy.

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The outcome of the Cold War further strengthened the prestige of democratic and liberal ideas. With communism discredited, liberalism no longer seemed to face serious ideological challengers. To a growing degree, authoritarian regimes appeared out of step with history.39 Thus, as the post–Cold War era began, the prospects for broadening and strengthening the liberal international system seemed excellent. As more states made the transition from authoritarian rule to liberal democracy, the US vision of a fully liberal world moved closer to fulfillment. But over time, it became increasingly clear that potent obstacles to the spread of liberal democracy remained. As liberalism gained global influence, resistance to liberal values and institutions intensified. The remaining parts of this chapter explore some of the ongoing challenges to liberal international order. They include Russia’s pursuit of a foreign policy based on power politics, the growing power of a China opposed to liberal values, and continuing structural impediments to the spread of liberalism.

Russia’s Challenge to Liberal Order Post-Soviet Russia has emerged as an important challenger to the liberal vision of international order. Today, as in the past, Russia gives priority to preserving its cultural independence from the West and asserting its status as a major power. It resists adopting liberal values and seeks to maintain a sphere of influence over neighboring states. At the global level, Russia has shown a selective willingness to cooperate with the United States, provided that its interests are respected. But its cooperation is rooted in the logic of power politics, rather than a commitment to liberal international norms. Following the end of the Cold War, Russia faced the problem of defining its national interests as a postcommunist state. Having abandoned communist ideology, it needed to decide how it would orient itself in relation to the liberal West. At first, the prevailing view among Russia’s top officials was that the country should seek to transform itself into a Western-style democracy whose foremost priority was to improve the material well-being of its citizens. That would mean adopting liberal political values and defining Russia as a member of the community of Western liberal states. However, it soon became apparent that most of the Russian political elite, as well

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as Russian popular opinion, opposed a policy centered on Westernization. If Russia were to pursue Westernization in earnest, it would be consigning itself to the role of pupil rather than leader, and most Russians were unwilling to accept that role for their country.40 They remained deeply attached to Russia’s traditional self-image as a major power whose culture was different from and superior to that of the West. During the 1990s, Russian foreign policy coalesced around the goal of restoring the country’s status as a global great power. Russia sought to be accepted by the West as an equal despite its rejection of Western liberalism. Under Vladimir Putin, who succeeded Boris Yeltsin as Russian president in 2000, Russia became an increasingly authoritarian state. Putin did not seek to return to communism, but he reversed much of the political liberalization that had taken place during Yeltsin’s presidency. He centralized policymaking authority in his own hands, while gradually choking off avenues for political opposition.41 The shift away from democracy and back toward authoritarian rule was probably predictable. Throughout its history, Russia has faced severe threats to its physical security in the form of foreign invasions as well as separatism among the non-Russian ethnic groups within its borders. That experience has caused Russians to favor a strong government capable of imposing order at home and dealing aggressively with foreign dangers. Putin’s authoritarianism was consistent with traditional Russian political culture, which holds that the interests of the state are more important than the rights of individual persons. 42 Such a view runs directly contrary to liberalism, which believes that the state’s main reason for existing is to protect the individual rights of those it governs. Russians believe that their country has a historical right to exercise influence over the non-Russian peoples of neighboring states, especially the other post-Soviet states. That belief is integral to Russia’s self-image as a major world power. As Russia sees it, leadership over the other post-Soviet countries legitimizes its claim to major power status. Russia has therefore sought to tie the other post-Soviet states to itself economically and ensure that they are governed by leaders friendly to Russia.43 By contrast, the United States takes the view that the post-Soviet states, as sovereign countries, are entitled to chart a path independent of Russia.44 Russia’s vision of international order is substantially at odds with the liberal agenda of the United States. Russia conceives of

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international order in terms of power politics arrangements that serve the interests of the major powers, rather than in terms of liberal norms that protect the rights and independence of all states. To Russian leaders, liberalism is a Western doctrine that does not apply to non-Western societies. Russia therefore favors a multipolar international system that allows the major non-Western powers (such as itself, China, and India) to preserve their independence from Western liberalism and exert global influence alongside the United States.45 That implies a concert-type system in which the major powers treat each other as equals, consult with each other on matters of mutual concern, and take cooperative action on the basis of consensus. Under such an arrangement, the United States and the European Union would consent to the existence of a Russian sphere of influence encompassing the former Soviet countries and would not seek to override Russia’s interests elsewhere in the world. US efforts to consolidate liberal order in post–Cold War Europe have given rise to ongoing tensions with Russia. Soon after the Cold War ended, eastern European states such as Poland and Hungary began to express a strong interest in joining NATO.46 Having at last escaped Soviet domination, they viewed NATO membership as a way of securing protection against future Russian aggression. The United States did not immediately embrace the idea of NATO enlargement. Critics pointed out that enlarging NATO would increase the burden of US defense commitments abroad and was likely to antagonize Russia.47 Advocates of enlargement eventually prevailed. As they saw it, allowing eastern European states to join NATO offered a way to solidify peace and stability in Europe.48 In joining NATO, eastern European states would be putting themselves under US leadership and influence. The United States could use its leverage over the new members to prevent them from violating the European peace and encourage them to maintain democratic institutions. US officials thus viewed NATO membership as a tool for integrating eastern Europe into the liberal international order. Between 1999 and 2017, NATO granted admission to thirteen new member states, all of them in eastern Europe (see Figure 9.1). Seven of those states (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) had been Soviet military allies during the Cold War.49 Three (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were former Soviet republics. The other three (Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro) were former parts of Yugoslavia, which had broken up into multiple states after the end of the Cold War.

Figure 9.1 Europe in 2018

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Note: NATO members not shown: Canada, Iceland, the United States.

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Russia objected vehemently to NATO enlargement, which it viewed as an effort to reduce its international influence and block its reemergence as a major power.50 Indeed, some US officials touted enlargement as a means of locking in US strategic gains in Europe at Russia’s expense.51 From Russia’s perspective, NATO enlargement meant that the United States continued to view Russia as a threat, rather than a partner. Nevertheless, Russia accommodated itself to NATO’s admission of former Soviet satellites like Poland. NATO membership for those states did not threaten its vital interests. Russia also stood aside when the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined NATO. Because those countries had small populations and were strongly pro-Western, the incentives for Russia to interfere were relatively low. NATO enlargement was not Russia’s only grievance involving the United States. Others included the US bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999, US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, NATO’s military intervention in Libya in 2011, and US encouragement of pro-Western uprisings in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia.52 Russian officials complained that the United States sought to impose its preferred outcomes in eastern Europe and the Middle East while ignoring Russia’s interests and objections. Discontent over US actions strengthened Russia’s determination to reassert itself as a major power whose interests commanded respect. Russia was especially sensitive about developments in Ukraine, a state whose history was intertwined deeply with its own. 53 Ukraine’s ethnic and cultural kinship with Russia and its geographic position as a buffer between Russia and NATO elevated its importance in Russian foreign policy. To a considerable degree, Russia’s claim to great power status depended on its ability to exercise influence over Ukraine. But because Ukraine was divided internally between pro-Western and pro-Russian factions, it was unclear whether Russia’s influence could be sustained in the long run. When mass protests in Ukraine in 2014 led to the overthrow of the country’s pro-Russian president, Russia reacted harshly. It sent troops into Ukraine and seized control of Crimea, a strategically important peninsula within Ukraine populated mainly by ethnic Russians. Russia then formally annexed Crimea, an action that violated the norm against altering international boundaries by force. These actions seemed intended to protect Russia’s strategic interests and

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show that it would take whatever steps were necessary to ensure that Ukraine remained outside NATO. 54 Similar considerations appeared to motivate Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian civil war. That intervention, which began in 2015, seemed intended to show that Russia was determined to protect its remaining strategic interests in the Middle East. Putin appeared to view Western unity under US hegemony as a major threat to Russia’s independence. Western unity put the United States in a strong position to promote its global liberal agenda. By contrast, Putin’s authoritarian regime exercised little cultural influence outside Russia, except among some of the ethnic Russian populations in other post-Soviet states. To counter the US ideological advantage, Putin’s regime waged a systematic campaign of subversion against the West.55 It provided covert funding and other assistance to nationalist parties and extremist groups across Europe. It directed enormous amounts of disinformation at Western audiences using a broad range of media outlets. The disinformation was designed to undermine Western faith in liberal democracy, discredit critics of Russia, and weaken popular support for Western security institutions. Putin’s apparent long-term goals were to foment disunity among Western states and trigger the breakup of the EU and NATO. Putin’s efforts to subvert Western democracy also included interference in the 2016 US presidential election. According to US intelligence agencies, Russian agents carried out a series of cyber operations intended to damage the prospects of US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who subsequently lost the election to Donald Trump.56 Analysts believed that Putin harbored special animosity toward Clinton because of her past expressions of support for democratization in Russia.57

The Rise of China Resistance to the liberal vision of international order has also come from China, which emerged after the Cold War as a potential superpower. China’s ruling regime, although it has abandoned communism in all but name, remains adamantly opposed to political liberalization. China’s leaders, like Russia’s, view US efforts to promote democracy as a hostile plot aimed at reducing their country to subservience under American domination. The Chinese government

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therefore seeks to limit the spread of liberalism in China and in the non-Western world as a whole. But in contrast to Russia, which has relied on military interventions and disinformation campaigns, China has pursued its strategic objectives mainly by offering economic rewards to other states in return for their friendly behavior. China began to turn away from communism long before the Cold War ended. Confronted with serious difficulties in sustaining its centrally planned economic system, it introduced a series of reforms beginning in 1979 that gradually replaced central planning with state-led capitalism.58 Under the reforms, China’s state-owned enterprises were freed from most aspects of direct government control and allowed to operate under market principles. Parts of the economy were opened to foreign investment and foreign competition. Western producers were offered access to China’s vast pool of low-wage labor, prompting many of them to relocate manufacturing operations to China. As a result of these reforms, China entered a decades-long period of rapid growth, and in 2014 its economy surpassed the US economy as the world’s largest (as measured in purchasing power parity). China also adopted measures designed to promote individual initiative among its citizens and reduce the welfare obligations of the state. Citizens were encouraged to establish privately owned businesses and accumulate private wealth. Communist political indoctrination gave way to consumerism.59 In effect, China ceased to be a communist state. However, it did not become a liberal state. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has monopolized political authority in mainland China since 1949, was determined to maintain its grip on power. Thus, when mass protests in 1989 challenged the legitimacy of communist rule, the government responded with a violent crackdown. The message to the Chinese people—and the outside world—was that political liberalization would not be allowed. To justify its continued monopoly on power, the CCP cultivated the growth of nationalist sentiment in public opinion and began to portray itself as the chief defender of China’s national interests.60 Nationalism filled the void that downgrading communist ideology had created. As China’s economy grew, so did its participation in global trade. The country’s economic well-being came to depend on worldwide access to export markets and foreign sources of energy and raw materials. In an effort to ensure that foreign markets remained open to it, China applied in 1986 for admission to the GATT, the

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predecessor of the WTO. Following years of difficult US–Chinese negotiations regarding the specific terms of accession, China was admitted to the WTO in 2001. The United States hoped that WTO membership would encourage China’s peaceful integration into the liberal international system.61 Under the accession agreement, China pledged to continue transforming its economy from a state-run system to a market-based system and to open a gradually increasing share of its economy to foreign competition. But in the years that followed, it fell short in fulfilling those commitments.62 Rather than completing the transformation to market-based capitalism, China pursued a mercantilist trade policy that seemed aimed at securing strategic advantages over its Western trading partners. It used a variety of subsidies and regulatory measures to strengthen the position of its state-owned enterprises while limiting foreign access to its domestic market. At the same time, it sought to acquire strategically important technologies from Western firms through methods such as mandatory technology transfers (which are prohibited under WTO rules) and cyber espionage. The apparent long-term goal was to achieve technological parity with the advanced Western states while not allowing market forces to draw it into a relationship of deep interdependence.63 China’s mercantilist trade strategy reflected its continuing feelings of vulnerability to threats from inside and outside its borders. Despite its emergence as a major economic power, China remained a deeply insecure country. It faced ongoing separatist unrest in its vast western provinces, Tibet and Xinjiang, and it worried that proindependence sentiment in Taiwan might make peaceful reunification between Taiwan and mainland China impossible. 64 Its heavy dependence on oil imports from the Middle East rendered it potentially vulnerable to blockades or other supply interruptions.65 At the same time, it confronted severe social problems, including pervasive government corruption and escalating social inequality. Those problems held the potential to spark widespread internal disorder and demands for regime change.66 US–Chinese relations, rather than becoming friendlier and more trusting since the end of the Cold War, have been burdened with increasing suspicion. Chinese leaders believe that the United States seeks to shape global order in ways that benefit itself but hamper China’s development and limit its ability to protect its interests.67 They interpret US support for democracy and human rights as a cyn-

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ical effort to divide China and undermine CCP rule.68 China’s leaders perceive malign intent in ongoing US sales of military equipment to Taiwan. To the Chinese, the arms deals reflect a US desire to prevent China from regaining possession of Taiwan, thereby keeping China weak. Distrust of the United States and its liberal vision has prompted the CCP to try to block Western liberal ideas from penetrating Chinese society. Under Xi Jinping, who became China’s top leader in 2012, the Chinese government introduced repressive new controls on journalists, universities, social media, and nongovernmental organizations.69 China has engaged in a wide-ranging effort to upgrade its military capabilities, with the goal of enabling its armed forces to defeat any potential US interference with its maritime trade routes or its control of the seas around China.70 China’s mercantilist trade strategy is an important component of its effort to limit its vulnerability to Western pressure. By strengthening its national technological capabilities and limiting imports of Western manufactured goods, China seeks to prevent the United States from exerting leverage over its internal politics. China’s growing weight in the global economy has put it in position to begin shaping the international order to reflect its interests and preferences. One important effort seeks to draw states across Eurasia into closer ties with China by building the infrastructure needed for trade to expand.71 In 2014, China launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, an international financial institution intended to provide funding for trade-related infrastructure projects in Asia, such as pipelines, railroads, port facilities, and power transmission lines. China also announced the Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious program aimed at improving the transportation and communication routes reaching westward from China all the way to Europe. Through these measures, China hopes to open large new markets for Chinese exports and gain access to significant new sources of natural resources. That would reinforce its ability to resist US economic or military pressure. As states in Asia and Europe become tied more closely to China through trade, they are likely to become less willing to side with the United States on issues where China and the United States disagree. China’s foreign policy toward the non-Western world appears designed to counter the US liberal agenda and prevent the United States from isolating China ideologically.72 Since the end of World War II, the United States has sought to shape the internal development

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of non-Western states in ways that would strengthen the liberal international system. Although the United States has not always encouraged every country to adopt democracy, it has been consistent in urging states to reject communism and embrace market-based economics. In many cases, it has put pressure on states to improve their domestic governance in terms of human rights, labor standards, environmental safeguards, property laws, and anticorruption measures.73 The United States has used a wide array of economic and diplomatic tools to encourage states to carry out such reforms. It has rewarded cooperative states with aid, loans, trade deals, and military assistance. It has penalized uncooperative states with trade sanctions and public condemnation, and by withholding loans and aid. In contrast to the United States, China normally offers trade, investment, and loans to other states on a no-strings-attached basis, as long as the states involved are friendly toward China.74 Ever since it abandoned Maoism, China has shown little interest in influencing the internal development of other countries. Noninvolvement in other states’ internal affairs serves China’s preferences by enabling it to avoid the costs and burdens of a more activist policy. China is preoccupied with its internal problems and its efforts to strengthen itself. It has resisted suggestions that it should accept an increased share of responsibility for maintaining global order and managing global problems. As Chinese leaders see it, the notion that China should take on greater global responsibilities is simply another US stratagem aimed at damaging China and blocking it from securing vital interests.75 China’s practice of not involving itself in the internal affairs of other states is consistent with the principles of international behavior defined in the UN charter. But by making financial assistance available to states with no strings attached, China undermines US efforts to promote improved governance. In the past, countries troubled by economic difficulties often had little choice but to carry out domestic reforms demanded by the United States. Otherwise, the United States was likely to block them from getting the international loans they needed to avoid financial collapse. But if corrupt or irresponsible regimes are able to secure loans from China, they may be able to evade reforms that would otherwise be forced on them. In the long run, China’s preferences regarding the internal development of other states may begin to converge somewhat with those of the United States. As China becomes wealthier and more powerful, and as its trade ties with the rest of the world continue to

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grow, its interest in promoting stability within other states will also grow. If countries that supply China with vital resources collapse into chaos because they are governed badly, China will be the loser. Thus, even if China does not encourage other states to become liberal democracies, it may nonetheless may find common cause with the United States in pressuring badly governed states to rule themselves more responsibly.76

Limits to the Spread of Liberal Democracy Although the number of liberal democracies in the world increased dramatically between 1975 and 2005, the global trend toward democratization then seemed to come to a halt. Since 2005, relatively few countries have transitioned from authoritarianism to democracy, and democratic institutions in a number of countries have eroded or collapsed, giving way to revived authoritarianism.77 It has become increasingly evident that substantial barriers exist to the further spread of liberal democracy, and that there is little basis for expecting those barriers to be overcome in the near future. Numerous factors help explain why the trend toward democratization has stalled. In many countries, social conditions are simply unfavorable to the establishment of democracy. Such conditions may include a low overall level of human development or the presence of deep religious and ethnic cleavages. Democratization may be impeded by dependence on resource exports. Many developing states in the Middle East, central Asia, and Africa are endowed with valuable deposits of natural resources such as oil, gas, or metals, and earn a large portion of their national income from exporting those resources. Such states appear less likely to make the transition from authoritarianism to democracy than those with more diversified economies.78 In states with diversified economies, governments typically finance themselves mainly through taxes. Taxation does not always lead to democracy, but it can help lay a foundation for it by defining the relationship between the state and its people as one of mutual obligation. The people, in agreeing to pay taxes, gain leverage to demand a significant degree of accountability from the state. By contrast, an authoritarian regime able to finance itself with natural resource exports may feel little pressure to accept limits on its rule. Instead, it is likely to use its export-based revenues to entrench itself in power

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by distributing benefits to its supporters and purchasing the loyalty of key domestic actors, such as the armed forces. Such regimes have proved largely impervious to global trends in favor of democracy. In the Middle East, democratization has also been impeded by local power rivalries, especially the competition for regional leadership between Saudi Arabia and Iran.79 That rivalry intensified following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, an event that destabilized power relationships in the region. The Saudis worried that Iran might take advantage of the situation to expand its influence at their expense; the Iranians worried that Saudi Arabia might do the same. Both countries stepped up military and other aid to their preferred sides in local conflicts. Their actions helped undermine Iraq’s fragile postwar stability and contributed to the civil war in Syria. More broadly, the Saudi–Iran rivalry heightened the role of power politics in the Middle East, making political liberalization there more difficult to achieve. Meanwhile, US support for democracy in the Middle East remained halfhearted. Promoting democracy competed with other US priorities in the region, such as preserving Western access to Middle Eastern oil, protecting Israel, and suppressing terrorism.80 Under Presidents George W. Bush (2001–2009) and Barack Obama (2009–2017), the United States professed official support for democratization in Arab states.81 But much of the US foreign policy establishment was in fact reluctant to see democracy emerge, given that popular opinion in Arab countries was largely opposed to US policy on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and other issues.82 Thus, when forced to choose between supporting political liberalization in Arab states or continuing to prop up authoritarian client regimes, the United States usually chose the latter.83 America’s ambivalence toward democracy in the Middle East contrasted noticeably with its enthusiasm for democratic reforms elsewhere in the non-Western world.

Conclusion The post–Cold War international system displays strong elements of continuity with the liberal international system established after World War II. Core institutions of the post-1945 liberal order, including the UN charter, the GATT trade framework, and US liberal hegemony, remained in place after the Cold War ended. However, the differences between the post-1945 and post–Cold War systems are

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significant. The post–Cold War system is characterized by a greater degree of trade liberalization, wider prevalence of liberal democracy, and broader potential for cooperation between the United States and the main nonliberal powers. To begin with, international trade is notably more liberalized in the post–Cold War era than it was in the decades after 1945. During the Cold War, trade liberalization was undertaken mainly by Western capitalist states and focused mainly on trade in manufactured goods. By contrast, the present-day trade agreements overseen by the WTO are effectively global, because nearly every economically significant state participates in them. And those agreements are broader in scope than those of the Cold War era, because they include trade in services as well as in manufactured goods. Second, democracy is more prevalent today than it was during the Cold War. The number of liberal democracies in the world roughly doubled between 1975 and 2005, reflecting the difficulties that right-wing authoritarian regimes and communist regimes faced in sustaining their legitimacy. With the collapse of communism as a credible alternative to liberalism, democracy has come to be viewed as the “normal” form of government for economically advanced countries. However, authoritarian rule in China and Russia appears deeply entrenched, and there is little sign that it will give way to liberal democracy any time soon. Authoritarian rule remains widespread in Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia, where many factors continue to act as barriers to democratic transitions. Third, international politics in today’s world is characterized by broader room for cooperation between the United States and the main nonliberal powers than was the case during the Cold War. During the Cold War, the ideological opposition between liberalism and communism defined the US–Soviet relationship as fundamentally antagonistic. As a result, meaningful cooperation between the superpowers proved elusive except on a narrow range of security questions. But in the post–Cold War world, disagreements between the United States and the main nonliberal powers have generally revolved not around ideology but around material conflicts of interest. Although China and Russia may oppose political liberalism, their opposition arises largely from practical concerns, such as a desire to limit Western influence over their societies, rather than from a commitment to programmatic ideologies such as Leninism or Maoism. Thus, on issues such as trade, ideology no longer functions as an automatic obstacle to cooperation.

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The United States continues to serve as the chief architect and manager of liberal international order. Since the end of the Cold War, a central objective of US foreign policy has been to strengthen and consolidate the liberal international system. The United States has pursued that goal by promoting the further liberalization of global trade and encouraging nonliberal states to adopt liberal institutions domestically. But the liberal vision of international order continues to face resistance—from Russia, China, and other authoritarian states, and (as we shall see in Chapter 10) to some extent from within the United States itself. Liberal rules and institutions provide the main framework for the present-day international system, but liberal ideology remains controversial across much of the world.

Notes 1. Zubok, A Failed Empire, 282–286. 2. See Kramer, “The Demise of the Soviet Bloc,” 1584, and Brown, The Gorbachev Factor, 252. 3. Bideleux and Jeffries, A History of Eastern Europe, 571–572; Aldcroft and Morewood, The European Economy since 1914, 300–306. 4. Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, 54–56. 5. Zubok, A Failed Empire, 318–321. 6. Zelikow and Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed, 119–121. 7. Zelikow and Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed, 124, 127– 128, 151, 241. 8. See Zubok, “With His Back against the Wall.” 9. Zelikow and Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed, 180, 236, 242, 248–250. 10. See Brown, The Gorbachev Factor, 121–126. 11. Brown, The Gorbachev Factor, 253–259. 12. However, several substantial populations lack UN representation. Taiwan, with 24 million people, is not represented in the United Nations because it is regarded by most states as a province of China rather than a state in its own right. Palestine, with 4.5 million people, lacks full UN membership because it remains under Israeli occupation. Kosovo, with a population of two million, does not hold UN membership because many states, most importantly Russia and China, do not accept its secession from Serbia. 13. See for example Fazal, State Death; Korman, The Right of Conquest; and Zacher, “The Territorial Integrity Norm.” 14. Zacher, “The Territorial Integrity Norm,” 245. Russia’s forcible annexation of Crimea in 2014 may be regarded as an exception to this generalization. However, Crimea is populated mainly by ethnic Russians and had been under Russian control for centuries prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union. In Russia and in Crimea, the annexation was widely viewed as the recovery of a lost piece of the Russian homeland.

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15. Zacher, “The Territorial Integrity Norm,” 237–244. 16. Brooks, “The Globalization of Production.” 17. See Barnett, “The United Nations and Global Security,” 44–46, and Reus-Smit, Individual Rights, 187–191. 18. Korman, The Right of Conquest, 209–211. 19. Shevtsova, “The Sanctions on Russia.” 20. See Tucker and Hendrickson, “The Sources of American Legitimacy”; Tharoor, “Why America Still Needs the United Nations”; and Cronin, “The Paradox of Hegemony.” 21. Crowley, “An Introduction to the WTO and GATT,” 43. 22. Irwin, “The GATT in Historical Perspective.” 23. Deese, World Trade Politics, 96–102. 24. Irwin, Free Trade under Fire, 195–196. 25. Irwin, Free Trade under Fire, 202. 26. Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan, 70. 27. Brooks and Wohlforth, America Abroad, chap. 5; Brands and Feaver, “What Are America’s Alliances Good For?” 28. Ikenberry, “Why Export Democracy?” 29. Jervis, “Was the Cold War a Security Dilemma?,” and Nyølstad, “The Collapse of Superpower Détente,” 152–153. 30. See Smith, America’s Mission, and Cox, Ikenberry, and Inoguchi, eds., American Democracy Promotion. 31. Miller, “American Grand Strategy.” 32. Owen, “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace.” 33. See Gray, Liberalism, 70–77, and Fawcett, Liberalism, 10–18. 34. Doyle, “Liberalism and World Politics,” 1161. 35. Brands, Making the Unipolar Moment, 128–130, 170–171, 201–207. 36. Miller, “American Grand Strategy.” 37. Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession,” 143; see also Huntington, “Democracy’s Third Wave.” 38. See, for example, Remmer, “The Process of Democratization in Latin America,” 16–17. 39. Fukuyama, “The End of History?” 40. See Clunan, “Historical Aspirations”; Nalbandov, Not by Bread Alone, chaps. 2 and 4; and Neumann, “Russia’s Europe.” 41. Lipman, “How Putin Silences Dissent.” 42. Kotkin, “Russia’s Perpetual Geopolitics”; Nalbandov, Not by Bread Alone, 12, 126–127; Hill and Gaddy, Mr. Putin, 36–37. 43. Trenin, “Russia’s Spheres of Interest, not Influence,” 10–18. 44. Stent, The Limits of Partnership, 97. 45. Stent, The Limits of Partnership, 141–143. 46. Asmus, Opening NATO’s Door, 13–17, 23–24. 47. Gaddis, “History, Grand Strategy and NATO Enlargement.” 48. Goldgeier, Not Whether But When, 30–31; Asmus, Opening NATO’s Door, 25–26. 49. The Czech Republic and Slovakia came into existence through the peaceful breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993. 50. Antonenko, “Russia, NATO and European Security,” 127, 133; Dannreuther, “Escaping the Enlargement Trap,” 151–153. 51. Asmus, Opening NATO’s Door, 81–83.

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52. Lukyanov, “Putin’s Foreign Policy”; Stent, The Limits of Partnership, 43–44, 90–94, 106–116, 248–249. 53. Kalb, Imperial Gamble. 54. See Redman, “Russia’s Breaking Point,” and Treisman, “Why Putin Took Crimea.” 55. United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Putin’s Asymmetric Assault; Pomerantsev, “Yes, Russia Matters”; Lucas and Nimmo, “Information Warfare.” 56. United States, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Assessing Russian Activities. 57. Meyer, “DNC Email Hack.” 58. On the origins of the reforms, see Naughton, Growing Out of the Plan, 64–80, and White, Riding the Tiger, 29–42. 59. White, Riding the Tiger, 166–169; Hewitt, China: Getting Rich First. 60. Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation. 61. Morrison, China-U.S. Trade Issues, 47; Alden, Failure to Adjust, 38. 62. Ezell and Atkinson, False Promises; United States Trade Representative, 2017 Report to Congress; Morrison, China-U.S. Trade Issues. 63. Alden, Failure to Adjust, 39–44; Lee, “China’s Corporate Leninism.” 64. Roy, Return of the Dragon, 15–18; Nathan and Scobell, China’s Search for Security, 195–208 and 212–220. 65. Roy, Return of the Dragon, 250–252. 66. Liu and Chen, “Why China Will Democratize.” 67. Roy, Return of the Dragon, 39–55; Nathan and Scobell, “How China Sees America.” 68. Lieberthal and Wang, Addressing U.S.-China Strategic Distrust, 11–13. 69. Zhao, “Xi Jinping’s Maoist Revival.” 70. Roy, Return of the Dragon, 59–74; Shambaugh, China Goes Global, 273–294. 71. See Chin, “China’s Bold Economic Statecraft,” and Huang, “Understanding China’s Belt & Road Initiative.” 72. Nathan, “China’s Challenge.” 73. Chow, “How China Uses International Trade,” 703–711. 74. See Chow, “How China Uses International Trade,” 712–718; Farnsworth, “The New Mercantilism”; and Zhao, “A Neo-Colonialist Predator or Development Partner?” 75. Deng, “China: The Post-Responsible Power,” 122–125. 76. See Chen, “China Debates the Non-Interference Principle,” and Zhao, “A Neo-Colonialist Predator or Development Partner?” 1048–1051. 77. Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession”; Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016. 78. See Ross, “What Have We Learned about the Resource Curse?” 243– 248, and Diamond, “Why Are There No Arab Democracies?” 97–98. 79. Gause, Beyond Sectarianism. 80. Lynch, The New Arab Wars, 19–25. 81. Miller, “American Grand Strategy,” 55–59. 82. Telhami, The World through Arab Eyes, chap. 7. 83. Gerges, Obama and the Middle East, 69–114 and 233–247.

10 What Future for Liberal Order?

A CENTRAL ARGUMENT OF THIS BOOK IS THAT THE CHARacter of international order evolves over time. In each historical era, the major international actors construct a system that reflects their identities and preferences. But the world is always changing, and international political dynamics differ from one era to the next. Over time, some states become more powerful, while others become less so. States change internally as well. Their identities and preferences evolve in response to economic, social, and political developments. The international system evolves to reflect those changes. This chapter discusses developments that may affect the character of international order in coming years. The present-day international system rests on liberal principles, including the sovereign equality of states, respect for states’ political independence and territorial integrity, the obligation to settle international disputes by peaceful means, the self-determination of peoples, open trade, and respect for human rights. Historically, the United States has been the chief architect of liberal international order, and has taken the lead in managing and enforcing that order since World War II. The existence of a liberal international system has delivered extraordinary benefits to the United States. Liberal order under US hegemony has enabled the United States and its Western allies to enjoy durably peaceful and stable relations and achieve unprecedented levels of wealth and prosperity. In addition, it 229

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has provided a supportive international environment for the defense of individual freedoms and rights. Important aspects of the liberal international order remain in flux. Liberalism envisions a world in which relations among the powerful states are defined not by strategic rivalry and war but by peaceful, mutually beneficial cooperation. For the liberal vision to be fully realized, the powerful states need to be able to trust each other to behave with self-restraint and adhere to the principles laid down in the UN charter. That degree of trust has become routine in relations among Western democracies. One of the central achievements of liberal international order since World War II has been the disappearance of military rivalry among the western European powers and between the United States and Japan. But not all the powerful states in today’s world are liberal democracies. Some are governed by authoritarian regimes, and trust between liberal democracies and authoritarian states is difficult to achieve. Because authoritarian regimes fail to respect the human rights of their own citizens, liberal states are reluctant to accept those regimes as fully legitimate or trust them to respect the rights and independence of other states. For their part, authoritarian regimes feel threatened by the moral claims of liberalism. Ongoing mistrust between the United States and China and between the United States and Russia illustrates this problem. The future of the liberal international system appears less promising today than it did in the early years after the Cold War. For a time, there seemed good reason to hope that the remaining authoritarian powers might soon become liberal democracies. Communism had been discredited. For powers like China and Russia, which sought to achieve Western levels of wealth and economic development, liberalization seemed to offer the most promising path. In their effort to catch up with the West, China and Russia abandoned their communist economic systems and replaced them with capitalist ones. But neither state adopted a fully market-based economic system like that of the United States. Both states preserved authoritarian political institutions designed to ensure that the existing ruling elite maintained its grip on power. Today, China and Russia show little sign of moving toward the adoption of liberal democracy. As long as that remains the case, deep distrust between those powers and the United States is likely to persist, creating incentives for them to build up their military capabilities and maneuver for strategic advantage.1

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One of the biggest questions facing the liberal international order today involves the future direction of US foreign policy. From the end of World War II through the presidency of Barack Obama, support for the liberal order was central to American grand strategy. US presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, accepted America’s hegemonic role as leader and manager of the liberal international order. They affirmed US security commitments to allies, championed steps to further liberalize trade, and worked to advance liberal values of individual freedom and human rights. But the election of Donald Trump as US president in 2016 suggested that significant parts of the US electorate had become skeptical of the liberal order and US liberal hegemony. Trump offered a nationalistic view of US interests that was at odds with the logic of liberalism. At the heart of liberal international order is a positive-sum conception of relations among states. In the liberal view, an international system constructed on liberal principles benefits all participating states. Every state is better off than it would be in an international system based on power politics or if international order broke down altogether. By contrast, Trump appeared to conceive of international politics as a zero-sum game in which one state’s gain is necessarily another state’s loss.2 In his conception, Western unity under US leadership was not a strategic asset but a burden. As he saw it, US security guarantees to allied states were a bad deal for Americans because they enabled allies to shift the costs of defense away from themselves and onto the United States. Similarly, he viewed existing trade agreements as a bad deal because those agreements had contributed to a net loss of US factory jobs. He portrayed existing trade deals as a giveaway of American wealth, even though analysis by economists showed that trade liberalization had delivered immense gains to the US economy as a whole.3 Trump’s nationalistic views resonated with the non-collegeeducated whites who made up the majority of his voting base. Those voters had experienced high levels of economic dislocation beginning in the 1980s, as automation and other technological advances eliminated millions of factory jobs. Trade and financial liberalization worsened the problem by making it easy for employers to outsource factory jobs to lower-wage foreign workers. From the perspective of many working-class Americans, the benefits of the liberal international order were invisible. Faced with escalating threats to their economic prospects, they tended to view trade liberalization as harmful

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and were unconvinced of the need for the United States to devote resources to protecting allies or promoting democracy abroad.4 At the root of the US domestic divide over trade was a decline in the political power of working-class voters. Beginning in the 1980s, US tax and labor laws became increasingly favorable to the interests of corporations and wealthy individuals and less favorable to those of workers.5 Although the globalization of trade after the Cold War made the United States substantially wealthier, the added wealth flowed mainly to high-income groups such as corporate executives and shareholders. Between 1980 and 2014, the average pretax income of adults in the bottom half of the US income distribution remained virtually unchanged, whereas the average income of those in the top 1 percent tripled.6 It remains to be seen whether Trump’s presidency will produce a durable shift in US policy toward the international system. His election signaled that support for liberal order had become a partisan issue in US politics, with businesses and college-educated voters mostly in favor of the liberal international system and much of working-class America skeptical of it. Given the enormous national security benefits the United States drew from the liberal order, Americans would seem to have a strong stake in preserving it. But because the economic costs and benefits of liberal order had come to be distributed so unequally—with affluent people capturing most of the benefits and working-class people absorbing most of the costs—consensus on the desirability of liberal order had eroded. To restore that consensus, the United States would likely need to adopt far-reaching domestic measures to increase the incomes and improve the economic security of working-class Americans.7

Taking Stock In surveying the world today, it is possible to identify many developments that have at least some potential to affect the basic contours of the international system. A partial list of such developments would include Russia’s efforts to destabilize Western democracy, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, global climate change, the onset of demographic decline across much of the world, the escalating strategic rivalry among regional powers in the Middle East, and partisan polarization in the United States regarding the US role as steward of the liberal order. But it is difficult to predict with confi-

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dence how much impact any of these developments will have on the system in coming years.8 However, one development that appears certain to exert a major impact on the international system is China’s emergence as a leading world power. When the Cold War ended, China had not yet entered the ranks of the developed states. With an average per capita income perhaps one-twentieth that of the United States, China was still an impoverished, backward nation. Its military forces were poorly armed and trained, and it was a minor player in global trade and finance. All that has changed. Today China has become a solidly middle-income country. It is now the world’s largest exporter of manufactured goods and has become a major provider of investment capital to other countries. It has spent heavily to upgrade and modernize its armed forces, and its annual defense spending far exceeds that of all countries except the United States. How will the rise of China affect international order? It may matter most as an obstacle to US efforts to promote political liberalization in the developing world. In the early 1990s, following the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States enjoyed a position of overwhelming primacy in military, economic, and diplomatic power. That position enabled the United States to broaden its efforts to consolidate the liberal international order. During the Cold War, US efforts to promote liberal democracy and trade liberalization focused mainly on the West. Unchallenged primacy in the aftermath of the Cold War put the United States in position to pursue a more ambitious goal: integrating the world as a whole into the liberal order. The United States began to encourage nonliberal states nearly everywhere in the world to liberalize domestically and participate in the new, globalized trade framework represented by the World Trade Organization. The emergence of China as a global economic power—one that is authoritarian in character—greatly reduces US leverage to promote liberal reforms in developing countries. Increasingly, authoritarian states can turn to China for loans and diplomatic support, an option that reduces their vulnerability to US pressure. In addition, China’s success in modernizing itself under an authoritarian political system reduces the attraction of the liberal political model. The Chinese model suggests to authoritarian rulers in the developing world that they do not need to choose between modernizing their country or holding on to power. They can imitate China and do both. With an authoritarian China firmly in place as the world’s second most

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powerful state, international order in coming years is likely to be shaped a bit less by liberal principles and a bit more by power politics than the world of the immediate post–Cold War years.

Unresolved Contradictions of Liberal Order The sustained US effort to integrate the non-Western world into the liberal order has been partly successful, but has also revealed significant contradictions between America’s liberal vision and global political realities. Those contradictions pose significant obstacles to the establishment of a fully liberal international order. One contradiction arises from the transformation of the liberalized Western trade system into a global system. By allowing China and other non-Western states to join the main trade liberalization agreements, the United States took an important step toward consolidating the liberal system at the global level. Membership in the liberalized trade system enabled China to achieve a high growth rate through an export-led development strategy. As a result, China now has a vital stake in preserving the liberal international order, because its continued prosperity depends on unfettered access to global markets.9 At the same time, the admission of China and other non-Western states to the liberalized trade framework has weakened the liberal international order by discrediting it in the eyes of many Americans. As US firms outsourced manufacturing jobs to lower-wage countries, workingclass Americans began to equate the liberal order with economic dislocation and blighted job prospects. This development suggests that trade liberalization, unless it is accompanied by effective measures to protect the economic well-being of workers, becomes destructive to liberal order if pushed beyond a certain point. Another contradiction arises from the enormous asymmetry of power between the United States and most developing countries. That asymmetry creates strong temptations for the United States to use military force to advance its interests in the Third World.10 In the post– Cold War era, US military interventions in developing countries have been a common occurrence. The United States has sought to reconcile its frequent reliance on military force with its liberal ideals by promoting liberal reforms in countries where it has intervened. For example, after US forces occupied Iraq in 2003, US officials imposed a series of measures designed to transform the state-directed Iraqi econ-

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omy into a liberalized market economy.11 But liberalizing a foreign economy through invasion and coercion is contrary to the principle of consent at the heart of the liberal vision. US military interventions in Third World countries have thus come at a cost to the liberal system. They contribute to an image of the United States as a power that imposes its will on others by force, undermining the legitimacy of the liberal agenda in the eyes of non-Western peoples. A further contradiction between the US liberal vision and global political realities arises from the hierarchical structure of the liberal international order. Since early in the post–World War II era, the United States has exercised hegemonic leadership within the liberal system. That leadership provided essential stability to the liberal order during the Cold War. Indeed, it is doubtful that a stable liberal order would have been possible in the absence of US hegemony. But the hierarchical character of the liberal system, with the United States at the top, makes the system less attractive to non-Western states.12 From the perspective of Russia or China, full integration into the liberal order appears to require subordination to the United States—something neither country is willing to accept. In addition, US hegemony aligns the liberal system with US and Western cultural values, causing non-Western states to worry that full integration would force them to give up their cultural autonomy. For China and Russia, and for many Islamic and African countries, that prospect is unacceptable.13 In short, the US vision of a fully liberal world, in which all countries would adopt liberal institutions domestically, remains out of reach. Even so, the liberal system appears likely to continue as the primary framework for international order. China and Russia may be dissatisfied with certain aspects of the system, but their options for creating a viable alternative are limited.14 Both powers are likely to gain more by resisting aspects of the liberal system they dislike than by rejecting the system altogether.15 For the foreseeable future, international order seems likely to depend on an uneasy coexistence between liberal principles at the global level and—in much of the world—authoritarian rule at the domestic level.

Notes 1. Brands, “Democracy vs. Authoritarianism.” 2. Brands, “The Unexceptional Superpower,” 14–15.

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Index

ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty, 189, 217 Albania, 120, 121, 173 Alexander I, Emperor of Russia (r. 1801–1825), 76, 88, 90 Alexander II, Emperor of Russia (r. 1855–1881), 104 Allied coalition (World War I), 129, 131 Alsace, 98, 135 Anarchy: definition of, 1, 5; and international order, 5, 7 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, 189, 217 Arms control, 183–185, 189–190. See also Disarmament Artois, 48 Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, 221 Australia, 161, 173 Austria: annexed by Nazi Germany, 152; and the Concert of Europe, 90, 92; constitutional reorganization, 110; and the Crimean War, 94–95; diplomatic isolation, 95–99; domination of Italy, 20, 84, 88–89, 92; duchy of, 37, 44; ethnic divisions, 93; expulsion from Italy and Germany, 95–97, 99, 110; and the German Confederation, 89, 92;

great power status, 17–18, 65; and the partition of Poland, 73–74; reestablishment after World War II, 163; and the Seven Years’ War, 72– 73; strategic interests, 86; and the Vienna peace settlement, 83–84; and the War of the Austrian Succession, 72; wars with revolutionary France, 75–76. See also Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary: alliance with Germany, 108; Balkan interests, 110–112, 120; dissolution, 138; frustration with Concert diplomacy, 121; and the July Crisis, 121–123; occupation and annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 106, 111– 112, 117–119; rivalry with Russia, 108–111, 119–121; and Serbia, 112, 117–119. See also Austria Austrian Succession, War of the, 72 Austro-Prussian War, 97, 99 Authoritarianism, 223, 225; and liberal international order, 31, 212–213, 230, 233. See also Nonliberal states

Balance of power, 64; definition of, 18 Balance-of-power system (eighteenth century): defining features, 58, 77–78;

251

252

Index

instability of, 19, 63–65, 78; origins, 62; and strategic competition, 18– 19, 62–64, 74 Balkan League, 119–120 Balkans: and Austrian–Russian rivalry, 109–110, 119–120, 124 Balkan wars, 119–121, 124 Bavaria, 67, 72 Belgium, 84, 131; achieves independence, 90–91. See also Southern Netherlands Belt and Road Initiative, 221 Berlin, 67, 98, 162; and Cold War tensions, 182–183; division into occupation zones, 164 Berlin, Congress of, 106–108, 111; and Austrian–Russian rivalry, 108, 124 Berlin Wall, 183. See also Berlin Bethmann-Hollweg, Theobald von, 122 Bismarck, Otto von, 114–115; alliance diplomacy of, 108–109; and European peace, 103, 109, 112–113, 123; foreign policy goals, 96, 104; and German unification, 96–98 Bohemia, 38, 52 Bolsheviks, 130, 137 Bosnia and Herzegovina: annexation crisis, 117–119; occupied by Austria-Hungary, 106, 111–112 Bourbon dynasty, 69, 71 Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of, 130–131, 138 Bretton Woods Conference, 175 Brezhnev, Leonid, 190 Britain: avoidance of wars on the Continent, 61, 104; and the Bosnian annexation crisis, 118–119; colonial empire, 114–115, 186; and the Concert of Europe, 88, 90–93; and the Crimean War, 94–95; and German unification, 97; great power status, 17–18, 65; and Greek independence, 89–90; as “holder of the balance,” 69; interwar foreign policy, 127–129, 156; and Italian unification, 96; and the liberal “grand bargain,” 177–178; and naval disarmament, 142; naval hegemony, 179–180; navy, 69, 71; nuclear weapons, 183, 185; policy toward Germany, 97, 114–116, 132– 133, 144–145, 147, 151–152; public

finance system (eighteenth century), 65; rivalry with France, 69; strategic interests, 68–69, 86, 114, 132; and the Vienna peace settlement, 83–86; and the War of the Austrian Succession, 72; and the War of the Spanish Succession, 70–71; wars with revolutionary France, 75–76. See also England Bucharest, Treaty of, 120 Bulgaria, 106, 111, 119–120 Bureaucracy: growth of (eighteenth century), 14–16, 60–61 Bush, George W., 224

Canada, 161, 172 Carter, Jimmy, 211 Castlereagh, Lord, 88, 90 Catherine II “the Great,” Empress of Russia (r. 1762–1796), 74 CCP (Chinese Communist Party), 219, 221 Central Powers (World War I), 129–130 Cerdagne, 48 Chamberlain, Neville, 151–152 Charles II, King of Spain (r. 1665– 1700), 46, 69 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1519–1556), 37–38, 44, 45–46, 48–49 Charles VIII, King of France (r. 1483– 1498), 47–48 Chiang Kai-shek, 148, 166 China: abandons communism, 218– 219; civil war, 166; communist revolution, 172; economic growth, 207, 219; emergence as global economic power, 4, 221, 233; under foreign domination, 141, 148; foreign policy, 222–223; invaded by Japan, 150; and the Korean War, 173; mercantilist trade strategy, 220–221; military modernization, 221, 233; nuclear weapons, 183– 184; opposition to liberalism, 31, 196, 218–219, 221–222, 225; participation in world trade, 206– 208, 219–220; political system, 30, 219; premodern hegemony, 179; Security Council membership, 165; situation after World War II, 166; strategic vulnerabilities, 220; and

Index the United States, 176, 206–207, 218, 220–221 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 219, 221 Christendom, western, 3, 13–15, 59; definition of, 12; and the dynastic system, 33–35, 43, 45, 50–53, 77 Clemenceau, Georges, 131–132, 134 Client relationships: definition of, 28; and international order, 29–30, 187–188; and US–Soviet rivalry, 28–29, 190 Clinton, Hillary, 218 Cold War, 2, 9, 170–173, 202, 210, 225; end of, 197–200; and the German question, 181–185; second phase, 189–191; and the Third World, 28–29, 162, 186–189, 190. See also Cold War system Cold War system: defining features, 159– 161, 185, 192. See also Cold War Collective security: and the League of Nations, 25–26, 127, 155–156; and the United Nations, 27 Colonial empires, 8, 21, 93, 102, 114– 115, 156, 202; and liberalism, 23. See also Decolonization Communism, 27, 29, 177, 190, 210; abandoned by China, 218–219; collapse of, 30, 195, 198–200, 212, 230 Compensations, territorial: and the balance of power, 18, 20, 64 Concert of Europe: and the balance of power, 19; and condominium, 19– 21, 92, 98–99; and the Eastern Question, 89; features and operation, 19–21, 88–93; geographic scope, 91; and great power peace, 21; loses effectiveness, 21, 94, 99; member states, 82; and power politics, 21– 22, 92–93; and the revolutions of 1848, 93–94; rules of, 19–20, 82, 90–93, 98; and spheres of influence, 20–21, 91–93, 99; and territorial stability, 19–21, 82, 91–92. See also Revived Concert system Condominium: and the Concert of Europe, 19–21, 92, 98–99; definition of, 19. See also Power politics Coolidge, Calvin, 143

253

Crimea, 217 Crimean War, 94–95; consequences, 95, 99 Crusades, 13–14 Czechoslovakia, 138–139, 198; and the Munich Conference, 152; restoration after World War II, 163

Daladier, Édouard, 152 Dawes Plan, 145, 147 Decolonization, 24, 186–187, 202 Democracy: obstacles to establishment of, 223–224; spread of, 212–213, 225; US promotion of, 27, 30, 180–181, 210– 212, 224, 233. See also Liberalism Deng Xiaoping, 208 Denmark, 50 Developing countries. See Third World Disarmament, 140–142, 143; and the League of Nations, 26, 127, 155 Dutch Republic, 40, 46, 84. See also Netherlands Dynastic international system, 6, 7, 11, 53–54; and Christianity, 15, 33–35, 43, 45, 51–54; defining features, 15, 33–35, 41–44; and dynastic marriages, 15, 44–46; and dynastic wars, 35, 41– 43, 47–50, 54, 62; waning of, 60–63 Dynastic monarchs: as international actors, 11, 14–17, 35

Eastern Europe: collapse of communist regimes, 191, 198; liberalization, 30, 212; and NATO enlargement, 215–217; Soviet domination of, 27– 29, 159, 167–168, 171, 191, 198, 200; territorial changes after World War I, 137–138 Eastern Question, 89 East Germany, 182–183; establishment, 171; reunification with West Germany, 198–199 Elizabeth, Empress of Russia (r. 1741– 1762), 72–73 England: growth of royal authority, 14; and Protestantism, 50; and the War of the Spanish Succession, 70–71. See also Britain Estonia, 138, 163, 215, 217 European Economic Community (EEC), 205

254

Index

European Union (EU), 205

Ferdinand II, King of Aragon (r. 1479– 1516), 44, 45, 48 First liberal system. See Liberal international order, interwar era Five-Power Treaty, 141–142 Fordney-McCumber Tariff, 143 Four Policemen, 165. See also Roosevelt, Franklin D.: vision of international order Four-Power Treaty, 141–142 France: admission to the Concert of Europe, 87; alliance with Russia, 113; and the Bosnian annexation crisis, 118–119; client relationships, 28; colonial expansion, 114–115; and the Crimean War, 94; as dynastic actor, 37, 38, 49; and German unification, 97–98; great power status, 17–18, 65; and Greek independence, 89–90; and interwar liberal order, 26, 127–129; and the July Crisis, 122; and the liberal “grand bargain,” 177–178; monarchy, end of, 93; nuclear weapons, 183, 185; public finance system (eighteenth century), 66; religious civil wars, 50–51; and the reparations crisis of 1923, 144–145; revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, 75–77; rivalry with Britain, 69; rivalry with Habsburgs, 41, 48; royal authority in medieval times, 12, 14; Security Council membership, 166; strategic aims after World War I, 132; and the Thirty Years’ War, 51– 52; and the Treaty of Versailles; and the Vienna peace settlement, 83–84, 87; and the War of the Austrian Succession, 72–73; and the War of the Spanish Succession, 69 Franche-Comté, 48 Francis I, King of France (r. 1515–1547), 47, 49 Franco-Prussian War, 97–99, 104 Franco-Austrian War, 95–96, 99 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke: assassination of, 103, 121 Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria (r. 1848–1916), 104, 121

Frederick II “the Great,” King of Prussia (r. 1740–1786), 67, 71; invasion of Silesia, 72; and the partition of Poland, 74 Frederick William I, Prussian ruler (r. 1713–1740), 67 French Revolution, 75: wars triggered by, 19, 75

GATT. See General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT): establishment, 175– 176; significance, 206. See also Trade; World Trade Organization German Confederation, 92, 93, 96–97; establishment, 84 Germany: alliance with AustriaHungary, 108, 113; annexation of Austria, 152; and the Bosnian annexation crisis, 118–119; colonial empire, 113–115, 135; foreign policy under Bismarck, 103–104, 112–113; foreign policy under Stresemann, 146; great power status, 99, 115–116, 124–125; and the interwar liberal order, 128–129; and the July Crisis, 122–124; leadership of the revived Concert, 103, 123; and the League of Nations, 146–147, 151; medieval, 12; nationalism, 26, 113–114, 144, 146; naval rivalry with Britain, 103, 114; Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact, 153–154; and the 1918 armistice, 131; occupation of, 164, 170; public opinion, 135–136, 138–139, 144, 147; rearmament, 151; relations with Russia, 104, 113; reparations crisis of 1923, 144–145; reunification (1990), 198–199; situation after World War I, 131–132; strategic vulnerabilities, 113, 115; territorial ambitions, 103, 116, 122, 125, 150; territorial losses, 135, 163; and the Treaty of Versailles, 134–139, 143–149; unification (1848–1871), 21, 93, 95– 99; war aims (World War I), 130; Weimar constitution, 137–138. See also East Germany; German Confederation; Holy Roman Empire; West Germany

Index Gibraltar, 71 Globalization, economic, 207, 225; and economic dislocation, 231–232, 234; and reduced incentives for territorial conquest, 202 Gorbachev, Mikhail: and eastern Europe, 191, 198; foreign policy goals, 191, 197–198; and Soviet domestic reforms, 199 “Grand bargain,” 27–28, 161, 177–181, 186; and US hegemony, 179–181 Great Depression, 148–149, 157, 205 Great Northern War, 66 Great powers: and the Concert of Europe, 19–21; and international order, 3, 6–7, 9–10, 11, 17–22 Greece, 119–120; independence crisis, 89–90, 91

Habsburg dynasty: extinction of Spanish branch, 38, 46, 69; German ethnicity of, 110; and the Holy Roman Empire, 37, 40; partition into Austrian and Spanish branches, 38, 46; rivalry with France, 48; territorial holdings, 37– 38, 44–45; and the Thirty Years’ War, 51–52; and the War of the Spanish Succession, 69–71. See also Austria; Austria-Hungary Habsburg monarchy. See Austria; Austria-Hungary Harding, Warren G., 140 Hegemony: definition of, 179; in history, 179–180. See also United States: liberal hegemony Helsinki Accords, 189–190 Henry VII, King of England (r. 1485– 1509), 42 Henry VIII, King of England (r. 1509– 1547): invasions of France, 42, 49 Hitler, Adolf, 147, 149, 152, 153; foreign policy goals, 150–151 Hohenzollern dynasty, 66–67. See also Prussia Holy Alliance, 87, 88 Holy Land, 13–14 Holy Roman Empire, 48; dissolution, 76; political structure, 38–40; and the Protestant Reformation, 51–52; and the Thirty Years’ War, 51–53. See also German Confederation; Germany

255

Hoover, Herbert, 143, 148 Human rights, 24, 210, 211, 222, 230 Hundred Years’ War, 37, 42 Hungary, 198, 215; achieves independence, 138; and Austrian constitutional reorganization, 110; Habsburg rule over, 38, 94

Immigration Act of 1924, 147 India, 186 Industrialization, 21, 87, 114 International actors: definition of, 7 International order: arrangements vs. rules, 8–9; benefits of, 7; creation of, 1–3, 5–9; definition of, 5; historical evolution, 3–4, 8–12; and justice, 6; and peace, 6; periodization of, 9–12; and the rise of China, 4, 218–223, 233–234 International systems: creation and breakdown, 2–3; definition of, 2. See also International order Iran, 203, 224 Iraq, 203, 204, 224, 234 Isabella I, Queen of Castile (r. 1474– 1504), 44 Italian wars, 47–48 Italy, 97, 109, 178; domination by Austria, 20, 84, 88–89; foreign policy aims, 131; membership in the revived Concert, 101–102; unification, 21, 95–96

Japan, 25; attack on Pearl Harbor, 154; colonial empire, 141, 163; defeats Russia in war (1905), 118–119; democratization, 180; emergence as major power, 21, 102; GATT membership, 176–177; integration into post-1945 liberal system, 27–28, 176–178, 180–181; interwar foreign policy, 26, 142–143, 149–150; and the interwar liberal order, 128–129, 147, 150; invades China, 150; and Manchuria, 141, 142, 148, 149–150, 163; nationalism, 26, 142, 149; and naval disarmament, 142; and the Paris peace settlement, 135; public opinion, 26, 147, 149; strategic interests, 140; surrender (1945), 163; territorial ambitions, 141, 150; territorial losses

256

Index

after World War II, 163; US security pact, 173; withdrawal from League of Nations, 150 July Crisis, 117, 122–123

Kennedy, John F., 183 Khrushchev, Nikita, 182–183 Kohl, Helmut, 198 Korea, 141; division of, 163, 172. See also Korean War; South Korea Korean War, 172–173

Latvia, 138, 163, 215, 217 League of Nations: and collective security, 25–26, 127, 155–156; covenant, 9, 24, 26, 129, 154–155; establishment, 25; US refusal to join, 26, 140, 143 Lend-Lease Act, 162 Lenin, Vladimir, 130, 153 Liberal Age, 10–12, 17, 22–31, 127; defining features, 11, 22–23; periodization of, 25 Liberal international order: achievements of, 229–231; and authoritarian states, 31, 212–213, 230, 233; defining features, 23–24, 133–134; and domestic liberalism, 209–211; future prospects, 230–234; periodization of, 25; unresolved contradictions, 234–235. See also Liberal international order, Cold War era; Liberal international order, interwar era; Liberal international order, post–Cold War era Liberal international order, Cold War era (1945–1989), 27–30; defining principles, 160, 185; and the “grand bargain,” 27–28, 161, 177–181, 186, 208–209; and trade liberalization, 27, 173–177, 178; and US hegemony, 180–181, 208–209. See also Liberal international order Liberal international order, interwar era (1919–1939), 25–26; breakdown of, 26, 128–129, 156–157; compared with Concert of Europe, 154–155; defining principles, 129, 155; establishment, 25–26, 127; fragility of, 26, 146–148; power politics elements, 156. See also Liberal international order

Liberal international order, post–Cold War era (1990–present): compared with post-1945 liberal system, 200– 201, 224–226; defining principles, 201–204, 229; erosion of US support for, 231–232, 234; and liberalized trade, 205–208; opposition from Russia, 213–215; pillars of, 200–209; and the rise of China, 218–223, 233–234; and the spread of democracy, 212–213; and the Third World, 195–196, 203–204; US leadership of, 202, 204–209. See also Liberal international order Liberalism, 31; definition of, 22; and liberal international order, 22–24, 30, 209–211; and peace, 155, 210– 211; and trust among states, 209–211, 230 Lithuania, 138, 163, 215, 217 Lloyd George, David, 131, 134 Locarno Treaties, 146 Lombardy, 84, 95 London Conference of 1912–1913, 120– 121 Lorraine, 70, 98, 135 Louis XIV, King of France (r. 1643– 1715), 46; and the War of the Spanish Succession, 70–71

Manchuria, 141, 142, 148, 149–150, 163 Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg monarchy (r. 1740–1780), 72, 74 Marshall Plan, 171 Menorca, 71 Metternich, Klemens von, 90, 92; suspicion of Russia, 89 Middle East: foreign military interventions in, 203; obstacles to democratization, 224; territorial changes after World War I, 137–138 Milan, 47 Montenegro, 106, 111, 119, 121 Munich Conference, 152 Mussolini, Benito, 152

Naples, 47–48, 88, 92, 96 Napoleon I, Emperor of the French (r. 1804–1814), 75–78, 84 Napoleon III, Emperor of the French (r. 1852–1870), 93, 97–98; initiates

Index Franco-Prussian War, 97; and the unification of Italy, 95–96 Napoleonic Wars, 19, 75–78, 81 National interest: definition of, 59, 61–62 Nationalism: American, 143, 148, 231– 232; Balkan, 102–103; German, 21, 26, 96, 99, 113–114, 144, 146; and international order, 101–102; Italian, 21, 95, 99; Japanese, 26, 142, 149; Serbian, 112, 117 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 173, 180, 217; establishment, 172; and German reunification, 198–199; post–Cold War enlargement, 215–217 Nazi Party, 147, 149 Netherlands, 44, 84; revolt against Spanish rule, 46. See also Dutch Republic Neutrality Acts, 154 New Zealand, 161, 173 Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia (r. 1825– 1855), 94 Nine-Power Treaty, 141–143 Nonliberal states: and liberal international order, 210–211. See also Authoritarianism Non-Proliferation Treaty, 184–185, 197 North Atlantic Treaty Organization. See NATO Nuclear weapons: arms control agreements, 183–185, 189–190; and the Cold War, 172, 185, 189–91, 210; US atomic strikes against Japan, 163; and West Germany, 182–184

Obama, Barack, 224, 231 Obrenović, Alexander, 117 Obrenović, Milan, 112, 117 Ottoman Empire, 111; and the Crimean War, 94; dissolution, 138; origins and expansion, 40; territorial losses, 65, 92, 106, 119–120; waning power in southeastern Europe, 89, 99, 103–104; wars with Russia, 73– 74, 89; and western Christendom, 40–41, 45. See also Turkey

Pan-Slavism, 111 Papal monarchy, 11, 12–14. See also Popes Paris Peace Conference, 17, 25, 131–132, 134

257

Paris peace settlement, 134–135, 138– 139, 145, 156. See also Versailles, Treaty of Parliament, 61, 65 Partial Test Ban Treaty, 183–184 Partition schemes: and the balance of power, 18, 20, 64; definition of, 63–64 Peloponnesian War, 17 Peter I “the Great,” Tsar of Russia (r. 1682–1725), 66 Peter III, Emperor of Russia (r. 1762), 73 Piedmont, 84; and the unification of Italy, 95–96. See also Savoy-Piedmont Poincaré, Raymond, 122 Poland: and NATO enlargement, 215– 217; and the Paris peace settlement, 135; partitions of, 73–74, 78; and Russia, 73–74, 84, 89; territorial changes after World War II, 163 Popes: and the Crusades, 13; as international actors, 11, 13–14 Power politics, 127, 156: and alliances, 23; and the Cold War system, 195; definition of, 17; and international order, 11, 23; in the post–Cold War era, 203; and territorial predation, 63; and war, 133 Power Politics, Age of, 10–11, 16–22, 53; defining features, 11, 17, 23; periodization of, 18 Protectionism: and the origins of World War II, 148, 157, 175, 205; United States, 143, 148, 157, 175. See also Trade Protestant Reformation, 12; and international order, 15, 35, 50–51, 54 Prussia: and the Crimean War, 94; and the German Confederation, 89; and German unification, 94, 96–99; great power status, 17–18, 66–67; and the partition of Poland, 73–74; and the Seven Years’ War, 72–73; and the Vienna peace settlement, 83–84; and the War of the Austrian Succession, 72; wars with revolutionary France, 75–76. See also Hohenzollern dynasty Putin, Vladimir, 214; foreign policy goals, 31, 218

Reagan, Ronald, 211

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Reinsurance Treaty, 109, 113 Religion, Age of, 10–11, 12–16, 17, 53; defining features, 11; periodization of, 11 Reparations crisis of 1923, 144–145 Revived Concert system: breakdown of, 21–22, 121, 124–125; and the Congress of Berlin, 106, 123; features and operation, 21, 116; and great power peace, 101; and the London Conference, 120, 123; member states, 101–102; and power politics, 21–22; rules, 101–102, 123; shortcomings of, 115. See also Concert of Europe Revolutions of 1848, 93–94 Rhineland, 146–147; Allied occupation of, 135, 148–149; demilitarization, 134– 135; remilitarization by Hitler, 151 Roman Catholic Church, 33; centralization (eleventh century), 13; and medieval society, 12 Romania, 106, 120 Roosevelt, Franklin D.: vision of international order, 164–168 Roussillon, 48 Ruhr occupation, 144–145 Russia: alliance with France, 113; Balkan interests, 106, 111, 120, 122; Bolshevik revolution, 130, 137; and the Bosnian annexation crisis, 118– 119; and the Concert of Europe, 88, 90–92; and the Crimean War, 94–95; defeat by Japan (1905), 118–119; foreign policy under Putin, 31, 218; great power status, 17–18, 65, 66, 119, 122, 214; and Greek independence, 89–90; invaded by Napoleon, 76; and the July Crisis, 122–123; and NATO enlargement, 215–217; objections to US policy, 217–218; opposition to liberalism, 196, 225; and the partition of Poland, 73–74; political culture, 214; public opinion, 108, 111, 118, 122, 214; relations with Austria, 94– 98, 108–109, 118–119; relations with Germany, 108–109; return to authoritarianism, 214; and the Seven Years’ War, 72–73; support of Serbia, 120–121; territorial losses after World War I, 130, 138; Ukraine

intervention, 203, 204, 217–218; and the Vienna peace settlement, 83–84; vision of international order, 214– 215; and western Christendom, 45. See also Soviet Union Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, 73–74 Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, 106, 111

SALT. See Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties Sanctions, economic, 26, 204–205, 222 Saudi Arabia, 203, 224 Savoy-Piedmont, 70. See also Piedmont Saxony, 67, 84 Self-determination, 24, 27, 133, 139, 162, 186, 201; definition of, 23 Serbia, 111–112, 217; achieves independence, 106; in the Balkan wars, 119–120; and the Bosnian annexation crisis, 117–119; nationalism, 112, 117; rejection of Austrian ultimatum, 123; relations with Austria-Hungary, 112, 117–119; territorial ambitions, 117, 120–121 Seven Years’ War, 72–73 Silesia, 72–73 Smoot-Hawley Tariff, 148, 149, 157 Social Darwinism, 113–114 Southern Netherlands, 46, 69, 71, 75. See also Belgium South Korea, 173, 207, 212 Soviet Union: and Berlin, 162, 164, 171, 182–184; dissolution, 30, 199–200; domination of eastern Europe, 2, 27– 29, 159, 167–168, 191; economic system, 190; establishment, 137; foreign policy in the 1930s, 153; foreign policy after World War II, 27, 168; and German reunification, 198– 199; military spending, 190–191; and Nazi Germany, 153–154; and nuclear arms control, 183, 189–190; nuclear weapons, 172, 185, 189–191, 210; occupation of Germany, 164, 170–171; and power politics, 159, 168; strategic interests, 167–168; territorial gains after World War II, 163; and the Third World, 28–29, 190; United Nations participation, 168–169; and the United States, 2, 9,

Index 27, 159, 168, 170–171, 189–191, 210; and West Germany, 182–184; in World War II, 162. See also Russia Spain, 38, 45, 48, 71, 173; and the Dutch revolt, 46; loss of great power status, 66; and the Thirty Years’ War, 51–52; and the War of the Austrian Succession, 72–73 Spanish Succession, War of the: consequences, 71; origins, 69–70 Spheres of influence: and the Concert of Europe, 20–21, 88–89, 91–93, 99; definition of, 20. See also Power politics Stalin, Joseph, 153–154, 164, 170, 171, 182; and Berlin, 171–172; vision of international order, 167–169 States: definition of, 59; interests of, 59, 61–62; as international actors, 1–3, 5–7, 9–10, 59; rise of, 59–61 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties, 189 Stresemann, Gustav, 145–146 Sudetenland, 138–139, 152 Sweden, 50, 66; and the Thirty Years’ War, 51–52 Syria: civil war, 203, 218, 224

Taiwan, 141, 163, 172, 207, 212, 220; US arms sales to, 221 Taxation: and the rise of the state, 60; and royal power, 14–16, 36, 60; and the spread of democracy, 223–224 Territorial conquest: norm against, 202–203 Third World: and the Cold War, 28–29, 162, 187–189, 190, 203; and international order, 29, 203–204; participation in world trade, 207– 208; and US democracy promotion, 30, 211–212, 233; and US military interventions, 188, 234–235 Thirty Years’ War, 51–52. See also Westphalia, Peace of Three Emperors’ Alliance, 108–109 Three Emperors’ League, 106, 108 Thucydides, 17 Trade: and the construction of liberal order, 27, 173–177, 178; and international peace, 134, 205–206; liberalization after World War II, 175– 176; preferential trade agreements, 208. See also General Agreement on

259

Tariffs and Trade; Globalization, economic; Protectionism; World Trade Organization Triple Alliance, 109 Trump, Donald, 218, 231 Turkey, 138. See also Ottoman Empire Turkish Straits, 111, 122

Ukraine, 203, 204, 217–218 UN charter: enforcement of, 201, 204– 205; and international order, 24, 197, 201–205; liberal character of, 27, 29, 201; and the norm against territorial conquest, 202–203; principles established by, 9, 27, 201. See also United Nations United Kingdom. See Britain United Nations, 156: and decolonization, 162, 186; incompatible US and Soviet visions of, 168–170; and international order, 6, 161, 169; origins and establishment, 26–27, 165–166, 168–169; permanent Security Council membership, 165–166, 169. See also UN charter United States: as architect and manager of liberal order, 11–12, 25–31, 127, 131, 139–140, 142–143, 155–156, 160, 177–181, 195–196, 221–222, 226, 229, 231, 233; and Britain, 143; and China, 141, 166, 176, 206–207, 220–222; client relationships, 28– 29, 187–189, 211, 224; Cold War strategy, 173, 176, 205, 208–209; democracy promotion, 27, 30, 180– 181, 210–212, 224, 233; disengagement from Europe after World War I, 140; distrust of nonliberal states, 210–211, 230; emergence as major power, 21, 102, 127, 131, 139; as enforcer of international norms, 202, 204; entry into World War I, 130–131; and France, 134, 143; and Germany, 134, 144–145, 170–171, 173, 181– 184; interwar foreign policy, 143, 148, 155–156; invasion of Iraq, 203, 205, 224; and Japan, 140–143, 154, 163–164, 173; and the Korean War, 173; and the League of Nations, 26,

260

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140, 143; and the liberal “grand bargain,” 27–28, 161, 177–181, 186, 208–209; liberal hegemony, 180– 181, 208–209, 235; and NATO enlargement, 215–217; and naval disarmament, 140–143, 155; Neutrality Acts, 154; and nuclear arms control, 183–185, 189–190; nuclear weapons, 163, 185, 189, 210; open door policy, 141, 143; and the Paris peace settlement, 134, 140; protectionism, 143, 148, 157, 175; public opinion, 26, 139–140, 154, 165, 177; and racial discrimination, 24, 147; and the reparations crisis of 1923, 144–145; and the Soviet Union, 2, 9, 27, 159, 170, 176, 189– 190, 206, 210; strategic interests, 25, 139, 155–156, 204–205, 232; and the Third World, 28–30, 187–189, 190, 203, 211–212, 234–235; and trade liberalization, 27, 173–177, 178, 205–207, 231–232; and the United Nations, 26–27, 165, 169; use of trade sanctions, 176, 204; in World War II, 162–163 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 24, 29 Urban II, pope (r. 1088–1099), 13

Venetia, 84, 95–96 Versailles, Treaty of, 128, 131, 137; problems of enforcement, 143–144; provisions, 135. See also Paris peace settlement Vienna, Congress of, 83. See also Vienna peace settlement Vienna peace settlement, 81–82, 90–91, 98; provisions, 83–84. See also Concert of Europe

War: prevalence of, 2, 6

Warsaw Pact: creation, 173; dissolution, 200 Washington Naval Conference: and international order, 140–143, 146 West Germany: democratization, 27, 180; establishment, 171; foreign policy, 182; GATT membership, 176; integration into post-1945 liberal system, 176–178, 180–181; NATO membership, 173; and the nuclear question, 182–184 Westphalia, Peace of, 16, 51; and international order, 52–53 Wilhelm II, Kaiser (r. 1888–1918), 114, 135, 137 William I, King of Prussia (r. 1861–1888) and Kaiser (r. 1871–1888), 97–98, 104 Wilson, Woodrow, 125, 131, 140, 156; and the League of Nations, 134; and self-determination, 133; vision of international order, 25, 133–134, 139, 164–165 World Trade Organization (WTO), 225, 233; admission of China, 220; origins and significance of, 206– 208. See also General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Trade World War I, 125; course of, 130–131; failure to resolve the German question, 131–132; political and territorial consequences, 131–132, 137–139 World War II: origins, 26, 175; political and territorial consequences, 163–164 Xi Jinping, 221

Yeltsin, Boris, 199, 214 Yugoslavia, 215

Zaire, 203

About the Book

WHERE DOES INTERNATIONAL ORDER COME FROM? HOW is it established and maintained? Why does it break down? With every sovereign state its own master, how can order prevail? Answering these questions in a briskly paced, systematic survey, Stephen Kocs explores the rise and fall of successive international systems across the centuries—from the dynastic institutions of Renaissance Europe, to the power-politics systems of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, to the liberal international systems of the contemporary world.

Stephen A. Kocs is associate professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross.

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