The I Great Debate: Classical Realists vs. Idealists in International Relations

1. Introduction to International Relations Davide Fiammenghi Alma Mater Studiorum│University of Bologna School of Political Science

2. Classical Realism I Great Debate Edward Hallet Carr George Frost Kennan Hans Joachim Morgenthau Security Dilemma (Herz; Butterfield) Raymond Aron

3. I Great Debate, late1920s-1940s:realists vs. idealists Realists: Reinhold Niebuhr, Edward Hallett Carr, Arnold Wolfers Idealists: Norman Angell, Philip Noel Baker, Henry Noel Brasilford, David Davies, James T. Showtell, Leonard Woolf, Konni Zilliacus, Alfred Zimmern

4. Aron Carr Dunn Kennan Morgenthau Niebuhr Schwarzenberg Spykman “classical” realists, in order to distinguish them from later “neorealists,” or structural realists chronologically close to classical realism; yet they anticipated structural realists’ arguments Butterfield Herz

5. Butterfield’s and Niebuhr’s stance is at times characterized as “christian realism” • Butterfield is also considered an early proponent of the English School (along with Hedley Bull and Martin Wight)

6. Edward Hallett Carr (1892-1982) British diplomat, historian, journalist, and theorist of international relations The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939, 1939 (II ed. 1946) A History of Soviet Russia, 14 Voll., 1950-1978 What Is History?, 1961 (rev. ed. 1986).

7. Carr vs. “utopians” • They see human nature as perfectible through education and reason • They postulate the natural harmony of interests Carr see human nature as flawed For Carr, states have conflicting interests

8. 3) Over-reliance on laws and morality to solve conflict among nations For Carr, laws and morality are “the product of dominant nations” Powerful nations use laws and moral arguments instrumentally, in the pursuit of their national interests

9. 4) They think in terms of “bad” states and “good” states, and see war as the by-product of moral imperfections (e.g., “bad” states wage wars) Carr →“have” and “have not” nations, not good and bad nations. War is the result of conflicting interests

10. 5) They put a lot of emphasis on International Organizations (e.g., The League of Nations) Carr → International Organizations are useless, and, at times, even dangerous

11. Roots of Carr’s thought • Have and have-not nations → burgeoisie and proletariat • Norms as a rationalization of powerful nations’ self-interest → Marx’s concept “ideology”

12. Mannheim (a sociologist) criticized and revised Marx’s theses about ideology in his book “Ideology and Utopia” Niebuhr, a Protestant theologian, applied Mannheim’s insights to IR. Niebuhr’s approach is known as “Christian realism” Marx Marx, Mannheim, and Niebuhr influenced Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis Niebuhr’s thought had an influence on postwar realists and politicians On Morgenthau Cf. D. Rice, Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans Morgenthau: A Friendship with Contrasting Shades of Realism Carr’s book had a lasting influence on the field. It’s still read and assigned in undergraduate courses of IR after 80 years On President Barak Obama On Kennan Cf. M. Halliwell, The Constant Dialogue: Reinhold Niebuhr and American Intellectual Culture, 190

13. Revisionist and post-revisionist readings of the I Great Debate • See Brian C. Schmidt, The First Great Debate, in «E-International Relations», September 28, 2012 http://www.e-ir.info/2012/09/28/the-first-great-debate/

14. George Frost Kennan (1904-2005) American diplomat, historian of diplomacy, and analyst of foreign affairs • Long Telegram 1946 • The Sources of Soviet Conduct, 1947 (under the pseudonym of ‘X’) • American Diplomacy, 1950 (reprint 1951) • Memoirs, 1925-1950, 1967 • The Decline of Bismarck's European Order, 1979

15. Secondary literature on Kennan: • A. Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, 1989 • N. Thompson, The Hawk and the Dove. Paul Nitze, George • Kennan and the History of the Cold War, 2009 • J.L. Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life, 2011

16. Kennan: containment Long Telegram (1946) The Sources of Soviet Conduct (1947)

17. Soviet conduct→ 3 sources • Traditional Russian sense of insecurity • Communist ideology • Uncomplete political consolidation

18. 1. Traditional Russian insecurity “traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. […] the insecurity of a peaceful, agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed plain in neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples” (1946)

19. “innate antagonism between capitalism and Socialism” (1947, 572) 2. Communist ideology 3. Uncomplete political consolidation external world depicted as hostile, in order to justify “the maintenance of dictatorial authority at home” (1947, 570)

20. “The Kremlin is under no ideological compulsion to accomplish its purposes in a hurry. Like the Church, it is dealing in ideological concepts which are of long-term validity, and it can afford to be patient. Thus the Kremlin has no compunction about retreating in the face of superior force” (1947, 574)

21. Two consequences: • Soviet diplomacy is “more sensitive to contrary force, more ready to yield on individual sectors of the diplomatic front when that force is felt to be too strong” (ibid., 575) • Soviet diplomacy is patient and persistent; it is not discouraged by occasional failures (ibid., 575)

22. “In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term,patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” (The Sources, 575).

23. Kennan was unhappy with how the policy of containment was applied • With the term “containment” he did not mean a formal commitment to interevene everywhere • Kennan advocated a flexible, pragmatic approach

24. The “legalistic-moralistic approach” It attempts “to suppress the chaotic and dangerous aspirations of governments in the international field by the acceptance of some system of legal rules and restraints. […]”

25. The “legalistic-moralistic approach” It seeks “to find some formal criteria of a judicial nature by which the permissible behavior of states could be defined […]” (1951, 95-96)

26. Legalistic-moralistic approach Universalism Kennan’s foreign-policy alternative Particularism

27. “Universalism sought to apply the same principles everywhere. It favored procedures embodied in the United Nations and in other international organizations. It smoothed over the national peculiarities and conflicting ideologies that confused and irritated so many Americans” (Gaddis, 2011, 299).

28. “Particularism […] questioned ‘legalistic concepts.’ It assumed appetites for power that only ‘counter-force’ could control. It valued alliances, but only if based on communities of interest, not on the ‘abstract formalism’ of obligations […] Particularism encouraged purposefulness, coordination, and economy of effort” (Ibid., 299)

29. Turning “particularism” into practice • European security → political, not military means (e.g., not by forming NATO, but rather through the Marshall Plann) • US → attract communist regimes other than the USSR. • Pressures to make the Soviets more “malleable”

30. Kennan: “delusions of superiority” (American Diplomacy, 1951, 109) “There are many things we Americans should beware of, and among them is the acceptance of any sort of a paternalistic responsibility to anyone, be it even in the form of military occupation, if we can possibly avoid it, or for any period longer than is absolutely necessary” (ibid., 20).

31. Kennan: we do not know • “our own national interest is all that we are really capable of knowing and understanding” (ibid.,157) • “We must admit […] we see ‘as through a glass, darkly’ […] We admittedly cannot really know” (ibid.,157–58) • “As through a glass, darkly,” 1 Corinthians 12:13.

32. Kennan on Nato Expansion “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war […] I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake.”

33. Again on Nato expansion... “There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way.”

34. Full text of Thomas Friedman’s interview with Kennan, NYT, May 2, 1998: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/02/opinion/foreign-affairs-now-a-word-from-x.html Cf. also “Marooned in the Cold War,” an exchange between Mark Danner, George Kennan, Strobe Talbott, and Lee Hamilton, World Policy Journal, 1998, 108

35. Hans J. Morgenthau (1904-1980)

36. Scientific Man Vs. Power Politics, 1946 Politics among Nations, I ed. 1948 In Defense of the National Interest, 1951 Another “Great Debate:” The National Interest of the United States, APSR, 1952 The Purpose of American Politics, 1960 Truth and Power: Essays of a Decade, 1960-’70

37. Morgenthau: ubiquitous struggle for power “Ubiquity of the struggle for power in all social relations and on all levels of social organization” (1948, 18)

38. If the struggle for power is ubiquitous, there is no much of a difference between domestic and international politics • Morgenthau did not emphasize anarchy as the distinctive trait of international affairs. This earned him the criticism of Raymond Aron and of Kenneth Waltz

39. Morgenthau: human nature • The quest for power has its roots in human nature • Men have an innate desire to dominate others (animus dominandi)

40. Six principles of political realismMorgenthau formulated them in the second ed. of Politics Among Nations • “Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. […]”

41. “[…C]oncept of interest defined in terms of power.” • Both interest and power depend “upon the political and cultural context within which foreign policy is formulated”

42. “[…W]hile the individual has a moral right to sacrifice himself in defense of […] a moral principle, the state has no right to let its moral disapprobation of the infringement of liberty get in the way of successful political action, itself inspired by the moral principle of national survival.”

43. “Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. […] All nations are tempted […] to clothe their own particular aspirations and actions in the moral purposes of the universe.”

44. 6. Political realism subordinates standards of thought other than political ones to those of politics “[…O]ther schools […] impose standards of thought appropriate to other spheres upon the political sphere. […P]olitical realism takes issue with the "legalistic-moralistic approach" to international politics.”

45. Morgenthau: three kinds of foreign policy • Status quo • Imperialism • Prestige

46. Status quo • “[...A]ims at the maintenance of the distribution of power which exists at a particular moment in history” (1948, 22) • Holy Alliance after the Napoleonic Wars

47. Imperialism 2) “[...A] policy which aims at the overthrow of the status quo, at the reversal of the power relations between two or more nations” (1948, 27) • Japan and Germany in the 1930s

48. The policy of prestige 3) “[...T]he policy of demonstrating the power a nation has or thinks it has, or wants other nations to believe it has” (1948, 53) • Italy’s policy in the 1930s was a policy of bluff, a corruption of the policy of prestige

49. Morgenthau: foreign intervention • Stalin turned “the tenets of communism into instruments for Russia’s traditional foreign policy” • US → oppose Russian imperialism, and communism only to the degree that it is a tool of Russian imperialism

50. Foreign intervention (continued) • Good relations with communist countries that are not in the Soviet sphere (e.g., China) • Military interventions only when US’ interests are at stake