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Marc Trachtenberg is professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include A Constructed Peace and The Craft of International History (both Princeton).

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"Marc Trachtenberg is one of the best international historians in the land. His new book is filled with important insights and interesting stories. But the most important virtue of The Cold War and After is that it shows clearly that international history and international relations theory are inextricably linked and scholars cannot engage in one of those enterprises without paying serious attention to the other."--John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago

"Marc Trachtenberg is unsurpassed in his ability to combine history and political science, and by bringing together a set of wide-ranging and incisive essays, he has produced a volume that belongs on the shelves of all serious scholars working in the field. The deep research, probing analysis, and distinctive voice make this book a pleasure to read."--Robert Jervis, Columbia University

"This is an outstanding book, engaging and stimulating from beginning to end. Trachtenberg is one of the rare analysts of international relations with a rich sense of history, and he is one of those rare historians who can look at public policy without harsh partisan blinders. This is exactly the type of book I wish our political leaders would read when they contemplate making important decisions in foreign policy."--Thomas A. Schwartz, Vanderbilt University

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The Cold War and After

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Preface.....................................................................................................................viiPart I: Theory..............................................................................................................1Chapter One The Question of Realism: An Historian's View...................................................................3Chapter Two The Problem of International Order and How to Think about It...................................................44Part II: History............................................................................................................67Chapter Three The United States and Eastern Europe in 1945: A Reassessment.................................................69Chapter Four America, Europe, and German Rearmament, August–September 1950: A Critique of a Myth.....................110Chapter Five The Making of the Western Defense System: France, the United States, and MC 48................................142Chapter Six The Structure of Great Power Politics, 1963–75...........................................................154Chapter Seven The French Factor in U.S. Foreign Policy during the Nixon-Pompidou Period....................................183Part III: Policy............................................................................................................245Chapter Eight Preventive War and U.S. Foreign Policy.......................................................................247Chapter Nine The Iraq Crisis and the Future of the Western Alliance........................................................281Index.......................................................................................................................313

Chapter One

Different countries want different things; sometimes those desires conflict; how then do those conflicts get worked out? The basic insight that lies at the heart of the realist approach to international politics is that the way those conflicts run their course is heavily conditioned by power realities. In a world where war cannot be ruled out if conflicts are not settled peacefully, rational states are bound to be concerned with the structure of power in the sense not just of the distribution of military capabilities both actual and potential, but also of the whole web of relationships that would affect what would happen if war actually broke out. But rational states not only adjust their policies to such power realities. If the structure of power is of such fundamental importance, it stands to reason that states might well try to alter it to their advantage. That striving for power political advantage in turn might well come to dominate the system. The fact that states live in an anarchic system—that is, a system not governed by supranational authority—can therefore have a profound impact on state behavior, and some of the most central problems of international relations theory thus have to do with the importance of such "systemic" or "structural" effects in international political life.

It is commonly assumed that this concern for power, and especially this striving for power political advantage, puts states at odds with each other—that the struggle for power is a major source of conflict in and of itself. Such arguments are quite familiar. Opponents of realism have always assumed that power politics leads to conflict. Woodrow Wilson's whole approach to international politics was rooted in assumptions of that sort, and even today such attitudes are by no means dead. One leading contemporary theorist, Alexander Wendt, thus takes it for granted that a world in which states behave in accordance with the dictates of Realpolitik is a violence-prone, kill-or-be-killed, Hobbesian world. It is perhaps more surprising to find realists themselves arguing along these lines. The prevailing assumption among realists as a whole is that "mutual fear drives the great powers apart," that "international anarchy fosters competition and conflict," and that the "anarchic nature of international politics" encourages "cut-throat behavior among states."

The argument is developed in its purest form by "offensive realists" like John Mearsheimer. "The structure of the international system," Mearsheimer writes, "forces states which seek only to be secure nonetheless to act aggressively toward each other." "Great powers," he says, "that have no reason to fight each other—that are merely concerned with their own survival—nevertheless have little choice but to pursue power and to seek to dominate the other states in the system." They have little choice because they fear other states and they know that they "have to seek more power if they want to maximize their odds of survival." But if states want to "maximize relative power," Mearsheimer argues, they have to "think offensively toward other states, even though their ultimate motive is simply to survive."

The basic argument, however, is by no means limited to people like Mearsheimer. Even the "defensive realists," those scholars of a realist bent who take a relatively moderate position on this whole set of issues, fundamentally agree that a dynamic of this sort plays a central role in international politics. To be sure, their analyses are more guarded, more hedged, more inclined to emphasize the importance of second-order or unit-level considerations—the offense/defense balance, most notably—which in their view determine how strong in practice that dynamic is. And they sometimes write in a way that suggests that security competition need not be a major source of international instability—that states will normally be satisfied with an "appropriate" amount of security, and will show little interest in reaching for more. But the comparatively mild way in which they frame their arguments should not obscure the fact that, whatever qualifications they make, even leading defensive realists believe that in an anarchic system the major powers are pushed into conflict with each other—that anarchy is more than just a permissive cause of war.

Kenneth Waltz, for example, clearly believes that anarchy breeds conflict. Waltz, the most important theorist in the defensive realist camp, developed his argument most explicitly in an important 1988 article called "The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory." "Competition and conflict among states," Waltz wrote, "stem directly from the twin facts of life under conditions of anarchy: States in an anarchic order must provide for their own security, and threats or seeming threats to their security abound. Preoccupation with identifying dangers and counteracting them become a way of life." The measures states take to deal with these problems and make themselves more secure necessarily threaten other powers, who react in kind. "Some states," he says, "may hunger for power for power's sake." But "neorealist theory"—and that means Waltz's own theory—"shows that it is not necessary to assume an innate lust for power in order to account for the sometimes fierce competition that marks the international arena. In an anarchic domain, a state of war exists if all parties lust for power. But so too will a state of war exist if all states seek only to ensure...