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Kiichi Fujiwara
Index
1. When war becomes necessary
1.1. Can war be necessary?
1.2. Theories of just war
1.3. Deterrence or war-fighting?
1.4. Invasion and third power intervention
1.5. Civil war, human right and collective security
1.6. Case I: The Fall of Yugoslavia
1.7. Failed states and the responsibility to protect
1.8. Case II: The case of Libya
1.9. Limits of intervention
2. Power transition and war
2.1. Power transition in international politics
2.2. Theories of power transition and hegemonic wars
2.3. Who attacks first?
2.4. Case I: Spain and Great Britain
2.5. Alliance and power transition
2.6. Case II: Alliance and First World War
2.7. Military power and economic power
2.8. Case III: The rise of Japan, 1960s-1990s
2.9. Case IV: The rise of China, 1990s-2010s
2.10. Can hegemonic wars be avoided?
3. Democratic peace, democratic wars
3.1. Two forms of liberalism
3.2. Theories of democratic peace
3.3. Nationalist mobilization and war
3.4. Case I: The French Revolution
3.5. Militarism and civilian control
3.6. Case II: German militarism and First World War
3.7. Wars led by civilian government
3.8. Case III: The war on Iraq
3.9. Toward the age of democratic wars
4. Conditions for peace
4.1. Three arguments for peace
4.2. Deterrence as the condition for peace
4.3. Deterrence failures
4.4. Case I: Germany, Japan, and the origins of Second World War
4.5. International institutions and rule of law
4.6. Limits of international institutions
4.7. Security dilemma and arms control
4.8. Case II: Nuclear development in North Korea
4.9. Case III: Security dilemma in East Asia
4.10. Between power politics and the rule of law
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Kiichi Fujiwara
Professor, Graduate School for Law and Politics, Policy Alternative Research
Institute, The University of Tokyo
Kiichi Fujiwara is professor of International Politics at the
University of Tokyo. A graduate of the University of Tokyo,
Professor Fujiwara studied as a Fulbright student at Yale
University before he returned to Japan at the Institute of
Social Science (ISS). He has held positions at the University of
the Philippines, the Johns Hopkins University, the University
of Bristol, and was selected as a fellow of the Woodrow
Wilson International Center at Washington D.C. Prof.
Fujiwaras works on international affairs
include Remembering the War, 2001; A Democratic Empire,
2002; Is There Really a Just War? 2003; Peace for Realists, 2004
(winner of the Ishibashi Tanzan award, 2005; revised edition
published in 2010); America in Film, 2006; International
Politics, 2007; War Unleashed, 2007; Thats a Movie! 2012.
Sho Hayase
Teaching Assistant
Sho Hayase received his Bachelor of Arts in Occidental History from the Department of
History, University of Tokyo. He also received his Masters degree in Public Policy from the
Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo in March 2013. He majored in
International Public Policy, and completed his research thesis entitled The Use of Force by
Democratic Countries toward Authoritarian Countries. He joined the Education Abroad
Program and studied at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at
the University of California, San Diego between September 2012 and March 2013. He is
interested in Power Transition in International Relations, Security Dilemma, Bargaining
Theory, Triangular Relationship in East Asia and Pacific Region, and Complexity of States
Action and Recognition.
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That was a question that Cicero faced when Rome became too strong, because Rome might
be able to fight wars anyway and that alone might lead into a dictatorship. Cicero of course
opposed the extension of the emperors power, and he thought that a certain legal restraint
would be necessary to limit the power of the emperor. When Cicero talked about a just war,
he was not justifying it; quite the opposite, he was somehow ruling out wars that are not just.
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But then again this is a very serious issue, which relates to the tools of war: what exact tools
of war should be ruled out from warfare? This is a very difficult issue and very few
governments are willing to pay attention to it. At least up until the 18th century, the limitation
of the tools of war was essentially, an academic question. The war that changed the situation
was the Crimean War. The Crimean War was not a war that started as a world war of any kind.
This just was essentially a war that included the Russians, and the Turks, and the Brits, and
the French. In many ways a traditional warfare, but even during the traditional warfare, so
many soldiers died from sickness diseases, malnutrition, and it became very difficult to save
them from the their injuries. Can such a situation where the wounded soldiers are dying in
the battlefield, be allowed?
This was a question that the British philosopher as well as a nurse Florence Nightingale
faced. Observing the calamity of warfare in the Crimean War, where she worked as a nurse,
she strongly argued that protecting the health of wounded soldiers should be recognized.
And that such medical treatment should be done, irrespective of the side that that is fighting
the war.
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Another case would be the nuclear development of North Korea. Again I do not think North
Korea's intention in developing nuclear capability was offensive. North Korea's policy was far
more offensive in the 1970's than in the late 1980's or 1990's, for the obvious reason being
that North Korea was far outnumbered in terms of major capability compared to her
neighbors. But nevertheless, here we are talking about the nation that started the Korean
War, which was not deterred by American presence and crossed the 38th parallel. So even if
North Korea may not be an aggressive power, there was an anxiety that Pyongyang may be
working on an aggressive design, even if that a possibility is a limited one. That limited
possibility could not be ruled out and therefore, the nuclear development of North Korea
invited a series of international crisis for obvious reasons.
So deterrence is one way to reduce the possibility of warfare. And then it does come with
hidden costs, for after all deterrence implies that each nation should develop a major military
capability, a large arsenal and large number of major troops. It's very costly and also very
disruptive to the life of many, but even more than that deterrence is not sacrosanct,
deterrence can break down. And even if there are no aggressive powers, the very possibility
that a certain power might be aggressive, the perception itself would make the terrorist
extremely unstable as seen in the case of China in 1960s or North Korea since the mid 1990s.
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And so long as civil wars do not suppose a threat to the survival of other nations, you might
rightfully argue that civil wars are not and should not be the concern of other nations. In
traditional international relations, there is this principle of non intervention into domestic
affairs that is only related to the authority of a certain government: they should not be
invaded or intervened by outside powers. And from this rule you might argue that an
intervention into a civil war is almost by definition a violation of the principle of sovereignty
and non-intervention. But having said that, this is not exactly the case, in many cases we can
see, especially after the end of the Cold War, there has been a number of civil wars that have
attracted much attention from overseas. Take for example the breakdown of the Yugoslavian
Federation. Yugoslavia was a nation composed of several districts, republics that had each
certain amount of autonomy, but were still part of the Federation. And many republics such
as Slovenia or Croatia, and eventually Bosnia, decided to move away from that Federation,
which caused a major war. If you do agree with Slovenia or Croatia as independent nations, it
is an interstate war, and if you disagree about their sovereignty, then it's a civil war. But the
question here is not academic, the question here is that the possibility of the war in
Yugoslavia expanding into other regions was relatively limited. But nevertheless, a large
number of people being killed in Yugoslavia invited much attention.
A case where a civil war expanded into international warfare would be the series of warfare
including the civil war in Rwanda, the civil war in Congo, and the Congo wars. In this
particular case, the Rwanda civil war ended up with the evacuation of a large number of
Hutu rebels into the Congo. The Tutsis, who became the ruling group in Rwanda, were very
much concerned about the Hutu rebels in the Congo, and therefore Rwanda was eager to
expand military operations across the border to Congo. In this particular case the Congo
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One of the most important events that took place during this war in Bosnia was the
Srebrenica massacre. In June 11th 1995, a large number of Serbian forces, along with United
States Air Forces, started to surround Srebrenica, a place with a large population of Muslims,
and a major military assault was imminent. The Commander of United Nations Forces
stationed there and asked New York for permission to be engaged, to protect the Muslims
from major assault by the Serbs. United Nations declined this request, and just like the
Commander was afraid about, a major massacre against the Muslims took place. The
Srebrenica massacre is one event that is remembered up to this day, showing the inability of
international community to protect people. At the same time this ignited the anger against
the inhuman atrocities committed by the Serbs and the Yugoslavian government, and this
lead to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, starting from March to August, 1995; and after this
bombing, the Dayton Agreement was reached in November 1995. There was another
sideshow where Kosovo tried to win independence from Yugoslavia. And although major
powers were reluctant to be engaged, as the crisis became imminent, this time they
engaged at an early stage, and NATO started bombing on 1999.
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In February 16th 2011, protest in Eastern Libya escalated, clashes with security forces took
place at a massive scale, and many civilians were killed. The response from the Gaddafi
regime was extremely violent: his forces suppressed uprising Tripolli and Misrata. And we
believe a large number of civilians were slaughtered in Misrata, in spite of the fact that the
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Here you have a dilemma. This is not a clear case, such as Yugoslavia, where international
intervention prevented a humanitarian disaster, and also provided a liberal credible
government to the people. We do not see such result yet. It is possible that the intervention
produced a failed state in Libya, the situation is not that bad as to be depicted as a failure,
but there is a possibility. Responsibility to protect is not only a noble principle; it is a principle
that should be carried into actual foreign policy. But there is also always a possibility that the
intervention that follows this idea of the responsibility to protect can actually open a can of
worms, and make the situation much more undesirable than before.
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2.
And then we have a question here. Has there been any power transition in the past century?
In the 20th century, there was a transition from Great Britain to the United States, but it
should be clear enough that there was no hegemonic war fought between Great Britain and
the United States. As a matter of fact, both in First World War and Second World War, Great
Britain and the United States fought on the same side. There were challenges, of course.
Germany, at least so long as Europe was concerned, was a major power in Europe, and there
was a contestation between Great Britain and Germany. But we have to remember that in
the war between Great Britain and Germany, fought twice, Great Britain was the victor, and
Germany lost in this war.
There was another challenger after the end of the Second World War: U.S.S.R., the Soviet
Union, was certainly a major military power, and most certainly was at odds in geopolitical
interest with the United States. Although this was a period of Pax Americana, or the
American hegemony, the USSR did not somehow give in to American interest. But then we
also know the result, here again there are no hegemonic wars. There was much geopolitical
tension between United States and USSR that led to the arms race, especially about nuclear
weapons, but that did not lead to a major catastrophic war. And moreover, with the end of
the Russo-American Cold War, it was Russia that broke down and became a capitalist
democracy. And ever since the end of the Cold War, very few people doubt if Russia has
become a challenger against American position.
So to this extent we have not seen any hegemonic wars in the past century. If there was a
hegemonic war, then the hegemon won the war, and not the challenger. But we have a very
new development in international relations today. The People's Republic of China is possibly
the first case where we observe expansion in both economic and military power, unlike West
Germany and Japan, which were economically major powers. Germany and Japan did not
pose geopolitical threat towards the United States, but China could very possible be a
potential threat to the United States or the western world. So the question here is whether
the rise of China poses a challenge to international society, and whether the rise of China
would lead to a major power transition and the period of political instability in international
relations. That is why, with the rise of China, the theory of power transition, once again,
started to attract much academic attention.
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In 1584, Philip the Second of Spain planned an attack against England, because Spain was
interested in curbing the influence of England under Queen Elizabeth the First. There was
some more eminent danger for the wealth of Spain that was very much related to what is
now part of the Netherlands, the Low Countries as they are called. The Low Countries, with
their magnificent manufacturing capability, were very important in the trade that led to
Spanish wealth; in essence, without the control over the Low Countries, the Netherlands
Spain's growth would be gone. However, there was a religious difference between Spain and
the Low Countries, for they were essentially, Protestant, while Spain was essentially Catholic.
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If there was any victor in this war, it was the British pirates, who crushed the Spanish Armada.
Moreover, after this humiliating defeat, Spain somehow reassembled their military capability
and kept on fighting against the British forces in early 17th century. The focus on the defeat of
the Armada in late 16th century is essentially a nationalist hero story, that was so popular
among the British population, but it's quite far away from the truth. For eventually in early
17th century, Spain regained her influence over Great Britain.
Then what crushed Spain? Why did Spain end up in a miserable situation quite unlike a major
economic or military power? It was essentially the Thirty Years War. First the Spanish
Hapsburg and the Austrian Hapsburg broke away; of course it was a rather uneasy alliance
based on blood kin relationship, and could not be sustained forever. As Spain and Austria
broke away, the gross tract of land occupied by the Hapsburg household somehow was
divided, and moreover, in the Thirty Years War, both Spain and Austria came out on the side
of the losers. We can never be sure who won the war in the Thirty Years War, for this was one
of the major wars in the European region, that led to so much calamities and so much death,
that victory doesn't mean much. What we can say is the middle part of Europe was totally
destroyed, but we can be sure about the loser of the war, and that is the Habsburgs, both
Spain and Austria.
So the argument here that the Anglo-Spanish War was a hegemonic war is quite far away
from the truth. The war itself led to the victory of Great Britain, for only a very limited period
of time, and Spain somehow regained her strength against Great Britain. And of course you
have to pay attention to the fact that it was Spain, not Great Britain, that started the war. It
was not the challenger that started the war. Great Britain was somehow involved, for they
were aware that Philip the Second started the war and they had no choice, but the rising
power did not start the war. Everything that has been connected to the hegemonic war
theory, does not really apply to the Anglo-Spanish War.
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So one of the major causes that led to Japan's economic rise was essentially the focus on
economic resources, to the effect of relatively neglecting the expansion of military capability.
I'm not arguing that everybody supported this policy, but this became essentially the main
line policy followed by Prime Minister Yoshida and afterwards. It was not a coincidence that
Japan became a major economic power, and still did not become a major military power.
This was not the problem between Japan and the United States, so long as Japan was still a
minor power, both in economy and military, a weak Japan was still relatively stronger in
terms of economy in the post-war years in the region, for Japan was still an advanced
industrial country in East Asia. And Japan served the role of a very reliable ally for the United
States, for example, in the war in the Korean peninsula.
But as Japan's economy started to develop and challenge the position of the United States in
the international market, then there were a series of trade conflicts. As shown in the diagram,
Japan's relative increase in GDP went hand in hand with a more or less stagnating
expenditure on the military. From the American viewpoint, this was seen as free-riding. The
Japanese were using the American forces, so that the Japanese could take the opportunity
and expand her economy and challenge the American economy, and then eventually even
take over the global hegemonic position in the economy.
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So therefore, China is a major economic power, but still lacks a hegemonic power. The next
question here is whether China's rise has led to geopolitical instability. And on this particular
point, I would say that yes, China's rise has led to geopolitical instability, because of the
expansion of China's naval capabilities, and the fleet moving in the green the blue waters,
challenging the territorial rights of the Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan. From the Chinese
viewpoint, China was a maritime empire in the Ming Dynasty, and that position was taken
away by outside powers, so its expansion into the blue water may be seen as a defensive
action, or pervasive interest. But in terms of international relations, this is a clear expansion of
China's activities that threaten the stability of international borders on the sea, and to that
effect there has been concern, not only in Japan but also in the Philippines and Vietnam, that
China's rise has challenged the status quo of the region.
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3.
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A very interesting argument here, but essentially, the whole sketch boils down to the first
condition, constitution enacted by republican governments. And of course, you are well
aware that there were very few republicans at the time this essay came out. There was a
French revolution, but the majority of polities were monarchies, and even among those
monarchies, constitutional monarchies were very limited. So constitution itself was an
aspirational goal, but not a reality at the time.
We have to go into the details further. I have a question, which might trouble you: did Kant
really think republicanism is a condition for peace? Yes, in some parts of this essay, Kant
seems to argue that a republican form of government is far more peaceful than other form of
government. But we have one question here, is republicanism the same as democracy? Was
Kant really arguing that monarchies should be kicked out in favor of a republican form of
governance? And then we see something very interesting. No, Kant was not arguing that
monarchy should be over, overthrown. Unlike our present use of the word republicanism,
Kant was totally happy using the word republicanism along with constitutional monarchy. So
long as the use of political power of the monarch is limited by a constitution, Kant would call
that polity a republican form of government. And moreover, Kant does not talk about
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The legacy of Immanuel Kant was the arguments about liberal peace. All these arguments
were so important before the Second World War, or for that matter the First World War, but
were somehow forgotten in the world after the Second World War. The reason is the Cold
War between the United States and the Soviet Union, which established the basic structure
of international relations in the world that followed the Second World War. And under this
situation, the basic backbone of international security was the nuclear deterrence between
the United States and USSR.
Facing nuclear weapons, you don't talk about democracy, authoritarianism, or otherwise.
There was this question about communism, but that was not the real motive in foreign
policy. If the promotion of democracy was paramount as an objective of American foreign
policy, logically speaking the United States must have worked for the liberation of the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe, but of course that could not be done because that would risk the
possibility of a nuclear war. But with the end of the Cold War, and with the third wave of
democratization in the world, suddenly we're placed in a community of democracies, devoid
of basic geopolitical contestation such as the Cold War. And we enter the period when we
can really talk about connecting democracy and peace.
And here we have one question. Have there been wars between stable democracies? The
first scholar to answer this question was Michael Doyle, who in his essay Kant, liberal legacies
and foreign affairs, argued that there has been no wars between democracies in History. He
was not arguing that there should be no wars between democracies; this was not a
normative argument, this was more an empirical argument where he found out that there
has been no wars fought between democracies. And Doyle was arguing that, after all, Kant
may have been right, that democracies really might not fight each other. He was careful to
add two arguments attached to this. First he argued that when there's a choice, democracies
choose authoritarian regimes as their adversaries, and not democracies, and by this token,
the absence of wars between democracies was not a coincidence, but a consequence that
comes from the democratic form of governance. And second point here was that wars
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So in no ways was he arguing that democracies are peaceful. That was not his point, and this
is a major departure from Kant's argument, but he was arguing that democracies do not fight
each other. There have been no cases of such, and this has caught attention of many scholars
of international relations, especially after the end of the Cold War, because it seemed that the
expansion of democracies might be the cause for a more perpetual peace.
Why democratic peace? Why is there no war between democracies? There were two
hypotheses here. The first hypothesis is institutional, political decisions made in democracies
are restrained by representative institutions, just like in a company of whose stock is open to
the market. Key leaders cannot make decisions without considering the impact from the
domestic society, so otherwise they would lose elections. And such institution restraint on
the decision made by political leaders, lead to moderation over high-risk decisions such as
fighting wars. This institutional hypothesis was adopted by some scholars, but found very
much unconvincing in face of evidence. So therefore, most scholars jumped to the
normative hypothesis, that war against democracies cannot be accepted by democracies as
both societies share common values and political institutions, and therefore they choose to
fight against dictatorships and not democracies.
But this all boils down to this fact that democracies have not fought each other. It might be
true that there is an absence of war, but is democracy the reason for the absence of war?
Many realist scholars have argued that it comes from the lack of common enemies, or the
presence of common enemies. European nations did not fight each other because the Soviet
Union was a much larger threat to their survival: the Soviet Union was threatening the
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From these two cases we should argue that the breakdown of unstable democracies
preceded the outbreak of war. So therefore, the scholars who used to argue democratic
peace are now arguing three pillars of democratic, of liberal peace. Democratic rule is one
condition important in preserving peace, but that's not all. They argue that open market is
also important. In this way they are combining the argument of commercial peace theory
into the democratic peace theory. Democracies as well as free trade play a large role in
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The nationalism you find in the French revolution was not about the French people, or to be
more precise, the definition of the French people was much broader than the cultural
definition of a Frenchmen. Anybody who was studying the French language was included in
the French citizenship, and in this sense there was much broader than, for example, the antiSemitic French nationalism in late 19th century, where the Jewish population was excluded
from the idea of the French nation.
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This is a map of Europe in 1805 when the Napoleonic forces were making great advances in
the neighboring regions, including Spain, Italy, all the way to Sweden, and of course
eventually to Russia. Here there was an inherent connection between revolution and war: to
defend the revolution you had to fight against your enemies. And during that fight national
armies were far superior to the standing armies which could not rely on such ideologies as
nationalism. So were the French Revolution and the wars that followed related to each
other? We have a disturbing answer here: yes. The French Revolution and the wars that
followed were related to each other. The French Revolution did bring out the republican
form of governance, which led to a dictatorship that invaded the neighbors, because the
Revolution had to be defended. It expanded into a massive warfare to the neighboring
regions, and the Napoleonic Empire did emerge out of the French Revolution for a very
practical reason.
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But what happened after First World War? Did the militarism in Germany go away? Well, not
exactly. After First World War, although there was a major revolution against the Emperor
and there was emergence of the Weimar Republic, one of the most democratic republics in
the European continent of the time, militarist institutions still survived.
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One point about civilian government is that civilians are always dependent on support from
the domestic society, and if this civil society wishes to be engaged in a war, then civilian
governments may be responsible to demands from the public to start a war. Say if there are a
number of people being killed your neighborhood region, 10.000 people were slaughtered
by a dictator. The military might think that the war is unwise, as the country's heavily
guarded and breaking through that defense wall that the military has enacted in the
neighborhood country could be very disastrous and the number of casualties on our own
forces. So the military might be reluctant to start a war, but nevertheless, in face of mass
killings in the neighborhood regions, the public might be curious about the lack of initiative
in the civilian government, and the civilian government might be forced to start a war, even
when the military as professionals disagree with that decision. In short, civilian governments
may support military engagement, when domestic society expects tough action.
Military professionalism is not dependent on domestic support, but civilian government is,
which leads to another point. Civilians might outweigh the political benefit expected from
the war, as compared to the risk and cost of military operation. Reducing the risk or the cost
of military operation is essential for the military as such risk and cost can destroy the whole
institution. But that's a question for the civilians and for the military, and not for the civilian
government. The civilian government, if it states an objective that is so important and if the
benefit from such action is so important, might override the decisions made by the military.
This was certainly the case in the
Falklands War between Argentina and
Great Great Britain. The Argentinian
junta occupied the Falklands Islands or
Islas Malvinas, which were under British
control. The Thatcher administration in
Great Britain took a very strong position
against the Argentina invasion and
disregarding the opposition from the
military, declared war on Argentina and
was eventually successful in bringing
out victory.
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Another war on Iraq, that took place in the year 2003, is an even clearer example of a war that
was started from an initiative or the civilian government. The war on Iraq was immensely
unpopular, even before it was fought among the American military. But nevertheless,
President George Bush Junior declared war on Iraq, and led America into one of the longest
military engagements in its history. So let us now take a closer look on the war on Iraq.
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I dont think there was any possibility of war on Iraq before 2001. In the year 2001, as we all
know, there was a terrorist attack on World Trade Center, the Pentagon and other places in
the United States. September 11th attack was a critical blow to the security mind that the
American public held. America used to be the safest nation in the world, but now the United
States was endangered by the act of terrorists. And this made it easier for anybody living in
the United States to accept the necessity of the war on terror, and this was a word used by
President Bush: the war on terror. And of course, the attack on the Hussein regime was
legitimized as one part of this war on terror. So it was not only the neoconservatives, it was
also the civil society, the Congress, the Senate, who even passively supported the war on
Iraq. The September 11 attack showed that the security of the United States is vulnerable.
And there was much support for the war on Afghanistan. Whether Taliban was central in the
war on terror is a matter of debate, but many Americans accepted that he war in Afghanistan
was necessary as Al-Queda, the terrorist organization, was somehow housed in the territory
of Afganistan, so to crush them thay had to crush the Talibans. The irony here is that the
Taliban regime collapsed in a very short period of time, but the activities of Al Qaeda in
Afghanistan and the Pakistan borders kept on going for a couple more years.
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4.
One argument would focus on military power, we can assume that military power is
essential in keeping peace. Another argument would be democracy, on the premise that
promoting democracy would promote peace in the world. An economist might argue that
free market is critical in the establishment of international peace, but an international
lawyer might argue that no, it's the international institutions that keep peace in a more
sustainable manner. And finally, there might be a more idealistic take on the issue, and argue
that we should do away with arms and weapons and military, because the abolition of arms
is critical for establishment of peace.
Each of these arguments been made in the field of international politics. Of course, military
power is a source for war, but also military power can be used to deter one's enemy; this is an
argument that has been pursued by what we call realist in international relations. And then
there is a focus on the formal politic, on governance, the argument that democracy is critical
in establishing peace is what we have called political liberalism. The argument that focuses
on free market and free trade would be the school that we call the economic liberalism; it
goes back to Adam Smith and the Manchester liberals, who argued that promoting free
market is critical for peace. A focus on international institutions and organizations such as
United Nations, would be the liberal institutionalism argument, centered the international
lawyers, practitioners and scholars of international law, but has also a very strong following
among the students of international relations. And then finally, the argument that abolition
of arms is necessary is a line of argument that is called pacifism in the world; it's a minority
argument, but it still has an almost religious following in the world.
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What kind of consequence would follow from such assumption of possible action? This
would be the classical world of balance of power and deterrence. If there is nothing in the
world that stops an aggressive war other than military capability of your own. There can be
civility, only if all those powers balance out and deter the other from engaging in excessive
warfare. Realist argument is crude, harsh, rude, but at the same time it is extremely real in the
sense that, in effect, there is no international organization with the coercive capacity, and it is
true that individual states do prefer security and survival through self-defense. So therefore,
although crude, it does depict one very important aspect of international society.
Let's move on to the other extreme. The other extreme would be pacifism that takes war as
a crime to Humanity. Unlike the liberals, they are not arguing about criminal actions started
by each state as crimes, for pacifists do not make a distinction between aggressive powers
and defensive powers, because all actions that use weapons itself are a crime. And in this
light, the possible that each state should take, would be the abolition of arms. The
consequence could be total and perpetual peace, as nobody can fight without military forces
or weapons. But this also opens the possibility of rogue powers taking opportunity of this
situation, which is essentially a power vacuum. If nobody has military power, then one that
has some military power will have an opportunity to take over the globe.
Pacifism is an extreme ideology that emerged at the end of major world wars, and became
widespread in Europe after First World War, as war itself was taken to be a crime to
Humanity. It also found a large following in Japan after the Second World War; in many ways,
the adherence to pacifism was a way to disregard the responsibility for starting a war in
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But nevertheless, I should point out that pacifism is but an extreme case of liberal ideas.
Liberalism is an argument in international relations that is located as the opposite of realist
assumptions. The assumption here is different from realist argument in the sense that they
take civil society as a basic actor in international relations; this might sound strange, as it is
the government that decides foreign policy. It is rather odd to argue that the civil society is a
basic actor in international relations.
However, if we can assume that each government is dependent on the will of the public, and
that each government is responsible to the civil society from whom they are elected, then
the state becomes a neutral institution which merely reflects the will and the preference of
the civil society. So, in essence, the liberal assumption about the international society rests
on the degree to which each society is open politically.
There are three variants of liberal ideas. The first variant would be one we called political
liberalism, which focuses on the form of governance in each country, and here the spread of
democratic governance, governments that are responsible to the people, would be critical in
the promotion of peace in the world.
The second variant of liberal ideas would be what we call economic liberalism, where the
argument is not about the political structure, but the way the market is structured, the
promotion of free trade in an open market would make each nation more dependent to each
other, and with this increase of interdependence, the likelihood of war would recede
because the nations would be more and more dependent to each other, and the cost of war
would shoot up quite high. So therefore free trade here is assumed to be a deterrent against
excessive militant behavior.
The third variant of liberal ideas would be liberal institutionalism, an argument we usually
associate with international law and international institution. The argument here is that the
promotion of institutional building, institution building in international relations is critical in
maintaining peace. Balance of power is always conditional to certain uncertainties and
security dilemma, of which well will discuss later. But if we focus on institutional building,
then we can somehow curb the impact of security dilemma and promote a more sustainable
peace.
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From here I will discuss some elements that are attached to each. And first let's start from the
realist argument and see if deterrence really works to promote peace in the world.
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So you can see that deterrence can fail, not only by aggressive powers, but also in a situation
where war is imminent and preemptive attack would bring about some strategic advantage
at least in the short term. And we have to face a critical question: what choice is left when
deterrence fails? If deterrence works, then we can work on peace without talking about
international institutions or democracies or free market, because military capability is
sufficient. But we are left with no choice but war or surrender if deterrence does not work.
And that is the crude conclusion that comes along with the case of deterrence failure.
Deterrence might work and manage stability in international relations, but we always will
have to be aware that deterrence entails a possibility of failure. And if deterrence fails, then
the only option is war or surrender. That is the reason we have to think about other
alternatives as conditions for peace, aside from deterrence.
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4.4. Case I: Germany, Japan and the origins of Second World War
In the previous section we have discussed about the outbreak of the Second World War, the
Munich conference and its failure in stopping Germany's aggression in in Europe, and also
about the preemptive attack, or the sneak attack as it was called by the Americans, by the
Japanese on Pearl Harbor.
These are the questions that I'd like to think about here on the failures of deterrence. Let's
start from the European Theatre, from the Munich Conference in 1938 where Great Britain,
France, Italy, and Germany joined hands and tried to work on a peace settlement that was
supposed to bring peace to Europe. When Germany started its expansion, after the
Anschluss, the annexation of Austria to the Third Reich, Hitler argued that the German
people in Sudentenland, in Czechoslovakia, were slaughtered by the Czechs, and he claimed
the annexation of this region to Germany, so the Czechs immediately mobilized and closed
their borders.
The leaders of France and Great Britain, desperately striving to avoid war, flew to meet the
two Axis leaders at Munich in a last desperate effort to preserve peace. Great Britain, France,
Italy, and Germany signed a pact at Munich in which the Germans took control of the
Sudentenland, and agreed they had no further territorial claims to make in Czechoslovakia.
The Munich pact was greeted by riots of protest, but French leaders returned to France to be
greeted by cheers from a relieved French people, and in Great Britain a happy Prime Minister
Chamberlain came back declaring he had a key to peace in our time, one of the most public
and ironic scenes in all History.
After that, the Nazis hadn't merely got 3 million more souls under the German flag: by taking
the Sudentenland, they had made Czechoslovakia defenseless, because in this territory laid
the natural defenses, the mountain ranges, and a defensive line of forts considered even
stronger than the Maginot Line. Without these fortifications, Czechoslovakia was disarmed. A
ripe plum ready to fall into Hitler's lap: within six months of declaring that he wanted no
more territory anywhere he violated the Munich agreement, Germany marched in and took
the whole of the Czech state, though they had specifically promised not to do so.
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Hitler was getting his control of Eastern Europe, and Poland was next up. British and French
powers, by accepting Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia, believed that they could
stop the outbreak of a World War, but the Munich Conference is now remembered as a total
failure. The policy that was pursued by Prime Minister Chamberlain of the United Kingdom
has been called appeasement, appeasing the enemy, giving in to the enemy and, in the end,
allowing a strategic advantage to the enemy.
At the time, however, we should also be aware that Munich
Conference was taken to be a chance for peace building.
Chamberlain believed that he was not repeating the mistake
of British governments in First World War, where Great Britain
was engaged in a war against Germany and that destroyed so
many human lives. Very few people supported the war in First
War World in Great Britain, and the aim of Chamberlain was to
stop an escalation into a Second World War by compromising
with Germany. And there was not only Chamberlin, for when
Chamberlin came back to England, he was greeted by an
enthusiastic support, with crowds of British people arguing
that Chamberlin was a peacemaker. But of course that was not
the case.
Was the compromise in Munich the cause for Second World War? This has been a subject of
debate among historians. A.J.P. Taylor was one of the historians who took a very strong
viewpoint on this issue, and this led to a very well-known controversy about the origin of the
Second World War. But from recent findings, I think we can make a very strong argument
that no, that the compromise in Munich was not the cause of Second World War. Even if the
British government or the French government has stood firm against Hitler and the Nazi
regime in Germany, that will not have stopped the outbreak of war.
The reason is very simple. Nazi Germany was not a power that could be deterred by sending
strong signals of retaliation, because Hitler was already working on his war plan for
expanding influence in Europe. He was aiming to take the Slavic populations as slave labor
and to exterminate in a literal sense the entire Jewish population; all these schemes were
there before the Munich peace conference. So although Chamberlin's action in conceding
Czechoslovakia to Germany is a highly questionable act of foreign policy, I doubt if
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Although this is a crude observation, this is what aggressive power means. When a power is
committed to war fighting, there is no way that you can stop it. Let's turn our eyes to the
Asian situation. Could Japan have been deterred from invading China? This is quite different
from the German situation, because the Japanese were not ready to start a war against the
United States or any Western countries when Japan invaded China. As a matter of fact, when
Japan invaded China the aim was to expand its sphere of influence without major battles
against the Kuomintang or other forces active in China. But then, it is also questionable if
whether it was possible to deter Japan's action in China by international pressure, because
Japan was reacting to international pressure in an extremely negative way.
Japan's aggression to China after all did not start from 1937, it started from the settlement of
the Manchuguo, which was the puppet regime of the Japanese government that effectively
isolated Japan from the international community. But we have to remember that that action
was not enforced, but was in a way voluntary. Japan left the League of Nations, and the
League of Nations could do nothing about it. The limit of challenging Japan's decision in the
China theater was already shown to be futile in early 1930's. In 1937, I doubt if a promise of
major retaliation could have stopped Japan's major reaction in the Chinese theater. This was
taken to be a war of limited engagement, and it turned out to be a quagmire.
Then could Japan have been deterred from attack in Pearl Harbor? Could Japan have been
deterred from starting the Second World War? That again is dubious on several grounds. The
Minister of Foreign Affairs was so interested until the very last moment in the success of the
negotiation between Japan and the United States, but when such negotiation was being
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The war brought out total destruction in China, Southeast Asia, and for that matter, Japan
homeland. But that war, and that's a sad finding here, may have been impossible to deter by
an announcement of retaliation. And if that is the case, then we have to see for other
conditions, aside from deterrence, in preventing an outbreak of major war.
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This is a very important idea, but has been carried out quite poorly I should say, because the
power of the United Nations was severely limited by the Russo-American Cold War. And
when dissenting members of the Security Council, the Soviet Union and the United States,
cannot agree on the conduct of the collective security, the impact of the Security Council
itself was somehow reduced, and collective security which was supposed to be the
cornerstone of international peace after the Second World War did not act accordingly.
Then what is the actual role of the United Nations in the prevention of wars? Its actual role in
prevention of wars is quite different from the collective security as envisioned in the San
Francisco meeting that launched the United Nations. Take a look at a list of United Nations
peacekeeping operations.
One of the first major peacekeeping operations took place in Congo from 1960 to 1964.
There has been much more peacekeeping operation after the end of the Russia-American
Cold War: there was a peacekeeping operation in Cambodia from 1992 to 1993, another one
in former Yugoslavia from 1992 to 1995, there was a peacekeeping operation in Eritrea and
Ethiopia from year 2000 to 2008, in Sudan from 2005 to 2011, and there is still a
peacekeeping operation going on in the region Darfur, in Sudan. Take a look at all these and
you can see that these are peacekeeping operations about conflicts that have already taken
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So here we can see that there is a very strong influence from major powers in the conduct of
international peacekeeping which makes it difficult to conduct a successful intervention
under the United Nations umbrella. That also means that the resources of international
institution peacekeeping would be very limited to say to least. Major powers are far more
interested in engagements that are directly related to their survival, than to regions such as
Somalia or Congo or Rwanda, where the extent to which such conflicts endanger the security
of their homeland is an open question.
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If both sides start to work on such assumptions, then the result is that both sides would
intensify instability and not stability, because both sides are working on the assumption that
the other side might invade. And that assumption is proven by the more aggressive
expansion of military capability on both sides. It's a mirror image. This was an argument that
was put forward quite strongly during the Cold War period, especially after the Cuban Missile
Crisis of 1962. Both United States and the Soviet Union were not eager to be engaged in a
battle, they were interested in expanding the sphere event influence. They were interested in
Afghanistan, they were interested in Vietnam, but they were not interested in fighting each
other. But nevertheless, an arms race between United States and U.S.S.R. continued.
The outcome of the security dilemma is essentially tension and instability. Even if both sides
might be defensive powers, they fail to achieve sustainable stability. The evidence to which
instability manifests itself is the arms race. There are two cases of famous arms race in
History.
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Both United States and U.S.S.R. were aware that they were not eager to fight each other. But
nevertheless, there was an arms race, an expansion security dilemma. With the AB infiltrated,
this put a limit, not a total limit but a limit on the expansion of that situation. From this we
can learn that arms control can build confidence between the two adversaries through arms
control negotiation. With the intensification of a new Cold War after the Carter
administration, there was an immense instability between the two powers, but you also have
to remember that the confidence built between U.S.S.R. and United States was critical in
bringing out the end to the Cold War.
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Now we might argue that arms control is something that is only limited to the relationship
between the Soviet Union and the United States, that arms control belongs to the days of
the Cold War. I totally disagree with that, for there is a region where we need arms control at
this very moment, or otherwise we might end up in an expansion with security dilemma, and
that region is East Asia.
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In September 17th 2002, with a visit of Prime Minister Koizumi, Japan and Democratic
People's Republic of Korea made the Pyongyang Declaration. This was one of the rare cases
when North Korea accepted its crimes of abduction from Japan. But along this same time,
United States opened their own intelligence that North Korea seemed to be restarting their
nuclear program, with the setup of a Uranium enrichment program. So 2002 did not end
with peacemaking, it went just the other way around, and the year ended with North Korea
expelling on International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, and tension between
East and West arose again.
There were some efforts for diplomatic negotiation in year 2003, the Six Party Talks that
reunited North Korea, South Korea, United States, China, Russia and Japan. There was some
hope for a lid on the nuclear situation and the instability in the Korean peninsula. The
lengthy rounds of talks did not produce much results, and then North Korea launched what
they called a satellite, which was believed to be a missile, and that led to the discontinuation
of Six Party Talks in 2009, so after all the international efforts could not stop North Korea
going nuclear.
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What we can learn from the past experience of nuclear development in North Korea is that
we must face a very sad finding: any attempts in reducing the possibility of North Korea
going nuclear did not work. North Korea is now a nuclear power, although not accepted by
the international community. There has already been cases, like India or Pakistan, where
new nuclear powers were accepted in the world, but at this moment the nuclear weapon of
North Korea has not been approved by major powers. So this is a case in which the
international community was in effect powerless in the development of another nuclear
nation.
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But then I'd like to ask you a question. Is China defensive or aggressive? The answer might
differ depending on your nationality. If you're Chinese your answer might be straight
forwardly defensive: China has always been defensive and has suffered from aggressive
surrounding powers. That is the traditional argument put forward by the Chinese
government and is an argument that has been shared by the Chinese public. But if you take a
look at the Japanese you will see a dramatically different case, because for the majority of the
Japanese population believes that China is the aggressive power, and not Japan. China, with
the expansion of its blue waters naval capabilities has somehow challenged the status quo of
the region. Moreover, China's neglect of international borderlines has arisen a fear that China
might be eager to change borderlines through the use of force.
This is not an argument limited to Japan, this is an argument shared by the United States, for
example, when secretary Clinton stated in the post mid Syria conference of 2010 that the
Chinas use of force that endangers the safety of waters cannot be accepted by the United
States. So I am not agreeing with our Chinese colleagues in saying that China is not
intentionally aggressive. I certainly can understand that the Chinese think that their actions
are defensive, but the problem is that these actions that are perceived to be defensive in
China, precisely the same actions can be perceived to be aggressive by other countries.
And that's where the security dilemma. Is Japan defensive or aggressive? If you ask a
Japanese whether Japan is defensive or aggressive concerning the Senkaku-Diaoyutai
dispute the answer would be clear: Japan is defensive. In fact, some people might say that
Japan should be more aggressive against China. If you ask the same question to China, the
answer of course, as you can anticipate, is that it is Japan that is being aggressive on this
issue. Tokyo Major Ishihara Shintaro proposal to bring Senkaku under the control of the
government of Tokyo met a strong resistance from China, and the proposal to nationalize
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