Tragedy of great power politics (Summary Notes)

After the end of the Cold war, Policy makers and academics saw the ushering
of a new era of peace of prosperity.
Mearsheimer however was skeptical of this and as mentioned demolishes
the concept with his theory of offensive realism.
He mentions offensive realism in a pessimist view, in a world where
conflict never ends

Main Points

States are always in the search of dominance over their rivals.

States pursue the power because of anarchy and insecurity
Realism portrays states in the every state for themselves ideology and
there is a lack of trust among people.
Mearshimer feels that presence of oceans means that there can
never be a worldwide hegemon.
Gives example of isolation provided to Britain by the English Channel,
which allowed it to act as an offshore balancer on mainland Europe.
States have one principal goal according to realism, and mearsheimer
which is survival. And all preceding goals have the same principal goal.
These goals include achieving regional hegemony. Issue with this is that
regional hegemon deny other states to become hegemons
Accumulation of Wealth and population size, both of these are
essential in building military power.
Britain controlled nearly 7 0 percent of European industrial might,
US had the most powerful economy in the world and it had clearly gained
hegemony in the Western Hemisphere
Nuclear Capability: developing these capabilities means nuclear armed
rivals are less likely to fight each other, which lessens fear and promotes
security but this does not rid the possibility of nuclear war. When states
find themselves in a MAD world they no longer pursue serious war.
The story of US rise started with the US nature of being expansionist
a powerful United States that could dominate the other independent
states of North and South America and also prevent the European great
powers from projecting their military might across the Atlantic Ocean .
The United States paid little attention to the balance of power in Europe
and Nonheast Asia during the second half of the nineteenth century,
because there were no potential peer competitors to worry about in either
region.
Regional hegemony acquired by US.
whenever a potential peer competitor emerged in either of those regions,
the United States sought to check it and preserve America's unique
position as the world's only regional hegemon.
American policymakers tried to pass the buck to other great
powers to get them to balance against the potential hegemon.
But when that approach failed, the United States used its own
military forces to eliminate the threat and restore a rough

balance of power in the area so that it could bring its troops

home,
Established regional hegemony by:
Expanding across North America and building the most powerful state in
the Western Hemisphere, a policy commonly known as "Manifest Destiny.
Minimizing the influence of the United Kingdom and the other European
great powers i n the Americas.
Monroe Doctrine
First, Monroe stipulated that the United States would not get involved in
Europe's wars
he put the European powers on notice that they could not acquire new
territory in the Western Hemisphere to increase the size of their already
considerable empires
Third. the United States wanted to make sure that the european powers
did not form alliances with the independent states of the Western
Hemisphere or control them in any way
Strategic imperative: The idea that American leaders understood that
the more powerful their country was, the more secure it would be in the
dangerous world of international politics.
UK
United Kingdom is separated from the European continent by a substantial
body of water.
The United Kingdom has also followed an offshore balancing strategy.
United Kingdom adopted a policy commonly referred to as "splendid
isolation."92.

In sum. both the United Kingdom and the United States have consistently
acted as offshore balancers in Europe.
United States confront a potential hegemon in Europe or Northeast Asia they
prefer to buck-pass to other great powers rather than directly confront the
threat themselves.

It made no continental commitment during this period, despite the numerous Greatpower wars raging on the continent. did not intervene in either the Austro-Prussian
War ( 1866 ) or
the Franco-Prussian War ( 1 870-7 1 ) ,
The third period runs from 1 90 5 to 1 9 3 0 and was dominated by the
United Kingdom's efforts to contain Wilhelmine Germany. which emerged
as a potential hegemon in the early twentieth century

Conclusively both the United Kingdom and the United States have
consistently acted as offshore balancers in Europe

All of this behavior. as well as the U.S. drive for hegemony in the Western
Hemisphere during the nineteenth century. corresponds with the
predictions of offensive realism.
great powers are not seriously committed to maintaining peace but
instead aim to maximize their share of world power.

No American troops were sent across the Atlantic to help prevent World
War l or to stop the fighting after war broke out

In both cases. The United States eventually j oined the light against
Germany and helped win the war and create peace in Europe. But the
United States did not fight to make peace in either world war. Instead, it
fought to prevent a dangerous foe from achieving regional hegemony.

The same basic point holds for the Cold War: American military forces
were in Europe to contain the Soviet Union, not to maintain peace.

Buck passing
When a n aggressor comes o n the scene, a t least one other state will
eventually take direct responsibility for checking it.
The buck-passer simply wants someone else t o do the heavy lifting, but it
certainly wants the threat contained.
Buck-passing, o n the other hand, does not always occur when an
aggressor threatens to upset the balance of power. Passing the
buck may be the strategy o f choice for threatened great powers

No buck-passing takes place among the great powers in bipolarity

because there is no third party to catch the buck. A threatened great
power has little choice but to balance against its rival great power.

buck-passing often occurs in unbalanced multipolar systems threatened

states are reluctant to form balancing coalitions against potential
hegemons because the costs of containment are likely to be great

In sum, both geography and the distribution of power play a key role in
determining whether threatened great powers form balancing coalitions or
buck-pass against dangerous aggressor.

There are three particular instances where it might seem that the
United Kingdom and the United States passed up opportunities to gain
power.
First, it is usually said that the United States achieved great-power
status in about 1898, when it won the Spanish-American War, which
gave it control over the fate of Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto
Rico, and also when it began building a sizable military machine.
By 1 8 50, however, the United States already stretched from the Atlantic to
the Pacific and, as was shown in Table 6.2, clearly possessed the economic
wherewithal to become a great power and compete around the globe with
Europe's major powers.
Yet it did not build powerful military forces
between 1 8 5 0 and 1 898, and it made little effort to conquer territory in
the Western Hemisphere, much less outside of it. Fareed Zakaria describes
this period as a case of "imperial understretch. "4

The seeming failure of the United States to become a great power

and pursue a policy of conquest in the second half of the
nineteenth century might seem to contradict offensive realism.

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