hegemonic cycles and war

Question 1

General war

Answer 1

Wars which include most of the world’s major powers, defined as states that constitutes at least 10% of the world’s power

Question 2

How general wars matter

Answer 2

These 10 wars wars account for 90% of all war deaths as compared with the thousands of other inter-state wars in the period of 1494-2001

Question 3

Ten general wars - background

Answer 3

• There is dispute of the identity of the ten general or world wars
• These wars are dated from about AD 1500 because it was at this time that th Europeans came to dominate the world’s oceans far beyong the capacity of any non-European state to resist, and this rendered them invulnerable to foreign conquest. The Europeans were seeking to trade with Eastern Asia, bypassing the heavily taxed caravan routes dominated by the Moslem states
• Europeans capability was based on the convergence of heavy state financing, and key technologies such as the Ocean-going ship, the compass, and various mechanical chronometers and mathematical means to facilitate navigation.
• The European states and their colonies continue to control to this day, though they may not forever: the US and its European allies, plus the Russians, control some 90% of the world’s naval military power. The Chinese and Japanese navies are the only significant non-European naval powers.
• China did make an earlier attempt to explore the world using naval powers in 1405-1433, under Cheng Ho, but abandoned firther attempts and thereby suffered control of the Oceans to the Europeans 50 years later.

Question 4

Italian Wars 1494-1517

Answer 4

• It has been a very peculiar phenomena that at sea there has been a winner-take-all phenomena in which the strongest naval state typically dominates all of the world’s oceans.
• This is because the ease of movement across the world’s seas has permitted rapid domination of them by navies with only slight technological advantages over their opponents. If one navy is only slightsly more powerful than another, it will take it only a short amount of time to complete the conquest, after which point it will dominate trade and make it difficult for its opponents to accumulate the resources to oppose it.
• Early naval states imposed a system of free trade in which they used force to obtain permission to sell goods in the markets of other states.

Question 5

Organski’s Power Transition Theory (first theory)

Answer 5

• Organski conducted statistical tests and found that wars between the most powerful states o any period occurred as the two states pass or are about to pass each other in total power. In other words, was happens when one of the states is in relative decline
• In every power transition there is a status quo state - the established power which is in relative decline and which has a interest in preserving the current international order
• There is also a challenger or revisionist state, which seeks to over-turn the international system and defeat the status quo power. The challenger state is usually rising rapidly in power in comparison with the status quo states and wants therefore to take over the international system. Satisfied challenger states will inherit and not overturn the internation system.

Question 6

Status inconsistency theory

Answer 6

• Measured differences between national aspirations and the distribution of benefits has been found to lead to war
• War occurs during power transition - when a challenger state almost approximates the power level of the dominant status quo state (and its allies).
• HOWEVER, before the challenger state surpasses the status quo state, the status quo state typically begins a preventive war to defeat the challenger before the transition occurs.
• War is more likely in a power transition during abrupt downward and upward shifts in power changes
• A rapid rise (eg, industrialization) leads to externalization of domestic dissatisfaction

Question 7

Distinction between status quo/challenger and rational deterrence theory

Answer 7

Deterrence is about who attacks first, where status quo/challenger is about who wants to change the system

Question 8

War of Dutch Independence 1585-1609 (3 of 5 great powers)

Answer 8

While most of Europe was involve in a Catholic- Protestant civil war, the Dutch revolted against Spanish rule and in 1585, the British intervened on their behalf, provoking the unsuccessful Spanish Armada, the Spanish attempt to dominate Europe and the world’s oceans, and the dutch occupied the vacuum.

Question 8

Criticism of power transition theory

Answer 8

• It was found in the COW dataset that 30 states account for 70% of MID initiation and 60% targets in MID.
• Initiation and target correlations indicate that revisionist and status quo distinction does not carry well in multiple incidents
• Rapid relative shifts increase the likelihood of war 800 times

Question 9

Long Cycle Theory and Hegemonic Wars (second theory)

Answer 9

There are sets of theories, grouped under the title of Long Cycle Theories, that seek to explain the periodic dominance of the international system by the single most powerful state termed the hegemon, and the transition of power from one hegemonic power to the next typically occurs through a general or world war.
- The precise timing of these hegemonic states is in perpetual scholarly dispute, but there is general consensus on the broad outlines of the succession and its nature. The hegemonic cycle starts with the rise of Europe in world affairs around AD 1500.

Question 10

Statistical evidence for long cycle theory

Answer 10

Hegemonic wars follow the pattern of probing, adjusting and hegemonic wars: 100 year cycle from 1494-1973

Question 11

the hegemonic cycle

Answer 11

Hegemonic states invariable had pre-eminent naval power that was grounded in commercial trade and technological dominance. As long as these states are dominant, they shape the structure of international commerce, typically pursuing free trade. But as they become over-extended in defending their interests, they fall behind technologically and ultimately commercially to a rising challenger.
EG: the UK declined from 58% of the world’s economy in the 1850s to 2% in 2001 - too much money spent on a large navy and not enough on research and development in new technologies. Germany, which had a smaller military, spent more on industrialization and new technologies and surpassed England.
- Because the dominant state obtains resources benefits by controlling the international system, they rarely make room for challengers. - For a hegemon, trade and financial power in the form of banks matters more for maintaining naval dominance that natural resources such as wood (since natural resources can always be traded for)
- The the challenger is a naval power, it defeats and takes over the empire of the preceding status quo power, and becomes the new status quo power.

Question 12

Modelski and Thomas on land-maritime power transitions

Answer 12

The challenger, if it is a land power, is defeated, but so weakens the hegemonic state that another maritime power inherits the position as hegemon

Question 13

results of power transition

Answer 13

• Victory by a new hegemon brings a restructuring of the international system, which typically includes a new set of international institutions and structure of trade.
• World commerce did not exist until the European navies, specifically the Portugese, cleared the trade routes of hostile navies, in the sixteenth century.
• The command of the world’s oceans has since passed to the Dutch, then the British, and now the United States Navy.
• In each period, free trade is preferentially established around the hegemonic power.

Question 14

Hegemony and peace

Answer 14

Periods of peace have been periods of preponderance by a hegemon, and periods of war have been periods of decline of the hegemon (Pax Britannica, Cold War)
EG: What would happen to the United Nations, the World Bank, attempts at liberalizing world trade through the World Trade Organization, without a hegemonic power like the U.S.? (Answer: It would fall, since these are in essence institutions set up for American benefit at the beginning of the period of hegemony at the end of the Second World War and would not persist without it.

Question 15

Thirty Years’ War 1618-1648 (6 of 7 Great Powers)

Answer 15

• The thirty Years War started as Protestant-Catholic civil war in Germany, but spread to include a Hapsburg (Spanish-Austrian) vs French attempt to dominate Europe. The Catholic side included Spain-Austria and the Holy Roman Empire against the Protestant Germans, Sweden, and France. A third of Germany’s population, 8 million, were killed in the war.
• The war was also concluded by the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which in political science is used to indicate the birth of sovereign states as we understand them as having a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

Question 16

Why general wars are long and costly - Geoffrey Blainey (third theory) (4)

Answer 16

1 - Balancing phenomena creates two evenly balanced sides that leads to a military stalemate.
2 - General wars produce fighting on multiple fronts that makes victory on all fronts unlikely
3 - Settlement is difficult within and between the coalitions because of the multitude of interests that need to be coordinated.
4 - General wars eliminate the restraining effect of the threat of third party intervention, leading to a lack of restraint in the scale of war and in the type of weapons used.

Question 17

Wars of Louis XIV 1689-1700 (6 of 7 great powers)

Answer 17

• France’s Louis XIV sought to dominate Europe, especially as France’s population was the largest in Europe, France’s economy did not require a colonial empire. He was opposed and eventually contained by the Dutch, Spanish, Austrians, the Germans, and the English.
• The British come to dominate the Oceans and supercede the Dutch: The British and French begin their wars over the control of India and North America.

Question 18

War of Spanish Succession 1701-1714 (5 of 6 great powers)

Answer 18

• The French and Austrians clashed over succession in Spain. The English, Dutch, Germans, Austrians, Prussia and Portugal opposed and eventually defeated France
• The British expanded the empire in North America: Newfoundland and Acadia (Nova Scotia captured): ethnic cleansing of the Acadians

Question 19

wallensteins wolr capitalist system and general war(4 theory)

Answer 19

• Why do status quo states decline and why do challenger states rise?
  o First developed by Lenin in his Imperialism:
  ▪ The law of the uneven growth of states causes war.
  ▪ Relative changes in economic power occurs because of differences
  in geopolitical positioning and inherent endowments that permit optimal exploitation of the current or emerging manufacturing technology.
  Wallenstein:
• The operations of the world capitalist system explains the uneven development
  economic development of the world’s states.

Question 20

the world economy travels through a series of stages, and at each
subsequent stage undergoes three transformations. what are the 3 transformation?

Answer 20

o (1): First, a qualitative change occurs in the type of predominant
capitalism.
o (2): Second, there is a geographic increase in the number participants in
the global economic system as the division of labor extends itself to
outlying societies.
o (3): Third, at each stage a state either has its particular role (core, semi-
periphery, or periphery) confirmed or changed.
▪ Core states dominate the system and exploit weaker and less
technologically developed semi-peripheral and peripheral states.

Question 21

(#5) Fifth Theory: Democracies and Preventive War:

Answer 21

AJP Taylor has found that every major war between the great powers from 1848- 1914 was a preventive war.
* However, when England fell into decline and was largely superceded by the U.S. at the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was no war to mark the transition.
* Reason:
o Power Transition Theory does not apply well to transition between democracies because they are reluctant to begin preventive wars.
▪ Big Exception:
* US’s attack on Iraq in 2003 in response to suspected weapons of mass destruction.

Question 22

(#6) Sixth Theory: Kindleberger’s Hegemonic Stability Theory and War:

Answer 22

Sometimes a status quo hegemon declines, such as the British Empire, and
another potential hegemon rises, such as the U.S., but there is no transition.
* Kindleberger argued that hegemons do more than exploit their dominant
position to extract resources from the international system,
o but that the international system is a public good that benefits all states
and it is in the interest of the hegemon to ensure that the system continues
to work.

Question 23

what is a public good

Answer 23

Public goods: Characterized by:
o (1): nonrilvalness (not zero-sum): a gain of one state in free trade does not cause another’s loss.
▪ EG: Comparative advantage: states can produce what they are good at.
o (2): nonexclusiveness (not excludable): states may benefit from trade without having to expend resources to maintain it.
* Kindleberger argues that it was the failure of the British and American hegemons to manage the international system that caused the great depression, that brought the fascist regimes to power in Germany, Italy, and Japan, and was the cause of the Second World War.

Question 24

Hegemons provide two crucial services to maintain the international economy:

Answer 24

(1). The hegemon is the lender of last resort:
o When the economy enters into a recessionary cycle, most private and small state lenders become reluctant to provide loans.
o Typically the hegemon enters and provides low-interest counter-cyclical loans to desperate businesses and states.
* (2). The hegemon is the market of last resort:
o As an economy enters a recession, states tend to become protectionist to
protect domestic employment by raising tariffs to keep out foreign
competition.
o Because all follow the identical strategy, trade flows come to a halt
actually worsening unemployment in all states.
o The hegemon keeps its tariffs low to provide a counter-cyclical market
for states that can’t sell their goods elsewhere, and thereby maintains the integrity of the free trade system.

Question 25

Critics: Joanne Gowa argues that there is no need to have a hegemon to maintain an international economic system.

Answer 25

(1). Free trade is a myth: hegemons do not pursue free trade but optimal tariffs and they use force to manipulate the system to ensure these benefits.
* (2). Free trade is not a public good, but excludable: the hegemon excludes states from trade that do not submit to its authority in the international system.
* (3). Smaller states can cooperate to maintain a public good without needing a hegemon under certain circumstances.

Question 26

cold war and US hegemony raised two major questions:

Answer 26

(1). Do hegemons benefit from their exploitation of the international system, or
do they become overextended and depleted by maintaining the system over time?
* (2). Is the U.S. in decline or not?
o Results: The fear was that if the U.S. fell into decline, it would cause the collapse of the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, free trade and innumerable other organizations established under U.S. hegemony, leading to world chaos.

Question 27

what are the six theories of “the hegemonic cycles and war”

Answer 27

1. organski’s power transition theory
2. long cycle theory and hegemonic wars
3. Geoffrey Blainey general wars
4. Wallenstein’s world capitalist system and genral wars
5. democracies and preventive war
6. Kindleberger’s hegemonic stability theory and war