Order and Disorder in the International System

Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317085263
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume examines the complex international system of the twenty first century from a variety of perspectives. Proceeding from critical theoretical perspectives and incorporating case studies, the chapters focus on broad trends as well as micro-realities of a Post-Westphalian international system. The process of transformation and change of the international system has been an ongoing cumulative process. Many forces including conflict, technological innovation, and communication have contributed to the creation of a transnational world with political, economic, and social implications for all societies. Transnationalism functions both as an integrative factor and one which exposes the existing and the newly emerging divisions between societies and cultures and between nations and states. The chapters in this volume demonstrate that re-thinking fundamental assumptions as well as theoretical and methodological premises is central to understanding the dynamics of interdependence.

Chapter 1
Technology, Change, and the International System

Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel

Introduction

The extraordinary contemporary developments in science and engineering have led to a renewed interest in the discussion of the influence of technological change on the international system. While structural changes in the international system are influenced by many factors, the role of technology in effecting changes in power configurations among nations has been widely discussed by scholars seeking answers to the question of order and disorder. Most of the discourse has centerd on the contribution of industrial progress and military strength towards a ranking in the order of states. The evolution of power configurations, the role of international actors, and the development of new policy initiatives in response to changing technology has been at the center of our efforts to understand the modern world. This chapter proposes to focus on the contributions of scientific and industrial developments to the expansion and decline of states and to the resultant changes in the structure of the international system, as well as the impetus for developing alternate instruments of policy. The analysis will consider the impact of technology during three phases: an overview of the expanding world of the scientific age of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the emergence of the great industrial powers; the balance of power and nuclear deterrence world of the twentieth century; and the borderless world of the twenty-first century information and communications revolution. The brief overview of developments during the age of expansion and the nuclear age sets the context for a more extensive discussion of the unique issues involved in comprehending the global order of the twenty-first century. The first period witnessed the emergence of the nation-state as the primary actor in the international system (Wolf 1962). Great power status was achieved through industrial strength and the resulting economic advantage. This translated into military applications of industrial technology ushering in the option of expansion and conflict. The transition from the expanding world to a borderless world was bridged by the introduction of atomic energy and nuclear weapons which, emphasized deterrence and diplomacy. A fragile state of equilibrium based on a balance of power marked the twentieth-century milieu. The extraordinary challenge posed by the information revolution and other communications technologies to the borderless international system of the twenty-first century is explored in the final section of this analysis. The issue is whether the new technologies are leading to fundamental alterations in the structure and functions of the international or more aptly global system. Of particular interest is the challenge posed to traditional power structures by the asymmetric threats and the newly emergent actors empowered by the new technologies. The analysis is placed within the context of earlier discussions regarding the factors responsible for the rise of the West, including the technologies contributing to the industrial revolution, as well as the differing emphasis placed on the importance of technological innovation as a determinant of change in the international system. The traditional views of territorial possessions as indices of power and territorial expansion as the principal course through which states acquired prosperity and security is re-examined in light of the contemporary technologies. The current focus has shifted to information possession and control of communication as indices of global power. An important perspective relates to the view that there is no controlling authority in the international system which is seen as operating in an environment of anarchy (absence of formal governmental authority). This perspective has been attributed to confusion between concepts of stability and control (Bull 1977).

Periods of order and disorder in the international system can be examined in the context of broad changes in structure, as well as in terms of particular interactions between states. Order has characterized international relations when there has been equilibrium in the system based on an acceptance of the status-quo and the position of the component states within the often hierarchical arrangement. ‘An international system is in a state of equilibrium if the more powerful states in the system are satisfied with the existing territorial, political, and economic arrangements’ (Gilpin 1994: 11). Underlying this perspective is the suggestion that equilibrium is sometimes reflective of resignation when the goal of asserting superiority is unattainable and a state will settle for the status-quo as the least objectionable choice (Wolfers 1962). This would indicate a measure of realism in international relations. Changes within and between states caused often by socio-religious factors or technological developments has led to disequilibrium and concurrent disorder. The assumption that the basic goal of international relations has fundamentally remained the same through the ages is a significant component of the discussion of change in the international system. Many scholars see the international system in terms of an ongoing struggle for wealth and power among its constituents operating in a state of anarchy.

The transformation of the international system has been characterized by differing rates of change. Gradual change has typified some periods of history, while dramatic and rapid change has characterized others. The industrial revolution, the nuclear revolution, and the contemporary information revolution have often been viewed as benchmarks in studying the changing nature of power and relations between states. The ongoing discussion concerning whether technological innovation leads to revolutionary change or evolutionary change suggests that radical change has been induced by conflict in some instances and by technological innovation at other points in time (Skolnikoff 1993). Scholars are divided on the emphasis that should be placed on technological progress as an independent variable in the study of relations between states and as a factor in analyzing power configurations in the international system. While technology increases the options available to policymakers in their pursuit of the goals of the state, it simultaneously leads to complications in the decision-making process. Quite clearly, the material environment has a significant influence on transformation, although the social conditions and prevalent ideologies cannot be ignored in the analysis of change.

If the discussion were to center around gradual change versus dramatic change, it is possible to find historical points of reference that explain dramatic change, while gradual change would take into consideration the evolution of social values and political interests. The dramatic sequences would include technological breakthroughs, political revolutions, and other conflict-based scenarios. In these instances, the period of adjustment is compressed resulting in the perception of rapid or dramatic change. Instability also plays a role in such perceptions. Major political changes in the international system can be identified and understood more easily than progressive, gradual change. Both gradual evolutionary change (process-based change) and dramatic change (event-based change) have their proponents. This is reflected in the dichotomy between a deterministic approach and a predictive interpretation of change. Though it is tempting to explain change in universal terms, it is obvious that the conditions of the past are in many ways substantively different from those that prevail in the modern world. The ongoing discussion of change as a gradual process or as an event based phenomenon, obscures the reality that systemic adjustments are often driven by actors responding to the variables driving change.

The Expanding World

Transportation Technology, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Powers

The rise of the West and the expanding reach of nations that had discovered modern sea power have been attributed to developments in transportation technology during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A number of scholars emphasized the significance of navigational advances during the formation of the modern European states system (Mahan 1897). The engineering and scientific breakthroughs of this time transformed the nature of sea power. The dawning of a scientific age founded on scientific methodology, research, and theory went hand in hand with technological developments that impacted on commerce and warfare. Inventions such as the ‘capital ship’, gunpowder, and the artillery fortress, were credited with having altered the nature of warfare during this period leading to a rearrangement in the power structure of the international system. With the development of steamships and ancillary technologies that opened up new trade routes, the locus of power had dramatically shifted from land to the high seas. The advances in transportation profoundly influenced the ability of states to project power by facilitating movement of materials, military forces, and armaments. Brodie recognized that control over new inventions offered tactical advantages. He was convinced of the critical role of engineering, especially undersea technology, in the shifting balance of maritime and national power and viewed the extension of the battlefield below the surface of the sea as an important shift with strategic implications. Maritime technology and naval aviation were seen as a transformative influence on the projection of power in the modern age. The proponents of sea power, enthralled by the impact and application of modern inventions in altering the status-quo were not alone in recognizing the significant role of scientific advances (Brodie 1969).

The land routes and highways of earlier periods were no longer seen as the primary conduits of commerce or as channels for the projection of military power. The development of sea power had introduced a new highway that benefited countries with a shoreline. This perceived disadvantage to hitherto land-based communications routes was not universally accepted. Mackinder discussed the historical dominance of land routes and their modern transformation, arguing that railroads and improvements in communication had removed any disadvantages of being landlocked (Mackinder 1962). The disagreements on the relative significance between land and sea power did not alter the fundamental agreement that technology and innovation served to stretch the boundaries of human behavior beyond the limitations of the environment.

The industrial revolution has been recognized as a transformative influence on the predominantly agrarian economies of the time through the development of railroads, chemical industries, telegraph, electricity, and the internal combustion engine. The great industrial nations were sharply differentiated from states that lagged in industrial progress by an increase in total productivity that was achieved through the mechanization of agriculture and manufacturing production. Possession and control over raw materials were considered necessary and important elements of national power and contributed to the perception of strength. Power and industrial advantage served to highlight the widening gap between small states and the great powers. These changes impacted on the national political process and figured prominently in the discussion of great power status in the international system.

The focus on the interconnections between industrial growth and military strength has prominently featured in interpretations of the foreign policy positions underlying the balance of power in the international system (Taylor 2004). The conduct of modern warfare required that the nations that prevailed would be those that had a lead in industrial production. National capabilities, including industrial production, were measured against a historical framework that suggested a close association between power in production, power in the state, and power in international relations (Cox 1981). It was a logical step forward to assert that industrial strength, based on the presence of a highly-skilled workforce with a superior ability to process an abundance of raw materials, was a contributor to the projection of military power. Military power was more mobile than it had ever been and could be projected at great distances. Relations between states, alliances, and other interactions were driven by perceptions of relative power and status based on technological superiority. Decreasing industrial growth was correlated to a decline in military strength and a loss of political power (Morgenthau 1967). Powers that achieved world dominance during the industrial revolution, such as Britain, experienced a corresponding decline in the modern period. The continual pursuit of scientific and technological progress as a pre-requisite of power has been influential (Brodie 1973). A related contention suggests that innovation is fundamental to maintaining superiority since it has a tendency towards diffusion, enabling nations to challenge the dominance of established powers in the international system (Gilpin 1994). Gilpin noted as an example that while the United States continues to be the dominant and most influential state in the system, its ability to manage the system as it did in the past is diminishing. It is increasingly unable to maintain the existing territorial divisions and arrangements, its traditional domains of influence, and enforce the rules that govern the global economy. ‘The redistribution of economic and military power in the system to the disadvantage of the United States has meant that costs to the United States of governing the system have increased relative to the economic capacity of the United States to support the international status-quo’ (Gilpin 1994: 232).

An alternative viewpoint presented by Lewis Mumford is critical of the utilitarian perspective underlying the analysis of technology in society. This perspective attributes the emphasis on technology to the utilitarian bias that dominated the scientific community in the nineteenth century and seeks to place technological development within the framework of other cultural and social influences. Discussing Leonardo da Vinci and his forays into the scientific future, Mumford observed, ‘Leonardo himself committed to paper even more remarkable forebodings of the world than science and mechanization would eventually bring into existence’ (Mumford 1967: 291). As we consider the impact of information technology on the study and conduct of international relations in the contemporary world, it is interesting to note Mumford’s prescient thoughts.

Military Technology and Warfare

As we have noted above, the relationship between scientific invention and warfare has been extensively studied in an effort to understand the origins of power and status in the international system. Over the centuries, efficiency and ingenuity in the development of weapons led to accelerated change. The notion that the balance of power between feuding parties and states had been altered by engineering innovations in bridge design, fire-tipped siege engines, chemical warfare, and gunpowder was widely explored. New designs and superior of engines of war impacted the existing urban and fortification designs, rendering them obsolete and leading to new patterns of conflict. By the twentieth century, the innovations that influenced the outcomes of World Wars I and II included chemical warfare and radar technology. Modern warfare was distinguished by an unprecedented level of mechanization characterized by the invention of sophisticated weapons and ‘inventions in mechanization and mobility’ (Wright 1944). It was widely accepted that for the first time in human history wars had been decisively impacted by the presence of weapons that had been inconceivable a few years earlier. The weapons represented a synthesis of advanced research from science-wave mechanics, electromagnetic theory, physical chemistry, cybernetics (Breckner 1964).

While the military application of technology underlies much of the discussion of modern warfare, the acknowledgement that the economic benefits of the new technologies translated into an advantage in preparing for conflict is central to this perspective. It is, therefore, not entirely clear whether the economic and military advantages conferred by technological superiority can be analytically separated in discussing great power status in the international system. The international order was determined by states that had the advantage in materials, facilities, and knowledge for the production of advanced weaponry over those which were lacking. States with advanced technologies dominated the system using their advantage to influence the policies of weaker members and to create dependency relationships. The technological imperative figures prominently in explaining the presence of an arms dynamic that is independent of an arms race. States are impelled by scientific and technological advances to keep current and are encouraged in this by an institutionalized military-industrial complex (Buzan 1987).

The strength of industrial nations lay not only in possessing resources and production facilities, but also in the ability to maintain and develop a sustainable knowledge base. Hence, the training of scientists and engineers and the support of research became an important component of political power. Innovation served to broaden the options available to policy makers and at the same time inserted greater complexity in the decision making process. This will be more apparent when we examine the changes wrought by the nuclear revolution and the information revolution.

The Nuclear World and the Balance of Power

The nuclear age ushered in a broad consensus that it was essential to construct a new international order founded on the common interest of all states to preclude irreversible destruction. The social and political implications of atomic energy profoundly impacted the argument on the international order. There was an uneasy feeling that, in the absence of a common understanding, neither fear nor recognition that the use of modern weapons has the potential to destroy civilization would prove to be an inhibiting factor in modern conflict. The foreboding that peace was increasingly unattainable in such an environment fuelled the concern that a pre-emptive strike could be a tempting strategy in calculus of war. The tradition of citing historical experience to demonstrate that states had a predisposition for conflict is quite well established in the analysis of the international order (Hamilton 1941). This line of thought undermines the converse belief that scientific progress would lead to fundamental change in the behavior of states.

A leading outcome of the nuclear impasse was the bi-polar world composed of two distinct constellations of states (Fox 1949). A sort of equilibrium was to be expected in this configuration, although it was subject to periods of crisis and proxy conflict from time to time. The nuclear revolution led to a significant investment in managed conflict and revived the need to examine other instruments of power. The paradox of nuclear weapons was the conferral of national status and power, with the simultaneous reduction in the option of rational employment. The value of a nuclear arsenal was essentially as a deterrent that enabled states to continue to maintain their conventional capacities. Prior to the nuclear age deterrence between nations did not have the conceptual significance that it acquired in relation to the premise of unacceptable retaliation. Based on the idea that a nuclear exchange, or a conventional conflict that could escalate into a nuclear exchange, would be unthinkable, the possession of nuclear weapons was seen as a deterrent to conflict involving the new technologies. The progress from simple destructive potential to swiftness of delivery prompted new strategic thinking that took into account the number of nuclear warheads and missiles, their survivability, range, accuracy, guidance systems, command and control systems, and other technological developments. Nuclear deterrence and strategy continued to evolve with new breakthroughs as policy makers attempted to determine vulnerabilities in a nuclear shield which would invite a pre-emptive attack. A state of affairs expressed as a balance of power based on possession of nuclear weapons and simultaneous efforts to establish global collective security increasingly came to characterize international relations. A more realistic assessment of the limits of war was introduced into superpower relations (Wolfers 1962).

The controversy surrounding the possession of nuclear arms has underscored the fundamental disagreement on deterrence as a contributor to stability. Deterrence was dependent on maintaining a technological advantage by continually keeping up with scientific advances (Mahan 1897). MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) is what keeps deterrence relevant as a strategic concept. The knowledge that both parties have the same destructive potential is essential to the balance of power that deterrence represents. If technological development enables...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Foreword by Shri Shashank
• Introduction
• 1 Technology, Change, and the International System
• 2 Shaping the World Order by Force
• 3 Actors and Tools in the Post-Westphalian World: The Targeted Sanctions of the European Union
• 4 International Order and Global Leadership
• 5 One World – Many ‘Orders’?
• 6 State Failure in the Contemporary International System: New Trends, New Threats
• 7 NATO’s First Mission to Africa – Darfur
• 8 Between Shadows and Hopes: Discursive Representations of Female Suicide Bombings and the Global Order
• 9 Burying Sovereignty in its Birthplace: Back to the Middle Ages
• Epilogue
• Index