1
INTRODUCTION
Though human society has roots which lie deeper in history than the beginning of human life, men have made comparatively little progress in solving the problem of their aggregate existence. Each century originates a new complexity and each new generation faces a new vexation in it. For all the centuries of experience, men have not yet learned how to live together without compounding their vices and covering each other âwith mud and with bloodâ.
Reinhold Niebuhr1
Harold Macmillan once told a young journalist that politicians had only one thing to fear: âEvents, old boy, events.â Events have certainly conspired to confound the hopes of a ânew world orderâ and a Europe âwhole and freeâ which were widespread after the end of the Cold War. Europeans may no longer live with the fear of an EastâWest conflict and nuclear Armageddon, but they are having to come to terms with a new range of security threats and a less predictable European international order. The heady optimism of the annus mirabilis of 1989 has faded as concerns have grown about terrorism, proliferation, regional conflicts, transnational crime and failed states.2The 1990s opened with a major war in Iraq and closed with another in the Balkans. In between, Europeans found themselves struggling with a series of conflicts which required the use of coercive military power. Paradoxically, therefore, despite hopes for a long-awaited âpeace dividendâ, Europeâs armed forces have been more active than ever before. âWe have slain a large dragonâ, it has been said, âbut we now live in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.â3
As the twenty-first century unfolds, it is already evident that Europe faces a more uncertain and turbulent future. Both NATO and the EU have expanded to absorb new members from the former Soviet bloc, but NATO lacks clear purpose and strategic rationale, while the European integration process has stalled in the wake of the fiasco over the EU constitution. At the same time, transatlantic relations have deteriorated as a series of traumatic crises have contributed to a process of continental drift. In the East, Russia is increasingly asserting itself as the Eurasian great power, whilst Germany â Europeâs Zentralmacht â is no longer the âreflexive multilateralistâ and loyal transatlantic ally it once appeared to be. Not surprisingly, therefore, events are providing the catalyst for a renewed debate about the future of the European security system in the twenty-first century.
I EUROPEAN SECURITY BEYOND THE COLD WAR
The research puzzle
This book addresses the question at the heart of these debates: how stable and durable is Europeâs post-Cold War security order, and what are the prospects for peace and cooperation in the continent? Rather than simply narrating recent events and providing an empirically rich description of the European security system, however, this book has a more ambitious aim: it seeks to delve beneath the surface play of events and to identify the underlying trends and structural dynamics of contemporary European security.
To this end, this book draws on realist international theory: more specifically, âstructuralâ or âneoâ realism. Realist international theory is widely recognised to be one of the most influential and theoretically sophisticated approaches to the study of international politics.4It is therefore something of an anomaly that it has had so little impact on the study of European security. Few European scholars have utilised the analytical tools offered by realism, and even in the USA, where the theory has been most influential, few neorealist analyses of the European security system have been undertaken.
The reason for this anomaly is not difficult to explain. First, realism is a âhard sellâ: it does not sit easily with the dominant liberal values and mindset of modern Western societies. Second, realism has become increasingly marginalised and misunderstood in the European International Relations community, particularly in Britain which has become virtually a ârealist-free zoneâ.5Third, contemporary Europe is a âhard caseâ for realism.6 Neorealism has most obvious applicability to regional security systems characterised by a high level of security competition and great power rivalry, such as East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It is less obviously suitable for analysing regional security systems â such as post-Cold War Europe â where there is a marked degree of great power cooperation and muted security competition. For these reasons, it is not surprising that most studies of the post-Cold War European security system have been influenced by liberal-idealist assumptions. Nonetheless, as this book will endeavour to demonstrate, realist international theory offers a powerful tool for elucidating both the dynamics of security competition in Europe and the elements of cooperation and governance that have emerged in the continent since the demise of Cold War bipolarity. Analysing the structural distribution of relative power cannot explain all the nuances and contingencies of contemporary European security, but it can help identify the structural dynamics underlying the ebb and flow of events.
The central purpose of this book is to stimulate a more balanced debate on the future of the European security system by adding to it the hitherto marginalised voice of structural realism. In his concluding remarks to his essay Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke argued that his aim was to correct an imbalance in the debate on the meaning and significance of the 1789 revolution. His comments, he argued, came from one who, âwhen the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails, may be endangered by overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equiposeâ.7 This book is also an attempt to correct an imbalance â in this case on the international security implications of the 1989 revolutions in Europe. Its purpose is to preserve the equipoise of debate on European security by adding to it the much maligned and greatly misunderstood voice of realist international theory. In doing so, it seeks to open up space for discussion, not to close it down, thereby facilitating a more balanced âconversationâ on the future of European security.8
Realismâs answer to the research puzzle outlined above is a bleak one, which jars uncomfortably with the dominant liberal consensus. Mainstream liberal opinion is that Europe is âprimed for peaceâ; that war, conflict, security competition and great power rivalry are things of the past; that a new age of international politics has dawned, characterised by institutionalised multilateral cooperation between democracies enmeshed in thickening webs of economic interdependence and sharing a common normative commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes. At the heart of this emerging âKantianâ perpetual peace order is the European Union, which liberals and idealists believe ensures peaceful cooperation between its member states.
In contrast to the Panglossian optimism of liberal-idealism, which this book challenges, Realism offers a much less sanguine view of the prospects for a durable peace order in Europe. 1989 was neither the âend of historyâ nor the end of the balance of power and international politics as we know it. In the absence of an overarching sovereign authority able to ensure compliance with its decisions, the European security complex remains an anarchic self-help system, within which states must look to their own resources, or those of powerful allies, to safeguard their security and autonomy. States â especially great powers â remain the most important actors in this anarchic system, not international organisations like the EU or NATO. Europeâs great powers continue to worry about their security and their power relative to their main rivals and competitors. Consequently, cooperation in multilateral institutions is often difficult because states worry about who benefits most from cooperative ventures: in the language of neorealist theory, they worry about relative rather than absolute gains.
Given the self-help nature of international politics in Europe, it is unwise to assume that peace in the continent is permanent and stable. Although security competition was muted in the 1990s, its underlying causes have not been eradicated. Indeed, a certain level of rivalry and suspicion between states is inevitable in any anarchic, self-help system. This is because the best way for states to ensure their security is by amassing as much power as possible. Consequently, systemic pressures impel states (at least, states that act rationally) to pursue strategies aimed, in the first instance, at maximising their security, and ultimately, at maximising their power. A realist analysis of the structural distribution of relative power capabilities in Europe thus suggests that âcontinental driftâ in transatlantic relations is irreversible, whoever occupies the White House; that the âGerman problemâ has not been solved by democracy and unification; that Russia will remain a security competitor for Western powers, whatever course its domestic political evolution takes; that the EU is a product of bipolarity, and that the prospects for an âever closer unionâ in the context of multipolarity are, at best, limited; that an enlarged EU is not a âcivilianâ or ânormativeâ power, and cannot serve as the institutional guarantor of a European peace; that NATO is destined for a greatly reduced role in Europeâs security architecture; and that idealist notions that Europeâs security can be based on soft power, shared normative values and âsecurity governanceâ are an illusion â and a dangerous illusion at that.
More generally, this book makes the realist case that democracy and multilateral institutions are no guarantee of a stable peace; that globalisation, economic interdependence and transnational societal exchanges are not leading to the âwithering away of the stateâ; and that nationalism has not been neutered or transcended, but remains a potent political force in Europe. Moreover, although the prospects of major war in Europe are slight, military capabilities remain a crucial currency of power in Europeâs self-help system, shaping the broad contours of international politics within which most diplomatic and economic interactions are conducted. In short, the argument presented here is that Europe is not the âpost-modernâ Kantian paradise of peace and plenty that both its detractors and advocates depict.9
Nonetheless, whilst Europe is not the Kantian foedus pacificum liberal-idealists believe it to be, neither is it âprimed for conflictâ like East Asia or the Middle East. The central theme of this book is that the contemporary European security order is characterised by âbalanced multipolarityâ. This analysis is not shared by all structural realists. Kenneth Waltz, for example, has argued that with the end of the Cold War, a form of âmodified bipolarityâ has emerged. Bipolarity persists, he argues, âbut in an altered stateâ, because âmilitarily Russia can take care of itselfâ.10 The argument here, which is based on an analysis of the structural distribution of power in the European security system, suggests otherwise. With the break-up of the Soviet Union and the political fragmentation of the âWestâ, it is argued, a multipolar order has emerged in Europe composed of five great powers: the USA, Russia, Germany, the UK and France. While the USA is a global hyperpower enjoying a âunipolarâ moment in the wider international system, it is not Europeâs hegemon: at most it is primus inter pares, playing the role of âoff-shore balancerâ.
Europe itself is, once again, multipolar. However, it has not experienced the multipolar instabilities and intense security competition predicted by John Mearsheimer in his seminal article âBack to the Futureâ.11 This is because Mearsheimer was exploring the scenario of a transition from bipolarity to âunbalanced multipolarityâ, âthe most dangerous kind of power structureâ.12 In the contemporary European security system, however, neither Germany nor Russia (the two great powers most usually seen as having the potential for hegemonic ambitions) are strong enough to make a credible bid for continental supremacy. Rather, a rough equilibrium of relative power capabilities exists between Europeâs five great powers. In the absence of a potential hegemon, the European security system is characterised by balanced multipolarity, similar to that which produced the Concert of Europe in the early nineteenth century. In the context of a rough equilibrium between Europeâs great powers, the prospects for a degree of cooperation to address shared security concerns and for collective milieu-shaping are favourable. It is this structural arrangement of balanced multipolarity that shapes and shoves the post-Cold War European security system, and which generates the complex mix of cooperation and competition that characterises European international relations in the early twenty-first century.
II TURNING THE âSOIL OF IGNORANCEâ
Beyond the ephemera of âeventsâ
As noted above, this book has an ambitious aim: to delve beneath the surface play of events and to identify the structural pressures shaping and shoving the European security system. Doing so, however, raises a series of intractable epistemological issues about the best theoretical and conceptual âtoolsâ for âturning the soil of ignoranceâ.13
If we seek to understand and explain the underlying nature of international politics, simply cataloguing and detailing events is insufficient. This is the fallacy of bare-footed empiricism: the belief that âfactsâ speak for themselves. Empiricism is linked to the inductivist approach, which seeks to amass a wealth of empirical data from which a scientific theory can be induced. Empiricism is also part and parcel of the historical method. This involves eschewing the search for underlying patterns in favour of laying bare and reconstructing the unfolding sequence of events, whether far-distant or recent. Historians tend to emphasise the contingent, the specific and the unexpected, and are suspicious of attempts to identify causal relations or patterned behaviour.14 The historical method thus involves peeling back and exposing ever more layers of complexity and detail, without ever looking for an âessenceâ.15
The problems with empiricism and the historical method are twofold: first, one needs some criteria for selecting ârelevantâ facts. Otherwise, the task of data collection itself is impossible. Second, âfactsâ do not speak for themselves. They can help identify causal relationships, but they do not explain why things happen. Accumulating impressive quantities of empirical data can provide the raw material for a rich narrative description of contemporary events, but this will not help us distinguish the wood from the trees. âEventsâ, the French historian Fernand Braudel has written, âare the ephemera of history; they pass across its stage like fire-flies, hardly glimpsed before they settle back into darkness and as often as not, into oblivion.â16
The problems with empiricism are evident from even a cursory glance at the contradictory pattern of events since the end of the Cold War. During this period, Europe has experienced a series of ambiguous and contradictory events, some of which give grounds for cautious optimism, others which suggest a bleaker and more unsettled future. On the one hand, the end of the EastâWest conflict came about largely peacefully and consen...