The Era of the Cold War: the Fierce Struggle for Power Between the US and the USSR - Literature review Example

Critical Commentary on “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War” 1.0 Introduction The collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic in the late 1980s has finally ended the era of the Cold War. The uncertainty or the ‘certainty,’ for some, of the Cold War that had witnessed the fierce struggle for power between the US and the USSR that echoed in the halls of the UN General Assembly to the far corners of third world countries, with the threat of a nuclear war hanging about like the sword of Damocles, should have been a welcome news for everyone. Yet, there were those who viewed it as a foreboding development. The sudden shift from a bipolar world where everything and everyone depended on the moves of the two superpowers to an uncertain international political system had struck a chord of fear in the heart of some political strategists. One of those who were uneasy with this development were political strategists who subscribed to the classical deterrence theory, a theory that largely relied on a two-power system for the balance of power and on the presence of nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent to an escalated world war. This paper will review the article Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War by John Mearsheimer written in 1990, when an imminent end of the Cold War was being anticipated after the collapse of the USSR in the late 1880s. Mearsheimer was evidently one of those who did not welcome an end to the almost half a century of Cold war and foresaw a doomsday scenario for Europe with the expected emergence of a multipolar international political system and the removal of the nuclear weapons from Europe. The first two pages are dedicated to an understanding and summarisation of Mearsheimer’s work followed by a critical review of the article. 2.0 Mearsheimer’s Major Arguments in “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War” Mearsheimer’s article “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War” was written in 1990 at the time that the Cold War had just ended with the collapse of the Union Soviet Socialist Republic or USSR. Rather than be glad as most people were that a half-century long, more or less, covert struggle for world war power that made the entire world its arena, Mearsheimer had a gloomy forecast of Europe post-Cold War. Mearsheimer believed that the end of the Cold War would lead back to a world that was virtually on tenterhooks uncertain as to when the next big war will come. For him, the Cold War was the stabilizing factor that underpinned the relative peace in the last 45 years, which he said was not present in the world before the Cold War. Mearsheimer feared that the end of the Cold War will usher in an era of serious instability for Europe and the prospect of a new war. He credited the absence of war in Europe to three factors that characterized the cold war: bipolarity of military power in Europe; equality, more or less, of military strength of the US and the USSR, and; the presence of large nuclear arsenals each possessed by both sides (1990, p. 7). The end of the Cold War will mean, according to Mearsheimer, the end of bipolarity and the anticipated emergence of multipolarity, where not two, but many countries will vie for world supremacy, as well as the removal of the nuclear arsenals being maintained from Central Europe. A multipolar system poses more danger than a bipolar system because of the instability it engenders arising from the fact that many sources conflicts are possible unlike a bipolar system where the only source of conflict id that between the two powers. The removal of the nuclear arsenals from Europe, according to Mearsheimer, also poses great danger to the Continent because it also means the removal of their pacifying effects. To Mearsheimer, nuclear weapons imply deterrence from war on the assumption that “the more horrible the prospect of war, the less likely it is to occur” (1990, p. 19). Put another way, nuclear weapons are the best deterrents to the happening of a war because the idea of nuclear devastation is so scary that neither party would dare start a nuclear war. In advancing the aforesaid theories, Mearsheimer offered as best proof the fact that there was relative long peace during the Cold War in stark contrast to the great instability and fragile condition in the pre-Cold War. He enumerated the long list of conflicts that took place before the Cold War era, particularly in Europe and compared it with the ‘clean’ record of the Cold War era. He attributed this to the simplicity that bipolarity engendered where an East-West friction became the only source of potential conflict. Moreover, Mearsheimer believed that instability is the natural order of things in the world brought about by the “anarchic nature of the international system” (1990, p. 12). The implication here is that the Cold War was instrumental in forcing a peaceful state on an otherwise conflict-bound and conflict-ridden world. Furthermore, in justifying his theory, Mearsheimer attempted to show that the postwar peace cannot be explained by other theories that competed with his own. He considered two of these competing theories, viz. economic liberalism and peace-loving democracies, and a third, obsolescence of war, and concluded that they were not persuasive enough to overcome his own explanation of the long peace that was experienced during the Cold War. Economic liberalism could not have accounted, according to Mearsheimer, for the post-war peace because of the lack of substantial economic exchange between Europe and the previous USSR. On the other hand, the peace-loving theory is not credible because Russia and its allies were not certainly democratic in their conduct with other countries. Not surprisingly, Mearsheimer seemed to be more predisposed to the idea of the obsolescence of war theory, but thought that conventional war is not as good as deterrent as nuclear war considering that WWII came on the heel of WWI. Finally, Mearsheimer predicted four potential futures in Europe: a non-nuclear Europe that will see the emergence of a Germany versus Russia power pendulum; a nuclear Europe with nuclear weapons still concentrated in the hands of France, Britain and the Soviet Union; nuclear proliferation, but well-managed could result in the peace that Mearsheimer had attached to the Cold War era, and; nuclear proliferation, not well-managed, which could ultimately result in disaster (1990 pp. 31-38). 3.0 Discussion Mearsheimer’s article shows the author’s strong predilection for the classical nuclear deterrence theory. First conceived by strategic analyst theorist Bernard Brodie and built upon by subsequent strategists such as Herman Kahn and Thomas Schelling, the classical nuclear deterrence theory is underpinned by the existence of nuclear weapons and a strategic balance being carefully maintained. This theory was initially engendered as a substitute for conventional wisdom post-WWII intentionally fostered to characterize a post-WWII conflict as one that would be costly (Zagare 1996 pp.365-366). At first blush, the classical nuclear deterrence theory seems hard to swallow considering the ironic connotation and the antithetical nature of nuclear weapons and ‘peace.’ That nuclear weapons, considered the most devastating device man has ever invented with the potential to annihilate mankind, is spoken in the same breath as ‘peace’ seems inconceivable. That the presence of nuclear weapons is even considered a deterrent to war, as Mearsheimer has strongly proclaimed, is even more preposterous. Nonetheless, the list of impressive strategic theorists that subscribe to the theory, including Mearsheimer, warrants a more serious scrutiny of the idea. Mearsheimer claims that the long peace that characterized the post-WWII era and during the Cold War was underpinned by the very factors that characterized the era itself such as bipolarity and the presence of nuclear powers on both sides that served as deterrence to a serious war. Instead of providing proof that would substantiate this position, however, Mearsheimer simply offered a comparison between the conditions existing before and during the Cold War. There was no specific incident or incident illustrating his claims that both the US and the USSR, at that time, were on the verge of war, but were stopped on their tracks because of balance-of-power or nuclear war scare concerns. What he offers, on the contrary, are possibilities and more possibilities. The paradox of mutual deterrence constitutes one of the two credibility dilemmas of the nuclear deterrence theory, according to Van Gelder (1989). The deficiency of empirical proof and of logical proof as well, tarnishes and makes this theory susceptible to serious objections (Zagare & Kilgour 2000, p. 37). Despite the absence of proof of the general deterrence effect of the nuclear deterrence theory, there may be a tentative proof to believe that the presence of nuclear weapons during the Cold War era may have become a basis for preventing an escalation of militarised disputes after such a state has been breached due to failure of general deterrence. However, the theory cannot wholly account for all the states’ behaviors during the Cold War. For example, the nuclear deterrence theory did not stop China from intervening in the Korean War against the US and neither did it stop the US from invading Korea in the first place despite the USSR’s support of the latter. Even non-nuclear countries were observed to have been undeterred in going against nuclear states during the Cold War, which seems to defy the nuclear deterrence theory (Vasquez 2000, p. 187-188). Nonetheless, it is not impossible to theorise that fear of nuclear war was indeed one of the factors that had deterred the US and the USSR, at any time during the Cold War, to seriously engage the other in conflict. What is objectionable about Mearsheimer’s article was not only his reliance on the deterrence factor relative to nuclear weapons as superior to other theories, but to suggest that the removal of nuclear weapons from Europe is fatal or that the presence of nuclear weapons, if well-managed, is sine qua non to peace in the region. It is impossible to think that anyone would decry the removal of nuclear weapons at the end of the Cold War on the ground that it is fatal to its stability and peace and suggest that some European countries must maintain nuclear weapons because it has ‘pacifying effect’ is difficult to comprehend. Moreover, the common conception of theorists such as Mearsheimer is that the Cold War is a period of long peace, but it could hardly have been called peace when there was a power struggle between the US and the USSR, that reverberated in the halls of the US Security Council and rippled in the far corners of the world. Moreover, according to Deutsch and Singer, stability implies a system that “retains all of its essential characteristics; that no single becomes dominant; that most if its members continue to survive; and that large scale war does not occur” (cited Bowker & Brown 61). As it is, the end of the Cold War did not render Europe unstable if Deutsch and Singer’s definition of the word is correct. Europe remains to be generally peaceful, with no power or two powers emerging as the most dominant, its members have not only survived, but integration into the European sphere is going strong and no large-scale is looming in the horizon. Mearsheimer’s predictions have, to date, failed. 4.0 Conclusion The classical deterrence theory as espoused by Mearsheimer fails to completely persuade simply because of its weak empirical support and because of its almost irrational underpinning. Not only did Mearsheimer failed to cite specific incidences pointing to the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons, but the idea of nuclear warheads, one of the most devastating inventions of man, employed as a deterrent to war seems contradictory. What is disagreeable about Mearsheimer’s arguments is solely accounting to the presence of nuclear weapons the ‘long peace’ supposedly experienced during the Cold War. The presence of nuclear weapons may have had a deterrent effect, but there may be other factors as well that underpin the absence of a large-scale war during the Cold War. Moreover, Mearsheimer’s predictions about Europe have, so far, not materialised, which diminishes his theory. There is no large-scale war and European countries have remained stable and no two powers have emerged as the dominant powers in the Continent. His theories have become inapplicable because the conditions present in the pre-Cold War era are not present today. Globalization and free trade have dominated the free world, features which were not as prominent then as they are today. In addition, European integration is intensifying, with 15 new memberships, more or less, added to the list since the end of the Cold War, many of which come from Central and Eastern Europe. The European Union, which has economic control over the region, encourages multilateralism at the same it promotes integration. Instead of the emergence of a two-dominant power Europe, it is clearly heading for supranationalism, a single powerful body formed with the integration of several national sovereign bodies (Jones 2007, p. 100), a far cry from the hyper-nationalism struggle foreseen by Mearsheimer. References Bowker, M. & Brown, R. (1992). From Cold War to collapse: theory and world politics in the 1980s. CUP Archive. Jones, A. (2007). Britain and the European Union. Edinburgh University Press. Mearsheimer, J. (1990). International Security, Vol. 15(1): 5-56. Vasquez, J.A. (2000). What do we know about war? Rowman & Littlefield. Zagarre, F.C. (1995). Classical Deterrence Theory: A Critical Assessment. International Interactions, Vol. 21 (4): 365-387. Zagare, F, & Kilgour, M. (2000). Perfect Deterrence. Cambridge University Press. Read More