(In)security [summary]

 

Marxist (Leninist)

 

During the capitalist era, insecurity is a consequence of violent struggle among ‘national’ capitalist (monopolist) empires.

 

Problems:

 

1. Stalin announced a doctrine of ‘socialism in one country.’  This meant that defending the Soviet Union took priority over spreading workers’ revolution.

2. What do to about conflict among socialist (Marxist) states?  Late 1940s, Tito, leader of Yugoslavia, pursued Stalin’s policies but without getting Stalin’s OK first: he was expelled from the Cominform (international movement).  Stalin tried but failed to overthrow Tito.   Then in the mid-1950s conflict between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China emerged.  In in 1956 Krushchev denounced the recently deceased Stalin.  That struck at Mao’s legitimacy.  Marxist Albania curried favor with the Chinese.  Large battle was fought on an island in the Ussuri River along the Soviet-PRC border in 1969.  The Soviet Politburo discussed but rejected a preemptive nuclear strike on China! 

In 1968, after Soviet tanks had put down a reform movement in Czechoslovakia, Brezhnev announced a doctrine that made the Soviet Union the ‘defender’ of socialism in all Marxist countries: if the local Party leaders failed to follow (the Soviet interpretation of) Marxism-Leninism, then the Soviets would intervene. 

 

 

Liberalism

 

Not everyone is willing to compete non-violently in markets.  That’s OK so long as they don’t aggress against other states.  In the event of aggression (especially, forcefully crossing international borders), one must resort to collective security.   One is advised to create institutions well in advance of a need to implement collective security.

 

Problems

 

1. This attitude privileges existing borders and existing sovereign states.  It may not address injustices in the existing arrangements.  A (weak) Liberal response is: appeal to international law.

2. Aggression may be covert.  How can one identify it in a timely fashion and demonstrate it so clearly to other Liberal states that they are willing to implement collective security, which may be expensive?

3. What to do about ‘free riders,’ states which enjoy the security created by collective security (or other Liberal arrangements) but will not join in defending it?

 

 

Realist

 

(In)security is endemic in every era.  One’s response should be to engage in the balance of power to try to avert any situation in which one state becomes overwhelmingly powerful.

 

Problems

 

1. But if one state does become overwhelmingly powerful, what should others do?  Perhaps try to oppose it nonetheless (what is now happening in the UN?) or perhaps align with it, at least until its power wanes.

2. Nuclear weapons seem to make impossible the preventive wars of the ‘balance of power.’

3. In a world with few ‘poles’ balancing may be impossible.  (Bipolar during the Cold War; tripolar during the late 1930s)  In such circumstances the uncommitted states are too weak to redress an imbalance.