John J. Mearsheimer, “The Case for Restraint”

hello everybody and welcome to the third and final lecture in this series of Stinson lectures by John Mishima liberal dreams and international realities that's the name of the forthcoming book is it I'm not sure that that will finally be the title but some working title of the forthcoming book from Yale University Press in the Stenson lecture series and today he is going to be speaking about the case for restraint welcome John thank you and as I said yesterday and on Monday there's a great pleasure and an honor to be here and I feel actually somewhat sad that this is my last lecture because as you know I like talking and this is a fascinating subject and I could give at least five more lectures on it the first night I talked about the roots of liberal hegemony and that talk is those of you who were there no was really mainly about liberalism did not say much about international politics and then last night I talked about the false promise of liberal hegemony and liberal hegemony of course is all about international politics and I made the case that since the Cold War ended the United States has pursued a policy of liberal hegemony and it's led to nothing but trouble and it's been very costly as well and what I want to do tonight is make the case for restraint and this is an argument that what we need is a more restrained foreign policy and the way I'd like to proceed is I'd like to ask the classic start by asking the question does liberalism encourage restraint and I'd actually like to go back to sort of Monday night's lecture and just talk a little bit about the nature of liberalism and make the argument that inside of liberalism there is an important strand that would push a great power to pursue a policy of restraint not a policy of liberal hegemony and then answer the question of why that strand of liberalism seems to lose out to the more expansive strand then I want to talk about restraint what exactly it is talk about realism and restraint because I'll make the argument that restraint is basically a realist foreign policy then I want to talk about nationalism and restraint and as you remember from that first talk I said that what I was really interested in doing in this book was talking about the relationship between liberalism nationalism and realism so here you see the realism in nationalism coming into play to challenge the liberalism and then I want to talk about where the United States is headed today that's well that's where I will end so the first question is does liberalism itself encourage restraint and there are actually two strands in liberalism there's a Universalist strand in a particular strand and what I have done in the past two lectures is hammered away if the Universalist strand this is a slide excuse me that I used the other night and that those of you have been to either one of the previous lectures is very familiar with and my argument is that when you focus on the individual and you marry inalienable rights to that individual you get a Universalist ideology right because every person on the planet has this set of inalienable rights and you're focusing on individuals not countries or nations you're focusing on individuals and they all have these rights so you see that powerful Universalist tendency and I've made the argument of course that what that does is inexorably lead to a foreign policy where you try to spread liberal democracy all over God's little green acre but inside liberalism there's also a particular strand liberalism's particular a strand is based on the fact that it's impossible to agree on first principles and I stress that at great length in the first lecture liberalism is based on the assumption that individuals cannot reach agreement on universal truth there are always going to be disputes so it's impossible to agree on first principles and therefore it's imperative to adopt a live-and-let-live political order this is why liberalism privileges Liberty and powers this is what I love about living in liberal America right there's a great emphasis placed on giving people a lot of space to lead their lives the way they want to and we emphasize things like tolerance and peaceful conflict resolution these are wonderful values it's kind of modus vivendi liberalism and then they say shouldn't this basic logic apply to relations among States just as it applies to relations among individuals shouldn't we as liberal America tolerate the fact that China has no interest in being a liberal state and prefers to be an authoritarian state or if someone wants to create a fascist state why should we care according to liberalism you're not supposed to be able to say that liberalism is better than fascism or authoritarianism or communism take your choice according to liberalism right people can't agree on first principles and therefore you want to give people plenty of room to live their life the way they see fit why doesn't the same argument apply to States why aren't we more tolerant if you go back to the Universalist strand there's no tolerance there remember that Michael Doyle quote I put on the screen yesterday well Michael bull hell basically says any non liberal or a liberal state is at war with its people move you know you believe that and you're off to the races right but again there's a particular strand as well as a Universalist strand but what's clear is that the Universalist strand wins out and the question is why is that the case and I'm not a hundred percent sure but it's probably because liberals tend to believe that they have discovered at least one important truth you're basically violating their core precept that you can't reach agreement on first principles liberals are basically saying that liberal democracy is the best political order and there is no acceptable alternative but you're not supposed to be able to say that but that's certainly the way they act well this is to say any of you look carefully at liberalism one could argue that really it should lead to a policy of restraint a modus vivendi type foreign policy but of course it doesn't okay restraint what's restraint putting forward the argument that the United States should adopt a policy of foreign policy of restraint first of all it's a realist foreign policy and one of the really difficult tasks that I face and giving this presentation and writing this book is that most Americans hate realism and they love liberalism and anyone like me who comes along and says we should adopt a realist foreign policy and abandon a liberal foreign policy really has a tough sell in front of him or her okay but restraint is a realist for Impala see and I'll explain why that's a good thing whether you agree with me is another matter restraint also pays significant attention to the power of nationalism a theme that I've beaten hard in the previous two lectures policy restraint basically calls for getting out of business of spreading democracy or promoting democracy around the globe and especially at the end of a rifle barrel my view is if you want to spread democracy around the world the best way to do it is to be the city on the hill right have a model democracy at home and then you can expand to other people what you think the virtues are of liberal democracy and then leave it up to them to decide what to do but you don't want to purposely try to spread it with aggressive policies that's what we're strength is basically all about okay realism and restraint the essence of realism realism focuses on great powers not minor powers for realists the states that really matter are the great powers in the system and the only time that minor powers really matter is when those minor powers are adjacent to great powers Korea and Poland are two good examples right Poland matters because it's sandwiched in between Russia and Germany or the Soviet Union and Germany or way back when austria-hungary Germany and Russia Poland matters Korea matters because Korea's sandwiched in between Japan China and Russia the three countries that have the worst geographical location in the world are Korea and Poland and now I think you could probably throw in Ukraine right these are countries that really are in the wrong location right in their minor powers they matter but by-and-large fine Lord realism to the theory that focuses on the great powers and it focuses on the balance of power right the argument that realists make is that those great powers care greatly about how much power they have relative to the other great powers in the system realists as you know pay little attention to domestic politics realists basically treat States as black boxes it doesn't matter the most real estate is a democracy or an authoritarian state the structure of the international system in the real story basically forces most states to behave in similar ways right and you can see where Americans would hate a theory like that because Americans believe that the world is populated by good guys and bad guys and we're the good guys and other states that look like us are also good guys but everybody else is a bad guy it's kind of consistent with liberal agenda right and that's why we want to make all of the states in the world liberal democracies because they then all look like us and if we're the good guys and everybody looks like us that means you have a planet that's populated by good guys and then a planet that's populated by good guys you can't have anything but happy outcomes right that's the liberal story the realist story is it just doesn't matter right and the realist story is that the big enchilada is in the system we're going to compete with each other and this occasionally going to fight wars with each other now very important to understand that there's a distinction between defensive realists and offensive realists don't talk about the defensive realists the defensive realists are very interesting lot their basic message is the destruction of the international system encourages States not to go to war with each other States they say should concentrate on defending the balance of power not trying to change the balance of power it's a really quite interesting argument and the key reason for this is balancing behavior if the three of us are great powers and I start to accumulate more power these two other states are going to get very nervous they're going to form in a military alliance and they're gonna try and contain us the defense of realists would say look at what happened to Napoleonic France they got greedy and they got crushed by a balancing coalition of five European states look at what happened to Imperial Germany look at what happened to Nazi Germany look at what happened to Imperial Japan they got aggressive balancing coalition's formed and they were crushed the Germans should have just sat still the Japanese should have just sat still they were in the catbird seat no need no need to be aggressive and when you are aggressive you get crushed so you have defensive realists like my good friend Charlie Glaser who wrote a famous article called realists as optimist right so you could see why these guys like restraint right because realism leads to no war here's Mark Trachtenberg another good friend of mine historian first class historian these are some quotes from an article that he wrote realism is at heart a theory of peace ok power is not unstable it's impractical idealism that's liberal hegemony that leads to endless conflict serious trouble developed only when states failed to act in a way that made sense in power political terms right so the caves from restraint from a defensive realist point of view right really leads to a remarkably peaceful world now as many of you know their offensive realists out there in the world like me who think the defense of realists are wrong I believe that the structure of the system is not benign it encourages States to compete with each other for power right States constantly want to improve their position in the balance of power and for me the ultimate goal is to be the hegemon in the system and sometimes states will go to war to achieve that end I do not believe like Mark Trachtenberg or Charlie Glaser or Ken waltz or Steve an average Jack Snyder all of these defensive realists that structure is behind I have a much more Hobbesian view of the world still even offensive realists like me right would argue that if you follow the precepts my theory you'll have a less warlike world than you will following the precepts of liberal hegemony why is that the case three reasons here's the first first realists are only willing to fight in limited areas of the world liberal hegemonist what a fight everywhere because they're interested in spreading liberal democracy all over the planet there is no area of the world that is unimportant from a strategic point of view for a liberal hegemonist they don't prioritize there are no priorities for a realist that's not true at all during the Cold War the United States was interested in competing with the Soviets all over the planet realists said this is redic Kilis there are only three areas of the world that matter for the United States Europe and those days we used to say Northeast Asia and the Persian Gulf those are the three areas you fight and die the rest of the Middle East no Africa no Central Asia no Southeast Asia no it's no accident that every realist except Henry Kissinger was opposed to the Vietnam War this is strategically an important area the only fighting areas were their great powers or in the case of the Gulf a critical resource oil but again for liberals a very different story reason number two realists understand even offensive realist like me understand that balancing behavior takes place I believe that if China continues to grow in terms of economic and military power and it begins to assert its influence in the East China Sea the South China Sea over Taiwan and in other places on its periphery there'll be a very powerful balancing coalition that forms against it and they'll be limits to what the Chinese can do this is the defense of realist argument I think they take it too far they don't understand that sometimes states don't balance effectively and there's opportunities to acquire power on a part of the aspiring hegemon but the point here is all realists understand basic balancing logic liberals don't because liberals believe that realists like me and even realest like mark Trachtenberg are products of the 17th century we're old think we're dinosaurs so they just think you can just gets back to my discussion of NATO yes a they think that you can March NATO right up to Russia's borders and it's not going to matter to the Russians realists say this is crazy you March NATO up to Russia's borders you're gonna have big trouble no surprise that you had a war over Georgia in August 2008 and then you have a war Ukraine starting in February 2014 basic balance of power logic but liberals don't believe in balance para logic and what I'm saying to you here is that if you understand realist logic it makes you much more cautious and that gets to my third point it's not something that's peculiar to realism but it does tend to be peculiar to realest realest of basically Clausewitz Ian's realest for the most part pay a lot of attention to military affairs they read claws bits they take them very seriously they study military history liberals don't and when you read claws vets in your study military history you understand you're in the realm of unintended consequences anybody who goes to war thinking this is going to be easy to weigh all these boys and girls in the Bush administration and even outside the Bush administration thought when we went into Iraq in 2003 these people live in a dream world it's just not the way international politics works you've got a war it's basically a crapshoot this is the realm of unintended consequences incredibly complicated enterprise war how it all turns out hard to predict of course sometimes you go because the potential benefits far outweigh the costs and you think the likelihood of success is quite high but but realists tend to be very cautious the point I'm making to you here is you have this group of Defense of realists who believe that the structure is remarkably benign so if you adopt a realist foreign policy you get no war then you have realists like me who don't accept that view who think that realism does lead to a rather Hobbesian world but nevertheless even for realists of my strike you'll get a less aggressive foreign policy than you get with liberal agenda because again with relish you get priorities respect for balancing behavior and respect for the fact that war is an enterprise that is hard to predict realism and too big Fiasco's in my lifetime I could not think of any to greater Fiasco's than the Vietnam War and the Iraq war as I said to you before every realist opposed the Vietnam War the two principal thorns in my opinion and LBJ is hiding during the run-up to Vietnam were Hans Morgenthau and walter Lippmann both card-carrying realus george kennan was opposed to the war ken waltz was an adamant opponent of the war before the war went south in 1968 he was an opponent in 63 64 65 and with regard to the Iraq war virtually every realist again except for Henry Kissinger opposed the Iraq war thought it was a boneheaded idea to invade Iraq so the point that I'm trying to make to you is if you adopt a realist foreign policy it's clearly not an idealist foreign policy there's no question about that but you're going to get a lot less murder and mayhem in the system and you're not going to end up with a militaristic state called the United States of America you're going to get a restrained foreign policy which i think is a good thing now if you could convince me that liberal hegemony works then I'd have real problems arguing with you because it works and even though the costs may be greater the benefits are really wonderful but it doesn't work it leads to disaster so I say from a realist perspective we need a more restrained foreign policy bottom line real ins not recipe for peace but it's more peaceful than liberal hegemony now let me turn to nationalism and restraint remember I have a double-barreled shotgun here realism and nationalism keypoint you want to keep in mind about nationalism it makes conquest very hard and that has consequences - consequences you know went away those consequences out and then I want to talk about the domino theory in Vietnam which some of the older dogs in the audience will remember first of all because conquest is hard that means the United States should be very wary about trying to conquer other states right and second you want to remember that the ability of your adversary to conquer other states is also greatly limited by nationalism so what I'm saying here is if you understand nationalism you understand the power of nationalism it's going to make you very cautious about going on a rampage we're trying to conquer other countries and it's going to make you less worried when your adversary starts to try to conquer other countries remember what I told you about my views on Afghanistan in 1979 when the Soviets went into Afghanistan in 1979 virtually everybody in the world I operated was apoplectic oh my god they're on the march right they've just conquered Afghanistan right it's were they gonna go next probably Iran who knows my view was exactly the opposite they've just jumped into a giant quagmire this is wonderful news wonderful news so so the point is you don't want to jump into Vietnam if you're the United States and if the Soviet Union decides that they want to jump into Vietnam by the way the Chinese you remember the Chinese Chinese and the Soviets help the Vietnamese beat us in Vietnam we lost in 75 then 79 the Chinese invaded North Vietnam and they got their snouts whacked surprise of surprises first it was the French then it was us then it was the Chinese that's a place what stay at it right and if you're dealing with an adversary that decides it wants to go into Vietnam he'll be my guest right good luck so let's talk a little bit about the domino theory the domino theory goes like this it says that communism is like liberalism is a universal ideology and what happens is that if the Soviet Union succeeds in Vietnam then Thailand will fall Indonesia will fall Singapore will fall Japan will fall Korea will fall eventually the dominoes will fall in Europe and eventually the big Domino the United States will fall right and again it's based on the notion that that one conquest is easy and two when you conquer those other countries what will happen is that other countries will just bandwagon because first of all to find communism very attractive the fun communism very attractive for ideological reasons but secondly they'll understand that they're going to be conquered next just to take this out of context the domino theory and at how it applies to the Bush Doctrine remember I said yesterday the Bush Doctrine called for knocking off regimes in the Middle East and replacing them with liberal democracies and the first place on the train line was Iraq but Iraq was not the last place we were going to do Syria to Iran when the Israelis caught wind in January 2002 we wrap up the war in Afghanistan or at least so we think in December 2001 and then in early too - we're getting the shotgun loaded to go into Iraq the Israelis catch wind of that they sent the high-level delegation to Washington and they say are you crazy Iraq is not the principal threat in the region Iran is and the Israelis want us to do her in the administration and the neocons on the outside say relax we're going to do it ran after we do Iraq or if we do Syria after we do Iraq by the time we roll up Iraq and then roll up Syria the Iranians will throw up their hands and jump on the bandwagon right that's the domino theory and again it's not surprising at all because you see very powerful military actor of the United States that can conquer States easily and that has this political ideology liberalism that it believes him so it's domino theory logic but back to the Cold War we were worried stiff that the Soviet Union would conquer this country conquer that country and do it very easily and then this transnational ideology called communism would help facilitate the fall of all the dominoes including the United States at the end of the story okay so how does this affect us behavior we fight in Vietnam right Reid Fred Logan vols terrific book on Vietnam called choosing war which is the best book I've read on why we went into Vietnam one of the principal reasons we went into Vietnam is almost everybody in a position to power at that point in time including huge chunks of people in the public believed in the domino theory they believed that we had to stop him in Vietnam because if we didn't dominoes would fall right what's the fate of the domino theory the domino theory it's a joke right any good realist understands that the domino theory is a joke first of all conquest is really difficult you know what happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan you know it's at the dozen Afghanistan you know what happened to the British in Iraq you know what's happened to us in Iraq you know what happened to the French the Americans and the Chinese in Vietnam nationalism is a real obstacle to conquest so the idea that you could have easy conquests throughout Southeast Asia which was what we were thinking about in the 6465 period not going to happen and then with regard to the ideology this transnational ideology communism communism is no match for nationalism you run nationalism up against communism nationalism will win every time have you noticed where the Soviet Union is gone right it's broken up into its series of constituent nation states remember the sino-soviet split oh by the way China communist state invaded North Vietnam communist state oh by the way why did they do that because Vietnam communist state invaded Cambodia communist state mmm doesn't sound like that transnational ideology had all that much peel right nationalism very powerful for us and of course we first went to war in Vietnam I'm young enough old enough to remember this as young at the time but the argument was that the reason the North Vietnamese were so fearsome and they were fierce nobody went into combat against the North Vietnamese had any doubts about that these were tough hombres the reason they were so fearsome so they said was because they were communists but with the passage of time we came to understand that was fundamentally flawed line of argument they were so tough because of nationalism and that's what made conquest so hard so my point to you if you had to do the Cold War all over again this is how I'd do it I'd be relaxed I wouldn't worry about the spread of communism hardly at all I certainly would never invade a country like Vietnam I stay out because the domino theory doesn't work and I would argue that if we become engaged in an intense security competition with a rising China which I think is likely to happen if China Rises I think the last thing we want to do is start invading countries for fear of a domino theory like effect as a result of Chinese aggression and if anything if the Chinese get into the business of invading countries that they think they can conquer and facilitate some of some kind of domino effect on their part not going to work so what I'm saying to you is that both nationalism and realism push the United States toward restraint restraint on the other hand is anathema to advocates of liberal hegemony I've tried to make that point clear in the first two lectures so realism points in one direction and liberal ham gemini or liberal for our policy points in the other direction okay where is the United States headed what is the future hold I think there are two possible future world's first future world is multipolarity and that's a consequence of China's rise and the continued resurrection of Russia most people I know think that this is the direction that we're headed in most people think we are now entering multipolarity that we're transitioning out of unipolarity it's hard to measure polarity but even if you don't think that we've reached multi polarity at this point most people believe it won't be long before we do and then the other possibility is unipolarity and this is the case where China stumbles badly and Russian power declines over time and this is the argument that we will be more powerful in the year 2050 relative to everybody else than we are now you all understand just to give you a feel for this that America's three principal competitors from the 20th century Russia / Soviet Union Japan and Germany think about world war one world war two Russia Germany Japan all are declining powers largely for demographic reasons all of these countries are going to undergo significant demographic decline and the United States is in good shape demographically the only two countries that are really in good shape demographically over time er India and the United States the Chinese also have quite significant problems right but there are three principal competitors are gonna be much less powerful relative to us in 2050 than they are now there's only one country on the planet that can give us a run for the money and that's China and if the Chinese were to stumble just humble really badly I'm not saying that's likely I don't think it's likely but if they were to stumble really badly we would be more powerful relative to every other state in 2050 than we are today and we would be free to pursue liberal hegemony again okay okay so multi polar future if China continues to rise Russia's resurrection from the dead continues it's the end of liberal hegemony just over this is the point that I have made on a number of occasions you cannot have liberal hegemony in bipolarity or multipolarity you can only have it in unipolarity because if you're in a bipolar system or you're in a multipolar system where the United States is one of the poles the United States has to pay attention to the other great power or powers and it has to engage in balance of power politics it cannot afford to pursue a liberal foreign policy in any significant way maybe somewhat on the margins but the essence of a great power is foreign policy in a bipolar or multi polar world is almost always going to be realism so if we do move into multi polarity liberal agenda is gone what if we don't what if we have a unipolar future as I say it's a it's a fertile ground for more liberal hegemony more liberal hegemony and therefore the $64,000 question is whether or not it's possible to sell a foreign policy of restraint in the unipolar world to a country like the United States to the sole pole Uncle Sam is the sole Paul thoroughly liberal country we've tried this once before we're back in unipolarity can we sell a policy of restraint this is the montero template that I put up yesterday this is from Nuno's book on unipolarity and you remember I pointed out didn't you no argues that in a unipolar world the unit Paul has three options the Unipol can go home because it's so powerful and secure number two it could stay involved abroad and use its power to maintain the status quo where 3 it could stay involved abroad and use its power to alter the status quo engage in serious social engineering and of course as I said yesterday and you folks all surely understand the pursuit of liberal hegemony is number three and restraint could be one or two and I would argue that restraint could be somewhere in between one and two number one is basically isolationism isolationism is a policy of restraint and given the three options that nuno puts on the table I think number two is also a policy of restraint so you can just have a foreign policy with the United States pretty much stays where it is but doesn't try to reshape the globe in its own image for my purposes I prefer policy that's somewhere between numbers one and two I don't want to get into this in any detail but I'm not an isolationist so I don't want to you know practice come home America but at the same time if I had my druthers in a unipolar world I would not stay involved abroad in every region of the world I pull back in a lot of regions I'd certainly pull back American forces from Europe but anyway the point that I'm trying to make to you is that a policy of restraint actually in practice involves something along the lines of one or two in Nuno's template or somewhere in between but that's what we're talking about now are there any reasons for optimism optimism about the possibility of adopting a more restrained foreign policy and unipolarity there are some reasons first of all the decision to initially adopt a policy of liberal hegemony is different than the decision to continue it at a critical decision point or the decision to go back to it after a brief hiatus and my argument is that it's almost impossible to prevent a liberal unit Paul hasn't tried liberal hegemony from trying it right because the the the DNA of a liberal hegemony is such that it's very hard to resist the temptation to reorder the world in ways that you think are of great advantage to you and all of humanity so I think the initial decision to adopt unipolarity is almost impossible to combat adopt liberal hegemony is almost impossible to combat but a subsequent decision to do it once you've run the experiment you've seen what the costs are and what the benefits are and the likelihood of success are I think you stand a pretty good chance of of combating it there are other factors too there's actually a little public support for liberal hegemony it's basically an elite driven enterprise you want to remember that George W Bush got elected in 2000 running against nation-building and arguing that what we have to do is pull in air horns and not try to reshape the globe George W Bush as a presidential candidate was very critical of of the Clinton administration for being far too ambitious on the foreign stage and he was elected and then he became the most I think the most ambitious foreign policy president in our history he was a liberal hegemonist par excellence read his second inauguration address read a number of the speeches that he gave at places like AEI George W Bush sounds just like Woodrow Wilson there's no better spokesperson for liberal hegemony than George W Bush that may be hard to believe but I'm not exaggerating it's really quite remarkable but anyway he ran as a candidate calling for restraint go back and read Condoleezza Rice is famous P stand for in the january/february mm you of foreign affairs was she who was very close to george w bush lay down his foreign policy it's all there and then you remember barack obama barack obama got elected on the platform that he was going to pursue restraint and he of course spelled and he basically admitted he failed in his interview with jeffrey goldberg in the atlantic in his last year in office but he was interested as a candidate in restraint and he got elected and george w bush got elected and as you heard me say yesterday donald trump donald trump ran against liberal hegemony really hard he challenged almost every element of the strategy and he got elected so the public has no problem electing leaders who are opposed to liberal gemini and are in favor of restraint but the problem is once those leaders for an office they seem to go in the other direction but anyway the public could be mobilized the u.s. also has a rich history of restraint stephen kinzer has this new book out terrific book you should read it if you have an opportunity that deals with the first great foreign policy debate in the united states regarding whether or not we should go abroad and intervene in the politics of other states in a big way or we should basically pursue a policy of restraint and it's a debate that takes place after the spanish-american war in 1898 it's a huge debate and Kinser lays it out in great detail and of course the restraint is lose but Kinser makes the point that if you look at the history of debates about american foreign policy over the course of the 20th century you see that the restraints are there in force in almost every key decision point and actually in the 1930s when the united states was an isolationist country the restrainer 's were in the driver's seat i don't think that was a good thing by the way I think isolation was not isolationism was not an American interests and I think it's fortunate that we got into the war but the only point I'm trying to make to you here is that restraint is in the form of isolationist were very powerful at that point in time and after World War Two there was a huge debate between restrainer isolationist again and people who wanted to use American military force broadly moreover I do think that states learn and they have agency we've seen what happens gets back to my earlier point this is not you know liberal agenda is not something that we haven't tried before we've tried it now we've run the test we've run the experiment and there's no reason that we can't change things and then I would argue there's an emerging counter elite of restraint in this country they're growing numbers of people who are disenchanted with what the United States has been doing and who think it would be smart for us to pull an air horns to pursue a more restrained foreign policy so I think for all these reasons there's a good chance that restraint could carry the day nevertheless the majority and the foreign policy establishment The Blob is deeply attached deeply attached to liberal Gemini and they'll do everything they can to stymie restraint my good friend Steve Walt has recently finished a book manuscript that deals with the blob and its love of liberal hegemony and he makes a somewhat different argument than I do but it reinforces the point that the blob has a deep-seated interest in combating restraint and continuing to pursue liberal Jemmy but Steve's basic argument is not like mine mine is that liberalism as an ideology right provides a very powerful impetus for pursuing liberal agendas Steve's argument is that it's basically a jobs program for the liberal elite right all these people in Washington have jobs that depend on having the United States run the world so that you know they can occupy very important peace positions in the State Department and the Defense Department and National Security Council and if you begin to shrink all those institutions right and you don't have military bases all over the world and you're not interfering the politics of every country on the planet right people are going to start losing jobs and you know lots of people graduating from Yale who want to become part of the foreign policy establishment you know that right you want to go out and help run the world and if the United States pulls in its horns what are you gonna do you may have to go over to graduate school and get a PhD in political science oh my god or in history all right you know you'd rather go to law school or something or go to the Kennedy School get a degree and then go out and run the world right it's a jobs program it doesn't contradict my argument you understand John has made a very different argument here over three days John's argument focuses on liberal ideology and says that that ideology is deeply wired into the American body populace especially the elites and therefore we pursue this policy liberal hegemony because we are in a unipolar world that's the argument steve has a different argument but it reinforces my argument that his argument again is it's basically a jobs program for the elite so they'll fight mightily to prevent us from pursuing a policy restraint my bottom line final slide I think China is likely to continue rising and I think liberal Germany will be off the table and the really interesting questions down the road will have to do with the us-china rivalry so when Ian invites me back talk the next time there will be little discussion of liberal hegemony and much discussion of basic realpolitik behavior in East Asia that's what I think is likely to happen so we won't have to worry much about liberal agenda but the problem with that is that the United States then ends up with a peer competitor China do we want that I think I'd rather have you know polarity and run the risk of returning to liberal hegemony rather than see China turn into a peer competitor but again if trying to becomes a peer competitor liberal hegemony goes away in the event the world resort's back to unipolarity which I'd prefer to see over continuing rise of China for good realist reasons it's hard to say whether restraint will carry the day I don't know I think there are some good reasons for optimism but there also some good reasons for pessimism so on that note I will end and I will gladly take questions from the audience [Applause] the u.s. goes renewable energy that goes away we see this already import/export balances frankly only this country's made up of Russia Armenia deskah Mexico / Spain and of course overseas possessions of the u.s. disassociating let me ask you let me ask you a question when you say when Europe learns how to defend itself with it what does that mean what Europe Europe is not a country it's a series of countries isn't it aren't those US isn't it is it you're comprised of a series of sovereign nation-states head is Europe defend itself I'm always puzzled with very long ye stay run the risks of the the end will have to arm themselves okay let me take your question first on the Persian Gulf and then go to Europe on the Persian Gulf if we reach a point where oil doesn't matter right we're for some reason or another there are other ways of fueling these economies then the Persian Gulf is not going to matter okay because the United States cares about Europe and East Asia because that's what the great powers are but obviously there's no great powers in the Gulf there's oil in the Gulf but in your scenario oil doesn't matter much anymore then it's not going to be of great strategic importance so I think we're in agreement on that regard to Europe where I think there's a bit more disagreement between the two of us look I think there's two good reasons for staying in Europe my defense of realist friends why we're talking about who I was talking about before they want to stay in Europe because they believe it's important to preserve the peace in Europe and their argument is that if you take the United States away and NATO collapses right you'll have the Russians and the Germans competing with each other the Germans and the French will not trust each other the British will be separate from the states on the continent and if you have a war in Europe right that will mean the United States will have to come back in and that's what economic consequences for us so it's better just to stay there and in Joseph Geoffrey's terms remain as the American pacifier we are the underpinning the underpinning of stability we the Americans are the underpinning of stability in Europe and let's just keep it that way okay so that's one way of thinking about Europe but it assumes of course that you'll have war among European states that the EU is not enough to that by itself that's not my view my view is that the United States should only go into Europe with military force if there is one state that threatens to dominate all of Europe be that Imperial Germany in 1914 Nazi Germany in 1939 and the Soviet Union in 1945 right the United States has to come in to make sure that none of those not three countries dominates all of Europe and when I look at Europe today there's no state that threatens to dominate all of Europe Germany as I said is depopulating it's getting weaker and weaker I believe Germany has about 19 million more people than France and Britain today if you look at I think it's UN demographic projections out to the pardon okay I'll give you that but I do think you're wrong but I'll give it to you ah let's go back to here let's go back to the year 2050 the demographic projections put France Britain and Germany all the same size demographically it's because the Germans are declining so rapidly right so Germany is not a problem Russia is not a problem Russia's of declining great power in large part for demographic reasons so why are we in Europe from my point of view again my friends who want to just preserve the peace there we are a peacekeeper they'll stay but I'm not interested in preserving the peace I'm just worried about a dominant power in the region the area I would stay in is China excuse me as East Asia because of the Chinese right that that's the argument but so I'm not that interested in staying in Europe but other people are yes yes yes sir [Music] [Music] yeah I would just change the word curly in the realm of ideology to purely in the realm of politics but which i think is completely consistent with what you said it's a great question and I haven't thought much about it but I think that what I'm saying is that it really is all about politics because you're raising the question about the differences between liberal hegemony and realism right and you're saying is there an economic factor that discriminates a from BAE and I think the answer is no what makes me nervous about this is because I'm a political scientist and I focus on geopolitics I almost instinctively go for the politics and I tend to forget the economics so I'm staying to myself as you're asking the question maybe I'm just forgetting the economic dimension but I don't think so I think there's no real economic dimension that explains the differences between the two I think liberalism is really all about it's all about spreading liberal democracy and realism is all about the balance of power now some people might say that liberalism emphasizes the importance of creating an open economic order an open international economic order I think that's certainly true but so to realize right everybody agrees that the open international order that we created roughly from 1945 up until the end of the Cold War and then work to maintain up until Donald Trump was elected was a good thing you know realists and liberals realists and liberals didn't fight over economic and they didn't fight over institutions either liberals tend to love institutions but realists really kind of love institutions too right so economics institutions there's no real divergence I think it's the politics but it's going along here something pops into my mind don't believe the Chinese are changing the rules I believe that the Chinese are interested in dominating Asia the way we dominate the Western Hemisphere I believe that they will ultimately try to push us out of East Asia they will tell you behind closed door as many of their elites that they intend to push us out beyond the first island chain and then beyond the second island chain they intend to build a blue water Navy that can project power into the Persian Gulf because they get 25% of their oil from the Gulf and that number is expected to go up to close to 30% in the next 15 years so they're very ambitious right and this is well before I get to Africa because I want to just I'll come to Africa good but you raised a really very important point about what the Chinese are up to right and not so much in Africa just in terms of what they're doing more generally with regard to using military force the key point you want to keep in mind about the Chinese is that time is on their side and therefore they have no interest in causing trouble now the name of the game for them is just to grow and grow and grow and then when they become God's Ella tell all the neighbors and tell Uncle Sam right here are the new rules in the neighborhood you have no choice but to obey us right we on the other hand and China's neighbors on the other hand have a vested interest in provoking conflicts and setting the rules of the road now when the balance of power is in our favor you understand the balance of power is shifting against us in East Asia so all the incentives are for us to make it clear where we think the lines in the South China Sea are now the Chinese are in the other hand should just say nothing they should speak like good liberal Americans peace love and dope right and then just keep that economy growing and keep translating that economic might into military might like Taiwan you know the Chinese want Taiwan back and they made it clear that Taiwan East at at some point they're going to take it back if the Taiwan East don't surrender but now is not the time for China to pick a fight over Taiwan they do much better today in the year 2017 than they would have done in the year 1997 you ramp it back 20 years would not have been a fair fight over Taiwan Chinese we were fared very badly they'd fare quite well today but I say wait in another 20 years wait in another 30 years and the Chinese are very patient they'll tell you that 30 years from now you just basically to tell the Taiwanese they have no choice it's all over ladies and gentlemen you understand that this is what happened with the British in North America you understand that after we got our independence in 1783 the British went to great lengths to try to prevent us from dominating the Western Hemisphere they did not want to hegemon in the Western Hemisphere they couldn't prevent it they thought about intervening the American Civil War because what you do if you intervene in this of a war on the side of the south of course is you get a confederacy and the United States you have two countries that's what they wanted they wanted to balance the power but what happened with the British is they reached the point where they understood there was nothing they could do to prevent the United States from dominating the Western Hemisphere and by the way they were lucky it turned out that way because we pulled their chestnuts out of the fire in World War one and again in World War two but they couldn't foresee that anyway I would say to you I think in the case of China given the size of that population they have a per capita GNP that looks anything like Taiwan or South Korea they are gonna be so powerful relative to us and we're taking them on 6,000 miles from the Chinese I mean for the California coast hmm so the Chinese are trying to sit still not do too much to provoke their neighbors or provoke the United States and just grow and grow and grow now your question about Africa Africa is an area of little strategic significance right it's a little strategic significance so even though the Chinese are doing all sorts of investment in Africa and they're deeply involved in Africa we don't care that much if on the other hand the Chinese start to do that in South America you know the Monroe Doctrine right they start to do that in South America that would be a very different story right so I think we'll not have major problems with what they're doing in Africa the Gulf remember I told you they're building a Bluewater Navy going into the Gulf just while I'm on stream-of-consciousness boat here Iran Turkey the Chinese are playing kissy-face with the Iranians and the Turks the United States is foolishly driving the Iranians into the arms of the Chinese right don't want to do that you're gonna want to minimize Chinese influence in the Persian Gulf and given our relations with the Iranians and even their growing relations with the Chinese don't want to push them together same thing is true with Turks but that's you know Persian Gulf port an area unless this gentleman's view on the Gulf is correct and well I think Russia will be a week great power right that would be my argument I wish I could give you simple indicators that measure power and I wish I could say I've done the calculations and the Chinese will have 50 units of power will have 49 units of power and they'll have 21 but they're above the threshold of 20 but it's very hard it's not very hard it's impossible to do that but my basic argument is that you will end up with multipolarity with two big enchiladas and one small player but still a great power and and that will be the Russians it may be the case that we do end up in a bipolar world which is I think what you were hinting at yes no yes could you talk a little bit louder please [Music] who says that I have to talk this okay yeah let me make it a number of points to your excellent questions when I go to China I often posed this question to my interlocutors I say look you folks got hooked on capitalism and you joined the american-led order in the early 1980s and if you look at what's happened since then you've just gotten richer and richer and richer you're really in a wonderful position and you have benefited enormous Lee from participating in this american-led order moreover the Americans pay the costs of maintaining the order right you don't have to pay the cost and in no way shape or form does the US military threaten you so why don't you just sort of sit back and relax and accept the fact that we run the world and just get rich I have never met single Chinese like that argument right they'd all like that argument now two boys one just let's talk about economic let's talk about institutions when you talk about the liberal order or you're talking about international order order is all about institutions the Chinese not surprisingly are interested in number one creating new institutions that they run the AIB fits in this category and they're also interested in increasing their influence in existing institutions the Chinese ambassador to the United States who I know very well from way back when he is written in foreign affairs look what these institutions were created mainly by the United States China had no say in the rules and therefore the rules privilege of the United States you all understand when the United States creates institutions they're set up to privilege us others benefit too but mainly us well the Chinese are getting really powerful so they say we should be able to rewrite the rules okay and with regard to the South China Sea you've been watching what the Chinese do in the South China Sea that doesn't look like a status quo power to me you look at you watching what they're doing in the East China Sea with regard to the hour said Kaku Islands it doesn't look like a status quo power to me they're building a blue water Navy they're spending one heck of a lot of money on defense right this is not a status quo power this is a power that wants to throw its weight around and I don't blame him one bit you remember what happened to the Chinese when they were weak right the century of national humiliation 1850 to 1950 roughly you don't want to be weak the Chinese understand this full well they want to be really powerful they want to be Godzilla they want to be up here they want the Japanese down here and they want the Americans on the other side of the Pacific Ocean and I don't blame them one bit I like the Monroe Doctrine so why should make this is my view of the Chinese right now just with regard to leadership you know are they going to be the global leader you know given Donald Trump's performance up to now it kind of looks like that may happen if China continues to grow and he's in power for eight years but I would just say to you the United States is not going to surrender easily to the Chinese right the United States is a jealous God and the United States will go to great lengths to remain the top dog in East Asia and prevent China from dominating East Asia and the end result is that to the extent that you have an order in the international system and order an international order it's not going to be an American dominated order if China continues to grow the two of them Chinese and the Americans will compete to run that order and that's the world I see sort of in front of us not one where the United States dominates and not one where China dominates and of course this all assumes that China continues to grow economically you said can be stopped you mean can be stopped by the United States a high likelihood for small wars for maybe a low likelihood of a great power I don't understand the last part of the question so if we shift our focus from sort of dallying around contain China right what is what is Chinese continue to do one doesn't work oh okay I think look that if China continues to rise as I was indicating in response to the young woman's question I think there's no question that the United States will try to contain China and then you raise the specter of now we're talking about a great power war job we're not talking about small wars in the periphery I think you're exactly right I think that containment against China will be dangerous I can just unpack that a bit for you if you think about the Cold War this the central front in Europe was the principal place that we thought a war would break out between the United States in the Soviet Union but the truth is when we used to run war games during the Cold War we could never get a war started in Europe and the reason is you had two massive armies armed teeth with nuclear weapons and nobody knew for sure what would happen when they crashed into each other but it was very easy to paint plausible scenarios where we all got vaporized and that's not a good thing so you had no war right --mess great paradox that underpins deterrence which is the more horrible a war is likely to be the less likely you'll have that war to begin with but of course if the war happens oh my god okay but fast-forward to East Asia today the United States and China the potential points of conflict are the South China Sea the East China Sea Taiwan you can imagine plausible scenarios where we end up shooting at each other we end up in a war I'm not arguing for one second it's likely right but I'm just building on your point which i think is correct that you know liberal agenda for all its faults involves small wars we're not that many Americans die and if you get into a serious containment effort against China the potential for real trouble is great well I don't think I don't think gonna Toto say to this gentleman here I think you're more likely to have a limited war out in the water it is possible to callate to a total war I think although I think that's quite unlikely look I don't have a good answer to how you avoid war other than to say you want to make sure you have sufficient forces to make the other side think that they can't start a war and and succeed at achieving their objectives you want to go to great lengths yourself to make sure that you don't engage in roll back roll back you don't want to do roll back you want to do containment you know there's this whole literature on the Cold War now it shows what we did a lot more than containment we're a heavily into roll back which is very offensive in nature I don't think you want to engage in rollback this is a form of restraint in a competition with the with the with the Chinese so you you know you want to do things like that but can you be sure that you won't have a war the answer is no and again as I said to this gentleman here I think you know you can paint a plausible picture of how you get a war in dopey I hadn't heard the term honest and it's kind of hard to figure out what it might mean when I hear the word in though I think of Indonesia but Indonesia is not you know likely to I endo sounds like a task for Wikipedia [Laughter] did somebody have a question and more places for interaction and competition and leadership institutions so that they were good okay how did she push it with regret - you remind me after I'm done with him I want to go back and just deal with one issue was very important that you raised but it slipped out of my brain just say Britain Germany when I went to you okay because I'll forget it's early Alzheimer's with regard to his question great question let me just embellish it a bit he's comparing the u.s. Soviet competition with a us-china competition and he's making the argument that was really different is you have economic interdependence right today and you had virtually no economic interdependence during the Cold War and he's absolutely right and as many of you know one of the principal liberal theories of peace is economic interdependence theory I've given my talk on why China cannot rise peacefully probably a hundred and fifty times and probably 50 times in China and I get three our three counter arguments you know people come at me as always happens in these things people come at me and the argument that is used against me 90% of the time is the economic interdependence argument the reason that John is wrong and the us-china situation is different than a u.s. Soviet situation is because there was no economic independence then and there is now so that that is the argument I'm not gonna knock the argument downward but differently I'm not gonna try to knock the argument down but I don't agree with that argument as you would expect but that is an argument that I think is the principal competitor but let me make just another point because this is a very important subject this is another argument that you occasionally hear and that is that the Cold War had a really vicious ideological dimension to it it was communism versus liberal democracy slash capitalism and basically what you're gonna get because communism is not a meaningful ideology and China is you're just going to get good old-fashioned great power politics right and so we don't have to worry very much about ideology fueling the conflict between China and the United States as we had to during the Cold War my counter of that which I just point out because it ties into nationalism is that because the Communist Party does not have a lot of legitimacy in Beijing or in China more generally they've begun to play the nationalism card in a big way and their nationalism card centers on is they're sent to this young woman here the century of national humiliation the Chinese really drive home the century of national humiliation and who are the two principle humiliate errs in the story Japan and the United States and nationalism is a very powerful force so you get into a crisis you could have that ideological dimension really matter even though communism as in the Cold War is not there I just want to say he asked an excellent question but it slipped out of my mind you asked whether there was pardon no you asked the question about whether there was anything we could do to stop China's rise and the answer is there's nothing we can do to stop China's rise and I a guy who wrote a dissertation on this for me he actually teaches at Yale Singapore but let me just say a few words on this what he did was he looked at how Britain dealt with Germany's rise you understand that Germany doesn't exist until 1870 there's no Germany until 1870 its Prussia and a handful of other German places like Bavaria and Bismarck with three wars 1864 1866 1870 puts Germany together and then the Germans are making huge numbers of babies and they're making lots of Steel so the British from 1870 forward see Germany rising and the question is what do you do about it right I believe the crossover point is 1905 do you try and strangle the Craig for the baby in the cradle right and the British not surprisingly have a huge debate on this issue what can we do to stop Germany's rise and given what happened in World War one in World War two it might have been a good idea if they'd been able to stop it but what the British come to conclude is given the economic interdependence of the day the British come to conclude that in trying to wreck the German economy they would do more damage to their own economy than they would to the German economy and my student argues that yes we could do a great deal to wreck the Chinese economy and prevent their rise but we would do more damage to ourself then we would to the Chinese so there's no way to slow down Chinese economic growth from our side I mean it may happen for internal reasons in China but there's nothing we can do and therefore the best we can do is to contain China and then we get down to this whole question that you and the gentleman in the rear raised about whether or not you can do that peacefully and that is a tricky issue so before we draw things to a close and thanks professor min I just want to say there will be a reception upstairs on the second floor immediately following this lecture to which everybody's invited to continue the conversation I've been to many lecture series and Yale usually by the time we get to the third lecture there's a real question will there be an audience well will the people run out of questions will it sort of fade away none of those things have happened here I think we could have a fourth and a fifth if don't we have another half-hour but this has really been terrific we're all looking forward to the book and thank you so much for doing yeah thank you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: YaleUniversity

Views: 57,820

Rating: 4.825666 out of 5

Keywords: Yale University, The MacMillan Center, John J. Mearsheimer, Henry L. Stimson Lectures on World Affairs, Liberal Hegemony

Id: TsonzzAW3Mk

Length: 88min 22sec (5302 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 22 2017